Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (287 page)

When they arrived at the RCMP detachment, however, they ran into the stonewall of Sergeant Nihls, who informed them that Constable Tymko was responding to a call in Jean Marie River and might be gone all day. Green explained that they simply needed some information from Tymko’s file.

“Those files are confidential, as you well know.”

“I do know that. And I also know I could call up Eagle Air to request the information, but I’m trying to be of some help here, Sergeant. You said you were thin on the ground up here, and I respect that. Staff Sergeant Sullivan and I are investigators. We can’t do wilderness search and rescue, but we can gather background and provide leads that would help you focus your search.”

“Trust me,” Sullivan injected with an affable grin, “you’d rather have him busy than not.”

Green knew it was part of a game, but when Sergeant Nihls returned the smile, he bristled. That simple non-verbal exchange spoke volumes about the folly of the senior brass and the brotherhood of NCOs. Without a word the sergeant turned to his computer, which looked several years more modern than Green’s, and accessed the file. He shielded the screen subtly as he clicked through links.

“Constable Tymko doesn’t have a lot of detail on this case. He tracked down the canoe, spoke to the pilot, recorded the passengers and the dates of entry and exit. Here we are. Four passengers: Scott Lasalle, Daniel Rothman, Peter Carlyle, and Hannah Pollock.” He looked up with a sharp frown. “Pollock?”

“That’s her mother’s name,” Green said, forcing the twinge of hurt away. It had taken Hannah almost two years with him before she added
Green
to her name. “What are the addresses and emergency contacts of Rothman and Carlyle?”

Nihls scrolled through the file, his frown deepening. “There aren’t any. There are phone numbers with a Vancouver area code.” He read them out and Sullivan jotted them down.

“Okay,” Green said, “we’ll follow up on Carlyle and Rothman —”

“And I assume you will pass on any information relevant to the case?”

Green was itching to get his hands on the computer, to run a simple CPC search on the two names to find out if they had a police record. But he knew Nihls would be a tight-ass, because there were strict regulations against accessing police databases for personal reasons. He was searching for a way around the roadblock when Sullivan snapped his notebook shut and stood up.

“Absolutely,” Sullivan said.

“And should you acquire any information that changes the status of this case …?”

“We’ll be back on your doorstep in a flash,” Green said without a trace of a smile.

Not surprisingly, there were no car rental agencies in Fort Simpson since there were not many places to go, but rather than having them tie up the single taxi, Andy had lent Green and Sullivan her aging truck for the day. As Sullivan backed out of the detachment parking lot, which was little more than a thin dusting of gravel outside the front door, he looked across at Green.

“We need a command post,” he said. “Or at least a base of operations where we can make and receive phone calls and use the Internet.”

They drove in silence for a block. “Has to be Andy’s,” Green said finally. “Poor woman’s going to wish she never took us in.”

Sullivan shook his head. “Not up here. It’s like the country everywhere; something happens, everyone pulls together.”

Sure enough, Andy set them up at her dining table with a spare phone, a printer and fax machine, and a Northwest Territories business directory. She even volunteered to take messages. She shrugged when Sullivan thanked her. “I have three daughters. They’re down south now, but they never leave your heart.”

Green’s first call was to Rothman’s Vancouver number, his second to Carlyle’s. Both netted him an answering machine with a young male asking him to leave a message. Of course they weren’t home, they were lost in the wilderness!

His third call was to Eagle Air, which seemed to be nothing but a voicemail box somewhere in cyberspace. Frustrated, he left a message for the pilot to call him and slammed the phone down. “Voicemail is going to be the end of us. God knows when they’ll pick up those messages.” He turned his attention to the Internet. A simple Google search of Daniel Rothman turned up a Facebook page, a few articles in the University of British Columbia’s medical students’ newsletter, and a comment on someone’s wilderness adventure blog about the treatment of hypothermia. Scanning the articles, he concluded Daniel Rothman was a medical student. His hopes lifted. Hardly a sinister portrait; in fact a useful addition to a stranded wilderness party.

Next came a search for contact information. Neither Daniel nor Peter had filled in the emergency contact portion of their Eagle Air ticket — indeed, Eagle Air seemed to be quite casual about such things — but since Daniel Rothman was a medical student, there was no guarantee that his family lived in Vancouver. Or even in Canada.

According to Canada 411, there were eighty-eight Rothmans with listed landlines spread across the country. Far too many to begin cold calls. But of those, eleven lived in British Columbia and almost half of those in Vancouver. If Daniel Rothman was Jewish, as Green suspected, someone would know him. Most Jewish families kept close ties.

Half an hour later, he hung up in discouragement. Of those he’d been able to reach, none had ever heard of Daniel the med student, even when they combed their memories for distant cousins. Over half the calls had gone to voicemail, however, forcing Green to leave a vague, rather cryptic message about trying to locate a friend of his daughter’s who might be in trouble.

After the last such message, he stared at the phone grimly. “No one’s going to answer that. Even I wouldn’t. I’d think it was a crank. Why are people too goddamn busy to answer their phone these days?”

“Too busy, or too suspicious,” Sullivan replied. He’d had slightly better luck with the Carlyles, locating one woman in Whistler who said Peter was her brother, although she only saw him twice a year and had no idea what he was up to. Studying mountains, she thought. Pete wasn’t big on family ties, but none of them were. Their parents were off on a round-the-world sailing trip and would know even less about Pete than she did.

“Did she seem worried that Pete was missing?” Green asked.

“No, she said he’ll show up when he’s ready. He’s used to doing his own thing and not thinking about anyone else. We’re both boarding school brats, she said, and Peter’s not the most lovey guy in the world. But she said he’s pretty experienced in the wilds. Grew up mountain climbing and kayaking on the B.C. coast.”

“Terrific,” Green said glumly. “Someone else who thinks he’s immortal.”

Sullivan tipped his chair back. It was hand-carved and it creaked beneath his footballer’s frame. “On the plus side, Hannah’s in good company. One has medical training, the other wilderness experience. Good people to have when you’re lost.”

Green shook off his foreboding with an effort. He knew Sullivan was right. He needed to think like a cop and turn a rational eye to the next step of the investigation. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was almost noon. Eleven a.m. in Vancouver. He wanted to follow up at the university but first he had to phone Ashley. Steeling himself, he dialed.

For the first two minutes she did nothing but rant. She’d been sitting by the phone all day and she was half dead with worry she hadn’t eaten she’d called every single one of Hannah’s friends and why the hell hadn’t he bothered to call her she was only the mother after all.

When she drew breath, Green plunged in. “Ashley, I need your help. We haven’t found her, but we don’t really know where to look.”

“She’s in the park!” Ashley screeched.

“It’s a fucking big park.”

That shut her up. Two octaves lower, she said, “Oh.”

“I need information on the other two friends.”

“I don’t know much, Mike. Hannah didn’t tell me.”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“They were both friends of Scott. What difference would it make who they are?”

Green gritted his teeth in search of patience. He always thought like an investigator, trying to fill in the gaps and follow the leads to get the whole picture. It was a habit that had not been well received by Hannah over the years. Hannah lived by the motto “The less he knows the better.”

A motto Green himself often followed in his relations with his superiors. The irony did not amuse him.

“Maybe Scott or Hannah mentioned something about them,” he said. “Daniel Rothman is a med student and Peter Carlyle is also a student of some kind. Any other details, however unrelated?”

“Mike, I don’t —”

“Try to remember, Ashley!”

There was silence and he hoped she was searching her memory. But when she spoke, her voice was low and thin. “I’m not a moron, Mike. Don’t you think I’ve tried to remember? I never heard of Daniel Rothman. There was a Pete I met a few months ago, maybe that was him.”

“What can you remember?”

“Nothing! I think he was in school with Scott. Fred didn’t like him much, thought he only hung around Scott because he had money. Scott and him were grumbling about some professor who had a fancy condo on Granville Island. They’d been invited there for a Christmas party.”

“Did you know Scott quit university?”

“What? Who told you that?”

“He had a falling out with his professor. He hasn’t been there in months.”

She was silent a moment. “I don’t think Hannah knew that. She said he was really excited about his research and planned to do some rock collecting on their trip.”

He perked up. “Where on their trip?”

“I don’t know. The mountains up there. It meant nothing to me.”

“What kind of rocks?”

“Little rocks. I don’t think he was planning to bring boulders home on the plane.”

He could almost see her pout. Patience, he told himself. “What kind of rocks was he studying?”

“Those hard, brown bits of ground? How anyone can find that exciting is beyond me.”

Sensing he’d pressed her imperfect memory and her even more imperfect understanding as far as he could, he switched gears. “Ashley, how did he seem in the past few months? Any changes in his mood or behaviour?”

“What are you getting at, Mike?”

“Just exploring. You said his father died last winter and now we know he quit university. I’m just wondering if he seemed depressed.”

“He had been, I think. Hannah had a couple of rough months with him, they got into a lot of arguments. He was very close to his father, and clearing out the house was really hard on him. Being stuck with all those memories. He didn’t have anybody left, just some cousin he’d never even met, and he was feeling pretty alone. But he took some time away last winter, and that helped. When he came back, he’d kind of found a new purpose. He was really excited about this trip to his father’s roots. Planning every detail, spending a lot of money as well — he got a lot of money from his father’s house. No, I’d say far from being depressed, by the time they left he was just the opposite.”

Chapter Seven

Prince Edward Island, July 14

 “C
ops, eh?” Veronica Taylor raised one black, pencilled eyebrow as she looked them up and down. “You don’t look like cops.”

Sue Peters bristled. To help out the inspector she had ditched the bikini and flip-flops for sensible flats, navy slacks, and a white-and-navy-striped jacket. When she’d bought clothes for her seaside honeymoon she’d gone overboard on the nautical theme, an impulse she now regretted. Gibbsie at least was wearing what he always did: khaki pants and polyester golf shirt with a dinky collar.

He seemed oblivious to the veiled insult. “This is not an official inquiry, Mrs. Taylor,” he said. “We’re helping out a colleague on a personal matter.”

“It’s not Taylor anymore.” The woman flicked a dismissive hand as if to bat the name away. “I ditched him last year.”

“My apologies. That was the information I had.”

“I haven’t bothered to make it official yet, but I’ve gone back to Pratt, my maiden name. Not the prettiest name, but after five husbands the whole business was getting to be a nuisance. I spend winters in Florida, and since they’ve made all these ridiculous passport requirements, I end up in silly arguments all the time.”

Sue had already guessed there was a sun destination involved. According to the records, Veronica whatever-her-name-was-right-now was fifty-six years old, but despite the maroon hair, the trowels of makeup, and the inexpertly applied red lipstick, she had skin the texture of a parched desert. Sue’s own grasp of fashion was dubious but even she could see that the clingy, see-through tank top and the denim miniskirt were a bad idea. Links of stuffed sausages came to mind.

Gibbsie had worked some major miracles on the Internet to track her down. She had come a long way from her humble logging-town roots in northern British Columbia, passing through Vancouver long enough to meet and marry Scott’s father before hopping across Canada to land, ultimately, on the southeastern shore of Prince Edward Island. She was comfortably ensconced in a chaise longue overlooking her pool. A half-smoked cigarette sat in the ashtray on the chair arm. Narrowing her eyes to take in Bob’s reed-thin body, she didn’t invite them to sit. Without a word, Sue yanked a patio chair back from the table and plunked herself down. Bob, ever the gentleman, remained standing.

“But I’m sure you’re not interested in my travels.” Veronica chuckled. “I hope. What’s this about?”

“Scott Lasalle.”

A look of blank incomprehension passed over her face. She reached for the cigarette and took a long drag. It seemed to take her a full five seconds to remember. “My son? Good grief.”

“When was the last time you had contact with him?”

“Last year sometime?” She looked more wary than concerned. “What about him?”

“Are you aware he took a canoe trip up north to the Nahanni?”

Surprise flickered in her eyes. More than surprise. Interest. “The Nahanni? Huh!”

Even Bob picked up the clue. “Is that significant?”

“I don’t know. That’s where his grandfather lived.”