The yard had a single sidewalk leading from the house to a detached garage and a parked RV. Sandwiched in between was a large pad of grass, now dying as winter approached, with a blue spruce tree off in the corner and a clothesline cutting across the open expanse. Neighbours had built high fences on both sides, closing off his parents’ yard from any prying eyes.
The burn lasted only a few minutes and died down as the fuel disappeared. Twitchell might have been smarter to mix some oil with the gasoline to make it burn longer, but he was a city boy and some things can’t be learned on the Internet. He peeked his head over the lip of the drum to look inside. Most of the plastic from a garbage bag had melted away, but their contents were still smoldering. The fire was giving off such little heat that he couldn’t have cooked a hot dog if he tried. He reached for the jerry can and poured a bit more gas into a coffee cup, then poured out the cup with his arm outstretched, twisting his face away from the drum. A whoosh of flames erupted as the cup was emptied, but again the blaze died out quickly. He tried two more times with the same result. The barrel contents weren’t continuing to burn once the fuel was spent.
A siren whined in the distance. Twitchell froze. He scanned for signs of nosy neighbours, but he couldn’t see a single window that had a view of the backyard. Then he spotted the dead giveaway drifting skywards. Someone must have seen the clouds of black and grey and called the fire department. The truck’s siren howled as it approached, bearing down closer on his parents’ home.
Twitchell ran over to the house and grabbed the garden hose rolled up near the barbeque. He turned the tap and doused the barrel down in cold water. The steel drum hissed as steam spat off the hot surface. The paint had peeled off the bottom of the drum and exposed the raw metal. The rest of the drum had turned a very light pink, the enamelled paint transformed by the fire.
But the wail of the fire truck’s siren stopped as the blaze was extinguished. The truck never appeared. Twitchell thought it could have been a massive coincidence, but it turned out the fire truck had actually been heading to a call a few blocks away.
It was a sufficient scare to put Twitchell off his mission. At this pace it would take all week to burn everything he wanted destroyed. So he pulled out a roll of garbage bags, rebagged the charred barrel contents, and loaded everything into his car to drive it back to the film studio for another day, another plan.
AS TWITCHELL’S DEALINGS WITH the barrel continued, his messy car became an issue. One day, when Jess was running late for an appointment, she jumped into her husband’s Grand Am to move it out of the driveway so she could get her own car out.
She was overcome by the strong odour of gasoline and saw the car was messier than usual. In the backseat was a pair of overalls, similar to what someone would wear to cover their whole body when spray-painting. She was about to start the engine when her husband came flying out of the house, hustling toward her, looking quite concerned. She knew that he didn’t like her touching his car, but his reaction this time was certainly on a heightened level.
“What are you doing?” he asked excitedly.
“I need to move your car to get out,” she said, motioning to her own car blocked in front. “Why does it smell like gas?”
“Oh. I was filling up a jerry can to put in the trunk as a precaution, but I spilled some.”
“But we already have a can of gas,” Jess said, reminding him that they had bought one recently for the new lawn mower.
“Well, this is another one.”
She was late and it was turning into one of their old fights that began with them bickering over nothing, so she dropped it. “Well, okay,” she sighed and took off down the road.
IT WAS PROBABLY FOR the best that Twitchell had no sense of smell. Anyone close to the burning oil drum would have noticed a very distinct scent, strong enough to curl their noses.
When the police discovered the burning barrel in the garage weeks later, it offered solid clues as to what Twitchell had been doing in his parents’ backyard. Opening the barrel revealed a wet paper towel and pieces of duct tape all stuck together. Black ash was scattered throughout. When the barrel was tipped over, the contents spilled out in clumps, like nuggets of coal. There were bits of a burnt cleaning sponge, metal rivets, and a round piece of metal, possibly a ring.
The last piece of ash held a thin metal strip as long as a pencil before curving at one end. Police officers took a closer look and they all reached the same conclusion: it looked like the arm off a pair of someone’s eyeglasses.
SLEEPLESS
HANS STROLLED INTO WORK on Tuesday afternoon to hear Johnny had quit his job via email, yet nobody seemed to know where he had gone. Hans thought back to the last email he had received from his friend – a response to his interest in car-pooling. “No car pool for me,” Johnny had written him on the weekend. “I’m taking an extended vacation. Good luck.”
Everyone at work was talking about Johnny’s sudden departure. Their boss emailed him to find out where to send his final paycheque but was greeted by silence. It bothered Hans.
As the week rolled on, Hans drove past Johnny’s place, parked, and walked up to his patio door. He tried to look through the glass. He could see the computer desk but little else. He was puzzled. His closest friend at work had just up and left with no explanation.
BY WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, Dale and his friends had bothered the police enough to finally get their attention. An officer relented, agreeing to send someone down to at least take a statement. After dinner, Dale, his friend, and his friend’s wife waited for the cop’s arrival at the couple’s house. They sat on the couch. They chatted. They discussed the strange emails and how they could never get Johnny on the phone. There had been odd moments during their search. Dale’s friend had received a Facebook message from Johnny after demanding he phone Dale immediately. In reply, Johnny’s excuse for not calling was that there was “terrible reception” where he was staying but not to worry. “I’ll try to get in touch with Dale as soon as possible,” he had written. “But in the meantime, let him know I’m having the time of my life.”
The evening passed slowly as they waited for the police. Everyone turned sleepy. The clock ticked past midnight. The three of them checked the time more frequently, but the hours slipped away. Dale awoke at four in the morning to go to work. He realized the police had brushed him off again. It was as if Johnny’s disappearance couldn’t have mattered less.
FEELING A RUSH
RACING DOWN THE FREEWAY, Twitchell had romance on his mind. Back at home his wife and child were drifting off to sleep. It was ticking past 10:00 p.m., closing in on half past the hour, but all he could think about was Traci again, not his family.
He knew this was wrong, but with everything going on in his life, he couldn’t stop himself. His marriage was on the rocks anyway, he reasoned, and his activities on Friday, October 10, had lit a fire in his belly that he couldn’t ignore. Traci had just invited him over to her place during an online chat. It was clear what she had in mind. Traci was a perfect escape for him and the thought that he could have her again tonight was thrilling, exhilarating.
Traci lived in a trailer in a farming town an hour’s drive south of the city. Having looked up directions on his computer, Twitchell decided to take the ring road, the most direct route, which curves around the west end and joins up with the highways that lead all the way to Wetaskiwin: home of the auto mile, where “Cars Cost Less.” All of his life he had been terrible at directions so he scribbled down a few maps in black pen on sticky notes to help him get there. He stuck them in his car. The first neon-yellow Post-It led from his home in St. Albert to the highway. The second detailed what to do when he arrived in Wetaskiwin, and on the third he had written down Traci’s street address and the town’s strange name.
Twenty minutes into this road trip, his impatience and excitement were taking over. He hit the gas. The engine purred and his car shot forward as he veered down a hill. Other drivers were holding him
back so he weaved in and out of the two southbound lanes to get ahead of them. His speed climbed in to the 100 km/h zone as he pushed his car harder, closing in rapidly on a vehicle up ahead. He was about to switch lanes again when the vehicle pulled out of the way and moved in to the right lane. Twitchell blew past it at 128 km/h. The road ahead was straight and flat. He had just crossed the river when he saw blue and red lights flashing in his rear-view mirror.
Shit. It’s a cop.
Twitchell’s beat-up car crawled to a stop near an overpass. A tall and well-built man with a crew cut in a dark uniform walked up to his car. Twitchell rolled down the window.
“Licence, registration, and insurance, please,” the cop said.
Twitchell opened his messy glove box and handed him the papers, pulled out his wallet, and passed him his licence. The cop returned to his patrol car to check everything out.
His name was Bob Reiche. He was on duty as a peace officer for the Alberta Sheriffs, running patrols along the southern leg of Anthony Henday Drive, the city’s ring road. And as he entered the details on his computer, he noticed Twitchell’s licence plate: DRKJEDI. He walked back to the car and couldn’t resist.
“Well the force wasn’t very strong with you tonight, now was it?” Reiche said with a big grin. “Because you just blew past a fully marked patrol car.” He pointed behind him. His cruiser was all white, with “SHERIFF” and “Highway Patrol” in big blue letters on the back bumper.
Twitchell tried to see the humour in it and joined in on the joke, telling him of his Star Wars fan film in post-production. He smiled.
When Reiche asked why he was speeding, Twitchell whined and lied, hoping to talk his way out of a ticket. “Can’t you give a guy a break?” he pleaded. “I’m a film producer. I’m making a movie and I’m on my way to the airport right now.” He told Reiche he had to pick up a big-name celebrity. “He’s annoyed that I’m not already there.”
Reiche headed back to his patrol car to write up the ticket. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the novelty car plate. He signed and dated the ticket, and with a smile, he returned with good news. “Hey, are you Darth Vader?” the cop chuckled.
Twitchell tried not to show his frustration and impatience. The sheriff noticed his change in demeanour and stopped cracking jokes. He handed Twitchell his yellow ticket for $89.
“I gave you a break,” Reiche said. “The ticket is about half of what you should have paid.”
Twitchell thanked him for knocking down the amount. When he had time later, he would pull out his computer and write in S. K. Confessions about how the cop had “no clue” about who he had just pulled over. If only the officer had taken a closer look at his car, peered inside, or examined his trunk. “He just did his duty and took off,” he wrote. “Now every time I pass a police car on the road, I chuckle to myself.”
Twitchell stuffed the speeding ticket into his white and black backpack, next to where he usually kept his laptop. He dropped the bag on the floor of the passenger side of the vehicle. There the ticket would sit, forgotten, never to be paid.
He had more pressing concerns on his mind, after all. A Post-It note was nearby, stating his chosen desires. And in his backpack, he had stashed a few condoms and a bottle of cologne.
Traci was less than forty minutes away.
DAWN BROKE. TRACI WAS already awake. She was getting dressed for work in the early morning of Tuesday, October 14. It was her first day back since the long weekend and she had to leave soon to drive to Nisku, on the highway just outside of Edmonton. Still a bit groggy, Twitchell rubbed his eyes and looked up at her from the covers of her bed. While he had been putting on weight from his diet of junk food, Traci was in terrific shape. She had a tattoo on her left shoulder that he had helped design when they were dating back in college. He remembered the Celtic cross tattoo quite well. It had been his idea to add intertwining vines to it, which Traci agreed looked really cool. She had been inked up with another tattoo since then. On the back of her neck was a Celtic knot of interwoven lines joining into a circle, symbolizing everlasting love.
The night had been everything Twitchell had wanted, but Traci was still not convinced it had been a good idea. In the sobriety of the harsh daylight, she didn’t know what to make of it. Twitchell had re-emerged in her life while she was still seeking a divorce and stuck in the middle of another tumultuous relationship that seemed to start and end on a regular rotation. It didn’t make her feel any better to see that while she was frantically trying to get ready for work, it seemed like Twitchell, lying back and looking comfortable, had nowhere to be.
Despite her misgivings, she decided to trust him with a key. It was around 5:30 a.m. and they had been up all night. She told him to lock up when he left. “Just leave it under the barbeque,” she said before heading out the door.
Twitchell drifted back to sleep and awoke hours later. When he opened the bedroom door, her two little dogs went nuts. He looked down, annoyed as the pug and Boston terrier mixes yipped and barked, nipping at his feet. He brushed past the pair into the main room of the trailer. The television had been left on and it was broadcasting an episode of The View. Twitchell shut it off, packed up his things, and walked out the door. He then stuck Traci’s spare key under a lawn ornament, ignoring her instructions, and jumped in his car.
Twitchell drove across the railway tracks, cruising through the sleepy town – a mix of suburbia, pawn shops, liquor stores, and bingo halls. He reached the highway and drove past a huge water tower surrounded by a cemetery. One of the last things he saw of Wetaskiwin was row upon row of tombstones.
As he approached Edmonton nearly an hour later, Twitchell felt his stomach rumble so he detoured for breakfast. A bit later, with a belly full of eggs and chocolate milk, he parked at his rented garage and opened the back door. It had been just over three days since his Friday-night experience. The air was stuffy and stale. He flicked on the light. A bulb glowed above, light reflecting off dozens of staples that remained stuck in the ceiling.
He paused a moment to admire his special room. Half the space was taken up by a red Mazda 3 while his metal table, metal chair, and oil drum cluttered the other side.
It was chilly in the garage. There was no heating system to ward off the biting autumn air. Twitchell could nearly see his breath as he grabbed a pair of scissors and rolled out clear plastic sheeting over the concrete floor. He then cut two layers of plastic sheets and draped them on top of his metal table, like an oversized tablecloth. On one side of the table, he placed a metal pipe with hockey tape wrapped around one end; on the other side, he placed a bottle of ammonia and a roll of paper towels.
He duct-taped two grocery bags around his ankles to seal them shut around his shoes. Twitchell took several minutes to fashion a make-shift apron out of plastic sheeting and duct tape, which he then hung around his neck. He pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and pushed a painter’s mask over his face. He knew the ammonia could burn his lungs.
Twitchell opened the trunk of the Mazda and withdrew the large garbage bags he had salvaged from his unsuccessful fire. He lifted each one, dropping them on the plastic-covered concrete beside his metal table. He hoisted one of the bigger bags onto the tabletop.
At last, he retrieved an emerald green plastic case off the back shelf and placed it on his table. It was no bigger than a briefcase and had a bit of heft to it. Embedded into the hard plastic were the words “Outdoor Edge Game Processor.”
He flicked the case open.
Inside, four knives were stacked nicely on the left. Each blade was contained within its own compartment, the knife sharpener stored directly above. On the right, a meat cleaver that didn’t match the others was resting within. Beneath it were a carving fork, cutting shears, a long big-toothed saw, and a pair of rib spreaders.
Twitchell’s fingers dangled over the instruments as he decided which one to choose. He finally reached in for the butcher knife. Twitchell grabbed the handle tightly and raised the knife near his
face, admiring the heavy sharp blade.
A WINDOW OPENS
JOHNNY’S BEHAVIOUR CONTINUED TO frustrate his friends. He seemed totally preoccupied with his new life with this rich woman in the Caribbean. Six days after his date with Jen, he signed in to Facebook again. Johnny’s updated status showed his new path was having an even greater hold on him: “Wondering why anyone would leave sun and surf to come back to snow and stress.” A friend demanded to see his vacation pictures, but Johnny ignored him.
Facebook had become a pivot point for those who cared about Johnny Altinger. Friends who knew him, but didn’t know each other, began connecting through the site. Messages were shared as they asked questions, searched for answers. Dale continued to lead the pack. The police had told him they would need more evidence if an investigation was to occur. When Dale finished work on Friday, October 17, he discovered his friends – the married couple who had spent a long night with him waiting for the police – had stopped by Johnny’s place that day and found a window ajar. He rushed over to the condo and the couple joined him for Dale’s first peek inside.
His friend’s wife crawled through the window, tiptoeing across Johnny’s condo to unlock the front door for Dale and her husband. The three of them scoured the place for any clue of Johnny’s whereabouts. Dale headed for the bedroom while his friends searched the kitchen. They saw dirty pots on the stove, a hot dog unwrapped in the fridge. Trash cans were emptied, receipts gathered. If Johnny had gone on vacation with his date, he clearly hadn’t returned to his condo to pick up a few essentials: his luggage was still in the closet, and he had left behind his beach towel and shaving kit. But Johnny’s laptop was missing, as well as his printer.
Dale searched the bedroom dresser. He thumbed through clothes until he stumbled upon some of Johnny’s documents.
Among them, his passport.
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