The Ambitious City (13 page)

“Strange. He used to come here all the time. Are you new?”

“Nope.”

Vertesi tried again. “You don’t recognize anything about him?”

“He’s a master sergeant, Second Infantry Division, served with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“So you do know him.”

“Nope. I know how to read a uniform and service honours.” There were coughs of laughter from the smoky end of the bar.

“You made me.”

“Wasn’t hard, bud. You local, state or federal?”

“Neither.”

“Then I don’t have squat to say to you, other than ‘Will that be all?’ ” More raspy laughing and coughing.

Vertesi finished the beer, put money on the bar to cover it, waved a salute towards the end of the bar, nodded to the bartender and left Old Soldiers.

O
THER THAN THE
rapid tap of the Falcon’s keys and the irritating squeak when Ryan used the joystick, he was a quiet addition to the unit. MacNeice sat looking back and forth between the wharf and Taaraa Ghosh whiteboards. Ryan had taped Taaraa’s high school graduation photo next to the one from the mountain. He felt as though the investigation was in a waiting phase—for the videos, the interviews, the forensics to arrive on the fresh oil stains from the abandoned driveway and the similar stain found across from 94 Wentworth—all he could do was wait.

He looked at the portrait of Hughes and the photo he’d taken of his body on the rail cart. Below that was a photo of both his and Bermuda Shorts’s concrete columns. On a hunch, MacNeice dialed Swetsky’s number. He heard the line engage and Swetsky’s big voice bark something, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

“Swets, is there any indication that the D2D boys were in the concrete business?”

“No, but there’s all kinds of industrial equipment here. I guess there could be a cement truck hidden somewhere, but we ain’t found one. Why? Whaddya got?”

“Just two men who’ve been in concrete for two years—at the bottom of the bay.”

“Sorry, these guys preferred plastic-wrapped stiffs buried in the dirt. Concrete’s too much work.”

“How is it going?” He was staring at the photo of the mutilated body on the whiteboard.

“We’re almost done searching and cataloguing. There’s still a lot of work, including finding the guys who are above ground. But the forensics unit is shutting down—I guess the Mounties want their van back. The ice-cream truck will leave with the bodies late tonight. I heard you’ve got another case.”

“A bad one, yes.” Sergeant Hughes was looking back at him from his distant hill. “Swets, tell me how the bikers died.”

“Which ones? There were the three we found above ground. Recent kills—that’s how we got here in the first place. They were all shot—executed basically—in their cars.”

“What about the older ones who were shrink-wrapped and buried?”

“Two snapped necks, which is no small thing—these musta been huge necks. One had his skull caved in by the heel of a boot; there’s a half-moon on his forehead—the dweeb in the van says it’s a size twelve. The last one, his head was almost removed with one cut; again, not an easy thing to do, given the size of the neck.”

“Impressive.” He was still looking at Sergeant Hughes.

“No shit. The interesting thing with all of them, they weren’t worked over. Just
bingo
on the necks,
thwack
with the boot,
zip
with the blade—not a scratch otherwise. Very smooth.”

It was the answer to the next question that had MacNeice running out of Division and speeding up the mountain towards Cayuga,
the Chevy’s red cherry clearing the way. As he sped along the concession road, he took in the immensity of the property for the first time, and all of it surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. There was a cruiser at the gate blocking the road into the site. Spotting MacNeice, the uniform in the cruiser flashed his lights and moved his rig out of the way. As he came alongside, MacNeice rolled down his window. “Swetsky?”

“He’s expecting you, sir. He’s in the first barn. Forensics knows you’re coming too; they’re waiting in the black van.”

MacNeice drove down the road to the barn. Lit by a large grid of mercury vapour lights, the vast space had an eerie blue sharpness to it that he found vaguely unsettling. “Swetsky, where are you?” he called.

“At the back. Just keep walking.”

MacNeice made his way between the rows of equipment and emerged into a large open area at the end of the barn. He shook Swetsky’s hand and looked around to get a sense of the space. Running along the length of the wall was a workbench; above it a metal grid was mounted on the wall, supporting everything from motorcycle tools to heavy equipment wrenches the size of baseball bats, crowbars, hammers, huge rubber mallets and chains. Mounted on the walls at either end were jackhammers (three), chainsaws (four), nailguns (four), a brushcutter, leaf blowers (two) and drills of various makes and sizes.

“Clearly they can’t resist a hardware store.”

“The way hookers like skimpy underwear. Okay, here’s what I’ve found so far. Do you know exactly what you’re looking for?”

“Not exactly, but I’ve seen what it can do to a man’s body.” MacNeice looked at Swetsky’s collection lying on the bench. Three smaller chainsaws, but the blade teeth were too chunky to have sliced a skull so finely. There were two electric carving knives, the kind you cut a turkey with, but they wouldn’t have the strength to
cut through bone, and neither box had been opened—the clear tape that held them shut was untouched. At the end of the line was a machine with a green-and-black gas tank and narrow triangular teeth on both sides of its long, flat steel shaft. “What’s this thing that looks like the snout of a sawfish?”

“A hedge trimmer.”

MacNeice put on his gloves and picked up the machine. “Have you seen any hedges around here?”

“Just chain link and razor wire. Do you think you’ve found what you’re looking for?”

“I think so, but I’ll get this downtown to Forensics to study its cut against what was done to the body.” He put it down gently on the bench.

“It’s yours. I’ll log it out for you—one Chinese-made hedge trimmer. That it? Do you want to look around some more?”

When Swetsky finished filling out the paperwork for the hedge trimmer, he looked over at MacNeice, who still hadn’t answered his question. He was studying the concrete floor. It sloped slightly from the sides to the middle, where there was a large metal drain cover.

“Got a Phillips screwdriver and a flashlight?” he asked.

“Sure, what size flashlight?”

“Big and bright, and a small Maglite as well.” MacNeice knelt down on the floor beside the grate and waited. “Is this place on septic or connected to the town’s sewage system?”

“The town. Small blessing, too—these guys are all built like Brahma bulls, and their shit must be bull-size too.”

Once he had unscrewed the grille, MacNeice took the flashlight and lit the insides of the drain. It fell two feet or so to a plastic trap that sat several inches below the horizontal runoff drain. He took off his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeve, turned on the small Maglite and put his arm as far as he could down the drain. At the bottom
of the trap there were pebbles, and among them, several white fragments the size of corn kernels, one larger than the rest. “Suction.”

“Suction?”

“Are there any vacuum cleaners on those shelves? Any that haven’t been used at all?”

“Any particular brand? I’ve got six of them still in their boxes. I’d go with the English one; it’s got great suction and you can see right away what’s inside—it’s clear plastic.”

“English, please. Attach the long, narrow extension.” He shone the light along the sides of the drain; it looked clean and was probably rarely used.

When Swetsky had assembled the vacuum and plugged it in, MacNeice asked him to check that the container was completely empty. It was.

“Give me the nozzle but don’t turn it on till I tell you.”

“Okay.” He handed MacNeice the nozzle and watched as he inserted it into the drain.

MacNeice positioned the nozzle right above the kernels. “Power.” The suction was tremendous, pulling the end of the plastic nozzle down to the bottom as the white bits and grey pebbles disappeared and rattled up the hose into the chamber. “Right, shut it off. Let’s open the canister.”

Swetsky lifted the vacuum onto the workbench and opened it up as MacNeice tore off three sections of paper towel, laying them flat on the bench. “Okay, shake them out of there.”

Several pebbles bounced onto the towel. “Shake harder.”

“Said the bishop to the actress.” Swetsky shook the canister and rotated it so that anything caught on the lip would fall free.

“That’s it,” MacNeice said, and leaned over to get a closer look at the small chunks of white. “What do you make of these?”

“What do you want me to make of them?”

“Bone. I want them to be bone. Skull bone.”

“Christ—you’re connecting this place to the two in concrete!”

“I’m just following a hunch.”

“Lemme get one of the nerds,” Swetsky said and headed off towards the black van.

MacNeice walked down the second lane of the barn, where there was more equipment, appliances and furniture, all of it new. Two fibreglass mid-engine boats sat shrink-wrapped in white plastic alongside the industrial shrink-wrapping machine that had been used for more than covering boats. Stacked off to the left were six shiny slat-backed chairs made of steel. He picked one of them up and walked back to the drain, setting it down beside the hole.

“Talk to me, Hughes,” he said softly.

Swetsky brought back a man wearing tan cargo pants and a madras short-sleeved shirt. He offered his hand; in the other was a beer. “Dennis Turnbull. Great to meet you, sir. I’ve heard a lot about you. Sorry for the casual attire—we’re wrapping up tonight.”

“No problem.” MacNeice walked over to the paper towel.

“What have you got?” Turnbull asked.

“I’m hoping you can tell me.” He pointed to the largest of the white kernels.

Turnbull leaned over. After a few moments of silence he put down his beer and said, “I’ll be right back.” He ran down the aisle and was gone.

“I haven’t seen him move that fast since we got here,” said Swetsky.

“Think skull bone.”

“I am. That’s exactly what I’m thinking, you macabre fuck.”

Turnbull returned a few minutes later wearing latex gloves and carrying a large microscope. “Woulda been easier to carry that bit to the van than bring this here, but you know, a couple of beers and we all do wacky things, right?” He set down the heavy instrument, plugged it in and pulled a pair of tweezers from a case he
carried in his pants pocket. With his head bent over the microscope, he focused the lens. “Hmmm. Yeah, yeah. Pretty neat. Pretty fuckin’ neat.” He stood up again. “Where’d you find this?”

“In the trap of the drain. What is it?”

“Bone. Human, possibly. Given the shit that went on in this place, probably human.”

“May I have a look?” MacNeice asked, leaning over the microscope. “Finders keepers.”

The white shard filled the frame and seemed almost to emit light. It was porous and creamy in colour. He stood up again and said, “Could it be skull bone?”

Turnbull was leaning against the bench, beer in hand. “Yeah, well, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves, but sure, it could be. For example, it could be a pig bone”—he looked back towards the microscope—“but it looks human to me.”

“Can you check out all these metal chairs for chain friction and rope burns to the finish, as well as blood, tissue or hair—and I don’t mean pig. Do the same on that hedge trimmer, and then get it to Richardson’s lab to test the cut with a body she has on ice.”

“No problem, sir.” Turnbull pulled a Ziploc bag out of his cargo pants and slid the fragments inside.

“Swets, you’re not going to—”

“I know where you’re headed. You want this drain excavated.”

“If those fragments are human, yes.”

They walked out of the barn together, Turnbull with his microscope and the evidence, and MacNeice with a sense that his case had just gotten clearer yet more complex. Before they left, Swetsky put a large card over the drain with
DO NOT TOUCH
written on it. When Turnbull walked off to the black van, MacNeice said, “Tell me about this place.”

“This was the D2D country home. It’s a huge property, a mile
square, and as you can see, not much around it. Somebody—a lot of somebodies—came in, messed it up and left. You couldn’t see it for the equipment piled in there, but check this out.” Swetsky walked to the north side of the barn and pointed. The siding was full of holes—some from buckshot, others from automatic weapons and large-calibre handguns. “Hundreds. And”—he nodded over his shoulder—“there’s hundreds more on that other barn.”

“What have you got so far?”

“We have no idea who tipped us off, but so far we’ve got two D2Ds: Donald ‘Bunny’ Winter and Herbert ‘Canny’ Guenther, both originally from Edmonton. Canny got his nickname in Alberta, where he allegedly ate his his first wife—but that was never proven.” From that low point, Swets went on to describe the corpses.

On his way back to Dundurn, MacNeice thought about the notes he’d taken. Big men with tattoos, mostly on the arms—snakes, a cross with a pinup model attached to it, a devil’s face. One with a pair of deuces on his neck, several Harley logo tattoos on chests and backs, and one with a black rose dripping red blood over the heart. The final one was intriguing—a blue female torso in the centre of the chest, her pubic hair shaped into a fleur-de-lis. When MacNeice asked about it, Swetsky said he was more or less certain they’d find the others were local, but that one was probably a tourist from Quebec and would—as Swetsky said, pardoning the pun—“be living proof of a Montreal gang connection in the ranks of D2D.” The corpse’s details had been sent off to the Sûreté du Québec for possible identification.

Potentially competing interests in the concrete business; a biker gang feud that appeared to have nothing to do with concrete; two bodies encased in concrete, one a soldier whose specialty is close-quarters combat—all happening at roughly the same time … two years ago. MacNeice was cresting the mountain overlooking the
city when he realized what Marcello was trying to say about mutilation:
People carve up people for others to see
.