by Susan Fox
“Yeah, but the police get so many of those reports. She didn’t get arrested, so she didn’t come to their attention. Anyhow, she dyed her hair red, got a pimp, used the street name Foxy. Young girls are popular.” He drained his coffee mug and put it down.
This sounded so far removed from the peaceful world of Caribou Crossing. Brooke had grown up in the city—in L.A., a very big city—and when she and Mo left, she’d pined for years, missing the bustle and excitement. Yet when she cleaned up her act and took charge of her life, she’d opted to stay in Caribou Crossing rather than return to city life. She had traded excitement for serenity; with her health issues, that was a necessity. Besides, she’d wanted to prove herself here, with everyone watching. In the anonymous city, it might be too easy to slip. Now, when she thought of Robin and the new grandchild growing up, she was grateful they all lived in the country.
Although, if Jake Brannon was telling the truth, Caribou Crossing wasn’t the safe place she had believed it to be. She took a gulp of coffee, then realized she was getting anxious, and caffeine wouldn’t help. She put her mug down and shoved it out of reach. “Go on.”
“Anika’s body was found in a Dumpster in Blood Alley.”
She shivered. “Blood Alley?”
“It’s in Gastown. Businesspeople, tourists, addicts, they all frequent it. Anika’s isn’t the first body to be found there. She’d been knifed savagely and either had been raped or had had rough sex before she died.”
Brooke wrapped her arms around herself. “And you’re investigating her death?”
“Uh, sort of. See, the police system doesn’t work the same way in Vancouver as it does up here. You have your RCMP detachment and they handle everything. Vancouver has its own police force. The munis—the VPD—handle most cases, like homicide.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know that from books and TV.”
“Okay. So, the RCMP investigates drug crimes, illegal smuggling of aliens, national and international crime. In Vancouver we sometimes work with the munis, but off the top there wasn’t any reason for us to be brought in on Anika’s case. It appeared to be a straightforward murder of hooker by john.”
Straightforward. Oh yes, she was glad she didn’t live in the city, where such crimes were considered straightforward. “How did you get involved, then?”
“To start, I was the guy who found her.”
“Oh!” She envisioned the shock of discovering a girl’s body, partially clad, bloodstained, tossed in a Dumpster like rotten garbage.
“I had a meeting with a CI—a confidential informant—in Blood Alley. We finished up and I walked down the alley, heard a noise in a Dumpster, and found her.”
“A noise? She was alive?”
He shook his head. “No. It was, uh, an animal.”
A rat? She shuddered and wrapped her arms tighter around her body.
“Soon as I ascertained she was dead I called the munis. My part in it should’ve been over then. But I got drawn back in.” His own coffee mug empty, he hooked Brooke’s, raised it, and took a long swallow.
“How?”
“Her parents got in touch with me. They wanted to talk to the man who’d found their daughter. They felt guilty, wanted to understand what had happened.”
Jake twisted the mug back and forth between his hands. “I couldn’t tell them anything useful. And . . . they got to me. They’d been too strict but at least they did it because they loved their kid. They were scared by the things she was doing, the company she was keeping, and they didn’t know what to do. They did the wrong thing, but at least they tried.”
He swallowed hard. “When they identified her body, they barely recognized her. She’d lost twenty pounds, her hair was chopped off and dyed red with purple streaks, she had a couple tattoos and a dozen piercings. Track marks, of course. Some of the track marks and piercings were infected.” He swallowed again. “Poor kid was HIV positive, but that information wasn’t disclosed to her parents.”
“They’ll never forgive themselves,” Brooke said, knowing it for a certainty. The damage she’d done Evan was different, but never would she forgive the woman she’d once been. Guilt. It never died. You just learned how to move past it, if you were lucky.
“They made their mistakes because they loved her,” Jake said again, “and some bastard sliced her up and threw her away like last night’s garbage. It isn’t right that he get away with it.”
“No, it’s not.” She studied his troubled face. “You must have seen a number of murders. What’s different about this one?”
“I found her body, and she was so young, and her parents are so . . . tormented.”
This man might superficially remind her of Mo, but in fact he was very different.
As if to reinforce her perception, Sunny jumped down from the windowsill, strolled across the floor, and leaped casually into Jake’s lap. Jake scratched him under the chin. The cat slitted his eyes and began to purr.
Jake Brannon had Mo’s striking good looks and his sexual magnetism, yet he seemed like a decent man. As his long fingers caressed the cat’s fur, she thought of them on her shoulders, imagined them on her breasts.
No, it was impossible. There might be chemistry between them but that’s all it would ever be. He was younger than she, plus he was a cop with a high-risk job in Vancouver. And she, for heaven’s sake, was a grandmother. And an alcoholic with bipolar disorder. She needed stability, not some crazy fling with a—
His voice interrupted her train of thought. “So I started asking around, just casually, while I was working other cases. Turned out one of my CIs, a hooker not much older than Anika, knew her pretty well.”
“You’ve got an informant who’s a teenage hooker?”
“I’d seen her on the street. Then she got pulled in when she went after some drunk who attacked another hooker, stopped the guy from beating her up. She’s a good kid. Lots of street smarts. Smokes a little weed but stays away from the hard stuff. Anyhow, Jamal and I had a talk with her, and she’s worked with us for over a year. She’s come up with some good tips.”
“Isn’t it dangerous having a prostitute who knows your identity? I mean, if you’re working undercover? She could, uh, blow your cover.”
“Jamal and I don’t do much U/C in Vancouver. Mostly, we get sent other places.”
She tried for a moment to imagine his life, but it was impossible.
“Anyhow,” he was saying, “Sapphire’s reliable.”
“That’s an unusual name.”
“Street name. Won’t tell us her real name, where she’s from. Little idiot. She’s got so much going for her, she could make it in school, get decent work.”
She could hear in his voice how much he’d like to get Sapphire off the street. “What about the files on runaway children? You might find Sapphire there.”
“Tried that. No luck. There are just so damned many runaways. Lots don’t even get reported. They leave foster homes, group homes, parents who abuse them or don’t give a damn. What Sapphire’s running from is probably as bad or worse than what she’s found. Besides, like I said, she’s one of the smart ones. She’s saving money rather than spending it on drugs. She’s savvy about screening johns, insists on condoms, won’t go near a needle.”
She nodded sadly. “What did she tell you about Anika?”
“The night before Anika died, her pimp sent her on a date with a john who wanted a young girl for the whole night. The next day, Anika was badly bruised, but she played tough. Told Sapphire it was no big deal, the guy had paid well, he had some great dope, and he wanted to see her again that night. That was the night she died. I’m betting that john killed her.”
“It sounds like it.”
“Anyhow, the guy had given Anika some primo BC Bud and—”
“BC Bud?” Brooke broke in. “Marijuana?”
“Yeah. Anyhow, on Saturday afternoon she and Sapphire smoked some of the stuff. Anika more than Sapphire because Sapphire says too much makes her mind fuzzy
and she doesn’t like that. It makes her careless. Well, it made Anika talkative and she said some things about the john. She knew he was a grower right off ’cause he was boasting about ‘his weed’ being better than anyone else’s.”
Brooke tried for a moment to imagine Anika’s world, then decided she didn’t want to.
“Some other guy came to his hotel room,” Jake continued. “Anika never said which hotel, by the way. She got shoved into the bathroom. She didn’t really care—she had a joint to keep her company—but she did overhear some bits of conversation. Enough to realize the two guys were arguing. She figured her john normally sold to the other guy but he—her guy—was trying to get out of their deal. Said he’d do better selling directly into the States himself. Boasted about how he’d done it before. The other guy said they’ve really cracked down at the border and there’ve been a lot of busts, but Anika’s john just laughed and said he’d have no problem.”
“If he was wearing an RCMP uniform, driving an RCMP vehicle, he wouldn’t. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“It’s a possibility. Or if he was a businessman or professional with a legitimate business reason for crossing the border. They’ve busted trucks purportedly carrying pure water, beer, recycled paper, so there are no guarantees, but if he had a NEXUS card, drove a regular car, and had a briefcase full of professional papers, chances are he could smuggle a trunkload at a time.”
“All right, so the john was a drug dealer. Why kill Anika?”
“Maybe he figured she’d heard too much. Or he’s just one sick dude who gets his kicks that way.”
Brooke shuddered yet again. After a moment she said, “What made you think the man came from Caribou Crossing?”
“He was drinking some fancy rye called Caribou Crossing and offered Anika a drink. She tasted it and said it was too strong for her. He said, ‘Don’t dump on my hometown drink.’ ”
“He didn’t seem worried about her finding out where he came from.”
“He’d been drinking, smoking dope with her. Maybe it just slipped out, and he realized later and decided to kill her.”
“So you’re looking for a man from Caribou Crossing who drinks rye by the same name, and travels to the States on business.”
“And is a pillar of the community. Anika overheard some joke about that. Along the lines of ‘What would the folks back home think if they knew the truth?’ ”
“Didn’t Sapphire report all this to the Vancouver police?”
“No. They’ve picked her up for soliciting. She doesn’t trust them.”
Brooke could identify with not wanting to talk to the police. But it was interesting that the girl, knowing Jake was RCMP, had trusted him. So did Sunny.
Brooke wanted to trust him too, but she wasn’t that naïve. Before she phoned to check him out, there was one other thing she was curious about. “You didn’t pass Sapphire’s information along to the police?”
“I did. Without naming her, or I’d lose her as a CI. I talked to Jamal first, and then we went to the officer in charge of Anika’s case and told him there appeared to be a drug connection. So, we’re working together on this. The munis are handling the investigation in Vancouver, and Jamal and I are dealing with the Caribou Crossing end. We figured the best way to start was for one guy—me—to come in U/C. Normally we’d work with the local RCMP, but obviously that’s not an option. In fact, if I get any hard evidence that Miller or one of the other members is crooked, Jamal’ll probably have to hand it over to Internal Affairs and they’ll take it from there.”
“But you’d rather handle it yourself.”
“Don’t want to damage anyone’s reputation unless I’m sure. And . . . yeah, I’d like to nail Anika’s killer myself. Internal investigations can go on forever.”
Brooke nodded, then walked over to the phone that sat on the kitchen counter. “Your sergeant in Vancouver is Jamal Estevez?”
“Yeah. And the number is—”
“No, thanks. I’ll get it from directory assistance.”
He nodded, seeming to approve of her caution. As she dialed she watched his hands. Would he go for the gun and stop her?
Chapter Seven
No, Jake just continued to stroke her cat.
Sergeant Jamal Estevez had a deep, reassuring voice, and everything he said confirmed Jake’s story.
“I need to talk to him,” Jake told her.
She handed the phone over.
It was true. He was RCMP. Which meant her family was safe. He’d only threatened them as a means of controlling her, until he knew whether he could trust her. Anger sparked first, but then relief washed through her, weakening her knees. She sank into a chair.
“Yeah, I found the op,” Jake was saying to Jamal Estevez. “Rented a Cessna and scouted around at dusk and dawn, found a bunch of trailers that looked suspicious.” He glanced at Brooke, and she had the feeling he was talking to her as much as to the sergeant.
She listened as he concisely related how he’d located the grow op, snuck in, then had the bad luck to run into a squeaky door and a man with a gun. Now she knew where the bullet wound had come from.
“Nah, I’m fine,” he said into the phone. “Brooke’s a good nurse.” His eyes widened momentarily; then he quickly said, “Oh, I didn’t tell you. I missed a turn on my bike and ended up in her yard. She’s my safe house. This morning I decided to tell her the story. Seems like a trustworthy lady.”
His face muscles were taut and Brooke had a revelation. Not only had he found the gun last night, he’d reported in to Jamal and asked him to check her out. When he looked at her again, she scowled.
Jake raised his eyebrows in a question, and she turned her back on him and began to tidy the kitchen. He kept talking to Jamal—or, rather, listening. She heard him say “Uh-huh” a couple of times and guessed Jamal was telling him her life story, or at least as much of it as the RCMP could access. Feeling annoyed and vulnerable, she turned on the tap and started to rinse dishes and load the dishwasher.
When she finished, Jake was saying, “Well damn, a stolen license plate, eh? Okay, here’s something else to check. Brooke got a visit from the local commander, Sergeant Miller. He had some cock-and-bull story about a break-in at a local store and the perp escaping on motorbike. So either Miller’s been fed a line of bull or he’s spun the tale himself. Don’t like to think that, but it’s suspicious that he’d be doing the ground-level investigation himself rather than sending a constable.”
He paused. “Yeah, let me know if the store was really broken into. Oh, and someone was flying around in a little plane yesterday morning. Might have been looking for me. Should check flight plans at the airports.”
The little plane. It had never occurred to her.... She turned back to Jake and touched his arm to get his attention. “The plane was around for quite a while. When I was mending the fence it was circling down south—too far away to see me. Then when I was talking to my neighbor—the one who rode by?—it was overhead.”
Jake repeated the information to Jamal, listened for a moment, then said to Brooke, “What’s the store that was allegedly broken into?”
“Vijay Patel’s gift shop. It’s called Gifts of the Caribou.”
He repeated the information to Jamal, listened, then turned to Brooke again. “We need to know who owns the land where they’re running the grow op. I was on a road called Pike, about an hour southwest of here, and turned off onto a dirt road that didn’t have a name marker. It twisted through some woods, up through some hills. I followed it about five miles before I hit the grow op. Any idea who might own that land?”
“I’ve never even heard of Pike Road.”
“She doesn’t know,” he said into the phone, then gave the coordinates of the grow op.
She thought again about the story, the parts he’d told her and the parts she was piecing together from his phone conversation with Jamal. “Can’t you just—” She was thinking out loud, but broke off when Jake turned to her and asked, �
�What?”
She shrugged apologetically. “Raid the grow op? Shut it down?”
“Not good enough. The man we want probably isn’t there. The workers would just be his flunkies.”
“But they’d know who he is.”
“Not necessarily. He’s probably got illegal immigrants hidden up there, working the op. They may never have seen him or heard his name. Even if they know him, and are willing to cop a deal and identify him, we’d only get him for drugs. I want him for murder.”
He was right, and she felt naïve.
Then he said to her, “The names Herb and Jango ring any bells?”
“Jango. There was an aging hippie by that name who used to live out in the hills and grow his own marijuana. Just for personal use, I’m pretty sure. He’d come into town every week or so to get supplies, and he reeked of dope. But not a bad guy. He belonged to the Marijuana Party and believed marijuana should be legalized. He had a pal, another guy like him, whose name might have been Herb.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t know. They haven’t been around for a year or two.”
Jake related the information to Jamal. “Our perp may have set these old boys up with a fancy operation in the hills, kept them happy with BC Bud, brought supplies out to them. Told them to stay away from town.”
He listened for a moment. “Next thing we need to do is work out a new cover for me.”
“Ditch the beard and long hair,” she muttered.
“Just a sec,” Jake said into the phone. Then, to her, “What?”
Oops, she should probably keep her mouth shut. “Nothing.”
“Tell me what you said.” He sounded exasperated.
“If you want to mingle with pillars of the community, go for clean-shaven and short-haired. Besides, if whoever shot at you got any kind of look, they’ll be expecting long hair.”
“Let me call you back,” Jake said to Jamal, and hung up the phone.
He leaned back in his chair and studied Brooke. “They saw me from the back. Hair, not face. So, do you cut men’s hair or just women’s?”