The Frailty of Flesh

by Sandra Ruttan

Byron Smythe.

  A young lawyer who’d struck hard and fast with a high-profile case that had gotten him on speed dial with every criminal organization and lowlife with money in the Lower Mainland.

  The kind of guy who never let his hair get a millimeter longer than he liked it, probably got a facial before every major court appearance, definitely invested in manicures, and the heaviest thing he’d ever lifted was his ego.

  Ashlyn groaned. She’d made the mistake of thinking their morning couldn’t get much worse. With a lawyer like Smythe on speed dial one thing was certain: the Reimers had things to hide. No wonder Christopher was acting strange. One of his siblings was dead, the other missing, and the first thing his parents did was call their attorney.

  Byron Smythe.

  And that meant their job had just gotten a lot more difficult.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Where the hell were you?”

  The man was perched on the edge of Craig’s desk, one oversized butt cheek spilling over the side like too much batter put on a waffle iron. He was leafing through the papers and file folders Craig had stacked on his work space. Craig looked away from Sergeant Frank Zidani as he removed his jacked and tried to will the tension out of his face.

  Zidani persisted. “I asked you a question.”

  “Out.” Craig set the coat on a hook and turned.

  The sergeant glared at him. He was a solid guy with black hair. Zidani looked like he knew how to use his fists, and he sported a nose that had definitely been broken, possibly several times. He tossed the papers he was holding back on the desk and turned to face Craig directly.

  “You forgetting your daddy isn’t here to shield you anymore?”

  Craig felt the rush of color coming up the back of his neck. “I never needed Sergeant Daly to protect me from anything.”

  “Right. Never got your partner killed either, did you?” Zidani slid off the desk, straightened up, turned and walked toward the door, then stopped and looked back, holding up his index finger as though he’d just remembered something.

  “I was hoping your new partner would last a bit longer. Guess if you leave him here all the time I’ll have nothing to worry about.”

  Before Craig had a chance to respond Zidani was gone.

  Craig’s new partner, Constable Luke Geller, stared at the papers on his desk just a little too hard to convince Craig that he found the contents riveting. Luke’s brown hair was cut too short to conceal his intense expression, or to allow him to sneak glances without being easily detected.

  Craig pushed his own “beyond regulation length” hair out of his face and sat down at his desk, which faced Luke’s.

  He’d been partnered with Luke Geller for a few months. A few quiet months. They were being fed vandalism complaints, the occasional domestic, and robbery. Nothing that would require them to work all hours of the day and night. Nothing high profile.

  Nothing that would give them reason to draw their weapons.

  Craig had bitten back his instinctive response when he was told he was going to be breaking in a rookie. With all the scandals in the news about the RCMP in recent years the bosses wanted him to take it “nice and easy” with the new boy.

  Nice and easy with Luke Geller, bullshit. Craig knew what was going on. He was the one they were babying. For months his hands had been tied and he’d been kept from working on more serious cases.

  Meanwhile, Sergeant Frank Zidani didn’t miss a chance to take a shot at Craig, reminding him his last partner was dead.

  The fact that Craig had almost died didn’t seem to matter.

  Acting sergeant, Craig reminded himself. A temporary fill-in. Until a final decision was made about whether Sergeant Daly would be returning to the Tri-Cities.

  Since Craig had gone out to meet with Lisa Harrington, three messages had been left on his desk. He picked them up and skimmed the brief notes. One from Vish Dhaval, the boyfriend of Craig’s deceased partner. Craig pulled the lowest drawer of his desk open and tossed the slip of paper in with the stack of other messages Vish had left over the months. Craig knew he should really throw those messages out.

  He glanced up at Luke, who was still pretending to read at his desk, and thought maybe it would be a better idea to burn them.

  The second message was from Alison, his stepmother. Call meat home. He thought she was supposed to be in Saskatchewan, but guessed she’d come back early to get ready for Christmas. Craig crumpled that one into a ball and tossed it in the empty garbage can beside his desk, and reached for the third message.

  Craig leaned back in his chair. First Lisa Harrington. Now the man incarcerated for killing Lisa’s daughter. Well, not the man himself, but his lawyer. Donny Lockridge’s lawyer.

  Donny Lockridge’s sleazeball lawyer.

  He could understand why Lisa Harrington had eventually been referred to Craig: His dad had worked the case, and his dad was currently out of the province. His dad’s partner was retired, Craig knew that much. He didn’t know what Ted Bicknell was doing these days. This time of year it was possible he was laying on a beach in Boca Raton.

  Steve Daly didn’t talk about his former partner.

  Craig had never consciously concluded that before, but the truth hit home as he thought about it. He knew the name of his dad’s former partner because of cop-shop talk, but he realized now he’d never heard Steve mention Ted Bicknell. Not even once.

  “You want a soda, coffee or something?” he asked Luke as he stood and stuck the message in his pocket.

  Luke didn’t look up. “Thanks, I’ll grab something later.”

  It only took a few minutes for Craig to leave the building and climb in his Rodeo. Once he’d pulled the door shut he took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the number for the lawyer.

  Out of the office. He left a message saying he was returning Byron Smythe’s call, and hung up. Then he dialed information.

  “I’m looking for a number for Ted Bicknell. B-I-C-K-N-E-L-L.”

  “Which city?” the operator asked.

  “Can you check the whole province?”

  A sigh, followed by the clack-clack sound of keystrokes. “I’m sorry. No listing for a Ted Bicknell. And before you ask, no T. Bicknell either. I checked.”

  “In the entire province?” Craig asked.

  The exhaled breath sounded less like a sigh and more like a huff this time. “I said I checked. If you have another name you’d like me to try…”

  “No. Thanks.” Craig hung up partway through the “Have a nice day” spiel. There were a few options. Ted Bicknell could be in BC, but just use a cell phone. He could have moved somewhere warm, or had family elsewhere in Canada and moved out of the province.

  For all Craig knew, Bicknell had passed away and was permanently unreachable. Did it really matter? Odds were, Donny Lockridge’s dirtbag lawyer was calling him as a last resort, for the same reason Lisa Harrington had. Because Smythe couldn’t track down Ted Bicknell either and some lazy RCMP officer had directed him to Craig when he asked for Steve Daly.

  Not lazy, Craig. That’s not politically correct. You mean unmotivated.

  But why would Lockridge’s lawyer want to talk to the arresting officers after all this time? Craig had nothing to do with the case. His only tie to Lockridge was through his dad.

  The cell phone buzzed and lit up. Craig flipped it open.

  “Craig Nolan.”

  “Constable Craig Nolan?”

  He didn’t recognize the voice. “That’s right.”

  “This is Emma Fenton, with the Vancouver Sun. I’m doing an article on Hope Harrington’s mu—”

  “No comment.”

  “Mr. Nolan, you haven’t even heard—”

  “I didn’t work that case, and I have no idea why you’re calling me.”

  “Alison Daly.”

  The name was blurted out in a rush, presumably as a way to keep him from hanging up. If that was Emma Fenton’s intention, she succeeded.

  “Mr
. Nolan, it was Alison Daly who gave me your phone number.”

  The reporter paused. Craig could only assume she was hoping he’d say something, show some sign of curiosity, but instead he gripped the headrest of the front passenger seat with his free hand and bit his lip.

  “I was hoping we could speak in person,” she said.

  Craig closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened his eyes he still felt the skin on the back of his neck burn. “If you have a question, ask.”

  He heard her draw a breath. “Fine. There’s a rumor of legal action over the wrongful conviction of Donny Lockridge for the murder of Hope Harrington ten years ago.”

  And what does that have to do with me? Things were starting to make sense. Lockridge’s lawyer, now a reporter…Had Lisa Harrington known something more before they met? Why hadn’t she said something?

  “Mr. Nolan?”

  He rubbed his brow with his thumb and forefinger. “That wasn’t a question, Ms. Fenton.”

  “Emma.” She paused, but he didn’t respond, so she continued. “Really, Mr. Nolan, I’m just trying to get to the truth. We could meet for lunch, on the newspaper’s dime. All I want to do is get the facts straight.”

  Craig glanced at his watch. 11:28 A.M. “I’ve already eaten.” A lie, but there was no way in hell he was meeting her, or saying anything until he knew what was going on.

  “Coffee then.”

  “Ms. Fenton—”

  “Emma.”

  “Look…I have no comment. I didn’t work this case. I have no knowledge of any legal action.”

  “So you deny being contacted by Donny Lockridge’s lawyer?”

  Craig swore beneath his breath. Who could have told this reporter that Byron Smythe had tried to contact him? He hadn’t even known about that himself until less than half an hour ago.

  “I have no comment.”

  This time he lowered the phone and cut the call. Why the hell had his stepmother given a reporter his cell-phone number?

  There was no time like the present to find out. He flipped the phone open and dialed.

  Six rings later Craig snapped the phone closed. There was no answer.

  “If it had just rained today. I never let the kids out in the rain. Shannon wanted to walk to school early, to meet friends…It’s the Lower Mainland, it’s December, it should be raining. Shouldn’t it be raining?” Mrs. Reimer looked up from where she stood on the front sidewalk, her dull eyes suddenly wide, as though she’d just had a sudden revelation, received a flash of insight. Her lawyer spoke in hushed tones as Mr. Reimer locked the front door to the house, then hurried down the steps. He took his wife’s arm, turning her away from Ashlyn and Tain.

  Ashlyn knew grief did strange things to people. It derailed reason and made the mind latch on to the most trivial things. Like, If only Bobby had let me give him one more hug, he wouldn’t have been running across the street at that second and been struck by that speeding car. Or, If I’d just let Sally take the jeep she never would have been walking to the bus stop… And sometimes the mind obsessed on one key point the person couldn’t let go of. Some trivial detail about the crime, the events, or a ridiculous question born out of desperation and false hope. Her personal favorite: Do you think he suffered? The eyes pleading with you to tell them it was quick, that the victim likely didn’t even know what was happening. No, ma’am. Being murdered didn’t hurt. Probably hardly noticed.

  Today it was about blame. If it had just rained today. I never let the kids out in the rain. As though the weather were responsible. Your child goes out to play because it isn’t raining. Your child is murdered. If it had been raining your child wouldn’t have gone outside. They’d still be alive. Therefore, it was the weather’s fault. The mind’s weird way of trying to make sense of the senseless, to apply logic to madness.

  It took more than a break in the rain to create a murderer. Ashlyn knew that. Even days of going stir crazy with cabin fever from being stuck inside because of the constant winter downpour didn’t make a person run outside and beat someone to death.

  People tried to find something they could pin it on so that they assign blame without confronting anything too uncomfortable. Blame the weather or the hugs or a split-second decision, but don’t blame the killer. Don’t acknowledge that there are bad people in the world who aren’t guided by the same moral compass as the rest of us.

  People who would kill a child.

  Ashlyn wondered if this was the product of some twisted form of karmic logic. Put good out into the universe and it comes back to you, so if bad things happen you must have done something to deserve it so it must be your fault… right?

  With her job it just wasn’t possible to buy into that. Crime could touch anyone. Some people were at risk, and the average person comforted himself with the thought that the victims had done something to deserve it, that it made sense they’d been raped, mugged or murdered because they shouldn’t have been in that part of town at night or been doing drugs or having a drink in that kind of bar.

  Bringing reason into it to assume control. What they were really saying was It couldn’t happen to me because I don’t live like that. Using faulty logic to convince themselves they weren’t vulnerable when sometimes crime is as unpredictable as a tornado that reduces one home to a pile of rubble and leaves the house next door intact. Why one and not the other? Why this street and not the next?

  In her relatively short time with the RCMP Ashlyn had learned one thing for certain: When it came to murder, why was usually pretty damn irrelevant. Oh, it mattered to her as a cop. It was a question she usually had to answer to solve a case. But knowing why wouldn’t bring back the dead, and sometimes the trivial reasons why one person would end another’s life left you feeling nothing but hollow. The reasons usually weren’t good enough to make sense of it.

  At times Tain’s gaze seemed to have the force of a magnetic pull. Sixth sense kicked in, and she knew he was watching her with those dark eyes. She looked up.

  He tipped his head to the side, just a bit. A nod toward the couple. She looked at Mr. and Mrs. Reimer.

  They walked down the driveway solemnly. Although she’d been deep in thought, Ashlyn had been aware of them the whole time, of Mr. Reimer telling his wife it was time to go, of their lawyer advising them it was best they take some time to discuss things privately. Of Mrs. Reimer’s wide-eyed expression, as though her revelation about the weather would somehow change things. The break in the stream of tears that had finally come, long after Christopher had blurted out the news, hinted at misplaced hope, as though it were possible to unwind time and do things differently, summon the rain in the morning and save her child’s life.

  The woman was in denial, not that Ashlyn could blame her.

  Mr. Reimer hadn’t said a word. His eyes hadn’t widened or narrowed. No color dissolved from his cheeks. He had remained expressionless the entire time, and now he gripped his wife’s elbow and steered her toward the car.

  TV camera crews had descended in the past half hour. News had leaked out somehow, and Ashlyn had been forced to call in patrol cars to keep the press off the Reimer property, which had prompted the lawyer’s decision to take the Reimer family away from their residence for the afternoon.

  Christopher was already in the back of the vehicle. Once Mr. and Mrs. Reimer were strapped inside, doors closed, Byron Smythe walked back to the sidewalk where Tain and Ashlyn stood.

  Even the way he carried himself made Ashlyn nauseated. Mr. Tall, Dark and God’s Gift to Women with the cocky grin and what she thought of as rented biceps. Kind of guy who went to the gym and did his thirty minutes five days a week just to keep the image, but had never done any manual labor in his entire life.

  Style over substance.

  He flashed her his custom-designed smile. “I trust you’ll keep me apprised of all developments on this case.”

  “You’ll be notified of anything relevant to your clients immediately.” She pushed the corners of her mouth up d
eliberately. “Assuming, of course, we can reach you.”

  He took a small silver case out of his jacket pocket and removed a card. “Work and personal numbers. Day or night, Ms. Hart.”

  “Constable Hart.”

  “Funny, I thought you’d been known to let the personal and professional intersect from time to time.”

  “It’s the line between respectable and repugnant I don’t cross.”

  He flashed his smile again and held the card out to her. “We’ll have to assess your boundaries another time.”

  She bit back her retort and took the card.

  Once Byron Smythe had returned to his car and driven away Tain said, “You know, it could be fun to slap a sexual harassment charge on that bastard.”

  “Fun for you, maybe. I’d rather not deal with the pompous ass, myself.”

  “Maybe I’m scarred because he didn’t leer at me and give me his phone number.”

  “Oh, that’s rich, coming from the guy who smacked my ass at a crime scene last summer.”

  Tain cracked a smile. “Guess I never could make that fly.”

  “And I hate to tell you this, but you aren’t living up to your reputation as a sexist pig these days, either.”

  “You know how it is. If I come off as nice and reasonable for a while the women lower their guard.”

  Ashlyn laughed.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Tain’s smile faded. “But then you start to feel guilty.”

  Ashlyn looked back at the Reimer family home, at the upstairs window to what had been Jeffrey Reimer’s bedroom. Now it was just a painful reminder.

  “I don’t think we’ll have much to feel good about with this case,” she said.

  Tain looked up at the window as well. “No, I don’t suppose we will.” He reached for his ringing cell phone. After a few one-word responses he hung up and paused as he looked her in the eye.

  Ashlyn groaned. “Don’t tell me.”

  Tain nodded. “Sergeant Zidani wants to see us in his office.” “May as well get this over with,” Ashlyn muttered as she followed him to their car.

  Craig felt the knots in his shoulders loosen when he saw the familiar figure leaning over his desk. He bent over her shoulder and glanced at the note she was writing.