LITMIR.BIZ

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brother.

      They returned to the vehicle and continued up the road. After twenty minutes, it forked without signage, and Leith had to consult his forestry map to learn he’d want to go left. They didn’t reach the logging site run by Rob Law, called RL Logging Ltd., for another ten minutes of bone-jarring ascent, and here suddenly was life and noise, the churning of an active logging show amidst a clearing.

      Again they stepped from the truck, and they found it was colder here, windier. Just the altitude, Leith supposed, or the lack of shelter, brought the temperature down. A crew of five or six pushed large machines through the snow, and a worker in yellow rain gear swung off a Caterpillar to ask their business. Leith asked to speak with Rob Law, and the worker indicated the loader toiling away a hundred yards uphill, swinging logs from the great pile of timber on the landing onto the long spine of a waiting rig. “That’s him there. Why? Got some news? Kiera …”

      “’Fraid not,” Leith said. “Could you call him over for us? Just a few questions.”

      The worker got on his radio and forged off through the dirty snow. Bosko said, “I understand Rob and Frank inherited the company from their father Roland eight years ago or so, and that Roland’s no longer involved. Is that right?”

      Leith hadn’t a clue. “That’s what I understand,” he agreed. He watched a man he assumed to be Rob Law approaching. He wore a plaid mack jacket and jeans, hard helmet on, pulled low. He’s going to be difficult, he thought. He said, “D’you want to take the lead on this one? I’d rather do the observing.”

      “Sure.”

      The logger took his time making his way over, pausing to talk to his crew, kicking at a piece of machinery, but finally stood before them, face tipped back with what looked like challenge. He wasn’t so tall, about five-ten, but solid. Renee Giroux called him antisocial and/or misogynistic. Any time she encountered him in town he’d be ducking his face, she said, and she believed it was more to do with her sex than her rank.

      Leith introduced himself and Bosko. “You’re a difficult man to get a hold of,” he added. “You didn’t get our message to come down and talk, sir?”

      “Busy,” Rob Law said. He swung the Thermos he was carrying toward a portable workstation set up on a nearby slope, what Jayne Spacey had called the Atco. “We can talk in there. You’re supposed to wear lids, eh.” He rapped his own hard hat.

      “We won’t tell,” Bosko said.

      Rob led the way around pulverized wood debris and coffee-coloured ice puddles, climbed the set of fold-out stairs leading up to the Atco trailer’s door, stomped the soil off his boots at the threshold, shoved open the three-quarter size aluminum door, and stood aside to let them pass. The trailer they found themselves in was a long, near-empty room that apparently served as his on-site headquarters. Heat and light were provided by a grumbling generator. A kitchen table with mismatched lawn chairs was set at one end, a ratty sofa at the other, everything else in between. Deck of cards on the table, coffee maker on the counter, small fridge, mini-sink. Supernatural BC wall calendar. Without asking, Rob cleared the table of paperwork and set three cups of coffee on the Arborite tabletop, one cup in front of each folding chair. Bosko took the cue first and sat. Leith took his own chair and watched Rob step away, shove open the door, and leave the trailer without so much as an “excuse me.”

      Leith left his chair to watch through a window, making sure their subject wasn’t fleeing, and saw Rob walk back toward the trees and step into a bright blue Johnny-on-the-spot. If this was an arms or drugs charge Leith would be worried, but it wasn’t. Under his breath he said, “Real king of the castle here, aren’t you.”

      The king of the castle returned, washed his hands more meticulously than Leith would have expected, took his chair at the head of the table, dried his palms on his jeans, folded his arms, and waited.

      As Leith had suggested, Bosko did the questioning. Leith wondered now why he had suggested it, really. True, he wanted the opportunity to sit quietly and observe Rob answering questions, but more so he wanted to see how Bosko operated. There was anxiety too, in that he feared he’d make an ass of himself in front of Bosko. He could be abrasive, he knew, and his interviewees could be too, and now and then his questioning sessions became shit-slinging contests. He didn’t want that to happen here.

      He wondered further why he cared what Bosko thought of him, and it took another moment of self-analysis to get it. Simple, really: Bosko was looking for talent for his new Serious Crimes Unit down on the Lower Mainland, and Leith wished to impress him. Ergo, Leith wished to leave the north, which in turn came as a big surprise to himself, something he’d have to consider later.

      He sat and observed the men, Mike Bosko and Rob Law, as they talked. Rob was not bad looking, in a rough-hewn kind of way. His hair was longish and unkempt, face moody and unwelcoming, a bit of a worker troll. Bosko explained to the troll in a level, respectful way that there were no leads on what had happened to Kiera. He described where the investigation was at. Finally he asked for some background information: How long had Rob known the girl?

      The logger’s face slewed into an exaggerated sniff. “I don’t know. A while.”

      “What’s a while?”

      “Years. Who knows? Why? It matters?”

      “Well, I can tell you,” Bosko said, “it might seem pointless to you, and maybe it is. But we have a lot of blanks to fill in right now. I can also tell you that I’ve only got about ten short questions, but if you answer each one like this, we’re going to be here for a lot longer than you probably want.”

      He said it nicely enough, but Leith expected a backlash. None came. The veiled anger in Rob’s eyes neither darkened nor lightened, but he seemed to get the message. “I’ve known her as long as she and Frank got together, which is when they were teens, so whatever that is.”

      “Good,” Bosko said. Good was a reward word, a tool Leith rarely used. He watched another degree of tension leave Rob’s face. “Tell us about Saturday,” Bosko said. “The day she went missing. Give a timeline of what you did that day, starting from when you woke up in the morning.”

      “Timeline.” Rob said it with distaste, maybe just not keen on fancy words applied to his unfancy life. “Got up with the light, got to work. Worked all day. The crew knocked off at six and took off home. I did my paperwork and went down the hill about seven. On the way I found her wheels parked off to the side. Checked it out a bit and then went down and told Frank about it. That’s about all I know. Frank went off looking for her. I’d have gone and helped, but I was dead on my feet. Went straight to bed.”

      “You didn’t take part in the search?”

      “Other than looking at her truck there when I found it and hollering out her name, I never joined the party, no. If a dozen guys with dogs and whistles can’t find her, I sure couldn’t either.”

      Bosko paused, maybe thinking what Leith was thinking, that Rob by his own admission was alone at the Matax at 7:00 p.m., and it was only his word that he hadn’t found Kiera there at that time and done something with her. It was unlikely but worth a follow-up.

      “Did you notice anything else in the area that night, besides her vehicle?” Bosko asked. “Tire tracks, footprints, items on the ground, anything out of the ordinary?”

      “No. Wasn’t looking, didn’t notice. Never crossed my mind anything worse had happened than she’d broke down and gotten a ride back to town with somebody. Probably one of my crew, heading home.”

      “The big question on everyone’s mind,” Bosko said, “is why she was heading up the Bell 3. The only possible destination is this worksite, don’t you think? Did she communicate with you in any way, that day or before, that she was coming to see you? Were you expecting her?”

      Rob sat stone-still and drilled his eyes at Bosko for a long moment before giving the shortest possible answer. “No.”

      “You can’t think of any reason, then, for her visit?”

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