Do or Die. Barbara Fradkin
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Something Vanessa Weeks had said came to mind. Jonathan had told her Raquel was only a research assistant. Did senior Honours students help Masters students with their research?
A visit to the eminent Dr. Myles Halton was certainly in order, but first he had to check out Pierre Haddad. The Loretta Street address proved to be a corner convenience store on the fringe of Little Italy. The front door sagged and the “L” and “Y” on the sign “Loretta Confectionery” had peeled off. Another victim of big box stores, Green thought as he pushed the door open with a screech of rusty hinges and entered a room full of dark, half-empty shelves. No wonder business was bad. Mr. Haddad needed some pointers in presentation.
In response to the screech, a curtain parted at the back of the store and a man emerged. Early forties, swarthy and prematurely gone to fat. He rolled down the aisle to the cash.
“Pierre Haddad?”
The man scowled, drawing his heavy black brows over his eyes. Green produced his badge and kept his voice soothing. Experience had taught him that people from violence-plagued countries were easily alarmed. “I’m Inspector Green of the Ottawa Police. As you probably know, a student at the University of Ottawa named Jonathan Blair was murdered last night. I’m told that Raquel Haddad was one of his research assistants. We are asking everyone who knew him if they know anything that might help us. Raquel listed you as next of kin, and this as her address. I wonder if I could speak to her.”
Haddad had betrayed nothing during the entire speech, no doubt a habit learned on the streets of Beirut. But once Green had finished, he arranged an expression of dismay on his face.
“Murdered! No, I did not know that. How terrible.”
A foolish error, Green thought; he had passed the newspapers stacked for sale by the door. The news was blazoned across the front in large bold print.
Green let the lie pass. “Yes, it’s terrible, and we need all the help we can get. She’s your niece, I understand? Living here with you?”
“She is the daughter of my brother in Beirut. But we don’t live here. This is my business.”
“Did she ever talk about someone named Jonathan Blair?”
He shook his head, then smiled and became effusive. “My brother sent her over here to be safer with me, but Canadian girls, they have much more freedom than Lebanese girls. She doesn’t like to talk to me about her school. I try to take care of her—keep an eye, you know, but not too much. I know she studies science, but I don’t know who are her friends.”
Green knew it was ludicrous to think Haddad knew little of his niece’s university life. Mediterranean families brought their traditional values and their protectiveness with them, and it took several generations to wash out. Raquel might have refused to tell him anything, but he would have found out anyway.
But it was not yet time to get tough. “Can you give me the address where I can find her?”
Haddad sighed. “This is too bad, because I just put Raquel on the plane back to Beirut yesterday. Her school was finished, and she had been looking forward to going home.”
Green’s thoughts raced. The trip to Beirut could easily be verified through the airline records, but he suspected Haddad was not lying. Raquel had suddenly flown halfway around the world to a country where it would be almost impossible to find her. The question was why? And how much did Haddad know behind his impenetrable smile?
Green jotted down the Beirut address Haddad gave him and dashed back to his car to use his cell phone. A quick call confirmed that Raquel had been on the eight p.m. flight from Ottawa to New York the night before. It was interesting, though, that the flight for the long-awaited visit home had been booked only two hours before.
Four
Green arrived back at his office six minutes later, his colour high with excitement.
“We’re on the scent! I can feel it!”
Sullivan looked up from Green’s desk with relief. His eyes were half-shut with fatigue, and he stretched noisily to get the stiffness out of his joints. “Jeez, Mike, I should be the inspector and you should be the field man. I thought you said you’d be back in an hour. I’ve been manning the fort for two and a half hours. This Peter Weiss creep has called three times. Jules is circling. There’s so much stuff coming in, I can’t keep up. So I set a progress meeting for three-thirty. I hope that’s okay.”
Green glanced at his watch. It gave him barely half an hour, but the meeting was timely. He needed to get an overview of the findings and then focus the investigation to follow the leads he had uncovered.
“That’s good. Anything on the student in the red plaid shirt?”
Sullivan shook his head. “But your wife called. She wants you to call, because she’s got the long night shift tonight.”
He frowned as he calculated his time. Sharon worked as a psychiatric nurse on an inpatient ward at the Royal Ottawa Hospital. The long night shift meant seven p.m. to seven a.m., which gave him barely three hours before he had to be home. To encourage father-son bonding, and to help them save money for a house, he had agreed to babysit in the evenings and nights if Sharon had to work shift, and they would only pay a sitter if both were working days. But things kept getting in the way, and the old excuses were wearing thin.
“Did you tell her I was on the Jonathan Blair case?”
“I told her you’d call.”
Even he wants me to grow up, Green thought with a sigh. He picked up the phone and could tell from Sharon’s irritated croak that he had woken her. Oh no, Tony’s nap time. When she worked the night shift, she caught sleep whenever she could. How different from four years ago, when he’d first walked onto her ward to investigate the death of a psychologist. He could still remember how her warmth and humour had taken his breath away.
“Will you be home, Mike?”
“Is Mrs. Louks available?” The elderly widow across the hall rarely went out and had often rescued him from a child care crisis.
“I’m sure she is, but I thought Tony might enjoy your company. It’s such a rarity.”
He winced. “I’ll try to get there.”
“Try?”
He suppressed a flash of irritation. There was nothing he hated more than being on the moral low ground. “I tell you what. I promise I’ll do my best, and if you have to, take him to Mrs. Louks and I’ll pick him up as soon as I can.”
He felt Sullivan’s disapproving eyes on his back when he hung up, but he didn’t turn. As if to counterbalance the depravity he confronted every day, Sullivan had dedicated his life to being the perfect father and he set a tough standard, which Green rarely met. Tossing a quick “Back soon” over his shoulder, he headed for the door.
“Mike! Where are you going?”
Green paused on the threshold. “I’ll be back for the meeting. I’ve just got one last thing…” Without waiting for the wrath, he ducked out.
*
The University Sciences building was a squat concrete bunker built in the psychedelic sixties, but more evocative of post-war Moscow. Virtually the entire fourth floor was devoted to the offices, labs and equipment rooms of Myles Halton’s research group. Green imagined that normally it was alive with the bustle of students and the hum of equipment, but on the afternoon following Jonathan Blair’s murder, everything was hushed. Most of the offices were empty, and only one secretary sat at her desk, staring at her blank computer screen. Somewhere in the background he could hear the murmur of voices, but there was no one to be seen.
The secretary was called back from her trance by his cough. She raised startled gray eyes, which made her look even younger than her probable twenty years. A pretty secretary, he thought. My first clue to Halton’s character.