Omand's Creek: A gripping crime thriller packed with mystery and suspense

by Don Macdonald

  “There are races tonight,” Kennedy whined.

  Turning to Traverse, Shelter gave a jerk of the head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute,” Kennedy said. He seemed short of breath. He gathered himself and said, “Mr. Osborne has been coming in the morning to watch the horses work out with one of the owners. They have breakfast together sometimes.”

  Shelter waited.

  “Mr. Craig. William Craig,” Kennedy said. “Bill Craig.”

  On the way back into town, Shelter thought about Bill Craig and what his involvement with Charlie Osborne and Rory Sinclair could mean. He glanced over at Traverse, who was steering with a forearm draped over the wheel. He could see from the lines on his brow he was concerned as well.

  “What’s a guy like that doing rubbing shoulders with Osborne?” Shelter asked.

  “It’s got to be money,” Traverse said.

  When Kennedy had said the name “Bill Craig,” Shelter knew immediately he was the man with his profile to the camera in Pam Daniel’s photo. Tall, with silver receding hair and a prominent pot belly, Craig was a real-estate developer in the city whose company had built whole suburbs in the city’s south end. He’d married into one of Winnipeg’s oldest families — one that had made its fortune in development and construction. Craig had often been in the newspaper for the role he’d played in a committee of prominent businessmen that had lobbied the government to bring the Winnipeg Jets hockey team to the city. Shelter also recalled seeing him and his carefully coiffed wife in the society page of the newspaper at black-tie charity fundraisers.

  “They’ve got to be doing a deal. Some kind of a real-estate deal,” Shelter said. “That makes sense, but where?”

  Traverse gave a slight shrug. “Well, it’s going to be in town, ’cause Craig’s a city guy. Never heard his company operating in the country. And if it’s in the city, it’s going to be downtown or in the North End, because that’s where Charlie Osborne would operate, right?”

  As soon as they got back downtown, Shelter collared MacIsaac and sat him down in his office. The demeanour of the two detectives warned the inspector they had some serious news, but he wasn’t ready to hear the name of Bill Craig. He groaned and screwed up his face as if he’d sucked on a lemon. MacIsaac slouched in his chair and rested his head on a fist.

  Shelter ran through what they’d seen on the video at the track and what Kennedy had told them about Charlie Osborne’s morning visits with Bill Craig.

  MacIsaac exhaled sharply. “But there’s no video of Craig with them yesterday,” MacIsaac said.

  Shelter shook his head. He knew where MacIsaac was heading with that comment.

  “What do we have on Craig?” MacIsaac asked. “A picture of the back of someone’s head in a hotel room and a few meetings at the track with Charlie Osborne. It’s nothing.”

  “It was him in that hotel room,” Shelter said. “And a guy like Craig doesn’t spend his time chatting about the ponies. Those two are up to something. We’ve got to bring them in.”

  It was MacIsaac’s turn to shake his head. “We’ve got Osborne in relationships with Monica Spence, Crystal Rempel and Rory Sinclair. That’s our prime suspect.”

  “Craig was in that hotel room with Monica,” Shelter said, struggling to keep control. “She ends up dead a few days later, and Crystal starts digging into it. Craig is just as much a suspect as Osborne.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “You can bring in Osborne. But no action on Craig until we discuss it at the senior management committee. And I mean no action, including discussing it with the team. If Craig’s name gets out in connection with this case, we’re all going to be in shit.”

  NINETEEN

  By the time Shelter got home, ordered a pizza, and scarfed it down with a bottle of beer, he was having trouble keeping his eyes open to watch an old movie on Netflix. He let himself drift off on the couch. He was wakened by the telephone ringing. He pushed himself off the couch and saw by the clock on the wall in the kitchen it was almost 5:00 a.m.

  “Hello.”

  “It’s Joan.” Shelter could hear panic in his mother-in-law’s voice and came fully awake. “It’s Kelsey. She didn’t come home.”

  “Didn’t come home?” Shelter struggled to process the information. “Where is she?” he said before he could stop himself.

  “If we knew that, I wouldn’t be calling you,” Joan Arnason said. It was a stupid question, but it was unusual for Joan to snap at him. Shelter’s heart rate spiked. Fear constricted his breathing. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “At dinner time. She said she was going to the beach to see Samantha.” Samantha Lockhart was her best friend in Gimli.

  “We spoke to Samantha,” Joan said. “She was at the beach — the kids are there every night — but she never saw Kelsey. And she’s not answering her phone. We’ve been calling everyone we can think of, but no one knows where she is.”

  Shelter’s mind raced through the possibilities of where she could be. Run away. Abducted. He recalled the veiled threat Rory Sinclair had made after tracking her down on Facebook. Could her disappearance have anything to do with the case? He couldn’t see why the killer would take his daughter. What could he hope to gain by it? But maybe it wasn’t a rational decision if he thought Shelter was closing in on him.

  “Michael. Are you there?” Joan’s voice had gone up in pitch.

  “Just a minute, I need to think.”

  Shelter took a deep breath and made a conscious effort to calm himself. What was the most logical explanation? He knew only a tiny minority of teenage disappearances were abductions. It was far more likely Kelsey had gotten drunk and fallen asleep at a friend’s house.

  “She probably will show up soon or at least call,” Shelter said with more confidence than he felt. “Did anything happen yesterday?”

  “She came home with a nose ring and piercings in her ears. She told us she’s getting a tattoo as well. Didn’t ask us. Told us.”

  Shelter became aware that this sweet, sensitive woman was overwhelmed.

  “Sig was pretty harsh. You know his temper. He told her she was grounded for the weekend. But Kelsey wouldn’t hear it. She just left without eating dinner. You can’t control a fifteen-year-old. We learned that with Christa.”

  Shelter let that sit. He couldn’t blame his in-laws. They were seniors. They’d raised their children and shouldn’t have to deal with a rebellious teenager.

  “We thought she’d be home after she cooled down. But she never came back.”

  He was struck by a thought. “The last time I was at the house, you were teasing her about a boyfriend. Who’s that?”

  “That’s a good question,” Joan said. “We don’t know. It’s just little signs, like she’s begun to wear makeup and wants to buy more clothes. But it’s strange because Samantha says Kelsey doesn’t have a boyfriend.” She gathered her thoughts. “She’s become more and more secretive. We don’t always know where she is.”

  “I’m going to call the RCMP and get them to start looking for her,” Shelter said. “I’ll stay here for now. If we don’t hear anything by noon, I’ll head up there. What’s Samantha’s phone number?”

  As Joan gave him the number, Shelter sensed she was close to tears. “I’m sorry you and Sig have to go through this. But I’m sure Kelsey will be okay. I’ll call you soon.”

  Shelter slumped in a kitchen chair and gave his throbbing hip a rub as he again went over the possibilities. He picked up his cellphone and sent Kelsey a text. Where are you? Please get in touch.

  He called the number, but it rang through to Kelsey’s cheerful voice asking callers to leave a message. It was recorded a couple of years earlier — the voice of a little girl. Christa was still alive then, and there’d been much debate over whether Kelsey needed a phone and the expense. Christa had taken Kelsey’s side and won, of course. She’d also paid for a replacement when Kelsey lost her fi
rst phone after two weeks. Shelter left the same message he’d texted.

  He went to the computer in the upstairs office and looked up the number of the Gimli detachment of the RCMP. The duty officer sounded young but asked the right questions about Kelsey’s living arrangements, her friends and signs of rebelliousness. In an off-hand way, he asked if Kelsey had a phone. Shelter silently kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. You could track the phone, assuming it was turned on. He discussed with the Mountie how to find it using an app. The officer assured him they’d start looking for her around Gimli right away and keep him posted.

  Christa had paid for Kelsey’s phone and used to check her account from time to time to see how late she was staying up texting with her friends around the neighbourhood. On a few occasions, she’d seized the phone for a couple of days when she’d discovered Kelsey had stayed up hours past her bedtime. When Christa got sick, she’d transferred her bills to Shelter, and he’d paid them ever since by automatic withdrawal but had never checked Kelsey’s account.

  He opened the grey metal cabinet where Christa kept her meticulous files. He pulled out the one marked Kelsey’s phone and found instructions in his wife’s beautiful printing on how to access the account. Turning to the computer, he opened the account to look at her recent activity on the phone. He found a long series of texts and phone calls from the day and evening before, all to just two numbers. Messages to one of the numbers ended at 5:16 p.m., around the time Kelsey had left the house. His daughter’s phone showed sporadic texts to the other number through the evening and night up until 2:30 a.m. Shelter looked at previous days. Her communications had been almost exclusively to the same two numbers. He went downstairs, made some instant coffee, and took it on to the back deck with his phone. He sat in an Adirondack chair and dialled the number for Samantha Lockhart’s house in Gimli. The Lockharts were cottagers from Winnipeg, and Shelter knew them casually from chatting during play dates when the kids were younger. It was Jackie Lockhart, Samantha’s mother, who answered.

  “It’s Mike Shelter.”

  “Have you found Kelsey?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “We’ll find her,” Shelter said. “I need Sam’s cellphone number.”

  “Why? She’s right here.”

  “I need it to check something. Do you have it?

  Shelter followed the digits on the piece of paper in front of him as Jackie recited them to him. It was the number Kelsey had been communicating with through the evening. He asked Jackie to put her daughter on the phone and get on the extension.

  “Hello?” The girl’s voice was quavering, barely audible.

  “Samantha, it’s Kelsey’s dad. I need to ask you some questions so we can find her, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “When was the last time you saw Kelsey or heard from her?”

  “She texted me last night to say she would meet up with us in town. We always meet up downtown and go to the beach. But she never showed up.”

  “You never texted her or spoke to her after six o’clock?” Shelter asked.

  Samantha answered in a whisper. “No.”

  “I have Kelsey’s cellphone records in front of me, and I know that’s not true, Samantha. You have to tell me where she is.”

  He heard the girl’s mother gasp. “Sam. What’s going on?”

  The girl began crying. Shelter waited, giving her time to realize it was useless to keep lying.

  Finally, she spoke. “I told her not to do it. But she wouldn’t listen. She said she’d never speak to me again if I told.”

  “Told what?” Shelter asked calmly.

  It took another few seconds of sobbing before Samantha came out with it. “She’s gone to Winnipeg with a boy.”

  “What boy?”

  “His name is James. I don’t know his last name. He’s a townie. He has a motorcycle.”

  “Motorcycle?” Shelter said.

  On the extension, Shelter heard Jackie Lockhart draw in her breath and whisper, “Oh my God.”

  “How old is this boy?”

  “I don’t know. I only met him once. But he’s a lot older than us. Maybe twenty. They met a couple of weekends ago, and she’s been riding around with him. She says she loves him.”

  Shelter shook his head. Samantha told him they’d left in the early evening, heading for Winnipeg with a plan to go to Calgary and find work. An angry Jackie Lockhart cut in. “How could you get involved in this?” she demanded.

  “Let’s just find her,” Shelter said. “Where is she right now?”

  “They’re getting ready to go, I think. They want to leave this morning. But I don’t know where he stays in Winnipeg.”

  “Okay. Leave it with me. It’s going to be okay,” Shelter said before hanging up.

  He was confident Kelsey could be tracked down. The technology unit could monitor her phone and track it as soon as it was turned on. She couldn’t live without using her phone. If that failed, they’d be picked up on the Trans-Canada Highway before they made it to Portage la Prairie. But before bringing the Winnipeg police into it, he decided to make one last try at reaching her.

  He punched her number on his cellphone and waited until it rang through to her voice mail. He was careful to keep a calm, reassuring voice. He knew the teenage mind was prone to rash decisions, and he was hoping she might be having second thoughts now that the reality of what she’d gotten herself into was sinking in. “Kel, you’ve got to call me back. I know you’re with a boy named James and you’re planning to leave town. I’m not mad. I love you. But we have to talk right away. Everyone’s worried.” He followed up with a text, urging her to listen to his message.

  He glanced at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock, and his shift would be starting soon. Traverse was already in his car and heading to the office when Shelter reached him. As Shelter described the situation, Traverse clucked and hummed with concern.

  “What do you want me do?” Traverse asked.

  “For now, I’d like to keep this low-profile. Can you get the technology unit to track down these two cellphones?” He read out Kelsey’s cellphone number and the other one she’d been communicating with before she disappeared — the one he assumed belonged to James. After ending the call with Traverse, he took a deep breath and punched in James’s number. As expected, he didn’t answer the call — no one under thirty ever did. Shelter’s call rang through to voice mail. He felt his anger building as he listened to the recorded voice of the young man who’d run off with his daughter.

  “James, this is Kelsey’s father,” he said. “Get in touch with me before this goes any further. Kelsey is a young girl, and she needs to come home.” He also sent the message as a text and then waited for them to talk it over and decide what to do.

  He thought about how to handle the call when it came. While the age of consent in Canada is sixteen years old, Shelter knew there was an exception for fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds. They could consent to sex with a partner less than five years older. So if James were twenty, it would depend on their birthdays. But Shelter didn’t want to escalate the situation by making threats. He knew it was important to be calm, reassuring and focused on Kelsey’s safety. But it was going to take every bit of his self-control. After five minutes had passed, Shelter prepared to call the police command centre to get started on locating the couple when his phone buzzed.

  “Kelsey.”

  “Hi.”

  He felt relief wash over him. She was alive, not spattered on a highway after a motorcycle accident. “Where are you? Everybody is really worried.”

  “You know where I am, Dad. I’m with James.” Her tone was petulant, angry.

  “Why did you leave without telling anyone? Your grandparents are terrified.”

  “They’re trying to control everything I do. I’m not a kid anymore.”

  Shelter got off the couch and walked to the window. The street was bathed in golden earl
y morning sunshine. He struggled to keep his tone even.

  “I know you’re not a kid anymore. Your grandparents just want what’s best for you. We all do. We can work this out, but you have to come home.”

  “No. We’re leaving today.”

  Shelter was tempted to tell her she wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, he said, “Let’s just get together and talk about it.”

  “Why do you care anyway? You stuck me up there and just forgot about me.”

  He felt as if he’d been stabbed. His mind raced. What to say? A long moment of silence passed as he thought about it. He pictured his daughter at the end of the line.

  “I’ve let you down.” He felt his throat tightening. “You’re so precious to me. It’s been hard for both of us since Mom died. But I know I haven’t done enough to take care of you.”

  When Kelsey answered, her voice had softened. “I’m sorry I scared Grandma and Grandpa.” She began crying. “I don’t like it here. They had a party last night, and it was full of creepy people drinking and doing drugs.”

  Shelter searched his mind for a way to get her to come home that would allow her to save face. “Come and stay here for a while,” he said. “It will be quiet, and we can figure out what you want to do. I’m sure your grandparents will understand.” He paused before asking, “Can I come and get you, sweetheart?”

  When she answered yes, it was barely audible. She gave him an address in the St. James district. When Shelter pulled up to the rundown bungalow, Kelsey looked like a lost little girl, waiting for him on the front steps with her school bag and a pillow.

  “Hi there,” he said. She stood up, and he took her into his arms, kissing her forehead. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she whispered.

  When she’d disengaged from his embrace, he asked, “Where’s James?”

  “He took off. He didn’t want to meet a cop.”

  TWENTY

  Kelsey had been up all night, and after devouring a huge bowl of cereal, she retreated to her bedroom. Shelter made calls, starting with Joan Arnason. He told his mother-in-law he would be keeping Kelsey in Winnipeg for the time being. Joan agreed it was for the best and asked that Kelsey call her and Sig that evening. “We have a few regrets about how we handled things.”