Chapter 97

He told Digby and Agarwal all about the funeral, the spying and the snippet of conversation CFIU had translated between Alan and Dee Lee.
“It signifies something very important. It involves the disappearance of Pussylips, the firebombing. All kinds of stuff, I think. It’s significant.”
Smith had no flare for the dramatic.
“There’s a war of some uncertain magnitude, happening right now in Nova Scotia. A gang war between Gyspies, actually the Lee side of the Halifax Gypsies, to be precise, and some other unknown group of actors. That group killed Jack Lee, a reporter who happened to be related to the Lee family, and that group also robbed Dee Lee of a large quantity of cocaine, and killed his courier, who also had some further significance in the Lee organization, possibly in a sub-group called ‘Diddler Division.’”
Agarwal looked at Smith strangely and glanced sideways at Digby. “What did he say?”
Digby smiled as she silently repeated Smith’s words to herself. Diddler division.
“I said exactly what you think I said, Ross. ‘Diddler division.’ As in child molester. Digby? Can we talk? I’m totally buzzing.”
Digby looked at her watch. “Ross, will you follow up the Missions Family stuff for a bit? I’ll meet you at the station say, tomorrow morning.”
Agarwal gave Smith an untrusting smile. “Tomorrow morning? What exactly you got planned there, Bob?”
Smith’s face went beet red.
Digby walked to Smith’s car. “Goodbye, Ross.”
Agarwal made his way, carefully over to the Jimmy with a can of pepper spray held out at arm’s length, keeping his face and pelvis pulled back and his neck held stiff as a board, subconsciously trying to hold his brain, heart and penis away from the dogs’ teeth.
Digby and Smith walked over to his Christer, as he called his LeBaron, and hopped in. The dogs did nothing. Smith was right.
“Diddler division?” Digby said, laughing and buckling herself into the passenger seat. “What in God’s green earth is that?”
Smith climbed in beside her, sitting as close to her as possible. He smelled like Speed Stick and wood smoke. She smelled like Sandalwood.
“Who knows.” He nodded at Agarwal, through the salt-streaked windshield.
Agarwal frowned, shook his head and pulled out first, squeeling the tires.
“Do you and Agarwal go out?” Smith asked, gingerly. “Is there anything between you?”
She punched him on the arm, hard. “Come on! Ross is a player. He’s been with every female in the detachment. Except me. And that’s the way it stays.”
“So nothing? You’re both good looking. You’re partners.”
She brightened with pleasure at his compliment. “You know as well as I do there is no partners. We’re in the same unit, that’s it. You know how often we work together like this? You think New Minas will pay two salaries a case? This is a special occasion, that’s all.”
“Then I won’t have to ask his permission.”
“Not from Ross. Just from Mrs. Smith,” Digby said.
He changed the subject.
“So, I’ve heard this term, ‘division,’ before in this context. When Alan Lee set up his partnership in the law firm, people sometimes called it Lawyer Division. Did you know that two of Alan Lee’s daughters are members of the bar?”
“I think I read that somewhere. That’s ridiculous.”
“Corporate law. Pretty scary when a biker needs corporate lawyers in the family.”
Digby shook her head.
“Anyways, ‘Diddler Division’ might not be that far-fetched.”
The Christer began to head slowly down the mountain.
Digby looked out her window at the trees and white wood smoke that poured from pipe chimneys on farm hosues and bungaloes and mini-homes along Gaspereau.
“But what would it be, though? A division of child-molesters? I thought bikers hate child molestors?”
Smith laughed, eyeing his side mirror. The dogs were giving chase down the crackling dirt road, showing no signs of giving up.
“Can you imagine? A crew of crazed, South Mountain pedophiles… That would be quite a weapon. You cross us and we molest your children.” He thought of his own boys and the smile dropped from his face. He shook his head, shaking away the idea.
“No. It must be a group of guys who orchestrate people beating up diddlers, in prison, or something like that. You’re right. Bikers despise diddlers and strike at them in institutions. They must plan how to get to them, because diddlers are all in seg. It’s hard to get them now-a-days.”
“That makes sense, I guess.”
“Yeah….” Smith thought for a moment. “I remember one time, ‘though, one of my coded sources tried to tell me the Gypsies framed him for molesting a little kid….”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah…. It was weird. But the source was a really weird guy. He had mental health problems.”
“What did he say they did?”
“Well, he said that they framed him for that, so he wouldn’t be able to be an informer anymore, because if they found out he was a rat, or say he was about to testify, they would come forward with evidence that he molested a child, which would instantly make him a pariah, not just with his handlers and the RCMP brass and the prosecution, but with the bikers and the criminal world, as well.”
“Huh. That sounds kind of clever.”
“Yeah, but... It’s a fairy tale. It’s a paranoid delusion. You have to understand, the guy who told me this is a paranoid. He’s a pretty fucked-up kid. There’s just no way...”
Digby put her hand on the dashboard and tilted her whole body to face him. “But maybe that’s what ‘Diddler Division’ is! They frame people they don’t like, or they frame their own prospects and wannabes for child molestation, as a way to ensure they can’t ever turn informer, ‘cause if they do, they’ll be able to discredit them, totally. Think about it. How do you know it’s not true?”
“It’s just… not practical,” Smith was bemused at the idea. “First, you have to actually molest a child, which is not as easy as it sounds. Then, whoever did it would have to be able to get away with it. Third, you’d have to manufacture believable evidence that whoever you wanted to frame was guilty. And what would be the point? Why not just kill the informer?”
“It’s not like they don’t try. If threats of death deterred police informants, we’d be out of business. And it’s usually fear of death that cause informers to come to us in the first place.”
Smith chuckled. “I suppose your right. No. It’s probably- like I said- a group of Gypsy associates who target kid diddlers in prison. Period.”
“Okay. You’re saying Wid Missions Junior is- or was- a member of Diddler Division?”
“That’s what Dee Lee said. Yes. But you’re getting me way off topic. More important, is the fact that the Lee’s said they think their organization is under attack. If that’s true, we may have a drug war. But, I can’t for the life of me figure out who’s doing it? I guess it would have to be an independent, like the Harriets. The Lee’s had trouble with them in the past, but I thought it was all ironed out. If not them, maybe a global group, trying to expand into the Maritimes. Vietnamese Mob.”
Digby looked at the side of Smith’s freckled face as he drove. “Bob, I have a major problem with something you said, and you keep trying to change the subject.”
He turned and looked at her, frightened almost. He was heading toward the highway, back toward Halifax.
“What?”
“I have a problem with your theory that Wid Missions Junior is some kind of hero who beats up pedophiles in prison. I talked to that reporter for the Gazette, Rawle Powder-“
“-Jesus, not him again.”
“Yeah. He said some things about Wid Missions Junior, don’t ask me how we got on that subject, but I heard the same thing from other people, as well. That Wid Missions Junior was a pedophile himself. That his daughter was removed from the home by Children’s Services because he was diddling her.”
“Do you have to go backto your office?”
“Yes.”
Smith went straight over the overpass, instead of taking the Halifax exit at Hortonville, and started back toward Wolfville on Highway 1, through salt hay countryside, stretching along the blue-grey ocean water of the Minas Basin.
They passed a large apple orchard, full of of cold, twisting trees, and the Just Us! Coffee Roastery, which sent a rich, warm nut smell of roasting coffee beans into their noses through the heating vents.
“Oooh, that smells good,” Smith said. “But, I checked Pussylips out. I don’t recall any charges for child abuse on his criminal record.”
“Uh, I think he was pretty good at it, Bob. I think he has a tight community up there. And no one pressed formal charges. Just because enobody ever got him, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
She flipped down the passenger side mirror and applied some beeswax lip balm on her round, beige lips. “I have something else to show you, too. Maybe it’s nothing… But maybe it’s important.”
“Sounds good to me,” Smith said, wanting to spend as much time with her as possible.
“It’s probably not related, but I’ve been dying to show somebody. Somebody I trust.” She put her hand on top of his hand on top of his right thigh. Her hand was soft and small. “It’s something I found in Jack Lee’s basement.”