Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (63 page)

Green slipped on nitrile gloves and moved rapidly through the rooms checking for intruders and obvious signs of trouble. Twenty years of police work had inured him to most human oddities, but even he found the crammed bookshelves unnerving. Any possibility that Fraser had simply been a nice, normal guy wrongly accused of child abuse vanished from his thoughts. Barbara Devine was right. This was one sick bastard. Not the shy, vulnerable man Janice thought she was drawing out of his shell, but a man whose whole life had but a single focus—the subject of the hundreds of books and newspapers which were catalogued along every wall.

“I’m going back downstairs for a hammer to get those nails out,” the super muttered, tripping over himself in his haste to get out the door. Left alone, Green continued his search. All the windows were nailed shut, but in the bedroom he found a small air conditioner, which he turned on gratefully. It would take several hours to cool the place adequately, but at least it might soon be tolerable.

In the kitchen, he noted that Janice hadn’t even attempted to clean up but had left a note for Fraser on the kitchen table to explain that Modo was safe with her. Apart from the halfeaten food and open newspaper on the kitchen table, Matt Fraser kept a fastidiously tidy kitchen. His fridge gleamed white inside and out, full of food in neatly labelled rows of Tupperware containers. Sliced carrots, diced peppers, chopped lettuce, boiled rice and single-serving portions of left-overs. A health nut too, to top it off. Not a processed cheese slice or frozen dinner in sight. The cupboards were the same. No empty potato chip bags or lidless ketchup bottles, no duplicate boxes of Cheerios to give Green a sense of kinship. The man was seeming less human by the moment.

Yet he clearly had left the scene without bothering to clean up. Without even bothering to finish his food. This suggested two things. First, something very urgent and compelling had taken him away, and secondly, whatever it was, it had occurred at a meal time.

Had he gone on his own, or had someone forced him?

Green’s eyes fell on the dog dishes on the kitchen floor. A big bugger, the super had said, surely capable of making any intruder think twice about breaking in, and capable of making enough racket to rouse the dead if he did.

When the super came huffing back into the room with his toolbox under his arm, Green turned to him. “Have you heard the dog barking any time in the past few days?”

The super wheezed as he bent over to paw through his toolbox. He seemed to be thinking, and Green gave him time. Finally the man shook his head.

“But I’m way down in the basement. I don’t hear much that goes on up here.”

Especially with your television on full blast, Green added silently. “How long has Mr. Fraser lived here?”

The man found a hammer and straightened up, his face dangerously red from the exertion. Sweat poured down his temples and disappeared into the folds of his chins. He squinted as if that would help him muster his thoughts.

“Three, four years?”

“What does he do for a living?”

On this the super was no help. He knew nothing of the man’s private life beyond that he rarely went out except to shop or walk the dog, and he had no visitors.

“None at all?”

The super started to shake his head, then paused, sweat flying. “Recently, yeah. There was a lady come yesterday—I seen her hanging around before. Outside, like. And I think someone else came last week. I didn’t see much, just heard them go up to the third floor, and they didn’t go to Crystal’s place. Crystal probably seen them, though.”

“Crystal?”

The super fidgeted, his pig-eyes squinting almost shut. “The woman next door. She’s the only other tenant on the third floor.”

Green made a note to get to her later. Since she lived next door, she might have some useful information about Fraser’s habits or recent visitors.

The super swept away the cobwebs and pried all the windows open, billowing humid air into the already stifling room. Looking eager to get away, he asked Green if he were still needed. When Green declined, the super handed over the key with relief.

“Lock up when you’re done,” he tossed over his shoulder as he hustled out the door.

Green stood in the living room, trying to soak up Fraser’s presence. From what he could see, the man lived an existence entirely without comforts. No television, no CD player, not even a comfortable arm chair. Just a computer, a desk with utilitarian chair, and a hard vinyl couch whose main purpose seemed to be for spreading out papers. There were endless shelves of articles and text books on law and psychology, but not an action thriller or hobby book among the lot. Nothing that might engender joy.

As if the man were doing penance. Perhaps he was.

Once Green’s eyes grew accustomed to the bizarre character of the room, he realized the incongruity between the various rooms. The kitchen and the bedroom, apart from the rotting food and the dog mess, seemed meticulously ordered, indicating that the man kept a neat house. Even the organization and labelling of each shelf attested to a fastidious mind. Yet in the living room everything had been turned upside down; books and papers had been pulled out and impatiently cast aside.

Janice Tanner had made much of the rotting food and the abandoned dog, but had not mentioned a ransacked living room. Surely this would not have escaped her notice. Could someone have been here since yesterday? Fraser? In Green’s house, it was not uncommon for him to turn the place upside down for something he’d misplaced, but Fraser seemed as if he’d know where every slip of paper was. Had someone else been here? Whoever they were, whatever they were looking for, they’d been in a hell of a hurry. Or a hell of a temper.

Intrigued, Green examined the books that lay on the floor. The Child and Family Services Act, which detailed the law governing child abuse, as well as its predecessor. There was a heavy tome called
Child Witnesses
, and another with the lurid title of
Breaking the Silence
. The latter looked well thumbed, with pages dog-eared and passages underlined. Green began to read.

“Fuck! What stinks!” The querulous shriek came from the hallway, and Green glanced up just as a young woman stumbled into Fraser’s doorway, shielding her eyes from the daylight and clutching a man’s extra large cotton shirt over her scrawny frame. She recoiled slightly at the sight of Green, and glanced down as if to ensure the shirt covered her crotch.

“What the fuck is that stink?” she repeated.

Green took a guess. “Crystal?”

Her eyes slitted warily. “Who the fuck are you?”

Extensive vocabulary, Green thought. Matches the super’s. He introduced himself and steeled himself for hostility. She looked like the type whose encounters with police might have been less than amicable. When the hostility came, however, it was not directed at him.

“What’s he done? What’s the pervert done?”

“Disappeared,” Green replied. “When did you last see him?”

“He gives me the creeps. Always sneaking around with that freaky dog of his, locking himself in with six locks like he’s got the crown jewels in there. Won’t even say hi, but I know who he is anyway and don’t want him anywheres near my daughter, so I stay away from him.”

Green shifted gears quickly. “Has he ever acted suspiciously around your daughter?”

Crystal held her hand under her nose with a grimace. “What the fuck stinks? I thought I smelled something weird, but I figured it was just lazy Laslo not bothering to throw out the garbage. Smells like shit.”

With a sigh, Green decided he might never get a straight answer to his questions. Her mind was as jumpy as a spooked cat, and she looked as if she were in dire need of her next dose. He steered her back into the hall and shut the door on the offending odours.

“When did you last see Mr. Fraser?”

She chewed at her fingernails. “What day is it? Monday?”

“Tuesday.”

“Tuesday.” She frowned, as if with the effort of rallying her wits. “I don’t think I seen him since last week. Wednesday, maybe? He was going out, all dressed up.”

“You mean—”

“For the office. Grey suit, tie, briefcase.”

“He didn’t usually dress that way?”

She snorted. “He wore the baggiest, ugliest pants and sweatshirts you could find. Even the Sally Ann has nicer clothes. He couldn’t look dumber if he tried! I mean, he wouldn’t be a bad-looking guy. He’s got wide shoulders and a nice tight—” she paused and twisted her thin lips into a smirk, “butt on him, still got all his hair, even if he wears it like a dork. Way long in the back.”

“What time did you see him leave in the suit?”

“I don’t know. Lunchtime? Yeah, “Young and Restless” was on.”

“Did he seem in a hurry? Did he act strange in any way?”

“Yeah, he was walking fast. Usually he kind of slinks along, never looks at you, you know? This time it was like he knew where he was going. Plus he didn’t have that ugly dog with him.”

“Did you see him return?”

She shook her head. “But he did. I heard him later. Six locks make a lot of noise, and that time he wasn’t quiet about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he slammed the door and banged all the locks real quick.”

“What time was this?”

“I don’t know,” she whined, wiping her nose. “All these fucking questions. Six, maybe? “Much MegaHits” was on, so what time was that?”

Unfortunately, the hectic pace of both Sharon’s and his lives left little room for television, but the music channel’s broadcast schedule would be easy enough to check, and if the show aired at six, the timing was interesting indeed. Six o’clock was close to dinner time. “Did you see or hear anyone else come just before or after him?”

“Well, I don’t spy on him, you know. My TV was on, and my daughter was talking to me.”

“Did you hear the dog bark?”

Her pinched face cleared. “Fuck, yeah. A few minutes after the guy got home. Just about shook the walls down. Then it didn’t shut up for days!”

And you didn’t bother to check why? Green thought but knew better than to ask. In Crystal’s world, it didn’t pay to be too curious. He held her gaze in an effort to keep her focussed. “Did you see anyone else hanging around outside or in the hallway?”

She was edging back toward her own door, which she’d left open. “Look, that’s all I know. I mind my own business, take care of my daughter, and I figure what other people do—”

“Are you talking about Matt Fraser or someone else you saw?”

She scowled and stepped backwards through her doorway. “I didn’t see anyone. Not then.”

He thought of the time span between Janice’s visit and his own, during which someone had apparently ransacked the place. “Some other time? Last night or this morning maybe?”

“I was half asleep. I can’t swear to anything.”

He pressed his advantage. “But you did see someone. A glimpse at least.”

“A glimpse is no good in court, I know, and I don’t need the aggravation. I gotta go. That’s all I can say. Maybe someone else saw more.” She swung her door shut and left him standing on her doorstep, staring at the peeling paint. But there was no sound of footsteps from within, and he sensed that she was watching him through the peephole. Merely curious, or something more?

He jotted down the interview, making a note to catch her again when she was more mellow. Crystal’s “glimpse” might be the only solid lead he found. When he returned to Matt Fraser’s apartment, it smelled none the sweeter for the fifteen minutes of fresh air. Now he began to snoop in earnest. In the bedroom he found a sparsely filled closet of bulky, styleless clothes, among them a navy suit and a handful of skinny polyester neckties, but no grey suit. The dresser contained rows of jockey shorts and neatly rolled black socks, as well as stacks of the shapeless sweatshirts and T -shirts Crystal had described. On his bedside table was an empty glass and a tape recorder but no sign of bedtime reading.

With his pen tip, Green pressed the play button and heard the soothing strains of harp music and a hypnotic voice inviting the listener to close their eyes. Recognizing it as a relaxation tape not unlike the one Sharon sometimes used after a hard day, he turned it off.

In the bathroom, the man’s compulsive neatness astounded him. One toothbrush, not the half dozen elderly ones sprouting from the glass that he and Sharon shared in the bathroom. One tube of toothpaste rolled from the bottom, folded towels and a shelf of the latest herbal remedies like ginseng and Vitamin K, plus a half full prescription bottle labelled Zoloft. Green tipped one of the pills into a small evidence bag from his pocket and jotted down the prescribing doctor’s name.

In the kitchen, the fridge door was pristinely clear, and the wall calendar was blank except for weekly appointments on Tuesdays. Presumably that was his therapy group. But in a drawer, Green finally found something out of place. Or at least oddly placed. He was searching the drawers hoping to find the man’s stash of personal papers—letters, bills, bank statements or even a wallet or day book. He found linens, cooking utensils, tools and then unexpectedly, a small black book, curled and grimy with age. It was peeking out from under the tray in the cutlery drawer as if it had been hidden deliberately. Green pulled it out and flipped through its pages, which were filled with names and addresses in a small, neat hand. He slipped it into another evidence bag, put it in his pocket and continued his search.

The man had to have some personal papers. There was no sign of a filing cabinet anywhere, but surely a man as paranoid as Janice described would hoard everything and probably squirrel it away in some secret hiding place. To search the whole living room would be a mammoth task. Papers could be hidden in plain sight, mixed among the newspapers, or hidden behind some volumes in a dusty, unlit corner. It would take a search team hours to comb this place, and that for a case that was not even his. In fact, not really a case at all.

He flicked on the computer and waited as it hummed and clicked slowly to life. Not exactly state of the art, Green observed, but then the man had little to spare for extravagance. Windows eventually appeared on the screen with a prompt for a password. Green groaned. He should have known that a privacy fanatic like Fraser would use that feature. On a hunch he tried Modo. Invalid. Quasimodo. Also invalid. He pondered his chances of plucking the right name or code from the air with almost no knowledge of the man’s life or interests. He made one last try—Hugo—and to his astonishment the screen lit up with icons. Pulling up a chair, he hunched forward and began to search. It was a short search. Other than his internet browser, Fraser had no software beyond an oldfashioned word processing program and a database. The application files were in place, but there was not a single data file in either program.