“Keep cajoling,” Bosko said. “In the long run, it’ll be faster.”
Leith was eying diagrams in the air. The diagrams were vague, maybe cryptic, and he was trying not to look lost. “I don’t agree. If I suspect for one moment he’s in on the killing, I’ll have to charge him. And then we’re stuck. I just don’t want to waste time playing ball for nothing, if we’re going to end up going the long way round anyway.” With warrants and waiting, he meant. Lawyers and stone walls.
“I don’t think he’s in on the killing,” Bosko said, and briefly Leith wondered how he could reach that conclusion with such limited info and seem so sure about it. He crossed his arms, said nothing, and Bosko went on in his firmly meandering way. “And the worst you’ll get him for is conspiracy after the fact, and that’s not your focus. Let him know that conspiracy after the fact is nothing compared to what he’ll be facing if another girl dies because of him holding back. Sounds like you’ve hit pay dirt, but dig with care.” Bosko had his phone out and was making a call. “I’m going to get the team on to Potter right now. Get the video set up for the rest of the interview, and I’ll monitor, just to add a second set of eyes.”
Leith arranged for video and then filled two cups of coffee and returned to the interview room. Blair focussed on sweetening his coffee, and Leith, sitting once more across from him, did as Bosko had suggested, cajoled and warned in the same breath. Then he asked, “So, how many times in all did you let Potter take trucks out?”
Blair was maybe too smart to insist on his “once” statement and dithered about for a while before recalling that yes, there was a second time, maybe the next summer.
“With all the paperwork done up this time?” Leith asked.
“Well, no,” Blair admitted, losing his veneer. “I knew him now, so I agreed to kind of a handshake deal.”
“Details.”
Blair launched into another lie about Potter applying for job interviews, being down and out, needing a vehicle, and Leith reminded him of the peril he faced. Blair began to tire, to roll his eyes, stammer, and contradict himself. He didn’t have the advantage of pen and paper, and Leith did. Leith cross-referenced the lies and threw them back at the suspect until the suspect became trapped in confusion, and his facial muscles softened. Andy Blair could see a jail cell in his future, either way he jumped. The sooner he jumped, the shorter the jail time, he would be thinking now.
Leith used the moment and asked it again. “You had an idea what he was using those trucks for, didn’t you?”
“Not till lately,” Blair said, barely a mumble now. “Lately, it occurred to me. But I thought, no, couldn’t be. Not John. He’s a nice, quiet guy. Friendly like hell.”
“But the timelines bothered you.”
Blair nodded. “He said it was for drug runs down to George and back. Didn’t want to use his own vehicle. So he took trucks off the lot.”
“What did you get in return?”
“Bit of weed. Recreational use only.”
“Weed?” Leith said. “Really? Weed’s cheap, and you can get it anywhere. What did you get in return, Andy? You want me to repeat those warnings for you?”
Blair nodded again. “Coke. A smidge, enough to share with a friend or two, no charge. Personal use only. But it was good stuff, and I believed him a hundred percent, that that’s all he used the trucks for, and as far as I knew, he was only getting it for personal use too.”
Leith believed that Blair knew the trucks were used for killing, at least toward the end. But he’d barricaded himself in with indecision, and if once the charges might have been dropped altogether, they now would stick hard. “He borrowed trucks three times, didn’t he?”
Blair began to sniffle a bit and wipe his eyes. Not for the dead girls, Leith thought. Not a tear for them. “Spit it out, Andy.”
Blair spat it out. “It was March, year before last, when he took out the shitty Tacoma. Then a couple times last winter, different vehicles, and I could give you more exact dates if I could look at my calendar.”
“On your phone? Go ahead.”
Blair reached for his pocket and paused, still a charmer, the little creep, even with his eyes wet with self-pity. “You won’t shoot me?”
“I won’t shoot you.”
The car salesman studied the calendar on his phone for some time and was able to give Leith the dates, which he could extrapolate because that’s when he got the free coke, which was when he’d thrown house parties. Three great house parties that aligned with three dead girls to a tee.
Leith felt something other than blood coursing through his veins, some kind of high-octane mix, and he sped up matters, pressing Blair for descriptions of the vehicles, and soon had it scrawled in his notebook, in chronological order: silver Toyota Tacoma, white Chev Silverado, dark blue Nissan, older model.
He took another break to step out and talk to Bosko, who had a report already on John Potter. Bosko handed it over and said the ERT was prepped and ready to hit the road. “He’s a registered gun owner, Dave. Be careful.”
“Everybody in the north is a registered gun owner,” Leith said.
Pacing, he read the report and saw that John Potter was thirty-two years old, an ex-oil field worker from Alberta, moved to the area three years ago, bought a house, not in Terrace but Kitimat, seventy-three kilometres south on Highway 37. He worked off and on for Sherbrooke & Sons Roofing, a local Terrace company. No criminal record. He’d been canvassed, as all men in the area had been, but checked off as okay.
But it was futile to worry about errors and omissions now. What was really great was the piece of paper Leith now held in his hand, which gave him an address, a line of attack, and with pedal to the metal, he and the Emergency Response Team would be out there in no time flat. Half an hour, forty minutes max, they’d have their man in a bag.
* * *
Giroux had ordered Constables Thackray and Dion to accompany her to an event she worried might become a problem. Thackray told her he didn’t see how a candlelight vigil for a pacifist like Kiera Rilkoff could get out of hand, but Giroux told him she’d seen stranger things happen when a bunch of emotional and probably stoned kids got together.
Now it was dusk, and the two constables in uniform stood getting pelted by sleet in the village’s memorial park, down by the little covered stage. Friends and admirers of Kiera took the mic and said a few words about the woman they knew and loved. They sent prayers for her safe return into the drizzle. Music played too, starting with Kiera’s upbeat CD, which hardly set the mood. Giroux had posted herself centrally, solemnly holding a candle, but Dion and Thackray stood at the sidelines with their collars up high against the elements, their hands free. “So we can battle this crazed uprising,” Thackray murmured.
Dion observed the crowd, which numbered about a hundred and fifty, so many faces under-lit by flame. Hardly a bunch of kids, these were a fair mix of old and young, and none of them looked stoned or rowdy. He recognized several from their appearances at the detachment over the last few days. There were Kiera’s parents, looking frozen in place. Lenny Law and Scott Rourke and Evangeline Doyle clustered together near front centre, with the drummer Chad nearby, head bowed. He didn’t see Frank anywhere. Stella the violinist stood to one side of the crowd talking with an individual he didn’t recognize, man or woman he couldn’t tell at this distance. Their conversation looked animated, maybe angry. He asked Thackray who the unknown individual was.
Thackray squinted. “Looks like Jim from the garage,” he said, and squinted harder. The individual was bulked by winter clothes, hood up, but turned more their way so the face was exposed, and Thackray grinned. “No, it’s her. Well, they’re twins, right?”
“Who?”
“Jim and Mercy,” Thackray said. “That’s Mercy. You can tell by the lack of moustache.”
Mercy, Dion thought. That word again. He tried to put it
together with recent thoughts, but it didn’t mesh, and it was moments like this he despised what he had become. Fragmented. Unwhole. Next to useless.
Thackray seemed to notice he was struggling and dropped a clue. “She manages the band. Well, did. I’m not sure there’s any band left to manage.”
Dion watched the fiddler Stella and the band manager Mercy, the way they talked. They were trying to be discreet with their argument, he saw. The hand gestures, though angry, were short jabs, then hands jammed back into coat pockets. With their hopes of success trashed, he supposed, no wonder they were angry. Still, this was the time and place for prayers and grieving, not anger and recriminations. Bitching at any vigil was disrespectful. He checked the other faces in the crowd and found them devout, like churchgoers, listening not to a sermon right now but to a rockabilly love song blasting out over the speakers. Many were crying.
A young woman in Sorel boots and bundled in a heavy parka stopped in her passage and handed Dion a glass. There was a tea-light barely glowing within the glass, faintly blue. “For Kiera,” the woman said, and moved on, distributing her candles to all those who stood lightless.
Seven
Up in Smoke
THEY DIDN’T KNOW ENOUGH about Potter to tackle him scientifically. He lived alone far from downtown, out in the country, up a long, straight road that shot away into the foothills. Leith was seated in car two of a fleet of six, passenger side. Bulked out in Kevlar, he stared ahead and worried that the man, if he was the killer, could be on his toes, braced for this pending Armageddon. The team had considered a surreptitious approach, but the long, straight road posed a problem, with nothing on either side for cover but scraggly fields now smothered in snow. Sneaking up would be an elaborate operation, would take time to arrange, and time was too precious right now to waste. So it was the shock-and-awe approach, carom in fast and roust the bastard; he’d be face down on the floorboards before he knew what hit him.
The house that came racing into view through the dusk was small and cute, white and turquoise, with a generous deck, lots of lattice and neat landscaping, and something about it jarred Leith as he stared forward. The little house was backed by dark woods and a steeply ascending rock wall, and all was still and silent and unlit. A truck sat in the driveway, fairly new looking. Leith ordered the vehicles to a stop here at a good distance, and he jumped out of the SUV and stood in the snow and stared at the little white house, not taking his eyes off it, because whatever it was that prickled at his nerves, intuition or superstition, or simply a wealth of bad experiences, he was certain the place was booby-trapped.
The standoff continued, unilateral and surreal. The ERT commander joined him, and together they watched the little house at the end of the driveway, the parked truck, the closed drapes. They were discussing Leith’s gut feeling and the approach they’d take when lights came on in the house, in a slow-blooming way, from darkness to dull orange. “Aw, shit,” Leith said, starting forward, stopping when he saw it was too late. The ERT was making a call. The dull orange glared bright, the curtains flared, and there came a thud of internal explosion, and another, and a third. Car doors opened and closed and the team was out, a band of helpless spectators as the house became engulfed in flames.
Was she in there? Was she going to burn? Was that all they had accomplished?
Leith conferred with the team, and they spread out to explore the perimeter of the burning building. He was called over to view the fresh snowshoe tracks at the back, leading up into the mountains. One set. He and four others took up pursuit but found the trail was narrow, the snow deep, and the risk too great that Potter would be waiting ahead with a scope and nothing to lose. So they turned back to make a plan, wait for the dogs and gear and reinforcements. Leith stood watching the frantic swivelling of red and white lights from fire trucks approaching along the beeline road. Potter would have had the same kind of view, would have had maybe five minutes to splash the gasoline, light the fuse, and grab his bag, pre-packed, and take off. He wouldn’t be far, but every moment now he was adding distance.
He was probably one of those goddamn survivalists who could burrow into the scree for months, catching rabbits and sipping melted snow. Leith spent ten minutes on the phone, calling in choppers and dogs and as many hands as he could rope in on short notice to search the property for Kiera or the clues that would lead him to her.
And then he joined in the search himself.
* * *
But she wasn’t anywhere on the property. The dogs arrived, and it was a dog that found Potter, or at least drew them close enough to his hiding spot that Potter opened fire, three blasts, rapid-fire, and by the sound of it the fugitive had not only the registered bolt-action Browning but an unregistered semi-automatic.
They had forged high enough on the mountainside that the air felt thin in Leith’s nostrils. The blasts had come horribly close, had frozen him in his tracks alongside the others in the posse, nine in all, and in the time it took for the sound waves to disperse, he went through his half-second mantra, always there for him when things got dicey, to bring scant comfort: That he would have to lead the way, might die, Ali and Izzy would have to carry on without him, but luckily his insurance plan should cover them well, even put the kid through university if she was so inclined.
On that note of slight comfort he could go forward now, in ERT mode. Some days there just wasn’t enough manpower and he had no choice but pitch in, join the front lines, and today was one of those special days. Possibly his last. The plan of the hour was simple: encircle the hideout, give Potter nowhere to run, and then try talking him out. Failing that, because time was of the essence, Leith would fire a warning shot. Failing that, he would coordinate moving in by cautious degrees. He didn’t have to remind his team that it was imperative Potter be taken alive. Nor was there time for a nice leisurely siege.
He gave the signal and began to climb, upward and around, through dense woods. The climb was hellish. His vest was bulky, his gear catching on the underbrush, branches scratching his face. And god, he was no ninja, every move a snap, crackle, and pop, and he could only pray foolishly that if he should come into the sights of Potter’s gun, he would see it first.
Twenty minutes later they had found their spots, and he was within shouting distance of the lair. Without a megaphone he had to bellow: “John Potter. I’m David Leith, RCMP. D’you hear me?”
The answer was a barrage of bullets. As the echoes faded, his men reported in, all safe. Potter was desperate, and this was going to end badly. Leith stayed low, a leg already starting to cramp, and shouted, “It’s over, John. We’re not here to hurt you. You need help, I understand that. I’m here to get you that help. You’re surrounded now, man. Get out here with your hands up where I can see ’em and let’s get to somewhere warm and dry where we can talk in peace.”
Silence. Maybe Potter was reloading. Maybe he was eating a sandwich. Maybe he was setting a bomb that would blow them all to hell. “Potter,” Leith called out. “I’m coming down so we can talk, okay? Just stay where you are.”
There was another blast, and this one had a different sound, a different sort of finality. A sharp, clean handgun blam. Leith swore out loud, notified his men, and went scrambling cautiously through muck and bracken down the slope.
He found Potter hunkered deep in the hollow formed by two firs, head bowed forward between his knees as if ashamed of the big bloody mess he’d made of his life.
Leith made his radio call, bringing in the medics. Then he mirrored Potter in a way, head hung, nothing left to do or say.
* * *
Some hours later, from the case room in Terrace, he called Giroux to tell her about Potter. Not just the death, but what had been found in the remains of Potter’s burned down house. “Convenience store receipts,” he said. “For cigarettes. Dated Saturday. Checked the security footage, and we got Potter alibied, no doubt about it. We’ve almost c
ertainly got him on the Pickup killings, but he wasn’t involved in our girl’s disappearance, and we’re back to square one. Bosko’s just dealing with some stuff here, then we’ll head back to Hazelton. Be there in two hours, max.”
Giroux spoke quietly, which was a departure for her. “I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee, Big City. See you soon.”
* * *
With all hands on deck for a full-team briefing, the small detachment was filled to capacity. The air was overtaxed, dry and hot. Leith’s nose was stuffed, a new discomfort to go with the headache, the guilt, and the dull pain in his wrist left over from the sprain. Any spiritual satisfaction he might have felt for stopping John Potter in his sadistic tracks would just have to wait. Right now his focus was on Kiera.
Outside the snow pelted down on New Hazelton, thick and fast, blanketing the village afresh. Four names were up on the board now: Frank, Stella, Chad, and Rob, four young people suddenly cast in a far harsher light. Bosko had suggested the approach to be taken, and Leith spread the word to the team. “We don’t want the tenor of our relationship with these kids to change just now,” he said. “But we’ll have to get fresh statements, and this time we’re going to trawl for inconsistencies.”
Jayne Spacey asked how that tenor was supposed to go unchanged. “They’re going to know about Potter. Right? We can’t lie and say he’s our man. They’re going to know they’re now in the spotlight.”
Leith said, “There are still enough distractions. There’s the white truck, our potential mystery abductor. And there’s the question in the back of all our minds: What if Kiera ran away? We’ll just give the impression, at least, of focussing on those two avenues for now.” He directed his words to Spacey. “We’ll need the phone records of Chad Oman, Stella Marshall, Frank Law, Rob Law, and Lenny Law, so if you’ll bang out the production orders.”
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