Free Bones Are Forever by Kathy Reichs

killed.”
    “The numbers are that high?”
    “At least twenty women have been murdered since 1983. More are missing, maybe dead. And you know that asshole Pickton’s not far from anyone’s mind.”
    Ollie was referring to Robert William “Willie” Pickton, a Port Coquitlam, British Columbia pig farmer convicted in 2007 of killing six women and charged in the deaths of twenty more. Many of Pickton’s victims were prostitutes and drug users from Vancouver’s downtown east side.
    I didn’t work the case, but colleagues did. Excavation began when remains were discovered on Pickton’s property in 2002. The media went batshit, and a court-ordered ban on publication and broadcasting was imposed. Rumors ran wild. Bodies allegedly were left to decompose, fed to the pigs, ground up and mixed with pork from the farm.
    Only when the trial began did details emerge. Hands and feet stuffed inside bisected skulls, remains dumped as trash or buried near the slaughterhouse, bloodstained women’s clothing in Pickton’s trailer.
    Inexplicably, a jury found Pickton innocent of first-degree but guilty of second-degree murder in the deaths of six women. He was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for twenty-five years—the maximum for second degree permitted under Canadian law.
    At an estimated cost of $70 million, Pickton’s was the largest serial killer investigation in Canadian history. In 2010 the remaining twenty murder charges were dropped, ending any prospect of future trials. Prosecutors apparently concluded that since Pickton had already received the maximum possible sentence, further expense was not warranted.
    A sad footnote. With the lifting of the media ban in 2010, the public learned that Pickton had been charged in 1997 for attemptedmurder in connection with the stabbing of yet another sex worker. The clothes and rubber boots he was wearing when arrested lay forgotten in an RCMP storage locker for seven years. When finally tested in 2004, they revealed DNA from two of Vancouver’s missing women.
    Too late for a boatload of victims.
    Ollie’s voice brought me back.
    “—it’s not just Vancouver. Women have vanished or turned up dead along Yellowhead Highway 16 in BC. You know what they call that stretch now? The Highway of Tears. There are websites and magazines dedicated to it. And the RCMP has expanded the list of MPs and broadened the area they think that killer may be working. Who knows how many other victims are out there lying in ditches or shallow graves?” Ollie’s tone suggested both frustration and compassion.
    “Thus Project KARE,” I said.
    “I’ve been with the task force for two years. We’re committed to finding and caging these degenerates.”
    “It’s an RCMP initiative, right?”
    “Not anymore. In Alberta we’ve said enough is enough. In addition to members of the RCMP Major Crimes Units in Edmonton and Calgary, the task force now includes investigators from the Edmonton PD and other detachments having jurisdiction. These women need protection. The predators have to be stopped.”
    Just as the death of babies disturbed Ryan, the slaughter of those on society’s fringe distressed Ollie. I remembered hearing the same passion in his voice years ago. It was one of the few things I’d liked about him.
    “But it seems Ruben is not a victim,” I said.
    “Tell me what you know.” Ollie pulled pen and notebook from his briefcase.
    I listened as Ryan laid out the facts. The ER visit by Amy Roberts. The apartment in Saint-Hyacinthe occupied by Alma Rogers. Ralph Trees’s girlfriend, Alva Rodriguez. The babies. The fingerprint. The CPIC hit for Annaliese Ruben.
    “And now Ruben is off the radar,” Ollie said.
    “Yes,” Ryan said.
    “You think she’s left the area?”
    “Queries at the airport, bus and train stations, and rental car agencies came back negative. Ditto for taxis.”
    “You pull the hospital security cameras?”
    “She arrived and departed on foot.