by Lou Allin
Remembering what Chipper had said about the sexual assaults in Langford, Holly called West Shore Detachment to check their crime stats. West Shore had over seventy employees with four teams of six investigators and not only a Major Crimes unit, but one for street crimes, fraud, and firearms. The integrated unit downtown was developed to assist small detachments and devote heavy resources to the first few days. They also handled police dog services and a provincial general investigative unit for mid-level crimes like extortion and grand theft as well as gangs, crisis intervention, and child exploitation. Only if they failed to get their man could a lowly corporal become involved in the process re-inspecting a pot on the back burner in her spare time. In those few unsolved cases, Holly liked to think of their detachment as the “Court of Last Resort.”
She was routed through to Inspector Lee Skeffington. “With our increased population, our stats are way up in every category,” he said.
“Sexual assaults?”
“Unfortunately. Most of them have centred around a few hotspot bars like the Logger. But there was an attack in the park the other night. Right at the Five Points.” At this confluence, the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway bisected five streets and a park.
Holly’s radar perked up. There were plenty of streetlights around, and the detachment was across the street. Quite the nerve. “An arrest?”
“I wish. The guy got away. He was one fast mo-fo. Maybe he ran track. Ripped the blouse off a grandmother coming home from a movie on her bike. Then he grabbed her shoulder bag.”
“Then it’s not the same M.O. as the other man who’s been after young girls. My constable lives in Colwood, and he told me about your mugger.”
“I’d say not. This woman was quite hefty, not a little one like the others.”
“Do you think he lives in the area? He could have walked, or had a car nearby.”
“We sent a cruiser after him. He disappeared into Mill Hill Park. Game over in the dark.”
“Maybe he’s even camping in there.”
“That was our thought. Damn new laws are handcuffing us.” The extensive urban park covered over seventy hectares, much of it on steep slopes up a hill with nooks and niches impossible to patrol. It was a haven for wildflowers and homeless. The view from the top was spectacular, if you could overlook Costco.
A recent B.C. high court decision allowed people to camp in public parks as long as they were packed up and out between seven a.m. and nine p.m. Pandora Street downtown now had a regular army of tents, and the waste situation was getting out of control. Still, what were people to do without a bathroom? “Any descriptions we can use? I’m pretty sure we aren’t talking about the same person. French Beach is twenty-five clicks from you.”
“Just a sec.” A minute later she heard a rustle of papers. “Tall guy. Mid twenties. Good condition. Works out, maybe. It was dark, and she was going pretty slow. That’s how he was able to pull her off the bike.”
“How about his face?”
“Long-billed baseball cap pulled down. Too bad he wasn’t stupid enough to have it turned around.”
“Was the woman hurt?”
“The fall bruised her legs. Scratched up her bike.” He paused. “Luckily a guy walking his dog pack came along through the park and the barking scared off the assailant. The man called us from his cell.”
“Did she say anything else? What about voice?” In the dark, that might be another feature.
He paused. “Low and sinister. Kind of disguised. Just yanked her off the bike and pushed her into the bushes. It’s funny. Islanders pride themselves on being fit, using cars less, public transportation more, and then look what happens.”
“Sounds like he was just after the bag. Send me a copy of that report for our files,” she asked, remembering what Maddie had said about the voice of her assailant. “We’ve only had the one incident. Not enough to see a pattern.”
“It could happen again,” he said. “Guys like this get off on terrorizing women. That’s half the fun, the sick pukes.”
When she got back, Ann had a cream-lapping look on her face. “You’re not going to guess what I turned up,” she said, peering around into Holly’s office.
“Don’t leave me hanging. I need some good news,” said Holly, following Ann back to the foyer and pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“That name Paul Reid rang a bell, so I checked the records. It happened the year before Chipper came. Just Reg and me.” She eased herself down into her chair, took out a bottle of coated aspirin, and swallowed three with a slurp of water.
“What happened?” Reg Wilkinson had been a one-man detachment for a few years. He was the product of high everything but IQ, he joked, and was living in retirement in Chemainus up the east coast. A triple bypass had been the last event levering him from his beloved post. “Doing a run to Rennie to check on a rockslide after one of our deluges, I caught Paul taking a leak down at Jordan River. Around the back of that take-out hamburger joint that closed down.”
“If he was exposing himself, there’s a connection,” Holly said.
“Like serial killers practising on animals. Or peeping Toms graduating to rape.”
“Tell me more. I’m guessing he was charged with public indecency.”
Ann shook her head and a frown crept over her wide brow. “Out here? No way. His back was turned to the road. No one was around when I drove by. I was pissed. Pardon the pun. I took his name, made the report, and went back to HQ. Reg laughed me out of the office. I nearly clocked him. The big, soft-hearted jerk.”
Holly gave it some thought, recalling how harmless Paul had seemed. “It could have happened that way. Guys are casual and careless about their plumbing. The rest of us end up peeing on our shoes.”
“So should we follow up? I’m thinking yes.”
“Why don’t you give Reg a call and refresh your memory? Maybe something else will occur to him.”
Holly set out to check on the dog complaint, grabbing a copy of the Capital Regional District bylaws. The statutes were fairly liberal about barking as long as it wasn’t between key hours. If only they could regulate noisy geese. When she returned, Ann was still on the phone. She held up two fingers, and Holly went to her office.
On the wall were pictures of her German shepherds. One fading Polaroid showed her mother and father in their early twenties, long locks for her father and braids for Mom, tie-dyed shirt and a soft deerskin dress. Fate was a strange animal. If they hadn’t met in university, would her mother be around today? She herself wouldn’t be, but that would hardly matter. Holly tried to relax her shoulders, where a knot was forming. Thinking like that was plain nuts. But she didn’t believe that everything happened for a purpose.
She should have started her search for her mother when she had been posted up north near Port McNeil, but a full-time job left little time off. She thought over the facts, something she did like a mental tune-up.
That last weekend, Bonnie had called from a motel in Campbell River, then headed into the interior. It was wild country, pierced with twisting fjords and tiny enclaves on the uninhabited west coast. Why had she taken that old Bronco into the bush in the fall when the weather was so unpredictable? Because she had promised the small community that she would come. “Promises are to be kept, little Freckle Pelt,” she’d told her daughter, referencing a common lichen whose name amused them both.
Recently, Great Aunt Stella Rice had given Holly a lead from Bonnie’s shoebox of work records left at her farm in Youbou up in Cowichan. The trail wasn’t only cold after ten years, it was icy. If only she had the time and resources. Was she taking one step back with each two forward or the reverse?
A receipt from Otter Aviation. Cryptic notes on a pad. This information had caused her to try to contact her second cousin in nearby Sidney. Any day he’d be back from a fishing trip in the remote part of Yukon. What could he tell her about that mysterious flight to Williams Lake on the mainland that Bonnie had booked but never taken?
&n
bsp; It was all as frustrating as this case at French Beach. She looked glumly at the envelope on the desk. A scrap of paper. Sometimes the smallest of clues led to an arrest. Police had caught the Son of Sam killer decades ago because he had received a parking ticket on the street where the murder went down.
“Stop playing detective,” Inspector Crew at West Shore had told her when she called on a follow-up. “We put our resources where they do the most good. This was a sexual assault, not a rape. The clothes turned up nothing. If you’re trying to make a name for yourself, little lady, you’re going about it the wrong way. Know how many corporals there are? Over 3,600. Don’t overstep your authority or you’ll still be at that rank when you’re old and grey.” She snorted in disgust at the memory.
A car with no muffler blasted by, rattling the single-paned windows. No sense even bothering. They couldn’t continue to do the same work with one less man. Luckily they weren’t as busy now as in the middle of the summer.
Ann called, “No luck with Reg. His machine says he’s moose hunting on the mainland. That usually takes him at least a week.”
Then Ann’s phone rang. A minute later, she appeared in the doorway of her office as Holly turned from the files. “Good news, or maybe bad. We should have anticipated this. They’re sending someone out to fill in for Chipper.” She glanced up at the clock. “In fact, she should be here now … or he should.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“She or he? They didn’t give you a name? Just constable?”
Ann looked at the note she had made. “It’s another case of The Young and the Restless. Ashley Packke. That’s with an E at the end of the last name. Two K’s. I’m thinking female, but you never know.”
“That soap’s still on, but they turfed Ashley a few years ago. I remember a bunch of Crystals from Dallas just behind me in school. My dad would point to the many Shirleys in their seventies now. And the Marilyns in their fifties. But Ashley was a man in Gone with the Wind.”
Ann held up her hands. “Creative spelling makes me crazy. Sean, Shawn, Shawon. Nick knew a girl called Six once. Maybe her mother needed to number them.”
“My girlfriend Suzy Tune looked and acted just like her name. Perky and cute. Ashley was smart and gorgeous. It’s a hard name to live up to.”
The noise rose to a climax, then stopped. A lawnmower? A local senior had ridden his John Deere all the way to Steak Night at the Sooke Legion. Normally Chipper would be out like a shot. Holly gritted her teeth and stayed put.
“Whatever that noise is, they’re here. Maybe they need help. Go on out and …” She turned as the fax began printing.
“This may free me from some traffic duty, but I really don’t want to have to adjust to someone new for what could be a few weeks.” Holly folded her arms and leaned against the wall, predisposed to dislike the intruder on the spot.
“Did I hear you use the word adjust? Ten demerit points. You’re in the army, after all.” She gathered up the pages from the fax machine and began to read. “This might tell us more about Constable Packke.”
Footsteps sounded steps outside. A muscular woman six feet tall designed for the word Amazon pushed open the door with her hip, banging it against the closet. She wore a set of black leathers and carried a full-face flame-decaled motorcycle helmet under one arm. She dropped a duffle on the floor.
Her hair was curly and strawberry blond, sticking with sweat to her forehead. The prominent nose had a distinctive point. She booted the door shut the door behind her with a tiny oomph, then put the helmet on a table of brochures and stepped forward with her hands on her hips, looking the room up and down.
“How do you stand it out here? Any farther and Honolulu, hello. There isn’t even a Starbucks or a Serious Coffee in half an hour.”
Holly stepped forward from the lunchroom. “Excuse me. Can we help you with something?”
“I’m Ashley Packke. You should be expecting me.”
“Tact isn’t your middle name,” Ann observed, her mouth tight as her observant eyes. Like an observant hawk, she was sizing up the competition.
The woman shot her an irreverent glance. “Since you’re sitting out here playing secretary, you can’t be the boss. So where is he? Alls they told me was that this was a shack in the boonies where the living is easy.”
“You’re looking at her,” Holly said, keeping her voice even. So far the tension in the room had escalated to a level even Valium wouldn’t crack. She wanted to shake this woman’s hand about as much as she wanted to put her arm into a cobra cage. And they’d thought things couldn’t get worse? Still, she made the politic gesture. “I’m Holly Martin.”
Ashley gave her the roughest shake she’d ever felt. It went on for at least thirty seconds, though who was counting? Holly refused to back down by being the first to pull away. Did the woman squeeze exercise balls hours each morning? If she pulled that on Ann, with the woman’s occasional tendonitis, there was going to be bloodshed.
Ann folded her hands on the desk in an assessing gesture. She’d taken off her reading glasses and fixed the woman with a piercing stare. “I find it strange that you weren’t briefed on our detachment when you got the assignment. HQ isn’t usually that sloppy.”
“Whatever. I’m a fast learner. Where’s my office? Then I want to get changed. And never mind the orientation. I can tell that dick all happens here except for nap time,” Ashley said. “Well, ladies? Don’t tell me that this is it. You gotta be kidding.”
Things had happened so fast that Holly hadn’t thought about clearing Chipper’s things. “What you see is what you get.” She pulled a small box from the closet and started to collect his personal belongings. The silver Ganesh paperweight gave her heart a pull. Then came his Vancouver Olympics glass. Small tokens of a soul. The other drawers simply held stationery. The framed picture of his mom and dad standing proudly in front of their new store she plucked from the wall. For safekeeping she took the box to a shelf in her office closet, forcing herself to take her time. It felt like he had died.
“So this is your desk.” Holly said with a quick exhale when she returned. “Why are you still in civilian clothes? Or are you fresh from an undercover assignment?”
“Very funny. I brought my uniform. Where’s a place I can change?”
Ann pointed with a thumb. “We have a bathroom with a sink. No hot tub or sauna, despite what you imagined. You can change in our lunchroom.” Her frozen expression said shove us and we shove back.
With a “huh,” Ashley took the cue to disappear.
Holly gave Ann a quizzical look. “What do you think?”
“She’s a big girl. In good shape, too. Did you see those biceps? No one’s giving her a tough time on traffic patrol or breaking up a bar fight, not that we have any bars. But a charmer this one ain’t. Then again, neither are we.”
“Speak for yourself, Ann,” Holly said, patting her chest. “I am known for my cooperative personality and generous spirit.”
Ashley returned in a few minutes, rolling her substantial linebacker shoulders. In the uniform, she looked even more formidable. Neither Ann nor Holly was a fragile lily, but Ashley looked as if she could wrestle each one with one hand and win. Had she been a professional bodybuilder? With her abrupt personality, perhaps she was on steroids. Holly felt her neck hairs prickle. “Loose cannon” had been invented for this gal. On the other hand, perhaps, thrown into a strange and obviously different situation, she was overdoing the bravado. Some people chose law enforcement to exercise their aptitude for being a bully. Most of them didn’t last long.
Ashley chuckled, a nasty sound that conjured memories of revolving heads. “They said Corporals Martin and Troy.” She sat in Chipper’s chair and crossed one leg grasshopper style, taking a tissue from a box on the desk and giving her boots a buff. Holly noticed that her shirt could have stood a pressing. “So why are there two corporals in a three-man post? Somebody lose a coin toss? You look to be the older one by ten years. ’Sup?” She shot a glance
at Ann.
“Now wait a minute,” Holly said. “Who do you …”
Ann held up a hand as her pupils turned to pinpoints. “Let that be a mystery for you. It will make life more interesting.” She inspected her short nails as if they told a story. “Corporal Martin is head of the detachment, as she already told you. Your short-term memory needs a booster shot.”
“No need to hit me over the head. I can see I’m pushing the wrong buttons. Don’t be so sensitive. Time of the month or what? So where’s the guy I’m replacing? I heard some funny rumours.”
Although she had a symmetrical face and expressive lips, her combative attitude was making her uglier by the minute. Holly’s clenched jaw was making her molars ache. Where would things go from here?
“On a need-to-know basis, here’s the answer. Constable Singh’s case is in the bullshit machine, and you know how long that process takes. Without revealing any details about this false accusation, we’re confident that he’ll be back here very soon.” Holly looked at Ann, who gave a confident nod. “So don’t get too comfortable, officer.”
Ashley’s nostrils flared as she tipped back in the chair and put her boots on the desk, pushing aside a pencil holder. “So what do you do for fun around here when dead whales aren’t floating in on the beach?”
Whale watching was big business. Every tourist wanted to ride in those Zodiacs. But recently due to a krill shortage a right whale had starved. When people were photographed hacking pieces from its rotting carcass, to respect its spirit the local Coastal Salish tribe had towed it away for a decent burial.
Ann bristled as a wave of red was beginning to build at her neck. “No shoes on the desk, honey lamb. We’re casual on the island, not sloppy. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
