The River Killers (21 page)

“It's a brand new person. We were just notified of her appointment two days ago. Bette Connelly. You know her?”

“Yeah, I do. Hey, I gotta go. If you hear from Griffith, tell him I think that abalone trap policy was his finest work.”

As I rode down in the elevator, I was thinking about what a break it was that Bette was running the lab. I'd have to tell her Paul considered her a brand new person: at her age. She'd be a huge asset in digging up whatever secrets were there.

I phoned Louise from the back of a cab to tell her I was on my way over. She sounded quietly triumphant. “I've spent the whole morning working out protocol issues. I'm in foreign territory here, so I have to have a Vancouver Police liaison. It turns out he's a really good guy who's been on the major crime squad for twelve years. Inspector Tommy Yamada. Smart guy. And because he's a street cop and not a bureaucrat type, he's more or less accepted your presence as an unofficial team member.”

Vancouver Police
HQ
was way over on Cambie and Sixth Avenue. I strode into the reception area and asked to see Staff Sergeant Louise Karavchuk. She came out to great me, didn't kiss me, and led me back to a meeting room where Tommy Yamada stood up and shook my hand. He was average height for a Japanese guy and sported a broken nose that, I learned later, was the legacy of his years playing rugby at the rep level. We all sat down around an oblong table that was scattered with papers, photos, and a box with a single doughnut left in it.

“Danny, this is a hell of a case you've dragged us into. Bodies all over the place, crime scenes up and down the coast, possible political involvement, and key players in the investigation lacking, shall we say, official credentials. It could be kind of fun. Before we talk about what our next steps are, I'd like to tie up some loose ends from the scene at Crowley's float house. Louise, have we confirmed the time of death?”

“The coroner's report says that both postmortem rigour and stomach contents put
TOD
at about 5:00
AM
, April 13. That ties in with the time of the presumed killer's visit to Crowley, which we know from the plotter.”

“You followed up on the ownership of the
Kelp
, and met a dead-end. What about the previous owner?”

“We tracked Mac McPherson to his daughter's place in Gibsons Landing. He remembers the buyer's first name as Trevor, which we know is phony, and he described him as tall, wore glasses, pallid complexion, sort of a city slicker.”

Alarm bells went off in my brain, figuratively speaking of course. I'd had my alarm bells removed my second year in Ottawa. Louise and Tommy saw the same problem I did. Louise spoke hesitantly. “Mac McPherson is the only person who can
ID
the guy who bought the
Kelp
, who we presume is a multiple killer. Do we need to protect Mac?”

“He should be safe because he was difficult to trace after he left Bella Bella,” Tommy said. “We had to use ‘official channels.' Still, I wouldn't feel right if we didn't give him some level of protection. I suggest we get your guys in Gibsons to talk to Mac, warn him to contact us if he runs into the so-called Trevor, and also keep an eye on him.” Louise and I nodded. He went on. “These electronic plotters, was there one on Crowley's boat?”

This guy was good. I hadn't thought of that. But Louise had. “I had it removed and brought it down with me. We need to give it to someone with the same level of expertise as Mr. Angastouri.”

“Great. Now Crowley presumably contacted the killer after his conversation with Mr. Angastouri relating to the earlier disappearance of Billy Bradley. Living in that isolated place, how did he do that?”

“I've been thinking about that. He could have gone into Bella Bella or Shearwater and used a landline, but the log of the
Jessie Isle
makes no mention of it. He probably used the
VHF
on the
Jessie Isle
to access the Telus radio network. In which case they might have a record of the call with the phone number he called.”

Tommy scribbled in his notebook. “I'll get onto Telus about their radio phone records. What else needs to be done?”

“Before I forget, here's another of Crowley's journals. It was under some stuff in my bottom drawer.” I forged ahead before anyone queried this bit of lameness. “Also, we need to talk to Crowley's buddy, Dr. James O'Rourke. Then we need a top-notch computer geek to decipher the stuff on Crowley's computer. The same person should have a look at the stuff in that last journal I gave you. It looks like computer printouts. I have someone in mind if you don't have anyone. And we need to micro-examine the logbook of the
Jessie Isle
.”

“I think you and I should talk to the doctor,” Louise said, nodding. “I'll set it up. Tommy, you must have some knowledgeable computer people. Can you get that computer into the right hands?”

“Sure, and if they don't come up with anything, Danny can give it to his people. Anything else? No? All right, let's get going.” Louise stood up and Tommy and I followed suit. I shook hands with Tommy and followed Louise down the hall. “They've given me the use of an office. This way.”

As soon as she shut the door to her office, I reached for her. She was already turning and we pulled each other into an embrace. She looked up at me and I kissed her. She put both hands on the back of my head and tried to pull me closer to her. That would have violated an important law of physics so she contented herself with running her fingertips over the back of my skull and down my neck to my shoulder blades. We were leaning together, forehead to forehead, when the phone rang and we jumped apart.

“Karavchuk. Yes . . . yes. Okay, maybe I should get an outside expert. All right, will do.” She hung up, looked at me, drew a deep breath, and was silent for a minute. “I'm not used to kissing people at work. It might take me a moment to recover. How about you?”

“I don't think I've recovered yet.”

She waited another second. “That was our electronics lab. I gave them the plotter off the
Jessie Isle
and asked them to look at it. They don't really feel comfortable with it. They deal mostly with cameras and audio stuff. I think we should get Mark to look at it.”

“He'd be happy to.”

She nodded and picked up a phone book. “Next step.” After flipping through a couple of pages she noted a number in her book and dialed it. “Good morning. This is Staff Sergeant Louise Karavchuk,
RCMP
. We believe that Dr. O'Rourke may have some information that could be pertinent to an investigation we're conducting. Is there a time today when it would be convenient to see him? Yes, I understand he's busy. Lunchtime or after office hours would be fine. Noon? Fine, we'll be there.” She hung up and pushed her chair back. “Let's roll, partner.”

“One sec, I'll phone Mark.” I dialed the Canadian Fishing Company office number and asked for Mark Angastouri. When he came on I asked him how long he would be there. He said he was in no hurry to get home to his place in White Rock, about forty-five minutes out of the city. I remembered the feeling of having no one to go home to.

“We might stop by and see you later,” I told him. “Louise has got the plotter off the
Jessie Isle
. We'd like you to take a look at it.”

I hung up and started out of the office. Louise was right behind me and she pinched my left buttock. I squealed and leapt slightly. She slapped my shoulder and by the time we were in public view we had wiped the stupid grins off our faces. On the drive over in an unmarked police sedan, Louise looked at me seriously. “Hey you, are you still holding out on me?”

“In more ways than one, sweetie.” I gave her my most charming leer. “Actually, you have pillaged me of all material evidence. All I have left are my tawdry thoughts, which I'm glad to share with you.” She gave me a coolly tough look. “Another thing. The person I had in mind to check out Crowley's computer is an old friend of mine who's probably
DFO
's top computer whiz, and coincidentally she's just been appointed operations director of the West Vancouver lab.”

“Name?”

“Bette Connelly.”

“Old friend?”

“Friend, as in colleague, working buddy, shipmate sort of thing.”

“I'm not the jealous type, Danny. I just like to know things.”

“I don't blame you. I'll fill you in on my sordid past love life when you've got twenty or thirty seconds.”

The drive to Dr. O'Rourke's clinic on East Hastings was like going from the first world to the third. Chic matrons walking their dogs near the police station on Cambie gave way to disheveled street people pushing shopping carts laden with what the chic matrons had probably thrown away. Junkies nodded out on the garbage-strewn sidewalks. Drunks argued and some people screamed curses at the air. The few residents who answered to none of the above scurried down the streets looking vaguely surprised at finding themselves there.

The clinic was a single-story building next to the Native Friendship Centre. On the other side was a parking lot. Most of the cars had been turned into residences. The sidewalk in front of the building had been swept and the windows were clean. I admired the spirit of whoever was responsible, even if they accomplished nothing more than fifty feet of condom-free sidewalk and windows you could see through.

We entered and the woman at the reception desk stiffened when she saw Louise. This would have been a good time for plain clothes. But Louise put her at ease, explaining that she was the one who had phoned earlier. The woman nodded and asked us to take a seat. There were two patients waiting and they used a lot of energy ignoring us. I had gone through three
Reader's Digest
s, laughed at the “Humour in Uniform,” sighed at the “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” and been fascinated by “I Am Joe's Penis” by the time it was twelve-thirty and the last of the patients had tottered out the door. A man in a doctor outfit appeared, said “Hello,” and beckoned us through the door to the inner sanctum.

The doctor's red hair was thinning and his face was lined and tired. But for all that, he was a good-looking guy and I could see where Melissa had got at least some of her remarkably attractive features.

“I'm Jimmy O'Rourke and I think I know why you're here. Melissa phoned last week and said Alistair had shot himself.”

“Yes, sir, we're here about Alistair Crowley,” Louise explained. “However, we're almost certain he didn't commit suicide. We believe it was murder.”

While he considered that, I butted in. “I knew of Crowley when he worked for
DFO
. We always wondered where he'd got to, so I was surprised to find out he was hanging around in the vicinity of Bella Bella. Before I got a chance to ask him what he was doing there he was killed. By chance I ran into Melissa, and she told me you and Crowley were friends, that he had actually come to Bella Bella to see you. I thought you might have some idea as to why he ended up there.”

“We were friends. Were. We were pre-med together at
UBC
and we sacrificed many a bottle of scotch on the altar of youthful dreams. But Alistair never really liked people. Fortunately, he had the wit to recognize that and wisely decided not to become a doctor of medicine.”

“That's how he ended up at
DFO
?” I asked.

“Eventually, I guess he decided to turn his intelligence to animal biology.”

“I understand it was a considerable intelligence,” I prompted.

“He was extremely intelligent,” Dr. Jimmy said. “Sometimes alarmingly so. When he went to work for
DFO
, I thought he was wasting himself and told him so. That caused a bit of a rift, but after I got posted to Bella Bella, we still kept in touch.”

Louise had taken out a notebook and was scribbling things, trying not to impede the flow of Dr. Jimmy's reminiscences. Still, there was a bit of a silence before he carried on. “Then, in the early eighties, he visited me in Bella Bella.” A note of regret had crept into his voice.

“Something was different on that visit?” I asked.

“Alistair had always been an intense individual, but it seemed that his intensity had increased by an order of magnitude. He was supposed to be on holiday but he couldn't relax. One night we broke out a bottle of scotch and sat up late, drinking and talking, just like the old days. He started to tell me about the transgenic experiments they were doing, often without the proper clearances. I know enough biology that I could see the dangers and I told him he was being reckless.”

“How did he feel about that?” I asked.

“He didn't like it. He got angry and said I had become middle-class cautious and conservative. There could be no progress without risk, he said. And anyway, he knew exactly what he was doing. He was really wound up by then and he finished by yelling that he didn't care if his experiments did get out of control. Any data was good data.”

Louise had stopped writing but her head remained bowed. I knew she was concentrating intently on the doctor's words, letting an image form of the man Alistair Crowley had been, trying to infer his role and influence in the murders of three other men.

“And he stayed in Bella Bella after that? In the area?”

“No. He left the next day and we never spoke again. Although to give the man credit, the Alistair Crowley who showed up in Bella Bella in 1996 sounds like a mellower man than the one who was frothing at the mouth the last time I saw him. I understand he was helping Rose Wilson with her record keeping at the health center. I'm sorry he's dead. I think he's a man who wandered down the wrong path and was trying to find his way back when he was killed.”

“That's very helpful, sir,” Louise said. “It's the sort of background information that helps us to understand a case.”