that the instructor had cautioned was for the “more advanced” in the group. Rhona had figured that as she was only in her late thirties, she was as fit as anyone, but watching the lithe twenty-year-olds, she should have known better.
She stretched her legs and contemplated the black tooled-leather cowboy boots chosen to coordinate with her washable black pantsuit. Aware of her foibles, she knew she wore boots almost daily not only because they were comfortable but because they gave her the added inches she craved. In the man’s world of policing, being a short First Nation woman left her triply disadvantaged, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it except wear higher heels. Enough self-examination. They had work to do.
“Six weeks since the first murder—it’s too long,” Rhona said.
“It is.” Ian evened the edges of the paper piled on his desk and frowned. “Do you get a sense the killer doesn’t care about his victims?”
Rhona felt her eyebrows rise.
“No, that didn’t come out right. What if the killer hates what his victims do but isn’t attacking them as individuals. That’s what I mean?”
“Like the anti-abortionists who have nothing against particular doctors but kill them because of what they do?”
“An analogous comparison. A fervent crusader maybe?”
Analogous? Fervent? Not words commonly heard from her fellow detectives. She’d have to learn more about this new guy. “Maybe. They were all addicts.” Rhona riffled through her papers. “No victim was sexually assaulted or fought back. No skin under fingernails, no semen, nobody who’s come forward to say he saw anything—we’ll have to catch the perp in the act.” She rocked forward on her chair and winced.
“What’s wrong?” Ian asked.
“Pulled a muscle doing Pilates,” Rhona said. She cautiously leaned her body forward again. “These men were expendable. That doesn’t explain why they were killed.”
“It’s the general opinion that they were involved in the drug trade?”
Rhona shook her head. “Too obvious. These guys were peripheral—small fry.” She moved herself a fraction of an inch to the right. “They weren’t operators—maybe mules, but I doubt it. I think the killer hates drugs and those who use them. Finding the person who hates drugs enough to kill men because they were addicted—that’s who we’re searching for. Whoever that someone is, he doesn’t frighten those he kills. That’s our perp.”
“That might explain those crimes, but I don’t see how it ties into the killing of the other man.” Ian steepled his fingers, tilted his head to one side and waited for her response.
“In my opinion it doesn’t. The perp beat the shit out of this guy before he died. His face smashed with something heavy—a crowbar, baseball bat—who knows. His fingers chopped off. No fingerprints. Whoever killed him didn’t want him identified. We have to wonder why.”
“No blood in the dumpster where we found him. Moved from somewhere—who knows—it’s a big city,” Ian said.
“The killer made sure the victim would be hard, if not impossible to identify. Why hasn’t someone missed him?”
“Obvious answers. Either he isn’t from Toronto, or those close to him don’t dare call us.” Ian swept up the pile of paper, held it aloft and shook it. “The answer is here. It would be good for our careers if we could identify the missing link.”
Rhona’s phone rang. She listened for a moment, pushed the button to activate the speaker phone and motioned for Ian to listen. “Repeat that, please,” she said.
“My friend’s brother is missing. She’s afraid something terrible has happened to him,” Hollis said.
Men disappeared every day; it was the nature of the beast. However, at this particular moment, Homicide had an unidentified male murder victim.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Give me his particulars,” Rhona said.
“I’ll put his sister, Candace Lafleur, on the line. She’ll provide the details.”
“Detective Rhona Simpson speaking. Sorry to hear about your brother. Give me his vital statistics—name, age, height, weight, eye and hair colour, marital status, occupation, address, everything relevant. After that, tell me why you’re worried.”
“Danson Lafleur. He’s twenty-four, single, six-foot-two, about one hundred and sixty-five pounds, blue eyes and brown hair. Danson’s a bouncer at the Starshine club, and he plays semi-professional lacrosse. He lives in an apartment on Bernard Street in the Annex.”
“Tattoos or scars?”
“No. He hated…” Candace paused.
Rhona knew, as surely as if she’d been in the room with her, that Candace’s eyes had widened; she’d spoken as if her brother was dead. “My god, that was past tense. That shows how frightened I am. Anyway, he’s hated needles since he was a baby. I can’t remember any scars. He suffered the usual number of childhood falls and accidents, but none left scars.”
Too bad. A snake twining on his bicep or a heart on his shoulder would help identify him. Today being tattooed seemed to be a rite of passage. Rhona had contemplated getting one relating to her Cree background but had rejected the idea of voluntarily suffering pain.
Rhona said nothing about the man’s body lying unidentified in the morgue. He didn’t have identifying marks either, but comparing DNA or dental records would tell if Danson Lafleur and the man in the morgue were one and the same.
“Why are you afraid?”
“We always talk on Sunday nights. Always. It’s never mattered where he was or what he was doing, he always, always phoned me on Sundays. I had lunch with him two Saturdays ago, and he hasn’t contacted me since.” She paused. She probably thought that this sounded a bit odd and required an explanation. It did. Most grown men did not phone their sisters once a week.
“I’m older than Danson and more or less brought him up. Kind of a surrogate mother. He’s never missed a Sunday night. Never. He would have phoned or e-mailed me if he could.”
Definitely didn’t sound good, although a man might change his habits without it meaning anything more serious than a desire to alter routines.
“Have you checked his home to see if he took clothes, suitcases, cancelled the paper or anything else to tell you he left intentionally?”
“We’re in his apartment right now. His car, wallet and keys are gone, but his cell phone isn’t, and he didn’t take shaving stuff or toiletries.”
“Sounds as if it’s time to report him to missing persons. Go to your nearest station and file a report. Take a recent photo. Let me speak to Hollis again.”
“Hollis speaking.”
“I don’t want to alarm your friend, but if Ms Lafleur has access to his apartment, ask her to pick up and bag his hairbrush or something else that will have DNA and drop it off at the desk downstairs. Also get the name of the young man’s dentist.”
“May I ask why?”
“Pursuant to another inquiry,” Rhona said. “We’ll get back to you.”
“How soon?”
“When the lab work is done.”
Ian raised an eyebrow after Rhona had placed the phone in its cradle.
“Hollis Grant. I’ve dealt with her twice before,” Rhona explained.
“In what capacity?”
“When I worked in Ottawa, her husband was murdered and here, in Toronto, the stepson of one of her friends was murdered.”
Ian exhaled a puff of breath and shook his head. “I’d say you need hazard pay to associate