Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (209 page)

His father said it was a matter of honour after the things the military had done in Somalia, and maybe that was true. His father still sent half his money over there for a village school. But Omar knew it wasn’t that simple. His dad liked to be king of the heap, and he knew he had them all by the short and curlies.

He raised his head from the newspaper. How many times had he asked himself if they’d have been better off if the old man had left them in Somalia? He knew the answer, but it was a game he played whenever the bastard tightened the screws. Martial law, that’s what this was. Once a soldier, always a soldier, and his father had been with the worst. The government hadn’t disbanded the Airborne Regiment after Somalia because the guys had handed out lollipops. They knew all about beating. And killing.

Omar wrenched his thoughts back to Saturday night. He raked his memory. He remembered something metal, something shiny like a knife. But not a baseball bat. Who the hell had been carrying a baseball bat? A knife could be concealed, but a bat was pretty fucking long to hide under your shirt. Not to mention uncomfortable when you’re sitting down. He tried to picture the four of them sprawled on the grass in Macdonald Gardens, smoking weed and talking about getting laid. He remembered jokes about the size of their hard-ons, about how far up a girl they could go. If anyone had had a baseball bat, it would have come out then.

Omar shook his head, feeling a bit better. It was possible one of them had picked up a baseball bat later during their walk, but not likely. Not too many baseball bats lying around in alleyways around here, especially when it wasn’t even garbage day.

He heard his mother’s soft bare feet on the stairs. Quickly he folded up the newspaper and stuffed it under his mattress. He pulled his math textbook out of his bag and had just flipped it open when there was a light tap on his door. As always, his mother waited silently outside his door until he opened it. She was tall, and even after four kids—plus two who died in the refugee camp, but no one ever talked about them—she didn’t have an ounce of fat on her.

Even inside the house, she kept herself wrapped head to toe in browns and blacks. His father sometimes bought her bright scarves and pretty clothes, but they sat in her closet. She looked at Omar now with her huge, sad eyes.

“You have laundry?” she asked in English.

He glanced around his room. His brothers had left their own clothes strewn around, but Omar’s own corner was army shipshape. Just one more sign of his father’s double standard. He handed her his bag of laundry, then remembered the clothes from Saturday night, still in a ball at the back of his closet. He said nothing.

She peered into the small bag and frowned. “Your jeans?”

Panic shot through him. “I’ll check if they’re dirty, I’ll bring them down to you.”

She went out and he closed the door. He ran to the closet and fished out the clothes. They were stiff with dried blood now and gave off a sickening smell. They were probably a write-off, except his father would ask him where they’d gone. He could make some excuse, but he’d never hear the end of it. The jeans had cost good money and were nearly new. He shook them out and peered at them in the light from the window. Against the dark blue fabric, it was hard to tell the stains were blood. They could have been...

He shook his head. His mother wasn’t born yesterday, she knew blood when she saw it. She’d figure he was into something hot and heavy. But she wouldn’t say a word to his father. She’d wash the stuff and never ask. It didn’t pay to ask.

He began to empty the pockets to make sure there was no weed or folded bills that could get ruined in the wash. In the third pocket, his hand closed around something heavy and cold. He pulled it out. He stared at it a moment then yanked his hand away like the object was hot. It clattered to the floor.

Heart pounding, he picked it up again. Stretched the gold band, cradled the heavy disk. It was still ticking, the hands on the gold face keeping perfect time.

Which was no surprise, because below the dial, in sleek, classy letters, was the word
Rolex.

He was on the phone before he’d even thought it through. “Nadif! What the fuck happened Saturday night!”

“Sh-h!” Nadif hissed and slammed the phone down without saying a word. Omar raced down the stairs, stopped for a moment to listen for his mother, who was busy with the laundry in the basement. He ran out the front door. Only when his bare feet hit the cold pavement did he realize he’d forgotten his shoes.

Ignoring the cold, he headed diagonally across the street and had almost reached Nadif ’s townhouse when he saw the curtains twitch in the upstairs room. A few seconds later Nadif came barrelling out his front door and ran at him, grabbing his arm and dragging him behind a van parked in the laneway beside the house.

“Fuck, man! You want to get us arrested? The cops are everywhere!”

“Sorry,” Omar said. Sorry was always the first word out of his mouth when trouble started, but now he took a few seconds to process what Nadif had said. His mouth went dry. “You think my phone’s tapped?”

“I don’t know about yours, but you can sure as hell bet mine is. The cops were all over me about that old man’s death on Saturday night.”

Omar grabbed his arm. “What the fuck happened? What was in that weed! I don’t remember a thing.”

“Nothing happened. Got nothing to do with us.”

“But I got blood all over me. All over my clothes!”

“You fell off the sidewalk. So wasted you didn’t even see it coming. Fell flat on your face.”

Omar was silent a moment, testing this theory against his memory. Didn’t ring any bells. “But what about the knife?”

Nadif ’s face hardened. “What knife?”

Omar felt panic rising. “I remember a knife. I remember blood.”

Nadif gripped him by both arms and dug his fingers in. “Listen to me. Nothing. Happened. Nothing. We were out partying, we came home, you tripped and fell, end of story.”

To his shame, Omar felt hot tears gathering behind his eyes. “But I have a Rolex watch in my pocket. I don’t know where it came from.”

Nadif released him and stepped back from him almost like he was pushing him away. “I don’t know nothing about a Rolex watch. I don’t know where you got that. But my advice? Get rid of it. Now. Throw it down the sewer, chuck it in the river. Just get rid of it. And don’t ever, ever talk about this again.”

The phone was ringing on Green’s desk when he reached his office that Tuesday morning. Fearing it was Devine with another last minute demand before her job interview, he debated letting it go to voicemail, but after a long, stuffy meeting with the Provincial Crowns, any diversion was welcome.

A dulcet Southern drawl greeted him. “Inspector Green? Agent Jim Benoit of the
FBI
here.”

The name rang no bells. “Yes, sir. How can I help you?”

“Your department put in a search request for a David Joseph Rosenthal yesterday?”

Green masked his surprise. There was a protocol for requesting assistance from south of the border. Had Levesque deliberately circumvented it? “Yes, he’s next of kin in a death up here. Any luck?”

“Well, we found him for you. That is, we found his residence, and local police paid a visit to his wife. According to her, he’s out of the country on business, and she doesn’t know for how long. Do you want us to trace him?”

“She isn’t able to contact him herself?”

“That’s correct. According to her, that’s normal. He’s a busy man, apparently. Flies all over the world.”

“But surely—” Green stopped himself. There was no point badgering the
FBI
with his skepticism. He asked for the woman’s phone number, then thanked the
FBI
agent and asked him to carry on the search.

Afterwards he studied the information he had jotted down, an address in Baltimore that meant nothing to him. He dialled the number, listened for five rings, and braced for voicemail. He was thrown off-guard when the phone was snatched up.

“Yes!”

“This is Inspector Michael Green of the Ottawa Police. May I speak with Mrs. Rosenthal, please?”

“Who?”

Green repeated his introduction, as gentle and polite as she was abrupt.

“Oh. Is this in relation to his father?”

“Yes. We really need to get in touch with Mr. Rosenthal.”

“It’s Dr. Rosenthal, even if his father never admitted it. Two PhDs and half an
MD
weren’t good enough for him. Why do you want David? Did the old man die or something?”

Green abandoned courtesy. “Yes. That’s why I need to find him.”

“Huh.” The woman paused. “Well, I don’t know where he is. New Dehli, Frankfurt, Tel Aviv? He doesn’t keep me informed.”

“Does he have a cellphone or Blackberry?”

“I don’t have those numbers.” Another pause, the sound of smoke dragging into lungs. “Look, you might as well know. He doesn’t live with us any more.”

“Where does he live?”

“Take your pick. He’s got six houses. Well, maybe only four or five now. He’s had to sell a couple off. But he may not be at any of them. He has his own plane, and he’s always off wheeling and dealing.”

“Who might know how to reach him, Mrs. Rosenthal? His secretary? Executive assistant?”

“I can give you the company number, that’s all I have.” She was silent a moment, presumably tracking down the number. When she came back, her voice sounded more excited. “I don’t suppose there’s money or...whatever involved?”

“That’s not my area. But the sooner I can contact Dr. Rosenthal, the sooner you’ll know.”

That little nudge proved useful. She rhymed off the number, then added as an afterthought, “I never even met his father. David hadn’t talked to him in years, but sometimes that’s the worst kind of loss, isn’t it? For what it’s worth, at this time of year, David is usually up in Canada, duck hunting. The man loves to hunt.”

After he’d hung up, Green sighed. Duck hunting up in Canada—that really narrows it down. Hoping for more details, he dialled the number the ex-wife had given him. He got the runaround through an automated phone response system before finally snagging a real person. She passed him on, like a hot potato, to Rosenthal’s executive assistant, who was as treacly smooth as the ex-wife was blunt. But impressions could be deceiving. After oozing out the obligatory expressions of dismay, she began to stonewall.

“I will pass on this message as soon as possible, and I’m sure he’ll contact you as soon as he’s able.”

Able, thought Green with disbelief. What, when it reaches the top of his “to do” list? “Give me his cellphone number.”

“I don’t believe he’s in cellphone range. But I assure you, he will call you. Is there anything else I can help you with?” She’d reverted to her script, so he thanked her and hung up. He headed off to alert Levesque and Sullivan, hoping the secretary was right. He was anxious to get his own read on David Rosenthal, who was emerging as more peculiar by the moment.

By noon the rumour mill on the third floor was going full tilt, and snippets of gossip were seeping down to the Major Crimes Unit on the second. The first round of interviews for the Deputy Chief ’s job had been going on all morning, and the faces of candidates parading in and out of the Chief ’s private conference room were being minutely analyzed for signs of hope and defeat. Green heard that Barbara Devine had swept into the interview wearing her most conservative navy suit and practical pumps, with neutral polish on her nails and only the subtlest hint of red on her lips. He had to smile, thinking the Chief would have to have been blind not to notice the woman’s penchant for scarlet and stilettos in the past three years.

She had emerged from the interview an hour later—the longest among the candidates so far—and had flashed a discreet victory sign at her secretary. Victory was far from assured, everyone knew, but the prospect of a new boss to fill her shoes left Green feeling ambivalent. A Chief of Detectives who actually knew something about major crimes would be nice, but on the other hand, Devine’s ignorance, together with her blatant self-absorption, left him with a free rein to run his section as he chose. A new boss might be a pain in the ass.

Green was preparing for an afternoon meeting with his
NCO
s when his telephone buzzed. “A Mr. Fine on the line, sir. He said he left three messages.” The major crimes clerk sounded dubious. Green wondered if Fine had asked for “Mr. Yiddish Policeman”.

Green pounced on the phone. Fine’s singsong voice came through. “So, you don’t have private secretaries any more? A bigshot like you?”

“What can I say? Voicemail, automated menus... Thanks for calling. You got something for me?”

“Nothing that will do you much good, but yeah, I looked into your piece.”

“And?”

“It comes from Russia, like I thought. I’d estimate turn of twentieth century. Czarist Russia.”

“You can tell that from the gold?” Green asked, impressed. He knew metallurgists could work wonders these days. Microscopic impurities and variations in colour and content could be traced to specific locations or processing methods.

Fine chuckled. “I can tell it’s good quality gold, yes, and the workmanship suggests old-style hand-tooling. But no, I can tell that from the lettering on the back of the piece. It’s an inscription, roughly translates as
To life and hope, my darling.
It uses some old Cyrillic letters and spelling which the Revolution tried to eliminate when they standardized things in 1918. Not everyone gave up the old ways, so it’s not absolutely certain that it’s Czarist, but I’m guessing there wasn’t much call for these religious baubles after the proletariat took over. Jews, you know—always at the forefront of new ideas. Always hoping this one will be better.”

Green didn’t see how all this shed much light on Rosenthal’s past. The Star of David had been made before the old man was even born. “So it’s probably an heirloom passed down from immigrants who sneaked it out of the old country with them when they came.”

“Yeah. Or not so romantic, he could have bought it in any antique Judaica shop. It makes a nice gift. The chain isn’t old, by the way. Your standard gold chain you can pick up anywhere. It’s a woman’s Star of David. For one thing, the ‘darling’ is feminine, and for another, it’s more delicate than most men would wear.”