The Highway Girls Read online

  Finally, 10:14, someone decides to show up. An RCMP marked Ford F-250 pickup pulls into the lot. Left an empty space between their vehicles. Broad daylight meeting with an ex-cop turned civvie detective. Gray figures out in plain sight works better than a meet in the shadows. Could more easily explain it away. If I was giving him something from the Task Force, why would I do it for all the world to see?

  Nate glances around before getting out. Cop habit. Check the scene. Watch for eyeballs. Tim Hortons in the morning looks typical, all truckers, blue hairs, and blue collars. Nobody that paid them much attention at all. Cops were a regular sight at the local Tims anyway. Nate jumps out into the downpour, jogs over to the truck. Gray grabs his clipboard off the passenger seat.

  “Thanks for this,” Nate said.

  “Not sure what all I can share,” said Gray.

  “I understand.”

  “Brass's got us on a pretty tight leash. You know how these things go.”

  That wasn't total bullshit, but Nate knew Gray would be withholding regardless, and wouldn't be totally straight about it.

  “FBI hey?” Nate said. “Big doin's.”

  “Yeah, well, two of the girls… I'm sure you know, their families have money.”

  “Saw it on the news.”

  “You should see some of these Bureau assholes. Walk into the detachment like they already fuckin own the place. Like it's their jurisdiction, like Canada's the 52nd fuckin state or something. Goodwell got a stitch under his collar. Hauls one of theirs into his office, starts sayin' -”

  He caught himself. Careful. Gray thought. This deadbeat ain't one of you anymore. Nate sees it on his face. Mumbles a terse response. A slow play for Nate in hopes Gray keeps talking in spite of himself. No such luck.

  “Anyway,” Gray's tone stiffens, “like I say, I can't give you much. Bad enough anyone from the Task Force saw me here with you.”

  “Anyone else know I'm on it?”

  “Word gets around.”

  Word you put out, Nate thinks. He could just imagine the condescending smirks in the conference room, talking about the ex-cop turned P.I. druggie who's stuck his nose in their case. A case with international attention, mind you. The hell they're gonna let him within a hundred feet of anything to do with anything. No doubt some mucky muck in Edmonton or Ottawa's put out a memo to that effect. Keep Nate Striker out of this. Like it matters, was the attitude of the Mounties assigned to the case. Striker's a wash out. Couldn't investigate his way out of his own problems much less get a leg up on a squad of Feds from both sides of the border. Nate knew some the Major Crimes guys the RCMP brought in, a few of them were good. Sam Gray wasn't one of them.

  “Anyway,” Gray said, very much in a let's-move-this-thing-along countenance, “as far as we've gotten, the girls rented an RV from an outfit based out of Calgary.”

  He wasn't telling Nate something he didn't already know. Something you couldn't have read in any of the hundreds of articles already written about the case and posted online. Canada Plus RV Rentals in Northwest Calgary.

  Gray thought about it for a second. Don't underestimate this motherfucker. A notion that flashes through his mind. A flicker of self-doubt. A stupid idea that maybe the former samurai has a few good swings of the sword left in him.

  Alright. Play it smarter. Give him enough to make him think you're giving him the world, but not so much as he can find a strand and unravel the whole deal only to leave you and the Task Force holding your dicks in the wind. Then someone higher up the chain pins the loss on you? Uh-uh. I won't take that “L”. That ain't happening.

  “Something no one's been told,” Gray says, in such a way as to announce the 'importance' of the fact, “we found blood in the carpet.”

  “No shit?”

  “Only a spot, a speck. Been sent out for testing. Should hear back on that soon.”

  “Any chance you could let me know when you know?” Nate asks it in a way he knows would come across submissive, play to Gray's cop ego.

  “Sure,” Gray says. Nate knows he's lying through his teeth. Whatever blood analysis comes back, he knows there is no way Gray would share it. He was dicking him around. On a rental that blood could come back to one of myriad possibilities. Someone slaps an engorged mosquito in a campground at Jasper five years ago for all anyone knows. Any random occurrence can account for a speck of blood. But, Nate had to admit, it was better than nothing – but only barely.

  Time to cast another line, Nate thinks about this little fishing expedition. “Straight up,” he says, “what do you think the odds are of finding these girls alive?”

  Gray smirks. “You know how these things go. Officially, we're optimistic. These FBI dicks? They might even believe it, the way they talk to the press. Like they're Captain America. Officially optimistic. Unofficially? I think we both know what we're looking at here.”

  “You been in touch with your usuals?” Nate said, alluding to the “known to police” characters living in and around Rocky Mountain House, the little hamlet further out in the mountains called Nordegg included, plus the three indigenous reserves outside of town. Sex offenders, dope slingers with a history of violence, up-and-comers with long rap sheets who hadn't quite graduated to the big time. Cases like this you rattle those cages and you usually find something. What the media likes to report as random is seldom ever random. But “random” acts of kidnapping, assault, or worse drives clicks and sells advertising.

  “We've put some feelers out,” Gray answers. “It's in play.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  Nate understands before he even asks Gray won't go there, but before Gray can even passive-aggressively shut him down another RCMP unit rolls up and a Constable jumps out. Young, with a crew cut. Not Task Force, Nate can tell just by looking. A highway humper. A wet-behind-the-ears ticket-writer barely off of probation. Gray wouldn't sweat the kid seeing them together. If anything he probably glances to Gray's passenger seat and figures he has a C.I. sitting with him. Nate's disheveled enough, he could pass.

  Gray hops out of his truck to speak with the junior constable. Through the rain on the roof of the cab Nate can't quite make out what they're saying, but he knows it's nothing pertaining to what they were talking about. The two officers step toward the rear of Gray's truck. Nate sees in the driver's side mirror, Gray's turned enough he's not looking in Nate's direction. Nate happens to look down at the clipboard sitting on the center console. A hastily scrawled note in blue ink on a white pad. Something? Probably not. But, Nate knows even nothing can turn into something in any given investigation. Gray stands distracted by the younger officer. Nate pulls out his cell phone, aims the camera over the page. He snaps two photos and slides the device away just as Gray turns to come back.

  The young cop drops back in behind the wheel of his interceptor and speeds off. Gray steps up into his truck, slinks back behind the wheel. “Kids,” he says.

  “He looks fresh.”

  “Eight weeks out of Depot,” Gray says. “Hell if I know where his trainer is.”

  There it is, Nate thinks. Gray's quick glance. He may be a shit cop, Nate thinks, but fuck, he just made me, didn't he? He couldn't have helped his eyes when he got in. A quick flash at the clipboard. He knows Gray saw it, saw Nate's interest in it. Doesn't know he photo'd it, but knows it caught his fleeting attention. Fuck it. Come clean. Don't give Gray a reason to put up even more of a wall.

  “Happened to see,” Nate said, motioning toward the scrawled note, “stolen trailer?”

  Gray makes a jerk-off motion with his hand. “Yeah, serial number came up in the system on a stop down south. Nothing to do with anything,” he says. “Staff's version of a make-work project, you know Goodwell. Like I need something else, right?” Take it and run with it, fucker, Gray thought. You wanna chase down this trailer shit, be my guest. Gets you out of my hair, gets you out of this investigation.

  “Put a Task Force guy on a stolen trailer?” Nate says.

  “They're not
linked,” says Gray. “Before you start down that road. Already determined that much. Waste of resources.”

  Nate's well-practiced poker face is in full effect.

  “But, I'm low man on this thing,” Gray continues, “so, someone's gotta run it down, you know, busy work, not enough for everyone to do and the head cheese's gotta front like there's progress. Everyone's doing something kinda thing.”

  Don't give Gray an inkling.

  “Run it down, I'm told,” says the constable, “and I did – as far as I'm going to anyway. A whole lot of nothing. Like I said, waste of time.”

  Dummy. Nothings turn into somethings. How many times does it have to happen before an investigator learns? How unsurprising, Gray didn't have the mind to reason it out. Regardless, he isn't spelling anything else out for Nate. Doesn't need to. Nate's thoughts flicker to the pics saved on his phone. A messy note on some asshole Mountie's clipboard. Nothing? Something? What it is, is a strand.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Grace claps her hands while Eve sings. Little Gracie.

  All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel.

  It didn't have to happen, damn you.

  Pull over. Stop.

  Eight a.m. and Nate's eyes open to the sound of Bug's muffled hacks through the Red Line's thin walls. His own lungs feel sludgy and he has a slight wheeze drawing in a breath, a heaviness when he inhales. Like he's slept with a cinder block on his chest all night. Another cold? Perfect.

  The molar, bottom-back, right side has taken to throbbing where it'd been merely a dull ache the night before. He doesn't want to use the money Belinda gave him on a dentist, but the tooth gets hotter all the time. He reaches to the side table, fingers the orange pill bottle looking for a hit of Cream. An unsatisfying rattle reaches his ears. Two left. He drowns one with whatever was left in a can of Budweiser. Pulls his cell phone off the table and hits the button to call Rico.

  Straight to voicemail.

  He doesn't bother.

  Beyond Bug's coughs, rainfall makes for a steady backdrop outside. It falls heavy at times, then calming, but never stopping. It's rained steady all night, steady since before his meeting with Constable Gray the morning of the day before. Heavier rain is expected over the next day or two. A summer rainstorm for the books. There'll be flooding for sure.

  With no desire yet to get out of bed and with remote in hand, Nate snaps on his TV. Props his head on a folded pillow. CTV News Network.

  A blonde wisp of a woman wearing huge dark sunglasses and a gold and turquoise sweater from some expensive designer in Paris Nate probably couldn't pronounce if he had two tongues spoke in front of a bank of microphones outside an office building.

  “Whoever you are,” drips her weary voice, “you've taken someone so special to us, our girl, a large piece of our family. I urge you to come forward. Please speak with the FBI and the police in Canada. Please. We just want her home. We just want our Zoe to come home.”

  The woman is taken under a large overcoat and whisked away as the footage cuts back to the news anchor.

  “Later, another of the missing girls' mothers, the mother of Carly Ann Lewis, spoke with the media from her home in New Jersey.”

  Chyron text flashes: Anastasia Lewis speaks to reporters regarding her missing daughter Carly

  The text frames the image of a brunette woman flanked by sharply dressed family members in front of an elaborate garden. Everyone on camera looks like they were straight out of Central Casting to play ultra-rich, ultra-spoiled white northeasterners, like Kennedys or Rockefellers. The matriarch at the microphone appears caked with makeup and yet her facial features were more harsh than the previous mother.

  Anastasia Lewis opts not to wear sunglasses and as she squints into the sun while reading from a prepared statement, Nate notes the lack of tear streaks on her chiseled face. No doubt she's an old hand at keeping up appearances. To her, tears project weakness. Anastasia Lewis doesn't do weakness.

  Her hair, styled like a museum sculpture, looks to be sprayed within an inch of its life. It was less a head of hair and more of a shell. A chestnut hard helmet fit for a Republican debutante's ball. She had a slight southern accent, a deeper voice than the previous mom, and a more business-like tone.

  “What we know,” she said, with the kind of firm self-assuredness usually reserved for Fox News panelists, “is that whomever took Carly and Zoe and their friend... what we know,” she looks up from the page, her face icy and harsh, “is they will face justice.” Then a dramatic pause, almost as if this were a statement given by a presidential candidate. “My message to this person or persons responsible, is to turn yourselves in.” Another pause while the furious clicks of cameras fill the void of silence. “Federal agents are close to finding you. I speak with these women and men everyday. They're getting closer to you all the time. My message to those responsible is, if you return Carly and the others unharmed, yes, rest assured justice will be served, but justice needn't be necessarily harsh. Cooperate with the authorities, and together, we can end this. It's up to you.”

  Back to the news anchor.

  “The three were last heard from on July 13th while traveling in a rented RV headed west along Alberta's David Thompson Highway. They were officially declared missing by the RCMP nearly two weeks ago.”

  As the anchor changes cameras and begins reading another news story, Nate's phone lights up. It's Belinda, Raina's mom.

  “You been watchin' the news?” She says, her voice wrapped in sandpaper.

  “Matter of fact I have,” Nate says.

  “You saw Anastasia and Bianca?”

  “Yes. You get Canadian news where you are?”

  “Uh-uh,” Belinda says, “least, I don't think. They had 'em giving statements. Showin' it on CNN.”

  Nate figures the American media would be all over a salacious case such as this. Missing college girls. Two of the families ridiculously wealthy.

  “She couldn't even say her name,” Belinda says. “Anastasia. You see that?”

  “Yeah, I caught it. No love lost between her and your daughter, hey?”

  “Never was. Money's money. You don't got it, to her, you're an insect.”

  “That ever become an issue between the girls?”

  “What, between Raina and Carly?”

  “Right.”

  “None that I ever saw. And Raina never said nothing about anything like that. Why? You think they weren't getting along or whatever, on the trip? Like there was a fight between 'em maybe?”

  One thing you had to be as an investigator, was open to any and all possibilities. You could just never predict what a person might do in any given situation. He'd already dreamed of a scenario where one girl kills the others and then herself, after disappearing their bodies. Another where two of them gangs up on the other, and then one turns on the other out of fear to keep the whole thing quiet. If it had gone that way and he were a betting man, he'd have laid his money on Carly Ann Lewis as the perpetrator. Third person into an already established friendship. More of a vain party girl. Daughter of a hard-as-nails heiress who views anyone poorer than her as livestock. Hey, he'd worked cases with far less to go on than that.

  Really though, it was a stretch to think something like that might've happened, but jealousy, envy, money, vanity, fear – these were all powerful motivators. He was open to the idea, but not married to it.

  “No,” Nate says to Belinda in response to her question, “I don't think that's what we're looking at. Any insights into the girls' relationship though can help.”

  There's a pause for a moment while Belinda holds the phone away and coughs. “Where you at with it anyways?” She says.

  “Things are progressing,” Nate answers. “Spoke with one of the Task Force guys yesterday.”

  “What'd he tell you?”

  “More than he thinks.”

  “Well, that's good 'cause I don't got a lot of time. As you know.” She coughs again. “I ain't tryin' to ask you to
hurry, but-”

  “I know, I hear you,” Nate says, rubbing the gums under his aching tooth. “I'm gonna press it fast as I can. Time's important in cases like these as it is. The longer we go, the colder things get. I won't wait around.”

  “I already told myself she's gone. Made my peace. Her brother has too. I told you as much. But, before I go, I got to know… you know?”

  “I know,” Nate says. He can't stifle his own cough any longer.

  “You don't sound too good yourself.”

  “I'm fine, a bit of a cold is all.”

  “Well, take care of yourself,” Belinda says, “you're the only hope me and my family's got left.”

  The Hitch, a tavern at the end of Greisbach Street in Gleichen. Two in the afternoon, you get exactly who you expect. Brown rectangle of a room. Merle Haggard over the speakers. A bunch of barflies. Old drunks. Half of them white, half of them from the Pronghorn Reserve next to town. Rednecks and indigenous folk knocking them back like their government checks depend on it. Now this is racial harmony, Nate thinks. United by alcoholism.

  Maybe this is how Prime Minister Bouchard can bring the country together.

  An arm goes up from a table near the back. Nate gawks about the dimly lit place, and it makes him a dead giveaway.

  “You Boyd?” Nate says, approaching the table to a few stares from the wrinkled wretches cradling their booze.

  “That's me.”

  Nate sits in the booth. An old gal with a tight perm and a case of the shakes sidles up to the table cradling a plastic tray. “What can I get you?”

  “Whatever's on tap.”

  Both she and Boyd chuckle.

  “That's a good one. We got cold bottles of Coors. Some MGD.”

  “Coors'll be fine.”

  Boyd eyes Nate with suspicion. Nate senses it. Waits for the P.I.'s beer to arrive before opening his mouth.

  “Know you said on the phone, but this is about the trailer, right?”

  Nate takes a swig of beer and nods.

  “Not sure what I can tell you, didn't already tell the cops.”