“Uh huh,” Janice said, pulling a bottle of South African cabernet out of a LCBO bag and going to the desk to hunt for some glasses. They had bought it because they didn’t want to pay $40 for the Ontario merlot in the mini bar. Dinner had been at a pub down the street from the hotel. The feature had been a tray of mussels, half of which had failed to open during cooking. The waitress had failed to understand why this might be a problem.
“That means, despite his medieval mentality, he’s considerably more modern when it comes to his finances,” Colin said. “That probably explains why he’s been able to avoid being caught for so long.”
Janice couldn’t find any wine glasses, just a couple of plain glass tumblers of the same type that was sitting next to the bathroom sink. They would have to do. “Well, he has been hiding for about the last seven years,” she said. “So I think we can safely file that observation in the NSS file.”
“NSS?”
“No shit, Sherlock,” she said, smiling. “I think the only piece of luck we landed today was getting a room with a jacuzzi tub at no extra charge. Now it’s been an incredibly long day and I’m going to have a hot bath and a glass of wine. Feel free to join me if you wish.”
Colin watched as she pulled off her sweater and walked into the bathroom. He decided that a glass of wine and a soak sounded like an excellent idea.
C
olin dropped Janice off at her apartment and drove home to find Giordino and Betts standing at his front door.
“Where you been?” Betts barked almost as soon as Colin got out of the car.
Colin grabbed his bag out of the backseat and reached into his pocket for his keys. “Gee, dad, I just went out for some cigarettes.”
“Take you all day to get cigarettes?” Betts asked. “We were here yesterday, too.”
Giordino stepped between the two of them. “Mr. Mitchell, when was the last time you saw Seth Reznick?”
Colin stopped reaching for his keys. So it was true. “A couple of days ago. I take it you’re not asking because he bounced a cheque to the police association.”
“Mr. Reznick was found dead in his home yesterday,” Giordino said flatly.
“Shit,” Colin said. “What happened?”
“You don’t exactly seem surprised,” Betts observed.
“I saw his building on the news,” Colin said. “Plus he didn’t show up at the paper that day.”
“Pardon me for sayin’, but you don’t exactly seem all broken up about it, either,” Betts said.
Colin shrugged. There was no point in pretending that he was.
“We’ve been retracing Mr. Reznick’s movements up until the time he was murdered,” Giordino. “As far as we can tell, one of the last people to have seen him alive was you.”
“Really?” Colin said.
“Really,” said Betts. “At the campus bar. Bartender told us all about it. Said you’d had quite a few by the time Mr. Reznick stopped by to say hello. Said the two of you didn’t exactly have the friendliest conversation.”
“Seth was looking for information on the murder of Shalene Nakogee,” Colin said. “But I told him that I had been advised by law enforcement not to speak to any reporters.”
“Ain’t that cute,” said Betts.
“I understand that you were recently removed from the position of editor on the campus newspaper,” said Giordino. “A position that was given to Mr. Reznick.”
“That’s correct,” Colin said.
“That would sure tick me off,” Betts said.
“I wouldn’t exactly call what we publish a newspaper,” Colin said.
“Was that all you talked about?” Giordino asked.
“More or less,” Colin said. “I suggested that his wardrobe, address, vehicle and lifestyle seemed to be at odds with what one might expect from a college student whose only visible means of income appears to be an Ontario student loan.”
Giordino and Betts exchanged a look. There was enough in it to confirm Colin’s suspicions, at least in part.
“Were you aware of any other…activities…that Mr. Reznick may have been involved with?” Giordino asked.
“Not directly,” Colin said. “But I have a feeling that you are.”
Betts and Giordino exchanged another look. Colin could tell that Giordino was trying to signal the older officer to keep his mouth shut. The message seemed to get through.
“Did Mr. Reznick say anything to you about where he might be going or who else he was going to be talking to that night?” Giordino asked.
“No, he didn’t,” Colin said. “I think I actually suggested that he come and talk to you, since you’re the only official source of information in these matters, but I don’t think he took my advice.”
“It’s funny, you wonderin’ about his lifestyle,” Betts said. “‘Cause I kinda wonder the opposite about you.”
Uh oh
, Colin thought.
Here it comes
. “Oh yes?”
“Yeah,” said Betts. “Like what’s a guy with millions a bucks doin’ livin’ in a shithole apartment like this?”
Betts had clearly read one of the stories about insurance payouts for executives killed in the same attack as Colin’s father. The amounts were pure speculation, although one of the contracts had been leaked. It was freely available to anyone who typed Colin’s father’s name into a search engine. At least, that was where Colin hoped that Betts had come across the information. If they had gotten a search warrant to go through his financial records, then he was in more trouble than he assumed.
“I like the neighbourhood,” Colin said.
“Oh yeah?” Betts said. “I’m in the market myself. Mind if we come in and take a look around?”
“Just as soon as you produce a search warrant,” Colin said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I just had quite a long drive.”
Giordino stepped aside so that Colin could get to his front door.
“Hey,” said Betts. “You never told us where you went.”
“That’s true,” Colin said, unlocking his door. “Why don’t you try Googling that, too?”
Colin stepped inside and closed the door. For a moment, he had actually considered telling them about Crowley and his extended family, but that feeling had passed almost as soon as Betts had opened his mouth.
Colin was exhausted. A traffic accident had forced them to divert on the way back and it had taken them six hours from the time they left Newansett until they arrived in Westhill. He dropped his bag, had a quick bite to eat, then crawled in and out of a shower and fell into bed, where he fell asleep immediately. If the cops wanted to search his apartment, they were going to have to do it around him.
C
olin woke up early the next morning.
He shaved, dressed, and made himself a BLT and a cappuccino, then sat at the kitchen table and chewed while he tried to sort out his thoughts. Janice was right in that the trip to Newansett had been largely a waste of time, although there were a few useful details that might prove to be important later on. At least they knew the story wasn’t a fake.
Three students had been murdered in as many days. From what he’d seen on the morning news, the mainstream media seemed to think it was some gruesome new twist in a war between drug gangs. The police had already let it slip that quantities of drugs had been found at both Devane’s and Seth’s residences and it was no secret that the man who had crashed his car at the end of a short but dramatic high-speed pursuit was a well-known mid-level distributor. The police budget was up for review and the chief was milking the situation to get a proposed wage freeze changed to a four per cent increase. From their perspective, the timing on the killings couldn’t be better.
Except that overlooked the ritualistic aspect of the murders, which backed up Janice’s theory that it was some ancient and sadistic cult. But what on earth had brought them to Westhill? Colin’s investigation into Devane had hit a dead end. Devane, it seemed, was part of a sudden and mysterious spike in the number of students showing up on the rolls, most of whom, if Abernathy was to be believed, never actually set foot in class.
So
, Colin wondered,
where were all these mysterious new students coming from?
Colin sipped his coffee and chewed his bacon. He had taken it off the burner a little sooner than he should and it was more chewy than crispy, but he was too hungry to care.
The drug dealer had rammed into a divider and incinerated himself. The cops were now trolling around looking for a new prime suspect. Based on their desire to see the inside of his apartment and the less than amicable tone their questioning was starting to take, it wasn’t a huge stretch to see that person could very easily be him.
If he was going to avoid that, he was going to need to figure out what was really going on, and fast.
He hadn’t planned to sleep with Janice Yu. Five days ago, such a thing was not even remotely on his radar, but that was the nature of the news cycle. One day you could find yourself interviewing Brad Pitt and the next you could be dodging mortars in Afghanistan. There was really no such thing as a job description. The only job description was to get the story, sometimes by any means necessary. He just wanted to avoid getting himself killed or arrested in the process.
He checked his watch. Janice was going to stay at home and see if she could track down any record of anyone else affiliated with the Knights of the Holy Thorn coming to North America. He was going to see what kind of progress he could make on the murder investigation. But where to start?
The college was the beat that he knew best and the one with which he was most comfortable. He wasn’t entirely sure he bought into Janice’s ideas about a thousand-year-old death cult, but he was willing to go along with it until a more plausible theory presented itself. Regardless, somebody had killed those people. There was some connection between the murders and Abernathy’s feeling that something strange was going on. Colin had the same feeling and had long ago learned to trust it.
He finished his sandwich and drained the last of his coffee, then rinsed the dishes in the sink. As he grabbed his jacket to head out the door, he had only a vague notion of where he might be going. Had he known, he probably would have stayed in bed.
H
is first stop was the newspaper, where CJ informed him that Watterson had cancelled the following week’s edition.
“There’s no way we would have made deadline,” CJ said. We had about three and a half pages worth of stuff. You got fired. Seth got killed. Nobody’s exactly lining up for the editor’s job at the moment.”
“Not surprising.” Colin looked around the room. Normally, at this time of day, the place would be a hive of activity. At the moment, it was, for want of a better expression, dead. “It’s ironic. Here we have the biggest story ever to hit the place and no newspaper to cover it.”
“Matt and Serena just dropped out,” CJ said. “Boom. Just like that. Gone. It was right after we got the news about Seth. I don’t think Serena waited long enough to pack up her desk. Matt was spouting a bunch of crazy shit about how he thought the killer was targeting the paper. Maybe even that the killer might be somebody who worked on the paper. I think it freaked a lot of people out.”
Colin looked over at the inbox on his old editor’s desk where the package had been delivered that contained the first victim’s severed hand. A thought occurred to him.
“Why did he send it to us?” Colin wondered. “Why not send it to a real media outlet? It’s almost like whoever sent it knew that I would make the connection.”
“What are you talking about?” CJ said.
Colin walked absently over to the window and looked down at the forest path. “Whoever sent that package knew I would recognize that tattoo,” Colin said. “They
knew
I would know who it was right away.”
“Okay, man, now you’re starting to sound like Matt,” CJ said.
Colin wasn’t paying attention. “Which meant they knew I had talked to her. The story never got published. How many people would have known about that?”
“What are you talking about?” CJ said.
“I think whoever’s behind this sent the package to me for a reason,” Colin said.
“Yeah,” CJ said. “If the reason is that they’re homicidally insane.”
Colin’s mind raced. Who could have known? Everyone on the newspaper, obviously. The cops had gotten involved. Probably security as well. How many people in administration would have known? The package hadn’t come in through the external mail. It had been hand delivered. That meant whoever had done it, they knew how the college’s internal mail worked. Which meant they knew where the newspaper’s mailbox was.
“I gotta go.”
Colin ran out the door and raced down the stairs. He turned left and made his way down the main hallway to the continuing education office. The main part of the office was just four desks surrounded by a bunker of old metal filing cabinets. Behind that was the internal mail room, which was much larger. There were five rows of mail cages, each one assigned to a different building and department. All of the college’s internal and external correspondence made its way through this room.
Colin walked past the bored-looking student clerk sitting at the desk and found the newspaper’s mailbox. The paper usually received more bulk mail and packages, so instead of a mail cage it had a metal basket at the end of one of the rows. Anyone who put something in that basket would have to walk past the main desk and drop it within full view of almost everyone.
Colin looked around. There were about ten other people in the room. He knew from his early days on the newspaper, when picking up the mail was one of his jobs, that Monday morning was usually the busiest time of the week. People tended to come in then before the start of classes to grab the stuff that had been sitting there over the weekend. Regular office hours were Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The late closing time was to accommodate anyone taking a part-time evening class. The office wasn’t open on weekends.
Colin approached the student sitting behind the desk. He was a thin kid with glasses who was working away on a laptop with a copy of an engineering textbook open on the desk next to him. The college often hired students for the more drone-like administrative jobs because they were cheap and easily replaceable.