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Halifax, June 18
2:09 p.m.
Alone in his office, Allan took a yellow marker and highlighted a transaction on Todd Dory’s credit card statement. The billing company was Lutz Enterprises, Ltd/Halloween-Mask.Com, and the date was October 1, of last year.
Allan looked up the company website on his computer. They were located in Hartford, Wisconsin. Picking up the phone, he gave them a call and requested a copy of the sales invoice. The woman on the other end hemmed and hawed about their privacy policy. Allan countered by telling her he’d get the Hartford Police to retrieve the invoice for him if that was what it took. Either way he’d get it. That seemed to soften her stance. She told him she’d fax the invoice to him. Allan gave her the number, then hung up.
He sat back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his face. In front of him, his desk was a mess of security videos, crime scene photos, handwritten notes, canvass reports, and statements from Dooly’s staff. Nearly two hundred people had been interviewed in Kaufman’s neighborhood, and Eric Clark remained the only viable witness. If anyone else had seen something even remotely suspicious, they weren’t talking.
Allan rose off the chair, walking to the window. He gazed out at the green slope of Citadel Hill on the other side of Rainnie Drive and up to the fort walls on top. The day was overcast, dreary. So far, the rain had stayed away.
A knock came at his door. Captain Thorne poked his head in.
“Hey, Al,” he said. “Just heard some news out of Acresville.”
Allan turned to him. “Oh?”
“They found skeletal remains on the Matteau farm.”
“The father.”
Thorne nodded. “That’s my guess.”
“Mine too,” Allan said. “He just didn’t up and leave one day. Eighteen years gone. No trace of him.”
“Nope.” Thorne’s face darkened. “Shit, that was one bizarre case.”
Allan shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “I think there’s more to that story than we’ll ever know.”
Thorne stepped into the office and eased the door shut behind him.
In a muted tone, he asked, “How about you, Al? How are you doing?”
Allan shrugged. “All right.”
“Yeah? Still thinking about retiring?”
Allan took a deep breath through his nose, let it out again. He looked down at his shoes for a moment and shuffled his feet once.
“Still thinking,” he said. “I’ll stay on this case until I either solve it or Audra’s ready to take it over again. Then I’m going back to Toronto to see my son.”
Thorne frowned. “Yeah, about that. Look, I’m sorry, Al. I hated myself for calling you. I know how you wanted to get away.”
Allan stared at him. Not get away, he wanted to say. Leave. Leave all of this behind for good.
“Have you spoken to Audra lately?” he asked.
“Yesterday. Briefly.”
“How’s her daughter?”
Thorne said, “Apparently, she’s having trouble talking. She’s going to need speech therapy. A little physical therapy, I guess.”
“But she’s improving, isn’t she?”
“Oh, yes. She is.”
Allan felt a wash of hope and relief flow through his chest. He smiled.
“Good,” he said. “Good.”
The fax machine rang, then the handshake tones kicked in. Allan watched as a piece of paper rolled out.
Thorne opened the office door. “I’ll get out of your hair, Al. Let you get back to work.”
“Later, Captain.”
Allan picked up the paper. It was the sales invoice from Halloween-Mask.Com. He took it over to his desk and sat down.
Todd Dory had ordered five items: a pair of white contact lenses, a pair of black sclera contacts, a zombie mask, a devil’s mask, and a scarecrow mask.
Allan went back to the company website and ran the product number of the devil’s mask through their search box. That brought up a link he clicked on. When the screen shifted to a picture of the mask, he felt a kind of frisson, a sudden tingle of excitement that came and went. He straightened in his chair, tightening his hand on the mouse.
The mask was the same one he’d found in Kaufman’s closet.
Allan searched the zombie mask. The emaciated face was in a deep stage of rot. Black lips were pulled back over crooked teeth. Pieces of skin hung off the cheeks, exposing flesh and bone.
The scarecrow mask came next. It had a burlap look with stitches across the mouth and part of the forehead. A rope was knotted around the neck.
Allan realized the scarecrow and zombie masks had the eyeholes cut out, while the devil’s mask had its own eyes that covered those of the wearer. He leaned back from the desk, blowing out a long breath. Then he got up and paced around the office. Instincts and questions, so many questions, racked his brain.
Halloween allowed ambitious burglars to go around disguised legitimately without attracting a second glance. Was that why Dory had purchased the masks? One for himself, one for Kaufman, and one for whom? Lee Higgins? Someone else? Two other members of the Black Scorpions—Jarret Shapiro and Sullivan McAda—had been in jail last October, awaiting their murder trial. So they were out of the picture.
There had been a rash of burglaries throughout Halifax and down through Annapolis Valley on Halloween night last year. As far as Allan knew, most of them had never been solved. Were these guys responsible for some of them? It was certainly right up their alley.
Allan leaned his hands on the edge of his desk. Lowering his head, he thought about the word corpse written on the handle of the axe used to kill Todd Dory. Wasn’t a zombie just an animated corpse?
Devil. Corpse. The connection to the masks spoke volumes now. What had Dory and Kaufman done to deserve the fate handed to them? Was Higgins involved too? Did the killer have another murder weapon in his possession with scarecrow written on it? Was he waiting to use it?
As much as Allan cringed at the thought, he knew a visit to Lee Higgins was in store.
