One Kill Away
Page 33
“Work is calling me,” she said, “so I’ll wrap this up by telling you that your education isn’t just about learning math equations or the periodic table. Education trains you to think, to make good choices. Your education is a lifelong process. At times, it can be hard and disappointing. But it can also be exciting and enriching.
“I’ll quote the great Nelson Mandela. ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’
“Remember, it only takes a moment to make memories, good or bad. It takes a lifetime to forget them. So please, be good to one another. And thank you for listening to me today.”
For a moment, there was silence. Then the applause started as a few scattered claps, slowly building, until it passed through the entire crowd. To Audra, it was the sound of respect.
She looked over at Daphne and gave her a smile. Daphne shot her back a smile that was wide, proud.
Audra walked away from the podium. When she reached the edge of the stage, she took out her pager and read the display.
Major crime alert.
Point Pleasant Park.
3
Halifax, October 18
10:44 A.M.
The power had gone out shortly before Hurricane Juan rolled into Halifax with a brutality not seen in over a century. The storm came ashore just after midnight on September 29, 2003, packing 100 mph winds.
Lieutenant Allan Stanton remembered the amazing noise, like a locomotive hurtling past the door. It seemed the house would come apart at any moment—the howling wind, the rafters creaking and straining, the attic hatch banging steadily.
He and Melissa rode it out in the living room after rearranging the furniture away from the windows. Allan lay on the sofa, his body stiff with tension. He worried about the roof coming apart, about the safety of his family. Melissa sat in the swivel chair, rocking Brian to sleep.
From a battery-powered radio, the voice of a lone announcer filled the room. Between songs, he invited Nova Scotians to call in and relay their stories live on the air.
“Our big apple tree that’s probably like seventy feet fell over on our neighbor’s house…”
“Akerley Campus, the roof came off…the part by the YMCA…”
“The house is shaking and flying things are hitting it. Even the support wall is shaking…”
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Melissa asked.
Allan looked over at her. In the candlelight, her face was sculpted, her eyes blackened.
“Never,” he said.
“I didn’t think it would be this bad.”
“Wasn’t supposed to be. Someone dropped the ball.”
Both of their eyes settled on Brian, their sleeping angel of a baby boy.
Melissa patted his back, touched her cheek to the top of his head. “He’s out like a light.”
“I can’t believe it,” Allan said. “How can he sleep through this?”
Melissa smiled. “Because we’re not.”
They survived the night with minimal property damage—leaves plastered to the windows, a huge branch broken off the elm tree out front. Other parts of Halifax had been walloped. Thousands of old-growth trees were uprooted. They toppled on houses, cars, and power lines. Lay across many streets. Shingles and siding were sheared off buildings. Wharfs were ripped up, sailboats sunken. The sounds of generators and chainsaws filled the city.
Hurricane Juan left its biggest mark on Point Pleasant Park. Seventy thousand trees had blown over like matchsticks. Allan remembered his first trip to the park after it reopened to the public. The devastation he saw broke his heart. There were gaps and wide-open spaces punctuated by dead trees. Seventy percent of the forest had disappeared.
As he carried his field kit through the park now, he saw the regeneration seven years had made. New saplings were sprouting up everywhere. Berry bushes appeared where there were none before. Someone had carved two wooden seals from a stump of a tree brought down by Juan.
Allan continued down Cambridge Drive past Tower Hill Road. It seemed odd, eerie even, to walk the trails without meeting any joggers or cyclists or happy dogs frolicking off lease. Just the odd squirrel darting through dried leaves or Blue Jay flying from one branch to the next.
The clouds overhead began unraveling. Soon a blast of sunlight shot down, turning the grassy knolls an impossible green and enhancing the fiery colors of the maples. Allan welcomed the sudden warmth cutting through the autumn chill.
A uniformed officer directed him to an offshoot trail surfaced with gravel. It led Allan into denser woodland, between spots of direct sun and leaf-dappled shadows. He followed the trail up a small hill and stopped. The crime scene loomed about forty feet away. Strung tree to tree like a boxing ring, yellow barrier tape marked the location of the body hidden from view just off the trail. Two Ident techs, Jim Lucas and Harvey Doucette, were unpacking their equipment. Jim proceeded to shoot away with his camera. Harvey staked off a safe entry point into the scene. Both men were dressed in Tyvek coveralls with attached boots and hoods.
Allan inhaled a deep breath, let it out in one long release. He noted the time on his watch: 10:53. Setting down his field kit, he opened it up and took out his camera. He snapped off a series of photos from the four cardinal points to record how everything looked upon his arrival.
He knew coming into the park that the victim was dead. Sergeant Malone had given him the preliminary information when he timed in at the Tower Road entrance. The victim was Kate Saint-Pierre. Twenty-five years old. She’d been reported missing by her husband Sunday morning after she failed to return home from her run. A search team went out to look for her. But one hundred eighty-five acres was a lot of ground to cover in the shortened daylight hours of fall. A second search began at daybreak. They found her body a few hours later at 10:22, behind a stand of trees. The park was immediately closed to the public.
Allan lowered his camera. For a moment, he watched Jim drop to a squat and place a numbered placard on the trail.
“What’d you find?” he called out.
“Impressions in the gravel. Like someone had dug in their heels.”
“Point of attack.”
“That’s my guess.” Jim indicated a cluster of yellowing bracken just off the trail. “Disturbance through there. Drag marks in the moss. Flattened grass.”
Allan followed Jim’s finger and saw a line of broken fronds leading into the trees.
“Any footprints?” he asked.
“Nothing clear enough.”
“Shall we call in the dogs later?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.” Jim flashed his camera. “There’s always that possibility the suspect dropped something that we’ll miss in the brush or weeds.”
With a slow sweep of his head, Allan surveyed the immediate area. He tried to grasp the how and why of the murder. Two scenarios leaped right out at him: the suspect had concealed himself behind a tree close to the trail where he waited to ambush Kate; or he had posed as a fellow jogger and taken her by surprise when he passed her.
Harvey gave the go-ahead to enter the scene. Allan followed the entry point into a circular grove of trees. He could smell the leaves and the soil and the bark. He’d always loved those bracing scents when he jogged through the park. They relaxed him. Refreshed him. Cleared his head.
But not today.
His first glimpses of the body were of aqua-colored shoes with pink laces, and then black tights bundled at the ankles below lean, muscular legs. When he saw the whole body, he hitched a breath and his fingers tightened around the camera.
Kate Saint-Pierre lay face-up on the ground beside a cut log riddled with insect holes. Her arms were spread out from her sides, her hands partially covered by leaves. The black top and pink running jacket she had on were pulled up to reveal her breasts.
Allan’s mouth felt dry. He moved closer, studying the contorted face, the eyes peppered with red starbursts, the ligature mark around the neck with the ends crisscrossed below the chin.<
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The suspect had been on top of her, Allan realized. Kate had peered into his face during her final moments.
“Looks familiar, doesn’t it?”
The closeness of Harvey’s voice startled Allan. He glanced over his shoulder at the tech.
“Yeah,” he said.
Turning back to the body, he grimaced. He knew it did all right. That chill on his skin didn’t lie.
One year ago to the day, he’d been called to this very park. A female jogger had found the body of a young woman near Shore Road. Hidden in the trees just like this one. Posed just like this one. Murdered the same way.
Allan had never forgotten her.
“Mary,” he whispered.
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