Long enough for fear to consume him.
The CD changer flipped the disc, and scruffy country gave way to the smooth sound of the Inuktitut and English blends Susan Aglukark was known for. The image of Noelle dancing madly around the house, not long before her death, flashed through his mind. He hit the button to change the disc as he wondered how that one had ended up in rotation again, his pulse slowing as “Til I Am Myself Again” started.
Ironic, considering the doubts that plagued him about his future, about the futility and frustration that had weighed on him for months. In the past, the first hint of unhappiness would cause him to move on, to avoid the questions he didn’t have answers for, to keep him from facing his own uncertainty about his career and where he wanted to be.
Tain started the engine and pulled back out onto the road, soon losing himself in the bustle of Vancouver, a city that seldom slept. The barrage of lights from businesses and cars kept the darkness at bay on the main streets, but down the alleys the shadows swallowed the homeless people he knew were there. British Columbia’s Lower Mainland had a mild climate when compared to the rest of the country, and even in January Vancouver rarely saw more than a centimeter of snow or temperatures that fell far below freezing. The Vancouver area and Vancouver Island served as beacons for would-be snowbirds who didn’t want to travel to Florida or face the cold of a typical Canadian winter, and those of no fixed address who had to sleep rough when the shelters were full.
As he circled back toward his own beat, he followed East Hastings. If the Vancouver area was eye candy for nature lovers, East Hastings was eye candy of another kind, and not for anyone Tain would describe as having normal tastes. Various vices were bought and sold on street corners, and on one block uniformed officers were trying to separate two groups of people shouting at each other.
A headlight shimmered on a blade one of the men held. Tain thought about pulling over, aware that he was out of uniform, but the flash of lights in the rearview mirror signaled the arrival of help as the two groups the officers had worked their way between were pushed apart, dispute already dispersing.
He kept driving, back toward the TriCities.
Somehow, after all this time, Millie had found her way to the city where Ashlyn and Tain—and normally Craig—worked. He’d said himself that she didn’t look street hard, but given her history, it would have made more sense for Millie Harper to end up plying one trade or another on East Hastings than murdered and left in a Dumpster in Coquitlam.
He parked and unlocked the door. The house smelled of stale air and sour milk. Tain dropped his coat on the table, walked to the kitchen counter and dumped the contents of the jug down the sink. He’d forgotten to put it back in the fridge the night before.
In his bedroom a half-empty mug sat on the nightstand by his bed. Tain grabbed it, as well as the few items of clothes stacked on the lone chair against the wall by the closet and went to start the laundry before rinsing out the mug and putting it in the dishwasher.
The simple act of doing could be a welcome distraction from so many demons.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It wasn’t until Craig reached the station that he remembered he didn’t even have a desk to work from.
This assignment was supposed to be just another in a string of temporary assignments. Most of the time he’d been filling in for an injured officer on leave or someone on holidays, and had used their desk or an empty one. He’d been sent to Kelowna for the manhunt as extra personnel, not a substitute. As he entered the station he saw one of the other men he recognized from the gravesite the day before, the one with the gravelly voice.
The man nodded at him.
“Make any progress yesterday?” Craig asked.
The man just shook his head and kept walking.
Craig searched the station and saw a handful of men he recognized who’d been assigned to the manhunt, but he hadn’t worked directly with them himself. They were in the midst of packing up supplies, so he only stopped to ask if any had seen Mac.
Nobody had.
That was when a uniformed officer approached him with a message. He took the slip of paper.
Yeager had given them a room to work from.
When Nolan found the small room near the back of the station, it was empty. Only a long table, a small filing cabinet and a couple of chairs filled the space. Someone had placed a phone on top of the table that was strung over from the wall with an extended cord. It was beside a file, a few pads of paper and a couple of pens. A laptop sat on top of the filing cabinet.
He walked around the table, to the far side where he could keep his back to the wall, sat down and reached for the file.
It was the one he’d started the day before, after they’d been officially assigned the case, and it didn’t hold more than a few scraps of paper. They didn’t have anything official from the coroner at this point, and his own notes from the excavation were in his notebook.
He didn’t need them to tell him what they’d found in the woods. It was all fresh in his mind, an image he couldn’t shake even if he wanted to. The body had been partially wrapped in some sort of sack. They’d managed to extricate the body from the woods by early evening, but Dr. Winters had insisted they wait until the body was transported back to the lab to remove the bindings.
She’d also decided to call it a day. He knew Mac wasn’t going to back him up if he insisted they keep going, and he also knew the coroner was right. The autopsy could take hours, especially if the bindings were difficult to remove, so he hadn’t offered much protest.
The sack bindings were one of the things that made him think this case didn’t connect, but his mind kept going back to the one other apparent difference between the scene and the other decomps he’d investigated. Without an estimation of how long the victim had been deceased, he didn’t even have a timeline to work from, and until the body was unwrapped, he wouldn’t know for sure. But it appeared there was only one victim this time, and the cause of death was different.
Those girls from that old case had been impregnated and after they’d given birth they’d been murdered with their newborn babies. Craig didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but he couldn’t deny he hoped that this case wasn’t connected to the others, despite the knot that had settled in the bottom of his stomach. Part of him would like to close the book completely, to find the victims they’d never recovered, but it would mean opening old wounds.
Craig had enough things to deal with, without reliving that part of his past. He wasn’t ready to pull missingpersons files just yet. Craig stood, grabbed his coat and the file, and left the station. He saw no sign of Mac on his way out, and he opted against drawing attention to his partner’s truancy, so he didn’t leave a message. After he got in his vehicle, he punched in the number.
After six rings the voicemail kicked in. “It’s Nolan. Call me when you get in.”
It didn’t make sense to drive the few blocks to the coroner’s office, so he walked. It was a cold, clear day, almost like you’d expect to have in February instead of April.
Dr. Winters hadn’t wasted any time. She’d begun the delicate process of extricating the remains from the wrappings and was so engrossed in her task Craig had been watching her for a full minute before she looked up and saw him.
“I called you an hour ago,” she said.
He thought back over the scant contents of his makeshift office. “I didn’t get the message. Have you…found anything?”
Her dark eyes studied him for a moment. “What is it about this body that you aren’t telling me?”
“You were at the scene yesterday. You know as much as I do.”
The slight pinch of her eyes suggested she didn’t believe him, but she turned her attention back to the examination table. “It will be hours before I make some progress with this. There’s no point in you wasting your time here.”
“But you called…”
“To tell you not to come over.”
Crai
g blew out a breath. “That’s it?”
She looked up at him. “Don’t you have something else to do, Constable?”
“This is a decomp from the forest. Right now all the physical evidence I’ve got is lying right in front of you. Without knowing how long she’s been deceased there isn’t a whole lot I can do.”
“Well, I can tell you one thing. This wrapping? It’s made from some sort of canvas bag that was date-stamped. This one’s from 2007.”
“2007? You’re sure?”
“Quite sure, which is a good thing since it seems to make you happy.” Her eyes narrowed again. “For reasons you apparently don’t feel the need to share with me.”
He ignored that. “Any chance she may have been wrapped in this material after she’d been deceased for some time?”
Dr. Winters hesitated. “We’re theorizing she was moved because of the lack of animal activity with the body, and she wasn’t properly buried.”
Craig shook his head. “We know she was moved because the body isn’t fresh and we’ve been searching the woods for days. That part of the woods was covered thirty-six hours ago. She wasn’t there.”
“I can tell you that you’re looking at a female victim, at a guess between five-six and five-nine. It’s hard to tell if there is extra cushioning around the feet that’s making her appear longer than she is. As for whether she was moved, you’re convinced. The lack of animal activity is a factor, but for all I know, someone’s been watching over the body night and day and protecting it. I don’t base my findings on external variables alone. I base them on what I see in front of me, and I don’t have enough to make a conclusion yet about time of death. She was frozen, but that could be the result of being outside in these temperatures. Just because men searched the area doesn’t mean they weren’t sloppy.”
Dr. Winters straightened up. “As for whether she was rewrapped, it would be pure speculation at this point. I like to deal in facts, Constable. Not guesswork.”
He felt the heat creeping up from the back of his neck. “Sorry. It’s just…” He couldn’t tell her what he was really thinking, just how important the timeline on this case was. “The date will be critical in helping us narrow down the investigation, that’s all.”
“At this point, the only other thing I can tell you is that the tip of a carving knife or sword is protruding from her back.”
A rush of cold crept up his spine and spread through his skin. “I…I don’t remember seeing that yesterday.” Fumbling for the words as he scrambled to recall the exact moment the body had been lifted from the ground.
“It wasn’t noted until we got her back here and moved her onto the table. We theorized the pressure from the weight of the body must have made it break through while we were transporting her, because I saw no indication of a protrusion when I did my survey of the body at the gravesite either.”
Craig nodded. “Shouldn’t there be evidence of a handle then? Is there any sign—”
Winters held up her hand. “It could be a small knife that was absorbed into the body, which would mean the handle might be inside the rib cage. It all depends on the force with which she was stabbed, and if someone threw the knife at her that would also affect the depth of penetration.” She paused for a moment, her mouth twisting into a small frown. “In fact, it could even be the tip of an arrow if someone fashioned one from the right kind of metal. We simply don’t have enough details right now to form a conclusion.”
“But it’s definitely a murder.”
“How often do you find bodies lying in the middle of the woods that have been frozen and partially wrapped and got there by natural causes?”
If he’d wanted to be flippant, he would have pointed out her conclusion was based on circumstantial variables, not facts, but he kept that to himself, and he didn’t try to explain what he’d meant.
“Are you working this alone?” Dr. Winters asked.
He started to shake his head, then shrugged. “I may as well be.”
“Mac’s worked here for long enough to have friends and a reputation,” Dr. Winters said. “My advice? You’re better off on your own.”
“I still have to answer for him when the sergeant calls me in.”
Dr. Winters looked at him for a moment, then walked to the counter, wrote something on a slip of paper and passed it to him. “He always parks in the alley.”
He thanked her, handed her a card with his cell number on it and asked that she call him directly as soon as she had something.
As he walked back to the station to get his vehicle he looked at the address she’d given him one last time before folding the slip and putting it in his pocket. Forty-seven Old Main.
It didn’t take him long to find it, and a short drive down the alley confirmed that what Dr. Winters had told him was true. Mac’s car was parked behind the bar.
Craig turned around and went back to the street, found a spot a few blocks down and got out to walk. There was a chill in the air that justified him keeping his head down, hands burrowed in his pockets. As he walked by the bar, he risked a glance through the dark windows.
A group of men he recognized from work were gathered, most holding bottles of Kokanee and looking relaxed, but not over the line. In the center of them, Mac held court. He was a storyteller, a social drinker, the life of the party.
Craig kept walking. His partner was a liability and there was nobody he could trust. He was on his own.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The room was all stainless steel and white walls. Johnson was perched at a sterile counter in a room that actually had more personality than he did.
He looked up as they entered, his gaze already shifting back to the file in front of him before he processed what his eyes had seen and did a double take.
It gave them enough time to reach the other side of the counter before Johnson had even straightened up. The way his hand fell on the scattered photos hinted at Johnson’s desire to slap the folder shut and conceal its contents from their eyes, but he hadn’t been quick enough.
Not quick enough to hide the split-second deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes either.
Johnson compounded the issue with a wide smile that was as phony as a three-dollar bill. “You won’t believe this, but I was just about to head over to your office.”
“I guess that makes you the lucky one,” Ashlyn said. “We saved you a trip.”
Johnson’s smile dimmed. “Sometimes it’s nice to get out of the office.”
“Sometimes you get out and you get called back,” Tain said.
“I had nothing to do with that crank report,” Johnson said.
Tain glanced at Ashlyn, who arched an eyebrow. He set his hands down on the side of the counter and nodded toward the file.
“What do you have for us?”
“Well, not as much as you’d like. The team is still sifting through the contents of the Dumpster, and we’ve identified a few items we think could be connected to the victim, but we haven’t had a chance to chase anything down.”
“That’s okay,” Tain said. “That’s part of our job.”
For a split second, Tain thought he saw Johnson’s eyes narrow, and then the hard lines that had surfaced in his expression were smoothed over again. Still perched on the stool, hand resting on the photos, he looked like a man who’d been caught off guard, one who knew he was supposed to be handling the case more than investigating and felt uneasy that the officers he was supposed to manage were pressing him.
“Is this the report?” Ashlyn asked as she reached for the folder.
Johnson hesitated.
“Well?” Ashlyn said. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He sighed and pushed the folder across the counter.
It took Tain only a few seconds to realize it was a condensed version of the real report. Ashlyn went through the pretense of flipping pages, then riffled through the pile of photos and double-checked a few things against the papers before looking up. “There seem to be a few
things missing.”
Johnson blinked.
Ashlyn held up a photo. “No details for this item or”—she flipped to another picture—“this one. The report’s missing the distance from the body, suspected source, fingerprints. There’s no information at all.”
As she’d flipped the photos, Tain had noticed some seemed to have duplicates.
Johnson swallowed. “I know. That’s why I got held up. I was going through the photos, trying to sort out which ones didn’t match the file.”
“What do you mean?” Ashlyn said.
“It’s possible these photos are from another crime scene…”
Ashlyn flipped one over, then another and another. “Funny, the time and date stamp seem to put these together. Unless you were working multiple Dumpsters yesterday.” She turned the pictures over. “See, there’s information for the contents of this photo.” She turned it around and slid it toward Johnson, “And in the corner you can see the things that are in this photo, which haven’t been detailed.”
“I’m…sorry. This is very sloppy. We’ve had some turnover lately…”
“No real harm done. Maybe we can track down the missing pages, or help compile the information ourselves.” Ashlyn tapped the folder. “Ah, it says right here there should be eighteen pages, but I only counted seven.”
Tain had to admire the way she kept her tone light, nonthreatening. As though she might truly be that naïve, and if not naïve then forgiving, willing to overlook a deliberate attempt to limit the information they had to work with.
He doubted Johnson was fooled by her act, but he also knew that Ashlyn had given Johnson no excuse to refuse them. She hadn’t made accusations, hadn’t provoked him so he had a reason to take a defensive posture. Any inferences of blame or neglect had been conveniently left at someone else’s door by Johnson himself. As Johnson flipped through the folder, pretending to note which pages were missing from the file, he said nothing.
Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers) Page 46