Page 48 of Astrid
“Oh, yeah, I’m out of Alberta, too,” Paul said. “Before we came here, neither of us had ever met one another. Our commanding officers got together, and they picked the best from their own office to send down here.”
“Were you told to make contact with the locals?” Carl asked.
“No, after all our investigation up there, we were told to come and try to get close to a man going by the name of Neil Mason. That’s where our information led us.”
“What information?” Astrid asked. When the men exchanged looks, she looked at her co-workers and received a nod from Morgan. “You share with us, we’ll share with you.”
“Okay,” Griff said, then leaned forward and put his arms on the table. After heaving a heavy sigh, he began. “Over two years ago, we started getting several calls for dead bodies showing up in weird places. They weren’t connected until six months ago.”
“Connected how?” Everyone asked.
“I,” Griff pointed to his chest with his thumb. “I got a call from the local hospital where they had brought a woman in with a possible overdose. I arrived and the woman actually pulled through.”
“Why were you called in?”
“I was the go between with the vice and narcotics departments. I don’t know if you know this, and if you do, I’m sorry for thinking you don’t know this, but vice is prostitution, and well, narcotics speaks for itself.”
“I was undercover for narcotics,” Paul raised his hand. “I met Griff on that case.”
“What case?” Astrid frowned at them.
“A woman was dropped off to the local hospital. The person who dumped her didn’t stick around. According to the video footage, he pulled her from the back of his car, carried her to the bench outside the ER, ran inside, and yelled something, then ran back out, hopped in the car, and took off.”
“Plates?” Carl and Tom demanded.
“They’re working on it.”
“What happened with the woman?” Joyce asked.
“She was in the middle of an overdose, the ER team was able to reverse the effects of the drugs, and when she came to and was able to talk, we were called in.”
“Because?” Ava asked.
“Because, she said she was from Idaho, had been kidnapped, held hostage, then brought over the border into Canada. The person who, as she said, bought her, didn’t like the fact she refused to have sex with him, fought him every chance she got, and he started giving her drugs in her food. When she was strung out, he’d have sex with her. Yes, because she was impaired, he raped her. She went on to tell us about other men her ‘owner’, her word, not ours, but her owner would bring other men in to have their way with her.”
“That’s when the RMCP became involved,” Harry began. “Griff’s department had the rash of dead women, their deaths were ruled overdoses, after that one woman survived and was able to be questioned, the others were either exhumed from the paupers’ graves, or they were still in the morgue. We ran fingerprints, DNA, everything we could, but we didn’t do it in Canada. With Griff’s dual citizenship, he was able to come here, and using his computer, he got into the local databases, and we found those dead women were Americans.” He held up his hand when it looked like the others were going to start demanding answers.
“I can only tell you what our Jane Doe said. She has a name, but we’re going to withhold that for the time being. She is in protective custody, and we’ve been able to arrest three people so far. Through those three people we got a lead on Neil Mason. As we said earlier, our supervisors got together and sent us here to get close to him. Unfortunately, the closest we can get is where you met us.” Harry nodded to Astrid. “Hell,” he sighed, and scrubbed his face hard. “We don’t even know what his house looks like. We know what directions to give the people that come, but have never been there ourselves.”
“And the guns you carry?”
“Mason’s idea. He personally gave them to us to use while we guarded the gate.”
“What type of people visit Mason?” Carl asked as he clicked his pen, ready to take notes.
“All types, unfortunately we’re not allowed to take names, or at least what we knew.”
“What’s that mean?” Astrid sat forward with a frown.
“When you and that guy arrived, you said you had an appointment, and only said your name was Alan. Our job is to call forward to the men right outside the house and tell them who is there.”
“And taking our phones?”
Griff laughed at that. “That was my idea. That was the day I decided to take the initiative, and see if I could get some information for our own investigation.”
Astrid laughed. “How’d that work for you?”
“Fried my computer.” Griff chuckled and shook his head. “That’s why when I saw you again, I wanted to get to know you. I had to find out how you did it.”
