Dark Water Under the Bridge

by P. D. Workman

  “Where did I go?” Margie wasn’t sure what he meant. “Umm… I’ve just been here in Calgary. I went to work.”

  “No park this week? You were telling me all about that big park last time.”

  “Oh. No, I haven’t been out to Glenbow Park again yet. I want to take you and Christina and Stella out there soon. When it’s a nice day. We can take a tour. They have golf cart tours, so you don’t have to walk and we don’t have to push your wheelchair up the hill.”

  “I’m light.”

  “It’s a big hill!”

  “Who is Stella?” Moushoom studied her. “You only have one daughter.”

  “Stella is our dog.”

  “Oh, yes,” Moushoom nodded and chuckled. “She is the dog. You didn’t bring her?”

  “Not today. I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to bring her into the building or if you would want to go out today.”

  “You can bring her into the building. Some of the people there have dogs of their own.”

  “Great! We’ll bring her next time, then.”

  They walked for a few minutes in silence.

  “I did go to a different park this week,” Margie offered. “Have you ever heard of Ralph Klein Park?”

  He shook his head. “Another new one? I remember Ralph Klein. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. That’s probably why they named a park after him. They don’t usually do it while the person is still alive.”

  “Is it a good park?”

  “Umm… I didn’t get to explore it much. It’s not big, like Glenbow or Fish Creek.”

  “It has water,” Christina offered. “Mom was saying that it is a wetlands park, so it has a bunch of ponds and streams.”

  “Wetlands are good,” Moushoom said, licking his lips. “The white man destroyed too many of them. Why they think it’s a good idea to wipe out the natural habitat and replace it with concrete, I’ll never understand.” He motioned to the development around them. In a minute, they would be onto the pathway beside the irrigation canal, and he would be much happier. Even though it was only a narrow strip of land, it was better than being surrounded by concrete and buildings. And on a good day, they could look out past the city to the mountains. There was too much smoke in the air for them to see anything today. But hopefully, it would dissipate in the next few days.

  “One of the girls is afraid of water,” Moushoom said. “Which girl is that?” He turned his head to look at Christina, pushing his chair. “Is it you?”

  “No.” Christina smiled at him. “It’s Mom.”

  “You?” Moushoom looked at Margie. “Is it you? I couldn’t remember.”

  “Yes,” Margie admitted. Her face got warm, but between her complexion and the dimming light, she didn’t think he would be able to tell she was embarrassed. “It’s me. I know it’s silly, but it’s not by choice.”

  “We don’t get to choose what we fear,” Moushoom agreed. “We can choose how to behave in the face of our fears, but we do not get to pick our fears.”

  Margie nodded.

  “You are not limited by your fears,” Moushoom went on. “You live a full life.”

  Was it an observation or a command? Was he pleased that she didn’t let her fear limit her, or was he telling her not to?

  “I try to,” she told him.

  “Good.” He reached out to pat her hand, then looked on ahead toward the green space, his expression softening, mouth going slightly slack. She didn’t try to draw him into conversation, letting him think about whatever it was he was remembering or imagining.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Margie felt relaxed and clearheaded the next morning as she drove in to work. She was glad she had listened to Mac and put her work aside for the night. The time with Christina and Moushoom, and later on her own without any agenda, had helped. She had slept well and woke up feeling like a new person.

  She listened to a classic rock station on the way downtown, enjoying the music and ignoring the DJs’ chatter. Other days, when she was stressed, she couldn’t stand to hear their drivel.

  Margie was energized by her morning coffee and dove into her work, quickly reviewing her notes from the day before and any new information that had been uploaded into the workspace for the case. Not a lot had been done since the time she had left, which was probably good because overworking the lab or medical examiner’s office was not a good idea either. Everybody deserved to get their rest.

  Her eyes were on her computer screen and she didn’t look to see who was calling before answering the ringing phone.

  “Detective Patenaude.”

  “Detective! This is Carol Roscoe.” Patty’s mother’s voice was high-pitched. She sounded panicked.

  Margie winced. If Dr. Galt had issued his official identification of Patty Roscoe, as Margie assumed that he had, then she was going to have to inform Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe that their daughter was dead, as they had feared. Or maybe Mrs. Roscoe already knew. Had someone else informed her? Or had the news been leaked, and she had found out on social media or the morning news? She was definitely not in the same place emotionally as she had been the day before.

  “Mrs. Roscoe. I’m glad you called,” she said, in a voice intended to soothe Mrs. Roscoe. Half of the battle was making a caller feel heard. She would find out the reason Mrs. Roscoe had called and, hopefully, leave her in a better place than she had found her.

  “I got an email,” Mrs. Roscoe said, her voice wild, cracking up and down like an adolescent’s. “An email from Patty!”

  Margie blinked, staring at the screen in front of her and trying to figure out if she had heard correctly. “I’m sorry. You got an email about Patty?”

  “No, from Patty. I got an email from Patty.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible, Mrs. Roscoe.”

  “I did!”

  “What does it say?”

  “There is a video recording attached. A video of Arabella.”

  Arabella. It took a couple of seconds for Margie to remember that was one of Patty’s daughters. The older one, if she remembered correctly.

  “So did this email come from Arabella?” Margie queried. “Have you ever gotten anything from the girls before?”

  “You need to listen to it. Something has happened to Patty. Something… I knew that Scott was no good. I told you. I told Patty. She always said that I was wrong and he was perfectly good to her, but I knew she wasn’t telling me the truth. He was mean and manipulative. He kept her from me.”

  Mrs. Roscoe seemed to be forgetting the fact that she was the one who had cut off communications from Patty.

  “I would be happy to listen to it. Do you want to forward it to me? I’ll give you my email address.”

  Mrs. Roscoe covered up the phone to talk to someone else, her voice going muffled. Margie could still just make her words out. “Do you know how to forward this?”

  “What’s the address?” Mr. Roscoe answered.

  “She’s going to give it to me.”

  The phone was taken from her. “Detective?” Mr. Roscoe asked.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “What’s your email address? Am I supposed to send this to you?”

  “Yes, if you could.” Margie gave him her email address as slowly and clearly as she could.

  “Okay, I’m sending it to you now.” There was a click, and Mr. Roscoe was gone.

  Margie shook her head. She pressed the Send/Receive button on her email client and waited to see if it would appear. He might have taken her address down wrong. Or pushed the wrong button and it was still sitting in his drafts folder. Or it might just be taking time to process, if it had a video attached. As much as she expected email to be instantaneous, she knew that it still took time to get from one place to another.

  She clicked Send/Receive again and waited.

  The third time she refreshed, a bolded message appeared in her inbox. Margie double-clicked it, and then clicked on the video attachment.

  The picture wa
s fuzzy, the little girl too close to the device and not pointing it directly at herself. She was talking to herself in a whisper. Margie turned it up, plugged in earphones, and rewound to start it over again. She leaned toward the computer as if that might make the picture and words clearer.

  “Mommy said do Gramma’s picture,” Arabella whispered. “The red button then the Gramma button. Send a message.”

  Margie blinked, watching it. Did Arabella have Patty’s phone? An iPod of her own? A burner phone for emergency calls? Arabella was clearly talking herself through whatever instructions her mother had given her previously.

  Arabella looked up, away from the phone, listening or watching something else. Her face came into focus for a few seconds. There were tears on her face. Red blotches. Her pudgy fist wiped away some of the tear tracks. Her nose blew a snot bubble. There was background noise. Margie turned the system volume up as far as it would go. She could hear voices in the background. Two voices, a man and a woman. The TV? Scott Warner and a visitor in another room? Margie tried to make out the words, but could only catch a phrase here and there. There was a crashing noise that drowned everything else out, screaming that made the hair on the back of Margie’s neck stand on end, and Arabella’s hands both flew up to her face, the camera getting buried in the blankets of her bed. There was a male voice shouting, Arabella crying softly to herself, and then the video ended.

  Margie stared at the end frame in confusion.

  “Detective Siever?” She called across the duty room to him. He looked up from his screen.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I… I…” Margie stared at her screen, trying to form the question in her mind. She shook her head. “Can you help me with something?”

  He got up from his desk, exhaling noisily. His chair creaked as he pushed himself to his feet. “Yeah? What is it?” he asked as he approached her desk.

  “This video… it doesn’t make any sense. Is it possible that… could that be Patty Roscoe in the background?”

  “I thought the ME had a positive identification on her.”

  “Me too. That’s why… I’m not sure I understand what’s going on here.”

  He bent over and pressed play on the video. Margie switched it from her headphones to the external speaker. The bullpen quieted around them as everybody listened. Margie was even more sure the second time. It had to be Patty and her husband in the background. Arguing, and then… was it possible they had a recording of the murder?

  “Where did this come from?” Siever asked.

  “It came from Patty’s mother. She said she got it in an email from Patty. The little girl recorded it.”

  “And then she didn’t send it until today,” Siever said. “Or else the device didn’t have a connection until today, so it was sitting in the queue waiting.”

  “Is there any way to tell when the video was recorded?”

  Using her mouse and leaning over Margie’s shoulder, the other detective clicked around, examining the email and the attached file.

  “I’m going to send it to forensics and get them to look at it,” he said. “But it looks like it was recorded a few days ago.”

  “The day of the murder?”

  His eyes went to the stand-up calendar on Margie’s desk, counting through the days. He nodded. “Yes.”

  Margie swore under her breath. “That poor girl. No wonder Warner didn’t want us talking to them. Did he know that Arabella overheard them?”

  “Even if he didn’t, they would have known their mother had been home the night before. That his story of her never coming home was a lie. Now, a few days later, he’s covered. A little girl that young isn’t going to be able to tell us which day she saw her mother last. And even if she could, he could just say she was confused.”

  “This is enough to arrest him. I’ll let MacDonald know.” She looked at her watch. “Warner will be at his workplace. That’s good. We can arrest him while he is away from the girls, no chance of him taking them hostage.”

  “Have them picked up from the daycare.”

  “Yes,” Margie agreed. “They can go to the grandparents, at least initially. Oh, I’d better call them back. Poor Mrs. Roscoe is in a state.”

  “I would be too,” Jones contributed from where she was sitting at her desk.

  “Yeah.” Margie tried not to think about the sound of Patty’s scream. The more she reviewed it, the stronger it would be in her memory. She needed to stay focused on her next actions rather than what she had heard and the emotional impact. Compartmentalize and not think about how this was going to affect the Roscoe family and the little girls. “Me too.”

  She got up and walked over to MacDonald’s office in the corner. His door was closed, and she hadn’t noticed whether he was in or not. She pulled out her phone and called Mrs. Roscoe back while she tried to peer through MacDonald’s blinds to see whether he was in.

  “Mrs. Roscoe?”

  The woman cried on the other end, not managing to get out anything coherent.

  “You don’t have to talk right now,” Margie told her. “I’m just letting you know that I got the email and have watched the video. We’re going to take action on it right away. We’ll arrest Scott Warner. We’re going to pick the girls up from their daycare. Are you home, and are you prepared to take them for a few days?”

  Mrs. Roscoe sobbed and managed a shaky “Yes.”

  “Okay. We’ll talk later.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Margie hung up and slid the phone back into her pocket. She knocked on MacDonald’s door, looking into the bullpen at the other detectives. “Is he in? I wasn’t paying attention earlier.”

  She was answered by MacDonald’s voice from within. “Come in.”

  Margie opened the door and stuck her head in. Mac was sitting at his desk, phone in hand, muffling the receiver against his shoulder.

  “Detective Patenaude. A break in the case?”

  “Yes. It was the husband. We have enough for an arrest.”

  His eyebrows went way up. “What did you find?” They certainly hadn’t been expecting to come across any evidence that would be that decisive.

  “One of the little girls recorded a video the night of the murder. You can hear the parents arguing in the background. Hear a physical altercation and Patty screaming.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily establish murder. There might have been any number of fights.”

  “I think… when you hear the video, you will agree. Detective Siever is forwarding it to forensics, and they’ll verify the data on when it was recorded to make sure it lines up with the time of death. But even before they do that, we have enough to bring him in. It proves that, at the very least, he was physically abusive.”

  “If you can establish that it’s him on the video. Does his face appear?”

  “No. But you can hear them in the background. I recognize his voice.”

  MacDonald nodded. “Okay. Bring him in for questioning. We’ll get the details on the video verified as soon as possible.”

  “Great. Will do. And we’re going to have the girls picked up from the daycare; they can stay with their grandma for the time being.”

  But when she returned to the duty room, Jones shook her head grimly.

  “They’re not at the daycare. Warner didn’t bring them in today.”

  Margie looked at her phone to verify that it wasn’t the weekend. “Why didn’t he take them to daycare today? That means… they’re with him. He must not have work today.”

  The other detectives on the team gathered closer to work it through.

  “He’s not making funeral arrangements,” Margie said, thinking aloud, “because we haven’t informed him that we have an ID yet. He has to pretend he doesn’t know she’s dead.”

  “So he’s taking a personal day,” Cruz said. “What husband wouldn’t take a day or two off when his wife goes missing? It would look suspicious if he didn’t.”

  Margie nodded. “Then he’s at home. Do you thin
k?” She was worried about the video. What if he found out about it from Arabella? What if Mr. Roscoe decided to go over there to confront him? Now that they knew without a doubt that Warner was the killer, Margie was afraid something was going to go wrong before they could take him into custody. “Do you think he’s just at home? Having a lazy day with the kids?”

  The detectives looked at each other. Margie was sure they were going through scenarios in their heads, just as she was.

  “Cleaning up, maybe,” Siever suggested. “Going over the floor with bleach another time. Making sure that anything that got broken during the fight has been disposed of. And whatever he used as a bludgeon. He’s got to know that we’ll want to search the house once we have identified her.”

  “I’ll call him,” Margie decided. “I’ll let him know that we’ve identified the body of his wife. We should be able to tell by the background noise whether he’s at home or somewhere else.”

  No one disagreed with her suggestion. He had to be notified anyway. It wasn’t going to come as a surprise, though they’d see how good an actor he was when he heard about it and faked a breakdown.

  Margie sat back down at her desk and picked up her phone. She breathed a few times, slowing her respiration and distancing herself from the situation. It was just a notification. She’d done dozens of them before. She was able to separate herself from it emotionally. It was her job to figure out where he was. She needed to be able to make a snap judgment.

  She hit the speakerphone button before placing the call so that the others would be able to hear too. More ears were better. Warner might be able to tell that she had him on speaker, but he was going to have to deal with that. She tapped in his number and waited for him to pick up.

  All she got was a long period of ringing, followed by his voicemail.

  “We’d better get over there,” Margie said, hanging up. She didn’t want to rush into anything, but the thought of the murderer with two young children in the house set her heart thumping at a much faster speed than usual. “Maybe he’s just ignoring my call, or washing the floor like Siever says, but those children are defenseless. I have to make sure they’re okay.”