Catherine Gray had told him that earlier that month Benny Hallett, age 23, had been seen driving around the streets of Fernie in a brand new, cherry red Dodge pick-up, complete with four doors, hemi, long box, and dualies on the back. The truck was tricked out with chrome roll bars, running boards, and driving lights. A stereo to die for, built-in telephone, and computer mapping system rounded out the extras. All told, a vehicle of that sort, a king amongst trucks, would cost at least $60,000 (Canadian).
One of the local constables had become suspicious. He noted a small moniker across the rear license plate advertising the dealership that had sold the vehicle to Benny. A quick telephone call and the officer learned that the new truck had been paid for by way of a draft issued by the Scotia Bank. “Bank draft!” exclaimed the constable. “No way.” It was well known that Benny had never had a job in his life. He spent most of his days living off the public purse. And now he’d managed to find some $60,000 to pay for this shiny new toy? Highly unlikely.
The constable pulled Benny over the next time he saw him, and asked where he got the money for the truck. Benny simply said that he had earned it, and told the constable to get lost. The officer had responded by calling Corporal Catherine Gray, the local drug expert, and divulging the story to her. Both agreed that based on facts and the family’s shady history, drugs were likely to be involved. But the where and how was a mystery, and there certainly wasn’t enough evidence to procure a search warrant. So the matter died, for a while.
Then the burned-out shell of the Dodge was found at the bottom of a mountainous ravine on Highway 43, north of Fernie. About a week later, Benny showed up in the emergency ward of Cranbrook General Hospital, west of Fernie. According to the admitting nurse, Benny had been in bad shape. He’d had a fever of 104. His skin was flushed and dry and he was very, very sick. His knee was a higher order of hell altogether. It appeared that Benny had taken a shot to the knee from a Colt .45 about a week before being admitted. It had been wrapped in what appeared to be a portion of a bedsheet and held together by duct tape. With no medical care or dressing. Once the homemade bandages had been removed, and the knee exposed, it was readily apparent that the wound had become a stinking, festering mass of infection. The kneecap had shattered into multiple fragments. The ligaments were totally disrupted. The head of the tibia was destroyed, as was the medial aspect of the fibula. After careful cleansing and irrigation with saline and various antibiotics, it was obvious that the bone itself was seriously infected, and that Benny was in fact suffering from what was now a life-threatening osteomyelitis infection. Not being qualified to handle anything so complex, Cranbrook General transported Benny to Vancouver by air ambulance. The surgeons there, after a few minutes of consultation, told Benny that it was the leg or his life. The amputation took place half an hour later. That was where things stood when Inspector Inderjit Singh came into the picture.
To Indy it was all transparently obvious. The expensive truck. The destruction of said truck. The “kneecapping,” compliments of Mr. 45. Benny had taken money that he shouldn’t have, from dangerous people, and had been reprimanded for his mistake. It was a pattern Indy had become familiar with during his many years working the Vancouver and Toronto drug scenes. The question was who got to Benny. And why.
“Benny, you’re a mess and I can help you,” said Indy softly.
“Yeah. And help me lose the other leg too?” Benny replied. His cousin Leon had visited him only the night before, threatening a slow and painful death if he uttered one syllable to the cops. Talk? He’d rather eat snails, thanks.
“Look, let’s just talk for a bit,” said Indy quietly. “I don’t even want to know who did it. Let’s talk about what got you here.”
“Whatever, rag head. Whatever.” Even in his humbled state, Benny maintained his brittle edge.
“You know, I ran with the gangs when I was a kid. In Toronto. We moved loads of stuff. And some good people were able to set me on a straighter course,” said Indy. Slowly, he told Benny bits and pieces of his personal history. It was a wonderful interrogation technique, one that Indy had used in the past. Gradually, Benny started to open up. Maybe it was the Demerol coursing through his system. Maybe it was the need to talk, or the comfort and genuine concern in Indy’s soft voice. Or the fact that the inspector was talking about non-taboo subjects, or his great skill at the art of non-violent interrogation. Maybe it was just that Benny actually was a dolt. But ever so slowly, his tongue began to loosen.
“Heroin?” he answered the suggestion Indy had just made. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m not going there. I’m not gonna tell you who or how. And I’m sure as hell not gonna tell you why my truck got whacked, or about the bullet in my leg. It was all an accident, that’s all. An accident.”
Indy smiled to himself. The fact that Benny was using so many words to deny something made it obvious exactly what was going on. The interrogation was going very well.
“It’s OK,” said Indy. “You don’t need to tell me anything about the truck. I’m not going to push you.” Instead they continued to talk about the possibility that there had been serious drugs involved. And how it probably wasn’t Benny’s fault.
“Look, Benny, I’ll come back in a few days. And here’s my card. Headquarters are only a ten-minute walk from here, and if you need anything, call me. I may be able to help you. It seems to me that you could use a friend, so far from home and with a major injury.”
Indy shook Benny’s hand, and wished him well. Benny, in his simple mind, was warmed by Indy’s concern; while Indy was a cop, and a Hindu cop at that, he was one of the few nice people that Benny had ever encountered.
Indy left the orthopedic ward edgy and excited. Could he do it? Did he have enough for the affidavit? In Canada, a search warrant could be issued only by a judge, and only if the informant had reasonable and probable grounds that a crime had taken place. It was a bit of a stretch, but with the destruction of the fancy truck, the bullet in the knee, and the bank draft that paid for the truck, along with the “maybe there were drugs involved” statement from Benny, Indy knew he could get the order. It might not withstand cross-examination, but the object of the exercise wasn’t Benny’s prosecution. All he wanted was an order compelling the Scotia Bank to disclose all records in its possession with respect to the account number that had appeared on Benny’s bank draft. In this business, the trick was to follow the money trail, not the drugs. If his hunch was right, he’d just found a major drug ring. In a place right on the American border. If this was big enough, maybe he could plug a hole, get Ottawa, Hagen, and the FBI off his back. That’s what he wanted. He really didn’t care whether Benny was convicted, or even charged. Benny was obviously a very small piece of the puzzle.
Leon Lestage was speeding toward the Kootenays, his long, graying hair streaming in the wind. It was a warm summer night, with no rain. He was cursing Benny Hallett with every ounce of his will, barely paying attention to the road as he navigated his stunning Harley Davidson Road King through the Highway 401 traffic. He rode past the farming communities of Abbotsford and Chilliwack, past Hope and onto the Coquihalla, a mountaintop freeway that was a marvel of engineering. He had made a mistake, he thought. He should have put the bullet through Benny’s moronic forehead. Now Benny was in Vancouver General. Too close to a major police station by half. And with Benny’s soft, malleable mind anything could happen. Twenty million dollars, Joseph had told him. Twenty million. And real dollars. American dollars. Big dollars. The best part was that it wasn’t cash. It would be sitting in a jungle of offshore accounts somewhere. That meant no laundering problems, no taxes to worry about. Just to let the guy use his mine and have a truck waiting. He could buy a bigger jet, a place in Whistler, and a beach house spread on Maui, with a couple of Harleys at each house. With the funds that he had already squirreled away, another $20 million would pave the way to retirement. He could travel the world as he pleased, riding through the night on any continent. But now that addled half cousin of his was in Vancouver General, threatening the whole plan with his big mouth. His visit had been short, and the message terse. You talk, you die. Low-level bikers in some wannabe gang would see to that. Benny would die slowly, and painfully; that much had been emphasized. Now Leon was kicking himself. He had gone soft. He should have put the bullet in Benny’s brain, if there even was one, the first time, and torched him along with the Dodge. Then there’d have been no worries, no mess.