“Oh God,” he groaned, shutting his eyes against the images. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door. The apartment was dark and stifling, and the fridge hummed in the distance. The acrid smell of diapers assailed him as he moved down the hall towards the kitchen. With the narrow old windows and boxy rooms, the fetid summer air never seemed to move.
“Sharon?” he called, heading into the kitchen. Alone in the middle of the table stood a pair of brass candlesticks, a wedding gift from his in-laws, who lived in eternal hope that somewhere deep inside him, there was a good Jewish boy to be salvaged. Celebration of the Sabbath had not been part of the family ritual during his childhood, and when Sharon had first set the candles out on Friday night, he’d felt oddly alien, like an actor in a foreign play. When she had invited his father over for Shabbat dinner and lit the candles, however, Sid Green’s eyes had welled with silent tears. Sharon had understood, and the candles had been set out ever since.
Tonight the kitchen was neatly cleared. Too neat. There were no signs of dinner, no notes or instructions for him. Only the white candles standing unlit in readiness for tomorrow night. A clear and eloquent message to him, with no need for words.
He checked the baby’s crib, which was empty. Even the blanket was gone. Irrational fear seized him, like a sense of déjà vu. Had it happened again? He hurried into the bathroom and found her toothbrush still in its puddle by the sink. It was then that he saw the note, taped to the toilet—another eloquent message, if he cared to dwell on it: “If you’re interested in knowing, your son is across the hall with Mrs. Louks.”
Relief brought anger and a renewal of his discontent. He left Tony where he was and crawled naked into bed, grateful for the prospect of an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Uninterrupted, as it turned out, except for erotic dreams of tawny curls and velvet thighs…
And the crash of the front door at seven a.m.
He lay in bed expectantly, listening as she tossed her purse on the shelf, kicked her shoes into the closet, and padded shoeless down the hall to the kitchen. She opened the fridge, unwrapped something crinkly and gave a deep sigh. She’ll come in here in a moment, he thought, and I’ll have to fight with her.
But five minutes later, she still had not budged from the kitchen, and he heard no sound but the rattling of paper. He could delay the confrontation no further. He had to get up and shower to get to a briefing he had called at eight. He wanted to get his men started on background checks of the Haddad sons while he and Sullivan went out to search the house.
With a sigh he climbed out of bed, gritted his teeth and headed toward the kitchen. Sharon was slumped over their little table, a glass of juice and a hunk of stale gruyère in front of her. She held her head in her hands and did not even look up as he entered.
“Get out of here, Mike,” she muttered. “I don’t have the energy to deal with you.”
Shaken, he withdrew. Standing under the hot shower, he berated himself. He should have spoken to her. She had worked a twelve-hour graveyard shift the last three nights in a row. He should have made some gesture of support, but he couldn’t face her. A simple caress, a simple “Hard night, sweetheart?” would not have been enough for her. It would have unleashed a torrent of rebuke, and he didn’t have time for that. He was grateful when he emerged from the bathroom to find she had gone across the hall to fetch Tony. He would be able to slip into the kitchen for some juice and cereal before she returned. Then maybe a quick kiss and a “Sorry, darling” before he dashed from the house.
But before he had even poured his juice, his attention was drawn to the morning newspaper which lay scattered over the table. Right in the centre of the front page, smiling out at him, was Carrie MacDonald and across the page above ran the headline: “Librarian Key Witness in Murder Hunt”.
Goddamn it! He scanned the article to see how bad it was. There was the usual human interest detail: Carrie MacDonald, 28-year-old single mother…worked at the library to pay her way through university…no stranger to violence, grew up in a neighbourhood where drunks beat down doors at two a.m. and women locked themselves in the bathroom...
Interspersed with these tidbits from her private life was the real meat of the story, however. About her habit of observing and recording interesting faces, about the sketches of possible suspects. Enough to make her a threat.
Cursing, he abandoned his juice, grabbed his suit jacket and dashed out the door.
* * *
Carrie stood wide-eyed in her doorway. “But Mike, I didn’t tell them anything secret!” she cried. “It’s just background. I mean, you’ve told me nothing. I don’t even know who those guys were that you showed me last night.”
He pushed past her into the apartment and shut the door. “You shouldn’t have even told them your name.”
“They wouldn’t settle for that.” She flushed as she followed him into the living room. “They knew I was at the library, they knew you’d been to see me. I had to tell them something.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Her gaze shifted as she pondered the question. Slowly, a rueful smile spread over her face. “I guess I found it kind of fun being the centre of attention like that, my name in the newspapers. Even my picture.”
“Did it ever occur to you that the killer might not be amused?”
She waved her hand in dismissal. “Oh, phooey. I didn’t say I knew anything.”
“The paper makes it sound like you did.” He held out the article, and she read it in silence. Curled up on the sofa, she gradually sobered. At last, she looked up in dismay.
“I didn’t say half these things, Mike. It’s all out of context!”
“I know,” he replied grimly. “A reporter’s modus operandi.”
“What do I do now? Should I write a letter to the editor?”
“You keep your mouth shut and you lie low. Have you got some place you can stay for a few days?”
She frowned in thought, her fingers idly twirling her golden hair. Finally she bit her lip. “I have no family. It was just my mother and me when I was growing up, but she’s dead. And I haven’t any real friends. I’ve always been too busy for a social life.” She cocked her head. “Do you think it’s that serious?”
He hesitated between reassuring her and scaring her into greater caution. Why was even the simplest of professional decisions so complicated with her? “I don’t know,” he equivocated. “But I think I’ll send a female officer over here to stay with you till you’re set up in a hotel.”
“A hotel! I don’t have money—”
“Departmental expense. Just for a few days, for your safety.” She smiled, a little wryly. “I’ve handled worse than this, you know. But it’s kind of nice having you worry over me. Can I repay you with some coffee?”
He glanced at his watch. The neuropsychology professor from McGill was due within the hour, and Sullivan would be waiting to begin the search of the Haddad house. I really have no time, he thought, watching the blonde curls bounce as she walked down the hall towards the kitchen.
“Sure, just a quick one.”
Her kitchen was so small that when she turned to hand him his coffee, her shoulder brushed his. She looked up into his eyes. “Sorry I was bad,” she murmured.
He thought he was melting, so great was the heat. He didn’t trust his voice not to betray him, so he merely shook his head. She smiled.
“We should go sit down.” But she didn’t move. Her eyes held his, intensely blue. He burned beneath her gaze. When she set her coffee down and touched his arm, all willpower vanished. He pulled her into his arms. Wedged between the counter and the fridge, they grappled like a fire out of control. Her mouth bruised his, her breasts filled his hands. Lilac scent rushed to his head, and dimly through the haze of arousal, he felt her hands upon his groin. She had his clothes half-off before he wrenched free.
“No,” he gasped, pushing her away.
She reached for him. “Why not?”
He kept her at bay, shaking hi
s head. “You want to.”
His denial stuck in his throat. His heart hammered, and his hands shook as he pulled his pants back up. “I’m a police officer. You’re a witness.”
She gripped his shirt, pulled him to her and kissed him. “When the case is over, then. You’re the sexiest man to come into my life in a long time!”
He felt her thigh on his, her warm breath on his cheek. Not daring to answer, he seized his jacket and fled.
* * *
He was still shaking when he arrived at his office, and he was sure his guilt was written all over his face. But the receptionist, upon seeing him, held up her hand as if nothing had changed.
“Oh, Inspector Green! A Mr. Peter Weiss is on the line.”
“Mike,” a detective called from across the room. “Sullivan gave up and went without you for the Haddad search. Took Watts and Charbonneau.”
Shaking his head towards the receptionist, he crossed the squad room, reaching to smooth his hair and straighten his tie. His hands closed on nothing. His tie was gone! Vaguely he remembered her yanking it off and tossing it on the floor before reaching for his belt. Shit, he thought, as he realized that unless he wanted to write the tie off, he would have to return to her apartment to retrieve it. Oh God!
He was so shaken that he almost tripped over a roly-poly man in a black T-shirt and purple shorts sitting in a chair outside his office. Beside him was a leggy brunette in a flowing cotton dress. Beautiful women everywhere, he thought.
“What the hell do you want?” he snapped, more peevishly than necessary.
The man flushed. “I want nothing. You want me.”
Green hesitated, scrambling to reassemble his thoughts. The neuropsychology professor from McGill. “Dr. Baker?”
“Stan Baker. And this is my graduate student, Melanie Legault. I assume you’re Inspector Green?”
It was Green’s turn to redden. He shook their hands and ushered them into his office. “My apologies, Doctor. Things are moving very fast in this case, and I appreciate your agreeing to help us.”
“For a thousand dollars a day,” Baker reminded him. “Therefore, I suggest we get started, since having me wait half the day outside your office is hardly a good use of the law enforcement budget.”
“The computers and files are over at the university in a sealed room. For evidentiary purposes there must be an officer present at all times, but he won’t disturb you. Do you need anything? A secretary...?”
Baker was shaking his round head impatiently. “We need a ten-cup pot of black coffee, four cheese Danish and six hours of uninterrupted peace and quiet.”
When the little professor laid eyes on the massive computers and stacks of boxes which ringed Halton’s lab, Green felt a twinge of satisfaction. That ought to shut the pompous twerp up for a day or two, he thought. Although perhaps being holed up with the luscious, long-limbed Melanie was just what the professor had hoped for. Such sweet distraction… Making his way back to the station, he tried to turn his mind to what he should do next. He needed to arrange protection for Carrie and then get to work putting Halton’s empire under a magnifying glass.
The sexiest man to come into her life in a long time, she had said! Me—skinny, freckled, big nose and all! He felt a new rush of desire at the heady thought of it and had to lean against the elevator wall. For some reason, women often found policemen attractive, and all his male colleagues had been targets of aggressive admirers, but such attention was rare for Green. Sometimes his boyish charm and air of vulnerability had worked, when that curious mix of sexual attraction and maternal instinct made them want to take care of him. But it usually took time and persistence, of which he used to have plenty, and he had never known it to happen without his trying.
Had maturity, fatherhood or four years with Sharon given him an extra edge? A confidence or authority? A certain mystique or unattainability? Had he been too anxious and eager before? He had succumbed to every shapely curve and sexy smile that came his way in the ten years between his marriages, and had become the laughingstock and the secret envy of half the Force. He was searching, he had told himself; he would know when he found her. And he thought he had, until now.
Goddamn it, enough of this, he thought, pushing himself off the elevator wall. The necktie had to stay where it was, and his mind had to stay on the job. When the door opened, he strode into the squad room prepared to order Carrie’s protection and then get his mind firmly back on Halton’s past. But no sooner had he entered than all that was forgotten. The squad room buzzed with excitement, and at the centre was Brian Sullivan, triumphantly returned from his search.
“Mike! Paydirt! An absolute goddamn goldmine! In Pierre Haddad’s garage, stuffed in with a bunch of car cleaning equipment, we found a knife and a shirt. Jonathan Blair’s blood type is on both of them!”
* * *
“You’ve got to understand, Mike,” the serologist lectured. He was used to working with Green and was immune to his impatience. This cluttered, fluorescent-lit laboratory, lined with computers, scanners, microscopes and coloured bottles, was his turf. “You’re lucky I can give you anything from what I had to work with. It was hot in the garage. The knife was washed clean, and so was the shirt. If it weren’t for the engraving on the knife handle and the lousy job the guy did washing the shirt, I’d have nothing but blood, period. As it is, I can give you A positive. The victim’s blood type. As for more detailed subgrouping, forget it. The sample’s too broken down.”
Green picked up the clear plastic evidence bag containing the knife. It was a dagger with an eight-inch, double-edged steel blade and an ornate, jewel-encrusted silver handle. He turned it over in his hands. “Looks Arabic.”
“Certainly not your average Canadian hunting knife.”
“Anything on the shirt?”
The serologist shrugged. “Hair and Fibre’s got it now. Maybe they can tell you more.”
The technician from the Hair and Fibre Division of the RCMP Forensics Sciences Lab was just sealing a little box of slides and labelling it when Green walked into the lab. He removed his thick bifocals to rub his eyes then gave Green a doleful smile.
“Fastest job I’ve ever done. Got a call from the Director himself telling me to move it.”
“What did you find out?”
“The shirt was spot-washed with Ivory bar soap. It left a lot of soap residue and didn’t get all the blood out. I’d say it was someone who didn’t know much about washing.”
“Like a man?”
Winkler shrugged. “Speak for yourself, Green. I’m a bachelor myself. To get blood out, you use cold water, not hot. Heat sets it, and that’s what happened here.”
“Well, that’s a big help. Odds are already 99 out of 100 it’s a man anyway.”
The elderly technician put his glasses back on, scratched his nose and fidgeted with his box of slides. “I do have something else.”
“What!”
“A hair, thick and wavy, dark brown. Found it stuck in the neckline of the shirt. I’ve sent it to DNA.”
Green searched through his memory of the photos. All three Haddads had dark hair, but the father’s was stranded with silver. The younger son Paul had black hair cropped close to his head, but Edward had a thick head of rich black curls.
“How curly? Like a black?”
Winkler shook his head. “Oh no. Caucasian—Italian, Greek maybe.”
“Lebanese?”
“Sure, any person with dark brown hair. The gene pool is all mixed up among those Mediterranean peoples anyway. The Greeks and Romans invaded the Arab peninsula, then—”
Green raised a hand to interrupt the history lesson. “Anything else you can tell me about our man from the hair? Is it enough to give us a match?”
“You bring me a suspect, and we’ll see.”
“I think it’s time to do just that.” Green picked up the phone, relieved to find Sullivan at the station. “Brian, get three teams together. I want all three Haddads picked up for questi
oning simultaneously, Pierre and his two sons. And don’t tell them a goddamn thing. I want them good and spooked.”
Ten
Two hours later, Green found himself in a small beige interview room face to face with Pierre Haddad. Sullivan sat in the corner, discreetly taking notes. The fat man was stolidly planted at the table, and despite the icy climate control of the windowless room, he was sweating profusely.
“My apologies for keeping you waiting, Mr. Haddad, but this is a very complex case. I’m pursuing a lot of leads, and there’s only one of me. I think you can appreciate that, because of the sensitive nature of the case, I’m conducting all the interviews personally. I hope my men have made you comfortable. Would you like a drink or a snack?”
“Nothing,” Haddad snapped. He was trying to sound outraged, but Green sensed panic. He sat down across the table, set a brown paper bag unobtrusively at his feet, and calmly recited the caution. Sometimes that was enough to shake a blustering witness, but Haddad listened poker-faced and then declined a lawyer, saying that he’d done nothing wrong.
Green acknowledged the denial with a slight nod of the head. “Now, Mr. Haddad, in our first discussion yesterday, you indicated that you didn’t know the murdered man, Jonathan Blair, and that you knew little about your niece’s activities at university. I have evidence to the contrary.” Slowly, Green flipped open a thick notebook, one of his favourite dramatic props. “Is there anything you’d like to add now, before I question you about that evidence?”
Haddad wiped the sweat which was trickling down his temples. “What evidence are you talking about?”
Do or Die Page 14