Mist Walker Read online

Green tried again. “And you did this with Mr. Fraser?”

  “Several times a week, like clockwork. Routines are good for agoraphobics, because they help us get mentally ready. With Matt, it began by accident.” She blushed. “Well, not quite by accident on my part. I discovered he took his dog for a walk every morning really early, before most people are up. Usually he’d walk down by the Lemieux Island Bridge, where he’d found a deserted little beach. Modo liked to retrieve from the water, and Matt would sit on the beach tossing sticks in the river.”

  “Modo?”

  “Quasimodo, his dog.”

  In spite of himself, Green smiled. The story was beginning to take on colour. “The man has a warped literary sense of humour. Either that or an ugly dog.”

  “An ugly dog.” A smile softened her tense features briefly. “I began joining him in the mornings, and soon I persuaded him to walk at Dow’s Lake too, where there are a lot more people around.”

  “Did your relationship progress beyond walks?”

  She shook her head, turning blotchy again. Not for want of desire on her part, he thought. “We’re just friends,” she murmured. “He’s a lonely man.”

  “Can you give me a physical description of him? Age, height, weight?”

  “I told the other officer I thought mid-thirties, five-ten. Sort of medium everything. Longish brown hair that looks like he cut it himself at the bathroom sink.”

  “Good looking man?”

  Green’s skepticism must have shown, for she stiffened. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Perhaps there are other women friends?”

  She shook her head emphatically.

  “Other friends, period?”

  “You’re missing the point! Matt is a social recluse! There are no friends.”

  “What about family?”

  “No family that didn’t cut him off years ago.”

  “Why?”

  Her anger deflated. “I’d rather... I’m not sure.”

  He felt a tweak of curiosity. Secrets drew him like magnets. “I can’t help if you don’t tell me everything you know.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just I don’t know what was real and what ghosts were just in his imagination.”

  Ghosts. Oy veh, he thought and hastened to steer her back toward reality. “So what leads you to believe something has happened to him?”

  “First, he missed the group, and then he didn’t show up for our walk.”

  “What day was that?”

  “Last Wednesday.”

  “So he’s been missing six days. Did you call him or check his work?”

  “Well, I don’t know if he works, and I didn’t—at least he never told me where he lived.”

  Green sat back, his skepticism even stronger. He felt he was going in circles, wasting precious time. “So he never told you where he works or even where he lives. Sounds like a man who likes to keep people at a distance. Maybe he just doesn’t want to see you as often.”

  “No, Inspector, it’s more than that. I went to his place today—”

  “I thought you didn’t know where he lived.”

  The blotches on her face deepened, but she drew herself up, salvaging her dignity. “I followed him once, but that’s irrelevant. The apartment stank. There was half-eaten food rotting in the kitchen where he left it.”

  “Any signs of a struggle? Things broken or out of place?”

  “No. It was very cluttered, but—”

  “Maybe he’s just a slob. A single man, living alone—”

  “He left his dog shut up in his bedroom to die, without food or water. Matt would never do that.”

  “He could have forgotten, had an emergency out of town—”

  “Oh, you’re as thick-headed a twit as the first man!” She clutched her head in her hands in exasperation, then her eye caught the photo on Green’s desk. She stopped in midexclamation and stared at it. “That’s Sharon Levy.”

  Before he could stop her, she had picked up the photo, which depicted Sharon cradling their baby son in the park. “Sharon Levy’s your wife?”

  Green removed the photo firmly and laid it face down on his desk. “Ms. Tanner—”

  “I knew her slightly, from the hospital. And that’s your little boy? Oh, I feel better. Sharon is such a sensible, understanding woman that you must have something going for you.”

  In spite of himself, Green almost laughed. Thanks for the compliment, he thought, although at times he wondered how true it was. Twenty-two years on the force, fifteen of them in criminal investigations, had left him with a pretty battered soul, and sometimes, in the face of suffering, he had to dig very deep to find compassion and hope.

  Belatedly, Janice Tanner seemed to hear herself, for she blushed. “Matt’s a good man, Inspector. Yes, you’re right, he does keep people at arms’ length, but the one creature he loves without reservation is his dog. Matt’s very meticulous and orderly. He would never have left the apartment unlocked, the food half-eaten and the dog shut up.” She leaned forward, her bony elbows on the edge of his desk. “I’m not a detective, but I think someone came into his apartment, locked the dog in the bedroom to get her out of the way and took Matt away. Either kidnapped or killed him.”

  Green tried to keep a straight face. In the years shut up in her apartment, this woman had obviously watched too many soap operas. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but in the last while, Matt seemed to think there was someone out to get him.”

  Green’s eyes narrowed. “Who? And why?”

  “He never said. But I had the impression it was from a long time ago.”

  * * *

  After Janice Tanner left, Green remained at his desk, torn between the phone messages on his desk and the computer sitting idly in the corner. The story of Matt Fraser piqued his curiosity, not so much because the man had disappeared while leaving his dog behind, but because he had chosen a secret, reclusive life and there were hints of darkness in his past. Furthermore, the name had a familiar ring to it; Green was sure he’d encountered it before. Perhaps somewhere in the police records, there was information that might shed light on that past.

  Green knew he shouldn’t even be contemplating the search. He should be beating a hasty path home. It was nearly sixthirty; Sharon would have been home for two hours, fending off Tony’s demands and, in the stifling heat, trying to whip together something passable to feed them all. She was probably already sharpening her nails for the fight. Or more likely erecting the barricades for a week of the famous Levy silent treatment.

  The last time she’d left him, exactly a year ago, she’d almost not come back. He’d earned another chance with abject apologies and solemn promises to reform. Plus the purchase of a house in the suburbs, which had proved too sterile for his inner city soul. It was now up for sale while they renewed their search for their dream house. The quest was off to a rocky start, as evidenced by the phone messages accumulating on his desk from Mary Sullivan, their real estate agent. Mary would have given up on them long ago had she not been the wife of Green’s oldest friend on the force. Mary’s latest message, logged in at four o’clock that afternoon, promised she had finally found them the perfect house.

  Green debated his options. They had been searching for six months, but so far either he or Sharon had vetoed everything Mary had found. For him they had all been too far from town, too plastic, or too expensive. For Sharon they had all been too cramped, the street too busy, or the neighbourhood dubious. Sharon had flatly refused to look at another house until he became more reasonable, and hence Mary, herself a lover of antique dwellings, had taken to tipping him off at work so that he could check out possibilities without raising Sharon’s ire. In the mood Sharon was likely to be in tonight, it might not be wise to even mention the subject of houses. But on the other hand, if he checked out the house on his way home and it was as wonderful as Mary claimed, perhaps the news would be enough to distract Sharon from the late hour of his arrival, and make her
forget the silent treatment.

  It was worth a try. And it would also give him a few spare moments to run Fraser through the system.

  He activated the computer and phoned home while he waited for the internal police database to load up. Sharon answered on the first ring, sounding harried and out of breath. A bad sign. He tried for his cheeriest tone.

  “Hi, honey, I got a note from Mary, and I want to swing by an address she gave me, just in case. It’s probably nothing, but—”

  “Green, it’s six-thirty. I’m starving.”

  “I could pick up something from Nate’s Deli on my way home.” Nate’s was nowhere near his way home, but their succulent smoked meat might be enough to distract her.

  No such luck, he thought, as he heard her irritated sigh. “I’ve got supper. Hamburgers. On their way to being charred.”

  “Okay, well—” He stalled for time. The program had loaded, and he clicked buttons to access the search. “Just put mine in the fridge. I’ll check with Mary and be home in less than an hour.” Not that the commute home to the Dreaded Vinyl Cube ever took much less than an hour, except with the siren on.

  “Whatever.” She hung up.

  He entered Matt Fraser’s name, hit search and then returned to the phone. Judging from the background clatter, Mary was in the kitchen preparing dinner when he called, but like a good business woman, she dropped everything when a potential client was on the hook. Highland Park, she said as if to set the hook well. Highland Park was an old residential neighbourhood in Ottawa’s west end, a lattice of quiet streets lined with tall trees and houses with broad verandas and ivy covered brick. Highland Park was suburban quiet within walking distance of urban life. It was grace and character, and usually totally out of their price range.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Green wanted to know.

  Mary laughed. “Well, it’s had the same owners for over sixty years.”

  “Meaning it hasn’t been updated since before the war.”

  “But you can do so much with it. Brian’s all excited. He’s dying to help you fix it up.”

  Green didn’t doubt it. In all the years he’d known Brian Sullivan, the man had always been working on some home improvement scheme or another. He claimed it was his way of keeping sane in the mad world of Major Crimes in which he spent his days. By now there was probably nothing left to improve on his own home, so he was itching to start on Green’s.

  “Sharon’s going to hate it,” Green said. “Prehistoric plumbing. Tiny kitchen, fuses that blow all the time, closet space for a midget.”

  “Mike, just drive by for a look. You’ll love it.”

  “I probably will. But Sharon will hate it.”

  “Well,” Mary sounded undeterred, “the address is 62 Londonderry. In case.”

  “What are they asking?"

  When Mary told him, he had to suppress a surge of excitement. The price was manageable, even allowing for the astronomical cost of renovating. It was the first manageable price he’d encountered in his search for a house that wasn’t made out of plastic twenty-five kilometres out of the city. Did he really want to get himself all excited, get his hopes up that he had finally found a way out of the tangle of treeless suburban crescents he was condemned to? A quick drive by, that’s all he had to do, to see the crumbling heap of bricks that would dash his hopes as quickly as they’d been raised.

  The quick drive by would add less than ten minutes to his schedule, and he’d be home before Sharon even missed him. That resolved, Green turned back to the computer, which had generated a list of Matthew Frasers with police contacts in the city of Ottawa. One was clearly too old and two were too young, but three names remained. Green selected the first and frowned as the man’s lengthy record of police contacts scrolled up onto the screen. Mostly D and Ds and occasional contacts as witness or victim of assault. Likely a regular joe with a weakness for alcohol and some nasty drinking buddies. The second Matt Fraser had been an abusive and threatening husband whose circle of intimidation had extended not just to his wife but to her friends and family as well.

  That one was possible, although Green had never known a bully to turn phobic.

  The third Matthew Fraser was born in 1967, which made him thirty-six. Furthermore, his list of police contacts was very brief, hardly the stuff of a career criminal. A handful of charges but only one victim. One trial. One acquittal.

  For sexual assault, ten years earlier.

  Two

  Even before Green set foot in his hot, airless kitchen, he extended a silver gift bag through the archway and slipped it onto the kitchen table. Sharon was on her hands and knees beneath the high chair, rescuing Tony’s hamburger, and she peered up at him through damp locks of black hair. Her gaze was frosty. Propped in his high chair, the toddler wiggled with delight at the sight of his father and shouted to be picked up. Sharon’s frown dissolved into a smile as she pulled the gift bag towards her.

  “Offerings to the gods, Green?” She peeked inside, then extracted a tub of Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. Her smile widened. She rose, slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “The gods are pleased.”

  He lingered over the kiss, savouring the pressure of her soft, petite body against his. “Sorry I’m late.”

  She extricated herself to put the ice cream away while he scooped his son into his arms. “So what was Mary Sullivan’s latest catastrophe like, anyway?” she asked.

  He hesitated. How to describe the house he’d just seen, with its broad veranda, steeply pitched roof and trademark Ottawa red brick? How to capture its promise and keep Sharon’s mind open? Tony was squirming, Sharon was frazzled, and with the air conditioner on the blink, their new house was a sweltering 28˚C. Such a description was best left until after Tony’s bedtime, when Sharon had her feet up and a glass of wine in her hand.

  “Oh...interesting,” he replied as he set Tony down and cracked open an ice cold coke from the fridge.

  “Interesting good or interesting bad?”

  “Both. But we can talk about it later.”

  Tony had pulled open a bottom cupboard and was happily banging pots together. Ignoring the racket, Sharon snatched Green’s coke to take a long swig. “Both. That sounds ominous.”

  Green took another coke from the fridge and rolled the cold can across his brow. The sodden summer heat hung in the air, and although Sharon had opened the windows as far as she could, in the treeless pasture where they lived, the sun beat down all day, and the air barely stirred. He thought of the house he’d just seen in Highland Park, so overgrown with brush that it barely saw the light of day. What a welcome thought.

  “Not ominous. It just...needs work.”

  “Uh-oh.” She eyed him warily. “I sense slanting floors and a ventilated roof. Green, I’m not moving into a place with kerosene lamps and an outhouse.”

  “Oh, I think there’s electricity. Maybe a few other surprises—”

  “Green!” she protested, obviously too hot for humour. She dove to rescue a glass bowl from her son’s grasp. He began to shout, and barely missing a beat, she gave him a pot and wooden spoon. “God, Mary’s having a field day with you!”

  He laughed. “Speaking of surprises, someone who knows you came to my office today. Another reason I was late. A woman named Janice Tanner, a patient at Rideau Psychiatric.”

  Sharon looked blank, so he supplied another clue. “She’s in an agoraphobic therapy group.”

  “Oh, that’s Outpatients. But the name’s familiar.” Sharon took a deep swig of cola and closed her eyes gratefully. “Janice Tanner. About forty? Tall, thin, nervous-looking? Short, greying hair and glasses?”

  He shook his head and raised his voice over the banging spoon. “Tall and thin, yes, but she has red hair and no glasses.”

  “Then she’s fixed herself up somewhat since I knew her. I think she was an inpatient on my ward a couple of years ago, admitted because she was too terrified to leave her apartment, and she was slowly
starving to death.”

  “Could be her.”

  “I’d say she’s come a long way if she made it all the way to your office on her own. Either that or she’s desperate.”

  “A bit of both, I think. She was certainly persistent. Insisted one of the other phobic patients had met with some serious harm. Was she the type to overreact?”

  “A phobic overreact? Unheard of.” She sobered as she watched Tony, tiring of his spoon, run out into the hallway. “You put the gate up, eh? No, Janice was a shut-in, and she’d had very little contact with people for years. I remember nobody ever came to visit her in hospital. But she did have a good heart, and after she’d settled in, she took a couple of our more fragile schizs under her wing.”

  Not necessarily a good sign, Green thought, and voiced his misgivings. “Did she have a preference for fragile schizs? I mean, was she drawn to weirdos?”

  “Not weird for weird’s sake, but I think she felt more comfortable with people who needed her. Why? Who was the patient she’s worried about? Maybe I know her.”

  “Him. Matt Fraser.”

  Sharon’s eyebrows shot up. “A ‘him’? My, Janice really has made progress. I don’t know him, though.”

  “Who would know him at the hospital?”

  “The therapist who runs that group, and I have no idea who that is. And his treating psychiatrist.” She smiled slowly. “Mike, you didn’t promise her you’d look into it.”

  “No, I didn’t. You’d be proud of me, I didn’t promise a thing. Well... maybe that I’d check with the officer on the missing persons file. But the case has a curious feel. I don’t know what it is.”

  “The fabled Inspector Green intuition?”

  “Something like that. Could you maybe, subtly, ask around about this guy? Find out if he’s missed any appointments or left word about his plans?”

  She paused with her coke can to her lips. “Subtly?”

  “Okay, forget subtle. Find out who his therapist is. Find out what kind of guy this Matt Fraser is.”

  She raised one eyebrow slowly in silent rebuke that he would ask her to violate patient confidentiality. He raised his palms in a classic Yiddish shrug which said it was the furthest thing from his mind. Both of them dealt with confidential material all the time, and he knew no further words were necessary. She would make casual inquiries about Matt Fraser at the hospital, and if, in her judgment, anything suspicious or worrisome emerged, she would quietly pass it on to him.