by Sky Curtis
“My point. Who uses a clipboard? Only assholes. Plus, it was an HB yellow pencil, the kind with an eraser. He’d chewed the eraser and the metal band holding it in place had bite marks in it.”
“Maybe the bear did that.”
“Robin. Now who’s being stupid?”
“I can’t believe we’re arguing about this when there’s a dead body in the woods.”
“A carcass. And most people use those clicky pencils now, the ones with the long leads. HB pencils went out with the dodo bird, right after clipboards. Speaking of birds, why are there no vultures swooping around?”
“I saw three large black birds over the forest earlier. Maybe they were turkey vultures.”
“Are we almost back at the cottage yet?”
We’d been walking for some time. I was shivering, even though the day had warmed up. “Two more steps.” I parted the last branches and walked into the clearing.
Cindy dusted herself off and pulled her bug hat off her head, shaking out her red frizz. “It’s unbelievable how thick the woods are. It’s like night and day. One minute you’re in complete shade and the next, ta-dah,” she twirled, “out in the open.”
I marched on ahead, my shoes leaving behind damp imprints in the yellowed grass. The ground was still sodden with winter melt. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and cupped my hand over it to create shade so I could see if I had a signal. “Three bars! Pretty good. Do I call nine-one-one or the station?” Cindy was the expert on matters like this.
“The station. This is hardly an emergency where time is of the essence.”
The image of the headless torso floated across my retina and I thought I was going to gag again. “You call.”
“Do you have the station number?”
I had the number because some yahoos across the lake had been singing at the top of their lungs well into the night last summer. It was me who wrecked their fun. The number was saved into my contacts under “police/yahoos,” in the event I had to call again. I read it out to her.
We stood in the sunshine and brushed away flies while she talked to an officer at the station, her phone pressed against the edge of her chin. I heard her say “body parts” and felt bile flooding my mouth. Then she said she was sure it was human. And then she huffed and said that coyotes don’t wear jackets. She looked at me to check her accuracy as she gave the address to the cottage and told them we’d be waiting inside. I could tell that they wanted directions straight to the body because she was insisting that the trail was complicated or non-existent and she would have to take them. She looked pretty satisfied as she tucked her phone into her back pocket.
“Why didn’t you tell them how to get to the body? All they would have to do is follow the orange tape tied around the trees.”
“Robin, Robin, Robin. How am I ever going to make a crime reporter out of you? If I told them where the body was, then I wouldn’t be able to go with them. I am a crime reporter and the opportunity to get inside a crime scene is a rare and happy event.”
The flies were beginning to bother me. I grabbed her arm. “Anyway, let’s get inside and wait. I’m going to go too, so I can show them exactly where I puked.” I dragged her a few steps. “Hey, wait a minute, you said ‘crime scene.’ Have you changed your mind?”
She shrugged. “It will make them come faster. But I think the guy got attacked because he was an idiot.”
“I don’t. Bears don’t do that. They are scared of people. So, who knows why he attacked.”
“He? Maybe it was a she-bear and the guy got between her and her cubs. I hear that can be a big no-no.”
She was right. Maybe that was all it was. A mother protecting her babies. It was spring, bear breeding season, after all. Or maybe not. I still couldn’t understand it. “I wonder who the man was.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, just another asshole with a clipboard.”
I rolled my eyes. She was so jaded.
As we neared the cottage, I could see Lucky standing at the screen door, wagging his little tail madly, his whole body wriggling back and forth. I opened the door carefully so he wouldn’t get out and grabbed his collar as Cindy was coming in behind me.
“Here, you go sit down. I’ll make some tea.” She put on the kettle. “We can drink the water here, right? You look like you need some peppermint tea to settle your stomach.”
I walked through the kitchen but not before taking the plastic spray bottle that I had found in the woods out of my pocket. It had a little repellent left, maybe a spray worth, so I put it on the windowsill next to the other one.
“Yes, we have a good well. We aren’t drinking lake water here. And yes, I could use some tea. Thanks, Cindy.” The taste of vomit lingered in my mouth. The room tilted to one side.
“I’d make a good husband.”
I tried my best to laugh. Suddenly I wasn’t feeling very well. This was all too much for me, a mild Home and Garden reporter. I wrote about decorating, not death. Was this a normal death? It didn’t feel right to me. Maybe no death did. But I wondered if I should call Ralph. No, I didn’t need a big strong man to save me. I perched against the door frame and closed my eyes, waiting for the room to stop spinning.
7.
I WATCHED CINDY SCOOP OUT some peppermint tea from a mason jar into a pot. The water in the kettle seemed to rustle like dead leaves as it began to simmer. I held on to the counter with my right hand, trying to steady myself. I felt as if a deep freeze had entered my soul, turning it into a block of ice. There was a buzzing in my ears and my eyesight seemed to be blotchy one minute and then super clear the next. It was so weird. At first, I saw everything in high definition. The edges of objects were so distinct, almost as if outlined in black marker. And then, broad swaths of what I was looking at would vanish. I staggered into the family room, leaving Cindy to make the tea.
The cottage living room swayed and tilted like a boat on choppy seas. I pitched myself onto the corduroy-covered couch under the window and sank like a leaking vessel into the pillows. Lucky leapt up onto the couch beside me and leaned his warm body against mine, putting his nose into my neck. How did dogs always know? I absent-mindedly scratched his soft head, swirling the fur under my fingertips.
The images I had seen in the forest flickered across the movie screen of my retina. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. This was nothing like the other dead body I’d been up close and personal with. That one was a piece of cake compared to this guy. My very first dead body was lying on a bed. No blood. No gore. No severed limbs. He was neatly dressed, looking like he’d settled down for a nap after work. Most importantly, his head was attached to his body. He still had skin. I felt my stomach constrict.
Would I puke all over the newly laundered couch cover? Andrew would have a fit.
Maybe I shouldn’t have anything to drink. I could see myself, hurling my mint tea all over the police officers when they arrived. What would I say? “After-dinner mint, anyone?” My chest shuddered and I felt colder and colder. I looked down and it felt like my entire body belonged to someone else. Then, Lucky licked my face and I came back.
Cindy came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. Mine, I guessed, was the heavy clay mug, glazed with a picture of a moose. Hers, I deduced, was the rainbow-festooned porcelain cup. She looked at me, one eyebrow arched. “You okay?”
“I feel kind of funny, like I’m dreaming, only I’m very cold.”
“Oh, that. Don’t worry. You’re in shock. It will go away. Here’s a blanket.”
She picked up one of the quilts that Andrew had neatly folded over the arm of the couch and shook it out. “Drink your tea. You’ll feel better in a minute.”
Her brisk words belied her gentle approach as she gently lay the quilt over my shaking body, covering me all the way up to my chin. This side of Cindy was a rare sight to behold. The Cindy I knew was relentless in her
aggressive search for a story. She was determined and persistent. She was a hard-nosed reporter. Nothing got in her way when she was on the scent. She muscled her way through crowds to get up front and centre to any disaster. Crime scene tape was invisible thread to her. But now, she was patting a blanket around me, tucking me in as if I were a newborn, stroking my arms and rubbing my shoulders softly. Kindness flowed from her like warm water over my cold, trembling body.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she said.
The old Cindy was back.
I smiled at her and nodded, acknowledging her tenderness. A “thank you” would have made her uncomfortable. “When will the police get here?” My voice sounded tinny.
“I think I can hear them now.” Her brief indulgence into affection had completely evapourated and she paced around the room like a coiled spring, ready to pounce. Her tightened muscles almost vibrated with tension, her sparking energy finding release in straightening up objects that had already been straightened by Andrew.
Sure enough, I heard the remote whine of sirens in the distance. Soon their high-pitched wails pierced through the surrounding forest, rising and falling as they covered the miles from town. How many were coming? I could hear three different sirens weaving together. Exactly what were they racing to? The guy was dead. Being a small-town police force, maybe they had to try out their sirens for the first time this year to make sure they still worked. The mile-long dirt road to the cottage clearing would slow them down.
I had maybe five minutes to pull myself together. I took three large gulps of the mint tea. It was sweet. Cindy must have put honey in it. I willed myself to breathe deeply and mumbled a Nichiren Buddhist chant under my breath to calm myself. I sat perfectly still, trying to clear my mind of all thoughts, but the headless torso was firmly wedged into my neurons and refused to budge. Nonetheless, the inner shaking was slowly subsiding, and the tea was warming me up from the inside out. Just in time.
Car doors smacked shut in the yard, and the spongy ground thudded with heavy boots. A large man with a boulder for a head on top of a Greek column of a body stood at the screen door. I was guessing that he couldn’t see me in the depths of the house, or perhaps he could make out my silhouetted outline. I was sitting on the couch in front of the large picture window. But I, on the other hand, had the great advantage of clearly being able to see him. He had a small black baseball cap incongruously perched over one large bushy eyebrow, with the letters O.P.P. embroidered in shiny gold above the brim. Ontario Provincial Police. I could see there was a gun at his hip, holstered in black leather. I had never actually seen a gun in my life, even holstered. My eyes kept darting to it as if it were a magnet. I guessed it was better to stare there than the other pistol where my eyes tended to wander at will. Not that he could see where I was looking, being a silhouette and all. I snuck a glance at his crotch.
He raised a beefy arm and with a hand the size of a dinner plate knocked surprisingly delicately on the screen door. Tap, tap, tap. Lucky launched himself from the couch like a missile and yapped his head off while turning tight circles in front of the screen door. Cindy walked nonchalantly through the kitchen, swinging her hips and tossing coils of red hair off her face. The power in her body was palpable. She talked through the screen, putting the cop at a disadvantage because she would be able to see him clearly while she would be in shadow.
“Yes?” She was so controlled.
A look of puzzlement flickered across his fleshy features. He took off his hat. “Detective Kowalchuk. You called the police about a dismembered body?”
It was a statement. Not a question. Almost accusatory and certainly challenging. In two seconds, they were already engaged in a power play. It was so stupid, I knew. The police had the power. They always won. Even against the mighty media, the journalists, whose pens were swords. But Cindy never gave up trying.
Several uniformed officers loomed behind him, swatting at their heads and looking longingly through the screen door. Kowalchuk stood as still as a statue, immune, it seemed, to the swarm of blackflies circling his head.
“Identification?”
Cindy was such a badass.
Kowalchuk, his face completely blank, reached into his back pocket and tugged out his ID. Unsmiling, he pressed it against the screen, holding it close to her face.
“Thank you, Detective Kowalchuk. Please, come in.” Now, she was all sweetness and light. I knew her act. She wanted them to know that she was not to be trifled with. She knew her rights, yes, sir, but she could be civil. Silly girl. A waste of time, really. The police were, well, the police, and they would always win in a scrimmage with the public.
As each cop filed past her she said, “Cindy,” and shook their hand. No last name and no explanation of who she was.
From my vantage point on the couch, I could see the kitchen filling up with the bulky figures of what looked like four or five policemen, all wearing black. Must be the whole force, I thought. The spotless floor was taking a beating from all the mud they dragged in on the bottom of their buffed boots. Steel-toed, no doubt. Andrew’s frown danced across my mind. Lucky was sniffing around their knees and gracefully allowing pats on his back. I took a slow sip of my tea and decided that the time to be social was upon me. I could do it.
“Come in,” I shouted from the couch. It was, after all, my cottage, and although I didn’t trust my knees to support my body, my voice worked. I could at least be polite and invite them into the living room.
They filed into the room and found themselves seats on the couch opposite to the one I was on. I was wrong. I thought there were four or five of them, but there were only three. Two guys and one female. Each cop must have driven their own vehicle. I was certain I had heard three sirens. So that meant they weren’t partnered up. Was that safe? Or were things different in the north? In Toronto, the cops seemed to always be partnered up. Except for Ralph. Maybe he wasn’t the partnering kind.
Was he? Where was this relationship going? I had to make a decision about him and our direction. I wasn’t sure about us, but I couldn’t put my finger on the problem. Was it the drinking? My mind drifted over the past few months. He had always been kind and fun to be with. Always tender. And no doubt about it, the sex was great.
Cindy coughed softly to bring me down to earth. Geezus, Robin, grow up. What was wrong with me? There were cops in my living room and I was thinking about sex. C’mon Robin. You’re not a teenager in love. But then, maybe, this was the way I coped with trauma.
Cindy sat in an overstuffed chair a little off from the group. My father’s reading chair. I yanked my mind into the here and now. She was just as bad. Her gaze kept sidling over to the female officer. What a time to flirt. Although I had to admit, a quick peek showed me that the cop looked interesting. Muscles roped down her neck and wrapped around her forearms. The sharp point of a tattoo peeked over her starched collar. Her broad and firm shoulders fought against her bulletproof Kevlar vest. This woman was ripped and tough. No ring. Clear and intelligent brown eyes under sleek eyebrows. And when I looked back at Kowalchuk, I could see in my peripheral vision that the female officer was stealing glances at Cindy. Well, well, well.
Kowalchuk leaned his hefty bulk toward me, legs spread wide, his gun pushing into the spare tire around his waist. He had sunk so low into the couch that the cushions had risen up and cocooned his body. I was looking forward to watching him fight his way out of that. I wasn’t good at guessing people’s weight, but he looked as if he were at least two of me. His boots had left little indents in the braided rug between the two couches. Although it was a cool day, he was sweating and wiping his forehead with a clean handkerchief. I hadn’t seen one of those in years. I wondered who pressed it. Right. I was the press. I had to get with it if I wanted to write a story about all this. Shirley, my boss back at the office would be salivating about this turn of events.
His arrogant gaze settled upon me. “You
must be Robin MacFarland. You’re a journalist, right? And Duncan’s daughter.”
I was shocked. He knew me? “Yes, I am. You know my father?”
“My father went to Huntsville High with him. Said he was a dynamite lacrosse player. Always doing sports when he wasn’t going out with Janice what’s-her-name?” He snapped his fingers. “Templeton?”
My father played lacrosse? “That’s my mother. They got married and moved to Toronto.”
“Isn’t that nice. High-school sweethearts.” He showed his teeth. Maybe it was a smile. “And your brother?” He snapped his fingers again, as if that would summon up his name. The other male officer shifted in his seat. Was he impatient with this ritual of establishing who was who in the north? “Andrew. Yes, Andrew.”
“That’s right. Andrew.” A germophobe who’d go berserk if he saw you inside with your boots on.
“And you and your friend…” he snapped his fingers yet again while he looked to the right above Cindy’s head, “Cindy, right? You found a dismembered body in the woods.” He said it as if he didn’t believe it.
“Yes. We think a bear got him.”
“A bear.” His mouth formed a thin line and his huge head gave a small waggle as he politely considered what was obviously an outlandish idea. He smiled, again showing all his teeth. So. He was a patronizing prick. Great. That would go over well with Cindy. I could hear her breathing getting a little fast all the way over from her corner chair. “Not likely. I have never heard tell of a bear attacking a person in these parts. Although they can get pretty territorial in the spring. If they’ve had their babies and you get between them and the mother, well, you’re just asking for it.”
Oh dear. There was that line. Just asking for it. You might as well put some TNT under Cindy. She flared from the corner, “No one asks for a crime to be committed against them.” Her eyes flashed around the room, daring anyone to challenge her. The female cop looked down, her face reddening. The tense silence in the room was punctuated with a thump, thump, thump. Lucky’s tail.