Last Call (19 page)

* * *

Dean said, “You sure you’re okay with this?”

They were parked outside Zak’s Roadhouse. The place was open but the gravel lot was almost abandoned, just a couple of pickups, a black SUV and an idling semi, the driver at the wheel combing his thin hair in the rearview.

Jim said, “It’s ten-thirty in the morning. I’m not thinking about booze right now, okay? I’m good.”

Dean said okay and they went inside, seeing an old guy in coveralls sweeping the plank floor, a waitress swabbing tables and a massively obese bartender toweling out beer mugs. Dean headed for the waitress and Jim took the barkeep, showing him Trish’s picture, asking if he’d ever seen her before.

“Nope, never seen her. Who is she?”

“My daughter,” Jim said. “She’s missing.”

The bartender had another look at the photo. “Oh, right, I seen it on the news the other night. The cops think somebody grabbed her?”

“They don’t know yet.”

“We had a gal grabbed right out here in the parking lot last summer. You must’ve heard about that? Found her next morning in a payloader, chopped in twenty pieces, not a tooth left in her... Oh, Jesus Christ, man, I’m sorry. That was in poor taste.” He plunked a frosted mug on the polished bar. “Here, let me buy you a cold one.”

Jim’s dry tongue ran his lips and he eyed the shiny spigots. A golden drop of brew hung from the nearest one, catching the sunlight.

He said, “No thanks,” and the barkeep said, “That’s cool,” as Jim double-timed it to  the exit. “Good luck with your kid.”

Dean caught up to him in the parking lot and put a hand on his shoulder, making him flinch, Dean saying, “Hey, buddy, you okay?”

Jim said, “I’m fine.” But he wasn’t.

“Alright, then. Let’s hit the road.”

Jim followed Dean back to the car, seeing that golden bead clinging to the spigot, healing elixir gleaming in the sunlight.

* * *

They spent the balance of that day engaged in an increasingly pointless pursuit, circling back over the same ground, beating it flat.

It was full dark now and Dean was nodding at the wheel, the unspooling center line lulling him perilously close to sleep. Jim drowsed beside him, muttering from some barren dreamscape.

Yawning, Dean said, “Jim?” and Jim opened his eyes. “Sorry to wake you, man, but I’m trashed. I think we should find a room for the night, okay? My treat. I can’t spend another night trying to sleep in this car.”

Jim agreed, turning the radio up now to catch a newsbreak:
“A grisly development in the ongoing missing persons cases,”
the newscaster said.
“A number of decayed body parts were discovered this morning in the Muskoka area woods by two local teens. So far police have declined to comment, but an informed source at the coroner’s office told an Action News reporter that the remains, strung up in trees like macabre ornaments, are believed to belong to a number of young women who’ve gone missing in the region over the past several months.”

Jim said, “Oh, no...”

Dean silenced the radio. “Doesn’t mean it’s Trish,” he said. “Let’s get off the highway, give Boland a call.”

Jim turned the radio back on.

“O.P.P. Corporal Skip Sullivan says that police specialists have many hours of work ahead of them, both at the scene and in the forensics lab, before much more can be concluded about this horrific discovery.”

Dean pulled into an abandoned rest stop and shut off the engine.

Boland had given Jim his cell number and Jim dialed it now, getting out of the car as the call connected. By the fourth ring he was standing at a guard rail overlooking a marshy lake, a pair of loons down there roosting in the moonlight. He could sense Dean standing behind him.

The detective said, “Boland.”

Jim said, “I just heard the news.”

“Jim, Jesus, I was just about to give you a call. I wanted to get to you before you heard about it that way. Listen, man, I’ve got to be honest with you, it doesn’t look good. I’ve already spoken to Sally. Her sister’s with her now.” Jim heard the detective take a breath. “We found some of your daughter’s clothing in one of the bags, and a burnt-wood talisman Sally said you made for her years ago. And...we found one of Trish’s fingers, Jim. Sally verified it. There was a band aid on it she put there herself.”

Something tightened in Jim’s chest. “Is she dead?”

“We can’t say for certain yet. The pathologist should be able to...sort things out soon enough. I told Sally not to give up hope, but to prepare herself for the worst. I’m sorry, Jim. Now that we have some solid evidence, though, we’re going after this guy full throttle, setting up an on-site command post and getting the FBI involved—”

Jim hung up. When he turned from the guard rail with tears on his face Dean said, “What did he say?”

“Trish is dead.”

* * *

Dan Boland tucked his cell phone away, then flicked his cigar into the gravel behind the abandoned warehouse they’d secured as an incident command post and tactical staging area. Situated on a remote stretch of Highway 69 north of Barrie, the hangar-like structure had once been a storage depot for Goodyear Tires, the faded logo still visible above the loading bay in the light of an old porcelain gooseneck, dozens of moths up there now, bumping their empty heads against the caged bulb. Local authorities had confiscated the property following a multi-million dollar drug bust the previous summer, the entire back end of the place stacked to the rafters with bales of marijuana when the SWAT team broke in. Dan was friendly with the mayor, who had graciously allowed them to convene here.

Interacting with the family members of murder victims was the part of the job Dan most dreaded—and the part he was least adept at—and after speaking to Jim Gamble he allowed himself a few minutes alone out here in the dark, sucking the clean country air into his lungs and thinking he might puke, the taste of that cigar souring his stomach.

He wanted to call Jim back, do a better job of it, but he knew it was too late. Why in God’s name had he started talking about the investigation? The man had to know that what he’d meant by ‘solid evidence’ included his daughter’s severed finger. What Gamble needed now was compassion, not clinical details and bullshit bravado. Small wonder the guy hung up on him.
Fuck this case.

A mosquito flew into Dan’s ear and he slapped it too hard, setting off a bright ringing in his skull. He got the little sucker, though, a tiny smear of blood on his palm next to the insect’s macerated remains.

He wiped his hand on his pants and went back inside.

The IT guys were still hard at work in here under the glaring fluorescents, running cables, installing computers and rigging phone lines, a few police personnel busy at the work stations already in place.

Alec Dunster, Dan’s second in command, was waving him over now, the stout investigator standing in front of a large group of cops and detectives drawn from several jurisdictions, a laser pointer in his blocky hand. Tacked up on a portable display board behind him was a huge aerial map of the two hundred kilometer stretch of highway the killer had been harvesting.

Dan joined Dunster in front of the seated officers, some of their sleepy faces familiar to him, most of them not. “For those of you who don’t know me,” he said, “my name is Dan Boland. I’ll be your case manager on this one. You’ve already met Detective Dunster here, the lead investigator.” Dunster nodded at the crowd and Dan said, “You’ll be reporting directly to him.

“To give you some idea of what we’re up against here...”He removed an 8X10 glossy from a file folder and turned it face-down on the table in front of him. “The coroner estimates six different women in those garbage bags, maybe more. A chainsaw was used for the dismemberment in all cases. The coroner won’t say for certain yet, but I’m betting it’s the same one used in the Patty Holzer slaying last summer.

“Some of the remains were burned, others flayed, still others partially eaten by animals. The coroner figures dogs. Big ones. From variations in the bite marks, he’s estimating four to six different animals. We’ve got somebody waking up local vets as we speak. Maybe the guy pampers these beasts: yearly check-ups, immunizations. It’s worth a shot.”

Dan cleared his throat. He wanted another smoke.

“IDs have been made on three of the victims so far, based on personal effects found in the garbage bags and, in the more recent case of Trisha West, confirmed tissue evidence.” He held up the 8X10 glossy, a close-up of the girl’s finger, the band aid still loosely in place, the inked-on heart smeared with gore. He said, “The kid’s mother put the band aid on there herself.”

He tucked the photo back into the folder.

“We’ve asked our Behavioral Science friends at Quantico to compile a psychological profile on this nutcase; with any luck we’ll have it in hand by tomorrow mid day. We have our own people working on it, too, but with serial murder it’s all about experience, and ours here in Canada—thank God—pales next to that of our neighbors to the south.

“So for the time being, ladies and gentlemen, make your presence known. And stay alert. Guys like this are addicts. They can’t stop. They can leave town, set up shop elsewhere when things get too hot—and if our boy does that, we’ll consider it a victory—but they cannot stop. Each time they kill and get away with it, they feel more empowered. They start believing they’ll never get caught, that they’re somehow invisible. And that’s when they start taking chances, leaving themselves open to identification by law enforcement. Theoretically, at any rate. The sad truth is that most of these flakes, if they’re apprehended at all, it’s by sheer fluke. They’re pulled over for a busted taillight and a sharp copper listens to his gut. Or somebody notices a bad smell coming out of the trunk of the bastard’s car. Luck is a factor here, folks, so court it.

“Oh, and one last thing. He’s a trophy taker. He pulls out their teeth.”

Boland nodded at Dunster, his presentation complete. Returning the nod, Dunster said, “Okay, people, you have your assignments. We meet back here in twenty-four hours.”

Murmuring among themselves, the task force rose en masse and headed for the exits.

* * *

It was after midnight when the desk clerk at the Super 8 in Barrie handed Dean a pair of room keys and wished him a pleasant stay. Dean could only nod. He felt numb, robotic, his mind unable to process the fact that Trish was gone. Just...gone. It didn’t make sense, and every fiber of his being rejected it. At random intervals some pitiless scrap of hindbrain assaulted him with unbidden images of the way she must have died—single, lurid flashframes of torture and dismemberment—but for the most part he was simply moving from one task to the next now, his conscious mind closed off to everything but the moment he was in.

Jim was standing by the lobby windows, staring into a night stained amber by sodium arc lamps. He hadn’t said a word since the rest stop (
Trish is dead)
and Dean had left him to his silence.

He picked up their luggage and joined Jim at the windows, sharing his view. There was a busy commercial strip across the road—bars, casinos, topless joints—and Dean saw Jim’s eyes reflected in the glass, glazed by the neon allure. He said, “We should try and get some sleep,” and got no response, expecting none.

Then, as if deciding, Jim said, “You go ahead. I need some air.”

“Want company?”

Jim shook his head and started for the exit. Dean went after him and gave him a key. “Room two-o-four,” he said. “Be careful, Jim.”

Jim said nothing and Dean returned to the windows to watch him go, the man crossing the road out there now like a zombie. A cabbie leaned on his horn and had to swerve around him, then he was on the other side, the bright lights drawing him in. Dean knew he should go after him, at least try to stop him, but he was husked out, drained of the will to do anything but lie down in the dark and pray for the refuge of sleep.

* * *

Jim thought,
Fuck it
. For more years than he could remember, that had been his credo. Words to live by.

Fuck it
.

The phrase repeated mantra-like in his mind, taking up the rhythm of his stride, forming an urgent backbeat to his inevitable surrender to a fate he’d been a fool to believe he could avoid. Trish had been his tether to a brighter world, but now that she was gone, what was the point?

His tremor had returned in earnest and the demon was wide awake now, shrieking its unappeasable need. The neon exerted a gravitational pull, and by the time he hit the sidewalk he was running.

He went into the first place he came to, Teasers, a poster on the door promising Rockin’ Live Music and Rollin’ Hot Babes. The place was stuffy and small, the band on break, a bored-looking waitress with pink hair strutting past him as he headed for the bar. He sat on a red leather stool next to a bearded biker and ordered a whisky neat.

The barkeep poured him a glass and slid it over, spilling a drop on the bar. Jim scooped up the drop with a fingertip and brought it to his nose, his eyes rolling as the pungent aroma braced his nostrils, flooding his mouth with saliva. He shivered in anticipation of oblivion.

Jim Gamble picked up the shot glass, dumped the whisky into his mouth and threw his head back, slamming the empty onto the bar. He held that position for a long beat, as if frozen there, the cords in his neck straining against the skin...then a roar began deep in his chest, a sound of such consummate fury and destitution the patrons around him shrank away. As the roar escalated to a furious pitch, his mouth yawned open and the whisky appeared to boil...

He heard a sweet voice in his head then—
Dad, no
—and he lurched sideways to spew the whisky onto the floor, the bulk of it spattering the biker’s boots. The biker said, “Psycho,” and grabbed Jim by the collar. In the same instant Jim sprang up and slammed the biker backward over the bar, his hand closing around the man’s throat, his voice drawing out like a rusty blade. “Not tonight, man. Do not fuck with me tonight.”

He released the biker and backed away. A couple of bouncers appeared, but kept their distance as Jim left the bar.