by Alex MacLean
It’s closer to three, but I don’t correct her.
“Yes,” I say. “Been a while.”
“When do you have to leave?”
“The board of directors wants to see me on Friday. I’ll need to catch a flight Thursday.”
“Do you have to go?”
No, I want to say. It sucks being away from home so much. But I can’t decline the cash. I can’t wreak havoc on my professional reputation, either. In this stagnant economy, companies look for ways to cut costs, to survive. My business thrives on their financial troubles.
Besides, I want to go to Cranbrook. It’s a quaint little city nestled in the mountains. It’ll be nice to see what’s changed since my last visit. Just a short thirty-minute drive up the highway brings you to Kimberley Nature Park. I imagine it’s beautiful there right about now with all the larches in fall color, yellowing the foothills. I’ve been to the park twice before and came up short both times. Maybe I’ll get lucky this trip. Third time’s the charm, right? I’m a glass-is-half-full type of guy.
I say to Heidi, “Can I afford not to? Can we?”
“The Treats In Our Streets is on this weekend,” she tells me. “I was hoping you’d be home so we could all go.”
I wince. Every year we take the girls to that pre-Halloween event the city holds. Different businesses participate and give out candy and stuff to the kids. I couldn’t care less about it, really. But the girls love it. This will be the first year I miss.
“Shit,” I say. “That’s here already.”
Heidi’s mouth stretches into a tight line. “Saturday’s the twenty-third.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know where this month went.”
“You’ve hardly been home but for a few days.”
“Have to take the work when I can get it,” I say. “It keeps us in this place, Kate. It pays the—”
“Who?”
“What?”
Heidi comes off the doorjamb, tilting her head to one side and narrowing her eyes. “You called me Kate.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you did.”
My body tenses in the chair. I find my eyes pulled into Heidi’s piercing stare. I can’t believe the Freudian slip I just made. Stupid me.
“Who’s Kate?” she asks.
I scramble for an answer. “I don’t know. Must be the fatigue. My brain feels...it feels like it’s running on fumes right now. I can barely think straight.”
“Ah,” she says.
I watch her gaze move to the bandage on my cheek then back to my eyes. The wheels are turning in her head. I can tell she doesn’t believe me.
“Did you and her get into a quarrel? Is that what really happened to your face?”
My jaw tightens. I feel myself getting a little too warm.
“Of course not,” I say. “You think I’m cheating on you or something?”
“Are you?”
“No.” I trace the sign of the cross on my chest. “Honest to God.”
Heidi smirks and raises one eyebrow higher than the other. “Funny. I’ve never known you to be religious.”
I give her a dismissive shrug. “Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. I know the truth. Too much on my mind lately with all this work.”
She crosses her arms, chewing on the inside of her bottom lip. We remain like that for a few moments, looking across the room at one another.
Jaleesa calls out from the bathroom. “Mommy, we’re ready to get out now.”
“Be right there,” Heidi answers.
To me, she says, “Well, I better take them out of the tub before they turn into raisins.”
She turns to the hallway.
“Hey,” I say.
She stops and looks back over her shoulder.
“Are we good?” I ask.
She holds my eyes for a few seconds. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re good.”
I watch her leave. Then I shut my eyes and exhale a long breath.
I must’ve asked myself a thousand times since marrying Heidi: what will I do if she ever finds out about me? To see who I really am. To learn of the things I’ve done. If she ever came between my freedom and me, could I do it? Could I kill my wife, the mother of my daughters?
9
Halifax, October 18
7:53 p.m.
“A thrill killer,” Audra said. “What, like Michael Wayne McGray?”
Allan set the evidence box on his desk and pulled the lid off.
“We should be open to the possibility,” he said. “Not get fixated on one direction. Like I did.”
“Whodunit cases are the hardest to solve.”
Allan gave her a lopsided smile. “They can’t all be dunkers, right?”
“You don’t know if you were wrong, Al. Sometimes it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
“All I know is I never caught him. Now another woman is dead.”
Audra watched him turn back to the box. He became very still as he stared into it. Only his jaw muscles twitched. He seemed hesitant, afraid to touch whatever was inside. Slowly, he withdrew a manila envelope and held it for a few moments, his usually kind eyes losing their softness, becoming sad.
“Here,” he said. “These are the scene photos from the Driscow case. Tell me what you see.”
Audra sat back and threw her feet up on the desk. As she began looking over the photos, she understood why Allan suspected the same man.
Arms outflung, Mary Driscow’s body faced the sky. Her bangs were swept back off her forehead, and her mouth and eyes were open. A prominent ligature mark formed an X on her throat.
The suspect had left Mary’s yellow running jacket hitched up over her breasts and her black tights pulled down to her ankles. It mirrored what he’d done with Kate Saint-Pierre.
“I bet this empowers him,” Audra said. “The way he seems to hunt them. How he kills them. How he poses them in this degrading manner.”
Allan said, “So we’re in agreement it’s the same man?”
Audra nodded. “The evidence certainly suggests it.”
She could see nothing similar in the women’s physical characteristics. Mary Driscow had reddish-blond hair; Kate Saint-Pierre had dark brown. They had different hairstyles, too. Curly versus straight.
The women’s body types differed as well. Mary was pale and slender. She didn’t have a lot of muscle tone. Kate was just the opposite. She had a light tan, and her body showed the lean muscularity of an athlete who not only ran frequently, but also pumped a bit of iron.
Audra agreed with Allan’s theory—both women were victims of opportunity. In the wrong place at the wrong time. The park was the common denominator. The suspect had been there to hunt anyone who took his fancy.
So where had he been for the past year? In jail for some other crime? Or had he just sat around and waited to strike again on the anniversary of Mary Driscow’s murder? Maybe he had photos of the body to tide him over during that time. Maybe he even revisited the crime scene.
Audra knew these types of killers went through a cooling-off period where they’d blend back into their normal lives. That period could last weeks, months, even years before the urge to kill again became overwhelming. Dennis Rader went years between some of his murders.
Audra slipped the photos inside the envelope. She noticed Allan had begun taking out various reports from a second box and piling them on the desk.
“What’d Mary do?” Audra asked him. “Where’d she work?”
“She was a teller at the RBC on Quinpool.”
Audra chewed on the inside of her lip. “That would’ve brought her into contact with a lot of people.”
“What’re you thinking?”
“Just mulling shit over.”
“Uh-huh.” Allan set the empty box on the floor. “Care to share?”
Audra shrugged. “I was thinking about this guy. About the whole year he seemed to have waited around.”
Allan sat down on the other side of the desk. “I thought about that myse
lf.”
“What’d Mary’s profile reveal?”
“Everyone had wonderful things to say about her. Nothing negative. She was a smart, considerate girl who was a bit of an extrovert. She liked people.”
“Did she have a boyfriend?”
“Not at the time of her death.”
“Any recent breakups?”
“One a few months earlier. His name was Anthony Belding. According to Mary’s parents, he was her first and only boyfriend. They met in university. Dated for about three years before Anthony decided he wasn’t ready to make a real commitment.
“I cleared him as a suspect. And every other male in Mary’s social circle.”
“What about computer records?”
“Her social media footprint was light. Texts and emails to friends and family. Some activity on Facebook. Nowhere else.”
“Nothing valuable?”
“No.”
“Who was this prime suspect you had?”
Allan made a face as if he tasted something bitter. “Oh, that guy.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Oh yeah.” Allan picked up a folder from the pile and handed it to Audra. “Gary Strickland. He was a bit of a transient. Lived in different places throughout the province over the years. Even here in Halifax for a time. His last residence was New Glasgow, where he was working as an electrician until being fired for stealing jewelry from a client’s home.”
Audra opened the folder to see the mug shot of a round-faced man with a sloping forehead and soft chin. He had trim black hair on the sides and a patch of bare skin on top. An ordinary-looking man, you could say. But it was the eyes—to Audra, they were black pits, cold and lifeless, like a shark’s.
“Dude looks serious,” she said.
Allan lifted an eyebrow. “Seriously nuts, maybe.”
“How’d he wind up on your radar?”
“ViCLAS,” he said. “Shortly after I submitted the Driscow case to them, they made a potential link to an unsolved rape and murder from three months earlier. The victim was Ashley Lynn Decker. A twenty-two-year-old cashier from New Glasgow.
“The case appeared related to Mary Driscow’s. Ashley had been raped and strangled with a ligature. The suspect also left her posed in a near-identical way as Mary had been. When I viewed the crime scene photos, I got a chill. The similarities were that uncanny.”
Audra asked, “But there were differences?”
Allan nodded. “Weave patterns in the ligature marks were different. Ashley’s body wasn’t found in a park but a wooded area on the outskirts of New Glasgow.
“Investigators found evidence she’d been getting ready for bed when the suspect showed up at her door. The bathtub was half-filled. Pajamas were set out on the bed. The blankets were turned back.
“It seemed the suspect gained entry under false pretenses and forced Ashley outside in her socked feet to an awaiting vehicle.
“There were no signs of a struggle. No forced entry. Nothing was taken. Ashley’s purse was on the coffee table right in plain sight. Credit cards and loose cash still inside.”
Audra said, “I take it she didn’t live in a secure building.”
“Correct.”
“How many units in it?”
“Twelve.”
“And none of the neighbors heard anything? Saw anything?”
“The ones below her heard water running in the bathroom around nine-thirty,” Allan said. “It stopped a short time later. They never heard any sounds after that.”
Audra mulled the story over. “What about transfer evidence from the suspect’s vehicle?”
“Nothing. But Ashley’s body had lain out in the elements for several days before its discovery.”
“So was this Strickland fella a prime suspect from day one?”
Allan shook his head. “No one even knew of him at the time. And rightfully so. He only had a couple of summary convictions in his past. Both for public intoxication.
“All that changed last April when he tried to abduct a young woman named Lisa Peyton.” Allan retrieved another folder and gave it to Audra. “This is her statement.”
As Audra began to read the report, she envisioned the events of that harrowing night through Lisa Peyton’s own words...
10
New Glasgow, April 16
8:46 p.m.
Lisa leaned in close to the dresser mirror, carefully applying eyeliner to the corners of her bright-blue eyes.
When she heard the doorbell chime, a warm glow of excitement spread through her body. The clock on the bedside table read 8:46. Richard, her fiancé, was early tonight.
Lisa smiled.
She called out, “Just a sec.”
The doorbell rang again—twice, in quick succession.
“Hold your horses. I’m coming.”
Lisa hurried, clasping earrings to her lobes. Then she paused to give her reflection a quick appraisal before she hustled to the door. She sprung it open without checking the peephole and found herself face to face with the black barrel of a revolver.
Lisa hitched a breath.
Behind the revolver stood a doughy man in jeans and a flannel shirt.
Too afraid to move, Lisa watched the fitful movements of his eyes, darting around the living room, over her body, lingering on the swell of her breasts beneath her sweater.
“Who...what...what do you want?”
“Shut up!”
The man stepped forward, and Lisa stepped back, instinctively lifting her hands up in the air.
“Please. Don’t hurt me.”
The man’s face seemed to twitch, a spasm of anger that flashed and vanished in an instant.
“Shut up, I said.” He put the gun to her head. “Make a sound, and I’ll shoot you dead. Got it?”
Lisa felt her legs turn to jelly. She forced back the scream bubbling up her throat.
The man moved up beside her, brushing his nose across her hair and then flicking his tongue along the outer edge of her ear. The smell of rum filled Lisa’s nostrils. Heart pounding, she watched him disappear from the corner of her eye.
Then came the hard nudge of the revolver into her back.
“Move.”
She obeyed.
As she reached the doorway, she stopped.
“Where...where’re we going?”
“You’ll find out.”
“But my shoes.”
“Make it snappy.”
After she slipped them on, the man pushed her through the doorway. Arms stiff at her sides, Lisa skittered her eyes to the left and right. There were no cars coming, no pedestrians on the sidewalks. Even Connie and Scott in the duplex next door weren’t home. Lisa noticed a dark car parked at the curb. The shape of it reminded her of those muscle cars the cops drove.
Without warning, the man placed his free hand on her shoulder, turning her around so she was facing him.
“Close the door,” he said.
She did, and then the man turned her around again, pushing her toward the dark car. He led her to the driver’s door, reached around her, and yanked it open.
“Get in,” he said.
“No, no, no,” Lisa said, fighting back tears. “Please.”
The man tapped her head with the revolver. “Don’t fuck around.”
Lisa slid in behind the wheel and closed the door. Through the windshield, she watched him round the front of the car. As he climbed onto the passenger seat, he dangled a set of keys in front of her face.
“You’re driving,” he said.
“Where?”
Leaning over, the man pressed the muzzle of the revolver behind her ear. “No questions.”
Lisa fumbled the key into the ignition. The motor started. The headlights brightened the street.
Leather covered the steering wheel, making it feel thick under her hands. As she drove away, her gaze shifted to the rearview mirror, where she saw Richard’s car pull into her driveway. The dash clock read 9:00. Right on time.
Lisa moved her hand to the horn, but she couldn’t make herself press it. The man would surely kill her. And what about Richard? She couldn’t jeopardize his life.
Lisa looked back to the street, tears welling in her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. In June, she would be walking down the aisle between the white columns of the church, accepting Richard’s hand in marriage. They would be flying off to Jamaica for their honeymoon.
Would she miss it all? What was this man going to do to her? Why hadn’t he concealed his identity? Did that mean he planned to kill her after all?
Sudden, uncontrollable sobs began to rack her body.
“Quiet.”
The man twisted the muzzle into her skin behind her ear. Lisa winced at the pain, bending her neck away.
In a split second, everything turned chaotic.
The steering wheel jerked out of Lisa’s hands. The car veered hard to the right, the front tire then the rear jumping over the curb onto the grass strip.
“Jesus,” the man said. “Jesus Christ.”
A telephone pole came at them in a rush. Quickly, the man grabbed hold of the wheel and swung the car back onto the street. The pole whipped past them by inches.
“Stupid bitch!” the man shrieked. “You trying to fucking kill us?”
Lisa cringed at the loudness of his voice. She took control of the wheel again, staring straight ahead.
On the other side of the street, a minivan slowed, the driver’s curious face pressed to the window.
Looking back, Lisa mouthed a silent “Help me.”
She watched the minivan continue on, its red taillights receding into the dark with all her hopes.
Her mind wrestled with ideas of how to escape. Maybe she could open the door and dive out. Floor the gas pedal and drive them into a ditch or even a pole like the one they’d missed a few minutes ago. But fear drained her courage.
Wiping her eyes, she composed herself the best she could. She had to focus on her own survival. She would play along with this man. Wait for her chance to escape.
“Pull over,” he said.
Lisa guided the car to the curb. Her arms shook so badly, it took an effort just to turn the steering wheel.
The man grabbed the gearshift and rammed it into park.
