Hungry Ghosts (21 page)

41

“How are you making out with
your investigation?” said Manuel Flores. He had caught up to Fernando Espinoza in the lineup for lunch in the basement cafeteria of police headquarters.

“Dr. Flores,” said Espinoza, surprised. “ I didn't expect to see you here. Doesn't your centre have its own cafeteria?” Cubans got a subsidized lunch at work, mainly to deter absenteeism.

“I'm working on another file for the ministry as well as yours. How are things going?”

“We're making good progress.” Espinoza said. “We know the name of the victim now. LaNeva Otero. Another
jinetera
.”

“Prostitution is so common these days.” Flores shook his head. He looked at Espinoza's ring finger. “I see you're single. My daughter tells me that the girls here think Cuban men should pay for sex too. It must make it hard to find a wife.”

Espinoza nodded sadly. “Most of the girls I've gone out with
would leave the island in a minute if they could find a foreigner to marry. How old is your daughter?”

“In her thirties. A little old for you, I'm afraid.” Flores smiled. “Although she's in very good shape. She was a gymnast on the national team when she was twelve. She competed in the World Rhythmic Gymnastics.”

“Is she in Havana?” asked Espinoza. He liked strong women. He might be willing to compromise on age.

“No.” Flores smiled. “She lives in Guantánamo City, not far from the American base. She teaches foreign languages.”

The server on the other side of the counter handed Espinoza a plate of food and passed another to Flores. “I see they've changed the menu.” Espinoza frowned. “It's beans and rice today. Yesterday it was rice and beans.”

Flores chuckled. “I can't wait to taste the new menu.”

They walked to a table. Espinoza pulled out a plastic chair and Flores sat across from him.

“How do you like working with Inspector Ramirez, Detective?” asked Flores.

“It's better than standing on street corners watching out for purse snatchers and street hustlers,” said Espinoza. He smiled. “I'm learning a lot. It was hard at first. I just started at Major Crimes in January. Inspector Ramirez had to leave for Canada a day or two after I was transferred from Patrol. I had to find my way around by myself, although Dr. Apiro was very helpful.”

“Ramirez went to Canada?” Flores raised his eyebrows.

“To help the Canadian authorities with an investigation. There was a Catholic priest charged with possessing child pornography at an airport in Canada. Padre Rey Callendes. We linked him to child abuse at an orphanage in Cuba. But he died of a heart attack on his flight back to Rome. He was never charged. I think the inspector feels robbed.”

“Yes, I'm sure he does,” said Flores, nodding. “That's the kind
of thing that would affect Ramirez deeply. He has a strong sense of fairness. Which isn't always the same as justice.”

“What was it like, living in the United States?” asked Espinoza. He shovelled a forkful of beans into his mouth.

“When I was first there, back in the sixties, New York wasn't a good place to be,” said Flores, picking at his food. “There were rental strikes and street riots that started over a lack of affordable housing for blacks. The Black Panthers were involved in the strikes, but the Latinos were behind the riots. The Young Lords, they called themselves. Detroit went up in flames. Dozens died; thousands were arrested.” He shook his head. “Our government is lucky that Cubans are so passive. It's the heat, I think. It makes us lazy.”

“It doesn't seem to affect Inspector Ramirez,” said Espinoza. “He's always working.” He lowered his voice. “I think his wife is angry at him because of all his long hours. She went away for a few days with the children this week.”

“Really,” said Flores, leaning forward. He smiled. “Tell me more.”

42

Celia Jones flipped through the photograph
album until she found the picture. It was a faded black-and-white shot of her grandmother in front of a house in London during World War II. Her grandmother leaned against a car, one leg bent, posing in her kitten-heeled shoes. Jones could see the narrow rectangle that extended about six inches above the heel of her seamed stocking.

“Do you know anything about these kinds of nylons, Mom?”

“My goodness, Celia,” her mother said, walking over to the couch and sitting beside her. “I haven't seen stockings like that since I was a little girl. I remember my mother said they were expensive because they were made out of separate parts, sewed together, and joined at the seam. They were hard to get hold of during the war; they needed all the silk to make parachutes and all the nylon for tires. My mother used to draw a line up the backs of her legs so she looked like she was wearing them. But the ones in that photo were
real. She was so proud of them; she used to take very good care of them so they wouldn't snag.”

“How did she get them, if they were so hard to find?”

“How do women get anything, Celia?” Emma Jones said, laughing. “From men. The American GIs were the only ones who had them. Well, those and chocolates. Although I seem to remember her telling me the Wrens used stockings to recruit women into their ranks as well. I suppose you could say the GIs used stockings to recruit women too. They were a pain in the ass, if I may say so. The stockings, I mean. Not the men, although she said those American soldiers could be persistent. We still had stockings like that when I was young, before pantyhose were invented. You had to attach them to a garter belt, and they were awkward to wear, but my goodness they made you feel sexy.” She winked at her daughter.

Celia Jones kissed her mother's lined cheek.

She spent the next hour on the Internet looking up factories that made seamed stockings. Then she called Charlie Pike.

“Listen, I may have found something,” she said, when he answered. “That stocking with the square seam, the one you drew the picture of for me? There are only two factories in the entire world that produce them, and they're both in England. Oh, and Charlie? I don't know if this means anything or not, but they call it a Havana heel in the trade.”

Charlie Pike sat on the bed in his motel room, going over his files, thinking about Celia's call. He finally remembered what had been nagging at him—a rental SUV that wasn't returned on time. There might be only two factories in the world that made that kind of stocking, but there was only one place in White Harbour that rented cars.

“Funny you should call me about that one,” said the Esso station
owner. “A woman from Winnipeg leased it last week for a couple of days, but she never did bring it back. The OPP called me this morning to let me know it was sitting in the parking lot behind the health clinic. Been there all week, I guess. I was just about to send the tow truck out to pick it up. Battery's probably as dead as a doornail.”

“Who rented it?” Pike asked.

He heard the sound of paper rustling.

“Her name was Maylene Kesler,” said the station owner.

“Got a copy of her driver's license there in your paperwork?”

“Sure do. We always keep a photocopy for insurance.”

“Maybe you can make a copy for me. I'm on my way over. And maybe wait till I get there before you send out that tow truck.”

Behind the counter at the gas station were magazines, potato chips, bottles of pop, and rows of cigarettes. Players, Export A, Lucky Strike, Kools.

“You sell a pack of Lucky Strikes to anyone recently?” Pike asked the Esso station manager.

“Probably did,” the manager said, “but I'd never be able to tell you who.”

“Got video surveillance?”

“Whatever for?” The manager looked surprised.

Pike nodded, disappointed. He examined the photograph of Maylene Kesler from her driver's license. No question, it was the woman in the morgue. He tried his cell phone but, as usual, there was no signal. “Okay if I borrow your phone for a local call?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Pike called the OPP and explained to Bissonnette what he'd found.

“Shit. I had no idea that the person who rented that car was your Jane Doe. I'll check with Winnipeg City Police, see what they can find out. Meanwhile, we'll get the SUV towed to our station. Could
take us a few days before we can get any techs up here, though. They may want to transport it to Thunder Bay. That could take a while. Fucking snow.”

“Adam Neville, our pathologist, is still in town. He can maybe process the vehicle, look for prints. I know he has his kit here. He took prints at the crime scene.” Pike gave Bissonnette Neville's phone number.

“I'll get hold of him, see if he can help us out. Where are you going to be?”

“I'm going to see our lawyer, Celia Jones, to let her know what we've got. Media will be all over this as soon as they find out. My cell phone doesn't always work that close to the rez. If you want to reach me, here's her number.” Pike recited it from memory. “Adam's got it too. Keep me in the loop, will you?”

43

“Maylene Kesler? That's the Jane Doe?”
Celia Jones said to Pike as she made them a pot of tea. “Shit, she's the doctor who was supposed to get hold of my mom. She was up here running some kind of clinic a month or two ago. The university told me she was back doing the follow-up. No wonder she never called. I still don't know what kind of tests she was running. They told me she specialized in indigenous people's health. Environmental genetics.”

“She was testing people from the reserve for mercury poisoning,” said Pike. He told her about his conversation with Bill Wabigoon.

“Mercury? I've been watching the news reports, Charlie. They said the mill had closed down before, but not why. There must be millions of dollars tied up in that operation—government grants, jobs. What if she found out something that could close it down? What if her murder wasn't random at all? You know, it could be entirely unrelated to the Highway Strangler.”

“Maybe,” said Pike. “There are a few things about this one that are different from the others. But there's an awful lot about it that looks the same.” He shook his head. “I don't know, Celia. I don't much like coincidences.”

“We need to find out,” said Jones. She stood up and paced around the kitchen table. “You need to get hold of her research. Maybe she kept copies at the health clinic. She was using it to run her tests. She must have had an office there. Was there anything in the SUV?”

“No idea yet. Adam or the OPP will call me once they have a chance to go over it. But the nurse at the clinic told me they have a temporary office for visiting doctors. It's the one Adam's been using.”

“Well, let's find out.” Jones picked up the phone and called the health clinic.

“My name is Celia Jones,” she said to the woman who answered. “I'm with the Rideau Regional Police. I'm working on an investigation.” She made a face at Charlie, knowing she was stretching the truth, letting the woman at reception think she was a police officer too. “I need to know if Dr. Maylene Kesler has an office in your building.”

“Well,” the receptionist said, hesitantly. “Dr. Kesler does use an office here sometimes. May I ask what this is about?”

Jones ignored her question. “Does she keep her patient files there?”

“She has a filing cabinet, but it's locked. She's the only one with a key.”

“We need to see those files in relation to a homicide investigation.”

“I wouldn't be able to let you into it even if I had a key. You could ask her, I suppose, although I doubt very much Dr. Kesler would share that information with you. She's very careful about doctor-patient privilege.”

“Unfortunately, I can't do that,” said Jones. “I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Dr. Kesler is dead.”

“Dead? How can she be dead? I just saw her a few days ago.”

Jones looked at Pike and raised her eyebrows. “When?”

“On Thursday. She called me from the airport. She wanted to know if she could use the office to set up some appointments. She asked me to leave her a key; said she wanted to get to work right away. She'd made arrangements to see one of her patients.”

“What time was that?” asked Jones. “Do you know which patient?”

“She didn't say. The Thursday afternoon flights always come in at the same time. It was four thirty, maybe five, when she phoned. I know it wasn't after five; I didn't stay late, because of the storm that was coming. Funny, though, now that you mention it, I didn't see her on Friday, but she'd left her rental car in the lot. I assumed she'd gone to visit one of the First Nation communities she was working with and got a ride up with one of the band members rather than drive alone on the bad roads. My God. She's dead? How? What happened? Some kind of car accident?”

“She was murdered,” said Jones. “You may have been one of the last people to see her alive.”

Jones sat down at the kitchen table. “She's right about one thing, Charlie. You can't get into that office without a warrant. Doctor-­patient privilege applies to those files. There's no court that's going to let you go on a fishing expedition, not even in a murder investigation. Damn it. Those files could be the key.”

“Don't worry about it, Celia. I'll figure something out.”

The phone rang and Jones got up to get it. She listened for a moment, then covered the receiver with her hands. “Maybe you won't need to,” she said. “It's Adam. He says he's found fingerprints in the SUV that aren't Maylene Kesler's or the Esso station owner's. And he's got a match.” She handed the phone to Pike.

“Hey, Adam, what do you have?”

“Bad news. I'm sorry to tell you this, Charlie, but the prints I found are your friend's. The thumbprint is nice and clear. No doubt about it.”

“Bill Wabigoon?”

“No,” said Neville. “Sheldon Waubasking. I pulled a match off the elimination prints I took from him at the crime scene. I'm sorry, Charlie.”

“You're sure about this?”

“Positive. There was an index finger and a thumbprint on the dash. Ten-point match. This is going to be messy, isn't it, with him being from the reserve and the blockade going on.”

“I'll sort it out with Bill,” said Pike. He hung up the phone, stunned. Sheldon? Why would Sheldon kill Maylene Kesler? He relayed to Jones what Adam Neville had said.

“But that's so hard to believe,” said Jones.

Pike nodded, although the more he thought about it, the less he felt like he should be surprised.

He thought back to the way the nuns used to beat him and Sheldon at day school. The worst part was the food, they'd agreed later. Cabbage soup, hamburger pie with rotten meat, sour milk. It disgusted them, but even if they threw up in their bowls, they had to eat it. Sheldon could handle the beatings, but after he had to eat a bowl of his own puke for the third time, he told Charlie he'd had enough.

Pike didn't want to think how many times he and Sheldon got kicked in the butt or slapped around the ears for kidding around.

“I don't know, Celia. Maybe it's just been a matter of time.”

The first time he and Sheldon ran away from the school, they'd headed for the railway tracks. The principal found them and dragged them back. He made them strip naked and whipped them with a big leather belt until they cried. Then he tied their long grey wool socks around their necks and pulled them back to the classroom as if they were dogs.

“It could be him, Celia. O'Malley found us a foster home in
Winnipeg. He was worried about us getting beaten up, with all the gangs after us. He took us to his gym and taught us to box.”

“Now, Charlie, you're a counterpuncher,” O'Malley had said. “You know how to spot your opponent's mistakes. A good counterpuncher never lets anyone know exactly where he's going, and he never telegraphs a punch. He dekes people out. That's you. You're smart. Accurate with your hands, and fast. You see, Sheldon? Someone like Charlie could take you down and you'd never quite know what hit you.”

Charlie had brightened. “And what about Sheldon? What's he good at?

“Sheldon?” O'Malley smiled. “He slips out of the way so the other guys miss him. That keeps them off-balance. He likes to keep his hands free so he can use them. He's more defensive than you are, Charlie, but that's a good strategy. He's cautious. Flies under the radar.”

Charlie had nodded. That was Sheldon to a tee.

Pike shook his head. He pushed the teacup away and got to his feet.

“Two nights a week, we took martial arts at O'Malley's gym. He made sure we learned all the basic moves in kickboxing and Wendo. And how to do chokeholds.”