Stanton- The Trilogy

by Alex MacLean

  “That’s my guess.” Jim indicated a cluster of yellowing bracken just off the trail. “Disturbance through there. Drag marks in the moss. Flattened grass.”

  Allan followed Jim’s finger and saw a line of broken fronds leading into the trees.

  “Any footprints?” he asked.

  “Nothing clear enough.”

  “Shall we call in the dogs later?”

  “Wouldn’t hurt.” Jim flashed his camera. “There’s always that possibility the suspect dropped something that we’ll miss in the brush or weeds.”

  With a slow sweep of his head, Allan surveyed the immediate area. He tried to grasp the how and why of the murder. Two scenarios leaped right out at him: the suspect had concealed himself behind a tree close to the trail, where he waited to ambush Kate, or he had posed as a fellow jogger and taken her by surprise when he passed her.

  Harvey gave the go-ahead to enter the scene. Allan followed the entry point into a circular grove of trees. He could smell the leaves and the soil and the bark. He’d always loved those bracing scents when he jogged through the park. They relaxed him. Refreshed him. Cleared his head.

  But not today.

  His first glimpses of the body were of aqua-colored shoes with pink laces and then black tights bundled at the ankles below lean, muscular legs. When he saw the whole body, he hitched a breath, and his fingers tightened around the camera.

  Kate Saint-Pierre lay face up on the ground beside a cut log riddled with insect holes. Her arms were spread out from her sides, her hands partially covered by leaves. The black top and pink running jacket she had on were pulled up to reveal her breasts.

  Allan’s mouth felt dry. He moved closer, studying the contorted face, the eyes peppered with red starbursts, the ligature mark around the neck with the ends crisscrossed below the chin.

  The suspect had been on top of her, Allan realized. Kate had peered into his face during her final moments.

  “Looks familiar, doesn’t it?”

  The closeness of Harvey’s voice startled Allan. He glanced over his shoulder at the tech.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Turning back to the body, he grimaced. He knew it did, all right. That chill on his skin didn’t lie.

  One year ago to the day, he’d been called to this very park. A female jogger had found the body of a young woman near Shore Road. Hidden in the trees just like this one. Posed just like this one. Murdered the same way.

  Allan had never forgotten her.

  “Mary,” he whispered.

  4

  Halifax, October 18

  11:37 a.m.

  “She’s been mutilated.”

  Allan stopped sketching on the graph paper and looked up. From the corner of his eye, he saw Audra suddenly retract her tape measure. She began walking over, the dry leaves crunching under her footsteps.

  The comment had come from Dr. Richard Coulter. The medical examiner was crouched next to the body, conducting his scene examination. The assistant ME, Eric Lefevre, stood beside him, taking photos. Jim and Harvey were busy searching the outlying area of the scene in a methodical and systematic fashion.

  Allan moved closer. “What’d he do?”

  “He severed the distal phalanges from the right hand,” Coulter said. “All of them. Even the thumbs. Precisely at the joints.”

  Allan exchanged a small glance with Audra. Coulter came up off his haunches, carefully gauging his own steps as he moved around to the other side of the body. He collected a few bloodstained leaves covering Kate Saint-Pierre’s left hand and called Harvey over to process them.

  “Same injuries here too,” Coulter said.

  “He left the wedding ring,” Audra noted.

  Eric added, “And a nice Garmin watch.”

  Allan craned his head, peering over Coulter’s shoulder. The hand, like the right one, was missing the bones at the ends of the fingers. Jaw tight, Allan wondered if Kate Saint-Pierre had fought back; people being strangled usually did. Then biological evidence seemed the likely reason for cutting off the fingertips.

  But the suspect hadn’t been overly concerned about leaving evidence behind when he murdered Mary Driscow. He’d been sloppy, amateurish. Was this a sign the man was evolving, getting more careful? Or was he just toying with them?

  From those first moments at the scene, Allan told himself things would be different this time. He didn’t want to spend another year wallowing in shame and self-doubt, as he had with the Driscow case. A year wondering just whom or what he had overlooked.

  The same man had murdered both women. Allan was 99 percent sure of that. The similarities were just too striking to deny. Location. Victim selection. Use of similar weapons. Same body-disposal scenario. Same signature aspect—Mary Driscow had been displayed with her top pushed up and her pants pulled down. Identical to Kate Saint-Pierre. Then came the date. Mary had been murdered on October 17 of last year, her body found later the same day.

  “Looks like they were severed here,” Coulter said. “But I don’t see them.”

  Allan figured the suspect had carried the fingertips off. Maybe even ditched them in a garbage barrel or recycling bin somewhere in the park. Those needed to be searched, their contents sifted through.

  He looked around, feeling the sheer size of the park, every tree, every bush, the carpet of leaves. A lot of real estate surrounded them, the task of covering it all, enormous.

  Additional officers needed to be called in to help with a grid search. Any homeless people squatting in the park needed to be located and questioned. One of them might’ve had a chance meeting with the suspect. Bring in the dogs too. They could detect overlooked items that still retained human scent.

  “Did the suspect mutilate Mary Driscow like that?” Audra asked him.

  Allan turned to her. “Huh?”

  “Mary Driscow. Did he mutilate her like that?”

  “No. That’s one difference.”

  “Only one?”

  “As far as I can see.”

  Audra frowned, quiet for a moment. Her eyes went small and distant with memory. She tapped the tape measure against her thigh, the sound like the clop of a horse’s hoof.

  “Bits and pieces of that case are coming back to me,” she said. “We have a DNA profile from that one, right?”

  “Yeah, from a suction lesion on Mary’s breast.”

  “No semen found?”

  Allan shook his head. “No.”

  “Condom, maybe. We’re seeing that more and more these days.”

  “Yeah. But we never found a discarded condom wrapper at the scene or a used condom. Unless he took them with him. Maybe he couldn’t get off. Some men can’t during the act of rape.”

  Audra chewed on her lower lip, nodding several times. “Fingernail scrapings didn’t turn up anything?”

  “They turned up Mary’s own blood and skin. She left claw marks on her neck as she tried to pull the ligature free.”

  Coulter interjected, “This victim has similar injuries, Detective. She was conscious and fighting for her life.”

  Allan leaned in for a closer look, the harbor breeze cool on his face as it drifted through the trees with a soft whisper. He could see three scratches curving under the left side of Kate Saint-Pierre’s jaw. Several flashes went off as Eric took photos from different angles.

  “The ligature left a parchmented weave pattern in the skin,” Coulter went on. “There’s extensive congestion and petechia above the ligature mark. Two—no, three more curvilinear abrasions on the right side of the neck.”

  “What’s the ligature pattern tell you?” Allan asked.

  “It’s a spiral weave pattern. Like a rope. The furrow is approximately half an inch wide.”

  Allan nodded. Similar, he knew. Maybe even the same one used to strangle Mary Driscow.

  “The body is cold and clammy,” Coulter said. “Hypostasis is fixed. Rigor is fully established.”

  Audra asked, “What’s your guesstimate?”

  “
So many variables involved. At this point, I’ll place time of death at eighteen to thirty-six hours. I’ll see if I can narrow it down once I do the post.”

  Allan said, “We’ll compare notes later. See what info we can dig up.”

  For a moment, he and Audra watched Coulter securing paper bags over each hand of Kate Saint-Pierre. Then Audra held up the tape measure for Allan to see, flicking the steel blade out a few inches and letting it snap back inside.

  “Wanna get back to work?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Where were we?”

  Allan checked his sketch. With his pencil, he pointed off to a tree at the southwest edge of the crime scene.

  “That’s the last one,” he said.

  As Audra walked off to get the measurement, there came the sounds of a commotion out by the jogging trail, several voices yelling at once. Everyone froze, all heads turning toward the noise.

  Someone’s voice suddenly shot above the cacophony. “Hey! Stop! You’re not allowed to be here. Stop now.”

  Just visible through the gnarled branches, Allan saw a man running down the trail, heading straight for their location. A uniformed officer chased him. In lengthening strides, he was closing the distance.

  Allan and Audra hurried from the grove to head the man off. As they left the trees, the officer sprang forward, catching the man high in the back and riding him to the ground. With a grunt, the two of them went sliding through the gravel, the officer on top. They stopped a few feet from the barrier tape.

  Chugging air in and out of his mouth, the officer wrenched the man’s arm behind his back and reached for his cuffs.

  The man arched up under the officer’s weight, dark hair falling in tangles over his forehead. Allan could see the adrenaline fuming in his eyes.

  “Is it Kate?” he cried. “Is that my wife in there?”

  Allan swallowed. Beside him, he heard Audra mutter, “Jesus.”

  The man’s gaze washed over their faces and settled on Allan.

  “Did you find her? Kate Saint-Pierre. Please, is it her? Is it?”

  Heart heavy, Allan stared down at him, holding the man’s eyes with his own until he saw what Allan had seen, that it was over, that the worst fear had been confirmed.

  “I’m sorry,” Allan said. “But you can’t be here.”

  Over the years, he had witnessed a gamut of emotional reactions from loved ones. Screaming rampages. Crying hysterically. Fainting. Vomiting. Others just sitting in stunned silence, unable to move or speak. Allan remembered the mother who, after being notified of her daughter’s suicide, began punching him in the chest then collapsing into his arms, sobbing.

  Kate Saint-Pierre’s husband squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his face into the gravel. The low guttural moan coming out of him sounded like a wounded animal.

  A second officer came down the trail to help the first one pull the man to his feet. Several times as they ushered him back up the trail, his legs gave out and they had to pick him up.

  Watching them, Allan shook his head.

  “We need to talk to him,” Audra said.

  Allan sighed. “Yeah. Not something I’m looking forward to.”

  Audra appeared in front of him suddenly. “Hey. You okay?”

  Allan looked at her.

  “No,” he said. “No, I’m not.”

  5

  Burlington, Ont. October 18

  4:40 p.m.

  Home, sweet home.

  I love my job. I spend a week, sometimes two, traveling to different provinces to help businesses streamline and boost their growth. I get to visit new cities, revisit old ones, and see the changes that took place since my last time there.

  But all that work on the road makes me appreciate every single thing I miss about being home: my amazing wife, Heidi, and my beautiful daughters, Jade and Jaleesa. And of course, my own bed and that finely honed divot in the mattress.

  The trees along Shadeland Avenue have really begun to shed their foliage. As I coast through my neighborhood, there are leaves everywhere. I see a big pile of them raked on our front lawn, and it makes me smile when I imagine Jade and Jaleesa jumping into it, laughing, then dropping armfuls of leaves on each other.

  Our home is a bungalow built on a gorgeous ravine lot. We fell in love with the property eight years ago and haven’t once regretted buying it. It’s nice to have the extra privacy in your backyard and not have to look at the backs of other houses. If there’s one problem, it’s the deer that come up the ravine and eat Heidi’s flowers.

  I park in the garage and grab my luggage from the trunk. As soon as Heidi sees me, she’ll ask about the bandage on my cheek. I must’ve kicked around a dozen excuses at the hotel room in Halifax. Only two seemed even remotely believable: blame the razor or blame myself.

  Walking into the kitchen, I set my luggage on the floor. The house smells of roast chicken with a hint of scalloped potatoes. My stomach rumbles. Another thing I miss when I’m away—Heidi’s cooking.

  I call out, “I’m home.”

  Heidi comes in from the living room, a big smile on her face that quickly drops into a frown. She cocks her eyebrows and nods toward the bandage. Right on cue.

  “What happened there?” she asks.

  For a brief moment, the room around me vanishes, and I see a flurry of fingers shooting up from below me, long painted nails clawing at my face, at my eyes.

  “I did it shaving,” I tell her. “Got in a rush. Wasn’t paying attention.”

  She walks toward me. “Did it cut deep?”

  “No, no. It’ll be fine.”

  She stops two feet from me. One eyebrow falls, the other stays up.

  “I bought you an electric razor for Christmas last year,” she says. “Remember?”

  I see my way out of this, and I give her a smile. “Yes, dear. You did.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the vanity.”

  “You probably never had it out of the case, did you? You’d rather use those cheap disposables. The same one for weeks at a time.”

  I nod, feeling like a child being scolded.

  “You know they get dull.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “Start using the electric. That’s why I bought it. They’re safer.”

  I sigh. “I will, dear. As soon as this heals up.”

  The other eyebrow falls, and she smiles faintly. We hug.

  “Missed you,” she says.

  “Missed you too.”

  Score one for me. Only Heidi doesn’t realize it. Truth is, I hate electric razors. They don’t give you as super-smooth a finish as a manual one. But agreeing with her ends the subject. Roll over and submit to a woman’s wishes, and more often than not, they’ll abandon the issue.

  I pull away from Heidi and give a quick look around. “Where are the girls?”

  “In their room,” she says. “Jade. Jaleesa. Daddy’s home.”

  Jade is five years old. Jaleesa is seven. Seven years, five months, if you ask her. Both of them are the spitting image of their mother. When I hear the patter of their feet on the wood floor, it warms my heart. They come bounding into the kitchen and into my arms.

  “Daddy! Daddy!”

  As I hug them tight to me, I notice their long hair is done up in fishtail braids, just like Heidi’s.

  “Were you and Mommy playing hairdresser again?” I ask them.

  Jaleesa corrects me. “It’s beauty parlor, Daddy.”

  “Oh, sorry. My mistake.” I look up at Heidi and wink.

  “We played it yesterday,” Jaleesa says.

  Jade touches the bandage on my face. “Are you hurt, Daddy?”

  She has her mother’s big brown eyes.

  “No,” I assure her. “It’s just a scratch, honey. I’ll be fine.”

  “What happened?” Jaleesa asks.

  “Cut myself shaving.” I reach for my luggage. “Say, I brought you girls back something.”

  Their faces light up with b
road smiles. They can barely contain themselves. Jade begins making fists. Jaleesa rises up and down on her toes.

  I open the first bag and bring out two stuffed animals I bought at a gift shop in Halifax. They’re both the same—a moose hugging a lobster. I hand each daughter one.

  “Aren’t they cute?” I ask.

  “Yes,” they say, almost in unison. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  They give me another hug. Then they run off to their room. It’s not hard to change a child’s focus. Just introduce a new toy.

  “Supper’s in fifteen minutes,” Heidi calls after them.

  “Okay, Mommy,” they call back.

  I loosen my tie and pull it over my head. Heidi begins taking plates out of the cupboard and setting them on the table.

  She asks, “How’d your presentation go?”

  “Good. Good.” I take a beer from the fridge. “Whether or not they implement my recommendations is another story.”

  “All you can do is give your best advice.”

  “Yep.”

  As I twist the cap off the bottle, I notice the Burlington Post on the counter. The headline draws my attention: Man Dies After Fall At Mount Nemo.

  I take a mouthful of beer.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Heidi taps a finger on the newspaper. “A man fell at Mount Nemo. Died.”

  “Did they give his name?”

  “No. But everyone is saying it’s the missing hiker from Toronto. They haven’t confirmed it yet. I keep telling you to watch yourself when you go there.”

  “I don’t go near the cliffs,” I tell her. “I keep to the trails. Some people ignore the signs. They don’t heed the danger.”

  “You having coffee or tea?”

  “Tea.”

  Heidi fills the kettle, puts it on the stove. I pick up the paper.

  A man was found on Monday at the bottom of a cliff in very rugged terrain.

  Halton Regional Police believe the man lost his balance and fell over three hundred feet to his death. Identification was recovered on the remains, but police would not confirm if it’s the body of Roger Pratt. The thirty-two-year-old Torontonian has been missing since October 9. Family members said they thought he went to Mount Nemo to do some bird watching. He hasn’t been heard from since.