None So Blind (11 page)

When he continued on to reiterate the routine details, Green found his attention wandering. He was startled when MacPhail raised his voice.

“Something you don’t know, laddie. Sergeant Cunningham found empty bottles marked benzodiazepam and Scotch under the wheelchair. Aberlour …” He closed his eyes as if to pay homage. “Expensive by anyone’s standards, pure gold to a man who’s been inside for twenty years. I will run tox screens, of course, but I had a quick whiff of our boy. The same heavenly smell.”

“So he was mixing alcohol and diazepam.”

“Could be. Did he have a prescription for diazepam?”

Green made a note to ask Archie but he doubted it.

“Diazepam is a tranquilizer normally used to treat anxiety and sometimes insomnia,” MacPhail said. “Was your lad suffering from either?”

Green shook his head. He may have, but abstinence from drugs and alcohol was part of his release conditions. Diazepam made a nice high and was far too easy to abuse, or sell, to be prescribed in a custodial facility.

“Any sign of the drinking glass?” he asked.

“The place was very clean except for the bottles in the living room and the empty cartons of takeaway curry in the kitchen bin.”

“What about the rest of the cottage?”

MacPhail shrugged. “Undisturbed. No linen on the bed or towels in the lavvy.”

“It’s not been rented yet this season,” Levesque interjected. “Rentals and maintenance are handled by a property management firm based in Ottawa —”

“You’ll need to interview them,” Green said before he could stop himself. He was rewarded with another pout.

“I already have. They’ve been handling the cottage for twenty years; rentals are on a monthly or seasonal basis only.”

“How are the accounts managed?”

“The firm works through the wife, but James Rosten set it up, and the money goes into a joint account at Scotiabank.”

“Any recent activity on that account?”

Levesque made a show of consulting her watch. “It’s only eleven o’clock, sir. We’re working on the paperwork.”

He grinned at her. MacPhail took that moment to interrupt. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds to sort out the details while I get my own paperwork in order so my lads can remove the body to the morgue. Have you notified next of kin?”

Levesque nodded. “Wife’s been called. Goes by her maiden name, Victoria MacLeod, now. She lives in Halifax and she doesn’t want anything to do with the arrangements. She would have divorced him, she said, but for the financial entanglements. He refused to sell the cottage.”

Out of spite or nostalgia
, Green wondered.
Or as one last tie to the woman he still loved?

“Rosten has a daughter here in Kanata,” he said. “I suspect none of the family will be too happy to claim him, but you could start there.”

Levesque’s notebook was poised. “Name?”

Green supplied the name. “The community chaplain knows her. I’ll see if he can smooth the way.”

After the briefest hesitation, Levesque nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

As she walked away, she flicked her blonde ponytail irritably. MacPhail chuckled. “Losing your touch, laddie?”

“She’s a good cop but she doesn’t like supervision.”

“You mean meddling.”

Green laughed. “Humour her, Alex. It’s her case. But keep me in the loop. I have to liaise with Correctional Services.”

MacPhail grimaced. “Better you than me. You’ll be dropping by to observe the PM too?”

No response was necessary, for Green had never survived past the opening of the skull, but MacPhail was still laughing when he walked away. Green caught sight of the phalanx of media vans now lining the end of the driveway beyond the tape. It wouldn’t be long before they had determined the owner of the property and began to link this new death with the old murder case. It was a media jackpot, and speculation on the dead man’s identity would fill the airwaves and cyberspace. Twitter was a terrifying tool.

Rosten’s daughter had to be informed immediately.

He phoned Archie Goodfellow’s cellphone and was relieved when the big man answered right away. Archie too did not need to read this on his latest Twitter feed.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” he said when Green broke the news. His normally jovial voice cracked. “How? Oh sweet Jesus, how?”

Green filled him in on Rosten’s flight to the cottage and his apparent overdose. “It’s looking like suicide, Archie.”

Archie was silent but Green could hear him fighting for breath. “Does that seem possible, Archie?”

“No. No!”

“You yourself said he was lonely and feeling overwhelmed. You and I know it’s a risk when guys get out after dreaming all these years about being free, only to discover they have nothing.”

Archie took a deep breath. “You’re right. But I didn’t see any signs. How could I have missed the signs? I wouldn’t have let him go on his own if …” He broke off. Green could hear him muttering.

“Archie, what?”

“No, it still makes no sense.”

“What?”

“He didn’t get the news he was hoping for from the Kingston specialist. He’d been reading on the Internet about new neural stimulation research, and he’d been hoping he might regain some limited use of his legs with this new therapy. Enough to get around his room, in and out of cars. The doctor said no.”

“So instead, he hops a train to Ottawa, goes back to a place he loved, and kills himself.”

“No! Damn it! I would have seen something.”

“Not if he didn’t want you to. Tell me, was he on diazepam?”

“Are you kidding? In a house full of cons?”

“Could he have got hold of some there? Any dealers, any connections?”

“In my world, Mike? There’s always someone who knows someone. But James had no history of drug use, never shown any interest either.”

“What about alcohol?”

“No. James didn’t like anything that messed with his brain. He’d lecture all the guys about it too. Point out how many brain cells were being killed with every drink, how many of the guys owed their troubles to one drink too many.” Archie paused. “He’d never think to drown his sorrows in a bottle of pills or booze. If he was going to kill himself, he’d do it in one grand sweep. Roll his wheelchair off the dock.”

When Green pondered the idea, he conceded Archie’s point. James Rosten would go down fighting, his death as much an act of defiance as of despair. Peacefully consuming an entire bottle of pills and Scotch while looking out over the bay suggested resignation. Not a mood Green would ever associate with him.

Yet Rosten was a biologist. He would know exactly what effect would be achieved by combining diazepam with alcohol. He would also likely know how much of each would be lethal and how long it would take.

“Speculation for now, Archie. Let’s wait for the autopsy before you beat yourself up over this. I need the phone number for the daughter.”

“Paige? Hang on.” His asthmatic breathing whistled in the silence as he searched. After reading out the number, he sucked in his breath. “That’s another thing! He was just beginning to reconnect with her. Remember I told you she came for a visit a couple of weeks ago. It …” He faltered. “It didn’t go great; they were both too nervous, so it was awkward. But sweet Jesus, after twenty years of hoping, it was a start!”

Green cut through the sentiment. “What did they talk about?”

“Not much. Small talk, mostly about the work he was planning to do. His medical condition. He asked about her family but she clammed up at that. I told him it was going to take time and he didn’t seem discouraged.”

“Did they talk about future visits?”

“Nope. But I think there would have been more. You could see them both kind of feeling ahead in the dark.” Archie caught his breath. “But he did mention the cottage. Asked if she or her sister ever went there. She asked what cottage, and so he told her about how they used to play on the sand beach he made. She had no memory of it, of course.”

“Did he seem sad about that?”

“Yeah, but … Mike, I wouldn’t read anything into that. They both seemed a little sad, like it was a part of their lives lost in time. I still think … It wasn’t a comfortable reunion, but I think afterwards James had hope. And so did his daughter.”

Green had to use the GPS on his cellphone to navigate the labyrinth of crescents in the new subdivision of Stittsville where Paige Henriksson lived. When Green was growing up in inner-city Lowertown, as far removed from suburbia as it was possible to be, Stittsville had been its own little village, with a main street, a whistle-stop train station, and a handful of local shops. When the city first began to stretch its tentacles toward the old village, developers championed it as “just beyond the fringe.”

It was now well within the fold. Acres of pasture and corn fields had been sacrificed to tract housing that looked indistinguishable from any other suburb on the continent. Like its neighbours, Paige Henriksson’s house boasted two storeys of bland beige brick, a double garage, and a scattering of marigolds, petunias, and spindly new shrubs under the bay window.

Green recognized the flowers only because he had bought the same ones at the local supermarket garden centre two weeks earlier. He figured he’d done well to choose colours that matched, but Sharon apparently wanted flowers that weren’t on half the lawns in the neighbourhood. The lowly flats were still sitting on the back deck waiting to be planted in hidden corners of the yard. Now, with his father’s health crisis, that likelihood had faded along with the blooms.

With an active toddler, Paige probably had no more time or inclination than he did to worry about the finer niceties of landscaping. He climbed out of the car, dreading the task ahead but curious to see what kind of woman James Rosten had produced.

He had paid scant attention to the twin girls when they were little, except a cursory question to their mother concerning their adjustment and mental health. He had known almost nothing about children in those days, but Rosten’s wife rightly guessed that he was looking for signs of physical or sexual abuse, and she froze him out. Her interaction with him was limited to terse monosyllables, and even when she picked up and fled at the end of the trial, she never betrayed a word of concern about the mental health of her own girls.

He hesitated on the doorstep. Although he was now facing a stranger, he felt he knew the deepest, most formative secret of the young woman’s life. It gave him an odd feeling of kinship. When she opened the door, he found himself staring into the watchful grey eyes of a younger, softer Rosten. The rich brown hair was the same, as was the long slim neck and the proud tilt of the head.

She looked trim and fit, but was dressed for comfort rather than style in a grimy T-shirt and old jeans. A pink, well-fed toddler was propped on her hip, clutching a piece of cheese. Unlike the mother, the boy was grinning ear to ear.

“Mrs. Paige Henriksson?” To forestall her incipient protest, Green produced his ID and introduced himself.

“Inspector Green,” she repeated. “Michael Green. Aren’t you the one who …?”

He nodded. “May I come in?”

“What’s this about?”

He inclined his head politely. “Perhaps we can talk inside.”

She didn’t move. “I don’t plan to see him again, if that’s why you’re here. If it’s against the rules or something.”

“No. I have news.”

Belatedly, she seemed to hear the gravity of his tone. She clutched her child closer, opened her mouth to ask what news, and then turned instead to go back inside. He followed her into the brightly painted but minimally furnished interior. A chemical smell of new house still clung to the air.

The living room looked as if a hurricane had blown through. Paige looked flustered as she tossed toys aside to clear a space for Green on the sofa. “I’m sorry. I —”

He held up his hand. “I have three children. Believe me, I understand.”

She sank onto the sofa opposite, still hanging on to her son, who had begun to wriggle. She fixed her eyes on Green, no longer wary but frankly fearful. “What news?”

“Bad news, I’m afraid. Your father is dead.”

She didn’t react. She continued to gaze at him as if the words had no meaning.

“He appears to have died last night up at his cottage near Morris Island.”

Now she blinked. “The cottage? I knew he’d escaped. But dead?”

“He took a taxi out there yesterday. I thought he might have contacted you.”

“No.” The toddler squirmed and pushed her away. Numbly she opened her arms and released him. She took a deep breath. “My God,” she murmured. “What happened?”

“We don’t know yet. There will be an autopsy, probably in a couple of days.”

“Was he sick? I mean, I hardly knew him, but he didn’t say anything about that. He looked fine.” She shook her head, grappling. “Was it an accident? Did he roll off …? I’ve never been to the cottage, I don’t know if it has a deck or stairs …”

“No, nothing like that. He was inside.”

She was watching him intently, as if trying to see through his evasions. Her son had clambered onto a lamb toy on wheels and was beginning to scoot around the living room, crashing into furniture with delight. Paige didn’t seem to notice, so focused was she on absorbing the news. Slowly her eyes widened.

“Was he murdered?”

“There’s no sign of that either. But we’ll know more once the autopsy is complete.”

“He was just lying there?”

“Well, sitting in his wheelchair, actually. As if he was looking out at the view.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth to hide its trembling. “He talked about that cottage. He wanted to see it again.”

“Did he mention plans to come up here, maybe show it to you?”

“We didn’t get that personal. It’s odd, you know, meeting a stranger who you know is your father but who’s also a monster, and you’ve grown up all these years with this huge shameful secret hanging over you like a shroud. Most of the time, he was nothing to me. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t remember him at all and my mother didn’t talk about him. No one in my mother’s family did.”

She paused, as if trying in vain to stem the memories. “No, that’s not quite true. When we were little, the official story was that he was dead. That worked until I got to school and somebody spilled the beans. Our mother pulled us out of that school and put us in another, but the damage was done. I couldn’t pretend he was dead, because he wasn’t. I couldn’t even have a make-believe father like some of my friends with single moms, because I had a murderer instead. For a while I pretended he was dead, but that only takes you so far when you’re ten.”