Once Upon a Time Read online

  “Is it consistent with someone trying to strike him?

  The pathologist’s eyes twinkled. “More consistent with hitting his head against a hard object—probably the car mirror—as he was falling.”

  Curiosity outweighed his distaste. Bracing himself, Green nodded towards the morgue door. “Can I see him?”

  The morgue was a brightly lit room painted the same incongruous chartreuse as the door and filled with huge stainless steel receptacles. MacPhail had the consideration to pull a sheet over the body, but Green could tell from the contours of the sheet that the man had been big, probably once muscular. MacPhail had replaced the cranium expertly, but the face was mottled red and white. It was a large, beefy face topped by thinning strands of white-blonde hair. Glazed in death, the eyes were a pallid brown run through with red. Green focussed on the gash on his forehead.

  “Strange shape for a car mirror.”

  “Car mirrors come in all shapes. Laddie, trust me. This one is a natural causes.”

  Probably, Green acknowledged, but he’d seen enough blunt instrument traumas in his career to feel a twinge of doubt.

  * * *

  It wasn’t much to mark the passing of a life—a name, age, address and next of kin. Eugene Walker, eighty. Home was a rural route number in the rolling farmlands of the Ottawa Valley between Renfrew and Eganville, about a hundred kilometres west of Ottawa. But MacPhail’s notes indicated that until the funeral, his widow was staying at her daughter Margaret’s home here in the city.

  Even when he pulled up to Margaret Reid’s elegant westend home, Green wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for. Three cars stood in the double drive—an aging Dodge, a small hatchback and a shiny silver BMW. He extracted his police badge and held it in readiness, but even so, the look of surprise was blatant on the face of the man who answered the door. Green suppressed a smile. He never tired of that look, which reassured him that he was not growing staid and inspectorish. He was forty-one years old, but because of his light build, his youthful face, and the fine spray of freckles across his nose, he looked barely thirty. His baggy trousers and navy blue parka gave more the impression of a city postman than a high-ranking police investigator. Green had learned to cultivate this lack of physical presence. Like a good spy, it allowed him to move and observe unseen.

  Still, at times he would have appreciated a more authoritative bearing. As now, when grieving relatives needed someone to lean on, although the relative standing before him did not appear about to crumple into his arms. The man looked in his mid forties, dark-haired and probably handsome at one time, but now baggy-eyed and gone to seed. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, but that was his only concession to grief. He frowned as if Green were a pesky vacuum salesman interrupting his busy day.

  Green introduced himself briskly, apologized for the intrusion and asked to see Ruth Walker.

  “Is this really necessary, Inspector? She’s resting, and she already spoke to a police officer yesterday.”

  “Yes, Sergeant Sullivan. I’m just following up. Your name is?”

  “What’s this for? The old man had a heart attack, he’s dead. It was quick and painless. What else is there to know?”

  “Routine. Are you Donald Reid, his son-in-law?”

  “I don’t see why you need to know, but yes.” He blinked several times. When Green continued to stand in the doorway, he stepped back with a scowl.

  “Very well. Come in.”

  Mrs. Walker took about five minutes to come downstairs, and in the meantime Green absorbed impressions about the house. It was a quiet house, not just hushed in grief, but constrained. Everything had its place. The living room was furnished in expensive woods, testimony to the family’s material success. Colour-coordinated watercolours adorned the walls, and china figurines sat on the mahogany table tops. Not a room for children, Green thought, although he had glimpsed a flash of teenage boys in the kitchen as he passed by.

  When Mrs. Walker entered, she was leaning on a younger woman whom Green assumed to be her daughter. Dressed in red slacks and a red and white striped sweater, with not a strand of her cropped black hair out of place, Margaret Reid was the image of her living room. She perched emotionless on the edge of her chair.

  Her mother, on the other hand, wore an old beige cardigan and ill-fitting tweed skirt. Her hair billowed in a cloud of grey curls, and her face was blotched with tears. Green had expected a broad, heavy farmer’s face, but Mrs. Walker was delicately boned, with deep-set blue eyes and a finely pointed chin.

  “How do you do, Inspector? I’m Ruth Walker. How may I help you?”

  Green was not an authority on British accents, but he had watched enough Masterpiece Theatre productions to recognize this one as rich, precise and public school. The tilt of her head and the grace with which she extended her hand made him feel shabby. He drew out his notebook and summoned all the dignity his cheap parka permitted.

  “First of all, let me extend my condolences on the death of your husband. The way he died so unexpectedly must have been a shock.”

  She eased herself stiffly into a heavy velvet chair opposite him. Her blue eyes held his, but he thought they moistened.

  “Yes, it was. Although I suppose I ought to have seen it coming. I’ve known for some time he wasn’t well.”

  “In what way? Dizzy spells?”

  “Not exactly. More shortness of breath.”

  “Had he ever fallen before?”

  She hesitated, and in her instant of discomfiture, the surly son-in-law snorted. “Lots of times. He always had one bruise or another. It means nothing, detective.”

  Green kept his eyes on the widow. “Had he seen a doctor recently?”

  Ruth looked across the coffee table at him. Through the veil of grief, he saw a faint smile. “One didn’t take Eugene anywhere. If he chose to go, that was fine. But he didn’t choose to.”

  “Why?”

  “I expect because he didn’t want to hear the bad news. He was from the old country, Inspector. They’re rather more fatalistic than you are over here. When it’s time, it’s time. No use fighting it with pills and machines.”

  “Do you think he was depressed?”

  “No, not exactly depressed. I mean, he was ready to go. I think he had…” A spasm crossed her face but disappeared before he could analyze it. “…made his peace.”

  “Almost as if he were waiting for death?”

  Her eyes fixed his intently. “Exactly. It was always Eugene’s dream to retire to the country, and once he did, he rarely left the house. He spent most of his day in his chair, just looking out the window.”

  He smiled. “Dreaming about Trafalgar Square, probably. Or his favourite country pub.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Green saw Margaret open her mouth, but Ruth shot her a quick glance which silenced her. “Eugene liked to say that his life began when he came to Canada,” Ruth said. “All that happened before was best put behind us. He never talked about it.”

  It jarred with the picture Green had begun to paint. He thought of his own father, who also spent his days sitting in a chair, but who had his own reasons for not wanting to relive the past. Green wondered what Walker’s reasons were, and if Ruth’s glance at Margaret had been meant to silence her. “Odd,” he mused casually. “Most elderly people love to reminisce. Sometimes the old days are all they talk about, especially if, like your husband, they have little else they can do now but sit in a chair.”

  She didn’t rise to the bait. “Yes, a disheartening way for a strong, proud man to spend his last days.”

  There was a quiet finality to her words, as if she were closing the door. Respecting that, he moved on. “Can you run through what happened yesterday?

  At this point the surly son-in-law, who had subsided in the corner, re-entered the fray. “Inspector, I really don’t see the point in this. Ruth, you don’t need to put yourself through this.”

  “I don’t mind, Don. He has a job to do.”

  Gr
een admired her quiet dignity. With barely a quiver, she recounted the events of yesterday from their departure to her discovery of the body at one o’clock. Only when she described the sight of him did she falter, pressing her fingers to her lips. Green sensed Don beginning to rise, and he held up a warning hand.

  “Where was he in relation to the car?”

  “I’m not sure. He—” She broke off, her hands fluttering up to her face at the memory. “He…he was lying alongside the car, his head towards the front wheel, I think.”

  In perfect position beneath the side mirror, he thought. “Driver’s side?”

  “Oh, no, passenger’s side. Eugene hadn’t driven in years.”

  “I’d like to look at the car. Is it one of the cars outside?”

  “Yes, Don fetched it.” She turned. “Don, could you…?”

  Seeming relieved to be rid of him, Don led Green outside to the Dodge Aries. Despite its age, there was little rust, but mud coated its sides. Salt stains from the recent drive into the city formed an irregular splatter pattern over the mud, but there were no unusual marks on the passenger side of the car. Nor were there any protruding edges; even the door handles were recessed.

  But even more importantly, because it was such an old car, it had no mirror on the passenger side.

  Two

  September 2nd, 1939

  The sun is sinking, soon the village will stir.

  She curls in the nook of my arm,

  her hips soft against mine,

  And her skin like silk beneath my touch.

  Copper tassels of cornfield dance in the sunset

  And a breeze ripples the birches overhead.

  Far off I hear muffled thuds,

  catch a glint of silver in the sky.

  Then a plume of smoke, a second, a third.

  She lifts her head. “Our village?”

  No, what would they want with our village?

  “I don’t remember nothing about no fucking cars, man!

  That was the worst day of my life! I remember the body— fuck, I’ll never forget the body. Worst nightmare you could ever have, finding a stiff in your own lot. I was so freaked, I don’t remember nothing else.”

  Green’s small mid-morning break had now extended into his lunch hour, and he knew the clock was ticking on his freedom. He had traced the parking lot attendant to a small clapboard shanty on a narrow, crowded back street of Mechanicsville. The young man had called in sick to recover from the upset of yesterday, and he ushered Green into the dingy living room, kicking newspapers and clothes aside to make a passage. The sweet odour of marijuana clung in the air. He gave a nervous whinny.

  “It’s my brother’s place. I’m just staying here till I can get my own.”

  It took some coaxing, and a small shot of the whiskey Green found on the counter, to get Chad Leroux to retrieve his scattered memories. The young man rocked back and forth on the couch, smoking incessantly and talking in staccato bursts.

  “I was checking a couple of cars. Out, like. It was fucking cold, booth’s got no heater. Had my hood on my parka up, so I couldn’t see shit. This guy in the car—he pointed out the old lady to me.”

  “Was the lot busy?”

  Chad shook his head vigorously. “Most days noon is really busy, but nobody was going out that didn’t have to. ’Cause of the storm, you know? The lot was plowed, but it was still tricky.”

  “Was it slippery?”

  “Was it ever! And you never knew where, with the snow on top. I saw one poor old guy with a cane go right down on his ass earlier.”

  One more point for MacPhail’s theory, Green thought ruefully as he invited Chad to continue.

  “That’s all! The guy in the car says ‘Something’s wrong with that lady over there’. I turn around, I see her way down near the end of the lot, waving her arms all about and screaming ‘my husband, my husband’, and—” Chad broke off, sucking in cigarette smoke to ward off the panic. “Fuck, I never did like bodies.”

  “No one does,” Green muttered drily. “Were there other cars near hers? Can you describe them?”

  Chad rolled his eyes and blew smoke out his nose. “Who the fuck noticed!”

  Green leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Chad’s. “It’s important. Concentrate! Picture yourself back there in the snow, the old woman screaming—”

  Chad’s head whipped back and forth. “I can’t, man! I don’t remember nothing! I know I should have noticed stuff like that, but I just thought ‘Shit, the guy’s croaked! And maybe somebody’s going to blame me!’”

  “Nobody’s blaming you, Chad,” Green soothed. “It’s quite normal to forget everything else, but it’s there, somewhere in your mind. I want you to lean back on the couch and shut your eyes.” Green waited until the young man was ready, then dropped his voice. “Take three deep, slow breaths. Now I want you to picture yourself in the parking lot. It’s cold, the wind is blowing in your face. You’re walking through the snow, the old lady is up ahead screaming at you… Are you there?”

  Chad had closed his eyes dutifully, but his body twitched, and his breathing was erratic. It took a few moments of further coaxing to get him properly focussed on the cars nearby.

  “There’s mostly empty spaces.” Chad wet his lips. “But right next to her, there’s one—no, two cars.”

  “Good. Can you describe the car right beside hers?”

  “Medium sized. It’s dark—maybe dark blue or charcoal grey, maybe even black. Sedan, four-door type. Nice and shiny.”

  “All right, concentrate on it. Describe anything—make, licence—anything.”

  Chad tried to oblige. His eyelids fluttered as he searched the invisible scene. “It was like the shape of the Aries, only newer. Like a Lumina or one of them GM family cars, but fancy. Buick LeSabre, maybe? Tinted windows.”

  “Okay, that’s great, you can open your eyes.”

  Chad sat forward, eyes alight. “Hey, that’s something! It really works. Did you—like—hypnotize me?”

  Green smiled. “Nothing that exotic. I just helped you eliminate the distractions.” He stood up, and Chad followed him with obvious relief. “Tell me, Chad, do some of the vehicles park in the lot on a regular basis?”

  Chad looked blank for a moment, trying to translate. “You mean every day like? Oh, sure. Doctors, nurses and them. They use the lot, pay by the month.”

  “And do they have their favourite spots?”

  “Some of them.”

  It was a slim hope, but a hope nonetheless, Green thought as he headed towards the Civic Hospital. Maybe in the parking lot he would find the dark, shiny sedan which had parked next to Walker’s on the day of his death. And against which Walker must have smashed his head as he fell to the ground.

  But ten minutes later he found himself in the parking lot amid endless rows of dark, shiny new sedans. The attendant on duty walked him down to the end of the lot and showed him where the body had been found. The whole area had been so trampled that it was useless as a crime scene, and there were no cars parked in the immediate vicinity and no dark sedans within fifty feet. Nonetheless, mainly to impress the parking attendant who hovered nearby, he crouched in the snow and sifted through it with his fingers. It told him nothing.

  This is pointless, Green. The old guy hit his head on something, stunned himself and froze to death. You’ve wasted enough of the department’s time. There is no mystery here. Nada, bopkes, zip. What was it Sharon had said? Invent a murder?

  The breath of freedom is over, Inspector. Your paperwork awaits.

  * * *

  Reluctantly, Green headed back towards the office. No fresh snow had fallen since the day before, but the temperature had stayed low, and the snow showed no inclination to melt. Ottawa’s efficient salt trucks had cleared the main streets, but the sidewalks and small roads were still rutted with ice. That, and a rash of fender benders caused by hotshots who’d forgotten how to drive in the winter, had slowed traffic to a crawl. Slipping in a CD of soft rock,
Green let his mind drift over the case. Something puzzled him, not so much about the manner of the old man’s death as about the reclusive old man himself. And about his widow, a gracious, elegant lady who Green suspected had put up with a good deal.

  It made a small, poignant tale of a marriage, compelling from a human interest standpoint, but, he acknowledged grudgingly as he pulled into the station parking lot, from a major crimes standpoint, it was not much to get excited about.

  Back behind his desk, he turned on his computer and obediently settled down to his report. After an eternity, his phone rang. It was Sharon. He glanced at his watch instinctively, but it was barely four o’clock. Time crawled when you were having fun.

  “I’m leaving in half an hour,” he promised.

  She chuckled. “I don’t think I can stand this new suburban you. And actually, I think you should swing by the synagogue and take your Dad home first before you come home.”

  “Dad?” His mind drew a blank.

  “It’s Thursday—his pinochle afternoon. It’s too cold and icy for him to walk home. He’s pretty frail, and I think those pinochle games are getting really depressing. Sort of like, let’s see who’s left standing this week.”

  The image of Eugene Walker’s frozen body face down in the snow was incentive enough, and Green abandoned his desk gratefully at the stroke of five. Sid Green lived in a seniors’ residence in Sandy Hill just off Rideau Street, barely a mile from the tenement where Green had grown up. For the past fifteen years, Sid had walked up Rideau first to the old Jewish Community Centre, and when that closed, to the adjacent synagogue to play pinochle with a handful of elderly immigrant Jews like himself. For fifteen years, a touch of shtetl Poland had flourished in the middle of Ottawa.

  Now, as most of them passed eighty and various parts of their bodies failed them, the number was slowly dwindling, and when Green pulled up outside the synagogue, his father’s scowl told him that today had not been a success. In a daily life of so few successes, his father had little optimism to spare.