He scrubbed his face and lifted his head. His voice grew stronger. “She didn’t want me to blow her cover.”
“Her cover?”
“Yeah, we were supposed to be looking for a lost friend. In my case my girlfriend, in hers just an old friend.”
“You mean you didn’t identify yourselves as police officers?”
“No.”
“Jesus Christ,” Green muttered.
“Yeah.” Weiss pressed his eyes closed. “God, am I fucked.”
“You’re fucked? Sue Peters may be dead!”
“I know, and believe me, if I could trade places with her, I would.”
“Too easy, Weiss. Go on. You were waiting at the car, and...?”
“When over an hour passed, I started to get worried. So I went to look for her, and she wasn’t in any of the places. But the bartender in the first place said her partner had called to meet her outside, so she’d left.”
“The bartender said her partner called? So he knew she was a cop?”
“Yeah, apparently. Anyway—”
“Did you tell the Petawawa police about that supposed phone call? They can check it out.”
He hesitated. “I don’t remember. I think I told them pretty well what I’ve told you. Anyway, I went back to the car and that’s when I noticed the smell of pepper spray. I followed it till I found her in the warehouse about a hundred feet from the car.”
The OPP had already reported finding an empty cannister of pepper spray near Peters’ body, but no other weapons. Her Glock had been found stashed in her car. Green pictured the young woman fending off her attacker with the only weapon at her disposal. At least the silly fool had had that; otherwise she’d be dead.
“Did you see anyone else in the vicinity? Or leaving the area?”
Weiss shook his head. “The whole place was dead. And to be honest, once I found Sue, all I could think of was the 911 call. And afterwards, how she was lying there bleeding all that time I was waiting at the car. Christ, I’m such a moron.”
Green already knew that the OPP ’s preliminary street canvass of the area around the hotel had yielded nothing. Ridiculous, Green thought, that a woman could be assaulted at three o’clock on a workday afternoon, near the central crossroads of the town, and no one heard or saw a thing.
“We’ll send our own guys up there tomorrow,” Green said, then glanced at his watch. Two a.m. “Well, at first light. We’ll be working closely with the local OPP , and you can rest assured we’ll comb every inch of the area and interview everyone who passes through that part of town.”
Privately, Green doubted the attacker had been careless enough to leave them much to go on. He didn’t for one minute believe this was an opportunistic assault with a sexual intent. This was Patricia’s killer; a smart, calculating man who had planned his attack with care. He had deliberately targeted an investigating cop. Either he had phoned the bartender once he knew Sue Peters was in the bar, or the bartender had phoned him with the tip. But there were two nagging questions about the whole scenario. One, was Jeff Weiss telling the truth?
And two, if he was, why hadn’t the killer targeted him too?
* * *
When Green arrived back at the waiting room, most of the police officers had finally drifted away to work or to sleep. A couple had stayed to keep Mark Peters company during his vigil, and one detective sat beside Gibbs, who was dozing. He signalled Green to one side and asked if it was true that Ottawa was to have no part in the investigation. Appalled, Green managed a hasty assurance to the contrary before ducking outside to put in a call to the station.
Gaetan Larocque’s voice gave him away before he’d even said two words. He cleared his throat anxiously. “The agreement we have is that the OPP handles the case up there, sir. It’s their jurisdiction.”
“And who the fuck agreed—” Green stopped himself as the answer came to him. Barbara Devine, of course, the queen of org charts and rules. Of form over substance every time. He forced himself to sound reasonable. “Okay, I’ll fix that in the morning. Meanwhile you can start freeing up some officers—”
“We don’t have the experienced manpower available right now, sir. Not to do a really thorough job. That’s what Superintendent Devine explained.”
We don’t have the manpower available to investigate an assault on one of our own officers? Green thought, barely believing what he was hearing. He wanted to throttle the woman. How could she even think that, let alone justify it! Never mind that it was true, that the squad was stretched beyond reason by the three murders already on its plate. When it came to one of their own, everybody would do double duty without complaint.
But this was his problem, not Larocque’s, so Green held his tongue until he could get rid of the man. Marshalling his arguments, he punched in Devine’s extension and listened as it rang through the empty room. With each ring, his outrage mounted, so that by the time her voice mail kicked in, he nearly hurled his cellphone against the wall.
“Barbara,” he said tersely. “No way we’re staying out of the Petawawa investigation, even if I go up there myself on my own time!”
Shoving his cellphone into his pocket, he went back inside the hospital. Constable Weiss had not returned to the waiting room, but Bob Gibbs was awake. He rose and lurched towards Green at a clumsy shuffle, as if the effort to coordinate his gangly limbs was now beyond him.
“Any news about catching the bastard? Sir?”
Green tried to sound encouraging. “Everyone’s working on it. It’s early yet. Any news here?”
“Ident was in to take samples from under her fingernails. They were pretty clean, Sergeant Paquette said, but we need only one hair or a few skin cells to get DNA. And the ggynaecologist was in to check for sexual...” Gibbs broke off, his composure cracking at the thought. He struggled on. “Whoever assaulted her didn’t... There were no signs of...” Speech deserted him again, and he gulped for breath.
“That’s good,” Green interjected, hoping to forestall a complete collapse. “This had nothing to do with sexual assault.”
Wordlessly, Gibbs bobbed his head up and down. Then his gaze shifted behind Green, and his face lit with relief. Green turned to see Brian Sullivan framed in the doorway. The big detective was bleary-eyed and dressed in a rumpled suit as if he’d come straight off a twelve-hour shift. His gaze was fixed on Gibbs, and his expression was grave. Gibbs walked straight to him, and without a word, Sullivan engulfed him in a powerful embrace. Over Gibbs’s shoulder, his eyes met Green’s.
“Is she dead?” he mouthed. Green shook his head, and Sullivan tightened his grip.
“She’ll make it, Bob. Giving up is not in Peters’ repertoire, you know that.”
Gibbs drew back, his eyes red. When he raised his fist to dry them surreptitiously, Sullivan pretended not to notice. He clapped his broad hand on Green’s shoulder. “Good to see you, Mike.”
“I’m glad you came.” Green fought an unexpected lump in his own throat. As always, his old friend filled the room with hope and confidence. God, he’d missed the man!
“How is she?”
Green glanced at Gibbs, who had slumped back into his chair. He looked drained. Beyond talk. “I could use a coffee. Let’s go downstairs.”
Taking a corner table in the completely deserted hospital cafeteria, Green gave Sullivan the highlights of Peters’ case. The big man stretched his long legs out and listened without interruption, his eyes fixed on a distant point in space. It felt just like old times when they were partners in Major Crimes. In the face of Sullivan’s calm pragmatism, Green