Authors: Martin Crosbie
Without realizing he was speaking, Drake answered. “He probably ate at a restaurant. Somebody either dropped him off or he had decided to walk.”
The officers at the table murmured in agreement, and Pringle jumped in. “Maybe a restaurant, but more likely a pub. He’d been drinking.”
“Very good. Is that all, Corporal Pringle?”
“No, there’s more. The body was still warm. The examiner estimates the time of death was about one hour prior to the call coming in. Oh, and he has not confirmed cause of death. I asked him to get that information to us as soon as possible.”
Sergeant Thiessen interrupted. “I think that’s fairly obvious.”
Ryberg gave the detachment commander a smile and his eyebrows again met in the middle of his forehead. Then he relayed the conversation with the two boys who had found the dead man. He told the group that under questioning they had admitted to selling the contents of the man’s pockets for a few dollars. He turned to Pringle again and asked him about his interview with Franco.
“He claims that due to his status as a community leader, the credit and bank cards were passed along to him for safekeeping at his home where he was watching a hockey game with some friends. He was planning on turning them in to the police station this morning. But he can’t seem to locate them. He says he lost them.” Pringle paused for a moment, anticipating the reaction from the other officers.
Ryberg began to speak, but Thiessen spoke louder, over him. “I’ll bring in every one of his associates. By the end of shift I’ll know where those cards are and who took them.”
Ryberg ignored him and continued speaking to Pringle. “Do we have any priors on Franco and the boys who found the body?”
“Mr. Franco Morrison has been a busy little entrepreneur. In addition to owning a second hand store that has had its license suspended for selling counterfeit items on one previous occasion, he has several assault charges, the majority of them dating back several years. Most of the charges were dropped due to witnesses refusing to testify. Two stuck though, the major one was three years ago. He got into an argument with a man at a bakery and put him in intensive care. He got off with a fine and probation on that one. And he’s had four charges of possession of stolen property under five thousand dollars. No recent charges, so it looks like he’s been subletting the work for the past little while, or else he found religion. My guess is he has someone else doing the dirty for him.” Pringle read from his notebook, “And the boys are young. One is nineteen and the other is twenty. They just recently graduated to the big time. As juveniles they committed the usual break and enters, and some other minor theft incidents. It looks like their careers are continuing in the same vein. Or one of them is at least, the older of the two – Anton Van Dyke is due to appear in court in two weeks for stealing copper wire from a building site in Chilliwack. The Chilliwack detachment is involved on that one.”
Anton was the more aggressive boy who stood at the door when they interviewed him. Drake looked around the situation room when the boy’s last name was read, searching for Brandon – his rookie partner from the night before. The two of them shared the same last name. In any other town it would have been merely a coincidence, but it was a common name in the area, and all of the Van Dykes he’d encountered seemed to be related to each other. In fact all of the locals with Dutch last names seemed connected in some way. Had there been a look of recognition when Brandon saw Anton Van Dyke at the crime scene the night before? Drake couldn’t remember – too much had been happening at the same time.
Ryberg leaned forward toward Pringle. “What’s your impression of Franco?”
“He’s cocky, but if he’s a murderer, he’s the coolest criminal I’ve ever met. Believe it or not, he hasn’t even asked for a lawyer yet. I think he’s small time just like the two boys. Sure, they went through Robinson’s pockets, but I doubt they even knew the man was dead.”
Ryberg began to ask another question, but Pringle interrupted him. “And he claims to have no connection to the deceased. He says he didn’t know him.”
Ryberg nodded and turned to Thiessen. “I appreciate your kind offer of finding the bank cards, but I don’t think that’s where our efforts should be focused. Corporal Pringle, let’s hold Franco for as long as we can. When he asks for representation, and he will, we’ll decide whether we’re going to charge him with anything. The trail from the dead man to the boys and then to Franco is too obvious. Nobody’s that stupid. This man wasn’t killed for his fifteen bucks and credit cards.”
Sergeant Thiessen glanced around the room and then wrote something in his notepad, cupping it in front of himself so no one could see.
Ryberg turned to Myron and asked him to relay details of his visit with Robinson’s mother.
Myron looked up from his notes. He spoke in a tired, heavy voice and shook his head as though he’d failed. “This was not a productive interview, and it did not end well. Quite honestly, it was difficult to question her in depth about any details of her son’s life. There were no grief counselors available, so I was on my own with a uniformed officer. When I told her what had happened, she became very distraught, so we made a phone call to her minister. I allowed him to sit in on the questioning, but that really didn’t help. She kept breaking down. When I asked about her son’s habits, all she could tell me was that he occasionally enjoyed having a few beers with his friends at the pub. Every time I prodded for names or asked whether he owed any money to anyone or had any enemies, she started sobbing and couldn’t get the words out. She said she couldn’t understand why anyone would want to hurt him. She kept saying that she’s all alone now – without a husband or a son.”
Sergeant Thiessen spoke up. “Minister’s name please, Corporal.”
Myron gave the name of the local clergyman, and Thiessen nodded and wrote in his notebook, still cupping it close to his chest. “I know Greg, he’s a good man.”
Ryberg took control again. “When do you think we can revisit – later today, or this evening perhaps?”
Myron continued in his defeated, tired voice. “She was unintelligible when I left and could barely speak. This is a proud woman, but she fell apart when I told her the news. Her doctor was en route to see her. I think it may be some time before she’s any use to us, Sarge.”
“Did her son have a suite in the house, or just his own area?”
“It’s just a room. She cooked his meals, and they shared the rest of the house. Big house by the way, there’s money there for sure. She let me look at his room while she sat with the minister. There was nothing significant that I could see – some brochures for a car that I’ve never heard of were on his desk, a couple of pornographic magazines under the mattress, oh, and a bible in the drawer by his bedside.” The investigator deferred to his notes once again. “And she did not see her son that day at all. He told her the night before that he would not be home for dinner, and she wasn’t sure what he had planned to do after work. She didn’t even know if he had made it to his workplace.”
Ryberg smiled. “Well, he did work yesterday. Constable Drake and I met with his manager. John, tell the group what we found.”
The only other person who had called him by his first name since he’d arrived in Hope was Brandon Van Dyke, and that was just because he was unnaturally polite. He was Drake to everyone else. It felt unfamiliar, but he appreciated the effort the investigator was making, and now he understood why he hadn’t talked to him in the car about the question he’d asked the sales manager. He wanted to give him his moment of glory in front of the other policemen.
Drake summed up the interview, relaying how Robinson’s sales had been down, and that his company vehicle was parked in the parking lot at the dealership. Ryberg interrupted to tell the group that he was having the car towed to the police impound yard so that the Ident team could analyze it. Then Drake told the other officers how the manager gave them a little more information at the end of the interview.
“I recognized Parker, the sales manager, from my walk-throughs at the pub. I was pretty sure it was the Legacy. He sits with a group of men, and I thought one of them might be Robinson. Apparently it was. Parker reluctantly told us that they drank together along with two other men. We have the list of names.”
Ryberg held the piece of paper with the names, and read them aloud:
Frank Wilson
Derek Rochfort
Monica Brown
Dave Parker
Michael Robinson
Although he was addressing the group, he half-turned toward Thiessen, making sure he understood too. “This is where we need to focus. We need to talk to each of these men, including the woman whose name was initially crossed out. Somebody either benefited from Robinson’s death or he had an enemy. I want to know which scenario it is, and he’s more likely to have shared what was going on in his life with his drinking buddies than anyone else. I want to talk to all of the people on this list, even the waitress.”
“Right,” Drake continued, enjoying the flow of the conversation. “He wrote the waitress’ name down and then crossed it out. She socialized with the men also.”
Sergeant Thiessen smacked his pen on the table, getting everyone’s attention. He picked up one of the photos of the dead man. “I have a theory. This man had a halo of blood around his head. He died, or was posed,” he paused and looked around the table, “in a praying position on the ground. His hands were joined in prayer. Like this.” Thiessen placed his hands in front of himself, lacing his fingers together as he spoke. “Just like a dead saint.”
Exactly what Rempel, the paramedic, had said back at the scene.
Pringle began to interrupt and disagree, but Thiessen spoke over him and turned toward Myron. “And you said you found a bible in his bedside table. This may be a case of Christian persecution.”
A groan came from Pringle. Ryberg eyed him.
Thiessen continued quickly before anyone else could respond. “There’s a religious aspect to this murder.”
Nobody moved. Drake watched, as across the table from him, a smirk slowly developed on Pringle’s face. There was a pause before Ryberg spoke. “We should investigate every possibility, Sergeant Thiessen, you’re right; at this point we don’t know what happened.”
Most of the officers from the Hope detachment who were local – the ones who had spent their time elsewhere and had been transferred home, or were fortunate enough to have their initial posting in their hometown – were churchgoers. Many of them attended the same large church that stood on the outskirts of town – including Brandon Van Dyke and Sergeant Thiessen. They were a tight clique, secretive almost, and Drake often heard them talking among themselves about church-related activities. Drake anticipated what his superior was going to say next.
“There are seven churches in town, and I have positive relationships with the clergy from each of them. I’m going to interview the local pastors. If there’s a connection, which I think there is, I’ll find it.”
It wasn’t a request. He was almost up from the table when Veronica, the daytime receptionist, walked in. She was out of breath as her short legs marched officiously toward the group. She looked at Thiessen, then hesitated and passed a piece of paper to Pringle.
He read the note and then screwed up his face as though he’d swallowed something distasteful. The investigator suddenly looked tired. “Your local doctor, who is operating as our medical examiner, has determined the cause of death. It was not the injury to the head. The dead man’s body contained botulinum. This man was poisoned.”
The sharp scent of marijuana drifted through the air toward them from one of the nearby yards. With the breeze blowing against the officers it was impossible to detect where the smell was coming from, and it didn’t matter. Tracking down recreational pot-smokers wasn’t their objective. After being briefly elevated to assist the crime team, Drake was placed back on general duty – knocking on doors and asking questions. He was paired with Banman to perform a job he was very familiar with.
Ryberg had given the officers their assignments as soon as the meeting ended. Myron was instructed to learn about botulinum, the poison found in Robinson’s body. His job was to ascertain where the deadly toxin that the dead man had ingested was available and how it might have ended up in his system. Pringle was given the task of visiting the local pubs and restaurants to determine where Robinson might have eaten on the night he was killed. An Ident officer had come in from Vancouver and was tasked with the forensic aspect of the investigation. He and his team were to conduct thorough investigations of the man’s room, his workspace at the car dealership, and the car that he’d left at work. And Drake was doing door-to-door interviews along the street where the body had been found. The question he’d asked Parker, which unearthed the list of names, seemed to have earned Ryberg’s respect, and the investigator promised Drake would be involved in questioning the men once they rounded them up. But he stressed that their first priority was to check the neighboring houses in case anyone had witnessed what had happened the night before.
Whether it was searching for a stolen bicycle or trying to apprehend a con man who was bilking little old ladies out of their pensions, door-to-door inquiries were standard fair for a patrolman, and Drake had done his share. Banman and he were working one side of the street, while Brandon Van Dyke worked the other side with Sophie Peterson, one of the two female officers in the Hope detachment. The routine was the same as they went from house to house. They knocked until someone finally answered, and then they received a series of “nos” and “I don’t knows” as the residents evaded their questions.
The area had been attractive once. Each home had its own personality, and in earlier years, during more prosperous times, pride had obviously been taken maintaining their appearance. The beauty was still evident in the beveled posts that held the roofs over the front porches, and the large picture windows framed with old-fashioned, louvered shutters. Unfortunately, the upkeep on the houses had long been neglected. Now instead of marveling at the architecture, all a passerby could see was peeling paint, sagging roofs, and shutters hanging off the sides of windows.