Blue Star

by Valerie Van Clieaf

  “There was no sign of an arming box near the main door, or anywhere else. I think the signs are a hoax. And that wide loading door with the long heavy bar can only be opened from the inside.”

  “Also, the fence around the property is eight feet high with a barbed wire roll around the top.”

  “I imagine that’s an effective deterrent.” We’d arrived at our rental car.

  “We’ve got the car till tomorrow afternoon,” Lucas said. “Do you think we’ll need it longer?”

  “Let’s wait and see.” I called Kate and she picked up. I filled her in and told her of our plan to return to the yard this evening. I listened patiently as she gave me all the reasons visiting the yard was a bad idea.

  “Kate, I can’t explain it, but something tells me I need to have a look inside that locked area.”

  “Why don’t you get the police to go with you?”

  “Lucas says they’d need a search warrant, and it’d be impossible to get one without good reason, which they wouldn’t have!”

  “What if someone catches you?” she countered.

  “Only one guy works at the yard and he’s gone by 6:00 pm.”

  “Bart and I should go with you.”

  “We need you off site, in case something goes wrong—which it won’t of course!” I quickly added.

  She finally agreed, but reluctantly. “You can text when you’re going in, when you’re safely out of there, and then show up at our place for a full accounting after, no matter how late!”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I saw the picture you sent Bart. I see Lucas has spiked his hair,” she said, changing the subject.

  “It’s growing on me.”

  We had about three hours until our planned return to the shipyard. On our way home, we stopped at The Roundel for burgers. Sergio, our waiter, loved our outfits. I told him I was filming. Maurice remained in character throughout dinner and I played along. It wasn’t the first time it’s occurred to me that Lucas may have missed his true calling.

  We were back home by 6:30 pm. I changed into jeans, a hoody, and sneakers with haste and very gratefully. The wig was itchy, and the heels were killing me. Lucas wet his hair, combed it straight back and hid it under a black baseball cap. I made sure we had one of the burner cells Lucas had bought for us. We also brought heavy duty gloves and I grabbed the garden shears from the back shed, just in case.

  While Lucas drove, I checked in with Kate to let her know we were on our way to the yard. Stacie had called the land line while we were out, so I called her back. When I got through, I identified myself and put her on speaker.

  “Thanks for calling, Stacie. We’ve got a few questions for you if you don’t mind. I assume you know what happened to me.”

  “Well, I know as much as anyone else, although what they’re reporting lately is below the belt. I don’t believe any of it, by the way.”

  “I appreciate that. Have the police contacted you?”

  “Someone named Detective Fernice called and left a message. I haven’t returned her call yet. She said she was working on your case.”

  “That’s right, she is.”

  “She wanted to know about the tweet and whether I had any information about the tweeter. I don’t. The reason I called you is I got a strange phone call from a guy who said he was with the student newspaper.”

  “The Pinnacle?” I said.

  “Right. He asked me to put him in touch with the tweeter. He wants to interview him. There was something odd about the guy.”

  “How did he get your name?” Lucas asked. I had a pen out and was fishing around for something to write on.

  “From Gary Sulzberger, the other person I texted about the tweet.” Lucas and I exchanged a quick glance. “He’s in the other film lab. I texted him and Shelby, because I wasn’t sure which one you were leading, Morgan.”

  “Did you get the caller’s name?” asked Lucas.

  There was a long silence.

  “Stacie, are you still there?” I asked.

  “Sorry, I’m still here. I realize now I should’ve contacted you directly, but I was scared. Everyone is talking about what happened to you, and I do mean everyone. One of the security guards told me the number of women requesting an escort to their cars at night has skyrocketed. Who can blame them? There’s a lot of fear. You know, bad stuff happens to women students all the time, but this is different.”

  “Because I’m Indigenous.”

  “Yes Morgan! That’s what I’m talking about. I am too and I don’t feel safe!”

  “I totally get it,” I said. “The guy who said he was from the Pinnacle, did he give you his name, even a first name?”

  “He said his name was Mark.”

  “We’ll let Detective Fernice know about the phone call. She might call you about it.

  “Okay. I’ll talk to her if she does.”

  We left the cottage shortly after. Lucas had made a quick detour to a Canadian Tire Store near us to pick-up heavy-duty wire cutters. He was in and out in minutes, then we were on our way. The trip back across the inlet to the North Shore was much faster this time of night. We arrived at the shipyard a little after 8:00 pm.

  Lucas drove by the main gate, now closed and locked. The shop building was lit, especially the main entrance on the side, but the lighting was low wattage. We parked in the same area we had earlier, just up the street and around the corner from the yard, well out of sight. I texted Kate that we’d arrived at the yard and were going in. She texted back, reminding me to take the cell in with us. The plan was I’d text her once we were inside, and again when we were clear. She had Fernice’s cell number, just in case.

  Gathering everything we needed, including the burner, on vibrate, we made our way to the north side of the lot. I had a Nikon tucked into a jacket pocket—just in case.

  We decided to go in through the north side as there were only a few houses on that side. Getting through to the chain link fence entailed a bit of work. Blackberry bushes along the fence were quite overgrown and blackberry thorns are lethal. We found a relatively thin patch of bushes near the north-east side and I quickly cut a path through to the fence, using the shears to pick up and toss the snarly branches to one side.

  Once at the fence, Lucas cut through the chain link, bending it back and creating an opening for us. I cut away a few more berry stalks just inside the fence. Then we slipped through the fence and into the yard on the shop door side.

  There wasn’t much moonlight, but there wasn’t much laying about outside, so it was easy going, across the 30 or so metres to the building. We avoided the pools of light near the eaves and followed the wall to the left, where I’d noticed the small open window earlier. There was no eave light near it. The window wasn’t open now and when Lucas put his shoulder to it, it wouldn’t budge.

  “Locked. I’ll break the bottom pane,” he said and grabbing the wire cutters, he drew back and slammed the cutters against the window. Nothing. He looked at the window in disbelief, drew back and slammed the cutters against the window again. That did the trick—the window shattered.

  Once stray bits of jagged glass were cleared away, Lucas reached in to unlock the window and push it up, then he hoisted himself up and through the window, me right behind him. Broken glass made a not very satisfying crunch underfoot. We quickly made our way to the back of the shop, to what served as a reception area and the door to the room that I wanted to search. I tried the door—it was locked.

  “The key might not be on site, especially if the room isn’t used for boat repair purposes.”

  “Okay then, stand back,” I said. I judged the distance from the door to my hip, leg extended, raised my leg to waist level, chambered my hip and let fly with a heel kick to the right of the lock. I felt it give, but it took one more kick before the panel gave way. I reached through and fiddled with the catch, unlocking it easily.

  “Nicely done, Morgan,” said Lucas as he pushe
d the door open and we entered the room, really an office.

  “There are no outside windows in this area. I think it’s safe to use the flashlight.”

  Lucas set it down on a desk and switched on the lamp function. I texted Kate that we were in.

  There were a few filing cabinets and we tried them, but they were all locked. We checked the shelving units, complete with small cylindrical locks on each door. There were two units, and both were locked.

  My dad had a similar lock on one of his cabinets in the shed where he kept his tools. After many years, the tumblers had worn so badly that he used to unlock it with any of his house keys. I tried dad’s trick and used one of our house keys to turn the tumbler. It didn’t work on the first cabinet, but to my surprise, it did on the second.

  Print material—professionally done calendars, and books of photographs were neatly stacked on the shelves. The first book I examined showed children at play, or innocently posing for the camera. My guy was not so lucky, and he let out a cry of horror when he realized the book he held in his hands pictured children of all ages, even babies, being raped.

  “Madre de Dios! Every picture is a crime scene. The bastards!”

  I looked over his shoulder. The pictures were horrific. “Holy shit! What do we do?”

  “We can’t take these. If we do, they’ll be useless as evidence. But we’re not police, so we can tell them where we found them and then they can get a warrant to search and they can seize all of this.”

  “Okay. But we need proof that we found them. I’ll take pictures: of the locked cupboards and of the calendars and books. We could open a book next to a closed copy of the same book, like this,” and I showed him what I meant, propping one of the books open, next to the spines of a stack of the same, for reference. I can take a few sample pictures of the contents of each book.”

  “We’ll need the overhead lights,” he said, locating the light switch.

  I unzipped my camera. Lucas moved ahead of me, quickly setting up the shots. I took care to photograph the cover pages, which gave cryptic information as to the creation and distribution of this material. There was also a handwritten list and beside each item, ever decreasing numbers were crossed out and replaced.

  “Maybe the handwriting can be identified,” said Lucas. I took a picture of the list.

  We were done in fifteen minutes. I relocked the cupboard. He shut off the overhead lights and we got out of there as fast as we could, through the building, out the window and a mad dash across the yard and back through the fence—and not a moment too soon.

  High beam vehicle lights lit up the yard beyond the building.

  “Someone’s at the gate. Let’s wait for a minute,” said Lucas. “Maybe we can get a look at him.”

  We waited, crouched in the shadows beyond the fence, ready to sprint. A young man in a jacket and baseball cap made his way around the building to the door, quickly unlocked it and let himself in, closing the door after him. It wasn’t long before lights went on in the shop area and not long after that, we spotted the guy at the broken window, only because he leaned out of it briefly to have a look around.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Lucas and we sprinted back to where we’d parked the rental.

  Once we were back in and buckled up, Lucas turned to me.

  “If we hurry, we might be able to get a picture of the guy’s license plate.”

  “Right.” I pulled out my camera.

  Lucas started the car but kept the lights off. We left the side street and he turned onto Rickard Street, where the gated entrance was located. He drove past the gate and pulled in behind a silver Suburban parked just beyond the open gate in the yard. The driver was nowhere to be seen. I hopped out, moved to the back of the car, and took two pictures of the license plate using the flash before I turned, adrenaline racing, and dashed back to the car.

  Then we were out of there, down the road and around the corner. The Lions Gate Bridge was only a few minutes from the yard. It wasn’t long before we were over it, through Stanley Park and heading down Georgia Street.

  I texted Kate that we were done and would arrive soon. Their apartment, a funky, older walk-up, is in Vancouver’s West End, close to English Bay. I called when we arrived in the alley behind their place and Kate came down to let me in. Lucas went looking for a parking spot for the rental.

  Kate put the kettle on for a pot of tea. I sat at their kitchen table, still overwhelmed with our discovery of the pictures.

  “Jesus lovey! After that text from inside, we didn’t get another for almost 45 minutes. We were worried sick.”

  “We were on our way out the door,” said Bart. He’d joined us at the table.

  “Then you texted you were out. Thank God!” said Kate.

  “Morgan. You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said Bart. He shared a glance with Kate. The apartment buzzer sounded, and Kate jumped up to ring Lucas in.

  “I ended up in the lot behind the tennis courts.”

  “Okay you two,” said Kate. “Out with it.”

  They listened carefully as we filled them in: getting through the fence; breaking into the building; my kicking in the door; gathering the photographic evidence; our getaway and the Suburban at the gate.

  “A silver Suburban,” said Bart. “Wonder if it’s the same one Mike spotted at the back of the Clarendon?”

  “We should make copies of the pictures you took,” said Bart. “I’ll do that now.”

  “Some of them are horrific,” Lucas warned quietly. “They’ll be with me for a long time.”

  Bart nodded solemnly as I handed him my camera.

  Moments later, Lucas’s cell phone buzzed. It was Michael, wanting to know if we were at home.

  “It’s Michael.”

  “Invite him over,” said Bart, and Lucas texted him the address.

  Within the hour, Michael was sitting with us at the kitchen table. We filled him in on our visit to the boatyard. Bart had loaded the contents of my camera onto his laptop and made two copies of the photos. He pulled up the shots of the Suburban’s license plate and showed them to Michael. He studied them carefully.

  “The cops will have access to the DMV data base,” he said.

  “There are other photos, Michael,” Lucas said quietly. “We found child abuse materials, calendars, books, obviously meant for distribution. We couldn’t take copies, or we would have betrayed that we’d been there.”

  “So I took pictures of some of it, book covers, title pages, materials in the locked cupboard and so on, to show Desocarras and Fernice.”

  Michael nodded. “She called to let me know that your case and Carey’s case are linked.”

  “Did she mention whether the VPD have followed up in any way at the Clarendon?” asked Lucas.

  “She didn’t. I did ask that they be very discreet. In truth, I suspected their version of discreet would be to sit on the file. Colour me skeptical if you like. But I’ve been busy. As you know, the club has a distinctly boys club charm. Women—other than family that is—couldn’t become members until 10 years ago. Don’t get me wrong,” he said, with a nod to Kate and me. “A lot of the women members are movers and shakers, but their numbers are still small. And ditto with the brown people. Take my firm, Bourdais Lambert. I’m the only brother working there, but I was at the top of my graduating class, so they’re getting their monies worth. But I digress.”

  “Not at all,” said Kate. Bart nodded agreement.

  “Something is going on at the club and as a member, I’m in a position to investigate and that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been casually talking up the staff, especially anyone who works the evening functions. The story I’ve been using is my family live out of town and my aunt and her daughter would like to come to Vancouver to do some shopping. I’m going to put them up at the club as I don’t really have room at the condo and do they think my niece, who is only twelve, will feel welcome.

  The
information I’m after was quite specific: which members use the overnight rooms for guests; are the guests local people or are they more often from outside Vancouver and; is it common for young children to be at the club in the evenings.”

  “What have you found out?” asked Kate.

  “A couple of things,” said Michael, glancing around the table.

  “I just know something is going on there,” said Kate. “I can feel it in my bones.”

  “One of the waiters, his name’s Marvin—bright red, bed-head hair and piercing blue eyes. He was on shift the night you joined me for dinner.”

  “The redhead. He’s hard to miss. He was working a dinner party that we passed on our way to the bar.”

  Michael nodded. “Marvin works mostly private parties and banquets. I’ve heard he deals drugs at the club. I overheard someone ask him yesterday if he was working a banquet one of the members was hosting this Friday. I heard him say he couldn’t do the Friday banquet, because he has papers due, and he’s already booked to work a dinner party for Ange Batlan Saturday night.

  I was right at their elbow, so I asked Marvin where he was studying, and he said SFU. The thing is, until yesterday evening, I didn’t know that, and considering what happened to you Morgan within, what was it—a week after our dinner at the club, I think it’s worth noting.”

  “Worth noting,” I agreed.

  “What’s Marvin’s last name?” Lucas asked him.

  “I’ll find out. There’s one other thing, but this is just a feeling really, that something isn’t quite right. I was up on the top floor, in the accommodation area, snooping around. One of the housekeeping staff was leaving one of the rooms. She asked me if she could be of assistance.

  I told her I was checking out the accommodations to make sure they would be appropriate for my visiting family who are quite religious. Is there a lot of partying and such that goes on? Well, she got the strangest look on her face. We were standing adjacent the door of the Mackenzie Suite. The reason I even noticed the name was that she looked from me to the door of the suite and back to me, so of course I looked at the door as well.