“What’re you doing back here? Thought you hated these parts.”
“Back for my adrenaline fix,” Sullivan laughed. “I’m with Ottawa CID. This is Mike Green.”
Sullivan slipped the introductions by casually, without reference to Green’s rank, which would have torpedoed any chance for collegial solidarity. As Green had hoped, Kennelly engulfed his hand in a friendly iron grip, tossed in a greeting, then swung back to Sullivan with a laugh. “Will you look at you! I couldn’t believe it when I heard you were a cop! I thought you were going off to the big city to make a million.”
Sullivan grinned ruefully. “Well, I made it to the big city, anyway.”
“I used to play football with this guy,” Kennelly said to Green. “We went to the same high school up in Eganville, and I tell you he was one fine mean ball player. I heard you married Mary Connolly. That still on?”
Sullivan nodded. “Three kids too.”
“Oh well, you always were a good Catholic boy. Fell in love with the first girl you laid eyes on and then never looked at another.” He shook his massive head mockingly. “Boy, I tell you, it’s a small world. So is this a social call, or are you boys here to learn a thing or two?”
“A man named Eugene Walker used to own a hardware store here,” Sullivan asked. “Did you know him?”
“No, but maybe my partner did. He’s been here since the Great Flood.” Kennelly led them inside and bellowed in the direction of the back room. “Tom! Come out and meet a buddy of mine.”
A smaller, older man emerged from an office behind the main desk and came forward, smiling expectantly. Once the introductions were complete, Sullivan explained their mission.
“Yeah, I knew him,” Tom Wells said. “In a small town like this, you get to know pretty near everyone. Walker wasn’t a troublemaker, he kept to himself pretty much. I’m not sure we can be much help to you up here. When I heard he died, I asked around to see if anybody’d heard from them recently, just out of curiosity, you know? ’Cause I used to get my fishing and hunting gear at his shop. But no one seen much of them since they moved out to the country.”
Green spoke for the first time. “I understand he had an assault charge, maybe twenty years ago. Any chance there’s still a file on that?”
Tom Wells scrunched his craggy, sun-weathered face in an effort to remember, then shook his head. “We don’t keep stuff that long, and in that case, the charge was dropped.”
“So you remember the case?”
“Yeah, I was the one took the call,” Wells said. “I remember I was surprised. Eugene was a regular at Paddy’s place on Saturday nights. There were more than a few times when me and my partner had to bring him home and put him to bed. But he was a quiet drunk. Never got into fights, never bothered anybody. So I thought it was kind of strange. In fact, I asked him about it. I didn’t want to lay an assault charge, and I was hoping he’d tell me why he did it, but he never said a word. Just said he’d had one too many, his mistake.”
“Why were the charges dropped?”
“The fellow he assaulted wouldn’t press charges. I tried to persuade him to—I mean, when Eugene wouldn’t give any excuse. The fellow was a visitor, and I had a bar full of drinkers waiting to see if I was going to apply the law. But nobody would say a word if Dubroskie and his cousin weren’t going to. In this town, everybody minds everybody else’s business, including the cops’.”
“Dubroskie?”
“Local farmer, good man. Cousin’s name was something unpronounceable. Polish, began with G.”
“So what did this Mr. G. say about it?”
“Nothing,” Wells said with a shrug. “He was an immigrant, heavy accent, seemed awful confused. Apologizing all over the place if he’d upset anybody.”
Immigrant! Green hid his excitement as another possible piece of the puzzle slipped into place. “And Dubroskie? Did he or anyone else in the family have any idea what was going on?”
Wells shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve known the Dubroskies all my life. Family’s owned a farm west of town since the pioneer days. I went to high school with Karl, and my kids went to high school with Karl’s kids. We never been close friends, because here in the valley, the oldtimers tended to stick with their own. Poles with Poles, Irish with Irish. And people kept the secrets within their own group, you know? I mean, the Poles might fight like cats and dogs among themselves and one family hate another’s guts, but a Protestant Welshman like myself is never going to find out why.”
“So you think people are hiding something about this assault, but only a Pole is going to find out what it is. But Walker’s British—why would he keep an insider’s secret?”
Sergeant Wells’ eyes widened. “Walker? Are you kidding? He was Polish!”
It was Green’s turn to be surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure! He had an accent thick enough to cut with a knife. He came here after the war.”
“But his wife… And his name…”
“The wife’s British, you’re right. Fine lady. We always figured he took her name. When he first came, there was quite a stir in the Polish community. I remember my father talking about it. Back then, the communities around here were very traditional—you’d know that, Brian—everyone had their place. Walker fitted nowhere. His wife was British and a Protestant, and the Poles thought he’d turned his back on his Polish roots when he changed his name. Plus he would never talk Polish. He would never talk about the old country. He was one of them, but he avoided them. Him and his wife didn’t really fit in anywhere.”
Green turned to Sullivan. “Call Gibbs. He’s looking into Walker’s war record. Get him to check immigration too and have the reports ready when we get back.”
* * *
“Why are you so interested in a twenty-year-old barroom brawl, Mike?” Sullivan took his eyes off the narrow country road long enough to glance questioningly at Green. They were on their way out to the Walkers’ country house, having left a disappointed pair of OPP officers behind at the station. Sullivan had seen the curiosity in Kennelly’s eyes and had tried to persuade Green to let them participate in the inquiries, since it seemed a slow day in Renfrew County, but Green was adamant. He didn’t want extra officers he didn’t know trampling all over the evidence in the house. The extent of Green’s diplomacy had been to assign the officers the task of setting up interviews for them in the afternoon with people who knew the Walkers.
“Because it’s out of character with what we’ve learned about Walker,” Green replied, “and it seems to be a mystery. Maybe his neighbours and acquaintances can shed some light on what he was really like.”
“They won’t tell us a thing, I can guarantee you that. A couple of big city cops barging in out of nowhere? Forget it.”
Green grinned at him. “Give me some credit.”
The directions Ruth Walker had supplied were clear and precise, but even so, after the fourth turn into progressively narrower back roads, Green was glad Sullivan was behind the wheel. All around them stretched nothing but drifting snow, icy fields and the grey lace of barren trees against the sky. Ruth had been surprised when the two officers had asked her permission to search the house, but she had not hesitated an instant. If she had anything to hide, Green thought, she seemed confident it wouldn’t be found.
When they finally turned into the long, narrow lane, they saw the Walkers’ white clapboard cottage set in a windswept clearing at the end. It looked shabby and neglected in the harsh morning sun, and