“And screamin’. ”
“And she spoke your name, hey?”
“Yeah, she did.”
“So she did recognize you?”
“Yeah, she did.”
“And the bird, she said it was dead? That was the word she used?”
“Yeah. Dead, and lit up, and screamin’. ”
“Did she say anything else?”
“Not much of nothin’.”
“Did you say anything to her?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you say to her?”
“Said, ‘I love you Amelia’ a million times, is all.” She sneered at him.
Bosko stopped Tan with a question as she turned to leave. “Tiffany, how long did you know Amelia? When did you first meet?”
She took her time, staring at him, and finally said, “Medinmay. Park.”
“What?” Leith said.
She turned her glare on him, said, “Fuck’s sake, ears open this time?” and repeated it more slowly. “Medinmay. The park. I’m outta here.”
Leith stepped out into the hall and called at her receding back that they weren’t finished, but apparently they were. Dion stood finishing his notes, wondering what park she was talking about, and thinking it probably didn’t matter.
“I should have arrested her,” Leith said, back in his chair. He looked rattled. He and Bosko debated the woman’s response, wondering if Medinmay was a walk-in clinic, maybe.
“They met in May,” Dion interrupted. “In the park.”
Leith said, “Oh.”
Bosko said, “Ah.” He smiled at Dion, then at Leith. “Something thrown, maybe. A rock? Foster was driving along, saw it a split second before it hit, and the first thing that came into her mind as she was losing control was a dead bird falling. Have you ever been hit in the windshield by a flying object?”
“Eggs, once,” Leith said. “At a riot.”
“I mean when you’re travelling down the highway, for instance.”
Dion recalled being hit by a bird. It was about eight years ago. His car of the day had been a cheap second-hand Corolla, rust-pocked blue, loaded with friends, their destination a house party way out in Hope. On the stereo the Heartless Bastards played, and none of it was relevant to Bosko’s question except for the impact.
He wouldn’t share the memory, because his pre-crash memory was supposed to be patchy. The patchy memory thing had been a hasty plan thrown together as he lay recovering in rehab, knowing there would be interrogations ahead. Easier to say “I don’t remember” than lie, he had assumed.
But he had messed up. Should have limited the scope of his amnesia to the day of the accident, because maintaining chronic forgetfulness was hard work. Now he had to think twice about everything he said, which was turning him into a man with nothing to say. He sometimes wondered if it was worth it. Maybe hiding out was worse than the jail cell he would be escorted to if he confessed.
Distracted by images of a dungeon, he forgot about keeping his mouth shut and said, “I hit a bird on the Lougheed. It obscured my view and I had to pull over fast.”
Bosko was interested. “Any idea what kind of bird it was you hit?”
“No clue.”
“Because it happened so fast, right?”
Like a meteor. Shock followed by laughter. Stopped along the Nicomen Slough, cars hurtling by. Everybody piling out, checking for damage, trying to clear up the mess. Looch picked up a wing bit between thumb and finger and threatened to throw it at Brooke. Why was I busting a gut? What was so funny?
“Nothing left but feathers.” Dion could read upside down the words Bosko had scribbled on a notepad: Lit up. Dead bird. The Ident report made no mention of bird guts or feathers plastered to Amelia Foster’s wrecked car. “Do birds ever die in mid-air?”
“Sure, if they’re full of birdshot,” Leith said.
It was an unlikely scenario, the chain reaction of a bird dying mid-air and falling on the car, scaring Foster into the ditch. And again, there would be evidence. “Maybe a gull flew at her,” Dion suggested. “It was lit up in her headlights before veering off, and it startled her. The bird flew away, but she lost control.”
Leith looked doubtful.
“Screaming,” Bosko said.
“Could have been herself screaming,” Leith said. “In her confusion …”
Bosko offered Dion the second visitor’s chair, waited till he was seated, and said, “I was driving along Bridgeport a few years ago, heading for the airport. Suddenly my windshield shattered with this terrific bang. At first I thought I’d been shot at, but then realized I must have been hit by a large bird. I didn’t see it coming, and I don’t know where it came from. Just wunk. This was broad daylight. It happened” — he snapped his fingers — “like that. So whatever Amelia Foster was describing, I doubt it was a lit-up bird. Unless it was all in her imagination, the lit-up bird she saw would have had to be moving slow enough for her to register as it came toward her.”
“Tan did say Foster was flipped out on something,” Leith pointed out.
“Could be delirium,” Bosko agreed. “Maybe a “dead lit-up bird” is her drugged metaphor for some kind of vehicle. A motorcycle, maybe?”
“Jay Comstock says there was no other vehicle involved,” Dion said, referring to the traffic accident reconstructionist who had eyeballed the scene and provided his magic computations. “Single-vehicle accident. An avoidance manoeuvre commenced fifty-some metres before she left the shoulder. She stepped on the gas instead of the brakes, accelerated and swerved, Comstock says.”
The quality and quantity of his own words pleased him, a flood of savvy. Bosko and Leith seemed impressed, too. He felt inspired, felt he could beat this brain-damage fiasco he’d invented, start pulling memories back into focus. Not fast enough to reopen the inquiry, but enough that he could stop hiding out. Start being smart again.
“Isn’t that bad luck?” Bosko said. Dion blinked at him. “Birds flying into houses,” Bosko explained. “At least that’s how it started out. I believe the superstition’s since migrated to birds flying into windshields.”
Dion felt the colour drain from his face. Looch had said that same thing, the day by the Nicomen Slough, once they had cleaned the glass and were pulling back into traffic. Birds in houses, dead birds, birds sitting on the back of your chair — basically anything bird-related was a bad omen, Looch had said, according to his superstitious family. “Better not tell Mama about this,” he had joked. “She’ll never let me out of her sight again.”
Bosko was winding up the meeting, saying this was all good stuff to put on the board for team feedback. “Craig Gilmartin,” he added to Leith. “He’s had a day to recuperate. Go and see if he’s up to talking. And take a recorder. Let’s get every syllable.”
Leith nodded and stood. Dion knew Leith was partnered with Torr lately, and would be taking him to get Gilmartin’s waking statement. He wished he could go instead of Torr, as it could help with his own unspoken, unspeakable theory. Gilmartin had clearly indicated that he didn’t know who shot him, according to Leith. But could he be lying? Why would he lie? Dion wondered. Fear? If he could be there in person to observe the constable’s responses first-hand, he could better judge what was going on. He could decide whether to move forward with his suspicions or trash them.
But no matter. Collating the info after the fact would have to do. He finished up a note on Tiffany Tan’s statement, such as it was, and stood to see that Leith hadn’t left, but was leaning in the doorway, waiting for him.
“Well,” Leith said. And there it was again, an uncalled-for kindness that struck Dion as forewarning. “Coming?”
Seventeen
BIRDS
GILMARTIN WAS VISIBLY BETTER, Leith saw. He sat propped up in bed, still attached to an IV, surrounded by the loot of sympathy. Better, but still not great, more a wraith than a man, with creased skin and raccoon eyes, hair standing on end, and a look of dazed fear stamped on his face.
“Yes,” G
ilmartin said, when he caught Leith’s stare. “I scared the hell out of myself, too, when somebody made the mistake of showing me a mirror.”
So the patient was fully lucid, and already on his way to being a chatterbox again. Leith smiled his congratulations, but Gilmartin was peering past him at Dion, as if he might be a hit man lurking in the background instead of a cop. “I’m a little jumpy. Who’s he?”
Leith reintroduced himself, then Dion. “I came by this morning with Raj Sattar, but you were pretty out of it.”
“Yes, I recall. The brain comes and goes. I’m on massive painkillers. They’re wearing off, by the way, so better make it quick.”
“Your parents have been to see you, have they?”
“To put it mildly, yes,”
“What about Sophie?”
To Leith’s surprise, Gilmartin shuffled himself upright with a show of anger. “No, sir, because she’s not allowed. You’re not accusing her of shooting me, are you? Because she sure as hell did not.”
Leith assured him that Sophie wasn’t being accused of anything and that visitor restrictions were only temporary. From his inner breast pocket he brought out his small digital recorder, and he saw Gilmartin tense at the sight of it.
“Ah,” the kid said, as he recognized the machine, and his laughter had a hysterical ring to it. “Thought for a moment you were going to taser me.”
“Take it easy. We’ll get this over with quick as possible, then let you get some rest.” Leith stood at the foot of the bed and turned on the recorder. “How about you just tell me what happened that day, in detail, after you were dropped off at home.”
It took some moments for Gilmartin to put the ordeal into words, but when he did, it came out in a torrent. “I got home,” he said. “Somebody came up the steps, I turned around, and the son of a bitch shot me.”
An angry torrent, but brief. “A tad more detail, if you would, please,” Leith said.
Gilmartin tried again. “Kenny drove me home. He let me off at the curb. Nothing out of the ordinary there that I can tell you about. I walked inside. I took off my sweater. Hung it up. I walked down the hall to flick on the table lamp, because the overhead doesn’t work, and heard somebody coming up the front steps. I figured it was Kenny coming back, maybe he forgot to tell me something, so I went to open the door, but as I turned the handle I saw something wasn’t quite right. The door’s got that rippled glass panel in it, and I saw through the ripples there was something wrong with the picture.”
He paused again. “It wasn’t Kenny, not quite, and I felt, like, this cold wash of fear, and before I knew it, this bastard was shoving the door open as I was trying to shove it shut. I turned and ran for the hallway. I had a brilliant plan of escaping out the back way. Then he shot me. To tell the truth, I’m surprised I’m here telling you about it.”
Leith was thinking much the same thing. On a wing and a prayer. “And you didn’t see his face?”
“No.”
“You were shot in the upper chest. You were lying on your back. You must have turned around at some point, faced him. Maybe if you thought about it …”
Gilmartin could not remember turning around. He could not remember seeing the man’s face. He couldn’t remember anything again until he woke in a hospital bed, as he described it, staring up at Raj Sattar’s grin.
“How about in general,” Leith said. “Anything, even if it’s just an impression. Size, age, nationality?”
Gilmartin was losing steam, and clearly wanted Leith gone. “Bulky, Caucasian male. Not as tall as me. Pale, roundish face, dark clothes, and that’s all.”
Leith turned to check that Dion was getting this all down. Dion’s pen was idle and his stare was fixed on Gilmartin’s face. Leith sighed and turned back to the patient. “Does the name Desiree Novak mean anything to you? Or Dezi?”
“No. Why?”
“A witness came forward — young woman with short blonde hair — said she stopped at the crash scene, was down there with you.”
“Oh, her. Is that her name? I wasn’t thinking straight. She came down the ditch. She didn’t have a phone either, would you believe? Did I not mention her in my statement?”
“You mentioned her to me, but it wasn’t in the statement.”
“I’m sorry. She didn’t seem important. She must have slipped my mind.”
Leith wasn’t surprised. “Well, let’s get to the nitty-gritty. Can you think of anybody who would want to hurt you?”
Gilmartin blinked as he considered the question. “I can’t think of anybody,” he said. “Except maybe Ken.”
“Ken?”
“I’m joking. My supervisor, Kenny Poole.”
“Kenny Poole’s got an alibi,” Leith said.
“I don’t know, then. I’d like to think I have no enemies.”
Leith opened his folder and placed a document before Gilmartin. “Recognize this man?”
In the photograph, a jaunty-looking Rory Keefer beamed at the camera. Gilmartin frowned at the image. “Might be the fellow who flagged me down on the highway, at the scene of the accident. Looks like him. A bit, anyway.”
“Do you recall the colour of his car?”
Gilmartin was still frowning, but now was directing the scowl at Leith and starting to look cranky. “I gave all that already. How many times —”
“Just once more.”
“Teal, I said. Teal. It’s like a darkish turquoise.”
Leith glanced at Dion, who was biting his lip. Gilmartin was staring at each of them in turn. “Did I say something special?”
“I’ll tell you, Craig,” Leith said, taking the photo back. “We’re thinking your attack might be linked to that accident you witnessed. Thinking back on it, can you make any kind of connection?”
But all this talk, combined with meds running their course, was bringing on pain. Gilmartin crossed his arms as if to ward it off, squeezed his eyes shut, pursed his mouth.
Leith sped up his questioning. “Maybe something Amelia Foster said or did, or something you saw at the accident scene, or something you took away with you, even, that made someone come after you? You said in your statement the injured girl was mumbling and incoherent. Can you remember anything she said, even if it made no sense?”
“I’m afraid the whole thing is just a great fat blur in my head.”
“All right, then.”
“Oh,” Gilmartin said. His eyes popped open again. “My engine! It was making a funny noise, like a whine or a whir. I was actually going to pull over just as I got flagged down. Then I forgot all about it. Afterwards, it seemed to be okay, so it must have been a fan belt or something adjusting itself. It happens.”
Leith waited for Dion to jot down the info before moving on. “Did you maybe see any other vehicles around the scene at the time you drove up? Maybe parked farther down the highway?”
“Possibly,” Gilmartin said. “Possibly not. I don’t think so.”
“There’s a little turnout just before the crash site. Was it empty, occupied?”
“Like I said, possibly, and possibly not.”
Which was incredibly unhelpful.
“All I can remember,” Gilmartin said, “Is the guy who flagged me down. Besides that, nothing. I checked my mirror before pulling over, and there was nobody close behind me. If there were headlights, which I don’t remember, they would have been far back.”
“Did you have any conversation with that man at the scene?”
“Mostly about phones. Mine was dead, and he said he didn’t have one. Then that girl came along —”
“Dezi?”
“Sure. She said she didn’t have a phone. No, she said she used to have a phone, but not anymore. So no phones amongst the three of us. What are the chances? So the guy went up to flag a car, because surely somebody in the world had a functioning phone on them, and the girl went with him. Or no, she didn’t, because I recall her talking to me a bit. I saw cars flying by, nobody stopping, and I thought what the heck? So I
went up on the highway, and the guy and his car were gone.”
The pain seemed to be coming in waves now. “I’m going to die,” he said.
“You’re not going to die. You want me to fetch the nurse?”
“No. I’m fine. So then the girl said she had to go, and I saw headlights coming, and I jumped up and down till the driver stopped, and thank god, he had a phone and called 911, and the rest you know.”
Leith left his station at the foot of the bed and stood by the window, looking out. He had run out of questions, except for the last bit, Tiffany Tan’s rather fabulous lead. He heard the hesitation in his own voice as he turned to ask, “Did you see any animals in the area? Around the scene of the accident?”
“Animals?”
“Airborne, maybe?”
Gilmartin seemed to search the air for some kind of logic that was eluding him. “Airborne animals, sir?”
Dion spoke for the first time. “Like birds,” he suggested. Leith returned from the window, and he and Dion both watched Gilmartin as they waited for the answer.
“Did I see … I don’t know what you’re … birds?”
Again he squeezed his eyes shut, and now Leith was alarmed enough to close down the interview. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, which was exactly what Gilmartin was apparently doing. He had sunk into his pillows, his temples beaded with sweat. Dion dashed off to get the nurse, and with that, the interview ended.
* * *
Not until they were in the detachment, about to part ways to their respective desks, did Dion gather the nerve to ask Leith the question. “So are you investigating Kenny Poole?”
Leith drew up short and looked at him. “What?”
“Did you really check his alibi, or were you joking?”
Leith’s gaze intensified. “What’re you talking about?”
Dion pushed his fists into the pockets of his patrol jacket. “When Gilmartin said that Kenny wanted to kill him, he was joking. Then you said that Kenny has an alibi. I just wasn’t sure —”
“We were both joking, Cal. It’s called dry humour.”
Laugh, Dion instructed himself. But he couldn’t. “I thought so,” he said.
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