by Sam Wiebe
A nineteen-year-old serving girl from Szechuan province intercepted them en route from the restaurant floor. Her scream was met by two .45 ACP slugs to the chest that killed her instantly. The young men and the married couple proceeded into the office.
One of the staff members who had hidden in the prep area heard Mrs. Qiu’s screams, and a strangely accented voice say, “Which one of you bitches wants to die first.” As he told the story on the news, the prep cook said there were five gunshots. He made the sounds. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Right after each other, he added. Then the sounds of the two men leaving.
Lying in Sonia’s bed in the late morning, I told her it felt like something was ending.
“Qiu was a threat but he was reasonable. You could talk to him, sometimes, at least. I tried that with the Hayes brothers and it went south fast.” I looked up at the dust-caked blades of her ceiling fan. “Question is, if they take Qiu’s place, do they become more like him? Or does the world just get uglier and slightly more stupid?”
“You don’t like change,” Sonia said.
“A decade knowing me and you’re just finding out?”
She was first out of bed and to the shower, which meant the coffee and tea making duties fell to me.
When she emerged from the bathroom she was wearing pajama bottoms and a tank top, and her hair clung to her forehead in wet tendrils. I felt a clenching of the chest but didn’t mention it as I handed her a mug.
“The flipside of that,” I began.
“Of what?”
“Things changing,” I said. “The flipside is I don’t feel as anxious as I should. I’m pretty okay with being out of the PI business.”
She knocked her hip against my crotch as she passed to the living room. “You can’t bum around here forever. Are you really thinking of changing jobs?”
I shrugged. “I might not have a choice.”
“Have you thought about what you’d do? What exactly are you qualified for?” She sipped her coffee. “Certainly not being a barista.”
“Rent boy, maybe.”
“Yeah? You think I’d let you do that?”
“I’d give you a discount.”
“You’d better.”
I sat down next to her, looking at the papers I’d left spread out on the coffee table. Copies of the documents written in Essex’s hand. Next to them the newspaper, open to the story about Qiu. His photo, an old corporate headshot, looked at me with bemusement.
“I don’t know what I’ll end up doing,” I said, stroking her knee. “And I don’t much care right now.”
Smiling behind her mug, she said, “Know what I think? I don’t think you could live without being a PI.”
“I thought that way about being a cop.”
“Maybe every ten years you need to burn your career down, start over.”
“And arise from the ashes,” I said.
“David Wakeland, professional phoenix.”
She dressed in the bedroom without closing the door, discarding her pajamas and slipping on underwear, jeans. None of the movements studied or done for my sake, which made them all the more beguiling. The world could be what it was, as long as I didn’t have to take it on alone.
“It’s been nice teaching Kay these last few months,” I said. “Maybe I’ll get some kind of degree and go work for the Justice Institute.”
“It’s a thought,” she said. “But I don’t believe you could give it up.”
“Some people didn’t think Elton John could pull off a country record.”
In the shower I kneaded something lavender-scented into my scalp and tried to remember the lyrics to “Burn Down the Mission.” When I shut off the nozzle I stood, naked, and luxuriated in the mist-filled chamber that smelled so strongly of all things her.
Chambers dead, and Wong and Nagy, and now Qiu. I could forget them all.
“Dave.”
In the bedroom Sonia stood holding the phone. Instead of handing it to me, she hit the speaker button and tossed it on the bed.
“Believe it or not I’m glad you’re back with her,” Essex’s voice said. Her glib tone sounded forced. “She seems pleasant, if a bit weak for you.”
“She’s right here,” Sonia said, “and she’ll beat your ass if you ever show your face in this city.”
“Maybe I never left,” Essex said.
“Then give us your address.”
“I need to speak to Dave.”
“You’re speaking to both of us. My fucking phone.”
A tentative silence from Essex’s end of the line.
“All right.” Her voice sounded tired. “If you want to involve yourself, I accept.”
“I wasn’t asking permission.”
“Dave,” she said. “Is this really necessary?”
“Yes, she is. Go ahead.”
A pause, a consideration. “You weren’t wrong about the things you said last time we spoke.”
“Double negatives get on my nerves,” I said. “What do you want?”
“Have you been prying into my affairs? Asking questions?”
“You’re the one who keeps finding reasons to phone,” I said. “I’ve said my piece.”
“This is important. This could be fatal. Now please answer me.”
“He’s been busy helping me with a problem,” Sonia said.
“Have you sent someone?”
“Who would I send?” I asked her. “Jeff and I are on the outs, and Kay is locked up filing invoices until this is over. You won, Dana.”
“I hope that’s true,” she said. “Because it’s not me you have to fear. What you said about my not being fully in control, you weren’t—you were right.”
“Okay.”
“And I hope you’re being honest, because if you’re not, what’s coming will be so much more horrible than what you expect.”
“Meaning?”
“Watch yourself, Dave.” To Sonia, she said, “Miss?”
“What?”
“Take care of him.”
“Turn yourself in,” Sonia said, meeting my gaze. “We can take care of him together.”
I said, “Sonia’s right. You know who this is. We can all walk out okay if you come clean.”
“I can’t risk it,” Essex said.
She hung up without a good-bye.
“So that was her,” Sonia said. She rubbed her shoulders. “Why does she phone like that?”
“Usually to taunt me. This was different.” I sat on the bed and finished dressing. “I have to find her.”
Sonia said, “Yes, we do.”
Twenty-Nine
Kay and Blatchford combed through the Late Start documents, compiling a list of inmates Essex had worked with. From there we pulled court records and scanned newspaper articles, piecing together who had been released and where they lived now. One in Halifax, three in Ontario, two more spread over the prairies. All possibilities that would have to be checked. But three other felons lived in the Pacific Northwest; we started with them.
Robert Gordon Henshaw lived in Creston, a brewery town near the Idaho border. He’d killed two people, shot them, a pair of brothers who’d insulted him in a bar. Henshaw was seventy-three years old now, had been released last year. He lived with his daughter and her husband.
Lee Henry Crowhurst lived in Redmond, Washington, on some sort of farm. He’d beaten a senior citizen to death, been caught coming out of the man’s apartment. He’d given no reason for the crime, and hadn’t stolen anything or known the victim. His IQ was low. Of all the possibles, Essex had seemed to make the least progress with him. He was fifty-eight.
The last was Dale NMI Petrie, fifty-four, who lived on Vancouver Island, near a town called Ladysmith. Petrie had ties to the Ontario chapters of the Exiles Motorcycle Club. He’d killed a woman, killed her for money, and used a knife to do it.
The woman’s name had been Joanna Disher, a twenty-seven-year-old bartender who’d witnessed an altercation between another biker and a local businessm
an outside a bar in Toronto. Her body had been discovered weeks before the case came to trial.
Petrie had been released six years ago, and seemed to be retired. When he’d moved to the coast, he hadn’t made connections with the local biker gangs. Which was good—the last thing I wanted now was trouble with the Exiles.
We sat around Sonia’s table, the four of us, copies of Father Darian’s records piled in the center. Blatchford thought Petrie was the most likely by far.
“You read the reports,” Blatchford explained. “Our gal uses the same descriptions with Henshaw and Crowhurst—with all the others, really. ‘Progressing’ or ‘not progressing,’ ‘putting in effort’ and whatnot. But read Petrie’s.”
I did, and saw what he meant. With the others, Essex tracked what she covered in each study session. With Petrie, though, her reports were more psychological. She wrote of his poor attitude, his excessive off-topic questioning. She felt bullied by him, like he didn’t take her seriously.
I looked around the table. Kay shrugged. Sonia said, “Being cranky and a bad speller doesn’t make him our killer.”
Our. I let the word pass.
Blatchford said, “It’s how she wrote about him. He got to her. Some people thrive on being pushed around, bullied a bit. Right frame of mind, I’m one of them.”
“Still doesn’t make him Tabitha’s killer,” Sonia countered.
“Passion is passion. It’s the people that agitate you that you’re most drawn to. Isn’t it?” Nodding toward me, he said to Sonia, “Who can piss you off quicker than he can?”
Sonia conceded the point.
“First let’s cross off Henshaw and Crowhurst,” I said. “Kay and I can look into Petrie, figure out a way to approach him.”
“We take him out now,” Blatchford said, “head on, we all sleep easier.”
“If he’s the most dangerous and the most likely, we have to be the most careful with him. Two days we’ll know more.”
Blatchford grumbled but agreed to check out Henshaw and Crowhurst first. I asked if he wanted company.
“Better you stay here,” he said, getting up from the table. “This kind of skullduggery I do better without an audience.”
Blatchford was probably right about Petrie. He did seem the most likely. He also seemed more than capable of cutting another throat—Tabitha’s, Blatchford’s, Sonia’s, mine. Maybe it was inevitable we confront him. If so, two days wouldn’t make much difference.
Thirty
Tim Blatchford didn’t call the next morning. He didn’t answer his cell. Part of me worried, part thought he was legitimately busy, and part thought he held off just to taunt me. Like it or not, I had to let him do things his way. So Kay and I focused on Dale Petrie.
The ex-biker’s Ladysmith house was valued at two and a half million dollars. Satellite photos showed a fenced-in property near a golf course, in a wealthy subdivision of similar-sized homes. The property even had an outdoor pool.
Where Petrie had got the money for the place was unclear. He was currently employed as a groundskeeper and maintenance man at an RV park/camp site. The property taxes alone would bite significantly into that salary.
Petrie needed money, and he’d killed for it before. That made him the most likely candidate, though there was still nothing connecting him to the death of Tabitha Sorenson. Only Dana Essex knew.
But there was one person who might have seen Tabitha’s killer. I dreaded approaching him, but after trying Blatchford once more with no response, I drove to Sabar Gill’s house.
Gill opened the door wearing sweat pants and a baggy sweater, barefoot and unshaven. His hair had been trimmed, stitches visible along his scalp. He stared at me.
“You’re not how I remembered,” Gill said. His voice was emotionless and his eyes showed signs of sedation. “When they let me out of the hospital, I looked you up. I thought you’d have more money.”
“You and me both,” I said.
For a moment I thought he’d slam the door on me, but his head canted to the side in a defeated shrug. He let me in.
Once we were seated on his couch, he asked what I wanted.
“It’s about the person who killed Tabitha. Did you get a look at them?”
“Like I told the police, I don’t remember that night,” Gill said. “Any of it. I just remember waking up in the hospital with my head on fire, and then the cops telling me Tabby was dead.”
Perhaps sensing I was about to offer condolences, Gill closed his eyes. “Just get on with it,” he said.
I had an envelope with photos of the Late Start suspects, Petrie first among them. “Would you look at these?”
“I told you, I didn’t see him.”
“Maybe the person followed you before that night.”
“That was you who did that.”
Gill took the envelope, flipped listlessly through the pictures. He held up Petrie’s, paused, then set it down atop the others. He shook his head.
“I know you didn’t stab her,” he said.
“No.”
“The news made it sound like you know who was responsible.”
“It’s delicate,” I said. “If you can give me some time, hopefully I can answer—”
“I don’t care about answers.”
Gill let the envelope slip to the floor, the photos fanning out.
He said, “The police asked me about you and that cop who killed himself. And that lady cop, your girlfriend, who was with you when you shot those other two.”
There were tears pearling at the corners of his eyes.
“It’s just death everywhere, isn’t it?” he said.
“Feels like it sometimes.”
His head lowered, nodding slowly.
“She’s dead, Tabitha, because of money. You all wanted it, and she paid the price—she was the price. You should’ve gotten paid better for telling them where she was.”
“You know it’s not that simple.”
He shrugged, smiling, all bleeding sarcasm and raw grief.
“I’m sorry as hell,” I said. “I know I can’t make it right. What I can do is find the people responsible.”
“Find someone else. Kill someone else. You don’t get tired of that?”
“This is different.”
“For a good cause this time,” he said. “Unlike before.”
Gill showed me to the door, passing me back the envelope as I crossed the threshold. I offered him my card. He took it, then let it flutter to land on the stoop.
He said, “I was going to tell you I hope you die, but I don’t honestly want that. I mean it, I don’t. What I hope is that you find out what real grief is like. Someone you love, losing them, being helpless. You should know what that’s like, and I hope you find out soon.”
Thirty-One
When Blatchford finally called, it wasn’t from Creston. Around seven p.m. he phoned from the truck crossing near Aldergrove, stuck in a long line waiting for Customs to let him back across the border.
“Figured I’d get them both out of the way,” he said. “Henshaw and Crowhurst. They’re not our guy. Henshaw’s in a wheelchair. He’s a colostomy bag with an old man attached. I saw that and headed straight to Redmond.”
“And Crowhurst?” I asked.
“Not much better. Guy’s borderline special ed. Lives on the old family farm—‘farm,’ fucking place is all mud. I stopped by like I needed directions, how to get back to the highway, just to see how sharp he is.”
“And he said what?”
“‘It’s about a half hour.’ And I ask him which way, and he kinda frowns and says, ‘whichever way you got here.’”
“Did you tip you were interested in him?”
Blatchford’s answer was a muttered “fuck” and the sound of his truck engine gasping back to life. When he came back on the line he said, “I rented a car in Bellingham, like you told me to, with Washington plates. Guy didn’t give two shits about what I was driving. I was keeping him from his cartoons.”
<
br /> “Nobody living with him?”
“Nah. He’s got a sister who checks in on him once in a while. He works in some warehouse stocking shelves. No license, guy can’t even drive himself.”
“How about Henshaw’s family?” I asked. “He has a daughter and son-in-law.”
“And they’re both sweet as punch, and they have two kids. It’s not him, Dave. Not either of them. You know who it is.”
Before I could answer, his horn sounded, crackling the speaker of the phone.
“I’m going, shitstain, all right?” He was speaking to whoever was behind him. Once he’d maneuvered his car, he said to me, “I’ll head over tomorrow morning and scope out Dale Petrie. I won’t confront him till you say so. You and Kay learn anything about him?”
“He keeps a low profile,” I said. “But his money has to come from somewhere.”
“You’d keep your head down too, you were going around shanking people. I’ll call you when I get there, let’s say around noon.”
“Stay safe,” I said to a dead phone. He’d already hung up.
Thirty-Two
Irritation to anger, to disappointment, to worry, falling finally into fear.
Tim Blatchford kept to his own unfathomable time code, which didn’t accommodate my need for regular reports. He was also more than capable of defending himself. I kept both facts in mind over the course of the next day, resisting the urge to bombard him with texts, limiting my calls to once on the hour.
But by nightfall he still hadn’t called, and it was clear something had happened.
Kay hadn’t heard from him, either. “You’re worried?” she asked when I phoned her.
“Getting there.”
“How well exactly do you know him?”
“Why?”
