Undertow

by R. M. Greenaway

  There was blood everywhere, and York’s handsome face was gone.

  Dion looked at the dock structure ahead. He stood to see better. He passed too close to a yacht that was nosing out to sea, and somebody shouted angrily down at him. The wharf ahead looked huge, crowded and complicated, now that he was alone. The pilings loomed, the passage too narrow. Lights shone down, creating visual confusion to add to the noise in his head. He steered toward the opening. His heart banged in his chest cage like it was trying to break free.

  The boat thudded hard against wood and pitched him forward. He fumbled at the controls till he had the motor shut down. Silence followed, except for the clanging of sailboat masts. Someone far off was laughing. His hands were gripping the wheel so tight they hurt. He had no phone, as he had drowned the thing in his shorts pocket. He would have to use York’s. First he would check on the girl in the cabin, make sure she was all right down there, then he would get a hold of the police.

  Except he couldn’t move. He heard excited voices. People were standing up on the dock, staring down at him, at the blood, at the lifeless body lying between the two seats. He lifted his hands to show he was unarmed, but the people on the dock shouted and scattered, leaving him alone. The boat had crumpled its nose against the piling, and now sloshed gently at rest.

  “Fuck,” Dion said, with loud and helpless passion.

  But at least he need do nothing further. The police would be here soon enough.

  Forty

  Leeway

  Dion wasn’t sure what Sergeant Mike Bosko was going to do to him, skin him alive on the spot or just have him thrown into barracks. He knocked on the open door and stepped into the room, and Bosko stood, smiled, and gestured at the visitor’s chair before his desk.

  Dion dropped into the chair. “Sorry I didn’t answer your calls. I was pretty busy.”

  “Oh yes?” Bosko said. He had shut his laptop cover, and his phone was nowhere in sight. There was nothing hooked to his ear for hands-free communication, no paperwork on his desk ready to be filled. “So how are you? Got a touch of pneumonia, I hear.”

  The only lingering effects of Dion’s frigid swim were a gravelly voice and an ache in his chest when he inhaled. “I’m okay now. How is … Dallas?”

  A name he could barely say, it was so wrapped in shame.

  “They’re holding her in hospital for a few days, but they expect she’ll be fine.”

  “That’s good.”

  “They say she must have been in the water for a lot longer than a couple minutes, as you said in your statement. Maybe as much as forty-five minutes? If the water had been a couple degrees colder, you’d both be in caskets now. Or a couple degrees warmer, for that matter. Sometimes the cold is what saves you. Also her passivity, her lack of panic, helped. Did you see her go in?”

  “No. Jon and I were both looking forward. Really didn’t expect her to leave her spot.”

  Dion had not made a statement yet, about what really happened, what Jon had done. Jon had brought a gun along, which made him wonder what the alternate plan was. But maybe the gun was only there as a tool of last resort. As for the attempted murder of Dallas, he considered downplaying it, letting what happened lie as an accident, even if it meant shouldering part of the blame. Negligence. Because what would the truth accomplish? A whole lot of hours of questions and answers, with the pointless objective of proving Jon was even more a bastard than anyone imagined. So what? Jon would be damned for everything else he had done, with the murder of Cleo Irvine all over the front pages. And he was dead, and how much post-mortem punishment did he deserve?

  Something else made Dion sit on the truth, though. If the child welfare people learned that Jon had tried to drown Dallas, might that affect Melanie’s custody?

  “A terrible experience for you, all around,” Bosko was saying. “I’ve read your statement. You’ve managed to put a lot of questions to rest. It’s just too bad Jon York isn’t around to answer the rest. But we’ve got Cleo Irvine at least half sorted out, and the motive behind the Lius. It would be a comedy of errors, if there was anything remotely funny about it. I’m tempted to say good work, except I don’t know it really was. More like you turned a blind corner, and there you were.”

  “No, you don’t have to say good work, ’cause it sure was not.”

  “So what’s next? What do you want to do now?”

  Dion’s arms, which he had crossed over his chest, tensed. “What do I want to do about what?”

  “As far as a return date.”

  “Return to what date?”

  “You can’t keep idling forever,” Bosko said. Odd, the way nothing in his manner signalled a topic change. It was disconcerting. Dion had heard staff saying Bosko wasn’t human. Rubber stretched over a manifold, engine oil for blood. Which made him impossible to gauge, except for some superficial facial expressions, angry, pleased, or indifferent, the evidence just wasn’t there. “Your short-term sick leave is running out. And LTD,” long-term disability, “of course is a whole new ball of wax. You haven’t done the paperwork yet, so I can’t keep the funds flowing. About how much longer do you think you’ll need? Just so I can fill in the blanks and send in my very late report?”

  “I’m not on sick leave,” Dion enunciated. “I quit. I sent you my letter of resignation.”

  Bosko’s brows went up. “That’s right, Dave did mention something about that. But I haven’t seen anything come in. Did you mail it to me directly or send it to admin?”

  “I wrote it out by hand and put it in an envelope and left it with reception. But it specifically had your name on it. Attention to you.”

  “Well, it must have gone astray,” Bosko said. “My fault, no doubt.” He didn’t seem upset. He scrounged in his desk drawer, and placed pen and paper invitingly in the middle of the desk. “Never mind. You’ll just have to write another one, then we’ll get the wheels in motion, properly this time.”

  Dion looked at the pen and paper.

  Bosko rearranged the pen, putting it on top of the paper and pushing both forward, in case the offer hadn’t been clear enough.

  The letter had gone missing? Dion swallowed and reached for the pen. It was one of those that click open and closed, so he clicked it open and closed a few times. “I’m really on sick leave right now?”

  “That was my understanding,” Bosko said. His black suit was crumpled, as always. Today his necktie colour of choice was sky blue. “Oh dear, did I get something wrong? Hope I didn’t mix up my docs and send some other poor constable packing.” He grinned to say that wasn’t the case. He was only joking.

  Dion drew the paper close. “What do I write?”

  “Same thing as you wrote before, I’m sure. Standard resignation, short and simple will do the job.”

  Dion clicked the pen open and couldn’t breathe. Three days ago he was in the ocean, swimming for his life. The ocean wanted to pull him in, but he’d fought back. Maybe just because of Dallas, her survival interlocked with his. But even without Dallas in tow, he didn’t want to go. Just as he didn’t want to quit.

  “Take your time,” Bosko said. “Just not too much of it.”

  Dion realized how he must appear, sitting here frozen, staring at blank paper. He edged his seat forward, the better to write, and scrawled the date at the top of the page. But his hand shook, and the letters were wobbly. He said, “Probably better if I type it out. My handwriting’s not so good right now.”

  “You said you handwrote the first one, didn’t you? The one I misplaced?”

  “Maybe ’cause of the pneumonia, just can’t seem to hold the pen straight.”

  “Doesn’t have to be a masterpiece in calligraphy,” Bosko said. “Long as it’s legible.” He looked at his watch. “But I’ve got something coming up pretty quick here, Cal. So just put it down, any which way. You know the language, dear sir …”

 
Dion wrote Dear Sir/Madam …

  Then he looked at Bosko. “I’m really just on sick leave? Till when? Because maybe we could just hang fire for a day or so on this. I’m actually feeling better lately.”

  “Oh, are you?” Bosko said. “Good to hear.”

  A short staring contest followed, ending when Bosko reached to retrieve the paper. He folded it and dropped it into the recycle basket next to his desk. “That’s fine, then,” he said. “We have a bit of a window here, thanks to my disorganizational skills.” He leaned back in his chair. “A lucky thing, perhaps. Probably you just needed some time to think it through. As I had suggested.”

  The last remark had an edge to it. Dion nodded. His veins felt fizzy and his throat had seized up. He was afraid if he tried to speak, he would sob instead.

  Bosko said, “Either way, there’s going to be repercussions. You were still on the payroll when you were talking on a social level with witnesses — which we’ll have to have a good talk about shortly. But discipline hearings are expensive, and there’s nobody as far as I can see who would push for your dismissal. So we may be able to cut costs and avoid a lot of bureaucracy, for now, as long as we’re straight-up and honest with each other. And remain meticulously in contact.”

  “Right,” Dion said. The dizziness was all over him, and he was afraid Bosko could see his heart punching through tank top, button-down shirt, suit jacket. He smoothed his tie to conceal it, but Bosko was on his feet now, reaching across the table to shake hands, making it clear this meeting was done. “Welcome back, Cal. Just email me the day of expected return, and we’ll have to have another discussion, plus finish up that sick leave paperwork. Which you still need to sign, by the way.”

  He winked.

  Forty-One

  Caught

  Leith had his own paperwork to fill out. Jon York’s suicide left a mess of unanswered questions. Where he got the gun was answered — a grandfathered licence to possess passed down from his dad, certificate attached. Why he had taken it boating was another question. Was suicide the intention all along, or had he meant to shoot beer bottles on the beach? Or other people?

  Along with those troubling questions, the progress reports Leith was delivering were starting to look like Incompetence Central. According to Dion, York had hired Sigmund Blatt to gather evidence on Oscar Roth to put him away, no bloodbath intended. What was the motive for that little gaffe? Because Oscar was a pain in the ass? Really?

  A dazed Dion had given his statement to Doug Paley from his hospital room, where he had been held for forty-eight hours as a precaution. Swallowing water could have potentially fatal after-effects, and pneumonia, too, was a real concern. Apparently he would be okay, though.

  Leith and Paley had talked off the record and not too seriously about the possibility that Dion had shot York and set the stage to look like suicide. But the crime scene analysts nixed the idea. The only hand that held that gun and pulled the trigger belonged to the dead man. The blood spatter said it all. Lucky for Dion, he had been photographed, seized, and analyzed by investigators before he’d had a chance to move around much or mess up the spray of blood that had caught him on face and body, on upholstery and mechanisms. The pattern clearly showed Dion had been in the driver’s seat, just as he stated, looking ahead and slightly to starboard when the shot was fired.

  The mystery of the suicide would be hopefully explained through Melanie York.

  She had been crying when Leith and JD arrived. They were calling at her home in Deep Cove to spare her having to come to the detachment, a woman in mourning.

  “He’s been so depressed lately,” she told them, as she served coffee. “But I didn’t know he’d do this. I didn’t realize what kind of hell he was going through.”

  Leith let JD do the talking. Whatever tomboy image JD portrayed off the record, as soon as she needed to soften her edges and treat witnesses with delicacy, she was a pro. It just gets the damn job done, she had told Leith once, as if she didn’t want to be accused of having soft spots for anyone, as if hardened criminals, children, and fuzzy little kittens were all the same to her. Like he’d believe it for a moment.

  “Would the inheritance have saved the business, if Dallas was out of the way?” JD asked.

  Melanie shook her head. “It might have finished the Sea Lane house, but even that would have to go sooner or later. To pay off the debts. Diamonds has become a sinkhole.”

  “There’s a sizeable insurance policy on Oscar’s life. That would go to Dallas and to you, am I right? Again, you would get Dallas’s share if she died.”

  “It’s all just pennies in a wishing well,” Melanie said. “Oscar didn’t put insurance on the mortgage. Now, that would have been a windfall to whoever inherited. Me, as it turns out.”

  JD said, “Even so, looks like you’ll end up with a small fortune, Mrs. York.”

  “Yes, I guess. I’ll be able to pay everyone off, sell the business, sell the houses. I’ll set up a trust fund for that little boy, Joey. What a nightmare. What a damned nightmare Jon has caused.”

  “And then, any long-term plans for yourself?”

  “I’m thinking of teaching. In South America. Dallas will come with me, of course. If I’m allowed to keep her.”

  “You won’t be leaving the country right away,” JD warned. “Now, I have to go back to the morning of Cleo Irvine’s death. Have you been able to pin those times down any better now that you’ve heard Ziba Farzan’s version?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Jon didn’t ask you to lie that morning? At any time?”

  “That day we all went out on the boat,” Melanie said — Dreamily, Leith thought — “it was a nice day. Out on the water, the three of us. Cal’s so sweet. If I hadn’t had such a godawful headache, I would have gone with them again. And none of this would have happened.”

  All of this would have been postponed, Leith thought.

  She said, “I hope he’s okay. Cal, I mean. I hope this hasn’t put him off friendship for life. And the ocean. No. Never in a million years did I know what Jon would do. Never in a million years would I believe it.”

  “But you believe it now,” JD said.

  Melanie nodded, and she was in tears again, unable to carry on. Leith asked if he could arrange for her to see a counsellor, maybe somebody from Victim Services. She assured him she would be all right, and Leith believed her. He and JD left the woman to deal with her complicated grief alone.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon, Sig Blatt came in to give Leith a statement, and more loose ends were tied. Blatt agreed he had been more or less bullied by Jon York into tailing Oscar Roth. To a supposed drug house, where he was supposed to take photos, which were supposed to get the guy in hot water with the feds. But Blatt wasn’t much of a spook, didn’t have the patience, and he’d gotten Lance Liu to share the task, promising they’d also share the take. A disastrous move that he would regret for the rest of his life. Blatt worried he would be charged with something now. Leith didn’t think so. Blatt thanked Leith for letting him know the danger was over, that the man who had killed Lance, Cheryl, and little Rosalie was dead, and he could stop looking over his shoulder. Leith didn’t mention that there was still a group of Asian men out there who might have killed Oscar Roth, because in no way did he think Blatt would be their target, and sharing the thought would only put Blatt into another tailspin of worry.

  Blatt asked how Joey was doing, and was redeemed to a degree in Leith’s eyes. “Joey’s lucky to have grandparents and an extended family who care for him a lot,” he answered. It sounded formulaic, but it was true.

  Blatt was gone, and Leith was left unsatisfied. York’s relatively innocuous scheme had triggered a landslide of tragedy, but it didn’t answer a big one: who killed Oscar Roth, and why.

  Bosko arrived in the detectives’ room to let everyone know that Constable Dion would be bac
k next week. From sick leave. There was scattered applause from the team. Even Sean Urbanski and Jimmy Torr seemed pleased. Only JD kept her arms crossed.

  Leith wasn’t pleased. Maybe he was being selfish, but an absence of Dion would make his own life easier. He visited Bosko in his office. Rules were being trifled with, and if nothing else, he wanted to make his position clear. “With respect,” he said, invited to take a seat, and taking it, “Cal was clear he was quitting. You can behead me if I’m out of line, but I think you’re rewriting history here.”

  Bosko’s answer came only after a maddening pause. “I went on a diet once,” he said. His fingertips were touching, a signal that this wouldn’t be brief. “It was tough, but I was determined. And it worked! The pounds came off. I began to feel lighter. In a month I had lost a few inches around my waist. I really believed I was on that regimen for life. It’s what I told all my friends, anyway. A couple months later I found that I wasn’t. Dion believed with all his heart he was quitting, but he was mistaken. He was really just taking some time off.”

  He checked Leith’s face to see if he got it. Leith did, but he still didn’t like it. “Seems to me you should have seized the opportunity and let him go. I like him, but I don’t like working with him. I don’t know who he really is. He’s like … like a confused terrorist with a bomb strapped to his chest, and I for one don’t want to be around when he pulls the pin. Or trips over his own shoelace and the pin gets snagged, more like. I want some distance between me and him when that happens. That’s going to be a problem.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Place him away from the front line. Let him blow up amongst the file cabinets. Fewer casualties.”

  “I can’t do that,” Bosko said. “I need this fellow on my investigative team. He’s pure gold, Dave.”