He had slept barely an hour, yet he woke feeling good. The house was silent now, the guests had gone home, Jon and Melanie were asleep upstairs.
He wouldn’t wake Jamie. He could sit here forever on this chair by the vanity, next to her clutter of cosmetics and junk jewellery in this dim mauve room, watching her sleep. She lay somewhat on her side, naked, partly exposed, a long leg twined in bedsheet, one arm crooked over her head, the other across her stomach. Her face was beautiful. Her elbows, hands, fingers. Her thigh, her calf, her foot. She breathed almost imperceptibly.
She was more than what most people thought she was, not just a streetwise ex-stripper with nothing much on her mind, but for whatever reason, that was how she wanted to be seen. It was a disguise. She had invented her own kind of force field to keep the world at bay.
He had a plan, of sorts. He would dismantle her force field, bring her out into the light, save her from her own defences.
She told him she was afraid, that Oscar’s murder terrified her. It made her a refugee in this house. It was why she stayed away from the city. The men who had killed Oz would get her next. But not only that; if they spotted her, they could follow her to the Yorks’, and then Jon and Mel would be in danger, too.
“I doubt that,” Dion had told her.
“How come?”
“Oscar was the one in trouble. Not you. If you were in trouble, you’d know about it. You said you don’t know who these people are or why they did it.”
Here he got hung up on doubts. He had a feeling she knew exactly who those people were and what they were after.
She asked him about the investigation into Oscar’s murder, the way the cops kept wanting to ask her more questions. “It’s like they think I did it. How could that thought even possibly cross their minds? Why would I want to hurt Oz? After all he’d done for me?”
They had been sitting in bed at that point, with the lights off. The house around them was silent. The window was slid open and a breeze flowed through, scented of ocean and lilac.
“No way in fucking hell would I kill that man,” she told him.
He had believed her then, and he believed her still. He looked at the pile of gems on her vanity. Lots of glass glimmering in the dark, tangled chains, different colours. Last night she had gone upstairs with him when the party was in full swing. He had sensed her anxiety as she took in the scene. Before relaxing, she had to case the place, looking for assassins in the guests the Yorks had invited. Whether she was looking for some kind of subtle indication of danger or a face in particular, he couldn’t tell.
The party had been loud and long. People had taken the floor to talk about Oscar Roth. Jon had talked, and Melanie. Dion watched Jamie’s reactions to the eulogies more than the eulogies themselves. She seemed touched, and laughed at all the jokes, and shouted out comments, but gave no speech of her own. Later, a woman banged on a drum kit, another on guitar, and someone sang the blues. He thought the music was good, but it wasn’t, if he was to believe Melanie’s remark in his ear as she came to sit beside him. There was also a pushy man talking at him, demanding something of him, pick a card, no, not that one. Any card but that one, bud.
And fire. Had there been fire?
Jamie shifted on the bed, still asleep. Her eyelids flickered. Her lightly curled hand resting on the pillow overhead clenched into a fist, and released again into childlike innocence. He watched her, a part of him hoping she would wake, but a bigger part of him hoping she would stay asleep a while longer, and let the dream continue.
Twenty-Seven
Deeper
The house was a mess, like a Mardi Gras parade had marched through. Dion collected dirty dishes, scraped leftovers into the garbage, helped Jon move furniture back into place. Jamie made a show of wiping down surfaces while Melanie gathered beer cans and wine bottles and rinsed them out. Music played, the doors were flung open to air the place, and outside, birds twittered and flitted.
Jon and Melanie were deep in conversation. About Dallas and what would happen to her now, after Cleo’s sudden death. “I’m her aunt,” Dion heard Melanie say. “It should be just a matter of signing a document, right?”
Jon’s answer was inaudible. Dion rested against the counter and watched Jamie. She was chatting to him as she worked, about the nice things people had said about Oz last night. She wore no makeup, and without mascara her eyes looked less exotic. Her complexion wasn’t actually all that great, in broad daylight, with every freckle and blemish showing. On her feet were rubber flip-flops and on her ass, slack blue joggers. She wore a pink tank top with an iron-on transfer of Tinkerbell stretched over her breasts, the emulsion chipped and fading.
She caught his admiring stare and smiled at him. He loved her style of smiling, with just the corner of her mouth lifting and one eye narrowing almost into a wink. She thrust out her chest, stretching Tinkerbell, and said, “Hey, Cal. Will you teach me to drive? I gotta get out of this town, like, for good.”
* * *
The early morning light was brilliant, the traffic along the flats thick. He switched on the vehicle’s AC, dropped the shades over his eyes, and thought how other drivers spying him in this smashing white Lexus would think him a millionaire, driving to town with his girl. He said, “How did you get through life not knowing how to drive?”
She shrugged. She had changed to go out, but not by much. Cut-offs instead of joggers, and oversized sunglasses. “Greyhound took me everywhere I needed to go,” she said. She had a cigarette in hand and was flicking ashes out the window rolled down partway. “Then I met guys, and guys had cars. I wanted to learn how, but couldn’t count on anybody to teach me. Till I met Oz. He went over the manual with me, but we never got to the point of me taking the test. And now he’s dead, and I can’t live with Jon and Mel forever. Got to get mobile. Get back on stage, make some money. Hey,” she said. “You missed the bridge.”
“No point writing your test in Vancouver when we’ve got a perfectly good services centre here.”
“I told you I want to go to Vancouver.”
He looked at her and saw that she was genuinely upset with the change of plans, and her upset, he knew, had to do with killers. “There’s nobody lurking around waiting to jump on you,” he told her. “Sure, someone is out there, but what are the chances that, A, you’re on their hit list, or B, they’ll chance to spot you and start tracking you down? And if they do, good. I’ll see them, and I’ll deal with them, and you can stop worrying.”
She didn’t look convinced. She stared at him thoughtfully for several moments before answering with a shrug. “Yes, you’re right. I’m an idiot.”
Minutes later they entered the grey government building on Esplanade, where licences were applied for, complaints were launched, taxes paid. The place was busy, and they had to stand in line. Jamie put her hand through the crook of his arm as he described the lengthy procedure of getting permission to drive. First came the “L” licence. She couldn’t drive alone till she got her “N,” the next step up. And there were restrictions on that, too, till she was fully licenced. It wasn’t going to happen overnight. She would need a qualified driver to ride in the passenger seat for a good long while. “A qualified driver like me,” he told her.
She smiled at him. She turned to look around, as she did from time to time. She looked toward the glass doors at the entrance, and she lurched.
It wasn’t much of a lurch, more a twitch, but Dion felt the shockwaves transfer from her arm to his. She returned her gaze casually forward, and he turned to see what had startled her.
The threat appeared to be four young Asian men idling in the lobby, looking around.
Jamie, he saw, wasn’t actually gazing casually forward, as she would have liked him to think, but hiding. Hiding her face from the men and hiding her fear from him. He saw that the men had gone to an information board and were studying it. He knew how to spot fakes, and
these men weren’t faking anything. At this point in their lives, they cared about nothing but those governmental brochures pinned to the board.
“This is going to take forever,” Jamie said. “We’ll come back later, okay?”
“The line’s moving. Just another few minutes.”
She held his hand, swinging it carelessly.
It was almost funny, the way she was surreptitiously checking out the men and hoping he wouldn’t notice. The men were talking amongst themselves. Dion watched them. They weren’t checking out the other visitors to the centre. They didn’t once look toward Jamie. They weren’t on the hunt for anything except information — on property taxes, or building permits, or immigration help. All the same …
Jamie gripped his hand tighter, squeezing till it hurt. “Don’t stare at them,” she hissed.
He continued to stare at them. He wanted to memorize their faces. Oscar Roth had been afraid of strangers dogging him, threatening him, and maybe eventually killing him. Were these them?
“Look,” he told Jamie. “You can quit bullshitting me. You know something, and you’d better tell me all about it. Look at those men. Look at them. Do you know them?”
With an effort, she turned to glance at the men directly. Two from the group were maybe feeling the heat of scrutiny on their necks, for they were now looking this way. If anything, they seemed puzzled.
“Do you know them?” he asked her again.
She was still trying hard to be invisible. “I don’t know them,” she whispered.
He and she faced around front again.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I just don’t like Asian guys lately,” she said. “They freak me out. And I told you, I don’t like being here. I’m leaving. You can stay, I don’t care.”
She clamped her handbag under her arm and started for the exit, giving the Asian men a wide berth. The men stared after her, but probably because she was attractive from every angle. Dion gave up his place in line and followed. The Asian men stared after him, too, but probably only because he had been staring at them. He guessed from their faces and accents they were probably Thai. He added this clip of information to his mental Jamie file.
* * *
Back in the vehicle, she told him he was an asshole, putting her through that like he did, and he could go to hell. She wanted him to drive her home, now.
“Tell me who they are,” Dion said. “If they’ve got anything to do with Oscar’s death, you’ve got to say so. Now. We’re going to sit here till you talk.”
On Esplanade, with traffic stopping and going around them.
“Then we’ll sit here forever,” she said.
“Fine,” he said.
She pushed open the passenger door. “I’ll just get a cab. Thanks for nothing.”
She was out, banging the door shut. He saw her in the rear-view mirror, standing on the sidewalk, watching for taxis. A taxi buzzed past, but she didn’t flag it. He watched her walk back to the passenger door and climb in.
“How are you going to prove it to me, you’re not a cop, you actually quit, this isn’t some fuckin’ sting?” she said. “How can you possibly prove that?”
“I guess my word is all you’ve got,” he said.
She blew out a breath, then dug into her handbag and took solace in about all she had left to count on in life, the hit of a fresh cigarette.
* * *
She did feed him a little information. The men following Oscar were Asian, she said. Oz had told her so. He owed them big money that he couldn’t repay fast enough, and they were going to harass him about it until he paid up. But in one way or another, he was going to suffer for what he’d done.
All of which sounded to Dion like something straight from Hollywood. He asked her why hadn’t she told all this to the police, after Oscar’s violent death?
Because that would only make it worse, wouldn’t it? They would know she had ratted on them, and they’d redouble their efforts to find her, kill her. He told her he found that highly unlikely. She seemed to run out of patience with him, and when they were back at the York home in Deep Cove she disappeared downstairs. He heard her bedroom door thud shut.
From the kitchen Melanie called out, “Come and keep me company.”
She was stirring noodles in a pot. “Guess what,” she said, smiling at Dion through steam. “I’ve made inquiries. If all goes well, we’re getting Dallas. We’re going to adopt her!”
“Wow, nice, congratulations!” Dion looked into the pot. His plans to take Jamie for lunch on Lonsdale had fallen through, and he was hungry, enough to distract him from what else he might have blown. “What are you making?”
Melanie scooped a noodle with a spoon and chewed it experimentally, wasn’t satisfied and kept stirring. “Kraft Dinner. Jon ate practically nothing else as a kid. He says that’s why his hair is orange. Sometimes he misses the taste. I never learned to cook, but this I can handle. So I see you’ve upset Jamie. What happened?”
“Nothing, really,” he lied.
Melanie looked at him doubtfully. She nibbled another noodle. “Still al dente. This dinner in a box isn’t as easy as it looks. Now that I’m going to be a mom, I guess I better learn a few kitchen tricks, hey?”
Dion was too troubled by his thoughts to listen much. If she was making Kraft Dinner for Jon, it meant he was close by and could walk in any minute. He had resolved to ask no questions in this home, to prove himself not a spy, but this he needed to know. He said, “Tell me about Jamie.”
Melanie gave him a stare. “Tell you what about Jamie, exactly?”
“Everything. Every little thing.”
Twenty-Eight
Murk
JD was speaking in tongues: wuvvadun … you bits … wuvvudan baby, while she worked at her side of the table. On his side, Leith tried blocking the sound with a thumb in the ear as he once more read over the pathologist’s report detailing the horrific damages to Cleo Irvine’s body. JD was trying different pitches now, higher, lower. “Wuvvadun, wuvvudun. What have you done, or what have I done?” she asked no one. “You bitch. Baby … Noon.”
Leith leaned back in his chair and studied the wall-mounted timeline stretching across the width of the case room’s corkboard. JD had told him she didn’t like puzzles, but had put together a fine bird’s-eye view of the morning of Cleo Irvine’s fall. She had detailed every call and text the woman had made in the days leading up to death, with lines radiating out to boxes which represented the key points from those conversations.
Most of it was work for nothing, he guessed, but buried in the data might be a pearl. Pearl, the housekeeper who had failed her mission to hang the drape. Jimmy Torr had come up with a theory: following the heated phone conversation between employer and employee, Pearl had stormed over and tussled with her boss by the open window, and out Cleo had gone. Leith had scoffed at the idea, but now he wasn’t so sure.
“Would you shut up,” he snapped at JD.
On parallel lines JD had marked the activities of Jon and Melanie York, every documented communication they had made, every place they had been, or claimed to have been, highlighted in different colours to indicate whether or not that event had actually been corroborated.
Dinner time had come and gone. Between studying, writing, and speaking, JD was eating something salad-like out of a reusable plastic container. She wore a shapeless dark blazer and skinny jeans, and to Leith she looked like a scrawny homeless youth devouring a soup-kitchen handout. He had purchased a sub, stuffed with a variety of cold cuts, and he unwrapped it now to take a bite.
She pointed her fork at the sub and said, “Good choice, David. Those nitrates will blow up your arteries and finish you off nice and quick.”
Munching, Leith retaliated. “You look like a boy. Did you know that? Everyone we meet gives you a double take, trying to figure you out.”
Leith gestured at her wall chart. “I see you’re spending a lot of time on the Yorks. Don’t know why, since they’re pretty well cleared. Unless you’re saying they hired someone. You have any evidence of their involvement?”
It wasn’t the brightest question, since all her evidence was on display in front of him. JD continued to ignore him, continued to eat. Leith focussed on his nitrate sandwich. His veins felt odd, that’s how suggestible he was. JD said, “It’s the kid. You realize she inherits everything?”
Dallas, the little girl who didn’t speak. “Yeah, I know. You’ve mentioned it about sixteen times.”
“And who’s the kid’s closest relative? Aunt Melanie. And guess who’s making noise about getting custody of the kid?”
“Aunt Melanie?” Leith guessed.
“And Uncle Jon, who already filed the paperwork. What d’you think the Ministry will say to the application? They won’t say anything. They’ll stamp it, sold. So suddenly Jon York’s a lot closer to Oscar’s millions, plus he’s got the final controlling shares in Diamonds. Oh yes, Mr. York’s got motive galore.”
“He’s also got an alibi,” Leith said. “The alibi’s name is Cal. So unless Cal is lying …” he stopped, because there it was again, the doubt. He didn’t know Dion, or what he was capable of.
JD kept chewing. Last week she had told Leith she wasn’t a good multitasker, and by now he knew she was not just being modest. Once she fixed on an issue, she stuck to it with blinders on. Right now her mind was not on Cleo Irvine, but little Joey Liu and his oga.
Leith was a so-so multitasker, so he tried to help her out. “What have I done, baby. Maybe he was blaming Rosalie for all this, ’cause she was crying, she made him do it? Or addressing his partner at the scene?”
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