Chapter 18

Glen Frederick and Nicole King lived in a high-crime couple of blocks on the west end of Eighth Street in Moncton, New Brunswick, a downtown area made up of big old rental houses, rundown businesses and strip clubs.
Moncton was a smaller city than Halifax, but it had six or seven strip clubs, more than any other city in the Maritimes.
The Frederick saltbox was painted shiplap grey.
The yard and back lot was in a lot better shape than most of the neighbouring properties. The snow-blown driveway had three late model vehicles sitting in it. Most other driveways on the street were empty or filled with K-cars. Then again, Digby thought, most Monctoners didn’t make $300,000-a year in the drug trade.
“At least he’s keeping it real,” Agarwal said. “Living right in Monkey town. He could be out in the suburbs or something.”
“He likes to keep watch over business,” Digby mused. “And don’t say ‘Monkey.’”
“Why not?”
“It’s racist.”
“No, it’s not. I’m not being racist. I’m saying people that live in Moncton are as dumb as monkeys.”
“You’re being something then. A prick.”
They were positioned in an unmarked silver Saturn in back of a Needs convenience store. It was around 6 p.m., just before sun-set.
Once Frederick was detained, he could be held without charge for up to 24 hours. By detaining him in the evening, Digby could question him all night long, which would hopefully make him groggy and less able to defend himself.
Digby had a side view of the Frederick front driveway.
The Codiac RCMP ERT team was backing their grey cube van into the Needs’ parking lot. As soon as the wheels stopped turning, a sea of Emergency Response Team cops in full body armour poured out, holding MP5’s and shotguns. Some circled around back, some took crouching positions going up the front steps.
The front door lock was picked.
Surveillance confirmed that Frederick and King were inside, naked and having sex on the floor of the upstairs master bedroom.
The couple’s two sons, Derek and Mathias, were in the rec room downstairs watching TV. They would be taken by a social worker from Children’s Aid and would spend the night in a shelter for battered women in Dieppe.
Agarwal lowered his window and lit a cigarette.
“I thought you quit that?” Digby said.
“I made it two weeks. I was on a break.”
The ERT team was on the move. They poured up the steps and pushed through the front door, in one smooth, silent motion, staggering themselves up the front hall stairs and holding position.
Digby could see the last two officers inside the door.
She turned up the volume on her digital scanner, out of reflex, but the operation was radio silent.
Glen Frederick reputededly had several scanners running at all times, including a Uniden scanner that he manually altered to the point where it can pick up high gigahertz digital cellphone frequencies.
A Codiac plainclothes Member stepped up to the front door and nodded his head.
In seconds, four ERT cops in gray-blue Kevlar came bursting out the front door, coralling the massive, naked body of Glen Frederick with them, down the steps.
He was handcuffed in back. He looked like a wild bull, snorting steam from his nostrils into the winter air.
Someone was trying to cover him up downstairs with a blanket, but he was refusing to keep still.
Right after him, came the wife, covered with a wool blanket. She looked like a normal, middle-aged woman being rescued from a flood or a car accident.
“She’s no stripper,” Agarwal pointed out.
Digby smiled. Nicole King was a little on the chunky side. “She’s probably been with him the whole time. Right from the start. The loyal wife. He probably has two or three strippers on the side.”
The ERT team piled the couple into seperate police interceptors.
Frederick looked furious as they jammed his head down into the backseat.
“Kind if a sin,” Digby said. “The wife I mean.”
“Yeah, but she’s no innocent bystander. She cleaned up the blood when he tortured that Jesus developer. You just imagine the stuff she’s done that we don’t know about. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no innocent people in Glen Frederick’s life. I’d cuff his ole grandma.”
A back window of the police car carrying Glen Frederick exploded outward in a loud shower of broken safety glass. The black metal cage in the window remained intact, but it looked like Frederick had dented it outward with a mighty kick.
Digby and Agarwal could not help but be impressed.
Two ERT pulled their Tasers and fired through the steel mesh covering the window. Digby could see sparks dancing.
After that, the ERTs loaded back up in the cube van and the procession of police vehicles began to vacate the street.
A small crowd of civilians from nearby townhouses had gathered on the sidewalks to watch. Some of the young boys banged the cop car hoods with their palms as they went past. One cruiser flared his siren, Boo-up and accelerated, dispersing the crowd.
Then all the cops were gone again and the locals shook their heads and went back inside their homes.
“Time to go.”