Fifth Son by Barbara Fradkin

Author:Barbara Fradkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn Press Limited
Published: 2012-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Well, that throws your cockamamie theory out the window,” Sullivan pronounced flatly as he jackknifed his bulk into the booth opposite Green at Nate’s Deli. Nate’s was a legend in Ottawa, having maintained its original menu and building on downtown Rideau Street since Green’s boyhood. Until two years ago, Green had lived only blocks away and had become such a fixture in the corner booth that the waitress never bothered to bring him a menu. Montreal smoked meat platter with fries and a side of hot cherry peppers, all washed down by a pint of draught in a frosted mug. Green was nursing this pensively when Sullivan returned from dropping Tom off at the downtown Y. Sullivan was tired and cranky, but neither detective had thought it wise to abandon the poor man at a bus stop.

Green had been mulling over the same thought before Sullivan arrived. Tom’s pronouncement that the body was Derek and not Lawrence threw his whole understanding of the case into disarray. He’d been so sure that Lawrence had murdered Derek, and that the family had locked him away to cover up the fact. He’d been so sure it was Lawrence who’d met his death in the churchyard, that he found himself at a loss. If Tom was telling the truth, they were looking at quite a different sequence of crimes.

“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” he asked.

Sullivan picked up Green’s mug and tossed back half of it in one grateful swig that left a foam mustache on his upper lip. He shrugged. “The guy was pretty much a basket case on the drive to the Y.” He held up two fingers an inch apart. “This close to hitting the bottle again, I’d say. Besides, I don’t see what he’d gain by lying.”

“Well, for starters, it stops us asking questions about what happened to Derek twenty years ago.”

“Maybe nothing happened! Did that ever occur to you, Mike? Maybe Derek went off to the States like everyone says, and maybe Lawrence just flipped out and got committed. End of story.”

Green leaned forward. “Then why did they all come back? Why was Lawrence rooting around in the farm yard that morning, looking for a treasure box he had buried twenty years ago?”

“We don’t know for sure that was him. It could have been Derek.”

Green shook his head. “Lawrence was there. The crucifix was found in the woods, and we know Lawrence had it. So he was there.”

Sullivan groaned. He was reaching for Green’s beer again when the waitress arrived with one of his own. She’d been serving there forever, still wearing a black mini skirt and a white blouse pulled tight across her breasts. The only sign of aging was the slow collection of wrinkles around her bright red lips and heavily shadowed eyes, which drank in Sullivan now with unconcealed lust.

“Hi, Sarge! Missed me, did you?”

Sullivan gave her the required grin. “Haven’t been able to sleep a wink, Alice.”

Her red lips drew back in a knowing smile.

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