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FICTION | Killer on the Kame, Episode 3

Previously in Killer on the Kame (Stop! If you are new to the story, the best way to catch up is to read the previous episodes here .
E03

Previously in Killer on the Kame (Stop! If you are new to the story, the best way to catch up is to read the previous episodes here. Spoilers below!) Out walking her beagle Milo, Emma comes across a crime scene—a dead body at a construction site in East Lofthill. When she gets home, she tells her husband Matt that it’s the same man who came to their house the day before, selling insulation. Matt remembers the man acting oddly in their basement with a metal detector. On a hunch, Matt takes a sledgehammer to the basement floor and discovers a buried toolbox filled with slender gold bars worth about a million dollars. Detective Sargeant Janice Cleary and Detective Constable Trent Frayne, of the Niagara Constabulary Service, are assigned to investigate the homicide. They determine the victim’s identity: Leonard Bouchard, recently released from prison, who had a history of thefts from construction sites. Matt and Emma realize they need to fill the hole in their basement and so visit a Lofthill hardware store to buy concrete mix. While there, they learn that some of their neighbours are speculating that Leonard Bouchard was using his metal detector to search for something valuable before he was killed, and the neighbours may start to look for it themselves.

 

Episode 3 EXPERIENCE COUNTS

 

Detective Constable Trent Frayne said, “You want me to stick thumbtacks right into the wall?”

“Where else would you stick them?”

“Like a corkboard or something.”

Detective Sergeant Janice Cleary gestured at the wall. “We don’t have a corkboard. Right there’s fine.”

Frayne shrugged and started pinning up the map. The Niagara Constabulary Service headquarters in St. Catharines was brand new, fully equipped with every electronic tool on the law enforcement wish-list, including big touch screens on each wall of the meeting room they were using, but Cleary had said she wanted a paper map and pins. Of course, she couldn’t figure out how to print something thirty-six inches by twenty-four so Frayne had done it. And found the box of coloured push-pins in a tray next to the laser printer.

“Okay, there you go. But someone’s going to be mad we put holes in their shiny paint.”

“Tough luck,” Cleary said. “Put a red pin in every house that said they let in Leonard Bouchard. Yellow if they talked to him but didn’t let him in. Green if they weren’t home.”

“What if they were home but Bouchard didn’t knock?”

“Orange.”

“Could’ve marked all that before I printed the map. We do have Sharpie technology, you know.”

Media Relations Specialist Jason Ridolfi came into the room, his cologne two seconds behind. “What do you think of the news release?”

Cleary kept her eyes on the pins. “Haven’t seen it yet.”

“I emailed it to you a half hour ago.”

Cleary started to say she hadn’t checked her email when Superintendent Gawley walked in, followed by Staff Sergeant Michaelchuk.

What is it with male cops and their hair, thought Cleary. Over the last ten years the street cops had nearly to a man succumbed to the skinhead hard-ass look. But get bumped up to management and they turn into hedgehogs, bristly, perfectly coiffed spikes—usually going grey—$85 a pop. Those early pandemic salon closures drove them nuts—hair spilling over ears, curling along necks. Cleary thought about bringing in hedge clippers as a joke, offering free trims, but the plague hadn’t yet reached the black humour stage back then.

Michaelchuk looked around. “What are you doing in here?”

“Setting up an incident center.” Cleary didn’t like using the jargon, but now that police forces were full of consultants and management plans and outcome strategies she was resigned to it.

The Superintendent shook his head.

“No need. This is going to the task force in Toronto.”

“Sir?”

“The deceased is a Toronto resident with known connections to organized crime in Toronto.”

Cleary glanced at her notes. “That’s not in his file.”

Gawley waved that away. “He went to jail for theft of construction equipment and his body was dumped on a construction site.”

“There weren’t any thefts from the site where he was found. There was barely any equipment out there at all.”

“He just got out of jail and he went right back to work,” Gawley said. “Someone else took over his territory, he tried to get it back. Happens all the time.”

“With drug dealers.”

“With organized crime.”

Frayne finished pushing in the last pin and stepped away from the map. Michaelchuk pointed at it. “Why did you stick those in the wall, right next to the touchscreen?”

Frayne shrugged. Now Gawley looked at the pins. “What’s this?”

Cleary dropped her notepad on the conference table. “We’re trying to put together Leonard Bouchard’s last day.”

Gawley turned from the map and looked at Cleary. “I’m saying you don’t need any of this.”

“We need to know his movements before he was killed.”

Michaelchuk looked at the Superintendent. “The neighbourhood was canvassed.”

“Yeah,” Cleary said, “by the uniforms, not by us. We have to do some follow-up.”

“I’m sure the residents have told the uniforms everything they know.” Gawley turned to the media relations specialist, who at least knew when to blend into the background until needed. “Make sure the updated press statement says he was a Toronto resident.”

Ridolfi nodded. “Yes sir.”

“Lead with that—always refer to him as a Toronto resident. And make sure the tip line for the task force is on everything.” Gawley waved distractedly at the map. “We’re not going to need this.”

Cleary could almost hear the conversation between the Superintendent and the Chief, assuring him the name of Lofthill would be kept out of the press as much as possible, the location of the murder as vague as they could make it. Wouldn’t want anything to affect those property values. Especially now.

“All due respect, sir, the body was found there. We need to fill in his last day.”

“He must have been on his phone, probably talking to people in Toronto. Track that.”

Cleary shook her head. “There was no phone with the body. We’re running him through all the telcoms to find out which one he used. Could take a while.”

Gawley was still looking at the map. “This has nothing to do with the decent people in this neighbourhood, Detective. The deceased had history. This is about the theft of bulldozers, it involves organized crime.”

“We haven’t had any major construction thefts here in years.”

“The task force will get the phone records. You can be the liaison. Put together all the information from the canvass and get it ready for the task force. I’ll send you a contact name.”

Gawley nodded at everyone and walked out.

Michaelchuk followed, leaving Ridolfi with the detectives.

Cleary figured his departure performance—the acknowledging-everyone-in-the-room thing—was something Gawley learned at a management training seminar. Some swanky resort in Muskoka. Brandy after dinner.

She stepped up to the map and looked at it closely for a few seconds.

“That’s a lot of yellow pins—a lot of cautious people who talked to Bouchard then said thanks but no thanks.”

“Should I take them out?”

“No, let’s keep going.”

“You sure?”

“I miss the days when police forces kept it all to themselves, didn’t share everything with each other,” Cleary said. “When we were all our own little fiefdoms.”

“Really?”

She realized Frayne didn’t catch her sarcasm. She was thinking that this was a bit of a problem with him, that he took everything at face value. Kids today.

“No, not really. But still, let’s go over it again.”

A phone rang down the hall.

Frayne tapped one of the yellow pins. “Okay, well, we started with the house we knew he went to, the older woman who was on site that morning who said he’d been to her house. She didn’t let him in.”

He tapped one of the few red pins, where residents had let Bouchard inside. “We covered this whole subdivision.”

“And those are the only houses he got into?”

Now Ridolfi stepped forward. “So all of these other people—all these houses with the orange pins—they said they were home but he didn’t come to their house, didn’t even knock?”

The phone down the hall kept ringing.

“That’s right.”

Cleary pulled a chair out from the conference table and sat down. She counted the few red specks in a sea of orange. “So, out of about a hundred houses Bouchard only went to ten?”

“We’re still looking to talk to some residents,” Frayne said. “But that’s what it looks like.”

“And he went to no other subdivisions?”

“We’re still canvassing, but so far, no.”

“What time was he at these houses?”

Frayne checked his notes. “Around two, two-thirty. One house said exactly two-thirty.”

“And just him, no one was with him? No one reported a different person coming to their house?”

“Nope.”

“None of this makes sense.” Cleary slapped the conference table harder that she meant to. “Could someone please answer the damned phone.”

An admin assistant hurried past the doorway, grimacing. A hundred and eighty million dollar annual budget, thought Cleary, and they go cheap on the clericals.

She looked at her notes. “Anything more on this metal detector, assuming he actually had one?”

Frayne shook his head. “Search of the area hasn’t turned up anything like that so far, but the people who let him in were pretty sure that’s what it was.”

Ridolfi jotted a line on his own notepad. “I’m going to rewrite the update, emphasize that he was a Toronto resident.”

Cleary stood again and gestured toward pins clustered near the centre of the subdivision.

“He was really on a roll here. Ten houses on this block—four houses let him in, two more talk to him but don’t let him in. And then he just stops knocking.”

“Looks like it.”

“The last four houses, someone was home in all of them, but Bouchard didn’t even knock. Why not? Where was he parked? He probably walked right past those houses to get back to his car.”

“Guess he got fed up.”

“If he started here,” Cleary tapped a pin, “and finished here, he was doing pretty well when he quit. So now we ask—was this where he finished?”

Frayne looked at his notes again.

“Can’t say for sure. Not everyone knew exactly what time he was at their house.” He pointed at a yellow pin. “But this person was pretty sure it was around two, and this one,” he pointed to a red pin, “was pretty sure it was two-thirty. No one said it was later than that when he came to the door.”

Cleary narrowed her eyes.

“So that last red pin—that’s probably where he finished. Then he just quit, even with more houses to go on the street. Then he waits around for someone to kill him?”

Frayne shrugged.

Through the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the meeting room’s outside-facing wall, Cleary watched a seagull flap to a landing on one of the communications towers. She turned back to the map and shook her head.

“No. This isn’t a door-to-door sales scam. Those houses were targeted.”

“Targeted?”

“Guy comes all the way from Toronto, knocks on a few dozen doors, stops in the middle of the block and calls it quits and that’s his entire day?”

“You think he was looking for something?”

“The metal detector says so. Or maybe something plus someone.”

“What for?”

Cleary flipped her notebook closed and headed for the door. “That’s what we have to find out. You’re driving.”

Frayne took another look at the map.

Ridolfi drummed his fingers on the conference table and waited until Cleary had walked down the hall.

“You sure you want to go with her? You heard the Superintendent.”

“I’m just the driver.”

Ridolfi held up a hand. “Hey, it’s your career.”

 

They merged onto the 406 and Frayne clicked off the turn signal.

“Was he always like that, Superintendent Gawley?”

“Just a sec.” Cleary listened while the woman on the radio, the daytime DJ on the classic rock station, tried to give enough clues to a trivia contestant so that he could win a fish and chips coupon. After his third incorrect guess the DJ wished the guy better luck next time.

Honky Tonk Women started.

“Gawley could always play office politics, yeah,” Cleary said. “It’s the only way to get the promotions.”

Cleary had joined the police force when she was twenty-three, it seemed so long ago now, the eighties. No real plans for the future. It was just a job that didn’t look boring, or at least not too boring. And she was good at it. She stayed calm in tense situations and could de-escalate before anyone used that word. She married a fellow cop and they had a couple of kids. He moved into plainclothes, and after her second maternity leave Cleary took the extra courses offered by the force and became a detective. By then it was the nineties and everything changed. The Scarborough rapist had moved to the area and he and his wife were murdering teenage girls. It went on for so long that there was enough blame to be shared by everyone—police forces from Toronto to Niagara, the forensics lab. Even the FBI had been called in to help with profiling. Cleary was barely involved as one of the most junior detectives, doing little more than typing up reports but she blamed herself. Her husband was already living in Toronto by the time the divorce was final, working for a private security company. She blamed herself for that too, for years, but when her kids graduated high school and moved on to university she started to accept that maybe it wasn’t entirely her fault.

“When Gawley got promoted and became my boss it was the first time I had to report to someone younger than me.”

“You report to him? Since when.”

Honkey Tonk Women segued into Another Brick in the Wall.

“Been awhile.” Cleary turned the radio down a little. “What do you think, should we let the task force handle it?”

“They’ve got a lot more resources.”

“Still. Can’t hurt to knock on some doors, ask a few questions.”

The sign flashed by. Lofthill one kilometre ahead.

“If you say so.”

 

No one answered at the first house, but at the second, the one on the corner, a woman opened the door.

Cleary introduced herself and Frayne.

“We’re asking about a man who was going door-to-door last week. The one who was found deceased, across from the community centre.”

“Yes,” the woman said, “I spoke to a young officer about that, a few days ago.”

“May we come in?”

“Oh, of course,” the woman said apologetically, as if she’d been negligent not inviting them in at the start. She led the way to the living room, where a faint pine scent hung in the air.

Cleary thought it looked like a builder’s model home, the furniture all new and neutral, the artwork abstract prints, no personal touches at all. A potted lavender on the mantel—realistic, but silk.

“Would you like something to drink? Coffee?”

“No, that’s fine, thank you.” Cleary stood in the middle of the room while Frayne held back near the doorway.

The woman was older than Frayne but younger than Cleary, late forties or early fifties and she cared about her appearance.

Cleary read from her notes, “You’re Kimberly Stephenson, right?”

“Yes. Kim.”

“You were home all day last Tuesday, and no one came to the door, is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I’m sorry,” Cleary said, “you look familiar.”

Kim smiled. “You may have seen my ads. I’m a realtor.”

“Oh right, of course, ‘Experience Counts.’”

“Those new LED billboards,” said Frayne. “Very bright.”

“There are so many young realtors these days, have to do something to compete.”

“For sure.” Cleary nodded. “It might have been around two or two-thirty? You’re sure no one came to the door?”

“Positive. I was sitting right there.” She pointed to the dining room table. “Working on a listing. I like to spend some time on the descriptions, not use the same ones all the time.”

“You can only say ‘stunning’ so often, right?”

“Exactly.”

A bowl of oranges sat slightly off-centre on the table. These were better, thought Cleary. They might actually be real.

“And you didn’t see anyone on the street around that time?”

Cleary took a step so she could get the same angle on the front window that the realtor would have had from the dining table. She bent slightly and looked out at the street.

“No, no one.”

“Did you see a car parked on the street you didn’t recognize?”

“No, sorry.”

“That’s fine,” Cleary said. “And you didn’t go out at all that day?”

Kim hesitated for barely a moment. “I did go out in the evening.”

“To show a house?”

“No, just out.”

“What time was that?”

“I went out for dinner.”

“With your husband?”

“I’m not married.”

Cleary smiled slightly. “I’m divorced myself.”

“I’ve never been married.”

“Right. And what time did you get back?”

This time the hesitation was unmistakable.

“It was pretty late, I went to a show.”

“Did you see anything unusual when you got back? Anyone out on the street, any parked cars?”

“No, nothing.”

Cleary nodded, looked at Frayne and then back at Kim.

“Okay, well, that’s great, thanks for your time.”

As she followed Frayne to the door, Cleary paused and turned, pointing back at the dining table.

“Just curious—are the oranges real?”

The realtor smiled.

“Vinyl, but they’re good, right?”

***

On the sidewalk Cleary jotted in her notebook, speaking quietly.

“Well?”

Frayne pursed his lips. “Something there.”

“Yeah, something there. But what.”

“Or where. Where did she go that night.”

“Right.”

A Mini Cooper pulled into the driveway next door and a young couple got out.

Cleary walked towards them. “Hi there, like to ask you a few questions.”

The man had popped the rear hatch but hadn’t yet opened it. He looked at Cleary. “Are you realtors?”

“No, why.”

“She’s a realtor,” he pointed to the house they’d just left, “and realtors are always coming around asking if we want to sell. Well, more so before.”

“We’re cops.” Cleary held up her ID. Then she looked at her notes. “Are you Matt and Emma Brennan?”

The lock clicked as the guy pressed the hatch shut again. “That’s right.” He was quite pale, thought Cleary. What was the word. Alabaster.

“May we come in?”

“We already talked to the cops.”

“We’re just doing some follow-up.”

“We told the other cop everything.”

Frayne moved next to Cleary and tilted his head. “Why don’t you tell us again.”

Cleary glanced at Frayne and then looked apologetically at Matt, and Emma, who had stood silently near the passenger door. “It would help if we could go over it again. You told the constable that you were home all day last Tuesday, when the victim was going door-to-door.”

“That’s right. I’m still working from home.”

Emma cleared her throat. “So am I.”

Cleary caught it, something passing between the couple. She was glad Frayne didn’t say anything.

“And no one came to the door?”

“No, no one.”

“Did you see anyone on the street that afternoon? Around two-thirty?”

They looked at each other and both shook their heads. Matt rested an arm on the Mini’s roof. “No, I was in my office all afternoon. It’s the spare bedroom, it faces the back yard.”

Cleary looked at Emma. “Where does your office face?”

“Oh, I don’t have an office, I work at the kitchen table mostly. I’m just part-time.”

Cleary let that hang in the air for a moment. Down the street someone fired up a leaf blower.

“What about later? In the evening, did you see anyone?”

“No,” said Matt, and Emma shook her head.

“Did you go out?”

Matt thought for a couple seconds. “Yeah, I did. I take a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class.”

Cleary almost laughed. “Really?”

“It was one of the things I was worried about when we moved, if I’d be able to find an academy out here.”

“In the boonies.”

“Yeah, but there is one here, it’s pretty good.”

“And you were in class last Tuesday night? Did you notice anything when you got home? Any cars parked you didn’t recognize, anything like that?”

“No, nothing.”

Cleary smiled and held out a business card.

“Well, that wasn’t too hard, was it? If you do remember anything, please give me a call.”

It was Emma who stepped forward and took the card. Her hair was a deep red, nearly auburn. Natural, Cleary thought.

As she and Frayne walked to their car, Cleary glanced back. The couple went straight into the house, leaving behind whatever had been in the trunk.

***

As soon as the door closed behind them Emma said, “Whoa, that was close.”

“That was nothing.”

“Why are they still asking questions. Detectives now?”

Matt scoffed. “Detectives? She’s older than my grandmother and that big idiot looks like he failed out of sports management—no, wait. ‘Kinesiology.’”

Emma was looking out the front window. “They’re still there.”

Matt grabbed her arm and yanked. “Don’t let them see you.”

“Ow, let go!”

She pulled loose and stormed into the kitchen.

Matt followed her. “Em, I’m sorry.”

“What if they find out?”

“Find out what? We didn’t do anything. We didn’t kill the guy.”

“Matt, come on. We should turn it in. Get the reward.”

“What’s wrong with you, are you crazy? Who says there even is a reward?

Emma was backed up against the sink. “Me? What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, not a damned thing.”

He was glaring at her, leaning in.

“Matt, calm down.”

She raised her hands to her face as he reached out. She flinched. He grabbed the business card that was still in her hand.

“We’re not turning it in. It’s ours, it was in our house.”

“Okay, fine, you’re right. I’m sorry, I was just a little scared.”

Matt paced to the refrigerator and back. “There’s nothing to be scared of. We’ll just sit on it for a while until this goes away. We don’t need to sell any of it right now, we can hold on for a couple of months.”

“I should be getting more hours in a few weeks.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, “that’s right. It’ll be fine.”

Emma watched him walk out of the kitchen.

She reached for the leash and her hands were shaking. She called out, “I’m going to walk Milo.”

The dog heard it and came running. Emma clipped the leash onto his collar and they walked through the living room.

The door to Matt’s office was closed.

On the sidewalk Emma took a deep breath. She was still shaking slightly.

“Okay, just walk. Everything’s fine. All right, Milo, let’s go.” He pulled on the leash and Emma followed.

They got only a few steps before the dog stopped and turned in a circle.

“Not here, baby.” Emma looked up and saw the curtains fall back into place. The realtor. When they’d first moved in she’d come by with some brownies and there were jokes about them having a little something extra, some local “Delham Kush.” The brownies were in Tupperware but Emma was sure they were really from the grocery store.

Milo squatted.

Emma pulled a bag from the holder attached to the leash. When he was finished she knelt down and scooped. She glanced back at the house and there was the realtor, still behind the curtain.

Standing and tying the bag Emma took another breath. She was calm now, repeating inwardly that everything was going to be fine.

Then she was thinking the realtor looked worried. Probably the market. That rate hike this week.

Emma smiled. It felt good to have something to fall back on, a reserve, even if they couldn’t sell the bars yet.

“Let’s go, Milo.”

Turning the corner she didn’t notice the detectives down the block, sitting in their car, watching.

A moment later the front door opened and Matt emerged, squeezing the key fob at the Mini and popping the rear hatch. He struggled a bit.

“Huh,” said Frayne. “A galvanized tub?”

They had already run the plate. Nothing unusual.

Cleary looked up from the computer display.

“Maybe they’re into crushing grapes.”

Matt managed enough leverage to close the rear hatch without dropping the tub.

“Maybe it’s going to be a giant punchbowl,” said Frayne, starting the engine. “Where to?”

Cleary watched as a garage door rolled closed at the end of the block and a minivan slowly backed down the driveway.

“Head to where they found the body—I’ve got a hunch. And if it’s right...”

Her voice trailed off.

If it’s right, to hell with the Superintendent and his task force.

   

Episode 3 of 10. Continued next week.

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