by J C Paulson
Later, Grace snuggled into him and stroked his chest.
“Anything you want to talk about, Adam? Is everything all right? How did things go at the women’s prison?”
“It was intense. Incredible,” said Adam, briefly describing what had happened, but leaving out what the Elder had said to him about sadness and passion and risk. He wanted to be in a better frame of mind when he explained it to Grace.
“What an honour, Adam. And a responsibility.”
“I think I’m close to solving this case, Grace,” he said. “And then, things are going to change. I’ll be in the office tomorrow morning, but can we get together later?”
“Of course, Adam. Can I do anything, say anything to ease your mind?”
“I don’t know. I enter this zone when the pieces start to come together. Once I have the puzzle almost finished, I get a little, well, excited. Focused. I guess this is our first time together during a big case, where you are neither victim nor prime witness.”
“Yes, it is,” said Grace, privately thrilled by the ‘first time together’ comment. “I don’t know how to help, if I can, but I’m here.”
“Yes. You’re here. God, I love that you’re here,” said Adam. And that was as far as he could go, for now. He wanted and needed time and space to declare himself. It was going to happen soon.
Chapter Thirty-one
Grace forced herself to leave Adam and go home in the middle of the night, unable to stop worrying about Suzanne. She was sleeping soundly, though, and Bruno did the equivalent of putting a finger to his lips. He raised his massive head, shook it slowly from side to side, and promptly went back to sleep.
Adam was in the office by eight Saturday morning. He had not had time, as he had planned, to examine some of the outstanding bits of evidence; but he needed to now.
He was so close he could taste the ending, thick and metallic, like blood in his mouth.
He had asked James to connect the dates Alexis Ironstand and Emily Martin went missing with Environment Canada information. Was it raining, storming, snowing, anything?
It was snowing on the day Alexis Ironstand went missing, but the weather, for November, was fine on the day Emily Martin was reported gone. So storms were not necessarily part of the killer’s MO.
Emily was found along the South Saskatchewan, which did not freeze in the winter and supported Adam’s theory that the killer terrorized his victims by threatening to drown them. Explaining the death of Alexis was more difficult, since she was discovered at Pike Lake and went missing in the winter. She may have been killed somewhere else.
Then he looked at the time between the attacks. Deborah Clairmont, as far as they knew, was the first victim, two years ago. Alexis Ironstand went missing six months later, but then Emily Martin came eight months later; Sherry Hilliard and Della Sinclair were killed ten months after that.
They were missing someone. There was at least one, and probably two, other women. It was very unlikely their killer had been inactive between Alexis and Emily, and Emily and Sherry.
He also heard Justice Lafond’s words ringing in his brain. How were the women marginalized, or isolated? Alexis and Emily were from out of town, new to the city, possibly with few friends or relatives nearby. Was that all it required? Did the killer ask them or know about their lives, and then choose them based on their isolation? Was he racist, misogynist or opportunist?
Who were the other missing women? Where were they, and what were their stories? Was it possible one was in Regina, Calgary, or another in Winnipeg?
Adam sighed heavily, and started looking for missing women’s stories from across Western Canada. As he turned to his computer, he noticed a new file folder on his desk, which must have landed late yesterday in the midst of the madness after finding Alexis Ironstand.
It was a report comparing Don Dunlop’s DNA to the blood and tissue found in Argo’s mouth.
*****
Monique Delacroix read the print edition of the StarPhoenix Saturday morning on her acreage north of Blackstrap Lake, south of Saskatoon. “Serial killer sought” in eighty-point letters shrieked across the page.
Unsettling, to say the least; especially since Don had been involved with one of the dead women. It was time to climb onto her horse, ride around the property, let the exercise and fresh air blow through her mind.
She pulled on her jeans and boots, ate a quick breakfast and went out to saddle Bête Noir — a name that did not suit her gelding’s personality, so she privately and affectionately called him Big Boy. Monique was quite a horsewoman, having competed in equestrian events in her teens and twenties. She was more at home on a horse than in one of the expensive cars she sold every day.
Kicking Big Boy into a canter, she let the wind mess her hair as she rode around her eighty acres. Then she slowed the horse to a trot and began to check the property fences, the out-buildings, the corral, the garden. She hadn’t done it in quite a while.
A door had blown open on the big shed at the bottom of a hill at the south end of the property. That was strange. She hadn’t been near the shed for ages; it simply housed, well, crap. And a lawn mower. But she didn’t want vagrants or even large vermin on her land, so she kept it locked.
She pulled the reins to stop Big Boy, swung out of the saddle, and went to shut the door. The lock had not been properly clamped; it must have pulled away, maybe in the storm.
A second later, she stopped in horror. Inside her shed was a black Porsche SUV.
It had to be.
It couldn’t be.
She had to know.
She walked around to the front of the vehicle.
Shaking so hard she couldn’t stand, she slumped to the ground, mouth stretched open in a silent scream.
*****
Adam’s office phone rang at about eleven. He looked at the phone, but the number and name didn’t come up. The display said “private.”
“Davis,” he answered.
“Detective, it’s Monique Delacroix.”
Her voice was low and quavering. It was impossible to miss the emotion in her voice.
“Monique,” he said, abandoning protocol and titles. “What’s wrong?”
“I was . . . I have something . . . I have to show you something . . .”
“Monique. Please, take a deep breath. What’s going on?”
“I’m frightened, Detective. I found something. Can you come to my acreage? Now?”
“Yes. Tell me where you are.”
Monique gave the acreage address and quick directions.
“I’ll be there right away. Are you safe?”
“I — I think so. I don’t know.”
“Can you lock yourself in, somewhere? No. Forget that. Get in your vehicle and meet me on the road. Is there a grid road along the highway there?”
“Yes. I’ll be in a half ton. Navy blue. Ford, believe it or not,” she said, with a shaky laugh.
“Go now. Take your phone. I’ll be no more than fifteen minutes. If anything comes up, drive away, toward me. Flash your lights when you see me, three times, so I know it’s you.” There were thousands of Ford pickups in Saskatchewan.
“How will I know it’s you?” she asked.
“Oh, you will know, Monique. Now go.”
“Yes. Thank you, Detective.”
“No. Thank you. I’ll be there right away.”
Adam leapt to his feet, grabbed his duty belt, and called James all at the same time.
“James. I’m coming to get you. Can you do it?”
“Yes,” said James, hearing the urgency in Adam’s voice and asking no questions. “I’ll be on the road waiting. Bring my belt.”
“On my way.”
Adam sped into the locker area, snagged James’s belt — Adam had emergency access to his constables’ lockers — went to the garage and hopped into a cruiser. He had the lights and sirens on within half a block, and tore toward James’s home.
James was ready, and leaped into the police car.
“What the hell is going on?”
“We’re going to see Monique Delacroix. She called and sounded completely freaked. And scared. There was no time to ask her what was going on. She said she had to show us something, but she was frightened. She’ll meet us on the grid road near her place in a blue Ford truck.”
“Ford?” asked James, eyebrows up. “Well, I guess they’re useful on acreages and farms, even if you usually drive a Jag. Do we need backup?”
“Yeah. Call it in. Tell them to drive an SUV.”
James hit the radio, and Adam hit one-fifty by the time they reached the Grasswood gas station on the highway to Regina, pushing the vehicle to two hundred a moment later. It wasn’t ten minutes before he saw Monique’s truck, stopped on the grid road. He slowed down, relief washing over him. It hadn’t escaped Adam’s notice that Monique was petite, pretty and dark.
Monique waved at them to follow her, and so they did, down the grid road to her property and into the driveway.
She leaned over, opened the passenger door and said, “Hop in. Your cruiser will never make it where we’re going.”
Her hands gripped the wheel tightly, forearms shaking, her foot unsteady on the gas pedal. She didn’t say anything.
In moments, she pulled up next to a large shed at the end of her property and jumped down from the driver’s seat.
“Monique,” said Adam, as he got out of the truck. “Slow down for a moment. Is there danger inside? Anyone in there?”
She shook her head.
“Is there . . . a body?”
“No.”
“Are you okay?”
Again, she shook her head. She drew open the door, which she had closed earlier, and nodded for them to go in.
There it was. Don Dunlop’s Cayenne.
Adam blinked for a moment; he couldn’t believe it. He seriously thought they would never find it, that it was hidden somewhere, far away, or possibly burned. It would have been next to impossible to have the vehicle crushed, because every facility had been warned to watch for it. Even torching it might have been tricky, because the vehicle identification numbers usually survived burning; but the killer may have tried it. He hadn’t. Here it was.
Adam turned to Monique.
“What does this mean to you? Who has access to your shed?”
“Well, in theory, the world does. I mean, you can’t see it from anywhere, so if you break the lock, you’re in, and no one will find you for weeks. I come down here maybe once a month; never, in the winter. But the lock. It wasn’t broken. It was not closed properly. It must have worked its way out; maybe in the storm? I don’t know.”
“Who, besides yourself, has key access to this shed, Monique?”
She began to shake again.
“Don,” she wailed. “Oh, God. Don! My property keys are in a drawer in the kitchen. And Nick, of course; he has all my keys. I — I can’t think of anyone else.”
The car dealership owner put her face in her hands and wept.
Adam put his arm around her shoulders.
“You are very brave, Monique. Can we go up to the house and talk? You need some tea. Or a drink.”
He led her back to the truck, took her keys, and drove her back to the house. James stayed behind with the Cayenne, and started taking photos. They heard the siren from the second police vehicle; backup had arrived.
Adam told Lorne Fisher and Derek Jones to go down to the shed and to bring James back to him, then to go back and collect the evidence. He called James.
“James. Lorne and Jonesy are coming down to you; they’re going to bring you back to the house. I need you to get back to town. Take the cruiser. Find Dunlop now. And Shawn Hartz. Get them to the station.”
*****
Adam poured whisky into two glasses at one o’clock in the afternoon. One for Monique Delacroix, and one for himself. It had been a long time since he’d done that so early in the day.
He brought the glasses into the living room, where Monique was on the couch, still shaking. After she downed the fiery alcohol, she sat quietly for a moment, turning the crystal glass around and around in her hands.
“I knew,” she said, “it was too good to be true.”
“What was, Monique?”
“Don. Our relationship. God damn him. I finally found someone I cared about, and I didn’t fuck it up. But he did.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t jump to conclusions, Monique.”
“What do you mean?”
Adam didn’t answer her question. Instead, he asked one.
“Why did you call me, Monique?”
“The — the story in the paper. All those women. I would never have guessed Don could do such things. Then I saw the Cayenne. I thought my heart would stop. Then I got so angry. It was the only thing I could do. I didn’t know, Detective; I didn’t. But this . . . this has to stop.”
Adam nodded, but abruptly stood up and walked over to a cabinet where a photograph had caught his attention.
He knew it all, with certainty. His brain clicked; his body thrilled; he felt sick.
He took a breath, picked up the photograph, and brought it to Monique.
“Who is in this photo?” he asked her, sitting beside her on the sofa.
“Well, that’s me,” she said, pointing, “and that’s Nick. That’s our Mom — she died a couple of years ago. A little more now, I guess. And that’s our sister, Véronique. She, too, has passed.”
Monique touched the photo gently with her forefinger.
“I miss them,” she said.
Adam drew out his phone, and scrolled through a series of photographs until he found the one he wanted. He handed the phone to Monique.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“Sherry Hilliard.”
“She’s so pretty. I’ve never seen a picture of her. Oh, no. Oh, so sad.”
“And this is Della Sinclair,” said Adam, showing her the next photo.
“She’s pretty too. They both are. They look a bit like Véro. And like Mom, I guess. And me.”
Adam waited. It didn’t take long.
Monique’s huge brown eyes widened; her lips parted, and she looked up into Adam’s sympathetic face.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, and slipped to the floor.
Chapter Thirty-two
Adam lifted his shaking witness to her feet.
“I need you to be brave,” he said. “I need you to come into Saskatoon with me. I need to talk to you. There isn’t much time. Can you do that?”
Monique shook her head. She was in shock; Adam could see the signs. Somehow he had to bring her back, get her to function.
Adam took her glass, refilled it, and asked her to drink the Scotch. She did, tossing it back as if it were a lifeline. Adam waited.
Finally, she nodded.
“We’ll have to take your truck,” Adam said. “I have to leave my men here with the Cayenne until it’s ready to tow; we can’t risk tampering at this point. Please, Monique.”
“Yes,” was all she got out.
“Can you get whatever you need? A jacket or your purse? I’ll have to talk to my officers. Then we’ll go.”
“Yes. Okay.”
That was a little better, Adam thought, watching her walk unsteadily toward her bedroom.
Adam called Lorne Fisher.
“Sarge.”
“Lorne. As soon as you’ve done what you can with the SUV, get it towed to the station, and come back in.”
“Okay, Sarge. See you in maybe half an hour. We’re almost done.”
“Great. Thanks, Lorne.”
“Sarge. Do you know?”
“Yes. I’ll explain at the station,” he said, as Monique returned, carrying her purse.
“Let’s go,” she said, tipping up her chin.
They climbed back into the Ford and headed back to the city. Adam gave Monique a moment, and said, “There’s no father in the photograph.”
“No.”
“What happened to him, Monique?”
“He died on the job. He worked for the power utility in Manitoba and was electrocuted.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight. Véro was twelve. Nick was . . . Nick was ten.”
“Was he a good dad?”
“Oh, yes. I loved him very much. We all did. He was funny, warm, loving. We were devastated when he died.”
“Did your mother remarry?”
“Yes, a few months later. Mom didn’t do well on her own; and it was like she froze the day Dad died. She needed a partner. She didn’t choose as well the second time.”
“Tell me, Monique.”
“He was a fucking asshole. Violent. Didn’t want us kids around.” Her voice caught; Adam was silent, waiting for her to regain composure.
“He liked to smack us around, all of us. But he was the hardest on Nick. Nick had attitude; still does. He — his name was Harold — hated it. Hal would take Nick out back and beat the shit out of him whenever Nick gave him lip.”
“Was that the worst of it?”
“No. One night I got home from something — maybe a birthday party, I don’t recall — and Hal had Nick out back as usual. We had a fish pond out there, and Hal was holding Nick’s face in it. He pulled him up, and Nick was gasping for air. Then he did it again. Nick wasn’t very big yet; he was eleven at the time. I walked out and screamed at Hal; he let Nick go. I guess it was the first time, but it wasn’t the last.”
“And your mother? Did she know?”
“Yes, I think so. But she couldn’t do anything. Hal hit her, too, and like I said, she was frozen inside after . . . after Dad.”
“How long did this go on?”
“Nick ran away when he was fifteen. Two years later, Hal died. Cancer. Served him right,” Monique said. “Bastard.”
“The photograph. How long ago was it taken?”
