Normally, Green never paid the least attention to fashion, his own or others. He ran a perfunctory comb through his floppy brown hair once a day, but only got it cut when it began to seriously impede his vision. His slight, five foot-ten frame fit passably into a size 38 regular straight off the sales rack of the nearest chain store. Departmental dress code required that he wear a suit and tie, so he tried to wear one that had a minimum of stains and odours. The suits were always grey, which hid the dirt well and required no colour coordination expertise whatsoever. His male colleagues, and many of the females as well, seemed to agree that, in a job where you’re likely to get puked and spat on, grey polyester was the way to go.
But Peters was oblivious. Standing by his closed office door with her notebook clutched to her chest, she was a beacon all the way down the hall. As he approached, her face lit.
“Gibbsie’s tied up at the autopsy this morning, sir, so I thought I should report to you.”
It was ridiculously outside departmental protocol, but Green’s curiosity won out. Balancing his bagel on his coffee, he unlocked his tiny alcove office and ushered her in. Without waiting for an invitation, she flounced into the guest chair and plunked her notebook on the desk. Green saw page after page of large, clumsy scrawl.
“Do you have a summary report, Detective?” he cut in just as she drew breath to begin.
She hesitated. “Not yet, sir, but I thought you should know what I’ve done, so you can give me my next assignment.”
“Can you give me just the highlights then? I don’t need a blow by blow.”
She pouted. “Our Jane Doe didn’t go to any of the shelters.”
He wondered how much he could trust that information, given Peters’ sledgehammer interview style. “At least as far as the shelters remember.”
“They’d have remembered the purse, sir. I took a picture of it with me. And she didn’t frequent any of the known street hangouts either.” Peters listed them off. It was an impressively thorough list.
When he said as much, she beamed. “All right,” he said. “Next I want you to check the train station staff, especially—”
“I already did. Last night, and again just now to catch the morning shift. One of the porters this morning remembered the purse. Our Jane Doe came in on the Montreal train a couple of weeks ago, she didn’t want any help with her bags—”
“Bags? Plural?”
“One other suitcase. More like a duffel bag. He remembers she asked him how to get to an address in Vanier. She didn’t want a cab, so he gave her directions for the bus.”
“What address in Vanier?”
“He couldn’t remember. He figured she had family or friends there.”
Green digested this information with surprise. Not only had Peters used her initiative and tracked down a very useful lead, but she must have been up well before dawn to do so, if she’d slept at all. He felt a twinge of shame.
“Very good, Peters. Put it all in your report and . . . have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, sir. At the train station while I talked to the porter. I bought him a cup of coffee.”
“Good. After you finish your report, I want you to return to the train station. Take a street map and buy the porter lunch. Read him every street in Vanier, and we’ll see if we can jog his memory.”
She gave a broad smile as she slapped her notebook shut. “That’s what I thought, sir. I’ve already asked him his lunch hour. Will you tell Gibbsie where I’ve gone?”
He let the nickname pass as he watched her leave. She’d no sooner clumped into the elevator than Green caught a movement in the squad room, and he looked up to see Bob Gibbs’s gangly form striding through the desks towards his office, clearly a man on a mission. Green’s hopes quickened. Could it be that this unlikely pair was going to crack this case all by themselves?
When Gibbs had crowded into Green’s tiny office, the unmistakable odour of death and disinfectant permeated the air. Green had been about to close the door but thought better of it.
“You’ve come from the autopsy.”
Gibbs folded his lanky frame into the guest chair and nodded with alacrity. Green was pleased to see that he was flushed a healthy pink rather than sickly green. The young detective had only attended a couple of autopsies, but this was another sign that he was coming into his own. He didn’t even bother to consult his notes.
“It was murder, sir. Without a doubt. There were big bruises around her neck and some abrasions on her arms and legs which MacPhail thinks are consistent with her thrashing about during a struggle.”
“Did she drown?”
“No, sir. Death was asphyxia due to manual strangulation. There was no water in her lungs and stomach, but several of the vertebrae in her neck were crushed.”
Green visualized the scene. The victim was not a small woman, and she had obviously been conscious and resisting during the assault. It would have taken a powerful and ruthless assailant to hold her down long enough to kill her. “What else did MacPhail find?”
Here Gibbs consulted his meticulous notes and began to read them off. “Victim is 167 centimetres in height, 49 kilograms in weight, estimated age between thirty and forty years, eyes blue, natural hair colour blonde turning grey. Poorly nourished and a heavy smoker and drinker, but no signs of other drug use. No tattoos, scars, or other distinguishing marks. Internal exam reveals a healthy subject except for early signs of lung and liver damage. Contents of the stomach negative for food, but there were traces of scotch. Blood alcohol at time of death was .04.”
“Which is probably just one drink. What did he say about time of death?”
“He was sticking by his earlier estimate. Based on ambient air temperature, body temp, frost in the ground and her early stages of rigor mortis, he estimated she’d been dead five to nine hours.”
Green did a rapid calculation. “So she was killed between eleven last night and three this morning.”
Gibbs nodded.
“After consuming one scotch.” Green’s thoughts began to roam afield, making connections. The victim was thin and sickly, but even weak people put up tremendous resistance when they’re fighting for their life. Her killer would have had to be strong and determined, and he or she—more likely he—would probably have taken some hits during the struggle. Although the victim hadn’t been dressed to impress, the timing of the murder, the consumption of the single scotch, and the brute violence of the crime suggested a date gone bad. Pure speculation at this point, but a direction to pursue.
“Anything under the fingernails?” he asked.
“Some fibres and dirt, sir. I took it all over to the RCMP lab.”
“Any signs of sexual assault or activity?”
Gibbs shook his head. “But there was one other thing. She’d borne a child, quite a few years ago.”
Green had jotted down some notes on his notepad, and he sat tapping his pen as he pondered their next move. Until they knew who the woman was, it was difficult to investigate her close associates and to track her recent movements. As he weighed ideas, he became aware of the silence that had fallen and of Gibbs’s anxious eyes upon him.
“Sir? Now that it’s a confirmed homicide, are you g-going to assign the case to one of the sergeants?”
Green considered his options. They were few. He had one sergeant on holiday and another tied up full-time on the Byward murders, which continued to draw media attention and to jam the phones with calls.