Dead of Knight (5 page)

“I didn’t see shit, man. Do you cops know what time it is?” the guy was saying to Lesley.

Staal tried to get a look at him. He was young, around twenty, shirtless, and his visible arm was streaked with dark green tattoos. The body art appeared to be jailhouse amateur work. In the dim light of the hallway, Staal could see something metallic hidden behind the door. Staal didn’t think Degarmo would have spotted it from where she stood.

“Why don’t you hassle somebody else, you fuckin’ dike pig!” the guy barked at her.

“’Cause I’m hassling you, asshole!”

The guy opened the door an inch or two more.

The object was a revolver. “Gun!” Staal yelled. He took three fast strides, raised his foot and kicked the door inward, knocking the guy down. Staal then booted the door open and charged inside.

He had his Glock out, and jammed it in the guy’s ear. Degarmo pushed into the suite, grabbed the guy’s arms, handcuffed him, and jerked him to his feet.

Staal kept his pistol on the guy as Degarmo half-pushed, half-carried him further into the apartment and thrust him into a chair. Murdocco moved in behind, picked up the guy’s revolver, an ancient .38, and stuffed it in his waistband. The detectives moved past Staal into the kitchen. On the dining-room table was a wallet with identification.

Staal glanced at the ID and flipped open his phone. “Dispatch, can you check out Allen Jeffrey Morgan?” Morgan had cut off jeans and short spiky purple hair. His face showed signs of a major acne problem a few years earlier.

“Well, Morgan. What’s all this about? Three hundred in cash.” He tossed the money on the table. “What’s a piece of shit like you doin’ with this kinda green?”

“Fuck you!” Morgan said.

Murdocco and Degarmo moved from room to room checking for suspects.

“Clear,” Degarmo called out.

“Clear in here, too,” Murdocco called back.

“All clear. It’s just this fuck. There must be a million bucks worth of stereos, TV’s, DVD’s, all new in the box, top of the line shit back there,” Murdocco said as he returned to Staal’s position at the table.

“I’ll call someone from Burglary to get down here.” Degarmo dialed her cell phone. To Staal she said, “Thanks, partner.”

Staal walked around the apartment. Murdocco was right; stolen merchandise was stacked floor to ceiling through most of the suite. Outside the living room window was a deck so small it only had room for one metal folding chair. Beside the chair sat five empty beer bottles and an ashtray full of butts.

He stepped outside, looked down to the crime scene area, and saw Wong and his colleague moving a cotton and plastic wrapped Kim Walker through the scattered debris toward the white Coroner’s van parked at the mouth of the lane. Morgan would have had a perfect view if he had been out there during the murder. Staal held up a beer bottle which was half full. It was still cold.

“Morgan,” Staal said, reentering the apartment. “Were you out on your deck tonight around 11 PM? Did you see a man and a woman...fighting in the lane?”

“I didn’t see fuck all!” Morgan said.

“Look, asshole. You’re going down for theft and or possession. If you saw anything tonight...well it might help this, ‘attempted murder of a police officer’ thing go away.”

“Attempted murder? Fuck that! I didn’t believe she was a cop at first. Just protectin’ myself, man. All I seen was this little dude all decked out in black talking to that chick from Jim’s place.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, I came in to answer the phone, and then I made a few more calls, made a sandwich, and took a dump and a shower. Next thing, I heard the sirens. When I went back out there, all you dudes were there takin’ pictures and shit.”

“So, you didn’t see this guy hit her or nothing?”

“Nah, but I don’t need to be no rocket scientist to know he did her, man.”

Rachael Gooch stepped in the door. “What’s this?”

“This fuck pulled a piece on Degarmo, and he just described the same guy that Jim Dell said was a customer around the time Walker died,” Staal said.

“Okay, let’s take him in. Looks like IHIT is ready to take it from here.”

The rest of the door-to-door went on without incident and with little solid information. At eleven PM that night, most of the tenants were too busy with television, sex, or the Internet to be bothered by any commotion from the lane. The four cops stood in the lobby thumbing their notepads comparing information. Staal read out two names and numbers that Degarmo and Murdocco thought were important and needed checking.

“Barnes wants us back at the house to write it up and then go home,” Gooch said to Staal.

“I’m going to hang for a bit, check a few things.”

“You need a ride?”

“Nah, Jonesy’s tour is over. I’ll ride with him. See you at the house.”

Drummond was still picking around the area where the body had lain. He picked and bagged gum wrappers, hype-needles, cigarette butts, and a shattered coffee mug.

“Anything new?” Staal asked.

“Two fresh Marlboro cigarette butts. She had an empty pack of Benson & Hedge’s in her purse,” Drummond held up a plastic evidence bag with a cigarette butt inside. 

“Shit, weren’t there a couple Marlboro butts around the trail where MacKay was killed?” 

“There’s a crushed out Marlboro over there as well,” Drummond pointed to the trash bins.

“No pubic hairs so far,” Wong said. “I won’t know for sure until I get her into my office, but I saw no semen with the laser either. Got a black fiber, perhaps cotton.”

A garbage crew arrived to pull and truck the two bins to the station house to be dumped and rooted through by IHIT detectives. Staal went back to the front of Jim’s dinner; the door was locked, but he could see Dell cleaning up inside. He knocked, and Dell opened the glass door.

“That guy in black,” Staal said. “Did he smoke, by any chance?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, he did,” Dell said.

“Do you think you could describe the guy for a sketch artist? Maybe pick him out in a lineup?”

“Yeah, I think I could.”

Staal nodded. “Several RCMP detectives will be in shortly, Jim. Tell them what you told me about the guy in black.”

He thanked Dell for his time and left the restaurant for the lane. Fred Jones waived him over. He held his fists clenched and put them up in front of his face like a boxer.

“Ready to go, Jack?” he asked.

“Shit, yeah!”

The media had left, happy with the story they received from Barnes. The citizens had vanished, bored, as there was no more blood to see. Jones and Staal ducked under the police tape. Staal lit a cigarette, then tossed it and crushed it out.

“Big mess, huh?”

Staal sat next to Jones in front of his patrol cruiser. “Yeah. Nasty.”

“So you and Gooch just walk away from it now?”

He paused. “Yeah, something like that.”  

Hanson B.C. is known for its camping and hiking trails, and its water sports on the lake. To best serve the rural city of 100,000, the police service is split into two precincts, East and West. The Major Crimes Section consists of a sergeant and four detectives. Staal’s squad worked out of 565 Broadway, also known as West Precinct.

Staal climbed out of Jones’ police cruiser in the parking area for police vehicles. He carried a box of muffins and a tray with four large coffees and a tea. The Precinct house was a newer, concrete and glass, three-floor structure of mind-numbing architecture. The main floor held the offices, equipment storage, and roll-call rooms for the uniform cops. The detective squads and vice teams were situated on the second floor, while the crime scene labs were on the third. Eight holding cells filled the basement.

Staal turned his back to the brass handled glass main door and pushed it open with his hip. He crossed the marble floor and checked his appearance in the mirrored elevator doors. The elevator car featured a female voice that said, “Second floor. Criminal Investigations Branch.”

Staal liked the serene emptiness of this floor, but he knew the quiet of the detective squad room would soon be broken by the change-of-watch bustle. The corner designated for Major Crimes featured three double desks, each with three computer terminals. He set the food and drinks on his desk and opened his notebook. Some of his scribbling needed translating, and he wrote the important quotes on green 3x5 inch index cards. He would need to write an official report and then copy to Degarmo.

Gooch moved in next to him at her desk, left her notebook open, and reached for a handful of cards. Gooch was Staal’s second partner in his short time with Hanson. He still kept in touch with all his former colleagues from VPD and communicated daily with Lesley Degarmo. However, he rarely socialized with Rachael Gooch off the clock and kept small talk to a minimum on the job. It was a union of respect, without the camaraderie of most partnerships.

“Barnes wants to see us in his office,” Gooch said.

“Yeah, grab a muffin on the way.”

Gooch knocked and entered Staff-Sergeant Barnes’s office. Staal followed, and quickly noticed detectives Ken Fraser and Gina Hayes were already present. Staal nodded to Fraser, smiled at Gina, and motioned to them both to get a muffin after the briefing. Fraser had an exotic look, being the child of a black father and an Asian mother. He was six-five and 260 pounds.

“Okay,” Barnes began. “Everything points to Birthday Boy?”

Gooch nodded.

Barnes said, “I don’t need to tell you that this is now a serial. IHIT will add at least another team; maybe two.” He made eye contact with each of the detectives before he spoke again. “I’ve got heat coming from all over on this. The press is going ape shit. We need a break, a suspect. Anything that makes us look like we’ve got a handle on this.”

“But the IHIT teams have this,” Gina said. “Isn’t H out of it?”

“Officially, yes—we’re out. But the Chief wants Major Crimes to keep a finger in this. Help out as much as possible. But...” Barnes stared straight at Jack. “You document and share everything with IHIT. And Staal, I don’t want to hear any shit about you and Corporal Chin. Is that clear?”

Staal had to concentrate to keep from smiling. “Crystal, Sarge.” 

He and Donald Chin had a long-standing rivalry that had been aggravated recently when Staal managed to solve a murder case before Chin and his team could even assemble and start working the crime scene.

“I know you guys got dick to go on. But I think this needs more manpower. Let’s take this guy down for HPS.”

Max Barnes, like Staal, didn’t fully support the integrated ideal. Both men believed that Hanson’s Major Crimes Section could hold its own with the best and brightest from the RCMP.

“So bring Gina and Ken up to speed, and keep me informed.” Barnes stood, then paused. “And for Christ sake don’t let your cases slip or the Inspector will have my ass.”

Barnes answered to Inspector Benjamin Ross. The inspector was the officer in charge of Operations and third down from the top in the chain of command. 

“Sure, Boss,” Staal said.

Gooch stayed with Barnes to inform him of what she, Staal, and the other detectives had found so far at the scene. Staal motioned to Fraser and Hayes to follow him to an empty office where a mobile strategy board stood just inside the door. The board was 8 by 12 feet and covered with cork.

On its far left were pictures of the first and second victims and below their faces were colored index cards with names, phone numbers and important bits of information. Each victim had a section of the board divided by a tapeline.

“When the hell did you set this up, Jack?” Fraser pointed to the board. “Aren’t you and Gooch working those uptown bank jobs?”

“Degarmo copied everything that the team has,” Staal said. “She wanted me to take a look. We’ve gone over this board about twenty times together.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The tone in Fraser’s voice betrayed his surprise. The fact that Degarmo felt she still needed Jack’s opinion and help even though she had moved on to IHIT concerned him as well.

“Man, I wish we had this case full time from day one,” Staal said. He shook his head.

“No kidding,” Hayes said. “Who knows how bad Murdocco fucked things up.”

The detectives shared a laugh.

“Degarmo will keep him straight,” Fraser said.

“We should wait for Wakamatsu, but fuck it.”

Staal pinned up the photos he took of Kim Walker and the first few cards he had filled out. He pointed to the first row and said, “Stephanie MacKay, Gabriella Haywood and as of last night, Kimberly Walker. I don’t know if you guys have read the files, so I’ll start from the beginning.”

“The Gooch gave us the rundown on Walker before you got in, and we’ve both glanced at the files,” Gina said.

“I helped with the canvass at the Haywood scene, remember?” Fraser said.

Staal nodded.

“Okay, MacKay was 32 years old, answered phones at Duncan, Orser, and Pendleton. Degarmo talked to everyone at the firm. Nothing solid.” He glanced toward Hayes and Fraser and then continued. “MacKay was jogging in Discovery Park. The killer tied a length of heavy fish line about four feet off the ground, laid it across a trail, and waited for Stephanie to jog by. And when she did, he jerked up the line, which caught her across the throat, crushing her larynx. I think you know the rest.