“And Crystal stumbles onto the same thing.”
Back at the office, Shelter realized with a jolt that his cellphone had been on silent since before they’d interviewed Jasmine. He reached into his pants pocket, pulled it out, and saw Neil MacIsaac had tried to reach him twice and then sent a text message telling him to call back. MacIsaac picked up on the first ring.
“The chief is pissed off,” he said in an agitated tone.
“I got that this morning.”
“He ranted for an hour. Apparently, we’re a bunch of incompetent assholes. And you’re about an inch from going back into a uniform.”
Shelter felt his blood pressure shoot higher. His face burned, and his vision narrowed to a tunnel. “What did you say to that?” he asked, struggling to keep control of his voice.
“I defended you, of course. But we’re going to have to be more careful in the future.”
There it was — MacIsaac’s famous we. “We didn’t almost get our ass shot off in Market Square trying to make an arrest,” Shelter said. He knew MacIsaac would sacrifice him like a lamb if he felt his position was threatened. Shelter also knew it was useless to justify his actions or remind MacIsaac that the operation had been fully approved.
“Calm down. It didn’t help Taylor’s mood that his retirement was supposed to be announced today. They’d laid on a big press conference that got cancelled.”
“When’s his last day?”
“The end of the month. He went on and on about how unfair the media is and how he wasn’t going to let these murders stain a forty-year career.”
“Yeah, he was telling me the same thing the other day.”
“You were talking to Taylor about this case?” MacIsaac said with suspicion.
“He wanted a briefing.”
“When was this?”
“Last Sunday, before the protest march.”
MacIsaac was silent as he digested the news. “Well, if he talks to you again, let me know, okay?”
Shelter rolled his eyes. The subtext was that the chief should have gone through MacIsaac if he wanted information on the investigation. It once again occurred to Shelter that MacIsaac might be harbouring hopes of being plucked from the ranks to become the next chief. An absurd idea, but you could never underestimate a man’s capacity for self-delusion. He could see the political jockeying and jostling among the top ranks of the service was about to intensify.
“Any word on who the new chief is going to be?” he asked, his tone neutral.
“The rumour is it’s going to be filled temporarily until they can do a proper search.” MacIsaac paused. “What’s going on?”
“We just talked to Rory’s girlfriend,” Shelter said. “I’ll run it down for you when I see you.”
He ended the call and dialled Nicki’s phone. She answered on the second ring. “How you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m sore, but I’m okay.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m not working till four.”
“I’ll meet you at the corner of Sherbrook and Broadway in an hour.”
Shelter shielded his eyes and spotted a cyclist in the distance cutting across two lanes of traffic on a ten-speed. Nicki was wearing her Yankees cap where a helmet should have been, her black hair streaming in the wind. She skidded to a stop at the curb beside Shelter and jumped off the bike. Her skin was glowing from the ride. For once, she wasn’t all in black; she had on a crimson T-shirt and pair of jeans with holes ripped at the knees.
“Hey,” she said, pulling her bike up on the sidewalk and slipping her shades into her backpack.
“Nice bike,” Shelter said.
“Got it out of the garbage and spent two hundred bucks to get it fixed up. It goes good now.”
They were facing each other, with the bike between them. Shelter scanned the intersection before refocusing on her face and the bandage covering most of her right cheek. She stood with a hand on a jutting hip and eyed him with contempt.
“What are you looking at?”
“When do you get that dressing changed?” he asked.
“I go back tomorrow.”
“Did they say how serious it is?”
“They say there’s not going to be a scar, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Shelter could feel himself blushing and was powerless to stop it. She’d intuited what he was thinking from a simple remark.
Nicki locked her bike to a pole, and they walked a block and a half down Broadway to a greasy spoon. Shelter chose a table in the window, well away from the other patrons. He was silently impressed by the size of the lunch Nicki ordered: soup, a clubhouse sandwich with fries and a strawberry milkshake. He asked for a burger with a salad and coffee.
The restaurant was half full of a working-day mix of office workers, a city maintenance crew and a couple of lone men sipping coffee at the counter. He pulled out his black notebook and a pen and put them on the table beside his plate. Nicki took a big bite of her sandwich.
“You okay to work?” he asked, observing her.
Nicki looked up at him. “I’m okay,” she said with a smile that made Shelter wonder if he was being mocked. “I can take it.”
“I need you to go through everything that happened yesterday,” Shelter said. “Starting from when Rory first contacted you.”
“He didn’t contact me. I phoned him.”
“You called Rory?”
“I’ve been texting and calling him every day, but he never texted back or answered my calls. This time he picked up.”
Shelter shook his head, and his brow furrowed. Crystal had been doing freelance investigative work when she was killed. Now her sister was playing the same game. The bullet aimed at her the day before proved how dangerous that was. “Why were you calling him?” It came out as a low, annoyed hiss. “I told you to leave the investigating to us.”
“He knew what happened to Crystal, and I needed him to tell me. I wasn’t giving up on that.”
“Why would he tell you anything?”
“Because we’d known each other from way back. And he’s always told me a lot about the shit he was into. He was proud of it. I would have got it out of him.”
“What if he killed Monica and Crystal?”
Nicki was sucking milkshake from a straw. It made her eyes open wide as she studied his face. She set the glass down slowly and wiped her lips with a napkin. “He would have lied about it. He was going to lie one way or the other. But in the lie would be something to...” Her voice trailed off.
“To go on,” Shelter said. “Hey, I don’t want you to get killed too. Promise me you’ll leave finding the killer to us.”
Nicki slouched on her chair and cast her eyes to the ceiling. “Are you armed?”
“Am I armed?”
“Yeah, like are you carrying a gun right now?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because there is someone running around town killing people. And he could be sitting over at that table right now for all you know.”
She got to her feet and left the restaurant. Shelter threw thirty dollars on the table and went after her. She was standing on the sidewalk with her shades down.
“What did he say to you?”
“He was scared shitless.”
“Did he give you a name? Who he’d been talking to?”
“No. But I told him he had to call you. At first, he said no way. Said that’s the last place he was going. But I gave him your number again. You know the rest. I met him a couple of blocks from the square, and we came together. I set him up to get killed.”
“No, you didn’t, Nicki,” Shelter said, softening his voice. “You were doing the right thing by getting him to come in. Anything else you can remember about that call you made to him? Anything at all?”
She chewed her lower lip, her eyes on the key to her bike lock in her hand. “Yeah. He was at the track.”
EIGHTEEN
On his computer screen, Shelter studied a n
ewspaper photo of Charlie Osborne from a few years before. Osborne was one of three men seated behind a table at a press conference in a downtown hotel. He was on the right, unsmiling in a leather vest over a Western-style shirt. According to the photo caption, the man in the middle was Lyle Mackay, chief of the Lone Pine reserve. He was much younger than Osborne, probably in his late thirties. His hair was cut short, and he wore a dress shirt. He looked to be in a jovial mood, smiling and saying something to the other man in the photo, a federal official named Stephen Miller. Bald, middle-aged, and looking to be about thirty pounds overweight in his jacket and tie, Miller fit the stereotype of a grey, overfed bureaucrat. The caption said he was the assistant deputy minister in the federal Indigenous Affairs department.
Shelter scanned the short article under the photo. The press conference had been called to announce a land settlement between the Lone Pine First Nation and the federal government. Ottawa was handing over $21 million in recognition that the community — like other First Nations in Manitoba — had received only a fraction of the land it should have had under historic treaties. Besides the cash, the Lone Pine First Nation also received close to ten thousand acres of Crown territory added to its land base. McKay was quoted as saying the money would be used to improve the lives of his people, including the many who lived off the reserve. Shelter scrolled down the article and found a brief mention of Osborne, saying he favoured using part of the money to establish an urban reserve in Winnipeg.
A reserve inside Winnipeg? A vision of gravel roads, unpainted plywood houses, and people motoring around on ATVs came to Shelter’s mind — the stereotypical image of reserves in the North.
He plugged the term “urban reserve” into Google and was surprised to learn several had been established in Manitoba and other western provinces and that they bore no relation to the reserves he was thinking of. Instead, they were commercial developments integrated into the cityscape. The idea was that a First Nation band negotiated with the federal government to have a piece of urban land designated as a reserve. After negotiating a deal to pay for municipal services, the First Nation attracted both Indigenous and non-Indigenous businesses. Shelter found an article that portrayed urban reserves as a success story. It said they provide business opportunities and jobs to people who had left remote reserves in large numbers to come to the city, as well as much-needed revenue for First Nations communities.
Shelter glanced at Traverse, who was seated at his desk a few metres to his left. “Hey, Gabe,” Shelter said. “I’m just reading up on urban reserves here.”
Traverse looked up and nodded. “A lot of people think they’re the way forward, or one of them, anyway.” He paused before adding, “There are a lot of misconceptions about them, and they take time to negotiate, but they seem to be working where they’ve been set up.”
Shelter closed his web browser. “Let’s go over what we know again. Charlie was using Rory for hookers and coke. He was in the hotel room that night with Monica Spence, Pam Daniel, Bill and another man.”
Traverse nodded. “After she talked to Pam, Crystal knew Sinclair was pimping Monica and Charlie was with her.”
“She goes to see Charlie to get answers about Monica,” Shelter said, squeezing a paper clip, deep in thought. “Crystal ends up dead, and Rory finds himself on the line for both murders.” He stood up and stretched. “Let’s say he meets Charlie or someone else from the hotel room and decides he’s being set up. He knows who the third man was that night, and he’s coming in to give them all up to us.”
Traverse put his hands on his hips. “Charlie’s spent his whole life in Lone Pine. Chances are he’s pretty good with a hunting rifle.”
Shelter locked eyes with his partner. “Any luck tracking him down?”
Traverse shook his head. “He’s giving us the run-around. The only home address I could find is in Lone Pine. I called the band office, and they say he’s in the city. The receptionist at their office in town says they don’t know where he is.”
Shelter called to Jennifer Kane at her desk. “Jen, I need you and Ian to get over to the Lone Pine First Nation office and find out where Charlie Osborne stays in Winnipeg. Put pressure on. Talk to the chief, okay?”
Turning back to Traverse, he said, “Nicki says Rory was at the track yesterday afternoon when he called her,” Shelter said. “There were no races yesterday.”
“Didn’t Jasmine tell us Charlie likes the ponies?” Traverse asked.
“Let’s go.”
The racetrack was on the western outskirts of the city. Portage Avenue traced a straight line from downtown to open prairie twenty kilometres to the west. Winnipeg’s planners had never embraced the sixties craze for freeways and travelling Portage Avenue was a stop-and-go grind past a succession of undistinguished low-rise businesses and strip malls. Traverse drove and Shelter dozed, still feeling the effects of hitting the ground with Nicki the day before. The sound of Traverse’s voice woke him. “What?”
“I was just thinking about the days Crystal was missing,” Traverse said, steering the car with one hand. “The mud in her car. If she was up at Lone Pine, maybe she was trying to find out what Charlie knew about Monica’s murder.”
“Maybe she had a source up there feeding her information.”
“A source in the community,” Traverse said, following Shelter’s train of thought. “She goes up there to see that person. Or maybe she went up to see her grandmother. Don’t forget, her mom had just committed suicide and she was upset.”
Shelter sighed and tilted his head back against the headrest. “Did Sim get anything on those calls Crystal was making up there?”
“I don’t know. I’ll check when we get back.”
The head of security at the track was an ex-cop in his early fifties named Rudy Stern. He was waiting for them in the air-conditioned entrance hall under the grandstand. He had a barrel chest and a beer gut — a weightlifter gone to seed. His arms strained the seams on his navy-blue sports jacket with a track logo on the pocket.
Stern had been thrown off the police force five years earlier. He and his partner had given a vicious beating to a teenager in the North End that had landed the kid in the hospital with a shattered nose and eye socket and two broken ribs. Stern and his partner had worked the kid over behind a convenience store in full view of a video camera. Stern managed to stay out of jail by testifying against his partner, who’d gone to Headingly jail for two years less a day.
“Rudy,” Shelter said.
“Mike.” Neither man extended a hand to shake. Stern nodded to Traverse. “Gabe.”
“How’d you get this job?” Shelter asked, eying Stern’s outfit.
Stern gave a chuckle. “They needed someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“And they settled for a gorilla with a drinking problem.”
The security officer’s face turned red, and he took a step toward Shelter.
“Relax. Where’s your boss?”
A man who’d approached silently from behind said, “That would be me.” He extended his hand to be shaken by Shelter. “I’m Paul Kennedy, the general manager.” He shook Traverse’s hand and took a step back to stand beside Stern. Paul Kennedy was in his early forties, tall and slim, with salt-and-pepper hair parted in the middle and hanging over the collar of his yellow golf shirt.
Shelter said, “You guys know Rory Sinclair?”
“The gentleman who was shot in the Old Market Square yesterday?” Kennedy asked.
“Well, he was no gentleman, but he did get shot. In the hours before, he was out here.”
“I saw the story in the paper this morning, but I didn’t know him,” Kennedy said. “You, Rudy?” Stern shook his head.
“How about Charlie Osborne?”
“Yes, Mr. Osborne is a good customer.”
“Is he here today?”
“I haven’t seen him.” He looked over to Stern, who gave another almost imperceptible shake of the head.
“Was he here yeste
rday?”
“It’s possible, but I can’t be sure because Rudy and I were downtown all afternoon on business. Did you try his office?”
“Who was working the restaurant yesterday?”
Kennedy stepped back and conferred with Stern in a whisper. Shelter knew they were discussing whether to consult a lawyer before allowing the detectives to interview the staff. Kennedy turned back and smiled without showing his teeth. “This way, please.”
He led them to the restaurant, where a waitress was serving late breakfast to a couple of tables of older men. She had no trouble remembering Rory and Charlie coming in at around one thirty the afternoon before and ordering drinks. They’d been arguing about something, but she’d been too far away to overhear what it was about. After twenty minutes, they’d paid the bill and left.
After letting the waitress get back to her tables, Shelter turned to Kennedy. “You’ve got video of this place, I take it?”
Kennedy led them to a small room where video equipment was set up. Stern worked the machines, and it took only a few minutes to pick up Sinclair and Osborne in a heated discussion in the restaurant. When they left the dining room, another camera captured them in the concourse, but instead of heading to the parking lot, they made a right turn and walked together out of the frame.
“What’s over there?” Shelter asked.
“The stables are in that direction,” Kennedy said.
“Let’s see the video.”
Stern punched up an image of the men walking through a large sliding door. “That’s all we’ve got,” he said. “No cameras inside.”
“Who would they be visiting in the stables on a Tuesday afternoon?” Shelter asked, looking from Stern to Kennedy.
Kennedy cocked his head to the left just before answering, and Shelter knew he was about to lie. “Can’t help you there, Officer,” he said with a shake of his head and a smile.
“You’re not trying hard enough,” Shelter said. “You don’t just walk into stables at a racetrack without a pass. I think we need to get some officers over here to interview everyone in this place.”
Omand's Creek: A gripping crime thriller packed with mystery and suspense Page 13
