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

by Ruttan, Sandra

  Melissa shrugged. “Anything’s possible. It wasn’t what he said. It was how he said it.” She let out a breath and folded her arms across her chest. “When he’d finished telling me that part of the story he leaned in real close to me and didn’t blink. All he said was that it would have been better if their mothers had stabbed them through the heart themselves.”

  Ashlyn felt a chill run down her spine. Melissa didn’t know all of the crime-scene details from the bodies they’d recovered, so she had no way of realizing just how creepy Eddie’s comment was. “Is there a psych file on this guy?”

  “If there isn’t, there should be, but if you want more info, you should talk to Tain. The smuggling operation he was going after? Word was Hobbs was at the center of it.”

  “Really?” Ashlyn started to turn, then stopped. “Any chance you can follow up on that 911 call that came in?”

  “The one that reported your accident?” Keith asked.

  “No, the one about the body…” Ashlyn stopped. “What do you mean, reported my accident?”

  “The call came in after Nolan had found you, so we were already on our way. A 911 call reporting that someone had shot at a vehicle being driven by an RCMP officer, and she was injured.” Keith frowned. “You mean you didn’t know?”

  Ashlyn shook her head. “Nobody told me.”

  Keith leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but they pulled a bullet out of your dashboard. I can’t believe they didn’t tell you. I mean, after what happened to Winters…”

  Ashlyn nodded, but it was an automatic action, and she went through the motions of thanking Constable Keith and walking back down the hall. She stopped at her desk long enough to perform a few quick web searches. After Mrs. Wilson’s murder, she’d looked up photos of Bobby Hobbs and Eddie Campbell, and made a note that at some point they should be questioned about Jenny Johnson.

  After all, if they’d hung out with her all the time, wasn’t it possible they knew something about her disappearance? Jenny’s mother hadn’t been too attentive. The fact that she’d waited several weeks to report her daughter missing proved that.

  What Ashlyn didn’t understand was why none of the local cops had talked to Bobby or Eddie. If they knew everybody, they knew who Jenny’s friends were, but there was no evidence that anyone other than Winters had tried to follow up.

  And as she’d learned from Steve already, some of what Winters had reportedly learned had been left out of the files.

  Why?

  The answers would have to wait. At some point adrenaline alone wasn’t enough to fend off the fatigue, and over the past few days the entire team had hit the wall. The Surrey lead had stalled, and with the discovery of more bodies, they’d been unable to follow up on Nolan’s lead. Campbell had been surlier than usual, and everyone was on edge.

  It was only seven o’clock, but Sullivan had all but thrown her from the building himself. Everyone had been ordered to take time off. She wasn’t expected back for thirty-six hours.

  Since they’d discovered the body in the Dumpster and identified her as Wendy George, Ashlyn had been combing through the autopsy reports and information collected from the coroner while trying to stay on top of the tips that continued to pour in.

  Tain had spent the past few days searching the woods.

  With Tain and Nolan out of the office most of the time and the second shift investigating the murder of Mrs. Wilson, Ashlyn hadn’t been confronted with the tension within the team for a few days. For all the hours they’d put in, they didn’t seem to be making any headway with the investigation.

  The day before Nolan had sat at his desk and started asking her about the reports and the tips.

  “I can make some calls, split things up so we can get through them faster,” he offered.

  She’d accepted the olive branch readily and handed him a stack of slips, but Sullivan had entered the room two minutes later. Nolan had held up a finger while he was on the phone, and kept the sergeant waiting until he’d finished writing down the details of his call.

  “My office. I have something you need to handle,” Sullivan had said as soon as Nolan had hung up.

  Nolan had flashed her an apologetic smile, set the messages on his desk and told her to leave them. Before he left he’d said, “If I get back before you’re done, I’ll go through them.”

  He hadn’t. She wasn’t surprised, but she wasn’t annoyed either. Just the act of offering to work with her helped dispel any doubts that had surfaced in the few days since he’d argued to take her to the Dumpster. She didn’t question that it wasn’t his choice to leave her in office this time, but rather Sullivan’s.

  When Nolan had returned, he’d been apologetic. “Sorry. Where are we at?”

  “A few more tips about truck stops.” The open folder she’d passed to him had a map taped inside, with the truck stop sighting locations marked in red, and the girls’ homes marked in green. “One guy said he’d seen Millie Harper talking to a dark-skinned man before getting into his truck.”

  “So the purple line connects the girl’s home to the truck stop she was reportedly seen at?”

  Ashlyn nodded. “They’re all within a few miles. I wrote the distance down in the margins.”

  “Maybe when we regroup we can follow up on this.”

  What she didn’t tell him was what was missing from her map. An unconfirmed sighting of Jenny Johnson at a diner two months earlier, right around the time she went missing, with a man who sounded a lot like Constable Tain. She’d leaned back in her chair, unaware she was tapping her notebook against her fingers until Campbell had walked in and glared at her, wondering if she might be able to make it to the diner herself.

  Whatever she decided, first she had to go to the store and as she drove, she turned over everything that she’d learned from Constable Keith as she picked out enough groceries to carry her over for a few more days, paid, loaded them into the car and drove to the cabin the department had provided for her. As she turned down the now-familiar roads, she thought about what Melissa had told her, about Eddie’s strange story that was one part legend to two parts pure fiction.

  Or was it fantasy?

  Was that why Tain had been so edgy? Had he seen the bodies and thought of some twisted version of an old Native tale and feared the killer was living on the Reserves? Most serial killers were white males, but the particulars of this case, the fact that the killer had kept the girls alive for an extended period of time…

  They’d done preliminary tests. The infants recovered with the women shared the same father.

  Technically, this wasn’t a serial-killer case. Not yet. The problem with serial-killer cases wasn’t just the strain on the department as they tried to find enough manpower to investigate, and it wasn’t the public’s panic. The real problem was that the individual victims got lost in the crowd. They just became a number. It was too easy to lose sight of the fact that every girl was an individual, who’d had hopes and dreams, and their lives had been cut short brutally and senselessly.

  It was almost necessary to lose sight of those facts to stay sane. Out of eleven missing girls, they’d recovered three of their bodies, counting the one found in the burned-out building. That meant there were eight more girls out there, somewhere, and the pile of tips that needed to be investigated was mounting.

  She loaded her groceries in her left arm as she slipped her shoes off outside before entering and picked them up with her right hand after unlocking the door. Although she barely took notice of her surroundings, she was vaguely aware of the sound of Nolan’s Rodeo pulling up to his cabin as she closed the door behind her.

  Ashlyn bent down to set her shoes on the shelf in the bottom of the closet, then walked down the short hall and set the bags, and her coat on the counter. It took less than a minute to put the cheese, milk and yogurt in the refrigerator and then she turned around and looked at the Spartan cabin, and wondered how she was going to keep her mind off work for
a few hours, never mind a full day.

  Melissa had given her an idea, and she took less than half a second to debate it before she went to the bedroom, dug out a pair of black jeans, a purple shirt with a scooped neck that had sleeves long enough to conceal her bandages, and got changed.

  By the time she arrived at The Goldmine she felt transformed, no longer a new cop in the area, trying to fit in with a team of men who didn’t want to work with her, but just a new girl in town trying to get a feel for the place.

  She asked for a table that appeared to be in the center of the action on the bar side.

  “Menu?” asked the gum-chewing waitress with bleach-blonde hair that had grown out long enough to show the dark roots asked.

  “Please.” Ashlyn slid her jacket off and set it on the chair behind her. She tried to lean back and look relaxed as she scanned the menu and occasionally glanced around the room.

  Bobby Hobbs and Eddie Campbell were at a table in the corner.

  She looked back at her menu.

  “What can I get ya ta drink?” A different waitress. Slim and pretty in a wearing-too-much-make-up kind of way. She would have looked better if she’d gone easy with the face paint.

  “A Coke, thanks.”

  The menu was as generic as they came, with burgers and fries, sandwiches and fries, steaks, ribs and more alcoholic beverages than dessert options. She’d finally settled on what to order and closed her menu when the chair beside her slid out.

  Bobby Hobbs sat down and put his hand on her shoulder as he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I bet a girl like you knows how to have a good time.” Said as he worked his hand over, to the back of her neck.

  The waitress returned with Ashlyn’s drink and was setting it down.

  Ashlyn reached up and grabbed his wrist and twisted it hard, suppressing the wince from the strain on her own arm as the stitches pulled. The fact that Bobby had titled the chair back helped, and he crashed to the floor before her arm gave.

  The waitress grinned and gave her a wink. “I’ll be back to take your order in a minute.”

  Bobby Hobbs had picked himself up. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  “Leave ’er be, Bobby.”

  Eddie had joined the party.

  “Look, I’m jest tryin’ to have a good time here,” Bobby said. He scowled. “Ya used to be more fun.” Bobby stood and leaned over as he whispered in Ashlyn’s ear, “Be seein’ ya.” Within seconds he’d found another girl to drape his arm around.

  “Thanks,” Ashlyn said as she extended her hand. “I’m Ashlyn.”

  Eddie looked at her hand for a moment, then reached out and shook it for a second before letting go.

  “I’m new in town,” she said. He stood staring at her with huge black eyes. No wonder he’d creeped Melissa out.

  “Best take care then,” Eddie said.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You ever hear the story about the Native kids who were stolen from their parents?”

  Didn’t he ever blink? Ashlyn reached for her drink and took a slow sip before she responded. “I’m not sure.” She couldn’t believe he’d gone straight for the jugular within seconds of meeting her. Definitely lacking social skills.

  “Did you start without me?”

  A different voice. Ashlyn turned as Nolan sat down beside her. When she turned back, Eddie was gone. She looked at Nolan. “What are you doing here?”

  “What was that all about?” Nolan asked her.

  “Just getting acquainted with the locals.”

  “Yeah? Interesting that the ones you picked happen to work for a shipping company and drive trucks.”

  Ashlyn ignored that. “You haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?”

  He held up his hands. Before he could answer the waitress returned. They both placed simple orders. She left and returned within a minute with Nolan’s drink. When the waitress disappeared again, Nolan shrugged. “Thought it was time we acted like partners.”

  “You followed me here?”

  “Look, Hart, I was going to ask you if you wanted to have dinner when I saw you leave. After what happened to you before, I’m not going to let you start asking questions without backup.”

  “Eddie and Bobby were both friends of Jenny Johnson’s. What I can’t figure out is why they weren’t questioned when she disappeared.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “All this time here, and you’re immune to the local charm? Nobody wants to believe it’s someone from here who’d do this. They need it to be a monster from somewhere else so that they don’t have to start locking their doors and living in fear.”

  “These girls were lured somehow. If there is a connection with the truck stops—”

  Nolan held up his hand. “It’s pure speculation at this point.”

  “Why haven’t Hobbs and Campbell been questioned?”

  “Tain’s been after those two for a while now. We get too close to them, we risk being accused of harassment.” He reached for his drink and after he’d taken a sip set the glass back down. “People think if you know someone’s dirty, you should just be able to arrest them, like it doesn’t take time or evidence. The shipping company’s been edgy ever since the failed bust in the summer, and they don’t want their employees held up crossing the border, so they don’t mess around.” He nodded in the direction of Hobbs, who still had his arm draped around the girl he’d found after Ashlyn had sent him sprawling across the floor. She was starting to look uncomfortable, a shadow flashing across her face as she brought her arm up between his body and hers and pushed back, trying to work in some distance. He held on tight and pulled her back closer. “They find out you’re a cop, and you’ll be in hot water just for talking to them.”

  “You’d think their employer would just cut them loose, save themselves the hassle.”

  “Not when the company’s owned by Hobbs’s family. Word around these parts is they built the family fortune during Prohibition and have maintained their bank balance off one form of illegal trade or another for years.”

  Ashlyn reached for her Coke. “And yet the locals don’t want to think about their neighbors being criminals.”

  “No, monsters. There’s a difference. Bootlegging was one way of sticking it to the man when he tried to keep people down, and smuggling is all about robbing the government of money for taxes.”

  “But drugs—”

  “They don’t see it that way. You’re from Ontario, right?”

  She nodded.

  “In Western Canada, there are plenty of people who want less government in their lives. Mostly in Alberta, but some places in BC too. Bringing cheap cigarettes over the border means they save money, so everybody wins, right?”

  “But it doesn’t stop there.”

  Nolan shook his head. “I know that. You know that. But people have a way of seeing what they want to see. They don’t just turn a blind eye to the cigarette trade they encourage it. And if the cigarette smuggling becomes drugs and weapons and girls, it makes them part of it. They might have to answer to themselves for letting this happen.”

  “I think you give them too much credit. Most people have a remarkable ability for dismissing personal responsibility.”

  “Maybe so, Hart, but you’ve seen how edgy even our own team is. Remember how Campbell reacted when you asked about coordinating with the tribal police?” Nolan shook his head. “From the beginning, with the task force, there were people it was obvious we should be questioning, leads we should have been following. And that’s exactly what we’ve been stopped from doing.”

  “I don’t believe the RCMP would create a task force and then try to keep us from solving the case,” Ashlyn said.

  “And what if it is Hobbs and Campbell? What do you think they’ll say when it comes out that we’ve had tips about illegal activity involving these two going back several years?”

  “I think we’re a lot better off answering for any mistakes now and putting a stop to it before som
eone else gets hurt than pretending girls aren’t being murdered.”

  “You’re an idealist, Hart.” Nolan reached over and squeezed her hand for a second before letting go of it. “Thing is, there isn’t much in this world that is ideal.”

  “So if Tain’s been after these two and you suspect they’re involved, why are you two at each other’s throats all the time?”

  “Some reports came in this afternoon.”

  She frowned. “I was at the office—”

  Nolan shook his head. “I was out with the canine team, searching the woods. Sullivan called and told me. The fire at Blind Creek Inn? It started in the old staff house across the street. Looks like the insurance company will be on the hook for the inn, because even if the house was set on fire deliberately, it doesn’t look like they planned for it to spread.”

  “I’m sure they’re happy,” she said, not commenting on the fact that Sullivan had taken information straight to Nolan without informing the rest of the team.

  “Something else turned up in the autopsy. The victim in the fire? She was pregnant.”

  She felt her eyes widen. “That supports the idea of a connection, although it doesn’t explain—”

  Nolan held up his hand. “Enough talk about work.” He reached for his drink. The waitress was coming toward them, plates of hot food in hand.

  “Can I get yas anythin’ else?”

  “We’re good, thanks,” Nolan said.

  Ashlyn smiled as the waitress left, then turned to her partner and opened her mouth.

  He glared at her for a moment, a look in his eyes that told her he was done talking about Tain or the investigation. So much for her attempts at snooping around. Finding out more about Bobby Hobbs and Eddie Campbell and the source of the tension between Nolan and Tain would have to wait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Eighteen months ago

  Ashlyn gently set the bag on the floor and fumbled through the darkness, hand searching for the shape of the small light Tain kept on his desk. When she hit the base of the lamp, she felt her way along the cord until she found the switch and turned it on.