Vantage Point

by Scott Thornley

  She hadn’t been aware of the stickman careering her way, but when he coughed just behind her, she and the dog froze. Instinctively she moved her bag to her shoulder and prepared to stand her ground. The terrier lowered its head, squared off its skinny little shoulders, and put on its game face.

  The young man lunged for the purse but missed. The dog barked and snapped at the air. The woman clutched the purse to her chest.

  The man sitting on the bench with his wife yelled, “Hey! I’m calling the cops!” That got the stickman’s attention. He made another attempt, this time knocking the woman to the ground on top of her purse.

  Frustrated, he realized his moment had passed. He was about to run away when he decided to exact revenge on the dog. He stomped down hard and missed. But the dog was tangled up in the woman’s legs; it was an easy target. Its attacker stomped again, harder, cracking the animal’s back. With a yelp it was down, its spine broken.

  The young man pointed his finger in the dog’s direction, screaming, “You asked for it! You asked for it!” Then, like a drug-addled Olympian, he sprinted over the grass berm and through the ornamental gates to Charlton Street, where he disappeared.

  The couple from the bench were standing over the younger woman when the stranger approached. The woman insisted she was unhurt as she carefully untangled the leash and made her way to her knees. Then, looking down at her dog, she cried, “Oh my god, no! What’s he done to Freddy?”

  “I’ve called 911. They’ll send help,” the man said.

  “They’ll be here soon. They’ll find him,” said his wife, resting a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  The stranger was certain the dog was finished. Its legs were trembling, its breathing was shallow, and its eyes were frozen black orbs. He handed the woman the page from his sketchpad. “Give this to the police. Don’t try to move Freddy.”

  A young mother pushing a stroller arrived on the scene. Without saying a word, she took a comforter from the stroller and placed it gently over the dog.

  The stranger turned to the couple. “Make sure the police get that description.” He glanced at Freddy once more before walking off towards the Charlton gate.

  [13]

  The stranger had been following from a distance, but he closed in on the young man at the intersection of James and Bond. For two blocks he’d studied his walk. It was interrupted by face scratching, nervous tics, and leg spasms. A few times he’d turn around quickly to see if anyone was pursuing him, after which he continued to speed-walk for half a block. Drawing closer, the stranger noticed the stickman short-stepping and staring downward, as if he could see through the knees of oncoming pedestrians. Avoiding faces. He was an addict, and something speedier than his brain was driving him downtown for a fix.

  OxyContin, the stranger thought. Before the young man had seen the woman in Durand Park, it was likely he’d already been turned away from St. Joseph’s, which was only a couple of blocks away. After that he was a hyped-up water spider, circling, darting this way and that, every step more desperate than the last. The stranger was far too healthy-looking to assume the role of drugged-out fellow traveller, but there was a part he could play. He rolled his shoulders forward and gave himself an easy, loping stride. Head down, hands deep in his pockets, he began chewing imaginary gum.

  When the young man stopped at the red light, the stranger stepped past him, forcing a driver to hit the horn and slam on the brakes. He turned back to the young man on the curb. “Follow me.” He lifted his middle finger to the driver and swaggered through the intersection. On the opposite side, he turned around, opened his arms, and exaggerated his gum chewing.

  The young man looked nervous. Crocodiles were waiting for him the moment he stepped off the curb — it was going to take courage to do it. He darted out suddenly, running in a zigzag between several cars, causing more braking and honking. Relieved to make it to the other sidewalk, he was suddenly hit with the giggles.

  The stranger smiled. “That wasn’t so hard, was it.”

  “No . . . no. Not hard, not hard.” He was out of breath from fear and giggling.

  The stranger turned and walked west on Bond. Behind him, the young man was coughing and muttering. Like a stray dog, he had fallen into line. Without turning, the stranger said, “Cotton?”

  “Wha — what? Yeah . . . Oxy. Yeah.” He laughed nervously and skipped to catch up. “When I can. Yeah. Apache too . . . now. I mean today. Yeah.”

  “Ever try China White?”

  “Wait . . . that fentanyl heroin shit? Not for a while. No, man.”

  “Yeah, it’s something crazy. New and improved — you’ll see God.”

  A nervous chuckle. “Man, I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

  “Follow me. My van’s just down the block.”

  The young man was so desperate for a hit that he nodded nervously and quickstepped, trying to keep up with the bigger man.

  “What’s your name, chief?”

  “Lenny . . . Yeah, Lenny.”

  They settled into the front seats of the van. The stranger reached behind to a cooler. “Wanna Coke, Lenny?”

  “Coke? Naw, I don’t do coke no more. I get real bad nosebleeds.”

  The stranger pulled out two tins and handed him one. “Coke.”

  Lenny slapped his hand on the dash and fell into hysterical laughter. “Shit, man . . . busted. So busted.”

  “Common mistake.” He opened the glove compartment and took out a zip bag containing several pale yellow capsules. “Two will fix you up.” He put them in Lenny’s open palm.

  Lenny grinned, cavalierly popped them into his mouth, and swallowed them quickly with the Coke. The man started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “I’ll take you up the mountain so you can see the city. Dundurn opens up like in Close Encounters, when that mothership arrives.”

  “What’s close . . . close end counters?” Lenny asked, as he slid back comfortably against the seat and the door, nursing his soft drink.

  * * *

  He pulled into a layby overlooking the city and turned off the engine. Lenny mumbled something before closing his eyes.

  “How you feeling?” He took Lenny’s Coke and put it into the console holder, next to his own. The young man didn’t appear to notice that the tin was gone; his left hand still curved around the space it had occupied.

  “Huh? Oh . . . high, man . . . high.”

  “You’re missing the view.” When Lenny didn’t respond, the stranger smacked his face. “Wake up.”

  Lenny didn’t open his eyes but mumbled something about what an awesome view it was. Leaning over, the older man shook Lenny’s shoulders. His eyelids opened slightly and he managed, “Okay . . . Yeah, so cool,” before they closed again.

  He shook him harder until Lenny’s eyes opened wide. “Lenny, listen. Pay attention. You shouldn’t have killed that dog. That wasn’t right. Can you hear me, Lenny?”

  “Huh? Yeah, no . . . What?”

  “Killing that woman’s dog was wrong. That was a very bad deed. For you, a fatal one.”

  “The black devil, man. I seen it . . .” Lenny waved his hand. “He was the devil. Hey, wait — you saw that?” His eyes opened, but with their pupils the size of pinheads, they wouldn’t focus. Try as he might, he was looking through the wrong end of the telescope. A few seconds later, his eyelids fell like lead shutters.

  “Yes, I saw it. Lenny, twenty minutes ago you swallowed heroin, but sixty percent of each capsule was fentanyl. One’s probably enough to kill you, but two . . . Well, you can imagine . . .”

  “Who are you?” Lenny couldn’t decipher what was happening. He struggled to sit up but, abandoned by his strength, he flopped back into the seat.

  The stranger looked out at Dundurn. Beyond the silhouettes of the steel mills, the light danced across the bay, leaving its surface shivering in the breeze.
It reminded him of daybreak and the gossamer light on a spider’s web. “There’s only beauty. That’s all there is.”

  Lenny’s head moved in a slow-motion circle before coming to a stop on the headrest. His jaw fell slackly and the tensions and tics that had gripped and twisted his face softened. It was a study in battered grace. Lenny was a boy again, at peace.

  Wanting to capture Lenny’s last breath, he reached for his pocket camera. But the moment was gone. The final sigh left Lenny’s body without notice, the way an infant on the breast slides quietly into a gentle sleep.

  [14]

  “Mac, it’s Swets. You up north?”

  MacNeice shook his head. “No. I’m on my way to Wallace’s for the Amelia Street press conference.”

  “Okay, we’ve got one male, took two in the chest. I’m looking at him now. You gotta see it — this one’s nuts.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Devil’s Punchbowl. I’ll meet you in the parking lot off Ridge Road. Bring your boots, Mac. The scene’s slippier ’n shit.”

  MacNeice turned onto Main and punched in Wallace’s cell number.

  “You’re on your way?”

  “No, sir. DS Swetsky has another body, out at the Devil’s Punchbowl. There’s a possibility it’s related to Amelia Street. I’m on my way there now.”

  “Shit. Okay, no problem. I can handle this.” Wallace covered the mouthpiece and spoke to someone in the room before coming back to him. “You got anything new on Amelia?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “I’ll go with the Matthew Terry photo. Keep me posted.”

  Five minutes later, as MacNeice was passing Gage Park, Vertesi called to report on the “two-block knock” around the Terry house Saturday and Sunday. “Father Terry — only a couple of people knew he’d been a priest, but everyone said he was friendly when they’d meet on the street. He’d pet dogs, tousle kids’ hair, say ‘nice day’ before going on his way. One neighbour said she saw him occasionally at the library.”

  Matthew Terry, on the other hand, was aloof. “He never walked in the area, and even when he pulled out of his driveway, the tinted windows of his Mercedes meant you couldn’t see him. One woman said, ‘I swear if he passed me on the sidewalk, I wouldn’t recognize the man.’”

  Some had seen the cleaning lady come and go, along with a guy in a pickup truck who shovelled the snow every winter, but otherwise the house was quiet. “Apparently the kids didn’t even go there on Halloween, and not just because there weren’t any pumpkins outside. That’s a sure sign you’re not fitting in.”

  No one had seen anything unusual around the time of the killings. No one had heard any loud noises or the squealing tires of a getaway car. “Mind you, one old lady said, ‘The neighbourhood has changed so much. People don’t know each other like they used to.’”

  “Not much there.”

  “Sorry, boss. We dug hard and came up empty-handed.”

  * * *

  Driving through Dundurn, MacNeice kept pace with the green light changes; it was the most efficient way to cut the city in half. Inevitably his mind would wander back to her. And when it did, the familiar streetscape of low-rise office buildings and apartments, detached houses, intersections, and weaving traffic lost its definition. Together they became objects to negotiate, more landscape than flowers and weeds. No need to notice the church they were married in, that she had been buried from. And the passing beige mass of the oncologist’s clinic could be avoided altogether with a simple glance into the rear-view mirror, moving steadily forward while looking backwards.

  “I wanted to be the tears in your eyes, the joy in your smile.”

  You were, Mac.

  “I wanted those things because that’s who you are for me.”

  I recall there were times when you’d look at me and your eyes filled with tears.

  “That’s just the Celtic lunatic fringe, to quote your father.”

  No, Mac, it wasn’t.

  “The first time you played the violin for me, I felt like I’d been freed from some terrible task.”

  I don’t understand.

  “Once I saw a horse tethered to a long rod attached to a pump. The horse wore blinders. Its task was to walk in a circle all day, providing power to the pump. Its path was so worn down that at night when he was released, he had to climb out. He was led to a pen, fed, and blanketed. And in the morning he went back to work. I never dreamed you, Kate. I couldn’t have invented you any more than that horse could invent being free to roll about in the fields, drink water from a stream, or eat apples fallen from trees.”

  My, oh my. If I’d known I played that well, I might have stuck around.

  “It’s still hard, is all . . .”

  Have you ever thought that at some point you willingly walked back to that pump and tethered yourself to the rod?

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Recidivism.

  [15]

  In addition to Swetsky’s car, there were three cruisers, a dozen or so civilian vehicles, and two police-commandeered school buses in the Punchbowl parking area. A uniformed officer opened the barricade and allowed MacNeice to ease his car alongside Swetsky’s.

  He popped the trunk and retrieved a pair of rubber boots. As he sat on the bumper taking off his shoes, Swetsky came lurching in his direction with his suit pants rolled up to his calves and his boots covered in what looked like dry cement. Still limping from a hip wound, he stopped, looked up briefly, and waved.

  “Williams on the bus?” MacNeice asked, giving the big man a chance to catch his breath.

  “Yeah,” Swetsky said, glancing in their direction. “There are fifteen of them to interview. Five are kids: two boys, three girls. The rest are adults, all ages. He’s got two female cops to assist.”

  MacNeice stood up and tucked his pant legs into the boots. Swetsky smiled. “I was over at the viewing platform under that big metal cross with the lightbulbs.” He looked back over his shoulder. “You’ll be happy to hear that our guy isn’t in the Punchbowl. He’s down at the Lower Falls. We got two ways to get there.”

  The first was to walk up the road past the country market to a trail leading down the escarpment. “It’s a nice walk in the country,” said Swetsky. The other was to get in the car, drive down and across Secord, and walk up to the scene. “Time’s a wash. About twenty-five minutes either way.” Looking back at the cross again, Swetsky added, “I know you’ve got an issue with heights, Mac, but if you come over to the cross, there’s a viewing platform. You can look down and see where we’re going. If you lean over that rail you can just see the body.”

  “No, I’ll wait to see it.” The thought of leaning over the abyss was already making him queasy. MacNeice closed the trunk and locked the car.

  Swetsky was still favouring his hip, but before MacNeice could say anything, the big man said, “I’m fine walking. I just limp a bit.”

  “Let’s walk, then. You can give me the topline on the way.”

  “Escarpment cleanup volunteers found him.” The sound of the falls increased as they passed the edge of the bowl. It was frighteningly close to the road. “It’s louder than normal here. Usually there’s just a trickle going over, but the land’s still wringing itself out from the rain. The volunteer cleanup team was climbing down to pick up a winter’s load of dumped trash and debris. One of them spotted the body. At first he thought it was someone being a smartass, or maybe a nature-loving homeless guy — until they smelled it.”

  Above the Punchbowl they were buffeted by such strong winds that MacNeice’s jacket flapped wildly behind him. He pulled it in and buttoned it up.

  “Apparently it’s windy up here all the time. Woman in the shop — great butter tarts, by the way — tells me this is nothing.” Swetsky looked around. “There’s a history of suicides and lovers leaping here, but that’s not our guy.”
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  Swetsky turned down the path. “We’ve got four cops to secure the area and two units on the roads below to keep folks away. We’re waiting for the coroner and a forensics team.” He turned to MacNeice and grinned. “I was told they’re busy.”

  “Has the site been disturbed?”

  “Team leader of the volunteers said they never went near it. They were here at first light. Once they realized this guy was dead, they called 911 and told everyone to return to their vehicles.”

  Swetsky stopped walking.

  “You okay?” MacNeice was concerned.

  “What? Yeah, I’m okay. There’s something else I gotta tell you about. It’s unrelated to this.”

  MacNeice picked out the sound of crows calling down the sides of the ravine. Call, response; call, response. He braced himself for bad news.

  “I heard from Deputy Chief Wallace just before you arrived. He wanted to talk to you. I thought you were headed up to Kate’s grave, so I told him that. Wallace seemed relieved to hear it. Anyway, the bastard proceeded to give me the news instead.” Swetsky spread his arms wide as if he were calling a penalty in a football game.

  MacNeice began to tense up. What news? It was odd that Wallace hadn’t mentioned anything during their call. The sound of the wind and the falls faded and he struggled to take a deep breath.

  “DI Palmer’s coming back to us, Mac.” Swetsky gave that a moment to sink in. He found something to look at in the trees and waited for MacNeice to respond. When he realized that might not happen, he added, “Apparently the guy was up to his old tricks, though this time it was a woman in the precinct, a civilian on contract. No one knew about it, but last Tuesday her husband came in screaming that he was going tear Palmer apart.”