by Dale Mayer
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “I was just leaving.”
She took a long slow deep breath. “The case with the suicides,” she said, “we just managed to speak with the woman who has been tormenting Simon.”
His eyebrows shot up. “She didn’t jump?”
She shook her head. “No, but now I have her laptop. She’s being pressured to jump, blackmailed in a way. He’s threatening to unleash a false rumor that she murdered her younger sister, who choked to death, according to the autopsy report. But the idea that such a terrible lie would be made known, exposing her as a murderer,” she said, “was too much. She worries it would kill her parents, who are already struggling so hard over the loss of her sister. She’s already weak and vulnerable and was easily victimized.”
Rodney said, “Wow, that’s a terrible move.”
“This may match with the last picture the instigator sent me, with the unisex tennis shoes,” she said. “Better than that, she said that every time she’s been on the bridge, it’s like this guy was watching her.”
“Do you believe it?” Rodney asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I want to see if I can verify anything. I do have a record of when she was on the bridge.”
“Ah,” he said, “I can run through the video cameras to confirm that and see if we can pick out this guy.”
“Perfect,” she said, “because, if we can get this guy tonight, maybe we can stop another person from dying.”
“That’s huge that you managed to find and to talk to her,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “It was driving Simon absolutely batty.”
“Well, then that’s another victim who might be saved through all this psychic stuff.”
She shot Rodney a sharp look, but he was already headed to the computers and turning on all the monitors.
As Colby walked in, he asked, “I was just about to leave. What’s going on? You guys look like something’s breaking.”
She quickly explained, and he stared at her. “You know that this guy could be watching her from a long way off.”
“That’s possible,” she said, then hesitated. “But how would that be? How would he know what she’s doing?”
“Well, that’s what I mean,” he said. “What if he’s tracking her somehow? What if he’s tracking her phone or—” He stopped, frowned, and said, “What if he’s just doing simple surveillance outside her house. Maybe he sends a message and pushes her, then manages to be outside her place and watches. Maybe that’s part of the thrill for him. If he can’t actually kill somebody, he can do it by remote control.”
She winced at that phrase because that was a horrible thought. Of course that’s what he had been doing. He’d been pushing other people to kill themselves, which gave him satisfaction somehow. “I don’t know,” she said, “but we’ll need to see what we’ve got for cameras around her place.” She quickly punched in the address she’d just come from and said, “We’ve got several video cameras in the area. Both street cameras and the parking lot.”
“Start with the parking lot,” Colby said. “It’ll be the same vehicle every time.”
“Yeah, but they’ll all be the same vehicle,” she muttered. “They’ll live there.”
“Then run them and eliminate all the license plates registered to that address. Hang on,” he said. “I’ll bring over one of the computer forensic techs to help you.” With that, he disappeared.
When Kate turned around ten minutes later, Bronwyn was walking in. “Wow,” Kate said. “When you get pulled, you get pulled. I’m so glad you’re here. We just had a break on the jumpers, and I need help on the street cams. We’re trying to see if the same vehicle was there on the nights that Mali went to the bridge. He knows somehow that she’s there, and he’s got to be following her, is there waiting for her, or he has some other way to track her.”
“Meaning, she thinks she’s being followed.”
“Not exactly. It’s not that she thinks she’s being followed per se, but she feels like she’s being watched.”
“Interesting,” Bronwyn muttered. “Let me take a look.”
It was a systematically slow and laborious process as they went through the dates and times in question. Not until the fourth visit at the bridge by Mali did Kate find something. “I’ve got this little red truck that comes and goes,” she said, tapping the screen. “I swear I’ve seen it time and time again. Can you get me the address on that license plate?” she asked the analyst.
When Kate reeled it off, Bronwyn ran it through and brought it up on the screen. “It’s not registered at the apartment, and here’s the driver’s license on that person.”
There, on the screen, was the driver’s license of the person in the red truck.
“Look at that. We’ve got a Kenneth Walker.” Kate punched in his address and said, “He has an address near the university.”
“That’s a long way for him to go for something like this,” Bronwyn said, shooting that down.
“He takes his time, and he sets it up though. He’s local enough to go to any of these places and watch.”
“Do you think the watching is the main part?” Bronwyn asked.
“No, I think concluding this is. He may not know if his victims have all done what he asked them to do, but I think, in this case, he can check the obituaries, check with the police, or something.”
“And we won’t really get a handle on that until we do more investigation. And, of course, time is at a premium.”
“Okay,” Colby said, “but you’ve got this girl safe, right?”
Kate frowned. “Initially she wouldn’t let us come in, and she didn’t want anybody with her,” she said, “but she was definitely in a different mind-set once we talked.”
“Of course, but she’s vulnerable though”—Colby arched one eyebrow—“and, if this guy got to her somehow …”
Kate added, “I thought for sure she’d be okay because now she seemed to be quite aware that this online stalker’s targeting multiple people, and we were on to him.”
“Maybe,” Bronwyn said, doubt evidently in her tone.
Kate pulled out her phone and sent Simon a text. When there was no answer, she frowned and said, “Crap, now Simon isn’t answering.”
“Simon?” Bronwyn asked.
Kate didn’t even bother with a reply but looked over at Rodney and saw he was busy screening video too. “Rodney, have you seen a little red truck anywhere around the bridge?”
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s often in the pull out.”
“Interesting,” she muttered. “What we need to know is if this guy’s a camera buff or something.”
“I’m pulling everything I can on him,” Bronwyn said. “He’s got a couple parking tickets and a speeding ticket out in Richmond.”
“When was that?” Kate asked.
Bronwyn looked at her and said, “Is there a date you’re interested in?”
Kate brought up her spreadsheets and said, “Well, there was a jumper in that area on the seventeenth.”
“Okay, let me check.” Bronwyn whistled. “And that’s when he got the ticket.”
“Wow, seriously?”
“Yeah, so we can place him in the same area on that date too.”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “You know what? We might have someone here as a viable suspect. I sure hope so. This has been driving me nuts.”
“Well, not just you, although you’re the only one who thought it was a problem.”
“No, Simon did,” she said. “He’s the one who pushed me in that direction.”
“Oh,” Bronwyn said, “that Simon.”
Kate glared at her. “What does that mean?”
Bronwyn raised her hands. “Nothing,” she said, “but it sounds like this guy will be a huge help in closing cases.”
“Trouble is, he doesn’t get to pick the cases,” Kate said, “so just because he says it’s a case, that doesn’t mean that we’re all that concerned.”
“But aiding and abetting is.”
“But is that what this is?” Bronwyn asked.
“Come on,” Rodney said beside her. “That makes me think of assisted suicide. This is something entirely different.”
“Oh no, that’s true. Maybe just call him a stalker for now. I don’t even know what charge we’ll be looking at here—manslaughter, homicide, what?”
“It would be manslaughter or homicide most likely, no hands-on,” Rodney offered, “yet inciting to commit suicide through threats.”
“Yeah”—Kate shook her head—“the prosecutors will have a heyday with it.”
“Give them something solid, and they’ll go to bat for you. But, if we don’t, they’ll be cursing your name.”
Kate winced at that because it was true. “Still, we’ve got to do what we can do,” she said. “These people are being tortured into hurling themselves off a bridge.”
“Well, I got a little bit more for you,” Bronwyn said. “Kenneth Walker has never been married. His parents are local Vancouverites, as are his grandparents. He’s currently”—she clicked on a few pages—“alone. He had a twin brother.”
“Oh,” Kate said, turning to look at Bronwyn, “that can often confuse DNA.”
“Not in this case. He committed suicide.”
“Jesus. How long ago?”
“About eighteen months ago.”
She stopped and stared. “His brother committed suicide. That is no coincidence.”
Bronwyn groaned. “This is awful, but what’s the motive there anyway?”
“Well, the problem is, we have to look into whether or not he’s responsible for the brother’s suicide,” Rodney said. “That’s the first place to start, and maybe it was the trigger.”
“Maybe because his brother is gone, so he wants other people to go too?” Bronwyn asked. “I don’t get that.”
“Or maybe, If I can’t have my brother, no one can have you either?” Kate suggested.
“God only knows,” Rodney said, “but you can bet your ass something will be there. The problem will be prying it out of him to get that motive. And that motive will be very important.”
“It’ll be there,” Bronwyn said. “We just don’t always know what the hell it’ll be. Or how crazy these guys are. Most of the time they don’t explain anything, and we have to figure it out.”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “Like the drive-by guy. But now that we have an address, we need to go talk to this Kenneth Walker guy pronto.” She pulled out her phone and said, “I wish Simon would answer.”
“Any reason he wouldn’t?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, he doesn’t take his phone in the shower, and he’s had a hell of a long day, so that would be one option.”
“And what would be the worst option?” Rodney asked, standing up beside her.
“Is that the damn woman has connected with him again, and she’s on her way to the bridge,” she said quietly.
At that, Bronwyn winced and said, “I don’t want to be him.”
“Neither do I,” Kate said. “It’s hard enough being me without all that baggage.” Kate phoned him again and got nothing. “We can’t wait, Rodney. Let’s go find this guy.”
“If he’s even home.”
“Okay, well, if he’s not,” she said, “we’ll go to the bridge because you can bet that he’s out checking on one of his subjects.”
“You think he’s done this more than once?” Bronwyn asked.
“Oh hell yes, I know so,” she said, “at least I’m hoping it’s only one guy. We know that David was targeted as well.”
“The guy’s laptop I’ve been looking into,” Bronwyn said, looking up.
Kate nodded. “Yes.”
“And that is a friend of Simon’s, which would explain how and why he ended up connected to this case then. There’s almost always a personal connection,” Rodney said in a knowing tone.
“Maybe,” Kate said, “I don’t know the details on something like that.”
“Well, think about it because chances are good that’s why this is all coming down now. You may need to rein Simon back in again. If he finds out that this guy is responsible for his friend’s death, can you really trust how he’ll react?”
She thought about that, as she raced out to the car, because the answer was no. Rodney was at her heels. Of course she didn’t trust how Simon would react. She had no idea how he would react under all this pressure. But it was something she couldn’t deal with right now, since she couldn’t even get him on the phone.
With Rodney driving, they pulled up to University Boulevard and into the residential area, before the entrance to the university.
“Is this the place?” Kate asked.
“Yeah. I got a text from Bronwyn. Walker’s mother was a professor and died recently.”
“What did she teach?”
“Psychology or something, and she was counselor, specializing in suicide and grief.”
Kate shook her head at that. “What the hell? We just keep getting suicides popping up all over the place in this mess.”
“That’s good,” Rodney said. “That brings us a lot of connections here.”
“I know. I know,” she said. “I just feel like we’re not in time.”
“In time for what?”
She shook her head and raced up the stairs of a beautiful townhome. She knocked on the door and heard only a hollowness behind it. She looked over at Rodney. “Okay, he’s not home. Do you see the red truck anywhere? What do you want to bet he’s not here?”
Then one of the neighbors popped out and said, “Hey, if you looking for him, he left about an hour ago.”
“Did he?” she said. “I guess you don’t really know where he went though, huh?”
“Well, honestly, ever since his mom took her life, he’s been pretty morose. Depressed, you know? I told him to get some help, and he just shrugged and said nobody really understood. I hope you find him,” he said. “He’s a really nice guy.”
“Did you say his mother committed suicide?” she asked, incredulous.
“Yeah, I thought that’s what he said.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay, I’d heard it was his brother.”
“Apparently, well, his brother did too, and I think it was too much for his mom. Anyway, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Do you know how long he’s lived here?”
“A while I think, but I don’t really know.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I’m surprised he’s still here.”
“She didn’t quite do the job. … That was the problem. She was in the hospital for quite a while, with a broken neck, but she didn’t survive.”
“Thanks.” Kate turned and bolted down the stairs.
Leaving the guy staring after them blindly, Rodney caught up with her and said, “What the hell did that just do?”
“That’s the trigger. She was fine, and then she wasn’t. As in, there was hope that she would pull through, but then she died. What do you want to bet she died when we’ve got the first one going through this cycle?”
“Wait, but he’s been on this kick for years online.”
“Yes, he’s been on the chats for years, and he was really positive, remember? And then it turned not so positive.”
“So you’re saying that he soured.”
“He soured, and then he ended up turning into this version of himself, dealing with his own grief, his own problems, and probably feeling like nothing was worth it. And that absolutely everything would go wrong. But instead of going alone and taking his own life, he would make sure that he took the others with him.”
“So you think that he is suicidal now?” He swore. “Nothing from Simon?”
“No,” she snapped. “I’ll try him again.”
As he drove down toward the bridge, Rodney said, “You know
that we could be heading to the wrong bridge.”
“I know,” she said. “I know. I know. I know. I can only tell you what I feel.”
He looked at her, raising his eyebrows.
She shrugged. “Don’t even start with me.”
“Hey, maybe some of Simon’s sixth sense is rubbing off on you. We could have the best damn department in the place.”
“Too often it’s likely to be the wrong path, or the timing would be all wrong—or the interpretation,” she snapped.
“I forgot how negative you were,” he said, with the chuckle.
“How could you?” she said. “It’s still me.”
“Well, there’s that.”
She tried Simon again and let it just ring. Mentally she sent out a message. Dear God, please don’t. Don’t be heading back down there.
But, in her heart of hearts, she knew that’s exactly where he was. She looked over at Rodney. “Drive,” she said. “Drive as if a life depends on it because, in this case, I’m pretty sure it does.”
*
Simon stared for the tenth time at the phone, knowing it would be Kate. But he didn’t dare stop, he was already on his way back down to Lions Gate Bridge, his heart slamming against his chest and his feet moving on their own accord. He had called Mali several times, but she wasn’t answering. He kept sending her texts, as he raced toward the bridge.
Stay home, Mali.
Please, just stay home.
Don’t do this.
But he knew that she was out there, that she was running for the bridge. And, dear God, this time it would be bad. When he finally couldn’t stand it anymore, he phoned Kate. “She’s back at the bridge,” he said in a rush. “I’m almost there.”
“So are we,” she said, “because the guy we were after, he’s not home.”
“You think he’s down there too?” he said in alarm. “Oh, God. I wouldn’t be at all surprised. This is crunch time. I don’t know where he’s hiding or what he’s done in order to get her there. But chances are, he’s got some final push, and it’ll be happening right now.”
“We have to stop this guy before he goes underground or jumps himself. Both his brother and mother committed suicide.”
“No argument there,” he said. “And that could trigger anyone.”