LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Where did he go?”

      Lenny Law pointed more or less at Giroux. “Here. To see you.”

      Leith questioned Giroux with his eyes. She shook her head. “He’s not here,” he told Lenny. “He hasn’t been here at all today.”

      “He dropped me at home and said he was coming here, and took off. An hour ago. He wouldn’t let me go with him.”

      “Why was he coming here?”

      “To tell you something.”

      “D’you know what he wanted to tell us?”

      “What he’s done,” Lenny Law said in that airy voice that was beginning to give Leith the creeps.

      He asked the boy to tell them everything he knew about what Frank had done, what exactly he had said, but the youngest brother wouldn’t say. Leith asked him where they’d been all day, him and Frank, and did they drive there? If Frank was driving and had left half an hour earlier, he should have been here many minutes ago. Had he stopped somewhere along the way? Did he say where he might be stopping?

      But Lenny was done divulging. It was Frank’s thing now, and whatever Frank had to say he would have to say himself.

      Giroux and Auxiliary Constable Daniels took Lenny back to his home to wait there, in case Frank changed his mind and returned. Leith stayed in the office, having instructed Constable Spacey to organize everyone on staff, on duty and off, including auxiliaries, to launch a dedicated search in the area for Frank and/or his green 1982 Jeep.

      Spacey promised she’d scour the planet till she found him, no problem.

      Spacey is a good cop, thought Leith, still with a mix of envy and admiration. She’ll go far.

      * * *

      The sad warbling of a small bird buried deep under the snow woke Dion, and he looked at the ceiling. He didn’t know which ceiling it was until the bird warbled again and he recognized the sound as his cellphone and the place as the Super 8, and he recalled he’d gotten off shift and lain down to rest and must have fallen into a deep sleep. He found the phone on the fourth ring, and Spacey’s brittle voice was in his ear, telling him to get in to work right away.

      He looked at his watch. “But —”

      “Now,” she said.

      Across the highway he found the office fully lit, in spite of the late hour, and it looked like all were in attendance for whatever emergency this was. Spacey gave Dion and the others detailed instructions to grid-search certain areas of town for Frank Law and/or his vehicle. Dion took his copy of the bulletin and asked what was happening, and Spacey spoke in a low voice, for his ears only. “As I just finished explaining, but maybe you didn’t click, word is he was on his way in to make a confession, but he disappeared en route. So if by chance you apprehend him, don’t fuck up by having a nice little chat with him. Just shut up and bring him in and let somebody with a functioning brain get his statement. Okay?”

      He worked on a mean, snappy reply, but not fast enough; she had moved on and was talking to somebody else. Dion drove out to find the area assigned to him, and it happened to be in the area to the west of the 7-Eleven mini-mall, and once within its quiet avenues and cul-de-sacs, he knew that this was the last place on earth Frank Law would be found. It was a small new subdivision with a middle-class feel to it, Hazelton’s version of urban sprawl, and he knew Spacey had done it on purpose, given him the least likely zone to search. It was all about revenge with her.

      He followed about half her instructions, visually checked driveways as he passed, but didn’t stop at every closed garage or outbuilding and pester the residents about permission to search. It was cutting corners, but Frank wasn’t here, not in plain sight and not hidden either.

      Having cut so many corners, he was done sooner than the time allotted to him, and he turned his vehicle back onto the highway, tires scraping on ice, and saw that the skies to the east were strangely pink and writhing, as if the world on the far side of the mountains was ablaze. He was watching the sky as he drove along and almost didn’t see the hitchhiker ahead, standing on the shoulder, a slouchy cap taming her long hair that fluttered sideways like a cape, and her thumb out. She pulled that thumb in fast when she saw the vehicle coming her way was a police cruiser, and at the same time he recognized her under the sickly orange glow of the street lamp. Evangeline Doyle, apparently on her way to a new life. He signalled, pulled over, and stepped from the car, and she gave a whoop of recognition and came forward in a weird lope, burdened by a large backpack. They stood on the shoulder, face to face, and he saw she was already road-weary, though not quite fatigued. Her pretty, round face broke into a grin. “Can you take me to Edmonton, Officer?”

      “Bit late to be heading out of town. Why don’t you wait till morning?”

      “Nah. I’m a night bird.”

      “Still. Chances of getting a ride are slim, I think.” At least with someone safe. He tried to tell her with a stern look what he thought of it, hitchhiking at all, but especially at night. And especially here, this notorious strip from Prince Rupert to Prince George that had earned the mournful name of Highway of Tears for good reason.

      She sniffed and looked at the pink sky, now tinged with green. She nodded. “I suppose you’re right. It’s just Scottie’s been in a really shitty mood lately, so we got in a bit of a yelling match, and I guess I burned my bridges.But one more night I guess I can put up with him. Would you look at that, though?”

      They looked at the sky together, and then he looked at Evangeline, because the brim of her cap was sparkling pink under the lamplight, which reminded him of something, but he couldn’t say what. She saw him staring at it, and said, “Problem?”

      “Can I see it?” he said.

      She took it off and handed it over. The cap was fake suede, with a stiff beak that was suede over card. He looked at the glitter, glued on in a deteriorating pattern along the brim. He touched the glitter and Evangeline said, “Careful, there’s not much left, and it’s an old favourite.”

      He looked at her and recalled the photo of her on the wall, the girl outside on a windy day, cap on and one gloved hand keeping it from flying away. He said, “Where are the gloves?”

      Because it was a matching set, and the glove in the picture was grey, a soft knit fabric, with a little sparkling bow at the wrist, and though it was significant, he couldn’t say why, or whether that significance attached to this file or something else altogether.

      “Scottie lost them,” Evangeline said, making a face of exasperation, a mother wearied by her child’s pranks. “They’re those tiny gloves that stretch and fit anybody, so the idiot borrowed them. Can you imagine a man wearing gloves with little pink bows? He probably stretched them all out of shape anyway. Do you mind if I ask why?”

      He returned the cap, knowing the why might come to him, eventually. Probably too late to matter.

      She put it back on and said with an attractive and challenging smirk, “Wouldn’t be able to zip me over to his place, would you? It’ll take you all of five minutes.”

      Zipping her over to Kispiox would be a lot more than five minutes. He phoned Spacey, told her he was finished the subdivision, and asked how about if he took a cruise through the outlying areas for a bit, then report back in. Spacey didn’t care what he did. He loaded Evangeline’s backpack into the trunk, and she got in the passenger seat, and he carved a U-turn on the highway and headed back toward Kispiox.

      Which technically he shouldn’t do. Technically, he should report in that he had a civilian in the car, and technically he could be disciplined for providing taxi service to the public. Technically, too, she should be in the rear seat, kept at bay by the bulletproof barrier. But technically he was at the nothing-to-lose stage of his career, and didn’t really care what rules he broke. Anyway, he had a question or two for her, which made it less of a taxi ride and more business. “D’you know the Laws much?”

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