Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers)

by Ruttan, Sandra

  “Which means she’s either been missing longer or doesn’t have someone waiting for her at home.”

  Ashlyn opened her mouth, hesitated. “Not necessarily. Remember that family last year, the ones who never reported their daughter was missing because they were illegals?”

  It wasn’t really a question because she knew he remembered, as much as part of him wished he could forget. From time to time he wondered how those girls were doing, then realized he probably didn’t want to know the answer.

  “If they were involved in anything illegal, a partner might not come forward.” Tain sighed. “Which leaves us with what?”

  “Birth records.”

  Tain groaned. “Do I even want to know?”

  “Over 42,000 births recorded between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007 in British Columbia alone, and it’s holding steady for the current reporting year.”

  “And we’re assuming she actually reported the birth.” Tain leaned back in his chair. “If she’s involved with someone currently, someone who wouldn’t want to report her missing, would she name him on the child’s birth certificate?”

  “And there’s different protocol for First Nations children, depending on where they’re born.”

  “You think…?” He frowned. “Isn’t that a bit of a long shot?”

  “I’m just pointing out that a search won’t be conclusive. For all we know, she left the province for a period of time, but if we could turn up a birth record, it would give us a place to work from.”

  Tain reached for his phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Asking for Sims to follow up on the paperwork.”

  “You have something else in mind for us?”

  He nodded and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Get your coat.”

  Tain was vaguely aware of the cold metal of the car he was leaning against as he watched Ashlyn reach up, rub her shoulder and twist her neck back and forth. Through the growing darkness, he could still make out her movements as she walked down the pavement to the street where they’d parked.

  He even believed he could see her eyes turn toward the Dumpster where Millie Harper’s body had been found, but as she drew closer and the glow of the streetlight enveloped her, all he could see was her steady gaze at him and she sighed.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Damn it.”

  She leaned against the car beside him for a second before straightening up. “There were six apartments in the building on the corner where nobody answered.” Ashlyn flipped some pages in her notebook. “Nine in the building across the street.” She glanced at her watch. “Maybe more people are home now. We should—”

  “Be realistic. Most of those apartments don’t overlook the alley.”

  “That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have seen something. People could have been outside, driving home, walking the dog. You’re the one who didn’t want to settle for the canvas done yesterday, who wanted to talk to people firsthand, make sure everything was done properly.”

  “We’ve done that. We left a card on every door that went unanswered. Now it’s time to let it go.”

  She tapped the notebook against her other hand for a moment, an old mannerism he suddenly realized she’d outgrown in the time they’d worked together in the Lower Mainland. When they’d worked together the first time she’d done that a lot.

  Her hands dropped to her sides. “What did Sims say?”

  “Nothing so far.”

  “How hard can it be to track down birth records?”

  “Ash, you said it yourself. There’s different protocol, depending on where a child is born, and there’s a hell of a lot of records to sort through. It could have happened in any town, district, city. For all we know, Millie was married and had a different name.”

  “I—” She looked away as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know. I just want to make some headway on this.”

  “From the amount of blood loss, they’re pretty sure Millie didn’t die here. We aren’t looking for someone who had prolonged exposure. Just enough time to dump the body.”

  Ashlyn glanced at him. “One of the things that makes this different.”

  Tain paused. “It is different, Ash. But we can’t pretend it isn’t connected.”

  She yanked the passenger door open without looking at him and got in. He stood up and walked to the driver’s side door. Once inside, he reached for the keys and realized they weren’t in the ignition.

  He held out his hand. Ashlyn fished them out of her pocket and dropped them in his palm, then faced the window.

  The turns were instinctive as he wove through the streets toward the station and as he thought back over all that had happened since he’d been paired with Ashlyn the summer before, Tain realized he’d worked in the Lower Mainland for the better part of a year.

  More than enough time to see through some of the façade. Proximity to the ocean and the close embrace of the mountains that hugged the TriCities from the north facilitated regular escape from the concrete and stainless steel, the malls and the condos and an endless stream of traffic flowing to and from Vancouver. Many who lived in the area genuinely loved nature and took advantage of every opportunity to escape the constructs of the city, but the illusion of nature served as rose-colored glasses for others who couldn’t admit they’d succumbed to the urban lifestyle, unable to give up the shortened commutes, mass transit and the ebb and flow of thousands of motorists churning out fumes as they polluted the neighborhoods of others if it meant they could get home twenty minutes faster at night and have more time to watch TV. Why did it matter to anyone if the city was pretty if they never went outside?

  The Greater Vancouver Regional District—commonly dubbed the GVA, or Greater Vancouver Area—was comprised of twelve cities, six municipalities, an unincorporated area and three villages. The Lower Mainland did not include Bowen Island, which was part of the GVA, but encompassed cities farther east in the Fraser Valley, such as Abbotsford and Chilliwack. When Tain thought of the Lower Mainland, he didn’t think of the valley. He thought of the mess of high-rises and high-priced condos crowding the sky where the land pushed up against the Pacific. It was an illusion. Thousands lived there, convinced that being able to walk where they could see mountains in the distance made them environmentalists. They wore their MEC sports gear as they drove their gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles to the parks so they could hike trails that were cut through the woods, and then they complained about paths being closed because of bears and cougars. They wanted nature as long as they could control it. Along the coast, residents had been known to shoot otters. It was one thing to kill an animal for survival, but to Tain it reeked of hypocrisy to move closer to nature only to cull the wildlife because you find it a nuisance.

  It wasn’t that he disliked the area, though, and given the choice he’d take the false embrace of nature over the sprawl and smog of Toronto any day.

  One of the reasons he chose the RCMP over the Ontario Provincial Police.

  Instead of making the turn to go to the station he continued straight past it, prompting Ashlyn to lift her head off her hand and look at him.

  “It’s been a long day. I’ll drop you off at home.”

  She dropped her head back against her hand, and they continued as they’d been, the silence in the car offset by the sound of the motor and occasional horn and squeal of tires as someone misjudged the time left before the light turned red, but those sounds faded as he went deeper into the residential area near the mall.

  He’d forgotten that she’d gone to work so early that morning that she’d taken the car. Instinct still had him turning toward Craig’s house in Port Moody from time to time, but he was getting used to Ashlyn’s new residence, although he hadn’t been inside, other than to help her move. When he approached the duplex he pulled up by the curb.

  “Do you want me to pick you up in the morning?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll walk.” Her hand w
as already on the handle. A burst of cool air rushed in as she pushed the door open and started to get out of the vehicle. Ashlyn turned back. “Are you going back?”

  “Just to drop off the car.” He returned her gaze steadily. “We’ll go at it fresh tomorrow.”

  After a moment she nodded and started to walk toward the door. “Good night,” she said as she lifted her hand, but she didn’t look back.

  He climbed back in the car as she disappeared inside the house without so much as a final glance in his direction.

  Once he returned to the station and signed the car back in, he left. Traffic was thinning along the major thoroughfares and he had the advantage of close proximity to work, but he didn’t head home. At the start of every major case that had the feel of an investigation that would run all hours of the day and night, he had the breeder he’d bought Chinook from look after him. There was nothing waiting but an empty house that would offer the silence his ghosts needed to come out and play.

  He followed the road to the Barnett Highway to where it merged with Hastings Street in Burnaby, then turned onto the Trans-Canada Highway and drove into North Vancouver. Less familiar streets wound through the hills and buildings that filled the city, forcing him to pay attention to the road signs so that he wouldn’t miss a turn while Five Dollar Bill, a Corb Lund CD, worked its way through songs about cross-border smuggling and settlers discovering the desolate prairies decades ago.

  The Lion’s Gate Bridge brought him back across the Burrard Inlet, this time at the mouth, and to the west he could look out over the ocean and see lights in the distance moving across the water. He followed the road into Stanley Park and took the outer loop until he found a quiet place to park.

  Noelle had loved the ocean. He’d brought her to the shore once, convinced she’d be scared to death of the endless blue water. Instead, she’d scared him with her eager dash into the waves, one crashing over her head and pushing her just beyond his grasp for a split second.

  Long enough for fear to consume him.

  The CD changer flipped the disc, and scruffy country gave way to the smooth sound of the Inuktitut and English blends Susan Aglukark was known for. The image of Noelle dancing madly around the house, not long before her death, flashed through his mind. He hit the button to change the disc as he wondered how that one had ended up in rotation again, his pulse slowing as “Til I Am Myself Again” started.

  Ironic, considering the doubts that plagued him about his future, about the futility and frustration that had weighed on him for months. In the past, the first hint of unhappiness would cause him to move on, to avoid the questions he didn’t have answers for, to keep him from facing his own uncertainty about his career and where he wanted to be.

  Tain started the engine and pulled back out onto the road, soon losing himself in the bustle of Vancouver, a city that seldom slept. The barrage of lights from businesses and cars kept the darkness at bay on the main streets, but down the alleys the shadows swallowed the homeless people he knew were there. British Columbia’s Lower Mainland had a mild climate when compared to the rest of the country, and even in January Vancouver rarely saw more than a centimeter of snow or temperatures that fell far below freezing. The Vancouver area and Vancouver Island served as beacons for would-be snowbirds who didn’t want to travel to Florida or face the cold of a typical Canadian winter, and those of no fixed address who had to sleep rough when the shelters were full.

  As he circled back toward his own beat, he followed East Hastings. If the Vancouver area was eye candy for nature lovers, East Hastings was eye candy of another kind, and not for anyone Tain would describe as having normal tastes. Various vices were bought and sold on street corners, and on one block uniformed officers were trying to separate two groups of people shouting at each other.

  A headlight shimmered on a blade one of the men held. Tain thought about pulling over, aware that he was out of uniform, but the flash of lights in the rearview mirror signaled the arrival of help as the two groups the officers had worked their way between were pushed apart, dispute already dispersing.

  He kept driving, back toward the TriCities.

  Somehow, after all this time, Millie had found her way to the city where Ashlyn and Tain—and normally Craig—worked. He’d said himself that she didn’t look street hard, but given her history, it would have made more sense for Millie Harper to end up plying one trade or another on East Hastings than murdered and left in a Dumpster in Coquitlam.

  He parked and unlocked the door. The house smelled of stale air and sour milk. Tain dropped his coat on the table, walked to the kitchen counter and dumped the contents of the jug down the sink. He’d forgotten to put it back in the fridge the night before.

  In his bedroom a half-empty mug sat on the nightstand by his bed. Tain grabbed it, as well as the few items of clothes stacked on the lone chair against the wall by the closet and went to start the laundry before rinsing out the mug and putting it in the dishwasher.

  The simple act of doing could be a welcome distraction from so many demons.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It wasn’t until Craig reached the station that he remembered he didn’t even have a desk to work from.

  This assignment was supposed to be just another in a string of temporary assignments. Most of the time he’d been filling in for an injured officer on leave or someone on holidays, and had used their desk or an empty one. He’d been sent to Kelowna for the manhunt as extra personnel, not a substitute. As he entered the station he saw one of the other men he recognized from the gravesite the day before, the one with the gravelly voice.

  The man nodded at him.

  “Make any progress yesterday?” Craig asked.

  The man just shook his head and kept walking.

  Craig searched the station and saw a handful of men he recognized who’d been assigned to the manhunt, but he hadn’t worked directly with them himself. They were in the midst of packing up supplies, so he only stopped to ask if any had seen Mac.

  Nobody had.

  That was when a uniformed officer approached him with a message. He took the slip of paper.

  Yeager had given them a room to work from.

  When Nolan found the small room near the back of the station, it was empty. Only a long table, a small filing cabinet and a couple of chairs filled the space. Someone had placed a phone on top of the table that was strung over from the wall with an extended cord. It was beside a file, a few pads of paper and a couple of pens. A laptop sat on top of the filing cabinet.

  He walked around the table, to the far side where he could keep his back to the wall, sat down and reached for the file.

  It was the one he’d started the day before, after they’d been officially assigned the case, and it didn’t hold more than a few scraps of paper. They didn’t have anything official from the coroner at this point, and his own notes from the excavation were in his notebook.

  He didn’t need them to tell him what they’d found in the woods. It was all fresh in his mind, an image he couldn’t shake even if he wanted to. The body had been partially wrapped in some sort of sack. They’d managed to extricate the body from the woods by early evening, but Dr. Winters had insisted they wait until the body was transported back to the lab to remove the bindings.

  She’d also decided to call it a day. He knew Mac wasn’t going to back him up if he insisted they keep going, and he also knew the coroner was right. The autopsy could take hours, especially if the bindings were difficult to remove, so he hadn’t offered much protest.

  The sack bindings were one of the things that made him think this case didn’t connect, but his mind kept going back to the one other apparent difference between the scene and the other decomps he’d investigated. Without an estimation of how long the victim had been deceased, he didn’t even have a timeline to work from, and until the body was unwrapped, he wouldn’t know for sure. But it appeared there was only one victim this time, and the cause of death was different.

&nb
sp; Those girls from that old case had been impregnated and after they’d given birth they’d been murdered with their newborn babies. Craig didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but he couldn’t deny he hoped that this case wasn’t connected to the others, despite the knot that had settled in the bottom of his stomach. Part of him would like to close the book completely, to find the victims they’d never recovered, but it would mean opening old wounds.

  Craig had enough things to deal with, without reliving that part of his past. He wasn’t ready to pull missingpersons files just yet. Craig stood, grabbed his coat and the file, and left the station. He saw no sign of Mac on his way out, and he opted against drawing attention to his partner’s truancy, so he didn’t leave a message. After he got in his vehicle, he punched in the number.

  After six rings the voicemail kicked in. “It’s Nolan. Call me when you get in.”

  It didn’t make sense to drive the few blocks to the coroner’s office, so he walked. It was a cold, clear day, almost like you’d expect to have in February instead of April.

  Dr. Winters hadn’t wasted any time. She’d begun the delicate process of extricating the remains from the wrappings and was so engrossed in her task Craig had been watching her for a full minute before she looked up and saw him.

  “I called you an hour ago,” she said.

  He thought back over the scant contents of his makeshift office. “I didn’t get the message. Have you…found anything?”

  Her dark eyes studied him for a moment. “What is it about this body that you aren’t telling me?”

  “You were at the scene yesterday. You know as much as I do.”

  The slight pinch of her eyes suggested she didn’t believe him, but she turned her attention back to the examination table. “It will be hours before I make some progress with this. There’s no point in you wasting your time here.”

  “But you called…”

  “To tell you not to come over.”

  Craig blew out a breath. “That’s it?”

  She looked up at him. “Don’t you have something else to do, Constable?”