They walked in silence toward the vast muddy field that had been turned into a jam-packed parking lot for this fall fair weekend, no longer holding hands, and he kept an eye out for the native girl and the man who followed her, both long gone, leaving nothing to chase but a really bad feeling.
One
February Callout
DAVID LEITH BROUGHT the phone to his ear, standing in his living room by the big picture window, looking out at the winter scenery. Not his personal phone but his work phone, the police-issue BlackBerry, and that meant this Sunday, his day off, was probably shot.
“Leith,” he answered. And sighed, and listened, and continued to watch the falling snow.
He liked snow — maybe even loved it. As a boy he had skated through it, slid on it, built with it. He’d grown up and joined the RCMP and been bumped west from Saskatchewan to Alberta’s Slave Lake, then farther west to B.C.’s Fort St. John, and finally all the way to the coast, to this rugged little city of Prince Rupert. He’d got married, settled down, and until this year had continued to be one with the snow. Till now it represented fun to him, and beauty, one spoke in the great wheel of life. There was nothing like standing out there first thing in the morning, dazzled by a world cleansed in white, and feeling one with nature.
“Be there in ten,” he said, and disconnected.
Snow in Prince Rupert didn’t hit hard, as it did inland, this being the oceanic climate, and usually melted as it hit the ground, but now and then there was a great dump of the stuff, and it stuck. This last dump was sticking, and it was no longer fun or beautiful to Leith. These days each new snowfall just pissed him off, the way it found its way into his boots and behind his collar and brought him crashing to the ground from time to time as he forged to work and forged out on investigations and forged out to the supermarket and forged home again. Snow tracked into the home with all the other stresses of the day and dirtied the carpet and made Alison bitchy.
No, that wasn’t fair. She was never bitchy, no matter how dirty the carpet got or how low their spirits fell. She would go mute, though, which only made him louder. They had never argued in the Februaries of their younger years, and it worried him that something had gone so badly off the rails — and how bad exactly would it get? Maybe having a child too late in life had upset the balance. Leith was forty-four, Alison thirty-eight, and Izzy was just turning two, and had morphed not into cuteness but into a tiny, blond-ringletted monster with powerful lungs. Ear-splitting lungs. Alison blamed it on the Terrible Twos. Leith blamed it on the species and dreaded the next twenty years.
So this call from the office at midday on this, his first day off in a while, didn’t bother him as much as he made out it did. He cursed aloud and told Alison he had to go out. She didn’t seem disappointed. He pulled on soft-shell, then outer jacket, then sat on the foyer bench to lace up the waterproof boots. “Bye-bye-bye,” he said and stooped toward Isabelle where she stood staring up at him on the dirty grey stretch of hallway carpet. She raised a threatening fist and spoke in tongues. Alison gathered the child up and didn’t bother to see him off on the doorstep where she used to stand smiling, back when they were in love.
At noon, Prince Rupert seemed steeped in dusk. He drove to the station, parked underground, walked up into the stuffy over-lit main, and on down to Phil Prentice’s office, where he found his boss on his feet, speaking to a stranger. The stranger wore glasses, a black suit, white shirt, no tie. He was bigger than the average cop, and bulky, kind of bear-shaped, head ducked down as if he was self-conscious about his height. He looked to be about Leith’s age, maybe a year or two younger.
He was vaguely familiar, too, like Leith had seen him somewhere recently. Maybe on TV? A journalist? Prentice made introductions. “Mike, this is my main man, Constable Dave Leith. A real get-it-done guy.”
The stranger looked pleased, shook Leith’s hand, and said, “Sergeant Mike Bosko, up from North Van for the border security conference. How ya doin’?”
“Good, thanks,” Leith said. A big man himself, he stood nearly eye-to-eye with the stranger, who he now in fact recognized. Couple nights ago Mike Bosko had been up at the podium at the Highliner Inn, talking fluidly about something important. Exactly what, Leith couldn’t say, even after taking notes. “Heard your talk, sir. Amazing stuff.”
“Amazing what we got accomplished in three days,” Bosko said with a smile. Too smart, too self-possessed, and thankfully soon to be gone, Leith thought. He turned to Prentice to ask why the call-in on his day off.
“Yes, sorry about that,” Prentice said. “Another girl’s gone missing, inland.”
“Hell, no. Where and when? Same place?”
“The Hazeltons. Reported missing last night.”
The Hazeltons lay in the colder, snowier interior of the province, northeast of Rupert by a good four hours’ drive. As Leith understood it, the Hazeltons were composed of Old Hazelton, New Hazelton, and South Hazelton, and the smaller offshoots of Kispiox and Two Mile. Of course that four-hour drive could stretch into eight in a blizzard. He took the bulletin Prentice had thrust at him and looked it over, a photo of a young woman with all the stats typed up below, which he now scanned. “It’s out of his range,” he said, and already felt the ice receding from his veins. The killer he’d been hunting for two years had centred his hits around the Terrace area, so far, which sat midway on the highway between Rupert and the Hazeltons.
“Sure, but what’s a few miles for a man with a truck?” Prentice said. “Thing is, her vehicle was located up on a logging road, Dave.”
A logging road in the winter was bad at best. Linked to the MO of a serial killer, it was dismal. Leith looked at the bulletin again, photograph of a young woman with a dazzling smile, warm eyes, a tumble of glossy brown hair. The image was professionally lit, more a publicity head shot than something out of a family album. The stats said she was twenty-two. The name, Kiera Rilkoff, rang a distant bell. “She’s a bit of a celebrity? A singer?”
Prentice nodded and said for Bosko’s benefit, “She’s quite the talent, too. Our local pride and joy. My daughters are huge fans. Country and western stuff, I think.”
Leith had learned not to take many of Prentice’s adjectives at face value. Like huge. If asked, those daughters would probably agree that, yeah, Kiera’s pretty good, why?
“Oh, sure, the Rockabilly Princess,” Bosko said, snapping his fingers. “There was a piece on grassroots music on CBC Radio just before Christmas. She gave a short, man-on-the-street type interview, and they played a track from her first CD. Self-produced, I think. She seemed excited about the future of the band, and they had a second CD coming out. Did it ever happen?”
“No, I think it got nixed for some reason.”
Bosko didn’t look surprised, Leith noticed, and then it clicked that he’d actually seen the singer play, which was one better than hearing her on the radio. “I caught her act at last summer’s Seafest,” he said. The event filled his mind, the sunshine and crowds, the barbecue aromas, little Izzy on his shoulders gripping his hair and trying to knock off his sunglasses. He’d been more interested in the food than the music, frankly, but he’d stopped to watch the pretty girl on centre stage. The music itself was fairly run-of-the-mill country yowling, as he recalled, and he hadn’t stopped for long.
He shook his head, handing the bulletin back to Prentice. “She’s not victim four. He wouldn’t go for a celebrity. What’s with her vehicle?”
“Parked near a trailhead on Kispiox Mountain,” Prentice said. “They got a spare key up there and checked. Engine wouldn’t turn over.”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“No news yet on that yet.”
“Must be deep snow up there. Any tracks?”
“Mess of tracks, Giroux tells me. Terrace sent two Ident guys over for a look. Should be there by now. Problem is family and friends went tramping about bef
ore we were brought in. Doubtful there’s anything left.”
A trashed crime scene was a terrible beginning, and already Leith knew this was going to end up bad. Unless she was incredibly inconsiderate, the girl hadn’t caught a ride with somebody, hadn’t met up with friends, wasn’t simply out having too much fun to call home.
“Why d’you say he wouldn’t go for a celebrity, Dave?” Bosko asked.
The “he” they all spoke of was the so-called Pickup Killer, as dubbed by the press because it was about all the police had on him so far, that he drove a pickup. And even that was little more than circumstantial say-so. Leith eyed the stranger, not keen on this first-name-basis thing — it’s Leith to you, buddy — let alone case-note sharing. But Prentice wasn’t objecting, so Leith pulled in his shoulders and gave the stranger the abridged version, just short of rude. “His last two victims were pretty well loners, down-and-outers, which buys him time. Grabbing Kiera is not only way out of his abduction territory — it’s not his style. This is something else altogether, and that means it’s not my file, Phil, and I’m going home. Bye.”
His last few words were directed at Prentice while stepping across the threshold, but Prentice sharply called him back into the room. “It happened in the Hazeltons, where for all we know he’s based,” Prentice said. “What about the logging road? It’s a link we can’t ignore, and right or wrong, we need you out there, if only to sign off on a no-go.” To Bosko he explained more pleasantly, “Dave heads up the Pickup task force. He’s immersed like nobody else. If there’s one incriminating fibre to be found, he’ll find it.”
Leith stood embarrassed, for however immersed he might be and whatever responsibilities he shouldered, he wasn’t much of a cop, as his rank pointed out. At his age he hadn’t even made corporal. Couldn’t pass the exams, couldn’t make an impression on those who mattered. He lacked some quality, elusive as charisma. Maybe it was just inherent laziness or a basically crappy IQ, but he wasn’t well read (though he tried). Or well travelled (though he dreamed). He wasn’t suave, wasn’t patient, wasn’t lovable. Worst of all, he wasn’t intuitive.
If one word could sum him up, it was dogged.
His personal phone buzzed, and he glanced at it, a coolish text from Alison telling him to pick up another bag of sidewalk salt, and he reflected that a few days away from home might not be so bad. “Right,” he told Prentice. “I’ll go pack. Call Giroux and tell her I’ll be on the road in an hour. ETA, no idea.”
He was nodding goodbye to the stranger Bosko, but Bosko wasn’t done irritating him and said, “Hold on a sec, Dave. I’ve run this by Phil already, and so long as it’s fine with you, it’s fine with him. I’m wondering if you’d mind if I rode along with you.”
“Rode along? To where? The airport? The airport’s that way.”
“New Hazelton. From there I could catch the next available sheriff run to Prince George and hop a plane. Wouldn’t mind seeing the interior up close. Never really get the chance. Always flying over.” He smiled.
The room’s windows looking out to sea were solid grey but for the white bombardments of sleet, and Leith could hear the muted howl of February pressing against the double-glazed window. The roads would be murder, the view obscured by haze, and it wasn’t much of a view anyway, a monotony of ice-rimed trees with the occasional glimpse of ice-jammed river.
He tried to send the stranger a fuck-off message with his eyes. “It’s a hell of a long drive, this time of year. Hours. And in this weather you won’t see much but taillights. It’ll be slow going. Gruelling.”
“For once in my life, Dave, I’ve got time.”
Leith shrugged and glowered. “Okay, then. Meet back here in forty minutes?”
“Absolutely.”
The only thing worse than a winter drive to the Hazeltons, Leith reflected as he made his way to the parkade, was a long winter drive to the Hazeltons with a man who answered grim propositions with absolutely. Damn.
* * *
“Thing is, I don’t have to be back at the office till the end of the month,” Bosko explained, settled next to Leith in the passenger seat, his specs reflecting the oncoming headlights. Prince Rupert was behind them now at two thirty, and they hadn’t yet sped up to highway limits. “The conference wrapped up quicker than we expected, as you know, which opened up this great window of time for me, a whole week, and my first impulse was to call up admin right away and top it up. But then I got to thinking. I walked down to the harbour, watched the waves crashing in, and it occurred to me how little I know of these parts, and how I wouldn’t mind some eyes-on exploration. I’ve called B.C. home for the last decade, yet I haven’t driven north of Cache Creek, would you believe?”
“Huh,” Leith said.
“And I’m not the only one. I don’t know how many superior officers I’ve talked to down on the coast who’ve seen Disneyland but never drove the highways of B.C. It becomes a problem when those who run the show forget about the practicalities of working under conditions such as you guys face on a daily basis. I’m stating the obvious, you’d think, but there’s a genuine disconnect, Dave. There’s real time and distance involved. It’s not like moving the cursor across Google Earth. It’s distance you can feel in the small of your back.” He grinned, watched the cruddy snow-plastered trees pass for a while, and said, “So what do you know of Kiera Rilkoff?”
Leith could sum up what he knew of the missing girl on three fingers. She was attractive, popular among the local youngsters, and had aspirations. He said as much, padding it out with extra words, trying to sound smart, feeling Bosko’s eyes on him.
After a beat Bosko said, “The track they played on the radio back in November was pretty rough on the ears. By the sound of it, I’d say it was done up in a home studio, and not too well. Kiera promised their upcoming CD would be a professional burn, that they had sunk money into it, and maybe had acquired an agent, I think she said. Or was it a manager? Does that mean anything to you?”
“I haven’t been following her career,” Leith admitted. “Sorry.”
“No, and unfortunately I wasn’t really listening at the time,” Bosko said. “But if anyone’s interested, it can probably be pulled from the archives.”
Who needs archives when you have the amazing Bosko’s hi-fidelity recall, Leith thought enviously. His own memory was good on things that mattered, but recount some random bullshit he’d heard on the radio three months ago?
Bosko asked more smart questions about the logistics of operations in the area, search and rescue, continuity issues with thin staffing, response times in various conditions. Leith did his best to answer, not so well, and soon enough the big man from the city went from asking questions to a kind of running soliloquy on whatever was on his mind at the moment. Northern demographics, poverty issues, the border security conference and how it had gone down, who had spoken, upcoming shifts in policy and legislation. As Leith was learning now the hard way, Mike Bosko abhorred a vacuum.
Half listening, grunting occasionally, Leith pressed on, away from the ocean, into the bleak wilds of B.C. There was no colour in the sky, no colour anywhere now that they’d left the port city behind and the temperatures had plummeted. The roads were slick but manageable. He drove faster than the traffic pattern, passing when possible, until a line of loaded B-train freight trucks slowed him to sixty on the straights and a mind-numbing thirty through the curves. And Bosko’s low, plodding voice droned on. As well as knowing pretty much everything about the universe at large, he seemed to have the scoop on the local crime scene. He spoke of the Pickup killings, knew the bodies had been found on forest service roads, knew the names, Karen Blake, Lindsay Carlyle, Joanne Crow, and the stories their bodies told of forceful takedown, bondage, and strangulation. Leith wondered if Mike Bosko had gotten hold of the files at some point, and if so, why? He wondered if Bosko was privy to the holdback information that had been kept back from the pr
ess, known only to the inner circle of investigators so far, the killer’s quirk. He said, “You’ve done your research.”
Bosko either didn’t hear or didn’t care to answer.
The Pickup Killer case had gone cool, if not cold, and these days Leith only worked it if something new turned up. Nothing had for over a year now, except faint whispers that kept him awake some nights. The whispers said the beast was still in their midst, still crawling the streets of Terrace.
As they passed through that very city, the killer’s known hunting grounds, darkness fell and the snow came down in earnest. Terrace fell behind, and they were again in lonely wilderness, with another two hours to go before they reached the Hazeltons. Bosko switched to historian mode, telling Leith all kinds of interesting things about the area, Hazelton being rooted in the Omineca Gold Rush, the sternwheeler that ran the Skeena once open a time, the turn-of-the-century search for Simon Gunanoot, much of it news to Leith.
He shifted in his seat and sighed with relief as the lights of their final destination approached, the broad, slow highway that cut through the main settlement of New Hazelton. Passage through town would take about two minutes if a person drove the speed limit, which nobody did, except Leith now, slowing to sixty, then fifty, losing the tandem trucks ahead, which ploughed through and disappeared up the big dark hill that merged again with black forest, probably heading for the mills of Smithers.
“We’re here,” he said, sounding smarter than ever.
There was scant traffic out and about as he cruised the SUV under the orange glow of tall lamp standards, past a gas station and shut-down supermarket, a few darkened restaurants. He pulled at last down a side street and parked in front of the New Hazelton detachment. He shut off the engine and looked at Bosko, hoping the shabbiness of the place was a crushing disappointment to the man. Bosko looked fresh, pleased, and enthusiastic.
Inside the small RCMP detachment they were met by a sleepy-looking auxiliary constable who told them that Renee Giroux, the local sergeant in charge, was up on the Matax with a small search team. Leith said, “Matax, what’s that?”
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