Do or Die (15 page)

Joe Difalco's alibi was less ironclad but still impressive. He had spent the evening carousing with friends at the Royal Oak Pub on campus, and at least half a dozen fellow students recalled seeing him at one point or another. No one was very clear on the times, but he had certainly been there to close the place down at two in the morning. Everyone who knew Joe agreed that once he arrived at a watering hole, he rarely left before closing.

Unlike his rugged mentor, Joe Difalco was a pampered city boy, the only son of a successful Italian restauranteur who had started as a dishwasher in a back street café and now owned four restaurants and a catering business. The family lived in a multi-turreted mansion on a rolling half-acre in the wealthy suburb of Cedarhill, and Joe drove a Jaguar to the university. In his undergraduate years he had earned a reputation as an amateur boxer. It was in this capacity, rather than through any academic distinction, that he first caught the attention of Myles Halton. Halton was a fan of the sport, which married agility, cunning and brute force, and had dabbled in it himself as a youth. People who knew him theorized that he always regretted not having a son and that he took Joe under his wing to fill that void.

Joe's lack of discipline and his love of wine, women and late nights proved to be his downfall, however, and he gave up serious boxing in his first post-graduate year. By that time he had already found a comfortable niche among Halton's favoured few, and he had stayed there ever since. There had been no major concerns or complaints from his professors over the years, but most regarded him as flighty and self-indulgent. Hardly the blueprint for a cold-blooded killer, Green thought.

For that, David Miller's profile held more promise.

David Miller's life was in some ways the mirror opposite of Difalco's. He was the eldest of five children and had grown up in the tough blue-collar Montreal district of Park Extension. His grandfather had immigrated to Montreal from Russia in the wave of Jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms in the early part of the century. The grandfather had peddled rags, and the father had become a butcher. While his neighbourhood friends dropped out of school and squired girls around in stolen cars, David swept factory floors on evenings and weekends to earn enough money for the tuition. At McGill University he had no friends, played no sports, and belonged to no clubs. All he had were his books.

“Dave Miller couldn't sell himself to save his soul,” Halton had said. In his final undergraduate year, he had suffered a nervous breakdown and apparently required two more psychiatric hospitalizations at Stanford, where he had spent over ten years completing his Ph.D.

But it was after graduation that his real troubles began. The job market was tight, and he returned to his family in Montreal penniless and depressed until Myles Halton tracked him down almost two years ago.

A history of mental instability, Green thought. He flung open his door and spotted Sullivan hunched over his desk, talking on the phone. As Green approached, Sullivan caught his eye, finished his conversation quickly and hung up. Freshly shaved and wearing a crisp white shirt, he looked revived, but the worry lines were still there. Green eyed the phone.

“I didn't mean to interrupt you.”

Sullivan shrugged. “It's just as well. I was about to lose my temper.”

Green frowned. His quick eye had noticed a letter from the
Toronto Dominion Bank on the desk before Sullivan shoved it into a drawer. “Problems?”

“Just the little guy against the system,” Sullivan replied with a grin. “It amazes me how the system always wins.”

“Yeah, well, the rules are fixed, aren't they? Sharon and I figure that even if we do manage to find a house we can both stand, after twenty-five years we'll have paid the bank four times what it's worth. Talk about indentured service!”

“Why do you think Mary can't sell any houses? Welcome to family life, buddy.” Sullivan shook his head wryly and nodded at the report Green held in his hand. “You want something, or are you just trying to depress me?”

It was Sullivan's way of drawing the curtain, closing his personal life off from his professional, and Green followed suit. “I want you to dig around in Miller's medical history. Especially the Allan Memorial in Montreal and the Royal Ottawa here.”

Sullivan's eyebrows shot up. “Is he a psycho?”

“He's done some stints. Find out why. Anything that looks like paranoia or violent outbursts, let me know.”

“Is he our best bet?”

Green hesitated. Miller's anguish had seemed so raw and his protestations of innocence so genuine, that it was hard to see him as a killer. But if Jonathan Blair's research was correct, he was the one with the strongest motive.

“I'm still going through the reports,” Green replied. “Miller told Jackson he was working on his computer all evening when Blair was killed, but Jackson thought he seemed nervous. He was sure Miller was hiding something.”

Jackson had drawn the same conclusion about Miller's friend, Rosalind Simmons, Green discovered when he returned to the reports in his office. Before leaving the university that evening, she said she'd dropped in to see if
Miller was hungry, because when he became absorbed in his work he forgot to eat and on several occasions had nearly passed out from hypoglycemia. But on the night in question, she found Miller sitting at his terminal with a coke and a half-eaten hamburger at his elbow, intent on his work. She had gone straight home, making no stops and seeing no one who could confirm the time she arrived at her apartment. Rosalind Simmons lived alone, and Jackson's inquiries into her background had met with limited success.

Her friends and colleagues knew surprisingly little about her. She was raised in Toronto by a single mother, attended local public schools and completed her undergraduate work at York University. She had been working on her Ph.D. with Myles Halton for two years, and Halton reported that her progress was so slow that he was considering dropping her from the program. Other professors recalled that she was not a memorable student; she lacked dynamism and insight, but she had a slow, plodding perseverance that kept her on track. They had no concerns about her ethics, however, and could not even remotely imagine her capable of murder. Socially, no one knew much about her, except that she kept to herself. She had no known friends or boyfriends, and some of her colleagues speculated that she might be gay.

Green mulled that idea over. He remembered the fierceness with which she had defended Miller and the glow in her cheeks when she spoke of him. No, he thought, she's not gay. Joe Difalco is right about one thing—she's in love with David Miller. However, given Miller's social ineptitude and her instinct for self-protection, it was questionable whether the two were actually involved. Green had known lots of street girls like her, who wanted closeness yet didn't trust. Someone had probably hurt her badly once, and she was reluctant to
give anyone a second chance. She would not wear her heart on her sleeve, but beneath the surface…

Jonathan's former girlfriend, on the other hand, had worn her heart on her sleeve and had suffered the consequences. Everyone had expected wedding bells before the year was out, but then suddenly, with the appearance of Raquel Haddad, the romance was over. Vanessa Weeks had presented a brave front, saying both of them needed to focus on their studies at the moment, but privately her friends thought she was heartbroken. All the more so because her parents had regarded her choice to study at Ottawa University under Halton as misguided rebellion, the one redeeming feature of which had been her alliance with Jonathan Blair. Her father was an ex-chief of surgery at Harvard Medical School who had treated presidents, and her mother was on staff at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was slated to be the next chief of psychiatry. They had been adding the MD to Vanessa's name ever since she was old enough to talk, and up to the age of twenty her academic and athletic accomplishments had fuelled their hopes. High School graduation at age sixteen, straight A's at Radcliffe and a bronze medal at the National Women's Singles Tennis Championships. But then a broken wrist and the death of her Olympic dreams had prompted her to re-evaluate her direction and to choose a new course. She had been studying under Halton for a year, and he had given her glowing reports. She was one of the few students who could understand David Miller's work and that, coupled with her self-discipline and drive, was raising her quickly through the Halton ranks.

She had begun dating Jonathan Blair nine months earlier, and through most of the winter, the two had been inseparable. She shared his enthusiasm for skating and cross-country skiing, and
they had spent much of their free time together. In temperament too, they had seemed well-suited. Both quiet, private people, they were discreet in their passion, but no one doubted they were deeply attached. There were no fights, no scenes.

Unlike Sharon and me, thought Green wryly, recalling the numerous times Sharon had walked out on him amid screaming and tears in the three years of their marriage. Only to find that being apart was worse than being together.

On the evening of Jonathan Blair's murder, Vanessa Weeks had been at the university gym, working off her bitterness with laps in the indoor pool. Following a sauna and a shower, she had been seen leaving the facility by the pool attendant at closing a few minutes after eleven. She was a regular evening swimmer, and the attendants knew her by sight.

Green sat back, scanning the reports spread out on his desk. Somewhere in this compilation of facts lay the key to the killer. Rarely had he encountered a killer so subtle and elusive. Not everyone had those qualities, and this murderer, by the very method he had chosen, had left a unique signature on the crime. Match the signature, and the murderer's identity might leap out at him.

Taking a fresh white pad of paper, he pushed the reports aside and began to write.

Profile of the killer:

—Clever, some knowledge of forensics

—Thorough and prepared, careful with planning

—Quick and agile, maybe some training in fighting?

—Cold-blooded, nerves of steel, capable of closerange killing without panicking

—Passionate about work? Or psychopathic—kill those who get in way?

He studied his suspects. All of them were clever, and all had enough scientific background to be a quick study in forensics. Hell, the books they would need were probably right in the library where Blair was killed! All were thorough and capable of planning—scientific research demanded it. Perhaps Difalco was less so, but Green was not about to underestimate him. He suspected Difalco let people see what he wanted them to see but kept a large part of himself under wraps.

Agile. Now here…

His phone buzzed at his elbow, startling him. Swearing, he pounced on it, and Jules' dry voice came through.

“Michael, Peter Weiss is in my office.”

“Lucky you.”

Silence greeted him through the wires. It's that bad, he thought. “Adam, I'm up to my ears in reports. I've got to have some time to piece things together.”

“I need something he can take back to Marianne Blair.”

“And then Marianne Blair will take it back to Myles Halton. Absolutely no way.”

He could almost hear Jules processing the implications. Finally, he spoke. “I'm coming down.”

Green hung up, fuming. Why couldn't everyone just leave him alone to do his job? Now, with Jules' deadline hanging over his head, he'd never be able to free his mind for thought. On impulse. he scooped up his reports and headed for the door, catching sight of Sullivan still on the phone. He approached and lowered his voice.

“I'm going home to work and don't tell a damn soul where I am.”

Over the years, Green had often retreated to the peace and solitude of his own apartment when he needed to think. The drive home took five minutes but he was already beginning to
unwind by the time he unlocked the door to his apartment. Until he heard the all-too-familiar sound of the baby whining. He had forgotten all about them! How much simpler life had been before…

He stomped into the kitchen to find Tony banging pots together and Sharon on her knees, wiping up the puréed peas beneath the high chair. Seeing him, Tony crowed in delight. Green gave him a distracted pat on the head and tossed his reports on the kitchen table.

“Sharon, could you take the baby for a walk? I've got to have some peace and quiet.”

She rose slowly to her feet, pushing her black curls out of her eyes with the back of her hand. She was dressed in her usual baggy shorts and shapeless T-shirt, and she fixed him with a cold, level glare.

“Excuse me? You have an office to work in.”

“And a million people on my ass. Honey, I haven't got time to explain. Just please bear with me, okay?”

“If we'd bought that house in Barrhaven, there'd be room for all of us, you know. But no, Barrhaven didn't have enough character. It had plumbing that worked, nice quiet streets, but God forbid you should join the grey suits in suburbia.”

It was a refrain she dredged up every time they felt the pressure of their tiny home, and his own response had become automatic. “Barrhaven isn't suburbia, it's the end of the earth.”

She set her jaw as if preparing to defend the sprawling suburb that had sprung up in the cow pastures southwest of the city, but then seemed to sense the futility of it. She tossed the sponge into the sink, scooped up the baby and stalked by him out of the room. “I'll take your son out for a walk, Green, but don't be surprised if we're mowed down in the streets the minute we step out the door.”

Fuck, he thought. Just what I need. I've got two hours— tops—before Jules tracks me down, even if I take the phone off the hook, and I've got so much adrenaline coursing through me I'll never be able to think. Why can't she realize that the murder of Jonathan Blair is not just another day at the office? It's always her and her needs! Hers, and now the baby's. She has a new weapon to brandish over me now. Tony needs a father, Green. Tony needs a home. Get your priorities straight, Green. Green, Green, Green... Whatever happened to Mike? Or darling? What happened to the tender look in those sparkling black eyes? What happened to the wide, sexy smile?