Dion squinted into the sky, which had stopped pelting snow but was a solid chalky white, maybe just holding back. He looked again at the pissed-off man in the bathrobe and said, “I’ve heard there’s a jeweller at Copperside. Is he any good, d’you think? With watches?”
“He’s a charlatan,” Rourke said. “And a thief. You want a watch fixed around here, you gotta come to Scottie.”
“Right, and I did, but you’re not taking on work right now, which I perfectly —”
“Did I say I wasn’t taking on work? Death and taxes. What d’you have there, a fucking Rolex?”
“It’s a Smiths,” Dion said. “I’ll pay extra. This watch means a lot to me.”
Rourke walked back into his aluminum palace but left the screen door locked open. Dion stepped in, shutting both doors behind him. He had been in a lot of trailers over the course of his career, all shapes and sizes. They were like condensed houses, with plenty of plastic and tin stripping, but kind of appealing, some of them. “Everything you need and not a bolt more,” he said as he followed his host down a narrow, dingy corridor, giving a wall panel a thump with his fist.
“You got that right.” Rourke led the way to the end of the trailer, the living room fuzzy with morning light, where his in-house workbench was set up. “I’m happy here. It’s home, anyway. Home is where the heart is, they say. Have a seat while I look at this watch of yours.”
Dion gave him the watch and sat on a kitchen chair near the workbench. Looking around at the clutter, he saw that Rourke was a packrat but kept the place in fairly good order. A glut of old snapshots was tacked to one wall, and he looked away in case there were images he really didn’t care to see. Next to him on the bench stood a trio of bright toys. A little tin black man pushing a wheelbarrow, a duck driving a red car, and a yellow school bus.
Rourke followed his gaze. “Job for the second-hand guy. Clean and tune. Puts bread on the table, okay?”
“Are these worth something?”
“Not a heck of a lot. Except the duck. It’s well preserved, and it’s got historical significance of some kind. Don’t ask me what.”
The collar of Rourke’s bathrobe sagged as he leaned forward, showing a bony chest. He studied the Smiths draped over his hand and gave a low whistle of admiration. “This is a fantastic watch. The last of the great British military line. Nice. But it’s in shitty shape. Where’d you steal it?”
“A friend gave it to me. Long time ago.”
“You shoulda boxed it up and kept it in your attic. Might be worth something now.”
“It’s worth more on my wrist.”
Rourke looked at the back of the watch, hunting for access. “Don’t expect miracles. You put it through a few wars, have you? Rain, snow, gunfights, and the odd dunk in the bathtub. It’s old, older than I’m used to dealing with. I’m not saying old is bad, necessarily. But in this case you might be better to just —”
“I’d rather have it fixed.”
“I mean, for the cost of repair you could get yourself a real nice —”
“Oh Jesus, open it up and do what you have to do.”
Rourke grinned at him, the grin bent out of shape by his horrific scar. “This friend of yours, was she good-looking?”
This friend of his was Looch, in fact, a big loudmouth cop going prematurely bald. Lucky Luc, Luciano Ferraro, hilarious guy, sorely missed. Dion crossed his arms and said, “His name’s Luciano. We go way back, and I can’t read time unless it’s off this watch. Are you going to fix it or not?”
“I tell you what. Leave it with me, and I’ll see what I can do. Though to tell the truth I’m kind of up to my arse in projects right now as it is.”
“What, wind-up toys?”
“And three lawnmowers due for overhauls. Yes, lawnmowers. In a couple months they’ll be all the rage.”
Dion was having second thoughts. What he should have done was pick up a cheap substitute, get the Smiths fixed when he was back in the city, however many years down the road that might be. There in the land of plenty he could take it to a professional, get it done right. He said, “I’m just here for the short term. I could be gone tomorrow. We’d better just forget it.”
“No, you leave it with me tonight. I’ll see what I can do. You picked the worst day of the year, you know, what with Kiera.”
“I realize that. Thank you. I appreciate it.” Dion checked his wrist, already forgetting it was bare, and his heart skipped a beat. He stood to go. “Better get to work.”
They walked back down the shipshape corridor to the exit, and in passing what must be a bedroom door Dion heard a woman’s sigh as she tossed on squealing bedsprings. He glanced back at Rourke, who said, “You can mind your own damn business.”
Outside, the sky had grown lighter, no longer snowing. Dion stood on the deck, found his keys, and started down the steps. Rourke remained out in the fresh air by his screen door, saying, “So now I’ve done you this big favour, you gonna do me one back and keep me in the loop with Kiera?”
Dion turned to give him a businesslike smile, in no position to start throwing out promises. “I’ll do my best.”
“Bah,” Rourke said.
At the side of his car, Dion remembered the one question he had to ask in order to tie off the loose end on an overdue report he should have submitted yesterday. Or at least try to confirm if it had any basis in the real world. He turned back to Rourke in the doorway. “Your friend Rob Law, is he married?”
“No. Why?”
“I heard he’s married to a native woman.”
“You’re talking about Charlie?” Rourke glared northward. “They weren’t married, but it was in the plans. She took off in the fall, back home to Dease. Rob’s like me. Can’t keep his women.”
Took off in the fall. The words jolted Dion six months back, to that blowsy afternoon with Penny at the Smithers fairgrounds. He had waited in the following days for reports of young women gone missing from that particular time and place. None had, and his fears had faded. Rourke’s words now brought back an illogical drift of anxiety.
“Charlie…?”
“West.”
Inside the trailer a phone rang, and Dion, one leg in the car, looked up in time to see the screen door swing shut and through its mesh the shadowy figure of a woman with long, wild hair approaching Rourke, her hand outstretched. He hesitated, considering this could be the missing singer, but screen and main door were both closed now.
Scott Rourke had mentioned someone he lived with, a Ms. Doyle. That’s who it was, no mystery. He sat behind the wheel and wrote in his duty notebook, Charlie West. Then he realized by the clock on the dash that in about two minutes he would be late for work, and the drive back was at least twenty. He fired up the engine. One step sideways and two steps back.
* * *
Leith had two main roads to pursue, as well as a few minor alleys. One main road was the Pickup Killer, and another was Fling. This morning he would be focusing on Fling because of a tip that had arrived at the crack of dawn. The tip came in the form of a middle-aged waitress who worked at the Catalina Cafe and had overheard an argument between Kiera Rilkoff, Frank Law, and Mercy Blackwood sometime last week, a few days before Kiera’s disappearance. Most of the loud words were between Mercy and Kiera, with Frank just sitting on the sidelines. The waitress recalled a few lines verbatim, from the argument: Mercy called Kiera a waste of time, and Kiera called Mercy a frog. “A frog?” Leith had asked, cupping an ear.
The waitress insisted that was what she heard, frog.
An interview of Ms. Blackwood was on Leith’s to-do list anyway, if only to firm up some background info, so now he would ask about the argument as well, kill two birds with one stone. But first he would get Frank’s take on it.
Frank Law showed up when the grey of dawn was just flooding over the mountains and promising another day of
half-light in the Hazeltons. Leith had a cramped and cluttered workstation in the main room. He sat Frank down here, gave him a cup of coffee, flattened his notebook, and wrote down the opening particulars. Leith had been accident-prone his whole life, so his body was conditioned to fast healing — that was his theory, anyway — and already his wrist was good enough that he could take his own notes, which spared him further contact with Constable Dion, whom he had come dangerously close to shooting yesterday. He told Frank about the overheard argument at the Catalina and asked for an explanation.
“Argument?” Frank said. “What argument?”
Leith refreshed his memory for him. “You were in a booth on the south wall of the restaurant. You were seated next to Kiera, and Mercy Blackwood sat across from the two of you. Mercy and Kiera were arguing. Quite loudly. There was some swearing.”
Frank looked tired and uninterested. “Okay.”
“You had coffee. Kiera had tea and a cherry Danish. Mercy didn’t order anything but brought her own drink in a Thermos.” All this the waitress had recounted for Leith this morning before her early-bird shift. She didn’t like the drink-in-the-Thermos part, and no, she admitted, she didn’t like Mercy Blackwood. “Mercy accused Kiera of wasting her time, and Kiera called Mercy a frog. Mercy’s not French, is she?”
Frank’s mouth hung open. His short, rakish beard was becoming just plain scruffy. “French? I don’t know, maybe.”
“Seems kind of a racist thing for Kiera to say, doesn’t it? Does she have a thing against the French?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“And why would Mercy say Kiera’s a waste of time? That’s pretty harsh.”
Frank said, “I don’t remember much. Probably they were arguing about the demo, which wasn’t going well.”
“I don’t get that, why it wasn’t going well,” Leith said. “You guys have been playing together for years. You’re popular, have a lot of fans. What wasn’t clicking?”
Frank shrugged. “We’re trying for a recording. Kiera’s a show girl. Without an audience egging her on, she’s kind of … flat. Me and the others, we tried all kinds of tricks to get her spun up, and she tried, but it just doesn’t seem to work.” He hesitated. “That’s what they were arguing about, I guess. Mercy thought maybe I should do lead vocals, Kiera would sing backup. And we’d ditch my songs and try something else. None of which Kiera accepted for a moment.”
His eyes shifted about, a man thinking of things he didn’t want to discuss, and Leith considering harassing him further on the issue. But really, it was all sidetracking. Scott Rourke, for all his rattiness, had a point when he said to stop wasting time talking to people. It was a monster they should be looking for.
* * *
Next in line was Fling’s manager. Maybe it was the aggressive ring of her name, but Leith had envisioned a battleaxe, and Mercy Blackwood was anything but. She was a reedy, intelligent-looking woman in her late thirties, possibly, with a fine-featured and pleasant face, intense grey eyes, and grave manner. She wore black slacks, brand-new looking snow-boots, a fine-weave grey sweater, and a puffy white parka with fake fur trim. For the pretty librarian look, she wore gold-rimmed spectacles.
“I’m glad to finally meet you,” she said and held out a hand in a jerky sort of way, as if she had doubts about physical contact. “I’ve seen you from afar.” She didn’t smile. He shook her limp hand and invited her to remove her coat and sit. She kept the coat on, saying it was chilly, but placed herself primly on the hard wooden chair next to Leith’s desk. He could see how out of place she was. He recalled she was from Vancouver, up here to care for a dying relative, who had then died. He also recalled she was primed to sell her dead relative’s house and return to the city ASAP, where she quite clearly belonged.
She watched him and waited, still and expressionless. To break the ice, he said, “I hear you worked with Joe Forte and the Six-Packs, way back when. They had a great thing going while it lasted. Too bad about Forte.”
She nodded, still not a sign of smile on her attractive face. She said, “They were the first group I worked with, went from bar gigs to the Commodore. Amazing talent. I learned a lot from that experience.”
And made a lot of money, too, Leith thought. “Who did you work with after that?”
“Lemon Heart,” she said. “Goldie Weatherstone, who you may know better as Goldie Hawkins. The Midlanders, you know, Jerry Robinson and his fellows? That’s about all. Once I got on with the Midlanders, I worked with them exclusively, as I had worked with the Six-Packs.”
It all sailed over Leith’s head, names that meant nothing to him except possibly the Midlanders, a fairly big name on the music scene. He said, “And now you’re here in the Hazeltons representing a little country rock band called Fling. Why?”
“Terrible name,” she said. “I want them to change it before it’s too late. But they’re quite stuck on it. I’m here because I had to give up the Midlanders. Medical issues. Plus I had to care for my grandmother.”
He was reading her face as she spoke, and thought he saw traces of fear and dismay. Not surprising, considering what brought them to this room. Or maybe it was just physical discomfort. Or, like Fairchild had suggested to Constable Dion, culture shock. Whatever it was, she looked miserable. He offered coffee to warm her up. She declined.
He asked her to tell him about Fling, where they were going, what the plans were, that sort of thing.
She studied him for a moment in a cool, analytical way, before answering. “I’m not sure you care to know, but I’m only up here for the short-term. Or that was the intention. It’s a full year ago I first chanced to see Fling perform, at the high school auditorium, the Valentine’s dance. I had to get out of the house, away from Granny. Do something. Move. You know? Anyway, back to Fling, I guess you’d say I was smitten, or more like swept up in the moment. They shook the auditorium, and the audience loved them. Sometimes the music is secondary. That can be worked on. Personality and verve, you either have it or you don’t. They did. Do. You will find her, won’t you?”
“We’re doing our best,” he said.
She looked doubtful, and he could understand why. The whirring gears of the investigation, based in Terrace, were all but invisible to residents of the Hazeltons. A chopper flew by now and then, shiny trucks arrived, strangers reined someone in, asked questions, and were gone again. Meanwhile, Leith and his team looked like plods, and frankly, Leith was worried they were. He said, “How do you find working with them, Frank and Kiera?”
“Lovely,” she said. “Both of them. Very down-to-earth, but gung-ho.”
“They were thrilled when you took them under your wing?”
“Thrilled is the word,” she said, and there she should smile, he thought, and still she didn’t. She said, “There are difficulties, of course. They’re lovers, for one thing, which complicates things. They’re both stubborn. And I hate to say it, but they’re not reliable. I foresaw problems, but I guess I underestimated their unreliability.”
“Things are not going well, I take it,” Leith said.
“Things need fixing,” Blackwood said gloomily.
“Can you elaborate for me?”
She gave him another studious gaze, with no reply at the end of it. She said, “People are saying it’s the Pickup Killer.”
“That hasn’t been crossed off,” Leith admitted.
“I’ve also heard it said the killer lives right here in the Hazeltons.”
“That’s possible too.”
“And he’s responsible for all those missing girls from Prince George to Prince Rupert.”
“Highly unlikely,” Leith said, and that was true. The profilers had crunched the data, what little there was of it, and concluded the Pickup Killer was not responsible for the atrocities that had plagued Highway 16 for so many years, as yet unsolved. This killer was localized, new to the area, em
ployed in Terrace, maybe, but could live elsewhere. The profilers believed he lived within a two-hour drive of Terrace, which encompassed both the Hazeltons and Prince Rupert. Leith banked more on Prince Rupert, his own home base, but the Hazeltons remained under close observation. The population of the area was scant, and he had probably looked at the name of every male in the area at least once over the last two and a half years. Nobody had jumped out at him or held his attention for long.
Mercy Blackwood sat silently now, pondering him. He had received nothing of value from her so far and didn’t expect much from his next question either. He said, “I have to ask you, Ms. Blackwood. I’ve been told you were heard arguing with Kiera, on February the fifth, which is eight days before she went missing. I need to know what it was about.”
She frowned in a worried way, casting her mind back. “Yes, I guess we did raise our voices somewhat.”
“What was the problem?”
“Disappointment, clash of ambitions, reality checks. Unhappily, nothing was working. The Vancouver label pulled out because the CD just wasn’t good enough, which I should have known, and I feel bad about that. We’re brainstorming, trying to get back on our feet. My suggestion was a radical change of direction. Kiera didn’t do well in a studio setting, for some reason, and I thought the best route was to try new songs and new lead. A new persona, really. Frank could take lead vocals and Kiera could sing backup. That was my plan, and they both said hell no. So there you go. I wished them luck, said I would hang in through the making of this second demo, and then I would leave them to find their own way from there. And that’s where we stand.”
Everything she said lined up with Frank’s version so far. Leith said, “Worst case scenario, Kiera doesn’t come back, will you continue working with Frank and the others?”
“Too soon to say. Frank can go places on his own, if he puts his mind to it, and I’ll work him through it, if that’s what he wants to do. We’ll see.”
Leith’s notebook told him he’d come to his last query, and it was a touchy one. “D’you have any French in you?” he asked.
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