Free Ogrodnik Interior 2.0c by Gary Page B

downtown beat for about a dozen years although he hadn't known her at that time. Yves had met her when she moved up into major crimes as a detective sergeant during the Stungun Killer case. The Stungun Killer raped and murdered nine victims in the Montreal area over a six-month period after which he inexplicably stopped and disappeared. Yves continued on to say that Rivka quit the force immediately after the Stungun task force was disbanded. There were rumors about conflicts with her boss, Detective Serge Amyot, but Yves didn’t know if they were true or not. Elliot never asked what made her quit, and she never offered. In any event, he hired Rivka and had reaped the benefits since. 
     
    “Ell-liot. Guess who’s back with photos? Leave it up to the Hebrew Hellhound to sniff out the bad guys,“ she said as she passed the photos over to Elliot with a face splitting grin.
    He saw the white van and a clear license plate number on the top photo. “Great work, Riv. Where did you find these?”
    “I got lucky on my third donut shop, the one down on lower St Jacques.”
    “What do we have?”
    “These three photos are from the morning of the murder at 5:40 a.m.,” she said pulling out the top three pictures and pointing at the time stamp.
    “The other three are from the previous day at 5:49 a.m..”
    Both sets of photos showed the same white van picking up coffee. Elliot could see the silhouette of the man in the passenger seat. He must have been huge as the top of his head disappeared up into the roofline. That confirmed that this was the same duo that the jogger had spotted up on the mountain that morning. It was the driver who interested him though. One of the stills captured his face clearly as he was hanging out of the window accepting his coffee. He was a non-descript fellow in his late thirties or early forties. He looked to be about average size, and there were no uniquely identifying features to be seen, but Elliot was captivated by the man. This was the second time this week that Elliot had seen someone whom he was sure he’d met before but could not place him.
    “What’s up?” asked Rivka. “Do you see something in that photo?”
    “I swear I’ve seen his man before, recently, but can’t put my finger on where or when. And oddly enough, I had the same thing happen when I saw one of Banik's security guards yesterday at Biovonix.” He shook his head and moved on.
    “Can you get Stella to run the plate?”
    “I already phoned it in Kemosabee.”
    “You have photos from the day of the murder and the day before. Did you check the previous days?”
    “Yes. I went back a full week. There were no other photos of the van.”
    Elliot gave this info a little hmmm sound and moved over to the throne of deduction.
    “It looks like we have a lead on the killers, but we have no idea why they would have done this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re related somehow to Biovonix given the events of the past couple of days, but why would Biovonix want my father dead?” he asked.
    “That’s a good question.”
    “We’ll find out more when we get the plates back from Stella.”
    “Okay. How did your meeting go with Alex Banik?”
    “It was interesting. Banik is a first class ego maniac, and he has lots of secrets.”
    “Well, don’t stop there. Keep talking.”
    “He admitted meeting with Dad and told me Dad went there to ask him about ‘irregularities in the manner that Isotin was being tested.’”
    “What did Banik say?”
    “He denied everything, of course, but his corpus lingua told me otherwise.”
    “Body language?”
    “Yes, when Banik had told me that ‘Biovonix has nothing to hide,’ his head was actually moving slightly from side to side as if his shaking head was saying no despite what his words were telling me, a classic incongruence reaction that indicates lying. After that he said that ‘my own clinical trials manager found the rumors were baseless,’ and then he gave me a big