Death's Shadow by Jon Wells

sarcastically.
    “You do. You need help.”
    Korol continued: “How did your palm print show up on the bat out of the blue? It was her baseball bat.”
    “If you’re so sure about it, why don’t you charge me?”
    “One day I will charge you for that double murder. You’ll be charged for three murders. You need some help, Carl.”
    “I’m not — I’m not sick.”
    “You need some help. You do. You’ve got some troubles, my friend.”

— 14 —
    The Right Thing
    With Carl locked away in Barton Street jail, Forgan, Thomas, and Korol met to review the details of Carl’s confession that the informant had provided through the RCMP. Korol read the points aloud to the others: male and female victims; baseball bat weapon; white van outside the apartment; a fridge blocked the apartment door. Carl had to move it out of the way.
    Mike Thomas, unique among the three detectives, knew crime scene details from both the McLean and Clark/Del Sordo murders. He spoke up. “Pardon me, what was that about the fridge?” he asked.
    He knew that the fridge behind the door had been in the Sandbar apartment, not Charlisa’s place. “It’s the same guy; the killer is mixing details of both homicides into one story,” Thomas said.
    They had to find the informant, get his statement on the record, and get him to testify in court. Korol kept pressuring the RCMP: they needed the name. The RCMP officials refused; a confidential informant could not be named. Korol was bitter. It wasn’t just about getting another witness in line. If the informant’s identity remained a secret, the defence would surely point at the tipster as an alternative suspect once the case came to court. The defence would raise the issue of who had intimate knowledge of the double homicide. Was it Carl Hall? Or was it the guy who ratted him out? Maybe the guy assisted in the murders. Maybe he was the killer and was framing Carl. Korol knew that they couldn’t risk that; he knew they had to find the informant.
    “A guy like Hall has to confess to someone when he’s at his lowest point,” Korol said.
    In his car-ride interview from Penetang, Carl had mentioned attending Holmes House for rehab. On March 28 Forgan, Thomas, and Korol checked out a car and headed to Simcoe. They had a search warrant for the rehab centre, to check records to see if Carl had been treated there. Maybe they could learn who he had confided in — a counsellor, perhaps. Before executing the warrant, they spoke informally with the manager to try and glean some information quickly. The detectives said they were investigating a homicide case involving a man named Carl Hall.
    “Carl? I remember him being here,” the manager said. “He admitted to a resident named Shane Mosher that he murdered two people.”
    The three cops stood there, stunned at first. There are those rare moments in homicide where you have a Hollywood “x marks the spot” moment, when time seems to stand still. The detectives looked at each other and smiled. The informant. Knew it. Finally, Forgan spoke. “Well, that’s why we’re here,” he said cheerfully.
    The knock on the door at a house in Brantford came later that day. A man answered. Slim, dark hair, boyish face.
    Shane looked at the three men in suits, all of them clean cut; he could smell their cologne. “I bet you guys are from Hamilton,” Shane said. “I figured you’d show up one day.”
    He agreed to come to the Brantford police station for an interview. He told Forgan he had passed along Carl’s confession several months earlier, to an uncle of his named Don Scott, a retired RCMP officer. Shane had asked that his name be kept confidential; his uncle assured him it would.
    Forgan asked him if he wished to have a lawyer present for the interview. Shane thought that he would like that at first, then changed his mind. He was now ready to jump in with both feet. And he had sensed from that moment in Holmes House, when he knew he would inform on Carl,