hunt.
Her gruff tone on the phone had prepared him for a square-shouldered matron in a dour suit and sensible shoes. He was surprised when he emerged from the arrivals gate at Halifax airport to see a tall, slender woman wearing a tailored navy pant suit and holding a sign saying “Inspector Michael Green”. She had fine silver hair and deep-set blue eyes that widened with equal surprise as he approached. He knew his deceptively youthful air and bargain basement polyester confounded a lot of people, but he wondered what she’d expected an inspector from the nation’s capital to look like. A balding, fiftyish pencil pusher with a poker up his ass?
He smiled broadly as he extended his hand, thinking this forty-eight hours was going to be even more interesting than he’d anticipated.
She gave his hand a brief, formal shake. “I’ve arranged for lunch to be sent up to the incident room, sir,” she said as she led him toward the exit. “I expect you’ll want to get a look at the files right away.”
Despite her formality, the mischief of Newfoundland still clung to her speech in her flattened vowels and Irish lilt. Green winced at the prospect of police cafeteria sandwiches and wilted celery sticks eaten within the windowless, airless ambiance of a police incident room. “Actually . . .” he said. “I’ve had a rushed morning and a cramped flight. What I’d really like is a proper lunch in a real restaurant, while you tell me about the case in your own words.”
She looked dubious as she approached the unmarked car sitting at the curb in the pick-up zone. “Inspector Norrich of Special Investigations is planning to join us, sir. At least initially.”
Green smiled. Policing has its protocol. One inspector deserves another, even though he suspected Norrich knew nothing about the case and had much better things to do.
He tossed his bag in the trunk and climbed in beside her. “Tell Inspector Norrich that I’m in good hands and don’t want to put him to any trouble. I’ll drop by to keep him apprised after our meeting.”
Her lips twitched, and her stiff posture eased. “Your first time in Halifax?”
He nodded. “First time east of Montreal. That’s shameful, I know.”
“It is. You like seafood?”
He hesitated, picturing scaly fish with dead eyes staring from the plate. “Does pickled herring count?”
She actually laughed, a musical trill that almost erased his hunger pangs. “There’s a place down on the harbourfront that serves terrific crab cakes. Worth a barrel of pickled herring.”
She drove for what seemed like hours through a wooded countryside dotted with lakes. Once they hit civilization, Green was struck by the bright colours of the woodframe houses. The sun shone in a cloudless cobalt sky and glistened off the harbour below. She wove past shabby warehouses and shipyards to the historic downtown waterfront, parked the car and led him onto a wooden boardwalk. She headed straight for a white woodframe restaurant at the edge of the wharf, where the owner greeted her with a huge grin.
“Crab cakes to go, Kate?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got a newcomer from Ontario with me, Jim. Have you got a table overlooking the waterfront?”
He led the way through the restaurant and peeked out the back door. Outside, the patio adjoining his restaurant was drenched with afternoon sun. “If you’re brave, I can open up the patio for you.”
A brisk breeze blew the scent of salt, fish and diesel fumes in off the harbour. Ice crystals still clung to the water’s edge, but already the gulls were circling and the shops were setting out their tourist wares. McGrath cocked a questioning eyebrow at Green, and, not to be branded a wimp, he nodded.
Her formality slipped away as she settled into her seat. She waved away the menus Jim brought and ordered them both crab cakes with organic greens on the side. When they came, Green was relieved to see no fish heads. The cakes were exquisite, breaking up in his mouth like a feather light mousse. She waited until the magic of the first morsel had passed, then sat back and took a deep breath. Suddenly, she was all business again.
“Patricia Ross was the fiancée of a mechanic named Daniel Oliver.”
Green reacted to the name with surprise. “Fiancée? Are you sure she wasn’t his wife? She registered as Patti Oliver in Ottawa.”
She shook her head. “They never got to the altar, unfortunately. Daniel was from down Cape Breton way originally, but he’d come up to Halifax in the mid nineties to find work, and he met Patricia here. But employment was sporadic and money tight, and the last winter he was having trouble keeping body and soul together. Then at approximately 12:08 a.m. on April 9, 1996, police officers responded to a disturbance at the Lighthouse Tavern on Barrington Street. The Lighthouse is a strip joint with a rough clientele, mainly sailors off the ships, some armed forces personnel . . .” she smiled wryly, “and students slumming it. The staff usually handle their own disputes without calling in police. But that night the bartender himself put in the call, and when the first squad car responded, the fight pretty well involved the whole place. By the time other officers arrived and broke it up, there were four individuals wounded, one mortally.”
“Daniel Oliver.”
She nodded. “He was the instigator. According to witnesses willing to talk, he started an argument with another male customer. When that customer’s companion came over as backup, Daniel’s friends jumped in to take his side, and before you know it . . .” She shrugged in distaste.
“Who was the other man?”
“That never came to light.”
Green’s eyebrows shot up. “You never caught him?”
She shook her head. “While the officers were breaking up the brawl, he apparently just walked out. Daniel’s friends said they didn’t recognize him, and the bartender said he’d never seen him before. He wasn’t even a Nova Scotian according to witnesses who overheard him speak, but then they were well plastered by that hour of the night, so you know what that’s worth.”
“How did Oliver die?”
“Blunt force trauma to the left side of the head, the pathologist said. Caused massive intracranial bleeding, and he died four hours later in hospital without regaining consciousness.”
“What caused the trauma?”
“According to the pathologist, a bare fist, driven with such force it left the imprint of knuckles imbedded in the man’s skull.”
Green digested this image soberly. It suggested either one hell of a strong guy, or one hell of an angry one. “Did you get any leads? Do you have a suspect but can’t prove it?”
“Patricia was convinced it was someone from Daniel’s past. She and Daniel and four other friends were at a table near the back. They’d been drinking for three hours by then, and the bartender estimated they’d consumed about a dozen pitchers of beer between them. The stranger walked past and Daniel called him over to the table, saying something like ‘Hey, you son-of-a-bitch’. Now Daniel Oliver was a big guy, and when he was drunk, he could look pretty mean. And he was apparently yelling something about it being all this man’s fault and calling him a traitor and a lying bastard. There was a lot of noise in the bar, making it difficult to hear the whole conversation. Patricia was farthest away from the shouting match—”
“So
