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Nothing.

I stared at the note Carter had written,
still hidden behind its protective plastic bag. There was a slight separation
before and after the pair of ‘b’s. Nines, I knew now.

99.

And then it hit me. It was an occurrence
number, mixed up and disguised. An occurrence from seven years before Carter
was even hired.

99-2307149.

Twelve years ago. I couldn’t even be
certain that there would be a record left for the occurrence.

I couldn’t even be certain I was right.

THE DAY STARTED AS NORMAL—parading the
troops, reminding everyone of the details of Carter’s funeral, seeing a smirk
from Stanton. I sincerely hoped he was involved somehow, just to see the look
on his face when I took him down. When the constables filed out I did as well,
to a gassed and waiting cruiser ready to take me to the streets.

The night before had been quiet and there
was nothing for us to do until a call came in, nothing but driving around and
looking for crimes in progress or traffic violations. I had other plans—damage
control. I wanted to meet with my officers, to speak to them about Carter and
make sure they were handling his death as well as could be expected.

First on my list was Vern. I’d seen her
crying at the scene, after we discovered Carter’s body, and now she was leading
the charge in collecting donations for Noah’s trust fund. I’d barely seen her
around the station. We had something in common—staying busy was our coping
mechanism.

I sent her a text and asked her to meet me,
a quiet parking lot in the middle of nowhere between London and St. Thomas. She
replied, with her coffee order as requested and I made my way to the rendezvous
point after stopping at the closest Tim Horton’s.

She was already there when I pulled up.

“How you doing?” I handed her coffee, a
large double-double, through our windows.

“Thanks Sarge,” she said. “I’m okay. It’s
just hard to believe he’s gone.”

“I know. You’ve been doing a lot to keep
his memory alive. Knew him well?”

She nodded, took a sip of her still
steaming coffee and wiped at her eyes.

“We dated, for a few months back before he
met Laura.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, it was tough. We were on different
platoons, barely saw each other. Hard to get a relationship off the ground when
you’re both always working.”

I nodded, gently pressing for her to
continue. It wasn’t the gossip I cared for, it was her letting it out.

“I cheated on him, four months in. Biggest
mistake of my life. Once he found out, which didn’t take long, he broke up with
me. Can’t say I blame him.”

“Maybe it was for the best.” I didn’t know
what to say.

“It seemed to be for him. He met Laura
shortly after and now they’ve got a son. And now he’s dead. I just don’t get
it. He seemed so happy, I’m the…”

She stopped, the tears were flowing strong
now.

“I’m sorry, Sarge. Old memories, bad ones.
And a lot of guilt, I guess. It’s all coming back.”

I understood the feeling. Too well.

“And you know the worst part?”

“No,” I said.

“It was fucking Stanton.” She was laughing
now, a waterlogged smile in her eyes.

I cast her a dumbfounded look.

“I know, eh? The guy’s an ass. I was young,
stupid and a little drunk. Next day, it seemed everybody in the station knew.
Except you apparently.”

“Except me.”

“Do you even listen to the rumours?”

“I try not to. There’s been enough about me
over the years. I don’t want to contribute to the gossip about other people.
There still are some about me, from what I hear.”

Vern nodded. She’d obviously heard about
Kara and I.

I thought back to a few years ago, when I
was just starting in homicide. Vern was the first officer on scene at a death,
a natural one as it turned out. She looked so different then, so full of life.
Now, not much past thirty, she looked like she’d lost everything. She’d never
forgiven herself for cheating on Carter and now, she’d found a way to blame
herself for his death.

“What happened Vern, none of it would have
changed anything.”

“I wish I was so certain.”

“You still love him.” She nodded. “But
there’s no way to say that he’d still be alive if things had been different.
You can’t blame yourself.”

“I can. I shouldn’t, but I do.”

We sat for a while longer, changing the
subject to more pleasant ones as I tried to raise her spirits. It pained me to
see her like that, the sadness in her eyes, and yet it drove me forward. There
were a lot of people riding on this, a lot of people whose lives would be
changed once the truth came out.

For better or worse.

I left Vern in the parking lot and drove
out to the main roads, heading back toward London. My next target was obvious
to me: Deville. Stanton clearly didn’t need my help, there was no sadness in
him over Carter’s death and, in fact, he was probably happy. The older guys
seemed to be alright, none of them knew Carter too well and they’d seen enough
in twenty or thirty years on the job to prepare them for almost anything.
Deville was young, younger than Carter and Vern, and for the past couple of
days, the buoyant personality had sunk to the bottom. Barely a word came out of
him. Dealing with Jason yesterday, our attempted jumper, didn’t help at all.

We met twenty minutes later, another
parking lot in another empty area—working the rural areas of Southwestern
Ontario had its bonuses. I handed Deville his requested beverage, a large black
coffee, when he pulled up. I didn’t even need to ask the question, he knew why
I’d called him to meet.

“It’s about Carter, right?”

“Yeah, you seem to be taking it pretty
hard.”

“We got hired on at the same time, met a
couple of times when we were training in Orillia. After that, when we were at
police college and found out both of us were being posted here, we hung out
quite a bit. He and I got put on different platoons, but still hung out as much
as we could. It was a lot less the last couple of years. Especially since Noah
was born, he was always so busy.”

“You’ll be there tomorrow, then?”

“Definitely. Seems like I’ve been there for
a lot of the events in his life. Graduation from OPC, his wedding, now his
funeral. It’s fucked up.”

“Yeah, it is. I know you’re on the CISM
team, are you talking with anyone?”

“Don’t worry, Sir. I’m practicing what I
preach. I’ll be fine.”

We left it at that and I made the rest of
my rounds, meeting with everyone I could. Even Stanton, just so he couldn’t say
I didn’t.

It was nearing two in the afternoon now and
the occurrence number had been tearing at my mind, flashing in front of my eyes
all day. I’d played it cool, not rushed in first thing in the morning. But now
it was time.

I’d checked the number on the in-car
computers with no luck whatsoever. The detachment loomed in the distance, my
answers buried somewhere within.

I logged into the computer in the
Sergeant’s office as soon as I got in. This time, the occurrence number told me
little. It was an old occurrence, the natural death of a nearly one hundred
year old Belmont lady. Why didn’t that come up in the car? It was probably
something simple, something to do with the software that I didn’t understand.
Old occurrences were done on paper, and all records in any death had to be kept
for thirty-five years.

The occurrence wasn’t important. There were
few files on the computer, and the paper files would have been put in the vault
years ago. I looked through the occurrence and found it, something was put into
evidence the day before Carter was killed.

But he gave his wife the paper with the
occurrence number encoded on it two weeks ago. Nothing was making sense. He
must have picked an occurrence, somewhere he could hide evidence if he had any.

Property control was at the other end of
the building and required me passing the cafeteria to get there. Patricia, our
aging but delightful server, would be there as always, ready to throw a green
tea bag into my “World’s Greatest Dad” mug. Except it was sitting in my locker,
gathering dust and had been since my office had been taken over by Dan, Kara’s
new partner. More guilt seeped in at the thought of my son’s creation sitting
unused. I would have to bring it home, give it a place of honour at the front
of the cupboard and use it at the first opportunity.

Patricia was more than happy to give me my
tea in a disposable cup, once I’d parted with my change.

“It’s weird seeing you in uniform,” she
said as I dropped the coins into her outstretched hand.

“Weirder for me,” I said. “I feel like I
should be knocking on doors saying ‘Trick or Treat’.”

She let loose a laugh I’d missed the last
few months. It was a deep belly laugh, one that no one would expect to come
from a petite older lady, and I couldn’t help but laugh as well.

“Anyway, uniform or suit, it’s good to have
you back.”

“Thanks, Patricia.”

The tea in my hand lent me a casual look as
I walked through the halls, offering greetings to whomever I chanced to pass.
The property counter sat in front of me as I rounded the final corner.

“David, how are you?”

He looked up from the computer screen in
front of him.

“Not bad, Lincoln. Good to be back?”

David Jackson, one of our property clerks,
was a civilian employee. I always found it interesting that cops used last
names for almost everyone, but the civilians used first names. Yet another
aspect of the pervasive police culture.

“Not bad. Being a stay-at-home dad for a
few months had its bonuses.”

“I don’t doubt it. Now these young guys are
taking parental leave. I wish they’d allowed that when I had kids.”

David had to be pushing sixty. Two kids, a
boy and a girl like me, but his had moved out long ago.

“Maybe they’ll let me take grandparental
leave,” he said, turning the computer screen to face me. He had commandeered
the desktop, changing the wallpaper to a photo of his new grandson.

“How many are you up to now? Six?”

“Five. Number six won’t be far behind the
way my kids are going.”

“The more the merrier, right?”

“Of course. Now what can I do for you?”

“Need to take some property out, from a
1999 occurrence.” I gave David the occurrence number and waited as he pulled up
the information on his computer.

“An envelope,” he said. “Looks like it was
just put into property a few days ago. Christ, by Jakob. Can’t believe he’s
gone.”

I nodded. “It’s sad, he had a baby son at
home.”

“I know, he was showing me pictures just
last week.” He looked away. Nobody was able to make eye contact any more, it
was too painful. “I’ll grab the property.”

“Thanks,” I said, but he was already gone.

I stood there for a moment, tapping my
fingers on the counter to some beat that was stuck in my head.

“Munroe,” came a voice from behind the
counter. “I thought I heard you.”

Sergeant William Moore, the police overseer
of the property unit.

“Been a while, how are you?”

“Good, good. How was your summer off?”

“Not bad.” It was a question I was tired of
answering.

“Did I hear David right? Here for something
of Carter’s?”

“Yeah,” I said, maintaining eye contact.
“Just something from one of his charges. His unit is on night shift, trying to
clean up one of his cases for the Crown.”

Moore nodded.

“Unbelievable, eh?”

“Yeah.”

David was back, bringing the property with
him and bringing an end to an awkward conversation.

“Here you go, Lincoln. Just sign here.”

An electronic signature pad. I hated the
things, my signature never came out right.

“Kind of weird,” David said. “Sealed
envelope with ‘Important: Read before throwing out’ on it.”

He held up the clear evidence bag for me to
see.

“Why would he put that on something for a
charge? It wouldn’t be tossed without his authorization.”

Moore looked confused.

“Thanks, David,” I said, then reached for
the bag. He handed it over and I turned to walk away.

“Was Jakob even here in ninety-nine?” Shit,
David. Shut up.

“Ninety-nine, eh? Charges are still
pending?”

I turned around and saw Moore looking
straight at the bag. “Yeah, stay of proceedings a while ago. Jakob had to do a
follow-up on it, the investigator retired a couple years back. Crown just wants
to clear some things up.”

“Right,” Moore said. “Bring it back when
you’re done with it, we can destroy it properly. Protocol and all.” He brought
his eyes up to meet mine and I could tell he knew I was lying.

* * *

Three hours later I was on my way home, the
evidence hidden inside my lunch bag. There was no way I was going to risk
opening it at the station, not after being caught in Carter’s locker by Red. My
eyes were glued to my rear view mirror, looking back more than looking forward.
Once I was certain I wasn’t being followed, I pulled in behind a plaza in the
south end of London.