Do or Die

by Barbara Fradkin

  If that was so, how to crack Difalco? How could Green ensure that the man’s desire for glory and his fear of humiliation would be better served by siding with Green against his idol?

  Green pondered the problem all the way back to the station. He needed something tangible to hold over Difalco. Physical evidence would be nice, but he didn’t have enough reasonable and probable cause for a search warrant and he wasn’t sure what he would name in it anyway, other than Carrie’s two sketches and Blair’s wallet, which were still missing. Other bloodstained articles like shoes and pants might still exist, but Green suspected that Difalco would have long since disposed of anything that could connect him to the crimes. In the absence of hard evidence, Green would have to tinker with motive and alibi.

  Back at his office he shuffled through his phone messages and checked with the desk sergeant, but there was still no word from Sharon. He called home but she was not there. I’m not going to worry about this, I can’t worry about this, he told himself as he left yet another message on the machine. That made four in total, but it was better to appear desperate than to appear as if he didn’t give a damn that she was gone. With Lynch’s deadline and the work that still lay ahead of him tonight, even if and when he made an arrest, he knew he probably wouldn’t get home before tomorrow afternoon. An answering machine might not be the most romantic medium for patching up a marriage, but at the moment it was his only hope.

  The chocolate bars were finally getting into his bloodstream, and he felt his steadiness return. Leafing through files, he came to the report on Joe’s alibi for the night of Blair’s murder. Detective Jackson had tried hard to pin down times, especially between ten-thirty and eleven, but since the serious drinking had begun at eight o’clock and had continued unabated until two a.m., details had become very hazy by ten-thirty. Jackson had the impression that Joe’s buddies were reporting more on his habitual drinking patterns than on their specific recollections of the night in question. The waiter recalled bringing drinks to their table regularly throughout the evening, but could not swear that Joe had always been there. The bartender recalled Joe speaking to him about the Blue Jays’ game on the TV over the bar. It had been the seventh inning, and Jackson had verified that the seventh inning was being played between ten-ten and ten-thirty. The bartender further recalled Joe paying for the running tab of the group at two when the pub closed. Amidst considerable fanfare he had charged it to his Visa card, a claim which Jackson had also verified—$152.92. But between approximately ten-thirty and two, no one could consistently place him at the scene.

  Here was the toehold he could use. Green glanced hastily at his watch. Three hours to pumpkin-time. He grabbed the phone and called Sullivan, who with any luck had had time to relax and put his two young sons to bed before being called back to duty. Fortunately Sullivan was by the phone expecting his call, and Green didn’t even need the apology he had prepared.

  “Brian, I want you to bring Difalco in for questioning. And do your Clint Eastwood routine—tall, silent and looming. I want him really freaked.”

  Sullivan chuckled. “What do I tell him?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  * * *

  Joe Difalco may have been spooked, but he was still clinging convincingly to the shreds of his machismo. He was wearing a sleeveless black T-shirt and skintight black jeans which showed off every ripple of muscle, and he slouched in the cheap plastic chair in the interrogation room with his elbows on the table and his chin propped in his hands, ignoring Sullivan as if he were a fly on the wall. The picture of boredom. He waited until Green had taken the chair opposite and given his standard preamble, then fixed him with lazy eyes.

  “I want you to know this six-foot moose here you sent to get me doesn’t scare me one bit. I came because I want to cooperate. I’ve done nothing wrong and I’ve got nothing to hide. Or fear.”

  Green smiled. “Oh? And why is that, Difalco? Your alibi’s so perfect and your motive non-existent?”

  Difalco shrugged. “Something like that.”

  “Well, think again, my friend.” Green tossed a file on the table between them. “Your alibi is far from perfect, and as for motive…I have a little story to tell you. See what you think. Two guys both accuse each other of tampering with their research data. Halton hires Blair to find out which one is telling the truth. He needs to know which theory is correct, but if the deception ever became public, the scandal would ruin his project with Yale, his financial backing, and the credibility of all he has discovered so far. All those years of meticulous theory-building, wiped out by the mere whisper of the word ‘fraud’. So he had to find out the truth, and he had to keep it quiet. Blair found out the truth, but he refused to keep it quiet. Refused to sweep it under the carpet and fix the fake results so that no one outside Halton’s little research club would know. How does this sound to you?”

  Difalco had begun listening with a bored air, but by the end, in spite of himself, he was sitting straighter, his brows drawn and his dark eyes alert. Now Green could see the intelligence in them. Difalco sat very still in the silence that followed Green’s question, as if warily scanning for traps.

  “Nice-sounding fantasy,” he drawled finally. “But if you mean Miller and me, the only place I seem to fit is as the victim.”

  “Oh, it’s not a fantasy, Joe. Halton has confirmed the whole sordid story of the disputed data, and Blair’s role in it. Blair did find a fraud, and knowing Blair’s ethical standards, he would not have supported a whitewash.”

  “No, that doesn’t sound like Jonathan.”

  “Okay, so here’s the next part of my story. Halton has a dilemma. Somehow he has to shut Blair up.”

  Difalco dropped his jaw as if to speak, then stopped himself. His dark eyes slitted warily.

  “Halton can’t afford to be directly involved,” Green continued breezily, “because he has too obvious a motive. He needs an airtight alibi, and he needs the help of an absolutely trustworthy accomplice. Someone above suspicion, someone with no motive, someone with the physical skill and nerve to follow through, and someone whose dreams of glory match his own and whose fate rests just as precariously in Blair’s hands as does his own.”

  At each point, Difalco’s eyes widened further, until he could contain himself no more. “If you’re talking about me, you’re insane!”

  Green leaned back with a satisfied nod. “Remember you don’t have to tell me a thing. I’m just telling you about a theory I have. It was a pretty damn clever plot, I must say. The Haddad set-up was beautifully executed. Raquel had been your girl, and you knew exactly how her family would react. To be on the safe side, you set up the best alibi you could. You installed yourself with a bunch of half-wasted pals in the pub across the street, made sure you talked to the bartender just before you left, and made sure you paid the whole night’s tab by Visa at the end. Nobody missed you for the half hour you were off murdering Jonathan Blair. You probably just told everybody you were going to the can.”

  Difalco forced himself to take a few deep breaths then tried to laugh. A shrill cackle emerged. “You got absolutely nothing on me. No way you can prove this shit.”

  “Well, now let me tell you about circumstantial evidence, Joe. It’s when we collect a whole bunch of little pieces of a story—none of them by themselves mean a damn—but when we lay them all out together, with each piece fitting together, then there’s no other logical explanation that fits all these little pieces. So here’s what the jury is going to see, Joe. Jonathan finishes his research and tells Halton, who orders him to bury it. Sunday, Jonathan tells his father that he’s disillusioned and wants to switch universities. Monday, Halton takes off to set up his perfect alibi. Tuesday, Jonathan is murdered and you’ve got a half-assed alibi that leaks like a sieve. Two days later, the eyewitness is murdered and her sketch of a dark-haired man with a mustache is stolen. And then the clincher, Joe. The clincher is when Halton asks you to break into Jonathan’s office and steal the files so no one
will ever know about the research fraud.”

  Panic had begun to dawn in Difalco’s eyes, chasing out the bravado. “Halton didn’t ask me to break—”

  Green dropped the chatty tone and sat forward. “Don’t you see how he’s set you up? You’re the one with the dirty hands, and he hasn’t got a speck on him! But I know he’s the mastermind behind this. You’re the pawn, used and manipulated by a man who held your future in his hands, a man whom you looked up to and trusted. That’s how a court will see it, Joe. It won’t save you from jail, but it will shorten your time.”

  Difalco shoved himself back from the table, as if trying to flee from the idea. “But I didn’t do it! Maybe Halton did, but look somewhere else for your patsy. Halton didn’t ask me to do a damn thing!”

  “Come on, I caught you red-handed stealing those files. You had no reason yourself to steal them, because they supported you.”

  “Yes, but I told you I wasn’t stealing them. I thought they were some files I needed—”

  “And I don’t believe that bunch of crap for one minute.”

  “I don’t care what you believe! I didn’t kill Blair!”

  “Joe, you’re not hearing me. Halton doesn’t give a damn about you. He’s using you, just as he used Jonathan. Then look how he rewarded Jonathan’s loyalty. Don’t think for a moment he’ll protect you. He’ll cut you loose in an instant if it comes to saving his own skin.”

  Difalco’s face flushed. “What the hell kind of person do you think I am? Do you really think I’d kill another human being in cold blood? I talk big, but come on, you know it’s mostly bullshit. Okay, maybe I’m a bit of a screw-up and a cheat, and I take the easy way out, but I wouldn’t do that for Halton for all the glory in the world!”

  Green leaned forward across the table. “Then why were you in Blair’s office stealing those files?”

  Difalco glared. “I want to see a lawyer.”

  “If you didn’t kill Blair, why were you stealing the files?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Green banged the table. “Why, Joe!”

  “Because I got a fucking e-mail message from Jonathan telling me my results were fake, that’s why!”

  The response was so unexpected that Green froze, fist in mid-air, and gaped. “What!?”

  Difalco thrust his chair back further and snarled. “Goddamn it, you cops and your fucking attitude. Threatening, pushing people around, trying to get us off-guard. I got an e-mail message, okay? It was from Jonathan and it said ‘I’ve replicated your study and Miller is right. We need to talk.’”

  Green’s mind raced as he tried to absorb this new twist. “When did you get this message?”

  “Wednesday, the morning after Jonathan died. I don’t check my school e-mail all that often. He sent it Tuesday evening, but I didn’t see it till the next day. Then I freaked. I figured his results must implicate me somehow, so I thought if I just sneaked in there and…”

  “How do you know the message was from Jonathan?”

  “Because it said his name right on the—” His voice trailed off, and a puzzled look came over his face. “But that just means the person logged on using Jonathan’s password. It could have been anyone who knew it. I wondered why the message said my results were wrong, when Halton told me later they weren’t. I thought Jonathan must have been lying, but if someone else sent the message…but why…?” The puzzlement gradually faded from his face as understanding dawned. And with it, outrage. “Shit! I was used! You’re right about one thing, Inspector. Someone manipulated me!”

  In that moment of outrage, Difalco’s eyes were clear and his face without a mask. For the first time, Green felt he was meeting the real Joe Difalco, a bright, passionate, deeply insecure young man with a lot to prove and an onerous image to maintain. Deep beneath the layered personae, there was a decent core. Joe’s story had the unmistakable ring of truth; it was so bizarre and off the wall that he could never have pulled it out of a hat on the spur of the moment. But once again, it sent the mystery spinning in an entirely new direction.

  “You’re saying someone wanted you to steal those files?”

  “Someone? That fucking Miller! He gets me to get rid of the files for him and take the heat if I got caught! Fuck, the guy’s good! He was at the lab just a couple of hours ago, trying to pump us all for information about our research. Said he’d found a new book, and he was trying to track down how he’d been set up. But I bet he was looking to see how far he needs to cover his tracks, who else’s research data he needs to erase.”

  Warning bells shrilled in Green’s head. “Who’d he talk to?”

  “Most of us. We’ve all fallen a bit behind with Blair’s death, so we had extra work to do. Fuck that bastard!”

  Green’s eyes willed Difalco to focus. The young man was flushed deep red with outrage at being outsmarted.

  “Joe, think carefully. Did anyone act strangely when he asked? Did anyone do anything unusual after he left?”

  Difalco had been shaking his head. “No one except Miller himself. He was drooling over Rosalind Simmons, and he asked her to go with him. That’s a first.”

  Fourteen

  Green urged the Corolla on as they raced across town towards Rosalind Simmons’ apartment building. Beside him, Sullivan was punching numbers on Green’s cellular phone. Rocking to the movement of the car, he listened, then shook his head.

  “No answer. Miller’s not home.”

  “Damn!” Green pressed the accelerator closer to the floor. Sullivan hung on to the armrest.

  “Don’t kill us, Green. I’m sure Lynch will extend the deadline to one a.m.”

  Green shook his head impatiently. “This killer’s cleaning up, and Miller’s blundering around out there turning over rocks. I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.”

  “You still don’t believe he’s guilty? Even after this e-mail business? That was pretty clever, and Miller’s the one who’d benefit most.”

  “I don’t know any more, Brian. It’s like a goddamn maze. All I know is that with all these people playing amateur detective, someone is going to get killed. Whether it’s Miller or—”

  A vague memory was tugging at his mind, a pencilled vision of frizzy hair and sharp, deep-set eyes. Suddenly it came loose. If he added colour to the hair and eyes…

  “Rosalind Simmons!” he gasped. “That’s who Carrie saw!”

  * * *

  The frizzy hair was pulled severely back into a ponytail when Rosalind opened her door, but the sharp eyes were the same as in Carrie’s sketch. She didn’t look surprised to see them, but not pleased either.

  “With all the intrigue swirling around, I figured you’d get back to me eventually.”

  Green pushed past her into the room angrily. God, he was tired of fencing with this bunch! “What intrigue?”

  “Who screwed up whose data, who fooled Jonathan Blair—?”

  “I haven’t time for riddles, Miss Simmons. What did David Miller want with you this evening?”

  She moved in front of him as if to block his progress. “What business is that of yours?”

  “The business of life and death,” he shot back. “Now tell me.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. Behind her, he could see a small bachelor flat almost devoid of furniture. Nothing hung on the off-white walls, and the only hint of her own personality was the rowing machine in the corner.

  “I’m not going to help you arrest him,” she said. “He’s a good man.”

  “He probably is. Just tell me what he wanted.”

  “Nothing. Just to talk. He’s very depressed about what happened. I cooked him some dinner and he left.”

  “Talk about what?”

  Her gaze strayed past him across the room and for a moment she seemed to waver. Then she shook her head. “It’s private.”

  He knew she was hiding something, but was too tired and frayed to outmanoeuvre her, so he tried a more indirect approach. Walking around her, he settled into the corne
r of the shabby couch, which sat alone against one wall in a poor attempt to create a living room. It probably doubled as her bed at night. Sullivan remained leaning against the wall near the door, taking notes.

  Green fixed his eyes on her. “What were you doing at the Morisset Library on the night Blair was murdered?”

  She blinked, first at the abrupt change of topic and then rapidly as she absorbed the shock. She turned her back and busied herself straightening dishes on her makeshift shelf. “What are you talking about?”

  “The question was plain enough. A witness saw you.” It was a bluff, but he hoped his tone was convincing. Carrie MacDonald was no longer around to support him. “I’d also like to know why you didn’t mention it to the first detective. It sounds suspiciously like withholding information from the police.”

  She fumbled a cup, almost dropping it. “I was so shocked—I mean, when I heard about Jonathan’s death—I guess it just went right out of my head. We were all shocked, Inspector.”

  “Give me a break, Miss Simmons. I know you’re far from helpless. You can take care of yourself pretty well, can’t you?”

  “I’ve learned to.” She set her jaw and faced him defiantly. A woman who reacts to threat with anger. “What do you want?”

  “The truth. What were you doing in the library that night?”

  “Studying. Students do that.”

  “What time?”

  “From nine till closing. Exactly the time Jonathan was killed.”

  “Did you see anything unusual? Hear anything?”

  “No.”

  “Did you recognize anyone else there?”

  She hesitated a fraction of a second. “No.”

  “Who?”

  “No one.”

  “Bullshit.” He took a guess. Another bluff. “You saw Dave Miller there, didn’t you?” Her flinch told him he’d hit the mark. “He was there at that time and when you heard Jonathan was murdered, you panicked and decided not to mention you’d even been there. Isn’t that how it happened?”