When the Flood Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  “With that attitude, I can see why they don’t like you. Let me know if you want me to come over tomorrow. Not that there’s any real need, but I like being back in a hospital atmosphere. It smells like home.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  An hour later, rewarded for her days and nights of vigilance with a weak smile from a briefly waking Dee, Lacey left the city, reminding herself every few kilometres that her friend would be fine. The hospital had woken up to the fact that it had an interest in keeping her safe, not merely alive. Hurray for a full night at home.

  Home. When had she started thinking of Dee’s house as home? Well, it would be for a while yet. Even after the museum project wrapped up, Dee couldn’t be abandoned in that huge house, dependent on the neighbours. That reminded her of Jan Brenner. Of course the woman must have heard Dee talking to Wayne. Smooth move, McCrae. She tried out words of apology the rest of the way to Bragg Creek. No barricades yet, thank goodness.

  The westerly sun sparkled off the river, almost disguising the treacherous muddy current that roiled below the bridge. From here, the back side of the new museum stood tall, its atrium windows reflecting the cool blue of the sky. Dredged-up heaps of muddy debris marred the line of the blue stone terrace. The Corvette was long gone to an RCMP crime lab, where unlucky techs no doubt crawled over the squishy seats looking for fingerprints and other evidence. Drying and restoration were not in their job description. Not that the owner would be putting in an insurance claim for water damage. He was either in hiding or in the river. Much simpler for all concerned if he opened Mick Hardy’s front door to the CSU when they went there in search of his fingerprints. She turned up Dee’s road, half hoping to see cruisers surrounding Mick Hardy’s house. There were none. A movement from above caught her eye: Terry, waving from his deck. She drove on and met him in his driveway.

  “I hoped you’d come out tonight,” he said. “Jan found something you should see. You’ll know if it’s worth reporting.” He led her to the deck, where Jan and Rob lounged beside the remains of grilled salmon and salad. “Tea? Beer? Something harder?”

  “Beer, please.” No need to drive home from here.

  “Bottle or glass?”

  “Bottle’s fine.”

  Rob gathered up dishes before following Terry into the house.

  “Sit down, Lacey,” said Jan. “You must be exhausted. How was Dee?”

  Lacey seized the moment “Listen, Jan, about the other day. I’m really sorry if I … I mean, I didn’t understand how sick you were. If I’d realized … I should have helped, not jumped to conclusions. I apologize.”

  “Yes, well, it’s over.” Jan didn’t look totally displeased, but not completely won over, either. “What about Dee?”

  “She woke up for a minute again before I left, said a whole sentence. And the hospital finally put a security guard near her room. That’s a big relief. I wasn’t sure I could take another night on that fold-out chair.”

  “I thought Terry said Neil was in the clear.”

  “Yeah, but Jarrad isn’t. He could walk in unchallenged if he carried a bouquet. He doesn’t seem that well known up here.”

  “Not like the Flames and ex-Flames are,” Jan agreed. “If Iginla or Kipper walked into that hospital even now, half the staff would swoon and the other half would rush for autographs. So you don’t think Jarrad went over the riverbank with his car?” She talked like a rational person when she was relaxed and in her own space. She might have useful ideas about the situation, if she would forgive Lacey enough to share them.

  “I don’t know Jarrad. What do you think?”

  “I think he pushed the car in to cover his tracks. Probably threw Dee’s bike in there, too. If it even was him on the security camera.”

  “I thought it might have been Neil, but he’s been ruled out.”

  “What you said about Neil stalking Dee was what got me started. If he’d found Jarrad’s jacket in the Corvette, he could have used it as a disguise. I couldn’t remember if Neil and Jarrad were the same height. My Winter Olympics tapes had some footage of Jarrad. I’d hoped to compare his height to Mick’s and by that to Neil’s. Also to compare his shape to the person on the security stills.”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t find one of Mick and Jarrad standing together. Plus Terry said Neil was cleared, so I shelved that angle. But I’ve got another suspect.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ll show you.” Jan uncurled from her lounger and led the way to the living room. She pointed at the security stills on the coffee table. Then she picked up the television remote and cued up a videotape. Lacey glanced through the photos, the same time-stamped grey images she had seen at the museum: an individual in a loose-fitting, light-coloured bomber-style jacket, wearing a dark ball cap that hid his face. From the daylight picture of him beside the Corvette, she estimated his height at five-ten to six feet.

  Terry brought Lacey’s beer. “Want anything, hon?

  “Not right now. Where’s Rob?”

  “Getting ready for his date.”

  “Is it the one he met at the Finals party?”

  “Didn’t ask.”

  “Me neither. I figured he’d tell us voluntarily.” Jan forwarded the tape a bit.

  Lacey looked up. “About that party? Dee’s argument with Jake?”

  “Dee told some guy off for making a pass at her, or that’s what it sounded like from the little I heard. Who said it was Jake? He’s far too much of a gentleman.”

  “Mick Hardy told me.”

  “He’d know. He was sitting right under the study window, close enough to hear every word. Here’s what I wanted you to see.” The TV screen showed an arena, with hockey players skating desultory circles on the ice. Mick Hardy chatted with some men in the players’ bench while, in the row above, his wife and sulky Jarrad sat shoulder to shoulder. They wore matching jackets. “Look at the shoulder buckles on the one in the photo.”

  Lacey was already doing a point-by-point comparison. It could be either jacket in the security stills. During their dreadful performance at the gala, Camille had been almost Jarrad’s height in her satin flats.

  “You’d better show this to the investigating officer. Can you lift stills from the videotape, or maybe copy the tape for him and mark the time on it?”

  Terry was already moving. “Whole tape, not just this piece?”

  “Whole tape. They’ll need the context if it’s to stand up in evidence. Although, once you show them yours, they can pull the original footage from the network that filmed it.” Lacey took a swig of her beer. Camille might be far more than Jarrad’s accessory after the fact. She might have been the primary mover behind the attack on Dee. But why? “Camille had nothing to gain by running Dee down.”

  Jan settled on the couch and pulled an afghan over her legs. “Especially since using Jarrad’s car implicated her lover in a crime. Unless …”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Unless she did it out of spite. The woman scorned. She’d have heard at the party about Jarrad missing the plane Saturday morning. The hockey players at Jake’s were speculating which woman he’d gone off with. Dee didn’t go to the post-gala supper; neither did Jarrad. If Camille thought … surely she wouldn’t?”

  “Who wouldn’t what?” Rob was back, looking shiny clean and sleek.

  Terry spoke up. “They’re assassinating Camille again.”

  “I’m so in for that! What wouldn’t she do?”

  “Run over Dee with Jarrad’s car because she thought Dee snatched her boy toy.”

  Rob shook his head. “She’d go after a man of Dee’s, if there was one. If not, she’d bide her time.”

  “It’s all speculation at this point,” said Lacey. “What I want to know, Rob, is if Dee said anything to you on Saturday night about her argument with Jake Wyman. You left with her, right?”

/>   “Right.” Rob settled on an ottoman. “She was clearly going to need help getting poor old Mick back into his closet.”

  Jan frowned. “His coffin, you mean? He may look like the undead right now, but he’s not there yet.”

  Lacey charged ahead with her next question. “Did Dee say anything while you were together? About the argument, I mean.”

  “The divine Dee has far too much class to kiss and tell. Or slap and tell. She was utterly gracious when I took her home from Mick’s. When can she have visitors, please? I’m dying to see her reactions to the souvenir DVD.”

  “From the gala?” said Jan. “Are they ready?”

  “Monday, babe. You’ll have your copy first, I swear.” With that, he drifted to his feet and left.

  Terry looked at Jan. “Bet?”

  “Nope,” she said. Lacey looked from one to the other. Jan promptly explained. “We’re wondering if Rob’s date is the one whose phone number he got at the Finals party. I thought it was quite self-sacrificing of him to help Dee with Mick instead of staying there with the hottie, but he said leaving first is a superlative seduction technique. He’s really looking forward to tonight, so it obviously worked.” She glanced at her husband and back at Lacey. “Want another beer? You can tell us stories of Dee’s university days. She has the reputation of never putting a foot wrong, and we’re dying to know if she has a disgraceful episode or two in her past.”

  “Now that she’s out of danger, of course,” Terry added. “Yesterday it would have been in terribly bad taste, but today we can start collecting things to tease her with later.”

  Lacey guessed she was forgiven for her earlier slur against Jan. “Yeah, I’d love another. Do you know if Jake fed the dogs already?”

  Jan nodded. “He threw the ball for them a few times down the drive, too, just as we ate supper. He does not scoop, though, so watch out for doggie land mines. Oh, and he asked if he can have a key to Dee’s house. He wants his architect to draw up plans to make the house easier for Dee when she comes home.”

  “Easier?”

  “Uh-huh. He mentioned an elevator, among other improvements. I’m to ask you whether it would be better to let Dee approve the plans or surprise her with a fait accompli.”

  “He doesn’t think small.” No way in hell was she handing over a house key until Jake was cleared beyond doubt. If he’d bugged the place once, he might get surveillance wired right into the walls next time. But she wasn’t going to advertise her half-formed suspicions in front of Terry. “I’ll try to get keys cut this weekend. It’s been a hell of a week.”

  The casual conversation filled a void in Lacey’s post-Force life. She didn’t talk about leaving the RCMP or her husband, and the Brenners didn’t ask. Instead they talked about non-stressful common events, like their university days. Jan, it turned out, was at SFU the year Lacey finished her English degree there part-time. They might have passed each other in the halls. It was a small connection, but a welcome one, and Lacey got up to leave an hour later with a comforting sense of tiny tendrils anchoring her in the post-RCMP world.

  It was quite dark outside. The long evening had trailed away on a stiff breeze that chilled her bare arms. She swung them for warmth, wondering how people got used to all this rural quiet. Nighttime in Surrey meant lower traffic noise, louder-sounding sirens, occasional gunfire, and greasy food in shabby cafés that poured liberal coffee to make up for their culinary shortcomings. The sky there was a low ceiling of smoggy dark above the endless streetlights, not a vast velvet void sprinkled with glimmers of distant light. Not this peaceful, alien world of widely spaced houses, whispering leaves, rustling grass and … raging dogs?

  Boney and Beau were barking loud enough to rouse the dead. She took the shadowy drive at a cautious run, scanning the clearing around the house for possible threats, pulling out her cellphone and wishing it was her duty Glock. Was that a faint light moving in Dee’s office? Two steps farther on, it wasn’t there. A reflection of a star, or a distant vehicle’s headlights. Nonetheless, she crept across the stones, flattened against the house, and slid along to the office window.

  Bam! The front door slammed against the outside wall. She ran to the front porch. Nothing. No running figure on the drive or rustling leaves that would mark movement through the bushes. The dogs’ barking rose to a new frenzy. She sped around the house in time to see a two-legged shadow vanish under the trees beyond the dog pen.

  She couldn’t be sure whether it had run up the trail or down, could barely be sure she had seen someone. Pursuit was out of the question. Searching alone in unfamiliar terrain at night was like begging to be ambushed. She returned to the house. After a quick reconnaissance through the open kitchen door, she went inside and turned on all the ground-floor lights. Then she locked the front door, shutting out the night wind that had seemed her biggest problem ten minutes ago.

  While waiting for the RCMP from Cochrane, she stood in the doorway of Dee’s office, staring at dumped-out drawers, scattered papers, and, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, the empty spot on the desk where, last Sunday at suppertime, she had left Dee’s laptop instead of locking it back in the filing cabinet.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Having slept through Rob’s departure for work, Jan phoned the museum after her late breakfast. When he picked up, she said, “I just wondered if Lacey said anything today about her break-in last night.”

  “She’s not here. She’s picking up the vault programmer at the airport. This adjustment could have been done over the internet a week ago. But no, the old prez was afraid we’d be hacked if we let the guy install remote software. As if any thief would need to move our vault drawers by remote control. They’d have to hack the elevator security and those double-backstopped electronic door locks before getting to the storage drawers. And then they’d be looking right at the unsecured remote control. If it’s good enough for Arab oil billionaires to protect their mega collections, it should be good enough for our little collection of cowboy art. It’s not like somebody’s going to donate us a lost Cezanne.”

  “Sorry I asked. I take it today’s not going well, either?”

  “The smell is getting to me, that’s all. We have a school group in the Natural History Gallery and the little beggars are making jokes about what exactly the stuffed coyotes are stuffed with.”

  “Still no clue where it’s coming from?”

  “I’m thinking it’s the elevator shaft. That’s where the flies congregate, anyway. I sprayed the elevator three times this morning, but we’re sure to end up with some getting into the vaults. We might have to fumigate. More expenses and we’ve hardly taken a cent in entry fees yet.” He hissed in frustration and then said, “How are you doing? I thought you’d sleep until noon after all the excitement last night.”

  “I wish. I laid awake for hours, worrying about Lacey down there by herself. Then I had nightmares of Jarrad’s car, dripping wet and covered in river mud, roaring after me with Camille at the wheel doing a Cruella De Vil impression.”

  “Wearing a white mink coat and ropes of jewels?”

  “No, in that leather jacket we stared at for half of yesterday. Instead of black and white, her hair was red and white to match the car.”

  “Do you think it’s a sign from your subconscious?”

  “Yes. It’s telling me to stop fussing about things I can’t control. My nerves are so shot. When you came home last night, I practically landed on the ceiling with my claws extended like Sylvester the cat.”

  “I’m sorry. Do you want me to move back into town?”

  “That’s not what I meant. You might volunteer to sleep at Dee’s place, though. I’d feel better if Lacey weren’t there alone.”

  Rob snickered. “Now you’re worried about her? Two days ago you’d have made her the main course at a barbeque.”

  “Not worried, exactly. But she came straight out and
apologized to me for that thing last week. She’s pretty human, when you get to know her.”

  “I already know her.”

  “You were awfully late. Good date?”

  “Not hardly. He talked about Jarrad the whole time. I was quite cast down.”

  “This was the guy from Jake’s party?”

  “Yup.”

  “A close friend of Jarrad’s?”

  “More than a friend, darlin’. You never told me Camille’s main squeeze was the hockey equivalent of a switch hitter.”

  “What? Are you sure this guy is telling the truth?”

  “Yup. He was pretty cut up about Jarrad going missing. If Jarrad is pulled from the river, he’ll have at least one mourner.”

  “Mick must have known.” Jan stared downhill at the Hardy house. “Maybe that’s why Camille and Jarrad got away with it for so long.”

  “You know these hockey folks better than I. Would it matter if Jarrad was outed? I mean, would he lose his job, be subjected to dressing room beatings, or forced to take segregated showers?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know. I don’t think so, although I don’t recall any male hockey players who are openly gay. Are you thinking Dee might have found out, and he tried to silence her to save his reputation? Not that she would have outed him, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but would he know that? I mean, Dee is a class act and I adore her, but she did do that nasty thing to his pretty car. He might think she’d happily destroy his career.”

  Rob was right. Jarrad, immature as he was, could have run over Dee on a misguided mission to save his reputation. But could he bring himself to drown his beloved Corvette? Possibly Camille had covered up for him by ditching the car after he was safely away. Wearing the same jacket might be accidental. Would the security photos show any difference in body composition between the night and day shots? She wished Rob well with the vault repairs and went to apply her artist’s eye to the photos.