by Wayne Purdy
“Whose murder did he know about? Sandra Mack?”
“For starters.”
“Were there other murders, Ms. Chosuk?”
Katherine didn’t answer right away. She sat down in the chair behind her desk and leaned back, taking a long, judging look at me. “I did my homework, you know. I know all about you. Captain Hector Collins. Military Police. Served in Afghanistan until a horrible accident ended your career. Is that right?”
“You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know anything about you.”
“That’s by design, I’m afraid. I’ve done my best to stay under the radar. I don’t want to be found, especially by anyone in authority.”
“I’m not anyone in authority anymore,” I told her.
“I met with Sandra’s parents,” she said, changing the course of the conversation again. I wondered if it was intentional, to keep me on my heels. “I understand you are investigating their daughter’s murder. Your partner, Hazel Abe, has left several telephone messages. I think you care about what happened to Sandra.”
“I do,” I said. “Tiff too.” I wanted to tell her about Gracie too. How I let her down, and how that had haunted me for ten years. “I do care.”
She nodded. “I have trust issues. It doesn’t come easily to me. Especially with the police.”
“I’m not police,” I repeated.
“You’re just about police.”
“I guess,” I said.
“Would it surprise you if I told you that I’m a trans woman.”
“It would. You look like a …” I hoped the shock didn’t register on my face. I didn’t know how to finish the sentence tactfully.
She smiled wanly. “I’m passable. It’s a tired refrain all trans people hear at some point. It’s a double-edged sword. All my life I’ve wanted to look like a woman, now I do, but when people find out its like they have to put an asterisk beside the word. You look like a woman, not you are a woman. There is a difference.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to put you in your place. I’ve made it my life’s mission to make the world safe for people like me. That begins by changing people’s perception of transgender people.”
“I’m trying,” I said.
“That’s why I’m talking to you. When I was young, before I fully transitioned, I lived in Thailand. I was what was known as a ladyboy. Shit, I hate that term. It has become so fetishized. In Thailand, there are a lot of us. Unfortunately, we’ve also become a big part of the sex tourism trade. I was a prostitute myself. Men would come to Thailand and seek us out specifically. I was younger. To my shame, I allowed myself to be used as an outlet for men to experiment with, to use. I was just a toy, but I liked it because I didn’t know my worth.”
I didn’t know where her story was heading, but it made me sad. “You don’t need to tell me all this.”
“I’m not embarrassed. It’s a part of my story, but it doesn’t define me. Not anymore, anyway. Twenty years ago, I was nineteen years old. I had begun transitioning. I was on hormones, and I’d gotten my boobs,” she patted her bosom as if I needed proof. “My roommate, Gina, was also a trans girl. We were both…passable…at least until we took of our clothes, and we did everything together. She was my best friend, my only friend, really.”
“We had this john. We didn’t know much about him. He was a soldier from Canada. So handsome. So charismatic. He was stationed in Bangkok and he liked to party. He paid us both to accompany him, and we did. We went club-hopping and danced all night. We drank, and we did coke. He took a shine to Gina and judging from the way she flirted with him, she liked him too. I swear, I thought he knew what we were. I thought it was obvious. I thought he was looking for that. I was wrong. We both were. They were kissing and cuddling all night. As the night wore on, it became obvious that they were going to go off together. In the early hours of morning we went back to our place. I was less discerning about men knowing where I lived, until that night. They went into her room. I went into mine.
“I must have dozed off. I could hear them talking and everything seemed fine and then I heard screaming. Gina was screaming for help. I ran to her door, but it was locked. We had the sort of door that you could unlock with a clothes hanger if you straightened it out and pressed it into the knob. I ran back into my room and grabbed a hanger.” Katherine choked back tears. Even though this had happened twenty years ago, the wound was still fresh. She composed herself, “I unlocked the door, and he was standing over her body. She wasn’t moving. He had a knife in his hands, and I could see something in her mouth. It took me a moment to realise what it was. He had cut off her penis and shoved it into her mouth. There was so much blood.
“I screamed. He turned and saw me. I thought he was going to kill me too. He looked at me with such hatred. I’ve never seen anything so evil in all my life. It was like looking the devil in the eye. ‘Fucking faggots,’ he spat. He pushed his way past me and then ran away. I never saw him again. The police weren’t interested in looking for him. They didn’t want to scare off the tourists or alert the Canadian military. What was one dead hooker when measured against a billion-dollar economy?”
I understood the feeling. The police shared the same sentiment about Sandra Mack. Some thing were universal.
“After that, I knew what my purpose was. I became an advocate, helping young people transition. Helping their families cope and finding them a safe place to live if they couldn’t cope. I educate them and let them know that they aren’t just a plaything. They are people. They have value. Some of these girls have never heard that before. Eventually, that wasn’t enough for me. I needed to find the man that killed Gina and bring him to justice. I knew he was Canadian. I knew he was a soldier. That’s all I knew. I immigrated here, to Toronto, because it was big ant because the LGBTQ community is so vibrant. I hoped I would see him again. I hoped he would be nearby. Whenever I saw a soldier, I would check to see if it was him. It never was. In the meantime, I continued my work, helping the girls with their new lives. When Sandra was killed-”
“When Sandra was killed, you thought about the soldier.”
“That’s right,” she said. “The murder was so violent. I thought it had to be him. The removal of the penis…who else would do that?” Her voice was soft, practically a whisper.
I reached into my pocket and removed my phone, pulling up a photo of Cutler. “Is this him, Katherine? Is this the man that killed Gina? He would have been younger but-”
“That’s not him,” Katherine said with a finality that left no room for argument.
“Are you sure? Take another look.”
“Positive,” Katherine replied. “I won’t ever forget him. And if I do, I’ve got a photo to refresh my memory. I carry it with me, so I never forget my purpose.”
I sat bolt upright. “You do?” She was already rummaging through her purse. Slowly, she removed a large, serrated knife. My blood ran cold. Could this all have been a ruse to lure me here? To kill me? My muscles tensed, ready to act.
Katherine followed my gaze, ascertained my anxiety and returned the knife to its place in her purse. I exhaled a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Don’t worry, Mr. Collins, I’m not going to hurt you. This is for my protection. A woman can’t be too safe. Here it is.”
She pulled out a worn 5x7 photo and handed it to me. It was Katherine when she was twenty years younger standing with another young woman that I presumed was Gina. Sandwiched between them was the smiling soldier wearing a Hawaiian shirt, an arm draped around each woman's waist.
“Shit!” I cursed. I’d seen this photo once before, on Bob Nowak’s desk.
24
Hazel
Hazel’s eyes were burning, and she stifled a yawn. The night turned out to be emotionally draining. She had wanted to tell Heck the truth about her past for a long time, she just didn’t know how. There was no playbook for her history. No manuals. No self-help books No Confessing Your Deepest, Da
rkest Secrets For Dummies. She’d had to wing it, which was maybe for the best, because there was no way she was brave enough to tell him if she had planned ahead. She would have chickened out.
Heck left her his key. She opened the door and Puppy came bounding towards her, tongue lolling and tail wagging. He stopped short once he realised that it wasn’t Heck at the door, but only for the briefest of moments. Puppy, propelled by a furious tail, jumped towards her, demanding to be petted. Hazel complied. She could smell the pungent odour of urine. Puppy followed her gaze and looked mournful for a beat before deciding that it wasn’t a big deal. He rolled onto his back, an obvious plot to distract her from his mess. It worked. “You want to go pee? Does Puppy want to go pee?”
She flipped open her phone and sent Jess a quick message: Going to be late. R U ok to stay?
Jess: No problem. I’ll probably fall asleep tho. Lol.
She closed her phone and set it down on the counter, then Hazel clipped Puppy to his leash and led him outside. The dog sniffed around several bushes before finding a suitable one to do his business. Behind her, obscured by darkness, a shadowy figure watched. Bob Nowak’s eyes narrowed. Hector Collins was the one who brought everything down around him. Hector Collins was the one who ruined everything, but this bitch-whoever she was-helped.
Nowak had done everything he could to send Hector away. He even handed him Cutler on a silver fucking platter, but it didn’t matter. Not anymore. They would know that Cutler had been framed. Nowak couldn’t stop. He had set another butterfly free. It hurt him that he had to rush Tiff. He didn’t have time for the ritual. He didn’t have time to give her wings. That was fine. It was all symbolic. The important part was completing the transition. He had to cut off her cock to let her become the person she was always meant to be.
◆◆◆
Hazel crouched down and began to clean up the mess that Puppy had left on the floor. Heck didn’t have any paper towel, so she had to use a ball of wadded up toilet paper. She threw the paper into the trash and began to wash her hands. As she was drying her hands on a dish towel, she spotted the manilla envelope that held all of Heck’s notes and files on the case. Bored, she opened it up and flip through them, not dwelling on the photos. She’d seen them once. That was enough. She scanned the passenger manifest. The one that had Robert Nowak’s name on it and then flipped over to the next document, the cargo manifest two days later. Heck was on this list, unconscious from his accident. So was Frank Bello, on his way to the military prison in Edmonton. Gracie Telford was on it too, on her way to the morgue. Another name caught her eye. She looked at it. Her brows knotted in confusion. “That can’t be,” she murmured. She flipped back to the previous page. Captain Robert Nowak was listed twice. He said he left Afghanistan to go to his mother’s funeral days before Gracie died, so why was he listed on the manifest again, as a passenger on the same flight that carried Heck and Frank Bello out? It didn’t make sense.
She heard the familiar creak on the metal stairs, letting her know that someone was climbing up. “Heck?” She called out. “Look at this. Something’s hinky. Captain Robert Nowak is listed on two separate manifests days apart. How is that…?” The rest of the question was swallowed up by the rising bile in her stomach. The door opened and a stocky, bloody man stood in the threshold.
“Hello,” he said with a disquieting affability. “I hope you don’t mind if I let myself in.” He stood in the threshold swaying with nervous energy from one foot to the other like a vampire awaiting an invitation. Finally, he stepped in, closed the door and closed the door behind him. Hazel’s heart sank.
“Who are you? “She asked. Puppy sensed the danger and approached Nowak, hackles up and fangs bared, but the pup looked more adorable than intimidating. Nowak silenced him with a sharp kick in the ribs. Puppy yelped and ran to Hazel for comfort. Hazel scooped him up and cradled him to her bosom.
He tilted his head assessing her. There was blood spattered all over his face. His tongue darted out, licking up the drops clinging to his thin lips. “Captain Robert Nowak. The real question is, who are you?” He looked at the documents on the counter and frowned. “That was sloppy.”
“You better go. Heck will be home soon.”
“I don’t think so. I think he’s busy,” Nowak forced his way into the kitchen and pulled the dish towel off the cupboard handle and wiped the blood from his face. “Didn’t you hear? Another girl has been killed.”
“What have you done?”
“That’s just it, my dear, you know too much about what I’ve done, but I don’t know you. I’ve never even met you. Why were you calling Cutler? Why did you stick your god damned nose into my business?”
“I didn’t,” Hazel said. She felt dizzy, and her legs weakened. She remembered that Heck had accused her of blackmailing Cutler only hours ago. “It wasn’t me.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Put the dog in the other room,” Nowak said. “I don’t want to hurt it.” Hazel’s stomach churned. He didn’t say anything about not hurting her.
Hazel glanced at her phone. Nowak followed her gaze and a devilish grin blossomed across his face. “Don’t fucking think about it.” Defeated, Hazel opened the door into Heck’s bedroom and dropped Puppy onto the carpeted floor, closing the door before he could run back out. When Hazel turned, Nowak was standing over her, holding her phone in his hands. He’d snapped it into two pieces. “I’d hate for us to be interrupted.” Suddenly, he struck her across the face with a closed fist. She fell backwards, landing on her bottom, and hitting her head against the wall. He moved so quickly that she didn’t have a chance to react. She tasted blood.
Bob Nowak had never killed anyone before. He made them better. He freed them. This one would be different. It would be murder. He didn’t have a choice. She knew too much, but that didn’t mean it had to be all business. He could still have fun with her. He felt himself harden as he drew out his gun.
25
Heck
On my way home, I called Zaki. He was still at the crime scene and his voice sounded tired. I understood the feeling. I told him what I had found out and he agreed to put an All Points Bulletin out on Nowak. He also sent squad cars to his home and office, but he wasn’t at either. He was in the wind. That revelation left me cold, but there wasn’t anything else I could do. From here on out, it was a police matter. I had been relegated to the sidelines. I didn’t like that, but that’s the way it had to be. Like I told Katherine Chosuk, I wasn’t police anymore.
The sun was beginning to rise, streaks of pink spilled into the black night. My eyes stung and I suddenly felt the pull of my bed, like a fundamental force, drawing me towards it. Sleep would be a salve to my exhausted psyche. I pulled into my spot in the alley beside Pandora’s Box. There was car in my spot behind the dumpster. “Shit,” I swore out loud. It had been a long, trying day. I didn’t have the patience for this. I pulled right behind the car and killed the engine. Let’s see how the prick likes being blocked in. Then I got a good look at the car. It was a dark Mercedes, the same make of car that had been trailing me. On closer inspection, I spotted two bumper stickers, one was a Canadian Armed Forces insignia and the other was an abstract butterfly taking flight. Nowak.
Sleep was pushed aside by a surge of adrenaline. My heart raced. I ran for the stairs but took them slowly. If Nowak was in my apartment, that meant that he had Hazel too. She was either a prisoner or…I shook that thought from my head. Hazel was fine. She had to be. I reached the door and put my ear to it, straining to hear anything. There was a man’s voice, muffled, unintelligible, but frantic. Cautiously, I silently opened the door, grateful that I’d lubed up the hinges. There was Nowak, standing over a prone Hazel. My apartment was in shambles. There had been a fight. Furniture was overturned and broken. Her face was bruised and bloody and her hands were tied behind her back. Her top was ripped down the front, but she was otherwise clothed. I gritted my teeth.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Nowak was say
ing. “No one was ever supposed to find out.” Hazel didn’t reply and that made my stomach lurch.
Nowak was pacing around nervously. She wasn’t moving. I screwed up eyes and stared at her until I was able to discern that she was still alive. Her chest was slowly rising and falling. She was breathing. Nowak had a gun in his hand and aimed it at her prone form. I had to act.
“It’s all over, Bob,” I said, stepping into my apartment. He jerked towards me, and the gun followed. That’s what I wanted. At least Hazel wasn’t in immediate danger.
“Hector,” he laughed nervously. “You’re becoming a real pain in my ass.”
“There’s no way you’re walking away from all this. Put the gun down. No one else needs to get hurt.” He had angry red trenches scratched into the right side of his face. Hazel had put up a fight.
Nowak’s face turned purple. “You can’t do anything right, can you Hector? First in Afghanistan and now here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him trying to keep my voice level.
“You were supposed to drop it. Gracie was dead. There was nothing more you could have done. Drop it and everything would have been fine. But nooooo, you just couldn’t let it go.”
“It was you,” I said. “You killed Gracie.” I already knew it, but I wanted to hear it from his own mouth.
“I didn’t kill her,” he spat. “I set her free.”
“Call it what you want. It was you.”
“Why didn’t you arrest the Colonel?” he sobbed. “I handed him to you in a fucking bow.”
Now it was my turn to get mad. Nowak played me all along and I didn’t much like that. “Cutler ate his gun,” I said.
This surprised Nowak and he laughed. It was a piteous noise, like a wounded animal. “He did? I didn’t think the old man had the brass for that. That should have made it easier for you. His guilty conscience got the better of him and all that. Why come after me?”