Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers)

by Ruttan, Sandra

  He turned down the hall toward the front door, and she followed him. He marched with purpose and didn’t even look back to see if she was keeping pace.

  It wasn’t until they passed a small room with windows that allowed a clear view of the occupants that he even broke stride. He paused and turned long enough for her to see the twist of his jaw, the way his hand balled up into a fist.

  She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong but stopped when she saw Nolan and Summer sitting in the room.

  Summer tucked her hair behind her ears. Her lips were mashed together, and she pulled her coat around her body and held it tightly with her arms.

  Trying to hold herself together.

  The first tear fell. Her lower lip quivered, and her head dropped forward. Trying to be brave. Strong.

  To hide the pain.

  Nolan had his arm around her and after a halfhearted resistance, Summer rested her head on his shoulder as she cried.

  Tain’s hesitation had allowed her to close the distance between them, and for a moment he was so focused on what was happening with Nolan and Summer that he didn’t notice she’d caught up to him. But as soon as he realized she was there, he turned away and marched down the hall, silent as he continued through to the front of the station and out the door. He didn’t pause to hold the door for Ashlyn or check to see if she was still right behind him.

  It wasn’t until they were almost at his truck that she realized her things were in her car. “I need my bag,” she said. “Or do you want me to follow you?”

  Tain shook his head. “Just get your stuff.” He climbed inside the vehicle and slammed the door shut.

  Ashlyn walked to the back of the station, where she’d moved her car to, and quickly removed a small suitcase from the back, along with her overnight bag. As she closed the trunk, she realized she could hear voices coming from the alley behind the station, by the Dumpster.

  She moved toward the sound, straining to hear what they were saying.

  “If I get caught…” The voice was trying to be quiet, but had a higher pitch to it that resonated with fear.

  The voice that responded was lower and softer. Ashlyn took another step forward, which enabled her to see around the side of the Dumpster, but the hum of an engine behind her and the sudden flash of brightness caused her to turn around. From the corner of her eye, she could see movement in the alley, shadows being absorbed by the darkness as they withdrew from the light.

  She walked to the truck and got in.

  “What were you doing?” Tain asked.

  Ashlyn looked back down the alley as he backed his truck into a stall and then turned to drive around to the road. “There were two men back there.”

  Tain looked at her, his scowl softening to a frown as he hesitated. “Hardly illegal.”

  She turned and looked out the window. He was right, and whatever she’d thought she’d heard, Tain wasn’t the first person she’d choose to confide in.

  For now, she was keeping what she’d heard to herself.

  The next morning, Ashlyn followed Tain into the office. Nolan was already there, and when he turned to look at them, Tain’s gaze locked with his and Nolan’s face clouded.

  All the muscles in Tain’s arms and back were tensed, evidenced by his rigidity and the way he got taller as he glared back at Nolan, but he hesitated only a few seconds before marching over to his desk.

  Nolan turned his glare toward Ashlyn.

  She tried to ignore him and walked to her desk as she pulled off her jacket.

  “Any word from the coroner?” she asked as she looked at the mounting pile of messages in front of her.

  “I’m on my way over there.”

  Ashlyn looked up as Nolan slipped into his coat. He nodded at her. “Keep working on chasing down leads.”

  He turned and was out the door before she could think of an appropriate response.

  Tain waited a moment, then marched out of the office. Ashlyn heard the back door slam shut and sat down in her chair.

  The youngest member of the other shift stalked into the room, stopping short when he saw Ashlyn.

  “Morning,” she said.

  He muttered a response under his breath and walked past her. She heard him rummaging through his desk, and then a door slammed shut. Ashlyn held her breath as she listened to what sounded like the faint sound of metal scraping against metal, and then Campbell marched out of the office without so much as another word.

  Sullivan stormed into the office a moment later. “Where is everyone?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Get your coat, Hart.”

  She was on her feet with her arms already worming their way into the sleeves. “What is it, sir?”

  “They’ve found a body in the rubble from the fire yesterday.”

  “At the inn?”

  “Actually, the old house the inn connected to, across the street. It used to house hotel staff, but a couple boys from the shipping company were living there.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Blind Creek Inn was owned by the same people who run Blind Creek Shipping.”

  “And the house burned as well as the inn?”

  “It’s too soon to say for sure, but they think the fire may have started there.” Sullivan held up his hand. “You keep that to yourself for now, though. We need to go check out this body.”

  Ashlyn reached for her notebook. “One of ours?”

  He hesitated, then turned and started speed walking down the hall. “Too soon to say.”

  Something in his tone suggested that wasn’t what he was thinking, but she didn’t push it. Ashlyn followed him to the car and spent the few minutes driving over in silence. She’d seen so little of the town, this was an opportunity for her to start piecing it together.

  It was her first real awareness of how large the First Nations population was. The bonfire didn’t really count because it was a staged gathering. It was where the day-to-day routines of normal people collided that you got a sense of the local population. She’d grown up in a town where it wasn’t uncommon to venture down the main street day after day after day, to go to school your whole life and live and work for more than twenty years and rarely see someone from the Reserves.

  She thought about her question regarding the tribal police. In other parts of the country, the RCMP were working with tribal police to try to address the growing crime that accompanied the gambling trade that thrived on tribal lands.

  Why couldn’t they work together here?

  About half a block before the charred remains of the hotel there was a small green space with a fountain and a few park benches. A woman was bending down by the fountain, placing flowers on the sidewalk. She stood and tucked her hair back behind her ears, then stilled for a moment. When she turned, Ashlyn recognized her.

  Summer Young.

  “It’s the latest development,” Sullivan said. “They’re having some candlelight vigil or prayer service or something there later. To remember the girls the rest of us have forgotten.”

  When Sullivan parked the car, she got out and followed him in silence. The coroner was already there, waiting outside a small makeshift tent.

  “I may as well set up a field office here,” he muttered as he led them inside. As soon as Ashlyn stepped into the small space, she felt the bile push up into her throat. The charred remains of a woman were lying on a plastic sheet on the ground. The victim was curled up in the fetal position, arms hugging her knees. What looked like the remnants of a gag were in her mouth.

  “Let’s hope you won’t be needed here much longer,” Sullivan said. “What can you tell us?”

  “There are a few identifiers I can work with. A tattoo still visible on her right ankle, and if there are dental records we should be able to ID her.”

  “Just one body?” Ashlyn asked.

  The coroner looked at her. “Yes. I’ll know for sure once I get her on the table, but it looks like she died in the fire. There is head trauma, so it’s possible she died bef
ore the fire started.”

  Sullivan looked at Ashlyn. “What do you think, Hart?”

  “Sir?”

  “We can cut this case loose and let someone else work it, or we can keep the folder as part of the investigation until we’ve identified her.”

  She could see the arguments both ways. If they passed the case off now and found out later there was a connection, they’d have to be brought up to speed. And if they took it on and it didn’t connect, whoever was left with the investigation would be behind.

  As she opened her mouth to answer, the flap of the tent was pulled back and Tain stepped inside. He surveyed the body wordlessly before kneeling beside her and looking closely at her shoes and pant legs.

  “This is ours,” he said as he stood. “I’m taking it.”

  “I think Constable Hart should—”

  “I want this case, Sergeant.”

  “And I want you at the rally this afternoon.”

  “I’m not your token Aboriginal officer.”

  Tain had spoken with so much force everyone in the tent and anyone standing within a few feet of it outside fell silent.

  Sullivan sighed. “Look, I know that shipping company owns this hotel, and I know you still want to find a way to get to them. And we will, when the time’s right. But we’re stretched pretty thin right now, and we need to stay focused. If this is going to be a problem—”

  “It isn’t. Look, you brought Hart out here yourself. You were already thinking about giving this one to the task force, just in case. Don’t change your mind just because I want it.”

  Sullivan paused. He glanced at Ashlyn. Tain’s eyes almost begged for her cooperation, while a muddled uncertainty lingered on Sullivan’s face. Ashlyn took a breath, then gave one quick nod of her head.

  “This is a team effort, Tain. You’re working it, but so is everybody else. It isn’t all yours, and I expect you to let Hart, Nolan, or whoever else is available back you up.”

  Sullivan turned and left the canvas structure that had been erected to keep their victim concealed from curious onlookers. As soon as he was gone Tain turned to Ashlyn.

  “How much progress have you made going over all the missingpersons records?”

  This was the first time anyone had mentioned them to Ashlyn. “I—”

  “Get back to the office and dig through them. We need to make sure there aren’t any other girls out there we should be looking for as part of this investigation.”

  “But Sullivan—”

  “Do you see him getting in Nolan’s face for leaving you in the office? You aren’t even my partner, Hart. I don’t have time to give you a tour and hold your hand while you figure out what it means to work a real case.”

  Ashlyn looked at the coroner, who’d suddenly developed a fascination with his own paperwork. Tain was still staring at her. There hadn’t been any discussion the night before when they’d arrived at his house. He’d simply pointed her to the spare bathroom and bedroom and marched upstairs, his husky following him. That morning, he’d made breakfast wordlessly, which had been a bit of a surprise, because she’d expected some sexist jibe about performing her womanly duties. The only thing he’d said was that she could leave her stuff if she wanted, in case her cabin wasn’t ready until the next day. She was staying at his house and he still wasn’t ready to give her a chance or hear her out.

  For a moment, she wondered who annoyed her more, Nolan or Tain. Then she realized it didn’t matter, turned and left the tent without another word.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Eighteen months ago

  “Mrs. Bird? My name is—”

  “Are you trying to sell me something? You aren’t trying to sell me something, are you? I don’t like to be bothered at home by people telling me what they think I need to spend my money on.”

  Ashlyn rubbed her forehead. “No, Mrs. Bird. This is Constable Hart calling, from the RCMP.”

  “Who?”

  “The police, Mrs. Bird. I’m calling about those missing girls.”

  There was a small pause. “I can’t imagine why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you call me about those missing girls.” The high-pitched voice cracked. “I don’t have them!”

  “Mrs. Bird…” Ashlyn looked at the slip of paper in front of her. Another dead end she’d wasted time on. Not that it mattered much. She was stuck in the office and not going anywhere. Not if Nolan had his way, and Tain wasn’t about to let her off the leash either.

  “If you call again, I’m going to phone the police!”

  The click was followed by the dial tone. Ashlyn squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, the top of the handset resting against her chin as she rubbed her ear. She’d made so many phone calls the side of her head hurt from having the handset pressed against it, usually balanced on her shoulder as she tried to take notes or catch up on reading reports while she returned phone call after phone call.

  She’d been able to move into her cabin. Although Tain had barely said a hundred words to her outside of the office in the two days she’d spent at his house, she’d developed a fondness for his husky and was missing the companionship of a pet.

  An explanation about why they weren’t working with tribal police had never been forthcoming. In fact, since the morning she’d walked in with Tain, Nolan had barely said a hundred words to her in office.

  To make matters worse, she couldn’t find the missingpersons folders she was supposed to be combing through. She’d asked Constable Keith, one of the officers who worked patrol in the area and knew where things were supposed to be, to search the filing cabinets in the rest of the station for her and had gone over every inch of community space in the task force office, but hadn’t turned up anything.

  When she opened her eyes, she glanced at the locked drawer in Tain’s desk and thought of the scraping metal sound she’d heard when Campbell had been behind her. Too many secrets and too many male egos in conflict, marking their territory, fighting over what was still unclaimed. She made a note on the message from Mrs. Bird that confirmed she’d called back, the date and time, and included Mrs. Bird’s address before adding it to the mounting pile of useless tips.

  She was on her last one.

  It took a few seconds to dial the ten-digit phone number. It took longer for someone to answer. As Ashlyn waited on the line she found half of her hoping nobody would pick up so she wouldn’t have to deal with another bogus tip, and the other half just wanted to get it over and done with, crossed off the list so that she could move on.

  Hopefully, move on to something more productive.

  “What?”

  The demanding tone was so unexpected Ashlyn wondered for a split second if the phone had been answered already and she hadn’t heard.

  “Mrs. Wilson?”

  A pause. “Who’s this?”

  “Constable Ashlyn Hart, from the RCMP.” Ashlyn drew a breath. “You placed a call, something to do with the investigation into the disappearance of those girls.”

  Silence.

  “Mrs. Wilson, I’m calling because you left a message that said you knew something about the missing girls that could help our investigation.”

  Ashlyn paused. Since the day she’d been transferred to Nighthawk Crossing, she’d made at least three hundred phone calls. Most had been useless, but the process of determining whether the would-be tipster was crazy or confused was unpredictable. Some proved unreliable from the moment they answered the phone, like Mrs. Bird, and others prolonged the ordeal by seeming lucid and serious for several minutes before their stories unraveled.

  A few had called because they knew one of the girls and just wanted to talk.

  Those were the hardest ones. Ashlyn never knew what to say. There had been one phone call from someone who knew Mary Donard, and all Ashlyn could do was agree when the girl had said they hoped Mary had just run off and would come home soon.

  They’d succeeded in limiting the press coverage of the discovery o
f the bodies in the woods, and that included concealing the identity of the older victim. The press didn’t know about the baby, and they wanted to keep it that way. The advantage they had was that they still controlled the details that went public.

  Despite that, the problem they faced was that the phone calls had tripled in the past few days. They’d seen an increase across the board, with families phoning for updates, friends calling because they didn’t know what else to do, and a few possible legitimate sightings interspersed in the nuisance calls.

  “Mrs. Wilson, do you have some information for us?”

  “That girl in the fire. The body. It was Jenny Johnson.”

  Ashlyn straightened up. “Which fire?”

  “The inn. The house across the street. The body inside.”

  “The fire at the Blind Creek Inn?”

  “It was Jenny Johnson’s body.”

  “How do you—”

  The click was followed by the familiar sound of dial tone.

  Ashlyn stood. Adding the bogus calls to the thick file of useless tips was instinctive, and she placed the calls from family and friends in another folder. The few slips of paper that might contain helpful information had been placed on her notebook.

  She grabbed the small pile with her left hand and picked up the message from Mrs. Wilson with her right, then marched down the hall to the small room where they’d previously met for shift changes.

  Now, they met there when summoned, the shift lines blurred as they worked as long as they could to follow up on any possible leads. In the three days since discovering Mary Donard’s body, they hadn’t done much more than annoy the media.

  The long table had been removed so they could try to comfortably seat a group of people who functioned as a team in name only. A handful of scattered chairs took up a fraction of the floor space, and a small table had been placed in the corner. A coffee urn sat on top.

  Sullivan paced back and forth along the far wall.

  As she slid into a chair in the back left corner she wondered if that meant there’d been a significant development. Nolan had been leading the meetings, and Sullivan had rarely been present for the regular rundown of their standard checklists.