Cut You Down

by Sam Wiebe

  Gill was dressed in a pressed white shirt, dark pants, suspenders. His left shirt cuff was stained with blood. His wedding ring was missing.

  I dialed Emergency and gave them the address, told the operator my sister would stay on the line. Kay took the phone, describing the unconscious man’s condition.

  “Be right back,” I told her.

  Upstairs the house brightened, light filtering in through the half-drawn curtains. The staircase turned sharply, then opened onto a T-shaped hallway. A bedroom and bathroom, doors open, between them another closed door. Behind it, what looked like an office.

  Tabitha Sorenson leaned forward in a leather swivel chair next to her workspace. Head tilted downward, as if she were scanning the floor for something and poised to pick it up. She wore pyjama bottoms and a sweater, the fabric darkened over her right hip. Her slashed throat had soaked the gray carpet with blood. A bundle of cords lay draped over the edge of the desk like severed tendons.

  An inner voice whispered that there was no returning from this, for any of us. I stepped carefully out of the room.

  Forty-Two

  In the aftermath:

  An ambulance and patrol car arrived. The officers searched the house, then returned outside to take our information. I asked them for cigarettes but neither of them smoked. From the front lawn we watched the EMTs cart Gill out to the ambulance and the ambulance race away. Lights, sirens.

  More officers materialized. Scene preservation began. Tape was stretched along the perimeter of the house. Neighbors gawked. Kay and Greg were separated, their stories taken down.

  At last one of the cops found a cigarette for me, a menthol. I inhaled it while giving my statement. I left out Dana Essex and made it my idea to enter the house. Otherwise I was honest.

  The techs arrived and donned white Tyvek suits to begin processing the scene. We were driven in separate cars to the Main Street station. Fingerprints and fibers were taken, shoes removed. All done to eliminate us, we were told. I was allowed one more smoke.

  In a pleasant blue-painted interview room, a detective named Triplett thanked me for my assistance and said she and her partner would be back as soon as they could. She asked if I needed anything. I told her I was fine.

  The door shut, leaving me alone with the thought that while I’d been fucking Dana Essex, someone had slipped into Tabitha’s home, intent on killing her.

  Panic, shock, fear, anger, sorrow—guilt—none of those would help Tabitha now. (Nothing would.) It all came back to breathing. I closed my eyes, forced myself to inhale—a luxury she’d never have—I couldn’t help that now—couldn’t help anything, ever—dead—

  As my breathing slowed my thoughts took a more logical shape. Priorities asserted themselves. Find her killer, which meant telling the police what they needed. More important was protecting Dana. I’d have to speak to her first, alone. She was entitled to confidentiality, to protection as a client, as well as whatever else we were to each other.

  I opened my eyes as the door opened and Triplett and her partner walked in.

  Both wore gray overcoats and drab dark blue suits. Triplett was taller, had short silver hair and a slightly stooped posture. Her partner, McCurdy, was squat, red-headed, his gruff body language announcing he’d be playing the antagonist. They sat down.

  I told them what I’d told the officer at the scene. Hired by an unnamed client. My decision alone to enter the house.

  “What makes a person think he can trespass where he pleases?” McCurdy said.

  “Had a feeling someone was in trouble.”

  “They were. Lucky for you.”

  Triplett turned the conversation to Tabitha. “Had you talked to her before?”

  “No.”

  “Seen her.”

  “Once, two days ago.”

  “She was under surveillance?”

  I nodded. Triplett waited to see if I’d elaborate. When I didn’t, she smiled, as if conceding I knew the tactics and now we’d move beyond games.

  “Who’s your client?” she asked.

  “Before I tell you,” I said, “I need to confer with them.”

  “Get your stories straight,” McCurdy said.

  “My client’s not involved, I can guarantee that. Once we confer, if they agree, I’ll arrange an interview.”

  “Way to avoid those goddamned adjectives,” McCurdy said.

  “Gendered pronouns, you mean.”

  “Up your ass is what I mean.”

  Triplett placed her hand on McCurdy’s chest. “If it has to be that way,” she said. “We’ll talk again soon. In the meantime, Mr. Wakeland, it might be best not to make any travel plans.”

  Forty-Three

  There wasn’t time to mourn. Once I’d left the station, I dialed Dana Essex, then thought better of it. I walked up to Broadway, bought a prepaid phone from a convenience store, then made the call.

  I told her the news. It was pointless to apologize, but I did anyway.

  “It’s not possible,” she said. “There’s simply no way.”

  She spoke softly. I could hear the collective murmur of voices behind her.

  “I have class in a moment,” she said. “Why don’t I end early and call when I’m finished?”

  “Best to stay off phones till we get a chance to talk. Can you meet me tonight?”

  “I can be back in the city by nine. How about we meet by the wharf on Granville Island?”

  “That works,” I said.

  “Am I—are we in trouble, Dave?”

  “Right now we’re just careful. See you tonight.”

  After the interviews, Kay and Greg had headed back to the main office. I found them in the boardroom, searching online for information about the killing. They looked to me for answers I didn’t have.

  “You both should take some time off,” I said. “Don’t speak to anyone. If you’re pressed, call our lawyer. Then call me. Don’t mention our client to anyone.”

  “This isn’t my fault, sir, is it?” Greg said.

  “It’s mine,” I told him.

  “Does Dana know?” Kay asked once Greg had gone. “All that waiting, and then heartbreak. She’ll want you to work on this, find who did it.”

  “It’s not our job to solve murders. Right now it’s to protect our client. You’re sure you didn’t mention her?”

  “Cross my heart,” she said. “And Greg doesn’t know. So what next?”

  It was a good question.

  “I need to phone Jeff,” I said. “Help Ralph re-encrypt the storage drive and then get some rest.”

  Jeff understood why it was important, going to the wall for a client. That didn’t mean he liked it. I told him I’d advise Dana Essex make full disclosure to the police, unless she gave me a reason not to.

  “What possible reason could there be?” he asked. Waves breaking on the shore in the background.

  “Protection,” I said. “The person who killed Tabitha might be after her, too.”

  “Dave,” Jeff said delicately. “What percent sure are you this woman didn’t do this?”

  “One hundred.”

  “Or have it done?”

  “Ninety eight. She’s not the type to get worked up into a white-hot rage. And if this was about money, well, you don’t teach English at community college because you harbor a deep desire for wealth.”

  “So who did it, then?” Jeff asked.

  I was getting tired of being asked questions I was already asking myself. “Someone who got a look at the report, either in the office or on our client’s end.”

  “Unlikely it came from us,” Jeff said. “Our office staff doesn’t leave info lying out.”

  “It’s a zoo, Jeff. There’s a million ways you could get a glimpse.”

  “This isn’t your fault,” Jeff said. “You know that, right?”

  I couldn’t answer him.

  Tabitha Sorenson was dead. She’d died badly, and in some way I’d led the killer to her. The report I’d written for Dana Es
sex was a murderer’s blueprint—address and schedule of the only person who knew where Tabitha was. The document was saved to our cloud storage account, which meant anyone in the Wakeland & Chen offices or anyone with the password would have access.

  And it wasn’t a small company anymore—a full-time office staff, part-time guards, Jeff and Kay and anyone that any of us knew. Someone in the waiting area could have over-the-shouldered Ralph and seen him enter the password. To say nothing of decryption. To say nothing of anything.

  If Essex and the office were protected, the smart thing was to let the police take over, the professionals with the databases and the lab equipment and the sanctioned use of force. I could harm the investigation and wreck any chance of her killer facing justice.

  So often what you know to be a stone-cold, irrefutable fact sits in opposition to the kind of truth that comes to you through intuition and surmise. The head and heart work different terrain. Perched in my mind was the image of a faceless someone who wielded a knife with precision and skill, who had no qualms about applying that blade to a twenty-four-year-old woman. I saw that someone standing over her, listening to her weak pulse speed her toward death. Getting what he or she wanted and killing her in an instant, with no more emotion than a creditor balancing accounts. I couldn’t let that go.

  Before I left to meet Essex, I checked the news sites. Already the Sun had an article up about the mysterious death in Mount Pleasant.

  The neighbors had seen nothing. None of them had ever met Tabitha, and few had spoken to Gill more than to say hello. Of course it was terrible, they said, and wondered who could do such a thing.

  A clean stab wound doesn’t hurt much more than a stiff punch, at least initially. Police sources said the wound in Tabitha’s side had probably been done first, then followed by the severing of the subclavian artery. Pain and immobilization, then a merciful slash to the base of the throat.

  The police were interested in any help they could get from the community to solve this vicious crime.

  They’d get it.

  Forty-Four

  At eight thirty I left the office. On the Granville Street Bridge I saw the Navigator hove into view behind me. Nagy at the wheel, no pretense of tailing.

  Instead of turning off to Granville Island, I let the street carry me up past Broadway, down the ramp into a parking garage near a Chapters. The SUV followed, stopping behind me, pinning the Cadillac between concrete pillars.

  I stepped out of my car and waited for Nagy. He took his time approaching me.

  “He wants his check back,” Nagy said. “Seeing as you’re not smart enough to play along.”

  “How do you know I wasn’t on my way to cash it?”

  “By now you’d’ve done it. Turn out your pockets.”

  I didn’t move. “Turn out your pockets,” he repeated.

  He came forward, the cold light of the caged fluorescent overheads giving him a gaunt, sickly color. I shifted my weight to my back foot. Nagy reached to the small of his back and unsheathed a blade.

  It was plastic-handled and coated with carbon fiber, and didn’t gleam or reflect anything. He held it loose in his left hand, chest-level, like a conductor’s baton. He stood between me and the exit ramp.

  “Where’s Winslow tonight?” I asked.

  “Worry about this.”

  I’d once taken a knife away from someone. She’d been unskilled and drunk, and we’d both needed stitches.

  Nagy looked comfortable holding the weapon. Faded red letters were tattooed on his knuckles. At this range they were unreadable.

  “Jailhouse ink?” I asked.

  He grinned and stepped forward. The right caught me on the temple. It wasn’t the hardest I’ve ever been hit but it stunned me. The second one sent me hard against the Cadillac.

  Holding the blade in front of my eyes, Nagy reached into my pockets, removed my wallet and took the folded check. There were two twenties in the billfold. He took those, too.

  “That’s just petty,” I said, the taste of blood in my mouth.

  He flicked out with the blade. I recoiled. My head banged into the car. Nagy laughed.

  “Next time,” he said.

  He got in the SUV and drove up the ramp to Granville.

  Forty-Five

  You’ll know you’re insane when the world starts to make sense. When the blood and chaos coheres into a logical, sensible framework. It could be coincidence that Qiu’s thug happened to favor a knife. That Qiu demanded his bribe back the same moment I should’ve been meeting Dana Essex.

  I drove wildly through the rain back down Granville. Instead of taking the bridge I went under, passing the motorcycle shop with its row of glimmering Kawasakis, and headed through the cluster of boutiques that surrounded the Granville Island market.

  It was eleven past nine and the market itself was closed. The buildings were lit only by security bulbs. I parked near the wharf and scanned for Essex. The waterfront was empty save for seagulls withstanding the downpour to peck at waterlogged trash and food scraps.

  I waited forty minutes. Across the water lights blinked on in the high-rises. No boats on the water in the dark, other than the moored, canvas-covered rentals bobbing along the jetty.

  At ten fifteen I risked a phone call to Essex. No answer. I circled the market, checking for movement. Nothing, no signs of life beyond the odd scavenging gull.

  I left the market and drove over the Burrard Bridge into the West End, to the address Essex had provided. No one seemed to be following—or rather, every car seemed a potential threat.

  She lived on Haro, a second-floor apartment in a mid-rise called the Threadgill Arms. I parked and left the lights on. Her name wasn’t on the buzzer but I hit the number and waited. When no one answered, I stood near the entrance, hoping a resident would come in or out, allowing me to catch the front door. No one did. I watched the rain pour off the canvas awning above the apartment door, spilling into a muddy flower bed.

  I tried the landlord’s buzzer. I tried the side door. I tried phoning Essex again. I thought of taking my chances and climbing onto one of the second-floor balconies, hoping it was hers. I phoned the school and importuned a groggy-sounding registration clerk to check her office. He reported back that everyone had left.

  Finally I dialed Sonia’s number.

  On the eleventh ring she picked up. “Dave. Didn’t we agree not to—”

  “I need a favor,” I said, half-shouting over the rain. “I’m at this woman’s apartment and I need to get inside. Come down here and pull come cop shit so I can break in legally.”

  “There’s an easier way,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. Stand in front of her balcony with a boombox and play Peter Gabriel.”

  “Other circumstances that’d be hilarious,” I said. “I’m worried something’s happened to her.”

  “She’s a friend of yours? Or a client?”

  “Friend,” I said.

  “I’ll come down.”

  Twenty minutes passed. A small, frail-looking woman entered the apartment with her keys, but quickly pulled the door shut behind her.

  Sonia’s car passed and slowed. I stepped out into the street and waved. She pulled over and walked back to me. She was wearing a dark blue slicker and carrying her collapsible baton.

  “Some police shit,” she said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Break the door down, shoot somebody with a Taser. What do you normally do?”

  “Call the landlord,” she said. I watched her try the buzzer and get no response. She rapped on the glass door. When that didn’t bring anyone she moved to the side of the building, shot the baton out to its full length, and began tapping on windows. That brought lights. Someone on the third floor opened their window to complain.

  “Who the hell is doing that?”

  “I’m an off-duty police officer,” Sonia said. “We’re getting no response from a tenant in the building and we’re concerned for her well-being.
Could you tell the landlord we’re here?”

  “Landlord’s in Hong Kong.”

  “Maintenance person.”

  “Who?”

  “Main-ten-ance. The janitor.”

  Pause. The voice said, “Why don’t I just let you in?”

  After a moment a lumpy man in a bathrobe, boxers, and slippers opened the door. He had whispy white hair predominantly in and around the ears, and the ruddy bulbous nose of someone who drinks sherry by the quart.

  “You’re police?” he said. “May I see your badges?”

  Sonia held up her ID card. I showed him my security license. He nodded and let us pass.

  “Who is it you’re worried about?” he said.

  “Dana Essex.”

  “Who?”

  “Two Oh Four,” I said.

  “The teacher. She’s a bit frigid, huh?”

  We took the stairs. The resident puffed behind us. “Me, I try to know everyone. That’s what we did where I grew up, got to know the people we lived with. Vancouver’s a bit different from Medicine Hat. Not enough community anymore. Too many immigrants. No offense, ma’am.”

  “I was born here,” Sonia said.

  “Then you know what I mean, right?”

  “We could always tell the coroner he slipped,” I said to her.

  We banged on 204 to no avail. Mr. Good Neighbor trudged to the elevator and found the maintenance person, a thin man who’d put his shirt on inside out. He jingled the keys. Whether he’d use them for us was another matter.

  “Mr. Tsao—the owner—he told me not to let anyone in—less it was an emergency, like a fire, or if the tenant told me it was okay. You don’t have her permission to do this, right? See, that’s a problem.”

  Sonia said, “As a police officer I’d appreciate if you’d open it. We’ll do a quick search and leave. We won’t disturb anything.”

  “But Mr. Tsao said. And this is my job.”

  “The tenant could be injured,” Sonia said.

  “How ’bout this? Tomorrow I’ll call Mr. Tsao and see what he says.”

  “Do you have any cash?” I asked Sonia. To the maintenance man I said, “Does fifty bucks get us in?”