Strange Things Done (30 page)

While Jo did report that the remains of a person thought to be May Wong had been found in the charred wreckage of her SUV, she chose not to mention the parallels to the Surrey Strangler case
.
It was difficult to say why she’d made this choice. Something about it felt wrong, though Jo was deeply troubled by the similarities to the Strangler’s pattern: firstly the strangulation, then the mutilation of the ear and escalating violence to the corpse, and finally, the last body set alight in a vehicle.
Had he come back? Was he in the North?
Jo pushed the thought away.

Rather than writing a memorial to the three victims herself, Jo called on Dawsonites to submit their own photographs and stories about Marlo McAdam, Doug Browning, and May Wong for the next edition of the paper, to help the community mourn the loss of its members. Jo finished updating the content of her blog to match the cover of the
Daily
just as the last page of the print edition slid off the printer. With a slight twinge of guilt, she swung the stack of Doug’s version of the
Daily
toward the recycling area. Right next to Marshall-the-guinea-pig’s cage.

Jo took a deep breath of winter air as she dropped her stack of newspapers at the General Store. They made a satisfying
shlep
sound on the counter as they were deposited, turning woolly heads. Next, she delivered copies to the Bonanza Market on Second Ave, the Bonanza Esso gas bar, each hotel, the liquor store on Third, and the lounge at Bombay Peggy’s. She wound up at the beer parlour called The Snake Pit, at the Westminster Hotel, in time for morning Irish coffee. It was still dark outside.

At The Pit, the stack of newspapers disappeared by the time her coffee was poured, and the smoky room hummed with gossip as people read the paper with astonished expressions. Jo took a sip of her morning cuppa, closed her eyes and tipped her head to her right shoulder to stretch a spasming muscle in her neck. A woman at the far end of the room began sobbing.

Jo looked up. The woman was a brunette in her late thirties with lank hair and cow eyes. Her bottom lip was quivering. The newspaper (such as it was) shook in the woman’s hands and she was muttering something that sounded like, “It’s too late … it’s too late …”

“Shhh … Shhh …” The man next to the crying woman rubbed her back. “It’s all right,” he said, but he glared at Jo beneath the visor of his baseball cap.

“It’s too late to get out,” the woman cried. “He’ll kill us all, won’t he? It’s too late.”

“Geez, might not be a he,” the man said. “Might be a she, eh? Someone who would kill for a good story. Someone who knew just how to leave the victims to tell a particular story.” The man in the baseball hat was still staring at Jo.

The Surrey Strangler. The story with no end. It felt to Jo as though she were being forced to repeat the same torturous experience. Prometheus, destined to be devoured by the same winged horror, day after day. Something tightened inside her, but she stood and said, “Sir, if I wanted you dead, you’d know about it.” She let a few coins from her pocket clatter to the table.

“That was a death threat!” the woman shrieked. “Did you hear that? She’s crazy! Why hasn’t she been locked up yet?”

Jo pointed her new North Face boots in the direction of the door.

31

Jo followed the mayor’s receptionist into his office and accepted a seat in an over-stuffed chair. “Peter’s not in yet, but he’s not likely to be long. I’m sure he won’t mind if you wait for him here. Help yourself to the biscuits in the tin. God knows Peter doesn’t need them.” The woman rolled her large eyes. She wore a put-upon expression on her long face.

Inside the tartan tin, Jo discovered a stash of homemade Nanaimo bars, probably the work of Mabel. She glanced around the room as the cloying combination of chocolate and custard cream warmed her mouth. Peter’s assistant had left the door ajar, and Jo leaned into the hallway to make sure that no one was around. The corridor was empty.

Peter’s desk was home to an archaic computer, a chipped coffee cup full of pens and a letter opener, a plastic in-tray, and an out-tray. Several pieces of mail rested unopened in the tray. Jo flipped through them, glancing at the door for any sign of Peter. A letter from a government office in Whitehorse, something from the Yukon Hunting Association, and what looked like a bill. Jo picked up the bill, with a quick look over her shoulder. She held it up to the light to attempt see through it, but the envelope was too dense. Jo held it in her hand, as though weighing the importance of it, then grabbed the letter opener and slid it under the seal. The tearing sound made her flinch.

The letter expressed concerns that the holder of a credit card in the name of City of Dawson had exceeded his limit. An attached summary detailed cash advances and expenditures that amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The letter was addressed to Peter Wright.

Approaching footsteps rang out in the cold corridor in time for Jo to fold up the letter and return it to the envelope, but there was not enough time to solve the problem of the broken seal on the letter. Jo leaned forward toward the in-tray, then changed her mind and unzipped her shoulder bag. She was just depositing the letter into her bag when the mayor entered the room. Peter froze when he saw the white corner of an envelope disappearing into her bag, then glanced at the in-tray.

“Good morning,” Jo said with a joviality that sounded forced.

Peter Wright stood in the doorway for a moment, his massive figure blocking the frame. “Morning,” he said with an uneasy smile, his eyes darting back to the tray and then her handbag. There was an awkward pause before he turned and pushed the door heavily shut. “Now then …” he said. “What can I do you fer? You’re up with the birds.” In fact, it was after nine, but the sun had become increasingly reluctant to rise above its low bed of flannel clouds each morning. Night was overtaking Dawson City as winter closed in.

Jo cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, debating whether to flee with the letter or make certain that she was correct in her theory that both Marlo and May had discovered the mayor’s secret. Marlo’s office was directly across the hall, so she could have easily stumbled across the information if she, like Jo, had been waiting in Peter’s office to see him.
But May?
“Actually, I wondered how well you knew May Wong.” Jo wondered again whether the “MC” in May’s ledger stood for “Meter Cheater.”

Peter blinked, but recovered smoothly. “Do sit down,” he gestured toward the cosy visitor’s chair and Jo sank slowly back into it, heart thundering so loudly that she was sure the mayor could hear it, too. Peter strode around to the far side of the desk and sat down. He glanced at the door. “May Wong … Can’t say I knew her very well.” He offered Jo the biscuit tin but she waved it away. She was about to say that she’d already had one, then decided against it.

“She was at the town meeting on Monday, before she disappeared.”

“Yes,” the mayor said. “She was.”

“She asked you whether the town’s budget was balanced, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” the mayor’s smile faltered a little. “She was on the board for Dawson businesses. She owned a shop, you know—The Gold Digger.”

“Yes,” Jo said, but waited for him to continue.

“She was always very involved in town matters. Shame about what happened.” He shook his head. “A great loss to the community.” Somehow he managed to look sincere.

Jo shivered. She shoved her hands into her armpits for warmth, then thought the better of it—just in case she needed to seize a weapon. She kept an eye on the letter opener. Peter followed her look. “And were they?”

The slightest flicker of something in the mayor’s eyes at this.

“What?”

“The books. Were they balanced?”

“Yes, I told her so. At the meeting. We’ve had a very good year.” The mayor shifted a little in his seat.

“I see,” said Jo. “Well, that is good news.” Peter seemed to relax for a moment. “Did Marlo ask you the same question?”

“What?” The mayor stood up. “What exactly are you driving at, Ms. Silver?” But it was too late. Jo could see that the mayor knew exactly where she was going.

“I’m wondering whether Marlo also asked you about Dawson’s books before she died. Whether she questioned any … expenses.”

“Of course not. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a busy man.”

“Yes, of course,” said Jo, standing up. Peter Wright was a large man, and in easy reach of the letter opener on his desk. Jo thought of the stab wounds on Doug’s body. As Peter picked up the letter opener, Jo began backing away, afraid to take her eyes off of him. “Thank you for your time.” She grabbed the door handle and opened the door quickly.

When Jo turned to look back at the mayor, he was sliding the long blade under the seal of one of the envelopes, splitting it open as easily as skin.

32

The day was bright, and the snow outside sparkled and winked. Inside, the waiting area of the RCMP office on Front Street had a lived-in feel, not due solely to the worn furniture, but also owing something to the scent of aftershave and perspiration that permeated the room. The bulletin board was tacked sparsely with posters: Wanted in connection with a hit and run snowmobile incident. Wanted for involvement in brawl at Drunken Goat Taverna; clobbered victim with bar stool. Wanted; suspected of breaking and entering/theft of 26L Canadian Club Whisky (10 year reserve).

Jo left her toque on but unzipped her parka a little. She had not expected or wanted to return so soon, but she had little choice. If Peter Wright had killed three people in town, she had to see Johnny Cariboo.

She barely had time to wipe her new boots before the sandy-haired officer had retrieved Sergeant Cariboo from the depths of the building. Cariboo looked surprised to see her. “Ms. Silver,” he said. “C’mon in.” Jo wondered whether the formality indicated a coolness toward her, but when he opened a door for her, it was to the casual lounge and not the interview room.

Jo took up her previous position on a tweed chair. “We have to stop meeting like this,” she said.

Cariboo smiled a little. “Look, about that. I’m sorry for holding you, but I had no choice. I was just doing my job.” He toyed a little with the tape on his knuckles that hid his tattoos, as though he wished he could remove it. “I hope you can understand.”

“Yes, well,” she said. “I do understand. My dad is a cop.”

Cariboo gave her a long look. “Then you should know that you can trust me.”

“I do,” said Jo. There was something about him that made her wish she wouldn’t say what she was about to. “About as much as you trust me.” Cariboo looked away.

The silence between them was like a skin of ice forming. Jo broke it first with, “Or about as much as I trust anyone, if you want to know the truth.”

He cocked his head a little and ran his hand over dark stubble on his chin. “At some point, you have to trust someone again.” Jo looked away.

“There’s something I have to talk to you about. Someone, really.”

“Okay,” said Cariboo. “Can I tape the conversation?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. Not yet.”

“I see,” he said, but didn’t object or ask why. Jo was thankful for this.

“Because I can’t give you all the information without exposing someone else.” Cariboo raised an eyebrow. “I’ll get to the point. I think you should look at Peter Wright.”

“The mayor,” Cariboo said.

“Exactly.”

“Might be nice if I had a little more to go on?”

“Town finances. Specifically, the town credit card,” Jo said.

“And you can’t tell me more …”

“No,” she said briskly. “Now you’re going to have to trust me.”

Johnny Cariboo nodded. “Okay.”

Jo stood to leave, a little relieved that he wasn’t stopping her. She’d worried about this moment. “By the way,” Jo said. He lifted his chin. There was something hopeful about his countenance. Jo had planned to ask him about Alice Wolfe, about what had happened to her and whether there could be a connection to what was happening now, but she saw that the timing was all wrong. “No,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

He looked somehow disappointed, and she wondered if she had made a mistake, but the moment passed.

“Josephine!” He called to her when she had a hand on the door handle. Her heart jumped, fearing that he would stop her from leaving. “Ms. Silver,” he corrected himself. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but …” he licked his lips, thinking. “Off the record. We’ve just brought someone into custody. Someone else.”

Jo thought of Christopher Byrne, and she didn’t like how she felt when she thought of him in the same cell she’d just been in. “Who?”

33

A sound like a shotgun startled the patrons of the Sourtoe Saloon in the hotel aptly named “The Downtown Hotel.” A woman squealed.

As the bartender poured something sparkling, nervous laughter bubbled over like golden liquid in a spotty rock glass. People were in the mood to celebrate as word spread of the arrest of Jack Grikowsky. It seemed their problems were over.

By the third drink, Jo had almost relaxed, and Sally was well on her way. “But what was May blackmailing Grikowsky for?” Jo said.