“Hell,” Dion said again, hands linked behind his neck as if to save himself from toppling backward. From his second-floor motel room window he could see a volcano -like mountain rising up, a dark mass in the night sky, its peaks glowing a paler blue, a two thousand and seventy metre-high rock called Hagwilget Peak, according to the tourist brochure he’d read front to back this morning over coffee.
The motel was right next to the highway, and even through the thick glass he could hear the grunts of trucks decelerating and the occasional noisy exhaust of an older car barrelling by. There were muffled screams and gun blasts from the TV in the room next to his, too. But mostly there was silence, immense and smothering.
He was thinking about his last exchange with Constable Leith, just an hour ago. He had doubled back moments later, partly to face the music, but mostly because it wasn’t his duty notebook he’d left behind, but his private one, the one where he kept track of pertinent names and dates, random statistics, and whatever else he needed to keep the facts and fictions of his life in order.
Leith was still in his chair, just finishing a phone call, lodging a complaint of insubordination probably. He’d looked up, and Dion had spoken loudly to keep the tremor out of his voice. “Is that it, then? Should I pack my bags? You want my badge?”
Leith had observed him blankly for a long moment, and finally said, simply but coldly, “No. Why?”
“Anyway, I just wanted to apologize.” Dion had moved closer to the table and saw the notebook lay as he’d left it. He’d reached out, picked it up, tucked it behind him.
Leith didn’t seem to care about the notebook or the apology. He left his chair abruptly and walked out, and that seemed to be the end of the matter.
Another freight truck roared by, breaking the limit. Jayne Spacey, Dion thought. Eight o’clock. He checked his watch, comparing it to the radio clock on the bedside table, and saw that the watch hands were off by over ten minutes, confirming his fears. It was a special watch, older than himself, all gears and leather. He adjusted it and gave the stem a bit of a wind, whistling a careless tune.
He changed into jeans and sweater, boots and jacket, and went downstairs, hoping not to run into any of the other officers lodged at the Super 8 — Fairchild, or Bosko, or especially Leith. But there was nobody around, not in the halls, the stairwells, the lobby, or next to the lobby in the motel’s small diner — Western food, gingham motif — run by a thin, aloof Korean named Ken.
Dion took the only booth in the place, the one by the window. There was nothing to see outside now but the occasional passing truck, vehicles going from point A to point B, passing through Hazelton by necessity. Everyone broke the limit, leaving arcs of slush or swirls of crystal in their wake. He ordered dinner, roast beef for the protein, salad for fibre, all the trimmings for the calories. Filling himself out to be the man he’d been before was one of his major goals. Gaining weight wasn’t as easy as it seemed.
After dinner he walked along the cold, blustery highway that formed the backbone of the town. The lamp standards blazed their dead orange-grey light along the four-lane strip, and the banners banged and clanged in the wind. The businesses along the highway were closed, all but the Catalina Cafe, lights on bright, the stout silhouettes of diners against the drapes. And the Chevron, the twenty-four-hour gas station/convenience store where Kiera Rilkoff had once worked part time. Youths loitered on the sidewalk, smelling of cigarettes and weed, and Dion worried about being swarmed. They didn’t even look his way.
From inside the Chevron he phoned Spacey, and her little blue Toyota RAV4 pulled up soon after. He climbed in the passenger seat, and they were off, exploring the great spread of land that made up the Hazeltons. Her uneven smile lit by the dashboard, Spacey said, “In the city you get entertained. Here you have to entertain yourself. Wheels help, big-time.”
The drive turned out to be a nice break from routine, though she barrelled along the backroads too fast for comfort. In Old Hazelton they stood in the snow in a darkened park ringed by enormous dark trees that rustled their dead leaves and whispered. Spacey told him about the totem poles and longhouses, the preserved Gitxsan village of Ksan. Later she took him to a viewpoint over a chasm and told him of a dramatic rescue that took place here. She drove down to a winter-dead meadow with train tracks and a river, and they walked southbound along the ties and talked, mostly about her life and troubles. But she was funny, and she didn’t seem worried that he wasn’t laughing or had little to say, as though she knew he appreciated her even in his silence. He looked across at the trees growing on the far riverbanks, leafless, tall, and ragged. The trees looked like a tribe of giants deep in conversation. Black cottonwood, Spacey told him, following his eyes.
A train came and went, also southbound, and it was while it flooded past, shaking the ground they stood on, that Spacey put an arm around his waist and stood close, tilting her face for a kiss. He wrapped her in both arms to complete the embrace, and completed the kiss too, feeling the warmth of arousal as their mouths met, and something even better: a dramatic change of mood, a teasing sense of bliss.
Spacey pushed him away with a smile and said it was high time for a drink. They returned to the RAV4, and she drove along a road that followed the river a ways, pulling into the parking lot of a large post-and-beam structure that glowed like a cruise ship in the dark. The Black Bear Lodge. A couple dozen vehicles sat in the snow, all of them four-by-fours, and Spacey said, “More traffic than you’d think, even in winter. You got your heli-skiers and skidooers and hunters. And a few locals, anybody with extra money in their pocket. This place isn’t cheap.”
Inside they found the bar was doing good business, even at this hour, nearly midnight. The lights were warm and the music just loud enough to add milieu without hammering the eardrums. Spacey said she’d only have one beer, and she’d make it last, no problem; it wouldn’t even touch her bloodstream. Afterward, they’d go to her place and play Scrabble. She said it with a wink.
His first clue that something was wrong came as he followed Spacey through the bar and she reached back to grab his hand, guiding him to a table with a good view on the brass and glass of the long bar itself, at the attractive, brown-haired woman mixing drinks there, who was looking across at them with what looked like stony-faced wonder.
“Why’s she staring at us?” Dion asked as he took a chair, returning the stare.
“Because she’s a nosy, jealous bitch,” Spacey told him. “That’s Megan.”
Megan, if Dion recalled right, was Jayne Spacey’s ex-friend, which made this spot the worst possible choice in the whole bar. Before he could object, Spacey leaned across the table and kissed him on the mouth. Then she sat back and grinned at him. “It’s okay. Kind of awkward, but she won’t bother you. I will have to ask you to go up and order, though, since she and I aren’t speaking.”
He pushed his chair back. “We can move. We’ll sit over there. I don’t need her glaring at me like this.”
“She’s not glaring at you, she’s glaring at me. You she likes. She’s always had a thing for native guys, like my ex, Shane.”
“I’m not —”
“Whatever. Just smile at her nicely and make her twitch, horny little cow.” She tilted her head, reading the doubt on his face, and her voice went smoky. “C’mon, do me a big favour and play along. I’ll pay you back in a big way.”
Understanding was jolting through him now, followed by amazement, followed by mute anger. This wasn’t friendship, and it wasn’t even sex. He was a prop, and she’d brought him here to fling daggers at the one who’d hurt her. He opened his mouth to argue, but shut it again, knowing anything he had to say would only take the situation on a fast downhill slide. He would play along for as long as it took to drink one beer, then he’d insist they leave.
He stood and dug out his wallet, walking up to the bar. He ordered two draft pints from Megan. He didn’t smile at
her, and she didn’t smile back. He left a generous tip, brought the mugs back to the table and settled in, his back to Megan. He drank his beer and let Spacey do her thing, chatting and posing, showing her ex-friend what a great time she was having with her new boyfriend.
About halfway through his beer, just when he was getting used to the idea of being a prop and deciding he actually didn’t care, a hulk of a black-haired man in black leather walked up to their table, glowered at Dion, and said to Spacey, “Get over here and talk.”
So this would be the cheating husband Shane, still crazy about her, the Shane who she’d never forgive. Spacey stayed in her seat, and Dion remained next to her, mouth shut, marvelling at how she’d fixed this scene. He listened to Spacey telling her ex, “You’re looking kinda desperate, Shane. Why don’t you go poke Megan in the ol’ beaver pelt? Looks like she could use the exercise.” She put her arm through Dion’s as she spoke, and it was here he messed up badly by losing patience, removing her arm, and standing up, telling her he was done.
Outside, a cab stood idling and wreathed in vapour, its roof light on to net the drunks who spilled out like clockwork around closing time. He climbed in and said “Super 8.”
Back in his room, he turned off the phone, not checking the messages. He didn’t call Penny, breaking another promise. He turned on the TV and found an old movie that he couldn’t follow, black and white, a man and a woman talking wildly at each other. He sat on the bed and watched and listened, without seeing or hearing. He thought about the train hurling by, and the black trees having their conversation, and a strange notion of wanting to join them, learn the language, stand in their midst, and let the elements take him.
He pushed the thought away. All that really bothered him right now was the twenty-five-minute difference between his wristwatch and the time on the cabbie’s dashboard clock. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, studying the watch up close. His face felt feverish and his airway was tight. He lifted the watch to his ear, and it ticked softly, chk-chk-chk, pretending to do its job. Such a simple job, to stay with him, keep track of the minutes and display them. Not much of a conversation, but a conversation all the same, and it couldn’t even manage that.
It was a black-faced Smiths military watch. It had been old when he’d got it from Looch seven years ago, a birthday present, and like everything with moving parts, it had a life span. It’ll outlive you, Looch had promised, but apparently Looch was wrong.
He took the watch off to adjust the time, giving its stem a clockwise winding, carefully, slowly, stopping when he met resistance and giving it a little back-off twist, as he’d been taught. Held it to his ear again, and it sounded fine now, so everything would be okay for a while. He sat on the bed with the watch in his hand and the TV light strobing over him, battening down the fear.
Four
Willy and the Watch
HE WOKE BEFORE THE ALARM went off. Most every morning he woke with resolve that today he’d find his bearings and start walking into the light of normality. But today was different, and he felt defeated before he opened his eyes. When he did look, the sky was pitch black and the clock radio said six thirty. He rolled, fumbled for the light switch, and under its fuzzy blare checked the Smiths. It told him it was 4:02. The TV was still on, now playing a morning talk show just loud enough to not raise complaints from the other guests.
With two hours before shift, he showered and shaved and dressed with care, and went downstairs to the Super 8 diner, picking up a newspaper from the stand by the door. News in the north was never hot off the press, since delivery took a while, but it kept him current enough with the city. The restaurant was empty except that his favourite place, the sole window booth, was occupied by an old native man smoking what looked like a giant doobie.
Dion stopped by the table and could smell cheap, harsh tobacco. He gestured with his newspaper at the red pictogram placard on the wall, a crossed-out cigarette in a circle, and said, “Sir. It means no smoking.”
The old man looked up. He wore a rough-looking scarf around his throat and a canvas coat that sagged open. His hair was white and chaotic, and his eyes looked damaged. He gazed at Dion directly and said something, a full and complex sentence with not a single English syllable thrown in. It sounded like chit-chat, so the man was either partially blind or incompetent, not seeing what stood before him, a white man wearing a hefty gun belt and full patrol uniform. Not someone to chat with, especially if you were native.
“No smoking,” Dion repeated. “Okay?” He crossed the room, took a table of second choice, and waited for Ken the Korean-Canadian waiter/proprietor to come and take his order. He asked for eggs over easy and dry toast, nothing on the side, and coffee, then added with a gesture toward the smoker as he told Ken, “It’s your restaurant, and you know the rules. Enforce them, would you?”
Ken dropped an ashtray in front of the old man and said, “Put it out, Willy.” He went off to the kitchen to start cooking, and the old man named Willy crushed out the cigarette, sending up a stink like a dumpster on fire, directing more gibberish at Dion across the space between them. Again there was no hostility there, just babble, like English spoken backward, this time ending in a question mark. Only one word stood out as recognizable to Dion’s ears, the name Johnny.
“I don’t speak your language,” he said, loud and slow. He flattened his paper and tried to read the stale news.
The next time he looked over, Willy was turned away, looking out at falling snow. Dion looked down at his wristwatch and compared it to the Dairyland wall clock facing him. He unstrapped it and held it to his ear, shook it and listened again, and what he heard chilled him, a fatal arrhythmia.
Ken set down a breakfast plate with a clatter. “Watch problems?”
“The beauty of old stuff like this,” Dion told him, almost viciously, “is it’s fixable.”
“Good jeweller over at the Copperside.”
Dion thanked him, but he wasn’t really listening. He already had someone in mind, a guy who could fix anything. Except microwaves.
* * *
The fix-all’s address took Dion farther into the wilderness than he had expected, across that spine-tingling chasm that Jayne Spacey had shown him on her tour, and along a road of hard-packed snow with rock wall on one side and forbidding woods on the other, but by the time he’d figured out how impractical the errand was, it was too late, and he had arrived at his destination, a mobile home on a cleared bit of land all fringed by woods.
A hand-painted sign was posted out front, roadside, attached to the wooden fence. It said, “Northwood Repairs Incorporated,” with an “NRI” logo shaped into a wrench and spewing yellow flames. The yard was full of old shop signs, car parts, the bones of appliances, some grouped in categories and others heaped untidily amidst weeds and snow. Dion parked his car in the open space in front of the trailer, stepped up three aluminum stairs onto an aluminum landing, and rapped on an aluminum door, then stepped back to make room for the door to swing outward. While he waited he looked about, trying to imagine who would buy a piece of land like this, set in shadow, damp year-round. A great breeding ground for mosquitoes come summer. If summer ever reached this bitter land.
He had given up waiting and was crossing the soggy grounds back to his car when the aluminum door shrieked behind him, and the man with the scar was up on the mini-landing, scowling down. Rourke was wrapped in a striped terrycloth robe in burgundy and blue, and looked like he had a backache the way he stood gripping the door frame, yellow-grey hair sloped messily to one side.
“Sorry,” Dion called across the yard. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Well, you woke me, so now tell me what you want.”
“We met yesterday, but actually —”
Rourke interrupted with a snap of his fingers and pointed at Dion like a warlock casting a curse. “That’s right, the cop with the writer’s cramp. What’s this then
? More goddamn pointless questions? What size goddamn shoes I wear, which way I goddamn vote?”
Dion brought the Smiths from his pocket and held it out. “It’s running slow. I thought you could take a look at it for me. If you have time.”
“Very smooth,” Rourke blared. “Give it up, Mountie. We all know what’s going on here. I’m way up there on your suspect list, and if you haven’t figured out that I’ve figured it out, you’re stupider than I gave you credit for. That’s the only reason I went down to see you yesterday, to save you the satisfaction of dragging me in yourselves. Cops,” he spat. “You’re all cut from the same cloth, two-faced, underhanded, self-pandering bunch of dipshits. I’ll be writing some letters, you better believe it.”
Dion listened through it all and then thrust the watch back into his jacket pocket, as it had dawned on him that he’d made a mistake, and a clumsy one: Scott Rourke was in no frame of mind to be fixing things. The missing girl was a close friend, and he’d have no room for anything else at the moment but worry, and all Dion could do now was apologize and back off. “Of course,” he called up. “I’m sorry. You’re not open for business at a time like this. It honestly never crossed my mind. Sorry.”
He moved again toward his car, but Rourke brought him to a stop with a shout of, “Hang on now.” He’d flung the door wide so it caught and held. “How about some answers? Where are we at? You got any leads? We all have a right to know.”
Dion stood on the grass, car keys in hand, his mind already elsewhere. What time did the Copperside jeweller open, for one. The repair was hardly an urgent matter, but he needed to know, as soon as possible, if the thing could be saved. He tuned in and realized Rourke was still bellyaching at him, asking questions he couldn’t answer. He cut in sharply, saying, “I’m just a temp, and you’re going to have to direct your inquiries to the office. You need that number again?”
“No, I got the number,” Rourke snapped.
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