Retired payroll administrator.
Owner of a small terrier named Button.
She called Diane after reading a brief online report about the Baxter civil filing.
Her opening sentence was simple.
“I think I saw the truck.”
Diane stopped typing.
“What truck?”
“The one they’re talking about in the Baxter matter.”
Gloria had lived near the garage for twenty years.
She walked Button every morning before sunrise.
On the morning Gerald Baxter was found unconscious, she had been on Kier Street at approximately 6:15.
She saw a black pickup parked near the north access of Baxter’s Garage.
A man got out.
Medium-to-large build.
Dark jacket.
Baseball cap.
He entered through the side gate.
Gloria noticed because Gerald was particular about that gate.
She had seen delivery drivers wait outside it.
The man disappeared for roughly eight minutes.
Then returned quickly.
Not running.
Not casually walking either.
He got into the truck.
Drove away.
“What made you remember the plate?” Diane asked.
“I wrote it down.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m nosy.”
Diane waited.
Gloria sighed.
“Because three months earlier somebody stole tools from my neighbour’s shed. After that, I started writing down unfamiliar cars.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I put it in my phone notes.”
Gloria read the plate.
Diane felt her skin go cold.
It matched.
There was more.
Fourteen months after Gerald’s stroke, Gloria sold her home and moved.
She had told people it was for retirement convenience.
That was partly true.
It was not the entire truth.
“A man came to see me.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“Do you now?”
“I think it was Vickers.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing directly threatening.”
That was how people like him operated.
He asked whether she planned to stay in the neighbourhood.
Mentioned future development.
Suggested values could become unpredictable.
Said construction created inconvenience for older residents.
The conversation ended politely.
Gloria had felt afraid anyway.
“I moved because I didn’t want trouble.”
Her voice hardened.
“And I’ve been angry at myself ever since.”
Diane said, “You kept yourself safe.”
“Maybe.”
Gloria looked into the video-call camera.
“But safe and useful aren’t always the same thing.”
She gave a formal statement the next morning.
The OPP referral moved.
Not quickly.
Properly.
That distinction frustrated Jory at first.
She wanted investigators immediately searching offices and interrogating Vickers.
Instead there were requests.
Interviews.
Medical releases.
Corporate records.
Vehicle registration history.
Insurance data.
Technician statements.
Sandra Faulk eventually took primary responsibility for reviewing the bodily-harm portion of the investigation.
She had spent fourteen years in major crimes.
She did not dramatize evidence.
She did not make promises.
She came to Baxter’s Garage on a cold December morning and stood in the north access lane for nearly twenty minutes before saying anything.
Jory watched from inside.
Sandra looked at sight lines.
Distances.
Gate position.
Where Gerald’s truck normally sat.
Where the parts driver found him.