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  “Forget Interpol! I’m going to El Paso myself.”

  “No. You’re not,” said Louie firmly. “Wigmore won’t approve it. Child porn is low on the list these days.”

  “But my source says they’re linked to snuff films, for God’s sake! That’s murder.”

  “I know.”

  “Does Wigmore know that the El Paso connection distributes to most of Canada?”

  “We’ve been over this. I told him.”

  “Damn it, Louie! The guy in El Paso has a family and is a leader in his church! I could turn him in about ten seconds. We’d get his distribution list for Canada, not to mention his connection, who is either producing it or knows who is.”

  “As Wigmore pointed out, the victims aren’t Canadian. Pass it over to Interpol.”

  “The victims aren’t, but the goddamned perverts are! We’re talking about children being raped and murdered! Who cares what their nationality is?”

  “I hear you, but Wigmore wants this handled through channels.”

  “That could take forever, plus I promised my source I wouldn’t burn him. This needs to be handled right. The hell with Wigmore. I’ve decided to take leave and pay for it myself.”

  “Forget it, Jack! You go flying off to Texas and he’ll have your ass for working in a foreign country without authorization. He’s been looking sideways at you ever since Levasseur’s body turned up last month. I’m sure he figures you were behind it.”

  “Levasseur was murdered in Montreal. I haven’t been there in years.”

  “I know. You also look better without a beard.” Louie paused a moment, and when Jack didn’t reply, he said, “Wigmore’s not in right now. Let’s meet for coffee tomorrow and talk about it. Maybe I can convince him to cut loose with the funding.”

  “Appreciate it. Speaking of funding, when am I getting a new partner? It’s been three months since Paul was transferred.”

  “You know Staffing as well as I do. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Jack hung up the phone and stared at the cardboard cutouts of fish dangling in his waterless aquarium. A breeze from his balcony made the fish start to spin. Some were sharks with silver teeth. The rest of the fish were bright, colourful, and looked real.

  Great kids. Lucky to have been born in Canada. The telephone rang and he picked it up.

  It was his sister. She said someone killed both her babies. Her voice was hollow and detached. Ben had gone to look….

  Jack accelerated along the dusty road. Last Sunday he had been with Liz and Ben. They had gone on a picnic with the kids. He had played hide-and-seek with Maggie and Ben Junior. Later, they had roasted hot dogs over an open fire. Ben Junior had dripped mustard down his shirt.

  Jack’s car bounced along the gravel driveway leading to the house. He had made the usual one-hour drive to the farm in less than forty minutes. Dust billowed behind, then overtook him as stepped out of the car. A police car, with lights flashing, sat empty outside the house.

  Jack sprinted inside.

  A uniformed officer appeared in the hall.

  “I’m on the job too. This is my sister’s house,” said Jack, reaching for his badge.

  “She told me you were coming. They just left. We’ve got a car taking them both to the hospital. She’s really out of it. I think she broke her nose.”

  “What happened?”

  “She found her kids in an old abandoned farmhouse down the road. She fainted and smacked her face.”

  “Are you sure the kids are…?”

  “I’m sorry. Both dead. That’s all I know. Homicide should be arriving any minute.”

  A police car blocked the driveway leading to the abandoned farmhouse. He saw a uniformed officer talking with two paramedics leaning against an ambulance. Any hope he had was gone.

  Moments later, Jack was careful not to disturb any evidence as he walked along the edge of the driveway leading to the house, but the driveway was mostly overgrown with grass and he didn’t see any identifiable tracks. He reached the small clearing where the house was located.

  A young uniformed officer walked out from behind a mass of blackberry bushes. His white face and the smell from the bushes explained it all.

  “Who are you?” the officer demanded.

  Jack flashed his badge.

  “Man, you wouldn’t believe it in there! With this heat and the greasy food I had for —”

  “I don’t need to hear it.”

  A voice behind Jack asked, “What are you doing here? Aren’t you still on Intelligence?”

  Jack recognized Connie Crane. She was attached to the Homicide Unit on the General Investigation Section.

  “Where is everybody?” he asked.

  “On their way. I just got here myself. What are you doing here?”

  “The parents … they’re my sister and brother-in-law.”

  “Yeah? Oh … Jack, I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You know them well?”

  “Very.”

  “Any problems?”

  “Forget that idea,” replied Jack. “They’re good people. Decent.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Well let’s go in there and do it.”

  “You’re not goin’ in there!”

  “I’m going in!”

  “Like hell you are! You’re not on GIS, let alone Homicide, so get out of here and leave me to do my job.”

  “Damn it, CC! These kids are family!”

  “Forget it. Don’t blame me. It’s policy.”

  They locked eyes and neither spoke.

  Jack was the first to break the silence. “Have the bodies been formally identified yet?”

  “Maybe they didn’t see the faces, I heard it’s pretty messy in there, but…”

  “Policy wouldn’t consider that a proper ID. I can do that now. Or were you looking forward to watching their mom and dad do it?”

  CC paused, then let out a sigh. “Okay. You win. ID the bodies and then go. Deal?”

  Jack nodded, and CC rummaged inside her briefcase and handed him a pair of protectors to slip over his shoes.

  CC gave Jack a hard look and said, “Remember, it’s not your investigation!”

  “I hear you.”

  CC flicked on a small tape recorder and cautiously entered. Jack stood at the entrance, looking in. He saw a kitchen, with a trail of blood across the floor to an open door on the far side. He resisted the urge to rush in. He watched CC practically hug the wall as she moved through the room, avoiding contact with anything someone else might have touched or walked upon. She talked as she went.

  “Blood on the kitchen floor indicates two different sizes of footprints. Appear to be a man and a woman’s. Note, must seize the parents’ footwear.”

  CC moved past the kitchen counter and studied the open door leading into the bedroom. “A door leading off the kitchen has numerous chunks and small round holes taken out of it. The pattern is similar to what a shotgun with heavy shot would do. Appears to be multiple blasts, maybe three or four. Entry point is on the kitchen side. No sign of shell casings.”

  “CC!”

  She clicked the recorder off. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut! What is it?”

  Jack indicated where some dust had been disturbed on the counter.

  “So?” asked CC.

  “Something slid across the counter. There are grains of powder in the dust! Brownish-grey. Bet it’s heroin or meth!”

  CC bent over for a closer look, then said, “Maybe someone weighing drugs. I’ll have it looked at.” She then turned her recorder on and said, “Now, facing the entrance to the room off the kitchen. Inside is — Christ!”

  CC shut off the recorder and stared into the room.

  A voice in Jack’s head and an eruption of burning bile up his throat and into his mouth told him to get out of the building. But he didn’t listen. He swallowed, then slowly moved to the doorway and looked in.

  Sunshine reflectin
g off splinters of mirror cast bright, rainbow-coloured images. Vibrations from their feet caused the images to dance and shimmer throughout the room. Shards of light flickered across red and pale-white flesh. It looked mystical. Surreal.

  He felt the urge to run. To go back to his apartment and crawl into his closet and hide. Hide from Liz and Ben. Hide from this room. Hide from this world.

  He paused in his thoughts and found himself staring at Ben Junior’s little hand. He thought back to a month previous. He had been roughhousing with Ben Junior out on the lawn. Ben Junior had pressed his tiny hand against Jack’s hand and said, “My hand will never be a big as yours, will it, Uncle Jack?” Jack had replied, “Someday. But mine is bigger now!” Then he’d grabbed Ben Junior, who had squealed with delight.

  Jack forced himself back to the present. He felt numb as his brain tried to deal with what he saw. Please don’t be sick. Think meat. Maggie and Ben Junior are gone. This is just raw meat. Part of her rib … No! Part of the rib cage blown away … blood splatters … one of her fingers by my feet … but her body is halfway across the room. She was shot while standing behind the door. But her face! … Pieces of skull … she was shot in the face later. Ben Junior … executed from behind. Oh God! I can’t be sick. It’ll ruin evidence…. Maggie and Ben Junior … just meat.

  He studied a bloody imprint of someone who had fallen in the bedroom, knocking over a pail of blackberries. A pattern of bloody hand marks with slender fingers extended across the floor from the imprint.

  Blood tells a story. It was all too easy for Jack to read. Easy to read; impossible to erase. The tipped pail, the bloody imprint of an adult body with slender hands…

  Liz fainted when she saw … and awoke next to the bodies of her children. Red streaks, like small railway tracks, snake their way between red palm prints. Liz was covered in blood. The fingers point into the room. Speckles of blood are partially obliterated by sliding palm prints. She broke her nose when she fainted and was dripping some of her own blood as she got to her knees, before crawling backwards out of the room. The railway streaks from her knees disappear, but red palm prints pepper the floor, along with red scuff marks made by her shoes. She tries to stand … feet slip on the linoleum … falls … gets to her feet.

  Jack’s senses become alive. He is conscious that the hot summer sun has turned up the humidity. A musty odour … stifling hot. Rotten wood in the air … my tongue feels thick. Sound of flies. They’re buzzing everywhere. Evil sound.

  Tracks from a workboot cover part of Liz’s footprints. Ben’s tracks. First Liz finds the bodies, and then Ben comes to check. Small red globules of blood are embossed between the thick tread marks left by his boots. The boot prints become farther apart. Ben is running, frantic to protect her from what he saw. He is too late. Too late to protect her — or himself.

  Long red narrow streaks against the white enamel paint of the doorframe. Liz claws at the doorway as she tries to escape from the house.

  A bluebottle fly with a fat hairy body crawled along the sticky blood on the doorjamb.

  Jack stepped outside and the fly buzzed around his head, angry at being disturbed. It landed on his lip. He spit and mauled his lips with his fingers. The fly returned to the doorjamb.

  I feel like I’ve tasted death. Is that possible? He spit again. The taste remained. It would remain in the fibres of his brain forever.

  Jack handed his shoe protectors to CC. Neither spoke while she placed them in a plastic bag and filled out a label.

  She looked at Jack. “Formal identification of…?”

  “Margaret Anderson and her brother, Ben Anderson Jr. Yes, it’s them.”

  CC glanced at her watch and made a notation in her notebook. “How they were shot will be hold-back information.”

  Jack nodded silently, then walked back to the main road as an unmarked police car arrived with two more investigators, followed by a van belonging to the dog master. A wild-eyed German shepherd barked furiously from inside the van.

  Jack knew that the bodies of Maggie and Ben Junior would haunt him for the rest of his life. It didn’t scare him as much as what he had to do next.

  chapter three

  Danny O’Reilly looked like he had stepped out of a recruiting poster for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as he stood outside the main entrance to the hotel in downtown Winnipeg. His red tunic was tailored to fit perfectly, and his deep brown leather riding boots equipped with silver spurs gleamed in the afternoon sun. He was shorter than most police officers, but it wasn’t too noticeable when he wore his riding boots.

  Danny was looking forward to his transfer to the West Coast. It was no secret that he hated Public Relations. Today he was to open the door of a limousine when it arrived and salute the prime minister as he stepped out. A mannequin could have performed the same function. Any real threat or danger was to be handled by the plainclothes officers. Not that any serious threats had been identified.

  He stared at the media and leaned slightly forward on his toes to relieve the pressure points on his heels, then used his brown leather gloves to dab at the perspiration that escaped from under his stetson.

  He caught the hand signal of one of the plainclothes members of the VIP Security Detail. Estimated time of arrival for the prime minister was three minutes. About bloody time. He glanced at his watch. The PM’s flight had been delayed, and it was two hours past the time that he had promised Susan he would be home.

  Danny thought back four months to when Tiffany was born. He recently bought Susan a gift certificate for a massage and manicure. As a new mom, she really appreciated the idea. She had booked the appointment for this afternoon. She wouldn’t be happy about missing it.

  The spurs on Danny’s boots jingled when he snapped to attention as the lead cars in the procession of limousines arrived in front of the hotel.

  Danny was unaware that fate would alter his life within seconds, plunging him into a world of rules he didn’t know existed. A world where the strong murdered the weak. A world where he would have to find out which category he was in.

  Jack’s footsteps echoed down an empty, antiseptic-smelling hallway as he walked away from the nursing station. Ben and Liz would want answers. He could tell them why. No doubt a drug deal. Whoever did it likely heard a noise and thought it was a ripoff, or maybe the cops.

  Jack vowed that one day he would be able to tell Ben and Liz who did it.

  But there was something he was afraid to tell them. If it was a dope deal, more than one person was involved. Defense lawyers would insinuate that the other lawyer’s client did it, making any conviction tenuous. They would argue the murders weren’t preplanned so any conviction would probably be the result of a plea bargain with the condition of an early release.

  He wouldn’t tell Ben and Liz that today. Let them go through their disbelief and shock. For them, anger would come later.

  He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled as he stepped into the room. Promise not to cry. They will need me. Must stay strong.

  Ben’s and Liz’s eyes were windows to their terror. Jack saw their pain. Pain that gripped their throats and made talking or breathing difficult. Pain that no words could cure.

  Jack broke his promise to stay strong.

  It was a day that would be locked forever in their souls.

  Damien squinted at one of the closed-circuit television monitors and saw Wizard looking up at the camera from his car.

  Damien’s voice was curt and to the point. “I’m out back, at the pool.” He released the electronic gate, then walked outside to turn the heat down on his barbecue.

  He looked at Vicki’s bikini-clad body as she tossed a beach ball back to their three children in the pool. Buck was twelve years old and his two sisters, Sarah and Kate, were ten and seven. She still had a fantastic figure. So what’s wrong with me?

  Vicki returned his gaze and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.

  “Company?” she asked.

  “Business.
Won’t take long,” he answered, gently pushing her away.

  “What’s the matter, Papa Bear?”

  “You know what the matter is.”

  “You’re still brooding about last night? Don’t worry. It really doesn’t bother me.”

  “It bothers me! How could it not bother you? I’m fifty-two, but you, you’re only thirty-four. You’re in your prime.”

  “Hey, you’re still in your prime too. Bet you were just tired. Next time take a Viagra.”

  Damien sighed, then said, “I did. It didn’t work.”

  Wizard drove up the circular driveway to Damien’s estate and parked in front of the four-car garage. Communication antennas and satellite dishes bristled from the roof of the mansion.

  One garage door was open, and Wizard caught a glimpse of a new red Jaguar parked inside. The Satans Wrath’s emblem of a skull with horns grinned from the gas tank of a Harley Davidson motorcycle next to the Jag.

  Wizard smirked to himself as he opened the gate to the back of the mansion. Damien didn’t like being bothered at home. What he had to tell him would piss him off even more.

  The cobblestone path led to the sound of children’s laughter. He spotted Vicki and felt the blood go to his loins. Yes, Damien has it all. For a moment he allowed himself to fantasize that Damien was dead. Vicki was lonely and horny. She wanted him to…

  The barbecue lid closed with a bang. Damien glared at him and abruptly flicked off one burner. He was wearing only trunks. His arms and legs were exceptionally hairy, and his physique caused Wizard to think that he looked like a paunchy old bear. His short hair had noticeably thinned. Does he think he can hold on as national pres? He’s becoming old and weak. The election is only a couple of months away.

  They walked along a manicured garden path while Wizard gave his version of what had happened that afternoon.

  Dark lines formed in the furrows on Damien’s forehead and shadows appeared under his eyes. His response was venomous. “You whacked two kids!” Spittle from his mouth landed on Wizard’s face.