Twenty-Four
Tangles
With a strain of darkness in his genetic makeup, Dion didn’t burn easily, but he could feel the ominous sting on his unprotected neck and the backs of his arms as he climbed down to the dock, joining the Yorks. The dock seemed to bob up and down, but it was just his sea legs, Jon assured him. Dion told Melanie it wasn’t sea legs; it was vodka. She had had a brief swim when they anchored by the small island for some fishing. No fish were caught, and she was still wet. She had climbed back on board after her dip, and Dion watched her pull a thin T-shirt over her bathing suit. She had small breasts, what Looch used to call tangerines.
He was trying not to imagine her shirtless as they stood on the dock. Jon had his phone out and was switching it back on with a grimace. “I always kill it when I’m on the water,” he explained. “No crisis on earth is going to ruin my sea time.” He made faces as he listened through the messages, to amuse Melanie. Mock disgust, mock boredom.
Then he stopped being funny and said, “Damn.” Melanie raised her brows at her husband as he pocketed the phone. “Cops want to talk to me again,” he said.
“Maybe they got the guy,” she suggested.
Dion knew they weren’t calling because they got the guy. Notifying family on case progress was on the list of priorities, but not super high. If anyone, they would be contacting Melanie directly, the blood relation. Not the brother-in-law.
Jon said, “Let’s hope so. I better call ’em back. Sounds important.”
He phoned the RCMP number as he stood on the pier, surrounded by luxury craft. Dion sat on a bench and waited, listening to rigging hitting metal softly, like wind chimes. There was the smell of rotting kelp, the kiss of water against hulls. The threatening clouds had evaporated, and the sun was directly overhead, glaring down and obliterating Jon’s face.
Dion wondered who Jon was talking to at the office. Leith, maybe. “Out for a boat ride,” he heard Jon saying. “We’re just back on shore.” Pause. “Not really,” he said, and Dion knew he had just been asked if it was convenient that he come to the detachment right away. Anxiety began to knuckle harder in his gut. “We’ve got a memorial service to get organized,” Jon said. “Honouring Oz.” Pause. “No, it’s quite a production. It’s an Oz-style memorial. Live music, a magician, the works. We can’t cancel. People will be arriving soon.” Another long pause, and he said, “That would be worlds better. We’ll be home in half an hour.”
Jon finished the call and was talking to Melanie, their heads together, too low to hear. Watching them, Dion felt a chill, in spite of the sun. Probably he had known all along and should have paid heed to his own intuition. Should have steered well clear of Jon and Melanie York.
* * *
Leith didn’t like the way JD dealt with traffic. Obstacles meant nothing to her. She simply wove around them without braking. She was ballsy and efficient, but hair-raising. But as always, she had won the keys today for the ride out to Deep Cove.
Trying to relax, he told her what he had learned. “They’ve been out boating all morning, and now they’ll be throwing a party in memory of Oz. There’s going to be magicians, York says. Some version of grief I’m not familiar with, I guess.”
“It’s a version of grief you couldn’t afford,” JD said. “You think he did it, don’t you?”
“Jon York? Did I ever say that?”
“You growl slightly whenever you say his name.”
The sky was turning a pale ultramarine as JD knocked on the Yorks’ front door. The door opened. Melanie York was barefoot, dressed for summer, and unless Leith was wrong, she had been drinking. She led the way to the living room, where Jon York rose from a leather armchair. Another man was present, a stranger seated over there on the sofa, but Leith focussed on Jon York, intent in catching every nuance of expression.
York seemed wry but friendly. He shook Leith’s hand, and JD’s. “I’m sorry to rush you, but I’m hoping this will be ultra brief.”
“Just a few minutes,” Leith promised. Melanie York had disappeared, which was good, as he wanted to talk to husband and wife separately. He could hear her talking in another room, to another woman. Jamie Paquette? Now he looked at the young man on the sofa, drink in hand — casual, like he belonged here, a friend of the family. He wore shorts and a grey T-shirt. He was dark haired and clean cut, watching Leith with what looked like faint annoyance. Leith did a double take. Far from dead, as he’d begun to believe, Constable Dion was alive and well, and, wouldn’t you know it, hanging out with Leith’s own favourite murder suspect.
* * *
Standing by the window with grey-blue ocean and grey-blue sky as backdrop, Leith kept his information to York simple: Regret to inform you that Cleo Irvine died this morning. Then waited for reaction. York looked confused, searching Leith’s eyes for the punchline, checking JD’s face, too, then exclaiming, “What? What d’you mean she died? How?”
“All we know at this point is she fell out a window, so we’re just trying to fill in —”
“A window? What window? Where? At False Creek?”
That was where Ms. Irvine lived, in a million-dollar condo on 1st Avenue. Leith ignored the interruption. “We’re trying to fill in her activities of this morning and yesterday. Have you seen or spoken to her at all recently?”
“No,” York said. “Or, yes. Not this morning, but yesterday morning, we had a short discussion. On the phone. About Diamonds.”
“And?”
“Told her I’m looking for two partners to buy her out, have one in mind, need one more, how long will she wait, that kind of thing.”
“Were you happy with the agreement?”
“No,” York shouted. “Apparently I was so pissed off I went over to her condo and shoved her out the window. Yes, I was happy with the agreement. Not nearly as happy as I’d be if Oz walked in the door and said this was all one giant bad dream. Which, by the way, any progress finding his killer?”
“We’re on it,” Leith said shortly.
York became silent and thoughtful, studying Leith as Leith studied him. “Was it an accident? Or you think someone pushed her? You wouldn’t be here if it was an accident, would you?”
“You say you were out boating today,” Leith said. “What time did you leave? Just tell me about your day. In detail, if you could.”
“In between pushing Cleo out her condo —”
“Right, why don’t you just try and be straight with me, okay?” Leith said. “Jokes don’t help either of us at a time like this.”
To York’s credit, he seemed to get the message. He ducked his head like a scolded child. “Sorry. Let me think.” He moved to the window and frowned outside. With the lights turned up in the residence, the view was marred, overlaid with the ghosts of Leith himself, JD standing at his side, York maybe pondering his own reflection.
“First Oz, then Cleo.” He was shaking his head. “It’s got to be connected.” He turned again to face them. “My day. I’ll do my best. I was up early, about seven, reading the news. Mel got up. We had a light breakfast. I went to town, saw Ziba. Then picked up Cal, since I was in the area. Came back to collect Mel and the sandwiches, and off we went to the docks.”
“Picked up Cal from where, and why?”
The Cal they were talking about had been told to wait his turn elsewhere in the house. He would be downstairs, he said, in the den.
“From the club,” York said, with a careless rush that Leith saw as evasive. “There’s a room upstairs, unfinished offices. That’s the where. As for the why … well, I had to step in to Ziba’s place to discuss something. She’s my stage manager. She lives in an apartment on 3rd, not far from the club. And since I was in the area I decided to pick up Cal. I know, nobody’s supposed to be there, no residency permit and all that, but it’s just a crash-pad till he finds an apartment, just a day or two.”
Leith stashed
these bizarre fragments for later. “Discuss what with Ziba?”
Almost imperceptibly, York rolled his eyes. “There was an incident at the club last week between a girl and a guest. Drinks thrown and whatnot. I needed to talk to Ziba about it, see if anybody was going to make a stink, figure out how to settle it without getting the authorities involved. Anyway, she can fill in the details for you. She’s a busy woman, so I wanted to catch her early.”
“What time?”
“Can’t remember exactly. Had to be eight thirty, thereabouts. Was there for ten minutes, max. She’d gotten the girl settled down, got the guy to apologize, it’s a nonissue. Then thought I’d pick up Cal. He was going to be at our place at ten, but I wanted to get out on the waves nice and early. So I went over, rousted him out of bed, and away we went. Again, it was around eight thirty, eight forty, eight forty-five, in that neighbourhood.”
Leith considered the man’s face. Pale, but that was his normal complexion, typical Anglo-Saxon right down to the freckles. Distressed, but he’d just found out Cleo Irvine was dead, so why wouldn’t he be? But there was something else, also a fixed element of his persona, the part Leith didn’t care for, just below the surface. Chronic amusement.
“I have to say,” he told York. “I’m surprised to find out Calvin Dion is living at the club and boating with you. And hanging around your house. Sounds like you’ve struck up quite a friendship.”
Did York’s mouth twitch? “Nothing mysterious,” he said. “I chanced to run into him in the parking lot at the Royal Arms the other day. He told me he was leaving town. I was curious, so I bought him a drink. I like him. He likes me. I invited him to tonight’s party, and since we were going out boating, I asked him to come along. Turns out he’s not nautically inclined.”
“Your phone was switched off this morning. Why’s that?”
Now a grimace. “That’s my self-imposed rule. Sometimes all this worldly connectedness is deafening. I’m sure you know what I mean. My gift to myself is I shut off my phone when I’m on the water, always. Keeps me sane.”
Leith nodded, and thought hogwash. But it was something he could hopefully check with collateral sources. He had run out of questions, so he threw in a filler. “What kind of boat have you got?”
“An old eighteen-footer. Glastron bowrider.”
“And where did you go?”
York described the route in more detail than Leith needed. Just a slow ride around Passage Island and back past the Grebes. But first an idle along the shore, past his house under construction in West Van. To show Dion.
“Huh,” Leith said, taken aback and disliking York even more. “Right on the water?”
“To die for,” York assured him.
JD said, “Made any phone calls this morning, Mr. York?”
York looked at her. He seemed to see her for the first time, and his face crinkled in a broad smile. “I called Mel, asking if there was anything she needed picked up. She said fancy mustard, which I promptly forgot, so in the end she had to use the plain stuff.”
“Didn’t call Ziba, let her know you were on your way?”
“No. We’d fixed that the night before, at the club.”
“Didn’t call Cal?”
“Didn’t know his number, actually. Never thought to take it down. So other than Mel, no, I guess that’s it.” He drew an iPhone from his pocket, called up its log, and handed it to JD.
She made a note in her book and showed the phone to Leith.
The call, he saw, was logged in around the time of Ms. Irvine’s fatal plunge, eight forty-four. But without location attached, it didn’t mean much. He would need phone company records to narrow it down, and for that would need either consent or a warrant. He wouldn’t get a warrant, not based on instinct, so he tried for consent. “That’s helpful. Would you agree to us obtaining your phone records?”
“What d’you mean?” York said. Surprised, irritated, but not alarmed. “I just don’t see why.”
“Process of elimination, sir.”
“What, you really think I killed her? Well, I didn’t. And I don’t want you snooping in my phone records either. I’ve got a lot of sensitive stuff in there.”
“Only the relevant —”
“No.”
“We can narrow it down to just records from this morning.”
“Doesn’t work like that, does it. Since you’re there, you’ll try to turn my whole life inside out.”
“No, sir, we would only —”
“Forget about it. Sorry. Get a warrant.”
“I suppose we’ll have to do that,” Leith said coolly.
York was wincing again. “I don’t like to be difficult, but honestly.”
“Sure.”
Next, Leith and JD spoke to Melanie York, a woman JD had been investigating for the past two days, finding nothing to sink her teeth into; Melanie didn’t have so much as a speeding ticket to her name. She had changed from her casual beachwear and now wore white — interesting choice for a wake, Leith thought — white mesh over white mini dress, and flat, beaded sandals. As he spoke to her, he found her a different woman from their first encounters. More relaxed, though maybe it was the drink or two she had apparently treated herself to. Not drunk enough to drop her guard, though, he noticed. Wariness showed in the tilt of her face and the hardness in her eyes.
Her story lined up with her husband’s, dead on. He had gone off quite early to see Ziba about an incident at the club. About eight thirty. He had called some fifteen minutes later — no, she couldn’t remember the exact time — to ask if she needed anything from town. Dijon, she had requested. “Instead he came home with Dion,” she said to Leith, deadpan. “I told Jon he must be dyslexic, but I don’t think he got it. Jon’s crazy about his boat, gets me out there whenever he can, even happier when he’s got a guest to show off to. So he was running circles around us, wanting to get out on the water before the rain.”
“What rain?” JD said.
Melanie seemed to find the question too silly to answer. Which it was, Leith thought. Unless JD had caught something he had missed. He made a mental note to ask her about it, later. First he had to deal with the reprobate, though, and he decided it would be best if he did it alone.
* * *
The den where Dion waited was the same room he and Leith had occupied to question Jon York and Jamie Paquette, seemingly so long ago. Cozy and warmly decorated, the perfect nook to deck in for the night with a glass of brandy and read a good novel. Dion was slumped in an armchair with no drink in hand, no reading material to entertain him, and no enthusiasm in the lines of his face. Leith took the adjacent armchair and made himself comfortable, because he intended this to be less an interrogation than a brother-to-brother chat. “You never returned my calls. Or Bosko’s. What’s going on? He’s holding back the firing squad for you, but he’s about to let them lock ’n load.”
“I dropped off my resignation letter,” Dion said. He had unslumped to sit straighter. There was a new cast to his eyes, softer and harder, lazier and meaner. “What else does he want? Dock my severance? Charge me with something? Tell him fine, go ahead.”
A resignation letter, Leith knew, changed everything. Probably for the best. But all the same … “The Yorks are smack in the middle of our radar. Could you find any worse place to hang out?”
“That’s one good reason to quit. For once in my life, I can socialize with whoever I want.”
Apparently they were no longer brothers, so there was no further need to chat. Leith pulled notebook and pen from his breast pocket, checked the time, and wrote down the particulars of the interview. “I understand Jon York called on you this morning. Recall what time?”
Dion answered promptly. “Eight forty. Or one minute to.”
“You know that for sure?”
“He woke me up, scared the hell out of me. I looked at th
e clock.”
“Maybe your clock was wrong?”
“No. Other clocks said the same thing.”
Police training still ticking away in there, Leith thought. He said, “I understand York picked you up earlier than agreed. Why the change of plans?”
“Not sure. He said something about wanting to beat the bad weather.”
“It was a nice day. No rain in the forecast.”
“I don’t know, then.”
“And you’re staying at Diamonds,” Leith said. “Upstairs. How did that come about?”
“That came about ’cause I’d left the Royal Arms and was heading to Alberta, but met Jon and we got talking. He ended up letting me stay there a couple nights. It’s not finished, but it’s livable. I’ll be leaving soon.”
“You’ll be leaving now. Tell me about your day. You went out motorboating, you and Jon and Melanie. How was it?”
The lazy, mean eyes drifted away, not to the window but the vague shadows of the room. “Brilliant, actually,” Dion said, and surprised Leith by firing out some stats. “Glastron GTS 180 with 150-horse merc, speed you wouldn’t believe. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why the questions? What happened?”
Leith told him, in the same minimal way he had informed Jon York, that Cleo Irvine was dead. He waited for reaction, saw none, so gave a little more. Dion would hear it from his new best pal anyway. “She fell out a window, died on impact.”
There was a flash of interest, the briefest glimmer. “Where?”
Leith shut his notebook and rose without an answer. If Dion’s demeanour was saying loudly go to hell, his own was just as rude: Damned if I’m telling you more. He walked out.
Twenty-Five
Squall in a Bottle
To be sure that Leith and JD were gone, Dion stayed in the den an extra few minutes. The house was well built, and he couldn’t tell by voices or car engines, so he had to wait, counting to a hundred. When he lost count he sat trying to remember who exactly Cleo Irvine was.
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