Page 145 of Cold, Cold Bones
“Crap.”
“Keep digging.”
We kept digging.
Roosevelt learned that Terrence Edy had served a short stint at Belmont Abbey College after flunking out of UNCC. With equal academic distinction. And that he’d been a counselor for one summer at Camp Pine Tree. In Burke County. In the Pisgah National Forest.
Chan discovered that after an honorable discharge from the army, Calvin “Winky” Winkard spent eight years with the Phoenix PD.
Then Papadopoulos uncovered an unsettling fact.
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“There’s another thing, perhaps relevant, perhaps not,” Papadopoulos said. “During his interrogation, Kramden mentions he’s a Jets fan. I played with that, figuring something might kick loose in New York. Dead end. The guy’s a biscuit buff.”
O’Reilly, Roosevelt, Chan, and I regarded him blankly.
“Guess we’ve got no hockey fans in the crowd. Kramden is NHL, not NFL. He follows the Winnipeg Jets, not the New York Jets.”
“He’s Canadian?” Chan asked.
“I’m working on that now.”
“How did you think to go that route?” I was impressed. And wondering why neither Slidell nor Henry had.
“Look at this.”
I dragged my chair right.
Papadopoulos brought up a poor-quality photo of Kramden seated in the interview room at the LEC. I assumed it was a still taken from the surveillance video. He zoomed in until the pixilation started getting dodgy.
“Look at his cap,” Papadopoulos said.
I did. Enlarged, I could see that the fuzzy letters at the top of thecircle spelled “WINNIPEG,” those at the bottom “MB.” TheXat the center was formed by two crossed cannons.
“You mentioned stabbing some perp up there, how it made the papers. So I thought the Canadian angle was worth a poke.”
This time I phoned Ryan.
“Sacre bleu,” he said.
“Oui,” I agreed.
“A Canadian link could explain the eyeball.”
“My Montreal case got national coverage.”
I also passed on the info about Winkard and Edy.
In less than an hour, Ryan appeared in person. Partly news. Partly hunger. He arrived with enough hoagies to feed Lithuania.
As we ate, Ryan briefed us on what he’d learned via a contact at the RCMP. Bobby Karl Kramden’s mother, Everjoy Amand, was Brokenhead Ojibway, a First Nations tribe in Manitoba. Everjoy was now dead, but her sister Zinnia, age eighty-two, was alive and widowed and living in a retirement home in Alberta.
“Is she sharp?” Chan asked.
“As a straight edge. And eager for conversation. Zinnia said Bobby Karl grew up in the States and spent time in the US military. She wasn’t sure which branch. Shewassure that he came out of service a very bitter man. Disfigured, half blind, and disgusted with the US, he moved to Manitoba. A few years there, and he grew disillusioned with Manitoba and aimed his nose south.”
“Could she pinpoint his time in Canada?” I asked.
