Mallorie couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s right. If you don’t help us, Zwicker’s going to shit on my head.”
Gaston pushed his glasses back up his nose and held his hand out for the hard drive in Flanagan’s hand.
“What is it?” he said.
“Security Master,” said Flanagan. “It was used to run one small web cam.” He held up the little lens. “Looks like a program for stores or whatever. It can run lots of cameras, but only one camera was hooked up to this one. It was in the boudoir of the guy they pulled out of the canal. It’s password-protected.”
“Fuck,” said Gaston, as he took the zip drive and plugged it in to his main computer. “Security Master. Fuck.”
He opened a web browser, went to a hacker web site and typed in “Security Master.” A screen came up with a brief description of the device, in hacker shorthand. It looked like gibberish to Ashton and Flanagan.
“Unix-based,” said Gaston. “Okay. Sebastian.ru. Okay.” He typed a bit.
“About five years ago, some Russian kid built a password cracker that really strips the panties off this generation of Unix encryption,” he said. “Better than lemon gin. Let me try it.”
He booted up Sebastian.ru and steered it to the folder on the zip drive. He tweaked the settings and pressed enter. Security Master started up. He clicked on the top folder, and hit enter. The hacking program started trying combinations of letters and numbers, faster than the screen could redraw, so the program looked jammed.
“There are twenty-six characters in the alphabet,” said Gaston. “With upper case and lower case, plus ten digits and punctuation marks, you have ninety-six characters. You’ve got 782 billion possible combinations of characters in a six-character password. If we don’t know, as we don’t, whether it’s a six-, seven-or eight-letter password, there are trillions of possible combinations. Sounds tough, eh?
“Luckily for us, a lot of people use passwords that have some meaning to them, all lower case. This Russian kid built an algorithm that orders the possible combinations from most likely to least likely, using names and words from the dictionary. The program just types the shit out of the damn thing, trying combination after combination in the password window. Sooner or later it will match. Or it should do.”
He glanced up at Flanagan. He and Ashton were staring at the unchanging screen.
“Boudoir, eh?” said Gaston. “Is there a girlfriend?”
“Sophie Fortin,” said Flanagan. “Very impressive young woman.”
The computer chirped and suddenly a folder popped open. Gaston clicked on sebastian.ru. The password was Sneak.
“Wow,” said Ashton.
“Is that it?” said Flanagan.
“Yup,” said Gaston. “Let’s see what we have here.”
In the open folder there was a single video file, with no name, just a date and time stamp: 2011/07/18.
He double clicked on it and suddenly there was a video of the empty bedroom. It was surprisingly clear.
“That’s their room,” said Flanagan.
Gaston clicked ahead on the space bar, toward the end of the file. The lights were out and Sophie and Ed were asleep under the covers. He clicked back and the lights were back on, and Ed was on top of Sophie. They were both naked and her legs were wrapped around his waist. She was groaning rhythmically and Ed was grinding his pelvis into her. Sophie’s fingers gripped his back.
“That is our victim and his girlfriend,” said Flanagan.
The three of them watched Sophie and Ed have sex for a moment.
Ashton cleared her throat.
“Well,” said Gaston, “I guess that worked. “
He sat there watching for another moment. Sophie lowered her hands to Ed’s ass.
“Well,” said Gaston. “I guess I’d better shut this down.”
He stared for a second longer and then clicked stop.
“There you go,” he said, and handed them the hard drive even as he turned back to his computer. “Have fun.”
After dinner, Vern and Jack put on white hard hats, got into the truck and headed north to call on Mike Redcloud. They drove for forty minutes on a four-lane highway that abruptly turned to dirt when they turned off to the Syncrude site. Vern had told his boss that his nephew was thinking about working there and wanted to see the site, and arranged a visitor pass for him, which got them through the security gates.
Vern drove him around a bit, showing him the massive settling ponds, lakes of poison filled with a mixture of oil by-products and water, dotted with noisemakers and scarecrows to keep away the birds. There was a surprising beauty to the scene. The sun was setting over the softwood forest, and the reflection of the vermillion sky shimmered on the surface of the toxic ponds.
They drove past the massive upgrader, where acres of high-tech equipment refined the oily sludge to light crude. Plumes of smoke and steam poured out of smokestacks into the vast northern sky. Jack stared at the massive hills of yellow sulphur next to the refining equipment. The air was dusty, and smelled odd and unpleasant.
A broad dirt road through the woods took them out to the mine site, where Vern stopped the truck on a lookout. They got out and walked through the snow to the edge of a four-kilometre wide hole in the ground, an artificial canyon that was so big it was hard to take it all in.
“Holy fuck,” said Jack.
“She’s something, eh, b’y,” said Vern.
In the darkening sky, it looked like a blot of nothingness spreading out from their feet, a hole 100 metres deep that stretched out a good way to the horizon. In the distance, Jack could make out buildings, earth-moving equipment and dump trucks working under massive halogen lights.
“They started at this end in ’82,” said Vern. “And the hole’s been getting bigger ever since. I’d like to have a nickel for every tonne of dirt they’ve hauled out of here.”
They got back in the truck and drove around the hole, and then down into it and across it, to a trailer sitting in the sticky, black mud.
From here, Jack could see how the mine worked. Five-storey cranes rhythmically gouged enormous scoops of black sand from the wall of the canyon, and dropped them in the back of dump trucks the size of houses.
Under the glare of the halogen lights, the colours were intense and strange – the yellow trucks gleaming, the dirty snow banks spectral, the sand underfoot so black and dull with oil that it reflected nothing, like a night sky without stars.
“They say there’s more oil in Alberta than in Saudi Arabia,” said Vern. “But it’s just a bit harder to get at, eh.”
Jack bent and picked up a handful of the stuff, and rubbed it. It stained his hand black.
“Jeez b’y, you’ll have to scrub a bit to get that out,” said Vern. “Let’s go in where it’s warm.”
The white industrial trailer was for the crew, with bathrooms and a lunch room with a coffee machine, snack machines, a sink, a microwave, plastic chairs and a couple of tables. It was lit by florescent lights. One of them flickered and buzzed.
Two men in blue overalls were sitting over coffees.
“How’s she going, b’ys?” said Vern. “You haven’t seen Mike, have you?”
“Who, the chief?” said one of the men.
Vern stared at him.
“Mike Redcloud,” he said. “What do you mean, the chief?”
The guy grinned and looked away.
“He should be on break in ten minutes,” said the other guy. “We’re the relief.” He looked at his companion. “The comic relief.”
Vern stared at the two of them for a moment longer, then turned away, shaking his head.
“You want a coffee, b’y?” he asked Jack.
They sat at the other end of the lunch room from the relief crew.
Mike arrived soon after, walking in with a short blonde woman. Both of them took off their hard hats as they came in.
“Mike!” said Vern. “How’s she going?
Mike came over and introduced the wom
an he was with as Bonny
“Well hello, Bonny,” said Vern, smiling and shaking her hand. “This is my nephew, Jack, wants to talk to Mike about something. What do you have for supper? Have enough to share?”
She laughed and he steered her over to the other end of the trailer. The relief crew headed out.
Jack and Mike shook hands.
“I’m glad you could take a few minutes to talk to me,” said Jack. “It’s about your sister.”
Mike smiled and laughed nervously. He was tall and athletic-looking, with mahogany skin, a wispy moustache and liquid brown eyes that somehow seemed both happy and sad.
“Sure,” he said. “Vern told me. Let me get my dinner going.”
He went to the fridge and took out a plastic tub and popped it in the microwave and sat down to wait while it heated his dinner.
“So, why are you interested in Rena’s story?” he said.
Jack gave him his card.
“I’m a political reporter in Ottawa,” he said. “And a source, someone I have promised not to identify, has reason to believe that there’s something odd about her death, or the investigation, something with a link to some powerful people in Ottawa. We don’t know what exactly is strange about the death or the investigation, but the source is a very serious person, and we have reason to believe it’s worth looking into.”
Mike stared at him. “So you don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“No,” Jack said. “Not really. I don’t know what I’m looking for. You’re right.”
“Because it’s sad, eh, for me to get talking about it,” Mike said, avoiding Jack’s gaze. “I mean, Rena. Maybe you should talk to my dad, eh? He is more used to talking to reporters and that. For an interview. Maybe you should talk to him.”
“I’d like to do that,” said Jack. “I read some articles about him. He sounds like quite a man.”
The microwave dinged.
“There’s my supper,” said Mike. He got up and took out his dinner.
“My dad made this,” he said. “Moose stew. Want a taste?”
Jack was going to say no thanks, but changed his mind.
“Jeez, it does look good,” he said. He got a plastic fork from the counter and took a bite. It was rich and the moose meat was tender and falling apart.
“Damn, that’s good. It’s been a while since I had moose stew,” he said. “My old man makes it too. Adds salt pork.”
“My father cooks it with bacon and adds a bit of wine, eh,” said Mike.
Jack pulled out his notebook. “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to lose your sister. I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “I won’t quote you, or use your name without your permission. If I do write a story, I’ll interview your father for any quotes. All I want is to know what happened. There are no court documents, since the guy who killed her never made it to trial.”
“That was the Indian Posse,” said Mike.
“Indian Posse?” said Jack. “What’s that, a gang?”
Mike looked at him as if he were dumb. “Yeah,” he said. “Big gang. Operates in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Saskatoon, Winnipeg. They’re on every rez in western Canada.”
“They killed this Chinese guy, Ling Cho Wi? Why? ’Cause he killed a native girl?”
Mike laughed. “Man, they don’t give a fuck,” he said. “No. My cousin runs with them in Edmonton. He told me they got a contract to do it. Couple of Chinese gangbangers from Vancouver came to Edmonton, paid the Posse to kill the Chinese guy.”
“Why would they do that?”
“My cousin didn’t know why.” Mike shrugged. “Posse doesn’t care why.”
“You don’t know who the Chinese guys were?” said Jack.
“You not gonna say I told you this, right? I can’t talk about any of this shit in the paper.”
“No,” said Jack. “No. No. No. No way. Don’t worry.”
“Okay then. I don’t know who the Chinese guys were. I bet the Indian Posse doesn’t know either. Chinese guys with money. That’s who they were.”
“What happened to Rena?” Jack asked. “The newspaper stories don’t say anything about the crime.”
Mike put down his fork. “It’s sad, eh? We thought she was turning her life around. She was, too, but every now and then she’d want to party. Loved to party, rez-style, all the fucking way, man.” He bit his lip and looked away. “She didn’t have no pimp or nothing. She’d just decide she had been a good girl too long and she needed to have a party, and she’d go down to the Oilman with some of her bad girlfriends.”
He stared right at Jack. He wasn’t touching his stew.
“So she picked this guy up at the Oiler. They have a few drinks, go back to his room. It looks like she did him, right, and then he wanted her to go. She wanted more money than he gave her. That is what the cops think. And my sister, boy, you don’t fucking fuck with her if she’s been drinking and try to rip her off. She was a tough lady with a bad temper. So I guess they started to fight or whatever. He probably tried to slap her around, and then she went fucking bananas, and it got out of hand. He was all bruised, like she got in some jabs, eh? But he stabbed her twice, once in the arm and once in the eye. She died right away. Was all bloody in there, eh?” He spoke in a flat, mechanical tone. Jack could see a vein in his temple throbbing and his jaw muscles working but his face was expressionless.
“How do you know all this?” asked Jack.
“The Mounties, Gushue and Brecker, they told me and Dad some, but after Brecker left the force, started working down Showgirls, he told my cousin the nasty stuff.”
“Same cousin?”
“No,” Mike said, and laughed again. “I got lots of cousins.”
“Who’s Brecker?”
“Dwayne Brecker, was a Mountie until last year. He left the force and went to work down at Showgirls, the big strip bar here. I think he got in trouble, eh, and had to get out. Drugs or something.”
“And now he works at a strip bar?”
“Showgirls, baby!” said Mike. “Big deal up here. Owned by the Hells Angels.”
“This guy used to be a Mountie and now he works for the Angels? He investigated your sister’s murder?”
Mike picked up his fork. “Yeah,” he said. “Funny, eh?”
Flanagan transferred half the video files – the more recent ones – to Ashton’s laptop, and they moved to a conference room and started watching them, trying to figure out what they had.
There were thirty files, dating back over six months, roughly one a week. Most of them were long recordings – more than eight hours, sometimes longer – with static shots of the empty bedroom, or the darkened room with Ed and Sophie sleeping. The angle never changed, and there was no sound. In most of the recordings there was a single sexual encounter before they turned out the lights and went to sleep, then, near the end of the recording, footage of them getting ready for work.
Flanagan and Ashton sat side by side, clicking ahead through the videos.
“It looks like he turns it on before they go to bed and turns it off in the morning,” said Flanagan. “Probably while she’s in the shower.”
“I think she was being honest with us,” said Ashton. “I don’t think she had any idea he was recording this stuff. Look at this.”
Ashton had found a recording where Sophie went into the room by herself, lifted her skirt and inserted a tampon.
“I don’t know how far to believe Mlle. Fortin,” said Ashton. “I don’t like the fact that she won’t tell us who her gentleman caller was. But there’s no way she knew the camera was there. I don’t think a girl would ever do that if she knew she was being recorded.”
Flanagan looked at the scene.
“Christ,” he said. “Poor thing. She picked a winner. Secretly taping himself with his girlfriend so he can admire himself later and jerk off. Little fucker.”
“If I found out some guy I was seeing was secretly recording me, I’d cut off his nuts,” Ashton said. “With
a butter knife.”
Ashton’s jaw was set and her eyes were hard as she watched Sophie tidy up the bedroom.
“So what are we looking for?” said Flanagan. “There are what, a hundred hours of video here.”
Ashton turned from the screen. “We should make a catalogue, a list of all the recordings, watch them all on fast forward, note the times that anything happens, see what we have.”
Jack had to wait in a line to get into Showgirls, shivering and smoking on the sidewalk in the glow of the flashing neon sign. In front of him were three young men in ball caps and ski jackets, chatting in thick outport accents about how much money they were making, and how much they wanted to get laid. “My son, the crack of dawn better watch out around me,” said one of them.
Before long, a group of very drunk men came out the door and staggered to their trucks. The bouncers let Jack and the baymen into the bar, where they paid five bucks each for the coat check and stepped into the steaming main room. There were a couple hundred men inside, sitting at cheap tables covered in drinks and spilled booze. Waitresses carrying loaded trays, and strippers in tiny outfits moved through the crowd.
Jack squeezed up to the bar, ordered a beer and leaned back against the bar to take in the scene.
A statuesque black girl was finishing her dance on the stage, naked, sprawled on her back, touching herself to a rap song.
“Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Crystal,” said a muffled voice over the loudspeaker. Jack clapped.
A stripper in a florescent blue bikini smiled at him. “Hi,” she said. “Where you from?”
“Ottawa,” he said. “How about you?”
“I’m from Edmonton. What’s your name?”
“Jack,” he said. “What’s yours?”
“Carrie,” she said. “Want a dance?”
She was in her early twenties, with a lithe, athletic body and bright blonde hair, but her eyes were glassy, with enlarged irises, and her smile came out of a pill bottle. She put her hand on his shoulder and rubbed her breasts lightly against him.
“How much is it?” he asked.
“Thirty dollars a dance.” That was ten dollars more than at Pigale.
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