by Jason Mason
“It’s not your fault either,” Baker told her.
“Is there anything else?” Amata asked him.
“No, not that I can think of,” Baker responded. “Thank you all so much for your help.”
As Connie and Baker left the tavern something caught Baker’s eye on the building across the street which was a bookstore. It was a camera, and the way it was facing it may have been able to see some of what happened in front of the Thirsty Lion.
“Look, Connie, do you see that camera?” Baker pointed it out for Connie.
Her eyes lit up with hope.
“I do!”
“Let’s go in and see what they have.”
◆◆◆
“You know I shouldn’t be letting you guys do this…” the night shift supervisor told them in his office, shifting uncomfortably. “Don’t you need like a warrant or something?”
The office was small and dark, basically just a place to do a little scheduling and counting the cash, but also had a monitor for all the cameras around the store. Shoplifting in this part of the city with all of the poor university students must be a real concern. A radio was playing the local pop station.
“I’m not a cop, I’m a lawyer,” replied Baker. “And we can’t make you do this, but this woman’s sister went missing from the bar across the street from your store Thursday night and hasn’t been seen since. You might be the only person that can help us find her, do you really want to pull some technicality crap on us?”
“No, I guess not. Here look at my computer, it’s all digital,” the supervisor Chris (at least according to his nametag) told them turning the screen to face the couple. “This is midnight last Thursday night. I hope it helps.”
The screen showed men and women leaving the bar in remarkable detail. Some were only out for a smoke then returning to the bar shivering after the cigarette was consumed while others were grabbing rides to go home. The whole time the video played, Baker studied Connie’s face carefully – he might be able to pick out Mary from the video but he knew for a fact Connie would be able to. It was more worth his time to watch her than the screen, just like it was often more important to see a witness’s reaction to a piece of evidence, rather than focus on the evidence itself.
Eventually a woman with a Canada Goose jacket and white toque stumbled out of the bar, brushing her jacket off as she walked over to the edge of the sidewalk. She was stumbling.
“That’s her!” Connie exclaimed excitedly pointing at the screen.
“How do you know?” Baker asked.
“That jacket she’s wearing, I got it for her for Christmas this year. She was so excited to wear it, and that’s the hat she always wears when we go out to the ski hills too.”
Baker just looked over at her and put his hand on her shoulder.
“The sweater she got me for Christmas this year,” she said. “I’m wearing it today. I think I even might have been wearing it the day she disappeared…”
Connie stopped talking and as they watched on the screen, they saw Mary stand around outside for a minute not talking to any of the people who were leaving the bar. She pulled out her phone for a second then put it back in her pocket as she walked over to one of the cars. The driver of the vehicle must have motioned her over, but the angle of the camera meant they couldn’t see who the driver was. The vehicle was a black sedan of some sort, and appeared to be a Toyota or some other Japanese make. Likely, either a Corolla or a Camry, except Baker couldn’t tell which one but he could see the Uber logo on the back window of the car. After talking to the driver for about twenty seconds Mary gets into the vehicle and they drive away together.
“That’s it,” Baker said.
“What’s it?” Connie asked.
“Well we know she actually got in the Uber, so we can call the company and ask them to give us the name of the driver and…” Baker trailed off as he looked back at the screen.
Another vehicle appeared a little over a minute after Mary got into the kidnapper’s Uber. This was another Uber, black as well but clearly a Honda Civic. It sat in front of the pub for about two minutes, even turning down someone who appears to have asked him for a ride.
“Oh my God…” Connie muttered.
“Is there anything I can do?” asked the supervisor, now visibly concerned.
At that very moment the music on the radio gave way to the local news. After speaking briefly about the latest announcement from the Prime Minister the radio gave some more relevant local news.
In local news, 23 year old Christine Rivers has been reported missing by her family. She was last seen in the Whyte Avenue bar area waiting for a taxi or an Uber. Anyone with information on her disappearance is urged to call the Edmonton Police Force.
“Yeah,” replied Baker. “Give this to a detective named Jeffrey Jones at the Edmonton Police Services. And for the love of God, next time you know someone’s been kidnapped in the bar right across the street from you, call the police and tell them you have a camera pointed where it happened.”
Chapter 8
The Other Hunt Continues
Why can’t any of them be right?
The man punched his steering wheel in anger. He had just picked up another one, and when she was standing there in the cold with a big fluffy white winter jacket on, that slim black toque, and those black leather gloves she looked right. He planned on taking her home and getting rid of the other one right there tonight. His hunt would have finally been over.
But she’s not right.
No, after this one was picked up she kept trying to chat with him and the more she talked the more he knew she wasn’t right. When she gave him her phone to take a selfie at a red light he knew that she would never be the right one. No matter how right she looked, and even that voice was right, she would never be right.
So why didn’t you just let her out of the car then?
“I couldn’t! It was too late, she was already getting suspicious and she would have ran to the police. Then it would have been over!” he yelled at his own conscious while alone in the car.
Then you must do what you have to do.
He knew what he had to do. He had earlier driven to an isolated patch of ground beneath a large train bridge a half hour drive from town. Right now, he was still waiting with the car running, taking some drags off of a cigarette with the window down a crack. There was only a light sprinkling of snow coming down this evening and the air was deadly still.
As he gazed out over the river, it was completely frozen except for a few patches of open water near the pillars of the bridge. He wasn’t sure why that happened but he knew it did at that bridge at least. It did every year. He also knew the ice on this river was plenty solid up to about three feet from the holes themselves since he checked out this location on his snowmobile last week. It was meant to be a place for getting rid of the last girl he picked up, but this new girl presented herself as an opportunity that he couldn’t resist.
Putting his gloves back on the man opened his door and got out of the still running car, closing the door quickly behind him to keep the heat in. He pressed a button on his key fob (he always leaves both sets of keys in the car) to pop open the truck, then he walked over to grab what he needed from it.
Looking in the trunk the first thing he saw was the new girl lying there in the fetal position, hands cuffed behind her back with zap-straps. There was black gun tape wrapped around her face after he threw her little black winter hat in her mouth to keep her quiet. She was staring at him in obvious panic, shaking and struggling to move but her feet were tied together as well. She was desperately attempting to talk, but he couldn’t hear anything except muffled cries. However, instead of grabbing her, he reached beside her and grabbed the ice spikes that were lying near her head. Sitting on the edge of his truck to strap them onto his boots he began talking to the scared woman.
“You know, when I saw you standing there looking for a ride I thought you were right,” he told her without lookin
g over. “The hair, the eyes, the body shape. Physically you’re probably the closest to being right I’ve ever seen.”
With his spikes now on his feet he turned to face her.
“But hearing you talk… you’re just so stupid. She was never as stupid as you are. She didn’t care about the dumb things that you care about and she never took selfies. That isn’t right. Selfies are for conceited, stuck-up girls. You’re just not right.”
Her bloodshot eyes widened as the man grabbed her from the trunk by the wrists and threw her on to the ground. Exhaust shot into her face which warmed her up slightly, but made breathing even more difficult. As she attempted to stand up a swift kick to the midsection ensured that she wouldn’t be able to.
“You know, you shouldn’t be so trusting my dear,” he informed her as he grabbed some more materials from the trunk. “When I took you up to the parking garage and told you this was a kidnapping, that’s when you should have ran. You shouldn’t have let me tie you up, that was just stupid. You’re so stupid. You’re not right.”
Again she tried to scream but he wouldn’t let her get any words out. Instead he tied another rope to her ankles, with about twenty feet of loose rope hanging from the end of the knot.
“The one I have right now is far smarter than you,” he said getting some more rope from his trunk. “If only she looked like you but had her intelligence she would definitely be right. But it’s probably easier to make someone look different than it is to have them change their entire personality right?”
He looked down at the poor girl and then just shrugged. The rope he had just grabbed was tied to a cinder block, and the woman instinctively tried to hide her head from him swinging the block that she knew was coming. Only, instead of swinging the block to put her out of her misery, he tied the rope around her body.
“I don’t know if you’re Christian or believe in God,” he told her as he grabbed the rope near her ankles and started dragging her towards the river. “I don’t believe in any of that, I think that’s all bullshit. But recently I started studying the ancient eastern religions. Now that’s the kind of stuff that speaks to me. You know, reincarnation and shit like that? I think that’s real, not like that other religious crap.”
Then he stopped dragging her for a second and looked back at the woman. “What do you think you’ll reincarnate into?”
Of course she didn’t answer, she just turned and with great futility tried to crawl away.
“Probably some stupid prostitute somewhere,” he answered his own question and resumed walking towards the middle of the river.
As he dragged her by the legs across the frozen river, small uneven chucks of ice starting ripping at the gun tape and after not too long the woman was able to spit the tape off her mouth. After gasping for air she cried out as loud as she could. Her screams pierced the silent winter night like an eagle.
“Help!” she screamed as loud as she could. “Help!!”
The cries echoed through the night, only being responded to when the sound bounced against a cliff and returned to her ears.
The man walked over and kicked her in the stomach so hard that it knocked the wind out of her. The ice grips added extra force and pain to where they landed in her stomach. She couldn’t scream with nothing in her lungs, but could only struggle for air.
“Are you stupid?” he asked her completely annoyed with her screaming. “We’re miles from anybody. Literally miles from any kind of structure other than this bridge. Nobody is going to hear you. The only people that ever come this way are driving trains and they won’t be able to hear you over the noise of the train’s engine. God, you’re just so stupid it’s incredible.”
She just looked up at him with tears in her eyes now that she was able to breathe again.
“Please,” she said softly like an infant. “Please just let me go. You said you were kidnapping me… my family will pay you whatever you want. Just please…”
The man ignored her and let the rope he was holding go loose. He grabbed just the very end of the frayed rope and started walking away from the broken woman. Before he left he looked back at her still lying on the ground.
“Don’t move,” he calmly told her then disappeared.
At the angle she was positioned at the woman was unable to see where the man went to and it was a desperate struggle to turn her whole body so she could see what he was doing. It took her at least fifteen seconds to position her body in such a way that she could make him out. When she finally saw him again, he was on the other side of an open patch of water near one of the bridge pillars holding the end of the rope in his hands.
“You weren’t right!” he shouted over at her over the sound of the moving water.
Desperately the woman screamed and tried to stand up but a quick yank of the rope cause her to tumble back down. Slowly and deliberately the man pulled the rope towards himself, dragging the woman by inches closer to the open water. She rolled, screamed, and pulled her ankles to try and stop from being dragged along but it was no use. Eventually she could feet the icy river touching her boots so she raised them in the air but only a moment later her knees went into the water. The rest of her body followed shortly thereafter and she was surprised that she didn’t sink in immediately, though her body was beginning to go into shock from the extreme cold.
“P…please,” she shivered and stuttered in the cold river looking up at the man.
Instead of responding he pulled the rope one last time sharply bringing her ankles out of the water and dunking her head underneath. The movement also had the effect of pulling the cinder block from the ice and into the water with her and with its weight pulling her down she was unable to get back to the surface. She went completely under.
As the man starting walking back around the hole to return to his car he heard a thump on the ice directly underneath his feet. Looking down he saw the woman pop up to the ice below him and appeared to be pushing at the ice with her head in order to break through it. The cinder block must have fallen off of her while she was under the water. They made eye contact, as the ice here was only five or six inches thick.
With great curiosity he stared at her as she attempted to break through the ice for another thirty seconds or so before she was forced to breathe in the sub-zero river water. As the man watched, the life went out of her eyes and the river began dragging her away downstream. He continued watching until the body was no longer distinguishable under the ice at which point he returned to the car. He was cold and needed to warm up for a bit.
That was too risky, you almost lost her.
“I didn’t almost lose her, I knew what I was doing!” he yelled.
Maybe the one at home is right.
“Maybe she is, then I won’t have to do this anymore,” he replied much more quietly.
If she’s right then you’re done. If she’s not right you have to kill her. And then find the one that’s right.
“Then I’m going to have to find out tonight.”
Chapter 9
Connecting the Dots
Unlocking the door to Mary’s apartment with the spare key she was given, Connie slowly opened the door with Baker close behind her. She was expecting to see either signs of a break-in, a note in plain view explaining where Mary was, or even to see Mary herself – though that might just have been Baker. But instead all she found was a completely spotless apartment.
“This doesn’t look like the apartment of a spurned ex-girlfriend,” Baker observed. “I would have expected to see empty ice cream containers and chocolate bar wrappers strewn around all over the place here.”
Connie hit him on the arm playfully. It wasn’t the time for jokes but something about Baker being there and keeping things normal reassured her anyways.
“She’s always been super clean and tidy, Baker, you know that.”
“Well, let’s look around and see if there’s anything here that might help us.”
Connie and Baker had met up today at four o’cloc
k at Baker’s office and decided that the next place they would check would be Mary’s apartment. Connie was surprised Baker was willing to leave work early. This was their second day of searching for Mary and it didn’t feel like they were any closer than on the first.
Baker began searching the apartment, checking closets, opening drawers, but despite turning over every leaf he was finding only a very clean one bedroom apartment. One which looked very much like the person in it was studying to get her master’s degree. Connie opened up a laptop which was on the coffee table in the living room at the same time and punched in the password her sister used for everything: Wh01ikesY0U?
“I’m on her computer,” Connie shouted to Baker who was now in Mary’s bedroom reading papers on her desk. “What should I look for?”
“Check to see if she messaged anybody on Facebook or Instagram or anything like that since Thursday at midnight,” Baker answered sticking his head out of the doorway.
That would be easier said than done since Connie was not very tech savvy and could only find Facebook easily. But after checking that, and somehow stumbling into her Instagram account with a Google search she saw no new messages since Thursday and shouted that news over to Baker.
“Negative.”
“Is there anything else open?” he asked, walking over to the couch and taking a seat next to her close enough that their arms were touching. “Any apps or webpages?”
“Just her Apple iTunes account,” Connie replied defeated.
“Wait, that’s good!” Baker exclaimed. “If she’s logged in here, that should mean she’s logged into her apple account everywhere. Go online and see if you can get into her apple account, I think it’s called apple cloud or something like that.”