Cold Girl

by R. M. Greenaway

  “French,” she echoed. “Me? No. I speak some French, but that’s as far as it goes. Why?”

  “During the argument Kiera called you a frog. I’m wondering why.”

  Her cool grey eyes didn’t leave him for a moment. She was one of those maddening interviewees who kept their emotions tucked neatly away, surprise, anger, and amusement. “Frog,” she echoed. “Wow. I don’t recall that.”

  He said, “Also, you called her a waste of time. Sounds like quite a battle.”

  Now, finally, she showed herself; her brows went up and she almost smiled. “Ah,” she said. “I recall now, yes. I was fed up with her stonewalling all my ideas. I flung up my hands and said she was a perte de temps. She said, what? I translated, waste of time. I guess ‘frog’ was the meanest comeback she could think up on the spot, followed by bitch and cow. Well, I’ve been called worse over the course of my career, working with artists, you know.”

  For the first time she grinned.

  * * *

  Jayne Spacey glanced up, and her face was smooth and sweet. She didn’t look angry, but she was, and even the indoors felt frigid now to Dion. She hated him; he could feel it as he walked up to her at her computer with his apologies. She stopped typing to listen to what he had to say and continued to look smooth and sweet, but the chill kept spreading.

  “I didn’t want to get into the middle of it,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “Well, I must say you have great comedic timing. Shane and Megan couldn’t stop laughing. Sure, I’d like you to go to hell, and you know what? That’s where you’re going, judging by the things I overheard them saying about you.”

  “Who saying?”

  “Those who matter,” she said. “But chin up, baby. I hear security guards are in high demand, and it’s better than minimum wage. No thinking required. Briefing in fifteen, by the way, and the boss has made a note that you’re late. Better have caught up on your reports. She’s a stickler for the twenty-four-hour rule.”

  Those who matter would be Giroux, he knew, and Leith. Or was it Sergeant Bosko from the Lower Mainland, a presence that had bothered him from the start, back at the dinner briefing at the Catalina, when Bosko spoke of his latest posting, North Vancouver, Serious Crimes. What was a man of his stature doing here in the sticks? Just hanging around, helping the locals with a missing persons investigation, just for the hell of it?

  No chance. Sergeant Bosko had bigger things on his mind.

  Dion was back at his own station, a temporary set-up jammed between filing cabinets and a fax machine, and he got to work on his last, overdue report. His time was coming to an end; he could see it approaching like banners of war fluttering on the horizon. At least he could get this report in. Late and full of typos, but better than nothing at all.

  Five

  Three Voices

  LEITH THOUGHT ABOUT MURDER and its aftermath, all the damage done. There were the victims themselves; that went without saying. Then there were those left behind, their lives forever bent out of shape. The family of the killer, also in tatters. There were the cops, working night and day and getting ulcers. Like himself. Last October, back in Prince Rupert, stomach pains had sent him first to the doctor, and then, for the first time in his life, to a counsellor.

  He hated being sent for counselling. He didn’t believe that any external advice could fix any internal problem of any healthy man. He didn’t like being told how to breathe, how to think, how to relax. As he’d said to Alison afterward, what a stinking bunch of hogwash. To avoid a return visit to the shrink, he’d determined not to get another ulcer, and so far hadn’t.

  This gloomy afternoon, sitting eating lunch in Giroux’s office, he felt something gnawing at his gut again, and it wasn’t just all the takeout he’d been downing lately; it was the proliferation of trucks in the north.

  All eyes were open for reports of suspicious pickups, but every other person drove a pickup, and with a little imagination, every other person could look suspicious. A map lay before him, in his mind the constellation of burial sites and the voices of three women telling him what they’d been through as their time ran out. Joanne Crow, the last known victim, had the most to say. This evil man raped me, held me captive for days, bound and gagged me, starved me and let me freeze. Look at my hands and toes and nose and cheeks, destroyed by frostbite. He didn’t even have the heart to put me out of my misery. I did not go easily.

  That was the big thing to consider, the evidence of escalation of this man’s tormenting, again as whispered by the dead. The first killing had been vicious but relatively swift. Abduction, rape, and strangulation. The second had been kept alive for maybe two days, possibly in a house, possibly in a vehicle, but most likely a shed with rotting floors, according to trace evidence. The third, Joanne, had endured at least a week before exhaustion and the elements got her. There had been no rotted wood fibres found embedded in her wounds. She had died in her zap-strap handcuffs and been dumped in the mud, somewhat farther to the north from Terrace than the first two.

  If the killer had taken to keeping his victims captive, it followed there was a good chance that Kiera could still be alive — in that house, that cabin, that cave, that vehicle, wherever the hell he had her — and if Leith’s days were long and difficult, hers were eternities of sheer, unthinkable hell.

  “Still bothers me that Kiera’s grabbed over here,” he said, speaking more to himself than Bosko over on the other wing of Giroux’s enormous desk. “While the others happened over there.” In the Terrace area. “Is he expanding his hunting ground, or was he just passing through?”

  The question belonged not to him but to the Terrace task force, Corporal Stoner, and it had been beaten to death here, there, and everywhere, really not worth putting to words for the hundredth time. Bosko was on his laptop, communicating with his home office, but present enough to look at Leith and say, “Might be worth it to go over the timeline again.”

  The timeline was fixed in Leith’s mind like a fiery branding. “Karen Blake was taken March of 2008, two years ago. Lindsay Carlyle, nearly nine months later, Nov­­ember 2008. Joanne Crow just two months later, December 2009. And nothing since. Nothing for over a year. We found Joanne over fourteen months ago, on Christmas Day. It’s not much of a pattern.”

  “But a pattern, however you look at it,” Bosko said. “And it’s more likely opportunity than urge that’s dictating when he strikes. That should prove helpful.”

  Leith got his point, of course. If it was a pattern, there weren’t enough hits to make even a rudimentary shape, but it was the ABCs of profiling. Use the pattern as a template against the comings and goings of anybody who might come under suspicion — truckers, hunters, forestry workers — and it could help sift out the perpetrator. These were all winter kills, sure. That, if nothing else, stood out loud and clear. When it came to the Pickup Killer, death was tied to the seasons.

  Bosko asked how many light-coloured pickups were registered in the area between Terrace and Smithers, a question that took Leith back to the pain in his gut.

  “Every other guy has a pickup,” he said. “I have a pickup. And every other pickup is light in colour. Like mine. There are lots.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Bosko said.

  “Rob Law has a tan pickup, but it’s pretty new. Both sightings say it was probably an older model. One tip, from November, says it’s white; the December tip says silver. Different trucks or just a trick of the light, who knows. Neither witness knew much about vehicle makes and models.”

  Bosko spoke of how important it was not to get in a rut with this truck-sighting business. “Like you say, Dave, there are only two leads in that direction, both tenuous. Now, if we had a third sighting —” he added, and it was at this exact moment, at least as Leith later recalled it, that Constable Jayne Spacey stepped into the room with news, and the timing was surreal.

  “We got a truc
k sighting,” she told them, flapping her notebook. “Dean Caplin. I’ve got him in the interview room. He’s a driver for Whittaker Contracting, working in the cut-block above the Law outfit. He was pulling a loaded rig down the mountain at fifteen twenty hours on Saturday afternoon —”

  Which fell, Leith knew, some five hours before the search for Kiera got underway, and his interest was definitely piqued.

  “— and he passed Kiera’s Rodeo on the lookout, which stood out to him, because it’s hardly tourist season. But it’s what he saw a couple minutes later you gotta hear. He passed her Rodeo, and two or three minutes later, that’s his best estimate, he came up behind a vehicle driving down the road ahead of him. We missed him earlier because he was out of town, just got back, heard we wanted to talk to him, called in right away. You’re going to want to talk to this guy, like, now.”

  Leith was already on his feet, inviting Spacey to join him.

  The witness, Dean Caplin, stood when they entered, a man who fell into the “good citizen” camp, in Leith’s snap-judgement opinion. Introductions were made, hands were shaken. Caplin’s hands were huge, calloused, cold, and oily. Not only a good citizen but a hard worker.

  “Yeah,” he told Leith when they were all seated around the table. “It was a white pickup, five, ten years old, some old Nissan or something, two-wheel drive, had no business on them roads. Couldn’t see who all was inside because rear window was some kind of custom job, black glass.”

  Leith had laid out a forestry map, and he asked Caplin to pinpoint as best he could where he’d first seen this pickup with the black window.

  Caplin pointed to a spot just down from the lookout where Kiera’s Rodeo had been found. “It was going pretty slow till I came up behind it, then it shot off, eh. Kind of fishtailing a bit. I thought it was going to go over the bank, and I’d be picking up the pieces. I probably lost sight of it about here, around this bend.” His finger traced a short line and stopped.

  “I don’t suppose you caught —”

  “Christ, no, sir. Licence plate was covered in mud. And even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have made note of it. Had no idea it was a crime in progress. Sorry.”

  When Caplin was gone, Leith made some phone calls, talked with Giroux and Bosko, and decided it was time to take this last bit of info to Terrace and upturn the files again, see if it clicked anywhere, small white pickup with black rear window. He’d go himself, he’d go now, and preferably he’d go alone.

  “I might as well join you,” Bosko said. “Does that work?”

  “Does it ever,” Leith said, two thumbs up. “Wonderful.”

  * * *

  By mid-afternoon a hard wind was blowing, and the undersized detachment seemed to creak and strain on its foundations. Dion had been aware of some excitement earlier, something that had taken Leith off in a hurry to Terrace, the small city farther to the north. The search for Kiera seemed to have settled already into a lower gear, and the crowds were gone, the place hushed but for a woman sobbing in one of the interview rooms down the hall, an unrelated case. His fingers were smashing at the keyboard, spell-checker racing along and underlining half the words he laid down. He had been tasked with assisting Constable Thackray with exhibit documentation, and he was in a trance of words and numbers when something came clomping over and hovered into his left-hand peripheral vision, too short to be Thackray, too graceless to be Spacey. He looked sideways and stopped typing.

  “We’re going out,” Sergeant Giroux said. “Witness interview. Take a fresh pen.”

  Outside, small vapour ghosts raced over the tarmac, forming lines and breaking up again. The sergeant had marched to Dion’s cruiser, to the passenger side, which meant they’d take his car and that he’d be the driver. He stood by the driver’s door and searched himself for keys, a minor pastime of his lately. The keys weren’t where he expected, and he had a lot of other pockets to check, and it wasn’t long before Giroux shouted across the roof at him from the passenger side, “Just pretend this is an emergency callout and people’s lives are at stake. What’s the matter with you? You don’t like driving?”

  He looked aside, between buildings and signposts, toward what he could see of the highway, its surface glittering in the dull light of day like it was strewn with crushed glass. “No, ma’am. It’s pretty icy.”

  He’d found the keys, not in any of his jacket pockets or duty-belt but in his trousers, and beeped the locks, but too late because Sergeant Giroux had struck off across the parking lot toward an older model sedan. “We’re taking my Celeb,” she called back at him. “Sacre! I’m not riding with a man who’s afraid of a little ice.”

  When he was in the passenger seat, she said, “Never before met a constable afraid of the road.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, and fastened the seat belt.

  Giroux cranked the key, and the engine woke with a ragged snarl, mellowing to a purr. She drove off the avenue and onto the highway. The trip to Hazelton’s Old Town took about ten minutes, a distance they covered in silence. She parked in front of a pint-sized Royal Bank. Inside the bank Dion waited next to a stand of brochures, not sure why he’d been brought along, while Giroux sat in a cubicle dealing with the bank manager for nearly twenty minutes, poring over a computer monitor and making notes.

  After she was done with the computer, she stopped at one of the two teller stations and spoke to the young woman there, who Dion now recognized as one of the band members who had been interviewed by Leith — the violinist with the white-blond hair, looking different in the context of work. She had given him a friendly wave some minutes ago, and he’d nodded back, but still hadn’t placed her.

  “Afternoon, Stella,” he heard Giroux saying. “Howarya? Just a couple questions.”

  Dion remained standing at his distance and didn’t hear much of their conversation, something about an argument with Mercy at the Catalina. Mercy was a name on the file, but he couldn’t put a face to her, or any significance.

  He consulted his second notebook, the one he kept separate from his duty notebook. This was the one he’d nearly left with Leith by accident, where he listed names from any file he was assigned to, in chart form, to keep them in order. Nadia, his rehab professional, had told him not to be ashamed to keep notes of even the most minor details. Anything to get you through the day. And it worked. On top of field notes, he had reminders of all sorts of crap that hampered his day-to-day living, PIN codes, and basic computer procedures. He even had a necktie-knotting diagram, which was embarrassing. Still needed it once in a while, when he lost the moves and stood with a tie end in each fist, no idea where they were supposed to go next. That was when the panic set in.

  Giroux was done, leaving the bank, so he followed. When they were in the car, breath gusting white, she snapped at him, “Why didn’t you join me? It’s your job to pay attention. You’re a highly intelligent sponge, not a dumbass doorstop.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that, so he couldn’t agree. Even apologizing seemed futile. He busied himself with his seat belt instead.

  Giroux’s voice hardened. “This is off the record, Constable Dion. I worry about you, maybe because you’re First Nations, and I’m Métis, and we’re different creatures from the present governing race, and we have to look out for each other. I want to help you. So how can I put this nicely? There’s something wrong with you. Are you on drugs?”

  He stared at her, trying not to gape. “I’m not First Nations.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You’ve got Cree eyes. Take that as a compliment, if you want.”

  She seemed to mean what she said, and he began to wonder if he was First Nations. Spacey had suggested he was. The old guy in the Super 8 diner had jabbered at him like he was. And now this. And maybe they were all right, and he was wrong. He looked at his own hands and saw the skin was white as ever. His father was whi
te. His mother was maybe on the dark side, from what he could remember, her arms going around him, tight, hair cascading over him, black, on one of her good days, few and far between. He knew nothing else about her, really, and had made no inquiries, and never for a moment had he considered she might be native.

  Giroux said, “So you protest your bloodlines but not the drugs, so what are you on?” Her palm went up, a stop sign. “No, I don’t want to know, because you’re right, I couldn’t let it slide if you fess up. But take this as a serious warning. If you’re on something, get off it. Now.”

  “Ibuprofen,” he said with anger, pointing hard at his own temple. “That’s all. For headaches.” He crimped his mouth. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to do, take notes or guard the door.”

  She blinked at him. “Hover, Constable. Look, listen, analyze. You should know that. I’m not going to be directing your every move. Be interested. Nobody can make you be interested. It’s got to come from within. Are you interested? At all?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She looked unconvinced. Worse, she looked sympathetic. They both gazed forward, and for a moment it felt to Dion like a first date gone wrong, stuck in Lovers’ Lane with nothing to say. Giroux said, “Actually, I owe you an apology, because I know nothing about you, and I should. I’m supposed to review files of all my people, even if they’re short-term, but I didn’t. I’ll get to it sooner or later, probably after you’re gone when it’s too late anyway. Whatever, never mind, doesn’t matter. I’m just trying to tell you something here. It’s a tough job, and if you don’t walk into it with a sure stride, you’ll fall behind. Get me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And the fact is this job’s not for everyone. There’s no shame in admitting it’s not your calling, pet. Better sooner than later, is all I’m saying.”

  He looked away, out the passenger window at parking lot, and beyond that to the drab little village smothered in snow.