LITMIR.BIZ

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but he’d stopped to watch the pretty girl on centre stage. The music itself was fairly run-of-the-mill country yowling, as he recalled, and he hadn’t stopped for long.

      He shook his head, handing the bulletin back to Prentice. “She’s not victim four. He wouldn’t go for a celebrity. What’s with her vehicle?”

      “Parked near a trailhead on Kispiox Mountain,” Prentice said. “They got a spare key up there and checked. Engine wouldn’t turn over.”

      “What’s the matter with it?”

      “No news yet on that yet.”

      “Must be deep snow up there. Any tracks?”

      “Mess of tracks, Giroux tells me. Terrace sent two Ident guys over for a look. Should be there by now. Problem is family and friends went tramping about before we were brought in. Doubtful there’s anything left.”

      A trashed crime scene was a terrible beginning, and already Leith knew this was going to end up bad. Unless she was incredibly inconsiderate, the girl hadn’t caught a ride with somebody, hadn’t met up with friends, wasn’t simply out having too much fun to call home.

      “Why d’you say he wouldn’t go for a celebrity, Dave?” Bosko asked.

      The “he” they all spoke of was the so-called Pickup Killer, as dubbed by the press because it was about all the police had on him so far, that he drove a pickup. And even that was little more than circumstantial say-so. Leith eyed the stranger, not keen on this first-name-basis thing — it’s Leith to you, buddy — let alone case-note sharing. But Prentice wasn’t objecting, so Leith pulled in his shoulders and gave the stranger the abridged version, just short of rude. “His last two victims were pretty well loners, down-and-outers, which buys him time. Grabbing Kiera is not only way out of his abduction territory — it’s not his style. This is something else altogether, and that means it’s not my file, Phil, and I’m going home. Bye.”

      His last few words were directed at Prentice while stepping across the threshold, but Prentice sharply called him back into the room. “It happened in the Hazeltons, where for all we know he’s based,” Prentice said. “What about the logging road? It’s a link we can’t ignore, and right or wrong, we need you out there, if only to sign off on a no-go.” To Bosko he explained more pleasantly, “Dave heads up the Pickup task force. He’s immersed like nobody else. If there’s one incriminating fibre to be found, he’ll find it.”

      Leith stood embarrassed, for however immersed he might be and whatever responsibilities he shouldered, he wasn’t much of a cop, as his rank pointed out. At his age he hadn’t even made corporal. Couldn’t pass the exams, couldn’t make an impression on those who mattered. He lacked some quality, elusive as charisma. Maybe it was just inherent laziness or a basically crappy IQ, but he wasn’t well read (though he tried). Or well travelled (though he dreamed). He wasn’t suave, wasn’t patient, wasn’t lovable. Worst of all, he wasn’t intuitive.

      If one word could sum him up, it was dogged.

      His personal phone buzzed, and he glanced at it, a coolish text from Alison telling him to pick up another bag of sidewalk salt, and he reflected that a few days away from home might not be so bad. “Right,” he told Prentice. “I’ll go pack. Call Giroux and tell her I’ll be on the road in an hour. ETA, no idea.”

      He was nodding goodbye to the stranger Bosko, but Bosko wasn’t done irritating him and said, “Hold on a sec, Dave. I’ve run this by Phil already, and so long as it’s fine with you, it’s fine with him. I’m wondering if you’d mind if I rode along with you.”

      “Rode along? To where? The airport? The airport’s that way.”

      “New Hazelton. From there I could catch the next available sheriff run to Prince George and hop a plane. Wouldn’t mind seeing the interior up close. Never really get the chance. Always flying over.” He smiled.

      The room’s windows looking out to sea were solid grey but for the white bombardments of sleet, and Leith could hear the muted howl of February pressing against the double-glazed window. The roads would be murder, the view obscured by haze, and it wasn’t much of a view anyway, a monotony of ice-rimed trees with the occasional glimpse of ice-jammed river.

      He tried to send the stranger a fuck-off message with his eyes. “It’s a hell of a long drive, this time of year. Hours. And in this weather you won’t see much but taillights. It’ll be slow going. Gruelling.”

      “For once in my life, Dave, I’ve got time.”

      Leith shrugged and glowered. “Okay, then. Meet back here in forty minutes?”

      “Absolutely.”

      The only thing worse than a winter drive to the Hazeltons, Leith reflected as he made his way to the parkade, was a long winter drive to the Hazeltons with a man who answered grim propositions with absolutely. Damn.

      * * *

      “Thing is, I don’t have to be back at the office till the end of the month,” Bosko explained, settled next to Leith in the passenger seat, his specs reflecting the oncoming headlights. Prince Rupert was behind them now at two thirty, and they hadn’t yet sped up to highway limits. “The conference wrapped up quicker than we expected, as you know, which opened up this great window of time for me, a whole week, and my first impulse was to call up admin right away and top it up. But then I got to thinking. I walked down to the harbour, watched the waves crashing in, and it occurred to me how little I know of these parts, and how I wouldn’t mind some eyes-on exploration. I’ve called B.C. home for the last decade, yet I haven’t driven north of Cache Creek, would you believe?”

      “Huh,” Leith said.

      “And I’m not the only one. I don’t know how many superior officers I’ve talked to down on the coast who’ve seen Disneyland but never drove the highways of B.C. It becomes a problem when those who run the show forget about the practicalities of working under conditions such as you guys face on a daily basis. I’m stating the obvious, you’d think, but there’s a genuine disconnect, Dave. There’s real time and distance involved. It’s not like moving the cursor across Google Earth. It’s distance you can feel in the small of your back.” He grinned, watched the cruddy snow-plastered trees pass for a while, and said, “So what do you know of Kiera Rilkoff?”

      Leith could sum up what he knew of the missing girl on three fingers. She was attractive, popular among the local youngsters, and had aspirations. He said as much, padding it out with extra words, trying to sound smart, feeling Bosko’s eyes on him.

      After a beat Bosko said, “The track they played on the radio back in November was pretty rough on the ears. By the sound of it, I’d say it was done up in a home studio, and not too well. Kiera promised their upcoming CD would be a professional burn, that they had sunk money into it, and maybe had acquired an agent, I think she said. Or was it a manager? Does that mean anything to you?”

      “I haven’t been following her career,” Leith admitted. “Sorry.”

      “No, and unfortunately I wasn’t really listening at the time,” Bosko said. “But if anyone’s interested, it can probably be pulled from the archives.”

      Who needs archives when you have the amazing Bosko’s hi-fidelity recall, Leith thought enviously. His own memory was good on things that mattered, but recount some random bullshit he’d heard on the radio three months ago?

      Bosko asked more smart questions about the logistics of operations in the area, search and rescue, continuity issues with thin staffing, response times in various conditions. Leith did his best to answer, not so well, and soon enough the big man from the city went from asking questions to a kind of running soliloquy on whatever was on his mind at the moment. Northern demographics, poverty issues, the border security conference and how it had gone down, who had spoken, upcoming shifts in policy and legislation. As Leith was learning now the hard way, Mike Bosko abhorred a vacuum.

      Half listening, grunting occasionally, Leith pressed on, away from the

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