Chevy Stevens - The Other Side

She said, “You’re working the Campsite Killer case?”

“That’s correct.” She was a psychiatrist, and from what I understood a very good one. I probably could’ve used her thirty years ago. Though I still have nightmares about my mother’s murder, I’ve never talked to anyone about it—including the therapist my aunt and uncle took me to until they found out all I did was cry the whole time. They decided it was too traumatic and taught me how to kayak instead. Something I still do for recreation.

“How is Sara?” Her eyes were worried as she studied my face intently, looking for clues, some sign of reassurance.

“She’s hanging in there.” Interesting that her first concern was her patient, not herself, but she was right to be worried. If John kept escalating, more people could get hurt.

I said, “I know you’ve already been over this, but do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Yes, please.”

“Can you take me through last night?”

“I had just locked up the building and was walking toward my car when I felt someone rushing up behind me. Before I could turn around, he hit me in the back, with his body, and I fell to the ground. My head hit the side of the curb.” She touched the bandage, an unconscious movement. “I heard footsteps running away, then I passed out.”

“You didn’t get a look at your assailant?”

“No, he came up from behind too fast.”

“Was there anything else you remember? A scent, a noise, maybe?”

She paused a few seconds, then shook her head.

“I know you suspect it was the Campsite Killer, but I’m not sure.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I just didn’t get the feeling it was him. I don’t know why.” She looked perplexed, her gaze drifting over to a glorious bouquet of flowers on her nightstand. Beside them was a smaller, wilted bouquet that looked like it had been bought at a corner store.

“Is there anyone else you think might have wanted to hurt you?”

She turned back to me. “The husband of one of my patients is unhappy with my treatment of her. He’s called and threatened me.”

“What’s his name?”

“Henry Flynn.”

I made a note. “Can you think of anyone else?”

She hesitated for a moment, and I wondered what she was holding back. But she just said, “No, no one.”

“No ex-husbands or relationships that have gone sour?”

She seemed almost amused by the idea.

“My husband passed away ten years ago and I haven’t been involved with anyone since.”

So who’d brought the flowers? I made another note.

“Any children?”

“My daughter and a stepson. They both live in Victoria.”

“Any problems with either of them?”

She shook her head but looked sad, and I didn’t press. Her attacker had to be John. I didn’t need to know about her family issues.

“Thanks for your time.” I closed my notebook.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful. I know how hard you’re all working to find him, but I hope you can stop him soon. I’m worried that he may be escalating.”

“We are too, and we’re doing our best.”

“He won’t give up without a fight. He wants a family and he views anyone standing in his way as a threat. I’m very concerned for Sara and her daughter.”

I nodded. “I understand, and she’s well protected.”

Billy also wanted to talk to the investigating officers and Nadine Lavoie, so he asked me to watch Ally, Sara’s six-year-old daughter, while Sara was at the hospital with her fiancé in Pt. Alberni—an hour from Nanaimo, and near where he’d been shot at his fishing resort. We were keeping a close eye on Ally, in case John decided to come for her, and also had an officer posted at the end of the road to Sara’s home. I thought Billy was wasting his time interviewing Nadine, but he said that he needed to assure Sara that she was okay. Again, I wondered if they were getting too close, but we did have to keep Sara calm, and if this helped, so be it.

While I played with Ally at her house—scrunched down at her Barbie doll table drinking my thousandth cup of pretend tea and nibbling on my pretend cookies—I thought back to my weekend with Jeff. We had decided to give it another couple months, maybe talk to a doctor, and see how we felt. We’d fooled around, but it had a desperate feeling to it, like we knew we were heading for a breakup. I studied the kid in front of me, who was now telling me that she was hungry and asking if she could make lunch.

“Are you allowed to do that?” I realized the second I asked that it wasn’t like she was going to tell me the truth, but I was stumped. Do six-year-olds use the stove?

She nodded, her dark hair bouncing in ringlets.

I decided it would be okay so long as I kept an eye on her.

“Sure, what do you want?”

Ally squealed and clasped her hands together.

“SpaghettiOs!”

I found the can in the pantry, helped her open it and dump it in the pot. She stood on her little stepstool, her face serious as she stirred. My phone beeped. It was a text from Doug, one of the officers back where I grew up in Kelowna: Call me ASAP . Though Doug was retired now, he’d been on the force a long time and still worked cold cases. He worked my mother’s murder, said he’d never forget pulling me out of the closet. We’d kept in touch over the years. I think he liked that I became a cop.

I watched Ally scoop her lunch into her bowl, worried the entire time that she was going to burn herself. When I tried to take over, she said, “Nooo! I have to do it!”

When she was settled at the table I put a glass of milk in front of her, figuring that would balance out the canned lunch.

“I have to make a call, so you stay here, okay?”

She nodded, her mouth around a heaping spoonful.

In the living room, where I could still keep an eye on Ally, I dialed Doug’s number.

He said, “Hey, kid. How you been?”

“I’m okay, busy.”

“I heard you were working the Campsite Killer case. He’s got a daughter?”

“Yeah.”

We both paused, and I knew he was thinking about my father. I’d been thinking about him a lot myself lately, seeing what Sara was going through. He’d taken me everywhere when I was a kid, fishing, hunting, never laid a hand on me, but he was a jealous bastard when it came to my mother. Men liked to look at her, a lot, and she liked them looking at her. He blackened her eye one too many times and she finally kicked him out a couple of weeks before she died.

“I’m actually calling about your father,” Doug said.

My body stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Think I got a lead.”

I sat down hard on the couch.

“What kind of lead?” The sweet tomato smell of SpaghettiOs suddenly made me feel sick.

“The guy who was with your mother that last week? Mark Braithwaite?”

The week before my father killed her, my mom played cards in the kitchen with Mark, the radio on, smoke curling up from their cigarettes as they laughed and talked, their hands occasionally touching. I watched from the living room, an anxious hum in my stomach, knowing how pissed my dad would be if he knew this younger friend of his was at our house.

“Yeah?”

“One of my buddies on the force remembered your case and gave me a call. Mark, he was picked up for assaulting his girlfriend. He’s in his sixties but he still did quite a number on her face. Girlfriend says he kept saying he was going to kill her. He raped her too, though he’s saying it was consensual. Thing that’s weird is, he used to be friends with her ex-husband.”

I was too stunned to say anything.

“Maybe we’ve been looking for the wrong man,” Doug said.