favour, not like I’d just done him one.
I doubted he was the right guy, but the evidence didn’t look good. Whether it was him or not, I needed his statement and the station would be the best place to get it.
And I’d never met a murderer who would thank me for pretending a couple of joints didn’t exist.
I couldn’t complain about how the day had gone thus far. A nice dive, an easy body recovery, proof of murder, discovery of evidence and a person of interest sitting in the interview room waiting to plead innocence.
An officer was guarding his boat, another had confirmed with the Parks Canada staff that Steve and Amelia Northcott both signed the guestbook at 10:47am. The staff member remembered them, thanks to the gold Nissan 350z convertible they were driving, and even remembered seeing them leave at approximately 6:30pm.
A Crow’s Nest waitress remembered them from the night before, said Steve had one too many pints of Moosehead and ate enough wings to sink a ship—something his bill reflected—and confirmed them arriving shortly after seven and leaving before midnight. She remembered them well since Steve left the young, attractive waitress a rather large tip, both monetary and in the form of a wink and a semi-subtle slap on the butt.
One too many pints indeed.
They were ruled out already, but I still needed to hear it from them, figure out where Steve kept his dive bag and how the killer could have accessed it to hide the knife and borrow his wetsuit.
The detachment was small, very small to be exact, but typical of small summer towns. The building wasn’t even manned in the winter—just a couple of offices, interview rooms and cells, enough to get by on. And right now, we had the place nearly at capacity.
Steve’s wife, Amelia, was first up. She wasn’t a suspect, so getting her story beforehand would give us information we could go at Steve with, see if everything meshed up. Hers was simple, just as Steve had told us. The day spent at Cyprus Lake, the night at the Crow’s Nest. Both verified by independent witnesses.
There was only one possible way they could have killed Lester Earles—they would’ve needed to have moored their boat off the shore by the Grotto then gone to the Arabia with Lester, dove down and killed him. It would have taken tampering with his tank prior to and keeping him down there. Lester would have panicked when his air suddenly ran out and would have tried to surface. The killer had to keep him under water, wait until he asphyxiated or drowned, as was the case.
At some point, by his own or by the killer’s hand, Lester’s regulator had been removed from his mouth. He had drowned then had the regulator put back in by the killer. And then there was the mystery of the knife and the evidence of a cut to Steve’s wetsuit and on the chain in the wreck.
Did Lester fight back?
But there wasn’t a chance they could’ve made it back to the Grotto and out of the park by seven. Especially since Lester’s dive was the last dive of the day—had anyone gone down after that they would have seen his body.
He fell into the category of ‘hard to miss’.
Amelia said she didn’t know a Lester Earles. They were from Barrie, Earles was from Toronto. They differed in age by almost twenty years. Steve and Amelia owned a landscaping business, Lester was a successful, and well-off, businessman—owner of an insurance firm he’d built from the ground up.
It didn’t add up. They were from different worlds with nothing to connect them.
I waited outside of the interview room, watched the monitor and listened to Kara and Steve. Kara excelled in interrogations, too bad her skills weren’t needed this time.
“Where do you keep your dive bag?”
“On the back of the boat, there’s a small hold.”
“Is it locked?”
“No. Wish it had been.”
It was boring to watch, like seeing a movie for the seventh time. I already knew everything he was going to say.
“Where are you two staying?”
“At the hotel up the hill.”
‘Up the hill’ was the south side of the harbour. Far enough away that he’d never have a clue if someone snuck onto his boat and borrowed his gear.
“How do you know Lester Earles?”
Open-ended questions… not ‘do you know’ that could be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
“I don’t know who that is.” He paused to think. “Wait, is that the man that was killed?”
Ding-ding-ding. It appeared Amelia was the brains behind their business, Steve was the labourer.
“Yes. But you knew that already.”
“No, I didn’t. I don’t know who he is.”
Kara slid an eight-by-ten of Lester’s face, postmortem, across the table.
“Oh God, why are you showing me this? I don’t want to see this. Oh God, the poor man. Did… did he have a family?”
“Girlfriend and a son.”
“Jesus. I swear I had nothing to do with this. I don’t know who would have taken my stuff, but he’d have to be the same size as me or he wouldn’t fit. Maybe he saw me, sized me up and decided my gear would work. I don’t know.”
“Stand up, Mr. Northcott. I’m going to need to see your right thigh.”
“What? Should I have a lawyer?”
“I already told you that you had every right to speak to a lawyer and that you could leave at any time. But I’m looking for evidence right now, evidence that could prove your innocence.”
“Can I leave my boxers on?”
Kara raised her hand to her forehead. “Yes, please.”
Steve stood up, unbuckled his belt and let his pants drop to the ground. He lifted his boxers on the right side to expose the entirety of his thigh. Even through a low-quality monitor I could tell there wasn’t a mark there.
“You’re free to go, Mr. Northcott. Thank you for your cooperation. Our officers will be done with your boat by morning, but we’ll need to keep your wetsuit and dive bag.”
“I don’t want any of that back anyway. I could never wear it again knowing… knowing someone was…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it. But he didn’t have to, we were always happy to finish sentences for people.
“Murdered.”
Steve nodded—half by choice, half from nerves making his head shake—then bent down and pulled his pants up, buckling his belt once more.
“So I can go?”
“Yes. But one more thing, Mr. Northcott.”
I could almost smell the fear.
“Keep your hands to yourself. One of these days you’ll find a waitress willing to press charges.”
He just nodded, nothing more. No denial, no explanation—of that offence he was guilty.
And as he left, walking past the room I was in, I saw that we’d caught him extremely red-faced on the crime.
“You’re done with them?”
It was Deana again, the one I’d grossed out by admitting to peeing in my wetsuit. The one who had trouble keeping eye contact with me now. I didn’t realize how effective a put-off line that was.
“Yep, you can let them go. Thanks, Constable Forelli.”
“Okay, and you need to talk to Therault. He’s got a lot of info for you guys.”
David Therault, another constable. He was a night shift officer, had started his shift after the dive and been tasked with positively identifying the body and doing a full background on the deceased.
I walked down the very short hall to another office, one that looked far too large to exist within the building. I immediately thought of Doctor Who and the TARDIS, an old British police box on the outside and a much larger time machine and space craft on the inside. Any thought of sharing the idea was quickly suppressed… no one would likely get the reference, leaving me to explain it while they stared at me and my geekiness.
Therault was sitting in front of his computer, face far too close to the screen. His grip on his mouse was frightening, white knuckles guiding a small object around, loud clicks echoing through the roo
m with every tap of his finger.
I rapped on the door, just hard enough for him to hear me without startling him.
“Detective Munroe,” he said.
“Lincoln’s fine, David.”
“Dave.”
I nodded. That part was out of the way. On to the good stuff.
“What have you found out?”
Dave leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. Whatever he had, it was good—and he was damned proud of himself for it.
“I’ve got you a suspect.” He paused. If it was for dramatic effect, the killer would be long gone by the time we made it through this conversation. “It’s his son, Walter Jared Earles. Just turned thirty.”
“Perfect. How’d you find that out?”
“Once we confirmed the ID, I tracked down our victim’s girlfriend. His much-younger girlfriend. Stefanie Moran. Twenty-four. She told me everything she could in between the tears—not sure if they were sadness or joy. Our boy had a lot of money, and after I pulled up her driver’s licence pic, I’m doubting it was a ‘together for love’ kind of deal.”
This was going to take a while… too much commentary, not enough facts.
“So, she says Lester and Walter get into a big fight a few days ago, huge apparently. Stuff gets thrown around, both of them were screaming and Lester eventually told Walter to… what where the words?… ‘Fuck off and get out you lazy piece of shit, you’re not getting a dime.’ Yeah, I think that was it.”
And albeit expressed in a very colourful way, we had our motive. I motioned for Dave to continue.
“Right, so she says Walter’s barely worked a day in his life, spends most of his time drinking and smoking pot and milking Daddy for money. Seems