CHAPTER SIX
2ND SATURDAY
The kids have them up by eight thirty and Mike sees Nina out by the car in her drive. He waves as he picks up his paper and she wanders over. She says, “What a hang over! Jeff is miserable, too. How do you feel this morning?”
“Like I need an hour in the hot tub with you.”
He grins and she says, “How could you? Jeff is whipped. Poor Marlene won’t get any for two weeks and I plan to keep you busy that long at least.” She leers at him.
“Be careful, woman. You might get what you wish for.”
“Oh, I couldn’t. I didn’t think I would ever say that but that was before yesterday. Whew! I’ll see you later.”
She takes off and leaves in her car.
Mike goes back into the house and Marlene meets him in the living room. “Making a date for this afternoon?” There is definite ice in her tone.
“Any breakfast yet?”
“She’ll wear you out then look for someone else, you know.”
“Hey, take it easy. Jeff’s the one who looks worn out and he has for months. How about some breakfast or do I have to go and find that somewhere else, too.”
“Go! See if I care! Just get out of my sight!”
Mike gets dressed and leaves the house. He drives around to a local restaurant and orders breakfast. He tries to chat up the waitress but gets the cold shoulder. As he’s eating he looks out the window and notices Nina’s car pulled in by his. She’s looking the convertible over and Mike waves as she glances his way. She waves back and comes in, sitting down beside him.
“Wife won’t feed you this morning?”
“Yeah, she accused me of setting up a date with you this morning when we were chatting on the door step. She said for me to get out, so here I am.”
“I know how you feel. Jeff was so crabby I had to leave for a while. Why are they mad at us? We haven’t been having an affair for, he says, at least six months.”
“I guess they’re feeling guilty at getting caught. That’s all I can figure. You want coffee or anything?”
“I could use some anything, but coffee will do for now.” They grin and their lips graze each other. “Mmmmm. Your sweet in the morning.”
Mike calls for coffee and the waitress delivers it right away. Meanwhile Nina licks the edge of his cup and takes a drink. Mike laughs and does the same.
“Aren’t you afraid someone will see us?” He asks her the question and she just shakes her head.
“I don’t care anymore. I love Jeff, but I’m shocked by his betrayal of me. I think I felt he was being untrue and that’s why I yearned to be with you.”
“So it’s his fault you had sex with me, is that it?”
“Well, it’s your fault, too. You seduced me. What an old fashioned word. Seduced. Did you set out to seduce me?”
“I sure did. I plotted and schemed to get you alone and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Remember how hard you fought me?”
She grins and says, “That would be rape and that’s almost what I did to you.” They chuckle together. He takes her coffee and licks the edge then drinks. She does the same and finishes it.
She sighs and says, “Well, I better get on home. What are you doing today?”
“An insurance fraud investigation.”
“Be careful. I don’t want you getting yourself killed when I’ve finally found you.”
“I can take care of myself. Don’t worry.”
“I’m serious. Please be careful. Promise?”
“I will be careful.”
“I’ll worry about you now, you know. When you’re on the road with the truck or out fighting crime, I’ll always be worrying about you. Remember that.”
“I will, my itty bitty pretty one.”
They drive off in different directions and as Mike cruises down the freeway towards Chilliwack with the top down he thinks that it’s a crazy, crazy world. He’s going to visit Trudy and feels guilty about it because of Nina more than he does because of Marlene. He figures it’s because he thinks Marlene is tougher, Nina more vulnerable. He turns up the radio and sings along with JR Country.
He pulls in by the bungalow and she comes out to meet him. “I love that car of yours when the weather’s nice. Come in, Mike. The sitter won’t be long.” They walk hand in hand back to the house.
“Have you got the papers with you in your purse?”
“Yes, I thought you might want them.”
“Good girl.” He glances at Crystal and gives her a big smile. “How are you today?”
“I’m staying home because I’m special. Mom says she has to go but I don’t have to. So there.” She sticks out her lip and marches into the other room. Trudy grins and says she has to use some tricks to make her stay at home.
“It looks like you know what your doing.”
She grins and says, “Sometimes.”
There’s a knock at the door and Trudy goes to let in the baby sitter. She talks with her for a minute then they go into the other room. She comes back and beckons Mike to follow her. They leave the house and Mike pulls up towards the Trans Canada Highway. They drive through town and Mike turns up the canyon. About five miles later he pulls into a side road that leads to a mine. Along the road a few miles is a turnoff into a hollow by a low waterfall. Mike parks in the entryway, blocking the entry. He gets out and goes to the trunk, getting out a blanket. He carries it to the water’s edge and spreads it on the grass.
Trudy brings his briefcase and her purse. She digs the file out of her purse and puts it on the briefcase like a table. She looks at Mike expectantly.
“All right, you’ve seen the file. Tell me what happened.”
“She was lured to the spot by her killer with whom she has practiced fantasy sex. For some reason this time he plans to kill her. He ties her up beside a railway track and lays her on a blanket; all part of the fantasy. Then he opens her dress and probably has sex with her, but when the train comes along, he brutally beats her and murders her. Then he makes it look like a sex slaying and leaves. How’s that?”
“Hmmm, why do you say he arranges the scene to look like a sex slaying?”
“Here”, she takes the color photo of the victim, “notice the gaping womb. See anything inside there?”
“I’m not used to looking into those places but I see semen, or what appears to be semen.”
“I doubt if it is, but that’s what your supposed to think it is. Our killer placed it in there after her death, unless he screwed her and ejaculated after her death. Not likely. He would be an awful mess and caught very quickly, I think.”
“You mean because her body expelled all fluids and feces at the time of death.”
“Correct. And our killer is smart enough to mix some apparent semen into the fluids between her legs. Here… and here.”
“How do you know it’s not semen?”
“I don’t but would a killer this smart leave DNA. I suspect that is some substitute.”
“Pretty smart, Trudy my love. It’s not semen, it’s water and…” She cuts him off.
“Don’t tell me. It’s water and cooking oil put through a blender, right?”
“Damn, how’d you know?”
“That’s a porn film secret. It’s how those hunks come half a bucket at a time. Didn’t you ever think it was kind of phony? Bet you can’t come that much. Wanna try?”
“Not now, I’ve work to do. So where were we? You think he deliberately tried to make it look like a sex pervert. Any other reason to think that?”
“The damage; why aren’t her breast mutilated. They’re not even bruised because he concentrated on her lower body. And look at the damage there. Could you physically do that much damage to me while screwing me.”
“But she was struggling for her life as he choked her.”
Trudy flops down on the blanket and opens her legs. “Get down here on top of me and screw me. I’ll show you what I mean.”
Mike grins and says, “If this is a trick to get a quick piece of nookie I’ll …”
He moves up between her legs and opens his fly, revealing a rather slack member.
“That’s no good. Here, let me.” She spits in her hand, reaches and grasps it. Sliding her hand up and down, she pulls it. “Never mind, lay down on me and kiss me.”
He grins and does as she asks, lying between her legs with his sex pressed against hers. He kisses her and she probes his mouth with her tongue. Frantically she wiggles under him as her tongue reams around inside his mouth and suddenly he feels he’s as hard as a rock. She stops and says, “Now put it in, silly.”
“Yes, ma’am!” and he does.
“Now feel how your weight is distributed across my body. Try to crush my pelvis with your weight. Can’t do it, can you? And I’m much lighter than your victim. Try thrusting into me hard enough to crush my pelvis. Come on, harder than that. Harder. Harder! You won’t hurt me, put more weight into it. Okay. I think you see my point. Now, pull out. Up on your knees. Right. Now put one knee on my pelvis. Do you see how with just shifting your weight slightly you could crush my pelvis easily? I think that’s what our killer did; the pattern of bruising matches. Oh, while your there, see if you tore my vagina with all that thrusting. Not likely. You can put that away now. I don’t think that is what our killer used. Doesn’t fit back in your shorts as good as it did, does it?” She giggles
“You imp! Okay, I see your point. God, don’t you ever wear panties?”
“Not if I can help it: once a month for a few days. I certainly never wear them if I know your going to be around. What’s the point?” They both laugh over this.
“Now I think our killer used a piece of lead pipe and if the cops are as smart as they think they are, they’ll check for traces of lead. He rammed the pipe into her dry and caused the scoring on the walls and the torn tissue. These and the bruises on her pelvis all bled so he did this damage while she was still alive and fighting. He was either very strong or very determined. She may have been drugged slightly or drunk but the protrusion of the tongue and the fact she bit into it so deep indicates she was not unconscious until near death. Does that help you?”
“It does to a point. Can we go through that demonstration on the ground again?”
“Oh, your bad! I like you. Give me a minute to get into position.”
“Joke! I was only joking. Let’s get back to work on this crime scenario. You said she came willingly because of the blanket, eh?”
“That, the placement of her panties and the isolated location. People go to the weirdest places and get into the weirdest situations for fantasy sex. Ever try it? No? We will one day.” she grins. “You fill one of my fantasies when you lay me in your big truck in your sleeper.”
“I do? You are one of my fantasies, I’m sure of it.”
“Ha! I’m your nightmare. You just haven’t figured it out yet.”
“I’ll let that pass for now. So, anything else?”
“Lots. For instance, where’s her necklace?”
“How do you know she was wearing one.”
“Look in the bruising around the neck. See the pattern?”
Mike pulls his magnifying glass out of his briefcase and studies the photo. He can just make out the trace of a pattern in the bruising. “How’d you spot that?”
“Easy. I knew enough to look. See the earring. Same as in her recent photo, eh? They’re a matching set. She wouldn’t wear one without the other. Women are like that, you know? No, you wouldn’t know. You’re a man. Anyway, I looked for a mark where it was torn off her neck and there it is. So, where is it? It wasn’t found at the crime scene. Did it break in the killer’s car before they arrived? No, she had it on when he started to strangle her and it got in the way so he snatched it off; thus the mark. But then what did he do with it? $64,000.00 question!
“God. You’ve gleaned as much from that photo as I have with all my other sources. So, who did it?”
“Hmmm, now that’s where I’m stumped. Odds are it’s the ex husband. Am I right?”
“I don’t know? They think Ray did it. They’ve arrested him. I didn’t tell you about the foot prints.”
“You mean he wears number nine work boots?”
“What? Who told you?”
“It’s in the photo. They could be number eights or tens but I think they’re nines.” She shows him the prints and he kicks himself mentally for missing them.
They sit back with their back against a stump and Mike relates to her his visit with Ray and with Marie Mathers. He also draws the autopsy report and the full forensic report out of his brief case for her. She studies them without comment. As she hands them back she says, “You haven’t told me how you came across these papers. They didn’t give them to you so somebody copied them for you. Buddies only go so far and police buddies don’t go that far. So it has to be a woman who works for them, a secretary or a female officer. More likely the former and she would only do it if she were getting payment. So, am I right? Don’t bother to deny it. Who is she?”
“Whoa, I can’t tell you that. She could go to jail forever if her name came out. I’ll destroy these papers before I’ll let her take the rap.”
“You trusted me with them? Do you think that was wise?”
“Sure, I trust you. We work together on cases.”
“Right! So, who is she?”
“I can’t say.”
“Can’t be more than a couple of secretaries in the POCO Detachment with clearance to handle this stuff. I’ll find out who she is.”
“Her name is Nina and she lives near us in Abbotsford. Now are you happy?”
“Your boinking her for this stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“She any good in the sack?”
“Very good.”
“Better than me?”
“Oh God, no! I never met anyone better than you.”
“You better say that!”
She sits looking thoughtful for a while and Mike says, “Let’s go get a bite to eat. Are you hungry?”
“Yep, but not for food. We’re not going to waste this beautiful spot by leaving already, are we?”
“We can come back.”
“Sure; a hundred times. But we’re here now.”
She flops on the blanket and spreads her legs. “I’ll do the demonstration for you again if you like. Lie on top of me and screw me. Come on. I’ll do that for you. That’s it. Open the fly. Wow! We don’t have to figure out how to make it hard this time. Now, lay here on top of me and put it in here.” She caresses her vulva and spreads the lips. “Not like that!” She complains.
“Oh!” She catches her breath, “Oh, I see what your doing,” she sighs, “Yes, just rub it right there. No, a little higher. THERE!” She shudders, “That’s the spot! Right there for a bit. Oh! OH! Oh yes, OH MY GOD, YES!!!”
Later they drive into Hope for supper and Mike calls Marlene. “Any messages?”
“There was a cop around looking for you this afternoon.”
“Same one as last time.”
“No, it was Ken. Were you expecting him?”
“No, he said he’d call. Did he leave a message?”
“He asked you to call when you came in.”
“Okay, anything else?”
“CPX called and said to be ready for a run on Tuesday morning early. They didn’t say where to, other than Calgary.”
“Right. That’s it?”
“I got a message for you. I’m sorry I blew up at you this morning and said the things I did. Will you soon be home?”
“Not before nine, I don’t think. I’ll try to make it sooner. Love ya.”
“Okay, I love you too. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Trudy rolls her eyes at him as he clicks off the cell phone. “What a piece of work you are, you old softy.”
He drives her home and they have sex again in her driveway in the car with the top down in the dark. “I’m just making sure you don’t have any left for Marlene… or that Nina either.”
He drives to his home by eight thirty. When he comes in Marlene hovers over him with coffee and kisses. He calls Ken and gets the okay to send off the paperwork to ICBC. Seems the boys were busy again last night stealing a car and got caught in the act. Chalk one up for the good guys. Tonight everything is tops in Mike’s world.