None So Blind (26 page)

For Sullivan, it was a process about as exciting as watching paint dry, and he was beginning to think he could make better use of his time when Paquette straightened up, slowly as if his back were killing him, and shouted out to him.

“This looks interesting!”

Sullivan approached to peer down into the hole. Paquette gestured to a portion of the basement wall crudely finished with plywood panelling that was now peeling away in jagged, charred chunks. Near the base, Paquette had pried loose a square of panelling that the fire had barely touched.

“Looks like this piece was cut out of the wall some time ago.” He poked at the debris inside the cavity. “And there’s something inside this hole. Get the camera, will you, Shooter?”

After his partner had taken numerous photos and samples of the material in the hole, Paquette reached inside and as carefully as if he were handling an explosive device, he extracted a small metal toolbox. It looked antique and untouched by the fire, but all distinguishing markings had been obliterated by rust and water stains.

Shooter took more photos. After failing to loosen the rusty latch, Paquette shoved a screwdriver under the lid and pried it open. When Sullivan jumped down into the basement, he didn’t say a word of protest. A dozen firefighters and graduate anthropology students had already messed up the scene beyond hope.

Up close, a dank smell arose from the box, but the interior was surprisingly dry. They all peered inside. At first the contents were unrecognizable — clumps of stained material, shredded and partially decomposed.

“Clothing of some kind?” Sullivan asked.

Paquette nodded and moved it gingerly with the tip of his stylus. “The lab might be able to do something. There’s a zipper here, and what looks like a button. And this looks like a belt buckle.” He slipped his stylus through it and held it up to be photographed. It was thick and square. Sullivan sucked in his breath. He’d seen that shape before, in a close-up photo of Jackie Carmichael’s neck.

So the mystery ligature had been secreted away in the basement of her home all these years. A mere three feet from where the latest victim had been found. Sullivan felt a heady rush of triumph as he reached for his phone to call Green. At that moment, there was a shout from up above and the log-in constable guarding the crime scene peered down.

“Sir, dispatch just reported a 911 call from 3629 Trim Road, right here in Navan. We’re closest, so should I respond?”

Sullivan’s mind raced. The address rang a bell; he’d seen it just that morning in a report.

“What’s the nature of the call?” he asked.

“Unclear, sir, They were cut off, but the woman demanded police and ambulance. Sounded serious.”

Belatedly the memory clicked into focus. That was Laura Quinn’s address, where Marilyn Carmichael was staying.

“Go!” He swung on Paquette. “Can you and Shooter hold the fort here till backup arrives?”

Without waiting for an answer, he was out of the basement and on the run to his own vehicle, yanking off his protective clothing as he ran. Up ahead, the young uniformed constable was already peeling down the road, roof lights flashing.

Laura Quinn’s house was on a quiet block of old houses with huge lots. Thick flowering lilacs and tall spruce screened both the house and laneway from the houses on either side. The young constable was stationed behind his cruiser reporting on his radio by the time Sullivan slewed into the lane behind him.

Sullivan took in the surroundings at a glance. The old-fashioned two-storey house looked well maintained by someone with a craftsy bent and a very green thumb. The laneway was empty and the house looked quiet, but the front door gaped open. At his feet, however, were three very large dollops of blood. Further up, another. His eyes traced the trail of spatter up toward the porch. Crouching over and careful to sidestep the blood, he hurried up to join the constable, who looked tense but focused.

“Dispatch is getting no answer at the number, sir,” he whispered. “Phone’s off the hook.”

“Have you tried calling into the house?”

“Yes, sir. No response. No sign of movement through the windows either.”

Through the main floor window, Sullivan could see the type of lacy white curtains well loved by farm families throughout the valley. They dressed up a modest house but let the light in. These ones were embroidered with birds.

“Backup on the way?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Five minutes out.”

“That’s time to bleed to death,” Sullivan replied. “We’re going in.”

As he walked up the lawn to the front porch, he rested his hand on his Glock. More blood and a bloody handprint on the open door. There was still no movement or sound from inside. Signalling to the constable to follow suit, he drew his Glock and shielded himself behind the wall. “Police!” he shouted through the open door. “We’re coming in!”

No answer. Not even a whisper. Even the birds in the trees seemed still. The hair rose on the back of his neck. A bloody domestic scene was one of the most dangerous situations an officer could face. If there was an assailant inside, he was waiting in silent ambush. But if someone was injured, they needed help immediately.

Using hand signals, Sullivan led the rush through the front door and pressed himself into the corner of the hall. Intent but quivering, the constable took the other corner. In rapid, soundless tandem, they made their way forward, keeping a wall at their back and checking each room as they moved down the hall. The living room was empty, but a lamp lay shattered and bloodstains marred the creamy carpet. Sullivan followed the blood down the hall, crunching on a broken plate and rounding the corner to the kitchen, where a phone receiver had left a streak of blood across the linoleum before coming to rest under the country pine–table.

From the corner of the kitchen, Sullivan sized up the situation. The room was empty, the back door closed. Broken figurines littered the tiles, and behind the counter, collapsed in a smear of blood down the wall, lay the body of a woman. Ducking low, Sullivan rushed over to check on her, leaving the constable to check the back door and to radio dispatch. In the distance came the wail of sirens.

Sullivan knelt at her side. A brutal wound gaped at her throat. She was deathly pale, and her orange hair ran dark red with blood, but as he groped through the blood for a pulse, he mentally ran through photos on the incident room wall. Not Marilyn Carmichael or her daughter Julia. Possibly the poor friend who had taken them both into her home.

Beneath his fingers, finally, he felt a faint flutter of life.

B
y
the time Green made it down the stairs, even two at a time, the new arrival was in the interview room. Sue Peters was down the hall in the control room, helping to verify the recording equipment, but she abandoned the task to follow him into the interview room. The man stopped pacing and swung around in alarm. He looked as if he had endured a month of nightmares that had carved deep circles under his eyes and robbed him of ten pounds. Despite the passage of twenty years, Green would have recognized him anywhere.

“Erik Lazlo,” he said. He held out his hand, which Lazlo stared at in disbelief.

“It’s you!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, it’s me. Have a seat, Erik.”

“You’re in charge of this case? Holy fuck!” Lazlo fell into the chair. Green positioned his own chair directly opposite, blocking Lazlo’s exit and pinning him against the wall. At this distance, he could smell the stench of the man’s stale cigarettes and unwashed clothes.

“Yes, I’m in charge. We have a nationwide alert on you, Erik. You’ve been hiding.”

“It’s all over the news,” Lazlo said. “About the fire, I mean. Is it true they found a body?”

Green said nothing but his expression must have given him away. “Holy fuck!” Lazlo said again.

“Where have you been? Your wife hasn’t heard from you in a week.”

Green sensed Sue Peters eyeing him curiously, probably wondering why he was taking such a confrontational approach. His mantra had always been, when a witness comes in to tell their story, let them tell it. But he knew Lazlo and he wanted to make sure the man felt vulnerable.

“I travel a lot for my work.”

“No bullshit, Erik. You disabled your GPS, you didn’t call your kids, you holed up in a motel in Pembroke. You’ve been hiding. From us?”

“From you? No, no.”

“Rosten is dead. What a coincidence you went missing the morning after he died.”

“I heard that on the news too.”

“He called you ten days before he died. A few days later, you called the Carmichael house. Now it’s burned to the ground, someone — probably Gordon — is dead, and you’ve been on the lam.”

Lazlo stared at him in shock, his moist lips slack and his once-handsome dimpled chin quivering. “You’re twisting this all around! You’ve decided I’m guilty, just like you did Rosten all those years ago, and you’re not listening to a fucking word I’m saying!”

Green allowed a faint smile as he sat back in his chair, giving Lazlo a little more room to breathe. “Then tell me.”

“I know!” Lazlo shut his eyes and took a deep breath. His jowls trembled. “I think I know who burned down the house, and why. And who killed Rosten too.”

Voices could be heard whispering outside the interview door. Green leaned in, trying not to lose the moment. “Who?”

“Julia.”

“Julia.” Green held his gaze, masking his own astonishment as he processed the idea. Seductive, needy, changeable Julia? “You think Julia killed her own brother. And burned her house down. And killed Rosten.”

“And she killed Jackie too!”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she’s a psycho! Rosten thought so too; that’s what he called me about. He knew I’d gone out with her eons ago, and I was pretty tight with the family. He wanted to know what she was like and why I broke up with her.”

Green felt a chill sweep over him. “And what did you tell him?”

“That she was way too possessive. She’s all sweet on the outside but don’t cross her. She used to go ballistic if I even looked at another girl. Sometimes she’d wait a whole month but she’d find a way to get even. Little things, so no one else would know it was her, but I knew.”

“What kind of things?”

“Once a girl in our class got some pretty earrings from her parents for her sweet sixteen. All I did was tell her they looked nice, and suddenly they disappeared from her locker. A few days later a photo of them smashed into pieces turned up in her backpack.”

“Sounds like twisted teenage stuff.”

Lazlo raised his haunted eyes. “It was her biggest thrill. Next to — she liked her sex rough. Rough for the guy, that is, not for her.” He broke off, shifting in his seat. “I was young and inexperienced. I didn’t realize how twisted it was.”

More whispering. New voices, among them Levesque. Green swore silently as he tried to keep focused. “Why didn’t you tell police about any of this at the time?”

“Because she was never really violent, you know? Calculating, cruel even, but I never thought — I mean, it was her own sister! Besides, I thought she’d gotten over our breakup. She seemed cool with me and Jackie starting to date. At least …” He grew quiet. Stared at his shaking hands. “She said she was cool with it.”

“What was Rosten’s reaction when you told him all this?”

“He was pretty quiet. He said it was very interesting and he was going to be at his cottage for a few days to sort all this out.”

“Did he say he was going to contact Julia?”

“No. But when I heard he was dead, I freaked out. I phoned Gordon to ask if Julia had talked to Rosten. He didn’t think so because Julia wasn’t in town yet. But I was afraid somehow she’d gotten to Rosten anyway. I was scared I’d be next.”

Green was already on his feet. Julia needed to be stopped. If Lazlo was telling the truth, she was teetering on the brink of total destruction. Nothing and no one in her path was safe. After a quick word to Peters, he headed out of the interview room.

He found the squad room swirling with excitement and Levesque on the phone. Her eyes lit at the sight of him.

“Sir, Staff Sergeant Sullivan is on the line and he says it’s urgent. There’s been another development.”

“I’ve got the NCO out here with me, organizing a search and a street canvas,” Sullivan said, once he’d filled Green in on the attack. “What can you tell us about this situation?”

Green was already signalling to Levesque to boot up a large-screen computer in the squad room. “No one else in the house?”

“No, but it’s like a war zone here. Looks like someone else may be hurt. They got in a car.”

Green’s heart sank. “She’s taken her mother. They were both staying there.”

“Who?”

“Julia.”

“What’s she likely to do to her?”

“Kill her,” Green said without hesitation.

“Jesus.” Sullivan paused. “I’ve got you on speaker here, Mike. What are we dealing with? An EDP? Is the public at risk?”

“Absolutely. This is an extremely dangerous woman.”

“Can you give us descriptions? And make of vehicle?”

Green had been watching Levesque click through links on the computer. “Pull up Navan on the sat map!” he told her before turning his attention back to Sullivan. “Julia Carmichael is a white female, about forty-five, short blonde hair …” He paused to picture her. “About 125 pounds, athletic build. Driving a white, late-model Hyundai Accent. You can get the plate from Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Wait a minute, are there any vehicles in the laneway?”

“Negative.”

Green took rapid stock of the possibilities. Three small details stood out. First, given the chance, Julia would have killed her mother on the spot. Secondly, there was the trail of blood from the crime scene to the driveway. Thirdly, both vehicles — Julia’s and Laura’s — were gone from the drive. Green clung to the faint hope that Marilyn was still alive.

“I think Julia’s chasing her, Brian.”

“What’s the other vehicle?”

“An old black Chevy pickup.”

“Got it.” After some mumbling in the background, Sullivan came back on the line. “The sergeant is passing that info on to the Comm Centre. We’re looking at the sat view here, Mike.”

“Me too.” Green bent over to squint at the computer screen, tracing the network of roads emanating from the scene of the crime. Cars could be seen beetling back and forth along them, turning this way and that like an army of ants on the move. “There are several country roads, most paved but some not. Traffic will be light on them, unless she’s travelling north toward Orleans or south toward the expressway to Montreal. Sergeant, can you station units at both access points?”

A woman’s voice echoed over the speakerphone, crisp and focused. “Already in process. Any idea where she’s likely to go?”

“My guess is Orleans,” Green replied. “Easier to lose a pursuer in the maze of suburban streets than on the wide-open highway to Montreal. And there’s a greater chance of encountering help. But that assumes she’s thinking rationally. She’s just seen her daughter slit her friend’s throat.” He broke off as a memory struck him. “Oh fuck! Brian, there’s a handgun in the residence.”

“
What?
What kind?”

“A .38 snubbie. It was in a metal box in …” Green tried to concentrate through his rattled nerves. Jesus, why hadn’t he insisted Laura secure it when he saw it? “Middle shelf of the kitchen pantry.”

He heard clattering through cupboards, Sullivan’s voice low and tense over the phone. “Box is open and empty. Was the gun loaded?”

“We have to assume it is,” Green replied. “Sergeant, update the Comm Centre that the pursuing suspect should be considered armed and dangerous. And get a zone alert out to the OPP in case she heads for the city limits.”

More banging and talking in the background. The clipped tone of orders. Trying to screen it out, Green stared at the map with its dozens of rush-hour cars buzzing along the roads around Navan. All driving too fast, all seemingly in pursuit.

Sullivan came back on the line. “We’re just had a report from a neighbour about a black pickup driving like a bat out of hell out of town.”

“No white car in pursuit?”

“Nope. But we’ve got uniforms out canvassing.”

“What direction was it driving?”

“East along Colonial.”

Green located the road, which headed east out of town but not toward either Orleans or the Montreal highway. Instead, it went further into the country, where there was nothing but back roads, farms, and bush. After thanking Sullivan, he hung up and continued to stare at the map. She had a small head start, but that old Chevy pickup would be no match for a nimble sub-compact, especially on the open road, even if Marilyn had the nerves of steel to push it to its limits.

Where are you, Marilyn? What’s going through your mind? Are you panicked, horrified, or outraged?

She might be injured as well, he realized, and running out of time. In which case, what would she do? Try to get help? Or try to find someplace safe to hide and treat her wounds?

On impulse, he headed back to the interview room where he had left Lazlo. The man jumped to his feet, eyes wide as Green snapped his fingers at him. “Julia’s on the run in Navan, Erik. Where might she or her mother go?”

Lazlo stared at him blankly.

“Think, Erik! You know the area. Somewhere private and off the beaten track.” He pressed the point. “Are there any places close to Navan but isolated? A favourite place of the family, maybe?”

Lazlo whipped his head back and forth. “I don’t know! It’s years since I’ve been out there! It’s all ploughed under by developers. I mean, we used to have our favourite places as kids. An old watering hole in the creek, a hilltop with a fire pit. But —”

Green hustled him down the hall into the squad room. “Show us!”

By this time, a small ring of detectives had congregated around the computer, watching the drama on the screen. Lazlo stood in silence a moment in front of the satellite map, trying to get his bearings. Green pointed out the Carmichael bungalow and Colonial Road, and circled the area to the east. Much of it was checkered with farm fields, interspersed with dark clumps of forest. Slowly Lazlo began to trace his finger along the roads, as if feeling his way back in time.

He tracked a creek, his finger hovering over a bend near a narrow track. “Here. We used to fish here. Swim. Make out.”

“Did you go there with Julia?”

“Yes. And Jackie.”

Green called Sullivan back. “Anything from the field?”

“Negative. So far no sightings on either of the expressways. But Dispatch just had a call about a couple of vehicles driving much too fast on County Road 8. The sergeant is sending a unit out there.”

Green found County Road 8 on satellite. It ran east-west, not far from Lazlo’s swimming hole. “Okay,” he said to Sullivan. “I may have a lead. Try this location.”

As he read out the coordinates over the phone, he watched Lazlo run his finger down another road. A dead end leading nowhere but scrub. Lazlo tapped the screen.

“And this too! This is the hill with the old fire pit and fort.”

Green squinted. He could just make out a clearing in thick trees. “Zoom in,” he told Levesque. As the scene enlarged, he could distinguish an odd-looking smudge of grey and black that sat in the middle of the clearing. It was partially obscured by leaf cover, but the shape stirred a faint memory. He pointed with his finger. “What’s this?”

“That’s the stone foundation from an old homestead on the hill. We used to imagine it was a fort to defend against the Iroquois.”

A fort
, Green thought.
Like a last stand against impossible odds
. “Do you think Julia’s mother knew about it?”

“Oh yeah, she did a painting of it once.”

The memory fell into place. Marilyn Carmichael’s vibrant painting depicting an old stone chimney against a sunny backdrop of daisies and clover. Once proudly displayed over the mantle, but later relegated to a dark hall corner of the bungalow.

Sullivan’s voice crackled through the phone line again. “Mike? The sergeant just got a call from her inspector. He’s lining up a helicopter and the Tac team.”

Green fed him the new coordinates. “Tell him this location is a priority! If Marilyn’s wounded and losing strength, she may be trying to hole up.”
Or else she’s making one last stand
, he thought. “Don’t forget there’s a gun!”

“That’s why the Tac team. Things are really heating up here, Mike, so I’m going to sign off. If you come up with anything else —”

After Green hung up, excited conversations broke out in the squad room as the detectives continued to gather. Filtering out the noise, and his own fears, Green stared at the map. After all Marilyn had endured, to die this way, alone and cornered by her own daughter, was beyond thinking about. The countryside was so huge and the tree cover so dense that, even with half a dozen cruisers crisscrossing the roads and helicopters overhead, two lone women might be impossible to find.