Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (158 page)

“I haven’t had a really restful sleep since it happened. I caught the first flight back to Ottawa, swore off booze, and tried to bury the fact that I’d ever been to Halifax. Nobody knew I’d been there, nobody connected me to Daniel Oliver whatsoever. Leanne helped me through it.”

“You told her?”

“I had to tell someone. I came back to Ottawa a basket case. I couldn’t eat or sleep. Everyone else thought it was the divorce, but Leanne knew something terrible had happened. She sat with me those endless nights, she never judged or pried. Without her, I would never have pulled myself out of the tailspin.”

Green thought about Leanne’s behaviour during the interview earlier in the day. This explained her protective interference and his acceptance of it. It also provided a plausible explanation for her mentioning Weiss, even over Blakeley’s objections. She had been anxious to divert suspicion away from her husband because she knew the explosive secret that lay in his past.

As Green had noted before, not a woman to underestimate. Blakeley squared his shoulders and took a deep, weary breath. “What happens to me now?”

Green looked across the table at him expectantly. “That depends on what else you can tell me.”

“About what?”

Does the man think I’m an idiot, Green thought, but he kept his voice dispassionate. “About Patricia Ross and Detective Peters.”

Blakeley stiffened. “Good God, man. You don’t think I had anything to do with those, do you?”

“Don’t pretend ignorance, John. That’s where the evidence points.”

“But Daniel Oliver was a drunken flash of anger. It wasn’t premeditated. I could never intentionally go out and kill someone!”

So what were the years of military training all about, Green was tempted to ask, but he stuck to the facts. “We have an eyewitness who places you in the Delta Hotel having drinks with Patricia only hours before her death.”

Blakeley sat back with a thud. “Lord help me,” he muttered.

“Perhaps the truth will,” Green said drily. “What happened.”

“I didn’t kill her. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Did Patricia Ross contact you?”

Blakeley glanced around the small room as if hoping for answers or rescue from its shadowy corners. His gaze flicked to the camera. Eventually, seeing no other escape, he gave a faint nod. “She phoned me.”

“Where? At your campaign office?”

“No,” he said quickly. “At my Laurier Street condo.”

“How did she get the number?”

“She didn’t say.” His expression cleared as if he’d come to a decision. “She said she had something to discuss with me about Halifax, and she wanted to meet for a drink. I suggested the bar at the Delta because it was nearby and discreet.”

“What was the date and time of this call?”

Blakeley paused. “Friday night, April 21st. Two days before the meeting. I was going home to Petawawa for the weekend, and I wanted time to think.”

“Why?”

Blakeley shot him a scowl, his first display of spirit in some time. “The woman was obviously planning to blackmail me, Inspector. I needed time to arrange my assets and figure out what my response should be.”

“Maybe she just wanted to confront you and get an apology. And maybe some gesture of compensation.”

“I was on the brink of a high-profile career. She was a drink-ravaged, hard luck girl looking for the brass ring. My instincts told me blackmail.”

“Did you tell anyone about the phone call or your meeting?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Not your wife or your campaign manager Roger Atkinson?”

Bake shook his head vigorously. He thrust his chin out and looked at Green in open challenge. “I deal with a lot of classified material, as I’m sure you do, and I’ve learned to be a good poker player.”

Not good enough to fool Leanne ten years ago when you returned from Halifax, Green thought, and not good enough now either. “So what happened at the meeting?”

“As I thought, she wanted money. Not a reasonable amount as compensation for Oliver’s death—which I would have given her without hesitation, by the way—but ten thousand a month for the rest of her life. A sum I couldn’t possibly raise.”

Green thought of the man’s two luxurious homes and exquisite white leather couches. Patricia Ross had lived her final years in a dingy room furnished in Sally Ann rejects. “Couldn’t or wouldn’t? You have some significant assets.”

“I didn’t kill her! I left her waiting for a cab.”

“What time was this?”

“Ten-thirty.”

“And what did you do afterwards?”

Blakeley cast about, looking uncomfortable. “I walked around for a few minutes to clear my head, then walked back to my condo.”

Green calculated rapidly. Ten-thirty was just outside the limits of MacPhail’s estimated time of death. The pathologist wasn’t foolproof, but he’d seen a lot of dead bodies in his time. “Can anyone verify that?”

“My wife.” Blakeley must have seen Green’s disbelief, for he flushed. “It’s true!”

“But you said you told no one about this meeting with Patricia, so you see my dilemma. Patricia is dead. If no one but you knew about the blackmail, who else could have killed her?”

“I don’t know! That’s your job, not mine.”

Green raised his hands innocently. “And my job points to you.”

“That won’t get far in a court of law.”

Green stared him down for a moment, wondering what leverage he could use. The old warrior was back in form. “I’m quite prepared to proceed with the evidence we have, sir. But that’s not what concerns me now. There is a woman who witnessed Patricia Ross’s murder and who has now disappeared. She’s probably already dead. That’s a lot of bodies piling up as a result of your ill-advised punch to Oliver’s head. A lot more bodies to hide from your conscience. But we haven’t found hers yet, and as long as that’s the case, there’s a chance you can save her. What can you tell me about her disappearance?”

Blakeley had grown pale at the mention of a witness, and now he lowered his head in his hands and shook it despairingly back and forth. “I...don’t...know. Nothing. I didn’t have anything to do with the Ross woman’s death.”

“Then someone else killed her on your behalf, John. Because without a doubt she was killed to stop her from revealing what she knew about you.”

Blakeley remained with his head in his hands.

“I’d say the list of people who fit the bill is pretty small,” Green said. “How many people know you killed Daniel Oliver? I can think of three.” He held up three fingers and ticked them off. “Dick Hamm, Roger Atkinson, and by your admission, your devoted wife.”

Blakeley’s head shot up, his jowls darkening with rage. “Don’t...don’t—!”

“Am I missing someone, John?”

“How do I know? There were lots of people in the bar that night!”

Green kept his three fingers in front of Blakeley’s face. “And of those three, how many care enough to commit murder for you? Hamm, Atkinson or Leanne?”

Blakeley knocked away his hand with a lightning fast swipe. “This is nothing but the most outrageous speculation!”

Green’s hand stung, sending a spike of anger shooting through him. He fought the urge to seize the man’s wrist. “Let me tell you about this innocent witness whose life hangs in the balance,” he managed evenly. “She was once a school teacher, married to a history professor and the mother of twin boys. When the boys were ten, their father chopped them into pieces with a chainsaw. That’s what Twiggy lives with every day as she scrounges out a half-life on the riverbank. You talked earlier about how much our society needs heroes, John, and I can tell you there have been precious few in Twiggy’s world. So you have a choice here to put your money where your mouth is.”

Blakeley stared at him in stony silence. Green held his gaze and let the silence lengthen until he could no longer trust his dispassion. Shoving back his chair, he stood up. “Think about it, John. Wherein lies honour?”

TWENTY-SIX

 I
t was a good try, Mike,” Sullivan said, after Green had stalked out of the recording room. He had left Blakeley slumped at the table, still resolutely silent. “Oh, I’m not done,” Green snapped as he headed for the situation room with Sullivan and McGrath on his heels. “I’ve planted some thoughts in his head, and we’ll just let them germinate for a while. Meanwhile, we’re a lot further ahead than we were. At least we know where to look next.”

“I don’t believe for one minute that he didn’t kill Patricia Ross,” McGrath said as they entered the room. She was obviously still smarting from being excluded from the interview, because her tone was glacial. “Just look at the guy’s temper.”

“His temper is why he killed Daniel Oliver,” Green said. “But Patricia Ross wasn’t killed by temper. She was killed by premeditated ruthlessness.”

“I disagree.” Her tone dropped ten more degrees. “They could have had an argument about the blackmail money, and bang—before he knows it, he strangles her.”

Green crossed the room to the blackboard and drew three vertical lines down it. At the top of each resulting column, he scribbled a name. Hamm, Atkinson, Leanne and Weiss.

“These are our suspects. Barring some unknown twist—”

McGrath stalked to the board, screeched the chalk down a fourth line, and wrote Blakeley at the top before returning to her seat.

Green felt a flush creep up his neck. “You’re right,” he said in what he hoped was a conciliatory tone. “We should keep all possibilities open.”

“I don’t see why Weiss is up there,” she countered. “He didn’t even know about Daniel Oliver’s death.”

“But he’s clearly involved somehow, and as Brian said earlier, he may be our best hope of breaching the code of silence. Brian, can you check if surveillance has had any sighting of him yet?”

They waited in chilly silence while Sullivan called Charbonneau and Leblanc. The conversation lasted barely a minute, and when Sullivan hung up, he shook his head. “No luck tracking Weiss down, and so far no sign of his ex-wife either. They’re going to keep an eye on both premises for a few hours yet, and call if anything develops.”

“Is Gibbs still in the squad room?”

Sullivan shook his head again. “He went off to see Sue. The lad’s almost dead on his feet anyway, Mike.”

Sullivan’s expression was deadpan, but there was an ominous edge in his voice which Green recognized all too well. He was warning Green to put the brakes on before he let his own impatience and single-mindedness trample over everyone else’s views. Green forced himself to nod in agreement. “How is Sue? Any change?”

“Apparently she’s conscious for short periods, but that’s about all. The doctors will be running more tests in the morning.” Sullivan stifled a yawn. His hair was standing in tufts, and his eyes were red-rimmed with fatigue. “It’s probably about time we called it a night ourselves, Mike. There’s not much that won’t wait till morning, when we’ll all be much sharper.”

Green glanced at his watch. It was now past ten o’clock, and night was settling in. But with every passing hour, the hope of finding Twiggy dimmed.

“I’d like us to run through what we’ve got on these suspects, to make sure we’re not missing anything and to see if there’s anything the night shift guys can follow up on in the meantime.”

Sullivan groaned and reached for his cellphone. He punched in a number on his speed dial.

“What are you doing?” Green demanded irritably.

“Ordering us pizza and coffee. If we’re going to be here half the night, I want food.”

Green stole a sheepish glance at McGrath, who returned it with a stony stare.
Oy,
he thought, this is going to be a tough sell. Maybe food will help. Once the pizzas were ordered, he turned his attention back to the blackboard.

“Let’s ask a few basic investigative questions here. First of all, if we assume the killer was protecting Blakeley, then he or she had to have known about Blakeley killing Oliver—”

“Why?” McGrath demanded. “The killer could be any of Blakeley’s friends or staffers, for example, who found out about the blackmail and decided to eliminate the threat to him even without knowing the cause.”

Green mustered some patience through his fatigue. “That’s an outside possibility but unlikely, because only a few hours elapsed between the blackmail attempt and the murder. Not much time to learn about it and react, particularly if Blakeley told no one.”

“If you believe that.”

“Good point. So let’s rank these five. Who had the strongest motive for protecting Blakeley?”

“His wife, Leanne,” Sullivan said.

McGrath thrust her chair back and crossed her arms, mentally withdrawing herself from the discussion. Green pretended not to notice. “Absolutely,” he said. “She’s very protective of him anyway, and her fortunes are irrevocably tied to his.”

“And I’d say Hamm has the least motive,” Sullivan added. “He does have a motive, though. Both of them are military men, and we don’t know enough about their relationship. That’s something for the night shift to look at.”

Green jotted down some notes before returning to the list.

“Atkinson is a behind-the-scenes man whose fortunes are also linked to Blakeley’s,” Sullivan said. “If Blakeley gets a cabinet portfolio, imagine how high Atkinson could fly. And for an ambitious lad from Sheet Harbour, that’s pretty heady stuff.”

“But hardly on a par with what Leanne has to gain or lose. I’d put Atkinson in the middle between the wife and Hamm.”

Sullivan eyed the board dubiously. “I don’t know where Weiss fits in.”

“No. Until we know what his connection is, we can’t know his motive.” Green put a question mark under Weiss’s name.

McGrath shifted irritably in her seat. “I still say Blakeley is number one,” she muttered. “No one had more reason to protect his secret than the man himself.”

Green nodded. Within the context of the question, she was right, and at this point he was glad for any participation. He didn’t dare mention the gut feeling he’d had staring at Blakeley across the table as the man denied point blank that he was the killer. Either he wasn’t the killer, or he was a damn good liar.

“Next question,” he said instead. “Which one has the physical strength to do the job? Crushing Patricia Ross’ vertebrae and beating Peters within an inch of her life both require considerable strength. My money’s on Hamm for this one.”