Deadline (18 page)

“Excuse me,” Colin said. “Were you working here Monday morning?”

The student nodded and took a bite from a bagel he was hiding in a wooden cubby normally used for ECE application forms. He had already dropped quite a few crumbs on the laptop keyboard but didn’t seem to care.

Colin knew that Shona was the one who was supposed to pick up the mail on Monday mornings. It was part of her punishment for faking the Take Back the Night story.

“Did you see anyone drop anything in the newspaper’s drop box that morning?” Colin asked.

“Cops already asked me that,” the student said, spraying more bagel crumbs. “I told ‘em same thing I’ll tell you. I have no idea. There were like, a thousand people in here on Monday morning. I can’t keep track of every piece of mail that comes through the place.”

In theory, the person sitting at the desk was supposed to make sure that whoever was picking up the mail for an entire department, like the registrar or the newspaper, was the person authorised to do so. Colin knew, however, that this never happened. Half the time, in fact, there wasn’t even anyone sitting at the desk. It was a long shot, but he figured it was worth checking out.

“Shona is the one who picks up the newspaper’s mail,” he said. “Did you see anyone other than her from the newspaper down here that morning?”

The student shrugged. “Sorry man. I don’t read the newspaper.”

Join the club
, thought Colin, turning to go. He stepped out into the hall without paying attention to where he was going and collided with someone going the other way. There was a crash as something heavy and metallic hit the floor and an oddly familiar voice shouted: “Hey! Watch where you’re goin’, asshole!”

Colin was about to apologize when he turned and saw a familiar figure reaching down to grab a rusty metal toolbox off the ground. He knew the face, but for the life of him, he couldn’t put a name to it.

The guy he had run into was unshaven and wearing baggy track pants and a grey hoodie with some sort of black stain on the left arm. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties and had three friends behind him, all of whom were also carrying toolboxes.

“Hey Mitchell!” the guy said, looking at Colin for the first time. “Didn’t expect to see you in this shithole.”

The name came to Colin in a flash. This guy was Dan Mellard. He and Colin had gone to the same high school for three years.

“Hey…Dan?” Colin said.

Mellard said something under his breath to one of his friends, who looked at Colin and laughed before they continued down the hall. Colin watched them go. He had never been friends with Dan Mellard. In fact, the two of them were never in any classes together and, until today, had never said a word to each other. Despite that, Colin knew him quite well.

Dan Mellard had been kicked out of school in the middle of Grade 12. A Grade 10 student had accidentally scuffed the side of Mellard’s father’s car with the handlebars of his bike and Mellard had beaten the kid into a coma with a tire iron. Mellard had been expelled on the same day that the prosecutor brought forward the aggravated assault charges.

Colin reached into his pocket and grabbed his car keys. An idea had dropped into his head. Proving that idea was probably going to require breaking the law, but he was willing to take the chance.

He just needed to talk somebody else into agreeing with him first.

W
hen Colin stepped into the lobby of police headquarters, he was quite happy to see the same desk sergeant out front who had been there the first time.

“Not you again,” the sergeant grunted.

Colin smiled. “I’m repeatedly offensive.”

The sergeant gestured up over his shoulder. “They know you’re coming?”

Colin quickly signed in and yawned, doing his best to appear inconvenienced. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Believe me.”

The sergeant waited until Colin had finished signing in and handed him a visitor’s badge. It was coded to allow access to certain parts of the building. Most of the doors wouldn’t open and the elevators wouldn’t operate unless it was first swiped against a nearby sensor.

“Okay,” the sergeant muttered. “Go ahead.”

Colin took the badge and headed for the bank of elevators at the back. Luckily, the door opened as soon as he swiped the card. He didn’t want to stand there for long enough that the guy behind the desk started to get second thoughts. He stepped into the elevator and looked at the options. The last time he had been here, he’d been on four. That was where the homicide and sex crimes units were located. He wanted to avoid those floors at all costs. The last thing he needed to do was run into Giordino or Betts. He pushed seven. He had no idea what was up there, but he could always start at the top and work his way down.

The doors opened and Colin stepped cautiously out into a quiet hallway. The sign on the wall in front of the elevators advised that meeting rooms were on the left and Administration and Evidence were on the right. Colin turned right and started walking. He had only gone about five steps when a door opened up ahead and Giordino and Betts stepped out. They were chatting with each other.

Colin panicked and grabbed the handle of the first door he came to. It didn’t open. He remembered to swipe the pass. There was a small beep and the handle clicked. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

He was in an evidence storage room. There was a small desk in front of him and rows and rows of storage shelves in the back. Hanging from one of the shelves closest to the desk was a huge polar bear skin rug with a large brown stain running down the back that Colin assumed was blood. Somebody had stuck a bright red new year’s party hat on the bear’s head and attached a “HI! MY NAME IS” meeting sticker with the name “JOJO” scrawled in the white space to one of the paws. Colin assumed it was some sort of inside joke. There was no one sitting at the desk. A voice from somewhere in the back called out: “Be right there!”

Colin froze. He’d only been in the building for a minute and already he was screwed. He moved away from the door and checked carefully through the glass to see if Giordino and Betts were still in the hallway. He could see them moving in his direction and backed sharply against the wall so they wouldn’t see him when they went past.

There was a clunk from the back as something was dropped on one of the shelves and then Colin heard footsteps approaching on the white tile floor.

Colin grabbed the door handle, which once again failed to turn. He remembered the card and swiped it. There was another beep and the door swung open. Colin stuck his head out into the hall to make sure the coast was clear. Giordino and Betts were standing in front of the elevator talking about something, but Colin was too far away and his heart was hammering too loudly in his ears to make it out.

Come on!
he thought.
There should be an elevator right there! I just got off one!

After what seemed like an approximation of eternity, the doors opened and Giordino and Betts stepped inside. Colin practically threw himself into the hall and raced to the corner, where he nearly collided with a uniformed officer going the other way.

“Whoa!” said the cop. “What’s the rush?”

“Sorry,” Colin said, slightly out of breath.

The cop looked at Colin’s visitor’s badge, which was attached to the front of his belt. “Can I help you with something?”

“Yeah,” Colin said. “I’m looking for Darryl. He sent me out to grab a new router because the one he had was shorted out, but he forgot to tell me where he was going to be and his phone seems to be off.”

This was Colin’s cover story in the event he ran into anyone who questioned him and he was quite proud of himself for getting it almost exactly right. He was originally going to say that he’d been sent out for a wireless router, but changed it at the last second because he wasn’t sure if they had any of those at HQ. Wireless access did create security issues for sensitive information, after all.

The cop looked Colin up and down. “You don’t seem to be carrying a router.”

Colin tried not to panic. “No, because he didn’t tell me which one he wanted. The van’s in the lot, but I didn’t want to carry eight of them up here only to find out the one he wanted was the one I left behind.”

“You with SecuriNet?” the cop asked.

Colin nodded. “Yep.” Was that the name of the company Darryl worked for? He was pretty sure it was. If it wasn’t, he was toast.

The cop seemed to think for a minute. Whether he was trying to figure out if Colin was full of it or not, Colin couldn’t tell.

“I think I saw one of your guys down on three,” he said. “Been in Records for the last couple days.”

“Records? Thanks.” Colin turned and started walking back towards the elevators. He was halfway down the hall when the cop called after him.

“Hey!”

Colin turned, but kept walking.

“Don’t all you SecuriNet guys have those red ID badges?” the cop said, gesturing to the lone visitor’s badge on Colin’s belt.

“It’s my day off,” Colin said. “I’m not even supposed to be here right now. Other guy got the flu. Thanks again!”

Colin gave a friendly wave and stabbed the elevator call button. As soon as the door opened, he stepped inside as quickly and, he hoped, unsuspiciously as possible, swiped the badge and hit 3. The doors closed and the elevator started moving down. Colin considered the fact that what he was doing was incredibly stupid, but it was only a fraction as stupid as what he was about to do.

He got off the elevator on the third floor and made his way to Records, where he found Darryl on a ladder stringing blue network cable through open panels in the suspended ceiling.

“Colin?” Darryl said, looking down. “What the hell are you doing here? They bust you again?”

Colin closed the door and checked to make sure there was no one else in the room, then approached the ladder slowly.

“Hey Darryl,” he said. “I need a favour.”

T
he old man was having a hard time understanding what was going on.

Antonio Travere, aged 85, was standing in front of Colin’s door going through a large number of keys on a huge metal ring looking for the one that would open the door in front of him. Behind him were Giordino, Betts and three uniformed officers, none of whom were doing a great job of hiding their impatience.

“I no unnerstand,” the old man said. “He been renting from me for two year. Is there some kinda problem?”

Travere was the landlord of Colin’s apartment building. He had been in the middle of fixing a blocked toilet in one of the many other units he managed around town when he got a call from police advising him that he needed to proceed to 121 Swift Current Road, apartment 102 immediately to assist police with the execution of a search warrant. Despite his age, Travere liked to do most of the maintenance on his properties himself. He didn’t like leaving the work to either of his two sons, both of whom he suspected of plotting to swoop in and cash out on his vast holdings at the first sign of any infirmity.

“As I explained, Mr. Travere, we have a warrant to search these premises,” Giordino said, holding up the document, a copy of which was already sticking out of the old man’s back pocket. “All we need you to do is open the door.”

Travere tried a key that didn’t work and then went back to slowly hunting through the others. Betts shifted his feet and cursed under his breath.

“He good tenant,” Travere said. “He never late with the rent.”

“He’s a fuckin’ millionaire, so I would guess not,” Betts muttered.

Giordino shot Betts a warning look. Travere reminded her more than a little of her grandfather. If she knew anything about old Italian men, it was that the more you rushed them, the slower they went.

“I’m sure he is, Mr. Travere,” Giordino said.

“I see you on TV,” Travere said, pointing at Giordino. “This no have nothin’ to do with them people gettin’ killed, I hope?”

Betts had had enough. He stepped around Giordino and shook the keys in the old man’s hand. “Just open the door for us, grandpa,” he said. “The longer we wait, the more likely we’re gonna want to check all your apartments to make sure they meet fire code.
Capiche, paisan
?”

The old man looked at Betts with confusion. As soon as he found the right key and unlocked the door, Betts moved him back out of the way, into the custody of one of the uniforms. Once that was done, Betts opened the door, pulled his gun (rather dramatically, Giordino thought) out of his shoulder holster, and stepped inside.

Giordino pulled on a pair of latex gloves and followed. The warrant had been Betts’s idea. She didn’t think it was going to turn anything up, but she couldn’t afford to overlook the possibility from the standpoint of the investigation. Mitchell was one of the few people with a connection to all three victims and had been less than forthcoming over the course of questioning. That didn’t make him a killer, but if he wasn’t willing to let them look around his place voluntarily, then they would have to do it the hard way. Unfortunately, as far as Betts was concerned, every way was the hard way.

And her assumption that they wouldn’t find anything of interest was going to turn out to be completely wrong.

D
arryl’s response was exactly what Colin had expected.

“Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?”

“Look,” Colin said. “I know it seems crazy—”

Darryl laughed. “Crazy? You don’t know shit! Do you have any idea what would happen to me if they found out I’d done that? Not only would I be fired. Not only would my company lose the contract and sue me for a hundred million dollars. I’d be arrested! I’d go from stringing cable up here to playing buttfuck bingo in the holding cells downstairs with the murderers and pedophiles!”

Colin glanced at the door and motioned for Darryl to keep his voice down. “Look, Darryl—”

“No!” Darryl said, shifting from a shout to a furious whisper. “No fucking way! Look, Carly and I are getting married in the spring, okay? In Hawaii. We’re looking to buy a house. You think I’m gonna put all that on the line just because you
ask
me to?”