When the Flood Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  “Oh, please continue,” said Dee, so sweetly that you had to know her deeply to realize she was bleeding pure rage through the phone. “You know what they say: there is no tragedy here, only ammunition.”

  The only thing Lacey could think of was that Neil had left his voice on the tape. If it was him, he was busted but good, and without need for fingerprinting. But why wouldn’t she say his name? Would Rob recognize it and tell the wrong person, giving that rat the chance to cover his sleazy paw prints? “Um, do you want to call me back when you have a minute?”

  “No need. We’re here. But man, will I have things to tell you when you get home. This is going to be one hell of a party.”

  “Don’t do anything crazy.” Like confronting someone warped enough to bug your house. Especially if that someone was Neil. But surely he wouldn’t be at Jake’s. Dee had constantly told her he didn’t come around the neighbourhood anymore, that he only sleazed around the office. Of course, if he was the one bugging the house, then Dee was simply wrong. Or in denial. “Promise me you will be … okay.”

  “I’ll be fine. Say goodbye to Rob.”

  Lacey hung up and stared at Tom. “Well, what the bloody hell? She knows who planted this bug, can’t say because she’s not alone, but she’s not scared anymore. She’s flat-out furious.”

  “Do I have to go back to my in-laws now?”

  “No. She wants us to keep to the program. Said something about ammunition. Could Neil lose his real estate licence if he’s got a criminal conviction?” And how far would he go to prevent that happening?

  Tom grinned. “I like her style already.”

  “What am I not getting?”

  “You always were too girly for your own good,” said Tom.

  “I can kick your ass six ways to Sunday.”

  “She means having his fingerprints on that recorder, in police hands, is her big gun, and she’s not afraid to use it. He messed with the wrong woman.”

  Lacey puzzled over the situation while Tom wove confidently through the westbound traffic on Highway 1. The Rockies were clear greys and browns, their tips white against the sunlit sky. White. That remaining snow might come down all at once if it rained again tonight. Nothing she could do about the weather, but the thought of crossing that river while it was in full spate gave her cold chills. Nothing she could do, either, about whatever Dee did in the next few hours, except get back quickly after her errand.

  “How far is Cochrane?”

  “Another fifteen minutes. About the same distance north on 22 as Bragg Creek is south.”

  “We’re almost at Bragg Creek? I could have brought my own car and gone straight home from there.”

  “Yeah, but then I’d have to go straight back to my in-laws’ place.” Tom passed a line of semis and dodged back into his lane, barely ahead of the front grille of an RV. “This way, I have to drive you back to our place first, and the boys might be bored enough to come home by the time I get over there. No Xbox at Grandma’s house.”

  “Does your wife know what a skunk she married?”

  “Not for lack of you telling her.”

  Cochrane was a mellow town with a roofline that rarely protruded above the second storey. Old character homes had been revitalized into commercial properties, and the Old West main street thronged with shopping families. Tom pointed.

  “RCMP post is up a couple of blocks, but we’re meeting Drummond at an old-timey saloon. He says the burgers are good and we’re buying.”

  Lacey expected to pay. She hadn’t expected the qualms she felt walking into the plank-floored, rustic-themed restaurant to meet another member of the Force that she’d left behind. She and Bulldog had toughed out all those months of training together, but only he was still taking it in stride. Maybe if she hadn’t married Dan, if she’d been free to take transfers to anywhere in Canada.… Policing couldn’t possibly be as grim out in these quiet prairie towns as it was in the Lower Mainland. It might have its moments, but not every second of every shift. Was every member she met from here on going to give her the same cold stare as Wayne, waiting for her to reveal whatever flaw made her not tough enough? She set that thought aside and concentrated on how to convince Bulldog to lift and file those prints ASAP without starting a file on them.

  At a table near the saloon window sat a huge man in uniform, his neck muscles bulging above his collar. More bull than dog, more mountain than both. She remembered suddenly that she didn’t need to argue for anything except a slight delay in paperwork. Whatever her ex-training buddy might think about her leaving the Force, he had grown up under a wife-beating dad and had a permanent down on domestic abusers. All she had to do was tell him.

  Once her summary was out there, he said, “It’s almost always the ex. And that ex, who I interviewed myself, if I remember right — and I do because I glanced over the file this afternoon — was the slimy kind whose left hand never meets his right because one or the other of them is always in somebody else’s pocket. I’d enjoy pinning something on him.” Bulldog slurped down his coffee to make way for the refill the waitress offered as she brought their plates. Once the woman was out of earshot, he said, “There’s a chain of custody problem or something with this item you want printed?”

  “Admissibility of evidence issue.” Lacey described in brief how she’d found the recorder duct-taped to Dee’s office window and transferred the recordings to a laptop. “Whatever’s been recorded is speech protected by lawyer-client privilege. We’d need a judicial order to overturn that, and I don’t see it being granted if we have a simpler way to identify the individual responsible.”

  “I want a signed statement of where you found it and what steps you took to protect any prints. Photos in situ?”

  Lacey nodded.

  Bull grunted his approval. “Won’t kill off the doubts if it comes to trial, but you’ll be a credible witness. Ex-officer and all.” The pause that followed was the closest he’d come to asking why she’d left.

  “Now I know where you are, I’ll come back for coffee one day and tell you the whole damn story.”

  “Make it a beer,” said Bulldog. “Anything else?”

  “The Beal brothers, Eddie and Eben. It might still be them, over this museum business.”

  The meal passed with Bulldog recounting the Beal brothers’ colourful history of mostly harmless encounters with law enforcement, both the RCMP and the RM’s bylaw officers. Lacey was briefly distracted by the possibility of working as a patrol sheriff for the RM, but stopped short of asking for particulars. Time enough for job hunting after Dee’s prowler was on ice.

  “No gun offences,” Bulldog concluded. “Eben’s a family man, careful for his kids’ sakes, and Eddie picketed to keep the gun registry, if you can believe it. Got egged for that by his neighbour. Eben went over with a couple of flats of eggs and pelted the guy’s truck good, with him sitting in it. They shook on it after. Washed the truck together.”

  A rural gun owner picketing to keep the registry? Astounding. She stored up the egging and other funny bits of Beal history to pass on to Dee, but she couldn’t find anything in that history to suggest either brother was more than a homegrown crank whose agenda was right out in the open. Bulldog saved the only surprise for last.

  “They’ll soon be witnesses for the prosecution, for a change.” He scraped his last fry through the ketchup dregs.

  “Yeah?”

  “A dangerous driving and assorted from last winter. Goes to court next month. The hotshot hockey player that nearly creamed your friend? He just missed the Beals’ truck a bit farther along the same road. They live nearby and ID’d the car.”

  That put a new twist on things. Maybe the Beals had been bought off by Jarrad or Mick. Even a time change of fifteen minutes in their testimony or any expression of doubt from them could get charges dropped or bargained down. But it would look obvious that they’d altered
their testimony unless Dee’s could be discredited as unreliable. As a motive is was thin as onion skin. Hard to see what they could hope to gain.

  “Was the driver drunk?”

  Bulldog shrugged. “He hid his car and lay low. Then a month later, in he trots with a lawyer to confess. We tested him for substances and got zip. No surprise by that time.”

  “If he was going to confess anyway, why delay?”

  “Needed time to find his nerve, maybe.” Tom waved for the bill. “Or he could have been taking a banned performance enhancer. The league might’ve tested him when they learned about the charges. The wrong positive could cost him big.”

  “Trial will show,” Bulldog said and pushed back his chair. “Gimme the evidence, McCrae. I’ll trust you for the statement.” He eyeballed the Ziploc bag with the date/time/location all marked on it in approved fashion. “Good to see you remember some of your training.”

  Back in the car, Tom announced he was taking the scenic route back. “Give you time to digest.”

  Lacey rolled her eyes. His boys wouldn’t be ready to go home for another two hours. That was the real reason. How soon until Dee would be going home? After six now and night was still miles away over Saskatchewan, but soon enough the shadows of the spruce trees would be creeping toward Dee’s French doors. She pulled out her phone, hesitated, then stuck it back in her belt. Dee would barely be sitting down for supper at the grand hockey party. Let her eat in peace. The next check-in could be made from Tom’s, before Lacey started back to Bragg Creek. Damn Tom and his in-laws-shirking ways. She could be halfway home by now. And what would she find when she got there? Dee with a triumphant solution or a whole new set of problems?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jan got ready early, then lay down on the couch until she heard Terry start the shower. She dragged herself to the kitchen, picked half an Adderall out of the pill bottle, whacked it in half again with her pill chopper, and sucked one of the tiny quarters into her mouth. The other quarter, no bigger than a crumb, went into her supplements travel box. If she started to crash at the party, she could take the second crumb and hope the buzz wouldn’t be obvious to Terry. She put her purse and sweater by the door and went to the sunroom to watch for Rob’s arrival at Dee’s. If they all arrived at the same time, the positive impact on Jake would be stronger.

  Terry was ready by the time Dee drove up the hill. As he helped Jan to her feet, he congratulated her on resting before the big event. She smiled, leaning on his arm, hoping he would attribute the tremble in her hand to the usual fatigue. They drove through Jake’s main gate and parked in the turnaround behind Dee’s SUV. Her legs were shaking again already. She’d pushed herself way too hard this week. If a wheelchair had magically appeared to spare her the walk around to the terrace, she’d have been tempted to use it. But none did. Instead she took Rob’s arm when he came over and walked with him and Dee to where Jake was greeting people at the top of the shallow terrace steps. The house was Spanish style, with red-clay roof tiles, one large storey on this frontage, and three levels down the hillside on the other side to the pool deck. She’d lost count of the number of parties they’d attended out here. At least he had an elevator indoors, installed a decade ago for some visiting relation’s convenience.

  Jake shook hands vigorously and congratulated Rob on the success of the opening. “Jannie, good to see you. When you didn’t make the gala, I thought you’d be out for this one, too. But you look okay.”

  If “okay” meant brain-fogged, blinded by the sunlight even through dark glasses, deafened by the gravel crunching underfoot, and with all her muscles twitching randomly due to the pill, then yeah, she was okay. She smiled, all the answer he was looking for, and followed him around the house to the main terrace. The view gave her an excuse to pause and catch her breath. She wasn’t the only one looking. The mountain panorama spread from behind the west wing to the distant peaks of Waterton Park and the U.S. border. Jake, who saw it every day, ordered a couple of people out of loungers in a sheltered nook and installed Jan in one of them before hurrying off to greet more guests.

  Jan sat, wriggling backward across cushions so soft they sucked her in. Terry brought her a sparkling water. A few dozen people milled about with glasses in hand. There were buffet tables along one wall, a full-service bar between the sets of French doors, and a half-dozen immense television screens along the walls and railings. No excuse for missing a great play today.

  While she waited for Terry to bring her some food, Mick Hardy came over. He was no longer the robust man she remembered from the Mardi Gras party last winter. His hair was lank, his face grey, and his sports jacket hung off shoulders that were more bones than flesh. His left arm was tucked protectively against his chest, cherishing a glass half full of ice and amber fluid. His other hand held a plate. He stared helplessly at the lounger beside Jan’s.

  “Here,” she said, working her way up to a sitting position. “Hand me your stuff and then sit down. These loungers are fatally soft.”

  Mick smiled, lines creasing his drooping cheeks. “But great once you’re in, huh?”

  “Uh-huh.” She watched him ease cautiously into position and returned his food. “How’s the pacemaker holding up? I heard you had to leave the gala last night.”

  Mick swallowed half his drink and coughed, care­fully. “Looked worse than it was. I didn’t want a fuss, so I was waiting until most people were gone. Then the curator blew the whistle on me, so to speak.”

  “I was glad to see you were home this morning. Was the hospital able to tell you what went wrong?”

  “The wires didn’t heal into place properly in my heart. Or they pulled out when I stretched the wrong way. I’m supposed to take it easy and see if they connect better. If not, I’ll need a repair job.” He grinned, a ghostly imitation of the old Mick Hardy charm. “I don’t know whether to hope the game’s tame for my heart or root for Jake’s team regardless.”

  Terry came back with plates of food and sat at the foot of Jan’s lounger. “I introduced Rob to a bunch of the players,” he told her. “I had no idea he was such a fan. He knew all their stats, which ones have the Stanley Cup ring, and so on. Stuff even I don’t know, and I see them all the time.”

  “He probably did his homework when he went home to change clothes.”

  “Rob, that’s the curator, right? I want to thank him for helping me out last night. Nice young fella, even if he is as queer as a plastic toonie.” Jan exchanged glances with Terry. So much for keeping Rob in the closet tonight. Mick caught their look. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I learned the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ rule a long time back. In hockey, there’s more of it than some folks want to think.”

  Dee arrived with a plate of food and a tall glass. “Can I share your footrest, Mick?”

  “Your friend didn’t come?” Jan asked her when she was settled.

  “She had to go into Calgary.” Dee nibbled at a dry rib. The tension in her thin shoulders ran all the way to her hands, and she gripped that rib like it was somebody’s throat.

  “How did things go last night?” Jan persisted. “You look exhausted.”

  “What you’d expect,” said Dee. “You missed some memorable performances, but they’ll be on the video.”

  Mick sat forward, his plate tilting. “There’s a video?”

  “DVD, eventually,” said Dee. “Those roving camera people will make a compilation DVD of the evening as a souvenir for the board members and big donors, and cut some footage for YouTube advertising.”

  “I’ll enjoy that,” said Mick, wheezing as he leaned back. “I wasn’t at my best last night, might have dozed off a time or two. When will it be ready?”

  “Next week, I hope. My last job as interim president will be writing tasteful notes to send out with the DVDs.”

  “You’re leaving the board?” Jan jerked upright. “You can’t go yet.”

/>   “The chair, anyway.” Dee pushed back her hair with one wrist. “I’ve done my bit. I want to get on with my own life, socialize with less-myopic people for a change. Present company excepted, of course.” What a mercy Jan had swallowed her pride and the quarter pill to make sure Rob got a good introduction to Jake. If Dee wouldn’t be there next year to ride herd on the trophy wives, all the more reason to have a skilled curator who knew the politics going in.

  Jake, standing by the bar, tinkled his glass for silence. His big voice spread happily over the deck. “Friends. Welcome all of you to the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals. In a minute, the sound on all these TV sets will come up for the pre-game. But don’t fret — plenty of time to fill your glasses and your plates. I want to say how pleased I am to see you all here, celebrating with me that I’ve got a piece of a team in the finals for the third time. My money was made in Alberta, so it was only fitting that I put some back into the Calgary Flames” — huzzahs from one contingent of hockey players — “and then the Edmonton Oilers” — louder cheers from the other side of the terrace. “This is the first time I’ve owned a piece of Chicago, and they made the finals, too. Teams are gonna be bidding for me next year.”

  Someone yelled, “But none of them win!”

  After the laughter, Jake added, “I never would have bought into this team without the advice of a good friend and neighbour who knows hockey as a player, coach, and manager, a man whose contributions to hockey in Canada and through the World Hockey Federation have not gone unnoticed. A man who, we learned just this week, has been nominated for the Order of Canada: Mick Hardy. Wave to the folks, Mick.” Mick waved. The hockey players yelled and whistled. Camille came over, all smiles, to accept her share of the glory. Dee, faced with Camille’s deliberately turned derriere right at her eye level, moved over to sit beside Terry.

  “What are you two smirking about?” she asked as Jan covered a smile with her napkin.