Before Steve could incriminate himself or slight me, I jumped in. “Neither of you has seen her in the flesh, and I think I saw her on the hillside yesterday as well. If she’s in disguise, she’s still registering on my radar. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea for me to come along, even though God knows I would rather be soaking my wounds and resting after a hideously long day, thank you, Iain.”
“I’m not the one who will take the heat for it,” Iain shrugged. “Just thought you might like a dry run at a story since the first person we’re likely to run into will be Keller.”
“Never mind Keller,” Steve shrugged. “We’ve got work to do, and Randy can help. That’s good enough for me. Listen Iain: drop us at the departures level, and then you head back into the long-term parking lot and look for the Cadillac truck.” He shuddered. “That’s got to be the height of Alberta Crude, eh? A Cadillac pickup truck.”
Iain pulled in behind a marked police car and two other Crown Victorias, and we piled out. We entered the international flights wing, mostly because that’s where we’d ended up, but I guess it was a good idea. If you’re on the run, run as far as possible.
Steve walked over to the small group of men surrounding Staff Superintendent Keller near the entrance to the Customs area. I figured if Barbara had made it inside, she was going to be effectively cut off. All the police had to do was stop any flights from boarding and work their way through all the people who had cleared customs. Maybe it was a stupid idea of mine to have tagged along. Keller was going to hit the roof when he figured out I was here, and besides that, my knee was really beginning to throb. I was suddenly hit by a wave of incredible tiredness.
I looked longingly at the coffee kiosk at the departures level, but thought better of it. Keller would spot me right away if I walked over there. Right down the escalator, near the arrivals, was a Tim Horton’s outlet. I could head down there, grab a coffee and a Canadian Maple doughnut, and wait it out. Eventually Steve would find me. Or he would find the doughnuts and see me by default. Cop instinct, right?
I imagined myself coming down the escalator with a carry-on bag, heading for the carousel and adoring fans or family. There was a nice setup for an entrance for sure. In fact, a flight must have been imminent, because there was a tow-headed young man in his early twenties waiting near the bottom of the escalator with a bunch of flowers and a huge teddy bear. He was polite enough not to look too disappointed to see it was just me.
I strolled over to the Tim Horton’s line, glancing forward to make sure my favourite maple frosted doughnut was still plentiful. There were about nine or ten Canadian Maples on the tray behind the woman, but there were five or six people in line ahead of me. Talk about tense. The man and woman at the front of the queue were getting iced cappuccinos and crullers. The next customer, who looked like a businessman heading home, took a large coffee and a Canadian Maple. The next woman, who was pulling a hard-shelled, wheeled carry-on bag, ordered a coffee but no doughnut. I was poking through my wallet to see if I had enough change to buy Steve a doughnut as well while the man in front of me ordered. I looked up as the coffee-only woman excused herself to get by him and found myself staring directly at Barbara Finster in jeans and a Tilley hat. I was so flustered that I wasn’t sure if my befuddlement even registered on her as more than jet lag. She kept walking and I stepped forward to buy my doughnut, which was probably the best thing I could do to keep from arousing her suspicions, right? Besides, I’d been in line for about ten minutes. If I was to step out of line at this point, she’d notice me for sure. There was no way, though, that I could now order a coffee … my hands were shaking too much to hold a cup of hot liquid safely. Damn, I wished I’d taken Steve up on his offer of a cellphone. What I wouldn’t give to be able to surreptitiously text him right now.
By the time I got the doughnuts without any coffee, Barbara Finster had disappeared from view, but I figured she couldn’t have gone far. I decided to try the washrooms situated beyond the luggage carousels for the local arrivals. If she was on this floor, it had to be because she was hiding out from the police, since she had a carry-on bag with her. It wasn’t a bad idea. Even if it hadn’t actually been her plan to elude police, the arrivals level was a whole lot more conducive to hanging out than the departure lounge. For one thing, there was the Tim Horton’s. Then there were also the nice washrooms that you didn’t have to navigate three hallways to get to. On top of all that, there were actually places to sit and wait for people you were picking up from delayed flights. While officials always instructed travellers to arrive two hours before international flights in order to clear customs, it usually didn’t take more than ten minutes to wander through the big room with all the flags of all the States. And of course, that was only if you were going to the US. Anywhere else made you clear customs when you landed. So all in all, I was completely copasetic with Barbara Finster’s decision to wait on the lower floor before her flight. It was just that pesky business about avoiding the police stationed on the upper floor that had me suspicious.
In fact, I was more than just suspicious. I was both suspicious and annoyed. The weird thing was that if she hadn’t bothered to aim her truck at me earlier in the evening, I’d likely have been far more frightened than I actually was. Maybe my bike helmet hadn’t protected everything from shaking loose up there. I was marching toward a cornered criminal who had probably murdered three people, and what I wanted to do more than anything was give her a piece of my mind. I felt the grip on my small bag of doughnuts tighten into a fist. The recollection of the doughnuts reminded me of Steve upstairs. Perhaps I should let him know where I was.
I veered left toward a bank of telephones outside the International Customs Arrival doors. I didn’t want to have my back to the washrooms, but it was impossible to see the washroom doorway from the other side of the telephones. I settled for standing at a sitting booth, to the consternation of a nice man in a long robe who was talking passionately in another language in the booth across from me. I’m not sure why he thought I would be eavesdropping. Surely he’d figured out by now that most Canadians are woefully unilingual. He would have to have been gossiping very slowly about Monsieur et Madame Thibeaux for me to have cottoned on to much of what he was saying. I smiled at him apologetically as I fished for the change to make a call.
Steve wasn’t answering his cellphone. With my luck, he’d be standing right next to Keller if he did. Instead I got his voice mail. I just hoped he’d would check his messages pretty quickly. and wondered if the location code of the payphone would come up on his call display as “airport” or merely as “payphone.” I tersely said I was downstairs and that I thought I had spotted the target, but that I was now going to use the washroom. If the man across from me could codify his conversation, so could I. After all, I was sure he could speak English and probably seven other languages as well.
I hung up the phone, a little more nervous now than I had been before trying to check in. That’s the trouble with sober second thoughts: they tend to take the adrenalin out of your sails. I walked toward to the washrooms, hovering slightly closer to the people congregating near the arrival doors. I looked like someone about to welcome a Canadian home from afar, knowing that the first thing he’d want would be a hug and a Tim Horton’s doughnut. Okay, so far, not a bad cover. Should I try to be a welcomer-with-doughnuts who had to use the facilities? Would that be a good idea?
I might as well check out the washroom. After all, what if Barbara Finster hadn’t headed there? What if she’d left to catch a cab to take her away from the heavy concentration of unmarked police cars? But to where would she take said cab? Do people step off planes in one city and take cabs to another city? Not very likely. In fact, I didn’t think I had ever seen a taxicab driving on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway to Calgary.
She had to be in the loo. I walked through the open concept doorway, thinking how good it was of the architects to preserve us from germs, leaving us open only to infestations of sm
all boys daring each other to run through. A long line of sinks and mirrors ran along the right wall, and green toilet stalls along the left. The light was weirdly fluorescent, different than the light in the rest of the terminal.
I was hoping I could see if anyone was in the stalls, but all the doors hung uniformly closed. There was no one standing at the mirror or in the baby-change area, so if Barbara Finster was in here, she was in a stall. It occurred to me that if I made any noise kneeling down to check the stalls, I would be tipping my hand. I realized almost simultaneously that I really did have to use one of the stalls.
I pushed open the first door and locked myself in. I scrunched up the doughnut bag and set it carefully on the floor near the solid wall. Maybe I’d be able to check under the stall walls when I reached back down to pick it up? Or maybe I could drop something else, such as some change, and then reach down to pick it up?
I unzipped quickly and sat down, wondering if I was placing myself in one of the most classically vulnerable positions with a killer in the same room. It couldn’t be helped, though. I stood to zip up and considered how I could peer under the stalls to see if she was holed up in one of the further cubicles. I just about jumped out of my skin as the automatic toilet flushed forcefully behind me, with the sound of a water cannon exploding into action. I realized the noise might cover me and dropped quickly to one knee. From that vantage point, I couldn’t see much as the walls were lower to the floor than most public washrooms. Lucky for me, the stalls were made for people hauling luggage along, or I’d probably have hit my head on the latch of the door as I came back up. The toilet flushed again. I think I might have cried out. I know my heart started pounding. That infrared button on the flush mechanism was entirely too sensitive. I picked up my doughnut bag, pulled at the hem of my shirt to make sure I was presentable, and opened the latch.
The door swung open but there wasn’t any space to walk out because Barbara Finster stood in my path. If she hadn’t recognized me in the Tim Horton’s line, that moment of grace was over now. She was glowering at me with an intensity I’d only seen once or twice in my lifetime. It was the look of someone who has gone beyond taboos and discovered she could still exist. That has to be the scariest look of all.
Before I could figure out a way to bluff my way out of there, she spoke. “You! I might have known. So I didn’t manage to incapacitate you earlier? Pity.”
I was already frightened, but her reminding me that she had nearly run me over—and was responsible for the gravel still smarting in my knee—put some iron back into me. “Sorry to disappoint you. Travelling somewhere?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. It’s been such a hot summer, don’t you think? It will be good to get away.”
“I thought you’d have wanted to stick around for your funeral, though.”
She sniffed, which might have come across as a laugh if she weren’t so scary and the stall weren’t so cramped.
“Oh, no Tom Sawyer schtick for me. Besides, Barbara Finster has nothing to do with me any more. I’ve moved on to a whole new life. Soon, in fact, I won’t even look the same.”
“It’s hard to hide your stature or your way of walking, though. I spotted you on the hill yesterday. You must have been leaving after killing Pia, right? I couldn’t tell immediately that it was you, but I knew it was someone I had seen before. I wouldn’t be so sure that you’ll be able to disappear completely.”
“Oh, you would be surprised what money can buy, dear. However, I am not interested in enlightening you. What I need to know is what you’re doing here, and what you know about any police involvement. It would be too much to believe in two coincidental run-ins in one day, don’t you think? You’re not here to pick someone up from a Toronto flight, are you? You’re here with that policeman.”
It wasn’t guile that made me dodge her question with a question of my own. “So that really was an accident this evening?”
“You mean on the road? Well, I admit I swerved, but I wasn’t out hunting for you, if that’s what you’re intimating. You’re not nearly as important as all that. I just noticed that ridiculous helmet and then saw it was you. I thought it would be a nice balance to the attack on the other fellow at the Centre where you work. I thought it might buy me some time, but now I see it was a mistake. That must be what has brought you here, right? Oh, dear. It just goes to show that a person should never act on instinct. Of course, one shouldn’t go off exploring on one’s own while there’s a killer on the loose either, don’t you agree?”
I was having trouble standing still. The confined space was getting to me, and Barbara Finster’s glib attitude was doing a number on me, too. I couldn’t see any remorse in her. Of course, aside from her just wanting to crush me like a bug under her huge tires or splatter me against her shiny grille, I wasn’t clear on a motive for her killings either. But standing there with her looking straight at me with her passionless blue eyes, I had no doubt at all that she was the killer we’d been fearing and searching for all summer.
Since the attacks on the World Trade Center, security measures in airports have increased exponentially. Nail files and umbrellas are routinely confiscated at check-in, and people are asked to remove their shoes and open their carry-on luggage with far more frequency than before. I was hoping that Ms. Finster had packed accordingly and wasn’t carrying a lethal knitting needle or garotte at the moment. She was slightly taller than I was, and probably in better shape if she had used a gym to defy time and look the ten-to-fifteen years younger than she logically had to be. On the other hand, I biked and walked everywhere, but was still achy and shaken from the collision earlier. On the whole, it would be better to keep her talking than try to take her or disable her enough to make a run for it. Maybe Steve had his messages by now. Maybe someone else would come into the washroom and I could get away. Maybe Barbara Finster would find God and turn herself in to the authorities.
“It won’t do you any good to hurt me. They’re already looking for you, so it won’t deflect attention to anyone else. I’m assuming that’s why Paul was attacked at the Centre, right? This didn’t have anything to do with your mother’s bequest to the Folkways collection. This was all about killing your brother and getting away with the loot, right?”
Barbara Finster laughed but there was no warmth in it. “Is this the part where I confess my motives and my actions to you while the police sneak up from behind and arrest me? I don’t think so. I think this is the part where I add another notch to my rifle and ride off into the sunset. After all, one doesn’t explain oneself to the hired help. You’ve been listening to too much folk music, my dear. Too much pie in the sky, by and by, right? Let’s just settle for bye-bye, shall we?”
She moved her right arm toward her pocket, a movement I caught in the corner of my eye. I feinted left, pretending to try to rush past her. As I sensed her body move in response, I reached for the edge of the door to swing it shut.
It might not have worked, but the noise of the toilet flushing as it sensed my sudden movement was enough to startle her. I slammed the door shut and locked it in her face. It occurred to me that all she had to do was enter the stall next to me, stand on the toilet and kill me as easily as shooting fish in the proverbial barrel. I was clambering onto the toilet, ready to climb over the wall and close that door, too, when it also occurred to me that I had a moment’s opportunity to run when she entered the stall beside. If I timed it right, I could do it.
I heard the door swing and leapt for the latch to my own cubicle. Once more the toilet flushed. I raced for the corner to the entrance, not looking back. I heard a whoosh and a ping close behind me, but it’s not everyone who can hit a moving target when balancing on a wall-mounted toilet, and lucky for me Barbara Finster wasn’t one of the happy few.
There were exhausted travellers from the late Toronto flight milling about and waiting for their baggage at the carousel to my immediate left, and lights flashing “ready” at the carousel just beyond. Two flights’ worth of
people and their attendants were between me and the stairs to the departures level where I could find Steve. Of course, one crazy murderer with a gun was behind me. I would cope.
Dodging in and around tired people with luggage carts is not something I’d recommend unless there are extremely pressing circumstances that dictate such behaviour. One older lady, who likely was a longtime and vocal member of the United Church Women, actually rammed my ankles with her cart because I had bumped her suitcase in my hurry. I mumbled an apology for bleeding on her cart and hurried on. I heard someone behind me shout, “She’s got a gun!” and any attempt at good behaviour went out the window.
I ran directly at the second carousel, which had just begun to move and spit out mismatched luggage. I cleared the revolving black panels and teetered for a minute on the centre silver buttress. I was searching for someplace I could jump to on the other side that wouldn’t involve colliding with bulky suitcases or more mean old ladies. Of course, my immediate objective was to jump after a huge dufflebag went past me on the moving carousel below me. As soon as the bag was to my left, I dove for a patch of floor, twisting my foot in the process.
The sound of a bullet whooshing past and exploding into the electronic sign above the luggage retrieval area was enough to keep me from dwelling on my ankle. I raced past terrified people who were now beginning to cower among their belongings. There was no way I was going to expose myself to Barbara Finster by taking the staircase in front of me. I ran toward the lost luggage office to my left and dodged into the lee of the doorway. Surely Steve and his bunch would have heard the commotion down here. There was no need to go any further. I slid to the ground in the archway. With luck I would be obscured from sight by the mound of suitcases stacked by the doorway. People were still shouting. I heard another couple of shots, but didn’t look up.
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