Faith’s father, Del Unruh, had passed away in the years since the murder of his daughter. Her mother, Rhoda, had remarried about a year after her husband’s death. I remembered Cobb telling me that there were unconfirmed rumours of an affair Rhoda Unruh was having before her husband’s death. Cobb had indicated that all of the various strands, including Rhoda’s new husband, Scott Curly, had checked out and that Rhoda and Curly had solid alibis for the time of the murder.
That didn’t mean we wouldn’t want to talk to them, but for now I saw them as back burner.
The friend Faith had walked home with before going the last fateful block by herself was Jasmine Kohl. Jasmine, now Hemmerling, was married with a family and lived in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, where she and her husband, Alan, owned and operated a couple of supermarkets.
And that was the list. In desperation I added Faith’s teacher, Noelle Sensibaugh, and the school principal at the time, Everett Parr. Both had long since moved on to other schools and, in fact, Parr had retired in 2009. I was hoping that Cobb might have picked up a name or two during his conversations at police headquarters that would flesh out my rather pathetic list, at least a little.
I set the list on his desk and got ready to leave. It was my night to cook for the Sawley women and I wanted to walk down to Sunterra Market to get professional help for my vague menu plan.
The air offered hints of approaching spring and the walk felt good.
I picked up tourtière with mesclun and sun-dried tomato vinaigrette — the combination was one of Sunterra’s specials. I realized I was kind of turning my night to cook into my night to warm stuff up, but I bought strawberries and hoped that strawberry shortcake and the strategic purchase of a nice Italian red might fend off criticism.
I’d been wary when heading to the parking lot behind Cobb’s building ever since my unpleasant encounter with Minnis, and today was no exception. But despite my caution, I missed him. I’d opened the passenger door and set my purchases inside, and when I straightened up, there he was, a sickly-sweet smile on one of the biggest faces I’d ever seen. I quickly looked back inside the car to see if I’d missed something.
That made him laugh. “Just a social call, Scribe. Making sure everything’s going well in your world.”
“Until now everything was fucking great,” I said.
“Now, that’s not very friendly, Scribe. Especially to those who provided your lady’s organization with twenty-five thousand dollars. That’s just not friendly at all.”
“What do you want, Minnis?”
“Today? Nothing. Nothing at all. Like I said, just dropped by to say hello to an old … I guess maybe friend’s the wrong word.”
There wasn’t a face on the planet that I wanted to punch more than the one that was three feet away from me. Maybe that was the idea. Get me to snap, lash out. And I knew that if I did, as good as it would feel for maybe three seconds, Minnis would take me apart. I kept my mouth shut and my hands at my sides, willing the bastard to leave.
And he did. The job done, the intimidation once again applied, he turned and walked out of the parking area back toward 1st Street.
I stood for a long time, body rigid, hands shaking, stomach churning. What scared me most was the knowledge that this visit was a precursor to the next “assignment.” I knew that the faint hope I had been clinging to was now dashed, and there would be a next assignment.
I decided to shake off the Minnis encounter and throw myself into the evening with Jill and Kyla. A gentle chinook had brought the temperature up to near-June warmth, and the three of us sat on the back deck, Jill and I drinking wine while Kyla worked on a Coke float. Then, in what seemed no more than seconds, the wind dropped away to not much more than a soft breeze, which was followed almost as suddenly by a very un-February-like rain shower.
But instead of running for cover, Kyla suggested we go for a walk in the rain. It turned out to be a brilliant idea, and we cruised the neighbourhood, the three of us holding hands, and telling a story — another of Kyla’s ideas that involved rotating the telling between the three of us. First one would recite a line, then the next person would add a line, and so on. This story featured monsters (Kyla’s creation) and talking vegetables (Jill); gorillas, a lot of gorillas (Minnis inspired?), were my contribution.
Back at the house, there was, as I thought there might be, a fair amount of criticism — some of it, I think, good-natured, directed at my “cooking.” However, the strawberry shortcake, as I had hoped it would, saved my culinary butt. When the dinner cleanup was done, Jill and I sat on the sofa with a second glass of wine while Kyla headed for her room, book in hand.
After we’d sat for a while, her head on my shoulder, Jill sat up and set her wine glass down. She looked serious but not stern or worried. “I want to talk to you about the Let the Sunshine Inn.”
I swallowed hard and directed my face to display anything but panic. I’m not sure it followed my directions, as one thought pounded out a nasty beat in my head. She knows about the MFs. She knows about the MFs.
“Celia announced today that she’s leaving at the end of the year, and she plans to recommend to the board that I replace her. If I want to.”
I quickly switched gears. This was important to Jill and that made it important to me. I had met Celia a few times. She had been the director of the place as long as I had known Jill and was a dedicated, tireless champion of the homeless, as well as those who used only the food bank part of the facility. “Do you want to do it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. There’s a big difference between being a volunteer for a few hours a week and being the person in charge. It’s a pretty big deal.”
“It’s a really big deal. And just so you know, I think you’d be amazing at it. I’ll do whatever needs to be done to support you if that’s what you decide to do.”
She leaned in and kissed me. “You are something special, you know that?”
“No, I’m not, but I know what the Inn means to you and I’ll absolutely be in your corner whatever you decide.”
“I’m going to think about for a couple of days.”
“Good idea.”
The next morning Jill and I were on our second cup of coffee and Kyla had just bolted out the door to catch a ride to school with her friend Josie when the phone rang. It was Cobb.
“What’s happenin’, bro?” I said when Jill handed me the phone.
“You are as un-hip as I am, so don’t give me that shit.”
“Nobody is as un-hip as you, my brother. Whassup?” It probably would have been more effective if I hadn’t started laughing. Jill was shaking her head. “Anyway, I’m listening.”
“I had an interesting chat with a guy named Herb Chaytors. You don’t know him, but I do. Herb’s been around the police service for a long time, was a detective in robbery for twenty years or so. Now he’s kind of an administration guy — only a couple of years away from retirement. I’ve known him forever. He remembered a few things about the Unruh murder.”
“Yeah?”
“You got time to get together later?”
“Sure. When and where?”
“How about the Rose and Crown? Beer and a sandwich, eleven thirty. Beat the lunch rush.”
“See you then.”
Cobb was there when I arrived, two beers already on the table. He looked up as I pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Thanks,” I said and picked up my beer. We clinked glasses. “Here’s to tracking a killer.”
Cobb ordered a Reuben and I went with the shepherd’s pie, my favourite at that place.
“Before we get into the latest on Kennedy and Faith Unruh, I want you to be the first to know — I had a visitor last night,” I said.
His eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”
“Minnis.”
“Another assignment?”
I shook my head. “Uh-uh. Just straight intimidation. Letting me know he and his pals are out there.”
“And a reminder that th
ere will be another assignment.”
“Not that there was ever any doubt.” I thought back to McWhorters’s prediction that we’d meet again.
“Yeah, well, maybe we see if we can come up with a plan of our own.”
“You have an idea?”
Much as I didn’t want Mike to have to bail my butt out of a problem I’d made for myself, I was also hoping he might have some magic solution tucked away somewhere.
“Not really. Not yet. Just thinking about a couple of things.”
We sat silent for a few minutes. I drank some beer, set my glass down. “Jill’s been approached to take over as director of the Let the Sunshine Inn. You think there’s any potential problem with that idea?”
“What kind of problem?”
“I don’t know. The money I got from the MFs went to the Inn. You think if they decide to lean on me they might do it through Jill?”
He thought about that.
“I can’t see how that would make a difference. They know where she and Kyla live — they can use them as leverage without involving the Inn. I can’t see that they’d give a damn that she’s working there.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. Other than the leverage part. I wish I could come up with a way to get that out of my life.”
“Like I said, we’ll work on that.”
“I hope you realize how much I appreciate your help with this … even though I told you I didn’t need it.”
“I know. But right now I haven’t done anything to appreciate. I’ll let you know when you can start bowing and scraping.”
“Fair enough.”
“Now, about Herb Chaytors …”
“Yes.”
“I mentioned that I worked with Herb. Not closely; he was in robbery and I was in homicide, but I knew him and liked him. Kennedy knew and worked with him, too. A lot of people liked Herb. He had a reputation as a good cop. Some cops are liked by other cops but not so much by the public. Herb is a guy who has always been trusted by both the people he works with and the citizens.”
“And you said he remembers the Faith Unruh investigation.”
Cobb nodded. “I asked specifically about the missing evidence — Faith’s panties going missing. He didn’t know what happened, only that there was quite a kerfuffle in the department over that.”
“No surprise.”
Cobb nodded. “You’re right. There was almost no physical evidence related to Faith’s murder: here was the one thing they had, and the evidence disappeared before the analysts had a chance to examine it.”
“Anybody get blamed?”
“Nothing official. Of course, Hansel and Gretel came under scrutiny but Chaytors says that was tossed on the scrap heap pretty quickly.”
“Yet they were removed as lead detectives for a while.”
“Yeah. Chaytors told me Jarvis Maughan was a favourite of the chief back then. Gerrard. J.G. Gerrard. Retired 2009.”
“Let me guess. Deceased.”
Cobb glanced at his notebook. “December 3, 2013. Fell through the ice on an ice-fishing trip. Drowned.”
“Not a nice way to go.”
“Someday I’ll get you to write out a list of the ways that are nice.”
“Point taken. Chaytors have any thoughts on Kinley and Maughan? Besides being in the boss’s good book?”
“A few, yeah. Mostly on Maughan. Seems he got into trouble a couple of times. Was disciplined for inappropriate behaviour with a hooker. Had her in the car for questioning. But the story was there was more than questioning going on. And no charges were laid.”
“Charges being the only thing that wasn’t laid?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“You said ‘a couple of times.’”
“Yeah, the second time he was actually disciplined for another sex-related offence. This time with a minor. Couldn’t get details, only that the teen was involved with drugs, was picked up in a raid on a house party that apparently was completely out of control. Again, he had the girl in his car. Later he would only admit to making some suggestions, a little indecent exposure. The kid and her mother made a complaint, alleged it was a lot more than that, said he raped her. Maughan was suspended with pay, then a couple of weeks later the complaint went away and so did the suspension.”
“Why did the complaint go away?”
Cobb shrugged. “Hard to say. The girl and her mom gave up, maybe they were intimidated, who knows?”
“When did these incidents happen?”
“Chaytors wasn’t sure. Sometime in the early to mid-eighties was the best he could do.”
“Interesting, though, that his transgressions were of the sexual kind.”
“Yeah, that is interesting. But here’s something else that’s interesting. Maughan lived about four blocks from Faith Unruh’s house.”
That one rattled me. So much so that I said nothing, just stared at Cobb. Finally, I shook my head. “Maughan died in 2008. It would be a horrible irony if Kennedy spent most of his life sitting at those cameras waiting for Faith’s killer to walk into the frame when the guy had actually been dead for almost half of that time.”
“Yeah. But that’s a possibility even if the killer isn’t Maughan. And I don’t think we want to jump to the conclusion that Maughan murdered Faith Unruh. Chaytors told me that Maughan was actually looked at — much later, when the trail had gotten pretty cold — because he lived that close to the victim. But he had an alibi. Herb couldn’t remember what it was, but he did remember that Maughan was dropped as a suspect fairly quickly.”
“Was that before or after he was actually one of the lead investigators on the case for a time?”
“Herb was pretty sure it was after. Hansel and Gretel were back as the lead team on the investigation.” Cobb nodded. “Which, by the way, I asked Herb about — the thing with Hansel and Gretel being in, then out, then back in again. He couldn’t tell me anything about that.”
Neither of us spoke for a while. I busied myself twirling my glass in my hands while Cobb studied his fingernails.
“None of that gets us any closer to what’s going on now, a quarter of a century later — the marks on the board in the alley, the shadows on the videos, and then the killing of Kennedy. If that’s connected at all to the Faith Unruh murder, then it makes no sense to think that the killer has been dead for a long time.”
“Agreed,” Cobb said.
“Any chance there were two people involved in Faith’s murder?”
Cobb looked at me a long time before answering. “Anything’s possible,” he said. “I’m not sure that was ever considered. I reread the entire homicide file and everything in there seemed to point to one perpetrator. What are you thinking?”
“Just that maybe if it was Maughan and he had an accomplice, the accomplice is still alive and has resurfaced.”
“Maughan and an accomplice,” Cobb repeated.
I shrugged.
“Remember what I said about Maughan having an alibi?”
“Killers have had so-called ironclad alibis before,” I pointed out.
“True. And maybe that’s the case here. Or maybe Maughan had nothing to do with any of it and just happened to live nearby.”
“Also a possibility.” I nodded.
“I can tell you this. If Maughan was still alive today and was arrested for this, he’d be released almost immediately. Consider what we’ve got — two previous allegations of sexual misconduct, neither of which would be admissible in court, and the fact that he lived near where the victim lived and the murder took place … not exactly what might be called damning evidence.”
“So we haven’t got a lot more than we had previously.”
“Hard to say. We’re not a court of law, so we can pursue any avenues we want. Maybe we don’t rule Maughan out just yet. How about I see if I can get the names of his assault victims, and maybe we can talk to them.”
“So many questions and so few answers. Look, I know Landry’s a damn good investiga
tor, but I’m having trouble buying her responses on the stuff Kennedy brought up. I know I sound like a broken record, but wouldn’t there have to be a reason Hansel and Gretel were dropped from the investigation and then reinstated later? And I’m just not convinced that the panties going missing was some innocent mistake, some administrative mix-up. Come on, that’s a hugely important piece of evidence.”
“On that one, I’d have to give her the benefit of the doubt. It’s terrible that something like that could happen but the simple truth is it can. And does.”
I wasn’t ready to let it go. “And why no tip line? I know Landry said it’s an administrative call, but you’d think in a case like that it’d be automatic?”
“It is now. In fact, there are two ways to call in tips. One is Crime Stoppers, which is always anonymous, and there’s a direct line to the police, as well. Don’t know if that was the case back then. To be honest, I think it’s the least important of Kennedy’s allegations. Interesting, though, that it didn’t happen, no matter how big a waste of time a lot of those lines are.”
“Yeah, I damn sure know about that.”
I had set up a private tip line on a previous investigation and was deluged with calls from quacks and wackos, much to the delight of Cobb and both our families.
Cobb grinned now at the memory of it. The food arrived, and we suspended conversation while we salted, peppered, and ketchuped. A couple of bites and a long pull of beer later, Cobb looked at me. “Let’s see if I can get those names of Maughan’s victims. I wouldn’t mind chatting with them if we can find them and they’re not living in Poland or Beirut or something.”
“Maybe I can help with that.”
“Let me see how I make out and I’ll call on you if I’m not doing well.”
“Fair enough.”
“Now let’s take a look at your list of names.”
I pulled the sheet of paper out of the ragged briefcase I always carried, a long-ago gift from Donna, and passed it across the table.
He looked over the list. “Okay,” he said, “how about we divide this up? I know it’ll probably be deadly dull, but why don’t you dig into the backgrounds of the two families — the one in the former Unruh house and the other in the murder house.”
None So Deadly Page 15
