“Can you tell me anything at all that might help me track down their sellers?”
Lila thought. “We weren’t told anything, but we girls talked among ourselves a lot. It was the only way we had to pass the time. I remember one thing. A coupla girls said they thought they’d been rescued at the end of the boat trip because there was a cop on board. But nothing happened.”
Garrett couldn’t conceal his shock. “How did they know he was a cop? Was he in uniform?”
“Not full Mountie gear. He had the hat, though, and wore a cop belt—you know—with night stick and handcuffs. Oh, yeah, and he had a badge of some kind.”
“Did they say if he was armed?”
“Uh … I think so. At least one of the girls said something about a pistol.”
The partial uniform was strange. Maybe he was on special assignment or possibly from some other government agency. He could have been undercover, but then why have any Mountie stuff at all? Could he have been a cop undercover, pretending to be a pimp pretending to be a cop? Garrett shook his head at the idea. It made no sense.
“Okay. Anything else you can think of ?”
“Yeah—’bout a year ago, we had a large group of spic girls come in. Must have been fifteen of ’em. They told us they’d come by plane. A big private jet. I guess it was a pretty cushy deal. Lots of food on board and fancy seats. A couple of the girls even got alcohol when they were brought into a private room. ’Course they had to have sex to get it.”
“Did they say who with?”
“All they said was a coupla older guys.”
He sighed. “All right, Lila. You’ve been a big help—I mean it.”
She nodded, looking up at him with her wide eyes. “You won’t forget about trying to get me outta here?”
“I won’t forget. And Lila? They’re not spics, they’re Hispanics.”
8
R
OLAND TURNED HIS PICKUP INTO
his driveway and stopped just past the bait barn. The engine for the cooler ground away in a satisfyingly loud manner. He listened to it for a moment, grunting in satisfaction.
He took two repaired scallop rakes out of the truck bed and tossed them to one side. His front yard was an amalgam of trash, dilapidated boat parts, heaps of plastic buckets, rotting fish nets, two old refrigerators, and several piles of dirt, one almost twenty feet high.
The original house was a small log structure. Years ago, Roland’s father had stuck a modern two-story addition onto the back, creating a spectacularly ugly mismatch. This was Roland’s space, where he could get away from Ma and spend hours immersed in chatrooms on his computer. Though he worked with various helpers doing carpentry and taking out sport fishermen, none of the workers cared for him and left him alone the rest of the time. His sole social outlet was through his computer friends, people he would never meet.
He banged into the house and his mother called from the living room, “Did ya remember ta do the shoppin’?”
“Yeah, Ma. I got the stuff.” He unloaded the bags of groceries on a counter overflowing with dirty dishes. Rose, his mother, had always maintained a spotless home, but she’d been injured in a fall years ago. Her mobility had been greatly reduced as a result and now arthritis had set in. Her husband, Roland’s father, quickly tired of caring for her and left. Now Rose could only get about with a walker and was unable to do much housecleaning. Roland was hardly a good substitute.
She plodded slowly into the kitchen, pushing her walker. Inactivity had turned her into an enormous woman, nearly three hundred pounds. She wore a pink housecoat that billowed around her stump-like legs. A half-burned cigarette dangled from her mouth. She stopped when she saw her son.
“That awful woman banged on the door this mornin’. Screamin’ ’bout the noise. I din’t answer.” She paused to breathe heavily.
“Don’t worry ’bout it, Ma. There’s nothin’ they can do. I’m a fisherman by trade an’ I’m allowed ta keep my bait in a cooler.”
This seemed to satisfy her. She stared at the little pile of groceries. “Where’s my haddock?” she asked.
“Weren’t none, Ma. No fresh fish at all today.” He looked at her sad face. She could still pluck his heart strings with her obvious suffering. She was the only woman in his life. Always had been and always would be. When she died there would be no one on this earth who would care about him one whit. Sometimes that thought overwhelmed him to the point that he nearly cried.
He sighed heavily, then tried to smile at her. “Never guess who I ran inta, Ma. Garrett Barkhouse. He’s goin’ ta be the new RCMP officer in the area. I tol’ him ta drop by ’n see ya.”
Rose had no friends either. Her only visitors were Roland’s cousin, Hank, his wife, and two kids who stopped by once a month. The truth was she didn’t much like the visits. The kids were unruly and destructive. She and Roland had developed a system over the years. They each had their space, she in her La-Z-Boy surrounded by piles of craft supplies. She made knick-knacks and table mats for sale to tourists. Roland spent his time upstairs in the back room with his computer.
That was their life.
“Garrett? Yeah, I ’member him. A’w’ys used ta pick on ya when ya was little.”
He winced. He and Garrett had tussled once or twice when they were in high school. He’d hated Gar because everything always seemed to work out for him. He got good grades, was a good athlete and as for the girls … well … they just went for him. It used to drive Roland crazy. Still, Gar had always tried to be neutral to his neighbor. When they clashed, it was because Roland brought it on, almost in spite of himself. He actually appreciated what he’d heard from others, that Gar never said anything bad about him behind his back.
“Aw—that was a long time ago, Ma. He don’t seem like sech a bad guy now.”
“Then you get him ta come ’roun’ here and tell those La-de-dah ar-teests next door ta leave me alone. Bad ’nough I havta listen ta their silly parties on their back deck, all their nudie, artsy friends from Halifax sunnin’ themselves nekkid.”
“Aw, Ma, you can’t see nothin’. It’s the back side o’ the house.” Roland knew because he’d tried every way he could think of to get a look without success. Once, he’d brought his boat in close as he pretended to take a wide approach around the wharf, but they all covered up when they saw what he was doing.
He slipped past his mother down the narrow hall and closed himself into his room. Sometimes, he just needed to be alone. Heck, maybe it wouldn’t be all bad once she died. He’d have the whole place to himself with no one needing constant help and errands run. Course, he wouldn’t have anything to do all day once fishing season was over.
He flipped on the computer and sat in front of the screen, stooped over as usual. Maybe today he’d meet someone new online.
9
G
ARRETT STOOD NEXT TO ALTON
Tuttle, who leaned into the podium in the RCMP Press room as if the tiny microphone might somehow hide his bulk from the assembled reporters.
“You identify the girls yet, Commissioner?” shouted a petite, meticulously dressed woman with an insistent, shrill voice.
Tuttle had on his hangdog, I’m-the-most-maligned-man-on-earth expression that Garrett knew so well. “That’s
Deputy
Commissioner,” he said. “Those poor girls were no more than thirteen, obviously Chinese in origin, probably from poor peasant families. There’s no record of their fingerprints and unless …” he paused. “Until … we find who did this to them, it will be difficult to identify the victims.”
“Do you know why they were being smuggled into the country?” came another shouted question.
“We have no proof at this point, but it seems obvious they were destined for the prostitution business. We’ve noticed a trend toward younger and younger girls. The lowlifes engaged in this sort of activity appear to have decided it’s easier to train kids who have never known anything else for the task. One thing is certain. They sure weren’t brought here to be adopted by loving parents.”
The adoption of Chinese baby girls was big business in North America. It had always struck Garrett as bizarre. Chinese girls had two ways to get to the promised land of the New World: as the much-loved, adopted children of affluent Canadian and American families, or as prostitutes. There was no middle ground.
“Who’s in charge of the investigation, Commissioner?”
Tuttle waved a hand at Garrett. “One of my best men. Garrett Barkhouse. He’s also the man who found the girls and very nearly captured the perpetrators.”
Garrett winced. The only thing he and Tom had captured was a face full of spray as the high-speed powerboat left them in its wake. He still felt guilty that their appearance on the scene was probably responsible for the girls’ deaths.
The reporters turned their hungry eyes on the new face, and Tuttle moved subtly away from the microphone, forcing Garrett to take his place.
“Mr. Barkhouse,” cried one reporter, “Have you traced the girls’ destination yet? Do you have any leads that point to Halifax escort services?”
“We will be following that line of inquiry. And yes, we do have some leads that I obviously can’t tell you about, as it would also inform the perpetrators.”
The piercing voice of the tiny reporter rose above the din. “The
Deputy
Commissioner said you nearly caught the men who did this. Was your handicap responsible for your inability to catch them?”
Garrett nearly choked. “My handicap has never interfered with my ability to do my job. Just as your voice, apparently, hasn’t interfered with yours.”
The crowd burst into laughter. It was clear the woman was not much liked by her colleagues. She gave him a venomous look.
Tuttle leaned in and said, “We’ll keep you informed of any new developments in the case. Thank you for coming.” He gave Garrett a none-too-gentle push and they exited the room as another volley of questions surged after them.
“Great job,” Tuttle growled as they moved down the hall. “You’ve given Kitty Wells every reason now to dog your ass in this case. She’s tiny, but she’s a pit bull. She’ll make you pay.”
Garrett shrugged. “She was going to do that anyway. Showing us up is how they get the most out of the story.”
“So,” Tuttle said, pausing for emphasis, “
do
you have any leads?”
“There’s one or two things I’m going to look into here in the city.”
“All right. Look into them. I don’t want to know what they are for now. Gives me plausible deniability—like Nixon.” He stopped in front of his office and met Garrett’s eyes. “But you better get something fast.”
“Fast isn’t going to happen, Alton. Even when we had those SOBs in our sights, we couldn’t catch them because they had outspent us on hardware. We get tips all the time, but they don’t do any good. Somehow we’ve got to catch them in the act. Short of calling out the Canadian Navy for every anonymous phone call, that’s not likely to happen. We’ve got to figure out how to sneak up on these fishing boats. That’s hard to do in a Coast Guard cutter.”
“You suggesting we need someone undercover?”
“Wouldn’t hurt, but it’s hardly feasible. They run a closed shop. Tighter than the Mafia ever was. They don’t trust anyone. And if you cross them … well … there’s never a second time.”
Tuttle blew a cloud of smoke into the air, a disgusted look on his face. “Let me know when you find out anything … if you ever do.” He turned and disappeared into his office, slamming the door in Garrett’s face.
Garrett stood, choking on the smoke, and wondered for the hundredth time why he hadn’t taken his retirement when he had the chance.
He went over to an empty desk and picked up a Halifax phone book, turning to the yellow pages. There were fourteen pages of escort services. A few had full-page ads with color pictures and graphics. Others consisted of little more than a single line with name and phone number. These were the freelancers, housewives looking to turn a trick or two a week for rent money. He found Sweet Angels in the mid-range, a small box ad with a line drawing of a man and woman kissing and the words:
Unique, Personalized Service. We accommodate ANY interest.
He jotted down the number and then placed a call to the phone company. In two minutes, he had the address. It was on lower Barrington Street, along the waterfront.
Halifax had changed from the sleepy, provincial city of the 1950s to the busy, cosmopolitan tourist juggernaut of today. It boasted one of the busiest and most fascinating waterfronts anywhere, full of trendy restaurants and nightclubs, street musicians, museums, shops, and wharves lined with tall ships, best known of which was the famous Bluenose II, which sailed the seas but spent much of its dock time in Halifax. The city reminded him of San Francisco, with its steep hills and throbbing waterfront. He could sit on the lawns of the Citadel, the famed eighteenth-century fort that dominated the landscape, and watch sailboats float ethereally between the walls of tall buildings.
The address turned out to be a nondescript apartment building. There was no sign or any other evidence of the business. Escort services required little but a phone drop to carry out their lucrative concern. He climbed up the stoop and pressed a bell that was marked, simply, A
PT 5
. At once, a woman’s voice came over the intercom.
“Who is it?”
“Uh, I heard I could get a girl here,” he said. Nothing ventured.
There was silence for a moment. Then, “You heard wrong.” The intercom went dead.
He pushed the bell again, holding it down.
“Who the hell is it?” said the voice again.
“Police,” he said. “Open the door.”
The buzzer went off immediately.
Inside, there was an elevator with an O
UT OF
O
RDER
sign on it. He swore. Too many stairs caused his foot to ache. He plodded slowly up the five flights and rapped on the door.
A woman he identified at once as Big Margaret answered and stood, hands on bountiful hips, looking him up and down. Lila hadn’t exaggerated. She did indeed have one of the biggest butts he’d ever seen. He stared past her into the apartment. In contrast to the decrepit building, it was elegantly furnished.