He spread his hands. “I’ve been working on it. There are a whole lot of variables, though, and I don’t want to get Kitty killed. Remember that the men who killed those four girls only did it because we came on the scene. These people are completely ruthless, and from what I’ve learned, those at the top of Global Resources are well connected politically. They could have ears anywhere, including in the military and RCMP. If I call in the Navy, the people on that rig might know about it before I hung up the phone.”
Sarah’s face was anguished. “You can’t just leave her there, Gar. How long has it been? Days already. She’s probably been raped repeatedly.”
“This may be something that will have to be done outside the law,” he said quietly.
She stared at him. “You mean Lonnie?”
“I don’t know. He’s been strange about this whole thing. It started when I got him involved with the girls. He’s seriously bothered by this stuff, by what’s happened. I’ve been worried he might try to do something on his own.”
“Well,
someone
ought to.”
“Lon doesn’t have any constrictions on what he does, Sarah. He’s kind of like a force of nature, you know? But he’s got a good heart. Not many people know that. It’s why he helps me when I need it. More than just about anyone I’ve ever known, he really enjoys helping people. Especially if he perceives that they’ve been picked on. That’s why he helped Lila and Ayesha, and right now, I think he’s thinking along the same lines we are. That if he doesn’t help Kitty, no one else will.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“For the moment, I think he’s waiting for me to come up with a plan. But I’m not exactly having too much luck in that department. He sounded pretty frustrated last time we were together. He may be thinking about taking matters into his own hands. He understands where I’m coming from as a Mountie and puts up with my limitations most of the time, but …”
“I don’t see what he can do, Garrett. From what you’ve told me, there’s virtually no avenue that won’t endanger Kitty. He must understand that.”
“Remember I said the people at Global Resources were connected? Well, Lonnie’s connected too, with some characters you wouldn’t ever want to encounter. And he’s helped a lot of people in his work, politicians, labor union leaders, military brass, powerful, rich people. I’ve always thought that if he ever decided to call in his chips … well … I wouldn’t want to be the one he’s after.”
The phone rang. Sarah answered, then handed it to Garrett. “It’s Tom,” she said.
Garrett listened for a moment, then said, “When did it happen?” Then, “Okay, thanks for telling me, Tom. I’ll go see him.”
“What is it?” Sarah said after he hung up.
“Roland’s mother Rose died.”
“Oh.”
Garrett sighed. “I’m not looking forward to it, but Roland hasn’t any real friends. I need to go see him, at least offer my condolences. I think this will hit him pretty hard.”
Her face held sympathy, but she couldn’t let go of her fears for Kitty. “Gar, what are we going to do about Kitty?”
He noted her use of
we
. It was no longer what he was going to do but what
they
were going to do. It made him more than a little uneasy.
He spread his hands. “I simply don’t have an answer yet. Until I do, I’ve got other responsibilities. This is what being an RCMP officer is really about. A sort of triage that I’ve had to do many times in my career. It’s not possible to save the whole world, Sarah.”
43
G
ARRETT DROVE THE HUNDRED YARDS
from Sarah’s house and pulled into Roland’s driveway. For the first time in his life, he noted that nearly every light in the structure was on. Roland and Rose never wasted electricity, or anything else for that matter. Which explained the amalgam of junk in the front yard.
He got out and heard music and voices coming from inside the house next door. They were partying again, a seemingly never-ending activity.
He’d wondered for years what the effect would be on Roland when his mother died. The man had no social outlets. He worked with others on occasion, during scallop season and sometimes on carpentry jobs. But no one ever wanted to linger around after the work was done and go out to eat with Roland. Rose had been his anchor, the place he could go and someone would be there to greet him. Without her, there was going to be a difficult transition.
Garrett understood something about transitions. He’d had his own following his injury. Anger, depression, withdrawal from others, all the usual stuff. Lonnie had helped pull him through, but Roland had no one. It struck Garrett that
he
might well be the person who knew Roland the best in all the world. That was a pretty sad commentary, given that he hadn’t even seen the man in the half dozen years prior to his return to the Eastern shore.
He went up and started to knock when the door opened. This had never happened before. Usually it took a couple of minutes of pounding to rouse anyone inside. Roland wore his trademark sweatpants and T-shirt. His eyes were red. He looked more gaunt than usual.
“Seen ya turn inta the driveway,” he said. “Come on in.”
It was the first time Roland had ever greeted Garrett with an invitation to come inside. Usually, the first words out of his mouth were “What can I do for ya?”
“I was awful sorry to hear about Rose,” Garrett said.
Roland led him in to what had been Rose’s room. The place was even more of a disaster than usual. It appeared Roland had been trying to organize his mother’s stuff, boxing things up. But he had no concept of how to go about it, and the room was a shambles.
“Don’t know what ta do with all Ma’s stuff,” he said, standing in the middle of the room. His face had a bewildered look.
Garrett looked through an alcove to a table that seemed more or less uncluttered. “Can we sit at the table?” he asked.
Roland just followed him and sat down heavily.
“It’s hard to pack up after the death of someone close to you,” Garrett said. “I had to do it after my mother died. My dad just wasn’t up to it.” He leaned over and squeezed Roland’s arm. “It’s good you’re doing this. It’s therapeutic to get about the business at hand, hard as it is.”
Roland stared at the wall. “A’w’ys thought it would be nice ta clear this room out and put down new carpet and wallpaper, ya know? But Ma wouldn’t have it. Said it would be too disruptive ta her routine.” His eyes came slowly round to meet Garrett’s. “Course there’s not much point now. Ma’s gone and no one else ever comes here.”
Garrett studied the bleakness in his eyes. It looked familiar. Roland could see nothing ahead of him but loneliness.
“Something like this can jolt you out of your routines,” Garrett said. “You’re not going to have the obligations to your Ma that you’ve had for so long. You’re going to have more time for yourself. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it will take some getting used to. It took me three years after my accident to pull myself together completely. The most important thing was to have other people around. To talk to. To distract me from my own thoughts. You need to get out, be around people as much as you can.”
“People don’t like me,” said Roland.
“That’s something that is under your control, Roland. You need to reach out, be friendly, listen to people, help them when you can, don’t criticize them so much. That’s how you make friends. You might start with your cousin and his family.”
The sound of laughter peeled across from the other house as the party broke up. Voices could be heard talking gaily, as car doors slammed and engines started. Then the sounds muted as the ladies went back inside.
Roland stared at the window as they listened. “I can’t do that,” he said. “I don’t know how.”
“Invite your cousin’s family over next week after the funeral and things quiet down. They’ll come and you make them a nice meal, clean the place up, talk to them about things. You’ve been cooking for you and your Ma for years. You know how to cook. The most important things in life are your family and friends, Roland. It will take effort, but you can learn.”
Garrett took a deep breath. “And if you’ll let me, I’ll be your friend as well.”
Roland’s eyes teared up and he turned away. Garrett could see him struggling for control. “I—I’ll try, Gar.”
Garrett stood up. There wasn’t any point in trying to do too much right away. This was way more progress than he would have expected so soon.
“All right. Good. You’ll see. Things will look better. Maybe you should ask your cousin’s wife if she would come over and help you pack up some of Rose’s stuff. Ask her if she’d like anything of your Ma’s. People want to help after something like this. This is the time to really make an effort.”
The gratitude in Roland’s eyes was evident. It was the first time Garrett had ever seen anything like that emotion from his old neighbor.
Roland stood up and put out his hand. “You’re a good person, Gar. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused ya over the years.”
Garrett shook the callused hand firmly. “It’ll get better, Roland. You’ll see. What you just said was important. It made me feel good. That’s how you make friends, by telling them things that show you care about them. The more you can make that a habit, the better it will be.”
Roland followed him out to the car and stood looking at the house next door. “I won’t bother them none any more neither,” he said.
“Don’t do it for me, okay?” said Garrett. “It may be too late for you to bridge that gap, but lowering confrontation can only be positive.”
As he drove away, Roland was still standing in his driveway, looking like he hadn’t any idea what to do next.
44
G
ARRETT COULDN’T FIND
L
ONNIE AND
he had a bad feeling about things. At a loss over what to do and with Sarah’s accusing glare over Kitty’s fate hanging in the air, he decided to go back to Halifax. Maybe he could brace Big Margaret again and see what he could find out.
The sad-looking apartment house on Barrington Street hadn’t changed. He rang the woman’s bell, but there was no answer. Then he realized that the door to the hallway and stairs was ajar. He went in and up the stairs, his foot aching again. It hadn’t really returned completely to normal following his ordeal at sea. The mechanism was functioning all right after Marcia’s ministrations, so the soreness probably emanated from the long hours he’d kept his muscles tensed and working in the kayak.
Big Margaret’s door was also ajar. This gave him pause. No way someone in her line of work casually left the place unlocked. That wasn’t part of the business model for an escort service.
He pushed the door all the way open and called. “Anyone home?”
Inside, the place was a total mess, unlike his first visit when everything had been neat and orderly, even elegant, in contrast to the seedy exterior of the building. The place had been ransacked, as though someone had been searching for something. He saw no sign of the books filled with customer names and numbers. Something wasn’t right.
He moved slowly through the room and into a small kitchen. Dirty dishes filled the sink. A box of Cheerios had spilled onto the table, little round circles everywhere. A saucer of milk sat on the floor, and a scrawny gray cat looked up at him and hissed, the fur rising on its back.
“It’s all right, kitty,” said Garrett. “Sorry to interrupt your meal. Where’s your owner?”
As if in answer, the cat scooted past him and into the next room. He followed and stopped dead in the doorway.
Big Margaret’s naked body lay sprawled on the bed. Her hands and feet were tied to the bedposts, a piece of gray duct tape stuck on her mouth. The entire bed was soaked in blood, now turned black as tar.
Garrett took in his breath. There wasn’t much smell, which probably meant she’d been killed recently, perhaps within the last couple of hours. Someone had carved on her with a butcher knife that now lay on the floor, also covered in blood. Whoever had done this hadn’t been concerned about leaving the murder weapon behind. Big Margaret had been tortured. It was about the worst he’d seen, and he’d seen a few prostitutes after they’d been cruelly beaten and abused by an unhappy pimp.
He wondered if Hank, the dead woman’s sometime husband and business partner, had anything to do with it. The degree of pain inflicted here was the sort of thing one saw in crimes of passion … often performed by husbands. Or maybe the killer had been looking for something specific. Information? Clearly the house had been turned upside down.
He went back into the living room and picked up the phone. A moment later he was talking to Tuttle.
“You need to get forensics over to Big Margaret’s escort service on Barrington. She’s been killed.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Tuttle’s voice boomed in Garrett’s ear. “What the hell have you done now, Barkhouse? Every time I hear from you, there’s another dead body.”
“I don’t know why she was killed,” said Garrett. “But it happened recently. And whoever did it appeared to want to inflict maximum pain. Someone wanted something from her. The names of her customers, maybe. I don’t know.”
“Be nice if the next time you call you have something more unusual than a dead body to report—like a suspect.”
Garrett sighed. “I’m working on a few things. There seems to be a lot going on. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on it, something new blows up.”
“Story of your life, Barkhouse. Next time? Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”
He hung up with a thump.
Garrett didn’t feel like sticking around till the police and forensics teams arrived. He had a lot to think about. He strolled down Barrington, then up Spring Street, through the Public Gardens, and on to Dalhousie University. School would be starting in a week and the campus was already humming with early-return students on athletic teams. A squadron of girls, dressed like cookie-cutter Barbies with bouncing ponytails, jogged past him. He watched them, remembering what it was like to be that age, until images of abused girls began to fill his head.
Marcia had called, asking him to stop by to try on something new.