Chapter 114

Early in the investigation, scores of mundane backgrounders and timelines had been compiled by constables on every person remotely connected to the victims.
Digby had hard copies of all the backgrounders piled in a massive stack on her desk. She flipped through the papers, over cold coffee, re-reading every line, hour after hour, alone in the squad room.
She hadn’t heard from Det. Sgt. Smith in weeks.
There were rumours around the Detachment that something had gone very wrong with one of his cases, or something. He was probably just busy putting his finger in the dyke.
“Who, his wife?” she mumbled out loud.
They were getting too close. She’d felt something for him, after visiting Willard Missions Senior’s house that time. He probably felt it too, and was spooked.
Database searches, on every person in the stack, revealed a total of about two dozen friends, relatives, co-workers or acquaintances of the Lee’s, with adult criminal records.
The backgrounders with criminal records were sitting in a separate pile, labeled “Better leads,” with a yellow stick-note.
A few of the convictions were for common assault, and one aggravated: Dee Lee, aggravated, Alan Lee, Dale Pinch, Jonathon Tuby, and Bradley Greenough, the pizza delivery driver, common.
There was a few sex crimes in the pile too, which was interesting: One fondling-an-11-year-old-girl: Dustin Byrom, an ex-boyfriend of Tamara Schofield’s. One conviction for running a common bawdy house: Bill Tiffen, Tamara’s former employer at Gentleman Jim’s.
But she was most interested in the drug beefs, since Jack Lee seemed to be a minor player in the local marijuana trade.
Many of his friends and relatives had records for possession, including: Mike Lee, Scott Lee, Tabitha Boyter, Alan Lee, Dee Lee, Dee Lee’s wife Lindsay Lee, Dee’s mistress Stacey Denton, Bill Tiffen, Edgar Gallibois, Annie Ellis, Kevin Schofield, Willy Schofield, Amanda Schofield, Afternoon Surette, Gordon Fairclough, Terry Fancy, Karen Munn, Julie Bissonette, Jenny Blood, John Leslie, Adrian Palipschuk, Kyle Verryn…
Digby stopped flipping through the pile. She picked up Kyle Verryn’s backgrounder sheet.
Kyle Verryn was the freelance reporter, the “stringer,” who worked with Jack Lee and Rawle Powder in the Gazette’s Valley Bureau.
He was a fill-in reporter, a contractor, not a union member, which meant he probably got crappy wages.
She flipped through the stapled stack of paper, digesting the meaty paragraphs.
Verryn had a criminal record for two counts possession of marijuana. You had to smoke a lot of pot to get busted twice in this day and age.
He was also a co-worker of Jack Lee’s, a fact which these days, unfortunately, figured into his probability of being the killer.
According to his file, Verryn had been observed on video surveillance at the Shell gas station on Gaspereau River Road, Friday morning, at 5:43 A.M., a few kilometres from Sunken Lake.
He was on video paying for gas, buying cigarettes and a carton of chocolate milk.
Jack and Tamara had died sometime between 5 a.m. Friday, when they left to walk the dog, and five p.m. Friday evening.
Thanks to Jack’s death, Mr. Verryn had secured permanent, full-time employment with the newspaper.
She picked up the phone. It was late, but she tried Rawle Powder’s number. It rang five times and then the answering service picked up.
“Hi, Mr. Powder. Biz Digby, RCMP. Please call me at 679-5555. It’s Friday at 11. You’re probably sleeping.” She hung up.
She smiled to herself. She wanted to ask him how tough it was out there to get a full time job with a daily newspaper in Nova Scotia.
She couldn’t imagine it would be that easy.
There were less than a half-dozen daily newspapers in the entire province, and every year, Kings College in Halifax churned out dozens of eager journalism graduates. Where did they all work?
She chuckled out loud and the sound rang softly in the steel rafters of the empty building.

How many Nova Scotians would kill their boss for a full-time job?