Chapter 99

Two days after the funeral, Rawle started drinking.
The bloody clothing- that possibly belonged to the Sticks and Stones killer- was still sitting in the trunk of his car, out of sight, but not out of mind.
He stressed about it, constantly, but was terrified to move it anywhere and possibly be seen acting suspiciously by someone like Fenerty, his next door neighbour. And for all he knew, the homicide investigator, Sgt. Digby, had found him suspicious during their meeting and placed him under surveillance.
He also didn’t want to move the bags inside, in case the clothes thawed out and blood started seeping everywhere.
He felt tingles in his blood stream, but he couldn’t decide if it was paranoia or drunkenness.
He drained the last of another warm Keith’s India Pale Ale and set the bottle down in the snow.
His ass was comfortably slung in a folding Canadian flag camping chair from Canadian Tire and his feet were propped on the picnic table.
Cst. Keith had brought the beer, and was drinking it too, which was odd. Rawle had not seen Cst. Keith drunk in three years knowing him.
Porkbutt was gnawing loudly on a branch from a nearby willow tree.
They were talking about the murder case, like normal people talk about the Axemen making the playoffs.
“There’s still the two Major Crime cops, plus the Staff Sgt., someone from biker squad. Plus they have all the resources at their disposal. Kings County, General Investigation, Special Investigations, Forensic Unit. Dog Unit. I don’t know what else. Wolfville Office…” Cst. Keith was defending the murder case from Rawle’s charge of police abandonment. Rawle was already thinking police were not doing enough to solve the crime after four days.
“If it’s not solved in twenty-four hours, it won’t get solved at all,” Rawle said. “I read that somewhere. You’ve told me that yourself, about other cases.”
“If it’s not solved in 24 hours, it means the case is more complicated, and it will take time and work. That’s all.”
They were both hammered and it was only three in the afternoon. Together they had drained about 18 beers from the flat, mostly Cst. Keith.
People looked ridiculous, Rawle realized, when they were drunk in the daylight. Cst. Keith was grinning ghoulishly in the grey Nova Scotia sunshine, and he slished his words around like an awkward teenage faggot.
It seemed like every time Rawle looked over at him he was tipping another thin brown bottle upside down in his enormous mitt, draining half the warm gold liquid at a single gulp.
His rhino legs were spread drunkenly from the picnic table, wrapped in XXL gray Acadia jogging pants. His fur-covered abs showed under a nylon cycling top every time he took a big overhead swig.
Cst. Keith was a large man. Most of his size came from muscle, but all the genuine muscle was marbled in fat, like bacon.
“That’s appropriate,” Rawle said, out loud, making a joke about Cst. Keith resembling bacon.
“It is appropriate,” Cst. Keith said. “In fact, any more and you’d just get squabbling. Too many investigators, spoil the broth.”
Rawle and smiled and picked up the thread again. “I guess it’s just hard for me to sit here and wait for something to happen. You know? I feel like, as a reporter, I can’t do squat. Two investigators in Major Crime, divide them by all the unsolved major cases in the area. The jailguard firebombing? Was that solved? No. And what murders were solved this year? That woman who got left in the woods in Meat Cove, remember? Unsolved. My murders. The South End Decapitator murder in Halifax. Unsolved.”
“Shesus, Rawle, will you listen to yourself? You don’t understand the resources of the RCMP. OK?” He sounded like he was bragging. “The CISC bureau here. Biker squad. Behavioural analysis section. Eh? And why don’t you try to solve it? Why don’t you do something? You ever hear of being an investigative reporter?”
Rawle made a jerk-off motion.
“-And you know something else? We have a few suspects. Yeah. We have a pretty good idea on who did it, in fact. Probably someone in the Missions family, pissed off after they figured out Jack wrote that story. We got a bunch of Missions family members as persons-of-interest now, which means suspects except we don’t have any goddamn evidence. Okay? But we know goddamn well they probably did....”
Cst. Keith’s big noggin softly swayed from side to side.
“What did you say?” Rawle said, squinting, in complete disbelief.
“What did I say, what?”
“What did you say?”
“I said we don’t release information on an ongoing investigation, that’s what I said. If you so much as print Word One of this….”
“The Missions family!” Rawle screamed. “You put them as persons-of-interest? You’re telling me this now? How long have have you known this, cocksucker?”
Cst. Keith tensed his neck muscles. “Call me that again, and I’ll kill you.”
“Which hand are you gonna use, so I’m ready for ya?”
“The one with the fist on it,” Cst. Keith laughed, but with a dead serious face.
Rawle stuck both arms out in front of him and used the weight to lunge out of the camping chair. In mid-lunge, he cocked back his right arm and jabbed with a fist at Cst. Keith, sitting across from him on the picnic table. Wap.
The sound and force of the punch dissipated quickly, in the enormous wall of flesh that was Cst. Keith’s face.
Rawle’s wrist exploded in pain.
“Arrrgggh.”
Cst. Keith stood up. The two men collided together like elephant seals, arms punching uselessly at eachother overhead.
Rawle was less drunk and quicker than his cop friend, but Cst. Keith had more power and much more training. Rawle kneed Cst. Keith in the lower belly, hard, but it had no effect. Cst Keith pushed Rawle back a little and spread his legs to get a solid stance, then jabbed with a left, catching him squarely in the bottom teeth, splitting his lip and sending splinters of pain into Rawle’s eyes. Tears frothed up involuntarily and clouded his vision.
Rawle swung, wildly, angrily, but hit nothing except a tensed-up shoulder muscle.
It was too late. Cst. Keith followed his left jab with a complimentary right hook, a swinging blow that buried itself, deep into Rawle’s ribcage and organs. The wind boiled and steamed out of his lungs. He crunched over sideways, clutching himself, falling to the ground, coughing and gasping to breathe.
Cst. Keith sat back down on the picnic table. When he spoke, he sounded sober: “Sgt. Biz Digby. You should be talking to her about this. She thinks maybe Kurtis Missions killed Jack, because he knows martial arts, and his cell phone was used in the general area during the time frame of the murders. But maybe it was one of the others, too. Kurtis is Darroll’s brother. His dad went missing. His brother committed suicide. Kurtis disappeared around the same time. It’s all connected, maybe. And I suppose you were right before, and I was wrong, about Darroll’s death. But who cares?”
“-Person-of-interest,” Rawle croaked back at him from down on the ground, followed by a fit of coughing.
“I knew it. Persons-of-interest… After all the shit I’ve been through?”
Cst. Keith nodded. “You can’t print Word One.”