This Thing of Darkness - Barbara Fradkin An Inspector Green Mystery

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shrugged. He wasn’t sure Italian shoes, some rings and a dress watch were motive enough to obliterate a man’s head. “Not till we find out who this guy was and what he was doing out that late.” He broke off as he watched a tall, slender woman stroll languidly towards them, flicking her cellphone shut. She was nicely packaged in a navy jacket and beige pants — or as Sharon would have scolded him, taupe—and a simple gold scarf at her neck. She wore no make-up that Green could detect, but her skin was like flawless cream. She had long legs, a straight back, and everything about her flowed, including her blonde hair, which was loosely clipped in a long ponytail down her back.

      Green shot Sullivan a look to see if he too was watching. Sullivan grinned.“Our new sergeant wanted to take the lead on this herself, so I figured why not? This will hit the media—are the elderly safe on their own streets?—and they’ll lap her up.”

      “Not to mention our new police chief. The Force’s ‘diversity in hiring’ program visible for all to see, and she’s fluently bilingual to boot.”

      Sergeant Marie Claire Levesque frowned fleetingly at the sight of Green before pasting a determined smile on her face. Green had met her only once, at her transfer interview the month before, but he’d analyzed her file and sought the opinion of colleagues. Determined was the word most frequently mentioned. Along with smart.

      “Good morning, Inspector,” Levesque said with a hint of French lilt. She extended her hand. “Nice to see you again.”

      Ambitious too, the file had said. Nothing wrong with ambition, as long as it was tempered by competence. At five- foot-ten, she matched him in height, yet with her high cheekbones and long, patrician nose, he almost felt as if she were looking down on him. Conscious of his sweaty T-shirt and bike-helmet hair, he drew himself up.

      “Your first case is a sad one.”

      She nodded. “And messy. Forensics says there is a lot of physical evidence, and they were able to lift some tissue from under the nails. It seems the victim fought back. His cane has a crack in it, and what looks like blood on the tip.”

      “Any leads from Missing Persons?” Sullivan asked her, nodding towards the cellphone in her hand.

      She shook her head. Her pony tail swished distractingly. “I just checked with them again. No one called in a missing senior.”

      Green wasn’t surprised. How long would it take before his own father was reported missing? Sid Green lived alone and rarely went outside any more. The circle of cronies he used to meet for card games had dwindled through illness and death. Green tried to phone him every day, but some days there weren’t enough hours in the day. If this old man had a wife or lived with someone, he would probably have been reported by Sunday morning, but if he lived alone, it might take days.

      “Do we have anything to go on?” he asked. “A monogram on a handkerchief, an ATM slip in a pocket?”

      Levesque nodded. “They may find more when they examine the clothes and the body, but we found one item in his coat pocket—a receipt from the Rideau Pharmacy from last April. I asked Detective Charbonneau to follow up with them. And...” She paused, then slipped her hand into her handbag and withdrew a plastic evidence bag. Inside, Green could make out an object on a gold chain.

      “We found this beside the body. It looks like gold.” She held out the bag. “It’s a Jewish star, right? What’s it called?”

      Sullivan cast Green a sharp look, but Green barely noticed as he took the bag and held it up to the sunlight. He twisted the piece this way and that. It was hammered gold, exquisitely delicate and old. Dread crawled down his spine.

      “A Magen David,” he said, then grimaced at the irony. “Literally, Shield of David. It’s meant to protect.”

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      Mort Fine, the owner of Fine Antiques, was just flipping the sign in his shop window to “Open” when Green pushed through the door. He scowled as if a customer were an inconvenience, but then his pig-like eyes lit up at the sight of Green.

      “Mr. Yiddish Policeman!” he exclaimed, trundling his squat body along the narrow aisle of his shop. “More mysteries for me?”

      “You remember me?” A few years earlier Green had enlisted his help in identifying some old keys found at a crime, and since then Fine had provided the occasional tip about the fencing activities of his more dubious competitors.

      “How could I forget? I get so many customers here?”

      Green glanced around the shop. The place was a fire trap. Curios, figurines, tarnished silver and old lamps were still jumbled without apparent order on the shelving that crammed the aisles. Antique chandeliers covered the ceiling like stalactites in a cave. It didn’t look as if a dust mop had passed over anything since Green’s last visit. He could feel his bronchial tubes closing up at the mould and dust.

      “Business good?” he asked, trying to keep the irony out of his voice.

      “Oy...” Fine scrunched up his rubbery face. “So what can I do for you? We’d better talk fast before the crowds come through the door.”

      Green laughed. “You know anything about jewellery?”

      Fine’s eyes danced. “You want to buy your wife a special something? I could give you a very good price on a sapphire ring that just came in.”

      Green laid the evidence bag on the counter at the cash so that the small gold Star of David was visible. “What can you tell me about this piece?”

      Fine picked the bag up with pudgy but surprisingly nimble fingers. He turned it over and over, frowning.“Besides that it’s old, not much unless you let me take it out of the bag.”

      Green had him sign the evidence log, then followed as the man carried the bag into the workshop at the rear and turned on a powerful light. He slid the contents out onto a white enamel tray. The chain tumbled out along with the star Fine weighed first the whole pendant then the star alone. He held it up to his jeweller’s loupe and peered at each square millimetre of it. In the small, stifling confines of the workshop, the silence was broken only by his asthmatic breathing and the occasional grunt.

      Green sneaked a peek at his watch. Tony and Sharon were expecting him at Nate’s Deli at one o’clock, and he had tried their patience enough for one day.

      “You in some kind of hurry?” Fine demanded, without taking his eyes off the star.

      “How long will you be?”

      “Can you leave it with me? I can research in my spare time.”

      Green shook his head. “It can’t be out of my custody.”

      “I don’t work miracles. It’s good quality. Twenty-two carat gold maybe, not the dreck they make nowadays. Hand shaped and hammered by a goldsmith, not off the assembly line in China.”

      “China makes Magen Davids?”

      “China makes everything. Mezzuzahs, yarmulkes... You go to Israel today, half the Judaica in Old Jerusalem is from China. But this...” he smiled enigmatically, “this is from Russia.”

      “You can tell that? Something different about the gold?”

      “Probably, but who knows?” His smile broadened, showing a row of unnaturally straight, white teeth. In his lumpy, pockmarked face, their perfection was jarring. He stepped back, removed his loupe and held it out to Green. “Have a look. There’s a jeweller’s monogram on the back. Cyrillic letters. ASM, I think. There’s an inscription as well.”

      Dutifully Green peered through the magnifying glass, astonished that he could see every scratch and speck of dust on the gold. At first he could make out nothing beyond a few faint etchings, well worn by the passage of time. Then slowly a pattern emerged. He couldn’t read Russian, couldn’t recognize anything but a

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