by Lou Allin
“But you’ve been taking notes, so why …”
“Get ready to do it again, Mike. It’s necessary.”
“God, I can’t believe this is happening.” He looked at Lindsay. His voice, cracking with emotion, trickled off and all was still except for the call of the varied thrush, which her father called the telephone bird. It always unnerved her.
“Officer?” She looked at his fresh face, grown older in the last hour. He sounded totally serious, even though his words were out of a drama. “My great grandparents had closed caskets. I’ve never seen a dead person before. She’s not coming back to life. She’s gone.”
When you were young, you thought you were invincible. “And that’s why life is so precious. Because it can be over in minutes. Sometimes a bad decision, sometimes just fate.”
“Lindsay was going to be a nurse. We talked about that. And I’m in pre-med.” He spoke so low that she could barely hear. “Some doctor I’m going to make. Jesus. Maybe I’d better stay in research. Not sure I can hack it.”
“You’ll be fine. The next time it will be a little easier. Good doctors never quite get used to it. But that’s okay. Empathy means you have human feelings.” That brought a nod from him as he sat on a log, hands on his knees. Memories of what Boone had told her about his experience as a coroner returned to her. Every call involved a death. Why was she complaining about police work, which often involved a happy ending and smiles all around?
Each one returned to his own thoughts. Part of Holly wanted to start putting together the case right now, to collect all the testimony and evidence. But that wasn’t her bailiwick. Half an hour passed with only the distant sound of the waves and muted birdsong meeting their ears. The sun sliced through the clouds and began to warm their backs, protected from the wind. Nature was going about its amoral business, bees collecting nectar, snakes swallowing frogs, and one-lunged banana slugs scouring the detritus of the forest floor. There were two types of people: those who avoided banana slugs and those who targeted them. Sociopaths in the making. To their fractured thinking, everything moving and helpless needed to be killed. Was that what had happened to Lindsay?
At last, she started at a noise down the path. Mike caught her eye and stood. Bushes moved, and voices rose. It was the Integrated Major Crimes Unit, led by two detectives with three other constables. West Shore had put this together with the last attack and brought in the big guns after Ann had filled them in.
“Over here,” she called. Chubby Ed Smith she knew from an orientation seminar her first week on the island. He had warned her that policing the long strings of parks was like confining a toothless snake in a cotton sack, but a hell of a lot less exciting. They shook hands. He was a spark plug of a man, who barely met the height requirement, but he made up in gumption what he lacked in stature. His face bore a scar down one cheek, testimony of a clash with a biker gang, where he stepped in front of a barmaid facing a punk with a broken bottle. In plain clothes like all inspectors, he wore a light jacket over a tan shirt with chinos and the same short boots she wore. He was breathing hard. Running wasn’t in his job description.
He took one look at Lindsay’s neck and shook his head. “You did good to call us in right away. This is no bloody accident,” he said. “What the hell is happening around here?”
“I took a long shot myself, but didn’t want to postpone things. What you see is what you get. She’d been doing some drinking, though. Whatever error in judgement she made, she paid the final price.”
“Hell, yes, I’ve got a sixteen-year-old myself. First time she stayed out past midnight, I nearly lost my mind,” he said, letting out a long breath. “Think we have a follow up from that French Beach attack? From the throat marks, it’s a no-brainer. What about the other people in the party?”
“They’re a close-knit group, and I suspect that their alibis will hold up. This guy is escalating.” And in my territory. “You’ll notice that an earring is gone. At French, the girl was missing a bracelet.”
“That should help. Good catch on the coincidence.” He gave her a thumbs up. She liked Ed. He’d make up in shoe leather what he lacked in genius.
Ed introduced his new partner, a gum-chewing, fresh-faced man a few years older than Holly. “This is Chris’s first case. And it’s going to be a tough one. He just transferred over from Port Coquitlam. Thought he was going to enjoy a permanent vacation.” He gave the man a light punch on the arm in the force’s camaraderie.
“Ma’am,” Chris Braddock said. He ran his hand through his clipped blond hair, as if for want of something to do. The more he looked at Lindsay, the paler he got. A small piece of tissue stuck to his sideburns area, indicating a fresh but hasty shave.
“Took us long enough to get here,” Ed said, kneeling by the girl. “Where’s Boone? Thought I heard that junker Jeep of his pull in just as we took the path. Should have dropped him in by ’copter, the way he walks these days, poor old geezer.” He glanced at Mike and shot a questioning look at Holly.
“This is Mike,” she said. “I’ve already talked to him. As for the towel, one of the girls put it there.”
“Yeah, that kind of thing happens. Son, can you go back to the tent area and sit tight until we need you? It’s getting a bit crowded.” Ed pointed in the direction of the path.
“Sure. No problem, sir.” Mike pushed himself up off the log and trotted off.
“If I know Boone’s knee, he’ll take another few minutes,” Holly said. “There’s a copy of our French Beach file in the car. Might save you time.”
“Ann told me all about it in twenty-five words or less. If these events are connected, that’s one lucky girl. I wonder if she’ll ever know how close she came to being a fatal statistic?”
She nodded. With luck, Maddie was resuming her life with no more than a sore jaw. Holly confirmed to herself the wisdom of releasing that information to Pirjo. And yet, if the word had gotten out in louder fashion, more women might have been warned. But Lindsay had come with a group.
Now that the big boys had arrived, she felt every inch a minor player. “There’s no I in team,” Ben Rogers repeated from a distant corner of her head. Like a persistent imp, he went everywhere with her. Briefly, she sketched the last few hours for Ed.
“If I were a killer, I wouldn’t use the same M.O. each time. Good thing for us that sociopaths are faithful to their methods,” Ed said, angling the head for a better look at the damaged skin. Had Maddie been less agile and strong or Paul not come along, this might have been the result. “Wire for sure. Very smooth and large. Notice how it didn’t actually cut the skin. Bruising in a narrow area. Too thick for fishing line. Not a rope.”
Holly jumped in. “My constable thought maybe trimmer line.”
Ed pursed his thick lips in approval. “Good guess. You can find it anywhere, even in my garage, not that I have time for much yardwork. What are the other similarities?”
“Girl. Beach. Caught alone. One on the weekend. One during the week. Maybe the guy sets his own hours, has no job, or maybe he just prowls at night. No use in speculating until Boone fills in the blanks.”
“And the M.E. for the toxicology,” Ed said. “There’s no serious rigour yet. How long do you think she’s been lying here?”
“Mike said she turned in early. The rest went to bed by midnight. It’s ten now. A bit cool, but the estimate should be fairly accurate. One or two in the morning? She was pretty drunk when she turned in, so the body needed time to metabolise the booze and put her back on her feet, shaky or not.”
Snapping on gloves and kneeling, he moved one of Lindsay’s shapely but well-muscled legs. She took good care of herself … until last night. “Died here is my guess. The blood has started to pool even though she’s been turned over.”
“If she was heading for the bathrooms, given that she had been sick that would be natural. Going there or coming back, who can say? But look at her heels. Perfectly clean.”
“That would rule out dragging her.
But she could have been carried. Maybe knocked out if she got clipped on the jaw. That flashlight’s too small to have done any damage.” He took a quick look at her mouth.
“Mike said it was hers anyway. Do you think the guy had his own light? Why advertise your attack with a beam?” A crime under cover of darkness again would give such an advantage. Could he see like an owl? Navigate like a bat? She shuffled her feet waiting for Boone.
The Coroners Service in British Columbia was a quirky historical tradition that would not die. A respectable person with a law or medical background could apply, but candidates often came in after retirement from the civil-service pipeline. In unnatural, sudden, unexplained, or unattended deaths, the coroner would arrive. He would establish the identity if possible, and the how, when, where, and by what means the person died. He would recommend an autopsy if necessary, sometimes against the family’s wishes, and perhaps suggest ways in which a similar death could be avoided. The different causes were natural, accidental, suicide, homicide, or undetermined. Problems resulted when one cause masqueraded as another. Some cases had been filed away as accidents for decades until someone with a secret stepped forward or there was reason to exhume the body for tests. Undetectable poisons were often involved, or sometimes a spouse was convicted of murder when their other mates died in seemingly natural circumstances like passing out in a bathtub.
“Do you want me to go back to the campsite and see what’s keeping Boone?” she asked, stripping off the hot gloves and mopping her brow in the rising temperatures. She and Ashley were needed back at Fossil Bay. More than one speeder or drunk driver had gotten a pass this morning.
“Hell no. I left a couple officers there. Five in the group of kids, it’ll be like Saturday night in a bar. One guy says this. One guy says that. One guy was loaded. They all see things different ways.” He made a grand gesture with his arms. “Some crime scene. If it were in the middle of the ocean, it would hardly be worse. Look at this place. You could lose a bloody herd of elephants.”
“Makes you kind of wish for a nice locked-room mystery once in a while,” she said. “An orangutan crawling in an upper-floor window.”
Stooping again, Ed paid close attention to the bruised neck. Mmm hmm was all he said. Chris watched and took a few notes. Quiet as paint on a wall. Ed caught Holly’s gaze and smiled at her about the rookie’s discomfort. “Can you believe this is my partner’s first homicide? Never believe it, would you? He’s a cool one.”
Chris looked like he was used to the teasing, but his face flushed under its fashionable stubble. “Knock it off, Ed.”
“Holy crow. Do I have to walk clear to Washington State, or are you gonna call me a ferry? No jokes, please. This is Canada,” yelled a gruff voice from the underbrush.
Into the grove stumped Boone Mason. He was used in cases west of the city because he lived nearby in a trailer park on the ocean. A bum knee led to his early retirement from a successful career as a private eye. Though he operated on-call with sporadic pay, the job filled lonely hours since his beloved wife had died years ago. It also limited his dates with a rye bottle. A battered doctor’s bag bumped next to him, and he was wearing washed-out work pants with a knee brace and a Toronto Blue Jays sweatshirt. On his head was a straw Panama hat which had seen better days. Stuck in the brim were two fishing flies.
“I see I’m the last one at the party,” he said.
Ed gave a wry smile. “It never starts without you.”
“Let’s see what we have here. That young, we can cross off heart attack or stroke,” Boone said. “I suppose you two have already made up your minds before the real brains got here. All bets are officially off, starting now.” His gruff exterior hid the fact that he had more compassion than almost anyone she knew.
Chris raised a polite eyebrow. Ed folded his arms and locked eyes with Holly as if to say Here he goes again.
“Remember that assume always makes an ass of you and me.”
How many times had she heard that? But she wouldn’t have traded him for Hollywood’s most famous coroner.
With a creaky protest from his joints, Boone knelt with a grunt and got to work, chatting in his usual self-distracting way. Dispatch tempered by humanitarianism. Victims were not case files. They had names and significance, even though they had died of an overdose in an alley, mourned by none. You’d never hear him referring to crispy critters or floaters. His goal was to do whatever was in his purveyance to find justice for the victim.
“The marks on her neck,” Holly said, stating the obvious. Not long ago she’d attended her first autopsy. One was enough. That was one career she’d never pursue. The open air was her territory.
“No kidding. You’re not supposed to be mucking about before I get here, you know. And how about this beach towel, fer Chrissake? Is it hers?” The corner of his mouth rose a fraction. Hair uncombed, clothes rumpled, he never failed to get to a scene as fast as he could and then take all the time he needed. “The clock’s already stopped for them,” he’d say. In his presence, even Ed stood wordless.
Holly cleared her throat in discomfort. “It belongs to another girl. I moved it to check for a pulse. There was the outside chance that she was just unconscious. No such luck.”
While they waited, Ed sent Chris on a reconnaissance, setting up a grid to prepare before the rest of the group arrived. A large team helped scope a scene, but they also crowded it. Once away from this very public place, there would be no coming back. Nature would reassume its leafy business. This was very rough territory, unlike in a home where even a vacuum could be deployed. In the rainforest were a million places for evidence to hide. And suppose they found something. Like at French Beach, who knew how long it had been there? On the other hand, there were the lucky times. The murderer of a woman in the Maritimes had left a new jacket at the scene, with no evidence of him but hair from his cat.
Minutes passed while Boone entered notes in a mini-recorder. Body temperature, rigour, condition of her clothes, discernible wounds or bruises, broken bones. His back was to them, and knowing that he didn’t like to be watched, they had turned away but couldn’t help sneaking the occasional look. “No supervising! You’re not my apprentices on a cooking show. Let me breathe, goddammit,” she’d heard him tell a few people with their necks craned too close.
Finally he turned. “I suppose you want to know all the secrets.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Damn straight. So spill it.” Ed had worked with Boone over the years. He took the older man’s sharp tones with aplomb, and from the half smile on his rugged face, they were good friends.
Boone had reached philosophical mode. He popped an unlit corncob pipe into his mouth, clamped down his teeth, then drew on it for inspiration, his no-fail quit smoking method. “It’s ugly, poor kid. She’s been raped. I can tell you that. Before or after death is hard to tell at the moment.”
Holly felt as if she’d been dunked in icy water. Talk about taking it to the next step. Rape. But she should have thought of that. It was so logical. “But she’s dressed.”
Boone shrugged his bullish shoulders. “Some of those bastards can be downright fastidious. Do the dirty deed and then tidy up. Play set director. Or maybe feel remorse about what they’ve done and want to make it right again. You see it with children who’ve been killed by their mothers. They tuck their little bodies into bed and pull up the covers, as if we wouldn’t notice.” He coughed to cover up a halt in his voice. Ed took out a huge handkerchief to blow his nose.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, Holly imagined the makeup of such a twisted mind. And the white-knuckling nerve. Taking his time when he might have been discovered by five other people. And all in the dark. “I just noticed those scratches on her arms. Was she fighting for her life?”
“Look closer. Trailing blackberry canes. Still all over the ground at this time of year. There are traces in the wounds.” Boone looked around, then pointed. “He might have pulled her over where they wouldn’t be s
een as easily. Not dragged, though. Heels are clean.”
Coming back in time to hear this, Chris mumbled something and lurched off. “Sensitive type. Had the jitters myself the first time. Not so many murders out here that it becomes a habit,” Ed said, shaking his head. “Bar room brawls for the most part. Drugs more recently. Don’t feel so sorry about those lowlifes. They knew the risks. But this….”
Holly felt colder although the sun was brilliant and they were sheltered from the shore breeze. “Like French Beach. I’ve been telling Ed.”
Boone asked, “I never heard about that. You had a rape there?”
“A sexual assault, or so it seemed.” She gave Boone the basics. “Two weeks ago. If someone hadn’t come along, it might have had this ending.”
“He ran out of luck the first time. Maybe that made him madder.” Ed looked at Boone. “But you gotta admit, this is a strange place for an attack. Damn sight far from everything.”
“The scene at French was impossible. The inspectors couldn’t find a thing. But …” Holly paused for effect, watching a new spark of interest in their eyes.
“But what? Don’t keep us in suspenders,” Boone said.
“In the yurt where the girl was pushed, I found a small fragment of paper. At the time, it didn’t seem important. We had no reason to believe … that’s why no one …”
Ed had a minor coughing fit. When it subsided, he made another note, and slapped his book shut, tucking it in his overcoat pocket. “Where the hell is it now? We have a murder on our hands. Nothing should be overlooked. I’m going to have to read the report Crew turned in on the assault. Guess he didn’t think anything special of it, or he would have mentioned it. Lucky bastard’s off in Calgary for a week of seminars.”
“He thought the attack was a one-off.” Holly felt attacked by both sides. Call it an instinct from being first on the scene before procedures started clicking, something had felt very wrong at French Beach.