Butchart Gardens attracted millions of visitors each year. Originally, the gardens began their life as a quarry. Once the limestone had been mined, the wife of the owner saw more than a gutted pit and created what would become a world renowned tourist attraction. Acres and acres of lush green lawns with rose gardens, perennial and annual beds bloomed from early spring to late fall. A serene landscape of color and scent to tempt the eyes and the nose.
Unfortunately, a dead body was not the kind of fertilizer the gardens liked to use.
Mattie juggled for position near the front entrance lined with hanging baskets and the Christmas theme well underway. Little colored lights adorned bushes and buildings. The gardens had been closed for the investigation. The media in attendance muted their conversations as the coroner rolled out the body bag on a stretcher. Stuart stood with other police officers near the closed wrought iron gates. His sharp eyes scanned the crowd and stopped on her. There was no flinch of recognition.
He lifted his hand to get the media’s attention. “The Coroner’s Office has concluded with an initial onsite investigation, the woman found here is the eighth victim of the Victoria Ripper. The police will not release any further details until the autopsy is completed.”
As was par for the course, journalists and reporters started shouting. Stuart pointed at her. “Go ahead with your question, Ms. Bidault.”
Before she spoke, a reporter with quaffed brunette hair and high heels grumbled to her cameraman. “Why the fuck does she always get to go first?”
Mattie ignored her. “Yes, sir. There’s a man in custody for killing the last victim. Will he be released?”
“It appears this woman was murdered while he was being held for questioning. Although some details have still not been explained, I surmise that will occur.”
Mattie’s heart pumped with excitement. She’d be headed for the corrections facility as soon as she was done here.
The other media outlets and newspapers peppered Stuart with questions, but he only answered half of them, not going into significant detail. He divulged the woman was a local, not a tourist. Her name was Bethany Grover, and she was a school teacher. The family had reported her missing four days ago and had been notified.
She hurried back to her car once the briefing ended. Dominique, her photographer had met her at the gardens, so they parted ways in the empty parking lot. Normally, rows of cars filled the spaces. Today, only police cruisers, EHS vehicles and media vans crammed the lot closest to the garden entrance.
“Mattie!” Stuart ran to catch up with her.
“Suppose you’re going to break our date,” she said, not really crushed over it. Her main objective had been to peel some information from him.
He removed his hat with Victoria PD embossed on the brim. “No, I wouldn’t break our date.” Adorning a cautious smile, he stepped closer. “Can I pick you up?”
“I’ll meet you downtown. I’ve got a late appointment.” She was going to see Greg, and she most definitely wasn’t breaking that.
He nodded. “Then I’ll meet you at the restaurant at seven.”
“Sure.”
“Can we, um, promise not to talk shop?”
“Why else would we meet up? You’ve been ignoring me. You pawned me off to another officer. If this is another warning then give it to me now, and I’ll take it under advisement.”
He blinked and his expression remained benign, then he shocked the hell out of her. “Because I want to apologize. The long hours. The dead-ends. The task force is facing a brick wall, especially now. But I want to see you.”
“I don’t think that’s the case. I think, you want me to think that’s the case. This is just another bait and switch. I fell for your charm last time, but not this time.” She should shut her mouth. Her opportunity to pick his brain was being shot in the foot by her bad mood. “You think you can manipulate me for them. You can’t.”
“Just let me apologize. The way I want to apologize. Tonight.”
She crossed her arms in defiance. Not smart. She should have fluttered her eye lashes and pretended she believed his bullshit.
“Mattie, don’t be obstinate. I’m trying to look out for you.”
She nibbled on her lip. Don’t fall for this, Mattie. No guy like him is interested in you. “I’ll see you at seven.”
“Good.”
She watched him stroll toward his cruiser. She hoped to God the inconsistencies she’d found didn’t add up to a dirty cop, even worse if Stuart had a part to play in this.
Thirty minutes after submitting the article on Bethany’s death to her editor, she parked in the Vancouver Island Correctional Facility parking lot. Being a Sunday afternoon the lot was full, and she had to wait until someone pulled out before she stole the spot. Mattie hoofed it with fast steps to the front entrance and showed her ID. They asked her to wait, and she tapped her foot to a quick cadence. Another fifteen minutes passed until the guard called her.
“Follow the officer.”
Dutifully, she traipsed behind, but excited as hell to tell Greg he’d be free soon. She scanned the bustling room. All the tables were occupied and buzzing with conversations. Greg stood near the back wall.
He watched her like a wolf watches his prey. It unnerved her and that little flutter in her belly started again.
“Two visits in one day!” he said.
She subdued the grin that wanted to pop into a full-fledged smile. “Haven’t you heard?”
He shook his head.
“Another woman was killed. While you were here.”
Greg closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. “I feel sorry for the family, but this means they’re going to release me.”
“I think so. I can’t imagine, even with the knife in evidence, that they can say—” The thought hit her like a school bus. Had she not been thinking clearly?
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling.
She bowed her head to think, because she couldn’t do it while looking into his eyes. Rubbing her temple, she thought it through. “I asked at the briefing whether you would be released. They said most likely, but there was other evidence to consider.” She hooked her purse over her shoulder and scanned the busy visitor’s chamber where guys from the wrong side of the bars looked like they belonged there. Greg did not. “Mr. Lapierre, I’ll keep investigating if they don’t release you.”
“Hey.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and she looked up. “If they end up holding me, suggesting there is a second killer working with me and that I’m still a suspect, then we’ll deal with that.”
“How can you be so damn calm about this all the time?” She sputtered. “You’re being wrongly accused, you should be angry.”
“When you lose control of your emotions, you lose control period.”
“And you never lose control? Ever?”
A slight quirk lifted his lips. “Only in the right moment and with the right woman.”
Her skin tingled with the gravelly tone of his voice as he stared down at her, but all she could focus on was the full cusp of his lip while floating in the green tranquility of his eyes. Eyes that were exceptional. Did he kill Diana? Was he playing her? No. No way. Not this man.
“Then I’ll be angry for you. And I won’t stop until you walk out that front door,” she spouted.
Those sensual lips of his parted a little and his gaze skipped across her face, heating her skin. No! No heating of skin. She was doing this because he was wrongly accused and that irked the hell out of her.
“Nice to know someone’s on my side.”
“The Admiral and I. We’ll figure this out. If you hear anything, if they say they’ll release you, call me right away.”
He gave her a nod. She turned to leave, but he gently stopped her.
“What?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Thank you, Mademoiselle Bidault. It’s been a while since someone believed in me.”
“You kidding? I talked to the Admiral at length over lunch. It only took a few seconds to see he respects you. And Kayla, your ex-sister-in-law, demanded I tell the police what I saw because she believes in you, too. It wouldn’t take long to hear the same thing from your team mates if I interviewed them. You’re the kind of man everyone relies on and trusts.”
He tilted his head and offered a small smile. “Is that so?”
“Yes. I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon.” She rushed out without looking back. Why the heck had she said that? It was a little outside of the professional sideline she liked to keep. She returned her visitor pass and ran to her car.
Throwing the gear shift into reverse, she flung her arm over the seat, and then hammered on the brakes as a black Dodge Charger stopped right behind her. Sergeant Montgomery got out of the car wearing a black windbreaker and jeans. When he reached her window he stood there, waiting for her to roll it down. She’d already locked the doors. Only giving the window opener a slight push, it cracked by two inches. She saw herself in the reflection of his shades when he leaned over.
The second he spoke, her heart stopped dead. “Ms. Bidault, you’ve visited this facility twice today.”
“Is there an issue with that, Sergeant?”
“Be very careful,” he said with a slow cadence. “Your health and your career could be in jeopardy. You have the power as a journalist to start an irreversible frenzy that would not be good for the community if you meddle in issues that should be dealt with by law enforcement. Write your story. Keep to the facts, as you suggested.”
Her heart ticked and thank God it did, because she was intimidated as hell. “I’ll keep to the truth, whatever that is. Would you care to share it?”
His unshaven and hollowed cheeks added to his dangerous appearance. Most women would find him ultra-attractive, but Mattie’s blood grew cold in his presence.
“Don’t be foolish. The greater good is what’s important. You write your story, but don’t go wandering off the playing field.”
She waited until he got back in his car before her heart stopped hammering in her chest. The black Charger turned the corner at the end of the lot and onto the street. Inhaling and shutting her eyes for a moment, helped relax her racing pulse.
Ten minutes later, she was back in her cubicle at the office. Just because the calendar said it was Sunday didn’t stop a reporter from following a story. Today, however, the normal hub of activity at the New Times Colonist seemed a little on the light side. She tossed her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk and turned on her computer. While it whirred to life, she headed for the kitchen. The Keurig coffeemaker gurgled and spit hot, dark liquid into her mug. Adding a little milk to the brew, she reflected on her interaction with Sergeant Tall, Dark and Scary.
Sitting in her desk chair with extra back support, and plenty of padding, the smells and sounds of the Colonist eased her mind, but didn’t stop fear from churning in her belly.
“Working again?”
She opened her eyes to see Edgar leaning against her fibre cloth half-wall. “Hi, Edgar. What’s the news?”
“Not a lot. Pretty dull day. Couple robberies, a bum found dead at Market Square. You’re the one with a big lead right now.”
She whirled around, her pulse back up to two hundred beats per minute. “Man found dead in Market Square? When?”
“Overhead it on the scanner early this morning. They picked him up around four in the morning. The old guy probably expired from a hard life.”
She ignored Edgar and reached for the phone. The coroner’s office was on her speed dial. She talked to an answering service who said the coroner was on call. She and Gary Philips got along pretty well. Didn’t hurt that he was a family friend. “Could you please call him in? Tell him I’m on my way.”
“I don’t think he’s going to interrupt his Sunday, unless it’s an emergency,” the answering service replied.
“Please, just do it. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Edgar watched her with a journalistic eye. “Going to tell me what’s going on?”
“No,” she said, and blasted from the office. When she reached the underground parking, she looked around first before entering the dimly lit garage. The tap of her heels sounded far too loud in her own ears, and she actually tip-toed toward her vehicle. She unlocked the car and tried to ignore the prickles on her neck. With a clunk, she locked the doors as soon as she climbed in.
She reached the coroner’s office downtown, located a few blocks from where Diana and the other women were killed. The autopsy would be done at the hospital, these were the admin offices of the BC Coroner’s Service. She found a spot out front and slid her credit card in the towering blue machine for a ticket. Gary was already on the steps leading into the main building.
She hurried to the base of the steps. “Gary?” His white hair and easy smile made her feel a little safer, but not less concerned that the man found in Market Square was the homeless guy she’d spoken to about the murders.
“Mattie, what’s the rush, little lady?”
“Can we talk out here?”
His brow furrowed. “Sure.”
“An old man was found dead in Market Square this morning. Have you done an autopsy?”
“No. He was approximately eighty years old. His heart most likely gave out. That’s what the initial physician report says. He won’t be autopsied.”
“He has to be at the morgue right?”
“Mattie, you look scared. I know your folks are down south, but I can help.”
Gary’s sixty-year-old slender frame shifted closer. Behind silver framed glasses, his warm hazel-colored eyes gave her a sense of trust. He had been a familiar sight around her house growing up. Since her parents were in Arizona and her brothers in Alberta, she didn’t have a family haven to run to. A morgue wouldn’t help with her insecurities, but she trusted Gary.
She scanned the street, looking both ways and pushed her fingers through her hair. “Can I see him now? To make sure.”
“Make sure?”
“Make sure he wasn’t murdered.”
“Does this have something to do with a story for the paper?”
“It is and it’s really important that I see him.”
“The deceased?”
Mattie wanted off the street and away from prying eyes. “Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“If you get in the car, I will.” She turned and trotted toward her vehicle, unlocking the doors. She sighed with relief when he slipped into the passenger seat.
By the time they reached the hospital, she had confided in Gary, feeling like he was the closest thing to her father she was going to get. The Coroner’s Office is part of the Ministry of Justice for the province. Gary would understand about interference. During 2011, the Chief Coroner for the province departed. The government tried to say she’d been terminated, but she left because of undisclosed interference by government agencies. Mattie had been given the story as her first investigative report. She followed every angle. The Auditor General noted that the Coroner’s Office was underfunded and should be separate and apart from the governments’ stir-stick of intrusion.
It was then when she’d learned her first hard lesson about Bart, the paper’s Chief Editor. He wasn’t as much into reporting the truth as he was appeasing bureaucrats so he’d be invited to the next tux and Champagne party for the city’s elite.
She put the car in park just as she finished explaining to Gary how she’d met the old man in Market Square.
He removed his glasses and rubbed one eye with a knuckled finger. “You need to bring some superiors from the newspaper in on this, Mattie. I don’t like the idea of you going it alone. Especially if there’s a small chance that someone in the Vic PD has gone bad.”
“I will, but I want to find more evidence first.”
Gary adjusted his glasses back on his nose. “Let’s go see what we can find.”
“Gary.” She gripped his aging, warm hand for a minute. “Thank you.”
The morgue wasn’t anyone’s favorite place, but it was definitely the last place everyone would visit. Gary checked the paperwork, and he motioned for her to follow. They entered the room lined on both sides with numbered metal holding cells and elongated handles. He walked to number seven and yarded on the lever. The door yawned open, and he pulled the sliding tray. A white sheet covered the body. Gary knew she wasn’t too squeamish when it came to corpses. It had been part of her early learning being a journalist. Once, when she was seventeen and her father wanted her to be reminded of what happened to those kids who went astray, he brought her on a ride-a-long one night and they’d visited the morgue. She’d nearly punched out the next person who tried to offer her a toke off a joint.
When he pulled back the sheet, her fears were confirmed.
“Is it him?”
She nodded. “Where would they put his possessions?”
“Safe box with a number coded to him is in the other room.” Gary slid the tray inside the holding container and closed the door. “Doubt he’d have much if he lived on the streets.”
She followed him and waited while he retrieved the contents. There wasn’t much, as he suspected. A few coins. A five dollar bill. A pen. A Bic lighter. Half a package of cigarettes, but what she wanted to see, and couldn’t find, was her business card.
Her brain prattled along like a rickety old train on a broken track. She wanted to be sure of her facts.
“What’s the matter, honey?”
“I gave him my card after we spoke. I asked him to call me if he saw the men again. It’s not here.” Her nerves tightened with warning that this was why she’d received the impromptu visit by Sergeant Tall, Dark and Scary. Maybe the reason why Stuart was acting strange.
“You think someone murdered him and found your card?”
She nodded. “There’s something else.”
Gary put the old man’s possessions back in the box and set it beside others just like it.
“Diana’s murder. The seventh victim. I went to the scene. I saw the voids.”
Gary’s eyes narrowed as he listened. “And?”
“Why didn’t you report there were two voids near the body which would indicate two killers?” She watched him carefully. One sign of hesitation, and she’d lose her shit. She trusted Gary.
His brow puckered together. “I did, Mattie. Why do you ask?”
Someone at the police station had tampered with the file. Changed it or made a new one. With bureaucracy the way it was and police investigations keeping a tight lid on things while they searched for a killer, Gary would never suspect a thing. She didn’t have to answer his question. He understood.
“Oh, shit.” He ran a hand through his silver hair. “Mattie, you are suggesting there’s an issue with the PD?”
She swallowed heavily. “Somebody in the Vic PD is covering up for a murderer. I can’t think of any other reason.”
“Alright, before we go jumping to conclusions, give me some time. I’ll do an autopsy and see what I find with the old man. I’ll call you when it’s done. Honey, he could have lost your card or thrown it away not wanting to get involved. These street people don’t want to be in the eye of the cops.”
She bit her lip and darted a look at Gary. “Maybe.”
“Are you going to be home tonight?”
“No, but I’ll have my cell. Call me, please.”
“I will. And if you receive any more unfriendly visits by Sergeant Raine Montgomery, you call me.”
“I will.” She hugged him and hung on a little too long to give herself an extra ounce of bravery. “Thanks, Gary.”
Exiting the hospital, she let a pickup truck pass by before she ran across the street where she’d left her car. Her phone beeped with an incoming text. It was the Admiral.
Greg’s been released. I’m taking him home.
She texted back. Can I meet you there?
She waited for the answer while starting her car, surveying her surroundings. The globed wrought iron streetlights blinked on and fog swirled above the sidewalk. Darkness had wrapped itself around the November day, and her heart.