The Trickster. Muriel Gray
would send someone from Edmonton now. The rules said you couldn’t lead an investigation if you were personally involved, and boy, was he involved. The guy who did that to Joe would know how involved if he ever found himself in a room with Craig.
He let his gaze wander from the document of doom on the desk to the window, where the falling snow was thicker than the fake stuff they used to chuck around on a John Denver Christmas special.
How to deal with the media. That was the next big one. Craig could just imagine how the ratings-hungry louses were going to cover this. What made better copy than a murder in a tourist town, where the biggest stink is usually some skis getting stolen, or some guy winning a busted face in a bar brawl? Suddenly, there’s a jackpot; two patrollers dying in a freak avalanche explosives accident, then a murder that would make Stephen King say yuk. All against a backdrop of folks having winter-wonderland fun in the snow. Christ, it would have the American networks circling Silver like crows round a carcass.
Bad thought. It made him see Joe again. Or what had been left of Joe. Craig sighed and replayed the tape in his head one more time. Joe’s pick-up was the second last vehicle to cross the pass that night. The truck came after. He was sure of that. Seen the tracks himself. The murderer couldn’t possibly have survived up there without a vehicle, so either he was in Joe’s car, or Legat’s.
Or both. Craig’s mouth opened slightly. Or both. In Joe’s truck as far as the gorge then hitched a ride in the Peterbilt. He got excited. Then he stopped getting excited. Joe’s truck had been pushed over the edge. Something really powerful had pushed it. A single killer and some old truck driver with a dodgy heart couldn’t possibly have done it by themselves. It would have taken either ten men or another vehicle, at least another pick-up. The snow that had fallen relentlessly for at least ten hours after the event made sure they would never know the answer to that one. A murderer couldn’t have chosen better conditions to cover his tracks. And anyway, why would someone like the Legat guy have taken part in such a foul deed? His records showed he was just a regular trucker: no record, nothing untoward, and strangely, for someone who just took the coward’s way out, nothing to suggest he would want to. The suicides Craig had dealt with in twenty years of policing were usually caused by drink, gambling debts, sexual problems or mental illness. Ernie Legat didn’t seem to suffer from any of them. Was he forced to do something despicable? Was that why he had committed suicide? Didn’t make sense. He would have just driven straight to the RCs if there had been any funny business and he’d survived. Craig pulled himself up. Legat wasn’t murdered, remember, just died of the cold. For the hundredth time he asked himself what the hell were they dealing with here.
The local TV and radio stations had covered the ski patrol deaths and Wolf River Valley Cable had run some crap about the dangers of avalanching. But this was the real thing. A bloody, messy, unexplained, motiveless cop-killing, bound to go network, and he shrank at the prospect. If their man was a psycho, headline news wouldn’t help. Where was the piece of shit now? That’s what he needed to know. The son of a bitch could be walking round town collecting for the blind as far as Craig knew, since right now Silver had more strangers than residents. That was, if he was still here. What if he was going the other way? To Stoke. He dismissed it. Instinct told Craig McGee the murderer was headed towards Silver.
He pushed the button on his phone. ‘Holly, I’m going out for an hour or two. Tell Sergeant Morris to hold the fort.’
It crackled back. ‘He’s out here already. There’s some messages. Do you need them now?’
Craig smiled. His wife used to say Holly was like something out of Twin Peaks. Even if he wanted to dispute it, his secretary gave him cause every day to give in and agree.
‘Well that’s for you to say. You know what they are.’
‘I guess they can wait.’
He released the button and grabbed his storm jacket from the peg.
Outside the privacy of his room, in the open-plan office, the place was buzzing. All eighteen constables were on duty, leave cancelled, and what looked like most of them were milling round the operations board like they were waiting for something to happen on its own. It seemed like colour marker pens were more fun than getting out there and doing some police work.
Craig searched for Morris. He saw him sitting on the edge of a desk talking into a phone like he was a Hollywood theatrical agent, holding the phone beneath his chin and gesticulating to whoever was unfortunate enough to be on the other end with both hands. Not today, thought Craig. Today he couldn’t find the energy to play boss with this herd. Constable Daniel Hawk was at his desk studying the photos of Joe’s truck. Craig flicked him on the shoulder as he passed.
‘Going up to the pass to look round the site again. You want to get me up there in your Ford, constable?’
Daniel got up without speaking, put on his hat and followed his superior officer out into the car park.
The snow was getting silly now. Ploughs were doing their best, with the skiing traffic crawling behind them like ducklings after their mother, but it looked as if the snow would win by dark. Silver was going to be blocked off again. At least by road. A long discordant hoot from the distance sounded like the freight train on its way down the mountain was laughing at the cars. The tracks were clear now after the explosion, and those mile-long iron snakes of coal kept rolling through like nothing had happened. Daniel drove slowly and silently, accepting his place humbly in the line of cars.
Craig glanced across at him. ‘So how many colours have we managed to get on the wipe-clean?’
Daniel smiled. ‘We’re working on ten. But there’s still a debate about whether the truck driver should be pink or green.’
‘I wasn’t being funny, Hawk. I was expressing displeasure.’
‘I know, sir.’
Craig looked out the window, paused a while. ‘How are the guys coping with it? The fact it was Joe, I mean.’
Daniel made a little shrug, his eyes fixed on the white mess ahead. ‘They cope. You know. Angry I guess, but they figure we’ll get him.’
‘And you?’
‘The same.’
Daniel was putting up a defence shield. Craig could feel it, but he carried on.
‘Joe wasn’t seeing anyone else or anything, was he?’
‘Not to my knowledge. You knew him as well as me.’
‘Sure. But you bowled with him. He would have said if anything was wrong.’
Daniel took his eyes off the road for the first time, and shot his staff sergeant a look. The traffic slowed behind the plough in sympathy.
‘Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind, sir?’
‘And what’s that?’
‘That Joe was half-blood Cree and I’m full Kinchuinick, so we must have been best of buddies. That’s what you’re getting at isn’t it? The only Indians, even half-Indians, in the detachment, and we’re bound to stick together.’
Craig lowered his eyes. ‘Come on, Hawk. That’s not what I meant.’
‘I think it’s exactly what you meant. Sir.’
Daniel Hawk was right of course, but Craig wasn’t going to let his clumsy mishandling of the constable stand in the way of what he wanted to know. ‘Okay.’ He gave in softly, paused again, thinking. ‘I just wondered if there was anything cultural, anything particular to Native Canadians I wouldn’t know. Something that might have escaped me.’
Daniel Hawk continued to look straight ahead. Craig, over his embarrassment now, was starting to get annoyed. ‘Aw Christ, Hawk. I’m fucking sorry if it’s not politically correct to notice the fact that you and Joe happened to share some Indian blood.’
‘We didn’t. I repeat. He was half-Cree. I’m full Kinchuinick.’
‘Whatever.