by Vicki Delany
“Startling new developments,” said the radio announcer, “in a case that has transfixed the people of Trafalgar for many years…”
Walt switched off the radio. And then he burst into tears. The first tears he’d shed in more than twenty-five years.
The bus left at eight-thirty. Walt had phoned ahead to buy his ticket. He’d also phoned Louise and told her to call off the attack dogs. They’d still try to get what was owned him—five million dollars was meager payment for the loss of a lifetime—out of the province of British Columbia, but he didn’t want anyone suing the modern-day Trafalgar police department. Louise had objected, but he held his ground, without explaining why, and she had finally relented. He was, after all, the boss.
The long summer twilight lingered and the streets of Trafalgar were busy with pedestrians and cars. The restaurant patios were full and the brightly lit shops still open.
Time to be on his way. Nothing remained in Trafalgar for him.
When they arrived at the bus station, Evans got out of the cruiser and collected Walt’s bag. He carried the bag into the small waiting room. Walt followed. He considered jokingly offering Evans a tip, but decided not to. No point in humiliating the guy. “Thanks,” he said instead.
“Bus’ll be here soon, and I’ll…uh…be around if you need anything, sir.”
“Do you think I might need assistance?”
“No, sir. You won’t.”
“Glad to hear it.”
A scattering of people were in the waiting room, the type who travelled by bus at night. Young people, mostly, some with high-quality backpacks and hiking boots, others in torn jeans and scuffed running shoes. No children or old folks. They glanced up, curious, when Evans came in, but once he left they quickly returned to their own business, most of which seemed to be poking at their little phones. Walt took a seat next to a young woman with long dreadlocks, multiple piercings, and a single tattoo of a red rose on her neck. He opened a side-pocket of his pack and took out his book. Twenty-five after eight. The bus was due at eight-thirty.
At eight forty-five, the clerk behind the counter called for their attention. Several of the waiting people muttered unhappily. This was not going to be good news. “Sorry, folks, but I just got word there’s been an accident on the highway outside of town. The bus can’t get through.”
Everyone groaned. “Bummer,” said the young woman next to Walt. “Did they say how long?” a man asked.
“Police and ambulance are there now. Sounds like it’s a mess. Might be a while. Sorry.”
“I’m not sitting here all night,” the dreadlocked woman said. “All right if I go for a walk?”
“Sure,” the clerk said. “Check back with me in an hour. Won’t be less than that.”
Some people got up and stretched and others stayed where they were to continue typing. Walt had no desire to be confined to this small room with the peeling paint and stained carpet if he didn’t have to.
There was still one thing he wanted to do before leaving Trafalgar, and now he had the time to do it. He got to his feet and hefted his backpack.
***
Lucky Smith spent the evening alone in the store. It was Tyler’s day off, and Flower had been feeling sick and gone home early. Lucky hadn’t been happy about that; she had preparations to do to get ready for Saturday, but after thirty years of running her own store, she’d learned to take things as they came.
Almost closing time. No customers had come in over the last half hour or so.
She glanced at the giant photograph filling the red brick wall behind the sales counter. Andy, Samwise, and Moonlight heading out onto the river in kayaks on a perfect summer morning. Good times, she thought with a smile.
Now, Andy was gone and she was with Paul. More good times coming, she was sure. She lifted first her right leg, and then her left, holding them in her hands behind her, one after the other, to give them a good stretch. She’d been sadly remiss in attending her yoga classes lately, and her muscles were starting to feel it.
She checked her watch. Coming up to nine. Closing time. She was about to flick the lock when the door flew open. She stepped back, letting her professional smile cross her face.
The smile died the moment she saw his expression. This was no customer.
“We’re closed.” Her voice broke.
“So you are.” Greasy black hair spilled from under a ball cap pulled low over his forehead. His eyes were small and dark, his skin sallow, his cheekbones shrunken.
“My husband will be here any minute to pick me up,” she said.
“No, Mrs. Smith, he won’t.” Without taking his eyes off her, he reached behind him and turned the lock, but he didn’t check that it had engaged. It hadn’t. The lock was old and sticky and you needed to pull the door hard toward you with one hand, while turning the latch with the other at the exact right moment. The man stood between her and the door. He wasn’t all that big, but menace radiated out from him and he seemed to fill the room. She glanced toward the window behind him. At that moment, the street outside was empty. She turned and bolted toward the back, hoping to get to her office, slam the door on him, and reach the phone. But he was fast and he was on her before she had taken more than a few steps. He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled, wrenching her off balance. She crashed into the book rack and grabbed at it, knowing she had to remain on her feet or she was lost. The shelf wobbled, books and magazines scattered. His hand was still in her hair, and a searing pain tore through her left side.
The inside of the store was lit, outside night was falling, the windows were uncovered. Surely someone would look in, see what was happening. As if he’d read her mind, he half dragged, half pushed her behind the counter. Lucky screamed as she fell to the floor face-first, and all she could see were scores and notches in the old wooden floorboards. His weight landed on her; he lifted her head by the hair and pounded her face into the floor. Pain and blood filled her nose and mouth. He grabbed the back of her skirt and pulled it up, jamming his knee between her sprawled legs. She tried to throw him off, but she could barely move.
The door opened, and the air changed as the sounds of the street rushed in. “I’m glad you’re still open, Lucky,” said a voice. “I’m leaving and I wanted…what the…?”
Lucky spat blood and screamed. At least, she tried to scream, it came out more like a low moan. But it was enough. She heard running footsteps cross the floor. Her attacker’s weight came off her as he jumped to his feet. She heard a grunt, a cry of pain, the sound of a body falling. Hands reached for her and she cried out.
“It’s okay, Lucky. I’m here. I’m calling for help. Don’t move.”
All she wanted was to curl up into a ball and cry. But who was speaking to her? Was it him? Trying to confuse her into giving up the fight? She struggled to roll over. Everything she had, everything she was, hurt. The room swayed, the white ceiling tiles overhead danced, the bright shop lights hurt her eyes.
“Mid-Kootenay Adventure Vacations on Front Street. Please. As fast as you can.” A face loomed over her. A man held the desk phone to his ear. He looked down at her and smiled. “Help’s coming, Lucky.”
She knew that face. She struggled to remember. Then she had it.
Walter Desmond.
She passed out.
Chapter Forty-three
Jack McMillan poured himself a healthy slug of Canadian Club. The bottle was almost empty, the last of his stash. He’d have to drive into town for another, but that he couldn’t do. He wouldn’t put it past Winters to have cops watching for him. Any excuse to pull him over would do, and he wasn’t sure how many drinks he’d already had.
He’d called Jeff Glendenning earlier. Left a message. No reply. He doubted he’d ever get one.
The dogs lay at his feet. Horace was asleep, his body twitching, his legs moving as he dreamed of his glory days, but Lenny
was awake, watching him. The sun had dipped behind the mountains and it would be dark soon. He didn’t get up to turn on the porch light. He didn’t mind the dark. He hadn’t had the radio or TV on all day. He didn’t mind the quiet, either.
A photograph lay on the table beside him. He picked it up, for about the hundredth time that day, and studied it.
Arlene.
This was the only picture he had of her. He’d taken it in her dress store, when she wasn’t looking. At first he’d cherished the picture. Brought it out at night to look at, to remember her when he couldn’t be with her. Now, he kept it to remember, all right, but to remember betrayal and abandonment. He’d loved her once. Whatever love was.
He thought about the last time they’d been together. He’d been working, and had popped into her shop on his rounds. She’d been alone, and gave him that big grin that meant she was up for anything. He locked the door, turned the sign to closed, and she led the way into the back room. He’d swept all the papers off her desk and they’d made love there. He hadn’t even bothered to take off his utility belt or uniform. She said she loved the feel of his gun against her hip as he moved, and it made things even more exciting if she could hear officers talking over his radio. When it was over, he left her straightening her clothes and tidying her hair and went back to the street.
He never much cared if anyone saw him leaving, although she wanted him to be discreet. He’d been after her for some time to leave that miserable prick of a husband of hers, but for some reason she was reluctant.
He hadn’t told dispatch he was leaving the car, and he simply got in and went back on patrol. He was driving down Pine Street a few minutes later, thinking about Arlene and how he might convince her to ask Walt for a divorce, when he saw a man slip out of an alley next to a house with a for sale sign on the snowy front lawn. The man was dressed in a heavy winter coat and thick gloves. It was January, nothing unusual about that, but the man started when he saw Jack’s car, pulled his scarf up around his ears and reversed direction, moving at a rapid clip.
Jack turned the car around and pulled up beside him. “Going somewhere, buddy?”
“Just out for a walk.”
“Cold day for a walk.”
“I like the cold.”
“I haven’t seen you around before.”
“Just passin’ through.” The guy was in his late thirties, early forties maybe, with a many-times broken nose, pockmarked skin, and an old but nasty scar beneath his right eye. That scar, Jack thought, looked like a knife cut. He wasn’t wearing a hat. His bullet-shaped head didn’t have a single strand of hair on it. A couple of spots of smeared and dried blood were on the top of his lip on the side of his nose. Idiot had been picking his nose, Jack thought.
He was about to ask for ID, and then decided not to bother. This looked like the sort of guy who’d object, citing his right to walk the streets if he wanted. Lucky for him, Jack didn’t feel like the hassle. He was in a good mood. He usually was after a tumble with Arlene.
He drove away without another word.
Ten minutes later he was back, answering a 911 call to the house with the for-sale sign.
Lenny barked, and Horace came instantly awake. Their ears stood up, but they soon relaxed. An elk maybe or a car further down the mountain. Not a man. The dogs wouldn’t go off guard if a person was approaching.
He hadn’t considered for a moment that Walt Desmond had killed Sophia D’Angelo. But he thought he’d have some fun with Desmond, make the guy sweat a little. Kibbens could be lazy sometimes; he was trying to get through the years until retirement with as little effort as possible. If a suspect was handed to him on a silver platter, he wasn’t likely to go to a heck of a lot of trouble looking for someone else.
Jack said nothing to Doug Kibbens or anyone else about the bald guy, but he kept his eye out for him. He didn’t intend to let a killer get away. Once he had him in custody, it would be easy enough to make the evidence fit. In the meantime, let Walt sweat a little. Let him know the power Jack had over him. It might even turn Arlene on, and make her realize Jack was the man she needed.
Jack had never been in Arlene’s home before, not until he and Doug came to question Walt. Arlene had given him a long seductive wink and run the tip of her tongue over her lips when Walt and Kibbens’ backs were turned.
That single gesture had sealed Walt’s fate. Jack realized he had a way to get rid of Arlene’s husband, permanently. He said nothing about the man with the bullet-head, and when he got the phone call from some guy in Fort Nelson who said he’d helped Walt with his flat tire, he kept mum about that too. He watched as Kibbens’ investigation cut corners, missed clues, didn’t identify possible witnesses.
Another realtor had shown the house that morning, and when questioned, she insisted she’d locked the door when she left. But her eyes had darted around the room as she spoke and she chewed at her lip. She wasn’t sure if she’d remembered to lock up or not, but wouldn’t say so, and Doug had simply written down what she said without noticing the hesitation. Jack hadn’t pointed that out to him, either.
It was obvious to Jack what had happened. The girl, Sophia, had arrived at the house for her viewing with Walt. Walt was delayed, so she tried the back door, found it unlocked, and went in by herself. The bullet-headed guy had seen her, and realizing the house was empty, followed. Jack had had a couple of run-ins with Sophia when she’d been in school. Drinking in the street, causing a disturbance, once at a teenage house party that got out of control. He’d been surprised when Kibbens reported that she’d been a polite, well-behaved young lady. You’d expect her parents to say that, but Kibbens hadn’t gone to any trouble to interview anyone else. He certainly hadn’t asked the hard questions that would get people to open up and spill what they knew.
Regardless of what happened with Walt, Jack had no intention of letting a killer walk free. He kept looking for the bullet-headed man, but there was not a sign of him, and none of his usual contacts had any knowledge of the guy. As the days passed, and then when Walt was arrested, Jack knew he’d played this game for too long, left it too late. He couldn’t come forward now and say, “Oh, golly. Guess what I just remembered.”
Walter Desmond was charged, tried, convicted. Jack had thought Arlene was putting up a good act as the faithful wife standing by her man. But it hadn’t been an act. After Walt’s arrest Jack had never spoken to her again. She refused to let him in when he called at their house. She hung up when she heard his voice on the phone. The shop and her house were sold. Arlene moved away, following Walter to Kingston, Ontario, where he’d been sent to the penitentiary. Jack had been watching when she left town for the last time. He’d been shocked at the change in her appearance. She’d aged ten years over the past few months.
He ran his finger down the side of her cheek in the photograph, the same way he’d liked to do in life. Cancer, some said. He had no doubt that was yet another lie: she’d killed herself out of guilt, just as Winters had said.
And then, one day, a couple of months after Walt had gone down, Jack spotted the bullet-headed man. He’d been visiting a buddy who lived up the valley near Winlaw, missed the turn, had to go a long way on the narrow road with crumbling edges before he could turn around. He found himself in a small clearing at the end of the old logging road. A rusting camping trailer sat alone among the trees, a motorbike parked out front. The bullet-headed man had been heading to the trailer. He glanced up at the sound of Jack’s car, but the sun was in his eyes, and Jack knew he wouldn’t be able to make out the face of the person in the car. He did a tight three-point turn and drove away.
He had no intention of taking the man on his own. He went to work the next morning, walked into Doug Kibbens’ office, and laid it all down. If he’d judged Kibbens wrong, he’d have to bluster his way out of it. But he hadn’t. Kibbens made all the right noises about reopening the case, telling the chief he’d mis
sed valuable evidence. Jack pointed out that missing evidence wasn’t the same as being too lazy to bother looking for it. Kibbens probably wouldn’t go to jail, but his career would be over. And that nice pension he was expecting in a couple of years along with it.
Jack didn’t mention Walter Desmond. He reminded Doug that nothing they could do would bring Sophia back. Why bring more pain to the parents by reopening the case if they could get rid of the killer on their own? Kibbens had caved, like Jack hoped he would, and agreed to “see what could be done” about the bullet-headed man.
And so they did.
They drove up the valley one pleasant afternoon in early fall when the leaves were beginning to turn and it was elk hunting season. They stopped for gas outside Winlaw. Jack waited in the car while Doug went inside to pay. Then they drove up the rutted and pitted road. When they got near the trailer, Doug stopped a few hundred meters short. Jack jumped out and jogged through the trees the rest of the way. Doug let several minutes pass before he continued to the clearing and stopped outside the trailer. He leaned on the horn and yelled out the window. The trailer door opened, the bullet-headed man stepped outside to see what was going on, and Jack brought him down with a single shot to the chest. He walked up to the man, and made sure the job was finished with a bullet to the head. He and Doug stuffed the body into a bag and threw it into the trunk of Doug’s car. While Doug sat outside, with his head in his hands, Jack went through the trailer. He found Sophia’s bracelet in a drawer, along with a few other mismatched pieces of jewelry.
“Looks like she might not have been the first.” Jack showed the items to Doug. “Seems like we’ve done a public service here. If you’d done things by the book, he’d have gone to jail, said he was real sorry, and some bleeding-heart parole board would have let him out in a couple of years. Better this way.” He slapped Doug on the back. Doug gave him a weak grin. “Right.”