Flights and Falls

by R. M. Greenaway

  He thought of the red Mazda, and Bosko’s scrapped theory, and the cliff that rose up opposite the dizzying drop to the ocean, and the answer came to him so abruptly that he said it aloud. “Fellridge!”

  Fellridge was nothing but a gravel parking plateau, an offshoot of Cypress Bowl, a minimally controlled hump of mountainside veined with trails that people hiked or biked in summer and cross-country skied in winter. Some of its trails led to lookouts over the Sea to Sky Highway and the inlet waters where the ferries came and went. Maybe one of those lookouts was close enough to the highway that it could be used as a launch pad for a killing toy.

  He could remember the area as though he and Looch were there yesterday. Now all he had to do was find it again, and then explain to David Leith how he’d remembered, with crystal clarity, something he should have forgotten in his supposedly murky past.

  Twenty-One

  HIGHER

  December 21

  AFTER REHEARSING HIS request a few times, Dion approached Leith to ask for permission to follow up a lead. Keep it vague, he told himself. Knowing Leith would ask the reason, he had rehearsed that part as well. “Just an alternative idea I want to rule out, up at the Mazda crash site,” he said. “It’s to do with Bosko’s plane idea. I’ll just look around, report back if it pans out at all.”

  “What alternative idea is that?”

  “A possible vantage point the pilot could have taken.”

  Leith frowned. “You and JD scouted it out thoroughly.”

  “Not a hundred percent thoroughly.”

  “Don’t go alone.”

  “No, it’s nothing. I can handle it.”

  Leith called after him, “Remember, you have a counselling session at four.”

  Dion’s second-to-last mandatory chat with Samantha Kerr. He had mentioned it to Leith earlier and then forgotten it completely. “Of course,” he called back.

  Down in the parkade he signed out a Suburban four-wheel-drive. He left the city northwest toward Horseshoe Bay, cruised through the hundred kilometre-an-hour speed zone, but instead of zipping out past the ferry terminal to the crash site, as Leith would be expecting, he took the exit ramp to Cypress Bowl and began the climb from gloom and rain into clear skies and snow-dusted roads. Close to the top he exited again, off the main road and onto a rough offshoot toward what he knew as Fellridge, a swatch of hiking and cross-country trails with views on the giant inlet waters of Howe Sound.

  Fifteen minutes of slow and bumpy driving brought him to a good-sized parking plateau, where half a dozen winter-worthy vehicles sat, but without a soul in sight. He parked his Suburban and stepped out into a crisp stillness that promised more snow on its way. The last time he had set foot here, maybe seven years ago, the plateau had seemed smaller and the woods wilder. He walked along the main trail, looking for a certain path that would veer off in the direction of the ocean. Great lookout down there, Looch said from somewhere at his side.

  He and Looch had been on mountain bikes. It was day’s end, and others in the group had returned to the cars, but Dion cycled after his friend along an earthy trail.

  “It won’t be the same this time of year,” Dion now said to Looch then. “The snow changes everything.” Hikers’ tracks went before him in the whiteness. He walked for five minutes, then five more, and stopped in surprise when he recognized the small path that Looch said would lead to the amazing view. Just like it was those years back. He couldn’t see any boot prints heading down that way. He was alone with Looch’s ghost.

  He started to walk, visualizing the viewpoint. It looked out westward on a span of ocean, but also, if he recalled, onto the highway not far north of Lions Bay, where Amelia Foster had crashed her car. Walking was a lot slower than cycling, and he adjusted his estimate accordingly. Surprised again, he found it exactly where he recalled it being. Right here. In his mind’s eye, Looch dropped his bike, and he did the same, and they started single file down an even smaller trail, not much more than a dusty mule track weaving through boulders and scrub.

  The path was now snow-frosted instead of dusty. It dipped away through the evergreen treetops and vanished. Dion gripped the jags of a stone wall as he found his footing, and Looch gave an encouraging shout over his shoulder. Just about there! It’s worth it, man. Top of the world.

  Another patch of woods, a thinning of the trees, a sudden falling away of terrain, and finally he stood on the brink, the prize Looch had promised. Back then he had looked out and whooped his delight at the view. He looked outward now at the same curve of ocean with the same sense of exhilaration, minus the whoop. He held his breath and looked down, and disappointment rushed in. He let out his breath with an obscenity. Not even a glimpse of the Sea to Sky. He’d been wrong. This wasn’t the answer.

  Anger welled within. At himself for believing, and at Looch for bringing him here and then abandoning him without so much as a sorry, pal. All that buildup for one mediocre view that wouldn’t advance the case an iota.

  He sniffed back his rage and tried to reason away the cascading sense of failure. The ocean continued to shine, blinding even under clouds. He was on top of the world, and so what that he’d killed his friend and was a fugitive from his own matrix? He hadn’t been nabbed yet, and that was something to celebrate. He ground his heel in the dirt and told himself how grateful he was.

  In grinding his heel, he noticed a path leading downward from where he stood. He followed it with his eyes. He wasn’t dressed for mountain climbing, but it appeared fairly traversable. Maybe that was the answer. He hesitated, afraid to go on, and the fear had to do with serious falls and questionable motives. Then there was the sense of time running out. He looked at his watch.

  He imagined the glory of success if only he could nail this down, the kudos he would get from the team. “Just make it quick,” he told himself, and started down the slope.

  * * *

  A pretty girl sitting on the steps outside the detachment gave a friendly nod as JD started down past her. JD stopped in surprise. “Dezi.”

  The girl stood. Today she wore a bright blue parka, and underneath, the navy T-shirt with the RCMP coat of arms on it JD had given her.

  “I’m just working up the nerve to talk to the lady at the front desk,” Dezi explained. “I have a question about the application process, but she was really busy.”

  “Well,” JD said, “I’m stepping out for coffee. C’mon, we’ll see if I can help.”

  “Thank you! That would be great. I’m supposed to be at work soon, so I appreciate it. They’re just really lame questions, and it’s not like it can’t wait, but I want to get as much lined up in advance as possible …”

  They were walking now. “Where do you work, Dezi?”

  “The pet supply store on 19th, plus I walk dogs on the side.”

  “So you’re serious about taking this big step, are you?”

  The young woman didn’t leap to answer, but nodded reflectively. Which was good, JD thought. Life decisions like this should be approached with care, unlike her own flip of the coin. “I think I’ll be good at it,” Dezi said.

  “I think you will, too.”

  “I just wish I was nineteen, like, now.”

  “Hey, don’t ever wish you were older,” JD warned her. “Time is a one-way street. And it gets faster as you go.”

  “I know that. My mom says so all the time.”

  “What does your mom think about you signing up?”

  A cloud seemed to darken Dezi’s eyes, but it rolled by and she was smiling again, pulling a face. “Mom thinks I’m absolutely insane to want to join the police. She thinks I should become an RN, like her. But she’ll support me all the way, when it comes to it.”

  “Yeah? You get along with your mom?” JD asked. She wasn’t a detective for nothing.

  “Yeah, we’re good.”

  But not great. “And your dad?”

  “I don’t actually have a dad.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Dezi s
hrugged. She looked as if she was about to say something, but changed her mind.

  Over coffee, Dezi asked not one question, but half a dozen, most of which JD was able to help her with. For the rest she offered resources that could be followed up on.

  Only after they were back on the street did Dezi broach a topic that seemed to be worrying her. “Is family background very important for applicants? I’ve never been to church, and my mom and I yell at each other a lot, actually. Constable Leith says honesty is more important than anything, so I’m going to have to tell the recruiting officer. I’m working really hard to get along with my mom better, but still. Is that going to hurt my chances?”

  “No, Dezi. Most families have their yelling matches.” JD studied the girl’s profile, again catching a glimpse of sadness. “As long as you’re not getting physical with each other.”

  To her relief, Dezi burst out laughing. “No knives, no baseball bats, no flame-throwers. Not so far!”

  As they walked along, JD realized she didn’t want this to be goodbye. She liked Dezi’s enthusiasm, and was enjoying her new role as mentor. Who’d have thought? “Hey, d’you feel like checking out the shooting range?” she asked. “I’m heading out in a couple days. I don’t know how you feel about guns, but it’s something you have to learn about sooner or later.”

  Dezi’s eyes went round. “I can go with you? Is that even allowed? Oh my god, yes! Yes, thank you, JD! That would be so awesome.”

  She smiled as she accepted JD’s card with her number on it, along with one last piece of advice. “If things ever get rough, you tell somebody, all right?” Those shadows that sometimes darkened Dezi’s eyes, like dips into sorrow, continued to worry her. She pointed at the card Dezi was still examining with wonder. “You tell me.”

  Dezi looked at her, not smiling, face so grave that JD expected her to divulge, confess, admit to something, plead for help. Instead, the girl grinned suddenly, waved, and turned to dash off to work.

  * * *

  The path had become nasty. Dion made his descent mostly sideways, sometimes feeling carefully for footholds, other times forced by gravity into a jolting jog. He was on one of those jogs when the world dropped away before him, and he skidded to a stop, the soles of his shoes starting a small avalanche of grit and pebbles. A quick back step and a low crouch, and he was safe. On all sides were small scrappy bushes and a few stunted pines, all enclosing a plateau large enough for a man to lie spread-eagle, but not much more.

  The drop offered a promising view, though. On his feet again, he edged forward. Gripping the knot of his necktie, he stared down and gulped as he realized how close he had come to a free fall. Another inch or two farther and he’ d be dead.

  But now he was smiling broadly, because Looch hadn’t failed him after all. Down there was the highway, a narrow strip snaking along the contours of the mountain. On the highway in both directions crawled cars and trucks, toy sized from here. Beyond the road, the ocean stretched across the horizon, speckled with small boats and big ferries negotiating the narrows.

  He tried but couldn’t pinpoint where he was in relation to the Mazda wipeout. Judging by the trajectory of the ferry he could see heading inland, Horseshoe Bay must be somewhere off to his left. But how far and at what angle he couldn’t tell, due to the lay of the land. Would someone be able to attack cars with an RC plane or drone from here? Leith would have to talk to an expert, bring in a chopper, get some aerial shots.

  Looking at the ground he stood upon, Dion saw what might be a path continuing downward into the brush below. Not a man-made trail, but some kind of jagged fault line, likely headed toward Lions Bay. It would need to be followed to its end, but not by him and not now. Other than that, the ground was made up of hard, wet rubble that would leave little in the way of footprints. Something black caught his eye, half-hidden in the dry grasses. He crouched for a closer look.

  It was a small, round piece of black plastic, crushed and embedded in the grit, as if it had been stepped on, hard, and left to bake in place over the summer. Not a recent bit of debris, unfortunately, but interesting all the same. He snapped a picture with his phone, then used his car key to pry the object loose and marked the spot for follow-up with a triangle of rocks.

  With the artifact pocketed, he retraced his steps back to his car, moving fast now with the wooded solitude beginning to weigh on him. Once on the level trail he began to jog. Twigs cracked in pursuit and he could see flashes of movement through the blackness of the trees. Reaching his vehicle, he jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the door against the dangers of the wilderness, and hammered the steering wheel in relief and triumph. The clock on the dashboard when he fired the engine reminded him of his missed four o’clock appointment, but he knew how to deal with it.

  He switched the engine off again and phoned his shrink. He apologized, told her he had honestly forgotten, gave his excuse. It was a good one, unbeatable, one that would put her in her place: “It’s just that I’m in the middle of investigating a double homicide here.”

  “S’okay.” She sounded muffled, like she was eating. “I’ll break protocol and slot you in after hours. Five o’clock. I’ll see you then, hmm?”

  “Why don’t we just write today off,” he suggested.

  “Why don’t you just come down at five,” she suggested back.

  He ended the call and drove downhill to the highway.

  Five. That left him just enough time to return to the office, where he would let Leith know about the bit of plastic, once it was sealed, labelled and delivered to lock-up. If he had time — which was starting to look doubtful — he would describe Fellridge and the view, and suggest that aerial shots could best confirm or rule out the lookout as a possible extension of the crime scene, a place from which someone might possibly operate a radio-controlled plane to scare motorists off the road. He thought about how impressed Leith would be once he learned of this possible breakthrough. Awed might be too strong a word, but admiring was appropriate. He smirked to himself as he drove along, imagining himself on a pedestal. On the car radio the Heartless Bastards played, like a déjà vu of the road trip to Hope. This new song was slower, though. More introspective, even melancholy. Melencholy enough, as it played to its end, to nearly move him to tears.

  * * *

  At 5:15 p.m., in the company of Jim Torr, JD Temple, and the exhibit custodian, Leith stood at the counter of the exhibit room and looked at the bit of black plastic submitted minutes ago by Dion, who hadn’t hung around to explain, but rushed off to his counselling appointment.

  “Now, what could that be?” Leith asked his colleagues.

  “I know what it is,” Torr said, and asked JD, “Know what that is?”

  “Sure, I know what that is,” she said.

  “Anybody can see what that is,” put in the exhibit custodian. “At a glance.”

  Leith still didn’t know what it was, and said so.

  “Off the small end, by the looks of it,” the exhibit custodian said to Torr and JD.

  “Definitely off the small end,” JD agreed. She looked at Leith and dropped him a clue he couldn’t possibly miss. “The end you look through, Copernicus.”

  “Ah,” Leith said. A binocular lens cap, of course.

  Twenty-Two

  RUSH

  December 22

  FOLLOWING THE MORNING briefing, Leith went over the Fellridge discovery with Dion once more. Using Google Earth and topographical maps, it had been determined that the lookout did indeed line up fairly well with the Mazda crash site. Still, Leith wasn’t quite as pumped about the find as Dion apparently was. Maybe it was the wariness of his extra years of experience, but he suspected the new lead was likely nothing but an expensive tangent that had to be ruled out.

  There was also the question of the new lead’s mystifying source. Looking again at the Google Earth printout, with the crash site and the lookout both marked, he asked Dion how he had zoned in on that tiny bit of cliff. As far as he could see, i
t was all one unruly mass of wilderness. “So you’ve been there before, you say?”

  Dion’s story from last evening was sketchy. He repeated it now with almost word-for-word sketchiness: he had been hiking out there six or seven years ago, with friends, and discovered the lookout. On the printout he pointed at a small clearing higher up, with vehicles parked. “The trail comes off from right about here. You can’t see it because of the trees.”

  His words had the ring of a false alibi, in Leith’s ears. “Sure,” he said. “Even as you tell it, though, the viewpoint you guys found is somewhere in here, Cal. But the place you’ve marked, where you found the lens cap, is down here.”

  “I went to the viewpoint, couldn’t see the highway, so I proceeded downward till I found the ledge. You would have done the same.”

  Leith would have done no such thing. “So you got there through trial and error?”

  “Memory.” Dion was getting snarly. “An educated guess, trial and error, luck. In my opinion, the ledge is a possible launch pad, possibly approachable from below, as the path continues down. Might even lead to parking along the highway, maybe via Lions Bay. That’ll have to be checked out. The point is, I’m getting things done, right? I’m doing my job. Am I on trial here?”

  The heel-kicking didn’t deter Leith. On the contrary. “How many times did you and Ferraro go up here, to this lookout?”

  “Looch was up there before, I don’t know how many times. That was my first time, when he showed me.”

  “Your first and last time there before yesterday?”

  “That lookout, yes. And that particular trail, too, if that’s what you’re going to ask next.”

  As usual, Leith and Dion were doing a great job at failing to get along. Whatever divided them seemed built in and unfixable. It was chemistry, probably. But the iceberg tip of a murder investigation didn’t help. “Right,” Leith said coolly. “The North Shore is riddled with great hiking trails, so you guys had plenty of new places to explore. Every weekend a new trail to check out. Right?”