Hungry Ghosts (27 page)

52

Charlie Pike pulled his SUV into
the parking lot at the health clinic. He wiped his feet on the rubber mat and shook the snow from his hair. He nodded to the nurse practitioner at the reception desk. She was rifling through her desk for something, maybe her keys. She looked annoyed.

Pike walked downstairs and knocked on the door to the temporary office.

“Come in, Charlie. Here, have a seat.” Adam Neville sat behind his desk, typing on his laptop's small keyboard. His overnight bag was in the corner beside the black satchel.

“Morning, Adam. Sorry I'm a little late. Appreciate you taking the time to see me before you head out.” Pike sat down. “I need to go over some things with you. Got to move carefully on this one.”

“Of course.” The medical examiner folded his hands together on the surface of the desk. “I understand completely, Charlie. Ask away.
But I have to be out of here in an hour to catch my flight. I hope we can wrap this up quickly.”

“They're pretty relaxed at the airport. It's not like it is down south. Don't worry. They won't leave without you.”

Pike pulled out his notebook and opened it. He fumbled around in his jacket for a pen. Neville handed him one.

“
Miigwetch
. So, Sheldon told me you got to the crime scene around eleven a.m. on Thursday, but he doesn't have a watch. He said it was a little while before the techs arrived. Is that about right?”

“I think it was twelve minutes after eleven, to be precise.”

“You told him to stay back. Why was that?”

“Standard procedure, Charlie. I have to keep people out of the way so the crime scene doesn't get contaminated.”

“So any evidence that links Sheldon to the crime scene had to be there before you arrived?”

“That's right,” Neville said. “He never got near that body once I was there. I made sure of that.”

“Were you alone with her for very long before the techs arrived?”

“Maybe twenty minutes. I did a quick walk around. Put up the yellow caution tape, cordoned off the search area.”

“And Sheldon had nothing to do with that either? He didn't help you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Good.” Pike nodded. He doodled in his notebook. “You told me on the phone that you took his fingerprints?”

“Of course. After all, he had been at that crime scene for at least a couple of hours before I got there; I had no idea what he might have touched. That's how I was able to match his prints to the ones inside the SUV Dr. Kesler rented.”

“How did you do that, exactly? Take his prints.”

“I used clear plastic tape and put them on a card. I didn't have an inkpad with me. Had to use it to take prints from the body too.”

“Didn't you have any ninhydrin with you?” Pike leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs at the ankles.

“Yes,” said Neville. “But I only use it to take fingerprints from porous surfaces, so I didn't need it. I've used it to take prints from dead bodies before, but we do it in the morgue, where we can rehydrate the fingers. I had to use lifts on your friend. That's all I had.”

Pike made another doodle in his notebook. “I guess that's your kit over there, eh?” Pike inclined his head to the black bag in the corner. “Did you restock it before you left Winnipeg? Make sure everything was full?”

Neville nodded. “In a remote location like this, if I don't have everything I need, I can't get it very easily.”

“Understood. I better ask, because the defence lawyers will. Did you have a cigarette while you were at the scene? A roll-your-own?”

“Of course not,” said the pathologist, shaking his head. “I'd never contaminate a crime scene. Besides, I don't smoke. I'm a climber. I have to be able to deal with low oxygen levels at high altitudes. Are you suggesting we missed some other evidence?”

Neville closed his email program and Pike caught a glimpse of the screensaver again. “Nice picture of you two,” he said, avoiding the question. “We used to climb the bluffs around here, when we were kids, looking for vultures' nests. I see you had one of those little axes—what do they call those ones with the pick on the end?”

“The ice axe? We use it to chop ice and clear away loose rocks. But Charlie, can we move this along please? I'm getting a little concerned about my flight.” Neville looked at his watch, making his point.

“Sorry. You know the Ojibway, we run on Indian time.” Pike smiled. “All right. When you saw the body for the first time, she had that nylon wrapped around her neck, right?”

“That's why I thought it was the Highway Strangler.”

Pike shook his head. “Something's been bothering me. Pauley
Oshig kept saying the woman's body was blue. I didn't understand what he meant at first. But I think I do now.”

“I don't understand.”

“Luminol,” said Pike. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “You spray it on victims to check for blood and DNA, right? It turns blue under a UV light and glows for a few seconds. After Pauley showed Sheldon where the body was, he was supposed to go to the band office, but I don't think he did. He was afraid to see Bill right away, because he knew he was going to get punished for skipping school. I think he hid in the woods for a while and watched what was going on. I think he saw you spray Maylene Kesler's body with Luminol.”

“That makes sense. Come to think of it, I did use Luminol on the body, but that's proper procedure, Charlie.”

“The defence lawyers are going to ask you about that. The only reason I can think of why you'd use Luminol at the crime scene is if you were checking to make sure you didn't leave anything behind after you pulled off her boots. You didn't know the techs were going to run off like that. One of them might have ended up at the autopsy.”

“But she didn't have any boots on. I've already told you that.”

Pike stopped doodling. “That's because you took them off so you could get at those nylon knee-highs she was wearing. You needed to tie one around her neck. I think you used the ninhydrin on her boots later on, to make sure you removed your prints before you threw them away. That's why the ninhydrin bottle in your bag is almost empty, even though you said you never used it.”

“What?” said Neville, standing up. “Are you accusing me of killing Maylene Kesler? This is insane, Charlie. You already have your Highway Strangler. You just don't want to believe it's your friend.”

“You see, now, that's the problem. I know you didn't kill her. Because I know who did, and it wasn't Sheldon. But you tried to make it look like Sheldon. I think you framed him, because he was the only person you
could
frame. That's why you took his prints on plastic
tape, so you could transfer them to another surface, even though he told you he didn't touch anything. There's only one reason to frame somebody for a murder you didn't commit, and that's to give yourself an alibi for those other murders. If the Highway Strangler did this one, it couldn't be you all those other times.”

“You should have been a fiction writer, Pike. When all this is over, you may want to consider it. Because you have just ended your police career.”

“The boots threw me off. But she was frozen pretty good; it would have been hard to remove them, and pretty much impossible to get them back on again. I'm guessing they're in a ditch somewhere along the 562. Or maybe in the garbage behind the motel. Luckily, because of the storm, there's been no pickup. The OPP is checking all those bins for me right now.”

“This is bullshit,” Neville said, his face flushed. He sat down again, hard.

“Did you throw away the ice axe you used to make those little round holes in the ground or is it in your suitcase? I'd love to know how you got it through airport security. Man, I can't get through security that easy, even without a weapon. I'm guessing you put it in the body bag along with Dr. Kesler's boots and let the techs carry everything out of the woods for you. Like you said, those body bags can be pretty useful.”

Charlie Pike reached over and turned the laptop around. In the screen shot, Adam Neville and his wife each held an ice axe.

Pike reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out the plastic exhibit bag containing the pack of Lucky Strikes. He placed it on the desk. “This was in the drawer, right beside where you're sitting. Only one cigarette is missing. The one you left at the crime scene.”

“How the hell did you get those,” Neville sputtered. “I locked them up.”

“Thanks for confirming possession, Adam. From a guy who doesn't smoke, I think that's probably enough to make an arrest.”

Neville slumped back in his chair. “It's not what it looks like, Charlie. Believe, me, you've got this all wrong.”

“You can come in now, Pete,” Pike called out.

Sergeant Bissonnette opened the door. A uniformed policeman stood behind him, holding a pair of women's boots in his gloved hands.

“You were right,” said Bissonnette. “We found these in the dumpster outside.”

“Charge him with obstruction for now. Make sure you read him his rights. You know, you really shouldn't leave things lying around, Adam,” said Pike, standing up. He closed his notebook and put it in his pocket. “People up north are
way
too trusting.”

53

Inspector Ramirez jumped when his cell
phone rang. His nightmare had left him unnerved and on edge. He steered through the heavy traffic, pressing the small device to his ear, struggling to hear his caller over the rattling exhaust pipes and bleating horns.

“I have a preliminary cause of death for the man from the beach, Ricardo,” said Apiro. “He drowned, but not in the ocean. In saltwater drowning, we often find a higher chlorine concentration in the left chamber of the heart than in the right. It's the opposite in freshwater. Freshwater also significantly changes the surface tension of the pulmonary surfactant—that's on the surface of the lungs, Ricardo—­seawater doesn't.

“And you were right about the restraints. There were small hemorrhages around the wrists and ankles, and microscopic wood fibres in the skin on one leg, just above the part of the epidermis that detached as he struggled to get loose. It looks like he was tied up and that someone held his head underwater until he died.”

“You mean in a swimming pool?”

“Not necessarily. It doesn't take much water to drown. You can drown in a sink or in a toilet, even a bucket.”

Ramirez thought about his dream. Maybe the dead man wasn't Antifona Conejo's foreign boyfriend after all. He cast his mind back to the article he'd read in
Granma
.

“He could have been waterboarded. It's something the Americans do to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. They strap them to boards, lean them back, and pour water over their heads to make them feel like they're drowning. It's supposed to make them talk. He could have been a prisoner in the detention facility. Maybe something went wrong during an interrogation.”

“That's certainly one way to dispose of a body, Ricardo. Throw it in the ocean and hope it's never found. But if you're right, it will be almost impossible to prove.”

Ramirez shook his head. An Iraqi prisoner from Guantánamo wouldn't be wearing jewellery or expensive clothes. He'd been wrong about Antifona Conejo being dead too. His visions were becoming a problem. They weren't just the product of stress, now they were contributing to it.

He told his small friend about running into Antifona the night before. “I still can't believe I found her alive.”

“It sounds to me, no offence, as if she found you,” said Apiro. “Since when do
jineteras
pick up Cuban men? I thought you didn't like coincidences. You remember Sherlock Holmes? He used to say, if two highly unusual events happened at the same time, they were usually connected. Be careful, my friend. I have a feeling something's going on.”

“Maybe she thought I was handsome,” said Ramirez, slightly offended.

“More attractive than a paying client? If I had enough money, even I would look handsome. Not to mention taller.”

Ramirez laughed uneasily. He swerved the car to avoid striking another stranded coco-taxi. If he ever hit one, he thought, it would roll down the street like a child's ball.

Detective Espinoza called Ramirez on his radio. “Inspector, I'm with Rider Aguilera at his mechanic's. His car broke down weeks ago, it's still here. The mechanic has confirmed that Señor Aguilera had no car to loan.”

“I was afraid of that. Whoever did this had to have a vehicle to take those women to the forest. They didn't walk. And they didn't take a taxi. Juan Otero had no money.”

As Ramirez said it, he was certain he was right. Even if Otero could have afforded a cab, the driver would have waited by the side of the road, maybe even entered the woods in search of his fare. The killer couldn't take that chance. “It might not be Otero at all. Did you ever find a lead for that apple that Dr. Apiro found in the victim's stomach?”

“I checked with a few hotels, Inspector, but I stopped looking after we took Señor Otero into custody. Of the ones I spoke to, only the Hotel Floridita and the Hotel Nacional had any. They received a shipment on February 11 and put them out in the morning buffet the next day. The manager of the Floridita said they were imported from Quebec. They call the variety a ‘snow apple' because of its white flesh.”

“Find out how many of their guests ate at the morning buffet on Lovers' Day. Once you have a list, we'll need to cross-reference it to car rentals going back to say, mid-January. Check for the same time period last year. Let's see if we find any names in common.”

“There will be thousands of names,” Espinoza protested. “The hotel records are computerized, and some of the car rental agencies will be too, but they won't be on the same computers. And many of the car rental agencies have no computers at all.”

“I know,” said Ramirez. “It's a huge job. Get Natasha to help you.” He thought for a moment. “I think Dr. Apiro's technicians should go back to the forest again tomorrow.”

“What for, Inspector?”

“To start digging.”