Lori Shenher - That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away

Police business is a hell of a problem. It asks for the highest type of men, and theres nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get.

RAYMOND CHANDLER, THE LADY IN THE LAKE

IN EARLY DECEMBER 1990, when I was working in Morinville, Alberta, as a reporter for the Morinville Gazette, I flew to Vancouver to pick up the application materials for a job with the Vancouver Police Department (VPD). The rules stipulated you had to collect the forms and return them in person. I left on a 6:00 AM flight.

From the Vancouver airport, I took a bus to the downtown core and then started walking. As I descended into the area I would come to know as the Downtown Eastside, I stared, openmouthed, at the hollow-eyed, dirty, wet people hanging out on the sidewalks. Little did I know that every inch, every nook, and every cranny of these streets would become as familiar to me as the backyard I grew up in.

The people on the sidewalks truly gave the appearance of hangingslumped over, half-bent, leaning on lampposts and slouched against doorways like rain-rumpled costumes on coat hangers. It wasnt until I later came to live and work there that I realized the almost constant mutterings of Up? Down? meant was I looking for coke or heroin? I wondered if this was really the career I wanted.

At the VPD recruiting office I joined several young, scrubbed, suit-wearing men in the waiting area. I stood at the large glass window until a young woman with a heavy mane of black hair looked up at me.

Can I help you?

Yes, Id like an application, please, I replied, trying to sound natural but also authoritative and politethe way I thought a police officer should speak.

Sure. The woman reached beneath the counter and pulled out a thick yellow envelope. Setting it on the desk just beyond my reach, she gave me a friendly but appraising look. What level of education have you attained?

I have a bachelors degree in English from the University of Calgary.

Have you ever applied to the VPD before?

No, I havent.

Have you ever applied to any police department or the RCMP in Canada?

Yes, I replied. I applied to Calgary in 1988, but I wasnt accepted because I failed the vision exam. Id applied to the Calgary police department near the end of my last year of university at the urging of two basketball friends who were Calgary police officers.

Corrected or uncorrected? she asked, seemingly pleased that I was so forthcoming. I wondered if a lot of applicants lied to her. It didnt strike me as a great way to start a career in law enforcement.

Uncorrected. My right was better than the standard, but my left was a little lower, so I failed. Theyre both twenty-twenty with my contacts and glasses.

Did they have you keep your contacts and glasses off for forty-eight hours before the test?

No. Id never heard of this possibility before. Id felt disappointed not to have been accepted by Calgary but hadnt pursued it.

Okay, well, we can deal with that after you submit your application, but youll want to get an answer on that before we go any further. She pushed the envelope toward me across the counter, seemingly a reward for my answers. When can you have your application in? I was surprised at the speed with which this all seemed to be moving.

Well, Im living in Edmonton right now, so getting back here to submit it might take me a couple of months, I said, hoping that wouldnt be a problem. She held up a palm to me.

Hang on a sec. She walked away from the counter and disappeared into an office. I heard low murmurs of conversation I assumed were about me. She returned in less than a minute.

Okay, Sergeant Day has agreed you can send your application in by courier to save you the expense of traveling back. She gave me a meaningful look. Sooner would be better.

I WAS BACK in my rented room in Morinville before eight that evening. My friend and landlord Ted turned the TV channel to COPS that night, kidding with me that I should see what police work was like before I embarked on this career. In the episode we watched, members of the Las Vegas PD dealt with a very drunk older homeless couple that was causing problems in a restaurant a few blocks off the strip. The two young policemen tried valiantly to speak respectfully and offer reasonable alternatives to the drunks, but they would have none of it. As the situation escalated into a power struggle in which the police tried to get the two to leave the Dennys and they refused, the show went to a commercial.

You know, Ted said, that is a job where theres just no way to look good, no matter what youre doing. Id been thinking the same thing, and I knew he was right. Except if maybe youre riding a motorcycle or a horse in a parade or letting kids dunk you in a dunk tank at a fair.

The remainder of the show did little to improve my view of policing, but I hoped my experience would be better.

On February 14, 1991, Ted; his wife, Louise; their huge German shepard, Max; and I left Morinville for Vancouver, along with all my worldly possessions, so that I could write the entrance exam and go through the whole application processthough I was not at all certain that I would take the position if it was offered. We drove all night and on the afternoon of February 15 rolled up to the house I would be sharing with an environmentalist couple and a doctor. I continue to observe February 15 as the date I officially started my new life. It was one of those gorgeous dry February days that I would learn to welcome as precious gifts after the gloom of November, December, and January in Vancouver, and after unpacking and meeting my new housemates, I celebrated with a long run in the gorgeous rain forest of Pacific Spirit Park. Breathing in the fragrant rain forest air, I felt as though Id come home.

The following week I wrote the entrance exam, and a couple of days later I met with Recruiting Detective Chris Beach so that he could give me my mark.

Lori, this is the highest mark Ive seen in my time here, he said. It may be the highest weve had. He smiled at me, a dead ringer for the actor Tom Skerritt. Lets get you into the city doctor for an eye test before we do anything more, okay?

I passed the eye exam with flying colors, pleasantly surprising the doctor and myself, thanks to forty-eight hours of enforced farsightedness without glasses or contacts. I was working at a local running shoe store, and it hadnt been easy selling shoes that weekend sans sight, but my employers understood my mission.

In my interview with Sergeant Murray Day, I had to weigh how much personal information I should share and how much I need not. Since arriving in Vancouver, Id managedas usualto put my issues of gender identity and sexual orientation on the back burner and busy myself with the matter of making a living and forging my future. But I did not want to be caught in a deception and had a strong desire to be completely transparent and forthcoming. As I answered question after question without emotion or elaboration, I felt little rapport building between the two of us. I assumed he was trying to be objective.

Do you have a boyfriend? he asked, clearly uncomfortable.

No, I answered.

When was your last boyfriend? I didnt want to discuss the three or four guys Id datedeven that word was a stretch for most of them over the past eight or so years. My love life had consisted largely of my getting drunk enough with my friends to forget I might want a love life one day, with the occasional ill-considered drunken trysts with guys thrown in.

Well, I wouldnt say any of them have been at all serious, I offered.

Why is that?

Oh, I guess I just havent met the right guy. I shrugged, wincing inside at my answer. I was traveling a lot for my work. He gazed at me over his reading glasses for a few seconds.