So embroiled was he, first in his anger, then in his own resurging sense of power, that he did not notice the old Subaru following him. As he made the rounds again and again looking for a girl, the old car followed.
By midnight, as the stroll’s business wound down, the two brothers had found only one of its inhabitants, a young Native girl who had appeared late and had only a short time ago been dumped back on Victoria Road. She wore a pair of white shorts and a tight white sweater. She had her long lustrous hair down so that it swayed seductively with every step, running down her back like liquid ebony. She knew what she had and she knew her power, so the brothers watched and waited.
Their grey SUV sat at the curb near the corner of Needham. Here they had a clear view all the way to the brink of the hill on Victoria. The exhaust burbled quietly, the lights were off, the cabin dark. The girl waved to a man in a dark sedan as it pulled away, slung her little bag over her shoulder, and sauntered down the street. She nearly glowed in the white short shorts and the form-fitting sweater, the contrast with her hair and tawny skin striking.
On the other side of Victoria Road, the Subaru sat in a driveway, its exhaust quiet, its interior dark. Will watched the grey car and the girl. He’d seen the two following her when she’d first appeared, had watched as she left the street in the sedan, and was watching now as she reappeared on the stroll.
He too had a clear view of Victoria Road as far as the crest of the hill.
The girl had a quality, Will thought, a special something in the way she carried herself and the way she walked. She would be the one.
◆◆◆
The SUV eased away from the curb and the Subaru slid out of the driveway. Neither used lights. The girl in white reached the corner at Milton and waited for the light. Then she changed her mind and turned down toward Nicol, the main highway through town. There, she waited for the light again.
The SUV and the Subaru waited with her, lined up behind a new Dodge Ram about the size of a small house. The light changed. The girl crossed, and the pickup turned south on the highway. The SUV and the Subaru, lights now on, drove straight through.
The girl walked down to the alley to her right behind the Cement Garden, a garden ornament store. The SUV and the Subaru were already past and waiting at the stop at Haliburton. The SUV turned, paralleling the girl’s movement. The Subaru sped down two blocks and did the same there.
The alley the girl was in ran for several blocks parallel to the two streets, Haliburton and Nicol. The street the Subaru had turned down continued for a couple of blocks past Needham before dead-ending in the reservation. Both the grey SUV and the Subaru turned up Needham toward the mouth of the alley, one a block behind the other. The SUV reached the alley and paused. The two men looked down its length. There was no girl. The Subaru, lights off now, sat at the side of the road at an intersection a block away.
The SUV turned into the alley and drove slowly down, the brothers watching the yards on both sides for any sign of the girl.
The Subaru cruised toward the mouth of the alley, then parked in the hotel lot on the corner. Will walked to the alley’s mouth. He stopped on the broken pavement at the side. The lights on the SUV went out, the doors opened, and the brothers got out. There was no sign of the girl.
Will ducked into one of the yards and watched behind an old, sagging fence. One of the guys stepped off the pavement to check each yard as they passed. He watched them peering around fences or over them, and on occasion climbing them. They found nothing.
When they neared Will’s yard, he simply walked up the walk beside the house to Nicol, turned down the street, and reached the corner just as the two men did. They stood together talking. Will crossed the street and started down the other side of Needham. When he reached the continuation of the alley, he turned in and stood in the darkness just off the street and watched.
Finally, the two split up. One went to Nicol, the other to Haliburton, then both turned back toward Milton and the truck, checking the fronts of the houses as they walked. Will followed the younger one on Haliburton for a few houses, watched his progress for a while, then crossed and returned to his car. He drove back on Irwin and waited for the SUV to appear.
Will thought the girl must have gone into one of the houses either east or west of the alley; there was nowhere else she could have gone. He was sure that’s what the two men were thinking. She’d either done that or she had realised she was being followed and used the alley as a distraction.
“Why run?” he mumbled to himself. “She’d expect to be followed and picked up, so why run? The SUV? She’d seen it before? She sensed something dangerous about it? Had to be that. Unless she’s just gone home somewhere along that alley.”
Will followed the SUV up Milton. “Let’s see what they do now,” he said to himself.
Will watched them park the grey SUV on Milton part way along, get out, and walk back toward Nicol. He drove on by, turned on Albert, and turned again on Prideaux. He slid the Subaru in behind a large camper nearby and got out himself. He edged to a huge window and, from the protection of its front end, watched the guys separate and begin a canvass of both the west side of Nicol and the east side of Victoria Road.
It was a good move, Will thought. If the girl had jumped ship and run, she might have kept going up toward the stroll or hidden in the restaurant, so they had a pincher movement going. If one flushed her, the other would be in place to grab her.
Will moved down to the corner once the boys had moved along and watched from the vacant storefront beside the old church. They were a long time, and Will began to wonder why until he realized they’d be checking yards as they went. A half hour later, they came back empty handed and walked up Milton to the SUV. Will went back to the Subaru and waited behind the camper. A few minutes later, the grey SUV punched through the light at Victoria Road, swung right onto Nicol, and accelerated quickly. Will followed well back.
He’s gotta be doing at least eighty, Will thought, well over the limit. The grey SUV blew the light at the plaza and the next one at Extension, then turned up the feed to the bypass going north. Will followed but got caught by both lights. He caught up a little on the expressway, saw the taillights well ahead of him, and pushed the old car.
He decided to call Harry. “He tried to pick up another girl and lost her. He’s way over the speed limit and I’m trying to keep up. Give Alan a heads up. Gotta go.”
Will threw the cell back on the floor and concentrated on driving. He couldn’t see the SUV anymore but expected to as soon as he made the long bend before the lights at Fifth.
Once around that bend and pushing the old car as hard as he could, Will climbed the grade to the lights, made that set, and topped the rise for the long grade down into the Jinglepot intersection. From here, he could see the whole city on his right and the ribbon of highway all the way up to Northfield, a couple of kilometers away. No SUVs he could see, grey or otherwise. He looked hard, but it was too dark.
He turned east on Jinglepot and fed back into the city on Fourth. He took his time and searched all the streets around the stroll. He did the grid twice to be sure.
He glanced at his watch. It was one in the morning.
He headed home.
◆◆◆
Harry met Will at the Oxy on Fitzwilliam, the one with a large green frog painted on the outside. The old bar had been there forever and was one of Will’s favourite places to eat.
As Harry entered the bar, the mingled odours of beer and French fries hit him in a wave of warm air. The place hadn’t changed in all the time Harry’d been in town. It had the same banged up bar across the side, the same dark wood chairs and tables, probably even the same carpet, worn and stained. And the menus were still on the walls, the words painted in white paint on a black background. The Oxy never really closed, just wound down for a few hours.
Harry walked over to Will’s table and pulled out a chair. The waitress hustled over with a coffee pot and a fresh mug. The coff
ee was better than he expected. It always was. But it was strong and served black. In this place, you had to ask for cream and sugar, as if adding anything was some kind of sacrilege.
Harry looked around. The place was full of the usual beer drinkers and pick-up drivers in baseball caps, a few locals nursing a glass, and the occasional businessman working late, his suit like a stop sign in this place. They had hard stuff, Harry knew, but nobody ordered it.
Will was working on a plate of fries and a couple of dark round things Harry didn’t recognize.
“Salisbury Steak, you know, ground round. It’s good, you should try it.”
“I’d rather not. Looks like a pair of cow pies. But I could use a beer. This coffee’s so strong, I’ll be up all night. Not that it isn’t good, but a beer’d be better. Where’s Rory holed up?”
Will waved at the waitress, pointed to the bottle on the table, and chewed. “He’s up above College Heights again, back in the bush. He’s got a favourite tree. Be thankful. Usually getting to him requires boots and a climb. Just let me finish this. Drink your beer, then we’ll go find him.”
Will settled with the waitress, and as they left the bar, Harry told him about the map they’d have to pick up at the police station. He pointed up the street a block.
“Wanna walk? It’ll be at the front desk.”
“You walk. I’ll bring the car.”
“Jesus, Will, not yours. It’s so full of stuff I can never find the seat. Here, get mine, it’s around the corner on Wesley. At least we’ll be able to see each other.”
Harry fished out his keys and handed them to Will. “Use the Prideaux entrance to the lot.”
Harry knew Alan and Spence were working late, but they’d be gone now. It was late. He turned into the station, saw the desk sergeant in the lobby, and went in.
“Been waiting for you. Here’s what Alan left for you.” He handed Harry a long roll.
Harry saw Will flash his lights in the lot.
They took Fitzwilliam up past the lights at Pine, after which the street changed its name for reasons no one understood. Will took Wakesiah to Fifth and ran up to the bypass.
They took the long hill up to College Heights, that enclave of stylish houses that sat up on a ridge above the city, and parked on the lake side of the road, almost down at its end. There were trails going into the woods there, at least three of them. Will took Harry farther down, slipping into the trees on something that definitely wasn’t a trail.
Harry followed carefully. It was pitch dark. The cloud cover threw a bit of light from the city back down, so moving around in there was just possible. Will seemed to know where he was going and only had to backtrack once.
They found the tree, but Rory was nowhere near it. They waited. After two minutes, they heard a swish of branches and there he was.
Rory looked smaller than Harry remembered and certainly dirtier. He was wearing something like a great coat, only much thinner. It looked like those things in cowboy movies the bad guys wore when they robbed trains, or the Pinkerton guys when they rode with sheriffs chasing them. Harry leaned on the tree and waited. Rory nodded to Will and stood there expectantly.
Will pointed at the rolled map. “We gotta show you an area on this map and talk through how to search it. You know who we’re looking for. Those two guys. Can’t do it here, can’t see. So we gotta go somewhere.”
Rory reached into a pocket of that strange coat, a duster, Harry remembered, and pulled out a flash, one of those LED ones with a bluish light. Will sighed, unrolled the map, and they went at it while Harry stayed with the tree. They mumbled and pointed, then mumbled some more. Finally, Will rolled the map up and turned back to join Harry. Rory was already gone, slipping silently into the trees.
“He’ll start in the morning with a few of his crew. We can’t come back here, he says. We’ve used it twice now. He’s just finished a surveillance job, so he’ll lead this one himself. He says it’ll take a week, but if anyone’s there, he’ll know right away. Let’s go. You can fill me in while we drive.”
Harry told Will about the girl and the station chief who’d turned them onto this area as a possible place for the guys. They talked about the stroll and the kind of girl the killer looked for. Will told Harry about his trips at night cruising, looking for anything unusual.
“I do maybe three rounds over a couple of hours, watch the action. Except for last night, I haven’t seen anything that raised any alarm bells. I go back regularly using different cars. Kylie still bothers me a lot. I want to stop this creep, but I don’t know what to do except keep looking.”
“Yeah, I know. I go back too. Sabina does as well, only she’s part of the stroll. She’s there tonight asking around. Let’s run by, see if we can spot her.”
Will took the car up Milton to Victoria and they cruised down to the office. They saw nothing, not even the usual collection of girls.
“It’s really late now,” Will said.
They stopped in the lot across from the office and went over some of the cases Will had from Isabella. Then they talked about how to set up Rory’s sump fund. Will would look after getting money to him, and Harry would get Isabella to transfer funds to his account.
“I think about three grand will do it all,” Will said. “And it’ll cover the last job too. Rory’s a strange guy to work with, but he’s the best around, and we understand each other. The arrangement we have with you guys works well for both of us, so we keep on with it. I’ve talked to him about it, and he’s sanguine.”
“Sanguine?”
“Sanguine. Yeah.”
Harry chuckled, slapped him on the shoulder, and leaned in the window. “Keep me in the loop more than normal on this one, okay? Take the car back up to Wesley for me and leave it there? I gotta leave instructions for Izzy for tomorrow and take a hike up the stroll, see if I can find Sabina. I worry about her up there with this nutcase running around.”
Upstairs, Harry changed into better street clothes and some good runners, left a note on Isabella’s desk about the money transfer, and went back downstairs. He turned up Victoria Road to grid the area.
He reached the top of the hill on Victoria and could see down to the lights—no Sabina, no anybody. He cut up Prideaux, checked out Sandy’s place, and walked on.
A long block up, he turned toward Selby and down to the park. The great ridges of moss-covered rock rose up from the street and cascaded down the length of the park. A few stunted trees grew on the rocks. At the bottom where the park leveled out, there was nothing but a clutch of firs. There were no lights in the park, only the streetlights down on Robarts at the flat end. Otherwise, the park was a big splotch of dark surrounded by dimly lit streets.
Harry sat on the top of the rock face, his feet splayed in front of him. He watched the entire area intently. He sat for a while longer, thinking back to the previous night when he had picked up Sally and Sabina. But tonight no one came. He got to his feet and left. He took Selby back to Victoria Road.
Harry wandered up the sidewalk to the lights. He turned up Milton and walked down past the thrift shop to Albert. He saw no one who looked familiar, so he continued to Franklyn, turning down Wesley to his car.
Harry fished the keys out from under the wheel well and down the one-way to Franklyn. He turned toward Wallace and once on Victoria Crescent, he slowed and drove up the hill. He made three sweeps of the area, but no Sabina.
At that point, he drove over to Tim Hortons on Wallace for some coffee, picked up a few cinnamon donuts for company, then drove slowly back to the hill for a few more rounds.
◆◆◆
Almost two hours later and several loops around the stroll, Harry drove back to the office. He was hoping Sabina had finished on the stroll and had decided to return to her computers.
He parked across the street behind a couple of the white Mercedes vans, and saw the lights on in the office upstairs. He heaved a sigh of relief and hurried to the stairs.
Sabina was in the offic
e, but she wasn’t at her computers. She was sitting on the edge of the desk, looking impatient.
“And where the hell have you been?” she yelled. “I’ve been back for hours. And Alan called! I’ll fill you in on the way.”
She hopped off the desk and slid an arm around Harry’s waist. “Dina’s awake. Here’s the deal. We can see her in the morning, so home for a late, late drink and whatever turns up.”
Harry left that one alone.
XXV
Harbour City Regional was up Boundary about a half a kilometer, so Sabina, who was a faster driver, took Wallace to Comox and Bowen to Wall, then to Townsite. A quick right, and there it was. Where to leave the car was another matter. There were cars everywhere.
“Fuck it, H, I’m gonna stick it on somebody’s lawn. How the hell does anybody get to this place? What, they camp overnight to get a spot? I can’t believe this.” She wheeled the car into the lot behind the eye center, looked around, and rammed it into a spot beside a dumpster.
They hustled across the lawn and looked for an entrance. Other than a delivery bay, that side of the building was one long brick wall with windows here and there.
“Shit! Where’s the door? How the hell do you get into this place? How do sick people manage?”
“You’re weird today, even for you. Let’s try that way. Seem to be a lot of ambulances over there.”
Harry pointed left. The emergency doors were wide and brightly lit.
They approached the check-in counter where a candy striper directed them to the other side of the building. “Follow the blue dots until you come to a red line, then follow that. It’ll take you to the information desk over there near the main entrance.” The girl smiled and pointed to the floor.
NIGHT MOVES: The Stroll Murders Page 32