Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.
Chapter 4 - The Art of Asking Polite Questions
Ray was not happy to be cramped back into a light plane for the three quarters of an hour it took to get from Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik. He felt a sudden sense of the isolation that Fraser had grown up with. There weren't many places he knew of that were so cut off from the rest of the world. In his home neighborhood, of course everyone knew Ray Vecchio, knew his mother and sisters, remembered him as a little boy, the whole drill. But in Chicago, go a few blocks away from home and you could be an anonymous face in an anonymous city. It was crazy that the wide open spaces out here could feel so claustrophobic. He couldn't imagine squeezing into a prop plane every time he wanted a change of scenery.
On Fraser's part, he was surprised to find that his heart felt lighter as soon as they lifted off the ground. Granted, Inuvik was not much more than a small town itself, but it seemed that being back where he'd spent his childhood years was now an oppressive experience. They had been such a mix of good and bad- the love of learning his grandparents instilled in him, the great times and friendships of the band of children roaming the wilds when school was out, balanced out by the years of pain of having neither parent to hold him, love him, tell him he was special.
Then there was the part where the place was too small to get away from someone like Carl. Like it or not, in a village you had to learn to rub along with everyone, whether they seemed to hold homicidal urges toward you or not. It'd certainly built his character to have to stand up to the bully with courage and a few boxing lessons, but it was rather satisfying to know that this time he was taking on the bully with the full force of Canadian law, plus a sturdy representative of American law, on his side. His initial feeling of apprehension about the case had been almost pushed aside by a desire to see Carl face real justice. Now they were both adults and no-one was going to excuse Carl's behavior with "Boys will be boys!"
It was not hard to find 'the not really good part' of Inuvik. Ray and Benton took a cab from the airport to the center of town and then walked the rest of the way. The proximity to the river made it even easier to locate 14 Water St. It was a small building of mostly abandoned offices and one store front with a dirty plate glass window that looked out onto the narrow street which was full of dumpsters and recycling bins for the light industrial buildings that appeared to make up the rest of the street.
"Pawn shop." Ray said, peering in the window. "Figures."
He pushed the door open and they went in. There was a scruffy looking gray haired man of a medium, but unfit, build behind the counter. He looked up and then looked thoroughly alarmed at the sight of Benton's uniform.
"Officer. Heheh. What can I do for you? Heheh." he punctuated his sentences with an unpleasantly phlegmy sounding nervous laugh.
Benton walked over to the counter and leaned on it, the full force of his gaze resting on the shopkeeper.
"As a matter of fact, I believe you can help me quite a bit. Have you seen this man?"
He pulled out the wedding photo of Carl, which was the best photo Sarah could lend him.
The man made a big show of examining it.
"What'd he do, skip out on the honeymoon? Heheheh." he said.
Ray rolled his eyes.
"Come on, buddy. You sell this guy some kind of ID? Passport maybe?"
The shopkeeper's expression of wounded innocence was priceless, if not in the slightest bit convincing.
"What are you suggesting, heheh, I'm some kind of criminal? Heheh. I run an honest business here. Honest. Heheh."
Ray stepped around behind the counter and grabbed the man's shirt lapels in one hand.
"Listen, we don't have time to mess around. You tell us what we want to know, or you're in more trouble than you could possibly imagine. Got it?"
"Ray." Fraser said calmly. "This is Canada. We don't threaten suspects."
Ray flashed his partner a wicked grin. "Oh, right, this is Canada. Not even my jurisdiction. Guess I can do what I want and not get heat for it." He shook the man by the lapels.
"See, my partner here wants us to take you down to the precinct or whatever you call it here for a nice long chat. Do they get lawyers here Benny? Well, never-mind, because you're not just dealing with my partner."
The man squeaked. "I don't know anything. Heheh. Honest."
Fraser said "Ray, I would certainly not advise you to hit that man. Your fighting proficiency would no doubt cause undue physical damage. Possibly irreparable harm."
"Are you saying I'm gonna mess him up, Benny, is that what you're saying?" Ray demanded.
"Well, actually, Ray, I'm saying that I think you probably shouldn't mess him up."
The man shuddered, wriggling in Ray's grip. His eyes darted back and forth between the two officers of the law. The American was crazy, but his partner didn't seem to be doing anything about it except talking.
"Aren't you going to make him stop? Heheh. Make him stop. This ain't right, heheh." he pleaded to Fraser.
Fraser looked as if he were assessing the situation. "Why, no. I mean, I don't think that my partner should assault you, but I do trust him to make the right decision on his own."
Ray snarled in the man's face.
"All right, all right! Heheh." he said. "I'll tell you, heheh, about this guy."
Ray relaxed his grip. "Make it snappy."
"OK, so this guy comes in, I make him two passports, one for him, one for a lady. I ask if he's going somewhere, he tells me to mind my own business. Snappy enough? Heheh."
Benton noticed that the nervous laughter was mostly gone when the man finally answered the question. He wondered about that. It seemed like his answer might have been a little rehearsed. But Ray's games aside, they didn't have many resources to put this man under the bright lights and find out for sure if he was lying or spinning the truth. At least they had a real reason now to believe that Carl was involved in some kind of wrong-doing.
As he opened his mouth to ask one last question, the door to the shop swung open. Benton and Ray turned toward the door, but at the sight of Benton's uniform the new arrival had apparently turned tail and ran. Ray darted out from around the counter and took off after him. Benton stopped long enough to say "Thank you, kindly!" to the store owner before joining the pursuit.
The stranger who had run from the store was fast. Benton got a good look at the back of him, a tall, athletically built man in a grey suit, good shoes, and something that stood out among the tailoring, an elasticized ankle brace flashing from under the right leg of his trousers. Benton was catching up to Ray, who was getting a little breathless, when the man turned for long enough to shove two recycling bins over, not stopping to look as they toppled down on Ray.
Fraser pulled up short to help Ray out from under the bins.
"Are you all right?" he said, extending a hand to the fallen detective. Ray got to his feet with a look of disgust on his face.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. But this suit is ruined. You know how much this thing cost?"
The suit was covered in grime from the street, and there was a tear in the shirt.
"Perhaps that wasn't the best choice of attire for chasing criminals in the far North West, Ray." Benton suggested as they walked back toward the center of town.
"What? You're still wearing your uniform, which, I might add, appears to be spotless. I don't know how you do that. So don't go lecturing me about appropriate clothes." Ray replied.
"You may have a point, Ray." Benton said, "this operation does seem like it'd work better were we in plain clothes. We can stop at the general store before we leave town."
Ray wrinkled his nose at the thought of wearing clothes bought at a general store but didn't argue.
They soon arrived at their second destination, the address from the paper dated the previous week. It turned out to be a two story office building housing four offices, and looked much more prosperous than the building on Water St.
The men canvassed all four of the offices. Two were rival dentists' offices, and no-one in either of them admitted having seen Carl, although inevitably when Benton showed the photo someone had to quip "What, did he leave her at the altar?" with occasional riffs on the importance of the Mounties getting their man.
The last two suites were more promising. The first of them belonged to a local politician, William Campbell. The anteroom was covered in posters declaiming the importance of protecting Arctic wilderness areas. Ray nudged Benton.
"Could have links to AD." he said.
"Possibly." Benton replied.
The receptionist appeared genuinely not to have seen Carl before. Campbell, an excitable looking redheaded man, said that he had not, but demanded to know why they were asking, and was not at all happy with Fraser's reply.
"I won't have this sort of police harassment!" he said. "Get out, now! I run a clean campaign and my political enemies would love to see me linked to eco-terrorists." He was ushering them toward the door.
Fraser stood inside the door.
"I'm sorry that you think this is harassment." he said. "We are asking the same questions of everyone in the building. It's just a routine investigation."
Campbell shook his head. "I don't know who's pay-rolling you, but I won't be slurred like this. I'll be speaking to your superior officer immediately, you hear me!"
He took a step toward Fraser threateningly.
"I'm sure my superior officer will be glad to hear whatever you have to say." Fraser said. "But I still need-"
"You need to get out!" Campbell said loudly. "Get our before I throw you out."
Ray bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, flexing his fingers. Not that he'd ever heard much about the fighting prowess of the Common Canadian Politician, but it could still be fun.
"Fine." Fraser said. "We're not here to cause any sort of incident, sir." He held his hand up between Ray and Campbell, as if to forestall hasty action on either side. "But we will return if we need further answers."
Leaving the office, Ray and Benton shared a long look. Campbell was certainly acting like a man with something to hide. Either that, or a man at the end of his rope.
The last suite belonged to an engineering firm, the sign on the door read "Nesbitt Loggie Curtis Engineering- NW Territories Division." The outer room was smaller and more cramped than that of the dentists or Campbell, but through an open door Ray and Fraser could see drafting tables and computers with people hard at work.
Benton looked around, seeing shelves decorated with trophies that appeared to be mostly for fishing tournaments and a low table with a couple of chairs for clients to wait in. The table was scattered with magazines. Most of them were industry related, but the corner of the cover of one, sticking out under the others, caught his eye. He was about to take a look at it when the receptionist stood up to greet them.
"Gentlemen. Did you have an appointment to see someone?" she said.
"I'm afraid not." Fraser said. "We're here on police business. I'm Constable Benton Fraser of the RCMP, and this is my partner, Detective Raymond Vecchio, of the Chicago PD. I hope it won't inconvenience you if we ask a few questions." he smiled.
"Oh. Well." The receptionist appeared a little flustered. "My name is Rowan. Was there someone specifically you needed to talk to?"
Benton shook his head. "No, or rather, that is, we need to speak to everyone, please."
"Well, everyone here means the five of us." Rowan indicated the people in the back office. "We're not a big division, most of the work gets done back in Edmonton, but we keep things going on this end. Of course, it would be six, but Mr. Curtis, that would be the nephew of the Curtis in the name, is on a site inspection today."
Rowan introduced Fraser and Vecchio to the rest of the engineering staff. The two officers borrowed the small conference room at the back of the suite to interview each separately. Ray thought he detected uneasiness in the senior engineer, but the answer to the questions about Carl was the same from each. None of them recognized the man in the photo.
Leaving the building, Ray sighed with frustration. "Campbell is the best bet, but how're we supposed to put a bug up his ass without causing an international fracas? And I dunno, none of the nerds at Nesbitt Loggie Curtis were lying, far as I could see."
"I concur, Ray." Fraser said, looking a little frustrated himself. "There were things that didn't quite add up right, and I would very much like to speak to Mr Curtis, but no one who was in that office today has seen Carl."
Author's Note: Hmm. That's a tricky one all right! Next up, a further encounter with the lovely Inspector Wheeler, and then ...peril? Please let me know what you think of the story so far!