NIGHT MOVES: The Stroll Murders

by Gar Mallinson

  “The estrangement was pretty severe. My mom, though, she knew. I think she always knew. She turned herself into the buffer between him and me, and it cost her. It cost her most of her life with him. I left as soon as I could, and she helped me do it. We kept in touch, but it was always at a distance, and that hurt her more than he did. He settled down a bit when I was gone, and she had to hide the little contact we had. Then it all ended in that fucking store.”

  Harry sat and waited, and now her eyes focused on him.

  “So now you know why I’m going to have trouble sometimes. Like maybe sometimes on the job with you. I can’t stop the feelings, Harry. Other times, I’m going to be a kick-ass detective chick.” She tried to wipe her eyes as they kept filling with tears and grinned at him.

  Harry went to the bar and came back with a couple of beers and two shot glasses of scotch.

  Harry took her hand. “You need anything, I’m there. We’re together now, so what happens, happens to us both. Like that poem, ‘When one skates near the edge, the other’s the anchor.’”

  Sabina smiled. “For a straight guy, you got all the right moves. I love you too. Where did you pick up Donne anyway? I thought you lived most of your sheltered life on this island full of rednecks and holy rollers.”

  Harry took Sabina’s arm and guided her up the short street past the Anglican church and on to the cobblestone street to Sam’s bar.

  ◆◆◆

  When Harry and Sabina opened the door to the Red Brick Bar, they could hear the crowd. The place was hopping with conversation and clinking glasses. The music was low and melodious. Two barkeeps were running the bar, and two young waitresses swirled through the tables delivering drinks.

  Sam was near the storage room door, leaning over Will, who looked worried. That Will was in the bar surprised Harry so much he stopped abruptly, heard Sabina curse, and stuck up his hand. Will saw him and started over.

  Harry stared at Will, who had taken a deep breath. “Gotta get your help. Sabina, can you see my sister? Ask her about Kylie? Man, she’s gone missing. Everything’s crazy.”

  Will shook himself. The reality he’d held back for the past two hours finally hit him. “I gotta run. Got some things to check. Her friends.”

  He was almost in tears when Harry put a strong hand on his shoulder and pulled him toward the door. “Come across to the office and talk to us.”

  Once the three of them got up the stairs, Will went over what he’d learned from Alicia, pointed out what he thought about their home life in the last while, and waited.

  “I’ll go talk to her briefly,” Sabina said. “She’s probably pretty out of it and needs some rest. How sure are you about the state of things at home?”

  “I’m guessing some,” Will said. “I haven’t been near their place, never invited. Charlie’s out for Charlie and the only people who get to go are the ones can do him some good businesswise, get him invites to the country club and such. But I know my sister, and things are pretty bad. I can understand why Kylie left and all, but Alicia’s frantic. It’s been two days now. So yeah, I’d appreciate it if you could go see her and get what you can. In the meantime, when I reach Rory, I can sic him on the streets. He knows everybody.”

  Will thought for a moment, going over what he knew. “She’s been to the cops. We need to move on this, but beyond what we’re getting going now, I’ve no idea where to go next.”

  Harry nodded. “Your niece have any credit cards of her own, any bank cards, a cell? She’s gotta have a cell? Whiz kid here has a pile of computer stuff in the other room, she could trace what’s been going on when she sets up. Her part of the renos are finished now.”

  Sabina slid off the edge of the desk and left the office.

  Will got out his cell and gave Rory a call.

  “I need help, man. My sister’s kid’s missing. Meet you where? Okay, in ten.”

  Harry was perched where Sabina had been sitting.

  “Before you go, what’s Kylie like, Will?”

  Will shrugged. “Got me. She’s seventeen now, so who knows. We got the names of who she’s closest to, well, at least one name—Jen. How do you want to do this?”

  “We got Rory on the street like you said and Sabina checking the net and talking to Alicia. Let’s you and me find this Jen person and see where we go from there. Oh, and we’d better find out who Alicia talked to in the RCMP. Check out what’s happening on that end. If it’s a misper, not a hell of a lot’ll happen besides the obvious, a BOLO and pictures for the beat guys and the cruisers. That’s stuff they can do better than we can. Let me just check with S to make sure we’re on the same page.”

  Will left them and went off to find Rory and to get Jen’s address from Alicia.

  ◆◆◆

  By six that evening, Harry was walking around the office. Other than the bathroom and some paint, the place was finished. He looked out the office window and saw Will leaning on the old Subaru across the road. Harry waved and took off down the stairs. Sabina had left to talk to Alicia.

  They wandered down to a coffee shop on the crescent, talking over the best approach.

  Just as they sat down, Will’s cell rang. “Alicia, any luck finding Jen’s address? Slow down, I gotta write this down. Kennedy? What end? She what? She drew it with a heart around it? Before the dead end at Victoria, okay, got it. No, stay there with Sabina. Tell her anything you can remember. Harry and I’ll dig out Jen and see where that takes us. Yeah, I’ll call.”

  ◆◆◆

  The drive to the last block of Kennedy took just a few minutes and locating the likely house even less. There were only four of them, and three of those looked like rooming houses too big for two people.

  Harry knocked at the fourth one and waited. Then he knocked again. They were about to leave when the door opened on an obviously tired woman who had just been woken. She was a mousy blonde in an uninviting mood. “What?”

  “We’re very sorry to wake you, but we need to find Jen. I’m Kylie’s uncle Will, and this is Harry. We’re private detectives looking for her, and we’re hoping Jen can help us. Is she home? Can we see her?”

  “No and no. She isn’t here, so you can’t see her. She’s out messing around with that Jimmy and looking for Kylie too. They’re like best friends, and she’s been frantic since Kylie disappeared. Her and her friends hang out downtown along the river. Don’t know where exactly. Up near the old bridge somewhere at the end of Prideaux near the German Center. Got this group thing, like. They all hang together. Try looking for Billy. He drives an old Toyota pickup, rusty and beat up. Can’t be many like that around. And tell her to come home. I worry about her.”

  ◆◆◆

  They thanked the woman and climbed back into Harry’s car.

  “I guess we look around a bit,” Harry said. They took off back up Kennedy to Albert, where he made a right and ran down to Prideaux.

  “Let’s try the river first. If the pickup’s there, it’ll be in the old gravel lot near the bridge. We can walk from there. If it’s not, we’ll just cruise and maybe get lucky.”

  The gravel lot held three cars and one rusty old pickup, a Toyota. Will and Harry parked, walked over to the bridge, and peered downstream.

  “Too many leaves to see anything. Let’s take a hike down there, see if we can find them. We’re not far from the harbour, so they gotta be close.” Harry glanced upstream, but there were only impenetrable walls of blackberry shrubs on steep banks.

  Will nodded and turned back. “There’s a paved trail back down that road, but it doesn’t go to the water. Might find a path that does, though.”

  The track that left the paved path was almost hidden by the mass of shrubs that crowded the steep descent to the water’s edge. The track dropped fast and turned downstream. Harry and Will pushed their way through to the edge of a large pool of slow water. The spot was obviously used by fishermen and was empty. Another track close to the bank led further upstream. From that point, there was nothing, so th
ey turned back, pushed through the bushes again, and climbed up to the paved path.

  A little farther along, they discovered another track, this one a bit less evident. Once off the path, they saw a clear, well-used track that led them upstream closer to the water. Here, the shrubs and young trees were over their heads and hid what was ahead.

  Will and Harry pushed along and ended up in a boulder-strewn area close to shelves of rock, over which the water tumbled. The river was in part rain-dependent, and when rains were scarce, it became a small stream that wandered over the rock shelves finding the lowest points. Now, it was in full flow.

  As they rounded another curve in the large boulders, they saw them, three young people, two males and a female. They were sitting on rock strata around a low flat area. The strong smell of weed drifted past the two detectives. Harry stopped, waved at the girl who was facing their way, and smiled. The joint disappeared quickly, lungs emptying just as fast, and the two men walked into the circle.

  “You must be Jen,” Harry said. “And you guys are Billy and Jimmy. Let me guess, you’re Jimmy and you’re Billy, right?”

  “So who the hell are you two?” Billy said. “And what do you want?”

  “No need to get touchy. We’re doing what you should be doing: looking for Kylie. Smokin’ weed won’t find anybody. We’re private dicks hired by Kylie’s mom. It’d be good if we sat with you guys and compared notes so we don’t duplicate efforts, well, with the exception of the weed, I guess. That might come in handy now and then.”

  Harry looked at Jen. “And you best let your mom know where the hell you are once in a while. Poor woman’s a bit upset, or tired and pissed off, hard to tell which.”

  Billy looked at the pair of detectives for a bit, reached in his pocket, pulled out a fresh joint, and lit up. “You guys got names? Be nice to know them. The rock’s free, so sit.”

  Once intros were done and all of them were crowded around the formation of shelf rock, Will said, “We know squat at the moment. Found Jen’s place with a bit of trouble, so we don’t have the inside the way you do. We can also get stuff you guys can’t, so it makes sense to keep in touch. We got a lot more manpower than you three, but it’ll get wasted if we don’t get together on this. The cops are in it now, the Mounties, and we’re better at knowing what they’re doing than you guys. If you want them down your throat, stonewall us. They’ll find you, and once they get a look at you guys, they’re gonna be thinkin’ about a lot more than a missing girl. We wanna work with you, not haul your asses in for a grilling. It’s your ball, you play it.”

  Billy passed the joint around. Everybody took a hit. “So you two toke up with us, you expect us to give? Don’t cut nothin’, man, just a joint. But maybe you keep the cops away, we don’t need the hassle.”

  Harry nodded. “We can do that. No guarantee, though. Those guys are good, it’s just that we’re better if we go at this together. We keep you in the loop from our end, you do the same. Don’t care what else you got goin’. We just want to find Kylie.”

  Billy considered this, then nodded at Jen and she started.

  “We got her away from the house. Her mother and father fight all the time and she couldn’t take any more. She was staying with a friend on Prideaux. Sandy’s a part-time street girl, so she’s not going to be very impressed if we send you guys around. Besides, Ky didn’t stay. I checked. We left her there a couple nights ago. I went round in the morning to get her and she’d gone.”

  Jen glanced at Billy again, and he took a hit and nodded. The joint had stopped with him.

  “We go out to this place sometimes down near the river, the big one,” Jen said. “We know the guy who owns the place. He’s a biker name of Bomber. You guys go near him, he’s gonna split. His place is off River Road down a gravel switchback. We party with him a bit, so we can look there. Ky likes the guy, so if she goes anywhere, that’s where, if she can find a way. She’s not around town, I’ve checked. Ky’s part of us, the four of us hang together. But she’s got a thing for this guy.”

  “So was that your plan? Go out there, see if she’s there?”

  “We got business out there anyway, so yeah, that’s what’s in the pipe,” Billy said. “We go out, see if she’s there, do our thing, come back. We talk to you guys. But you stay clear, okay? He gets wind of you, we’re all fucked.”

  V

  Alicia opened the door to Harry, and they joined Sabina in the living room. Although the furnishings, all honey oak and dark upholstery, weren’t to Harry’s taste, the room itself was more than ample and beautifully finished with a stunning fireplace and a deep cove ceiling articulated by a wide curved moulding that gave the room its grace.

  While Alicia made tea in the kitchen, Sabina raised an eyebrow and tilted her head.

  She filled Harry in on what she’d gotten out of Kylie’s mom, and it wasn’t much. Kylie was being a typical teenager—angry, sullen, and a bit foul-mouthed—but for Alicia that meant she had changed. She was becoming secretive, cutting classes, and hanging with another girl who was a bad influence. She had a peer group her mother didn’t approve of. Beyond that, even with subtle pumping, Sabina had gotten very little. Until the tea came, they talked about the day so far, and Harry brought Sabina up to date.

  Sabina nodded. “Let’s get the tea thing over with and hit the office. I gotta find a way into the cops’ database, and that’s gonna take a bit of fancy code. I’ll try Jim in Vancouver and see if he can help. Anybody’s got code like that, it’s him. The guy who was here earlier was the usual constable, but he was thorough. Apparently, they’re treating this as more than a missing schoolgirl. We need to know what they know as soon as they know it.”

  Alicia appeared with the tea tray and they sat around drinking until Harry took a call from Will and glanced at Sabina. “Alicia, thanks for the tea, but we gotta go. We’re working on a lot of leads and maybe some of them will pan out and we’ll have news of your daughter. You hang tight, okay? And fill Charlie in. One of us’ll be in touch.”

  Once outside, Harry looked at his partner. “Where’d the wheels come from, Sweets? You got a secret admirer somewhere?”

  “It’s a rental. It’s time little ol’ me got a ride of my own. Maybe I should get a new bike.”

  “Didn’t I get you one of those already?”

  “You know, H, sometimes I worry about you. Not too often, mind, but when you have lapses, I have to wonder.”

  “I think you’re being facetious. Never did know what that meant, but I don’t think you do either, so I’m sticking with it. And the bike thing, I do remember, you left it back in Vancouver and now you need it, so who’s a bottle shy of a case?”

  At the cars, they separated and made for the office. En route, Harry called Will, who was following the Toyota. “Get a hold of Rory and have him dig up the dirt on this Bomber guy. We gotta know where this place is and what the kids are doing out there. I don’t know… Where? Can you get down there without being spotted? Better get Rory on it! He moves around like a whisper, you never see him if he doesn’t want you to. Yeah, call Rory. Hey, you find him, I’ll pick him up and meet you out there in the lay-by. Got it. Red gate.”

  Almost at the office, Harry wheeled around, took Albert to Milton, hung a left, and idled down toward Victoria Road. When his cell rang, he pulled to the curb. “Yeah? Will, you got him? Shit, I was just on Albert. Tell him to hang tight, be there in a jif.”

  Harry did a circle down Victoria Road up Selby to Albert. He swung a left and slid up beside Rory, who was examining heads of broccoli and purple cabbages at the old greengrocer on the corner.

  Rory hopped in. “Good prices in that place. Stuff’s pretty beat up, but still good.” For Rory, that was a mouthful. Usually, he said nothing except maybe a grunt or two.

  Harry looked at him in astonishment.

  Rory nodded out the front window at the drift the car was making. Harry corrected, shrugged, and hit the gas.

  They made time up Albert, turned o
n Harewood to join River Road, and Harry booted it up past the defence department, slowing only when he hit the curves around the reservoir and again at the snaky descents into the ravines and up the ridges.

  They spotted Will in the gravel lay-by that fronted one of the tracks into the forest. Everything along this road was owned by a huge logging company that kept changing its name every few years, along with its nation of origin. The clear cutting was ugly, acres of slash with the occasional forlorn evergreen standing around looking like some old spindly fellow three sheets to the wind. The contrast with the dense green forest filled with a carpet of salal and ferns made the tracks even worse.

  Harry dropped Rory off and headed back into town. It didn’t need three of them to watch the kids and the biker, and he had other work to do. Divorce reports, which he hated. They needed the income and those cases paid well.

  ◆◆◆

  When Harry opened the downstairs door, he could smell paint. Upstairs, he looked around. The only person in the place was Sabina.

  A deep cove moulding in the outer reception area turned the ceiling into something elegant and gave the space a quiet authority. In the center hung an impressive chandelier of stained glass and bronze that reinforced the feeling.

  Inside, the mood changed abruptly. There was a utilitarian, no-nonsense kind of feel. Off to the left was the new bathroom that included a shower, a vanity, and a lot of storage. It was covered in a marble-like tile in deep browns with swirls of other colours. The walls were painted a rich maroon. The place was lit by a series of globe lights set in a wall-size mirror framed in a kind of burled mahogany to match the vanity. Harry bent down and opened the lower doors in the storage unit and discovered a washer and dryer.