* *
Reluctantly, Green headed back towards the office. No fresh snow had fallen since the day before, but the temperature had stayed low, and the snow showed no inclination to melt. Ottawa’s efficient salt trucks had cleared the main streets, but the sidewalks and small roads were still rutted with ice. That, and a rash of fender benders caused by hotshots who’d forgotten how to drive in the winter, had slowed traffic to a crawl. Slipping in a CD of soft rock, Green let his mind drift over the case. Something puzzled him, not so much about the manner of the old man’s death as about the reclusive old man himself. And about his widow, a gracious, elegant lady who Green suspected had put up with a good deal.
It made a small, poignant tale of a marriage, compelling from a human interest standpoint, but, he acknowledged grudgingly as he pulled into the station parking lot, from a major crimes standpoint, it was not much to get excited about.
Back behind his desk, he turned on his computer and obediently settled down to his report. After an eternity, his phone rang. It was Sharon. He glanced at his watch instinctively, but it was barely four o’clock. Time crawled when you were having fun.
“I’m leaving in half an hour,” he promised.
She chuckled. “I don’t think I can stand this new suburban you. And actually, I think you should swing by the synagogue and take your Dad home first before you come home.”
“Dad?” His mind drew a blank.
“It’s Thursday—his pinochle afternoon. It’s too cold and icy for him to walk home. He’s pretty frail, and I think those pinochle games are getting really depressing. Sort of like, let’s see who’s left standing this week.”
The image of Eugene Walker’s frozen body face down in the snow was incentive enough, and Green abandoned his desk gratefully at the stroke of five. Sid Green lived in a seniors’ residence in Sandy Hill just off Rideau Street, barely a mile from the tenement where Green had grown up. For the past fifteen years, Sid had walked up Rideau first to the old Jewish Community Centre, and when that closed, to the adjacent synagogue to play pinochle with a handful of elderly immigrant Jews like himself. For fifteen years, a touch of shtetl Poland had flourished in the middle of Ottawa.
Now, as most of them passed eighty and various parts of their bodies failed them, the number was slowly dwindling, and when Green pulled up outside the synagogue, his father’s scowl told him that today had not been a success. In a daily life of so few successes, his father had little optimism to spare.
“I want you to take me to Bernie’s house,” Sid said as Green guided him into the car.
Green was reaching for the seat belt and stopped abruptly. “Why?”
“He didn’t come to the game today.”
“Maybe it was too cold for him.”
Sid waved an impatient hand. His white hair stood in thin tufts, and his eyes watered from the cold. He drew his coat tightly around his throat. “Bernie never missed a game.”
Green started the car. “So call him.”
“Marv did. There was no answer.”
“Dad, he was probably just out visiting friends.”
Sid snorted. “And who are we, chopped liver? We’re all he’s got. Where would he go?” He stole a glance at Green’s set profile, and his voice dropped. “Something is wrong, Mishka. Bernie is looking very bad these past weeks.”
With resignation, Green steered the car in the direction of Bernie Mendelsohn’s apartment, which was a crumbling low-rise mainly occupied by the elderly poor. He left his father in what passed for a foyer and went in search of the building superintendent. They were just jiggling the lock of Mendelsohn’s apartment when the door cracked open, and an old man in pyjamas peered out.
“Bernie!” Sid exclaimed. “Why didn’t you answer our call?”
“What call?”
“You missed cards! Marv tried to call.”
Mendelsohn closed his eyes briefly, then turned to make his way back inside. Green noticed that his hands shook, and he limped badly. Quickly, he thanked the super and followed his father inside. The apartment was barely fifteen feet square and lit with a single yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling. Clothes were scattered everywhere, and open food cans were piled haphazardly by the sink. Green had only been there once before, but he remembered it as scrupulously clean. Like Sid, Mendelsohn had been widowed for nearly twenty years and had his set routines.
“I didn’t hear the phone,” Mendelsohn was saying. “I’m sorry, I was asleep.” He sat down on the edge of his bed, and Sid took the rickety white kitchen chair. As there was no other place to sit, Green leaned against the wall and waited. Both men were frail, but his father, even with his heart condition, looked far healthier. Mendelsohn’s skin had a yellowish cast and hung on his frame in folds. A quick glance around the room revealed a collection of prescription bottles by the bed. While the two friends bickered, Green went over for a closer look.
“You think I don’t have eyes?” Sid demanded. “I can’t see you look bad?”
“I’m eighty-four years old. You think you look so good?”
“Bernie—” Green interrupted, holding up a vial. “These are pretty strong painkillers.”
Mendelsohn snatched the vial away with trembling hands. He shoved it into his pyjama pocket and took a deep breath. “Michael, I have a few aches and pains. Tell your father to leave an old man in peace.”
Sid rose and came across the dimly lit room to peer at Mendelsohn. His wheezing was erratic in the stillness. “Aches and pains nothing. You think I don’t recognize cancer? My Hannah took ten years to die, Bernie. And near the end, when it was in her liver and bones, she looked like you.”
“Well,” replied Mendelsohn quietly, “I won’t be that long. Not ten years. Not even one.”
Green stepped instinctively forward to take his father’s arm, but Sid did not waver. He flinched but kept his gaze on his friend.
“When did you learn?”
“Three weeks ago. The painkillers are strong, and they make me sleep a lot. But it won’t be so long. Thank God it won’t be long.”
“So…” Sid murmured. “Bernie. Don’t you think it’s time to call Irving?”
“Irving? Why should I call Irving?”
“Because he’s your son.”
“Son! Sure. What do you think, Sid? That everyone has a son like Mishka here?” Mendelsohn wet his lips and drew a palsied hand across his chin. For a moment his eyes misted. “I should be so lucky. Mishka would not have left an old man to die alone. But not Irving Bigshot Mendelsohn. He had to go to the United States, no law firms good enough for him here in Canada. I know his kind. Only what they want matters, and the hell with the weak old father who just gets in the way.”
So great was his bitterness that even Sid was alarmed. He looked pale when they left the apartment some minutes later. As he buckled his father into the car, Green picked his words carefully.
