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."
"I stand corrected."
"Are you able to stand there for a few minutes while we sort this out?"
"Yeah, don't worry."
"Thanks, Al."
She hung up and turned to see Sunny and the policewoman approaching her. "This is Lauren Hasegawa," Sunny said by way of introduction.
The woman suddenly started at the sight of her. "Oh! Lauren!" she said. "Is that you?"
Lauren squinted at her to see where she knew this woman before, because the woman obviously knew her. The woman noticed this and promptly removed her kepi, revealing fiery red hair pulled back in a bun.
Then it finally hit her. "Joanie? Joanie Mara?"
Joanie nodded. "Sergeant Joanie Mara, now."
"Look at you!" Lauren said, examining the fully equipped RCMP officer before her. "You made it!"
"I did," she said. "It was a long journey to get here, starting in Upper Buttfuck, Saskatchewan and winding its way through North Armpit, Yukon, but everyone does that, so I can't complain."
"Yeah, I heard they start you on the remote posts. But hey, now you're close to home!"
"Yeah! What a coincidence to find you out here! So, what did you end up doing after J.I.?"
"I'm a P.I. now."
Joanie did her best to hide her grimace. "Wow!" she said a little too brightly.
She didn't want to talk about her work to a cop who looked down on it, so she said, "Did Sunny fill you in about what we're doing here?"
"Yes. I thought maybe your car had broken down. But this is more interesting."
Interesting wasn't how she'd put it. "My husband is missing. My friend Al over there? His wife Rachel might or might not be with him. We think we may have located Joe's phone, that's why Al's standing there. I just have to call the number again to see if Al can hear it ringing and find it."
"Your husband is missing with his wife," Joanie repeated, and immediately Lauren knew what she thought.
"There's more to the story," Sunny said. "There's evidence that something bad happened to them."
Joanie's brow furrowed. "Let me just check in with headquarters, tell them I'm away from the cruiser, and then I'll join you if you're going over there."
Lauren nodded and dialled Joe's phone again while Joanie talked into her shoulder mounted walkie-talkie. She saw Al whip his head around, dart one way, then another, and finally decide from what direction he heard the ringing.
She and Sunny crossed when it was safe, and Joe's phone went to voicemail again. She hung up and redialled, and Al was on his hands and knees like a bloodhound, parting the grass with his hands.
"If it's on this side, somewhere," Sunny said, "it's safe to say they were travelling west when the phone ended up lost."
"That would be consistent with the texts, where Rachel said they were late getting back." She turned to see Joanie crossing the highway to them. "Is there a way to find out if a police roadblock happened in and around this area?" she asked her.
"If it's one of ours, sure. If it's not, it'll take some asking around through official channels. For example, if it wasn't on this highway, these roads would be the jurisdiction of the Abbotsford Police. A little further west, and it's us with jurisdiction in Langley and in Surrey. Further east, and it's also us in Chilliwack."
"I found it!" Al shouted triumphantly, and Lauren suddenly realized she still had her phone to her ear.
She looked and saw Al standing, raising the phone like a trophy. "Oh, thank God!" she said as she hung up her own phone and put it away.
He walked over to them, and Lauren said, "Joanie, this is Al."
Al blinked in surprise. "You two know each other?"
She could tell Sunny was dying to know too. "We went to the Justice Institute of B.C. together. She took the police track, and I decided on the more interesting life path."
Joanie smirked at her. "I was also the maid of honour at her wedding."
"You were?!" both men said at the same time, and Sunny turned to Al and said, "Jinx!"
"It's true," Lauren said.
Their faces softened. "I really wish we'd been there," Al said.
"Wait a minute," Joanie said. "You mentioned Rachel before... she was supposed to be your maid of honour, right?"
Lauren gasped. "You remember that?"
"Of course. That speech Joe gave was so sweet." She looked at the two men. "Al and Sunny... are you all those friends she grew up with? That detective club?"
"Our reputation precedes us, it seems," Sunny said, nodding.
"So... you've obviously reunited!"
"The band's back together," Al said, chuckling.
"But now two of you are missing." Joanie looked to the phone in Al's hand. "And that's Joe's phone, which you found here, in the middle of nowhere."
"Yes, and now we need to see if there's anything on it that may shed light on what happened to them." Lauren took the phone from Al's hand and looked at it. "Shit, it's almost out of juice. I need to get it to a charger. I think I have one in the van."
"Well, I'm glad you found your husband's phone," Joanie said, but suddenly she looked uneasy. "If you do decide to look at it, though, could I ask you not to do it on the shoulder of the highway? You're actually not supposed to be parked there, and it's potentially dangerous too; believe me, I've seen my share of blown tires forcing tractor trailers to jacknife, and if you were in the path of one of those..."
She didn't need to finish. "Gotcha," Lauren said, annoyed with her now. "Thank you for stopping for us, and for offering to help. It was really nice running into you again."
"You're welcome, and it was nice. Hey, I'll look into the road checks last night."
"Oh! Yeah, thanks!" Lauren fiddled in her purse, and drew out a business card for her. "You can call me or email me anytime."
Joanie took her card and drew out a few of her own, handing out one to each of them. "If you want to forward me any of that evidence you had that something was wrong, I'd be happy to have a look at it and give my two cents, you know, off the side of my desk."
"Thank you so much. Do you think we would be able to get the police involved with this?"
"You can make a formal report at the detachment if you like, but a lot of the time missing people turn up within a day or two. If you don't choose to go that route, all I can say is do what you can with the phone, send me the stuff you have, and we'll see what we can make of it."
"That's very generous of you, thank you," Al said.
"I'd like to help, but mainly I'm curious. The phone being here is fishy, and it seems like a mystery only a detective club can solve."
She knew that statement called for a response, but Lauren couldn't summon the energy. Luckily Sunny stepped up to the plate. "We'll do what we can, and be in touch. Thank you again."
Joanie touched her kepi to them and began walking back across the highway to her parked cruiser, chatting into her shoulder radio to make her report. They watched her until she left, then turned back to the phone in Lauren's hand.
"I guess we should get our cars off the shoulder like she said," Al said.
"Rule follower," Lauren said, smirking. "But, yeah, I don't know if there's anything more we can do here. Unless you happened to find Joe lying next to the phone."
Al gave a startled laugh but cut it short when he realized that wasn't very funny.
And here I thought I was finished writing about reunions! Thanks for reading this far! If you like what you just read, please hit the "Vote" button and leave a comment. To return to Lauren's life leading back to the reunion, click "Continue reading."