What were you doing out there, Chuck...
Chapter Twenty-Four
Human remains found near Aronka…
Aronka — Police remain tight-lipped regarding rumors that human remains have again been found nearby.
Speculation in this community is rife. It is rumored that the remains are those of Harold Hilier, a television wildlife presenter who went missing a few months ago in the vicinity.
Aronka OPP spokesperson Constable Doug Griffiths could neither confirm nor deny that Hilier or any other person had been the victim of a cougar attack. He also refused to comment on whether more human remains have been found, and could not speculate as to the source of the rumor. Local residents who preferred not to be identified indicated to this paper that forensics teams from Toronto and London have sealed off a four-kilometre stretch of Broken Face Road on the east side of the Shashawanaga River north of the village. Other witnesses indicate a search is being conducted on both sides of the riverbank. Searches are also being conducted on private property fronting on McKerlie Line. Police would neither confirm nor deny that a person of interest has been taken into custody.—Staff Writers.
***
Brubaker sat across the proverbial cigarette-scarred desk, looking at the men opposite.
Constables Bruce Edwards and Doug Griffiths of the Aronka OPP sat there looking back.
“I wish you’d be a little more honest with us.” Edwards said. “It’s like you don’t trust us or something. We’d like to help you, Charles.”
Griffiths stayed pretty silent for most of the interview.
He just sat there taking notes and watching like a hawk.
“Call me Chuck.” Bru murmured in his best, and most charming, snake-oil salesman manner.
He was impressed with himself, by how certainly and confidently it came out.
His new family physician, Dr. Jabi-Hyooniabu, had been telling him that his pulse rate and blood pressure were, excellent. He felt excellent, for some reason. Mind you, he hadn’t committed any real crime. The trouble with the cops was they had too much power to fuck you over. But in the present circumstances, all he had to do was wait them out.
“I’m afraid my theories won’t help you, officer. For one thing, I don’t know any more than you do. Arguably less.”
Flattery will get you everywhere.
“We got a big long report on you from the Lennox Police. But we take that sort of thing with a grain of salt. Anyway, you have no record…yet.” The senior officer spoke up.
“Considering who they are, I don’t blame you.”
Griffiths looked at him, waiting with a raised pen.
“I never eat breakfast, I never eat lunch. The Lennox cops picked me up what, about two-thirty? What time is it now?” Bru asked the cop. “About nine-thirty?”
The cop raised an eyebrow, but neither confirmed nor denied it.
“Yes. You’re on disability. You could go to the soup kitchen.” This was Constable Edwards. “But you need the time to go to the beer store and go canoeing. The patch of cloth may be from a missing person. Her name is Norma Rice.”
“I could go to the soup kitchen, yes. But, unfortunately, I’m locked up in here. Incidentally, for a man with no record, I seem to be spending an awful lot of time under incarceration.”
The cop explained how the scrap of cloth fit a description given by nursing home staff when the lady went missing in June.
“See. I told you. You know more about it than I do.”
That’s what Bru said.
The cops observed him putting that fact away in his mind. Yet the man wasn’t scared, not at all. Did the implications of a missing person escape him? He was either as dumb as an ox, or innocent, or the world’s greatest actor, which Doug Griffiths doubted for some reason.
“Boy, those Lennox cops drove like ninety on your highway. You should give them a ticket.”
The cops grinned.
You ought to give the Lennox cops a ticket.
“Tell us about your little buddy.” Asked Edwards, to no response.
“The Lennox Police say you’re a conspiracy of one.” Griffiths added with a smirk.
“That damned bed you got in there. With my back, that metre-and-a-half long bed is going to be a real treat. Yes, those six-millimetre steel plates you got for a head board and a foot board are really something. I may not be too mobile in the morning. Are you guys going to give me a sponge bath?”
Bru waved a limp and languid hand to make his point clear.
“Haw. Haw.” The cops laughed.
“I don’t know about that. But we might be able to find you a ham sandwich around here…somewheres.”
He thought it out.
“So, you have a bad back, Chuck?” The officer asked. “Is that your canoe?”
No response.
Edwards went on.
“How heavy is that thing?”
“You must have driven by and seen a van that looked like mine.” Bru pretended to speculate. “I don’t own a canoe.”
“A citizen saw a very tall person with a bow.” The other cop again. “If I honestly believed you were trying to shoot a deer, a cougar, even a dangerous animal, I’d have a problem with that.”
“That would just be nuts. Paranoid, and delusional.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Edwards. “We appreciate the call, we appreciate the lump of bones. We appreciate the little hand-drawn map. We’d just like to know what you were doing out there in the first place.”
Chuck had left the package in a phone booth.
“You saw that campsite.” Bru broke in. “What kind of a nutcase was Hilier? And do you really think a cougar could shit him out in one big lump like that?”
“Well, what do you think, Chuck?” Asked the younger cop, much more softly now.
“Never try to explain anything to a cop. That’s advice I would give my own son.”
The cops grinned.
“I’ll give you a ride home now, Charles,” Constable Griffiths said. “Would you like a couple of cheeseburgers, by any chance?”
A gratuitous cougar pic.
END
Images. Louis.
Louis has books and stories available from Chapters/Indigo.
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