Authors: Carolyn Davidson
“You’ve been a great help,” Susan told the boy as she took down his phone number and address and gave his damp hand a shake. She stood looking down at the photographs on the table in front of her as the boy left the room, and was startled when she heard him clear his throat.
“There is one thing that was kind of strange,” Evan stopped in the office door way, his cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red.
“What is it?” Susan asked him.
“It’s just that Mr. Logan booked the room for a one night stay both times, but they only ever stayed for a few hours.”
Susan took her phone from her pocket as she thanked the boy and waved him a release, watching as he gratefully sprinted out of the room. Her phone had been beeping relentlessly during the interview and it looked like things were coming through on the home front. Sirens on and she’d be back in Lion’s Head in under an hour.
“We might have something,” Susan could read the effort to keep the excitement under control in Alex’s voice. He pulled a chair close to her desk and sat on its edge. Things felt awkward between them since the confrontation about Jolene the previous day, but the case was too important to both of them to let it affect their search for Sarah’s killer.
“I checked with the hotels in a thirty kilometer radius the night before Sarah’s murder, came up with squat. Then I thought, what if someone planned this, stayed in the area to track Sarah’s schedule, look for the best place to strike. So I checked as far back as a month, see if anything interesting came up.”
“And?” Susan demanded when Alex paused.
“Your man, Clive Bird,” Alex slapped a paper onto the desk between them. “checked into the Shallow Bay motel two weeks before the murder. Stayed one night, guy at the front desk remembers he signed in bright and early and then disappeared for the day, took off in good time the next morning.”
“Clive Bird,” Susan said aloud, leaning back in her chair. “I would not have pegged it. Let’s do it then,” she straightened. “We’ll bring him in for questioning; let’s see what he has to say.”
Evidence over gut instinct this time then, Susan told herself, but she’d take it whichever way it came.
“He wasn’t at home,” Susan told Alex a few minutes later, hanging up the phone as she scanned her emails. “His car is gone and the neighbours haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.” She had called the Toronto police to have the East York District bring Clive Bird in. “I’ll send his license plate and car make out locally, have everyone keep an eye out for him.”
“Should we put a car on the Harmon’s house?” Alex inquired.
“Good thinking,” Susan agreed. “It looks like he could be our guy. Get this: Maggie messaged me earlier this afternoon saying she took a call from Mrs. Harmon at the station reporting they’ve been receiving crank calls for the past month. Apparently the caller stays on the line without saying anything. Marion said she hears the caller ‘breathing.’ I had Maggie pull their phone records and bingo, check the results,” Susan shifted her computer screen so Alex could read the email, “There are a number of calls from Mr. Bird’s house.”
“The Harmon’s didn’t think it was relevant to bring this to us before?” Alex asked incredulously. “Their daughter is murdered and they don’t think to mention crank calls to their home?”
“The mind works in mysterious ways,” Susan responded. “Let’s get on it.”
*
“So get this,” Driscoll plopped unceremoniously into the chair across from Susan’s desk moments later. A day of revelations, Susan thought to herself, raising her eyebrows at her Constable. He was breathing heavily, whether from excitement or physical exertion she couldn’t tell; Gary carried fifty or so extra pounds, something that seemed to be increasing in accordance with the proximity of his first child’s arrival.
“You wouldn’t believe the stress,” he had been heard to bemoan to various colleagues, enough times that she had witnessed a number of caricatures acted out at his expense. “It’s not just the baby, it’s the things that come with it. Baby monitors: is video overkill, or is audio enough? Do you know how many different kinds of strollers there are out there? And car seats, don’t get me started!”
“It must be something big seeing as you didn’t bother to knock,” she teased him now. Driscoll looked up from the papers he held in front of him in surprise.
“Oh yeah, sorry boss!” he ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Joanne was tossing and turning all night. Apparently she gets heartburn if she sleeps on her back, she’s not supposed to sleep on her stomach and she’s not comfortable if she sleeps on her side. I’m going to have to rig up some sort of device to suspend her from the ceiling if I want to get any sleep.”
“That’s rough,” Susan examined Driscoll over her coffee cup. “So, did you find anything interesting?”
“Yeah,” Gary sat up, leaning forward eagerly. “You’re not going to believe this, check it out.” He spread what looked to be copies of several newspaper articles on her desk.
“Look at this one,” he stabbed a finger at the picture of a man and a woman posed for a wedding portrait. “This is from 1993, the Owen Sound Herald. Recognise anyone?”
Susan squinted at the picture. The woman wasn’t at all familiar, but she was pretty sure she knew the man standing beside her.
“That’s Tommy’s father, isn’t it? Logan Senior?”
“Yup,” Gary nodded smugly. “Now have a read of the headline.”
“
Local Woman Falls to her Death
,” Susan read the article’s header aloud. Turning the second paper around to face her she whistled. “Made the Toronto Star on this one,
Tragedy on the Bruce Trail
.”
Picking the paper up she read the first paragraph aloud; “A young Lion’s Head wife and mother plunged to her death late last night from the picturesque cliffs bordering Georgian Bay. Police are investigating what has been so far labelled a suspicious death.”
“So how come I haven’t heard any of this before?” Susan questioned her constable. “A scandal like this would be public knowledge in a small town, I would think.”
“It was over twenty years ago,” Gary responded, “plus he was cleared. According to the medical examiner she slipped on the rocks, which were wet from the rain. It went to court and was ruled an accident. Besides, the Logan’s are a big name around here, Tom’s brought a lot of income to the town with his construction business.”
“I wonder what the first Mrs. Logan was doing out on the cliffs at night,” Susan leaned back thoughtfully. “Let’s look into it some more, just to satisfy my curiosity. I’ve been planning to invite Mr. Logan to the station for a friendly interview anyhow, you can push him a bit on what happened back then. I want you to follow up with your instinct about his relationship with Sarah, too, turns out you were right. Feel free to go heavy handed, let’s see if there’s anything to stir up.”
“You want me to interview him?” Driscoll asked, surprised.
“Yeah, I’ll have Maggie book him in today. I’ll be watching through the glass. You can get him comfortable with a man-to-man chat, I’ll be out here reading his reactions.”
“That’s great, Inspector,” Gary stood up. “I appreciate your faith in me.”
*
“We got a call at the Harmon house,” Susan grabbed her coat off the hook as she strode across the station’s open office. “The Harmon woman reported a man with a gun on their front lawn.”
“What?” Alex demanded as he stood, swiping the keys off his desktop as he followed the Inspector, easily lengthening his stride to keep up with her. “When did the call come in?”
“Just now,” Susan replied. “Maggie’s got all available cars on it but I’m going to back them up.”
“I’m with you,” Alex told her. “Who do we have on it?” he asked as they opened the station door to a biting wind.
“There was a car from the Southampton detachment nearby, they should be on scene about now, and we’ve got Knapton and Beckstead on the way.”
“Any description?” Alex asked as both officers piled into the station car, sirens on, as they peeled out of the parking lot.
“Nope, the Harmon lady was hysterical,” Susan told him as she drove, “Maggie couldn’t get much from her aside from the fact that she saw a person with a gun in their bushes.”
“That would do it,” Alex agreed, fingers drumming on the console as they raced east towards the Harmon’s. Clive Bird hadn’t turned up in the hours since they’d called in the Toronto police, and Alex had a sinking feeling he might have found his way back to Lion’s Head. And if he’d brought a gun along it didn’t sound good like a good outcome for anyone.
The fifteen minutes it took to get to the Harmon’s felt like double the time, even with Susan’s foot heavy on the gas pedal, but before long they were pulling into the driveway behind a blue and white car parked askew in the lane, the front doors ajar. A siren could be heard behind them as another police vehicle approached the scene.
Taking her weapon from her holster Susan nodded to Alex as he motioned to the Inspector that he heard sounds coming from behind the house. Stepping cautiously across the lawn they rounded the house silently. Staying close to the building Susan gestured for Alex to stay back while she peered around the corner.
The Southampton team had done well, and already had their man with his hands behind his head, reading him his rights while he was handcuffed. Susan heard car doors slam from the front of the house and footsteps behind them as Emily and Ronald followed on their heels.
“Looks like the action’s over,” Susan said as the officers stepped from the cover of the house to join the scene. Approaching Constable Rossi, a good guy she had worked with under Andrews, Susan asked the officer, “Anyone hurt?”
“Nah,” Constable Rossi shook his head. He nodded towards the house window, where Terry Harmon was standing with his arm around his wife, her face buried in his shoulder. “Perp didn’t get near the house. We found him in the bushes, waving the gun around, but he didn’t make a move.”
“Did you have any problem talking him down?” Susan asked.
“He was shaking in his boots. Didn’t have it in him.” Rossi told them. “You want us to bring him in to Wiarton for you?”
“Please,” Susan told her colleague, thanking him and his partner for their quick responses. Susan motioned for Emily to bag the rifle while the officers walked the cuffed man past them to load him into the back of the police car. Mr. Bird looked older and rougher than when Susan had last met him, his clothes torn and hair wild from what had likely been more than twenty four hours on the lam.
Turning back to Alex Susan rubbed her forehead wearily. “You think he’s our guy?”
“Sarah?” Alex questioned needlessly. “I honestly don’t know,” he replied when Susan didn’t answer. “Let’s go find out.”
Back at the station Susan sat across from Mr. Bird. He refused to lift his eyes from the pocked table in front of him, staring at the surface as though he hoped to disappear into it. Clive looked defeated, a far cry from the man she had spoken with at his kitchen over tea and biscuits, Susan thought, feeling pity for the man in spite of herself.
“What happened, Clive?” Susan asked him gently. “Tell me what happened.”
Mr. Bird didn’t raise his glance from the table top, and Susan saw the man’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallowed.
“I couldn’t do it,” he finally whispered, after a moment of laboured breathing. “I thought I could do it, but I wasn’t strong enough.”
Susan waited for him to continue, aware of the soft steady tick of the clock on the interview room wall.
“I know it wouldn’t have brought her back,” his voice eventually croaked. “But it just didn’t seem right he’d get away scot free.”
“Terry Harmon?” Susan probed.
Clive nodded, his hands on the table closing into fists.
“It killed Mary, you know, all of our savings gone, everything we’d worked for. We had nothing left, and her heart couldn’t take it.”
Susan nodded at him sympathetically, catching the man’s gaze with her own. “What were you planning to do with that gun, Clive? Were you going to shoot him?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Bird replied honestly. “I wanted him to be scared, to realize that he could lose something too, that he can’t just take whatever he wants from people and never pay for it.” He took a shuddering breath. “But then I saw his wife, and she looked so frightened. And I thought that’s not me, I’m not someone a lady is scared of.”
When no further explanation came Susan asked carefully, “And what about his daughter, Mr. Bird. Are you someone she was scared of?”
“His daughter?” Mr. Bird’s creased forehead wrinkled further in a look of confusion. “I wouldn’t hurt his daughter, the man’s children aren’t to blame for what their father is.”
Susan looked over Mr. Bird’s head to the mirrored window, where she knew Alex would be watching, and shook her head imperceptibly. Looked like they had their man, just not for the case they wanted.
*
Tom Logan looked far better than the last time Gary had seen him, was the Constable’s first thought when he entered the room. He appeared distinctly uneasy to be seated in a hard backed chair in the Wiarton Police Department interview room, but he no longer looked as though he would collapse if a breeze blew him the wrong way.
“Constable Driscoll,” Gary introduced himself, shaking the man’s hand when he stood up. “We met at your house the other day,” he added when Tom gave no sign of recognition.
“Of course, that’s right,” Mr. Logan replied, giving him the benefit of a wide, white toothed smile. “This has been hard on our family. I apologize if none of us has been at our best.”
“Understandable,” Gary replied, gesturing for him to be seated.
Pulling up a chair across from him, Driscoll placed a pad and some papers on the table. He looked Mr. Logan directly in the eyes and began. “So, before we get to Sarah, I had a few questions for you about your first wife, Clare.”
Mr. Logan gave a visible start of surprise. “Clare? What on earth would you have to ask me about her?”
“Her case came up, with Sarah’s murder taking place on the cliffs, your wife’s accident,” Driscoll let his voice trail off, leaving the topic open.