NIGHT MOVES: The Stroll Murders

by Gar Mallinson

  The next day Jen called. She told Alicia that she’d found where Kylie was staying, but she wasn’t there anymore. She’d gone, and Jen had no idea where. She said she’d keep looking. Alicia worried. Charlie stayed away.

  The second day, Jen called again and both she and Alicia were beyond worry, they were desperate. Jen came to the house and together they called the RCMP and filed a missing persons report. Alicia was told that since Kylie was still a minor, they’d act on the report immediately.

  They saw the cruiser pull up and when they heard the knock, Alicia opened the door to let the officer in. She gave him a photo from Kylie’s room, one with Jen in it as well, and explained their relationship and where they knew Kylie had stayed. The officer asked a lot of questions, made notes, and left. Jen left shortly after, promising to call with news.

  Alicia wandered the house restlessly, not knowing what else to do. Then she thought of Will, her brother. He was an investigator. He would know what to do. Maybe he could find Kylie. Maybe things would be all right.

  ◆◆◆

  Harry’s phone buzzed as he walked up the hill to his office.

  “Where the hell are you? Sounds like a bar or something.”

  “Got it in one, Sweets. I’m talking to a decorator from that store we were in the other day. We were sorting out colours and stuff and got thirsty. Wanna join us?”

  “I would if I knew where you were.” Harry shifted the phone to his other ear and stuck his finger in the first one. A large diesel pickup parked beside him and sat there running. A huge bearded guy with tattoos running up his arm and into his singlet drummed his fingers on the door panel in time to a beat that would drive any sane person to the edge of hysteria. Harry moved on down the street.

  “We’re in a place called The Painted Boar or The Running Cat or something. Just a minute.”

  Harry heard her yell into the din, then yell at him, “The Dancing Goat! Serves coffee and wine and stuff to eat. The wine’s better than the coffee, so come on and join us, place is jumping. Bunch of tourists off the boat.”

  Harry told her to meet him outside.

  As he approached, he could see Sabina looking down at a pretty brunette in a blue suit, leaning on the fender of a car. She turned as she saw him coming and waved. They waited for him, the woman in the blue suit smiling a greeting.

  The three of them went back down the street to the Dorchester, a four-storey stucco place that filled most of the block. Across the road from the hotel was an old wooden tower with gun slits called the Bastion, a leftover from some threat or other. The city fathers loved the ugly thing and had had it rebuilt, using as much of the original material as possible. Then they had painted it white with black trim and mounted one of the old cannons near it in the little square above the seawall. All summer long an ancient piper filled the noon air with the skirls of a bagpipe and one mighty blast from the cannon.

  Inside, the hotel was quiet and the bar restaurant almost empty. It was a well-proportioned room, airy with a touch of formality that didn’t intrude. The bar itself ran along one wall in a hall-like room fronting the restaurant proper. There were the usual bar stools and three tables tucked in a corner against the wall. They sat down at one.

  Sabina introduced the brunette. “Harry, this is Cindy from that store on Bowen. She’s on an extended lunch, and she brought some fabric samples and pictures of the pieces we bought. We got a bit happy in that other place, so coffee’d be good.”

  While Harry introduced himself, Sabina caught the barkeep’s eye, which wasn’t far away anyway, mimed a cup, and mouthed coffee. He nodded, smiled, and started a fresh pot.

  They looked over the choices the girls had already made. Coffee came, and small talk kept them going for a bit before Cindy glanced at her watch. She gave an ‘oops’ and left them with fresh cups from the attentive barkeep.

  Harry smiled at Sabina. “Things are happening. Renos are ahead of schedule. If the papers are ready, we need to get a few sets. Will’s seeing about Rory now.”

  Sabina raised her cup in a toast. “See, H? It’s all gonna be good. I took all the stuff to a local Notary Public up near the McDonald’s on Terminal. Ambrose said she could have a draft ready for tomorrow, and all we’d have to do is initial any changes. She’ll have the final copy ready overnight.”

  ◆◆◆

  Rory was somewhere up the big hill the other side of the bypass highway at the end of College Drive. The street dead-ended a half block past the last house. Trails led into the woods from there and wandered over toward Westwood Lake. The problem was, there were a lot of them, and Will knew Rory could be on any of them. He parked the old Subaru on the shoulder, shook his head at the absurdity of it, and got out. He stretched, walked over to the cement abutment, and studied the three paths that began there. There was no indication he could see that suggested one over the others, so he chose the left one and started in.

  A hundred feet or so in, the path forked. Both looked well used, so Will kept left. Should have straightened this out with Rory before I agreed to meet here, he thought. Ahead of him, the path slipped between a couple of large boulders and dipped into a steep-sided ravine. To hell with it, Will thought. He backtracked toward the car to get his cell out of the crap on the floor. When he got back to the fork, he spotted Rory leaning against a young Sycamore.

  “I know you’re a little overcautious, but this is sort of far even for you, don’t you think?’ Will said. “This is miles out, and you usually don’t like to leave town much unless you’re on a case. You got a problem with somebody? Anything I should know about?”

  Rory just shrugged and took the other fork. Will followed. He knew Rory well, and this kind of behaviour was common for him. Rory didn’t trust meetings much and when he did meet, it was always somewhere hard to get to, somewhere different each time, and somewhere isolate and easily defended. Will didn’t know his history, since Rory was pretty closed-mouthed about any of his past, but he respected the man’s ability. Rory could be anything anytime—a drunk, a nurse, a utility repairman, old, young, in-between. And his contacts on the street were the best in town. So Will followed him and waited.

  Rory led him down a long incline, the trail steep, narrow, and angling along the side of the old river valley. He turned off under a protrusion in the rock and took a path that led upward again. Both men climbed, using the salal and undergrowth as handholds. Occasional tree roots acted as steps. The path led to a flat section in the cliff face, hidden from the main path and surrounded by dense old-growth firs, thick with a new generation of the trees crowding each other for light. The only sound was the whispering of the breeze in the heavily needled branches and their laboured breathing.

  Rory leaned against the rock at the rear of the shelf they were on. “I got a problem with the Angels, two of ‘em, and I gotta stay out of sight for a bit. My guys’ll look after it okay, but it’ll take a day or so. I came out here so’s we could talk without me lookin’ over my shoulder all the time. I came in through Westwood Lake, so I’m sure we’re clear. What do you need?”

  Will grinned at him. “There’s nothing pending or problematic, but there’s an opportunity for us. I wanted to talk to you about Harry and his new partner, Sabina. They have a new business and want us to work with them. Not for them, with them. The deal is we stay as we are, me in the Subaru, you on the street. Nothing changes except we work jobs the office gets and we share in the firm’s profits. We’d be sort of like independent contractors. Harry wants to know if you’re interested. What I want to know is if you see a future for us if I go for it and you don’t.”

  Rory wandered around the tiny rock platform for a couple of minutes, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Will. I don’t want to be anybody’s dog. I don’t know, man. I’m okay with things as they are, but if you wanna go, it’s okay. I can work for you. Nothin’ legal though. No names. If you can work with that, maybe.” Rory shook his head some more. “Guess if it’s like you say and we’re still what we a
re now, and no legals, maybe.”

  Will nodded. “I can do the legal stuff, leave you out of it, if you want it that way. It’d be an agreement between us, then, based on our usual handshake. That okay with you?”

  Rory nodded and stuck out his hand. “We go on trust like always. You okay with that, we’re fine. Work’s a bit thin these days, so it’d be nice to see more of it. I’ll take you back to the fork. I got stuff to do in here for a bit.”

  They climbed down to the overhang, Rory leading, then up the incline and back to the fork, where they parted company. Will watched Rory for the few moments it took for him to melt into the forest, then made his way back to the Subaru and drove along College Drive toward the city.

  Part way down the long hill before the bypass highway, he turned onto the single-lane rutted dirt road the college kids used to avoid paying the university’s steep parking fees. He drove slowly to the turnaround at the bottom and reached for his cell in the mess on his passenger side floor. He called Harry to tell him that Rory was in, sort of, but in his own way.

  Finished with the call, he watched both the dirt road and the big curve on College Drive through his rear-view mirror. He had no idea what Rory was into, but he was concerned enough to watch his back. There was no movement on either road that he could see, so he backed out. He ran around the turnabout, pushed the old car up the steep dirt trail, and rejoined the street.

  Past the university, he turned again, ran along the side of the defence department’s long lot, and took River Road out past Colliery Damn Park and the nature reserve. The drive was a pleasant one and gave Will a final check on any tail. That it led finally to the highway and the bridges over the Mist River was a bonus because there were two plazas with a covey of hamburg joints and a Tim’s jammed into the edges.

  ◆◆◆

  Harry got up slowly and wandered into the bathroom. It had been a delicious night spent mostly on the bed with a bottle of decent red wine, a couple of pizzas, and Sabina. The shower bay was wet, water drops still running down the glass, steam still fogging the big mirror. Sabina had beaten him up again. He checked the clock on the counter, saw it was already seven, and took a quick one.

  Padding across the bedroom floor for his clothes, he heard her banging around in the kitchen. She tended to get a bit eccentric with meals, and he never knew what concoction she’d turn up with at breakfast, which is why he tried to beat her to the stove in the mornings. Harry left the bedroom, glanced out each of the three narrow, round-top front windows that were lined up in a row on his living room’s front wall, and peaked around the kitchen door.

  Sabina was stirring something in the frying pan and adding stuff from a bunch of bottles by the side of the stove. She was also listening to music on the player in her pocket and bouncing around with the pan. Harry shook his head, a concerned look on his face. She spotted him and smiled. “Give this stuff a try, H. I put cilantro and hot peppers and some apple in the eggs. And I bought back bacon yesterday ‘cause I know it’s your favourite. And some sausages from the guy at Country Club.”

  They finished everything—all the bacon, all the sausage, all the eggs, and all the toast—while a gentle light grew and softened on the table’s surface, an echo of the light streaming in the window on the kitchen’s back wall and reflecting off floor and ceiling. During their second and third cups of coffee, Harry checked with the service and got Will’s message.

  He grinned. “We need those papers, tout suite.”

  She smiled. “He’s in then?”

  “Sounds like it.”

  After Sabina finished in the kitchen, they set out for the office. Outside their building, they turned down the hill to the seawall, walked along the water toward Maffeo Sutton Park, and hooked a right. They hiked up the short hill along the side of the Howard Johnston Hotel, crossed Comox at the light, and wandered on along Wallace Street. Down the hill past City Hall, they rejoined Victoria Road.

  The crescent was quieter than usual, even if it was early morning. Harry stopped and looked around but saw nothing out of place. He took Sabina’s arm and they continued toward the office. Just up from the store selling used sound equipment, the reason became clear.

  Three cruisers were parked haphazardly in the co-op gas bar. Cops milled around like roaches. An ambulance sat on Terminal at the intersection, lights off, waiting. A crowd of habitués of the place, sprinkled liberally with staff from both the restaurant under Harry’s office and the social services outlet across the road, filled the small V-shaped park in front of the old fire hall, some sitting on the limbs of the two trees that grew there. Whatever it was, the worst seemed to be over, with the crowd waiting expectantly for some view of the result.

  Just as Harry and Sabina reached the corner, most of the cops got back in their cruisers and pulled out. The remainder watched as a gurney came out of the convenience store, a bloodied sheet pulled over whoever was on it. Behind it came another. The ambulance attendants loaded the two into the ambulance and pulled away, slowly joining the traffic on Terminal.

  Harry looked at Sabina and shook his head. “Whoever it is doesn’t need help. That truck’s on its way to the morgue. I wonder who got in and how. That place operates out of a booth with heavy glass. You buy what you need by asking for it and waiting outside. Nobody ever goes in except the guy who’s on shift, and the door’s always locked. Never seen anything like that before.”

  They crossed the intersection and walked up the hill to the office door. Sabina glanced back at the gas bar but said nothing.

  At the top of the stairs, they slid by wallboard stacked along the hall wall and peaked around the door. It didn’t look like the same office with its a new reception area. Off it was a small closet-like space.

  Harry looked around the main private office. Gonna cost a bundle, he thought. The windows were still centered in the far wall, and he could see how the furniture would fit. Glancing up at the ceiling, he saw crown mouldings that created a kind of coffered ceiling. Nice touch.

  ◆◆◆

  Will was in the old Subaru taking a nap. He’d finished lunch at the Oxy, a pub on the corner of Selby and Fitzwilliam, one of his favourites. After the sandwich and two beers, he felt he needed it. Besides, it was a slow day. He’d left the old heap over near the conservatory and the newly-opened train station with its fancy restaurant and pub. He probably shouldn’t be napping here because the parking was limited, and a guy dozing in a grungy old car was too inviting for the local cops. As inept as they were, they’d figure that one out.

  The phone startled him. He grabbed for it on the passenger side floor among the discarded fast food crap and old papers. When he finally checked the number, the call surprised him.

  “Alicia! Been a while. How you doing?”

  Will switched hands, putting the phone on his better ear. “What? When? Two days! You should have called me! Stay there. I’m on my way!”

  He drove down Selby to his sister’s house.

  ◆◆◆

  Alicia threw the door open. “Oh god, Will, she’s all I got. She’s gotta be alright, she’s just run off somewhere. She’ll be back soon. Oh, my baby, Will, my baby’s gone. We gotta get her back.”

  Alicia looked more distraught than Will had ever seen her, not that he’d seen her much recently. Her hair was a mess, like she’d slept on it, and she had no makeup on. Usually, she looked good, but what did he know? He’d never been to her house.

  He moved her inside and closed the door. Tears streamed down her face and a querulous moaning filled the vestibule. Will led her into the den and sat her down in one of the overstuffed chairs, taking the other one for himself. He had to calm her down or he’d get nothing. Maybe Sabina should be doing this, he thought. She’d know how. But Alicia was his sister, so he’d try.

  “I know it’s real hard to think clearly now, but I need you to do that. I need to know everything that’s been going on recently with you guys. Can you do that? Can you go back to when she left and tell me e
verything?”

  Alicia tried, but the despair crept in and blotted out her attempts. Will got what he could in the hour they talked. It wasn’t much. He had the bare facts, sort of, but he realized that his sister really didn’t know much about her daughter’s life outside the house. He got the idea that Alicia and Charlie were having difficulties and that she was close to falling apart. He stopped the questions, tried to reassure her, and left her there.

  At least he got the names of her friends and he could start there. If there was any dirt, and he was sure there would be, he’d get Rory on it.

  ◆◆◆

  Harry and Sabina left the office and walked down to the seawall behind the Pacifica townhouses. The whole thing had been landscaped recently and was quite attractive.

  A platform out over the water incorporated into the existing walkway had been finished a few months earlier, and here they leaned on the railing, watching a seaplane maneuver in from the harbour to one of the long arms of the dock. Mostly, the planes serviced businessmen or people who needed to get to downtown Vancouver fast, in as little as fifteen minutes.

  The seaplane terminal building was a two-storey affair that jutted out into the harbour on massive wooden pilings. The front of the structure housed a one-storey portion that was open-sided, circular, and housed a bar and a number of tables. Harry nudged Sabina along the seawall and chose a table. She was still subdued and he was worried.

  Slowly, Sabina looked at him and sighed again.

  “I gotta tell you something so you understand today. Six years ago next month, my mother and father were shot to death in a convenience store robbery. So were the clerk and another shopper. The cops never caught the guy, never even came close, and I can’t get past that sometimes, like today. My parents, we weren’t very close. My father refused to see me as I was, always insisted I was just confused. He was mad most of the time and took it out on my mother. It wasn’t physical, he just browbeat her and it kept getting worse. I spent a long time trying to tell him, explain who I was, but he wouldn’t listen.