LITMIR.BIZ

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You’re just a witness. Honest.”

      Lenny sat, thinking hard. Dion rotated his writing wrist. Leith continued to watch the boy, waiting through the silence as though he knew it wouldn’t last. He was right.

      “But I’m not a witness,” Lenny burst out. “You say she’s missing? I didn’t even know it. I was in Prince George. With Tex. I don’t even have a phone, ’cause Rob cut me off, so I was five hours away and didn’t even know you were looking for me.”

      “Yeah,” Leith said. “I know.”

      The colour was returning to Lenny’s face. He cleared his throat and said, “Sorry.”

      “That’s okay,” Leith said.

      “So what’s happened to Kiera?”

      “We don’t know what happened to Kiera,” Leith told him.

      Lenny sat for a moment, staring into nothing, then without warning his face crumpled and he was crying like a frightened child. Dion was glad, because his writing hand was sore as hell, and tears didn’t need transcribing.

      * * *

      Leith was fried. He shut down the interviews for a time out to talk to his colleagues. He sent Lenny Law on his way and met with Bosko and Giroux in Giroux’s office. The others sat, but he paced. He’d had enough of sitting for a while.

      “The kid was mighty defensive,” he said. “You told me he hasn’t been in trouble with the law before.”

      Giroux at her desk shook her head. “Hasn’t even lifted a candy bar. But it’s what he grew up in, eh? The three bears were estranged from their parents early on. If you met them you’d know why. So they moved into their big house in the woods and far as I know stay out of trouble. Rob was never caught committing a crime, but probably everyone he was close to as a youngster had done time. And as we know, Frank’s got that assault thing. So if Lenny’s edgy about the police, you can see where he gets it.”

      Leith described the boy’s crying jag, which was understandable, maybe, but didn’t quite jibe. “All these people, for some reason I’m having a hard time reading them. Why do I get the feeling they’re holding back?”

      Bosko asked, “What did Lenny have to say, once he pulled himself together?”

      “Nothing new. He was in his room all morning and left after Kiera was gone. He didn’t witness anything.”

      “Did he tell you about Prince George?”

      “Not really. Like his brothers said, he goes there a lot. Nothing strange there.”

      “Sure,” Bosko said. “Did he give any reason why, here in the communication age, nobody could reach him for two whole days?”

      “I did ask him about that. Lenny’s lost his cellphone rights. Tex doesn’t answer his dad’s home phone, as a rule, and it happens he wasn’t picking up his cell either because he was trying to avoid some girl, and he doesn’t have caller ID, so he wasn’t screening either.”

      “All of which you’re going to verify with Tex,” Bosko said, a question without a question mark attached.

      Leith hadn’t planned on verifying anything except the trip itself, but gave a nod. “Spacey’s tracking him down right now.”

      Bosko said to Giroux, “That reminds me, how are you doing for manpower? You have a village to run, and we’ve stolen your troops. Are you getting everything else covered, or should we call for more help?”

      “More help would be good,” Giroux said. “We’re down one rookie ’cause this ass slipped in the mud and broke his hand, so he needs a scribe.”

      Leith said, “Slipped on the ice and sprained my wrist.”

      “However you want to say it, we’re down one guy who’s taking notes for Dave here instead of out doing his own interviews, which is too bad, ’cause there are plenty of minor witnesses on my list that even he could handle.”

      “Dion?” Leith said with contempt. “I wouldn’t let that halfwit make coffee. What are they letting out of Regina these days? He can’t work a tape recorder. Scares the hell out of me that he’s in charge of a loaded gun.”

      Bosko lifted his brows. “What’s he done, exactly?”

      “It’s not so much what he’s done,” Leith said. “We all make mistakes. It’s what he is. He’s slow, and he’s absent. You haven’t noticed?”

      “I’ve noticed him,” Bosko said, not quite answering the question. “Do you feel you should write him up?”

      “No,” Leith said after a moment’s consideration. “Not at this point. But I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on him.”

      “And maybe have a talk,” Bosko suggested.

      A counsellor Leith was not. He grimaced and moved on. “First impressions on everyone I’ve talked to so far. Frank Law’s still my first choice, but he’s got at least one good alibi, Chad Oman. I don’t think Oman’s lying to cover him. Stella Marshall I’m not so sure about. Parker Chu is solid. I’m more interested in Rob Law right now. Think of it, he’s up at his worksite, not far from Kiera’s truck. He couldn’t have gone down to meet her without being seeing by his crew, and nobody saw him leave, but he was there after everyone left. Maybe he met her then, down at the Matax, or she’d made her way up to the site, waited till everyone left before going in to see him.”

      Giroux and Bosko looked doubtful, and Leith knew why. A logging road in mid-February was no place to hang about for hours, even in the shelter of a vehicle. He sighed, checked the memo that had been handed to him in the hallway, and recalled he had one more interview to cover off. Not a band member or family, but Scott Rourke, a friend of the Law brothers who lived just up the road from the Laws, now waiting out in the reception area. Rourke was the last one to see Kiera alive, if he could be believed, but he’d already been cleared as a suspect, and so far Leith had seen no need to question him himself.

      The facts were simple enough: Rourke had been riding his dirt bike from his mobile home toward town when Kiera had passed him in her truck. The time, as far as he could narrow it down, was just before one in the afternoon. She hadn’t acknowledged him, probably hadn’t recognized him as she approached, just sped past. It was about all he could say then, but now apparently he had something to add, and this time he wanted to talk to the lead investigator.

      Rourke was a name Leith was all too familiar with from his many long days of weeding through the listings in his search for the Pickup Killer. This one he’d pulled and run through the system more than once because of its history, but nothing had panned out, and he’d moved on. He said to Giroux, “Our biker. We all know this turkey, but I haven’t talked to him in person yet. What can you tell me about him?”

      He saw a shadow cross her brow, and she made a noise, something between a spit and a hiss. “Where do I start?” she said.

      * * *

      Leith ushered Rourke into the interview room, gave Dion the name, and took his seat. Scott Rourke was an ugly sucker, face rippled by a nasty scar. He was somewhere in his late fifties, with yellow hair going silver. He wore skinny jeans, battered cowboy boots, a white muscle shirt, and a black leather vest with a large, grubby bird’s feather — illegal eagle, Leith suspected — laced to its lapel. First Nations people could possess feathers and whites couldn’t, and Rourke was white as white could be. He draped himself loosely over his chair, gnashing on a wad of chewing gum, stared across at Leith, and said, “Well, let’s get started.”

      Leith told Rourke to state his full name, age, and occupation.

      “What’s what I do for a living got to do with anything?” Rourke said.

      Dion the scribe wrote it down.

      Leith hardened his voice. “We won’t know until we know, will we?” He studied the scar bisecting

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