Out with the Sunset

by P. D. Workman

  “Yes. She must be about your age. Are you fifteen? Sixteen?”

  “Fourteen,” he corrected. “I am very tall.”

  “Yes. You are tall for fourteen. Christina is fifteen.” Margie reached over and took the phone out of his hands. He didn’t need to be looking through the rest of her pictures. It wasn’t like she had taken pictures of anything private or inappropriate. Or had crime scene photos on it. She just didn’t think he needed to be looking at pictures of her life. They were there to talk about him. His life, and how Jerry Robinson’s life had ended.

  Abdul’s hands fell to his lap and stayed there. He didn’t fidget. He just watched them. Margie couldn’t imagine this frail-looking fourteen-year-old having a fight with Robinson. Physical or verbal. He was shy and uncertain. He wouldn’t have a reason to approach Robinson. He said they had never talked.

  He didn’t appear to have any concern about talking about being in the park that night. He probably hadn’t even heard that there had been a death. If Sadiq had read about it in the paper or online, maybe he had hidden it from Abdul, deciding that he didn’t need to be upset by it. But Margie suspected Sadiq didn’t even read the news. It wouldn’t be relaxing for him to read it in a language other than his native tongue.

  “The reason that we’re asking questions is that man I showed you died that night.”

  Abdul’s eyes got wide. “He died?”

  “Yes. He was killed.”

  Abdul looked at her for a moment as if trying to translate what she had said. Maybe he was. Perhaps the shades of meaning between he died and he was killed hadn’t occurred to him before and needed some thought.

  “Somebody killed him?” Abdul asked. “He not just…” He clutched at his chest, miming before he found the words. “Heart attack?”

  “That’s right. Somebody killed him.”

  “Was he shot?” Sadiq asked.

  Margie shook her head. She looked at Abdul, waiting for his reaction. Watching for any recollection in his eyes of something that had happened that day. He looked at his father, considering his words, and then back at Margie again.

  “That is very bad,” he said. “But I do not know who hurt him.”

  He looked directly at her with his wide, brown eyes, and Margie did not sense any deception.

  Chapter Nine

  Back at the office, Margie and Jones huddled with the other detectives who were there.

  “I don’t think it’s the kid,” Margie said. She looked at Jones. “Do you concur?”

  Jones nodded slowly. “He didn’t strike me as being guilty or evasive. Shy, yes, and feeling his way through things. He’s clearly a recent immigrant, still learning the language and the culture.”

  “Is he in a gang?” Cruz asked. “That black hoodie has me wondering. Just what is he trying to hide? You know that one of the reasons bangers wear loose clothing is to hide weapons. And the hoods hide people’s faces, make it harder for them to identify. You’re sure that’s not what’s going on here? Sometimes immigrants band together for safety.”

  “He’s probably cold,” Jones said. “If he came here from an African country, then he’s probably freezing, even when we would consider it warm. And at nightfall, it gets quite chilly. Under ten. I don’t like to go out without a hoodie at that time.”

  “He was wearing a face mask,” Margie said. “And that could indicate that he’s trying to hide his identity… or just that he’s following the rules for when he is at school or on the bus. He did take it off when we introduced ourselves.”

  “No suspicious behavior?” Cruz challenged. “You know that these kids can be pretty glib. They’ve always got a story, a disarming smile. They don’t necessarily act like the hoods you see on TV.”

  “Not my first rodeo,” Margie sighed. “I’ve dealt with plenty of gang kids in Manitoba. I don’t think they’re that different here. I didn’t see any sign that he was affiliated with a gang or might have any sort of freelance drug business.”

  “And the father? It could be the parents. They need something to stay solvent. They get the kids to traffic, but it’s really the parents who are the problem.”

  “No. Nothing that gave me any clue that there were illegal drugs. Or fencing or any other kind of illegal or quasi-legal side hustle I can think of. They appear to be new immigrants, just trying to start a new life for themselves.”

  Cruz nodded slowly. “Okay. So you’re pretty sure that the kid didn’t have anything to do with it. Too bad, I liked the dark hooded suspect. So it’s back to the drawing board. We still have a few people we haven’t been able to identify. A couple of cyclists. They would be able to get away from the scene more quickly. They could have gotten there from another part of the city, farther afield. Who else is on your suspicious persons list?”

  “We have more people still on it than have been eliminated,” Margie admitted. “I’ll spend some time tomorrow trying to establish any connections between them and Robinson.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Mac contributed. He had remained silent up until that point. “I think we have as much from the video as we are going to get right now. We might have to review some footage down the line, but we only have a limited number of suspects. Like one of those closed-room mysteries. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out who had a grudge against Robinson.”

  “In those mysteries, everyone has a grudge,” Margie said. “There is always a secret lover, an illegitimate baby, an angry business partner, a spy…”

  “Then we’d better get to it,” MacDonald said. “Or Inspector Poirot will beat us to it.” He looked at his watch. “Tomorrow. Get a good sleep tonight and start fresh.”

  “Can we check out that park today?” Christina asked as Margie slid on her shoes to take Stella out for a walk. “You know, the one with the pond,” Christina reminded her, when Margie just looked at her blankly, trying to figure out if Christina meant she wanted to go to Fish Creek Park. “The one that Grouch guy told us about?”

  “Oh!” Recollection started to return. “You mean… Oscar. The one with the dog, Milo.”

  “Yeah, Oscar.” Christina giggled at her mistake. “That’s what I meant. He said there was a park over there, by the viewing platform. Across the street.”

  “Okay. Sure. We can check it out. We don’t have a lot of time before it gets dark, though, so we won’t be able to stay and explore for long.”

  “Yay!” Christina slid on a pair of sandals. “I didn’t know there was a waterpark so close. That will be nice when it’s hot out.”

  Margie nodded her agreement and snapped the leash onto Stella’s collar. “Okay, girl! Let’s go! Let’s go walkie.”

  Margie was cautiously optimistic. Christina seemed to be in better spirits today. Margie didn’t ask whether Christina had had a good day at school or whether she had made some new friends. Questions like that just seemed to irritate the girl and remind her that she was supposed to be sullen and angry about the move. So they just walked, laughed at Stella’s antics, looked at the houses and the other people enjoying the pathway, and talked about other things. When Christina was ready to talk about her classes or her friends, she would.

  At the viewing platform, they turned and used the crosswalk across to the other side, to what a chiseled-rock sign declared to be Valleyview Park. They walked to the top of a little hill, looked down at the pond, at the playground enclosed in a fence, and the field and sand courts beyond it.

  “I was expecting… like, waterslides.” Christina’s disappointment was evident. “Not just a little kids’ splash park.”

  “I’m sorry. I had no idea what it would be like. I guess this is what passes for a waterpark in the hood,” Margie said, hoping to raise a smile.

  Christina rolled her eyes. “Well… let’s at least walk around the pond.”

  There were soccer goals in the open field next to the pond. “This would be a good place to throw the ball around,” Margie observed. “I don’t want to do it over by the ditch, for fear
Stella would run right off of the edge and hurt herself. But lots of space over there and away from any traffic.”

  “It would be good for balls or Frisbee,” Christina agreed. She scratched Stella’s ears. “Next time, we’ll play here for a while.”

  They nodded and smiled at other people walking around the pond or sitting on the benches nearby. There were walkers, kids on tiny bikes, and an old man on an electric scooter who smiled and talked to everyone who approached him. Margie was enjoying the friendliness of Calgary. She was glad that she had taken the job there.

  As they walked back home, Margie talked about Abdul. Not by name, of course, and not in connection with the Fish Creek Park murder. Just casually as a boy that she had talked to that day. She folded her arms, cuddling her sweatshirt closer, remembering how Jones had suggested Abdul was probably always cold after coming from a warmer climate.

  “It would be a lot worse coming from Sudan than from Winnipeg,” Christina admitted, staring off at the city skyline as they walked the path along Twenty-sixth Street toward home. “I mean… I’m looking forward to the Chinooks. To the winters being a lot easier than in Manitoba. And it would be like… a totally different culture. I might not have any friends here yet, but at least I know how things work, and what to expect at school and all that. Could he even read when he came here?”

  “I have no idea. They didn’t say he was in any special program at school, but I didn’t ask, either. It was clear that English was not his native language.”

  “Ugh. I can’t imagine having to learn a whole new language. Thanks for not moving to… Germany or something like that. Or Norway. It’s cold there, right?”

  “Yes, it gets cold there.”

  “I’m glad we stayed in Canada. Having to deal with all of that other stuff… that would be a lot harder.”

  Margie was glad to see that Christina could see she hadn’t had it as bad as some people did. She really was a good girl. It was just hard to stay focused on everything she had to be grateful for.

  They walked along in silence for a few minutes.

  “Hey, there’s the guy again. Milo and…?”

  “Oscar.” Margie waved as they got closer. “Hi, Oscar.”

  The dogs sniffed each other and pranced around. “Enjoying the weather?” Oscar asked.

  “May as well enjoy it while we can. It’s not going to last forever.” Even though Margie was a little chilly in just a hoodie, she knew better than to complain about it. A few more weeks, and there would be snow on the ground and much lower temperatures.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Oscar agreed. “There’s no keeping winter from coming.”

  And would business slow down with the cold weather? Margie knew that it wouldn’t. Cold weather didn’t stop people from killing each other. It might help with hiding bodies until the next melt, but people who were forced to live inside at close quarters tended to get on each other’s nerves. And when they got into the pre-Christmas season, then not only would the murder rate go up due to the stress and other crazy stuff that happened around the holidays, but so would the suicide rate. And suicides were investigated by the homicide department. It would be a busy time—Christmas, New Year, and then the long, cold, interminable nights of February. Margie couldn’t suppress a little shudder. Christina looked at her but didn’t say anything.

  They talked for a few more minutes with Oscar and Milo before returning home.

  Chapter Ten

  Margie would be glad to get home after a long day in front of her computer. Her time had been broken up with various phone calls and emails to follow up on possible leads, ask some more questions, and to establish either alibis for Robinson’s murder or connections with him. Computer databases, web searches, talking to neighbors, Robinson’s coworkers, and anyone who might be identified as friends. He seemed to have lived a pretty solitary life, and finding even tentative connections was a slog.

  By the end of it, she felt like her brain had been wrung out. Her nerves and her emotions were raw. She needed to get home to her daughter and Stella, to spend some time outside in the fresh air and to move around and get some exercise. She had known that there would be a lot of desk work associated with homicide work. That just went with the territory.

  As she put her office tools away into the drawers, she tried to mentally do the same with the day’s stresses and worries. A ceremonial laying aside of her work life. She would try not to take any burdens home with her, but to go home lighter and happier.

  She plugged her phone into the car stereo and tapped a few times to bring up her de-stress playlist. A broadly-ranging combination of Métis fiddlers, classic rock, and rap to help exorcise the demons of the office.

  The rest of the week, she had managed to get home before Christina, but this time the front door was unlocked and she knew she had worked too late. She glanced at her watch before entering.

  “Hi, honey. Sorry to be so long today. How was school?”

  There was no answer. Christina wasn’t in the living room or kitchen. Margie went down the hallway to peek in Christina’s door to see if she was doing her homework with her headphones on.

  Christina wasn’t in her bedroom. Margie’s stomach clenched. She looked back toward the front door. She was sure she had locked it that morning. Christina was home. She wouldn’t still be at school or on the bus that late. Christina had arrived home and had unlocked the door.

  Margie continued down the hall to the bathroom, but the door stood ajar and it was clear that Christina was not there either.

  “Christina? Are you here?”

  Margie exited the hall into the kitchen.

  “Christina?”

  She heard a volley of barks from Stella in the backyard and blew out her breath in a sigh of relief. Of course, Christina had just taken Stella outside.

  Then there was a shrill shriek of fear or alarm. Margie ran to the back door and out into the yard.

  “Christina? What is it?”

  Christina ran to her, colliding on the step and putting her arms around Margie.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Christina made a sobbing, choking noise. Margie looked for Stella, worried that she had run out of the yard and been hit by a car in the back lane. But Stella was standing in the middle of the back yard, looking happy and relaxed, not understanding why her young master was upset. Margie didn’t get it either. She pushed Christina away from her to look at her face.

  “Christina! Talk to me!”

  Christina shook her head. “No, it’s okay,” she said, even though her expression was still distressed. She seemed unable to say anything else to explain herself.

  Margie hugged her, pulling her close again and holding Christina firmly to try to convey strength and calm to her. Christina sniffled a few times and then pulled back.

  “It’s fine. I’m okay. Everything is fine,” she again reassured Margie.

  “Okay. Take a deep breath and then tell me what happened.”

  “Come.” Christina stepped back and gave Margie’s arm a little tug to encourage her to follow. She walked across the yard toward Stella. Stella started to bound around excitedly, wanting to play or show off about something. Christina pointed to a clump of leaves on the grass.

  Margie took a closer look and saw that it wasn’t a clump of sod and dead brown grass, but the body of a dead squirrel.

  “Oh.” Margie sighed. “It’s okay. I’ll just get rid of it.”

  Christina made a face. “I thought it was just some twigs. I was going to pick up a stick to throw for Stella, and then I realized…” She gagged. “Ugh. I almost picked it up!”

  And that had given her quite a start.

  “Try not to keep visualizing it,” Margie advised. “If you can distract yourself with other things, it won’t be saved as such a vivid memory. The less you think about it, the faster it will fade.”

  Christina ran her hands over her face as if trying to wipe it away. “Will you…?” She made a motion tow
ard the squirrel.

  “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you get started on some dinner? Just let me grab some paper towel first so that I won’t be in your way.”

  They went back into the house. Margie called Stella in. She didn’t want the dog to get in the way while she was trying to deal with the squirrel. Especially if Stella thought it was some new game for her and tried to take the squirrel back away from her.

  “You stay in here,” she told Stella sternly. “Go lie down. I’ll get you a treat when I come back in.”

  “Mom?”

  Margie looked at Christina.

  “You don’t think… Stella didn’t kill it, did she?”

  “No, I’m sure she didn’t,” Margie assured her. “She likes to chase squirrels, but she’s never caught one. I don’t think she’d have any idea what to do with it if she did.”

  “Yeah.” Christina’s face relaxed, her relief clear. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  She turned to the cupboard to look for something to make for supper. Margie went back outside with her handful of paper towels. She approached the squirrel’s corpse with trepidation.

  Which was pretty funny, considering what she did for a living. Why should she be anxious about a dead squirrel? She, who dealt with dead people all day long? A dead squirrel wasn’t even going to hold a candle to the horrors of murdered men, women, and children that she had seen and would yet see in the future.

  She picked it up in the paper towel. She had planned to just throw it straight into the green bin without looking at it, but she heard Christina’s question in her mind and had to make sure that Stella could not have killed it. If she had, they would have to make sure that she was not allowed outside on her own. She would always have to be supervised until they were sure that she wasn’t a squirrel-killer.

  The body was stiff. Not a fresh kill. Margie squinted at it, looking for bite marks. Looking for the injury that had killed it. There were many ways a squirrel could die. It could have eaten poisoned mouse bait. It could have been electrocuted running on one of the power lines. It could have been hit by a car, killed by a cat or another dog. How it got into her yard was another story. But an animal could have dragged it there. A person walking down the back lane could have picked it up and thrown it over the fence. Why, she didn’t quite know, but it was possible. People were highly unpredictable.