Chapter 101

“I wonder who the girl is,” Smith said, although he knew it was a dumb thing to say. Nothing ruined a romantic mood like talking about a case, especially anything to do with child molestation. He couldn’t help it, his mind was reeling from the video. He felt panic for his family, his children, for some reason, and of course the poor little girl on the DVD.
He was sitting on Digby’s old vinyl couch in her single apartment on Belcher Street.
She sat her wine glass full of blueberry juice on the tin travel trunk that doubled as a coffee table. Smith was drinking a Moosehead Pale Ale Digby had in the fridge, left over from her last boyfriend, the bus driver.
“I don’t know who the girl is,” she said. “But I did notice one thing. First of all, the party looks like a biker bash. Don’t you think?”
“Well, except it was at a house of some kind, not a bunker, or a boozecan.”
“But maybe it was a biker housewarming party or something. A lot of the girls looked like strippers and hookers.”
“Yeah, I agree with that.”
“And second, the bed sheets on the little girl’s bed, I noticed, were ‘New Brunswick sheets.’ Fleece sheets.”
Smith frowned. “I didn’t notice. How do you know the sheets were from New Brunswick?””
“I don’t. That’s the brand name: ‘New Brunswick sheets’… But I’ve never seen someone with fleece sheets outside the Maritimes. Have you?”
“No.”
“Which means, we’re probably looking at a local child abuse case, probably one that was never reported. The girl probably belonged to the owner of the house. If we can figure out who that was, maybe we can find out who she is. I did some file searching. So far, I haven’t found any cases where the girl or the victim looks like that.”
Smith was twitching his foot. He seemed nervous. His glass of beer was almost gone.
Digby was sitting on her calves, her legs pulled underneath her on the couch.
She tried to continue talking about work, to get Smith to relax. His nervousness was making her feel nervous. He probably felt like his wedding band was itching a ring around his finger.
“You think it was a blackmail tape?”
“What do you mean?” Smith said, vacantly. His mind was far away.
“The DVD. It didn’t seem like porn or anything. It was the only video in the basement. There was no other child porn in the house. It’s possible the guy who made the tape sent it to Jack as blackmail. And maybe it has something to do with his murder. It must.”
“Who sent it, then? The guy on the camera?”
“I looked for his face too, the cameraman. I looked at Nova Scotia, New Brunwsick mugs. The problem is, I’m not trained at this, really. I don’t have time to do this, I’m inht emiddle of a double homicide, but at the same time I can’t very well spread this DVD all over the detachment. Somebody will leak it to the press, guarranteed.”
Smith thought for a minute. “I have a pretty good friend in Child Exploitation, in Halifax. Maybe I can get him to take a look at it, discretely-“
“I don’t think so, Bob. I want to keep this in our circle, if I can.”
“I understand. But these guys are trained to find information in videos like this, Digby. They might be the only people who can figure out who the girl is.”
The room fell silent, for a long time. The mood was definitely ruined. Smith finished his drink and got up to use the bathroom.
He didn’t even have to go, but his penis and bladder felt so nervous it was tingling like he had to take a piss.
He ducked into the small bathroom and closed the door. He could hear Digby clearing away dishes in the kitchen.
His piss sounded so loud in the toilet water.