Stanton- The Trilogy

by Alex MacLean

“It’s shred time, bro.” He turns to leave. “Have fun.”

  I let one trekking pole drop quietly to the ground. Then I shorten the other one by shoving the lower section up into the upper section.

  The man is a few yards from his bike. I sneak up behind him, drawing the pole back into a baseball swing. I connect with the back of his skull, and the crack echoes in the open air. The impact snaps his head forward, and he falls to his hands and knees. The water bottle rolls across the grass.

  I don’t give him time to regain his senses. As he struggles to get back to his feet, I step in front of him and swing the pole again. It catches him square across the bridge of the nose.

  That gets a yelp out of him. Hands flying up to his face, he topples onto his back. I quickly jump on top of him and press the pole down across his windpipe.

  He squirms beneath me. He pushes at the pole, digs at it with his fingers. He punches my arms. None of it has an effect. My body is stoked with adrenaline.

  The man’s face is swelling up into a grotesque shape. Blood bubbles from his nose. Wet gurgling noises come from his throat.

  I peer into his eyes and bask in the terror I see swimming there. It’s a look I’ll burn into my memory. Store it there so someday I can pull it out and relive this moment once again.

  All at once, something weird happens. Maybe spine-chilling is a better description.

  The man’s face dissolves right in front of me. His nose, his eyes, his mouth. They all get swallowed up in the purplish mass.

  A new face emerges, and it spikes the hairs on the back of my neck.

  It’s Heidi. She gazes up at me with eyes so red and inflated, they look ready to burst out of their sockets. The image causes me to do a double take. I nearly lose focus on what I’m doing.

  Quickly, I regain my composure. I press down on the trekking pole with every ounce of strength I have. Something crunches in the man’s throat. His arms fall out to his sides. His body jolts a few times then becomes still. I watch the light fade out of his eyes.

  Before someone comes along, I conceal the body in a grove of spruce trees. Wheeling the bike to the edge of the lookout, I push it over. To my surprise, it manages to remain upright for several yards before the front tire wrenches sideways and the bike begins tumbling end over end. Eventually it disappears into the trees.

  Seven grand. I still can’t believe it.

  I pick up my other trekking pole and then leave the area. As I head down Mountain Mine Road, that image of Heidi’s swollen face shadows me.

  What does it mean?

  Is it a premonition?

  Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?

  22

  Halifax, October 23

  1:10 p.m.

  Allan feared it would happen. Resources stretched thin. Focus pulled in too many directions. Valuable time wasted chasing wrong leads. All because of a composite sketch that might resemble a man of interest. “Might” being the operative word.

  Since the department released the sketch on Thursday, over a hundred calls had flooded the hotline. Officers manning the phones were told to evaluate the calls and assign them a priority level based on the information gathered.

  Allan sat at his desk, reading over tips from the last twelve hours. It was a frustrating task, but part and parcel of an investigation that seemed to be racing toward a brick wall at one hundred miles per hour.

  Some tips were downright absurd—the composite resembled a man someone knew fifteen years ago or an ex-husband who refused to pay alimony. You’d be surprised at how many calls came in like that.

  The remaining tips were well intentioned but nothing to raise your heart rate. One caller swore she’d seen the suspect in a line at Costco. Another saw him at Home Depot buying lumber. Someone else from Moncton was certain the man lived four doors down from her. He had a reputation as a social misfit and wore a hoodie all the time.

  Allan leaned back in the chair with a heavy sigh. Most of the tips had to be checked out regardless of how useless they appeared. Sometimes the smallest piece could lead you to the bigger picture.

  Allan doubted that would happen here. Lacing his fingers behind his head, he shut his eyes.

  He saw Mary Driscow. He saw Kate Saint-Pierre. He tried to see the killer but saw only dark.

  A knock at the door startled him. It was Audra.

  “Hey,” she said. “Got something.”

  Allan looked at the sheaf of paper in her hand. “Something good?”

  Audra flicked her eyebrows. “Anonymous tip. Caller said the suspect is an acquaintance named Rube.”

  Allan straightened in the chair. “That rings a bell.”

  “His actual name is Reuben Forbes.” Audra began typing on Allan’s computer. “Thirty-two years old. Has a lengthy record that began at sixteen. Assault. Marijuana possession. Breaking and entering. Failure to appear in court.

  “He wasn’t incarcerated last October, either. Released the August before.”

  When Forbes’s picture came up on Allan’s monitor, he immediately recognized him.

  “He was one of the parolees I looked into during the Driscow investigation. Never seemed like a viable suspect.”

  Audra looked hopeful. “He resembles the composite. To an extent.”

  Allan didn’t see it.

  “Jaw and chin is similar,” Audra said. “Nose...kinda.”

  “Doesn’t look much like Clark Kent.”

  Audra smiled. “Or Brad Pitt.”

  “Clattenburg didn’t recognize him in our mug book.”

  Audra crossed her arms, frowned. “But you know the more pictures you look at, the less likely you’ll see the person you’re looking for.”

  Allan held her gaze. “You know how I feel about witness memory. People suck at identifying strangers.”

  “I know, Al. I know.” She looked back to the picture, chewing on her lip. “Height is in the ballpark. Eye color.”

  “He’s a bit light. One-sixty soaking wet.”

  “Picture’s over a year old. He could’ve put on a few pounds.”

  Allan spread his hands.

  Audra added, “He does have a little history of violence.”

  “Nothing against women, though. A couple scrums outside nightclubs, if I remember correctly.”

  “We have to check him out.”

  Allan silently appraised her. She was the epitome of confidence. He knew she had the never-say-die attitude. She’d turn over every stone in the pursuit of revealing a suspect. Combine that with a nimble mind and interview skills, and you had yourself an excellent detective. Yet there were times she got a bit too overzealous.

  “I admire your optimism,” he told her. “But this guy is a waste of time.”

  Even as those words flowed from his mouth, Allan could feel the doubt waking up inside his skull again, the second-guessing beginning to eat its way through his brain.

  He was almost certain Reuben Forbes had nothing to do with the murders. But what if he was wrong? What if he’d been wrong a year ago? That catastrophic mistake would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  “Probably,” Audra said. “But it’s worth a shot, right?”

  Allan looked at the picture of Forbes again, a knot twisting in his gut. “Keep an open mind.”

  Audra winked. “Exactly.”

  A short drive took them to a nondescript building on Gottingen Street. The main floor housed The Good Food Emporium. The top floor had a series of bedrooms rented out by low-income people or those living on the fringe of society. They shared a kitchen and bathroom.

  Police knew the property well. They’d been there over one hundred fifty times for reports of fights, thefts, drug use, and sexual assaults.

  Reuben Forbes stayed in room number 5.

  As Allan followed Audra down a tight hallway, he noticed something off about each door.

  “No locks,” he said. “Aren’t they required?”

  Audra nodded. “I don’t think this place is on the up and
up.”

  They reached the room. Audra knocked.

  There came a rustling inside, then the door opened to reveal Reuben Forbes. In the flesh, he looked even less like the sketch. And when Allan saw Audra’s face go slack, he knew she saw it too.

  Forbes had stoner’s eyes—baggy and bloodshot. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt. His hair was cropped close to his skull, and there was the silhouette of a bird tattooed near his left temple. Steel tunnels inserted in his earlobes allowed you to see right through them.

  Allan glanced at the man’s hands and forearms. No cuts or scratches.

  The room behind him was tiny. Clothes littered the bed. One door on the wardrobe closet hung askew. The window had a cracked pane. A kerosene heater sat on the floor below it.

  Allan’s cell phone rang. The display revealed a local number. He stepped away to take the call.

  The man on the other end identified himself as Cameron Page, an analyst with the provincial ViCLAS Center. He told Allan he’d made a potential link to another unsolved murder in Huntsville, Ontario. Allan shot a glance at Audra, but she was busy talking to Forbes.

  Allan asked in a hushed tone, “Who’s the lead investigator in that case?”

  “Denis Gagnon,” Page said. “I’ll give you his number.”

  Allan wrote it down.

  “I was just talking to him,” Page added. “He’s expecting your call.”

  “Thank you,” Allan said.

  As he hung up, he saw Reuben Forbes close his door on Audra.

  “What’d you say to him?” he asked.

  “Asked him if he was Anthony Stevens.”

  “Anthony Stevens?”

  Face pinched, Audra tossed her hands up in the air. “First name that popped into my head. You were right, Al. He’s a waste of time.”

  Allan knew she was frustrated, pissed off even. She brushed past him, heading for the exit.

  “Hey,” he called out.

  Audra stopped and looked over her shoulder at him.

  “ViCLAS called me,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  He walked up next to her. “They made a possible link to another case.”

  “Where at this time?”

  “Ontario.”

  Audra jerked her head back. “Whoa. Three provinces away.”

  “I know,” he said, skeptical himself.

  They went outside, stopping by the car. Audra leaned against it, tilting her face to the sun, as Allan took out his cell phone. He dialed the number Cameron Page had given him.

  The voice that answered was tinged with a French accent. Allan introduced himself.

  “Detective Stanton,” Denis Gagnon said. “I was a bit surprised when ViCLAS contacted me. A bit excited too.”

  “What are these possible links they made to one of your cases?”

  “Two, actually.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Two cases. They don’t know about the second one.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Li Chen is the case ViCLAS found similarities in. He was a thirty-two-year-old Chinese immigrant. Worked here as a sales manager for Sandvik Mining.

  “We found his body in Arrowhead Provincial Park sixteen months ago. He was strangled with a ligature. Had his fingertips cut off.”

  Listening, Allan felt a weird frisson down his back. “Was his body posed?”

  “Posed?”

  “You know. Did the suspect position the body a certain way—”

  “No, no,” Denis said. “Not any of that here.”

  “Any sex involved?”

  “None of that either. Chen was at the park to take pictures. According to his family, he was a budding photographer. We figured the killer ambushed him on Stubbs Falls Trail while he was taking pictures from the bridge. The killer then dragged or carried Chen’s body into the brush twenty-five yards away. We later found his camera downstream, caught up on some rocks.”

  Allan said, “He hid the body to delay discovery.”

  “Yes.”

  Similar MO, Allan thought with cautious hope. Similar hunting areas. But different choices of victims. Coincidence or not?

  “Was the camera salvageable?” he asked.

  “It was damaged, but we managed to get pictures off the memory card. Nothing beneficial. No people from the park. His last photos were of the falls.”

  “We need to meet,” Allan said. “Compare notes.”

  “Definitely. I’ll come to you. Never been to Halifax. Maybe the salty air will help my sinuses.”

  Allan noticed Audra looking at him now. He gave her a shrug, and she gave him a weak smile.

  “I’ll pack up everything today,” Denis added. “Catch a flight out tomorrow. Sound like a plan?”

  “Sure does.”

  “See you then, Detective.”

  “Wait,” Allan said. “This other case you mentioned. Tell me about it.”

  “Her name was Hailey Pringle. Twenty-four years old. She worked as a housekeeper for Arowhon Pines.

  “Four years ago, a park superintendent found her body in Arrowhead. Beaver Meadow Trail that time. The suspect bludgeoned her with a heavy object. Likely a rock. We think he threw it into the beaver pond. We never found it.”

  “He left her body on the trail?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are the similarities?”

  “Location,” Denis said.

  Allan frowned. “That it?”

  “My gut.” Denis paused a moment. “My gut tells me it’s the same guy.”

  23

  Cranbrook, October 24

  7:49 a.m.

  I remember the tragedy of July 29, 1984.

  It was a tank-top-and-shorts kind of day. Dazzling sun. Soothing breeze. Wispy layers of clouds banked along the edge of the sky.

  Joshua and I were taking turns swinging on the tree swing our father had built for us a month earlier. He’d climbed the massive oak tree in the backyard and tied a thick length of rope to a sturdy branch twenty-five feet above the ground. He made the seat from a block of cedar and engraved the words Up & Away on the front side.

  We never sat on the seat. We tried, but the rope pressing into our balls was just too uncomfortable. Instead, we used the seat to stand on and swing like Tarzan.

  On this particular day, we were trying to outdo one another by seeing who could get highest in the air. Our mother had already come out to warn us twice. Each time, we’d obey and wait for her to disappear back into the house before we’d start at it again.

  Pushing hard, Joshua had an amazing swing going. He went back and forth like a pendulum, each sweep of the arc taking him higher. He was reaching that cloud-duster height where the rope was almost horizontal to the ground.

  Then disaster struck.

  To this day, I don’t know if his foot slipped off the seat or he lost his grip on the rope, but Joshua fell right at the peak of the swing.

  I watched his body sail through the air. It made a chilling thud as it landed near the back fence thirty feet away.

  I ran over. Joshua lay on his right side, arm bent at an awkward angle beneath his body. His eyes and mouth were open. I heard a wet gurgling sound coming from his throat.

  “Joshua,” I said. “You okay?”

  He rolled his eyes toward me, and I could see a harsh awareness, a certain dread. I waited for him to wink, or smile, or burst into laughter because he’d pulled a good one over on me. But it never happened like that.

  “Joshua?” I repeated.

  His eyes dropped away, staring off into the grass. I no longer heard the gurgling, only the sound of the swing as the rope rubbed the bark on the tree limb.

  I crouched beside him and poked his shoulder. “Joshua.”

  He never responded.

  “Oh my God...”

  I jerked my hand back.

  “What did you do?”

  I spun around.

  Mom ran from the house, dropping to her knees next to Joshua. She saw his face and cried o
ut.

  “I’m here, baby,” she said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  She shot me a venomous look. “What did you do, you little monster?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “He fell.”

  “I told you boys not to swing so high. Didn’t I?”

  “Ruth—what is it?”

  Mom blinked. Dressed in his work clothes, Dad called from the back porch.

  “It’s Joshua. He’s hurt.”

  Dad came running over. “What happened?”

  “He fell off the swing. He’s not moving. I think his arm is broken.”

  Dad bent to Joshua. “His eyes are open. Joshua. Joshua.”

  Mom began keening, a thin cry of fear.

  “Call a fucking ambulance,” Dad yelled.

  As Mom ran to the house, Dad knelt beside Joshua and threw himself across his small frame. It was the first time I heard him cry. He let out a piercing scream like that of a wounded animal.

  He knew what I didn’t—Joshua was dead.

  My brother.

  My twin.

  Nine years old.

  I remember an article I read a couple of years ago about womb twin survivors. The medical world presumed the fetal brain during the first trimester wasn’t developed enough to have any consciousness. Some researchers now believe that might not be the case at all. They claim when a twin dies in the womb, even during that first trimester, the other twin knows. Others believe it’s more body than brain. The body feels the loss, the abandonment.

  Womb twin survivors carry the loss with them to the outside. They grow up feeling something is missing from their lives, something that used to be there but no longer is. I wonder if it’s like the phantom limb. You cut off a man’s arm or leg, and he can still feel it, even though it isn’t there.

  In a weird way, that’s similar to how I felt when Joshua died. I could still feel him there, a part of me. Every time I looked into a mirror, I saw him again. He smiled when I smiled. Made silly faces back when I made them at him. And in my young imagination, Joshua lived on with me.

  But then I didn’t fully grasp the concept of death. The finality of it. Only when I got older did I realize what a truly heartbreaking tragedy it was.

  In retrospect, Dad never considered the safety issue of having a swing that long. Ten, twelve feet would’ve sufficed. Not twenty-five. Not for two nine-year-old boys who didn’t comprehend the danger. The longer the swing, the higher it will go.