Fall from Grace (35 page)

But the phone began to vibrate, buzzing like a disturbed fly, and then gave a tiny ring, barely audible. In the shock of the moment I dropped both phones and my notebook into the back of the truck. A female voice, impossibly young but incredibly mature, came through my earpiece, the sound of the phone at the bottom of the truck box producing a tiny echo.

“Hi. You’ve reached Grace and I don’t really have time for this kind of shit. I’m a busy, busy working girl and if you need any important services, wink, wink, leave me a name and number that you can be reached at, and if you’re worthy, I’ll call you back. Till then, fuck off.”

My head spun, my heart stopped, and I was no longer breathing. I froze, even though I knew that I had to leave this place this instant and spread the word.

But I was still so shocked by the realization of my discovery that I felt like someone who has gone to church all his life, someone who has faith and says he believes what he is supposed to believe, even if there are nagging doubts that he can’t explain away and really can’t tell anyone because that would brand him as an unbeliever. But then, out of nowhere, out of the fabric of the strange universe, this person finds actual proof, tangible evidence that he can hold in his hands and possibly show to others, of the existence of God. Or in this case, the Devil.

However, the only problem is that he knows he cannot tell anyone, because in fact, no one will believe him. Everyone, even those in his own church, his family and his friends, will regard him as some sort of crackpot if he dares to bring this evidence to light. And even if he does so, or at least threaten to, there will be those who will try to convince him not to do it. “For the sake of the public good, you cannot reveal this evidence,” they will argue. “If you do you will erode the public’s faith. And then where will the people turn?”

And they would be right. For the past number of years, Edmontonians’ faith in their police had suffered much. And while people still called the police when they were in need of protection, they were no longer surprised or shocked when a local police officer was involved in something not entirely criminal but not entirely ethical. They were disappointed but no longer surprised.

But if news of this evidence and the truth behind the death of these women came to light, the public’s faith in the local police would be completely eroded. Especially since the police had done nothing for years, had no ongoing investigation even though there was evidence that at the very least, women—mostly native women—were being killed. Trust was implicit in law enforcement; the public must trust their police to do the right thing, especially in a social democratic society like Canada.

But faith built on lies, faith built on murder and death, isn’t true faith and is destined to fail. Whether it happened now or later, it was not a question of if it might happen but when. And despite the pain and anger and sickness, it was always better to deal with a cancerous tumor as early as possible. The treatment would be painful, perhaps fatal, but the body always had a better chance of coming through in the end, alive and kicking, if you took care of the disease as soon as you found it.

I was jerked out of these thoughts when a man-shaped shadow stepped into the doorway. “Couldn’t let it rest, could you?” a voice asked, curious but flat. No fear, no threats, just speculation. I jumped and Grace’s voice on her cell seemed like the loudest thing in the world. After a quick catch of my breath, I reached into the truck, grabbed the phones, and shoved them into my jacket pocket.

41

Even though my heart was pounding, I calmly walked around the truck to the front, tucking the notebook into my front pocket, slipping on my gloves, making the gestures bigger than necessary so he could clearly see me.

“No. I couldn’t,” I responded in a similar tone, but adding a bit more weight in my voice. “But I like your truck. It’s old as heck but it’s in incredible shape. It’s a shame you don’t take it out much.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Do what, Detective Gardiner?” I asked as calmly and with as much good humor as I could manage. Inside I was seething, angry that this fuck had fooled me with his helpful attitude. “I’m just interested in your truck. I’ve heard a lot about it, didn’t think it was yours, but there you go, sometimes you get disappointed. And I’ll admit that it’s a big understatement when I say I’m disappointed to find this particular vehicle in your garage.”

“Disappointed,” he said with a laugh. “I find you in my garage without permission, looking over my pickup, illegally going through my possessions, and you say you’re disappointed. You’re lucky I don’t call the police.”

“Knock yourself out, Detective Gardiner,” I said, leaning against the truck as nonchalantly as I could. “I’ll wait right here for the police to come. I’m sure they’d be really interested in your truck. I’m guessing it belonged to your son, although I’ll admit it’s in damn good shape considering the accident. Or did I say that already?”

I was pushing him, pushing hard, but this bastard had to be pushed hard enough so that he would fall to the ground, and then I could kick him around the yard and step on him and smear him across the grass like the piece of shit he was.

His eyes narrowed and he made a tight fist. “You have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.” His voice had lost all of its calm. It was now full of menace.

But that’s exactly what I wanted; I wanted him to break, confess, threaten me, attack me, I didn’t care, I just kept pushing, hoping to break him.

“Yeah, I’m sorry he died, really I am. I have a son of my own and I have no idea what would happen if he died. I mean, Jesus Christ, I’m a mess now as it is, but if something happened to my boy, God knows what I’d turn into. Is that what happened to you, after losing your son?”

“Keep talking like that and the shitstorm that I will bring on you will break you in fucking half, you worthless piece of shit. I may be a retired cop but I still have plenty of friends on the force that can fuck you deep and hard up the ass.”

“Yeah, I think I met some of those guys already. But go ahead, call them up again, ’cause you know one thing, Gardiner, I don’t really care what kind of shitstorm you can bring, because the one I’ve got for you is ten times worse,” I said, taking a step forward.

“You don’t have shit and you know it.”

“I have plenty of shit and it all comes down to your son. The son that apparently died in a single MVA. And you know what, I assumed that since it was a single MVA, he was the only one in the fucking truck. But you know what? He wasn’t. There was someone in the car with him, wasn’t there. A woman by the name of Lydia Alexandra.”

Either the name of the girl surprised him or it was the fact that I knew the name of the girl, because the anger in his face dropped for a second and he looked like he was going to stumble. He stuck out a hand and grabbed the bench against the back wall to steady himself.

“Piece of shit, piece of shit,” he muttered several times, and I had no idea whether he was talking about me, his son, or Lydia.

But considering what happened to the girl, I assumed he was mostly talking about her. It was typical of this type always to blame some woman for the problems of his son and of the world, when all Lydia did was get into the wrong truck on the night that Jason Gardiner was driving so drunk he didn’t notice the telephone pole until he wrapped his truck around it. And since Jason’s father’s shame was so deep, he couldn’t accept the fact that his boy had fucked up, so he had to find blame somewhere else: Lydia.

“And you know what’s really a coincidence? Not long after Lydia was discharged from the hospital because of the injuries your son caused, she was found dead in a farmer’s field not far from Leduc. And fortunately for you, the case was handled by the Leduc detachment, so nobody made the connection between that dead girl and your son. And as the years went on, because it took a while for the various types of law enforcement in the area to communicate with each other, nobody made a connection between all the other girls that were killed in the same way.

“Even now they still haven’t, and that’s why Robert Picton and other shits like you got away with their crap for so long, because the various police types decided not to talk to each other. And of course since so many of the victims, like Lydia, Grace, and the others, just happened to be native women, nobody really gave a shit. I mean, who gives a shit about another dead Indian, happens all the time, so for upstanding citizens it’s nothing to worry about.”

He laughed, turning the whole thing into a joke. “You’re crazy, you know that. Completely crazy.”

I nodded. “A lot of people have told me that and I’m even on medication because of it. And there are plenty of times when I have no idea what I’m doing, when I tell myself that the whole world is all fucked up and there is nothing to do but to let it all go. But unlike you, I keep trying; even when I hit rock bottom, I see hope somewhere and keep at it, no matter how hard it is.

“Still, there is one thing that I know for sure: You killed those girls and if there is any decency left in you, if there is a remnant left of good cop that you used to be, you would turn yourself in.”

He laughed again, waving an arm in dismissal. “Nobody’s going to believe you. All the evidence you have is shit.”

“Well, the thing about shit is that it smells, and if you throw enough around, it eventually sticks,” I said. “I think I have enough to throw around to get people annoyed and talking. Especially that bit about your son and what turned out to be the first victim in a series of other victims.”

“Not this shit. It hasn’t stuck for years and not even you can make it stick. You can try writing about it in your fucking paper but no one will believe you. I’m a decorated police officer, not some jerkwad loser like yourself. And soon you’ll be out on the streets like one of those disgusting hookers. A big fat loser who deserves to die, and that’s exactly what they got. All of them. Death.”

I took several quick steps forward, went right up to him, not afraid of him because even though he was a killer, he only killed those he believed were weaker than he was. And since he thought that his words had sunk in, and I was trying to escape, he stood up straight to block the door.

“You sure the hell aren’t going anywhere, you piece of shit. You’re staying here while I call some old friends, and we’ll take care of you the way we used to. I know your type and your type won’t be able to handle even something as simple as the remand center. You’re in deep shit now.”

“You know nothing about nothing,” I said, and to show him that he didn’t I placed a hand on his chest, and shoved him against the door frame. The back of his head banged against the wood, and for several seconds, he was stunned. I kept my hand against his chest, and though he struggled to break free, he couldn’t.

I leaned close, my breath harshly hissing into his face as I whispered. “You keep telling me I don’t know shit but you have no idea what you are talking about. You think I’m just some white-collar journalist who lives in a nice house and drinks a nice red wine with my takeout sushi, but you’re wrong. I’m not afraid of your remand center because I’ve been there. On the inside. Other places, too. I know what they are like, I know it all. If you don’t believe me, get one of your old buddies to run my name through your system and you’ll see where it takes you.”

Gardiner’s eyes darted back and forth and his lips twitched as he processed the information I had just given him.

Is he lying? I could see him thinking. He must be lying because nobody is that fucked up. I knew his thoughts because I had seen the same reaction from many other people when they learned about my past. On the outside I looked so normal, and was able to function reasonably. Most of the time, that’s what my world was like, but there were times when inside, things were all messed up. Medication helped but modern pharmacology could only do so much.

He struggled to break free, so I shoved him back, this time harder than the first so that there was an actual sound as his head hit the frame, and his body wilted and he slid to the floor. I knew I’d hurt him that time, maybe given him a sight concussion, but I wanted to do more damage.

“And you know what, Mr. Gardiner? I won’t honor you with the title of detective because you’re retired and you don’t deserve it,” I said, hissing. He moved to get up, but I put my hand on his chest and easily pushed him back down. “You’re the one who’s fucking dead, you know that? You have no idea how dead you are. Because even though this might not get to court because your buddies in the higher-ups will do whatever it takes to save your sorry piece-of-shit ass, you’re still dead. Because I don’t need court for this. I have everything I need. I don’t even have to write a story, I can just pass the information on to some of my friends. Thank God there are enough good cops in this fucked police department who aren’t afraid.

“But even if they are afraid, they’ll know that this is something they can’t turn away from. They’ll know this isn’t some idiot cops calling Indians like me morons or greedy traffic cops getting season tickets from a photo radar company for giving them a contract. This is fucking murder. It’s something they know they can’t walk away from.

“Even your friends will know that, and they’ll learn pretty quick that they’ll have to cut you loose. You know that they aren’t the kind of people to take a bullet in their career for someone like you. Am I right?” His vision cleared and he looked into my eyes.

Seeing Gardiner on the floor of his garage reminded me of how ordinary a killer actually looked. How the skin wrinkled with age just like everyone else’s, how the hair turned white, how the eyes were flat and gray, yet tired. Killers like Gardiner, or any of those others like Picton, Bernardo, or Olsen, weren’t necessarily monsters. They weren’t agents of the devil or the result of mutated DNA. They were human, just like the rest of us, with the same fears, the same ability to rationalize their actions, and sometimes, the same hopes to do the right thing.