Flights and Falls

by R. M. Greenaway

  “No, ’cause I don’t remember them actually talking,” Gilmartin said. “I just got this funny feeling.”

  “You got a funny feeling they were Bavarian?” Dion blared. “What, they were wearing lederhosen? What do you mean you got this funny feeling?”

  “So maybe not Bavarian then, all right? Sue me. Anyway, that’s all I remember. That’s four, I guess, including the girl without a phone.”

  “Good,” Leith said. “So to recap, you and Keefer are down at the wreck. While you’re down there, Amelia Foster says something about hide-and-seek, or something that sounds like that. Right so far?”

  “It’s hide-and-go-seek,” Gilmartin said. “You keep forgetting the go. But otherwise, right so far.”

  “Neither of you guys have working phones on you, and then Dezi arrives, and she doesn’t either.”

  “Right. And like I say, I’m utterly mind-boggled by our mutual phonelessness.”

  “You and Keefer agree that Keefer should go flag down a car. He climbs up out of the ditch, leaving you and Dezi —”

  “No,” Gilmartin said. “Dezi left, too.”

  “I thought she left with you later, when you went up to the highway to flag down a car yourself, after you realized Keefer had taken off.”

  “Bastard,” Gilmartin said.

  “Keefer actually called 911 from Horseshoe Bay,” Leith told him. “Maybe he couldn’t get anyone to stop and decided the phone booth would be faster. But what about Dezi? This is the second time you’ve been unsure about when she left the scene.”

  “No, she was with me after Keefer left,” Gilmartin said. “I remember her talking to me as we watched the cars whiz by. Other than that, I don’t know. I was focused on Amelia.”

  “Of course. What did you and Dezi talk about? Did you tell her anything about yourself?”

  “I might have told her I was a cop.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. It wasn’t exactly a tea party down there.”

  “I know.”

  “I was a wreck.”

  “Sure.” Leith gave the patient a careful, low-impact pat on the back and told him to keep getting better, and to call right away if he thought of anything else.

  As they were re-entering the detachment halls, Leith said to Dion in a fit of temper, “For a while there I thought we were getting somewhere, but I’m lost. Amelia Foster, Rory Keefer, and Craig Gilmartin aren’t connected. It’s crazy. Amelia Foster startled into a deadly crash by an RC plane? Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s what happened. At this point we might as well add the whale and the Bavarians to the board, stir it up a little. Why not?”

  Hearing silence, he turned and saw that he had been talking to himself. Not only had Dion not been listening, he was heading toward the stairs.

  “What’s up?” Leith called.

  “Going this way,” Dion said, and did so.

  * * *

  When the coast was clear, Dion headed back to the hospital. It was time to test out his theory, put it to Gilmartin directly, see if it jarred out the truth. If not, what then? Just let it lie?

  No, he couldn’t do that. It would be like noticing a ticking package in the basement and saying nothing. Unconscionable. He would have to push it all the way to its conclusion, and that meant first talking to Gilmartin. Depending on what happened there, he would then confront Poole in person.

  He crossed St. Georges, and back in the hospital was told Gilmartin had returned to his room. He found the constable getting comfortable in bed with a book and a mug of some hot beverage. He didn’t look pleased to see Dion. “You’re back,” he said. “More questions?”

  Dion stood by the bed in a no-nonsense way. The visit was off the record and against the rules, and he didn’t want Gilmartin to know it. “Not about Foster,” he said. “About Tony Souza. We didn’t want to put it to you downstairs, in a public space, this line of inquiry. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Notebook out for a prop, Dion began his questioning. “You knew him, right? You went through training together. You both got posted to North Van at more or less the same time?”

  “I knew Tony quite well,” Gilmartin agreed. “But if you’re going to ask me why he killed himself, I’m just as mystified as anyone. I can’t help you out here. I wish I could.” But he was a lousy liar, like a living mood ring, changing colour with his emotions. Now he was pink.

  “Tony’s private life, after hours,” Dion said. “Beyond the roster. How did it seem to you? He ever talk about his problems? You seem like a perceptive guy. Ever read anything between the lines, Craig?”

  Gilmartin was listening intently, his eyes never leaving Dion’s face.

  “What is it?” Dion pressed. “Whatever it is you know, you need to tell me.”

  “I have nothing to tell you, honestly.”

  Dion shifted gears. “You get along with Kenny Poole okay?”

  The mood ring now lost colour, went pale. “I get along with Kenny fine. As did — as did T-Tony, far as I know. Why? What’s Kenny got to do with anything?”

  With the paling and stuttering, Dion’s suspicions grew wings. Because he knew Kenny Poole, probably better than anyone. He knew what Poole was capable of. “Just between us, then,” he said, and put away his notebook to prove it. “You’ve been to Kenny’s place, right? His apartment just off Chesterfield?”

  “Me? No.”

  “What about Tony? Did he go over there? To Kenny’s?”

  A long pause. “Might have.”

  “Might have, or did?”

  “Him and some others went over there for a few drinks one night, I’m pretty sure. After shift. It was Ken’s birthday, I think.”

  November 13, Dion knew, because he had celebrated a few of Poole’s birthdays himself, over the years. November the thirteenth fell just days before Souza jumped.

  “What others?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “But later on, Tony told you about it?”

  The questions were hitting nerves, no doubt about it. Gilmartin’s eyes had widened, his body had become still as stone. “Told me what, sir?”

  Dion let the silence stretch, still considering how much to say, how much to hold back. Leading the witness wouldn’t be good, but it was time to give him a nudge. He switched gears again. “The night Kenny drove you home, after you got shot at down by the Quay, did he drive straight to your place from the detachment?”

  “No, actually, now that you mention it,” Gilmartin said. “He had to pick up something. From his apartment. It was on the way.”

  Bingo. “Yeah? What did he have to pick up?”

  “A camera, I think. He’d promised to lend it to somebody, and he thought he might as well grab it now, since we were passing his place.”

  “Did he invite you up?”

  “No. He was gone for all of two minutes.”

  Dion knew exactly what Poole had grabbed from his apartment. It was throwaway, and it was loaded. He said, “You have a good idea what this is all about, and maybe you’re not ready to face it, but I’m telling you, it’s time to do just that: face the truth.”

  Gilmartin did not look convinced.

  “If you’re thinking about the repercussions,” Dion said, “you don’t have to worry about that. You can trust me. I’m one of the good guys.”

  “Well …”

  “So talk to me. I’m not writing this down, and whatever you tell me will stay lowest possible profile from here straight through to the end of the process, whatever that process is.” He gave Gilmartin an official smile of confidentiality to seal the deal. “What we’re doing right now is combining data, putting together a theory, that’s all. You’re not sure, and neither am I, and of course we don’t want to get anyone in trouble unnecessarily. But that’s not going to happen. What we need right now is something to work with. If we’re wrong, the whole thing is flushed. We’ll bury the sources. And we’ll keep Tony’s memory pure, whatever the outcome. Know
what I mean?”

  Gilmartin didn’t seem to.

  “You’re not in any kind of trouble, either,” Dion assured him. “But if you know something, or even suspect it, and you’re keeping it to yourself for whatever reason, it’s not going to help anybody. Not you, not Tony, and for sure not all the other recruits coming down the line.”

  He thought he saw Gilmartin roll his eyes, but couldn’t be sure. “So far it’s a cast of three, and you’re one of them, and without your evidence there’s no way justice can be served. Like I said, super-tight line of inquiry, mute button’s on. But that makes it even more incumbent on you to talk, on your own. You know I can’t lead you. I lead you, and anything you say is garbage. And we want to avoid warrants coming into this. You understand all that?”

  Gilmartin sighed and sipped his coffee or tea. “Man …” he said.

  Dion leaned closer and forced eye contact. “If you put your mind to it, you can figure it out. If you think it’s not possible, think again. You described the shooter to us. Even distorted by the glass, you can put a name to him. You think he won’t try again? Who are you going to trust? Him or me?”

  Gilmartin had frozen in place, now paler than his own bleached-blue pajamas. He whispered drily, “I sincerely don’t know what you’re driving at here. Sir.”

  “Do the math, then,” Dion said. He backed off, dropping his business card on the bed. “Call me 24-7, when it clicks.” And he walked out.

  Twenty-Four

  THE GHOST AND MRS. VLUG

  December 23

  DION WAITED IN THE Doorway to Bosko’s office for Sean Urbanski to finish whatever he was telling the sergeant. “Money,” Urbanski said. “There was more of it kicking around than Tan told us about.”

  Bosko looked up from what he was doing. To Dion, Bosko was a data machine who could shift seamlessly between cases, as if a gas station holdup in Deep Cove was on the same continuum as a suspicious drowning in the Seymour River and a counterfeit report from the Holiday Inn. But he didn’t seem to be shifting along the continuum now; he’d had his full attention on whatever he’d been reading, and now he looked thrown by Urbanski’s words. Disoriented. Not a machine after all.

  “Amelia Foster and Tiffany Tan,” Urbanski reminded him. “They put fifty percent down on a used camper van. A Westfalia. They made two monthly installments on the van before Foster died, and now Tan can’t keep up the payments, so the deal’s been rescinded. So I’d say the funds were coming from Foster. Tan gets a return of most of the money and the dealer gets the Westfalia back.” He handed over documents. “Bill of sale. Loan agreement.”

  “Quite a bargain for a Westfalia,” Bosko said, reading.

  “It needed work,” Urbanski said. “Still, it’s big bucks for these girls. I asked Tan where the money came from and she said it was a gift from her dad. I asked her dad. He says the most money he ever gave her was fifty bucks on her sixteenth birthday.”

  “You’d better talk to her again.”

  “Dave’s sending somebody to pick her up.”

  “Good, thanks.” Bosko went back to his report and Urbanski turned to leave, then turned back again for a last word. “Boss, I hope you haven’t made New Year’s plans yet. Come on over to our place for the countdown. Come early and join us for dinner. Ky has a whole stack of T-bones, and I do believe one of ’em has your name on it.”

  Bosko gave a thumbs-up but went about declining the invitation. “I’d love to, Sean. Except New Year’s Day is also dim sum day. Long story, but kind of a tradition I’ve held with a friend from my last posting. I can’t possibly break it.”

  “Some other time, then.”

  “Some other time.”

  “You, too,” Urbanski told Dion as he brushed past, more an order than an offer. “New Year’s, my place, be there.”

  He was gone, and Dion stepped into the office. “Everyone’s busy,” he said, “so I’ve been sent over with the update you were asking for.”

  “Great. Fire away.”

  “JD’s been going through traffic reports for the Sea to Sky, and here’s what she’s got.” Dion delivered the news in batches, challenging himself to avoid looking at his notebook for as long as possible between refreshers. It wasn’t the most exciting memory game, but it had become habitual.

  “On January fourteenth of this year,” he began, “three people in a van went off the road in the same area where Amelia Foster crashed. Lost control, hit the barriers, and flipped into the sea. They were all in their early twenties, no survivors. The accident was put down to icy roads and inexperience, as the driver had only had his full licence for three months. We’ve faxed the particulars to the traffic analyst, Jay Comstock, and told him to revisit the file.”

  He checked his notebook. “On June twenty-first, also this year, a lady named Patricia Vlug reported that a creature flew at her windshield and nearly drove her off the road, in that same spot. Squamish detachment took the report and closed the file. They figured it was a bird. Nothing came of it.”

  “And she survived to tell?” Bosko asked. “Fabulous. Does she still live in the area?”

  Dion nodded. “Leith and I are heading out to see her pretty soon.”

  “Thanks, Cal. Let me know how it goes.”

  Bosko returned to his original file. From where Dion stood, he could see the photograph of an infant on an autopsy table, battered beyond repair.

  * * *

  Patricia Vlug was a frail woman who looked about a hundred years old. She lived on her own in a small ground-floor apartment in Deep Cove with a lot of houseplants, canaries in cages, and a free-roaming purple budgie that flapped by Dion’s face and startled him.

  He and Leith were ushered into her living room — or conservatory, it felt like — and they sat side by side on a hard brocade couch overcrowded with throw cushions. Leith tried to open the discussion with his first question, but Mrs. Vlug interrupted with a statement: they must have tea. So off she went to put on the kettle.

  Some minutes later they each had a cup of fragrant tea in one hand — Darjeeling, she said — and a biscuit in the other, and Leith was able to get to the point of their visit. “It’s about a report you made to the police this summer, Mrs. Vlug. An incident on the Sea to Sky Highway?”

  She nodded. “I remember it well. The police were quite pleasant, but they didn’t believe me.” She directed her next comment at Dion. “I didn’t insist, you know. If you start insisting, they call you mentally unstable.” She gave a lively finger snap. “Lock you up.” And to Leith again, “Do you want to hear what really happened?”

  Leith gave her a sporting grin. “Why not?”

  “Has it been back?”

  “It’s possible.”

  She nodded as if this confirmed her worst fears. “It was a dead man,” she said. “That’s what I told them. Not a bird. A little dead man in a flowing white gown, with a skull and skeleton hands out like this, and long white hair. He appeared at the passenger-side window of my Mini Cooper and followed along, howling at me.”

  “Howling, like how?”

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t repeat it for you.”

  “A long, steady howl, or high-pitched, or intermittent, or —”

  “He was speaking in devil’s tongues.”

  Something muttered a question close to Dion’s left ear, and he turned to stare into the beady black eyes of the purple budgie, perched on the sofa back behind him.

  “Percival,” Ms. Vlug snapped, “don’t bother the boy. Shoo!” She clapped her hands. “Bad bird! Budgie soup!”

  Dion covered his teacup with a hand as the bird flew away. Beside him Leith asked, “And what happened next, ma’am?”

  “It was a foggy night,” she said. “My sister Margaret had just had a fall where she lives at Skyview Manor — that’s assisted living — in Lions Bay, and I needed to drive out there to see she was all right. Even with all the upgrades I’m not comfortable on that road, not at night, not in the fog.”

 
“Who is?” Dion said.

  She nodded at him and went on. “Well, I missed the turnoff and had to drive some distance to get turned around. Then as I was nearing Lions Bay again, the little dead man just came down from nowhere, flew at me and startled the living daylights out of me, then flew away again before I could say Jack Robinson. I started to slow down, but I didn’t quite stop, and then he came at me again, alongside the driver-side window this time, following me as I drove, his head going back and forth, back and forth. And then he disappeared upward, then came right at my windshield, grinning like a banshee and speaking in tongues.” She made a noise in her throat, what sounded to Dion like a fairly good imitation of an angry swarm of bees. “I was sure I was going to hit him.”

  “What did you do?” Leith asked. He was seated forward now, staring at the tiny woman in wonder. Dion found himself staring, too, picturing the scene: a lone woman in her Mini under attack on a lonely, dark road overhanging the crashing sea.

  “Well, I pressed on the gas and kept going straight,” she said. “I don’t know why I pressed the gas. I suppose I should have stopped, instead, but I was sure he would come at me if I did, and perhaps even get inside the car, somehow. Mercy, but I was frightened.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “More tea, Mr. Leith?”

  “No thanks, ma’am.”

  “And you, child?”

  Dion raised his brows. “No, ma’am, thank you.”

  “I would have preferred to smash him to bits,” Mrs. Vlug went on, refilling her own cup a little unsteadily.

  Dion sat up straighter and crossed his arms. “But?”

  She nudged her eyeglasses. “At the last minute he flew upward and disappeared again. And I kept going. After a minute or two I was more angry than frightened, and let me tell you, I had half a mind to turn around and go back and just confront the little brute again, and this time I wouldn’t stop until I’d knocked him to the ground and driven him flat. That’s how angry I was. But I went to town instead and reported it. I still regret that. They told me it was a bird. A bird! As if I don’t know birds from ghosts.”