by Craig McLay
Ezekiel Crowley.
-36-
“Holy shit!” Janice said, jumping out of her seat. “How did you find this?”
“We got a bit lucky,” Colin said. “That article was originally published 12 years ago. The newspaper was bought and sold a couple of times. One of the buyers digitized the back catalogue in the hopes of putting a paywall in place to charge for premium content. Didn’t work out, but the stories are still there.”
“Where did this happen?” Janice asked.
“Newansett,” Colin said. “It’s a little smaller than Westhill. About four hours northeast of here.”
“Twelve years ago,” Janice said. “That would mean those kids would all be adults by now.”
“Not quite,” Colin said. “The oldest was 14 and the youngest was only three. Those numbers are estimates because none of the kids appeared to have an actual birth certificate. That would mean we’re looking at a range of about 15 to 26.”
“What about the mother?”
“I don’t know,” Colin said. “The article doesn’t say anything about her. The article doesn’t mention any other family.”
“So if all those kids became wards and there was no other family to go to, they must have gone to an orphanage or something.”
Colin nodded. “Or foster homes. I think they usually try to keep families together, but there were eight of them. Chances are there weren’t too many people with enough room to take in eight kids at once.”
“So they were probably separated,” Janice said.
“Most likely,” Colin said. “In that event, they could have gone almost anywhere.”
Janice pointed at the picture of Crowley. “He’d be what? Fifty or 60 by now? Do you think he could be the one doing all this?”
“Maybe,” Colin said, thinking. “The guy I chased through the basement of the rec centre seemed pretty light on his feet for a senior citizen, but it’s possible.”
“Maybe it’s one of the kids,” Janice said, pacing. “You said they were home schooled. He’s probably indoctrinated all of them in the practices of the order since they were old enough to walk.”
“Maybe it’s all of them,” Colin speculated. “Maybe Crowley managed to track down all the kids. Or maybe they ran away and found their way back to him. He could have trained them on what to do in the event they were separated. We might not be dealing with just one killer. We could be dealing with the whole damn family.”
“I wonder if any of those kids ended up around here,” Janice said.
“No way to know,” Colin said. “Those records would be sealed.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m gonna sleep now,” Janice said. “I’m too keyed up.”
“Well, if you’re excited and half naked, I can offer a couple of suggestions.”
Janice gave him a twisted smile. “Not that kind of excited. Somebody somewhere must know more than there is in that article.”
“It’s worth checking out,” Colin agreed. “You up for another road trip?”
-37-
Newansett was a one-time manufacturing centre that was awkwardly trying to turn itself into a tech hub. From what Colin could see, the transformation wasn’t exactly working out.
Almost half the buildings in the downtown area were empty. The ones that were occupied were taken up by fading mom-and-pop operations—greasy diners, used bookstores (that seemed to sell more DVDs and video games than anything else), consignment clothing outlets—whose best days appeared to be long behind them.
The two big factories in town were a battery plant and a tire manufacturer. The battery plant was surrounded by eight feet of fencing because the ground around it had been rendered toxic from 40 years of illegally dumped chemical runoff. The company that had owned the plant had sold it for a dollar to a group of squatters who were loosely affiliated with the Occupy movement and had been fighting the city for right to stay there. The city wasn’t fighting too hard: the cost of cleaning up the site was estimated to be in the $20-30 million range and it didn’t want to get stuck with the bill.
The tire plant had been renovated. Half of it was the headquarters of a private technical college offering Microsoft certifications. The other half was zoned for a downtown luxury loft development. According to the banners, the first units would be ready for occupancy three years ago. As far as Colin could see, none of them were occupied.
They’d started with Crowley’s house and makeshift “church”, but that had been knocked down to make room for a new school. Colin thought it was a little strange that they had decided to build a kindergarten playground on top of what had once been a torture chamber, but he could understand the city’s desire to get rid of all reminders of the previous occupants.
The newspaper was their next stop. The reporter who had originally covered the story had quit journalism shortly after the Crowley story and moved to Australia to study law with his new wife. The only other reporter who was in the newsroom when they called was just out of college and couldn’t offer any more detail than what was in the original story. He wasn’t from Newansett and had never even heard of Crowley. Colin had only been in the town for a few hours, but he was getting the impression that it wasn’t the kind of place people came to because they wanted to. Newansett seemed to be like Alaska: the only people who came there were either on the run or had nowhere else to go.
The police station was next. The cop who had been the lead investigator on the Crowley case was still there, but because Crowley had never been caught, it was still technically an open investigation and he refused to discuss any details. He was able to confirm that the two victims who had been identified were both local women with multiple run-ins on prostitution-related charges, but all attempts to identify the others had come to naught. Some of the samples had become contaminated as a result of an error by an evidence tech, so there was uncertainty about how many other victims there may have been.
The known victims were Maude Cheney, age 22, and Cyrilla Dwyer, who had been 17. Both of them were known to have a connection to a local dealer and part-time pimp named Dwayne Usher. Police had tried to track him down for questioning to establish a timeline of each girl’s last-known movements, but his house on Union Street had been deserted. Police believed that Usher had cleared out with his inventory as soon as the bodies were found because he thought he might be implicated. Colin thought it was more likely that Usher had ended up as one on the many unidentified victims, but kept this opinion to himself.
Colin switched tack and asked more questions about Crowley, but not a lot was known about him, either. He had arrived in town five years before the raid and paid for the house in cash. The source of that cash was unknown. He didn’t have any bank records that they could find, had no credit cards, no social insurance number and no licence to operate a motor vehicle. If he had a wife, she had not come with him and no marriage was registered. Same thing with the eight kids, who had no birth certificates and whose ages could only be estimated. They didn’t even know if they were actually his kids, although none of them matched any existing missing persons file.
The house had not been located in a residential neighbourhood. It was on the end of a street filled mostly with small industrial operations like auto body shops and car rental outlets, so there weren’t many neighbours to canvass. Crowley and his brood kept very much to themselves. The owner of a detailing business across the street said he thought he had heard some noises coming from the basement of the building late one night, but it was no secret that the Crowley house was pretty decrepit, so he’d just figured the guy was doing some renovations. Nothing suspicious in that.
The hunt for Crowley was still active, but there hadn’t been any leads in a long time. The guy seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and disappeared right back there again. The kids, meanwhile, had been taken into protective custody and that was all he knew about that.
He asked why they were so interested in the case. Colin said they were writing a historical fe
ature piece as an assignment for their magazine class and asked if there was anyone else they might talk to. He thought about it for a while before shaking his head.
“Not really,” he said. “Most people don’t like to talk about it. The town’s had so much bad news over the last few years they prefer to think it never happened.”
His opinion was generally confirmed at the rest of the places they tried: the public archives, the other names mentioned in the article, and even the real estate agent who had handled the sale of the Crowley property. Most said they had never heard of the case. The ones who had just shook their heads, muttered something about it being a “terrible business” and then found an expedient reason to be somewhere else.
“Well, that was pretty much a total bust,” Janice said when they got back to their hotel room later that evening. They had picked a chain place just off the highway because the one closer to town looked uncomfortably like the Bates motel, complete with the taxidermied birds in the lobby. “We didn’t learn anything we didn’t already know from that article you found.”
“Not quite,” Colin said, sitting down on the end of the bed and taking off his shoes. “We know Crowley bought the place with cash that came from an account registered to a numbered company with two registered directors—Augustine Levant and Conrad Clairvaux—neither of whom seem to have existed.”
“Uh huh,” Janice said, pulling a bottle of South African cabernet out of a LCBO bag and going to the desk to hunt for some glasses. They had bought it because they didn’t want to pay $40 for the Ontario merlot in the mini bar. Dinner had been at a pub down the street from the hotel. The feature had been a tray of mussels, half of which had failed to open during cooking. The waitress had failed to understand why this might be a problem.
“That means, despite his medieval mentality, he’s considerably more modern when it comes to his finances,” Colin said. “That probably explains why he’s been able to avoid being caught for so long.”
Janice couldn’t find any wine glasses, just a couple of plain glass tumblers of the same type that was sitting next to the bathroom sink. They would have to do. “Well, he has been hiding for about the last seven years,” she said. “So I think we can safely file that observation in the NSS file.”
“NSS?”
“No shit, Sherlock,” she said, smiling. “I think the only piece of luck we landed today was getting a room with a jacuzzi tub at no extra charge. Now it’s been an incredibly long day and I’m going to have a hot bath and a glass of wine. Feel free to join me if you wish.”
Colin watched as she pulled off her sweater and walked into the bathroom. He decided that a glass of wine and a soak sounded like an excellent idea.
-38-
Colin dropped Janice off at her apartment and drove home to find Giordino and Betts standing at his front door.
“Where you been?” Betts barked almost as soon as Colin got out of the car.
Colin grabbed his bag out of the backseat and reached into his pocket for his keys. “Gee, dad, I just went out for some cigarettes.”
“Take you all day to get cigarettes?” Betts asked. “We were here yesterday, too.”
Giordino stepped between the two of them. “Mr. Mitchell, when was the last time you saw Seth Reznick?”
Colin stopped reaching for his keys. So it was true. “A couple of days ago. I take it you’re not asking because he bounced a cheque to the police association.”
“Mr. Reznick was found dead in his home yesterday,” Giordino said flatly.
“Shit,” Colin said. “What happened?”
“You don’t exactly seem surprised,” Betts observed.
“I saw his building on the news,” Colin said. “Plus he didn’t show up at the paper that day.”
“Pardon me for sayin’, but you don’t exactly seem all broken up about it, either,” Betts said.
Colin shrugged. There was no point in pretending that he was.
“We’ve been retracing Mr. Reznick’s movements up until the time he was murdered,” Giordino. “As far as we can tell, one of the last people to have seen him alive was you.”
“Really?” Colin said.
“Really,” said Betts. “At the campus bar. Bartender told us all about it. Said you’d had quite a few by the time Mr. Reznick stopped by to say hello. Said the two of you didn’t exactly have the friendliest conversation.”
“Seth was looking for information on the murder of Shalene Nakogee,” Colin said. “But I told him that I had been advised by law enforcement not to speak to any reporters.”
“Ain’t that cute,” said Betts.
“I understand that you were recently removed from the position of editor on the campus newspaper,” said Giordino. “A position that was given to Mr. Reznick.”
“That’s correct,” Colin said.
“That would sure tick me off,” Betts said.
“I wouldn’t exactly call what we publish a newspaper,” Colin said.
“Was that all you talked about?” Giordino asked.
“More or less,” Colin said. “I suggested that his wardrobe, address, vehicle and lifestyle seemed to be at odds with what one might expect from a college student whose only visible means of income appears to be an Ontario student loan.”
Giordino and Betts exchanged a look. There was enough in it to confirm Colin’s suspicions, at least in part.
“Were you aware of any other…activities…that Mr. Reznick may have been involved with?” Giordino asked.
“Not directly,” Colin said. “But I have a feeling that you are.”
Betts and Giordino exchanged another look. Colin could tell that Giordino was trying to signal the older officer to keep his mouth shut. The message seemed to get through.
“Did Mr. Reznick say anything to you about where he might be going or who else he was going to be talking to that night?” Giordino asked.
“No, he didn’t,” Colin said. “I think I actually suggested that he come and talk to you, since you’re the only official source of information in these matters, but I don’t think he took my advice.”
“It’s funny, you wonderin’ about his lifestyle,” Betts said. “‘Cause I kinda wonder the opposite about you.”
Uh oh, Colin thought. Here it comes. “Oh yes?”
“Yeah,” said Betts. “Like what’s a guy with millions a bucks doin’ livin’ in a shithole apartment like this?”
Betts had clearly read one of the stories about insurance payouts for executives killed in the same attack as Colin’s father. The amounts were pure speculation, although one of the contracts had been leaked. It was freely available to anyone who typed Colin’s father’s name into a search engine. At least, that was where Colin hoped that Betts had come across the information. If they had gotten a search warrant to go through his financial records, then he was in more trouble than he assumed.
“I like the neighbourhood,” Colin said.
“Oh yeah?” Betts said. “I’m in the market myself. Mind if we come in and take a look around?”
“Just as soon as you produce a search warrant,” Colin said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I just had quite a long drive.”
Giordino stepped aside so that Colin could get to his front door.
“Hey,” said Betts. “You never told us where you went.”
“That’s true,” Colin said, unlocking his door. “Why don’t you try Googling that, too?”
Colin stepped inside and closed the door. For a moment, he had actually considered telling them about Crowley and his extended family, but that feeling had passed almost as soon as Betts had opened his mouth.
Colin was exhausted. A traffic accident had forced them to divert on the way back and it had taken them six hours from the time they left Newansett until they arrived in Westhill. He dropped his bag, had a quick bite to eat, then crawled in and out of a shower and fell into bed, where he fell asleep immediately. If the cops wanted to search his apartment, they were going to have to do it around h
im.
-39-
Colin woke up early the next morning.
He shaved, dressed, and made himself a BLT and a cappuccino, then sat at the kitchen table and chewed while he tried to sort out his thoughts. Janice was right in that the trip to Newansett had been largely a waste of time, although there were a few useful details that might prove to be important later on. At least they knew the story wasn’t a fake.
Three students had been murdered in as many days. From what he’d seen on the morning news, the mainstream media seemed to think it was some gruesome new twist in a war between drug gangs. The police had already let it slip that quantities of drugs had been found at both Devane’s and Seth’s residences and it was no secret that the man who had crashed his car at the end of a short but dramatic high-speed pursuit was a well-known mid-level distributor. The police budget was up for review and the chief was milking the situation to get a proposed wage freeze changed to a four per cent increase. From their perspective, the timing on the killings couldn’t be better.
Except that overlooked the ritualistic aspect of the murders, which backed up Janice’s theory that it was some ancient and sadistic cult. But what on earth had brought them to Westhill? Colin’s investigation into Devane had hit a dead end. Devane, it seemed, was part of a sudden and mysterious spike in the number of students showing up on the rolls, most of whom, if Abernathy was to be believed, never actually set foot in class.
So, Colin wondered, where were all these mysterious new students coming from?
Colin sipped his coffee and chewed his bacon. He had taken it off the burner a little sooner than he should and it was more chewy than crispy, but he was too hungry to care.
The drug dealer had rammed into a divider and incinerated himself. The cops were now trolling around looking for a new prime suspect. Based on their desire to see the inside of his apartment and the less than amicable tone their questioning was starting to take, it wasn’t a huge stretch to see that person could very easily be him.