Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (44 page)

She ran her hand through her hair, making her curls stand on end. She looked unconvinced. “But you’d think in the fifty-five years since, surely someone would have noticed the prison number tattooed on his arm.”

Thirty minutes later, with the paint flecks still in his hair and a yellow ski jacket thrown hastily over his jeans, Green mounted the Reid porch. The Walkers’ old Dodge sat alone in the driveway, and Green was relieved when Ruth herself answered the bell. He didn’t relish another verbal joust with Don Reid.

Ruth was filling out the endless forms that seem to follow death, and to his surprise she set aside the chore without protest to fix them both a cup of tea in her daughter’s spotless kitchen. When he explained his theory, she remained quiet a minute, eying him intently. Wisps of grey hair framed her face.

“A concentration camp victim,” she murmured finally.

“It never occurred to you?”

She gestured vaguely. “There were so many possibilities. Dresden was horribly bombed. Civilians lost their houses, whole families, even whole neighbourhoods were demolished. Lots of people were wandering around Europe in shock.”

“But I thought you assumed he was Polish, not German.”

“Well, yes, but—” She broke off, flustered. “It was an assumption. He could have been a DP from anywhere.”

“What made you think he was a DP and not a camp survivor? Surely you were seeing lots of survivors, or at least hearing about them.”

“Yes, we were.” She coloured. “And yes, the thought did cross my mind, especially later when people began to document the emotional after-effects of the Holocaust. Eugene was literally one of the walking dead for a long time.”

“Did he have a number tattooed on his arm when he arrived in England?”

She shook her head. “Obviously, if he’d had one, I would have been sure, wouldn’t I?”

“He had nothing? No marks?”

“Well…” She vacillated. “Actually, he had dreadful scars on his arms. The doctor said he probably got them on barbed wire. The wounds were on the mend when he came to us, but certainly the skin had been ripped away in strips along his arms and wrists.”

“So it is possible there had been a tattoo.”

“Yes, it’s possible. It is possible.” She repeated the assertion with more vigour, her eyes clearing. “I had thought the barbed wire rather supported the wounded soldier story, perhaps that he’d escaped from a German POW camp. Many Poles did fight under British command. But if he were a survivor, a number of other strange behaviours would make sense.”

He hid his excitement. “Like what?”

“For a long time after he came to our hospital in England, he huddled in the dark in his room with that wretched black box. He hated to come out into the light, as if he only felt safe unseen. And the strangest things would set him off—a dog barking, the scream of another patient, the whistle of a train. He’d fly into these fits, and we’d need a straitjacket. Didn’t they patrol the camps with dogs? And they brought the prisoners in on trains. He could never stand to ride on a train.”

“Did he ever go back to Poland or Germany?”

She looked shocked. “Goodness, no. I would never have put him through that. You must understand, Inspector. Eugene didn’t remember what he’d been through, and I wasn’t sure it would be a blessing for him to remember. Sometimes even the sound of German or Polish being spoken would make him tremble.”

“What did you tell your children about his past?”

Her lips tightened in a firm line. “Nothing specific. They knew he’d been through hardship, but what good would it have done to upset them?”

“It might have helped them to understand him.”

“Eugene would have hated the pity. He was old world, the man of the house. One endured one’s own burdens.”

And you endured them for everyone, he thought. “Do you have a picture of him when he was young? A wedding picture or…?”

She stiffened at the abrupt change of direction. “Why do you want that?”

“I’d like to borrow it for a few days,” he replied vaguely. He was hoping to show it to any Ozorkow survivors Naomi Wyman managed to unearth for him.

He could sense from her frown that she was not satisfied, but she tried a more oblique approach. “Frankly, I can’t see how all this ancient history has anything to do with his death. All it does is stir up pain.”

He could have soothed her with some vague platitudes, but he was getting tired of family secrets. Perhaps it was time to cast a lure and see what he caught.

“I’m a stickler for the whole picture, Mrs. Walker. Did you know, for instance, that the man Eugene brawled with twenty years ago was from Ozorkow, too?”

For an instant, he thought she froze before she pulled the veil firmly down on her emotions.

“No,” she replied. But he didn’t believe her.

Eight

March 4th, 1941

Lodz. City of legend, of vice and opportunity.

Wide-eyed, we feast on its cobbled streets, grand balconies,
shop windows overflowing with wares.

Furs and bright fashions fill the streets.

She smiles at me. Resettlement, the Germans called it.

Maybe even a small apartment, a bed and stove.

The truck lumbers on
deeper into the city, into grime and crumbling stone.

Faces in the street follow us, toothless and bleak.

Ahead, barbed wire and a massive gate,
Policemen everywhere.

Papers, stamps, permits, questions, lines.

More lines.

Just say you have a trade, whispers a beggar at my side.

Metal worker or bootmaker are the best.

So the poet becomes a tinsmith.

Monday morning dawned
blustery and grey, with a northeast wind that whipped the snow across the fields, iced the roads and snarled the traffic on the way into town. Green spent over an hour fuming in bumper to bumper gridlock and missed the early morning meeting he’d scheduled with Sullivan. He’d spent an hour on the phone with Sullivan the evening before, going over questions to ask the mysterious Mr. G. in Hamilton, but a few more had popped into his head over the course of his half-sleepless night.

This ridiculous commute won’t work, he thought as he finally pulled into the station. I’m in charge of Major Crimes, I can’t be an hour away from command central when a crisis strikes. He had a dreary committee meeting scheduled for most of the morning, and he didn’t dare stretch Jules’ magnanimity by skipping it. But he had a list of tasks he needed to address before he went to the meeting, and very little time in which to address them. Now that the case was officially a homicide investigation, courtesy dictated that he at least let the Major Crimes staff sergeant know that it was on the books.

When he reached the second floor, he found Sullivan already gone to the airport and Detective Gibbs hovering outside his door. The tall, lanky young officer was all spit and polish in his new grey suit, and he brightened like an eager puppy at the sight of Green.

“Oh, Gibbs, I’ve got a job for you.” Green opened his office and strode around his desk.

Gibbs followed him in. “Yes, sir? I’ve got the forensic reports Sergeant Sullivan asked me to get, and he said to give them to you right away. He said it’s a whole new ball game.”

Green looked up from his drawer. “What did he mean—a whole new ball game?”

“He didn’t say, sir. Just that you’d know what he meant.”

Green sighed. Sullivan and his riddles again. He’d be laughing all the way to Hamilton as he pictured Green’s face. “Tell me what you’ve got,” he said.

Gibbs perched on the edge of the visitor’s chair, his back rigid at attention as he rifled through his notebook. He cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“First the RCMP lab. They identified the tire tread from the Walker laneway. Umm—it’s a motomaster SR175 all-season radial made by Canadian Tire. They said you’d be thrilled.”

Green knew next to nothing about cars and cared even less, his view being that a car was a box that got you from point A to point B. Preferably without breaking down. “Why?” he asked.

“It’s probably the most common tire on the road, sir. But the lab said there’s about fifty Ks wear on it, and there are enough accidentals on the tread that they should be able to give us a positive ID on the vehicle if we bring it in.”

“Which doesn’t help us find it. Did they make a guess at the type of vehicle? Big or small?”

“Judging from the wheel span, a subcompact. And they said Canadian Tire is a replacement tire, so they guess there’s a hundred and fifty thousand kilometres on the car, give or take. That makes it likely five years old or more. On probability.”

Green checked his notes of the Renfrew visit. The old woman on the neighbouring farm had described the car she’d seen as black and flat-roofed. “That means we’re probably looking for a not-so-new black subcompact hatchback.”

“Yes, sir, do you want me to start looking—”

“No, I need you working on the black tool box. Did you look into it?”

“Oh yes, sir.” Gibbs sat up straighter, if that was possible, and flipped back through his notebook, in which Green caught a glimpse of meticulous rows of tiny script. “I checked the antique dealers in the city, and I also called the Canadian Antique Dealers Association. No one really knows about European tools, but they gave me the name of a dealer near Toronto who specializes in collectible tools and locks. Do you want me to call him?”

Green shook his head sharply. “Take it to him.”

Gibbs blinked. “What, sir?”

“If you hurry, you can just catch the plane Sergeant Sullivan is on. I want you to ask the dealer about the keys. I’m not interested in the tools, just the keys. Who made them, when, and for what purpose.”

Gibbs was gaping at him. As a detective, Gibbs was meticulous and thorough, perhaps to a fault, but he didn’t handle curve balls well. Green stood up to herd him towards the door.

“But sir, I have the fingerprint report from Sergeant Paquette as well. The one Sullivan says makes a whole new ball game.”

“I’ll get it from Lou myself.”

“But I—I—what about travel authorization, sir?”

“I’ll phone the airport and buy your ticket myself. Just go. The box is in Property.”

Green was still grinning when the flustered young detective disappeared into the elevator, trailing his parka behind him, but the grin had faded considerably by the time he’d wrestled with airline red tape and managed to book the flight. He glanced at his watch, swore and scanned the squad room impatiently. Two detectives were just strolling to their desks with fresh cups of coffee in their hands. Green knew they were just tying up loose ends on a big file they’d worked, which meant they were free for the picking.

“Watts, Leblanc! I want you to check the make and colour of the cars belonging to the relatives and friends of Eugene Walker.” Seeing their blank faces over the rims of their coffee cups, he snapped his fingers impatiently. “The stiff in the Civic parking lot Wednesday. I’m looking for a dark subcompact hatchback. When you find it, match it to the tread the lab has.” He held up his hand to forestall their bewildered protest. “I’ll explain later. Just check family members, neighbours, whatever. Start with the Reids.”

Afterwards Green went down the hall and found Sergeant Lou Paquette in his fingerprint lab, shrugging on his parka. He looked bleary-eyed and grim, and when he saw Green he groaned.

“I gotta go out on a call, Mike. Didn’t Bob Gibbs give you my report?”

“No time. I figured I’d get it from the horse’s mouth.”

The Ident man sighed and sat down again. “I don’t know why I keep doing this for you. I must be crazy. I tell you, if I’d had any place to go on the weekend, you wouldn’t have seen me for dust.”

“What have you got for me?”

Lou Paquette gave him a long stare, then shook his head. “You never were a guy to waste words on thank yous. I’ve got a suspect for you, if that’s what you mean. Don Reid. Boy, was he pissed off when I showed up to take his prints Sunday. Said he was going to call the commissioner, the mayor, his MP. Anyway, his prints were all over the investment bonds. All over the booze in the basement too, but I don’t see how that makes him a murderer.”

“Anyone else’s prints on the booze?”

“Yeah, the stiff ’s and his wife’s. Plus an unidentifiable. But every liquor store clerk from here to Seagram’s could have touched those things.”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Don Reid did.” Green swung around, pausing in the doorway to grin. “Thanks, Lou. Go out to your call. And then maybe try your bed.”

Just as he was leaving Paquette’s room, he heard his name being paged. When he glanced at his watch, he saw that he was fifteen minutes late for his committee meeting. Fuck, he thought, Jules sure was giving him no margin for error this morning. Obediently, he ducked into the stairwell and descended to the first floor, where he joined the cross-section of officers on the Building Planning Committee, which was at that moment planning the new Far East station. Green had tried to wiggle out of it, citing the exigencies of his job as well as his complete lack of qualifications for designing buildings, but Jules had been adamant. They needed an inspector, and his number had come up.

But as the discussion of toilets droned around him, Green found himself drifting back to the case. Sullivan should soon be arriving at Gryszkiewicz’s Hamilton house. What would he learn there? Where did Mr. G. fit into the saga of concentration camps and stolen identities? And what would Gibbs learn about the keys? Mass produced during World War Two for storage depots or the like, Mr. Fine had said. “Or the like…” Like what? In the story of the three old men, there might be enough intrigue and hatred and secrecy to last a lifetime.