But he was nervous, Leith could tell. No longer twiddling, but twitchy and damp. “So why’d you let him take a vehicle a second time, if he caused you so much trouble on the first one?”
“Huh? What second time? I never said there was a second time.”
“You said once or twice.”
“Manner of speaking. I meant once.”
Leith stood again, this time with no show of threat. “Hang on a moment. Be right back. You want a coffee?”
In the case room, he sat down with Bosko and told him what he had. “He’s lying. He thinks he’s a smooth operator, but he’s a fool. It lights up in flashing neon across his forehead, I’m lying now. He’s always been like this, cocky but scared. The fact he’s scared is interesting, because there’s no paper trail, and we can’t prove anything. So whatever it is he’s covering up, it’s serious. I think he’s trapped into this lie. I think he wants out, but he can’t make a move. The question is, should I charge him now so I can lean on him properly? Or keep cajoling.”
“Keep cajoling,” Bosko said. “In the long run, it’ll be faster.”
Leith was eying diagrams in the air. The diagrams were vague, maybe cryptic, and he was trying not to look lost. “I don’t agree. If I suspect for one moment he’s in on the killing, I’ll have to charge him. And then we’re stuck. I just don’t want to waste time playing ball for nothing, if we’re going to end up going the long way round anyway.” With warrants and waiting, he meant. Lawyers and stone walls.
“I don’t think he’s in on the killing,” Bosko said, and briefly Leith wondered how he could reach that conclusion with such limited info and seem so sure about it. He crossed his arms, said nothing, and Bosko went on in his firmly meandering way. “And the worst you’ll get him for is conspiracy after the fact, and that’s not your focus. Let him know that conspiracy after the fact is nothing compared to what he’ll be facing if another girl dies because of him holding back. Sounds like you’ve hit pay dirt, but dig with care.” Bosko had his phone out and was making a call. “I’m going to get the team on to Potter right now. Get the video set up for the rest of the interview, and I’ll monitor, just to add a second set of eyes.”
Leith arranged for video and then filled two cups of coffee and returned to the interview room. Blair focussed on sweetening his coffee, and Leith, sitting once more across from him, did as Bosko had suggested, cajoled and warned in the same breath. Then he asked, “So, how many times in all did you let Potter take trucks out?”
Blair was maybe too smart to insist on his “once” statement and dithered about for a while before recalling that yes, there was a second time, maybe the next summer.
“With all the paperwork done up this time?” Leith asked.
“Well, no,” Blair admitted, losing his veneer. “I knew him now, so I agreed to kind of a handshake deal.”
“Details.”
Blair launched into another lie about Potter applying for job interviews, being down and out, needing a vehicle, and Leith reminded him of the peril he faced. Blair began to tire, to roll his eyes, stammer, and contradict himself. He didn’t have the advantage of pen and paper, and Leith did. Leith cross-referenced the lies and threw them back at the suspect until the suspect became trapped in confusion, and his facial muscles softened. Andy Blair could see a jail cell in his future, either way he jumped. The sooner he jumped, the shorter the jail time, he would be thinking now.
Leith used the moment and asked it again. “You had an idea what he was using those trucks for, didn’t you?”
“Not till lately,” Blair said, barely a mumble now. “Lately, it occurred to me. But I thought, no, couldn’t be. Not John. He’s a nice, quiet guy. Friendly like hell.”
“But the timelines bothered you.”
Blair nodded. “He said it was for drug runs down to George and back. Didn’t want to use his own vehicle. So he took trucks off the lot.”
“What did you get in return?”
“Bit of weed. Recreational use only.”
“Weed?” Leith said. “Really? Weed’s cheap, and you can get it anywhere. What did you get in return, Andy? You want me to repeat those warnings for you?”
Blair nodded again. “Coke. A smidge, enough to share with a friend or two, no charge. Personal use only. But it was good stuff, and I believed him a hundred percent, that that’s all he used the trucks for, and as far as I knew, he was only getting it for personal use too.”
Leith believed that Blair knew the trucks were used for killing, at least toward the end. But he’d barricaded himself in with indecision, and if once the charges might have been dropped altogether, they now would stick hard. “He borrowed trucks three times, didn’t he?”
Blair began to sniffle a bit and wipe his eyes. Not for the dead girls, Leith thought. Not a tear for them. “Spit it out, Andy.”
Blair spat it out. “It was March, year before last, when he took out the shitty Tacoma. Then a couple times last winter, different vehicles, and I could give you more exact dates if I could look at my calendar.”
“On your phone? Go ahead.”
Blair reached for his pocket and paused, still a charmer, the little creep, even with his eyes wet with self-pity. “You won’t shoot me?”
“I won’t shoot you.”
The car salesman studied the calendar on his phone for some time and was able to give Leith the dates, which he could extrapolate because that’s when he got the free coke, which was when he’d thrown house parties. Three great house parties that aligned with three dead girls to a tee.
Leith felt something other than blood coursing through his veins, some kind of high-octane mix, and he sped up matters, pressing Blair for descriptions of the vehicles, and soon had it scrawled in his notebook, in chronological order: silver Toyota Tacoma, white Chev Silverado, dark blue Nissan, older model.
He took another break to step out and talk to Bosko, who had a report already on John Potter. Bosko handed it over and said the ERT was prepped and ready to hit the road. “He’s a registered gun owner, Dave. Be careful.”
“Everybody in the north is a registered gun owner,” Leith said.
Pacing, he read the report and saw that John Potter was thirty-two years old, an ex-oil field worker from Alberta, moved to the area three years ago, bought a house, not in Terrace but Kitimat, seventy-three kilometres south on Highway 37. He worked off and on for Sherbrooke & Sons Roofing, a local Terrace company. No criminal record. He’d been canvassed, as all men in the area had been, but checked off as okay.
But it was futile to worry about errors and omissions now. What was really great was the piece of paper Leith now held in his hand, which gave him an address, a line of attack, and with pedal to the metal, he and the Emergency Response Team would be out there in no time flat. Half an hour, forty minutes max, they’d have their man in a bag.
* * *
Giroux had ordered Constables Thackray and Dion to accompany her to an event she worried might become a problem. Thackray told her he didn’t see how a candlelight vigil for a pacifist like Kiera Rilkoff could get out of hand, but Giroux told him she’d seen stranger things happen when a bunch of emotional and probably stoned kids got together.
Now it was dusk, and the two constables in uniform stood getting pelted by sleet in the village’s memorial park, down by the little covered stage. Friends and admirers of Kiera took the mic and said a few words about the woman they knew and loved. They sent prayers for her safe return into the drizzle. Music played too, starting with Kiera’s upbeat CD, which hardly set the mood. Giroux had posted herself centrally, solemnly holding a candle, but Dion and Thackray stood at the sidelines with their