Do or Die (25 page)

“Hah!” Green cried, the adrenaline still pumping from his clash with Lynch. “Don't try to tell me Jonathan Blair wore gloves when he wrote his love notes.”

“No, I won't try to tell you that. It's fishy, that's for sure.”

Green strode down the hall. “He's smart, but he's not as smart as all that. He couldn't find a way to put Blair's prints on the note so he had to leave it blank. Stupid mistake. Now let's see how good he is at forging.”

They battled the last of the Saturday shopping traffic as they made their way over to the RCMP Headquarters. Drivers baking in the heat honked and sat on one another's bumpers. Inching east along the Queensway, Sullivan glanced over at Green, who was staring out the side window.

“So what did Lynch want? More of the same?”

“He wanted to show me today's headline.”

Sullivan grimaced. “Yeah, I saw it. But people don't really believe everything they read.”

Green nodded mechanically. The adrenaline rush had begun to subside, leaving a shakiness and a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. His earlier optimism had deserted him. What if the newspaper was right, and he never solved the case? What if Sharon had finally given up? What if he had finally destroyed, through his own self-absorption, the last of the affection that had kept her with him?

Was there any way to get it back? He felt the ache in his
stomach as he remembered the years before he had found her. Not as years of glorious sexual adventure, but as years of hope and pain and disappointment, looking for the one Great Love of his Life. A family, children, a place to come home to—how much he had wanted those things then! As an only child, with his mother dead now and his father a frail old man, he dreamed of being surrounded by family that would chase out the loneliness he had felt all his life. After a string of romantic failures, he had thought Sharon was the one. But maybe it was his destiny to be a loner, to have nothing but his work, his colleagues and moments of physical release when he needed them. Would he never move on? Would he never grow up? Was he destined to fail every woman who felt something for him? The ache tightened his chest and stung his eyes.

God, get a grip, Green! he scolded himself. You're wallowing in self-pity because you haven't had a decent meal or a decent night's sleep in days. You feel guilty about Carrie, and rightly so. And your marriage has hit a rough patch, that's all! Is anybody's marriage perfect? Sharon's working too hard, I'm working too hard, the baby's exhausting and the damn apartment's too small! We can fix all that.

He took a deep, cleansing breath and raised his head just as they turned into the RCMP parking lot. “The best thing we can do, for all our sakes, is solve this damn case.”

The documents expert at the RCMP lab took only ten minutes to compare the ‘Jonathan' on the note to one on a memo Blair had written to Halton. During that ten minutes, he didn't say a single word. The silence was broken only by the rustle of paper and the shuffling of his footsteps. When he finally spoke, it was like a gunshot in a deserted room.

“It's a tracing. Pen pressure's too even and the hand was moving much too slowly. There's a minute tremor in the lines
which you only get if you're moving slowly. A good likeness in terms of letter formation. A quick glance, even someone familiar with his signature—they wouldn't notice anything wrong.”

*   *   *

“I knew it!” Green pounded the dash of Sullivan's old Chevrolet. “I knew it was a set-up. Eddie Haddad a cold-blooded killer? Give me a break.”

As Sullivan steered the car onto the Queensway entrance ramp for the short hop from the RCMP Headquarters back to the Elgin Street police station, the sun was sinking deep into the murky western sky. Heat still hung over the city like a wet sponge. Sullivan lowered the visor with a sigh. “What next? Do we pick up Miller or go home?”

Green squinted ahead into the hazy red glow. “I never did like Miller as a suspect.”

Sullivan groaned. “Who else, Mike? Difalco? Rosalind Simmons, maybe? Or how about the cleaning lady?”

“How about Halton?”

“Halton.” Sullivan shook his head in disgust. “Ask yourself the first question in a murder investigation, who stands to gain by Blair's death? Miller. He fits all the criteria. Brains, inside knowledge, access to Blair's computer, motive in spades and no alibi for the night of Blair's death. He said he was alone in his office at his computer all evening. No one can substantiate that.”

“That's the point. Wouldn't someone as smart as Miller have set himself up a better alibi if he were planning to kill someone?”

“Miller's a genius, but in street smarts he's a real dud. He's obsessed with his research, and you know as well as me that obsessions can blind a guy. And with his history of mental problems—”

“I know it fits, but it just doesn't sit right,” Green said. “Blair was upset by his discovery about the data tampering. He was thinking of leaving Halton's program. Why?”

They were nearing the Nicholas off-ramp, which led to Green's apartment. “Mike, where are we going?”

Green wasn't sure he'd be able to get food past the sick knot in his stomach, but the half-eaten bagel he'd managed at noon was long gone, and dizziness was setting in. If he wanted to keep going, he had to eat. “Nate's Deli. I need to think.”

Sullivan groaned as he steered the car off the Queensway onto Nicholas Street. “This is the third meal I've eaten out in a row. Mary will kill me.”

Green waved a distracted hand. “No, she'll kill me. She always does. Miller's guilt would never have made Blair feel like quitting Halton.”

“But Halton has nothing to gain by knocking off Blair. Miller was the one screwing up his program.”

“Yes, but Blair was the one threatening to blow the whistle.”

“Mike, that doesn't make any sense. You're right, you need food—your brain cells are dying. Why ask Blair to look into it if he didn't want the truth known?”

Green scrambled to keep ahead of Sullivan's logic. This was how they worked best together—Green making his wild intuitive leaps and down-to-earth Sullivan trailing along with the safety net. “Because Halton was passionate about his research, the same trait that makes him such a good suspect. He had to know the truth so that his future research would not be based on a lie. But then he asked Blair to keep it quiet, and Blair refused. Which would have really screwed up Halton's bid to work with Yale and finally play with the big boys. He had to knock the kid off. It fits, Brian. It's convoluted, but it fits.”

Waiting behind a string of cars turning left onto King Edward Street, Sullivan gave him a long exasperated look. “I think Miller fits better. Come on, Mike, face it. You just like to see the big guys fall.”

Green grinned. “What do you want from a scruffy little kid from Lowertown? I admit Miller's past strikes a chord. We're both working class, inner city Jewish kids. But I don't give you a hard time every time you go sappy over some Irish Valley boy—”

Sullivan laughed. “Oh, not much.”

“How about Difalco? He fits the profile perfectly. Now there's a guy we can both dislike. Rich, arrogant, spoiled…”

“Yeah, but he's got an alibi. Plus no motive.”

Green snorted. “Lateral thinking, Sullivan. That's exactly what makes Difalco and Halton suspicious. This killing is brilliant and premeditated. Whoever did it would have set himself an airtight alibi.”

Sullivan manoeuvred the car off Rideau Street into the parking lot of Nate's Delicatessen. For a moment he was silent as he concentrated his energies on squeezing the oversized Chevrolet into the last tiny space on the congested lot. Then he turned to Green.

“But Halton's alibi does give us a small problem. Half a dozen sailing cronies place him in Toronto five hundred kilometres away. I'd say that was pretty airtight.”

Green shook his head. “Not if you look at the timing. Yesterday I double-checked his story with his sailing buddy from York University. Halton was out sailing on Tuesday, that much is true. But according to Dr. Trent, he insisted on an early dinner, passed up his usual double martinis, and left shortly after seven. A fast driver in a good car could make it in under four hours. Halton has a BMW. It's cutting it close, but it's possible.”

Sullivan laughed. “With wings.”

They swung open the door to the deli and felt the blast of air conditioning. Both heaved a sigh of relief. Nodding to the waitress who approached, they headed towards the back.

“Brian, don't forget this killer is smart! Do you think he'd go to all the trouble of setting up this frame and not give himself a decent alibi? Miller's a sitting duck! He left the whole evening wide open, with no one to substantiate his story!”

Sullivan eased himself into the booth and picked up the menu. “Come on, a guy like Halton's much more likely to get someone else to do his dirty work.”

Green froze half-seated, his thoughts racing as he suddenly remembered Difalco and the stolen files. “Two people! Each supplying only half the picture. One who had the motive, the other the means and opportunity. And who else but the golden boy? Brilliant, Brian! That's it!”

“Mike!” Sullivan waved the menu wildly. “Food!”

But Green was already across the room.

Green fled the
delicatessen in a burst of inspiration, only to stop dead in the parking lot when he realized he had no evidence. He sent Sullivan to get his car while he pondered a plan of attack. Tackled together, Halton and Difalco were unassailable; Halton had the perfect alibi and Difalco no motive. Green had to split them apart and undermine their mutual trust. If either could be made to see that their interests differed or if Green could find a crack in that trust, he might have a chance.

He could try a frontal attack on Joe Difalco, pointing out that Blair too had once been Halton's trusted soldier. He could try to appeal to Difalco's macho need not to appear as a patsy, but he doubted Difalco would crack. For one thing, Difalco was wily enough to recognize hot air when it blew his way, and for another he knew that as the actual killer, he stood to lose much more than Halton, no matter what deal he cut.

Similarly, any confrontation with Halton would be laughed right out of the ring. Halton would know he didn't have a shred of evidence to back up his claim. A shred of evidence. That's what he needed. Some sort of leverage to hold over them, if not to force a confession, which Green knew was unlikely, at least to panic one into betraying the other.

The evidence was not in the research files, that much Green knew. Dr. Baker had analyzed it all, and everyone had
come up blameless except David Miller. But somewhere, someone had to know something. No murderer was so lucky as to leave no tiny miscalculations behind.

Blocking out Sullivan's muttered curses as they drove back towards the station, Green pondered again the sequence of events and jotted notes in his notebook:

1. Sunday— fake note typed on Blair's computer.

2. Saturday night—note planted on Pierre Haddad's front walk.

3. Monday evening—Blair completes formal statistical analysis proving Miller wrong.

4. Monday evening (before or after above?)—Halton drives to Toronto.

5. Tuesday morning—Blair asks for urgent meeting with Halton.

6. Tuesday night—Blair murdered.

Whoever killed Blair had to have known on Saturday that Blair was going to complete his analysis on Monday. Halton had chosen to go to Toronto on the very day Blair needed him the most! Definitely odd, thought Green, feeling that familiar rush when the scent is strong. But how would the killer have known? By breaking into Blair's files himself to keep an eye on his progress? By running his own analysis on the side? Only Halton would be in a position to do that easily, for he had all the office keys and all the computer passwords.

Alternatively, Blair could have told Halton the results earlier. Every researcher, long before he runs his final formal analysis, keeps an eye on trends in the data and runs preliminary tests to satisfy his own curiosity, as well as to determine how many more subjects he has to test. Blair probably knew a week or two earlier which way the data were
leaning, and perhaps in all innocence he had relayed his impressions to his boss.

Green held his breath, his mind racing along these lines. Jonathan's friends had found him increasingly moody in the week or so before his death. He had told his father on Sunday before his final statistical run that he was unhappy with how things were turning out. Unhappy about the statistical findings, or about Halton's reaction to them?

Maybe he had told his father more than that. Maybe he had given Henry Blair some small detail which had held no meaning for Henry but might be the key to the case.

Green looked up excitedly just as Sullivan was approaching the Rideau Canal on his way towards Elgin Street. Looming ahead were the gothic green spires of the Château Laurier, the majesty of Wellington Street and the Parliament buildings behind. On impulse he asked Sullivan to drop him off and sent him home to have dinner with his family, with instructions to stay near a phone in case he was needed. At least Mary should be pleased.

Henry Blair was alone at a table in the corner of the dining room at the Château Laurier, looking forlorn and out of place in his rumpled sports clothes amid the chandeliers, leaded glass and creamy linens of the elegant hall. He picked at his Lobster Newburg, a nearly-empty bottle of Chardonnay sitting in a silver bucket at his elbow.

He spotted Green from across the dining hall and his face lit with anticipation. Struggling to his feet, he offered a shaky hand and inquired if Green had any news.

“We're certainly closing in,” Green replied, taking the seat opposite and drawing out his notebook. Blair offered him some wine, which Green reluctantly declined, before emptying the bottle into his own glass. The scent of lobster
and Madeira floated up to tantalize Green's nostrils and he felt his stomach contract.