“N-no, sir. I sent Constable Weiss from General Assignment with her.”
A beginner, Green thought. Noch besser. Even better. “Who the hell is Constable Weiss?”
“Jeff Weiss. H...he’s been with the case from the beginning,sir. He asked his sergeant to be assigned. I think he’s keen to job shadow Major Crimes.”
The name rang a faint, unpleasant bell. “Have I met this Constable Weiss before?”
“Yes. Well—maybe. He was down at the aqueduct the first morning, helping with the search of the area, sir. Tall guy, blue eyes and blond hair? Works out.”
Green’s mind rifled through his memory until it came to rest with a jolt on a face he’d barely registered at the time. It was the blue eyes he remembered. Intelligent, focussed, but cocky as hell. Fuck, he thought, just what we need, a zealous, blundering rookie detective, paired up with an entry-level officer with zero investigative skills but an ego the size of Lake Superior. Gibbs was tugging at his tie as if in a vain effort to get more air. He cast Green a pleading look.
“His sergeant says he was an experienced and level-headed street cop, sir.” Gibbs was saved from further wrath by the sharp buzzing of Green’s phone.
“Constable Weiss calling for Detective Gibbs,” the clerk said. “He says it’s urgent.”
Green flipped on the speaker phone and told her to put him through. Constable Weiss’s voice, when it filled the tiny alcove office, sounded neither experienced nor level-headed.
“Sir, it’s Sue. Detective Peters. Something terrible’s happened!”
THIRTEEN
Sue Peters had been awake half the night planning her trip to Petawawa. She knew the army type inside out—she’d grown up with them—and she planned to walk a very finely balanced tightrope between backslapping like one of the boys and allowing a peek at the merchandise. She knew she had to put in an official appearance with the local Ontario Provincial Police detachment and even with the military police on the base, but she didn’t expect to learn a thing about Patricia Ross’s adventures from them. She doubted the woman would even have attempted to go through official channels.
She intended to hit the bars in the cheapest part of town— if there was such a thing in a town as small as Petawawa— where the boys from the base would go for their entertainment. Where they would feel most free to talk. And where she was sure Patricia, being no stranger to the rougher side of life, would have gone to ask her questions. Even if she hadn’t, her arrival in town should have sparked the rumour mill. This was a small military town; drop a blonde under fifty into the mix, and surely the bars would be humming.
She had to admit that she was really looking forward to the assignment. Then in the morning Gibbsie had ratcheted up the excitement by telling her that one of her interview targets was a hotshot lieutenant colonel named Richard Hamm— Dick in the officer’s mess, no doubt, and Dickie in bed—who had been Oliver’s platoon commander back in Yugoslavia. She was supposed to find out if Patricia had been to see him, and if so, why. Now she was doubly glad she’d decided to show a little cleavage beneath her hot pink suit.
But then Gibbsie and the Staff Sergeant had assigned Mr. Steroids himself to be her bodyguard. A cocky prick who thought he was God’s gift, and who would scare off every redblooded soldier she tried to cosy up to. At least he had the sense not to wear his body armour and police belt, which would be guaranteed to shut the gossip line down. He was wearing instead a grey sports jacket over a conservative blue shirt, but he tucked his tie into his pocket the minute they left the staff sergeant’s office. Without it, even she had to admit he made a nice package, and by the time they reached the parking lot, she had thought of a use for him. Two could play the bar flirtation game, for twice the info.
She insisted on driving, which meant she had to endure two hours of him staring down her blouse. In your dreams, Constable. I’ve got a colonel to see.
Protocol had required that the military police and Colonel Hamm be notified in advance of their visit, but Larocque had managed to be as vague as possible. Luckily, Dickie Hamm had decided they posed no threat, because he’d invited them to meet him out at his house. Fewer distractions there, he explained.
He lived off the base on Albert Street, in a bungalow overlooking the southern bank of the Petawawa River. The directions had seemed idiot proof, but with Steroids navigating, they managed to tour most of the south side of town before stumbling across the address. The fieldstone bungalow was protected by a hedge so perfectly trimmed that Peters wondered if he used a laser beam. There was no sign of the truckload of military police she’d been expecting, and instead a brand-new BMW sports van in spit-polished black sat alone in the drive. Tucked into the side yard on a flatbed trailer was a classic jewel-green MG.
Peters pulled their puke-brown Malibu in behind and was just climbing out when the front door swung open and a tall, impossibly fit-looking man strode out. He was a perfect match to the hedge and the cars. Razor-trimmed white hair, wraparound black sunglasses, and a jeans and golf shirt combo that would feed the average private’s family for a month.
And the sonofabitch was heading straight for Steroids, hand outstretched and white teeth gleaming.
“Detective Peters? Dick Hamm. No trouble finding the place?”
She hustled around the car to intercept him. “I’m Detective Peters, this is Constable Weiss.” She grabbed his hand before he could snatch it back. Luckily the man was quick on the draw—you don’t make colonel without understanding buttered bread—and he enveloped her hand in a cool, crushing grip.
“I’ve got coffee on,” he said, striding towards the house. “It’s warm enough to sit on the deck, and the blackflies aren’t out yet, so we’re in luck. We have to catch these rare moments of habitable Canadian weather while we can.”
When they were settled on the deck, which perched on a bluff above a bend in the river, with a pot of fabulous coffee on the table between them, Dickie Hamm removed his sunglasses and turned the full force of his ice blue eyes upon her.
“Now, how can I help you, Detective Peters? I understand this is a murder inquiry?”
Peters reached into her briefcase and withdrew the two photos of Patricia Ross taken at the autopsy. She laid them side by side on the coffee table and opened her notebook. Hamm looked at them, his face unreadable.
“Do you recognize this woman?”
“No. Is she the victim?”
“Take your time, Colonel. Have you ever seen this woman?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Not recently?”
He shook his head.
“How about years ago. In Halifax.” She paused in her note-taking to watch him closely, but he gave absolutely nothing away. But then, you don’t make colonel by letting the enemy read your mind either.
“Halifax,” he said after a moment’s thought. “That was some time ago. I doubt I’d even remember who I met then.”
“When were you there, sir?”
He made a show of thinking. “I’ve been there three times, in fact. I did a stint as instructor at Gagetown and visited Nova Scotia on leave. That would have been between June and October 1997. I gave a talk at a joint forces peacekeeping conference in May of 2000. And I was there again briefly on a flight overseas last year.”
“How about 1996?”
“I was in Edmonton in 1996, but I may have made a few trips in and out on my way overseas. I travelled a great deal in that time. What time period were you thinking of?”
“We have a witness who places you in Halifax on April 9, 1996.” It was a bluff, but Peters figured it was worth a try.