Lullaby for the Nameless (17 page)
Ashlyn returned to her car and drove back the way she’d came, watching the odometer closely until she found the dirt road Mrs. Wilson had mentioned. She turned.
It wasn’t long before she passed the entrance of the driveway, which curved to the right shortly after the turnoff. Ashlyn couldn’t see the house from the road, but the driveway was marked by a faded sign with nothing but the Johnson name.
The road narrowed, and some of the branches hung low enough to brush the roof of her vehicle. When the trees thinned a bit, she could see the small shack, which seemed to be made of tin and wood and sat on a small hill nestled between three trees that seemed to serve as support beams.
How could anyone live there?
Ashlyn parked her car and slowly approached the shack. A quick survey of the woods revealed nothing out of the ordinary, and behind her she could see the gap in the brush that revealed the fence marking Mrs. Wilson’s property.
Instead of approaching the makeshift door, which appeared to be made from a sheet of tin somehow secured over an opening in the wood behind it, Ashlyn walked around behind the structure. Near the ground there were some holes that had been dug out by small animals but no evidence of pipes or plumbing. Around the back there appeared to be an outhouse. Beyond that, there was the start of a path heading through the forest, back toward the house where Jenny’s mother lived.
Ashlyn paused in front of the shack. There was no doubt that she was trespassing. Did Mrs. Wilson’s statement give her probable cause to enter and search the building?
A quick glance at her watch told her that she’d been gone from the station for long enough now that somebody must have noticed. If she returned empty-handed, it would cost her.
Still, she felt uneasy as she stepped toward the door. All the lectures about calling for backup, following procedure, not overstepping your boundaries…Everything her mentor had drilled into her for months ran through her head. It was all good in theory, but what could you do when you had an uncooperative partner and were stuck on a dysfunctional team?
She took a deep breath, reached forward and pulled at the door. The hinges groaned as light spilled into the small space. A rat scurried across the makeshift floor as she coughed, and it disappeared in the dark corner behind the wood stove. On the far side of the room was a small stove, but Ashlyn could tell it hadn’t been used in days. A layer of dust had settled on the scattered furnishings, including the hammock strung between two of the trees the shack had been built around.
In a gap between one of the trees and the back wall of the hut a small patch of sky was visible.
Ashlyn surveyed the small space. There wasn’t much of anything inside worth noting. A sleeping bag was slung over the hammock. A metal cart sat near a pile of wood stacked loosely by the far wall. A small backpack was on top of the cart, one shoulder strap dangling in front of the door.
She looked at the tin roof and noted no light fixtures
of any kind. Along the near wall, to her left between the door and one end of the hammock, a lantern, a poker, some metal barbecuing utensils and a couple of dirty dishcloths hung on large nails protruding from the wood.
Ashlyn had seen children’s forts that had better construction.
The door clanked and quivered as it struck the wood planks that made up the wall as Ashlyn turned back to the car. Nothing in the shack was going to tell her that Jenny Johnson had been killed in the fire.
She got into the car, turned around and began driving. How had Mrs. Wilson known Jenny was arguing with an RCMP officer? She should have pressed the old woman, made her back up her claims, threatened to charge her for impeding an investigation unless she talked. Was that what Nolan would have done?
More importantly, why did she even care?
As she rounded a bend in the road she saw a familiar vehicle turning down the driveway, to the Johnson residence.
Nolan’s Rodeo.
She held her breath as she pushed the brake down. Had he seen her? What was he doing out there anyway? It wouldn’t take long to cross-reference the processed messages from the call records at the station, but that would lead to Mrs. Wilson’s, and she hadn’t passed any vehicles before turning off to go to the shack.
Even if Nolan had enough time to go to Mrs. Wilson’s and had talked to her before heading to the Johnson property, why talk to Jenny’s mother first, instead of heading out to the shack? Had he somehow identified Jenny’s body and gone to notify her mother?
What if Nolan had been the officer Mrs. Wilson had heard arguing with Jenny?
Ashlyn released the brake and hit the gas, accelerating faster than she’d planned. Gravel sprayed into the air
behind her as the tires found purchase. A quick glance down the driveway as she passed told her Nolan wasn’t waiting there, so he must have gone to the house.
But why?
That was the secondary question. As soon as she hit the main road, she turned back toward Mrs. Wilson’s house.
Ashlyn hadn’t processed how dark it was getting until she saw the oncoming headlights of another vehicle. She switched her own lights on, then flashed the high beams, but the other driver didn’t turn their high beams off. Ashlyn raised her left hand to partially block the intense lights shining at her, lowering it only after the truck had flown by.
She hadn’t caught a glimpse of the other driver, only a blur of darkness against the growing night sky, but there was something familiar about the vehicle. As she glanced into the rearview mirror, she saw a flash out of the corner of her right eye, followed by a loud
thwack
.
The rear passenger side window cracked, and a burning line was drawn across her right arm. As she hit the brake hard and swerved to the left, she thought she saw the glow of brake lights in the rearview mirror. The tires squealed and then a thud shook the car. Ashlyn raised her arms in front of her face instinctively as the windshield smashed. She was aware that somehow, her body was turning upside down while being pulled back against the seat and then jerked forward until she hit the steering wheel. Pain shot down her spine and into her shoulders. She could feel a warm dampness on her forehead and hear the sound of a horn, but it seemed distant, and the sound faded, as though it was coming from a car that was moving away, as though it was coming from something that had been muffled by the darkness that swallowed her.
ART
T
HREE
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN
When Tain arrived at the station Ashlyn was already there, poring over papers at her desk.
“Did you sleep?” he asked her.
She shook her head as she glanced up at him. “Doesn’t look like you did either.”
For a moment he stood still, staring down at her while she processed the information on the pages in front of her. Only twenty-four hours earlier he would have expected her to be offended by the question, to resent the idea of him checking up on her.
The early hours of an intense murder investigation had allowed them to shift back to normal.
When she glanced up at him again, he realized he hadn’t sat down, and quickly pulled out his chair and skimmed his desk.
No messages.
He looked across the desk, at his partner.
“Not a single call,” she said.
“Nothing?”
She shook her head and looked back down at the open folder.
“What are you working on?”
Ashlyn didn’t lift her gaze and didn’t answer right away. Then she picked up the folder and passed it to Tain.
He started to skim the contents, realizing he was reading over a transcription of the full autopsy. Burke
had made good on his promise. Tain set the report down on his desk as he read. He felt Ashlyn watching him as he turned the pages. Burke was a talker, which was a blessing because it provided them with a blow by blow of the entire procedure. It wasn’t uncommon for official autopsy reports to take a month or more to be completed, a truth shows like CSI made it hard to convince the public of. They pressured for immediate answers and expected quick results, unaware of the time it took to have all the tests done. Short of a gunshot wound or something equally obvious, it could be days before a cause of death was conclusively determined.
Especially if drugs had been involved. They could be kept waiting for the toxicology report while they worked with a partially educated hunch.
There was something in the report that had caught Ashlyn’s attention, and he didn’t doubt what it was when he found it.
Millie had given birth.
Had this stood out because it seemed significant to the case, or was it personal? Tain resisted the urge to pinch his eyes shut. This case was tough enough already, but this…
Could she handle this? Steve might have been right. Staying on this case could be a mistake.
When he looked up, her face was blank, as though she hadn’t seen the truth hit home, the subtle change in his expression that had exposed his thoughts.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
Putting it back on her. Not making an accusation or jumping to conclusions.
“Maybe she was involved with someone.”
“It’s been quite a while since we saw her. It’s possible she had relationships during that time.”
Ashlyn shook her head. “I mean, what if she was currently involved with someone, or just had a recent breakup?”
“I’m not sure I follow, given the cause of death…”
“I think that if anyone would know about Millie’s past, if there was anyone she might have told about what happened to those other girls, it would have been someone she was involved with. I know it’s just a theory, but it explains the similarities.”
Tain thought about what it would mean if Millie’s death wasn’t connected to the case they’d worked before. They could leave those skeletons in the closet, possibly wrap up this investigation without asking the one question nobody wanted to consider.
Especially after what had happened months before between Craig and Steve over one of Steve’s old cases that was now fresh in everyone’s mind. The questions of whether the investigation had been thorough, whether an innocent man had gone to jail…Mistakes had been made that had been outside Steve’s control, and though his name had been cleared, Craig hadn’t been able to let it go.
It seemed to Tain that Craig was the only one unable to accept that he had his own mistakes to account for, that he held his father to a higher standard than he expected to be held to himself, but that was incidental. What he couldn’t forgive Craig for was what he’d done to Ashlyn.
He pushed that from his mind and nodded. “Good thinking. The question now is, how do we start piecing together Millie’s life?”
Ashlyn tapped a pile of papers stacked to her right. “Missingpersons reports. Nothing matches the description.”
“Provincewide?”
“National for the last four days.”
“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.”
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 was 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.