Читать книгу B.C. Blues Crime 4-Book Bundle - R.M. Greenaway - Страница 11

Aam niin (You are good)

MORNING HAD BROKEN, and down in the Super 8’s diner over coffee and toast, Dion had folded aside his paper and was mostly listening.

“I had a pal once,” the old Indian named Willy told him, turtle-slow. They were sitting at the window booth, sharing the view on highway and windblown litter. “He’s Gitxsan. Looks lot like you. You got some Gitxsan in you, not so far off.”

It was a statement, not a question, and probably as wrong as Giroux calling him Cree. “Lot like you,” Willy repeated, nodding. “Name is Johnny.”

“Oh, so that’s why you keep calling me that.”

“Hey?”

“Forget it. What happened to him?”

“Dead. It’s years ago, before you came into this world. He’s dancing now … at the big powwow in the sky.”

Dion shut an eye in case his collar was being yanked. But Willy’s expression, side-lit by the low morning light and gnarled by age, gave nothing away.

“So how’d he die?”

No answer came. Willy seemed to go adrift, unlit cigarette clamped between his puckered lips. Dion dropped his attention back to the news of the day, stale breaking news from the Lower Mainland, all that murder and mayhem he was forced to watch from the sidelines.

“Drowned,” Willy said, minutes later. “Twenty-two.”

“That’s too bad. Was he a good friend?”

“No. He’s a liar and a cheat and he drinks too much. We worked together. Deckhands. Trawlers, just out of Rupert.”

“Oh. So it happened on the job, did it?”

“No. Fell in the river, down here.” Willy’s bluish left eye and semi-clear right eye stared at Dion fiercely, as if he’d had something to do with the tragedy.

“So how did it happen?”

Again no answer, and this time it seemed there would be none any time soon. Willy was looking at his own hands on the tabletop, cradling the cup of coffee Dion had ordered for him.

“Well, tell me about it tomorrow,” Dion said. He pushed Willy’s book of Eddy Lites across the table. “It’s bad for you, you know that? Bad for me too.”

“I know. Tried to quit. Can’t.”

“Go ahead, few puffs, then put it out.”

“Aam niin,” Willy said, slowly. Slow even for him. It was an annoying habit of his, teaching. “You are good,” he translated, and waited.

“Aam niin,” Dion said. “You are good.”

Willy struck a match to light his hand-rolled. He took a pull then sat back pluming smoke like a chip-burner. “I will teach you not Gitxsan,” he said. “I will teach you Nisga’a, my language. But close enough. Don’t want to lose the language.”

“Thanks, no. I have a hard enough time with English.”

But the old Indian sat there being willfully deaf, nodding to himself, making plans. “It’s a good thing,” he said. He put out his cigarette and tapped at his own chest, somewhere over his heart. “Time to come home, eh?”

* * *

Andy Blair was being watched, everywhere he went, and the surveillers weren’t shy about it, ranged around the Chev dealership in their shiny cars and trucks. “Maybe now he’ll break a sweat,” Leith said from the office, pushing papers around, waiting for something to give.

In the afternoon it gave, in the shape of Andy Blair’s father Clive, local big shot, owner of the dealership, with Andy pushed and prodded in front of him through the police station doors. “Little asshole has something to tell you,” Clive told the desk constable and marched out.

Andy Blair’s hair and clothes hadn’t settled back into shape after whatever shaking he’d just received. Leith sat down with him in the nastiest of the Terrace interview rooms and said, “What is it your dad wants you to tell me, Andy?”

“Nothing. He thinks I’ve been taking cars off the lot without permission and joyriding. Not true. I grew out of joyriding long time ago.”

“Oh, so your dad’s just assumed you’re the Pickup Killer for no reason, is that right? You have nothing to say to that except he’s wrong?”

“He didn’t say I’m the Pickup Killer. He said I have something to tell you. Which I have not. That’s where he’s wrong.”

Leith chose to lose his patience at this point, a faster escalation than usual, but he didn’t have the luxury of time. “I’m here investigating the Pickup Killer,” he blasted. “And your father knows it. He’s not going to turn you in for some minor infraction, is he? What’s it about, Andy? You need a lawyer? You want me to get you a lawyer so we can get to the truth without fucking around here?”

Blair’s eyes widened. “Oh, c’mon. I didn’t do anything.”

“Is that what your father’s going to tell me?”

Blair’s thumbs twiddled fast, like whirligigs in a storm. “I maybe helped out a friend once or twice, let him take a truck out. Not the good ones. The trade-in junk from the back of the lot. And it wasn’t for any killing sprees, that I can swear to.” He lifted the left hand in oath and switched swiftly to the right, and grinned, not a criminal, just a charming brat.

Leith sat for a moment, looking at the brat, wondering. Blair could be a sociopath, but he didn’t think so. “Who’s the friend?”

He expected more waffling and instead got a straight-up answer, at least a partial. “John. Not a friend, really. Just an acquaintance.”

“John’s got a last name?”

“I don’t know. Knew him on first-name basis only.”

Leith stood with purpose, and Blair said, “No, wait, I remember. John Portman. No, Porter. No, Potter. Yeah, Potter. John Potter.”

Leith was back in his chair, asking who exactly John Potter was and where he lived. The name was familiar in only the foggiest way, one name of thousands he’d maybe read on a list in the course of the investigation. But that was good; if the name were on a list, they’d find him. They’d drag him into the light and scrutinize him, if this was actually going anywhere.

Blair said he didn’t know where Potter lived, but he had the feeling it wasn’t close. Or what he did for a living. Some kind of a contractor, he believed.

Leith said, “So you helped him out. Go on.”

“He wanted to buy this old trade-in truck, it was a 2004 Tacoma, I think, not in good shape, which I told him so. But I slapped on the plates and let him take it for the spin. Around the block, he said. It must have been a pretty big block, ’cause he brought it back about a week later. So we had a fight about it and came to terms. It was a misunderstanding, okay? A miscommunication. He acknowledged that and paid me under the table for the inconvenience. Which I declared on my income tax as ‘other,’ by the way. You can check.”

Leith didn’t care about the payoff at this point. He wanted more on Mr. Potter, and he wanted to tread softly now. Treading softly wasn’t his forte, so he did as Blair did, twiddled his thumbs. Not fast, but slow, a kind of metronome. “You grabbed a copy of the guy’s BCDL, I take it, before he took the truck out?”

Blair seemed to gaze into the past. “Hell, I must have at least looked at his driver’s licence. Might not have copied it. Not for a spin around the block.” He flung up both hands in surrender. “I know, I know, it’s the law. But I spent my week in hell. Learned my lesson. Never cut corners again. Dad never found out, ’cause I’m in charge of inventory. So in the end I thought, hey, no harm done. No big deal, right?”

“Can we narrow it down to a date, when Potter took this Tacoma?”

Blair smiled. “Nope, sorry.”

But he was nervous, Leith could tell. No longer twiddling, but twitchy and damp. “So why’d you let him take a vehicle a second time, if he caused you so much trouble on the first one?”

“Huh? What second time? I never said there was a second time.”

“You said once or twice.”

“Manner of speaking. I meant once.”

Leith stood again, this time with no show of threat. “Hang on a moment. Be right back. You want a coffee?”

In the case room, he sat down with Bosko and told him what he had. “He’s lying. He thinks he’s a smooth operator, but he’s a fool. It lights up in flashing neon across his forehead, I’m lying now. He’s always been like this, cocky but scared. The fact he’s scared is interesting, because there’s no paper trail, and we can’t prove anything. So whatever it is he’s covering up, it’s serious. I think he’s trapped into this lie. I think he wants out, but he can’t make a move. The question is, should I charge him now so I can lean on him properly? Or keep cajoling.”

“Keep cajoling,” Bosko said. “In the long run, it’ll be faster.”

Leith was eying diagrams in the air. The diagrams were vague, maybe cryptic, and he was trying not to look lost. “I don’t agree. If I suspect for one moment he’s in on the killing, I’ll have to charge him. And then we’re stuck. I just don’t want to waste time playing ball for nothing, if we’re going to end up going the long way round anyway.” With warrants and waiting, he meant. Lawyers and stone walls.

“I don’t think he’s in on the killing,” Bosko said, and briefly Leith wondered how he could reach that conclusion with such limited info and seem so sure about it. He crossed his arms, said nothing, and Bosko went on in his firmly meandering way. “And the worst you’ll get him for is conspiracy after the fact, and that’s not your focus. Let him know that conspiracy after the fact is nothing compared to what he’ll be facing if another girl dies because of him holding back. Sounds like you’ve hit pay dirt, but dig with care.” Bosko had his phone out and was making a call. “I’m going to get the team on to Potter right now. Get the video set up for the rest of the interview, and I’ll monitor, just to add a second set of eyes.”

Leith arranged for video and then filled two cups of coffee and returned to the interview room. Blair focussed on sweetening his coffee, and Leith, sitting once more across from him, did as Bosko had suggested, cajoled and warned in the same breath. Then he asked, “So, how many times in all did you let Potter take trucks out?”

Blair was maybe too smart to insist on his “once” statement and dithered about for a while before recalling that yes, there was a second time, maybe the next summer.

“With all the paperwork done up this time?” Leith asked.

“Well, no,” Blair admitted, losing his veneer. “I knew him now, so I agreed to kind of a handshake deal.”

“Details.”

Blair launched into another lie about Potter applying for job interviews, being down and out, needing a vehicle, and Leith reminded him of the peril he faced. Blair began to tire, to roll his eyes, stammer, and contradict himself. He didn’t have the advantage of pen and paper, and Leith did. Leith cross-referenced the lies and threw them back at the suspect until the suspect became trapped in confusion, and his facial muscles softened. Andy Blair could see a jail cell in his future, either way he jumped. The sooner he jumped, the shorter the jail time, he would be thinking now.

Leith used the moment and asked it again. “You had an idea what he was using those trucks for, didn’t you?”

“Not till lately,” Blair said, barely a mumble now. “Lately, it occurred to me. But I thought, no, couldn’t be. Not John. He’s a nice, quiet guy. Friendly like hell.”

“But the timelines bothered you.”

Blair nodded. “He said it was for drug runs down to George and back. Didn’t want to use his own vehicle. So he took trucks off the lot.”

“What did you get in return?”

“Bit of weed. Recreational use only.”

“Weed?” Leith said. “Really? Weed’s cheap, and you can get it anywhere. What did you get in return, Andy? You want me to repeat those warnings for you?”

Blair nodded again. “Coke. A smidge, enough to share with a friend or two, no charge. Personal use only. But it was good stuff, and I believed him a hundred percent, that that’s all he used the trucks for, and as far as I knew, he was only getting it for personal use too.”

Leith believed that Blair knew the trucks were used for killing, at least toward the end. But he’d barricaded himself in with indecision, and if once the charges might have been dropped altogether, they now would stick hard. “He borrowed trucks three times, didn’t he?”

Blair began to sniffle a bit and wipe his eyes. Not for the dead girls, Leith thought. Not a tear for them. “Spit it out, Andy.”

Blair spat it out. “It was March, year before last, when he took out the shitty Tacoma. Then a couple times last winter, different vehicles, and I could give you more exact dates if I could look at my calendar.”

“On your phone? Go ahead.”

Blair reached for his pocket and paused, still a charmer, the little creep, even with his eyes wet with self-pity. “You won’t shoot me?”

“I won’t shoot you.”

The car salesman studied the calendar on his phone for some time and was able to give Leith the dates, which he could extrapolate because that’s when he got the free coke, which was when he’d thrown house parties. Three great house parties that aligned with three dead girls to a tee.

Leith felt something other than blood coursing through his veins, some kind of high-octane mix, and he sped up matters, pressing Blair for descriptions of the vehicles, and soon had it scrawled in his notebook, in chronological order: silver Toyota Tacoma, white Chev Silverado, dark blue Nissan, older model.

He took another break to step out and talk to Bosko, who had a report already on John Potter. Bosko handed it over and said the ERT was prepped and ready to hit the road. “He’s a registered gun owner, Dave. Be careful.”

“Everybody in the north is a registered gun owner,” Leith said.

Pacing, he read the report and saw that John Potter was thirty-two years old, an ex-oil field worker from Alberta, moved to the area three years ago, bought a house, not in Terrace but Kitimat, seventy-three kilometres south on Highway 37. He worked off and on for Sherbrooke & Sons Roofing, a local Terrace company. No criminal record. He’d been canvassed, as all men in the area had been, but checked off as okay.

But it was futile to worry about errors and omissions now. What was really great was the piece of paper Leith now held in his hand, which gave him an address, a line of attack, and with pedal to the metal, he and the Emergency Response Team would be out there in no time flat. Half an hour, forty minutes max, they’d have their man in a bag.

* * *

Giroux had ordered Constables Thackray and Dion to accompany her to an event she worried might become a problem. Thackray told her he didn’t see how a candlelight vigil for a pacifist like Kiera Rilkoff could get out of hand, but Giroux told him she’d seen stranger things happen when a bunch of emotional and probably stoned kids got together.

Now it was dusk, and the two constables in uniform stood getting pelted by sleet in the village’s memorial park, down by the little covered stage. Friends and admirers of Kiera took the mic and said a few words about the woman they knew and loved. They sent prayers for her safe return into the drizzle. Music played too, starting with Kiera’s upbeat CD, which hardly set the mood. Giroux had posted herself centrally, solemnly holding a candle, but Dion and Thackray stood at the sidelines with their collars up high against the elements, their hands free. “So we can battle this crazed uprising,” Thackray murmured.

Dion observed the crowd, which numbered about a hundred and fifty, so many faces under-lit by flame. Hardly a bunch of kids, these were a fair mix of old and young, and none of them looked stoned or rowdy. He recognized several from their appearances at the detachment over the last few days. There were Kiera’s parents, looking frozen in place. Lenny Law and Scott Rourke and Evangeline Doyle clustered together near front centre, with the drummer Chad nearby, head bowed. He didn’t see Frank anywhere. Stella the violinist stood to one side of the crowd talking with an individual he didn’t recognize, man or woman he couldn’t tell at this distance. Their conversation looked animated, maybe angry. He asked Thackray who the unknown individual was.

Thackray squinted. “Looks like Jim from the garage,” he said, and squinted harder. The individual was bulked by winter clothes, hood up, but turned more their way so the face was exposed, and Thackray grinned. “No, it’s her. Well, they’re twins, right?”

“Who?”

“Jim and Mercy,” Thackray said. “That’s Mercy. You can tell by the lack of moustache.”

Mercy, Dion thought. That word again. He tried to put it together with recent thoughts, but it didn’t mesh, and it was moments like this he despised what he had become. Fragmented. Unwhole. Next to useless.

Thackray seemed to notice he was struggling and dropped a clue. “She manages the band. Well, did. I’m not sure there’s any band left to manage.”

Dion watched the fiddler Stella and the band manager Mercy, the way they talked. They were trying to be discreet with their argument, he saw. The hand gestures, though angry, were short jabs, then hands jammed back into coat pockets. With their hopes of success trashed, he supposed, no wonder they were angry. Still, this was the time and place for prayers and grieving, not anger and recriminations. Bitching at any vigil was disrespectful. He checked the other faces in the crowd and found them devout, like churchgoers, listening not to a sermon right now but to a rockabilly love song blasting out over the speakers. Many were crying.

A young woman in Sorel boots and bundled in a heavy parka stopped in her passage and handed Dion a glass. There was a tea-light barely glowing within the glass, faintly blue. “For Kiera,” the woman said, and moved on, distributing her candles to all those who stood lightless.