Rude Awakenings: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 2)

Chapter Eighteen: Lauren, Sunday

She noticed the patrol car pulling up behind Sunny's Prius and thought, Oh, shit, what now?

Her father had his prejudice against the police, which she understood, even though she knew it wasn't entirely fair. Today's police were not the police of seventy years ago, even though they had their own issues of racism to deal with, especially where Indigenous people were concerned, and they had a huge black eye following the shit show that was the Robert Pickton investigation; so many women murdered just because they couldn't be compelled to care enough to share information across different police forces, because the women didn't matter enough, because they were prostitutes and didn't live in Point Grey. That bloody farm. All that digging and sorting for bone fragments and pieces of jewelry, trophies. It had kept her up at night knowing she could have been strolling the same areas as these women, maybe even shooing them away as part of her job, even though they always returned like seagulls to their favourite landfill. She could have shooed them directly into his waiting vehicle. And even though she knew she wasn't his kind of target -- he only brought willing women back to his farm for "parties" with other assorted criminals, plied them with alcohol and drugs, and then killed them -- she still had nightmares about being in the back of his van, tied and gagged, waiting to be raped and tortured with pliers or a blowtorch or whatever her imagination could conjure, before he finally grew tired and just strangled her with his bare hands.

So, yes, the police weren't entirely innocent, but her past experiences with them had left her with a different, but not opposite, opinion. They were indifferent to her mission as a private investigator, mildly amused that she considered her profession a valuable link in the world of security and justice, and downright obstructive whenever she needed anything from them; if she wasn't police, they implied, then she was only getting in the way. Joe had reminded her of this many times, not to interfere in police investigations, and it infuriated her even though he was right.

So, when she saw the RCMP logo on the side of the car that pulled up, the stylized image of the man on the horse carrying some kind of banner, she sighed and waited for whoever emerged from the car to validate her opinion.

It was a woman who stepped out of the cruiser. She could tell that right away, just from the shape and bearing, even if her body was buried under jacket and utility belt. Her hair was tucked up under her kepi, though, which was common; the last thing you wanted to give a perpetrator you were trying to subdue was a good hank of your hair to pull.

The woman looked at their cars, noted they were empty, and saw Sunny first. She must have called out to him, because Lauren saw him walk over to her and have a chat. Sunny made some expansive gestures with his arms, probably letting her know about the phone that could be anywhere around here. Then he pointed at Lauren, and the woman turned and saw Lauren waving at them.

Suddenly Lauren's phone rang, and for a brief moment hoped it might be Rachel. It was Al. Confused, she answered, seeing him on the other side of the highway. "What is it?" she asked.

"I heard something ringing around here."

"Really?!" she asked, suddenly excited after all this nothing.

"Yeah. Can you call again? I'm staying put until I can pinpoint the sound."

"Hold tight, Al, we have a visitor."

"Yeah, I can see. What's going on? Did you call the police?"

"Not yet. I imagine this is a roadside check to see if we need assistance. It's actually a ticketable offence to just park at the side of a highway."

She heard him chuckle on the other end of the line. "Hopefully, when we tell him what we're doing, he'll let us off with a warning."

"Her, Al. It's a woman, I don't know if you can see from there."