“Do we have names yet?”
Paley didn’t answer, too busy staring over Leith’s shoulder. Leith turned to see why and watched a young man approach from the hallway, also in white coveralls, shirt collar and tie showing under the unzipped throat of his Tyvek. He looked familiar to Leith, and not in a happy, well-met kind of way.
This was someone he had worked with in the not-so-distant past, up north in the Hazeltons, for a few long weeks through the bitterness of February. So Dion had somehow made it back to North Van, just as he had promised, and instead of being demoted to janitor, as Leith had thought most likely, he had advanced from uniform to the suit-and-tie brigade. Which meant they would be working together again. Hoo-ray.
“Well, there you are,” Paley exclaimed as Dion came to stand with them. “Heard you were back, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch, but wasn’t expecting you today.”
“All hands on deck on this one,” Dion answered cheerfully. “So to hell with orientation, they just pushed me out the door.” He glanced at the bodies, then glanced at Leith, and looked at Leith again, with surprise. Then a shockingly huge smile, as if this meeting really made his day. “I was wondering when I’d run into you! How are you doing? Got set up okay?”
As Leith recalled, their northern parting of ways had been unpleasant. But maybe it was all water under the bridge. He smiled, too, and shook Dion’s extended hand, their first physical contact, barring one brief skirmish at the Hazelton detachment. “Getting by,” he said. “How are you?”
“Great, great.”
The reunion formalities over, Dion became businesslike. He gestured at the two bodies and said to Paley, “Just talked to Dadd and got suspected cause of death and his timing estimate —”
The name Dadd — Jack Dadd, the coroner — threw Leith each time.
“— adult female died about twelve hours ago, so it happened last evening. But I guess you have the basics on this one, Doug?”
“The basics,” Paley echoed flatly.
“Strangled,” Dion said. “Petechiae and some edema visible. Damage to her tongue — she probably bit it — and narrow bruises on the neck, but no cutting. The child, at a guess, likely died of head trauma. TOD about six hours ago, he says — that’s quite a bit later than the adult, so it was probably secondary TBI.”
TOD, TBI. Time of death was common enough, but TBI made Leith think a moment. Traumatic brain injury. The new, improved Dion opened his notebook, found a page, and studied it. “The homeowner’s name is King, and he’s got it rented to Lance and Cheryl Liu,” he told Paley, with glances at Leith to include him. “The Lius are new in town, out from Alberta. They took the place on March 1st. Lance Liu has just incorporated a company called L&S Electric. He’s not been reached yet. I called the L&S number and got voice mail, so I’ll follow up. The name L&S suggests there’s a partner, so —”
“Hey,” Paley cut in. “That’s all very fuckin’ fantastic, but did I ask for a report? Did I?”
“No,” Dion said. “You want a report?”
“Too late, I already got it, didn’t I?”
Leith suspected this was more a skit than a real conversation. In spite of the age gap, these two were friends from way back.
“Sorry, Doug,” Dion said, not sounding sorry at all. “It was hairy at the office. Jim was buried, so I task-shared. You want me to follow up on this L&S thing?”
Paley rolled his eyes. Leith was glad that Dion was apparently okay now. The northern Dion he knew had been remote, unlikeable, and … well, unsmart. The new Dion was now outlining to Paley the task he had butted his way into. Probably the most important task on the board at the moment, hunting down their best and only suspect — the missing husband, Lance Liu.
The conversation between the two seemed snappy and efficient, and ended on a positive note. Paley moved off to supervise the removal of the bodies, and Dion remained by Leith’s side, pointing down at something. Leith followed the line of his finger to the child’s feet.
“One shoe on, one off,” Dion said. “Where’s the other shoe?”
Booties, not shoes, thought Leith, a bit of an expert. “I saw that,” he lied.
“Probably under her body,” Dion told him. “Keep an eye out. Also, I don’t see a vase.”
He turned and headed away, unzipping the bunny suit.
Leith watched him go, then looked at the child’s feet, at the pink velvet bootie on one, a tiny striped sock on the other, green and yellow. Vase, he thought. What?
* * *
The Level 3 office had once been occupied by Staff Sergeant Tony Cleveland, now retired. Cleveland had kept the door shut and the screens closed. He hadn’t liked drop-ins, so nobody had dropped in. Now the slats were open, and so was the door. Dion poked his head in and took in the view. He saw that Cleveland’s classic etchings of famous bridges were gone, and modern posters were up instead, large photographs of this or that, mounted behind glass with minimalist steel frames. The new occupant, Sergeant Michael Bosko, sat at the desk, working at his computer and talking to himself. Or so it seemed.
With a nod toward the visitor’s chair, Bosko acknowledged Dion, then carried on bashing his fingertips on a heavy-duty laptop and chatting via Bluetooth.
“Yes, of course,” Bosko said, smiling. “They call it the acid test.” He quit typing and peered at the laptop screen. “Just dropped a point. No, I am not kidding you. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.”
Without a sign-off, he tapped something near his ear and looked across at Dion. There was no recognition in his stare. Strange, since he knew Dion, at least remotely. They had met in the Hazeltons, working on the same case, though nowhere near in the same league. Had not exchanged a word, or even eye contact, much, which might explain the lack of aha. Still, it was Bosko who had gotten Dion back here, so …
“Calvin Dion, hello.” Recognition must have kicked in, for now Bosko was on his feet, smiling. “Or is it Cal?”
“Cal’s good.” Dion had risen too, reaching across the desk. This was another of the day’s big challenges: the all-important first impression, the firm handshake, the confident smile. The smile had to reach the eyes, or it was worse than no smile at all. The reach and grip had to be solid, fluid, and of just the right duration — not so brief as to seem skittish, but releasing before being released, to show initiative. “Morning, sir.”
They both resumed their seats. Reborn from the haircut to the silk-blend socks, Dion had been careful not to show up on Day One looking like a menswear mannequin. That would make him look insecure. He had knotted the tie properly but hadn’t snugged it too tight, tucked the shirttails in, then did a few overhead stretches to slack off the tension. He was showered and shaved, but had skipped the cologne, and his short black hair was a tad mussed. According to the mirror, he was perfectly imperfect.
“So you didn’t have time to set up your pencil jar before they sent you off to the field, I hear,” Bosko said. He had a deep, easy voice, almost lazy. And controlled, as though nothing could fluster him. “I also understand you’re already in the thick of it, so I won’t keep you. I called you in just to welcome you back and have a one-minute face-to-face, since I don’t believe we ever actually spoke, did we? How are you doing so far?”
“Great,” Dion said. Seated straight, but not too straight, his expression enthused but not maniacal. “I’m stoked to be home. I wanted to thank you. For putting your trust in me, sir. You won’t be disappointed.”
“I don’t expect I will be. Now, you’ve been away for a while, and things have been shuffled around a bit, so if you need any help with our setup here, procedure, fitting back in, or just need to talk something through, come on over and let me know. The door’s open.”
Dion nodded. “There is one thing. I was working on a file when the crash happened. It’s still unsolved. Would I be able to get back on it?”
Bosko asked for the particulars,
and Dion gave him the file name — written down and memorized before this meeting — and the basics. Last summer a young woman’s body had been found washed ashore. Snagged in the boulders that formed a rampart down by the Neptune Terminals. He didn’t give Bosko the fine details, how Jane Doe’s face had been eroded by gasses, brine, and parasites, so a police artist had reconstructed her, as best she could, in pencil, to be followed up by a 3D model. Early twenties, short hair that was natural brown but dyed white-blond, wide-spaced eyes, rosebud mouth. Ancestry undetermined, but possibly Eurasian. Pink spandex bathing suit — a pricey brand — embedded in flesh, grotesque and slimy. And one earring, the other apparently lost. He had been trying before his departure to track down the jeweller who made the earring. It was of characteristic design, a round, enamelled button, a yellow shape against a red background. The shape might have been a star, except it was cut off. Around the edges ran little beads of gold, fourteen-carat.
The bathing suit and the season — summertime — suggested she had come off a boat. The pathologist determined she had been strangled by a fine, hard ligature. Alternatively, it might have been a necklace that had cut into her bloating flesh before snapping and sinking to the ocean floor.
She would have been beautiful, once.
Nobody had come to claim her, and she had never been given a name, and like any unfinished job, she continued to haunt Dion.
“I’ll tell you what,” Bosko said, after calling the case up on the intranet. “You’re free to look it over, but I’d like you on this Mahon case, hundred percent.”
Mahon Avenue, murdered mother and child, missing husband. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
And just like that, they were done. Dion stood and smiled again. As he left the room and strode down the hall, he counted again the four possibilities of why he was back in North Vancouver. Possibility one was just what he’d been told, that Bosko was impressed with him for some reason — his excellent past record, say — and for that reason alone, he’d had him summoned. Possibility two: sheer error. Bosko was a busy man with lots on his mind, and maybe a wire had crossed, a typo or false memory, and he simply had someone else in mind. Three, Bosko was a manipulator. He considered Dion a liability and wanted him gone, but needed a good excuse, so he’d decided to place him in a stressful situation — the big-city crime scene — to watch him come apart.
The fourth possibility kept Dion awake nights: he was being investigated. Bosko was working a crime, had a theory, was putting his suspicion to the test, and to test it properly he needed his suspect close at hand.
Down on Level 2, at the desk he’d been given, Dion set aside his doubts and focussed on the Lius. He listed his thoughts on paper. First on the list, he made a call to the Justice Department for a telephone warrant, doing Jimmy Torr’s job for him, then to the Corporate Registry of Companies, and fairly soon had the information he was looking for: the names of all partners in the company, which totalled two, each owning fifty percent of L&S Electric.
He guessed the “L” was Lance Liu. The “S,” he knew now, would be a Sigmund Blatt. The company had been incorporated only three months ago. Its address was a PO box, and its phone number was the one he had tried earlier without luck. Now he made more calls, tracking down the unlisted contact information for the surviving partner.
Within the hour he took the information a few desks down to Jimmy Torr. He sat and waited for Torr to finish a call, then told him, “I’ve got a line on Sigmund Blatt, the missing man’s partner. You want me to follow up?”
He had known Torr for years. Torr was in his middle thirties, built, irritable, and insecure. He had never liked Dion, and vice versa. But animosity felt good to Dion. It meant for a while he could drop the cheek-numbing smile.
“I’ll take care of it,” Torr said coldly, reaching for the note. “Thanks.”
“It’s priority. Lance Liu’s our best bet right now, and he’s missing. If you’re not going to deal with it straight away, I will. Paley’s given me the go-ahead.”
Torr looked at the paper. He said, “Call him up, tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I tried. Got an answering machine.”
“Did you leave a message? Tell him to get back to you A-SAP?”
“No. Better to cold-call him anyway,” Dion said. “I could head over there now.”
Torr said sourly, “What meds they got you on?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but stood and grabbed his suit jacket, making a statement with the set of his shoulders that he was going alone. Dion followed.
Four
Echoes
Leith had seen what he had to see in the house on Mahon, and as the place filled with Ident members buckling down for an in-depth search, he thought he would leave, make himself useful back at the office. He was heading down the stairs toward the front door when he heard a commotion, a kind of collective gasp, then a murmuring of excited voices.
It was so unlike any other commotion he had heard at crime scenes over the years that he returned at a jog to the top of the stairs and followed the sound to the kitchen. Here he saw half a dozen white-clad Idents clustered about the lower corner cabinet next to the kitchen sink. All were peering into the darkness, and one was speaking gently to it.
Dog or cat, Leith thought.
“What’s up?” he asked the member closest to him.
“There’s a child in there,” she said. “A boy, we’re thinking. He’s crouched way at the back. He won’t come out.”
A child, Leith thought. Alive. He added a mental wow. “Is he hurt? Is he stuck?”
Nobody thought the kid was hurt or stuck, but nobody knew for sure.
Leith told the group, “Everybody clear out. Except you,” he told the female member, because women were nicer, and kids knew it. “What’s your name?” he asked, as the others left the room.
“Constable Kim Tam, sir.”
“Try to coax him out, okay? I’ll wait over here.”
He stood in the corner of the room and watched Tam crouch down by the open cabinet doors. She leaned over so her head almost touched the floor, and cooed in at the boy. Must be a terrifically small human to fit in there, on the lower shelf, far back among pots and pans, Leith marvelled.
“It’s all good now,” Tam was saying, in a warm, smiley voice. “The bad man is gone,” she said, and Leith sighed. He’d have a talk with her later about planting false memories. But too late now; the bad man had come and gone. She nodded encouragement into the shadows. “We’re going to take care of you now, okay? You must be so cold! I have a blanket here, and we’ll get you a nice cup of cocoa, how about that?”
Finally there was movement and a shifting of cookware. A little face appeared, caught sight of Leith, who was working hard to look like safe harbour, and ducked back inside. Tam turned and glared at Leith, letting him know safe harbour was the last thing he looked like. He stepped further away, and she went about undoing the damage.
At last she had the little survivor gathered in her arms, hugging him tight. There were tears in her eyes as she stood and turned to Leith, and a flash of outrage, asking what kind of monster could tear this little darling’s world apart like this.
Any decent person would feel that outrage. Children left parentless, parents left childless, families shredded. Leith knew the outrage most viscerally. In his line of work, anger was a valuable but delicate resource, possibly not renewable, not to be overused. He had learned the lesson maybe too late, because his anger these days felt like a worn tire, dulled by age and subject to bursting. As hers would, too, in time, if she didn’t watch out.
“What’s your name, little guy?” Tam was asking the child. He was somewhere between three and four years old. He wore flannel pyjamas that smelled of stale pee. He wouldn’t talk. Nor did he cry or fuss; he just huddled in Tam’s arms. Whatever he’d seen in this place last night had shocked him numb.
; “Maybe he doesn’t speak English,” Leith suggested.
Tam said, “I’m sure he speaks perfect English.”
Leith wasn’t sure how she could know, but trusted she was right. He got on the phone, calling Paley to send in a female GIS member to help get the kid to the hospital. The one who showed up a few minutes later was a bit of a disappointment, not the kind of female he had in mind. He had worked with her before in a passing way. JD Temple was tall, about thirty years old, with short brown hair. Her face was marred by a birth defect, a cleft lip that had never been properly repaired. She had a skinny build, fierce dark eyes, and an air of macho impatience. Leith would have preferred the soft femininity of Kim Tam, but Tam was Ident, and her job was here at the scene, combing and picking up lint with her team like an OCD housemaid.
Problem? JD’s stare asked him as she plucked the reluctant child from a reluctant Tam, reading the doubt on Leith’s face and resenting it.
Yes, there was a problem, because right now this little survivor was Leith’s best clue, and he wanted that clue to be as comfortable as possible. He wasn’t sure JD was capable of giving that kind of comfort. “Great,” he said. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Sigmund Blatt’s stats said he lived on the fourth floor of a low-rise down near the industrial zone. Nobody at his unit number buzzed the door open, so Torr got the manager to open up. Torr asked the manager what he knew of Blatt, and the manager, a hard-eyed Asian — Vietnamese, Dion believed — only shrugged, signing that he wasn’t up on his English. He was, however, able to explain that the elevator was out of order.
“See the way he looked at me?” Torr said as he and Dion climbed the stairs to four. “Looked at me like I’m the invasive species. Blatt won’t be home, I guarantee you. We’re doing ten miles of stairs for nothing. Fuck you.”
The fuck you wasn’t up to Torr’s usual standard. Maybe it was the exertion of the climb. They arrived, damp and winded, at the door of apartment 416. Dion was out of shape from lack of exercise, and Torr was a body builder, not a mountaineer. Torr flapped his elbows to air the sweat, then knocked on the door, two loud thumps, predicting again that nobody would answer. Nobody did.
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