Chapter 80

When everybody else melted away from the area, sometime around 6 p.m., the massive television trucks began to arrive from Halifax, cracking trees overhead as they tried to crawl their way up the narrow fire road. After several tries, all three local station satellite trucks decided they could not make it and settled for going live from the Sunken Lake parking lot.
Each TV station had two trucks on the scene, a large one with a huge white rhombus-shaped satellite dish on the roof, to transmit live, and a kushy, decal-covered SUV, to transport talent.
The arrival of the TV stations, meant police had officially released word that they were no longer investigating a double homicide.
Reporters and their cameramen poured out of the SUV’s and began immediately chattering forcefully into their microphones.
The timing of the police news release was terrible for them. They were arriving at the scene exactly at the beginning of the 6 o’clock news, and had to go live without having time to find out what was going on. It was almost comical to watch.
“Police are releasing few details, Steve,” one reporter standing near Rawle simpered at her camera lens, “but confirm they are investigating the murders of a Kings County man and woman. The names of the victims have not been released until family members can be notified. Steve?… As I say, police have not confirmed identities….. I’m standing on a dirt path deep in the forest of Nova’s Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, minutes from the town of Wolfville. We’re standing on one of the mountains that create the Valley below. It’s here bodies were discovered early this afternoon by police… Steve? That’s unclear at this time… Steve?... Thank you.”
The bright lights on the camera shut down and the reporter wrapped her microphone cord around her wrist and stepped toward the van, cursing: “Who the fuck won’t say what the names are!?”
They all tried to get something from Rawle and Verryn, but were ignored.
Verryn told them they could read all about it in the paper in the morning.

The RCMP media spokesman for Kings County, Cst. Llewellen Moss, arrived at the parking lot at 6:45 and was swarmed by cameras and reporters, desperate to gin up a minute ten for the 11 o’clock news.
He gave a short briefing, indentifying Jack and Tee by name, then inviting a few questions.
Verryn squeezed into the scrum and got some official non-answers for the story.
“Can you tell us what kind of weapon or weapons were used?” One reporter asked.
“We believe at this time there was a weapon, or weapons, used. A blunt object.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
“No. We have no suspects at this time, but we are pursuing a number of avenues.”
That was it.
Rawle caught a few minutes of the late news later that night, half-asleep, and what he saw made him so angry, he nearly tipped his TV over.
It was the same girl reporter he’d seen earlier. She had no idea who, or what, she was talking about. But worse, an on-screen caption at the beginning of her piece misspelled the word “homicide.” Rawle could barely believe his eyes. The white lettering transposed at the bottom of the screen, during her entire piece read: “Double Homocide.”
Rawle felt his chest explode with rage as he sat in his armchair watching.
But in a way, when it was over, he told himself it was the kind of thing Jack, and to a lesser extent Tee, would have appreciated.
Jack would have laughed his ass off.
Rawle raised a glass of gin to the TV, and drank it straight.