Dream Chasers (15 page)

Green puzzled over this. “You said Riley O'Shaughnessy's being touted as a first round draft pick already. But the big meeting hasn't even taken place.”

“No, the draft is next weekend, but the
NHL
has scouts who go to all the Major Junior clubs and the European Leagues too, to watch the kids play. All these kids have been ranked and analyzed to death many times before they even get to the draft day.”

“And the teams have already put their dibs in?”

“Not officially, but that's part of the guessing game. Sometimes it's pretty obvious. If a team is weak in goaltending, say, you know they're going to be picking up the best goalie prospect available when their turn comes up.”

“And Riley O'Shaughnessy?”

“Riley's a skill forward—those are the Wayne Gretzkys of the game. Except he's a right winger and right shooter, which makes it especially hard for a defenceman or goalie to neutralize him. He's a young man with very talented hands and a lot of heart. Any team looking to strengthen their goal scoring would snap him up.”

Green licked the smoked meat juice off his fingers as he weighed the implications. “So he's got a lot riding on this upcoming draft?”

Sullivan grinned. “Just his whole future.”

“Then I guess he wouldn't be too eager to come forward and admit he was with a girl who died under mysterious circumstances.”

“Mike, we don't even have evidence it was a homicide, let alone that he was the boyfriend!” Sullivan hissed. “But media suspicion at this point could kill this kid's career!”

They were both back in the main office at Pleasant Park High School, where Green was demanding access to Riley O'Shaughnessy's address. Sullivan had dragged him into the corner out of earshot, but curious secretaries were straining their ears.

“If the kid's innocent, nothing will happen to his career,” Green retorted. “We're not going to blab to the media.”

“Not you and me. But I don't trust some of the guys on the squad. Watts is an asshole, and Wallington is just plain dumb. If they let a word slip over a couple of beers...”

Green remembered his glimpse of Watts cosying up to Frank Corelli of the
Ottawa Sun
yesterday at the crime scene. His gut tightened. Probably nothing, but worth watching. “That's why we're not making it official. Yet.
You
are going to make some discreet inquiries about a number of boys. That's all.”

“But I'm already late for the briefing I called at the station. At least let's wait till you hear from this Zukowski woman and see if she has anything concrete instead of rumours and speculation.”

Green stalked over to the principal's office and banged on the door. Anton Prusec answered, outrage changing quickly to dismay at the sight of Green. “Ah! Inspector! No, no. Ms Zukowski has not called me back. I'll try again and get back to you, shall I?”

“You do that, but I also want her cell phone number.”

“Ah! Well, I don't think I can give that out—”

“Then give me the dragon lady's. I'll tell her you didn't want to authorize—”

Prusec spun around and pounced on a piece of paper on his desk. Without further comment, he rattled off the social worker's number. When Green dialled it, he listened to six rings followed by a chirpy, apologetic message saying how sorry she was to miss this call but to leave a message because she checked them regularly. Jenna Zukowski sounded about twelve years old.

He left an urgent message, then obtained the dragon lady's number from the secretary, who was eavesdropping nearby. Sullivan grinned as he watched Green turn on the Inspector act.

“One of your staff has seriously overstepped her bounds and has been interfering with a police investigation,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Now she has chosen to avoid responsibility for her actions by refusing to return her calls. She may be withholding vital information, and I need to speak to her immediately. If I have not heard from her within half an hour—” Green glanced at his watch. Almost four o'clock! On Friday, no less. No doubt the entire school board would be closing down for the weekend any moment. “I shall be forced to contact your superintendent in charge.”

Giving her no time to mount a counteroffence, he dictated his cell phone number, thanked her for her cooperation in the investigation, and signed off. “You bought yourself half an hour,” he said, turning back to Sullivan.

Sullivan hesitated and glanced at his watch. “Look, I have to get down to the station and get the reports from the field. Maybe one of the guys has already found the boyfriend, or some
DNA
, or an eyewitness to the pair that evening. At least let me check in with my men first.”

“But we're out here, probably less than fifteen minutes from his house.”

“Mike, I'm not stalling. There are a whole lot of leads we're following, and I'm not going to jump the gun before I'm properly prepared.”

Green frowned at him thoughtfully. Sullivan's bristly hair stood in tufts, and his jaw jutted stubbornly. Green was about to argue when Sullivan heaved a sigh. “I've seen this kid on the ice, I've heard him in interviews. He hasn't let all this hype go to his head. He's a genuinely stand-up guy. Believes in honesty and honour on and off the ice. I just can't see him involved in something like this.”

“Brian, we're cops.” I shouldn't even have to say that, Green thought. How many honest, honourable men have we seen over the years, brought down by a moment of folly?

Smarting, Sullivan hauled himself to his feet. “Exactly, and once we get this Zukowski woman's information, once I know we've got no leads pointing in another direction, I'll go talk to Riley O'Shaughnessy. But it may have to wait till morning.” As if to underline his point, he yanked open the glass door to the school office and stalked out.

Green considered the argument as he followed him down the hall. Outside, the heat hit him like a furnace blast, and sweat broke out on his back. Last night's rain had done nothing to break the humidity. He could feel his energy draining away. Sullivan was right. A lot of other evidence may have come to light, and in any case, if they were going to tackle the pride and joy of the local hockey world, they should have more ammunition. With any luck, someone had found the ice cream vendor or the discarded condom, and the luckless boyfriend would have nowhere to hide.

The smell of roast chicken wafted through the front door the moment he opened it. It stirred a strange, long-forgotten longing. His first thought was that Sharon must have come home, but he'd spoken to her only moments earlier to tell her he had to stay in town at least Saturday. Sharon had sounded unexpectedly mellow, as if the week at the lake had worked many of the knots out of her psyche. Her voice was throaty and mischievous, reminding him of the playful, sexy woman of their early years. He had to fight the urge to steer the car directly onto the highway towards the cottage. Instead he dutifully headed home, expecting an empty house without even the dog to talk to.

The smell of cooking took him aback. With slowly dawning amazement, he realized that Hannah was not only still here but cooking dinner.

He walked back to the kitchen to find her bent over a cookbook. Not just any cookbook, but his mother's, which had lain in a box for more than fifteen years before Sharon had unearthed it and given it a proper place on the kitchen shelf. His mother had not read English very well, particularly in the early years, so many of the pages were scrawled with Yiddish translations. This was what Hannah was peering at, so deeply absorbed that she had not heard him arrive. He recognized that absorption as another trait in the genes.

When he walked into the room, she jerked back in surprise and thrust the book away. “That stuff's Greek.”

“Yiddish, actually. Your grandmother's.”

“How do they read that stuff? It's just a bunch of squiggles.” She cast him a quick look from under her long lashes. “Can you read it?”

He glanced at the recipe for herb-roasted
Shabbat
chicken. A lump rose in his throat. “I'm rusty, but I can try.”

“It doesn't matter. I made it my way.”

Another trait in the genes, he thought with a smile. “It smells good.”

She grunted a grudging acknowledgement and turned to the stove. “Well, I thought
Zaydeh
might like it. But you didn't bring him.”

He shook his head. “He's got a cold. But I'm glad you visited him the other day, honey. You made his day. And so will this, when we take him the leftovers tomorrow.”

He disappeared into the dining room, still fighting the lump in his throat, and took out the silver Sabbath candlesticks. As he was setting the last of the cutlery, he looked up to find her watching him from the doorway.

“Did you really lose brothers and sisters in the Holocaust?”

“Half brother and sister, who would have been much older.
Zaydeh
was married in Poland as a young man. His wife and two children died in the ghetto. The babies always died first.”

She pondered that. “They would have been my aunt and uncle. My mother never told me that. She just said your parents never liked her.”

Green nodded, remembering his mother's dying plea. He'd been dating Ashley at the time, and his mother had clutched his arm with a strength that belied her wasted body. “Don't let them win, Mishka,” she'd said.

He'd rejected her paranoia, which had so stifled his youth, and rushed headlong into the embrace of the forbidden. A mistake, except for one thing.

“Well, at least you did it right the second time,” Hannah said.

“Honey—”

She turned and walked back into the kitchen, leaving him no chance to explain. Yet how could he explain to a seventeen-year-old who'd never known hatred or prejudice, how it felt to lose one's whole family, to be hunted down and exterminated by an outside world, simply because of a label?

“My mother would have adored you,” he said, following her into the kitchen. “Just the way
Zaydeh
does. And you would have helped her begin to trust again.”

“Trust in what?”

“In people. Despite the awful things they do.”

Hannah shut the oven door and picked up a pot from the stove. “This girl who died. You said she was murdered?”

Startled by her abrupt shift in topic, Green jumped in hastily. “No, I didn't.”

She gave him an impatient glance. “You said so yesterday. I was listening, see?”

He recognized the futility of denial. Tenacity was yet another trait that ran in the genes. “We don't know. We're keeping open all possibilities. Do you know her?”

Hannah shrugged. “I think I've seen her around once or twice. One of those blonde, blue-eyed princesses that gets away with murder.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that looks can be deceiving. While you cops are busy hassling the kids with dreads and mohawks, kids like her pretend to walk on water, when really they're down among the sharks with the rest of us.” She cast him an impish smile. “You figure it out from there, Mr. Detective.”

“What have you seen her do?”

“Oh, a little weed, a little E.”

Ecstasy, Green thought with a twinge of excitement. Ecstasy was a stimulant that under the right circumstances— mixed with strong emotion or exertion—could cause cardiac problems. “Who does she hang out with?”

“Not my crowd, that's for sure. She doesn't even buy direct. She wheedles favours.”

“From who?”

“Whom. That's what my English teacher's always saying. From her loyal subjects. That's okay, it's what all the popular girls do. It's how the world goes round.”

“Can you give me names, Hannah? This could be really important.”

She snorted. “No, I can't give you names. Bad enough you're a cop. If people think I snitch on them...” She peered into the pot, wrinkled her nose and dumped its contents into a bowl. From the smell, Green deduced it was carrots. “Look, you want to eat this stuff now? Because otherwise it will be totally burned.”

He took his cue and helped serve dinner onto the plates. As they were carrying the odd-looking concoctions to the table, he tried one more time. “If you do learn something important, will you please slip me a name? Even if you have to write it in invisible ink and pin it under my windshield.”

Her lips twitched in a smile as she reached for the matches. He watched her light the candles and recite the blessing for the first time. She was flawless. Afterwards she shot him a quick glance. “Don't hold your breath,” she muttered, reaching for the
Kiddush
cup.

S
aturday
morning, Green dropped by the station at eight o'clock. The stifling heatwave had finally broken into a tumultuous thunderstorm that battered the street. The temperature had plummeted ten degrees, and a vicious wind ripped through the trees. Anyone with an ounce of sanity would be holed up in their houses enjoying a second cup of coffee, thought Green, but he was not surprised to find Brian Sullivan at his desk, checking the latest developments before he briefed the weekend staff.

Green strode over. “Despite what everyone says, Lea Kovacev was a recreational drug user.”

Sullivan looked up. “Says who?”

“My source. Lea used a supplier among her friends. Talk to the drug squad, get them to ask around. Any word from MacPhail in the tox screen?”

Sullivan shook his head.

“Get on it.”

Sullivan raised his large, square hands in surrender. “Anything else while you're at it?”

“Yeah, have you done any background check on Riley O'Shaughnessy?”

Sullivan shoved his papers away, looking exasperated. “I did some myself last night so I wouldn't get the rumour mill going.”