When the Flood Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  “Oh. So what else you got on this guy?”

  She summarized the conversation with Neil, ending with, “He still has an older red Grand Am, kept in his girlfriend’s garage.”

  “You really want it to be him, huh? So does Drummond. Why didn’t you call him direct?”

  “I can’t afford to. Next time he might be off duty, and his bar tab would break me.” She slurped up her soup while Tom left a message. With Dee under Marie’s more-than-competent eye, she could go back through the line again for a sandwich to take upstairs for later.

  “I’ll call you when he calls me,” he said, pocketing the phone. “Are you really staying here all night again?”

  “I left Dee alone on the weekend when she needed me. I can’t risk him coming back to finish the job.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rain again on Tuesday. The endless drizzle drove Jan in from the sunroom by midafternoon. Sunday night’s adrenalin was long gone, leaving her weak and miserable. A quarter pill would fix it. But that would leave her worse off tomorrow, when Dee might be awake and needing her. Better save the pills for emergencies. Terry phoned to say he was staying late at work. She warned him the police had barricades ready at the bridge, then went back to huddling under her comforters. If this was what stimulants did to her after only a short trial, she could not afford them anymore.

  Rob appeared on the deck shortly after five with a grocery sack. She uncurled herself from the heap of comforters and opened the glass door for him. He propped his dripping umbrella on the mat and draped his jacket over a chair.

  “I’ll mop up in a sec,” he said. “Just let me find a stiff drink first. Get you anything?” Jan waved her water glass as he disappeared into the kitchen. He was more a wine guy than a hard drinker, so today must have been more trying than usual. When he came back, she asked.

  “Oh yeah, lousy.” Rob flopped onto the loveseat. “Mrs. Ass-in-the-Air has lost her key card, but she wouldn’t speak directly with me, just left a message yesterday with the secretary about getting a replacement. When I phoned her back to ask about when she last saw it and so on — because we have to block it in the computer if it doesn’t turn up — she got all snippy with me for daring to question a board member. So it’s anyone’s guess if the place has been insecure all weekend. And she won’t wait to see if her card turns up, just demanded a new one and told me to leave it with the secretary for her. Doesn’t even want to look at me. Bloody sexual politics. You’d think I could avoid them by being gay.”

  “Maybe she’ll be embarrassed enough to resign.”

  “Fat chance. She’ll get me bounced and forget the whole nasty incident. Especially with Dee out of the equation. How is she today?”

  “The same, Terry said. Just you and me for supper.”

  “Not hungry yet. You?”

  “Not yet. So what happened besides Camille?”

  He groaned. “Everything. Did I mention that stink?”

  “The river pushing up the sewer line?”

  “The plumber says it’s not the high water. He thinks a workman might have left his lunch-bag in a ventilation shaft. Says it’s happened on other jobsites. Or it could be our protester up to mischief. The vault racks are still not fixed, so I had to delay more paintings in Calgary. Maybe the vault guy will be back Thursday, says that sweet-voiced wench who I’d strangle if she wasn’t in their Vancouver office. And then, just to really cap my day, the Highways fellow wants to park a backhoe on the terrace. Guess what that will do to the Rundle-stone paving.”

  “Why do they want a backhoe?”

  “There’s a massive snag in the river. Whole trees piling up. If it gives way and crashes into the bridge, it could mean a long-term closure. Ergo, backhoe.”

  “Okay, you deserve that drink. Have another if you need it.”

  Rob turned the glass in his hand. “Nah. Hard liquor’s not really my thing.”

  After a bit he went into the kitchen and threw stuff into a pot for soup. While it was simmering and sending out savoury aromas of tomato and nutmeg, they watched the Calgary news for the latest on the flooding. Rain and the melting snowpack had swelled every river from Highway 1 to the U.S. border. Normally tiny creeks were ripping out culverts, cutting range roads, turning saturated slopes into mudslides. With the flood news out of the way, the announcer went on, “RCMP are asking for the public’s help in locating a red 1969 Corvette Stingray like the one in this picture.” A photo splashed up beside his head.

  “That’s Jarrad’s car,” said Jan.

  “Damn if I didn’t forget. Yeah, it’s his, and you put them onto it.”

  “Me?”

  “You told the Mountie last night, when you and Terry were sniping at each other.”

  “So?”

  “They did whatever it is they do with paint scrapings and figured out they were looking for that type. Two Mounties spent all afternoon looking at our outdoor security recordings to figure out when the ’Vette got there and when it left. Isn’t there a song? ‘Gimme the Red Corvette’ or something like that? Anyway, the cops are singing it today. The car left late Saturday night and showed up in a different parking spot the next day. After Dee was hit. Its nose was stuck in a spirea bush that hid any damage to the bumper.”

  “Oh my god. So they’re looking for Jarrad, too?”

  “Presumably. The car disappeared again in the middle of that thunderstorm on Sunday night. You know how lightning flashes fuck up a camera’s sensor for a few seconds? Well, somebody got into the car and then there was one of those whiteouts. After the reset it was gone.”

  “But when it came in on Sunday, it was daylight. Couldn’t they tell it was Jarrad?”

  Rob shrugged. “He had a ball cap on both times. The cops pulled some still photos to show around for a proper identification.”

  “God. The Mounties actually think he ran into Dee and left her there to die? The same way he did last winter?”

  “Seems so. Who is this guy, anyway? I must have seen him if he was at the gala.”

  “You saw him all right,” said Jan. “His bare ass behind Camille’s, over the makeup table.”

  “I wouldn’t want to stand in her satin flats today,” said Rob. “Imagine knowing you screwed a would-be murderer.”

  Attempted murder. Jan had not framed the attack on Dee that way. Easier to believe it was an accident, a mischance of fate that had brought the bike and the car together. If Jarrad had done it deliberately, she would do her utmost to make him pay. The surge of rage was almost a pill’s worth. She leaned back on the cushions and breathed deep, willing the fury into her brain where it might unlock the resources she needed. Surely she, who watched and listened to everyone in the neighbourhood, could figure out where he might be hiding. But her stupid, sluggish, useless brain refused to co-operate. The rain trailed down her cheeks, too tired to keep up with gravity.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “You can go home now.”

  “Huh?” Lacey sat up. It was morning. Tom’s wife, Marie, was bending over her. In the bed, Dee seemed unchanged. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ll stay with Dee today, and you’ll go home to sleep. A neighbour will pick up my kids from school, but I need to collect them by five. And listen to your voice mail.”

  “My voice mail?” Lacey repeated, yawning. Every muscle griped about her disturbed night in the chair. How could she have stiffened up so badly when she had hardly slept for nurses entering to check on Dee?

  “Tom left you a message. Dee will be fine with me. See you by four thirty.”

  Outside, Lacey turned on her cellphone and checked her messages: one from Terry asking for an update and one from Tom an hour ago. “Those prints don’t match the ex-husband. Meet me at that museum place at one. I’m bringing the recorder.”

  She navigated the tail end of the morning rush on autopilot. If Neil
had not bugged the office, then who? Who hated Dee enough to attempt vehicular homicide? The sun strengthened as she drove, adding an extra layer of strain to her tired eyes. She hadn’t taken sunglasses yesterday because of the rain, and there were none in Dee’s glove compartment. When could she get her own car from the stable road?

  Despite the let-up in the rain, the river had crept closer to the bridge deck. She kept her eyes relentlessly on the centre line as she crossed. It was bad enough driving exhausted without being sucked away by the hypnotic patterns on the river’s surface. She turned up Dee’s driveway and braced herself for the dogs’ threats before realizing they weren’t in their pen. Hopefully that meant they were out with the neighbour and not running loose on the muddy hillside. She was too tired to even think of looking for them.

  By the time she was out of the shower, the dogs were back. She watched out the bathroom window while Jake put them in their pen, checked their water, and patted them over the fence for a couple of minutes. Then he came toward the house. He had to have seen the Lexus out front. There was nothing for it but to go down, even though every bone of her body longed to crawl into bed. She scrambled into her clothes as the kitchen door opened below.

  “Miss McCrae?” he called. “Can we talk?” She found him leaning against the counter, quite at home. “Sorry to barge in,” he said. “But when I saw Dee-Dee’s car … what can you tell me about her today?”

  “They’ll let her slowly wake up over the next twenty-four hours so they can test her reflexes and cognition. The doctor doesn’t expect trouble since the brain didn’t swell much at all. She’ll be in a wheelchair for a few months. I don’t know when she can come home. This house isn’t exactly wheelchair friendly.”

  “I can send some fellas over to install ramps. Maybe one of those platform chair lifts up the stairs. Think I should ask her, or do it for a surprise?”

  “That would be quite a surprise.”

  “Fitted out my ma’s house twenty years ago. It’s bound to be easier nowadays.” He straightened up. “Ma’am, I owe you an apology for yesterday. I shut down that young fella when he was only telling the truth. It looks mightily like Jarrad Fiske was the driver of the car that hit Dee-Dee. You know about that incident last winter?”

  “Only that Jarrad was driving the car that hit her dog.”

  “Mick, I regret to say, helped the kid by hiding the car and getting Jarrad on a plane back to his team. Now I hear from the grapevine that the young fella was already off his game by then, breaking training and mouthing off at his coaches. Then he started drinking too much and fighting with his teammates, yelling about getting his own back on somebody, for something. It sure sounds like he brooded on Dee-Dee over that windshield, and maybe he blamed her for reporting him over her dog. When he saw her out bike riding, he didn’t stop to think. I’m real sorry.”

  So Jarrad had been making threats. Had he spied on Dee, waiting for an opportunity? But if the recorder had been installed around the time Dee had started to suspect a prowler, that would have been when Jarrad was away. He’d have needed a confederate, someone to bug Dee’s window and find out where she was vulnerable. Maybe Mick? He lived practically next door to Dee and might even have visited over the winter. It was easier to see Camille as an active accomplice than poor old Mick. Even if she had no suspicion of how far Jarrad might go for revenge, Camille would revel in the chance to get some dirt on Dee.

  “Then there’s no doubt Jarrad deliberately ran over Dee?”

  “Not much. The Mounties came around with photos of him abandoning his car at the museum. The youngsters identified his jacket, even though he wore a ball cap and kept his head down. There’ll be a whatchamacallit — all-points bulletin?”

  “Canada-wide warrant. Would Mick aid Jarrad in evading charges this serious?”

  “I’d like to think not, but he probably would. Except he’s not able. Heart’s bad and the pacemaker isn’t helping much. Camille found him collapsed in the den Sunday night and took him to hospital. They didn’t keep him in, but he’s got a private nurse at their place in the city. Camille won’t have him out here when the bridge might close any hour. I said I’d fly him out if he needed medical attention, but she wouldn’t have it.”

  “Wouldn’t Camille help Jarrad just as much as Mick would?”

  “Nah. She hates the little punk.” Camille hated Jarrad? Not by anyone else’s report. If she had helped the new prime suspect escape to the States to evade arrest, it would please Lacey mightily to see her charged as an accessory. Jake added, “I expect you’ll be staying here awhile, once Dee-Dee’s out of the hospital. You don’t worry about looking after her. Medical insurance will pay for private nursing and I’ll cover what it doesn’t. We stand by our neighbours out here.”

  She thanked him and showed him out, locking the door this time. Two hours left to nap before lunch and then Tom. Was he coming to stand by while Wayne fired her ass for not working this week? Wayne had sounded quite understanding on the phone, but you couldn’t always tell with ex-cops. Job loss. Wouldn’t that put the icing on her mud pie?

  She didn’t fall asleep easily. When she woke to the noon news on the radio, the police were asking for the public’s help in locating Jarrad Fiske. Last seen on Sunday afternoon in Bragg Creek, he was thought to be driving a 1969 Corvette Stingray, bright red with a white convertible roof. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of either Jarrad or the car was asked to call …

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jan ate her toasted bagel in the sunroom, keeping half an ear on the TV news in the living room. The first sunny day in nearly a week and the first she could stand up without pain. A good day. Except she still had no idea how to track down Jarrad, other than keeping an eye on the Hardy house in case he was there. Not that she thought he was. He’d have hopped the first available flight back to the States, or even driven through the border to catch up with his teammates by Sunday night, and been perfecting his putt at some resort. Well, there was a Finals game tonight. If she spotted Jarrad in those stands, cheering on his friends like nothing was wrong, the police would know where to apply for extradition.

  Or had he left the car at Mick’s townhouse? Could she ask Terry to drive by there on his way home from work? If he got to come home at all tonight. The snowpack was still melting, raising the river terrifyingly close to the level of 2013’s massive flood. The slow rise was almost worse than that sudden mass of water. Harder on the nerves of every person for a hundred miles. Maybe she should send Rob on a grocery run in case. Dear Rob. He’d do it, too, despite all the work at the museum and worry over his job. If he lost that he’d have to move on, and her life would be that much lonelier. She appreciated Rob. She could show that by taking him last night’s leftover soup for lunch. The road was dry, the day was lovely, and it was only a five-minute drive downhill. No need for the magic pill. She could phone him from the parking lot and not even leave the van. Meanwhile, she could ponder Phase Two of the Get Jake on Rob’s Side campaign.

  At the museum, she parked facing the wild, whirling river, looking for familiar faces among the anxious watchers along the bridge and far bank. A diesel engine rumbled and a belch of black smoke rose from the riverside terrace. The backhoe’s arm stretched out from the stone parapet, bit deep into the turgid waters, and brought back a soggy mass of pine branches. It dragged them up on the muddy bank below the terrace, dropping them with a ferocious squelching, and dipped again into the brown swirl. A small poplar came up next, with a few young leaves clinging to its waterlogged branches. Beyond the tree, something pale broke the surface before being sucked back under.

  Rob climbed into the passenger seat and sniffed. “Mmm, soup.”

  Jan said, “What was that?”

  “What?”

  “Where the backhoe is working. Something whitish, like cloth, is caught in that pile of trees.” They both watched the backhoe’s next reach. This time the
white was plainer: a large flap of paleness that slid off a branch and back underwater.

  “Garbage?” Rob suggested. “A tarp from some building site upriver?”

  “Maybe. Do you want to reheat that soup in the museum kitchen?”

  “Not a chance. It’s unsanitary in there. The area near the elevator has more flies than a trout-fishing derby. I keep spraying, but they just keep coming. There might be a screen missing on the ventilation system somewhere.”

  While Rob unscrewed the soup Thermos, Jan watched the backhoe arm make another dive. This time the diesel engine’s deep bass rumble deepened. The machine was really working, possibly dragging the root of the whole snag. There was the white thing again, folded around the backhoe’s jaw. With a bigger, fouler belch, the machine kicked up another notch. Whatever was down there was not coming up easy. Water whirled in new patterns over something red, larger and smoother than any tree. The back­hoe shuddered and the red thing slipped away. The operator had lost his big fish, whatever it was.

  “I’m going out to look,” she said. She perched on a bench by the building, hardly noticing as Rob and his soup arrived at her side. There it came again, with greater caution on the part of the backhoe’s operator. Red, metallic, with water coursing down its fenders, it slid toward the muddy shore and stopped with its once-bright chrome bumper resting on the tangle of dredged-up trees.

  “Holy shit!” Rob bounced to his feet, soup spilling over his hand. “That’s the car, the Corvette.”

  “I’ll call the police.” Jan fumbled for her phone with shaking hands. “You get down there and tell them to stop. Jarrad’s body might be inside.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five