Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (192 page)

But bland, well-mannered suburbia can hide all sorts of secrets behind its decorative glass doors, Green reflected as he stood outside Vic McIntyre’s innocuous-looking brick house. McIntyre did not appear to spend much time or imagination on his garden, which was limited to grass and lowmaintenance evergreen shrubs. Nor did he have much flair for colour and contrast. The house was entirely coloured in drab shades of brown. The only hint of drama was the red curtains in the living room window. No one would give this house a second glance.

Perhaps that was the intention.

The driveway was empty, but the garage door was closed, keeping alive Green’s slim hope of finding the players’ agent at home. However, when ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door failed to bring a response, he had to accept defeat. Casually he strolled around the side of the house down a neat cobblestone path. Halfway down was a side door which probably opened into the garage. Idly, Green tried the knob and was surprised to feel it give beneath his hand. He peeked into the spacious garage, past the empty space where the car would have been and saw a door on the far side which led into the house. Even more surprising, the door was ajar. In the city, few people still left their doors unlocked, and McIntyre did not strike him as the trusting type. Carelessness or haste, Green wondered? He stepped back outside, feeling conspicuous, and continued on towards the back, where he unlatched the gate and slipped into the backyard.

It was like going down the rabbit hole. Here, hidden from view by a six-foot-high privacy fence, was a playground fit for Hollywood. A huge, kidney-shaped pool glistened in the sun, surrounded by a broad, meandering slate walkway. Reclining lounge chairs, patio umbrellas and a poolside bar were arranged artfully around, and in the corner, an ornate gazebo housed an octagonal marble hot tub. A fake waterfall burbled against the back fence, and wrought iron lamp posts marked every few yards, promising romantic splashes of light on a warm summer night.

Green stood just inside the gate, absorbing the spectacle. This must have cost the high-flying agent well over a hundred thousand dollars. His secret paradise, known only to those privileged to be invited and to the neighbours who looked down on it from their second storey windows.

As if by telepathy, one of them was standing in the McIntyre driveway when Green returned to the front. He was a beefy man in his late fifties by Green’s guess, dressed in baggy shorts, a battered Tilley hat and a
T
-shirt with the Green Party logo. He had a set of keys in his hand and a suspicious scowl on his face.

“You looking for something, buddy?”

Green hesitated, then decided that his police badge might net him more cooperation than some lame cover story. At the sight of it, the man drew himself up and sucked in his gut. Green recorded his name—Eugene Boulder—and his address, then gestured towards McIntyre’s house.

“I’m looking for Mr. McIntyre, but he doesn’t seem to be home.”

“No, he’s out most days. You might catch him in the evening, but then again, maybe not.”

“He’s not here much?”

Boulder shrugged. “Well, he travels all over. He’s a sports agent, says he’s got to go where the players are.”

“Has he been here recently? Say in the past ten days?”

“Oh, yeah. He comes and goes, sometimes at all hours of the night.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

Boulder wiped some sweat from his forehead and squinted at the ground. “This morning. He drives a big, gas-guzzling Lincoln Navigator—black.” Boulder sneered. “Hard to miss when it’s staring you in the face first thing in the morning.”

“So it was here this morning? What time did it leave?”

“Pretty early, for him anyways. Eight thirty, maybe? I was out laying earwig traps over there under my peonies, and he roars off, foot to the floor like always.” Boulder shook his head, then sighed as if in resignation and cocked his eyebrow at Green. “What’s this all about?”

“Mr. McIntyre is assisting us with some inquiries,” he replied drily, then tossed in a diversionary clue. “That’s quite a set-up he has around back. Does he have many parties out there?”

Boulder grunted. “Enough. One would be too many for me, but then the wife says I’m a stick-in-the-mud. Pretty noisy affairs, on till all hours. The Stanley Cup playoffs were awful.”

“Ever think of complaining?”

Boulder eyed him in silence for a moment as if trying to gauge the impact of his answer. “I thought of it. Told him I was thinking of it, and the next day one of my roses was dug up. I’d been babying it for ten years. I can’t prove a thing, but I got the point.”

“You should have complained anyway. Otherwise bullies like that win the game.”

“Yeah, but you don’t live next door to him.”

“Tell me about these parties.”

Boulder needed no further encouragement to spill forth the frustration and venom he’d stored up in the two years since McIntyre had moved in. Loud music, dancing outside by the pool, a constant parade of girls, each wearing less that the last, cars revving up and down the street at three in the morning, kids barely old enough to drive throwing up in his prize rhododendrons. Other times there were smaller parties, with quieter music, nudes in the hot tub, girls giggling—who knew what was going on?

“The wife says I should get out of the nineteenth century, but this used to be such a peaceful street, and the couple who owned the place before him were such nice people. They had a beautiful maple out back that turned scarlet every fall, you could see it for miles, but he moves in, and within a week he had the backhoe in there and tore the whole place up.”

Green made sympathetic noises and prepared to leave. As an afterthought, he pulled out some photos from his car. “Did you ever see this girl here?”

Boulder studied the picture of Crystal and shrugged. “Could be. That’s the type you see, and they all look the same, don’t they, with all that make-up on and barely enough clothes to cover a baby’s bottom.”

Green showed him Jenna Zukowski, and he frowned. “He sure likes the ladies, but this one looks too old for him. I’d have to see her with make-up to be sure.”

“What about him?”

“That kid, yeah. That’s the hockey player, and he’s over a lot. Not just at the parties.”

“Seen him recently?”

“Well, I don’t watch every minute of the day, you know.”

Green suspected he did, especially when the half naked girls were on display, but he smiled reassuringly. “Of course not. Just curious if you saw him.”

“Well, I did see him this weekend sometime. Can’t remember—Friday or Saturday? They had a fight.”

“What about?”

“I don’t...”

“I know, you don’t listen in. But if you heard anything... It might be useful.”

“Yeah. The O’Shaughnessy kid came storming out of the house and McIntyre says ‘I’m not going to let you ruin your life’, and the kid yells back ‘you already have’. Then he got in his Jeep and took off.”

At that moment Green’s cell phone rang, giving him little time to absorb the possible meaning of that outburst. He glanced at the call display with annoyance, but saw that it was Sullivan. He strolled casually over to his car to be out of earshot of the neighbour, who had already exhibited a more than healthy curiosity about other people’s business.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! The idiots lost him!”

Green took a moment to figure out what he was talking about. “What do you mean—lost him?”

“I mean, the surveillance guys fell asleep, went off for a piss—who the fuck knows?—and Riley drove out from under their noses.”

Sullivan sounded taut with anger, and Green could almost picture the dusky red creeping up his neck. Green rolled his eyes. Devine would have a field day with this. Not only had the department dished out hundreds of her precious overtime dollars to keep these guys on the job, but they had bungled it. “When?”

“Who knows? Their best guess? Sometime around five o’clock this morning. He must have seen our surveillance team and realized we were on to him.”

Green heard the heaviness in Sullivan’s voice. “It looks pretty bad for him, Brian.”

“I know. I’ve already put out an
APB
, so now the kid’s name is going to be broadcast all over the city. Fucking idiots!”

I wouldn’t want to be the surveillance team that screwed that up, Green thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the neighbour standing by his car, keys in hand, straining to hear.

“I’ve set up a briefing in half an hour,” Sullivan was saying. “We need to get some teams tracking Riley, and we need to see what Ident and MacPhail have managed to find out about the Jane Doe.” A jet roared overhead, blocking out all sound for almost thirty seconds. “Where the hell are you?”

“At Vic McIntyre’s house. There’s another twist to the story.” Green filled him in on Riley’s phone call to McIntyre. “The kid barely seems to take a shit without checking with McIntyre, so I’m betting he panicked and called him for advice that night. Maybe McIntyre even helped him cover it up.”

Sullivan was silent a moment. “Well, I wouldn’t put it past the guy. You’d think he wouldn’t jeopardize his career and reputation with something so stupid, but we’ve both seen smarter men make even dumber choices.”

Next door, Eugene Boulder gave up trying to eavesdrop and drove away in his car. Green glanced thoughtfully at McIntyre’s deserted house. Boulder had said McIntyre had roared off at top speed at eight thirty this morning. He had been in such a hurry that he had left the inside door to his garage ajar. What was the big rush? Could it be that Riley had asked him for help again? Maybe even to hide him?

“Are you coming down to the briefing?” Sullivan asked.

“You go ahead,” Green said. “I just have a small thing to check into.”

After he hung up, he got out and glanced up and down the street, studying the front yards and façades of the neighbouring houses. No one was around, no one paying him the slightest heed. He strolled back up to McIntyre’s house and ducked out of sight down the side path. At the side door, he hesitated. He had no authorization to do this, no possible justification or defence. Worse, his action could jeopardize future investigation of McIntyre if anyone found out about it. But a dangerous killer was on the loose, possibly two of them working in concert, and if there were any clues in the house as to their whereabouts, what was the harm in a little peek?

I’ll be in and out in less than five minutes, he promised himself, slipping on latex gloves. No point in leaving calling cards. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the knob and ducked inside. The garage echoed emptily. He crossed the concrete in long, rapid strides and entered the house. At the last second, he spotted the alarm panel by the door and felt a quick shot of adrenaline before realizing it had not been turned on.

Another sign of haste? He scoped out the ground floor quickly, but there was no sign of Riley. The decor of the front rooms was lean and masculine. Brushed nickel, smoked glass and burgundy leather. No knickknacks, photos or artwork on the walls, which were starkly painted in reds, chocolates and golds. Highly polished hardwood echoed his footsteps. This was a house out of a designer’s set, meant to entertain and to impress. Meant to lure the unsuspecting into believing they were in the company of character and taste.

The family room and kitchen at the back of the house were more lush and sensual. Green’s eyes widened at the sight of the cavernous kitchen with its bank of windows overlooking the pool. Granite counters, cherrywood cabinets, Italian tile, stainless steel European appliances. Green had nearly wiped out his bank account on his modest renovations to their own old house, so he could make a fair guess at the cost of this extravagance. On the counter sat an uneaten omelette and a half empty cup of coffee, and spread out beside them was the morning’s edition of the
Ottawa Sun
. McIntyre had not even progressed beyond the first page, where Frank Corelli’s story about the Bruce Pit death screamed out its outrageous headline.

Conscious of the time, Green moved quickly up the stairs as he registered the implications. McIntyre had begun his breakfast preparations without haste or apparent concern but, much like Riley, he’d been sent into action by the sight of that headline.

Green’s speculations were brought to a crashing halt when he reached the door of the first bedroom. A massive circular bed commanded central stage, and mirrored tiles on the ceiling reflected its glossy black sheets. A huge flat screen
TV
occupied one wall, but the remaining walls were papered in life-sized, pornographic photos of women. Some nude, some dressed only in flimsy lingerie, garters or thongs. None looked over sixteen.

“Holy fuck!” The words were out before he even remembered the need for stealth. He jerked open the door to the closet. Inside was a hidden video camera aimed through a peephole towards the bed. Behind it were shelves upon shelves of boxes. He bent to examine a box sitting open on the closet floor. On close inspection it proved to be packed with
DVD
s, videotapes and photographs, all cryptically labelled in an alphanumeric code. Curious, Green picked up the
TV
remote that sat on a shelf in the closet and aimed it at the
TV
. The screen filled with an overhead shot of the circular bed, this time covered in hot pink sheets. Two naked figures writhed on the bed, and it took Green a moment to recognize McIntyre himself, fondling the tanned, nubile body of a girl probably younger than Hannah. Bottles of wine cluttered the bedside table, and soft, sensual jazz blended with the murmuring from the bed.

Green studied the mirror ceiling tiles over the bed, trying to detect the camera behind them, but it was completely hidden from view. The bastard can videotape whatever he wants, Green thought, without the girls having a clue. He ejected the disk and selected another at random from the box. This one was a shot of the leather sofa downstairs, which sagged beneath the weight of two girls crawling all over a foolishly grinning teenage boy. The girls were wearing nothing but a Senators flag. The boy was stark naked.