There was a click. Harry grinned and filled Sabina in.
Sabina raised her cup in a salute. “That’ll be fun. She’s gonna try to worm stuff out of us, especially how we get our data. She’s got a bug about me, so she’ll keep trying to figure out what it is that bothers her. Long as I keep my skirt down, I’m safe I guess. I should behave, but it’s so tempting.”
“You better wear a longer one then.”
◆◆◆
The office looked equally depressing. The rain was heavy, the restaurant downstairs empty, and the outside brick walls had turned a sour dark red. They sat in Harry’s car, hoping the rain would let up a bit. In the back sat a plastic bag with a lunch tray from the Modern and a gooey sticky cake the Australian cook had made. Harry had contemplated buying the whole cake until Sabina pulled him away.
The rain clearly had no intention of letting up. After a few minutes, they grabbed the bag and made for the office door, Harry with an old newspaper over his head and Sabina with the umbrella.
Isabella glanced up in surprise. “What, the field too wet?” She saw the plastic bag and smiled. “At least your memory’s still working. Give it here!”
Harry had a long and complicated divorce report to write for a client with a philandering wife. Photos made the work conclusive and the bill would bring in a solid chunk at triple his usual rate. Harry didn’t like divorce work, but the client was willing to pay. Even the lawyer would be happy with this work.
Harry’s laptop sported Windows 10 and a bunch of stuff running down the side of the screen when he booted up. Sabina had marched in with it one morning and set it up. Harry used it like a typewriter. What pleased him most about it was how easy it was to edit and change the typeface and font size. He’d even learned how to put numbers at the bottom of the pages.
When he completed the report some two hours later, he sent it to the printer, shut down, and went to the supply room for another coffee.
Isabella had had a box of donuts delivered, many of which were the cinnamon Harry liked. They were dusted with the spice and sugared as well. He eyed them and sighed. He’d have to wait until the meeting.
He began another file for the fraud case he was working on for McMillan Insurance and good old Jedidiah, that sour worm of a man. They had disliked each other from the moment they’d met, mostly, Harry thought, because of his reaction to the name, but maybe for other things as well. He hadn’t been quite as professional then, and sometimes was a bit late getting reports in. Willow always used to bug him about it.
He hadn’t gotten far when the intercom buzzed, and Isabella announced the detectives. Harry grinned, leaned down, and said he’d be free in a couple of minutes. He loved that damned thing. He could play with clients and make himself appear busier than he was. He could aggravate Isabella, and he could irritate that little spitfire of a cop. Sabina was still working in her office when Harry went to the door.
“Come on in. Sorry for the wait, phone’s been flyin’ off the hook this morning.” He glanced at Isabella, who rolled her eyes and kept typing. Harry rarely knew what she worked on, and never asked.
Alan and Spence made for the desk, then discovered the little area off to the side that had better chairs and a coffee table. It was something Isabella had bought and hauled in, and both Harry and Sabina liked the arrangement. It was a comfortable place for clients and, on occasion, cops. Harry offered donuts and coffee, but both of them declined.
He heard Sabina roll her chair across the floor of the computer room and watched the monitors go black. She was wearing a longer skirt, only an inch above the knee, and a plain white blouse. Spence didn’t seem impressed.
“We need to put our heads together again,” Alan said. “You two are involved in this second missing girl case too. I assume your connections with Chinatown have something to do with that. We’ve got about as much on this one as we have on Kylie. The murder scene’s closed off, but we can get you in same as before for all the good it’ll do. The rain’s pretty well removed all the trace we could have used, the site’s a pain in the ass to get to, but I can tell you it’s the same guy. I brought the photos.”
He spread them out on the coffee table, and they all studied them. Alan and Spence both described the scene and pointed out the similarities. “Decay was even more advanced here and it’s hard to make out,” said Spence, “but if you look carefully here and here, you can see what looks like the same sort of design in that deep blue ink that we saw with Kylie. Forensics will be in later today we hope, and the autopsy’s scheduled for tomorrow. King will let us know if it’s the same stuff, but I’m betting on it.”
Alan reached into his briefcase again. “The lab’s finished with that altar cloth now, and we have the report. If I remember rightly, it had designs in blood. We can link the church desecration to Kylie, and now, I think, to Mary. That gives us something we didn’t have before, and makes it clear we have a serial, but it doesn’t get us any closer to who.”
“We have some very sophisticated programmers working on the cloud issues, but I gotta tell you we’ve found nothing, not even a sniff,” said Sabina. “Our guys are private and very thorough, so if they’ve found nothing, there’s nothing to be found. My own guy, who’s also extremely talented, has checked chat rooms, black sites, and all the basic stuff so the programmers could concentrate on the more esoteric issues, and he’s found nothing. So we’re safe in assuming there is no electronic connection, nothing on the internet. If you’re interested, I have a printout of the search parameters, but it won’t mean much.” She dropped the report on the coffee table. Alan picked it up and stuck it in his briefcase.
“We’ll let our guys take a look, but I think we can discount that source. Thanks for the data.”
Spence looked at Sabina again, a query plastered on her face. Sabina raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Just wondering who your sources are, but I suppose you’re not going to tell us.”
Sabina shook her head and knew that wasn’t all she was curious about. She looked back at Spence until the woman looked away.
Alan tried to deflect. “I expect we won’t have much more until the autopsy results and the forensic results come in, and as I said, that should be soon. Are you two willing to join us in this? Cross-feed info as we get it? We can’t make it official, you know that, but Spence and I would like to work together on these murders.”
Alan paused and looked at Harry, then Sabina. “Physical evidence is scarce. Maybe we need to get some idea of who this guy is. I don’t hold much with profilers, I like physical evidence a lot more, but it can’t hurt to involve one.”
Sabina and Harry nodded. “We’ve got next to nothing and we’ve all given it our best shot, so what can it hurt,” Harry said. “I’ve got no experience with this sort of thing, so we’d just tag along on this and add what we can. You good with that?”
Alan nodded. “I’ve brought all the updates so far, they’re copies, so you can keep them for your files. Do you have anything for us?”
Sabina felt a little bad about withholding all her data, but not at all about hacking Alan’s computer. She already had the material he’d brought, and to assuage her guilt she’d share some of what her guys had dug up. The illegal searches, of course, she’d keep out of things and find some other way of introducing them.
“I’ve prepared what we have, and again I’m telling you this guy has no electronic footprint. None. If he ever used a computer, he did it in a lounge somewhere. Even then, I think my guys would have found him.” She handed copies of her files to Alan. “You’ll find the stuff our operatives have dug up too, and it’s not much. What we’ve got is little more than you have already.”
“So we’ve got only a few things, but they’re telling, I think,” Harry said. “Both girls were young and both were taken from the same area, probably at night. We have the truck, dark blue pickup, dented fenders, older model, cracked windshield, probably a Dodge, and we have it on the strip, the same area. We
have the church thing, the ritual disemboweling both there and with the two girls. We have the ink and the strange patterns, even if we can’t identify the source that ties them all together. We have the prepared sites both in the church and with the girls, and we have the bloody woods, since they seem to play a large part in whatever this is. That’s what we have.” He looked around. “Anybody want to add anything?”
“We’ve got forensics and the first autopsy, even if they don’t give us much,” Spence said. “We’ve learned the ink, if that’s what it is, is home grown, and we’ve learned its chemical makeup, for what that’s worth. We still don’t have a clear idea of what the patterns on the girls look like, but we’re trying to get at that through forensics. We know the disemboweling is the same, the knife sharp and the cuts the same length, and probably done by the same person. We know this guy cleans up after himself, since both sites were meticulous, and we know he keeps the clothes or disposes of them elsewhere. If he leaves any trace at all, the delay in finding the bodies and the violation by predators pretty much wipes it out.”
Spence thought for a moment. “We need to find someone with experience in this kind of thing. Someone who can help us understand motive if there is one, and if not, what drives this lunatic. Someone who can explain the killing field and the rituals. If a profiler can do all that, let’s get one. Personally, I don’t think there is such an animal, but there are lots of experts around who can help with the bits of it, like guys who study myth for example, or experts in cults and rituals, in case there is a small group responsible. And psychiatrists, maybe, who can tell us about sociopaths and psychopaths, because our guy or guys must be one or the other—if there’s any difference.”
There was a pause while the two detectives thought about that.
Harry stood and walked to the window. He looked out at the street. It was raining again, a misty ill-formed sort of rain that penetrated everything. He felt cold just looking. He walked back.
“Why don’t we try for someone on cults and myth if you guys are digging up a profiler and psychiatrist, and split the effort? Anything else happens, we get together and go at it. If that sits okay with you guys, let’s leave it there.”
Spence looked first at Harry, then reluctantly at Sabina. “I gotta say this and I don’t mean to be offensive. You two are private and we can’t put you with any of our sources. We can’t even hint that you’re working with us or our boss will kick our asses. She’s not so hot on outside help. Unless we’re very persuasive, we won’t even get a profiler, let alone a psychiatrist. So all this is under the counter and has to stay that way. We can get you to the crime scenes, but only after everybody’s finished. You’re gonna feel second class on this, so we have to know you’re alright with that.”
Sabina raised her eyebrows and looked at Spence. Harry smiled. “Sure, we get that, but you keep us in the loop as much as you can and as fast as you can, and we’ll reciprocate with the cloud stuff because we’re just better at it, and we’re not so hide-bound with regs.”
Spence bristled a bit, but Alan nodded. “Good, let’s keep it that way then.” He stood and gestured to Spence.
“We’ll get the autopsy reports to you and whatever forensics turns up sometime today or tomorrow, as soon as we get it. In the meantime, I know you have other clients, but try to give this as much time as you can because the media will be on us. We’ll get a lot of pressure to find this guy. They’ll probably set up a task force that we’ll have to babysit just to keep everybody happy. For the big guys, perception is everything.”
After Alan and Spence left, Sabina looked at Harry. “Cloud stuff? Reciprocate? Sometimes you sound so good, you even fool me.”
From the intercom came Isabella’s voice. “I got it all on tape like you said. Maybe a course in retention wouldn’t be amiss for you two. Might help with the detecting and all if you could remember where you’ve been and what you found when you were there. In the meantime, I’ll write everything down so you don’t get confused.”
“Got it, Izzy,” Harry yelled. “Keep up the good work. We’re in the field for the afternoon. Might be back before you go, might not.”
“Take your string with you. I’m going out to buy supplies, so lock up when you get your act together.”
Harry got another coffee and a couple of donuts. There were lots left. Sabina eyed him carefully and shook her head. He put one back.
◆◆◆
The sergeant at the front desk looked up from his paper and grinned. “You again. I suppose you want homicide. They’re not in, of course, and if they were, there’d be no comment. And before you ask, the boss is out too, not that she’d talk to the likes of you. The press officer is in, though, and he’ll give you what he’s got at the press conference at two.”
“Ah come on, Jim, you got more’n that. I’m not lookin’ to nail their asses, you know that. But they gotta give me something more’n a press release or my editor’s gonna wanna expose the cover-up you guys are pullin’. Look, I’m sympathetic, I know it’s a difficult case and leads are hard to come by, but it’s a big story now. Gettin’ bigger every day. If I don’t get inside, someone else will, and they’ll be a lot less nice. Come on.”
The sergeant continued grinning. “You got a way with you, I’ll give you that. Homicide seems to like you better’n most, but I’ve got my orders. You get the release like everybody else, and you get to ask questions like everybody else. Personally? I wouldn’t waste my time, and you didn’t get that from me, hear?”
Martin slapped the counter and grinned back. “Good on ya. Now, where the hell are they? And don’t tell me you don’t know.”
The sergeant leaned over the counter and waved Martin up closer. “I hear that place above Glow is a going concern these days, if the word on the street’s any indication. You have a good day now, and don’t bother us working stiffs.” He gave Martin an exaggerated wink and turned to his computer monitor.
The reporter sighed. “It ain’t much, Jimmy, but it’ll have to do I guess. See you, pal.”
Martin smiled to himself as he went through the front doors. So Alan and Spence are in bed with the privates. Interesting. Sort of figured they were, but private meetings? Wonder what they got. Can’t be much. Can’t seem to get by the bitch at the front desk over there, but it’s been interesting watching the partners, especially that tall skirt.
He’d parked his new pickup down by the old station just past the bus depot and walked over to the RCMP center. Should he drive or walk? The SHH Investigations office on the crescent above the Glow was a short walk past St Andrews and down the hill to Wallace.
There were two new shops on the far side a few doors up from the Acme restaurant, both dress shops. One sold stuff only the matrons of the town would buy, conservative skirts and high-necked blouses. The whole window was kind of colourless, but beside it was something a lot raunchier, for the younger crowd, filled with corsets, garter belts, and high-heeled boots. Everything was either black or red. For some reason, these two stores had never done well since Martin had been in town and had changed hands a few times. Maybe the raunchy one would survive. He couldn’t see a long life for the other.
The family crowd on Commercial rarely ventured past Terminal, the highway that cut the town in two. The light there psychologically acted as a barrier. The side Martin was on was seen as part of the seedier section. Somehow, the Acme Grill on the corner of the wrong side had escaped censor, and a lot of the townsfolk ate there.
Martin had never understood how that worked. The shops a few doors down were in no man’s land as far as the upright citizens were concerned, so hardly anyone went any further, except for the club crowd, the night people, and the rough trade.
The two new stores lay just before the curve on Victoria Crescent. Martin could see the old fire hall from the corner with Glow on the bottom and the office of SHH up top. On Martin’s side of the street stood the less reputable buildings. The old Eaton’s store had a failing restaurant in t
he bottom and leaky condos upstairs. Next to it was a low-rise building housing a used sound equipment store and a defunct jeweller. Next to that was the Cambie, a hostel, followed by a pool hall and a community services place. It was run by the city for dysfunctional families and the druggies, presumably reformed, of the south end.
Martin stopped in the doorway to the jewellers, leaned against the wrought-iron security gate, and watched the office. He could see Harry in the window. The skirt, he knew, rarely ever looked out, which he thought was unfortunate, since she was a lot more interesting. He’d wait for the detectives to come out and see what he could dig up.
XVI
Alan and Spence trudged down the stairs and out the office door, crossed the road to the parking lot and the unmarked, and stood by the passenger door.
“I don’t see why you give so much leeway to those two. What, you like the blonde or something? We’re gonna get our asses in a sling if we get them involved. You know that, so why are you doing it?”
“Look, Spence, they’ve got contacts that’re better than ours sometimes. They’ve got street people who won’t talk to us; they’ve got contacts on the mainland who’re better than ours; and they seem to get stuff about the same time we do. I won’t discount them, they’re just too damn useful. And they’ve got something personal going on here that makes them involved, whether we like it or not, so better we work with them than have them nosing around on their own.”
Spence shook her head in frustration. She just didn’t trust that woman, didn’t like her, and it grated that she had to be anywhere near that pair. She turned from the car to fish the keys out of her pocket and glanced down the street. “Ah shit! There’s Martin, that prick reporter, and he’s seen us. Get in, we can get out of here before he catches us.”
NIGHT MOVES: The Stroll Murders Page 21