The Devil's Cinema (28 page)

Twitchell tried to see the humour in it and joined in on the joke, telling him of his
Star Wars
fan film in post-production. He smiled.

When Reiche asked why he was speeding, Twitchell whined and lied, hoping to talk his way out of a ticket. “Can't you give a guy a break?” he pleaded. “I'm a film producer. I'm making a movie and I'm on my way to the airport right now.” He told Reiche he had to pick up a big-name celebrity. “He's annoyed that I'm not already there.”

Reiche headed back to his patrol car to write up the ticket. But he couldn't stop thinking about the novelty car plate. He signed and dated the ticket, and with a smile, he returned with good news. “Hey, are you Darth Vader?” the cop chuckled.

Twitchell tried not to show his frustration and impatience. The sheriff noticed his change in demeanour and stopped cracking jokes. He handed Twitchell his yellow ticket for $89.

“I gave you a break,” Reiche said. “The ticket is about half of what you should have paid.”

Twitchell thanked him for knocking down the amount. When he had time later, he would pull out his computer and write in S. K. Confessions
about how the cop had “no clue” about who he had just pulled over. If only the officer had taken a closer look at his car, peered inside, or examined his trunk. “He just did his duty and took off,” he wrote. “Now every time I pass a police car on the road, I chuckle to myself.”

Twitchell stuffed the speeding ticket into his white and black backpack, next to where he usually kept his laptop. He dropped the bag on the floor of the passenger side of the vehicle. There the ticket would sit, forgotten, never to be paid.

He had more pressing concerns on his mind, after all. A Post-It note was nearby, stating his chosen desires. And in his backpack, he had stashed a few condoms and a bottle of cologne.

Traci was less than forty minutes away.

D
AWN BROKE
. T
RACI WAS
already awake. She was getting dressed for work in the early morning of Tuesday, October 14. It was her first day back since the long weekend and she had to leave soon to drive to Nisku, on the highway just outside of Edmonton. Still a bit groggy, Twitchell rubbed his eyes and looked up at her from the covers of her bed. While he had been putting on weight from his diet of junk food, Traci was in terrific shape. She had a tattoo on her left shoulder that he had helped design when they were dating back in college. He remembered the Celtic cross tattoo quite well. It had been his idea to add intertwining vines to it, which Traci agreed looked really cool. She had been inked up with another tattoo since then. On the back of her neck was a Celtic knot of interwoven lines joining into a circle, symbolizing everlasting love.

The night had been everything Twitchell had wanted, but Traci was still not convinced it had been a good idea. In the sobriety of the harsh daylight, she didn't know what to make of it. Twitchell had re-emerged in her life while she was still seeking a divorce and stuck in the middle of another tumultuous relationship that seemed to start and end on a regular rotation. It didn't make her feel any better to see that while she was frantically trying to get ready for work, it seemed like Twitchell, lying back and looking comfortable, had nowhere to be.

Despite her misgivings, she decided to trust him with a key. It was around 5:30 a.m. and they had been up all night. She told him to lock up when he
left. “Just leave it under the barbeque,” she said before heading out the door.

Twitchell drifted back to sleep and awoke hours later. When he opened the bedroom door, her two little dogs went nuts. He looked down, annoyed as the pug and Boston terrier mixes yipped and barked, nipping at his feet. He brushed past the pair into the main room of the trailer. The television had been left on and it was broadcasting an episode of
The View
. Twitchell shut it off, packed up his things, and walked out the door. He then stuck Traci's spare key under a lawn ornament, ignoring her instructions, and jumped in his car.

Twitchell drove across the railway tracks, cruising through the sleepy town – a mix of suburbia, pawn shops, liquor stores, and bingo halls. He reached the highway and drove past a huge water tower surrounded by a cemetery. One of the last things he saw of Wetaskiwin was row upon row of tombstones.

As he approached Edmonton nearly an hour later, Twitchell felt his stomach rumble so he detoured for breakfast. A bit later, with a belly full of eggs and chocolate milk, he parked at his rented garage and opened the back door. It had been just over three days since his Friday-night experience. The air was stuffy and stale. He flicked on the light. A bulb glowed above, light reflecting off dozens of staples that remained stuck in the ceiling.

He paused a moment to admire his special room. Half the space was taken up by a red Mazda 3 while his metal table, metal chair, and oil drum cluttered the other side.

It was chilly in the garage. There was no heating system to ward off the biting autumn air. Twitchell could nearly see his breath as he grabbed a pair of scissors and rolled out clear plastic sheeting over the concrete floor. He then cut two layers of plastic sheets and draped them on top of his metal table, like an oversized tablecloth. On one side of the table, he placed a metal pipe with hockey tape wrapped around one end; on the other side, he placed a bottle of ammonia and a roll of paper towels.

He duct-taped two grocery bags around his ankles to seal them shut around his shoes. Twitchell took several minutes to fashion a make-shift apron out of plastic sheeting and duct tape, which he then hung around his neck. He pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and pushed a painter's mask over his face. He knew the ammonia could burn his lungs.

Twitchell opened the trunk of the Mazda and withdrew the large garbage bags he had salvaged from his unsuccessful fire. He lifted each one, dropping them on the plastic-covered concrete beside his metal table. He hoisted one of the bigger bags onto the tabletop.

At last, he retrieved an emerald green plastic case off the back shelf and placed it on his table. It was no bigger than a briefcase and had a bit of heft to it. Embedded into the hard plastic were the words “Outdoor Edge Game Processor.”

He flicked the case open.

Inside, four knives were stacked nicely on the left. Each blade was contained within its own compartment, the knife sharpener stored directly above. On the right, a meat cleaver that didn't match the others was resting within. Beneath it were a carving fork, cutting shears, a long big-toothed saw, and a pair of rib spreaders.

Twitchell's fingers dangled over the instruments as he decided which one to choose. He finally reached in for the butcher knife. Twitchell grabbed the handle tightly and raised the knife near his face, admiring the heavy sharp blade.

J
OHNNY'S BEHAVIOUR CONTINUED TO
frustrate his friends. He seemed totally preoccupied with his new life with this rich woman in the Caribbean. Six days after his date with Jen, he signed in to Facebook again. Johnny's updated status showed his new path was having an even greater hold on him: “Wondering why anyone would leave sun and surf to come back to snow and stress.” A friend demanded to see his vacation pictures, but Johnny ignored him.

Facebook had become a pivot point for those who cared about Johnny Altinger. Friends who knew him, but didn't know each other, began connecting through the site. Messages were shared as they asked questions, searched for answers. Dale continued to lead the pack. The police had told him they would need more evidence if an investigation was to occur. When Dale finished work on Friday, October 17, he discovered his friends – the married couple who had spent a long night with him waiting for the police – had stopped by Johnny's place that day and found a window ajar. He rushed over to the condo and the couple joined him for Dale's first peek inside.

His friend's wife crawled through the window, tiptoeing across Johnny's condo to unlock the front door for Dale and her husband. The three of them scoured the place for any clue of Johnny's whereabouts. Dale headed for the bedroom while his friends searched the kitchen. They saw dirty pots on the stove, a hot dog unwrapped in the fridge. Trash cans were emptied, receipts gathered. If Johnny had gone on vacation with his date, he clearly hadn't returned to his condo to pick up a few essentials: his luggage was still in the closet, and he had left behind his beach towel and shaving kit. But Johnny's laptop was missing, as well as his printer.

Dale searched the bedroom dresser. He thumbed through clothes until he stumbled upon some of Johnny's documents.

Among them, his passport.

I
T WAS
F
RIDAY
, O
CTOBER
17, when Twitchell returned to his garage once again. He had run out of ideas on how to solve a remaining problem that had emerged exactly one week earlier. In a sigh, he pulled out his cell phone and called Joss.

His friend picked up after a few rings, taking a break from pulling security system wiring through an under-construction electronics store. Twitchell tried to sound upbeat as he shared the exciting news: he had been at a gas station recently and randomly met a guy who was moving to the Caribbean with his sugar momma and trying to get rid of his stuff for whatever he could get. Twitchell explained with glee how he had bought the man's red Mazda 3 for only forty dollars.

“Wow!” Joss said. “Sounds like one of those deals that's too good to be true.”

“Yeah, I thought so too,” Twitchell replied, “but I have all of the papers for it and I got a bill of sale.” He asked him if he knew where the nearest registry office was located so he could fill out the ownership paperwork and sell it right away.

“Why not keep it?” Joss offered. “It's a nice car.”

“It's a standard. I can't drive it.” Twitchell asked Joss for a favour: would he come over to the garage right away and drive the Mazda 3 for him to his home in St. Albert?

Joss looked at the clock. It was shortly after 3:30 p.m. He told Twitchell he didn't have time to drive to St. Albert that day because he had to meet someone at 4:00 p.m. “How 'bout I park it in the driveway at my house?” The garage was only a few blocks away from where Joss lived with his parents. Joss would just have to check with his dad, but he didn't think it would be a problem.

Twitchell accepted the compromise but didn't explain to his friend why he had to move a car that was already parked in a garage. Joss didn't think to ask.

They met at the rental property a few minutes later. Twitchell watched as Joss examined the car in astonishment. It looked to be in such great condition for only forty dollars. Joss drove it over to his parents' house and Twitchell followed, collecting the licence plate and keys.

Over the weekend, Twitchell received several phone calls from Joss about the car, offering to buy it for much more than he had spent. But Twitchell always politely declined, saying he'd have to think about it. Joss thought his friend had all the luck. Talking about the car purchase with his own family, Joss kept shaking his head, thinking it was like Twitchell was born with a horseshoe up his ass.

If only Joss had examined the car's exterior more closely, he would have noticed a strange stain that blended into the glossy red paint on the Mazda 3's back bumper. The red liquid had dried in a flow pattern, pointing from the bumper back into the trunk. Opening the trunk would have revealed further stains soaked into the trunk carpet and dripping into the spare tire below.

At a glance, anyone passing by might have just assumed that someone had been loading and unloading leaky garbage bags into the trunk of the car, spilling some of their contents with every messy trip.

T
HE DISCOVERY OF
J
OHNNY'S
passport was a vindication of Dale Smith's concerns. He knew the police couldn't ignore him now. And the back-and-forth of messages between Johnny's Facebook friends had uncovered that he had emailed one of his co-workers, Willy, the directions he had received from his Friday-night date. Everything was coming together.

With this newly gathered information, a phone call to the police finally resulted in action. Officers acknowledged there was a potential crime worth investigating, especially with a passport located for a man supposedly on vacation overseas.

A missing persons report was filed and a case number assigned. Two constables coming on night shift were handed the file. Exactly one week since he was last seen, a patrol car started driving to a rented garage, following the very same path Johnny had taken.

J
OHNNY'S FRIENDS CONTINUED TO
expand their search for the latest information, even after the police became involved. The creation of the “Find Johnny Altinger” group page on Facebook allowed them to share stories and photos, as well as theories on his whereabouts. In Vancouver, Marie was startled to receive an invitation to join such a group and to discover that the old friend she had just visited in the summer had vanished. “I hope this isn't true,” she wrote.

Dozens of people, in fact, had been caught off guard when they received the same invites to join the group. Johnny's closest friends had never stopped spreading the word of their suspicions behind Johnny's Caribbean vacation, which surprised many who had assumed his status updates were legitimate. Family members across the world were soon told the news.

Johnny's mother, Elfriede, called his phone while she was in Mexico on vacation, but her calls were always diverted to his voicemail. In her sadness and confusion, she found she started calling just to hear the comforting recorded voice of her son on the other end.

It was a habit that would consume her for years.

O
N THE NIGHT OF
Saturday, October 18, Twitchell's cell phone rang as he sat at home with Jess and the baby. He had been fiddling on his laptop earlier and wasn't expecting any calls. He picked up and to his surprise, a police officer was on the other end.