Definite impatience. I glanced at Cobb. He clearly wanted to pursue the DNA question further but realized it was pointless.
Landry went on. “One piece of Faith’s clothing was recovered at the scene but later disappeared from the evidence room. Again Kennedy’s right. As you know, Faith’s body was naked but there was a pair of blue panties found nearby. They were suspected to be hers but sometime between the initial crime scene investigation when the panties were bagged and tagged and the sending of the evidence to the lab for testing, they disappeared.”
She stopped and looked at Chisholm, who leaned forward, his voice flat and hard as he spoke. “I went back and talked to everyone who’s still around who had anything to do with the case. I went through the homicide file. I talked to the lab people who were working for us back then — the senior person, a guy named Trudell, who’s retired now, remembers the case, never saw the panties. I talked to a tech who worked in the lab at the time.” He pulled out a notebook, flipped it open, found the page he wanted. “Cory Payne, she was Cory Selmar back then. She remembered that the missing panties came up after the fact — some of the senior officers were extremely pissed off — but nobody ever found them or found out what happened to them. My guess is it was carelessness, not malfeasance. Conspiracy theories are fun but they don’t usually amount to much.”
“I don’t think Kennedy was interested in having fun,” Cobb said. “And I’m not interested in your guesses. Truth is you don’t know.”
Chisholm’s face reddened, bringing it much closer to the colour of his hair. I could see that he wanted to come back at Cobb but Landry cut that off. “Kennedy’s third point had to do with there being no tip line. That’s an administrative decision, and while it might be argued that the decision was short-sighted, again it hardly smacks of the corruption or dirty cop activity that Kennedy suggested might be the case.”
“Hard to rule out completely though,” Cobb said.
“Not for me,” Landry answered, her eyes narrowing.
“Administrative decision,” Cobb repeated. “Again, it would be interesting to know if Hansel and Gretel wanted one and it was overruled, or if it just didn’t come up.”
“Perhaps,” Landry conceded without enthusiasm. “And that brings us to Hansel and his partner being removed from the case after seventeen days, then put back on it three weeks later.”
“Let me guess,” Cobb interrupted. “Unusual, but not criminal in any way.”
A small smile appeared at the corners of Landry’s mouth. It had nothing to do with humour. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”
“Who were the other detectives who replaced Hansel and Gaspari?” I asked. I knew Gretel’s real name and decided to veer away from the oft-repeated joke.
Landry glanced at the sheet of paper. “Senior guys. Joe Kinley and Jarvis Maughan.”
“You follow up with them?”
“Not doable. Both deceased. And before you start wondering, both natural causes. Maughan, heart attack, 2008, just a few months after his wife died; cancer took out Kinley in 2011.”
“Anybody ever ask them why they didn’t have a report in the homicide file? They were on the case for three weeks and generated no paper. Or if they did, it, like the panties and possibly the DNA evidence, went missing. That make sense to you?” Cobb directed his question to Landry. I don’t think he liked Chisholm any more than I did.
“No.”
Chisholm drummed his fingers on the table. A little louder than necessary. “Stuff happens. You know that, Cobb. A sheet of paper gets misfiled. A piece of evidence goes missing. People make mistakes. They’re human. It doesn’t mean there’s a dirty cop out there trying to undermine an investigation.”
“No, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t.”
Landry put her paper back in the folder and stood up. “We did what we came here to do, which was to share with you what we learned. We’ve got to get back to work on our own investigation. You’re welcome.”
Cobb showed them the palms of his hands.
“Just a second. You’re right. I’ve been unappreciative —”
“You’ve been rude,” Landry interrupted.
“Guilty as charged. And I shouldn’t have been. I apologize if I’ve offended you. I do appreciate your keeping us in the loop. A little girl’s murder has gone unsolved for a very long time. I guess I’m frustrated about that.”
Landry’s face relaxed. “No harm, no foul. And we’re all frustrated, believe me.”
Cobb stood up and shook hands with her, then with Chisholm. “Thanks. And good luck.”
I shook hands with Landry but Chisholm was already on his way to the door. I guessed the snub was deliberate, and I was okay with it. When they’d gone, Cobb and I sat down again.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
“Kennedy was a loose wheel, there’s no doubt about that. But he cared about this case as much as I’ve ever seen a cop care about any case. And he identified a couple of things that need to be looked at. A critical piece of evidence disappeared. And Kinley and Maughan wrote reports. Those aren’t optional. Those reports have disappeared. Not one word of what they found, who they talked to — none of it is in the homicide file. That’s two glaring mistakes. The DNA may or may not be another. Either this was an incredibly sloppy investigation or there was something else going on.”
“If those things were deliberate, it would have to be someone close to the investigation, am I right about that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then the question becomes why. You think it’s possible a cop murdered Faith Unruh?”
Cobb shrugged. “Or is protecting the person who did. Or had a grudge against the investigators and wanted them to look bad.”
“Does that happen?”
“The police service is no different from any other business or organization. There’s politics, inter-office jealousy, rivalries, even hatred.”
We sat in silence for a while. “I just thought of something. We think Faith was lured by someone into that backyard. A kid could maybe be persuaded by a police officer — the uniform and everything?”
Cobb was shaking his head. “Non-starter. Detectives wouldn’t have been in uniform.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Neither of us spoke much after that. I got us refills, and when I came back, said, “What’s next?”
“I’m not sure. I —” His phone rang. He answered, listened for a while, then spoke. “Sure, Danny, we can meet you. What’s it about? … Okay, how about after school tomorrow? You want to get together somewhere near the school so you don’t have to … You sure? Okay, my office, four thirty. Yeah, see you then.”
He rang off.
“Danny Luft?”
“Yeah. Wants to meet. Wouldn’t say why.”
“If the kid has decided to confess, I’m getting into another line of work.”
Cobb shook his head. “I’m not sure what’s on his mind, but he sounded serious. You okay with tomorrow?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“And I need to think about where we go with Kennedy.”
“There’s part of me that says his death can’t be related to Faith Unruh, and there’s another part of me that says it’s ridiculous to think otherwise.”
“Yeah, I’ve got some of that going on, too. Look, I’ve got to run. Tomorrow, my office, four thirty.”
“Got it.”
He stood up. “It’s your turn to buy.”
Trying to lighten the mood.
“Got that, too.”
I stayed a while and decided to step back in time — read the newspaper, in this case the Globe and Mail. One of the things that I’d found saddest about the continuing demise of newspapers was that one of my most pleasurable pastimes — drinking coffee and reading actual newsprint pages spread out over a table — might disappear altogether. Reading the Globe or the New York Times or the Washington Post on an iPhone or computer just wasn’t the same.
/> I enjoyed a quiet hour catching up on the fortunes of the Flames, perusing the much-depleted entertainment section, and shaking my head at the most recent synapse failures of Donald Trump.
Finally, I set the paper to one side, took out my notebook, and for ninety minutes filled its pages with notes on three topics, hoping that forcing myself to analyze the three might lead to some useful ideas on at least one of the topics.
It did not.
I came no closer to some magical breakthrough on the Danny Luft case, the Unruh-Kennedy murders, or the MFs matter. That’s how I titled that section — “The MFs Matter.” Of course, it felt like a lot more than a matter.
The one conclusion I came to, and I had to admit it was based almost solely on gut feeling, was that there was a connection between the Faith Unruh and Marlon Kennedy murders. This wasn’t new. I had come to that conclusion and then abandoned it several times already. Two events, twenty-six years apart, and yet it seemed inconceivable to me that Kennedy’s brutal killing had nothing at all to do with the case that had been his obsession for a quarter century.
And that was my afternoon. Not a lot to show for the three hours or so that I’d been in the Higher Ground. In a way, working with Cobb when he felt he needed me was not unlike my years as a journalist, especially the time I’d spent and continued to spend as a freelancer. People struggle with the freelance concept just as they do with the idea of people working remotely from their homes, often thinking that the contract person working at home or out of a remote office is not actually working, or at least not working much. My own feeling is that the person working at home often works longer hours. It’s just too easy to stay at the computer long after the normal working day is over, to take that late-night phone call, to tackle one more piece of paperwork.
I chuckled as I thought back to the time when there had been a knock on my apartment door, and when I opened it an elderly neighbour was standing there holding a copy of that day’s Calgary Herald.
“Hi, Adam,” he’d said, greeting me with a pleasant smile. “The kid who delivers the paper accidentally left two at my place today. And I said to myself, now who would have time to read the paper? And right away I thought of you.” The implication being, of course, that I had nothing else to do.
I’d accepted the paper, thanked him, and closed the door — a bit quickly perhaps, but I remember being a little afraid he might suggest we sit around and read it together.
Once outside, I walked around Kensington for a while, enjoying the arrival of evening in one of my favourite neighbourhoods. Remembering the times Donna and I had taken walks very much like this one. I finally decided to drive by the house where Faith Unruh’s body had been found. I hadn’t done that since Kennedy’s murder. Prior to that I had been something of a regular visitor to the back alley that ran past the garage beside which her body had been found, covered by a sheet of plywood. It had been those drive-bys and walk-pasts that had put Kennedy, courtesy of his surveillance system, on my tail.
Fifteen minutes later I was driving slowly down the alley. I had been there enough times that the landmarks were familiar to me — the huge pine tree in the corner of one backyard, the ’53 Ford on blocks in another. I parked behind the house where the Faith Unruh murder had taken place, just yards from where Kennedy had met his violent end. I dug out the flashlight that I now kept close by at all times, and eased myself out of the car.
I directed the light to the door of the garage and stepped to the back fence to look over it at the place Faith’s body was discovered. The feeling of intense sadness that swept over me every time I came to this place was there again. Not anger, not really — just immense, terrible regret that a little girl never got the chance to live out the rest of her childhood, to grow into adulthood, maybe have children of her own. All that had ended in this place, and as had happened more than once when I came here, I wasn’t able to fight back the tears.
I stepped back from the fence and cast the light around the alley, remembering when I’d sat in for Kennedy while he’d been with his dying wife. I’d run the surveillance equipment for him for ten days and nights.
And once, only once, had I seen anything even remotely suspicious. A movement, a shadow really, fleeting … there and then gone. I had left his house and come to the alley to see if there was anything here. I’d found nothing.
It was later that Kennedy found the marks:
All had been carved into the bottom board of the wood frame that housed two garbage bins. Eleven marks in all. Then, in an email I didn’t see until after he was dead, Kennedy had let me know that a twelfth mark had appeared.
I walked to the garbage bins, crouched down to look. I’d never seen the twelfth scratch-mark and wanted to see it now. I let the light find the marks, reached out to run my hand over the roughly carved lines. I jerked my hand back and for a few seconds found it hard to breathe. I bent closer to make sure I wasn’t wrong.
I wasn’t. There were now thirteen marks. Five, then another five, and three single marks. Thirteen.
Since I’d worked with Cobb, I had been in a few dangerous, pretty damn scary situations. But I don’t think I’d ever felt my blood run as cold, my heart beat harder, or my hands actually shake the way they were now as I tried to steady the flashlight.
I stood up and backed away from the bins.
Suddenly, I whirled around. I hadn’t heard anything or even felt anything. And nothing and no one was there. But I was spooked and I knew it. I climbed back into the Accord and locked the doors, the memory of Kennedy’s encounter with someone right here sending fresh shivers up and down my back. I drove out of the alley, fighting back the temptation to floor it and get out of there as fast as I could.
I’m not sure why, but I employed some of the evasive tactics Cobb had taught me for when I suspected I was being followed. After my heart rate and breathing returned to near normal and nothing even remotely suspicious happened to rekindle my fear, I drove home. Once inside, I took a long shower, slid Lindi Oretga’s Faded Gloryville into the CD player and sat with a rye and diet, and Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Englishman’s Boy. But I didn’t do much reading.
Cobb was at his desk. He hadn’t spoken since I’d told him about the thirteenth mark. His hands were locked behind his head and he was staring at the ceiling. Finally, he lowered his gaze and met my eyes. “What do you think it means?”
I shook my head. “Kennedy had a theory that it was the guy who murdered Faith Unruh — that he was playing us, that he’d made a game of coming in and out of the alley, making a new mark every time. When there were eleven marks, Kennedy went back through the tapes and his notes and said he’d seen something, a shadow or something, nine times, and I’d seen it once, that made ten. He figured the other mark was for the time when Faith Unruh’s killer had committed the murder.”
“You never told me about seeing anything while you were filling in for him on the surveillance.”
“I didn’t think it was any big deal.”
“Kennedy did.”
“Yeah.”
“There have been a few things you haven’t told me about.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.” I meant it.
Cobb sat forward and rubbed his chin. Picked up a pen and jotted a couple of notes on his notepad, then leaned back and looked at me again.
“I asked you before what you think the marks mean. You told me about Kennedy’s theory. I want to know what you think.”
I took a breath and let it out before speaking. “I probably agree with him,” I said. “It’s hard to believe that there’s no connection. A little girl dies in that yard next to the garage. Then weird stuff happens — shadows, marks. And then the guy who has been obsessed with finding her killer is also killed just yards from where the first murder took place. I have trouble seeing them as totally independent of one another.”
Cobb nodded slowly. “I get that. The problem I have is the same one I’ve had all along — the time lapse. Faith Unruh was mur
dered in 1991. For twenty-four years there isn’t a whisper. Then suddenly shit starts to happen. You and Kennedy see shadows in the alley behind the garage. Marks that seem to be keeping track of something, some number, appear. And then Kennedy is killed. But it’s the twenty-four years of nothing I’m struggling with.”
I stood up and crossed to the coffee maker, tossed in a pod, and started it pouring into the mug Kyla had bought for me — Careful or you’ll end up in my novel. I hadn’t written a novel; the kids’ first chapbooks didn’t qualify, but Kyla believed that one day there’d be a Cullen bestseller out there. Thus the mug. “I can’t argue that. It’s just bloody weird and I’m not saying I believe all of what I just said. It’s a theory, that’s all. You want one?” I tilted my head in the direction of the machine.
“No, thanks. Okay, here’s what I think we should do. We make a list of everyone we can think of who has any connection to the case, however remote. And that includes the people who live there now. We start checking them out — you take care of that part. I’ll tackle the homicide file again.”
“By the way, how is it you’re able to see homicide files? It’s not like they’re available to just anyone who’d like to peruse them.” It was a question I had long wondered about. The homicide files, known as murder books in other jurisdictions, were for police eyes only. Yet Cobb had, from time to time, been able to access different files on cases we’d worked.
“Again, the advantage of having once been a cop and having friends in the service who are willing to risk their asses and let me take a peek.”
“Handy.”
He smiled. “Handy indeed. And speaking of former friends and colleagues, I’m thinking there has to be someone, either working or retired, who I can talk to, someone who remembers the case and can maybe tell us something about the investigation — maybe shed some light on the stuff Kennedy told us about.”
“So you’re not buying Landry and Chisholm’s explanation?”
None So Deadly Page 13