Chevy Stevens
THE OTHER SIDE
I’d been working the Campsite Killer case for years—ever since I joined the Serious Crimes Unit in Vancouver—and I became close to a few of the victims’ families, which made it worse every time he slipped away from us. The case would get cold for a couple of years, then heat up again when he murdered another woman, always in the summer. I’d been tense that spring, knowing he’d probably hit again soon. What we hadn’t expected was that the Campsite Killer had a daughter—and that he’d contact her.
My partner, Billy Reynolds, and I traveled over to Vancouver Island from the mainland to meet her and see how legit her claim was. Billy’s a good guy. Fun to work with when he isn’t spouting off his
I was hoping he could work his magic with Sara Gallagher. If her story was true, then her birth mother was Karen Christianson, the only woman to survive an attack from the Campsite Killer. She changed her name to Julia Laroche, moved to the island, and gave up the child. No one ever knew she’d been pregnant—until Sara tracked her down a couple of months ago. When the news got splashed all over the Internet recently, the Campsite Killer called Sara up, wanting to connect. Terrified, she made a report at her local police station, and they got in touch with us.
When we met Sara and gave her our business cards, I could tell she was surprised I was the staff sergeant and Billy was the corporal. That reaction used to piss me off, but I enjoy it now. I like the shock effect. People are also usually surprised that we don’t wear uniforms, but my gun is tucked against my side, the weight and rub of it comforting and familiar.
Sara was thirty-three and very pretty. I realized instantly that with her auburn hair and green eyes she had some of the same physical characteristic as the Campsite Killer, something I don’t think she was too pleased about. She also didn’t look thrilled about working with us, but we needed her help—she was the best lead we’d had in years. We had to be careful how we coaxed her to talk to him the next time he called, and I was sure he would. We finally had a chance to nail this bastard. He’d killed at least thirty people over the years and I didn’t want to deliver more bad news to another devastated family, didn’t want to find the remains of another body left alone in the woods.
It was obvious that Sara was scared to talk to her father again—can’t say I blame her. My father had only killed one woman. My mother. I was six. She had just enough time to shove me in her bedroom closet and block it before he burst through the front door. He raped her, then strangled her. She never screamed. I think about that sometimes, what it must have been like for her, knowing I was listening on the other side of that door. My dad took off that night and has never been seen again. When I’m not working active cases, I’m working his.
Two months after that first meeting, we were still working with Sara. Her father—John, as he called himself —had been calling constantly and sending creepy gifts. He was leading us all to hell and gone, and then eventually, just like we feared, he killed another woman. We managed to set up a meeting between him and Sara, hoping to catch him, but he didn’t show. I was frustrated, Sara was a nervous wreck, and I didn’t know what was going on with Billy, but I didn’t like it.
“You’re getting too close to Sara,” I said one morning when we were driving to get coffee.
“I thought we wanted me to form a connection with her,” he said. It had become apparent pretty early on that Sara and I didn’t click, but she trusted Billy. We agreed that I’d act as the aggressor and push her hard, and Billy would follow up with the soft touch.
“It’s starting to look more personal, Billy.”
“It’s not like that. Not at all. She’s in love with her fiance.”
“Just be careful.” Sara did love her fiance, that was obvious, but I still had a feeling Billy was drifting over the line. It happens, one reason we work in teams. More common is work-related relationships, and my own, to say the least, was rocky. Last night Jeff had come pretty close to an ultimatum on the phone.
He’d said, “Look, it’s time to shit or get off the pot. We’ve been living together for ten years. I want to get married, I want a kid.”
“I told you, it’s too late now. We probably can’t even get pregnant—and I’m not doing fertility treatments.” When we first got together we talked about children as something we’d like “someday,” but we were busy with our careers, and I worried about our kid growing up alone, both parents killed by some gangbanger or drug dealer. As the years passed by I accepted that it would probably never happen, it just wasn’t in the cards. Then Jeff got baby fever.
“You said we probably can’t get pregnant, but we don’t know until we try.”
“Too old means too old—we missed the bus. You said the same thing yourself last year—but that you were happy with the way our lives are now.”
“Yeah, I did, but I changed. Now I want to know what we’re doing about it.”
“You can’t seriously be laying this on me when I’m working this case?”
“There’s always another case.”
“So what if I say no?”
“I just want to know one way or another.”
But I heard the undertone. If I said no, I could also be kissing my relationship good-bye. We hung up, agreeing to talk again this weekend when I went back to the mainland. I was upset, but I tried to put the call out of my head and focus on the next step in the Campsite Killer case. Things were finally heating up—we just had to push Sara in the right direction.
Two weeks later things had gone haywire with the case, and I was at the hospital interviewing Nadine Lavoie—Sara’s shrink. Nadine had been attacked and nearly killed by John. A couple of days earlier, we’d gotten Sara to set up another meeting with John, but he called to reschedule at the last moment. Sara had finally lost it and refused to see him. He went after her fiance, and when she still refused to see him, he obviously decided to attack her shrink. Sara had seen her the evening before at her office, and we suspected John had followed her there before attacking Nadine. I was the first to interview her after the investigating officers had a go at her.
“Hello, I’m Staff Sergeant McBride,” I said.
She held out her hand. “Thank you for coming, Officer.” In her early fifties, she reminded me of Sara’s birth mother, Julia, who is also beautiful and has that cultured, professional-woman aura about her. Even with a bandage around her head she had a pulled-together look, the hospital gown unwrinkled, her silver hair tidy. I wondered how I looked to her in my white dress shirt with a little bit of lunch on it, my hair rumpled and bleached out from too much time in the sun, usually windblown because I like to drive with my window down.
She said, “You’re working the Campsite Killer case?”
“That’s correct.” She was a psychiatrist, and from what I understood a very good one. I probably could’ve used her thirty years ago. Though I still have nightmares about my mother’s murder, I’ve never talked to anyone about it—including the therapist my aunt and uncle took me to until they found out all I did was cry the whole time. They decided it was too traumatic and taught me how to kayak instead. Something I still do for recreation.
“How is Sara?” Her eyes were worried as she studied my face intently, looking for clues, some sign of reassurance.
“She’s hanging in there.” Interesting that her first concern was her patient, not herself, but she was right to be worried. If John kept escalating, more people could get hurt.
I said, “I know you’ve already been over this, but do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
