Out with the Sunset

by P. D. Workman

  “I didn’t say anything in particular about the dog or the breed,” Margie said. “Everybody has their own opinion about that. I just mean I’d like to take a closer look at the owner. He rubbed me the wrong way. I want to explore the possibility that he might have gotten into an argument with Mr. Robinson.”

  “Could have,” Siever agreed, nodding. “He didn’t look like the most laid-back guy.”

  “But why would he come to walk in the park if he was that irritable?” Jones asked. “If you’re spoiling to pick a fight, why go to a park? Why not a bar or somewhere else he could have blown off some steam?”

  Siever shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t want to get in a fight. Maybe he was trying to work off whatever stress he was feeling so that he could relax and not get in a fight.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Walking somewhere like this is peaceful. Get in touch with your serenity. Put all of the stress of the day behind you.”

  Jones nodded. “Okay. Maybe.”

  “I’d still like to look into him further,” Margie repeated.

  “Of course. We’ll see if we can spot him on some of the other video, follow him back, see where he came from and went to and the times. Everyone we have pictures of was here at roughly the right time. We can’t eliminate anyone just by having one conversation with them.”

  No, there would be a lot of footwork and further discussions to eliminate people from their lists. Like all police work, it was long hours of tedium, followed by moments of intense action or terror. It would take a long time to look through the videos to find everybody and identify their movements, and then try to find any connections with Robinson other than that they had just happened to be in the park at the same time.

  Could anyone put them together? Did they walk together? Have a business? Were they friends? Lovers? Enemies? In a club? Share a vice? Lots of questions to be asked.

  Chapter Eight

  Margie was watching videos again the next morning. The camera locations had been plotted on a map, which was helpful, so that she could try to find people again after they walked off of one camera. Follow the trail until it came to another camera, and then watch for them to appear there. If they didn’t appear, then look at some of the places it might branch off to a different location. Or had they gone off trail completely, and wouldn’t reconnect with it again for several hours?

  It was tedious work, but she created a profile for each person who had been at the park at the same time as Robinson, included their picture and, if they had it, the person’s name and any other details they had. She ignored, for the time being, anyone who they had gathered identification and contact details from. It was more important to track down the people who hadn’t come forward or returned to the park as usual. Those were the people who were more likely to have had something to do with Robinson’s death. Someone who hoped that by staying away for a few days, or permanently, that he would be able to distance himself from the investigation and maybe stay below the radar.

  She had identified the man with the pit bull by following his images on the videos back to the parking lot and getting the license plate from his car. That was a lucky break. With the name on the car’s registration, she was able to look up his driver’s license and confirm that it matched the face on the video. They would gather his contact information and pay him a visit.

  Margie was having a more difficult time with the boy in the hoodie. She peered at the screen, trying to track him as he moved from one camera to another like a ghost. His dark outfit blended in with the shadows, and he drifted rather than walked along the pathway.

  “Any luck?” Cruz’s voice at Margie’s shoulder made her startle. She looked around at him, blowing out her breath.

  “You mind not sneaking up on me? Next time I might go for my gun.”

  He raised his brows, knowing full well that her gun was locked away while she was at her desk, the same as everyone else’s. It wasn’t really much of a threat. Margie shook her head.

  “Working on it. Fitting together one piece of the puzzle at a time.”

  “You think this kid had anything to do with it?” He indicated the screen.

  Margie took a deep breath, studying the young man on the monitor as if it were the first time she had seen him. “I really don’t. What reason would he have to be involved with someone like Robinson? An adult. A welder. Not the kind of person he would have hung out with. No sign that it was robbery or drugs. A random attack? It’s possible, but I don’t think so.”

  “But you’re still going to track him down.”

  “Of course.”

  Cruz nodded. “Have fun.”

  “You’re welcome to take a video any time you like. I don’t mean to hog all of the fun stuff.”

  He grinned. “No, no, you’re the new one here. You should have the opportunity for as much investigative work as you want.” He straightened his shirt, a bold pink color that apparently was no threat to his manhood.

  “There’s plenty to go around. I promise.”

  “I’ve got other files to work. This is your first, so you can put your full attention into it,” he told her sagely, smiling but no longer joking. “See what you can dig up.”

  Margie went back to work trying to track the hoodie boy.

  After tracking the boy’s walk through the park, they needed more. He had not taken a vehicle into the park, but had walked in. Video from traffic cams, security surveillance, private householders, whatever they could get. That meant Margie and the other detectives getting out on the street to spot all of the cameras they could and to track him half a block at a time as they backtracked his arrival and then requesting the video from the owner. The footage taken in the daylight hours when he had arrived was much easier to see than the nighttime footage after he had left.

  More than once, she asked herself why she was doing it. They had a lot of people they hadn’t yet eliminated. She was working on them too. But the boy who had arrived on foot with his face hidden was suspicious. He wasn’t there with friends, wasn’t there to work out, and appeared to be intentionally hiding his face from the cameras or the other patrons of the park. What was he doing there?

  “Got him!” Jones said, banging her keyboard and sitting back in her chair.

  Margie looked over at her. “Got him?”

  “The boy. I have him coming out of a house.” Jones smiled like the cat who caught the canary, then gave Margie the address.

  “Shall we go check it out?” Margie suggested.

  “You want me to come?”

  “You’re the one who got the address. I think you should. Unless you don’t want to…”

  “Oh, I want to!” Jones pushed back from her desk. “Let’s do it.”

  Margie looked at her watch as they arrived at the house. It was afternoon and, if they were lucky, the boy would be home from school. Back in Forest Lawn, Christina would be getting on the bus. It would be half an hour before she was home. Hopefully, this boy’s school was within walking distance of his home. From what she had seen, though, the newer areas were farther away from schools. Or the boy might be one of the kids accessing online schooling during the pandemic and was therefore home during the day.

  She raised her hand and knocked loudly on the door. A good, authoritative knock. The kind that made people take notice instead of deciding that since they weren’t expecting any friends or deliveries, they would just ignore the door and hope that the salesperson or missionaries went on to the next house.

  In about half a minute, she could hear footsteps from within, and a man came to the door. Tall and skinny. Taller than the boy on the footage. Not a teenager. His skin was very dark, just as the boy’s had been reported to be. Margie decided to go with it.

  “We’re here looking for your son, is he home?” she asked.

  He looked confused. “My son?” Then he gave his head a little shake. “Oh. Yes. Abdul.”

  Abdul. Margie made a mental note of it. The man had a thick accent. She wasn�
�t sure where he was from. “Is Abdul home?”

  “No. He’s not back from school yet.” The man looked to the side as if studying something. “He is not working today, so he will probably be home in… about half an hour?”

  “Could we come in, please? We should probably talk to you before he gets home.”

  He looked down, frowning. Searching for a way to tell them no. He didn’t want the police in his house. He didn’t seem curious to know what they wanted with his son; he just wanted them to leave. Wanted a way to tell them to go. But after standing there silently for a few uncomfortable seconds, he stepped back and opened the door farther to allow them entrance.

  Margie and Jones stepped in. The living room was plainly furnished. An older couch and some easy chairs. A TV on a stand. A colorful tapestry hung on the wall, and another draped over the couch, but there were no paintings or prints. The man made a motion toward the couch. Margie looked around once more. She didn’t hear anyone else in the house. She didn’t see any sign of drugs, weapons, or anything else that raised red flags. She met Jones’s eyes to make sure she felt the same way and didn’t see any concerns there. They sat down.

  “What’s your last name?” Margie asked, pulling out her notepad and writing Abdul on a fresh page.

  “Paul.”

  “Paul is your last name?” she checked. “Not your first?”

  He nodded. “Sadiq is my first name.”

  “Sadiq Paul?” Margie spelled it out as she wrote it, and he nodded his agreement. But the way that his eyes stayed on her face, she wondered if she had spelled too fast and he was still trying to catch up with her. English was not his first language.

  “And is that Abdul’s last name too?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Abdul’s last name is James.”

  “Got it.” Margie wrote it down. “Did he take his mother’s name, then?”

  The man gave a shrug that Margie wasn’t sure how to interpret. Yes, it was his mother’s name? Or there was some other reason he had a different last name?

  “Can you tell me where Abdul was three nights ago?”

  “Three nights. He was here. He is always here. This is his home.”

  “Before bed,” Margie clarified. “Say, between school and bedtime. He wasn’t here the whole time.”

  “No. It takes time for him to get home from school. And some nights he works.” This time, Margie saw the schedule on the whiteboard he had been looking at previously. Her eyes went to the night of Robinson’s death. No shift was noted for Abdul. He should have been home.

  “Where would he have gone if he wasn’t working? He doesn’t come straight home.”

  “He comes home for supper. Always home for supper, if he’s not working.”

  “And then he goes out again after that?”

  “Sometimes,” Sadiq agreed.

  “Where does he go when he goes out again in the evening and he doesn’t have work?”

  “I don’t ask him. Sometimes, just walking around the neighborhood. Maybe to a friend’s house. Sometimes to the park.”

  “Fish Creek Park?”

  “Yes.” His head turned in the direction of the park. “It’s a good place to walk. To… reconnect with yourself after a long day.”

  “Do you go with him?”

  “No.” Sadiq shook his head firmly. “I don’t get in his way. He wants to walk alone.”

  “I see. So you don’t supervise him and you don’t ask him to account for where he has been.”

  Sadiq shook his head and didn’t offer any explanation. Maybe that was normal in the culture and background he came from. Many Indigenous parents let their children explore on their own and take care of themselves much more than their white counterparts. It taught interdependence with the land. Learning to live in harmony with others and the environment. Perhaps it was the same where this man came from. Margie wrote a few notes.

  “Maybe while we are waiting for Abdul to get home, we could see his room.”

  Sadiq didn’t move. Margie waited. He didn’t offer any objection or give permission. Margie cut her eyes toward Jones. Did his silence indicate consent? Could they go ahead and look for Abdul’s room, and if Sadiq didn’t object, take that as his consent to a search? Or at least to a look around at what was in plain sight? Jones grimaced, not offering her opinion one way or the other.

  Margie didn’t feel right about it. There was, if nothing more, a communication gap. She didn’t want to get herself in trouble for an illegal search and risk having important evidence thrown out.

  “Could we look at Abdul’s room?” she asked more plainly.

  Sadiq looked at her. At first, she thought he was going to shrug, still not understanding exactly what she wanted from him, and that shrug might be able to be taken as consent. But he didn’t shrug. He shook his head.

  “We can’t see Abdul’s room?” Jones pressed. “What are you trying to hide?”

  “It is not my place to give permission for you to see his room. That is his space. He can decide when he is here.”

  So they waited. Margie thought of more questions about Abdul and asked them here and there, but was no closer to understanding the situation of the father and son than she had been when he answered the door. Was there a wife and mother around? There didn’t seem to be. Had Abdul always been with Sadiq, or was it a recent development?

  “Where did you come here from?”

  Sadiq considered, not answering immediately. Was he worried they would judge him? Eventually, he decided to answer.

  “We are from the Sudan.”

  And then Abdul was there. Margie hadn’t even heard the door open and close, and Abdul was standing just a few feet away from her, the black hood pulled up over his head just as it had been when he had walked through the park. Maybe the permanent state of affairs. He had on a black bandana mask, pulled up high, so that when she looked into the depths of the hood, all she could see was the glitter of his eyes.

  “Abdul.” Margie got to her feet, and the boy took a couple of quick steps back. “No, it’s okay. We just wanted to talk to you.”

  He looked at his father and then back at Margie again. He pulled the bandana down to his neck, revealing fine features, midway between child and adult. Vulnerable and not yet the man’s face he would grow into. But no longer quite a child, either.

  “You are po-lice?” he asked in a soft voice, still high in pitch.

  Margie tried to make her nod as reassuring as possible. She didn’t want him running away. Kids tended to be anxious around the police even if they hadn’t done anything against the law. It was part of the mindset at that age.

  “Yes, we are both police detectives.” She was glad she had brought Jones instead of one of the male detectives. They would not be as threatening to Abdul. “My name is Detective Patenaude and this is Detective Jones. We wanted to ask you about your walk in the park the other day.”

  He studied Jones and then looked back at Margie. “What day? I walk in park many days.”

  “Three days ago. In the evening. You were there almost until closing time. Ten o’clock.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you remember?”

  A small shrug. A look around at his surroundings for confirmation that he was still safe in his own home. He sat down on the arm of Sadiq’s chair. He pulled back his hood, revealing short-cropped curly black hair. There were scars on his face. Not abuse, she didn’t think. Maybe a childhood accident. “I remember.”

  “I want you to think about whether you saw or heard anything unusual that night. Maybe… shouting or an argument? Somebody that you hadn’t seen at the park before or who scared you. Anything… that we might be interested in.”

  “What is this about?” Sadiq asked, his pronunciation overly precise. She was surprised that he hadn’t asked before. The police showed up at the door asking for his son and he didn’t even ask why?

  Margie didn’t answer him, but pulled out her tablet and selected a picture of Robinson.
Not a picture of his body, but the one from his driver’s license. She held it up for Abdul. “Did you see this man?”

  Abdul looked at it. He reached out tentatively and Margie handed it to him. He brought it close to his eyes, studying it. Was he supposed to wear glasses? When had he last had his vision checked? Maybe never. They were immigrants; maybe they hadn’t availed themselves of the province’s health services.

  After a while, Abdul handed the tablet back. “I have seen this man before. Other days.”

  “But not three days ago?”

  His shoulders lifted and fell. “I do not remember. That day?” He shook his head. “Maybe and maybe not. I know the face.”

  “Do you know his name? Have you ever stopped to talk to him?”

  Abdul’s eyes skittered away. “No,” he said in a low voice. “Why would I talk to him? What reason would he have to talk to me?”

  “The other day, when I was out in a park near my house walking my dog, another man who was walking his dog commented to me what a beautiful sunset it was. We talked for a few minutes, just about the sky and the park and what it was like to live in the neighborhood.” She let him think about that for a minute. “Maybe you had a conversation like that with Mr. Robinson.”

  “No. He never stops me to tell me it is a beautiful day.”

  Put like that, it did seem a little silly. A man and a woman of similar age might stop to chat, but a white man and a Black teenager?

  “You have a dog?” Abdul asked, showing interest in something for the first time.

  “Yes.” Margie smiled at him. “Would you like to see a picture?” She pulled out her phone, selected the photos app, and found one of Stella, mouth wide in a panting doggie grin as if she had been posing for the picture. She handed it over to Abdul.

  A little smile formed on his face. He touched the screen lightly as if he could introduce himself to Stella that way or reach through the screen to pet her. He swiped, looking at other photos. “Is this your daughter?”