PREVIOUSLY IN KILLER ON THE KAME
(Stop! If you are new to the story, the best way to catch up is to read previous episodes here. Spoilers below!)
Out walking her beagle Milo, Emma Brennan 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 Sergeant 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. Cleary and Frayne soon deduce that Bouchard had targeted only certain new homes in an East Lofthill neighbourhood. They head out to interview Emma and Matt’s next door neighbour, Kim, a realtor, who seems to know more than she’s saying. Likewise, when the detectives speak to Emma and Matt soon after, they too appear to be hiding something. Later, Matt angrily tells Emma not to worry—he has everything under control. Detective Sergeant Cleary has a hunch and decides to follow it.
EPISODE 4 CUESTA VERDE
On the Niagara Constabulary Service organization chart, Superintendent Richard Gawley was listed right under the Deputy Chief as head of the Emergency and Investigative Services branch, which in turn was divided into more groups, one of which was Major Crimes, and included in that was Homicide, Forensic Services, Polygraph, Fraud, and Crimestoppers. Each had its own budget and its own operational plan and Gawley worked very hard not to play favourites.
Which is why the Superintendent kept Detective Sergeant Janice Cleary waiting outside his office for ten minutes before ushering her in to take a seat across the desk.
And why he began the meeting by asking her, “How is the investigation coming along?”
Cleary knew the game, and her role.
“We’re gathering a lot of information that will be collated later today. We may have to circle back to some of the earlier respondents. Would you like to be looped in?”
Gawley’s expression flirted with a scowl, and he started to say something sharp, but his management training hit the antilocks and stopped him short. Instead, he paused briefly before continuing.
“I had a video call with Superintendent Price with the OPP this morning. He has a file on our deceased Mr. Bouchard.”
Cleary nodded. “We all have a file. He has a record.”
“Superintendent Price is going to oversee the approach to Bouchard’s known associates.”
“The ones he was in prison with?”
“There are ongoing operations,” Gawley said. “Some involve undercover and confidential informants, so there won’t be direct communication.”
Cleary could hear the relief in Gawley’s voice. She was glad he’d gotten past her sarcasm so quickly even though she wasn’t sorry she’d taken that tone. If she ever showed up for another performance review she’d expect to hear something about her communication skills, but the way she was going she’d retire before that meeting ever happened.
“So it’s really been taken away from us?”
“It has become part of a larger investigation.”
“And our role has been redefined?”
“Look, Cleary, there are procedures to be followed.”
He was losing his cool so Cleary stood up. “I understand, sir.”
As she walked out the door she heard him telling her to “coordinate with forensics,” and something about collating and distributing the files to the appropriate recipients.
Frayne was waiting in the conference room. The map with the coloured pins was still on the wall.
He saw her expression. “So, do I take this down?”
“No, leave it.”
“We’re still on this?”
“Of course we are.”
“Are we going to Kingston?”
“That’s going to be handled by someone else.”
Frayne made a face.
“They say it’s part of an ongoing investigation so they have to be careful who they talk to, who they tip off about what they know.”
Frayne patted his notebook. “Okay, well, we got a call on the tip line. Can we follow it up?”
Cleary nodded. “Of course. What is it.”
Frayne smiled.
“Where Bouchard’s body was found? Guy saw a car stop there at about two o’clock that morning. Wants to tell us about it.”
*
As they pulled into the East Lofthill parking lot Cleary gestured at the McDonalds. “You know, this plaza could be in any city in any province in this country. We could be in Calgary. A few miles outside Halifax.”
“And?”
“There must be thousands of these, the same bland style trying so hard not to look as cheap as it is, the same chain stores, the same SUVs in the same cramped parking lot.”
Frayne turned sharply, rubbing tires against a curb.
“You got the cramped thing right. But the people are different, anyway.”
Cleary watched a morbidly obese man leave a pita joint carrying two takeout bags, hobbling to his car, knee cartilage ground to dust by thirty years of fast food and canned beer.
“Are they so different?”
Frayne parked and looked at his watch. “We’re early, you want a coffee? Tim’s, Mickey D, or Starbucks.”
“So many choices.”
Frayne flipped up his sun visor. “No one wants to admit it,” but the Mickey D’s is the best.” His phone beeped as he opened the door. He swiped down. “He can see us now.”
“That’s nice of him.”
They got out of the car and walked to the gym, the last unit in the plaza. As they got to it the door opened and a man stepped out, pulling on a parka over his workout clothes.
Frayne stopped typing on his phone. “Hey, are you Darius?”
“Yes, you’re Constable Frayne?”
“Detective Constable, this is Detective Sergeant Cleary.”
Darius held out his hand but switched to a fist and bumped Frayne and then Cleary. “My handshaking days are over. Nothing personal.”
“I’m right there with you,” said Cleary. She nodded toward Starbucks. “You want to get a coffee?
Darius checked his watch and squinted apologetically.
“I’ve only got a few minutes. We can talk here if that’s okay.”
Frayne pulled out his notebook. “That’s fine. Can you tell us what you told the officer when you called the tip line?”
“Sure, yeah, of course.” Darius stepped away from the gym’s entrance and zipped up his coat. “Like I said, I was getting in my truck right there,” he pointed to a spot about where Frayne and Cleary had parked, “and I saw the car stop over there.” He pointed to the construction site between the plaza and the Delham Community Centre, several hundred feet away.
“What time was this?”
“Almost exactly two a.m. I just finished working out.”
“The gym is open all night?”
“Twenty-four seven. There’s no staff overnight—you use the app to get in.” Darius held up his phone.
“I work at GM, I’m on afternoons, finish at eleven. It was a little after midnight when I got here.”
Cleary nodded. “Were you alone?”
“Yeah, just me. So, I saw the car stop and someone get out.”
“What did they do?”
“I don’t know. I was getting in my truck. I didn’t watch him—I think it was a man, but it was pretty dark over there.”
“Which way did he, or they come from?”
“East, from Royce Road.”
“Did you see them drive away?”
“Yeah. I got into my truck, checked my phone, and then I saw the car headed that way.” He pointed toward the community center.
Frayne looked up from his notebook. “Could you tell what kind of car it was?”
“No, sorry. But it was a car. Not a truck or an SUV. Kind of small.”
“How long was it stopped for?”
“Not long. I’d say less than a minute.”
Cleary waved toward the highway running past the plaza.
“Did they turn this way, toward Highway 20?”
Darius shook his head. “No, they went the other way.” He pointed past the grocery store.
“Okay, that’s very helpful, thank you.”
“I didn’t think anything of it at the time, you know, but then when I saw on Twitter about a body being found there and all. Do you think that’s what it was, someone dumping a body?”
“You never know.”
“Cool.” Darius smiled a little, now having a story to tell for years about the night he saw a corpse being dumped.
Cleary shut her notebook. “Thanks for letting us know. We have your contact information if we need to talk to you again.”
“Okay, sure.” Darius walked across the lot and got into a pickup—a Ford, noted Frayne, a little odd for a GM worker, but not unheard of.
He looked at Cleary. “It’s not a great place to dump a body. Kind of out in the open.”
“But, two in the morning,” Cleary said, “only stopped for a second. It’s a risk but a low risk.”
Frayne nodded. “Maybe Gawley’s right. Maybe it was a message to the construction site.”
Cleary tilted her head. They waited for a loud semi to pass along 20.
“Maybe. We did have few big thefts of construction equipment years back. We ran an investigation.”
“What happened?”
Cleary shrugged. “The thefts stopped. We figured it was an inside job and they saw us getting closer.”
“Maybe someone’s thinking about getting back into it. They’re just starting this project—lots of equipment coming eventually."
Cleary nodded, then pointed at the community centre. “There’s no security cameras on the construction site yet, and the community centre cameras gave us nothing. Where the body was dumped was out of view.”
Frayne looked at the grocery store. “According to Darius, they drove toward town—not down here to 20, not back to Royce Road.”
“Right. Past more construction sites.”
“But also towards finished houses. So many new ones.”
Cleary pursed her lips. “Okay, this is starting to look like it might be a task force issue after all.”
“So, we can move on?”
“You have a real future in the force, son.”
“Thanks?”
Cleary nodded toward their car and starting walked toward it.
“One more guy I’d like to talk to. Sort of an old friend—that I helped send away for awhile. Let’s go for a little scenic drive.”
Frayne shook his head. He was starting to like the idea of doing something they weren’t supposed to.
Sitting at Kim’s kitchen table, looking across the fence into her own backyard, Emma nodded. “I’d like to do something like that, a water feature, or something. Matt wants a pizza oven.”
Kim put two mugs of coffee on the table and sat down. “They’re both good when it comes time to sell.”
“When we moved in we thought this was our forever home.” Emma shook her head. “As if anything is forever.”
“You grow, you change.”
“And that was before there were dead bodies and cops everywhere.”
Kim frowned. “Well, there was only the one body, and I’m pretty sure this will be the only time. I mean, it’s Delham, not...Brampton.”
Emma looked around the spotless kitchen, antiseptic even. Almost as if no one actually lived there. “Has it been bad for business? Have clients mentioned it?”
Kim raised an eyebrow. “Not a whole lot of clients right now anyway, but don’t worry. Interest rates will have a lot bigger effect on prices than a dead guy who’s already been pretty much forgotten.”
Emma sipped on her coffee, thinking that she hadn’t forgotten about the dead guy at all. She warmed her hands around the mug.
“When Matt and I first moved down here we thought we’d stumbled on to a secret. If we mentioned Niagara to anyone in Toronto they said Niagara-on-the-Lake was too expensive. They’d never heard of anywhere else around here. Now they’re all like, wow you got such a great deal. I feel like we got in just in time.”
Kim nodded. “It seems to be stabilizing now.”
“So, is it a good time to sell?”
“If you’ve owned for more than five years it’s always a good time to sell.”
“Was that your plan, to live here for five years and then sell?”
Kim brushed a speck of dust from the table. “It’s never a good idea to look at your home as an investment.” She paused and smiled. “But yes, that’s what I thought I’d do. Flip and move up the ladder.”
“But now with the market crashing and interest rates going up you’re trapped here like we are.”
“I wouldn’t say trapped. My aunt lives in Lofthill, so that’s nice. If I sold I’d stay here, maybe look at North Delham.”
Kim watched Emma take another sip. They’d had maybe half a dozen conversations in the three years they’d been next-door neighbours, just the way it is in these new subdivisions, Kim figured, but a few days ago, when she was watching the cops leave, there was Emma looking back at her from the sidewalk. So she took a chance and invited her over for coffee when she saw Matt drive off a half hour ago.
Emma sighed. “We were thinking about selling, we were going to talk to you.”
“If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”
“When I got knocked down to part-time it was a big hit, you know? And now with interest rates going up, I don’t know.”
“You could downsize,” Kim said. “There are some wonderful, cute houses listed now. Sellers are motivated—we’re back to a buyer’s market.”
Emma smiled a little. “Maybe we won’t have to, looks like things might be picking up.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah,” Emma said. “It’s good, I hope so, it’s been pretty tense for a while.”
“These past couple of years have been hard on everyone,” Kim said.
She looked at Emma and had a feeling things weren’t going to get better for her right away. Kim had seen their car, the Mini, pulling into the driveway long after midnight with only one of them in it, and more than once. You can never really know what goes on in someone else’s marriage. Who knows—maybe they were both having affairs.
Of course, Kim wasn’t going to say anything about that, because then she might have to admit what she was doing coming home so late herself.
And on the night before the dead guy’s body was found.
As they crested the rise, Frayne could see that the oncoming lane was clear. He floored it, passing the combine at long last. Silent giants rose left and right—bright white turbines, blades slowly turning, each angled slightly differently into the southwest breeze. There were still a few wet patches from the rain the night before. Any day now that’ll be snow, thought Frayne.
He squinted at a road sign ahead. “If you’d just given me the address I could have put it in the GPS. You wouldn’t have to be giving me all these directions.”
“I don’t know the address, I just know how to get there. Turn left.”
They’d been driving for twenty minutes on various two-lane roads threaded between fields that alternated from acres of dried cornstalks to acres of empty soil, quietly resigned to winter’s approach. Frayne had only a vague idea where they were. Still on the escarpment, maybe on the way to Dunnville, but if that’s where they were going they weren’t taking the route he would have.
The left turn wasn’t the one they wanted. He speeded up again. “You know, I’m not from around here.”
“I thought you were from St. Catharines.”
“My grandparents were. I grew up in Mississauga.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Same as everyone else, getting out of Toronto.” Frayne waved a hand. “Not really, this was the best job offer I got. I heard Niagara, I thought wine tastings and golf. Not this, uh, wilderness.”
Cleary chuckled. “We definitely be out in the country today, boy. Turn there, after that big tree.”
“Is that a driveway?”
“No, it’s still public, keep going.”
Public maybe, but it had been a long time since it was paved. Frayne slowed to avoid a bunch of potholes. Lucky he did. One second the road was clear the next second a massive deer was at a dead stop right in front of them. Eyes black as coal. Frayne slammed on the brakes. It was the largest doe Cleary had ever seen—a chestnut and white giant—tail standing in alarm. It vanished as fast as it appeared, almost clipping the bumper jumping into the bush on the other side.
“Jesus” said Frayne. “Too close.”
Cleary tried to see where the deer had gone. “The worst part would’ve been the paperwork. Damage to vehicle—ninety minutes, minimum.”
*
The bush darkened the deeper they entered. Mustard-yellow confetti fluttered down from the maples—another good front pushes through and they'll all be bare figured Cleary.
She saw the bend ahead. “Thing is, I don’t know if this place even has an address.”
“Everywhere has an address,” Frayne said. “You taking us to Cuesta Verde?”
“What?”
“It’s where the family lived in Poltergeist.”
Cleary looked at Frayne. “Poltergeist?”
“Yeah, it’s a movie about—”
“I know what Poltergeist is”
“An old time classic, right?”
“Old ti—” Cleary sighed. She’d been in her last year of high school when it came out. She’d nearly wet herself shrieking one second and giggling the next.
“I caught the end last night. There’s a street sign in one of the last shots, ‘Cuesta Verde,’ and I remembered that cuesta is Spanish for a steep hill. Like the Lofthill Kame?”
“You speak Spanish?”
Frayne smiled. “Lo hago bien, señora. Two Latin girlfriends in a row. Self-defense.” He shrugged. “Also took it at school.”
“Dios mío,” said Cleary, but she was impressed.
They rounded another curve.
Cleary tapped the dashboard. “Here, pull in here.”
They plunged down a dip then lurched up the other side into a yard filled with old cars, trucks, campers, and the shells of a couple of school buses. Two shipping containers rotted next to each other under a row of pines. A one-and-a-half-storey Cape Cod stood on the other side of the clearing, paint flaking from twin dormers bugging out of a roof missing half its shingles.
Frayne parked near an upside down wheelbarrow and jabbed at the house. “I know this place, I served a warrant here. Must’ve been six, seven years ago.”
Cleary unbuckled. “Wouldn’t be surprised. Wait here.”
An old man came out of the front door, pulling on a leather coat whose texture matched his face. He yelled at Cleary. “We’re closed, get lost.”
Frayne muttered to himself, “This was open once?” He cracked his window to hear.
Cleary walked a few more steps, then stopped.
“Hey, Gerry, it’s me, Janice.”
The old man squinted. “What the hell do you want.”
“It’s good to see you, too.”
“I haven’t seen a cop in years, Don’t want to now.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep your name out of it.”
“I’m not in anything to be kept out of.”
Motion.
Under the pines.
A barrel-chested Rottweiler bolted from behind the shipping containers, headed for Cleary.
She took a few more steps toward the man. “You remember how you were getting involved in construction equipment—bulldozers and such—about five years back.”
“Who told you that?” The man clicked his tongue. The dog skidded to a stop and stood next to him, growling. It was missing an ear.
“Your name came up in some interviews.”
The geezer’s eyes bulged like he’d been punched in the stomach. “What the hell you talking about?”
Frayne got out of the car, keeping an eye on the dog. His sidearm held fifteen rounds. He figured he’d need four, maybe five. These kinds of dogs. They don’t give up until they’re down for good.
“Yeah, someone talked about you.”
The man spit on the ground. The Rottweiler watched Frayne’s slow stroll toward Cleary.
“They lied.”
“Don’t you want to know what they said?”
“Whatever they said was a lie.” His face had gone red.
Frayne stopped a few feet behind Cleary. He knew she knew he was there. He did a quick recon of the yard. No one else visible. Only one road in. A metal shed groaned in the wind.
“The thing is, Gerry,” Cleary said, “your name doesn’t have to come up now.”
“No reason it would, I’m not doing anything now, and I didn’t do nothing then.”
Cleary looked at the dog, then back at the man.
“That’s right, you didn’t. Why not?”
“What do you mean, why not?”
“Why didn’t you go through with it—then?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You can tell me now or we can hand you over to the OPP. They’ve got themselves a shiny task force. I understand they are highly motivated.”
Cleary waved her hands, wider and wider, taking in the vehicles, the heaps of pipe and scrap metal, the house.
“They’ll rip this place apart.”
She regarded the dog. A long strand of drool was proving the theory of gravity.
“Where’s his ear?”
“In a dead Doberman’s gut.” The man shook his head. “You damned cops are all the same.”
“Why didn’t you go through with it?”
“I wasn’t involved. Some guys came and talked to me.”
“Who was that?”
“I only knew one of them. He’s the reason it didn’t go past talk.”
“How so?”
The guy looked at the ground. The Rottweiler inched forward.
“From what I heard he was the inside guy—he was working construction and then. I don’t know. The thing was planned. We were ready. Then he disappears. Gone. Not a fart since.”
“And you don’t know his name?”
The man shrugged. “Carm. Carmine.”
“The name Leonard Bouchard mean anything?”
“Never heard of him.”
Cleary let a few seconds pass. She nodded. “There you go. That wasn’t too hard.”
“So now we’re done. You best be on your way, before something happens that’s outta my control.”
He turned and spit again, and started walking back toward the house.
The Rottweiler stayed. It cocked its head just so, like it was straining to hear something—something like a command.
Cleary headed for the car, leaving Frayne to walk backwards, not breaking eye contact with the dog, which he realized too late probably wasn’t the best choice.
At the house the man pushed open the door and turned to look back at the dog and Frayne.
“Fritz,” he said.
The Rottweiler tensed, staring directly at Frayne.
Frayne heard Cleary close the passenger door.
The geezer raised a hand. He snapped his fingers.
“Not today.”
The dog blinked. Frayne was no canine expert, but he knew a disappointed brawler when he saw one. Fritz turned and walked back toward the shipping containers, stopping to lift a leg on a pile of wood chips.
Frayne opened the door and slid into the car, his pulse racing. A buddy he went to the academy with had to take out a German Shepherd once, totally justified, but it broke him up for long time.
He watched Cleary watching the house. “That was mostly bluff, right? The OPP stuff?”
Cleary shrugged. “You play enough poker you start seeing the same tells time after time. Old Gerry, here. He was crap at trying to hide a crap hand. He got too angry too fast. I figured there had to be something.”
“You think he was telling the truth?”
Cleary looked at the computer screen. “Missing person, Carmine Rizzolo, last seen April 6th, 2019, in Niagara Falls.”
“Stealing construction equipment?”
“Let’s head back, see what we see.”
Frayne started the car and swung it around.
Cleary swiped at her phone, checking email. “Now you can use your fancy GPS, hombre. Unless you left breadcrumbs we can follow back to civilization.”
Episode 4 of 10. Continued next week.
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