by Ron Corbett
“Cape Diamond. My father has a house there. I hitched a ride to Buckham’s Bay and started waitressing at Ferguson’s. I didn’t look thirteen. So that’s where I went.”
“Did you dad try to find you?”
“I wouldn’t have been hard to find. He never came.”
“When did you move to the North Shore?”
“After Grace was born. I lived here when I was a little girl. I had Grace, and I didn’t want to be a waitress for the rest of my life, so I came back and started taking night classes to earn my diploma.”
“That took a bit of courage. A lot of people in your situation don’t get clear of a family like that. What sort of work do you do for the government?”
“I’m a P6 clerk. The pay is so low I still qualify for a subsidized apartment.”
Yakabuski took another sip of his tea. There was a stigma to being from the North Shore, most people from Springfield thinking a North Shore address meant you were indolent and dishonest and in some way a train wreck just waiting to happen. He wondered what those people would say if they met someone like Rachel Dumont, who right then was staring at Yakabuski with an intensity so strong and palpable it was like something pushing against his chest.
“Grace going missing, it has something to do with that diamond you found, doesn’t it?” she said.
“It may,” answered Yakabuski. “Do you know if your father has some way of smuggling diamonds out of that mine up there?”
“I wouldn’t know. There wasn’t a mine there when I was living at Cape Diamond. It wasn’t even called that.”
“A diamond mine opening up right on your dad’s doorstep, that would get his attention, I suspect.”
“It would. It looks like it has caught the attention of the Shiners too.”
“Looks that way.”
“And now my daughter is caught up in the middle of whatever this is. Tell me, Mr. Yakabuski, and please be honest — I think Grace must be more valuable to them alive. If this were straight revenge, you would have already found her body. That’s right, isn’t it?”
Yakabuski had started to wonder about that. If this were Burke’s Falls, the Shiners would have hung Grace Dumont’s body from a street lamp and been done with it. Put her on display, the way they had displayed Tete Fontaine. Why the hesitation? Why the shyness? It made no sense, the young girl’s body not being found by now.
Which was the glimmer of hope Rachel Dumont was seeking, as weak as it was.
“That’s right,” said Yakabuski, staring directly into her eyes and nodding. “That’s right,” he said one more time, trying not to feel guilty at the meaninglessness of the words.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The crowd on Tache Boulevard had swollen to more than a hundred people when Yakabuski exited Rachel Dumont’s apartment building. Oil drums had been set alight at the cross streets and in the distance, under the lights of Filion’s Field. Yakabuski could see several tents had gone up on the soccer pitch. People were arriving from other places.
A child changes everything, he thought sadly. In the Balkans, Yakabuski had seen a six-day standoff come to an end when a Serb sniper put a bullet through the head of a Muslim girl at the village well. Two hours later, the Serbs were in the village, picking off the Muslim fighters one by one as they charged in anger.
In Springfield, Papa Paquette once kidnapped a four-year-old boy because his father had owed the Popeyes money, and although the debt was quickly repaid, Papa held onto the boy, travelled with him, as though he were a pet, and in the next eighteen months the father was forced to rob three banks, make two mule runs to Montesano, and finally take a five-year manslaughter plea for killing a man he had never met. Papa released the boy to a shattered mother who left Springfield, vowing never to return. She must have kept her vow. The boy and mother were never seen again.
Yakabuski surveyed the crowd in front of him. A missing child was always a problem, and not in the ways you would think. For people with a guilty conscience, saving a child represented their best chance for absolution. “I may have done all these other things, Lord, but I rescued that fuckin’ kid.” It was the ultimate get-out-of-hell card. Also the reason why people not known for civic-mindedness were often the ones most upset about a child’s disappearance, the ones shouting loudest at the public meetings, the ones calling for action and hatching feverish schemes of vengeance late into the night.
The media never got a missing child story quite right. It was always shown as the thousand volunteers walking a grid formation in some farmer’s field, the candlelight vigil on a downtown street, the shattered innocence of the child’s friends and schoolmates. When all the while, just below the surface, people were suspicious and fearful and getting ready to turn bat-shit nasty. Because there was a child missing. And you could do that.
The crowd in front of Building H was so thick Yakabuski had to push his way through, past unshaven men with long hair and flannel shirts, eyes you couldn’t see unless the glare of the streetlight was directly upon them. A few of the men were wearing red sashes tied around their waists, the beaded tails of the sash dangling down their denim legs, the glass stones twinkling in the night. The old sash of the voyageurs. Not seen on the North Shore in more than a hundred years.
The men didn’t speak as Yakabuski pushed past them. Didn’t threaten or push back. Simply leaned back when Yakabuski approached, leaned back in when he had passed. Expending no more energy than necessary, to let the cop know he was that inconsequential to them.
Yakabuski expended the same amount of energy. To let the crowd know tonight was not the night.
. . .
Grace Dumont had never been to Cork’s Town. Her mother forbade it. Just last year, her mother told her the story of how the North Shore Bridge was built, how people from Cork’s Town arrived one morning and threw everyone from their homes. Her great-grandmother and great-grandfather had been two of the people left homeless that day. Her mother never spoke about them and had no photos, but they had been family. The girl had no one but her mother, and the story had haunted her.
That was the reason the spires of St. Bridget’s, when she saw them, terrified her more than the kidnapping. That had been quick. Over in the time it took for a truck to stop in front of her as she walked the alley between Buildings G and H, and a passenger in the truck to jump out, lift her up, and throw her in the narrow back seat.
She had screamed, but she was inside the truck so quickly it made no difference. The passenger, a man with long blond hair and tattoos on his face, turned around and hit her, then shouted, “Shut the fuck up.”
“Where are you taking me? Who are you?” she had demanded.
“Shut the fuck up. Lie down on the floor and don’t move. Don’t do a fuckin’ thing.”
She did as she was told. They drove for what seemed a long time, but when the truck stopped and she was taken out, there they were in front of her: the spires of St. Bridget’s Basilica. From the window of her kitchen, on a clear day in the winter, with no leaves on the trees, she could see the spires. As she was led up the outside stairs in back of an old wooden house, she felt sad. Not terrified. Not confused. None of the emotions you might expect. Sadness. Knowing her mother was so close, but she had no way of reaching her.
It was the man with the long blond hair who walked her up the stairs. Unlocked the door. Shoved her inside and down the narrow hallway running through the centre of the apartment, all the way to the far end. The apartment was smaller than hers. One small bedroom. A living room that looked onto the street in front, just big enough for a couch and a television, a kitchen by the rear stairs, with patterned vinyl on the floor that was ripped and stained, a sink that was once white but was now more tobacco-coloured. The driver of the car had gone.
“Sit on the couch and shut the fuck up.”
The girl did as she was told, staring around the living room when she was seated. Down the ha
llway, where it dead-ended at a wallpapered wall. The only entrance was off the kitchen.
The man gave her a nasty look and said, “I have to make some phone calls. You stay right where you are. If you move even an inch, I’ll fuckin’ know it.”
In a few moments she heard his voice coming from the kitchen. He was angry. She heard him say: “I think it’s fucking stupid.” Later: “We don’t need it. You should have told him to fuck off.” And just before the call ended: “Well if it’s a test, has he passed or failed?”
After that he was back in the living room. He had taken off his coat and was wearing a white T-shirt. He had tattoo sleeves on both arms. The girl had never seen a person with so many tattoos. He pushed strands of hair away from his face and said, “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“I’m going to make some supper. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He gave her a strange look. Then he went back to the kitchen and she heard the sounds of pots being taken out of a cupboard, a gas stove being turned on, a faucet running. Several minutes later, he came back to the living room, carrying two bowls of Kraft Dinner. He put one of the bowls in front of her.
“That’s all I’m making tonight,” he said.
He sat down on the couch and started to eat. From time to time he would look over at the girl. When he was nearly finished his bowl of food, he said, “You’re not crying and carrying on. Why is that?”
“Would it help me any?”
“No.”
“Then why would I do it?”
“How old are you?”
“Almost twelve.”
“Who told you to think like that?”
“My mother.”
The man went back to eating. When he was finished, he leaned back on the couch.
“Why have you taken me?” the girl asked.
“Your grandfather. Because of some shit he’s done.”
“It’s not because of me?”
“No.”
“Then there’s nothing you would want.” The girl hesitated for the first time, searched for the right words before saying, “nothing you would want from me?”
The man stared at the girl a long time before he said, “I don’t do things like that.”
“Is that a promise?”
“That’s a promise. You keep your mouth shut and don’t try anything stupid, you’ll be home with your mother in a couple days. This is all about your grandfather.”
“I’ve never met him.”
“Not many people have. I suspect that’s about to change.”
“You think he’ll come for me? Why would he do that?”
The man laughed. “Fuck, you’re a funny kid. What’s your name?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Grace.”
The man nodded. Stood up with his bowl and headed to the kitchen. Before leaving the room, he turned and said, “Sorry about hitting you in the car. I didn’t know what kind of kid you were.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The detachment was chaos when Yakabuski arrived at four in the morning. Every patrol officer had been called in and people were running in and out of the dispatch room with such frequency, someone had wedged a crumbled takeout coffee cup under the door to prop it open. A tip line was being manned in the Crime Stoppers office by the front desk, and already a volunteer had asked if it were possible to get more phones. The night duty sergeant didn’t know. Said he would look into it.
Reporters from news outlets already in town for Augustus Morrissey’s funeral crowded the foyer in front of the sergeant’s desk. Took photos with their phones of the handout of Grace Dumont, her sixth grade class photo from Northwood, her black hair pulled back in a ponytail, a smile that was both tentative and endearing. Some of the American reporters could not hide their excitement when they saw the photo.
Late that night, the Associated Press reporter made the connection between the missing girl and the recent murders on the North Shore. At 6 a.m. a story moved across the wires with photos of Augustus Morrissey, Tete Fontaine, and Grace Dumont, linking the child’s disappearance to “recent gangland slayings in Springfield.” After that the phone calls started coming from police agencies and newspapers across North America.
. . .
Yakabuski slept again on the couch in his office and was awoken shortly before 7 a.m. by his cellphone ringing. It was O’Toole, asking him to come to his office. When he got there, he found another man already in the office, a big Black man with a barrel chest and tight-shorn hair. The visitor eyed Yakabuski closely as he walked into the room.
“Yak, this is Lieutenant John Evans with the RCMP’s anti-racketeering squad in Toronto,” said O’Toole, and the man stood to shake Yakabuski’s hand.
“I was part of the Ragged Lake investigation, Detective Yakabuski. I listened in on a phone call you made to an encrypted number we found on Tommy Bangles’s cellphone. Not sure if you remember that call.”
“I remember.”
“Yes, I suppose you would. I have a few things I want you to look at.” Evans took a highway map of North America from a briefcase open on O’Toole’s conference table. He unfolded the map and spread it out. O’Toole came from behind his desk to stand beside Yakabuski while they looked at the map.
“The FBI has asked for our help in locating a serial killer that crossed into the United States from Mexico four days ago,” said Evans. “His first victim was found just south of Corpus Christi, an escort girl from the village of Heroica. She went through the Brownsville border crossing at 11:13 a.m. Monday morning. Every guard at the border remembers her. She looked like Margot Robbie, apparently. Drove a Miata sports car. Working theory is she was a deliberate distraction for our serial killer, who crossed the border at the same time.
“Two days later —” Evans moved his finger from Corpus Christi up to Memphis “— an Arkansas state trooper went missing. His patrol car was found on Interstate 55, the dashboard camera ripped out, keys taken. There was no digital feed. A canvass of the truck stops in the area turned up a witness who said the trooper had pulled over a campervan with Texas plates, at the exact spot where his patrol car was found.”
Evans moved his finger up the map.
“The following day, the bodies of an elderly couple were found in Shawnee National Forest. They had both been stabbed to death, their bodies found in their fifth-wheel. The campsite right next to them was rented the night before by a man that doesn’t exist. Everything on the admission form was bogus. Other campers remember seeing a campervan with Texas plates on that campsite.
“Yesterday,” said Evans, moving his finger further north, “a vehicle matching the description of the campervan was stopped at a roadblock fifty miles south of Chicago.”
The room seemed to contract when he said that. Both O’Toole and Yakabuski felt it, although maybe it happened in the back of their throats and they mistook it for something happening to the room. What happened at that roadblock had been on the news most of the night.
“There must have been two dozen state patrol cars at the roadblock,” continued Evans, “an FBI field unit from Chicago, another from Cooke County, ATF officers, and some local police. The media had helicopters in the air. When the driver didn’t respond to several requests to exit the vehicle, a tactical team was sent in.” Evans took a stack of photos from his briefcase and spread them out on the table next to the map.
“The bomb was detonated at 4:34 p.m., as soon as a tactical officer touched the handle of the car. He and four officers standing nearby were killed instantly. A news helicopter was blown out of the sky. Nine killed right there, and two more died overnight in the hospital. There are nineteen people still in the hospital. According to an FBI officer I spoke with an hour ago, not all of them are going to make it.”
“But the dr
iver must be dead as well,” said O’Toole. “Isn’t your investigation finished?”
“The person in the driver’s seat is indeed dead,” Evans said sourly. “It was the missing Arkansas state trooper. We got DNA confirmation two hours ago. No one else was in the van.”
“How is that possible?”
“The van was being driven by some sort of remote control. They’re still putting the device together.”
When he said that, Evans looked at Yakabuski. A strange look. As though Yakabuski were guilty of something. He rummaged around his briefcase and pulled out a ruler.
“Detective Yakabuski,” Evans said, and he tossed the ruler on the map. “Can you line up the crime scenes I have just mentioned, starting with Corpus Christi, please?”
Yakabuski gave Evans a look, then shrugged his shoulders and positioned the ruler on the map.
“It’s pretty much a straight line,” he said. “Heading northeast.”
“That’s right. Extend the line, please, keeping the same angle and direction. Tell me where you end up.”
Yakabuski started to reposition the ruler. Before he was finished O’Toole was already talking.
“Don’t know if this proves all that much, Lieutenant Evans. Your guy could have been going to Chicago. That’s where the I-57 would have taken him. How can we possibly know where his final destination would have been?”
“Humour me, Chief. It’s been a long couple of days. Where would you end up, Detective Yakabuski?”
“Somewhere on the Northern Divide,” he said quietly. “Near Springfield.”
“Yes, you sure as fuck would. Now here’s the best part, the absolute best part about this whole motherfucking rat fuck.” Evans turned back to his briefcase, pulled out a plastic baggie with what looked like a chunk of coal inside. He threw the baggie on the table. Yakabuski and O’Toole could see now that it was melted plastic. With some embedded glass. Some embedded metal.
“That was recovered from the van. It’s the cellphone Detective Yakabuski called two summers ago.”
