Call of the void, p.25
Call of the Void, page 25
“Did you know the owners of the other dogs?”
“Some yes, some no. Woman named Yolanda lives the closest to here. They all came from this general area though. I recall the police at the time saying there was no pattern to where they came from.”
“He had a vehicle and knew the area,” I mused, walking around the tree and taking in the surroundings. I saw a young man with haunted eyes, maybe a teenager, leading the dogs up here, one at a time, bringing them food and water, and then suddenly stopping. Or maybe it had been a slow, methodical starvation process over a period of months.
Or maybe he forgot about the dogs and moved on to bigger and better things.
Like Angela Fromme.
CHAPTER 56
Yolanda Miller could’ve auditioned for a role as a hobbit in The Lord of the Rings, if hobbits were Black, cursed like truckers, and spat long streams of chewing tobacco. We’d found her sitting on a rocking chair on the wide porch of a clapboard house that looked like it had never been maintained in its hundred-plus years.
I told her I was here to ask about the dogs that were found near her property forty years ago.
“I was just a little kid when it happened, but my dog was one of them found up there. I got photos of me and Sic from when I was a kid.”
“I hear you go up there on a regular basis,” I said. “Have you ever seen anyone else up by that tree? Someone who didn’t seem to belong, who may have felt off in some way.”
“I seen a few hikers stop and check what it’s about, and going back a few years, some of the other dog owners would come leave stuff. Old Mrs. Keller used to bring flowers, which I thought was a fuckin’ ridiculous thing to bring a dog, even a dead one.”
Beside me, Mike bristled with geriatric agitation. “That was my wife, you little sawed-off—”
I put a hand on his bony shoulder. “Easy, Mike.”
Yolanda turned her head, and from between a large gap in her two front teeth, jetted an impressive brown arc, missing the front tire of Goran’s Lexus by inches. From the look on my bodyguard’s face, I half-expected him to growl.
Beside the Lexus was a gray rust-bucket of a Volvo with a For Sale sign on the windshield.
“What about your neighbours?” I asked. “Any of them strike you as strange? See anything weird going on?”
“This is Mission,” she said. “Whole place is fuckin’ strange. I suppose if someone were actually normal, they’d stand out more.”
“Who is still living in this area now who would’ve been around back then?”
“What, you want names of people on this street?”
“That would make my life easier,” I said, pulling out my notebook.
She spit again, pointed right, and began rattling, “Over there you got the Henriksens. The kids have taken it over and are raising fuckin’ llamas. Across the street and east a ways used to be the Busbys, but they’re dead, and some other citizens live there now, Schneiders, I think it says on their fence. They run some sort of eco-bullshit B&B. Never met ’em. They weren’t around back then.”
“What about on the other side of the forest?”
“There’s Hillbilly Bill, a recluse whose wife died a long time ago. My mom used to make him food sometimes.”
“Bill McCurry,” Mike said. “Comes into town once a month by bicycle. He’s even older than me.”
“Any children?”
“Nope,” he said. “Guess that’s the sad part, huh? Growing old and having no kids to come check on you.”
I ignored him and asked Yolanda if she remembered anyone else in the area.
“Next place after old Bill belongs to the Reifers. Their son and his family are there a lot. Joe. He’s about thirty-five. Too young to have done those dogs, unless he did it in a past life. Across the street from them were the Dankos. The mom’s dead, and the son moved away a long time ago.”
Before we left, Yolanda asked if anyone wanted to purchase the rust-bucket Volvo. “Only half a million miles on the counter-thingy. Looks like shit, but it’ll run for fuckin’ ever.”
“Tempting,” I said. “How about it, Goran? Ready for an upgrade?”
After dropping Mike back in town, Goran and I returned to Stave Lake Road. The balance of the afternoon was spent talking to other families: the Henriksens, the Schneiders, and the purported recluse, Hillbilly Bill, who served me a warm can of Lucky lager on his back porch and said that the dead dogs still haunted him.
“I heard ’em baying some nights, and I thought they was coyotes. Poor buggers were up there starving, and I didn’t do a damn thing.”
I showed him Lola’s photo and asked if he’d ever seen anyone suspicious in the area.
He shook his head, and I thanked him for his time. As we walked back to the Lexus, he said, “You want the truth, I think you’re hunting for ghosts. I used to think about that girl, Angie. I knew her folks from around town, and I think we all wanted to believe she was out there somewhere, living her life. But deep down, we knew she was gone. I recall drinking with her old man one night. After a few too many, Hal told me he knew his daughter was no more. Said he felt it in his gut. Maybe that’s what gave him stomach cancer years later. He died young. So did his wife, Mary.”
Back in Mission, the air was full of electricity as a thunderhead rolled in over the mountains to the east. I spent the next hour at the R.C.M.P. station, talking to Constable Glen McCordick, who had been assigned to the area twelve years ago and knew most of the locals. I asked to see the file on Angela Fromme, and he was happy to oblige. It consisted of a thin manila file, showing photos of her and the area she was last seen. Also in the file was a list of family members and friends, along with pages of witness statements, many of them hand-written.
“Amazing how people just vanish,” McCordick said. “Her photo’s still up in the high school. My wife is principal over there.”
I asked him about the murdered dogs in 1979, and he reiterated that although he knew of the spot in the woods, it was before his time. He then asked if I thought the crimes were related.
I replied that I didn’t know. Just then, rain suddenly began pelting on the window to the right, distracting us into glancing over.
I thanked him and was about to leave when I thought of something. “Say, how long has your wife been principal of the high school?”
CHAPTER 57
Principal Vicki McCordick and an elderly man with vivid blue eyes met me at the entrance of Mission Secondary School. The man introduced himself as Rob Piteau, the principal from 1980. His hands and speech were shaky, but he recalled Angela Fromme well.
“She was one of the school sweethearts,” he said, as we walked through the empty halls toward the office. “For me, and for many others, after she went missing, this school was never the same. It was like we lost our innocence.”
We entered the office, where Vicki flipped on the lights. After leading us down a short hall and unlocking another door, she ushered us into her office. Rob and I took seats in front of the desk, while Vicki went to a shelf and ran her fingers over the spines of old yearbooks.
I asked Rob if he recalled Angela having a boyfriend.
“Angela was one of those girls who was friends with everyone,” he said, “but I can’t recall her singling anyone out as special that way. She was an honours student and a member of student council. Very focused, very bright. Despite the fact that she skipped grade nine, she was mature for her age. The kind of kid who you knew was going to go places.” He shook his head. “I remember that time so vividly. The whole town was on edge. 1980. It seemed like that’s when everything started to go to hell around here. Crime. Drugs. Senseless, brutal violence. I’ve lived in Mission my whole life, and it’s always been a bit rough around the edges, but now ... it’s anything goes out there.”
“Things have certainly changed,” Vicki agreed, making eye contact with me as she handed me the yearbook from 1980.
****
Driving back on the Lougheed Highway in rush hour, I leafed through the yearbook while Goran drove. Near the Haney Bypass, Wayne called to see if I’d gotten anywhere. I recounted my day.
“No one hired us to find Angela Fromme and look into some dead dogs from forty years ago,” he said. “It’s too far off the mark.”
“We got nothing else, Wayne. I’m going to send you Angela’s photo; she looks like the others.”
I heard him mumble a curse.
“OK, Wayne,” I said. “What did you find today?”
“That soccer moms are hot. I’m in a relationship now and suddenly I’m getting frigging swarmed. Sal’s lucky I’m the monogamous type.”
“Is she ever,” I said. “Check out Angela’s photo. I just sent it.”
Back home I put on Metric’s Art of Doubt album on the stereo, poured a glass of wine, and stood on my balcony, staring out over Stanley Park. A heron flew past, screeching as it disappeared into the forest. A brief chill raced through me, followed by a feeling of deep dread. My heart began racing. I held my hand up and willed it to be steady. Nothing was wrong. I gulped the wine and went back inside.
After printing off a black-and-white photo of Angela Fromme, I hung it on the wall next to the other girls. 1980. A twenty-plus year gap until Amber disappeared. Maybe Wayne was right; I was reaching, seeing something that just wasn’t there. Then again, the killer may have moved away for a time, which explains how he came to know a teenage Loretta. He could have been travelling in the United States and picked her up when she was hitching. I stared at Lola’s photo. He didn’t kill her. Instead, he made her co-conspirator in other abductions, like Paul Bernardo did with Karla Holmolka.
I sat down with the Mission Secondary yearbook. Working back to front, I began with the grade twelve class, methodically scanning each face and name. In grainy black-and-white yearbook photos, it was difficult to discern if the young men sporting deadened eyes were of the psychopath variety or were merely stoned. None stood out. In between the individual grades were several pages of candid photos taken throughout the year. Angela was in a handful—and with her bright smile and engaging eyes, was always easy to spot amid her peers. There were shots of her working on the school paper, in student council meetings, decorating a gymnasium for a school dance, and playing field hockey. Among the classmates in her grade, no one jumped out—just a sea of floofy eighties hairstyles, bad skin, braces, and typical adolescent awkwardness.
Eclipse jumped up and flopped down on the book. I nudged him aside and he indignantly swatted my wrist before repositioning himself a foot away.
I was about halfway through the grade tens when Wayne called to let me know about some last-minute security work.
“Can’t do it,” I said, still studying the faces in the book.
“Not asking you to,” he said. “This client is requesting some size and intimidation factor, so I immediately thought of Goran. You OK with that? The big guy said he hasn’t spotted anyone suspicious all week.”
“I think I’m in the clear,” I replied.
“Any word from Jimbo?”
“No.”
“Well, you never know. Give the guy some time.”
I poured more wine. “Thanks for that, Wayne. Now I can stop sitting around waiting for that phone call.”
“Listen, Sal and I are celebrating tonight. Looks like her ex is ready to settle. We’re gonna dine at Parq and hit the casino to celebrate. Wanna join?”
“Nah, you kids have fun. I’m already settled in. Hey, did you check out that photo I sent?”
“I did, and you’re right, she’s a dead ringer for the others.”
“I told you. I’m just combing through her class yearbook now.”
“Let me know what you find tomorrow. Just make sure you get some sleep tonight, you hear?”
“You too, dad.”
I finished my drink and yawned. I poured more wine. Angela Fromme as a person was gone. She existed as photos and hazy memories in the minds of those who remembered her. Same with Amber Sebastian. Emily Pike was in the ground. Everyone was either gone or getting gone. At that moment, children the world over were disappearing. Girls, boys, babies. Pop. Pop. Pop. Bye-bye. No one could do anything about it. I sat back and closed my eyes, listening to the melancholy chords of “Underline the Black”.
Fuck Wayne for bringing up Jim. Now he was in my head too. His eyes, his smile, how his body felt pressed against mine. How we laughed. How, for such a brief time, I felt I belonged.
A tear rolled down my cheek. I kept my eyes shut and drank.
When I opened my eyes, I thought to call him, reach out, tell him that I’m done with all of this, that I’m ready to throw myself into something new.
That I love him.
I was about to slap the yearbook shut when my eyes settled on a name.
Danko.
I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the photos I’d taken earlier that day. I found the one I was looking for. It was of a dented aluminum mailbox on Stave Lake Road, the lettering stenciled on the side faint but unmistakable.
D A N K O
Looking back to the yearbook, if not for the name, my eyes would have slid right past the broad, bland face of Paul Danko. With his prematurely receding hairline, large, square glasses, and wispy excuse for a moustache, he looked more like a substitute teacher than a student. Behind his glasses, his eyelids were half-closed as he calmly stared into the lens of the camera.
I felt a twinge of familiarity and for a moment I stopped breathing.
Pulling out my Mac, I Googled the name and got back nothing. That, in and of itself set me buzzing. Logging into the investigator database, I found three people belonging to the name Paul Danko across Canada, and a quick cross-reference proved that they were the wrong age. I checked deaths and obituaries. Nada. There was no phone number listed to him. It’s possible he had changed his name or had moved abroad. It’s also possible he was a criminal operating under an alias, one who had taken steps to avoid being detected by people like me.
I poured the last of the wine and called Wayne. It went straight to voicemail. I ended the call without leaving a message and then looked up the number for Rob Piteau. After picking up on the fourth ring, the former principal sounded pleasantly surprised to hear from me the second time in one day. I asked if he remembered a student named Paul Danko.
“He graduated in 1980, I believe. Big lad; knew how to throw his bulk around in a rugby game.”
“Any idea if he knew Angela Fromme?”
“I’ve no idea. I do know that for many years the family ran a slaughterhouse on the back of their property, until it was permanently shut down when some folk got virulently ill. The father became a bit of a shut-in. The mother went on to drive a school bus. They’re both long gone now.”
“Do you remember anything else about Paul?”
“Not really. He would’ve been questioned one-on-one with the police,” he said, “as was every single student and teacher.”
I thanked him again and ended the call.
Then I called Kai.
“Let me guess,” he said. “More missing girls?”
“More like a missing fifty-eight-year-old man. His name’s Paul Danko, and he used to live in Mission. There’s zero on him in the database.”
“I’m not hacking into CPIC,” he said.
“I’m not asking you to. I just need to know if he’s still around here, and if so, why he’s off the grid.”
“I’ll get back to you in a few hours. Wayne’s not behind this, is he? ’Cause I’m not working for him.”
“So far he knows nothing,” I said. “This is between you and me.”
“Good,” he said, and ended the call.
I dumped the rest of my wine down the sink and grabbed my keys.
CHAPTER 58
The coyote scampered across Stave Lake Road, staring down the headlights of my Jeep as I rounded the corner. The animal disappeared into the ditch on the side of the road, and I turned into the next driveway, driving past the For Sale sign next to the rusty mailbox that bore the hand-painted red letters: D A N K O.
I steered down a rutted driveway, tall grass and weeds brushed against the undercarriage of my Jeep. Around a corner and past some stunted trees, my headlights illuminated the boarded-up farmhouse and the dilapidated and sagging outbuilding behind. I parked near the house and killed the lights. A large coffee and a fast drive into the Valley had sobered me up. I clipped my running headlamp above the visor of my ball cap and turned it on. After climbing out, I buckled on my utility belt which held the Enforcer, pepper spray, and the satchel containing my picks. I pulled on latex gloves and climbed the three steps onto the creaky porch. The front door was secured by an old padlock attached to a hasp and staple. The padlock keyhole was so thoroughly rusted that experience told me my tools would be a waste of time. A quick look around made me doubt anyone had set foot here in many months, if not years. Stealth was not of paramount importance. I walked back to the Jeep, opened the back, and removed a pair of long-handled bolt cutters.
After snipping the lock and letting it clunk onto the porch, I set the bolt cutters outside the doorframe, opened the door, and entered the home. The air inside the home was heavy and dank with the smell of rot. The floorboards creaked as I moved across the kitchen, the beam from my light playing across dusty cupboards and ancient appliances. Mice darted across the floor and disappeared beneath the ancient, green stove.
Brushing aside cobwebs, I entered the living room, which was stripped bare except for some empty boxes on the floor. Looking behind me, I saw that my shoes left tracks in the thick layer of dust that coated everything. A quick search of the two bedrooms showed that aside from rodents, the house had been empty for years.
As I walked back outside, my light illuminated green animal eyes in the tall grass and brush surrounding the house. A warm breeze rustled the branches of the tree by the porch. I picked up the bolt cutters and headed to the rear of the house.
