Do or Die (16 page)

He heard the front door slam behind her, and he plunged his face into his hands wearily. I'm getting nowhere this way, he thought. I can't deal with this now. I can't afford to wonder if my marriage is falling apart.

Clear your mind, Green. Focus on Jonathan Blair and on the facts of this case. Logic, Green. Means, motive and opportunity—focus on these, and the answer will come.

He fixed himself an ice cold coke and slipped a CD of instrumental blues into his player. Music to think by. Clearing the kitchen table of all its debris, he put his pad of paper in the centre. In a column down the left-hand side, he listed the major players in the drama. Using the basics tenets of police deduction, he began to fill in the right side of the page.

Of these four, Difalco had the most promising behavioural profile for the killing, but he had a strong alibi and a weak motive. David Miller had no alibi and the strongest motive, but…quick and agile?

There was, however, one more name. Thoughtfully, Green put it down.

Myles Halton: Motive…

At this point, Green laid down his pen. Heat was seeping into the airless little room, and he wiped a trickle of sweat from his temple. Taking a sip of lukewarm cola, he pondered the character of Myles Halton. Halton was a brilliant scientist, no one disputed that, and no one seemed to question the integrity of his rise to prominence. In the interview, Halton
had come across as an intense, no-nonsense, ambitious man committed to the pursuit of his research. He had not seemed self-serving or unethical, and if he was determined to protect his research effort, it was only because he had fought so hard for it, and it was just beginning to pay dividends.

Green felt his antennae quiver. How hard had the man fought, and just what was he willing to sacrifice in order to preserve his status? He was uncompromising. Was he also ruthless? He was ambitious. Was he also unethical? Henry Blair had said Halton didn't care whom he stepped on to achieve his goal. And one of his goals right now was a three million dollar magnetic resonance imager and the competitive research it promised.

Powerful men were rarely lily-white, but would Halton go as far as murder? Particularly the murder of a wealthy scion, which he knew would make his operation the focus of an intense, highly publicized police investigation? He would only have done so if he had no choice. What possible scenario would give him no choice?

Normally, the power balance between a graduate student and a prominent professor is highly weighted in the latter's favour. If conflicts arose, the student would simply be failed. This would be more difficult in the case of a potential backer's son, but the alternative, killing the student, hardly seemed designed to maintain friends in high places.

The balance of power shifts in the student's favour only if the student has some leverage, perhaps something on the professor that could destroy his career. A politician had once said that only two things could ruin his reputation—being caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl. What could ruin Halton's reputation? A sex-related charge? Fairly iffy. Professors were not politicians. Universities and granting
agencies were probably much more tolerant of the sexual perversities of their errant geniuses than the general public was of its elected officials. If Halton had been accused of sleeping with a student, particularly the likes of Raquel Haddad, he would have endured a slap on the wrist, some unpleasant publicity, some hisses and boos from the feminist community, and then it would be business as usual. A sex scandal involving a male student might prove stickier and more humiliating, but was it worth the risk of murder?

It was possible that an old skeleton, which Halton had thought safely buried in his closet, had come to light and was threatening his career. An old research fraud, a suspicious death, a serious crime. If Jonathan had unearthed it, what would he do with it? He was not the blackmailing kind. Everyone said his moral standards were unassailable. He would not use information against his professor for personal gain. But those same standards would not allow him to turn a blind eye to a crime. If he had uncovered a major breach of ethics or law on Halton's part, he would have agonized, but he would have turned him in.

Yes, Green thought, in this remote scenario the dynamics for murder were there. The personalities fit—Halton's ambition pitted against Blair's moral rectitude. Now it was time to speculate on what might have happened.

The timing of Blair's murder was crucial. He had been murdered just as he completed his investigation into the research fraud. The statistical analysis was done. On the morning of his murder, in fact, he had asked for an urgent appointment with Halton, probably to discuss those very results. But Blair had not been relieved or triumphant, he had been upset, as if he had uncovered something unexpected in his study of Difalco's work. Yet the activities of Miller and
Difalco, no matter how nefarious, would hardly have upset him that much. He had been disillusioned to the point of considering a transfer to another university. Disillusioned with Halton? What might he have discovered? That Halton had been party to the fraud? If so, why ask Blair to investigate in the first place?

Green stood up, stretched his stiff legs and unglued his sweaty shirt from his back. Leaning on the kitchen counter, he frowned down at his notes. Was he clutching at straws? Winging out into the wild blue yonder, as Sullivan called it when his deductive fantasies took flight? Possibly, but over the years he had learned to trust his fantasies. Halton, with his ambition and his reputation to protect, was as good a murder suspect as the rest. Maybe even better.

But to uncover the motive, Green had to put Halton's research, and that of Miller, Difalco and Blair, under a microscope to determine who was lying. He had only Halton's word that Blair's results supported Difalco. He needed an impartial expert in neuropsychology and a search warrant to seize all the files in the four offices. A sense of urgency gripped him; search warrants took hours to write up, but if he didn't act fast, Halton and the others might get to the files first.

*   *   *

Several hours later, Green arrived back at the squad room with the signed search warrant triumphantly in hand. He was high with energy, no longer impatient and irritable as he rounded up the only two detectives still at their desks.

“Watts and Charbonneau, I want you to get over to the university. I have a warrant to seize all the files, computers,
disks and any other paper or electronic data belonging to Miller, Difalco, Blair and Halton. Load every last piece of paper in their four offices into boxes. Make sure you label each box carefully so none of the files gets mixed up, and put them all in Halton's main computer lab. Then seal the offices and post a twenty-four hour guard so no one can tamper with anything until we can get an outside expert in there to look at this stuff. I hope to have someone lined up to start tomorrow. Okay, guys, go!”

Without waiting for the two detectives to get out the door, Green entered his office, pushed the stack of phone messages out of the way and pulled out his phone book. It took him almost an hour of phone calls to four different universities before he located an expert in neuropsychology who was not only familiar with Halton's work but also willing to drop everything to spend several days holed up in a computer lab going over files. Dr. Stanley Baker, professor of physiological psychology at McGill University, was less than gracious but grudgingly agreed. For a fee.

After Green hung up the phone, feeling very pleased with himself, he wondered fleetingly if he ought to have cleared the expense with Jules first. He was just steeling himself to go upstairs to discuss it when his door swung open and Superintendent Jules strode in, gray eyes as narrow as pinpricks. He shut the door behind him and stood ramrod straight, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Michael, what the hell is going on?”

Green was taken aback. Jules was always polished, precise and understated. In a station full of obscenities, he never swore. “I was just coming up, Adam.”

“How nice. Then you can tell me what the hell I'm supposed to say to the Deputy Chief that he can explain to
Marianne Blair that she can explain to Myles Halton about why the hell all his university files are being carted off by the police.”

Green burst out laughing. He knew it was unwise, but it was irrepressible. “Poor Adam. Superiors are such a pain in the ass, aren't they?”

For an instant he thought Jules was going to erupt. Never had he seen him quite that shade of fuchsia. But then, in spite of himself, Jules broke into a real smile. This is a day for firsts, thought Green.

Jules pulled back the guest chair and sat down. “Michael, there must be at least the appearance that I control you.”

“I know. So Halton is pissed, is he?”

Jules nodded. “I think he expected something slightly better from his friendship with Mrs. Blair than the appearance of two non-ranking detectives. No me, no you.”

“No brass band.” Green shook his head dolefully. “I would have gone, but I had other arrangements to make, and we had to move very fast. As it is, the horse has probably already left the barn.”

“Enlighten me.”

Green took twenty minutes to summarize the progress of the investigation to date and to outline his next moves. He was about to broach the subject of expenses when there was a sharp knock at the door, and Sullivan flung it open. He was so excited that the sight of Jules barely gave him pause.

“A suspect! Maybe two or three. The Raquel Haddad connection.”

Jules glanced at Green, eyebrows high. “You didn't mention a Raquel Haddad connection.”

“That's just another avenue we're pursuing,” Green replied irritably. “On the back-burner right now.”

Sullivan flourished a report. “Not any more! Some heavy-duty stuff was going on between Raquel, her uncle and Blair on the day he was killed.”

Green perked up. “Tell me!”

“First, you know that Blair and Raquel were likely an item. Well, a student saw Blair in the student coffee shop eating supper with a black-haired woman. The student phoned our hotline once she saw Blair's picture in the paper. Anyway,” Sullivan flipped open his notebook, “the witness said they were sitting very close, whispering. The black-haired girl was crying, and then this student overheard Blair say to her ‘But he'd never really do it!' and Raquel said ‘You don't know him! You don't know my family!' A few minutes later these two tough-looking guys come along and they tell her to come with them. She starts to get up and Jonathan Blair tells them to lay off, it's a free country. And she shouts ‘Jonathan, don't!' They grab her arm. Jonathan steps between them, and they punch him. He falls over the table. They're hauling Raquel along, Jonathan starts after them, and she yells at him to go away. Then they all get out of view, and our witness didn't see what else happened.”

“What time was this?”

“About six-thirty.”

“These tough-looking guys, what did they look like?” Sullivan glanced through his notebook. “Twentyish. Medium height and weight, thick dark hair, brown eyes, heavy eyebrows. One had a mustache. Dressed in casual summer clothes. One had on a light T-shirt and jeans, the other a black Metallica T-shirt and black jeans. No distinguishing marks.”

“Twentyish?” Green frowned. “Raquel's uncle is in his forties and fat.”

Sullivan shrugged. “Henchmen, probably. An older, heavy-134
set, dark guy was seen arguing with Raquel outside Halton's building earlier that afternoon.”

Green sat up sharply. “Seen by whom?”

“David Miller.”

“Why the hell didn't anyone tell me!”

“I'm telling you now. I just saw the report.”

Green frowned in thought, tapping his pencil against his desk. “Might be just a coincidence. Okay, this has to be low key. Get a photo of Pierre Haddad and show a photo line-up to Miller. See if he can make a positive ID on the guy arguing with Raquel.”

Sullivan's eyes flitted from Green to Jules. “Low-key?”

Green shrugged. “Just don't spook him. The guy's paranoid about cops. Tell him it's routine, standard operating procedure—improvise. Just don't mention the fight in the coffee shop. If this is our guy, I don't want to tip him off, or he'll send those young thugs underground.”