A Green Place for Dying

by R. J. Harlick

  When she reached the other side of the river, she continued driving straight ahead along the four-lane highway that winds north into the Gatineau Hills and beyond. By now the cars were thinning out and the setting sun was almost gone, which made the pursuit trickier. With the growing darkness I had to follow closer to ensure I could identify her car. At the same time, with fewer vehicles on the road, it was all but impossible to keep two or more between us. I compromised by driving directly behind her but as far back as I could without losing sight of her taillights. Fortunately, there were few exits.

  We quickly lost the lights of Gatineau and headed into the heavily forested Gatineau Hills, with only the occasional flicker of light through the trees from an isolated building. I started to worry about how much further her destination would be when a quick check of my gas gauge told me I was getting short on fuel. I hadn’t exactly planned on this pursuit. And the way she was speeding determinedly onwards made me think that she wouldn’t be turning off this highway any time soon.

  Then, suddenly, without warning, without even a flicker of a turn indicator, she swerved onto an exit. I slowed and carefully trailed her onto a secondary road with almost no traffic. I was nervous that she would start suspecting my following headlights, so I sighed with relief when a sports car loomed up on my bumper and passed. He zoomed up behind her but was prevented from passing for several winding kilometres.

  Just as the road straightened out and he drew closer to pass, she moved into a left turning lane and turned. Although I slowed, I continued driving past to remain innocuous. A hundred metres down the empty road, I did a U-turn and headed back. I clicked off my headlights and turned onto the same dirt road. Her taillights vanished into the darkness. I picked up speed but kept my headlights off. Without benefit of moonlight and with dense forest crowding in on either side, the roadway was dark, making it difficult to pick my way along it with any speed. The area, however, seemed vaguely familiar, although why it should I didn’t know, since one forest looks pretty much like another. The occasional flicker of red before her taillights vanished beyond the next bend kept me going.

  The trees parted and a dirt road appeared on the left. I stopped but didn’t see any taillights travelling down this road. But I did see a sign I recognized with foreboding. A Gatineau Park sign for parking lot P48, the lot close to where Becky had been killed and the one where I’d found Eric’s sacred stone.

  I hesitated. Should I continue, or was I getting into deeper trouble than I wanted to find myself in? If only I had a gun, or any kind of weapon. But I didn’t. I could always turn back, find a payphone, call Will and let the police take it from there. But if I stopped now, I wouldn’t know where Doris was delivering the girl, and I needed this hard evidence to convince the police that the prostitution ring existed.

  When I approached the next parking lot, I realized Doris’s car was coming to a stop at the far end. I drove past. Within a short distance I came across the start of a hiking trail, where I could safely park my truck without it being easily visible. As I walked back along the edge of the road to the parking lot, bright beams suddenly lit up the road ahead of me. I managed to jump behind some trees before the lights shone on me. A dark van clattered along the road into the parking lot.

  Rather than continuing walking along the road, I decided to make my way through the woods to the far end of the parking lot, where the van’s brake lights were stopping next to Doris’s car. The night was still, too still. I worried that the slightest sound could warn them of my presence. I tried to walk as silently as I could through the dense underbrush, but a rustle here, a crunch there, and the startled flight of a bird had me cringing. Fortunately, both occupants were still in their vehicles by the time I found myself behind a clump of cedar with a clear view.

  Loud rock music suddenly cut the stillness, as the van door opened, then abruptly stopped as the door was slammed shut. The dark shape of a man lumbered over to Doris’s car and opened her door.

  Light spilled out of the car and onto the man’s face. I tensed with the cold dread of recognition. He was the biker with the red hair I’d confronted at O’Flaherty’s, the one who’d treated me like a slab of meat.

  Doris climbed out of her car but kept the door open. Inside, the girl didn’t budge from her slumped position in the passenger seat.

  “Where are you taking her?” Doris asked.

  “Better you don’t know,” he answered gruffly.

  “To the Parrot?”

  My ears pricked up.

  “Nope, too late in the season. It’ll be closing soon. We have a couple of Caribbean clients. We’ll move her there along with the other girls from the Parrot.”

  Shit. Fleur could be gone by the time the police got their act together.

  “And what about that Eric guy? Surely you’re not going to ship him south too?”

  He emitted a cold, brittle laugh, which wasn’t really a laugh at all. “Hardly.”

  I went cold.

  They walked around to the other side of the car and pulled the girl to her feet. They half walked, half carried her to the passenger side of the van and shoved her inside as the rock music once again shattered the stillness.

  Then much to my amazement, the two of them embraced, a long, lingering, passionate embrace, perhaps more on her side than his. I’d never thought love would be behind this nasty business.

  Releasing his grip, he said, “Don’t worry, chérie, you gonna be okay. One of my buddies gonna take care of the spy business.”

  I slunk further behind my suddenly flimsy screen. I didn’t need a name to know the identity of the spy, me.

  “Fran, this is the last time, eh? I can’t do this no more.”

  “Yeah, of course, babe.” He shrugged then turned and got into his van.

  “Fran, you’ll call tomorrow, eh?” she shouted above the music.

  “Yeah, babe.” He clicked the van into gear and drove off in a sputter of gravel.

  She continued standing, watching the taillights of her lover’s van fade. At that moment she seemed very alone and afraid, afraid he might not return, afraid her usefulness had run its course, even afraid for her life.

  For a moment I almost felt sorry for her, until I remembered that her actions had destroyed the lives of sixteen young women.

  Chapter

  Forty—Five

  I waited until Doris had driven away before returning to my pick-up. As much as I wanted to know where her lover was taking the girl, with barely a whiff of gas in the tank, it would be impossible for me to follow. Besides, he might very well be taking her to a place that was just a little too dangerous for my liking, like a gang clubhouse. Still, I did have the van’s licence plate number, and once I gave it to the police, they could go after him and rescue the girl.

  I’d hated leaving her in the hands of such a brute, but I figured there was no way I could rescue her without both of us getting hurt or worse. I felt her life wasn’t in any immediate danger, and she would soon be freed by the police.

  I drove back out to the main highway, praying I wouldn’t run out of gas before I found a station. Thankfully the next exit led me to one, which I swear I reached on fumes alone. The station also had a phone booth tucked away at the far end of the lot.

  I reached the Migiskan police chief on the first ring. “What do you mean by calling collect?” Will growled. “You think we’ve got a big budget?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve run out of cash, and I need you to get the Sûreté du Quebec to go after a van.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been snooping again,” he growled, which was so unlike Will. I hoped this didn’t signify that Eric’s case wasn’t going well.

  “I have solid evidence for you that this prostitution ring exists. I just saw a man kidnap another native girl in this van.”

  I told him about following Doris, watching the exchange, and finished by giving him the van’s licence number. “Now you have proof to give to the SQ to get their butts moving. But
if they don’t act right now, this girl will be forced into prostitution, Fleur and the other missing girls will be gone from the fishing camp to some place in the Caribbean, and Eric will be dead.”

  “Did you take any pictures? Record any of the conversations?”

  “No, I didn’t. I never thought. But all the Ottawa police have to do is arrest Doris and they’ll get all the evidence they need, including the name and location of this fishing camp. She can even tell them what she knows about Eric.”

  “I’m afraid what you witnessed probably isn’t enough to raise an arrest warrant, but they can take this woman in for questioning. Though chances are she won’t know much.”

  “She knows about the Parrot, as she called it.”

  “Yeah, but she probably has no idea where the camp is. She’s just small fry. The people behind the trafficking would’ve kept key information from her. Still, she’ll know something.”

  “Is there any way they can protect her? I’m sure if her biker friends find out she’s talked, they’ll want to kill her.”

  “If they don’t get to her beforehand. Hold the line a moment while I call the sergeant in charge of the case.”

  I could hear him talking on another phone. Meanwhile, a dusty Harley rumbled into the gas station and stopped beside a pump. As the rider hopped off, I slunk back into the phone booth.

  Will interrupted his conversation and returned to me. “What’s her address again?”

  I told him in a hushed voice, afraid the biker might overhear and finished by saying, “I’m hoping she went home.”

  “This apartment could also be just a holding place for the girls before they ship them off. So she might not have gone back there.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  The biker, wearing the now too familiar Les Diables Noirs patch, glanced in my direction. I held my breath and cowered even further into the phone booth.

  “Do you know Doris’s last name?”

  “Nope,” I whispered, anxiously watching the biker from behind the phone equipment. “But the police can get it and her home address from the Anishinabeg Welcome Centre, where she works as the receptionist.”

  “Can you speak louder? I didn’t catch what you said.”

  As the biker turned his attention back to filling his gas tank, I raised my voice slightly and repeated what I’d just said. At least I had a policeman on the other end of the line.

  “Good, be back to you in a minute,” Will said.

  The biker, who wasn’t Fran or any of the other bikers I’d seen at O’Flaherty’s, flipped open his cell and started talking while holding the gas nozzle with his other hand.

  After several more minutes of muted talking, Will returned to the phone. “A squad car’s on the way. Since the action took place in Quebec, I also want you to leave a statement with the SQ telling them what you saw.”

  I relaxed slightly as the biker swaggered into the gas station with his ear still clamped to his cell.

  Will continued talking. “Christ, I hate these cases that cross provincial boundaries. It causes me no end of grief.”

  “I guess this means the two police forces aren’t working together, eh?”

  “Christ, you can say that again. They both refuse to treat Becky’s murder, Eric’s disappearance and Fleur’s, along with the other missing women, as a single all-encompassing case.”

  “And don’t forget J.P.’s murder and Claire’s. They’re tied in too.”

  “Yeah, right. Christ, Ottawa has four different teams working on the separate cases, and none of them are talking to each other. And to make matters worse, they’re still continuing to treat the missing women cases as unrelated. I don’t see how we’re going to get anywhere solving this mess.”

  “Please don’t tell me that. The longer they delay mounting a rescue of Eric and Fleur, the more likely it’ll be we’ll never see them again.”

  “Believe me, Meg, I’m doing all I can to get them moving.”

  I ducked again as the biker sauntered back out and returned to his bike. But without another glance in my direction, he kicked it into action and was gone with a squeal of tires. As I watched him speed down the road, I wondered if their clubhouse was close by and if Fran had taken the girl there. But even if it was, I wasn’t about to go looking for it. I would, however, pass this info on to the Quebec police.

  “Where should I go to give the SQ my statement?”

  “The main Gatineau station on Jean-Proulx Street and speak to Sergeant Tremblay. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”

  “You mentioned something earlier about the Ottawa police having a couple of leads in Eric’s case. Did they get anywhere with them?”

  “Nope, they didn’t pan out. But they did find a witness that saw a man fitting Eric’s description being shoved into a van on Clarence Street in the Market on July nineteenth, which seems to be the last time anyone saw Eric. But that’s as far as it goes. No licence plate number other than it was a Quebec plate.”

  “The van I saw also has a Quebec plate. Maybe it’s the same one. Did the witness say what make or colour the van was?”

  “He couldn’t remember, other than it was a dark colour and he thought it was an old van.”

  “It could fit. Although I couldn’t see it that well in the dark, it rattled enough to be old. Where on Clarence Street did he see it? It could be around the corner from Auntie’s Place.”

  “I’ll check.”

  “By the way, I saw an ad at Auntie’s Place that might’ve been used to recruit the women. The same one is hanging on the billboard at the Welcome Centre. Maybe Eric saw it too and realized what it meant.”

  “Describe it for me and I’ll pass it on to Ottawa.”

  After taking down the information, Will hung up, leaving me feeling very disheartened and very worried for Eric and Fleur.

  My spirits weren’t improved with my visit to the Gatineau police station. Although Sergeant Tremblay did pour on his Gallic charm, when I recounted my story, he gave no hint that a follow-up was imminent, not even when I pointed out that the parking lot where another native girl had been murdered was in the same area as the parking lot where I saw the exchange.

  “In fact,” I continued, “maybe a similar exchange was taking place when Becky was killed. Maybe she tried to run away.”

  He merely nodded but did continue writing in his notebook.

  “And by the way, the parking lot where the murder occurred is also the same one where I found an item that belongs to Eric Odjik, who is also missing. Maybe he witnessed an exchange and was caught.”

  He lifted his gaze. “I did not know this, madame. Perhaps you could tell me more.”

  Hoping that this would help spark some action, I told him how I’d found Eric’s sacred stone the day we conducted the search of Becky’s crime scene. I also mentioned that the last time this stone was seen was only a few days before a witness in Ottawa saw him being shoved into a van with Quebec licence plates.

  But at the end of my story, he just nodded again.

  Worried that nothing was going to be done, I asked, “Can you tell me if you are going to mount a rescue of Eric and Fleur from this fishing camp?”

  “You know, madame, that I cannot talk about an ongoing investigation, but I can tell you that at this point in our investigation there is no evidence that suggests that this man Eric Odjick is being held at this mysterious fishing camp.”

  “No, I suppose there isn’t any direct evidence, but what I’ve just told you points to these kidnapped women being forced into prostitution at this camp. And I’m convinced that Eric’s disappearance is linked to this prostitution ring. It makes sense that if they didn’t kill him, then they would take him there.”

  He shrugged. “C’est possible, but I understand that the Ottawa police are pursuing other leads.” He leaned back in his chair and placed his arms around the back of his head. “Madame, you must understand that this Eric Odjik case is currently not an active case with us. There is n
o evidence that currently places this man in the province of Quebec.”

  I ground my teeth. “But I’ve just told you that a sacred stone belonging to him was found in the Gatineau Park parking lot. I doubt it walked there on its own. Plus the van that took him had Quebec plates. Why can’t you just fly into the camp and check it out before it’s too late?”

  “Madame, you must understand that it takes much coordination to mount such an exercise. Besides, our floatplanes are currently occupied on another case.”

  “Can’t you rent some?”

  “Madame, please be assured that should the assistance of the Sûreté du Québéc be required, we will do all we can to locate this missing man.” He stood up and held out his hand. “I thank you for coming in and providing us with this most valuable information. We will do our best to locate this young woman.”

  I felt like saying, yada, yada, yada, but didn’t.

  Chapter

  Forty—Six

  It took considerable effort to keep my foot from plunging the gas pedal to the floor and burning rubber out of the police station parking lot. I felt frustration, outrage, and a flurry of other emotions at the smugness of this penny-pinching, by-the-rule-book bureaucratic cop, who probably wouldn’t protect his grandmother unless his orders were signed in triplicate.

  And it took me several kilometres to cool down enough to remember that I was supposed to be meeting Teht’aa. Of course, I was headed in the wrong direction, which I quickly discovered when I stopped to ask at a depanneur. Before going to the station, I’d arranged to meet her at a Tim Hortons a few blocks down the street from the station. It was now many blocks and a labyrinth of streets behind me.

  After another stop for more directions, I finally arrived at the busy coffee shop. I sighed with relief when I saw Eric’s Jeep in the parking lot but groaned in frustration when I realized that most of the other vehicles were cop cars. Of course, cops, donuts, coffee would be a guaranteed mix at a Tim Hortons less than three blocks away from the station. We should’ve thought that one through. Since there was no way I was going to spend any more time in their company, I ran inside, plucked Teht’aa from the midst of the shop full of cops and ran back out with her clutching her uncapped coffee cup.