Once Upon a Time. Barbara Fradkin
know that Irving doesn’t care. He’s got his own life, and Bernie’s not the most approachable guy in the world. His motto was always ‘You think God cares?’ I know he’s gone through a lot, but as a father I’m not sure he was the best.”
“Was yours?” she countered. “For that matter, are you? Even without the scars of the Holocaust, we fail each other in so many ways. Because of our pride and our hurts. Bernie fails his son, his son fails him. Even me—am I everything I should be to my poor parents? They want to come up for Tony’s birthday, and I put them off till Chanukah, because I don’t have the energy to deal with them. We all have needs that no one can fill. People get busy with their own lives, so in the end, one way or another, the old all face death alone.”
That thought stayed with him, reminding him of Eugene Walker, who had faced death alone at one o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of a busy hospital parking lot. Sullivan had dismissed him as just another old drunk, Donald Reid had called it a quick and painless heart attack, MacPhail a simple “natural causes.” It was true it wasn’t top priority on the major crimes docket, but there was still that niggling mystery of the head wound, and surely the end of a man’s life—and the cause of that end—should be worth at least asking a few questions.
November 7nd, 1939
Winter is young, just gathering strength.
It hurls through the flimsy walls
into the shed where we huddle at the end of the day.
Six strangers, made brothers by the whims of war.
We rouse the reluctant fire, and by its flame
I see my thoughts and fears in the strangers’ eyes.
We are not safe, even here.
Rumours fly eastward on the wind,
of hangings, houses burning and young men,
Poles and Jews alike, kidnapped off the streets,
to stoke the Aryan madness.
She droops against my chest, too weary for words.
Sickness hollows her cheeks and dulls the flame of her hair.
I am fine, she says, and the women laugh.
Laugh. While outside, the Nazi winter descends.
“Mike, it’s goddamn natural causes!” Brian Sullivan exclaimed the next morning. “I closed the case yesterday.”
“Did you or did you not get photos of the scene?”
“Ident did. Of course.”
“Then just give me a peek. I’m not questioning your judgment. I’m just playing inspector, okay? Reviewing the file. What’s the problem?”
“Your imagination,” Sullivan replied. “You’ve got that look in your eye.”
“It’s just a hunch, a piece missing in the puzzle. Humour me.”
Sullivan gave him a long, wary look, then booted up his computer, inserted a CD and pulled up the photo file. Green scanned the photos quickly. Some were closeups of the body, others of the larger area. One gave a clear overview of the death scene, showing the placement of the body and the surrounding cars. Green squinted intently.
Chad had been right. The car next to the Dodge was a dark sedan, at first glance probably something GM. The licence plate was visible but too small to read even with maximum enlargement.
Within seconds he had the Ident Unit on the line, and a few minutes later, he was examining a digital enhancement of the licence plate. Triumphantly he ran the number through the computer and jotted down a name and address.
“Green, you don’t think some guy knocked off the old man and then left his vehicle sitting there to show up in the police photos!”
Green cast Sullivan a look of exasperation as he pocketed his keys. “Lateral thinking skills, Sullivan. I’m looking for someone who might have witnessed something. This guy was parked beside Walker. Just a few quick questions, back before anyone even sees I’m gone,” he added, already halfway out the door.
The owner of the car lived in an opulent brick house on a quiet crescent close to but sheltered from the crush of the city. In the drive a royal blue Buick LeSabre sat sleekly without a speck of slush or salt on its sides. Green examined the side mirror curiously as he passed by. It was also immaculate. Forensics would be little help there, he thought with resignation, because the car had obviously been washed since the storm. But the mirror was rounder and thicker than the wound on Walker’s head, and more importantly, Walker’s wound was deeper at the hairline than down towards his brow. For a car mirror to have inflicted that shape of wound, Walker would have had to fall onto it from the sky.
That’s one for me, Green thought, as he rang the bell. Dr. Kopec had been on call the night before and was not pleased to be awakened, but the word “homicide” brought him clattering downstairs in his bathrobe. He consulted his appointment book to refresh his memory.
“Wednesday was the day of the storm. Yes, I remember, I arrived about noon. The parking lot was quite full, and I had to park near the end.”
“Do you recall the car on your left?”
Dr. Kopec frowned as he tried to mobilize his brain cells without the benefit of caffeine. Slowly, he shook his head. “Not specifically, no.”
“The body was found right beside your car. Between yours and the one on your left. When you pulled in, did you see the old man? Did you see anyone?”
Kopec was shaking his head. “I was late and in a hurry. The traffic on the Queensway had been terrible because of the storm. I just got out of the car and headed straight for the nearest entrance. But there was certainly no body.”
“Did you see anyone inside the car?”
Kopec sat at the kitchen table staring at the flowered table cloth and frowning as he focussed his thoughts inward. Then he raised his head slowly. “I do remember something. As I was getting out of the car, I heard voices. Male voices. I glanced at the car—just idly, you know—but I couldn’t see inside, because the windows were all frosted over. I didn’t give it a second thought.”
“Male voices. How many?”
“I couldn’t tell. Two, perhaps? It was just a low rumble, but it sounded like different people.”
“Could you make out any words?”
Slowly Kopec shook his head.
“What was the tone of the voices—happy, angry, conversational?”
“Something gave me the impression of anger. One voice rose for a moment. I heard several sharp words that sounded angry.”
“What did they say?” Kopec was shaking his head. “Think!”
“I don’t know. They may have been foreign.”
Foreign? Green thought blankly. Eugene Walker was a retired Englishman who rarely left the sanctuary of his country retreat. What the hell would he be doing with a foreigner?
* * *
I don’t care what MacPhail says, Green thought triumphantly as he left Kopec’s house and dashed through the frigid air back to his car. The old man was murdered. No matter that all they really had was a snatch of conversation which could have been the radio and a fresh head wound minor enough to be sustained in the fall. All his instincts cried foul. As a police officer, he’d seen hundreds of beatings, and this looked all the world like a lead pipe brought down on the old man’s head.
And he’d heard enough evasions and subterfuge in his career to suspect that Walker’s family was afraid of something.
He glanced at his watch.