Undertow

by R. M. Greenaway

  York was making attempts to blow smoke rings, but the wind coming off the water ripped them up and dispersed them. “Don’t know,” he said. Then, “Tomorrow morning we’re going boating. Me, Mel, and Jamie. You could join us.”

  No. Not out on the waves. The thought was sickening. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  York ignored him. “Come over around ten. Mel will pack a lunch. We’ll spin along the shore, and I’ll show you the Sea Lane house I told you about. If all goes well, we can dock, step inside, you can tell me how fabulous it is. What d’you say?”

  “Not crazy about boats,” Dion said.

  “It’s not a boat. Just a tub. Eighteen-foot outboard. But goes like stink. After that we’re having a wake, at my place, Deep Cove. For Oz.”

  A boat ride, followed by party, Dion realized, radically upped the odds of getting to know Jamie Paquette. And as for the waves, maybe facing them would be just the medicine. “I’ll think about it. Did Oscar know Jamie’s bad news?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Was she fooling around on him? Who with? Anyone you know?”

  “You, my friend, are nuts,” York said.

  Their cigarettes were done. They stood to return indoors, and to Dion’s shock, York slung an arm across his shoulder as they made their way back into the thud of music, the strobing lights and milling crowd. Like they were friends, had been for years, and would be forevermore.

  * * *

  When he’d had enough partying, which wasn’t much past midnight, Dion sat on the sofa in his unfinished temporary living quarters above the club — the soundproofing here was amazing — and wondered about that Midas reference. He had never been a big reader of fiction, hadn’t aced anything in high school, and it wasn’t love of learning that had got him through to grad and onward into the RCMP. What got him through was a fierce determination to be free of his father. So he had studied, cheated, and memorized — whatever it took to get his B’s and C’s. A side benefit of his determination was that it kept him out of trouble. Still, even working doubly hard, anything English lit–related had slid right past him, and he had just squeaked through with a passing grade. So tonight, when York said “Midas,” it had rung only a faint bell in his mind.

  Sitting here now, he knew Midas was more than just a muffler shop — it was a fairy tale, a myth about some bigwig with magical powers. He opened his laptop and after a short search, learned that King Midas was supposed to have turned everything he touched to gold. So that’s what Jon meant.

  But if that were true, if Jon York was King Midas, then he, Dion, should be inert right now. Valuable but immobilized, and he wasn’t either. His nerves still jangled from the sensation of York’s arm lying heavily across his shoulder. It was presumptuous and weird, but probably not a sexual come-on. It had felt like friendship at the time, but now he wondered if it had been more of a threat.

  But why would York threaten him? It made no sense. Maybe it was time to accept that plain and simple friendship was possible outside of the force.

  He stared into the glow of his laptop screen and read further. In one version of the legend, the most logical one, in his opinion, King Midas in the end had starved to death. Because — and this made sense — you can’t eat gold.

  Twenty-Two

  Sheer

  Bad dreams had Dion on the run all night long, chasing him to exhaustion. Then somebody said something, and he woke fast. It was Looch, somewhere, saying his name, Cal.… He propped himself swiftly on an elbow and stared down a hall that wasn’t there, breathing hard because it was impossible, because Looch was dead. Then a noise from the far end of wherever he was snapped the room into focus, and there was a stranger silhouetted against the light from a window. He tried to remember where his firearm was, but recalled he no longer carried one.

  “Cal,” the voice said again. “Sorry about that, didn’t mean to scare you. There’s no intercom in this place, so I let myself in.”

  Jon York came into one eye’s focus. Dion blinked to clear the other one. “What’s going on?”

  “Wanted to call but realized I don’t have your number,” Jon said. He wore clothes fit for the beach, white tank and easy-fit canvas trousers. “Was in the neighbourhood anyway, so just thought I’d swing by.”

  Dion looked at the folding alarm clock he had placed on the coffee table, set to go off at nine thirty. It said eight thirty-nine. He wasn’t supposed to be at the Yorks’ till ten, he had thought.

  Jon said, “Early, I know. It’s a gorgeous morning, but rain’s in the forecast, so we thought we’d bump up the schedule, get out a little earlier. But, hey, if you want me to buzz off —”

  “No,” Dion said. “I’m up.” He dropped back and closed his eyes.

  Jon said, “Good, then. We’ll grab you a coffee on the way. Get dressed — dress for the water, it’s coolish out there, and bring along a change of clothes for Oscar’s party. C’mon, make it snappy. Might as well take my ride, which you’ve been eying. If you’re ready in five, I’ll even let you drive.” He stood by the window, waiting, looking outward.

  Dion pulled on cargo shorts and T-shirt for the boat ride. Into his overnight bag he packed clothes for the wake to follow. He couldn’t find his phone, not on the windowsill, not in his coat pocket, not in his pants. Not in the ensuite, either. He stood before the mirror, ruffling his hair. Had he lost the phone? Before the crash he had never lost anything.

  Before the crash he had been an early riser; 6:00 a.m., get up, make coffee, jump back in bed and harass Kate for sex, then out the door. He used to hit the gym before work, if he could fit it in. Pound the treadmill and press weights. Where had all that energy gone?

  He returned to the main room and told Jon he had lost his phone. Jon was still by the window, still contemplating the strait waters. He turned. “When’s the last time you used it?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Is the phone finder turned on?”

  Dion didn’t know of the option.

  “Maybe you left it in the bar.”

  Downstairs, Jon unlocked the dark and silent nightclub. He flicked on the lights, and Dion checked the VIP booth while Jon looked through the lost-and-found box behind the counter. A couple of Samsungs, but no BlackBerry.

  “It’ll turn up,” Jon said. He held out his car fob like a consolation prize.

  Dion took the key and followed him out to the street, toward the silver Nissan parked at the curb, and thought how crazy this was. He had been gotten up too early, had lost his phone, his life was in shambles, but somehow none of it mattered now, as he was about to drive the car of his dreams.

  * * *

  On Leith’s first day off he took Alison and Izzy to a child-friendly restaurant for lunch. Izzy was given a high chair and drawing material. She promised to behave, and for the most part did, till disaster struck: the blue crayon snapped in half as she scribbled over the duck’s face, the two halves flying out of reach.

  Disaster is a relative concept, Leith realized. His daughter yelled her outrage, but to his relief, Alison dealt with the crisis swiftly. She had a good rapport with Izzy, who was turning out to be quite a card. If Alison said shush, Izzy would thrust her arms in the air and open her mouth and eyes wide as if to scream even louder, but she’d just be kidding. With a mischievous smile, she would shush.

  They performed this beautifully choreographed little act now before Leith’s astonished eyes. Alison tweaked Izzy’s nose and gave her back the blue crayon. Izzy continued to scribble over the duck’s face.

  The touching vignette got Leith worrying that he was too wrapped up in his workaday world to appreciate what he had in this child of his. It was so fleeting a time. Would he blink and find it was gone?

  Must slow down, leave work at the office, he told himself.

  He said so to Alison as the food arrived. “Later, I’ll tour you around,”
he said. “We’ll go to Capilano Canyon, show Izzy the rainforest.” Would Izzy care? Probably not, but she would love the fresh air and the closeness of family. “It’s going to be better here,” he told Alison.

  “Oh, no, it’s going to be worse,” she replied, matter-of-factly. Not blaming him, just saying. “Big city, more pressure. I’ll never see you. Ever.”

  “Not true.” Leith bit into his buffalo burger, munched, and swallowed. “Less travel, for one thing. No overnighters, ’cause it’s a smaller territory. I’ve learned the hard way, I can’t let the job take over my life. I have duties and obligations, but I also have some say over my workload.”

  The waitress stopped by to see if everything was all good here. He said everything was great, and could he have a coffee? The phone in his pocket buzzed, the BlackBerry. “It’s nothing,” he told Alison, taking the call. “I’ll delegate.”

  Alison rolled her eyes. Doug Paley was in Leith’s ear, saying he was looking at what was probably Cleo Irvine right now. She was lying on the grounds at the Roth house, and she was definitely not alive.

  “How?” Leith said, staring blindly at the messy, mangled blue duck in front of Izzy. “What happened?”

  “I dunno,” Paley said. “But you better come see, quick.”

  Leith banged down the BlackBerry and swore, the F-word and the S-word in combination for maxi­mum impact.

  “Dave!” Alison said.

  He apologized to Alison, and to Izzy. “I didn’t just say that,” he told his daughter. “It’s a bad word. Don’t you ever say it, sweetie, okay?”

  She offered a bit of fish stick on her tiny palm and said “fiss.”

  He stood, pulling on his jacket. “Get that burger wrapped for later,” he told Alison. He asked if she had enough cash for a cab, and was too distracted to hear her answer. He leaned and kissed her forehead, and said bye to Izzy, and jogged past the puzzled-looking waitress bringing the coffee he had just ordered.

  * * *

  If it wasn’t so tragic, it might have been funny how the death of Cleo Irvine came with its own virtual diagram called this is how it happened. Leith was with JD upstairs in Oscar Roth’s office, the spacious room with the expensive but abused desk, the lewd posters, the dartboard. Leith looked at one feature of the place he had taken little note of on his earlier visit: the high, bay-style window in four parts, with a broad sill painted silky white. The two side sections were fixed, but the central two were casements, swinging outward.

  Both casements were flung open. A gold velveteen drape hung half off its hooks and flopped sluggishly outside like a heartbroken flag. The desk had been moved, Leith saw. Somebody had pushed it close enough to the window that it could be stood upon, to reach the rod, presumably. But the person doing the hanging would have to stretch.

  JD said, “She was wearing one-inch pumps with zero tread. And apparently taking the drapes off. Why was she doing that? They look new.”

  “If she was doing anything at all with the drape, she was putting it up,” Leith said. “It was missing when Roth died.”

  “Oh.” JD thought it over, nodding. “So she was hooking it up, leaning forward, slipped, and out she went. Why would she have the windows open?”

  “Place stank of cigarettes,” Leith said, recalling clearly that day here with Dion. “Probably she was airing the place.”

  “So she stands on a slick desk in slippery shoes, leans toward an open window over a thirty-foot drop, and fiddles with curtain fasteners,” JD said. “She’s like the reasonable man, except the exact opposite.”

  Leith gave her a warning glance not to be flippant. He had edged past the angled desk to stand by the window and look out and down. Not exactly a dizzying drop to the smooth lawn below, but a deadly fall. He saw it was busy down there, like a garden party in progress, all those people milling about in the sunshine, talking, pointing. A party with an odd dress code: baggy, white coveralls. Her body lay as found, crooked, busted, sad. Unlike the day he had seen her last, she was dressed for business today in a black skirt and sleeveless white blouse. Her one-inch, zero-tread pumps had fallen wide and were marked with evidence pins. He recalled something about a phone found on the scene. He said, “Where was her phone, and who was she talking to?”

  “It was on the grass next to her,” JD said. She, too, was looking down. “We could add that to her unreasonable-man mistakes; she’s hooking up drapes, leaning over an open window, and making a call, all at the same time.”

  “I’m starting to think you’re wrong,” Leith said. “And you don’t know she was talking on the phone.”

  “She must have had it in her hand, anyway. No pockets.” JD shrugged. “Anyway, battery was in the red zone, so we did a data-dump first thing. She’d last placed a call to someone listed as ‘Pearl.’ We haven’t been able to reach her, but we’re tracking her down.”

  JD had already given him the rough outline of the events of the morning. The 911 call had come in at just before noon, when a prospective buyer and his realtor came by to view the Roth residence, and had instead found a body. Paley and JD arrived at 12:22 p.m., along with the coroner. At twelve thirty the coroner guessed the victim had been dead between two and four hours, which nailed it down to between eight thirty and ten thirty, but JD had it narrowed down even further, thanks to the disconnection of the call to Pearl at eight forty-one.

  The question remained: had Cleo been speaking to Pearl when she fell, and had Pearl then disconnected? In which case, why hadn’t Pearl, hearing the scream, immediately called 911? Probably, then, the call had ended without incident at eight forty-one, and sometime afterward, Cleo had fallen.

  Leaving the room to the Ident team — JD telling them to pay particular attention to the desk for prints and shoe marks — she and Leith went downstairs and outside to talk to Doug Paley. Paley turned near-black shades at Leith and said, “What’s the verdict?”

  “Appears to be an accident,” Leith said, looking at the body still in situ on the grass, her limbs outspread but for one snapped arm that angled toward the torso. The woman’s fine brown hair had fanned out, the trimmed ends lifting and falling. Her face was crooked toward him, her eyes half shut, her beauty destroyed by a broken jaw and the explosion of blood from her nostrils. “Unless we find out she wasn’t alone,” he said.

  Paley nodded and removed his glasses to stare at Leith. “You okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay.”

  He wasn’t, really. He had talked to Cleo the day before last. She had been so solid and seemingly in control. Her death was a nasty reminder to Leith about who or what really was in control, and that scared him.

  Paley lowered his shades over his eyes again, and turned back to the business at hand.

  * * *

  Leith sat on the steps and wrote down his questions and tasks for his team to get started on. Where was the child, Dallas? Study the phone’s recent calls and text messages. Talk to the two individuals who had found the body. Track down Pearl ASAP. Likewise, get the name of the real estate agent Cleo would have been dealing with on this, who would be different than the buyer’s realtor. Search for answers as to why Cleo was apparently attaching that curtain herself, instead of getting some kind of housekeeping service to do it. And where had that new drape come from? Was it ordered specially, or had it just been at the cleaners? If so, get in touch with those cleaners. If not, find the outlet or service that had supplied the curtain. Was anybody else scheduled to be at the estate this morning, housekeepers or yard maintenance? If so, get their contact info. Canvass neighbours and Cleo’s closest friends.

  And then there was the question of Cleo’s other latest windfall acquisition — her shares in the nightclub, Diamonds. This meant Leith would have to interview Jon York once more. He dangled pen and notebook between his knees and looked into the distance, thinking about York, and how he really didn’t like the man. Just plain didn’t.


  Twenty-Three

  The Brilliant Blue

  Dion wasn’t enjoying the drive as much as he’d expected. He stuck conscientiously to the speed limit along the Dollarton Highway toward Deep Cove, more evidence of his degradation. Before the crash he would have been thrilled at a chance to peel asphalt with a sports car like this. Before the crash he had risked a ticket a few times, taking his Dodge up to 140 through Manning Park’s hundred zone, and he would have pushed it higher, except he really didn’t want to lose his job.

  But the crash had killed his need for speed.

  Also, he had lost his touch with manual transmissions, and he worried about fouling the gears. He worried about reaching their destination, the high-density, hilly neighbourhood where Jon lived, parking badly and putting a scratch on the thing. Now Jon was piling bad news onto his anxieties: Jamie had changed her mind, he said, and wasn’t going boating with them.

  “What?” Dion said. “Why?”

  “Well, sorry. It’s because you’re coming. Don’t take it personally. She’s lived on the wild side and doesn’t like cops. Or trust them.”

  “I resigned. I’m not a cop.”

  Jon smiled at him. “Yes, well, we had a talk last night, Mel and Jamie and I, and we agreed you’re working undercover. Just so that you know that we know, and we’re okay with that. Well, Mel and I are okay with it. Jamie doesn’t want to have anything to do with you, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m not working undercover,” Dion exclaimed. “How could I be working undercover? You’re saying I set up the meeting in the parking lot? I was there first! You invited me for drinks. I said no. You insisted. If you hadn’t insisted, I’d have gone on my way. How could you possibly think —”

  “Us showing up in the parking lot was just one of those lucky strikes for you. And if I hadn’t insisted, you’d have turned up anyway, one way or another. Flat tire in front of the club, something like that.”