Tag Archives: Mystery

NAHANNI — VALLEY OF THE HEADLESS HUMAN CADAVERS

Nahanni National Park Reserve in Canada’s Northwest Territories is an extremely remote, phenomenally pristine, and breathtakingly beautiful place. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site that’s visited by only those with the means and stamina to survive the ordeal. But despite being named the Holy Grail of whitewater bucket-list experiences, the Nahanni River holds a hostile history. It’s known as the valley of the headless human cadavers.

Since 1906 when the Nahanni River Valley was first explored by gold-seeking Europeans, 44 people have been reported as disappeared or found dead in the region. 6 of them were missing their heads and lying beside burned-out camps. There’s a local legend—some say supernatural suspicion—that explains this mystery. We’ll explore this phenomenon in a bit but, first, let’s look at the Nahanni itself.

To call the Nahanni remote is an understatement. The park covers 11,602 square miles and lies north of latitude 60 on the western side of Canada’s Arctic. Its boundary starts 300 miles from the nearest center of Yellowknife and, to put the distance in perspective, Nahanni is 3,570 crow-flying miles from downtown Manhattan.

Nahanni’s geology is utterly unique. It’s a blend of towering, icy-cold mountains and lush green river bottoms fueled by 250 smouldering hot-spring caverns creating mists of sulfuric air, giving the Nahanni valley an eerie, otherworld persona. From extreme winter cold dropping to fifty-plus below through to short, but warm and humid summers, the Nahanni is truly a place of extremes.

There are no human settlements in the Nahanni. The only access is regulated through permits issued by Parks Canada whose wardens act as oversight to the few who enter. Most visitors are wealthy adventurers who access the wilderness by floatplane and enjoy guided whitewater excursions along the 210-mile route that pounds through four canyons with 9,000-foot granite guardians. One stretch, at Virginia Falls, drops twice the height of Niagara with a nearly equal volume of water.

About 300 humans visit Nahanni per year but the park is teeming with life. According to Parks Canada, there are 42 mammal, 181 bird, 16 fish, 700 vascular plant, and 300 bryophyte lichen species recorded. Grizzly bears and wolf packs are the food chain’s apex… unless you consider the region’s winner of the most vicious creation award—the wolverine.

Speaking of humans, the Nahanni records 10,000 years of indigenous inhabitation. Human artifacts dating back to the age of the mastodon and the now-extinct bear dog have been excavated by archeologists. Clearly, the interaction between people and Nahanni’s nature has been ongoing for a long, long time.

Today, the Dene are the region’s First Nations people. They populate the southern and eastern areas outside the park but are the legal ancestorial owners of the land. However, according to Dene oral history, the Nahanni was once occupied by a small and separate tribe known as the Naha who mysteriously disappeared around the time of the white man’s arrival. Naha, in the Dene language, means “people from the Nahanni River Valley”.

European contact began in the late 1800s when Hudson’s Bay Company fur traders set up posts along the Mackenzie River which lies to the east of Nahanni and to which the Nahanni waters flow on their journey to the Arctic Ocean. The fur trade flourished, and native-white contact continued throughout the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898 and onward.

It was inevitable that gold fever would boil over from the Yukon into the Northwest Territories. The lure of gold does something to the human psyche where normal people will do abnormal things. This is where our story of the valley of the headless human cadavers begins, and I’ll outline the 6 specific cases.

Brothers Frank and Willie McLeod — In the summer of 1906, two Scottish brothers from Fort Liard ventured into the Nahanni valley in search of gold. They never returned. A 1908 search party found the pair deceased in a burned-out camp. The bodies were skeletonized and both their heads were gone. Today, the camp’s river tributary junction that runs into the Nahanni River is called Headless Creek, and the localized area is Deadman’s Valley.

Martin Jorgenson — He attempted to become a permanent Nahanni Valley resident. In 1917, Jorgenson, who was a Swiss prospector, relocated from the Yukon and built a small cabin in Nahanni. That same year Jorgenson’s cabin was burned, and his headless body lay nearby.

“Yukon” Fisher — This man lost his head in 1927 near the spot that claimed the McLeod brothers. “Yukon” Fisher was a part-time gold prospector and a part-time outlaw. He was wanted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the Yukon and had fled to the Nahanni. Also like the McLeods, Fisher was found decapitated in a burned camp.

Phil Powers — In 1931, Phil Powers became the fifth poor soul to become beheaded in the Nahanni. His campsite, too, was consumed by fire.

The Unidentified Headless Man — Although this man (suspected to have come from Ontario) was never named, he joined the list of headless cadavers of the Nahanni Valley. It was in 1945. The body was wrapped in a sleeping bag lying beside a burned tent.

A list of names and suspected murder victims goes on through the Valley of the Nahanni. Angus Hall, Joe Mulholland, Bill Epier, and Annie Laferte disappeared without a trace. Hall and Laferte left nothing, but the cabin shared by Mulholland and Epier was—you guessed it—burned to the ground.

So, what was behind all this burning and beheading? If you search the legends, you’ll find these explanations:

The Nahanni Valley Monster — This creature is Bigfoot-like, and it likes to behead and burn white men.

The Evil Spirit — It’s a weather spirit that’s said to haunt the Nahanni, making its presence known with otherworldly shrieks on cold nights.

Giants — It’s also said that a race of Giants inhabit the Nahanni and cook their meals in Rabbitkettle Hotsprings.

Prehistoric Creatures — Native hunters and trappers speak of elders describing creatures that match known prehistoric animals like mastodons and bear dogs.

The Waheela — This is a huge, wolf-like being linked to deaths in Nahanni Valley.

The Nuk-Luk — Picture a short, bearded man who is half-naked and carrying a huge club.

Naha: The vanished tribe.

Dene oral history tells of a sub-tribe called the Naha (who were similar to the Dene and who spoke the same language) that lived in the Nahanni mountains, descending down to the valley floor to make war on trespassers. The Dene were fearful of the Naha and steered clear of the upper and central Nahanni region to avoid confrontation. The story goes that the Naha were a small band of maybe a dozen individuals that mysteriously disappeared in the mid-twentieth century.

Some Dene claim the Naha returned to the land where both tribes have connections, somewhere in the southwest United States. There may be some truth to this as Dene is an Athabaskan language and is linguistically similar to the Navajo and Apache dialects. To use the crow-fly measurement, the distance between the Nahanni and the Navajo/Apache lands is approximately 2400 miles—hardly a big deal by 1950 and an age of public transit.

But a more likely scenario is this. The Naha, a small group, occupied the upper and central regions of Nahanni. They were fiercely protective of their lands and not tolerant of invaders—not the Dene and certainly not the white gold seekers. It makes sense that these Naha warriors would eliminate threats to their land and their livelihood. Killing intruders, cutting off their heads, and burning their possessions would certainly send a “Keep Out” message. Eventually, a fight between intruding whites and the Naha wiped out the indigenous folks.

No, I can’t buy into the monster, the evil spirits, the giants, prehistoric creatures, the Waheela, the Nuk-Luk, or the weather theories. Supernatural entities and harsh climates cannot behead bodies and burn down cabins. In my opinion, it was the Naha who caused the headless human cadavers and, ultimately, it cost them their lives.

THE BIZARRE DEATH OF THE TOXIC LADY — GLORIA RAMIREZ

At 8:15 pm on February 9, 1994 paramedics wheeled 31-year-old Gloria Ramirez—semi-conscious—into the Emergency Room at Riverside General Hospital in Moreno Valley, California. Forty-five minutes later, Ramirez was dead and 23 out of the 37 ER staff were ill after being exposed to toxic fumes radiating from Ramirez’s body. Some medical professionals were so sick they required hospitalization. Now, 27 years later, and despite one of the largest forensic investigations in history, no conclusive cause of her toxicity has been identified. Or has there?

The Toxic Lady case drew worldwide attention. No one in medical science had experienced this, nor had anyone heard of it. How could a dying woman radiate enough toxin to poison so many people yet leave no pathological trace?

The medical cause of Ramirez’s death was clear, though. She was in Stage 4 cervical cancer, had gone into renal failure, which led to cardiac arrest. Anatomically, the fumes had nothing to do with Gloria Ramirez’s death. But what caused the fumes?

“If the toxic emittance was not a death factor, then what in the world’s going on here?” was the question going on in so many minds—medico, legal, and layperson. To answer that, as best as is possible, it’s necessary to look at the Ramirez case facts both from what the eyewitnesses (and the overcome) said and what forensic science can tell us.

Gloria Ramirez, a wife and mother of two, was in terrible health when she arrived at Riverside Hospital. She’d rapidly deteriorated after being in palliative, home-based care with a diagnosed case of terminal cervical cancer. In the evening of February 9th, Ramirez developed Cheyne-Stokes breathing and went into cardiac arrhythmia or heart palpitations. Both are well-known signs of imminent death. Her home caregivers called an ambulance and had her rushed to the hospital as a last life-saving resort.

A terminal cancer patient, like Gloria Ramirez, was nothing new to the Riverside ER team. She was immediately triaged, and time-proven techniques were quickly applied. First, an IV of Ringer’s lactate solution was employed—a standard procedure for stabilizing possible blood and electrolyte deficiencies. Next, the trauma team sedated Ramirez with injections of diazepam, midazolam, and lorazepam. Thirdly, they began applying oxygen with an Amb-bag which forced purified air directly into Ramirez’s lungs rather than hooking up a regular, on-demand oxygen supply.

So far, Ramirez’s case was typical. It wasn’t until an RN, Susan Kane, installed a catheter in Ramirez’s arm to withdraw a syringe of blood that circumstances went from controlled to completely uncontrollable. Kane, a highly experienced RN, immediately noted an ammonia-like odor emanating from the syringe tip when she removed it from the catheter. Kane handed the syringe to Maureen Welch, a respiratory therapist, and then Kane leaned closer to Ramirez to try and trace the unusual odor source.

Welch also sniffed the syringe and later agreed with the ammonia-like smell. “It was like how rancid blood smells when people take chemotherapy treatment,” Welch would say. Welch turned the syringe over to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident, who noticed manila-colored particles floating in the blood as well as confirming the ammonia odor. Dr. Humberto Ochoa, the ER in-charge, also observed the peculiar particles and gave a fourth opinion that the syringe smelled of ammonia.

Susan Kane stood up from Ramirez (who was still alive) and felt faint. Kane moved toward the door and promptly passed out—being caught in the nick of time before bouncing her head off the floor. Julie Gorchynski also succumbed. She was put on a gurney and removed just as Maureen Welch presented the same symptoms of being overcome by a noxious substance.

By now, everyone near the dying Gloria Ramirez was feeling the effects. Ochoa, himself now ill, ordered the ER evacuation and for everyone—staff and patients—to muster in the open parking lot where they stripped down to their underclothes and stuffed their outer garments into hazmat bags.

Ramirez remained on an ER stretcher. A secondary trauma team quickly donned hazmat PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) and went back to give Ramirez what little help was left. They did CPR until 8:50 pm when the supervising doctor declared Gloria Ramirez to be dead.

Taking utter precaution, the backup trauma team sealed Gloria Ramirez’s body in multi-layers of body shrouds, sealed it in an aluminum casket, and placed it in an isolated section of the morgue. Then they activated a specially-trained hazmat team to comb the ER for traces of whatever substance had been released and caused such baffling effects to so many people. They found nothing.

Meanwhile, Riverside hospital staff had to treat their own. Five workers were hospitalized including Susan Kane, Julie Gorchynski, and Maureen Welch. Gorchynski suffered the worst and spent two weeks detoxifying in the intensive care unit.

The Riverside pathologists faced a daunting and dangerous task—autopsying the body which they considered a canister of nerve gas harboring a fugitive pathogen or toxic chemical. In airtight moon suits, three pathologists performed what might have been the world’s fastest autopsy. Ninety minutes later, they exited a sealed and air-tight examining room with samples of Gloria Ramirez’s blood and tissues along with air from within the shrouds and the sealed aluminum casket.

The autopsy and subsequent toxicology testing found nothing—nothing remotely abnormal that would explain how a routine cancer patient could be so incredibly hostile. The cause of death, the pathologists agreed, was cardiac arrest antecedent (brought on by) to renal (kidney) failure antecedent to Stage 4 cervical cancer. The Riverside coroner concurred, and his mandate was fulfilled with no doubt left about why and how Gloria Ramirez died.

For the coroner, that should have been it. There was no evidence linking the mysterious fumes to the cause of death, and whatever by-product was in the ER air was not a contributor to the decedent’s demise. That problem should have been one for the hospital to figure out on their own. However, the Riverside coroner was under immense public pressure to identify the noxious substance for no other reason than preventing it from happening again.

The coroner worked with the hospital, the health department, the toxicology lab, and Gloria Ramirez’s family to come to some sort of reasonable conclusion. The Ramirez family had no clue—no suspicions whatsoever—of any foreign substance Ramirez had ingested or been exposed to that could trigger such a toxic effect. The toxicology lab was at a wit’s end. They’d never seen a case like this, let alone heard of one. And the health department went off on a tangent.

The county’s health department appointed a two-person team—a team of medical research professionals—to interview every person exposed to the ER and surrounding area on February 9, 1994. They profiled those people so closely that the two-expert team even cross-compared what everyone did, or didn’t, have for dinner that night. When that preeminent probe was over, and no closer to a smoking gun than the struck-out hazmat team failed to find on the night of the fright, the interviewers came to a conclusion—mass hysteria.

The team of two medical doctors, both research scientists, concluded there was no poisonous gas. In their view, in the absence of evidence, there was only one explanation and that was that 23 people simply imagined they were sick. Some, they concluded, had such vivid imaginations that they placed themselves into the intensive care unit.

This was the report the health department delivered to the coroner. While the coroner was now scrambling for damage control, some of the “imaginary” health care workers who could have died during exposure, launched a defamation lawsuit against the hospital, the health department, and the two investigators who concocted the mass hysteria conclusion.

Frustrated with futility, the coroner (who was way outside his jurisdictional boundaries) turned to outside help. He found it at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) near San Francisco.

Lawrence Livermore initially wasn’t in the medical or toxicological business. They were nuclear weapons makers with a busy mandate back in the cold war era. Now, by the 90s, their usefulness was waning, and so was their funding, so they decided to broaden their horizons by creating the Forensic Science Center at LLNL.

Brian Andresen, the center’s director, took on the Toxic Lady case. The coroner gave Andresen all the biological samples from Ramirez’s autopsy as well as the air-trapping containers. Andresen set about using gas-chromatograph-mass spectrometer (CG-MS) analysis which would have been the same process the Riverside County toxicologist would have used to come up with a “nothing to see here, folks” result.

But Andresen did find something new to see. He found traces dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in Ramirez’s system. Not a lot—just traces—but clearly it was there. Andresen felt he was on to something.

Dimethyl sulfoxide, on its own, is stable and harmless. It’s an organic sulfur compound with the chemical formula (CH3)2S0, and is readily available as a degreasing agent used in automotive cleaning. It’s also commonly ingested and topically applied by a cult-like, self-medicating culture of cancer patients. At one time, there was a clinical trial approved by the FDA to use DMSO as a medicine for pain treatment, and it was dearly adopted by the athletic world as a miracle drug for sports injuries. The FDA abruptly dropped the DMSO program when they realized prolonged use could make people go blind.

Brian Andresen developed a theory—a theory adopted by many scientists who desperately wanted some sort of scientific straw to grasp in explaining the bizarre death of the Toxic Lady—Gloria Ramirez. Andresen’s theory went like this:

Gloria Ramirez had been self-medicating with DMSO. When she went into distress at home, the paramedics placed her in an ambulance and immediately applied oxygen. Ramirez received more oxygen at the ER which started a chemical reaction with the DMSO already in her body systems.

Note: Chemically, DMSO is (CH3)2SO which is one atom of carbon, three atoms of hydrogen, two atoms of sulfur, and one atom of oxygen—a stable and harmless mix.

However, according to the Andresen theory, when medical staff applied intense oxygen to Ramirez, the DMSO chemically changed by adding another oxygen atom to the formula—becoming (CH3)2SO2—dimethyl sulfone (DMSF).  DMSF, also, is harmless and it’s commonly found in plants and marketed as a dietary supplement. So far, so good.

It’s when four oxygen atoms are present that the stuff turns nasty. The compound (CH3)2SO4 is called dimethyl sulfate, and it emits terribly toxic gas-offs. This is what Andresen suspected was the smoking gun. The amplified oxygenation turned the self-medicating dimethyl sulfoxide Ramirez was taking into dimethyl sulfone which morphed into the noxious emission, dimethyl sulfate.

The coroner liked it. So did many leading scientists. The coroner released Andresen’s report as an addendum to his final report, even though all agreed that if dimethyl sulfate was gassed-off by Ramirez in the ER that made so many people sick, it had absolutely nothing to do with the Toxic Lady’s death. The coroner closed his file, and the finding went on to be published in the peer-reviewed publication Forensic Science International.

There were two problems with Andresen’s conclusion. One was more scientists were disagreeing with it than agreeing. Some of the dissenters were world-class toxicologists who said it was chemically impossible for hospital-administered oxygen to set off this reaction. Two was Ramirez’s family adamantly denied she was self-medicating with DMSO.

The Toxic Lady case interest was far from over. Many people knew DSMO would be present in minute amounts in most people’s bodies and called bullshit. It’s a common ingredient in processed food and metabolizes well with a quick pass-through rate in the urinary tract. In Ramirez’s case, she had a urinary tract blockage which triggered the renal failure which triggered the heart attack. If it wasn’t for the blockage, the DSMO probably wouldn’t have been detected.

On the sidelines, there were people—knowledgeable people—strongly saying another chemical would give the same ammonia-like, gassing-off toxins that ticked all the 23-person symptom boxes.

Methylamine.

Methylamine isn’t rare. It’s produced in huge quantities as a cleaning agent, often shipped in pressurized railroad cars, but it’s tightly controlled by the government. That’s because methylamine can be used for biological terrorism and for cooking meth.

Yes, methylamine is a highly sought-after precursor used in manufacturing methamphetamines. Remember Breaking Bad and the lengths Walt and Jesse go to steal methylamine? Remember the precautions they take in handling methylamine?

Well, back before Breaking Bad broke out, the New Times LA  ran a story giving an alternative theory of what happened to make the Toxic Lady toxic. Whether the Times got a tip, or some inside information, they didn’t say. What they did say was that Riverside County was one of the largest methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution points in America, and that Riverside hospital workers had been smuggling out methylamine to sell to the meth cookers. (Hospitals routinely use methylamine as a disinfectant in cleaning agents, including sterilizing surgical instruments.)

The Times report said Riverside hospital workers used IV bags to capture and store methylamine as the IV bags were sealed, safe to handle, and entirely inconspicuous. The story theorized that an IV bag loaded with about-to-be smuggled methylamine accidentally found its way into the ER and got plugged into Gloria Ramirez’s arm. Because methylamine turns to gas so quickly when exposed to oxygen, this would explain why no traces were found in the toxicology testing—it all went into the air and into the lungs of 23 people.

———

As a former coroner, I’d be skeptical of this methylamine theory except for personal knowledge of a similar case. My cross-shift attended a death where a meth cooker had methylamine get away from him in a clandestine lab. The victim made it outside yelling for help but shortly succumbed. The civilians, hearing his cries, rushed over and were immediately overpowered with the exact symptoms as the Riverside medical people experienced.

The first responders also succumbed to toxic fumes and had to back off. By the time my cross-shift arrived to view the body, many contaminated people were already at the hospital. My colleague made a wise decision. He signed-off the death as an accident, declined to autopsy, and sent the body straight to the crematorium—accompanied by guys in hazmat suits with the body sealed in a metal container and strapped to a flat deck truck.

Do I buy the Times methylamine theory? Well, I’m a big believer in Occam’s razor. You know, when you have two conflicting hypotheses for the same puzzle, the simpler answer is usually correct. Some one-in-a-billion, complex chemical reaction that world-leading toxicologists say can’t be done? Or some low-life, crooked hospital drone letting an IV bag full of stolen methylamine get away on them?

You know which one I’m going with to explain the bizarre death of the Toxic Lady — Gloria Ramirez.

BETWEEN THE BIKERS — NEW BASED-ON-TRUE-CRIME BOOK RELEASE

Between The Bikers is the new release in my based-on-true-crime series. It’s Book #6 in a 12-part project that takes real cases and brings you, the reader, right inside actual criminal investigations with real cops and real crooks. I start each story with a warning about graphic content including gory scenes, sensitive techniques, and profane language. But that’s the real world of true crime. Here’s the online book description followed by the first two chapters of Between The Bikers.

Who had the most to gain by murdering a bad-ass biker—especially the powerful president of a Hells Angels Motorcycle Club chapter? The answer lies in Between The Bikers—Book 6 in the Based-On-True-Crime-Series by retired homicide detective and coroner, Garry Rodgers.

Mark Mitchell, aka Zeke, disappears on a Saturday afternoon just before a full-patch ceremony held between the bikers at a Hells Angels clubhouse on Vancouver Island in British Columbia at Canada’s west coast. The bikers are furious and the police are frantic to control an escalating mess that could lead to an all-out war within the Angels’ criminal organization. All fear a deadly underworld rift is about to explode.

While the bikers witch-hunt within their ranks and outside the law to ferret Zeke’s killers, the police urgently use every tactic and technique to solve the crime and contain the volatile gangsters. Wiretaps, surreptitious surveillance, clandestine operations, and highly-placed secret informants work through an unheard-of alliance between the bikers and their sworn enemies—the cops.

What happened to Zeke, and why, shocks both sides. The truth behind Mark Mitchell’s murder is something unmatched between the bikers who show the feared death head logo on their backs below the red-on-white words “Hells Angels”. It’s a truth known only by those with the most to gain—a truth that lies between the bikers.

——

Between The Bikers comes with a warning: This book is based on a true crime story. Explicit descriptions of crime scenes, factual dialogue, real forensic procedures, highly-sensitive sources and actual police investigation, interview, and interrogation techniques are portrayed. Some names, times, and locations have been changed for privacy concerns and commercial purposes.

This is the sixth story in the Based-On-True-Crime Series by Garry Rodgers. Other titles include In The Attic, Under The Ground, From The Shadows, Beside The Road, and On The Floor. Reviewers describe Rodgers’ story-telling style as a 21st century Joseph Wambaugh using Elmore Leonard dialogue with plot, pacing, and characterization in the flare of Fiona Barton and Paula Hawkins.

*   *   *

BETWEEN THE BIKERS

Chapter One — Monday, April 27th – 8:20 a.m.

“Zeke’s missing.” Harry clomped into our Serious Crimes Section. She plopped herself down in her desk chair. “Word is he’s been done in.”
“Well, if he’s been whacked…” I rolled back from my cubicle and smiled at my detective partner, Harry. “It’ll be between the bikers.”
“Yup.” Harry took a slurp from her stainless Starbucks mug. “I took a spin by the Hells Angels clubhouse. They’re swarming like ants on a fucking hill.”
“Your word… how good is it?” Harry had my full attention.
“Like, my word?” She smiled back. “Impeccable. Obviously, you know that.”
“No, shithead. Not your word. I meant, who’d you hear this from?”
Harry took another pull from her cup. She subconsciously looked from side to side. “Don Ransom at Drug Squad. His wiretaps and cameras are lit up like Times Square.”
“Okay.” I nodded and leaned in. “Something’s going on. Someone’s stuck a honey-coated stick in the ant pile.”
“I stopped by Drugs this morning about something else.” Harry lowered her voice. “The guys are working flat-out, interpreting audio intercepts and video surveillance. Looks like the HAs are preparing for all-out war with whoever hit Zeke. Don’s pretty sure Zeke’s dead and you know what that means.”
“Yeah.” I moved back. “We’re going to inherit Zeke’s fuckin’ mess.”
By “we”, I meant the detectives at Nanaimo Serious Crimes Section. And by “Zeke”, I meant Mark Mitchell, who was the president of the Nanaimo Hells Angels Motorcycle Club chapter. Zeke was Mark Mitchell’s nickname, and he was well known—very well known—to our police department.

Nanaimo is a small seaside city of a hundred thousand, set on the southeast side of Vancouver Island. It’s right across from the City of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada which is one of the most exotic, erotic, and expensive places in the world.
Although Nanaimo is cut off by water from the B.C. mainland, it takes on the same crime characteristics as a large metropolis. Nanaimo has its share of serious stuff like murders, rapes, robberies, extortions, arsons, loansharking, and money laundering. There are homeless and junkies begging on the street, and well-paid prostitutes doing their thing with high-profile clients behind closed doors.
Nanaimo has graft in the civic circles and grief at the street scene. Most grief is caused by addicts and mental cases that have no hope for treatment, never mind a chance at recovery. There are losers on welfare and gambling fanatics, thieves and tag-artists, as well as pot-growers and meth-cookers. And there’s a subculture that profits from bottom-feeders and contributes to nothing but trouble and tragedy—the bikers.

The Nanaimo Hells Angels chapter, or charter as the outlaw motorcycle club is sometimes called, had a regular complement of about thirteen guys. That was give or take a few that may have quit, got fired, been jailed, or suddenly disappeared, like what had happened to Zeke. And what happened to Zeke was unlike anything anyone in our Serious Crimes Section ever experienced.
Serious Crimes in Nanaimo was part of the police department’s support services that assisted the rank-and-file General Duty or Patrol division. Harry and I were a team of two assigned to investigate complicated and time-consuming files that patrol officers couldn’t stick with. There were other two-person teams as well as an overall detective boss, Staff Sergeant Leaky Lewis. Leaky also supervised Drug Squad, Forensics, Property Crimes, Street Crew, Sex Crimes, Commercial Crimes, and one poor prick plagued with mitigating frauds and bad plastic.
Harry, by the way, was not my partner’s real name. She was Sheryl Henderson, a large lady with large hair and an even larger personality. We called Sheryl “Harry” after the bigfoot or sasquatch in the movie Harry and The Hendersons.

“So what else did you find out at Drug Squad?” I’d stopped smiling. It quickly sunk in that, although Zeke’s loss would be the community’s gain, there would be hell to pay in fallout. Intrinsically, I knew—or thought I knew—that whatever happened to Mark Mitchell, aka Zeke, would be an issue between the bikers, and I knew that the biker mentality would not take this lying down.
Harry took another sip from her Starbucks cup, which was as tarnished and dented as a few parts of her career. “So, what Don Ransom tells me is that Zeke was last seen on Saturday afternoon. He’d been over to Vancouver to pick up some rings for a patch-over ceremony that was supposed to happen on Saturday night. He fell off the radar and hasn’t flown since.”
“Rings?”
“Yeah.” Harry examined her cup and picked at something caked on it. “Biker rings. You know those gold death head things that full-patches wear?”
“Oh, yeah. Biker rings.”
“They’re clunky and gaudy if you want my opinion.” Harry kept picking. “Anyway, they’re an initiation gift for someone who is accepted full-time into the club. So Zeke got the rings but hasn’t been heard from since.”
“Hey. Wait a minute.” I smiled again. “You mean he was last seen in Vancouver? He disappeared in Vancouver? Then it’s not our problem.”
Harry did the time-out sign. “No. Not so lucky there, Louie. Zeke made it back from Vancouver. His truck was found abandoned here. Beside the Harewood Arms pub. Locked. Keys gone. Zeke gone.”
“Fuuuck—”
Harry waved her finger. “You know the last-seen rule. He was last seen here in Nanaimo so that does make it our fucking problem. Wish it weren’t so, but it is so. We’re stuck with finding out what’s happened to Zeke.”
I wished it weren’t so, too. The last thing I needed as an old cop ready to retire was refereeing a ferocious fight between the bikers.

Chapter Two — Monday, April 27th – 8:50 a.m.

Leaky Lewis called Harry and me into his office. He closed the door and nudged us towards two wooden chairs in front of his solid oak desk. His blinds were shut tight, but his lights were on bright, giving the room sort of an unnerving feel.
That was far from the case when dealing with Leaky. As a boss, it was hard to find anyone fairer and, as a person, you couldn’t find anyone more approachable. I’d known Leaky since he was a new-hire in the Nanaimo police department. He’d quickly climbed the ladder and was now officially ranked as a Detective Staff Sergeant, making him my direct supervisor.
Almost all cops get nicknames. They’re usually earned from a play-on-words, or some career-haunting mishap. Leaky was Jim Lewis. He got the moniker because he suffered a chronic case of post-urinary drip.

“So something’s happened to Zeke, I hear.” Leaky looked at Harry and me with a neutral expression. “Where are we going to go with this?”
Harry and I hesitated to answer.
“This isn’t a trick question.” Leaky grinned. “Seriously. I want some input on how we’re going to handle this, ah, situation.”
“I’d like to say we do fuck-all.” I grinned back. “But… we all know that if someone’s offed Zeke, then someone’s going to pay for it and someone else is going to pay for that and we’re going to be into a full-on biker war. And I don’t want no part of that at this stage of my game.”
Leaky nodded and looked at Harry. “Your take?”
One thing about Harry, she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.
“We got to get on this right away. I have no doubt he’s right.” Harry thumbed at me. “This could be a fucking blood bath if we don’t go right out and get in their faces.”
“Don Ransom told me he’s never heard the Angels talk so openly on their phones.” Leaky shuffled in his chair. “Don’s had them wired up for a long time… off and on… and he knows their pattern. He says they sound rattled. Confused. Trying to make sense of what’s going on. Don thinks the Nanaimo chapter really doesn’t know what’s happened. They’re scrambling for clues.”
Harry continued. “From what Don told me an hour ago, and what I saw when I drove past the clubhouse, I think the HA full-patches are going to start grabbing people here, there, and all over and muscle them for information. This thing will escalate real fast unless we show a lot of force, and right away. They have to know we’re not going to let them run the fucking show around here.”
Leaky nodded again. “Show of force? How do you see doing that?”
Harry already had a plan in her mind. “A big drive-by back and forth at the clubhouse. Setting up the command center mobile at the edge of their property. Leaving the cameras on twenty-four seven. Even hovering Air One on top of their fucking room. Let them know we’re not going to let a biker war start or we’ll bug-squash them.”
Leaky didn’t nod. “I’m not so sure… It might just agitate them even more. I think we should watch all right. But, I think we should rely on intel with sources already in place. Some intel is just starting to come in. Don called me just before you guys sat down and says he’s going to come here and talk in person. Let’s wait for what he has. What about the basics… like opening a file and deciding who’s going to coordinate this. After all, we don’t even have an official complaint.”
Harry shrugged. “The paperwork can wait. I say we get right out there and fly the flag before they decide to run away with biker law.”
Leaky stood up. It wasn’t like he was mad or upset, but more like he was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I’m also thinking of opening a communication channel. Like going right to the leader and simply asking him what’s going on.”
“Their leader is missing.” Harry made a good point. “Zeke is, was, whatever, the president. He has, or had, been for a long time.”
Leaky nodded again. “Fred Wallacott is the past-president. He’s been with the club since they were the 101 Knights and the Satan’s Angels. I’ve known Fred since college. Not that we were ever friends or buddies or anything. But I think I can talk to him.”
I spoke up. “I have a reasonable rapport with Fred Wallacott. Big Wally as they call him. It might be best if I talk to him in private… away from the club scene.”
Harry gave me a quizzical eye. “I didn’t know that. What’s your connection to Fred Wallacott?”
“I don’t go around advertising it, but we’ve gotten to know each other semi-socially over the years.”
Harry laughed. “You? Partying with the fucking Hells Angels?”
“No. Not partying. Our kids traveled in the same circles. Fred’s daughter and my daughter went to Highland dance classes and gymnastic classes together. Fred’s son and my son went to kickboxing lessons together. So I’d regularly run into Fred—two dads dropping off and picking up kids—and then I’d see him at events like graduations, competitions, and demonstrations.”
Harry stopped laughing. “You think you can actually talk to a fucking biker like one-on-one?”
“I know I can.”
“You’re serious about this?”
“Yeah. I know he’s big and intimidating and has this tough-guy biker persona. Deep down, Fred’s a reasonable guy. Actually—very well-read and informed. Tell you a funny story about Fred. He has a bunch of rental properties around town. Once, he had to serve an eviction notice and didn’t want to get into a violent situation where the guy could press charges against him. So, Fred came into the police station and asked for a plainclothes officer to stand by to keep the peace while he hangs paper on the tenant. We go over to Fred’s block. He knocks on the door. Guy opens it and refuses to take the notice so Fred takes out his Buck knife and jams it into the door, face-pinning the paper, and says, ‘Here. You’re fucking served’. Then we just left.”
Leaky and Harry laughed.
Leaky brought us back to the business at hand. “I know you’re rammy, Harry, and you want to show them our colors. And, you might be right about that. We can use that as plan B, but first I want to get as much info on this as possible. Looking at this objectively, we don’t even know if Zeke is dead. He might be abducted and held for some biker reason. For that matter, he might have even fucked off and faked his own disappearance.”
I agreed with Leaky. “Let’s take this a step at a time. Like, we don’t even have an official missing person complaint to start sticking our noses into. Let’s get our source intel and then do a back-channel move. After that, we can show all the muscle we want.”

There was a rap at the door. It opened. In came Don Ransom with breaking biker news.

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