Serpents Rising (13 page)

I
got back to the apartment just after six o'clock. Cobb hadn't said when he expected me to start my watch —
surveillance
— of the warehouse on Garry Street but I figured around nine would be about right.

That left me time to go for a run, warm up a leftover hamburger-noodle casserole, take a hot bath — I'm a shower guy but this felt like a long, slow bath night — and maybe delve into another of Donna's photo albums before hitting the road.

By eight o'clock I was sitting in the living room, Donna's photo albums encircling me.

I found myself studying certain pictures: Donna in the grade nine drama production of
Annie
playing Miss Hannigan with a suitably nasty air about her; Donna as a member of the Lady Marauders, the volleyball team that the caption noted were the Christmas tournament champions that year; Donna with friends at the lake, with her parents at a backyard barbecue; and so on.

I wasn't sure what I was learning. Despite her own claims to the contrary, Donna was not unattractive. In fact, I didn't even see her as plain. Mostly she reminded me of girls I had known who, as the phrase goes, “walked to the beat of their own drummer.” Which I think is code for didn't-give-a-shit-about-what-other-people-thought-of-them.

I glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes until I had to leave. Enough time to get a start at least on the album entitled “Donna Leybrand, 15 Years Old.” Donna in her grade eleven year.

But five minutes would have been sufficient to get through that album. While none of the previous albums had used every page, this one's photos took up maybe a quarter of the pages. For the first time, not all of the photos were fastened in place. On some of the pages, pictures lay loose. There were fewer captions too, and those that were there were less detailed than what I'd seen to that point.

It was like Donna had lost interest that year. Teen rebellion? Raging hormones? Or simply attention directed elsewhere, a perfectly normal and common occurrence among fifteen year olds. Changing priorities in a teenager's world.

Whatever it was I didn't have any more time to contemplate. It was time to make my detecting debut. I threw together a couple of tuna bunwiches and a Thermos of coffee, added a giant Dairy Milk chocolate bar and two cans of Red Bull, grabbed my binoculars, and headed out the door.

During the fifteen minute drive to the warehouse on Garry Street I made a phone call. There was a question I needed to have answered.

Lorne Cooney's wife was a high school English teacher. Lorne and I hadn't worked together since the drugs series we'd been putting together when Donna died. But we bumped into each other from time to time, had met for coffee a couple of times, and once for a few beers in the Liquid Lounge at the Westin.

Today, it was Rachelle Cooney I wanted to talk to, to ask just one question. It was she who answered my call. She recognized my voice and said, “Sorry, Adam, Lorne's at a meeting for the Young Conservatives.”

“Covering or joining?”

“Are you kidding me? Covering.”

“I
was
kidding you, Rachelle. There are so few of us lefties still around in Alberta, I didn't want to think we might be losing another one.”

“Nothing to worry about there.”

“Actually though, it was you I wanted to talk to anyway. I've got one quick question for you. A school question.”

“I'll bet that's one more question than you asked a teacher while you were actually
in
high school.”

“I'm deeply offended. And I'll have you know that English was my favourite class.”

She laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“Well, it would have been if you'd been my teacher.”

“Shut up and ask your question before I become ill.”

“When do they teach
To Kill a Mockingbird
? I seem to remember it was high school but I don't recall what grade.”

“Even though English was your favourite subject.”

“Uh … yeah.” We both laughed that time.

“Well, fewer schools are teaching it these days, which I think is a shame — it still holds up even after all this time — and it varies. Some schools teach it in grade ten, but I think most still have it as part of the grade eleven curriculum. We do at Crescent Heights.”

I'd forgotten that Rachelle had transferred to my former school a couple of years before.

“Okay, that's now … fifteen years ago?”

“I'd say almost all schools would have included it back then.”

“Including private schools?”

“Hard to say. Some of the charter private schools do things differently. But most try to follow the Alberta Education curriculum for the most part.”

“Thanks. I guess that's about what I thought. How are you enjoying my old alma mater anyway?”

“I love it. Great kids and a really good bunch of teachers and administrators. Hey, it's Alberta, so there are always funding problems, but we soldier on.”

“And I imagine my name comes up a lot. The former student who is a wonderful role model for today's students — that sort of thing.”

“I've lost track of the times I've heard people talking about you.”

“Yeah. Hey, thanks Rachelle, I appreciate this. And say hi to Lorne for me.”

“I will.”

I powered off the hands-free and thought about what Rachelle had told me and how it fit in with what I knew. Or at least what I thought I knew.

Donna had paid considerably less attention to her photo album in her grade eleven year than she had previously. The note referring to someone as a bastard (and a pig) was in a copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird
, a novel that was studied in grade ten or eleven. And I had a feeling that the person she'd exchanged the note with had been holding back a little in our conversation of a couple of days previous.

Not exactly a mountain of damning evidence. I guessed that any real investigator would have laughed out loud at what I'd pieced together so far.

Anyway it was time to change hats. I'd just turned onto 9th Avenue and was only a couple of blocks from Garry Street. I pointedly turned my thoughts to Jay Blevins and Zoe Tario. And the MFs. Hoping I'd see one or both of the first two. And not so much as a glimpse of the latter.

I'd seen dozens of scenes in dozens of movies and television shows where a cop or detective is watching someone's house. I figured out in the first couple of hours of my first assignment that there was a whole lot of stuff that hadn't received sufficient attention in any of those shows.

The cold, for example. On a November night in Calgary, even during a Chinook, if you were in your car for any length of time, you would want that car to be running and the heater cranked to the hottest setting available. However, when involved in surveillance, running your car means running the risk of being detected while you're detecting.

Luckily I had thrown an extra down-filled jacket, two bulky sweaters, and a blanket into the backseat of the Honda earlier in the day. After a half hour in front of Zoe's building I bundled up. I was uncomfortable but managed to stay this side of hypothermia. It occurred to me that having so many clothes on that I could barely fit behind the Honda's steering wheel and covering my legs with a blanket probably left me lacking something in terms of manliness, which I didn't care about, and mobility, which I did.

Secondly, the movies and TV generally skip right over the part about going to the bathroom. In my case that involved crawling out from under the blanket, unwedging myself from the front seat of the Accord, and, while trying to look casual just in case someone was peeking out from some unseen window somewhere, taking a whiz in the gutter on the passenger side of the car. I tried to be as surreptitious as possible but found it hard to be stealthy when looking — and feeling — like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

The dark helped. Which is the third thing skipped over in all the cop shows. I came to the realization that there is a reason most of the scary scenes in scary movies are shot at night. It's because it's dark and … scarier then. I don't think I'm a coward but I had to admit that the cave-like black of Garry Street — it was cloudy so no moonlight — got to me after a while. While I blessed the darkness during my furtive excursions to the passenger side of the car, I cursed it the rest of the time.

But while I shivered and complained for most of the night, the one thing I did not do was fall asleep. Which meant I was awake at 2:17 a.m. when Zoe came walking up Garry Street in the company of a guy and girl, both of them about her age. They came right by the Honda but none looked inside. I was able to get enough of a look at the guy to be certain he was not Jay Blevins.

Cobb had told me to call if anything interesting happened. I decided the arrival of Zoe and a couple of kids who were either homeless or addicts or both didn't qualify.

Zoe's arrival wasn't the only occurrence. At 4:08 a car turned onto Garry Street from behind where I was parked. It wasn't the first vehicle I'd seen that night. Two others, one from each direction, had gone by my location. The first was just after midnight, the second at 1:46 a.m. While I noted the times in my notebook, neither of those vehicles — the first was a taxi, the second a pickup truck — caught my attention.

This one did. It was moving slowly and without headlights. It was a dark, menacing object that would pass by the Honda in a matter of seconds, a minute at the most. I slumped down as much as my layers of clothing would allow and eased my head to the left, hoping to get a look at the car and its occupants without whoever was in that car seeing me.

The car slowed still more as it passed me. There were two men in the car, both in the front seat, and as they went by, both were concentrating hard on the warehouse. The man in the passenger seat had his phone out and was talking to someone as they went by.

The car came to a stop three or four car lengths past me. I was afraid they might pull in and hang around for a while but after a couple of minutes it looked like the passenger side guy wrapped up his phone call and they drove off.

As the car disappeared around the corner I started the Accord, waited a five count, and pulled forward. I wasn't planning to actually follow the car, but if I could spot it under streetlights I could at least identify it. I figured that much didn't qualify me for a John Wayne reprimand.

I turned the corner and was almost relieved to see that they were nowhere in sight. I decided to give it one shot. I'd turn onto 9th Avenue and see if they were in range.

I did and they were. There were only two cars moving on 9th Avenue at that moment: my Accord and a sporty silver job heading east about a block and a half ahead of me. I pulled over, grabbed the binoculars, and lined them up.

Audi. Nice car. Expensive car. I put the binoculars away, turned off of 9th Avenue, and took a circuitous route back to the warehouse to make sure they hadn't doubled back and were following me.

When I got back to my post I shut off the Accord and pulled out my cell phone. I dialled Cobb's cell number and was surprised when he answered on the second ring, even more surprised when he sounded wide awake.

“What've you got?”

“How do you know I've got anything?”

“You wouldn't call at 4:30 a.m. unless it was to tell me something. You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. And you're right, I do have a couple of things I thought you should know about.”

“Shoot.”

“Zoe arrived home with two friends, one male and one female, at 2:17 a.m. They were on foot. They went inside and so far they're the only people who have gone in or out of the building. I didn't recognize either of her friends, but the male wasn't Jay Blevins.”

“What else?”

“Just a few minutes ago a car cruised the street, real slow going by the building, lights out, two guys, silver Audi, expensive. The guy in the passenger seat was talking on his cell phone, finished the call, and they drove off.

“Didn't get out of the car.”

“Nope.”

Cobb was silent … thinking.

“I couldn't get any kind of a look at either of the guys in the car. They only made one pass along the street.”

“Did they see you?”

“I don't think so.”

“You still at the building?”

“Watching it like a hawk.”

“Okay, if those guys come back, dial this number, let it ring once, and hang up. I don't want them to see you talking on a phone.”

“Got it.”

“It's almost five a.m. Assuming they don't come back, how about I come by about seven, buy you breakfast, maybe we have a chat with Zoe?”

“When you say buy me breakfast, are you thinking of that happening in a restaurant? Because my ass is frozen solid in this car so a donut and coffee in either of our vehicles isn't going to cut it.”

That brought a chuckle. “There's a restaurant in the old Kane's Motorcycle place on 9th Avenue. Cool place, real good food. Motorcycle diner motif.”

“I know the place.”

“Good. I'll meet you there at seven. We'll eat, you can unfreeze your ass, and then we'll pay a visit to Zoe and friends.”

“That sounds real good, especially the part about thawing my assets.”

“And good work over there. I appreciate it.”

“Any time.”

“Careful, I might take you up on your offer.”

“I meant any time in the summer.”

“Right.” He hung up the phone.

I bundled up again and started the countdown to seven a.m. … and warmth.

Cobb was already there when I walked into the restaurant. Kane's Harley Diner wasn't fancy but it did what I figured the owners wanted it to do. It featured fifties-ish Formica counters, lots of stainless steel, mirrors, motorcycle stuff everywhere, and big portions of hearty food — a biker's idea of heaven. Except that the clientele extended far beyond the biker community — diners of every stripe.