“Can’t say I blame her. I looked into the mother, Miriam Lake. Alcoholic, depressive. At thirty she was deemed not criminally responsible in the death of her own child. The breakdowns looked legit. They put her in an institution.”
“Is she still there?”
“No. She was released a few years ago. ‘Not a danger to the community at large,’ was the decision. I’ve heard that one before. After that, she moved to New Brunswick and just dropped off the radar.”
“So she could be anywhere. Even here.”
“It’s possible.”
“Thanks for that. I’ll keep her on my list,” Dan said.
“Any other guesses who the woman might be?”
“I wondered if she might be connected to the surrogate, Sarah Nealon.”
Nick tore a piece of bread in half and lay half on his plate. “Why?”
“Sarah blames her pregnancy with Jeremy for her drug addiction, though that was just an excuse to ask for money. On top of that, she said her mother was looking forward to having a grandchild. What complicates things is that she wears an ankle monitor.”
“Pretty unbreakable as an alibi.”
“I know. I’m just trying to tie this older woman into the kidnapping. Sarah happens to be a convenient hook for now.”
“Anyone else?”
“There’s an ex–business partner who got angry with Eli — the biological father — over a bad business deal. Apparently death threats were uttered.”
“That’s Elroy James. The guy’s a biker. Comes from up north. Your territory, I believe.”
“So not a legitimate businessman? I called his number and his secretary said he was on his way to Hong Kong.”
“Secretary — right. Depends what you call legitimate, I guess. He operates a few clubs here and there. What happens on the side is what I’m interested in. He was up on a money laundering charge a couple years ago, but he got off. Slippery guy.”
“Which makes me wonder what sort of deal Eli had with him.”
Nick paused, bread in hand. “I guess it’s only natural to want your money back, but kidnapping’s a pretty drastic way to go about it. If you’re going to chase this guy down, be careful. He’s dangerous.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“That would be wise. Okay — so who else is there?”
“I keep coming back to Dennis Braithwaite. Maybe it’s just because I don’t like him. But he’s familiar with the Bruce. He has a cabin up there. He claims he was at the gym last Saturday evening, but he hasn’t got an alibi for Sunday after midnight.”
“The gym checked out, but it closes at 10 p.m. He could have driven up to the Bruce and been back here by Sunday morning.” He bit into the bread. “Speaking of, you never said how your trip went, besides the tampering-with-evidence part.”
“The farmer’s an interesting character. Your description of him doesn’t begin to cover it.” Dan thought back to his conversation with Horace. “He said if you really wanted someone to disappear you just had to get in a boat and head over to the U.S. The shorelines are thinly covered, especially at night. You could cross without anyone noticing. It sounded like he knew what he was talking about.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think it would explain why the Bruce OPP hasn’t found anything yet. Not to mention that their search-and-rescue resources are woefully inadequate, if I found the only clue.”
Nick shook his head. “They’re not inadequate — they’re inadequately funded. The Bruce is covered by a volunteer SAR team, apart from the fire department in Lion’s Head.” He shrugged. “You get what you pay for. That’s not to denigrate the volunteers. They’re well trained, just not full-time.”
“How much of a search did they do?”
“Moderate. Because there were no signs of violence, they assumed he wandered off on his own. It was a passive search using flares and whistles. It was followed by a fairly thorough search with boats trawling up and down the coastline. Still, nothing came of it. By the third day they rounded up a dozen volunteers and formed a grid search. They covered most of the peninsula in and around Lion’s Head.”
“No dogs or helicopters?”
“I think they had a couple of hounds out. The choppers would have been next. Then they got the report about the call from a kidnapper and things took on a new dimension.”
“So they just stopped looking for him?”
“Not entirely, but the search was less aggressive. It surprised me when you turned up the rosary. It’s odd they didn’t find it earlier.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Nick caught Dan’s eye. “You think it’s a plant?”
Dan took a long time to answer. “I’m not sure.”
“What purpose would that serve?”
“The obvious one: to throw suspicion on somebody other than the kidnappers. In this case, Marietta and her boyfriend Ramón.”
Ted came up to the table with a worried expression. “Guys, I’m afraid I have to leave. Elaine’s taking over for me.” He nodded to the bartender who gave them a quick wave of her hand.
“Anything wrong?” Nick asked.
“I just got a call. It’s my grandmother.” His voice caught. “Sounds like she might have had a stroke.”
Dan exchanged a look with Nick. “Anything we can do? Do you need a ride somewhere?”
Ted shook his head. “Thanks, I’ve got a cab coming. I’ll be okay. You stay and finish your meal.”
Nick watched him exit. “Hard luck. Kid could use a break.”
TWELVE
Straight Up, No Chaser
THE HELICOPTER GAINED ELEVATION faster than Dan expected, zooming upward like a scrap of paper caught in a twister. The blades whirled, grinding the air to smithereens, and then they were off to the Bruce. Clearly, this was a lot quicker than going by car, though Dan doubted Marietta and Ramón would have had the funds to rent a chopper in any case.
The officer who called made it clear that Dan’s co-operation now would mean a lot less hassle later if he took time to point out the cave where he’d found the rosary. Which was precisely what he intended to do. At the very least, it meant Nick would be less irritated with him.
They were four in total with the pilot: Dan, the police officers, and one of Jeremy’s large stuffed animals, a kangaroo that had been allotted its own seat. It leered at him through its protective wrap.
Conversation was limited due to the noise. The cops talked amongst themselves. Dan was tempted to start a conversation with the kangaroo but decided not to risk the officers’ ire. Instead, he contented himself with looking out the window, watching the cityscape shift from familiar to almost unrecognizable once they’d passed over the downtown core. His visual memory depended on a horizontal POV, he realized, not a vertical one from a thousand metres up.
Twisting to look out the other side, he knocked his foot against a metal support rod connected to the seat ahead. The whole contraption felt oddly jointed together as it jarred and shuddered. The 401 appeared below like a long black ribbon, joined by the 407 and the tangled offshoots of smaller highways leading in all directions. Light glinted, needles of brightness reflecting off lakes and rivers, only to be succeeded by patches of green and swaths of exposed earth.
Smoke rose in long plumes from lumber mills and incinerators, the lines of civilization following zigzagging shorelines, with the instinct to situate near water for ease of transportation or communication. Below, the grid of roadways divided a patchwork quilt of crops. The terrain looked increasingly hostile the further north they got, though Dan recalled that he and Sandy had had no compunction about exploring whatever they encountered. He often wondered what fate Sandy had endured — wolves or bears, possibly starvation. Any of which could turn out to be the fate of Jeremy Bentham, he reminded himself.
There were still many unanswered questions. Had someone woken the boy and enticed him out of his tent or had he simply wandered off and been taken by waiting opp
ortunists? The campsite was secluded and required a climb over the escarpment, so an unplanned kidnapping was unlikely. In any case, he hadn’t cried out. Despite being non-verbal, Janice said, Jeremy was more than capable of voicing his disapproval. Which could mean he wasn’t afraid of his captors. But if it was Ramón and Marietta, why bring him to the cave before taking him elsewhere? Nick had informed him that the police were now focusing their attention on the pair. So far, however, all they had was a rosary with a pair of initials on it. There was still no Jeremy. Maybe he’d risen from the cave on the third day and gone off on his own.
A thin trail of smoke floated outside the window, grey wisps buoyed up on a jet stream. Below, the chopper’s shadow passed fleetly over trees and rocks. Helicopters could reach around seven thousand metres before the air got too thin. Dan estimated they were flying less than half that, staying well within ground effect.
Looking down, he thought of his father, who’d spent his adult life riding the shaft between the earth’s surface and the vein of ore that provided his livelihood. Sudbury had been a mining boomtown back then, a place of hard work, with only the relief of a Saturday night to break up the monotony. It had been a man’s world down there, just as it was a man’s world up here in the helicopter.
An hour later they were descending. Dan watched the terrain change from low-lying scrub to forested mountains after a brief foray over open water until they touched down near the field where he’d parked while exploring the caves. The blades whirred and slowed as the wind threw everything into turmoil, then came to rest and let it all snap back to life.
They were met by the handler, a tall thin officer with a self-important demeanour. Dan could imagine him running alongside his hounds. The dogs were noisy, excited by the prospect of a chase. The cops introduced themselves before turning to Dan. They joked with one another, but their exchanges with him were humourless. Closing ranks. As an outsider, he was a threat. He would let Nick know, once his rancour died down, that cops treated civilians the way he claimed civilians treated cops: with a scarcely disguised condescension.
No doubt they saw him as a guy who would prefer to do what they did had he made the grade. A wannabe cop. Or could they sense that he’d never want to be part of their insider club? What he lacked wasn’t ability, but the instinct to conform. He looked them over. Navy pants and jackets, square-toe boots. Uniform. Meaning same. Erasing individuality and encouraging conformity. No, Dan couldn’t do that. He sometimes wondered how Nick put his true identity aside each day when he went out the door and became a police officer. But then Nick marched to his own drum.
Dan took them through the undergrowth, sure-footed where they were cautious, uphill and along the trails he’d followed till they came to the cave. It wasn’t till he turned to look back that he realized he had a clear sightline to Horace McLean’s farm.
“Are you sure this is the right one, sir?” the handler asked, as though he might be smart enough to find a clue they had missed but not smart enough to recognize one cave from another forty-eight hours later.
“I’m sure.”
The cop’s expression said he wasn’t willing to take his word for it. “Can you show us where you found the evidence?”
“Yes, no problem,” Dan said, already slipping down into the crevice where a chill blotted out the sun and the day’s warmth.
Once Dan and the other cop were in place, the handler followed with his hounds. The dogs moved in a slow frenzy, sniffing the air and baying while scampering unsteadily over the rocks. The sound was almost painful as they took their bearings before clambering back out again.
Outside they rushed in circles, noses to the ground, seemingly at a loss as their handler held out the rosary, encouraging them to find the invisible trail that would take them to where the kidnappers had gone. But each time they stopped dead. It was a short paragraph in a story that didn’t continue beyond that page.
When the handler let them sniff Jeremy’s kangaroo, however, suddenly they were decisive, baying and bounding over the rocks toward the campsite. The handler followed as the dogs fixated on the trail. When he switched back to the rosary, it was as if the scent had vanished.
“They’re not finding the girl,” one of the cops told Dan. “But the kid was here for sure. They don’t seem to have a problem with that at all.”
“It’s definitely her scent on the rosary,” Dan said. “I can guarantee she was the last person who touched it. I made sure of that.”
They followed the dogs down to the water, where Janice and Ashley’s tent had been pitched alongside Jeremy’s. Yellow tape fluttered between the trees. Blackened ash showed the remains of a fire. A plastic Big Belch cup lay on its side, half melted, yellow and pink stripes running together as though two roads had converged. Dan thought of the fire pit where he and his father had toasted marshmallows.
For a moment he felt a stab of anger against his father, followed by an immediate twinge of regret thinking of how Ked had returned to Centre Island for the first time after eight years. At least Stuart Sharp had attempted some sort of communion between father and son and their shared past, as pathetic as that had been.
They headed back to the cave with the hounds and started over again, but the results were the same. The dogs fixated on Jeremy’s scent; Marietta’s held no interest for them. The ground was slightly damp. It had rained since Jeremy’s disappearance. Then again, dogs were supposed to be able to follow a trail even after torrential downpours.
“Could something have erased the scent? Or disguised it?” Dan asked, thinking of the empty shoeboxes outside Marietta’s door. “Like new footwear?”
The handler shrugged. “It would take more than that. It might confuse them a bit to have too many different people coming through here, but if they can’t find the girl’s scent then that’s because she was never here. Smell is like an elixir for them. Straight up, no chaser.”
Giving the dogs freedom to run brought them no closer to an answer. They found plenty to sniff and ponder, but Jeremy’s scent was all they could fasten onto that afternoon. Again and again it led them back to the campsite, coming and going in both directions.
THIRTEEN
Cagey
NICK SAT AT DAN’S kitchen table. His fingers twitched as he gripped his coffee cup. He’d just finished his night shift and was reading over a copy of the police report Lydia had given him to be handled “with utmost discretion.”
“In other words, I’m supposed to let you know what’s in it without telling her I did,” he said, looking up at Dan.
Dan held out a hand. “So let me see it.”
“Not so fast,” Nick said. “I can’t just hand it over to you. Maybe you overheard me reading it.” He ran his eyes over the first page. “Marietta Valverde says she gave the rosary to the boy as a keepsake when she was fired.” He eyed Dan. “Conclusion: He left it in the cave. She was never there.” He set the file on the table and shook his head. “You see, this is why you need to leave these things to the police. You showed her the rosary and she immediately began to concoct an explanation for why it was there.”
“And you think it would have been different if a police officer asked her first?”
Nick watched him warily. “What are you getting at?”
Dan shrugged. “It seems to me a police officer would have been looking for evidence that proved her guilt. I was just asking a question without anticipating an answer.”
“And the difference?”
“The difference is I saw two people who were very uncomfortable with what I showed them even though I had no power over them. They may not have been in that cave, but I guarantee they know something about it, whereas the police saw two people who were afraid of their authority, but have now concluded based on the evidence of a couple of dogs that they can’t be guilty.”
“So you still think they are?”
“I told you my first thought was that the rosary seemed like a plant. But planted by whom and for what purpose
?”
“Maybe they planned the kidnapping but didn’t execute it in person and now a third person is trying to double-cross them.”
“That’s one possible explanation. I’d hang onto that theory for the time being, but I’d still look for another explanation.”
Nick frowned. “Like what?”
“I think the boy stole the rosary from Marietta and lost it in the cave. Because clearly, from what the dogs showed us, he was there and she wasn’t. That’s why she was surprised to see it. He may also have stolen the things that went missing from the house before Janice fired Marietta.”
“Why do you think that?”
“When I searched his bedroom, I found a locket hidden under some shirts in his closet. Pretty and shiny, but not expensive. Janice said it was hers and that it had been missing for a month. Ergo, Jeremy stole it.”
“Then why not just say that? Why did the nanny tell the police she gave it to the kid?”
“Two reasons: one, because she loves that kid and wants to protect him. Two, because in the Philippines you learn you can’t always trust the police. Even if she’s lying, there may still be a rational explanation for where the rosary was found. Okay, sure. The kid stole it and the kid dropped it. I can buy that. But she was terrified when I showed it to her even before I said where I found it. She knows something. What about their phone records?”
Nick nodded. “They check out. Same call, same time every week to a sister in Manila. No surprise.”
“Exactly my point. If you wanted to concoct an alibi, you’d plan a crime for around that time to make sure you could prove where you were if anyone looked into it. The rosary is the only thing telling us otherwise. On the other hand, Dennis Braithwaite checked into his gym on Saturday evening, but then has no alibi for the rest of the weekend. It’s not that all the others have iron-clad alibis, but his seems especially loose.”
“What do you make of him?”
“On the surface, he’s an up-and-coming exec with promotion written all over him. He’s ambitious and gets a check mark for being a good corporate citizen.” Dan shrugged. “On the other hand, he says he’s over the wife even though he keeps not one but two pictures of her on his desk. Happy memories? Sure, why not. This despite the fact that he refused to help pay for her son’s medical treatment.”
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