“You could give me a hint at least,” Nate says.
Gray smiles slightly. Not really a smile, Nate reckons. More of a grimace maybe. “The blood came back as recent,” the constable says.
“No shit.”
“Yeah, a guy we already had in the system. An RSO.”
“Your person of interest. You like him for it?”
“The Yanks definitely do. He drives a truck, same color as the one described by witnesses who drove by that afternoon.”
“The 13th?”
Gray nods. “Right. Say they saw the girls and the RV stopped here. That truck parked right behind it.”
“That's a hell of a lead,” Nate says.
“He's claiming that speck of blood came from a small cut he got cleaning the rig. Turns out he works for a detailing place south of Red Deer, subcontracted out by the RV rental company to clean some of their vehicles.”
“A registered sex offender happens to be the same person who cleans the RV shortly before the girls rent it? And cut himself doing it?”
“The cut story checks out,” Gray says. “Got a co-worker says he grabbed a bandage for him out of a first aid kit at their garage the day it happened. Says he cleaned it on the 9th, four days prior. Paper records and footage from cameras at the detailing garage bear that out.”
“Still a lot of coincidences there.”
“Agreed.”
“What's he saying about being seen parked behind the girls the day of?”
“Claims he's never gone anywhere near that rig since the day he cleaned it.”
“Your guy got a name?”
“Jesus, Striker, I just told you I can't give you that.”
“No, but you've pretty much given me everything else. You don't think I'll find out who it is anyway? Think about it for a second.”
Gray turns his back to Nate, folds his arms and stares out at the horizon. “You're working for the Smith girl's mother, right?”
“Raina's mom, Belinda. Yeah.”
Another lengthy pause. Contemplation. “You know it's my ass if I'm caught feeding you information only known to the Task Force.”
“And yet here you are. You must have a guilty conscience or something.”
“Hey, you quit the Force, remember? Nobody forced you out of the outfit. All I'm telling you is I can get in a lot of trouble telling you anything. I've told you too much as it is.”
“So keep your mouth shut then,” Nate says. “What do you want from me? Hold your hand? Make your decisions for you? You don't wanna get caught, it's a real simple solution.”
“Yeah, what's that hot shot?”
“Don't get fuckin caught.”
The comment catches the constable off-guard enough it causes him to chuckle. He calms down immediately. Inhales slow. “You're a real asshole sometimes, you know that?”
Nate flashes a bit of a smile, his energy comes down to match Gray's. “I'm aware.”
Gray sighs, shakes his head.
“You gonna give me his name or what?”
Gray doesn't move. Another RV sweeps past.
“Come on,” Nate says, “you've given me enough already, I'm gonna get where I'm going regardless. Why you gonna make me take the stairs?”
Gray rolls his eyes. “Fuck it,” he says. “Grady Willard Barnes.”
Nate grins, nods. “Oh, that asshole. Yeah, I've dealt with Grady before. Mostly petty shit.”
“Doubt you'll be dealing with him this time, Striker. The Task Force won't let you within a hundred feet of him.”
“Doesn't matter. I don't need to talk to him anyway.”
“So, you're saying you disagree with the rest of them then?”
“I didn't say that. But, I have a hard time pinning three high profile murders on him.”
“Careful,” Gray says. “The Feds are still insisting the girls are alive.”
“Like Anastasia Lewis will allow them to insist on anything else.”
The two men can't help but stand and gaze at the impossibly beautiful vista. The clear sky, the Rockies, the gray haze swimming around the treetops. After a couple of minutes, the constable breaks the silence.
“How do you think they died?” Gray says.
“On their vacation.”
“Very funny. No, I'm asking seriously.”
This is the most he's ever gotten out of Gray. Being treated like dead freight at the back of the Task Force train must be grinding him down. Maybe the key is drag his ass out to gorgeous locations and let the region's natural beauty soften his brain.
“Well, they took a trip, alright,” Nate says. “Then someone else took them on another one.”
“Kidnapping?”
Is that a serious question? Nate wonders. They didn't just walk off on their own never to be seen again.
“Someone took them.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? There's a reason you look into whatever RSO's you have hanging around first.”
“Nothing in Barnes's past indicates anything beyond some light touching.”
“I know.”
“But you think we're looking at sex as a motivating factor?”
“Three girls,” Nate says, “college-age. You saw their photos. Attractive. Stopped at the side of the highway with engine trouble pretty much in the middle of nowhere. You're a cop, Gray, you do the math.”
“Seems a little random, doesn't it?”
How can anyone on a Task Force on a case like this be this naive?
“You think this is just a case of being ripe for the pickings?” Gray says.
“Do you know where you live?”
“This world, same as you.”
“That's right, same as me. A world full of sharks, and what is a shark, constable?”
“A fish? A scavenger? A fuckin creature that lives in the ocean, Striker. What's your point?”
“An opportunist.”
“Sure, whatever.”
“A leviathan that swims the same waters as you and me, but has a hunger that's altogether different.”
“Now you're just talking jibberish.”
“No, I'm not. Think about it. You're a scavenger yes, but what you want, what you ache for never changes. The only thing that changes is access. Your ability to get what it is you yearn for.”
“Jesus, can we drop the woo-woo shit already?”
Nate shakes his head, words are wasted on this man. At least with this analogy anyway. Instead, he motions up the ridge that climbs high up behind them on their side of the highway. Sweeps his arm out towards the landscape extended out below them on the road's opposite side. “This isn't exactly a spot to get out go wandering off into the woods to explore,” Nate says. “We know they were stopped here. Probably not by choice. But, they stopped. And, why did they leave? Better, how did they leave? Well, they didn't leave so much as they were taken. There's no other explanation.”
“RV company told us they called for roadside assistance just before 5 o'clock. Stopped here, as you say.”
“See? There you go. They indicate what the trouble was?”
“I wasn't privy to the sit-down, but engine trouble I believe.”
“Assuming they don't service those calls in-house, who handles roadsides for them?”
“Couldn't tell you.”
“But someone on the Task Force is running all this down? Talking to the RV people? The roadside people? Witnesses? And when do you think your Task Force buddies might get around to sweeping through here with search teams?”
“Slow down, Striker. You do realize this isn't the RCMP's first rodeo? FBI neither.”
“The way things are going, you gotta wonder.”
“We just got over one of the biggest rainstorms we've had in what 20, 30 years?”
“God forbid anyone would let their Armani's get a little damp.”
“Says the guy out here giving a university lecture about sharks. Making assumptions of his own. Arrogant prick.”
“An arrogant
prick who's trying to find answers,” Nate says. The two men glare at one another.
So much for goodwill.
“Yeah, that's right, Striker, it's you and only you out here trying to find them. Typical.”
“What I find typical is you assholes haven't found them yet.”
“Neither have you.”
“I'm only getting started, and I don't have your budget.”
“No,” Gray sneers. “If you did you'd spend half of it on pills.”
“The fuck you just say?” Nate steps toward him, shoulders raised, hands at his sides.
“How'd that stolen trailer bullshit turn out for you anyway?”
“What?”
“Maybe you should go back to wasting your time with that, leave the real work to real investigators.”
Suddenly, Gray's back to being his usual eight year old self. His childishness disarms Nate. It's the familiarity of seeing Gray as the weak-minded fool he's always known him to be, but occasionally allows himself to forget.
“Gray, is that supposed to be an insult or something?” The constable ignores him and walks away.
Nate frowns and his adrenaline ebbs watching the constable slam his truck door and peel off in a U-turn headed back for Rocky.
Well, you probably just lost yourself whatever access to Task Force information you mighta had.
All in a days work.
CHAPTER SIX
Someone had gone around pulling down Nate's handmade 'information wanted' flyers he'd posted around Rocky Mountain House. Probably half of them, he thinks. But there's still plenty of other sheets, with pictures of the three girls' faces on them. Raina, Zoe, Carly – and a phone number underneath. He's stapled them to telephone poles and community bulletin boards all over town.
He receives one call on account of these posters. One.
Noreen Pluth, an elderly lady who lives in town. She's already talked to police, but she calls Nate anyway. She's taken a personal interest in seeing the girls found, being a mother and grandmother herself.
She ushers Nate inside her quaint little bungalow. Offers him a Diet Pepsi as he sits on her plastic covered sofa.
“Those girls are dead,” Noreen says bluntly, with a toughness that belies her frail appearance.
The comment catches Nate off-guard.
“Told my husband that too,” Noreen says. “Edward. He's out at the golf course. He saw them. He was driving that day. We were coming back from my grandson's in Kamloops.”
“What makes you think they're dead.”
“Because somebody murdered them.”
Nate sips slowly from his Diet Pepsi. “And, you're basing that on, what, exactly?”
“Mr. Striker,” Noreen says.
“Nate.”
“Nate,” she continues, “you ever look at someone and right away you could tell if the situation came up where they had to be pressed to survive you knew they wouldn't have it in them to do it?”
What the hell was this old bird on about?
“I saw it soon as we drove by them. Those three young girls. Too skinny by half. Out there in Indian country. Of course they're dead. Dead as door nails. Someone came along, snatched them up. They wouldn't have had the will to fight. To survive.”
Nate begins to imagine this woman's sizable gun collection probably stacked to the ceiling in her basement.
“But you didn't stop,” Nate says.
“Beg your pardon?”
“You, and your husband, Edward. You didn't stop when you drove by them.”
“Well, no, we didn't. But, at the time we didn't think they were in any danger. There was lots of traffic around. Vacation traffic. It's like that every summer. Wasn't until later when he heard they went missing I got to thinking about what might've happened to them.”
“Can you tell me what you saw that day?”
“I surely can. I may look old, Nate, but I've got a memory like an elephant's.”
“Great,” Nate pulls out his notebook. He used to hate taking notes as a cop, and prided himself on his ability to remember key details in witness statements without needing to resort to writing things down, but Cream eroded some of that skill-set in the intervening years.
“I told those FBI people. We were driving east on the 11. Right around 5 o'clock. We had just gotten past the log cabin store. You know, the gas station place run by the Indians. We were a ways past that, and we came up a hill and near the top was a white camper with a blue stripe along the side. A motorhome, a smallish one. And anyway these girls were all outside. One was even sitting in a lawn chair. Pretty little things. Looks like they were having a ball. I remember what it was like at that age.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
“Yes,” Noreen says, “I was coming to that. So, there was this other vehicle there. Stopped with them.”
Grady Willard Barnes, I presume, Nate thought.
“Do you recall what it looks like? Did you see anyone else besides the three girls standing or sitting there?”
“It was a maroon truck, burgundy, whatever. A Chevy, I believe. Had an Alberta license plate, I know that.”
“How do you know?”
“White plate, red writing. It's the red writing that stands out in my mind. We'd been staring at B.C. plates all day before that. They have the blue writing, you know.”
“You didn't happen to write down the plate number by chance?”
Noreen shakes her head. “I'm afraid not, dear. I'm sharp, but I'm not that sharp.”
“And did you get a look at the driver?”
“I did, they were sitting inside their truck. It was a two-door. Not the extended kind, you know, with the four doors and what not. It was a man. Looked on the youngish side. Mind you, everyone looks a bit youngish to me these days.”
“What can you tell me about his appearance?”
“Not a lot really, I'm sorry. It was over so fast. He was white, I think. Dark hair. Short hair if I remember correctly, but not really really short. Maybe a dark shirt. We slowed down enough to pass by safely, though they were on the other side of the highway, but not so slow as I could get a real good look at the man inside the truck. You understand?”
“You've given me a lot, Ms. Pluth.”
“Noreen,” she says, and she gives him a cheeky smile.
“Would it be alright if I called you again if something comes up and I feel you could be of help?”
“Of course,” she says. “And you can always come by and speak with my husband as well, not that he'd be much help, mind you. I swear that man's got the brain of a field mouse.”
Nate chuckles. “Thank you for your time, Noreen.”
“My pleasure, Nate.”
As he walks down the short asphalt driveway to his Taurus parked in the street, he thinks back to one time in particular where he'd pulled Grady Barnes over in the middle of the night. Knew he was wanted on warrants. If memory serves he drove an old station wagon.
“Huh,” Nate murmurs aloud.
Maybe that detailing job paid well enough he'd eventually bought himself a burgundy Chev pick-up. It was a long time ago, Nate thought. Time changes everything.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It's middle summer hot in Calgary's north end. Not humid, more desert hot. The kind of day where the sun burns up the whole sky, glares down on everything like the Earth's under a heat lamp. Grasshoppers chirp, echoing out of every crack capable of hosting a blade of grass. Mirage waves shimmer up from the street, waiting on those fried eggs the old men say you could cook anywhere in this temperature.
Nate sweats with the windows down. His A/C conked out a long time ago, and he's never bothered to have it fixed. Why bother when Alberta's basically winter for ten months out of the year. At least the block heater still works.
He runs his tongue over the back of his mouth, touches it to his throbbing tooth. He looks around from behind the wheel of his Ford Taurus, parks along the curb of a broken asphalt road in a godforsaken industrial park mo
st reputable businesses abandoned at least fifteen years prior. Most except for CanadaPlus RV Rentals. A rental place on a cheap lease.
On the other side of a ten-foot chain link fence ringed with razor wire sits a sizable lot packed with motorhomes looking like they just rolled out of a cloning device. All the same length. All white with a blue stripe down the side. Every one of them with a huge decal covering the whole back with CanadaPlus RV Rentals in bold font. Beyond the rows of RVs sits a gray steel building. Garage on one side, offices on the other. Nate pops two Cream to dull that tooth before straightening his shirt, walking across the lot towards the office.
Halfway across the lot a large man in coveralls intercepts, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. “You Striker?” He asks.
Nate instinctively watches the man's hands, and keeps a bit of distance between them. “Yes,” Nate answers, “and you are?”
“Lainey said you were coming in. This about those girls, right? She said you were coming.” He extends his hand for a shake. Nate obliges. “I'm Stanley. Head of Maintenance.”
“Good to meet you. Is Lainey in?”
“She is. Right over that way.” He points to the right side of the steel hangar where a glass door ushers customers into the front sales area. “I've got a full morning looks like, so I won't be able to join you, if that's alright.”
“No problem,” Nate says, “truth be told, I only expected to be speaking with the General Manager anyway.”
“She's Manager of the Operations side. I'm Manager of all the mechanical. But I was here the day those girls rented one of our units. Lainey says you're here about them.”
“That's right.
“I remember they showed up out of the blue, didn't reserve a unit or anything, no booking ahead of time.”
“That kind of thing unusual?”
“A little. I mean, it happens time to time. But, these girls, they paid with a black credit card. One of those special ones, you know? I think they had money. One of 'em did anyway.”
Nate figures they must be standing among over a hundred RVs. “You've got a pretty sizable operation here. I'm sure you see your fair share of wealthy clientele?”
“I think I get what you mean, but these gals stood out. They do in my mind anyhow. Normally we deal with families, couples. The odd time you get groups. Different kinds of customers, they stand out, you know?”
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