Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (88 page)

The uniformed officer who’d discovered the body was waiting for them at the curb, trying to look professional, despite the unusual brightness of his eyes and the green cast to his skin. He seemed doubly flustered to be dealing with an inspector, and he flitted from word to word as he pointed down the slope past the stone house.

“My partner was keeping surveillance, sir, and I was working my way along the shore looking for the briefcase. There’s a fairly worn footpath along there, and at one point it dips down to this tiny beach. Really nothing more than a place for a couple of lovers, and there was some evidence of that, sir. So I stood on it to look around. Actually I was looking downstream towards the skyline. It’s amazing, you can see all the skyscrapers and the Supreme Court and the Peace Tower up on the bluff, hardly a kilometre away, and here’s this little piece of private paradise—”

“Officer,” Sullivan nudged.

“Sorry sir. That’s what I was thinking, and that’s when I saw this thing bobbing in the water about fifteen feet out. Well, not really bobbing, but big and puffy just under the surface. I thought it was a dead fish, but it was awful huge, so I stepped out in the water a ways, and that’s when I realized it was the body of a man.”

“Man? You’re sure?”

“Oh, no. I mean, you can’t tell what it was. It’s sort of green and red marble. That’s when I called my sergeant, and Sergeant Sullivan too, because it was his operation, and my partner and I secured the scene. The Ident team is down there now, taking videos. And the coroner’s there too.”

“Who’s the Ident in charge?”

“Sergeant Cunningham. He said not to let anyone near till he’s processed the scene.”

Green was familiar with Cunningham’s new obsession with scene contamination. He turned to Sullivan with a grimace. “A green and red floater. I’m not in a big hurry to have a look anyway.”

Sullivan chuckled. “Even the coroner’s probably reluctant to look at this one. Sounds like it’s been in the water a while. The good news is, it probably has nothing to do with our case.”

Green stood in the road looking around. Despite the constant stream of cars on the Parkway, the bridge itself would normally have very little traffic, since it led nowhere but to the water purification plant on Lemieux Island, which sat in the middle of the Ottawa River. The bridge and island were closed to public access after eight in the evening, so at night the entire area would be virtually deserted. Certainly much more deserted than any of the other brightly lit and overcrowded bridges in the city. It must have been this very solitude, mere minutes from his home and from the spectacular downtown skyline, that Fraser found so soothing.

Green’s eyes were drawn back to the stone structure at the water’s edge, which looked like the remains of an old stone homestead blackened by fire. It was surrounded by an eightfoot chain link fence, and shrubs flourished in its gutted core.

“What the hell is that?”

“The old Hintonburg pump house,” Sullivan said. “Remember the fire about ten or fifteen years ago?”

“And the city just left it there?” Green demanded incredulously, although he suspected that the heritage building’s fate was trussed up in a thousand miles of inter-governmental red tape which might paralyze the authorities for decades to come. His curiosity was piqued, for it looked as if the crumbling stone harboured dozens of crannies where a briefcase could be hidden. He turned back to the constable. “Did you search it?”

“Well, no sir.” The constable looked nervous. “It has barbed wire all around it.”

“As soon as Ident gives us the all clear, search it,” Green snapped. He began to stroll out onto the bridge, feeling the blaze of the evening sun on his face and the wind off the water in his hair. Soon the bridge reached open water, and the rush of the current filled his ears. He leaned over the edge, careful not to touch the railing, and stared down at the deep water which raced beneath him. His gaze followed the current as it roiled on downstream toward the bluff of Parliament Hill. Then he glanced towards the shore, which angled into a small bay where the coroner and the Ident team were clustered thigh deep in the water. Further downstream in the bay, he saw the flashing red of the Underwater Search and Recovery Unit van as it backed up close to the water. He imagined the men swarming out of the back and preparing their gear while they awaited the signal from the coroner and Ident. The diving suits, dinghies and nets would all be in readiness.

Green’s eyes tracked the path of the current from the bridge to the small bay. Most of the water flowed straight downstream, but at the edges of the current, small eddies became sidetracked and drifted lazily into the bay. His pulse quickened. It was theoretically possible for someone to jump off the bridge expecting the current to sweep his body far downstream and thus delay its discovery for weeks, only to have it drift into the bay and surface several days later exactly where the Ident team was standing. Could it possibly be Fraser? Had he come to his favourite refuge for solace, only to realize that his future was over? That with the murder of Billy Whelan he had crossed the line from victim to villain, and that all hope of redemption and restitution was lost?

Green carefully scanned the bridge railing. It was slightly rusty and worn with the scratches of normal wear and tear, but he could detect nothing suspicious to the naked eye. He called Cunningham on his radio. “Lyle, it’s Mike Green. I’m going to call another Ident team in to look at this bridge. It’s possible our floater jumped from here.”

To his surprise, the Ident officer gave him no argument, but sounded oddly excited as he signed off. A few minutes later, Green saw him leave the water and clamber up the slope to his van. Green and Sullivan walked back along the bridge to greet him.

“So what’s the word?” Green asked.

“It’s an adult male, but the body’s too bloated to make any ID or even to guess at the size till we get it into the autopsy room.”

“Any guess on how long it’s been there?”

“Well, it’s beginning to float, so it’s got to be at least a week, but not more than two. Not too much skeletonization yet, although the fishies have been nibbling.”

“So the coroner’s figuring one to two weeks?” Green felt relief. Whatever the tragic story of this body, it couldn’t be Fraser.

Cunningham grinned. “Dr. Lee took the call, because nobody figured it was a suspicious death. But you know how much he hates floaters. He hasn’t taken too close a look yet, and he’s handing the PM over to MacPhail tomorrow.”

“MacPhail?” The fact that the autopsy would be conducted by the forensic specialist rather than a regular pathologist meant something was amiss. “So you’re saying this might be a suspicious death?”

“Might be?” Cunningham laughed, obviously enjoying his role in the drama. “Judging from the shoes the guy’s wearing, I’d say so. Standard mob-issue cement.”

Green stared at him. “He’s wearing cement shoes?”

“Yeah. Nice new cinder block tied to his ankles. Although whoever did the job didn’t have enough experience to do it right. Didn’t know you need a hell of a lot more cement to keep a body under water once it starts to decompose. This guy’s been bouncing along, dragging his anchor about a foot off the ground.” He shook his head in mock disgust. “Christ, you just can’t get good help any more.” He held out a computer disk. “So he’s all yours, guys. And here’s a little photo album to get you started.”

“I think Cunningham’s been working in Ident too long,” Sullivan remarked drily as they watched Cunningham walk back down to the shore.

Green barely heard him as he tried to absorb the latest twist. The man had not jumped off the bridge, he’d been thrown! Right near the very spot where Fraser liked to hang out. But where the fuck did this body fit in the Fraser story? If at all.

“Get the guys in Criminal Intelligence to check into recent enforcer activity,” he said. “Especially any new kids on the block. This killer didn’t know how to throw a body off a bridge very well either. An all-round incompetent bad guy.”

As Green said the words, a picture came to mind of one of life’s losers, who couldn’t even make a success as a criminal, a Hell’s Angels wannabe who’d hung around on the periphery hoping to make an impression. And who had himself ended up dead barely a week later. Billy Whelan. Yet that didn’t make any sense! Why would Billy Whelan choose this particular spot to throw someone off? And equally to the point, why would he be killing anyone when he was rumoured to be trying to get out of the business so that he could move on to loftier dreams? There were probably a dozen other puppet club amateurs eager to prove their mettle to the kingpins from Montreal. Any one of them might have decided to bump off the competition. Perhaps they chose this location for the same reason Fraser loved it. Because of its seclusion.

Green watched absently as the young constable and his partner clipped the chain-link fence and began to search the stone house for the briefcase. Briefcases, dead bodies, favourite haunts... There were just too many damn coincidences.

“When the divers get the body out, I want to look at it,” he said suddenly.

Sullivan swung on him, cellphone already to his ear. His mirrored sunglasses revealed nothing but above them his brows shot up. “Why?”

“Because it’s one coincidence too many,” he replied briskly. He hoped he sounded more convincing than he felt, for after less than an hour on his feet, he was already exhausted, and he wasn’t at all sure he could manage the long night that lay ahead of them. Earlier, he’d had to lie through his teeth to Adam Jules about his health before Jules consented to his playing even a partial role in the recovery of this body, and he only hoped Jules would not show up to see for himself how Green was managing.

While Sullivan discussed the case with the Criminal Intelligence Unit, Green sat down on the curb and watched with weary curiosity as the two uniformed constables blundered around inside the shell of the old stone house. They emerged a few moments later, shaking their heads. Green frowned to himself. The house itself was too obvious. Fraser was an intelligent, methodical man. He would have approached the question of concealment logically. He would have looked for a place most people wouldn’t even know existed, a place where the briefcase would be protected from the rain and from the dampness of the earth. If the building had once been a pump house, presumably it had a cavity underground to house the pump and the pipes which ran from the river. This underground chamber might have remained untouched by the fire and would have had some means of access from either outside or inside the house. A hidden door, perhaps, or a hatch barely discernible on the floor.

Green scrambled down the embankment through the thick grass. Already the sun was sinking low in the western sky, shooting flames of colour across the river but plunging the stone ruins into deep shadow. He stepped through the hole in the chain link fence and began to pick his way through the tall grass and scrub that surrounded the walls. He could see that long ago the house must have been breathtaking. Built of rough-cut grey limestone, it perched on the shoreline with the remnants of its front porch facing directly down the river to the majestic Gothic spires of Parliament Hill.

First he inched his way around the exterior foundation, probing for signs of a hatch or a depression in the ground which might be stairs. Nothing. He stepped through the crumbling doorway into the interior, ducking under charred beams where the ceiling had fallen in and skirting the young trees that were taking root within. Perhaps I’m wrong, he thought. What do I know about pump houses?

He stood stock still in the centre and surveyed the interior inch by inch, using his policeman’s eye to detect the least sign of something that didn’t fit. Finally, almost lost in the deep shadows of the back wall, he saw something. A very faint line, like a path worn through the grass to a point near the wall. The grass was flattened. Not trampled by the young officers who had thrashed around in here, but eroded more subtly by repeated footsteps over time. Where the path reached the barbed wire fence, a small opening had been cut in the wire close to the ground.

Conscious of the rapidly failing light, he hurried over to inspect the base of the stone wall. The ground felt solid beneath his feet. No cellar or hidden chamber under there, he thought, but something about the stones in the wall looked odd. The joints were ragged and poorly aligned. He pushed a stone and felt it shift. He flinched, suddenly fearful that the entire wall and the remaining roof timbers would crash down on him. But nothing happened. He pushed again, and dislodged the stone enough to see there was a cavity behind. Probably at one time a storage bin of some kind.

Excited, he pulled harder until he yanked the entire stone out. Hoping there were no furry, sharp toothed creatures who would object to his intrusion, he pulled on nitrile gloves and slipped his hand cautiously into the hole to grope around. Almost immediately his fingers struck something soft and smooth. He explored its contours. Flat and square-edged, just like a briefcase!

Casting caution aside, he plunged both hands inside and struggled until he was able to lift the object up and draw it out through the hole. A battered, well-worn, brown leather briefcase, secured with a small lock.

Green carried it outside and scrambled up the hillside, his fatigue forgotten. Settling in the back seat of the Taurus, he broke open the case. As Bleustein had said, it was crammed with notes, clippings and articles, all meticulously highlighted in yellow and covered in scribbled notes. Pedophilia, incest, family systems theory, the pact of silence...all of which would take hours to sift through. In a separate pouch he found a sheaf of printed emails, most sent over the past two months between someone called “seeker” and the other “mistwalker”. He frowned in surprise. Had Fraser actually been communicating with Billy? He scanned the emails excitedly. The messages were cryptic and full of code words, but rather than containing threats and warnings, they suggested collusion on a secret quest.

Gf found...3 girls...JP 606...M can’t know!