Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (260 page)

“You want me to do this tomorrow, sir? S-Sunday?”

“No rush,” Green said, knowing full well Gibbs would be on it the moment he got off the phone. “Get Sue to help you. I know it’s a needle in a haystack, but whatever that connection is, I think it’s the key to both cases.”

Just as the two detectives were arriving back at major crimes, Green’s cell phone rang. It was Chief Inspector Fournier with the news that the Longstreet file was not immediately accessible but should be delivered to headquarters first thing in the morning. The chief inspector apologized but jokingly suggested that Green might enjoy a night on the town in Montreal. The chief inspector would love to join him but unfortunately had family obligations. He could, however, recommend some excellent restaurants. Green thanked him and hung up, quelling his impatience. He didn’t want a night on the town, he wanted the warmth and comfort of his own home.

The lights were dim and the sixth floor was almost completely deserted as the two detectives lugged the evidence bins upstairs. Presumably, the day shift had gone off and the evening shift was already out on the streets. Magloire showed no inclination to punch the clock, however, but instead immediately set Green up at a desk adjacent to his in the open office area. The floor was a maze of cubicles equipped with the latest in computer and telephone technology. Except for the bulletins and lists of assignments covering the walls, it looked more like a corporate high tech firm than the hub of police investigations.

Magloire checked his phone and email messages and muttered a few curses under his breath. “Nothing worse than a bottle of Christmas cheer and a guy with no reason to celebrate.”

Chuckling, Green gestured to the computer in front of him. “If you’ll get me into your system, I can entertain myself while you deal with the drunks and domestics.”

Magloire pushed himself away from his computer screen. “The evening boys have all that under control. I’m assigned to you, so what’s next,
patron?
”

Suppressing a smile, Green pulled out the file of newspaper clippings he’d found at the victim’s apartment. He sifted through the faded papers. The eulogizing and the dead man’s achievements filled pages, but details of the investigation were surprisingly thin. The same reporter, Cam Hatfield, had covered the story from the initial report to the final wrap-up, and Green could almost feel his skepticism. It was worth finding out what else he remembered. But a subtle, oblique approach would be best, without the intercession of the large, amiable but decidedly cop-like Magloire.

“We need to widen our net,” he said instead. “Lise Gravelle has had no contacts with Montreal Police, but I want you to run checks on possible relatives—”

“Agent Tessier had no luck finding any so far.”

“Then check all the Gravelles.”

“That will be hundreds!” Magloire exclaimed. “Montreal has more than three million people. Here!” He swung back to his computer and Green could see him typing in a 411 search. His face fell. “Okay, maybe not that many.”

“Good. See what you can learn about them, and their relationship to Lise. Run checks on the Longstreet name too, and the Kennedys. See if any family members have been in the system.” Green affected a yawn that was not entirely fake. “The 411 stuff can wait till the morning. I’m going to check into a hotel, grab some dinner, and maybe follow up on a couple of these news stories. Once you’ve done the police checks, you should knock off for the night. It’s Saturday night. You got a family? Girlfriend?”

“Can I say both?” Magloire laughed. “Just kidding. I’ve got a wife and a beautiful little girl who keep me too busy to get into trouble.” He hesitated. “You want to come meet them? Come for dinner?”

Green heard the reluctance in his voice and shook his head.

“Thanks for the offer, but you’ve gone above and beyond today.

I’m going to make it an early night.” He stood, stretched and nodded to the evidence bins. “I’ll leave those for you to sign in, and I’ll just use the photos I took with my own camera.”

Stepping out the front door of the major crimes unit five minutes later, he took a deep breath of the bracing winter air and drew in the scent of crisp snow, salt, car fumes and the hint of grilled steak from a nearby restaurant. Cars streamed along Sherbrooke Street East in a blur of red and yellow lights, their engines revving and their tires hissing on the salt-slushed pavement.

He had already booked a room for the night in an inexpensive boutique hotel on Sherbrooke Street West near McGill University, and once he’d checked in, he connected his laptop to the internet. Thirty years was a long time in the life of a news reporter, and since the
Montreal Star
had been defunct for decades, Cam Hatfield might be anywhere in Canada, or even abroad. Green was delighted when a simple Google search turned him up as a freelancer writing the occasional political and current events piece for the CanWest chain. Even more delighted when a Canada 411 search found him living on Greene Avenue, less than five kilometres from Green’s hotel.

The old women were lined up along the wall of the sunroom like gargoyles, mouths sagging, empty eyes staring at the TV across the room. Most were propped in wheelchairs, although a few clutched canes or walkers in palsied hands. The two closest to the door did not react when Brandon appeared in the doorway, but a woman with a walker in the middle of the room perked up.

Eagerness replaced the boredom in her eyes.

“Well, hello, stranger,” she said, struggling to turn her walker towards him. “Who let you in?”

Brandon smiled doubtfully. One of the nurses on duty had offered to introduce him to Meredith’s grandmother, but she had looked overworked and harassed. Out of sympathy, he’d declined her offer but confronting this parade of blank faces, he regretted his decision.

“I’m here to see Mrs. Callaghan,” he said.

“Oh, pooh. She’s gaga. You won’t get the time of day out of her.” The woman inched towards him across the room, her wraith-like frame hunched over her walker. “You’ll get a lot more out of me.”

Brandon was acutely aware of the locked doors, the bars on the windows and the bright, washable decor. He tried to picture his mother reduced to this. Geriatrics had been his least favourite medical school rotation because it felt like looking into the abyss. Meredith’s grandmother had once been the glue of her family. She’d left school after Grade Eight to work in a clothing factory to supplement the family income during the Depression, but she’d always had a strong sense of folk wisdom. Nan had an answer for every question and a salve for every hurt. Mostly it consisted of “God has his reasons,” and if that didn’t work, she fell back on “That’s life, get on with it.”

She had worked in the factory throughout the Second World War but married the first Irish lad to disembark from the troop ship in Montreal harbour afterwards. Her folk wisdom continued to dominate the family throughout the raising of her five children and nine grandchildren. Meredith’s eyes always danced when she talked to Brandon about her Nan, even when the woman was at her most old-fashioned and infuriating. Nan believed in family, church and babies; to fail at those elements was to fail at life.

A shell was all that was left of the woman now, and the sight would be excruciating for all the children she had nurtured. Had Meredith come to visit her that mysterious Monday afternoon, Brandon wondered. And had something spooked her from taking the next step along her own life path, as if by not getting married, she could stop the clock and prevent her own bodily decay?

The nurses at the station had no record of such a visit, nor did they remember the young woman in the photo Brandon showed them. That would have been a different shift, the charge nurse said, although usually something as important as an outof-town visit would be charted. Mrs. Callaghan didn’t get too many visitors. Only one daughter still lived in Montreal and she came twice a week. But there hadn’t been an out-of-town family member in at least two months, and they would have noted it because any unfamiliar person could be upsetting to the patient. Families meant well, but they stirred up feelings. Sometimes the patient didn’t remember them or mistook them for someone else, and it triggered unpleasant memories.

Another nurse who was nearby had pitched in. “The last time Meredith’s mother visited, it was like that. Mrs. Callaghan accused her of hiding things, keeping secrets and lying.”

“Lying?” Brandon’s interest was piqued. “About what?”

The nurse shook her head sympathetically. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t mean anything. When the mind gets confused and no longer remembers connections, it’s easy to think people are lying and keeping secrets. It’s a very scary place to be. Please remember that when you speak to Mrs. Callaghan. When she gets upset, it’s hard to calm her down again.”

Brandon was still holding Meredith’s photo when he entered the sunroom. He was just debating how to proceed when the woman with the walker reached his side. Her whole frame shook with the effort, but her eyes were bright as she spied the photo.

“I remember that girl! She came to see the old bat. Not that it did her any good.”

Brandon assessed the woman dubiously. She had two round circles of rouge on her cheeks and a matching bow of red lipstick. Pearls encircled her thin neck. She looked about four feet tall and a hundred years old, but she smiled like a young girl and her gaze was shrewd. His hopes lifted. “Do you remember when?”

“Of course I do. Nothing wrong with my mind. Or my eyes,” she added with a slow smile. “Just last week.”

He sucked in his breath. “Did you hear their conversation?”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t talk to her! Nothing but gibberish. She shooed the poor girl away. Said she wasn’t part of the family and shouldn’t try to trick her.”

Poor Meredith, Brandon thought. To come all this way and be forgotten. “What did her granddaughter say?”

“She kept telling her to remember when she was little and such. The old bat just screamed at her to go away until the girl gave up.”

“How was she? Upset?”

“Mad as hell.” The woman mouthed a flirtatious “Oh” and pressed her fingertips to her lips. “Not supposed to say that.

Perhaps you’ll have more luck with the old bat than the girl did, although she’s not having a very good day.”

She edged her walker out of the way and gestured towards an elderly woman in the corner. Meredith’s grandmother was slumped in her wheelchair with her large bony knees protruding from her nightgown and her hands hanging like claws over the arms of her chair. Her pure white hair clung to her pink scalp in strands like a thin cirrus cloud, and spittle collected at the corner of her mouth. Her pale blue eyes were fixed on the television.

Brandon slowed midway in his approach, struck by the futility of his quest. Struck too by the voices on the television. A woman reporter was standing in the snow outside an aging brick apartment building.

“The police are not yet releasing any details about the dead woman, pending notification of next of kin, but neighbours have confirmed that she is fifty-four-year-old Lise Gravelle, an employee of St. Mary’s Hospital, who lived alone in this apartment building with her pet dog.” Briefly the Missing Persons photo filled the screen. “This afternoon, detectives from both Montreal and Ottawa searched the apartment and removed two large boxes of evidence.”

The camera panned through the dark and caught a brief glimpse of three people climbing into cars at the curb. Brandon squinted. Shock raced through him as he recognized Inspector Green. What was he doing in Montreal?

“Keep away from her!”

The screech jolted him back. He swung around just in time to see a cane flying through the air towards him. It clipped him on the shoulder before he could duck. The grandmother’s eyes were bulging as she looked wildly at him.

“Stay away! You think I don’t know who that is? Devil’s child!

Devil’s child!” A slipper flew across the room.

The staff moved quickly to whisk her away to her room, leaving the rest of the patients muttering in annoyance. And leaving Brandon open-mouthed in the middle of the room, wondering what the hell all that was about.

“Well, you sure made an impression,” said the little old lady, reappearing at his side.

SIXTEEN

Green stood outside the old Montreal Forum building, looking up at its modern metal cladding with dismay. A Futureshop and an AMC theatre now occupied most of the building, their gaudy red lettering replacing the sturdy brown brick of the original façade. He recalled the only other time he’d been inside. His father, the timid immigrant tailor from Poland, had never watched a hockey game in his life but had believed his twelve-year-old son should share the quintessentially Canadian father-son dream of watching the Montreal Canadiens during their legendary Stanley Cup run.

“
Meshugas,
” he had announced after three hours of plugging his ears and trying to watch the tiny black disc ping-pong around the rink. Craziness. Green had never been to a game since, although Tony was beginning to wheedle, and he knew he’d have to give in. History had a way of racing ahead, leaving nothing but regret in its wake. He pushed aside the twinge of nostalgia as he reached for the door of Guido and Angelino’s.

Once a news hound, always a news hound, he thought as he walked into the bar and caught sight of the rumpled figure perched on a barstool at the very end of the bar. The man was facing the door, keeping an eye on the action as he nursed a drink. Not much got by him, Green suspected, meeting the man’s gaze. Without a flicker of acknowledgment Cam Hatfield picked up his drink, slid off his barstool and moved to a table in the corner. He was a stubby man, and in his yellow parka, he reminded Green of a fire hydrant. His feet were encased in massive boots that clumped as he walked and he had to shove the table out nearly a foot further to accommodate his gut. Dirt and age had faded his clothing, and his greying hair stood in unkempt spikes. He looked as if he’d spent the previous night under a railway bridge, but his blue eyes, set deep in his leathery face, were keen.