Once Upon a Time. Barbara Fradkin
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almost sixty years!”
“For the men who were in it, it is never over,” she retorted.
“My father fought in the war,” Don replied. “It didn’t turn him into a drunk.”
Unexpectedly, Margaret burst into tears. She slammed down the tea pot and whirled to her husband. “He’s dead! Can’t you let up on him just for once! He’s gone now!” With that she hurried out of the room.
* * *
Striding through the major crimes squad room, Green caught Sullivan’s eye and gestured to his office. Once inside, he dropped the bag he was carrying on the desk and extracted two juicy smoked meat sandwiches from Nate’s Delicatessen.
He handed one to his subordinate with a sheepish grin.
“Minor detour. Food to feed the brain cells.”
“I’d say they’re overfed already, at least the imagination part,” Sullivan replied, picking up the three-inch thick masterpiece. Chunks of succulent meat tumbled from his grasp. “Cough it up, Green. Let’s get this over with. The Crowns will be pacing.”
With quick, deft strokes, Green filled him in while they ate. “I tell you, there’s a lot more to the Walker family than meets the eye.”
Sullivan was sprawled in the chair opposite, his huge feet taking up most of the spare space on Green’s desk. “Not really anything that points to murder, though.”
“Oh, come on! We’ve got a long-suffering wife, a son-in-law who doesn’t buy the family’s pact of secrecy, a daughter caught in the middle and an old recluse slowly drinking his family’s savings away. A lot of strange, repressed passions in the air, Brian.”
Sullivan chewed awhile, then shrugged. “Just an ordinary day down on the farm, buddy.”
Green glanced up from picking stray bits of meat from the wrapper, surprised by Sullivan’s tone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” Sullivan shook his head as if to banish an irritation. “Nothing. Just thinking what the hell is normal anyway.”
Green snorted. “That’s fine, go philosophical on me. But something is fishy. Margaret’s scared, Don’s scared, and even the old lady’s hiding something. I intend to find out what.” He licked the last of the juice from his fingers, then rose and stuck his head out his door. To his relief he spotted the very person he needed. Constable Bob Gibbs had been with CID for over a year but still jumped like a startled rabbit whenever Green pounced on him, which he did with alarming regularity. No one was more obsessive and dogged with details than Bob Gibbs. The young man listened, jotted down the strange request without missing a stroke and disappeared behind his computer.
Sullivan eyed Green warily. “And while you have poor Gibbs running around after old war records, what else do you have up your sleeve?”
Green smiled. “You and I are going to Renfrew.”
“Now? Are you crazy? The Crowns are waiting.”
“After the Crowns. It’s the next logical step in the investigation.”
Sullivan picked up his sandwich wrapper, crunched it into a ball and lobbed it over the desk, hitting the basket dead centre. “Forget it, Mike. I’ve got some statements to review, then I’m going home. Home. Where all good family men should be around supper time.”
“How about tomorrow?”
Sullivan removed his feet from the desk and stood up to leave. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. My day off, remember? A day when all good family men…you know the drill.”
Green followed him out, trying to quell his frustration. Sullivan was right; the meeting with the Crown attorneys would take all afternoon, and it was too late to set up a trip to Renfrew that day anyway. As for tomorrow, Sullivan was also right. Green couldn’t run his life as if he were the only one in it. Walker’s case would still be around Monday.
But Fate would not let the case slip from his mind for that long. No sooner had he returned to his office later that afternoon when his phone buzzed. Mr. Donald Reid was downstairs in the foyer, requesting to see him, the desk sergeant said.
Surprise, surprise.
Green ushered Don Reid into an empty interview room and took out his notebook expectantly. Don had clearly not relaxed one iota since Green’s visit out to the house. He drummed his fingers on his thigh and shifted from one side of his chair to the other as he looked for a place to begin.
“You have some information for me?” Green prompted.
“Yeah. Look, I’m not trying to badmouth Eugene, but if you’re thinking he may have been murdered—well, there’s a lot Ruth will never tell you. She’s so protective, and she can never see the other side of him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he’s a complex guy, and there are things that went on that Ruth didn’t know anything about. I think he could have known people and done things that he kept secret.”
“Like what?” Green demanded, getting tired of the vagueness.
“Like talking with someone in his car the day he died. Ruth thinks he doesn’t know anybody foreign, but the truth is— before they moved to the country, every Saturday he’d go drinking at this bar in Renfrew. He had a whole life there that he never told Ruth about, and he must have met guys there. Twenty years ago, just as an example, he got in a fight. The police were involved. You guys probably have it on your computer, if you want to check.”
Green’s ears perked up, but he kept his expression deadpan. Contrary to common belief, the police didn’t have Joe Public’s every little transgression on their national database, and each jurisdiction guarded its own cases jealously. “Why don’t you tell me about it? Save me the trouble of tracking it down.”
Don waved his hand as if to distance himself. “Eugene beat somebody up. Bar fight. I don’t know that much about it. Eugene never talked about it, and he never said why it happened.”
“Did he get in a lot of bar fights?”
“No, that’s the thing. When he drank he usually got morose and surly. He’d say bitter, vicious things, but I never knew him to use his fists.” Don’s words began to flow faster, as if his pent-up thoughts had just been released. “It was a surprise to me when Ruth called and said he’d been arrested for beating up a man in a bar.”
“So tell me what you did learn.”
“Well, in those days he was a weekend drunk. The hardware store would close at six o’clock on Saturday, and Eugene would head for Paddy’s Bar and Grill on Raglan Street for a couple to unwind. That couple would stretch to seven or eight, and he’d usually roll into the house at two in the morning when the bar closed. He’d spend Sunday nursing a hangover with more booze and Monday sleeping it off.”
“Did he hang out with a particular group at Paddy’s place?”
Don shrugged. “Eugene wasn’t a party animal, but Renfrew’s a small town, and it was probably the same crowd of serious drinkers who closed the place each Saturday. They drank, watched the hockey game, argued about sports.” He made no attempt to keep the contempt out of his voice. “The night of the fight, one of the local farmers brought along his cousin from out of town—Hamilton, I think—who was visiting the family. This cousin and Eugene exchanged words —no one knows what it was about—and suddenly Eugene jumped him. He threw him against the bar and started beating the shit out of him. The others broke it up as fast as they could, but it put the guy in the hospital. Eugene was charged, but I don’t know what happened to the case. He probably got off.” Don shook his head, and his lips curled in a curious sneer.
“You didn’t like your father-in-law, did you?”
Don shifted in his chair edgily. “Does that make me a suspect?”
“No