“I see . . .” I said, not really seeing at all.
“I meant radical Islamicists,” he suddenly corrected himself, as if making some crucial distinction upon which his job depended.
“But the package was delivered to me.”
“Forensics found tiny remnants of the address label. It was handwritten. You’re number 729, right?”
“What about it?”
“You know how a badly formed nine can look like a seven, eh? Or a three like a two. It fits with the numbers of the houses I just mentioned. Obviously, I have to keep the names and addresses of these individuals confidential.”
Right. I just have to wander down and find the house with the long white veranda . . .
“So you think it’s one of them?”
Schuller shrugged. “Seems more likely it’s one of them than you.” Yeah, you loser, who would bother with you? He raised a tufted eyebrow. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling us, Mr. Knox?”
His eyes met mine and I looked away. There was a lot I wasn’t telling this oaf, and never would tell him. But, as far as I knew, none of it had anything to do with Hoodie.
“There’s one more thing about this story of yours,” Schuller added.
I bit my tongue just in time. To him it was nothing more than my story.
“Like I said at the start, you’ve been through a lot, and it’s made you jumpy as hell. You’ve even had PTSD, right?”
I nodded, wondering where this was going.
“I checked with a court psychiatrist I know, and he told me the symptoms. Vivid flashbacks, nightmares, pounding heartbeat, sweating, stuff like that. Right?”
Again I nodded. I’d had all these and more. “What about it?”
“Well, other signs include hyperawareness even when there’s nothing there. Specifically, Mr. Knox, a common mark of PTSD is thinking someone is following you when they’re not.”
My mouth opened but no sound came out. Not for the first time, I literally didn’t know what to say to this guy.
He gave me a deliberate look, as if he’d just tumbled my criminal master plan.
“So, there’s no chance of me getting police protection?” I said, cutting to the chase. After what I’d just heard, I knew the answer already.
“I’m afraid not.” Schuller made no attempt to sound apologetic. “For one thing we don’t have the manpower, I mean the staffing. Secondly, we’d have to provide reasonable cause based on a tangible threat for the higher ups to approve it. We don’t have that, as I hope you can see.”
The well known ‘higher ups’ excuse. A bulb lit in my head. “Are you providing it for the other two?” I asked.
Gotcha. For the first time ever he looked slightly uncomfortable and there was a hint of a squirm. “’Fraid I can’t comment on those matters, Mr. Knox, as maybe you’ll understand.” He rose, and I knew I wasn’t going to get any more out of him. Not that I’d ever got much out of this troglodyte that was any use to me in the first place.
“Take care,” he said at my front door.
“Do my best,” I replied, purposely slamming it behind him.
Chapter 15
I got off the Canada Line at City Hall and decided that enough was enough. This was getting stupid. I’d spent the last three days making purposeless trips on trains and buses trying to discover if I really was being followed. So far, I hadn’t seen Hoodie again but maybe he was better at this game than I was, or perhaps he just left the hoodie at home.
I crossed at the lights and went into Starbucks at the corner. Ten minutes later, with a double shot iced espresso in me, the world felt like a better place. Then I realised that from the moment I’d sat down – in the back corner of course, where I could see everyone – my eyes had never stopped roaming around the place. When I looked out the window it was to nervously check the benches outside at the bus stop. If I didn’t get this under control it would become something else I have to talk to Abby about, next appointment.
Anyway, I kept telling myself, Schuller’s probably right, I wasn’t the intended victim. But what I really believed was, if Hoodie has stopped stalking me it’s probably because he already knows my routine.
I took the Cambie Street bus up home and felt hollow rumbles of hunger in my belly as soon as I got in the door. My cooking skills were limited but doing anything where I could use my hands automatically, and switch my brain off, calmed me. Feeling in the mood for a late brunch, I cracked two eggs into a saucepan, added milk and a scoop of margarine, then a pinch of salt. The doorbell rang, and I took the saucepan off the burner.
Through the peep hole I saw a middle-aged man in a uniform. Not a cop, but some kind of deliverer. I opened cautiously.
“Canada Post,” he said. “Package for Calvin Knox. Don’t worry, it’s been scanned.”
It was in my hand before I knew it and the man was halfway back to his van. I looked down at what I was holding. A cardboard box of the Amazon book type, but generic. Typed name and address; no return details. A large “Checked by Canada Post” sticker ran down one side and underneath that, in much smaller print, “Open at your own risk.” Very reassuring, not.
I closed the door and took the package inside, wishing I had asked the deliverer more about what the ‘scanning’ involved. I knew they had machines these days to pick out anthrax-filled envelopes. But I remembered reading that Semtex explosive is odorless.
My hands shook as I placed the package on the kitchen table and slowly pulled the tear strip at the back. It came off easily and I leaned to one side and peered into the exposed gap. The spine of a book. Nothing for it now but to do the rest. I unfolded the box and slid the hardcover book onto the table. Very slowly and carefully I opened it about half an inch and flicked through a few pages. Just an ordinary book. Then I noticed the title.
A History of Anthropophagy in South America.
There was no accompanying letter or note. I spent the next few minutes leafing through the text which was only about two hundred pages, plus about sixty more in appendices and endnotes. There were sixteen pages of colour illustrations in the middle and I took a good look at those.
About halfway through there was a photograph of a woodcut depicting a scene in which a naked, agonised native was lying atop an altar. His feet, genitals and one hand had already been cut from his body by a gaudily dressed priest standing over him. But the knife was now in the victim’s hand, not the priest’s, and the poor native had just plunged it into the heart of the shocked and surprised priest. Underneath was the caption ‘Revenge of the cannibalised victim’. Beside the illustration someone had added a large ‘X’ in ballpoint pen.
I felt blood drain from my face. My heart pounded, and I struggled to breathe.
Someone had sent me a message.
Chapter 16
Disinformation. I clicked pause on the video and rubbed my eyes. My watch told me it was after 2 a.m. The guy I was listening to, Frank Colson, was regarded as an expert in the fine art of disappearing, becoming invisible to ‘skip tracers’, stalkers and the like. Accessing Colson’s online courses hadn’t come cheap and I didn’t think I was getting much value for my money.
If you are being stalked, contact your local police department and report it. Okey-dokey. Been there, done that.
How to Disappear and Never be Found. I had to get away before the trouble started, according to Colson. It was already too late for that, and the next bit was the real stickler. In order to make my escape I had to have three things; a detailed plan, a valid passport, and lots of money. I had the first two but not number three. Disappearing from your stalker meant becoming invisible, which meant moving away. In fact, it meant flying to another city, looking at apartments, talking to realtors, making sure you had credit checks performed by some businesses in that city. Then you moved somewhere else completely. That, according to the video, would throw off the skip tracer or stalker.
Once I had moved to a different city, I’d never be able to use credit cards
again, would have to pay for everything with cash, and never again do anything that I was well known for – which, in my case, meant flying. Joining any small plane outfit would make me incredibly easy to find. Instead, I’d have to work for cash payments only, for example in a ‘mom and pop restaurant’ or maybe on a building site.
I switched the video off in disgust. To be fair to Colson, he did warn that disappearing without a trace was difficult and costly, and only to be seriously considered as a last resort. I wasn’t quite at that point yet.
Maybe if I just went away for a while it would change things. Go somewhere I’d be hard to find; it didn’t have to be far nor permanent. I thought for a while, made up my mind, and went to bed.
Early in the morning I threw a change of clothes, some toiletries and several other items into my backpack, set the house alarm, and took off on foot. I walked along Heather Street, crossed the road and headed east to Cambie Street, then went down the hill to the City Hall Skytrain station. This time, instead of peering into shop windows and stopping at corners to try to find anyone following me, I kept my head down and never looked back.
I took the Canada Line south to YVR airport. As I entered the carriage, I stepped to one side, so that I was still close to the automatic doors. Seconds ticked by as I waited for the bell to sound, signalling that the doors were about to close. As they started to come together, I jumped out back onto the platform. As I looked back, the Skytrain was already moving, doors sealed tight. No one else had got off that I could see. If my stalker had followed me this far, he had just lost me. I stayed on the platform and caught the next train.
As usual at this time of the morning, there were commercial pilots and aircrew in uniform travelling to the airport. I scanned their faces and was relieved that I didn’t know anyone. To avoid conversations and hide from anyone getting on, I sat at the very back, head down, eyes peering into the darkness of the tunnel behind the train.
At the airport terminal I got out, went down the escalator and dived straight into the big, busy washroom below. It was time to transform myself. The Frank Colson video might turn out useful after all.
I locked the end toilet stall, flushed to make some cover noise, and got quickly to work. According to the how-to-disappear expert, disguise in the real world is nothing like how it’s depicted in spy movies and thrillers. In other words, no rubber face masks or four-hour makeover sessions. Instead, an effective and rapid transformation relies on illusion and tricks of perception, employing knowledge of surveillance psychology. Okay, yadda, yadda, yadda. I gotta get on with it.
I took off the clothes I was wearing and changed into those I’d brought in my backpack. Bright colours were replaced by drab brown and gray. I switched shorts to pants, white trainers to black leather work shoes. Reading glasses replaced shades. I put a black rain-jacket over my shirt and a peaked cap on my head. The backpack and old clothes I stuffed into a round cloth carrier bag. I left the stall, looked at myself in the mirror and decided this ‘workman’ look was the best I could do. It would either fool a pursuer or it wouldn’t. I waited until two other people were leaving and exited the washroom behind them, putting on a confident, low centre of gravity swagger.
Outside the airport I grabbed a taxi and took a five minute drive south on Russ Baker Way and Inglis Drive to my real destination, getting out a stone’s throw from the south arm of the Fraser River. It was familiar territory. In front of me, built over the water itself, stood a large building with off-white walls and a dark grey roof. Gulls perched around a square observation platform looking out toward the sea. On a side wall signs in large letters proclaimed; ‘Fraser River Seaplanes. Winged Moose Kitchen & Wet Bar. Flights to Downtown Victoria’.
I smiled to myself and went inside. In the foyer, a tall, long-limbed woman of my age, with chestnut brown hair and black-framed glasses, looked up from behind the counter. I hadn’t seen her since I’d worked here, half a dozen years ago. Since then, she’d adopted a more ‘executive’ look, and was wearing a power suit over a white blouse. She looked terrific. I decided she was the sort of woman who got better looking as they matured a bit. Or maybe I was just seeing her better. Hopefully, she still had the same slightly crazy sense of humour.
“Hi Rachel, still as lovely as ever, I see.”
Rachel Ryan stared at me for several long seconds without saying a word. I realised I was still in the ‘work clothes’ and felt my cheeks turn red. Perhaps I’d done a better disguise job than I’d thought. Then comprehension dawned on Rachel’s face and she smiled, revealing straight white teeth in a wide, generous mouth.
“Cal,” she said, “Long time, no see. What brings you this way?” She gave me the once over, looking me up and down.
“My new job with the telecommunications company,” I replied, keeping a perfectly straight face, “You want a phone installed, don’t you?”
She struggled with how to reply to this. I could almost hear her brain ticking over, trying to figure out if I was serious or not.
“Relax,” I said, “I’m kidding. These duds are just for today. Is Joe around?”
She frowned at the name and I wondered why. “Yeah, he’s out the back, working on one of the Beavers. Go on round.”
I went outside again and strolled around the boardwalk. A familiar figure in overalls stood over the open cowling of a DHC-2 Beaver. Joe Donnelly looked up as I approached and recognised me at once. He was the opposite of Rachel, thin wisps of white hair combed across his red scalp, above a wizened, weather-beaten face. There weren’t many corners of the world where Joe hadn’t at least visited at one time or another. We shook hands warmly and exchanged greetings.
“So what brings you down here?” Joe asked.
I explained to him why I’d come, not mentioning my stalker. Like everybody else, he’d heard about my parcel bomb and I told him I needed a few days away from news media and reporters.
“I thought maybe I could stay in one of the backrooms,” I said, “Do you think I could?” The upstairs backrooms were two little bachelor suites that Joe’s pilots could use if they wanted to sleep on the premises overnight. Normally only one of them was ever used at a time.
Joe nodded his head. “Sure, glad to have you, Cal. Rachel will give you a key.”
“I’ll go up there now then,” I said, “I want to get out of these clothes.”
“I was wondering about those,” Joe replied, “You look like you’re ready to install cable TV.”
I grinned, thanked him and turned to go. As I was about to leave I asked, “How’s business?”
A frown came over Joe’s face and I instantly regretted the question. I also realised how much my old boss had aged in only a few years. Where before there had been coals of fire beneath his big, bushy eyebrows, there was now a tired world-weariness I’d never seen before.
“Things could be better,” he said, “Could be a lot better.”
Chapter 17
I unpacked my few things in the tiny bedroom and stripped out of the work clothes. The suite looked more run down that I remembered it. The walls could have used a coat of fresh paint and the kitchenette counter was chipped, scratched and stained. I showered and lay on the bed. A dodgy spring pressed into one shoulder.
Still, I felt far more relaxed than I had in days, ever since the package had exploded. With the disguise and switching trains, I was pretty sure I hadn’t been followed. I could stay here a few days, make myself useful, and shake my stalker off. I was safe, and it felt great.
After a midday snooze I went down to the Winged Moose to get something to eat and met Rachel in the hallway.
“Everything okay up there?” she asked.
“Sure. Not used much anymore, I guess?”
She seemed to know what I was getting at. “Could use an upgrade, that’s for sure. No money though.”
I took the opportunity to find out more. “Joe said business was tight.”
Rachel nodded.
“The competition up the road
?”
“Up the road, down the road, every which way.” She sighed. “The competition have fleets of planes we can’t match. Newer ones; spacious, comfortable, all the conveniences. At the same prices, or not much more. So the business execs go there, not here.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” It was lame but all I could think to say.
Rachel glanced around, as if to ensure no one else was listening. “Actually, it’s not even that. Joe could cope with competition; he’s a fighter. He’d do specials, fishing parties to Gulf Islands, eco-tourism for yuppies, that sort of thing. He’s great at the package stuff.”
I waited to hear the real problem. Rachel leaned closer.
“But he’s given up trying ever since Mary died.”
My mouth gaped; a literal jaw drop. “What?”
“You didn’t know? Of course you wouldn’t.” She sighed. “Mary had a relapse, a really bad one.”
“You mean–”
Rachel put a hand to my mouth; glanced around again. “Ssshh. She went right off the rails this time. Stayed downtown a lot. Six months ago she took a dose of fentanyl and never woke up. Joe was devastated.”
I could imagine it. Mary Donnelly was a First Nations woman that Joe had met on one of his trips up the Sunshine Coast. About twenty years his junior, she became the love of his life. When I’d been working here, Mary looked after the building upkeep and in particular the bar. Which was ironic, but also courageous and inspiring. Mary was an alcoholic who never touched a drop of the booze she ordered in. She never minded others drinking around her and many times I’d taken advantage of that between flights, and on quiet evenings when I’d nothing much else to do. Over a glass of Diet Pepsi and ice she was the world’s best conversationalist. I remembered her smile and warm brown eyes and how I’d envied Joe her companionship.
Now she was dead. I don’t remember the little that Rachel and I said after that. I understood now why my room was a bit rundown. Mary wouldn’t have stood for that, but Mary wasn’t here any longer. No wonder Joe looked like a broken old man.
Shadow of a Killer Page 5
