by Jason Mason
A Winter for Killing
A Baker Desjardins Novel
by
Jason Mason
Copyright © 2020 by Jason Mason
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Chapter 1
A Cold Night
They say that during a war just under a fifth of the front line soldiers actually try to kill the man on the other side of the battle. Twenty percent. And that’s when murder is legal, justifiably, patriotic, and often even necessary to protect your own life or the people around you. The other eighty percent of the soldiers shoot at the ground or above the heads of the other human beings in the fight in the desperate hope that they’ll run away or surrender. Despite what these men believe when signing up for the army, most of them really don’t want to go back home knowing that they were responsible for taking another person’s life.
But what about those soldiers who do kill? What makes them different than the rest of the people who are put in the same circumstances and still refuse to kill another living man? What exists inside those people that allows them to become a taker of lives? Nobody knows, but of that twenty percent of born killers it is extremely unlikely that they would kill a person outside of war. Now of course, some people do. But what then drives them to take the most important thing another person has and coldly snuff it out? Is it that they lack a conscience, or do they kill simply out of greed or petty revenge? Have their hearts become so cold that they no longer see their victims as human beings, but rather as some chattel of no importance to the world, even to such degree that they feel entitled to determine whether to let that person continue to live or not?
To kill an innocent person that does not want to die takes a heart made of stone that is as bitterly cold as the frozen rocks up in the northern tundra. It takes ice in the veins, like the ice that transforms the thousands of lakes and river of the sub-arctic for more than half the year. It takes a cold person to kill. And Northern Canada in January is just about as cold as the world gets.
On this bitter Sunday night it is minus twenty degrees Celsius (the same as minus four degrees Fahrenheit) before the wind chill which qualifies as freezing cold in Edmonton, Alberta. It wasn’t snowing yet, but the middle-aged driver tucked away in his heated car knew it could start at any point and that the attractive young woman he was staring at would not want to try to walk home in this weather. He wore a black toque over his worn out NHL Oilers ball-cap, and had just dropped a smoldering cigarette butt out of the crack of his window as he stared at her with his deep sunken eyes.
She shivered briefly, standing on the side of the road in front of the dance club, looking out at the cars for a specific one. Her coat was not nearly long or bulky enough for this weather, and she had foregone wearing a hat to avoid messing up her long blonde hair. Her jeans were skinny and wouldn’t keep you warm on a summer’s night, let alone a night like this.
“Are you looking for an Uber?” he asked her with his window rolled down only slightly. He felt a streak of cold on his face as wide as the window was open and didn’t want to leave it down any longer than he had to.
January in Edmonton is brutal to say the least. The sun often doesn’t rise until after eight or even nine in the morning, and it goes down long before six. Christmas is a distant memory so all of the warm festive lights and the good feelings of the season are gone. It gets very depressing here and everyone needs an escape to get through the rest of the winter. Some people read, some watch movies and television, and some people (like Christine) drink until the spring hits again. It’s just the Alberta way.
Earlier that night Christine did order an Uber, and it said it was on its way but she wasn’t sure that this was the right car. This was a black Toyota Corolla and she thought that she was waiting for a red Honda Civic. Maybe they changed the driver in the system? It’s possible they would have done that, and with her thick mittens on she didn’t really want to take them off to reach into her pocket and check. Not to mention she was far too drunk to be able to properly read the now very blurry screen in any event. She could see the Uber image on the windshield of his car and that was good enough for her, even if she was a little annoyed that the driver was smoking in his car. It was probably going to smell.
“Yes I am, that must be you,” she replied opening the driver side rear door and getting into the car.
It was the twenty-third birthday of one of her friends and she was out celebrating with a group of the girls, most of whom knew each other since high school. Christine Rivers had already turned twenty-three in September and working at an upscale restaurant downtown but this was one of the first weekend nights she’s had off in months. She was a very beautiful girl, and had dozens of matches on Tinder that she was talking to at any given point in time, but tonight wasn’t a date night. Tonight was a girl’s night, and the last round of shots the girls did to celebrate was one too many for her. Being a waitress, she knew when she’s had enough so she ordered an Uber and bid her good nights to her friends, deciding to wait outside in the cold for her ride to come. It was a decision she regretted as soon as she stepped outside, but the awkwardness of returning to the group after saying goodbye kept her waiting in the harsh winter wind.
The Uber started to take off and it was heading in the right general direction of her house so Christine was satisfied she got into the right car. Not to mention that getting out of the freezing cold and into this vehicle which had the heat on very high made her feel comfortable and relaxed immediately. She pulled out her phone and texted her friends to let them know that she was on her way home and to have a good rest of their night. With that done she leaned against the window to rest her eyes until she got home. Drifting off, she didn’t even notice when the driver reached back and pulled her phone out of her coat pocket then tossed it out his window.
A button locked the rear doors from inside the car but by this point Christine was already fast asleep for the last ride she’ll ever take.
◆◆◆
“You’re not right. You’re close but you’re not right.”
Christine woke up to those words and looked around wondering where she was. She was in a car, and buckled in the back seat. Yes, that’s right, after the bar she got into an Uber which was taking her home, but how long ago was that? She only lived about fifteen minutes from the bar and it feels like she’s been asleep much longer than that.
“What are you talking about?” she asked the driver as she prodded all of her pockets looking for her phone. Where was it? Did she leave it at the bar?
“You’re blond, you’re thin, but you’re not right. The one I have already is better than you,” the driver replied with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“How am I not right? Are we almost at my house yet?” Christine asked as she looked out her window. She saw trees on one side of the road, and farms on the other and that’s when she realized she wasn’t in the city anymore.
“Hey! Where am I? What’s going on?” She asked now frantically reaching through all of her coat pockets for the phone. She still had her purse, but her phone wasn’t in it.
“You’re almost there,” was the response.
Despite how fast they were driving on this rural highway, Christine tried to open the door so she could get out but pulling on the handle made no difference. Nor would her windows roll down. She was becoming anxious and began breathing heavily. She was still intoxicated but didn’t feel drunk anymore as the panic set in. Who was this guy?
“Please just let me go,” she
begged. “I promise I won’t tell anyone about this. I promise.”
There was no response. The car turned to the left and up a heavily wooded driveway and as it approached the large dark house the end of the driveway stared to illuminate as the double garage door began opening. The car pulled into the brightly lit port and the driver turned around giving Christine a chance to finally see him fully for the first time. He was an older man, in his late forties if not early fifties with thinning hair (outside of the cap) and a two day shadow on his face from not having shaven. He had dark, sunken, piercing eyes which seemed to look right through her and not even see the woman in the back of his car.
“This is a kidnapping. Do as you’re told as you will be ok,” he assured her after looking her over once again.
“Ok,” Christine answered with terror in her voice. “I’ll do anything, my family… my family isn’t rich but they have some money. I’m sure they’ll pay you whatever you want. Just please don’t hurt me.”
The man didn’t give her any kind of acknowledgement about her family.
“Give me your hands,” he replied, revealing a set of handcuffs he held in his right hand.
Obediently Christine raised her two hands in front of her, trembling the whole time. The driver motioned for her to slide over to the left, so that she was behind the passenger side seat, while still holding her hands out in front of her. He slapped one of the cuffs on her left hand and as she held her right hand out waiting for the other he pulled her arm over towards the car door, attaching the other cuff to the handle on the ceiling of the car.
“What are you doing?” Christine asked in a panic.
“You’re not right. You’re just not right,” was his only reply as he got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him.
“Wait! Wait, where are you going?” she screamed at him as he began walking away. The car was still running… was he going to take her somewhere else? She started pounding on the window with her free hand but it was futile. So was any effort to pull her left hand free using her right.
“You’re not right!” the driver screamed at her as he hit a button beside the door to the interior of his house starting a mechanical noise.
“You’re not right!” he hissed again sounding like a wounded animal as he slammed the door shut behind him.
Confused and getting overheated in her winter jacket with the heat turned on to max in the car, Christine turned around to see the garage door closing. He was trapping her in the car with the engine running and in a closed off environment!
“No!” she screamed. “No! Let me out!”
But the driver had already left so nobody could hear her screams. Desperately she reached with her right hand to try and pull the key out of the ignition but at the weird angle she was sitting she couldn’t reach it. Uselessly she screamed and pleaded for help but none was coming. She twisted her body around so that she faced the backseat, and the movements caused the cuff to cut into her wrist, dripping small amounts of blood onto the seat. Stretching her arm out as far as it could reach she extended her fingers and grasped blindly in the general direction of where the ignition was but was unable to touch the key. She could reach the gear shifter but without someone pressing their foot on the brakes it wouldn’t move. Instead she screamed, telling the man that her family could pay whatever he wanted, just please let her out.
After a few minutes the automatic lights turned off in the garage. Christine was fighting her own consciousness as her tired intoxicated body was telling her she should go to sleep. Weakly, she pulled at her wrist in the dark trying to slide the handcuff off of her arm, even if it meant ripping her thumb off.
But it was no use. She was too exhausted, and was losing oxygen too quickly. She continued trying to reach the key alone and scared in the car but was unable to touch anything as despair set in. She started to cry, asking in the darkness for her mother to come get her.
As she turned her head one last time to look at the key in the ignition the combination of the CO2, alcohol and heat put her to sleep. She fought it as long as she could but it didn’t matter in the end. She never woke up.
She wasn’t right.
Chapter 2
An Attorney’s Privilege
“Ok, I’ll tell him. Is that the best you can do though? Yeah, no that will have to be dropped. Yes, that too. Ok and a fine of just $1,000, right? Yes of course he can pay it, he can afford to pay me can’t he?” the lawyer at his desk laughed as he slammed his phone down onto its base. Pressing a button on the receiver he was patched through to his legal assistant.
“Ashley? Can you get Mr. Prescott on the line?”
“Certainly, Mr. Desjardins, right away,” replied the voice on the other side.
“Ashley, there’s no one in my office except me here,” he said into the speaker phone grinning.
“Oh right, sorry Baker. I’ll get him on the line for you,” his assistant replied with a laugh.
This was a good deal for his client, he thought. That idiot was caught red handed with four one gram bags of crack cocaine in his possession when he was pulled over for a routine traffic stop. To have the prosecutor believing that this was simple possession and not possession for the intent of trafficking was a huge victory, but then again there were some serious concerns about the traffic stop itself and the police handling of the evidence so that if this matter did go to trial he still had a good chance of winning. Hell, even if there weren’t any of those problems Baker still believed he had a good chance of winning just because of who he was.
Now, if Travis Prescott didn’t already have a criminal record two pages long Baker wouldn’t have recommended such as settlement, but in this case another conviction really wouldn’t change anything for Mr. Prescott. It’s not like he was applying to become as school teacher or security guard at the legislature anytime soon. He really didn’t think all of his clients were idiots by any means, but one that could get caught so obviously selling crack could not be the sharpest needle in the hazard bin after all.
“Mr. Desjardins, I have Mr. Prescott on the line,” Ashley told him on the speaker phone.
“Oh yes thank you, Ms. Beasley,” Baker said into his phone as Ashley hung up her line. “Mr. Prescott, I have some great news for you. I just got off the phone with the prosecutor and she said she’ll be willing to agree to a conviction of simple possession of four grams of crack cocaine and drop the trafficking charges. You’ll pay a thousand dollar fine, which is far less than you’re paying me for this anyways but you’ll avoid any jail time. I just need your instructions to agree to this and you’re as good as done with this charge.”
There was a slight pause on the line before Travis responded.
“That’s incredible Mr. Desjardins! So there will be no jail time? Hell yeah… I mean… sorry. Heck yes!”
“Ok, I’ll let her know,” Baker responded. “You’ll still need to show up on the seventeenth so we can put the plea deal to the judge but I’ve never seen a judge turn these down before. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Why do you think the prosecutor agreed to this?” asked his client.
“Because I’m that good,” Baker laughed as he answered. “Seriously though, I think Jordan is still giving all of them a lot of grief so they’re willing to accept much weaker deals than they normally would.”
“What do you mean, ‘Jordan’?”
“The Queen and Jordan, it’s a Supreme Court of Canada case from a few years back. Basically the court said that if you don’t get a trial within a reasonable amount of time from being charged, only eighteen months in your case, then a judge would throw the case out. Because the prosecutors don’t want to do that, they’re willing to give very good deals to upstanding people like yourself who are willing to plead guilty on lesser included offences and free up the hard-to-get court time for the more hardened criminals,” Baker explained.
“Whatever it takes man, you’re the best,” Travis said in obvious delight over th
e deal.
“I know that,” Baker laughed as he hung up the phone. No point in racking up the billable hours any higher than they already were. The case was won, now he’d just have to go to court and finalize it in a couple of weeks.
◆◆◆
“Mr. Desjardins, you have a person waiting to see you,” Ashley interrupted Baker as he was reviewing the document disclosure on a different file. She walked in the office this time instead of calling, wearing a tight long business dress with a purple sweater showing off her figure. She was legitimately a catch but she and Baker had too good of a working relationship for him to ever try anything on her. She also had a boyfriend already, but to be honest, it’s not like that’s ever stopped him before.
“Oh, thank you. Is it a client, and do they have an appointment?” he asked looking down at his outlook calendar. He wasn’t supposed to meet with anyone now and his next meeting wasn’t for another hour.
“No, I don’t think she’s a client. She said she knows you, her name is Connie Winston.”
“Oh alright, send her in then.”
Connie Winston. Baker hadn’t heard that name in at least three years. Connie was an ex-girlfriend of his that he dated for around five years while he was just starting out in the law and her name was still Connie Green. He couldn’t represent her, that would be a major conflict of interest and he had no interest in talking to the law society again after what happened last time. So what did she want from him? Maybe she and her husband were finally getting a divorce and she’s looking for some free legal advice. Well good luck, he thought. Family law was one field that Baker had absolutely zero interest in.
Connie opened the door and looked as stunning as she did when they were dating. Three years later and still looking that good? If only Baker could say the same about himself. She was petite, only five foot three, but with a thin figure and long dark hair that accentuated her pale face. She always felt the need to overdo her face with makeup but he thought she looked just as beautiful without it. She was a quarter Asian, which gave her dark beautiful eyes with just the slightest slant to it and as soon as she walked in he could smell her perfume. It was the same fragrance she wore when they were dating. Was that deliberate for him or had she just never changed her scent?
