Out with the Sunset

by P. D. Workman

  Margie nodded. “Good idea. You’re probably right. We might be able to narrow down the suspects that way—if it was me, and I had killed someone in the park, I probably wouldn’t go back there. Not for a while, anyway.”

  MacDonald gave a nod. “You may be right there. Let’s get some people canvassing there tonight. Who is available?”

  Margie indicated she was. Christina would be home from school. There would be time for supper and for Christina to get settled in on her homework. She was old enough to be left alone while Margie went back out to canvass the park for a couple of hours looking for witnesses and trying to match faces to names. Most of the rest of the team indicated that they would be able to help. A dedicated bunch. No one complained about not being able to spend the evening with their families or watching the NHL playoffs.

  They had a lot of work ahead of them if they were going to crack the case.

  Chapter Six

  Christina was less angry when she arrived home than she had been the first day of school, but she was still sullen about having to move there and obviously not enjoying the new school yet. Margie had been hoping that she would have made at least one friend, which would help her to get through the first few weeks of school until she started to feel more at home. But apparently, that was not in the cards. Maybe in another day or two, Christina and another new girl would gravitate toward each other, or she would be admitted into one of the already-established circles of friends.

  These things took time.

  They had a quick meal of tacos made with microwaved beans.

  “I’m going to take Stella for a quick walk out on the pathway,” Margie told Christina. “Do you want to come with us?”

  Christina hesitated. Margie didn’t push it. The last thing she needed to do was make Christina think that Margie wanted her to go with her. That would just convince her to shut herself in her room and refuse to go out. Margie stayed casual about it, going to the door to put on her shoes and calling Stella for walkies.

  “I guess I can come,” Christina said eventually. “I don’t have that much homework tonight. It’s too early for them to be assigning anything big. They have to figure out where everyone is first. Since people are coming from all different schools,” she pointed out.

  Margie nodded. “That makes sense,” she agreed. “They’ll need to do some remedial stuff and to get everyone on the same level first, won’t they? At least with some basics.”

  Christina petted Stella and scratched her soft brown ears before picking up her own shoes. “We should get some moccasins like Moushoom’s.”

  “I don’t know how they would fare on the pathways. You wouldn’t want them to be ruined.”

  “They’re meant to be worn outside.”

  Margie nodded. She was glad to see Christina showing some interest in the traditional clothing. She didn’t expect Christina to start wearing a sash to school, but she liked that Christina was aware of her culture and felt positive about what she saw Moushoom doing. A lot of kids might have just thought him a funny old man.

  Margie clipped on Stella’s leash, and they headed out the door. It was only a couple of blocks to the pathway. Most of the houses in the area were older, built in the late fifties or early sixties. The little bungalows all looked pretty similar. But with a view of the city skyline in the distance, and the Rocky Mountains beyond that, the lots along Twenty-Sixth Street were only fifteen minutes from downtown. Professionals were beginning to buy the little post-war houses, razing them to the ground and replacing them with designer mini-mansions. And why not? As the city council forced people to build up instead of out, people had to find a way to build their dream homes within the city limits.

  “Look at that one!” Christina pointed to one of the big houses fronted with lots of tinted glass. She whistled and shook her head. “I can’t believe anyone would spend the money to build something like that in the middle of the hood.”

  “I told you, it is not a hood.”

  Christina rolled her eyes.

  Stella was enjoying herself, sniffing at the grass and weeds beside the pathway, wandering out as far as Margie would let her.

  “It’s an off-leash area,” Christina told her, watching another dog playing chase with a ball. “You should let her run.”

  “Maybe when I know the area better. Right now… I’m not sure how responsible other people are with their dogs. You wouldn’t want her to get hurt because someone else lets their dog off-leash when they shouldn’t.”

  “Nothing would happen.”

  “That’s what everyone always thinks. But some people are not responsible, and animals can turn in an instant, do something completely out of character because they felt threatened or excited by something.”

  They walked for a while in silence. There was a little viewing platform up ahead—a sort of a look-out point. Margie decided to check it out.

  They stood looking down at Deerfoot and the Bow River and out at the city skyline glowing orange from the setting sun and, in the distance, the shadowy mountains.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous?” a man said. “No two sunsets are alike. I’ve heard that Calgary has some of the best in the world. I’m no world traveler, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but this…” he gazed out at the city. “I never get tired of it.”

  Margie nodded. She studied his profile as he looked at the sunset. He wasn’t wearing a mask. Mid-thirties or early forties. Good looking. Friendly and outgoing, apparently. A guy who probably would have shaken her hand before the pandemic. At his side was a large dog—a mutt like Stella, not something that Margie could classify.

  “It is beautiful,” she agreed. She looked at her watch. She should be heading back to Fish Creek Park to help canvass for witnesses and identify the faces caught on the tape.

  “Oscar,” the man said. “And this is Milo.” He indicated the dog.

  “I’m Margie. And this is my daughter, Christina, and Stella.”

  “You’re not old enough to have a teenage daughter,” Oscar challenged in a teasing tone.

  “Well, that’s a nice compliment. But believe me, I’m old enough and I feel it!”

  Christina rolled her eyes as if she were being disparaged. “She was really young when she had me.” In an it’s not my fault tone.

  “I don’t remember seeing either of you here before. Do you live around here?”

  “Just moved into the neighborhood,” Margie agreed, making a motion back the way they had come. “Christina’s been complaining about it, but I really like this.” She looked out at the sky and the river. “And Fish Creek Park. I was just there this morning, and it’s beautiful. Amazing to have such a big park right in the middle of the city.”

  “We’re lucky to have these green spaces,” Oscar agreed. He turned and pointed behind them, across Twenty-Sixth Street. “I’m just over there. If you cross here, there is a little park. There’s a pond, a little waterpark for the kids, and volleyball courts with sand. A little gem hardly anybody knows about.”

  “Can we go over there?” Christina asked, moving away from them toward the crosswalk.

  “I need to get home,” Margie told her apologetically. “We can check it out tomorrow. But I have some work I need to do tonight.”

  Christina gave a heavy sigh. Life was hard for the kids of cops and working mothers.

  Chapter Seven

  Fish Creek Park had a different feeling as darkness started to fall and closing time approached. It was quiet. Voices carried, so people whispered or spoke in lowered tones as they walked. It was a slower pace, and the tang of wood smoke hung in the air from the campfires of earlier in the day.

  Margie watched the shadows, thinking, drinking in the atmosphere. The weather conditions were almost the same as they had been the night Robinson was killed. She arrived at the same time as he had. She looked for the faces she had seen on the video surveillance, which she had carefully studied before arriving.

  How easy would it have been for Robinson t
o be followed there by someone who intended to do him harm? He had left the pathway. She didn’t know if he had still been visible from the path before he was killed. Maybe they should try a scene reconstruction just to test it out. Had his attacker gone there with the sole purpose of killing him? Had it been a drug deal or blackmail gone wrong? A quarrel between friends or lovers?

  It wasn’t robbery, that was about all Margie knew for sure. That, and it didn’t look like a crime of passion.

  She stopped a couple walking toward her, keeping the prescribed two meters away since they were not wearing masks. “Excuse me. You were here two nights ago?”

  They looked at each other, nodding automatically but then not sure if they should talk to her.

  “I’m a homicide detective,” Margie explained, pulling out her ID and showing it to them. “There was someone killed here, did you hear about it?”

  “Yeah, we did.” The woman, blond, a little shorter than Margie, nodded again. “I couldn’t believe it. That happened in our park, where we walk, around the time that we were here.” She said it with a tone of disbelief, as if it couldn’t possibly be true.

  Margie murmured confirmation at this.

  “We didn’t see anything suspicious.” The woman looked at the man, getting a nod from him. “It was a night just like any other. Nothing… There wasn’t anything that alarmed us.”

  “Anything out of the ordinary that night?” Margie asked. “Sounds, smells? Someone you don’t normally see walking around here? Someone who seemed out of place or lost? Sick or afraid?”

  The man put his arm around the woman and tightened his grip, pulling her to him protectively. “No,” his voice was strong, slightly challenging. “Don’t you have any leads? How could something like this happen here? I assumed that… it was drugs. A gang. Something where they knew each other. You always hear that in police reports. ‘The victim was known to the killer.’ They knew each other, right?”

  “We are still very early in the investigation. We’re hoping that you can help us with some background. Identify the people who normally walk around this time, help us to narrow the scope.”

  “Like what?” the woman asked. “What do you need us to do?”

  “First of all, if I could get your information. Name, address, phone number, in case I need to contact you with further questions later.”

  They were a little reluctant. People were brought up not to share their personal information with strangers. They grew up watching cop shows on TV where people were suspects or were framed by the police. It was scary for them to be part of an investigation.

  But also exciting. She could see their excitement at the novelty of being part of the investigation. A homicide investigation. Something most people had only ever seen on TV or read about in books.

  Margie took down their information. Elise and Roger Erickson. Married ten years and still walking hand in hand every night in the park.

  “I have some pictures on my tablet. I wonder if you could look at them, tell me who are regulars. What you know about them.”

  “Sure.” This was the good part. The part where they could help her to break the case. They looked intently at the tablet as Margie moved a bit closer and brought up the first of the pictures. “Oh, that’s Bob,” Elise said confidently. “He doesn’t like bicycles.”

  “Bicycles?” Margie repeated, not understanding.

  “Bob is the dog,” Roger laughed. “I think the detective wants the name of Bob’s owner.”

  Margie chuckled. “Yes. That would be helpful.”

  “I don’t know his owner’s name… I just know Bob’s name, because I hear him calling him, especially when Bob wants to chase after a bike.”

  Margie wrote down the information she had. “They walk here often?”

  “Most nights. Most of the people who walk at this time of night are regulars. Day-trippers come during the day. Family reunions and parties in the late afternoon and evening. The people who walk late at night or early in the morning, they’re all pretty regular.”

  Margie swiped to the next person on the tablet. Elise and Roger studied it.

  “I’ve seen him,” Roger said, “but I don’t know anything about him.”

  “You said you thought maybe it was something to do with drugs or gangs,” Margie said. “Is that because you’ve seen drugs or gang activity in the park? Graffiti? People congregating? Something that makes you think that is going on?”

  “No, I’ve never seen anything,” Roger admitted. “I’m sure it goes on… it goes on everywhere, doesn’t it? But I’ve never seen any drug deals going down or gangs. Or anything that I thought was. I just hoped… it isn’t some crazy person, attacking at random…”

  “I don’t think that was the case here,” Margie assured him. Very few homicides were random attacks. Maybe a robbery, someone with jewelry or a coat that made them look like they had a lot of money, but not random murders. “And if it is a serial killer, nobody has identified any pattern. Nothing that they had seen across a number of homicides.”

  They looked slightly reassured at this. Though Margie was kicking herself for using the words serial killer. That was only going to make them more worried, and they might use it when talking to other people, spreading the rumor that it was, in fact, a serial killer, when there was absolutely nothing to indicate that it was.

  “If you could look at a few more people here…” She showed them the tablet again, swiping through the various people, most of whom they recognized. But they didn’t have names to attach to a lot of them. At any rate, if they were frequent walkers in the park at that time of day, Margie would talk to them sooner or later.

  She displayed the picture of the hooded figure. Elise shuddered. “Black hoodies always make me think of… Darth Vader or the Sith. Creepy, you know?”

  “Do you recognize this person? We didn’t get a very good picture of the face.” Really, they hadn’t captured anything of the face, just the hood and the shadows beneath it, as the hooded figure walked with head bowed past the camera. Margie didn’t like it either. Not because it reminded her of the Sith, just because she didn’t like anyone who appeared to have a reason to hide his face.

  Who needed to hide his face in a park? Especially at night, when the shadows were already falling?

  Maybe someone with a disfigurement. Otherwise, Margie couldn’t think of a good reason, other than to avoid cameras and hide his identity.

  “I’ve… I’m sure I’ve probably seen them here,” Elise said slowly. “Not a lot, but a few times over the last week or two? Not every day. Or maybe he comes other times of the day, and not at the same time every night.”

  “Man or woman?” The figure was slim and could be either.

  “A boy,” Elise offered. “Not an adult. Maybe, sixteen? Umm… black. Not just brown, but very dark skin. I don’t know…” She looked at her husband. “Maybe that’s what made you think of drugs or gangs? Young Black man in a hoodie… if you watch much TV, it’s sort of a trope.” She shrugged, embarrassed. “I’m not racist; I’m not saying every kid in a hoodie is a drug dealer.”

  “I don’t think it was anything like that,” Roger protested, raising his hands in a ‘stop’ or ‘surrender’ motion. “I just wondered about drugs or gangs because it seems like that’s where a lot of the violence stems from. Not because I saw him.” He jerked his chin toward the hooded figure on the tablet and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not judging anyone.”

  “We’ll follow up on every possible lead. So you don’t know his name or what area he lives in? Was he ever here with someone else?”

  “No.” They both looked at each other for confirmation and shook their heads at the same time. “No, we never talked to him or left at the same time. And he’s always alone.”

  Margie thanked them for their time when they were finished looking through all of the pictures. Even though she didn’t have many names or details, she felt like she was making progress. Lots of the people whose picture
s she had clipped would be walking through the park just then. Margie would find them and talk with them, slowly gathering identities and alibis and sorting out who she felt was suspicious and warranted further attention.

  The canvass slowed to a trickle, and then a stop. There was no one left on the pathways but the detectives themselves. They converged and began comparing notes as they walked back to their vehicles.

  “Some nice folks out here,” Jones commented. She seemed to be walking a little gingerly, and Margie watched her, trying to figure out whether she had turned her ankle or had blisters or something else. “Reminds me that I don’t take advantage of the parks around here often enough. We complain about being stuck in the city, but there is all of this… wilderness right here in the middle of it.”

  “I was really excited about that when I started to look at Calgary,” Margie agreed. “I like walking and hiking and biking, and I’m looking forward to being able to check out the different parks and pathways in Calgary. There are so many places to go.”

  “I think that I like walking until I’m actually on my feet for a few hours like this,” Jones said. “And then my feet start to hurt, and I start to chafe, and then I realize that I really don’t like it very much at all.”

  Margie laughed. “Don’t go right from being sedentary to walking for a few hours. Do it gradually; your body will adjust.”

  Jones smoothed her hands over her broad hips and grimaced. “Yeah. One step at a time,” she agreed.

  “Who on your list do you want to follow up on?” Siever asked. “We still have lots more video that we can check. Spy on people the whole time they were at the park.”

  “There are a few I’d like to look into further,” Margie admitted. “Of course, everyone who wasn’t here tonight, but the man with the pit bull and the young man in the hoodie in particular.”

  “Don’t tell me you have a thing about pitties,” Siever challenged, “sweetest disposition you ever saw…”