LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

stomach that rebelled at the least thought of food. He paused for an ill-advised cup of coffee before heading to his office.

      He had barely settled down to pry the lid off his coffee when Paquette marched into his office with a plastic evidence bag in his hand. His thick brows were set in their customary frown, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of excitement as he laid the bag down on Green’s desk.

      “Gibbs figured you’d want to see this.”

      Inside the bag was a small ticket stub from VIA Rail. Even though it was faded and creased, Green could clearly see that it had been purchased in Halifax two weeks earlier. Halifax was a good fifteen hundred kilometre, twenty-four hour train ride from Ottawa, not a trip one would make on a whim.

      “I found it in one of the small zippered pockets,” Paquette said. “Our guy obviously didn’t notice the pocket when he cleaned out the purse.”

      It was probably dark, Green thought, and when you’ve just murdered someone, you’re not usually at your sharpest. Thank God for stupid bad guys. He felt his headache fade, and he managed a genuine smile. “Thanks, Lou. I appreciate the quick work.”

      Lou nodded grudgingly. “Gibbs said to tell you he’s already on the phone to Halifax Missing Persons.”

      “Excellent. Any other useful papers turn up in the purse?”

      “Shreds of Kleenex, gum wrappers. The woman chewed a lot of gum, maybe trying to quit smoking. Receipts from Pharmaprix and Loeb grocery store, both here in the Vanier area in the last week, but unfortunately all paid with cash.” He turned to head out the door, and paused. “Oh, and a pamphlet from the new Canadian War Museum.”

      Green’s interest quickened. The victim’s jacket had been military. One military connection might have been random, but two connections, however remote, formed a lead. He was just about to call Gibbs when the man himself loped into his office, almost colliding with Paquette on his way out. Gibbs had his notebook open to a page covered in tight, meticulous writing, and he looked so focussed he forgot to be afraid.

      “Halifax MisPers has nothing, but I sent them the DOA ’s photo and description. And Lou said he’d run her prints through AFIS as soon as he gets them at the autopsy tomorrow.”

      Green nodded. Both were appropriate lines of inquiry, but they were still looking for a needle in a haystack. Besides AFIS , the national fingerprint database, the Department of National Defence had its own fingerprint file of all Canadian Forces military personnel, but it was designed to permit identification of casualties in wartime. It would be a stretch to convince DND that the unidentified Jane Doe might qualify as a victim of war.

      But it was worth a try, particularly if it could get the case solved by the six o’clock news.

      More likely, though, Green suspected that his efforts to connect with the military would take closer to a week, and require official request forms in quadruplicate. In the post 9/11 world, no one was more secretive than DND , except the spooks. So he was surprised when his call was returned before the end of the day by a Captain Karl Ulrich from Human Resources at DND headquarters. Green thought the rank fitting, a captain being at about the same level of the food chain as an inspector.

      But the speed of the response did not mean good news. “Our fingerprint files are not searchable,” the Captain intoned, as if reading from cue cards. “Not like AFIS . Even if National Defence could authorize access in this case, we would require the individual’s name and service number in order to locate the file.”

      “And if that information becomes available, what process does the Ottawa Police need to follow to get access?”

      “Well, there’s a form...”

      Of course there’s a form, Green muttered privately after he’d jotted down the procedure and thanked the Captain for his help. Probably the first of many, requiring signatures from the Commissioner of the RCMP , the Prime Minister and the Governor General herself. We’d better hope Gibbs has more luck with the Missing Persons unit of the Halifax police.

      * * *

      February 23, 1993. Fort Ord, California.

      Dear Kit... Man, I’m not very good at this diary business. The padre said we should try it, to record one of the greatest experiences of our lives and maybe help us keep perspective if things get tough. But it feels dumb, so I’ve decided to write it as a letter to you, even though I can’t actually mail it. It feels good talking to you instead of just myself.It’s been go-go-go since we got down here to do our combat training. Section attacks, platoon attacks, fighting in built-up areas. It freaked out some of the guys because they thought our mission was just going to be keeping the peace, but we’re training on all these guns and practising live-fire simulations.It’s kind of scary because you wonder what you got yourself in for, but, boy—does it ever get the adrenaline going. I’m getting pretty good with my C -7, and even the general purpose machine gun.The great news is that Danny’s been made 2I C of my section because the Princess Pats regular master corporal got moved out to man one of the TOWs. These are really cool anti-tank missile systems that can take out a tank at almost 4000 metres, even in the dark. The CO says we we’re not supposed to have them,but we’re taking them anyway. The UN doesn’t really understand what’s happening on the ground, he said, and he wasn’t going to make Canadian Forces into sitting ducks. I’m glad he’ll be in charge when we go over.

      * * *

      It was ten o’clock that evening before Green’s thoughts returned to the case. His wife Sharon was working the evening shift at Rideau Psychiatric Hospital, so the challenge of feeding, bathing, and putting their rambunctious, two and a half year-old son to bed had fallen solely to him. Green spent nearly half an hour snuggled up in bed with him, reading the antics of Robert Munsch and Dr. Seuss, which had Tony bouncing all over the bed, a million miles from sleep. Green tried the warm milk and lullaby routine that Sharon used, but it still took his entire repertoire of lullabies and a back rub before the little boy finally crashed into sleep from pure exhaustion. Green brushed a kiss to his tousled head and slipped off the bed.

      No sooner had Green tiptoed out of his room when the bedroom door opposite cracked open and an elfin face peered out. The pulse of rock music escaped the room.

      “Shh-h!” Green whispered urgently.

      “What’s for dinner?”

      “And hello to you too.”

      Hannah rolled her eyes. She was barely five feet tall and had a delicate, heart-shaped face that radiated innocence. That illusion had allowed her to get away with everything short of murder in the first sixteen years of her life, after which her mother, Green’s first wife, had thrown up her hands and shipped her across the country to live with her father. In the beginning, Green and Hannah had been complete strangers, but Hannah had been living with them for over nine months now, and at least now she occasionally spoke to him of her own free will. Even if it was only when she wanted something.

      “I picked up cheese blintzes from the Bagelshop,” he added.

      She sighed. “Figures.”

      He’d learned the hard way to ignore the bait. The reality was, she had her father’s unerring instinct for hidden truths, and it had taken her no time to notice that, in his forty-plus years, he had learned very little about the workings of a kitchen. Deli take-outs had served him well in his ten years between wives, and at the end of a long day he rarely had the desire or energy for culinary creativity.

      Feigning nonchalance, he headed downstairs. “They’re in a bag on the counter. How about heating them up while I walk the dog.”

      Modo, their massive Humane Society refugee, was sprawled the length of the living room with her head by Sharon’s chair, snoring blissfully and showing no inclination for a walk. After repeated calling, she hauled herself up and lumbered over to the door.

      Modo was Sharon’s dog, and like Tony, she only accepted Green’s clumsy care-giving when Sharon was not around. Even so, she left the house reluctantly and paused often to look anxiously back

Скачать книгу