Slow Curve on the Coquihalla

by R. E. Donald

  Constable Garth Pullen was in the detachment canteen drinking coffee and doing paperwork. He was in his late twenties, a big blond with a full, tanned face. A luminous, earnest face. He had brought the thin file on Randy Danyluk, and pulled out some of the photographs for Hunter to see. "There were no skid marks, no broken glass on the road, nothing to indicate that another vehicle was involved. That's why we didn't know the vehicle was there until it was reported missing. Here. The cab was badly crunched, but hung together. The trailer busted wide open – look at this – and there were wet crushed cartons strewn all over the hill. Mostly computer parts, looks like." He sorted through the photographs for a couple of close ups. "It wasn't raining the night he went over, but it had rained hard in the mountains a few hours before we found him. Poor bugger!"

  Hunter pored over the photographs while the constable concentrated on his paperwork. The cab was lying on its right side in a small rocky creek bed, its roof and sides dented, but intact. The familiar colors sent a small shock between Hunter's shoulder blades. "Ranverdan Transport" was printed in deep green letters framed with silver on a wide seafoam stripe that ran from the grill to the back of the sleeper and up to the roof. The stripe was outlined in silver and surrounded by an elegant metallic green background and glinting chrome trim. The strong logo bespoke of quality. Safety. The plain aluminum ribbed trailer was twisted and bent, its king pin had torn away from the fifth wheel coupling and the trailer was lying almost on its roof on the steep slope above the cab. Both the rear doors were open, one hanging by a single hinge from the misshapen side wall.

  Two photographs had obviously been taken through the driver's door from above. They showed Randy Danyluk's body, the right side of his face pressed against the shattered glass of the passenger side window, arms tight to his sides, bent at the elbow with forearms hidden between his chest and the passenger seat. His legs were bent slightly at the knees from the weight of his work boots, one draped along the seat, the other straddled the gear box. His back was twisted. His visible eye was closed. Traces of dried blood blackened the corner of his mouth and his left ear. His dark brown hair, mixed with strands of grey near his temple, looked recently trimmed. His pale green shirt was still clean and unwrinkled.

  Garth Pullen collected up the file with the rest of his paperwork, then suggested Hunter meet him in the parking lot. "I'm patrolling the Coquihalla south of Merritt this afternoon anyway, so if you want, you can follow me up there and I'll show you the site. Not much left to see, but you can get the lay of the land," he suggested. "The vehicle's here in Merritt. We've got a mechanic coming up from Vancouver to check it out. He should have a report for us by the end of the week."

  The R.C.M.P. cruiser and Suburban pulled out of the Coquihalla's outside southbound lane onto the graveled shoulder just south of an inconspicuous overpass, and Hunter followed Constable Pullen on foot across the four lane highway to the site. There was a space about twenty five feet wide between the end of the cutaway hillside and the rounded concrete barrier that bordered the highway where it passed over the ravine. The ground in that space had been well disturbed since the discovery of the truck, so there was no information to be gathered from tracks there anymore. Until you got right to the edge of the highway and looked down, the ravine and its banks weren't visible from the road. It was a steep pitch to the creek bed below, dotted with small shrubs and trees, and blanketed by long grass. The grass and trees in a fifteen yard swath were crushed and broken, no doubt disturbed more by police and salvage workers than by the original accident. The constable pointed out the location of the cab and the trailer, speculated on the truck's initial path down the abrupt incline, and wished Hunter a good day.

  Hunter slid and slipped his way down the slope to the creek. There were still odd bits of debris: crushed plastic and glass from the headlights, cigarette butts and bits of paper, a few metallic scraps from the shattered grill. A patch of grass was stained by spilled diesel fuel, and its oppressive smell fought with a light fresh breeze off the creek. He stood, balanced on two rocks embedded in the creek bottom, and looked up at the highway overpass a hundred and fifty feet above. He could hear the faint whooshing past of traffic but could see nothing. A raven croaked and set off in a glide and a swoop from a nearby tree. Hands on his hips, Hunter looked around once more and then began to climb back up the steep hill, ratcheting himself upwards by grabbing small branches and handfuls of grass.

  When he reached the highway, he sat down on the white concrete barrier and looked back down into the ravine. He wasn't sure why he'd gone down. A man died there. Perhaps he'd been conscious before the end, heard the mountain runoff rushing pizzicato towards the river, heard the trucks rumble by, heard the world carry on in ignorance of his pain, indifferent to his solitary passage from their world. The raven was circling overhead as Hunter passed the site again on his way back to Merritt, the Suburban coping easily with the long, slow, uphill curve.

  CHAPTER 6

  – – – – SIX

  Gary had taken the kids to the playground after their nap, and there weren't usually many phone calls to the Ranverdan office on Monday afternoon. Suzanne decided to take advantage of the block of uninterrupted quiet to bring the computer records up to date. She sat in front of the monitor, a glass of Coke fizzing gently on the desk beside her, and entered information from the small stack of waybills the Ranverdan drivers had faxed or dropped off at the office over the past several days. The waybill from her father's last trip was missing, of course, but she had the basic information from the faxed pickup order. She paused to consider what to do about it. Enter it into the computer and bill Waicom Electronics for the freight charges, as usual?

  She took a few sips of her drink, wiped the condensation from the bottom of the glass on her jeans before setting it back on the desk. Could she ever charge them enough to compensate for the death of her father? Her fingers began to pat the keys again in the rhythm so familiar to her from entering waybills thousands of times before. Or should she maybe pretend that the shipment had never existed? If it hadn't, her father would be alive right now. Tears filled her eyes until she couldn't read the computer screen, and they rolled down her cheeks leaving small itchy trails on her skin.

  But the stupid reality was that the shipper would want to make a claim for delayed and damaged freight. Ranverdan Transport would owe Waicom money for the accident that had killed her father. She fought a sudden surge of irrational hatred for Waicom Electronics. It was their bad luck as much as ours, she told herself. They can't be responsible. But she wanted to lash out at someone, blame someone for her father's death, and for her pain. Why did it have to happen? She slammed her fist again and again against her thigh. "Why?" she cried with each hit. "Oh, Dad, why?"

  The ringing of the phone jarred her, and she cursed it. She wished she'd forwarded the phones to El again, but it was too late.

  "Ranverdan Transport," she said, pronouncing the words precisely, trying to sound as normal as possible as she wiped the tears away from her eyes with her free hand.

  "Hello, there, Ranverdan Transport," a male voice as smooth as chrome came over the line. "Who am I speaking to?"

  "This is Suzanne Rodgers," she said, reluctantly.

  "Hello, there, Suzanne Rodgers. This is Steve Mah. How are you this afternoon?"

  The voice was presumptuously over-familiar, and she felt her lips twist in irritation. She was not in the mood for friendly. "Can I help you?" was all she said.

  "I certainly hope so. I'm the shipper down at the Waicom distribution warehouse in Seattle. I just wanted a little information about that accident you folks had."

  Suzanne clenched her jaw and said nothing, flooded with horrified wonder. Why right now? Why would Waicom have to call now?

  "Like, how did it happen? Have you heard?"

  "I don't know." She barely managed not to choke on the words. She wanted to tell him, The driver was killed, and the driver was my father, but she couldn't speak.

 
; "Surely the police have talked to you about it. Don't they know how it happened?"

  "Why do you want to know?" she asked, her eyes on the cursor that blinked hypnotically on the computer screen.

  "Oh, just curious," he replied easily. "We had almost a hundred thousand dollars worth of electronics on that trailer, so it's a matter of some interest to us, as you might expect. Haven't the police given you any theories?"

  Suzanne stared at the cursor. You're not finished, it seemed to say. "If you're that interested," she managed, her voice thin and cold, "I suggest you contact them directly."

  "Ooooo," the caller said, "a little sensitive about it, aren't we?"

  Suzanne didn't trust herself to say anything, and debated hanging up the phone. She was squeezing the telephone receiver so hard, her hand hurt. She wanted to get back to the keyboard. Her work was incomplete, the cursor said.

  "I'm sorry," the caller continued. "I shouldn't be so glib. I know that the driver was killed. He was the boss at Ranverdan, wasn't he? He was a good guy. I'm sorry."

  "I'll ... we'll ... let you know if we hear anything further," Suzanne was able to say, and exhaled with relief when the caller thanked her and hung up. Immediately she punched in the code to forward incoming calls to Watson Transportation.

  El sounded only too happy to take over.

  The owner of Nicola Towing and Wrecking in Merritt was busy on a tow job, but his nephew, who was working in the murky garage, saw no reason why Hunter shouldn't have a look at the wreck, as long as he didn't take anything. "The cops have to see if there was anything wrong with it, you know? See what caused the accident, if anybody can get sued. The guy died, eh?" The kid scratched his nose with a grease stained sleeve and pointed a blackened thumb towards the back of the compound. "Just had some guy phone up about the trailer, right? Said the stuff in it was his, and I told him he better talk to the cops. Couldn't hardly understand him. Chinese, eh? Couldn't hardly speak English."

  He pointed at a German shepherd lying flat on its side on the cool concrete floor in the corner of the garage. His name was painted in black on the galvanized water bucket beside him. "Wrecks there won't let nobody into the yard when he's on duty," said the kid. "Will ya, Wrecks? Good boy!" The dog thumped his tail lazily and raised his head, clinking a chain on the concrete.

  The twisted trailer was strapped to a big flatbed parked next to the green Ranverdan Transport tractor beside the chainlink fence. Straps held the rear doors of the trailer shut, but holes around the door and along the upper corner gaped wide enough to allow Hunter to see cardboard cartons in chaotic heaps inside. The dented and scraped door of the cab was unlocked, so Hunter hoisted himself up to look inside. The windows were shattered in places and streaked with mud and bits of grass. A bent sheet of acrylic was wedged under the seat, and Hunter wiggled it back and forth to work it free. It was a standup picture frame containing a color snapshot of Suzanne and the two little girls, everybody smiling. He placed it gently on the seat, then backed out the door and jumped to the ground. He circled the ruined cab but could see no sign of damage that pointed to a collision with an animal or other vehicle. Best to wait for the results from the experts. Just as he was heading out of the yard, a huge tow truck drove in and a big, beefy man with a black goatee stepped out.

  Hunter introduced himself as a friend of the family, and explained that Suzanne was naturally upset and wanted to find out all she could about how it had happened.

  The big wrecker shifted a wad of gum from one cheek to the other and looked over at the cab. He shrugged. "Nothing I can tell ya. Sorry." He chewed loudly and rapidly for fifteen seconds, eyes looking upwards, left and right, left and right. "Wasn't speed, though. I had to take the rig outa gear for the tow, right? It's a mild grade there, eh? Maybe three, four degrees, eh? Most guys with that many horses can do fifty miles an hour up that hill – forty five, minimum." He chewed again. "The rig was in second gear, like he'd just started up, right? Had to be goin' less than ten miles an hour, don't ya think?"

  Hunter found himself in the Suburban heading south on the Coquihalla again with unanswerable questions running through his mind. Why wasn't Randy Danyluk wearing a seat-belt? A few hundred yards in either direction, and the truck would have run into the soft slope of the hill. Damaging, for sure, but much less likely to be fatal. Why had the accident occurred precisely at that deep, hidden ravine? Why was the truck in second gear? Could the driver have intentionally steered off the road, travelling slowly enough to ensure that the truck left the road at that particular spot? Could Randy have had reasons, known only to himself, for engineering the accident and his own death?

  Hunter shook his head. He kept telling himself that he wasn't a cop anymore. His cop's instincts had to be rusty and chances were, this was just his imagination running wild. Whatever Suzanne wanted him to find out, chances were her father just fell asleep at the wheel.

  He drove past the site of the accident and turned around a few miles south at the next exit. Then he tried to recreate the last few miles of Randy Danyluk's final trip as he approached the accident site. It was easy to see the approach during daylight, but Randy was driving up here at night. He would have had to keep the speed down in order to find the ravine and leave the highway without hitting either the side of the hill or the concrete barrier. That took planning.

  Hunter pulled over and parked on the shoulder a dozen yards from the overpass, then walked over and looked down into the ravine. Wind blew across the highway, but deep in the ravine the air was still. There was no movement except for the flicker of sunlight reflecting off the water as it trickled across the rocky creek bed. A glint of light caught his eye. Twenty feet down the slope a raven was pulling at something shiny in the long grass. On impulse, Hunter started leaping down the hill, hollering and waving his arms. The raven squawked and took to the air. The shiny object it had been pulling at, tangled in the matted grass, was a thin metal strip, the kind used by Canadian customs to seal a trailer loaded with freight that was being bonded on to an inland customs warehouse. The seal had been broken.

  Broken or cut.

  Hunter slipped it into his shirt pocket and, for the second time that day, scrambled up the steep hill.

  The sun hovered just above the western ridges as Hunter sat with Suzanne on the vast wooden deck off the kitchen of Randy's house. They sat in matching Adirondack chairs made of red cedar and looked out at the cutaway sand hills along the river, coated with gold by the horizontal shafts of sunlight that clung to whatever still rose above the creeping shadows.

  "Sometimes he'd forget," said Suzanne in response to Hunter's question about whether her father always wore a seat belt. "Sometimes I'd have to remind him, even in the car."

  Hunter had hated to give her this "if only". He had enough of his own to know how cruel and persistent "if only's" could be. He could see it boring its way like a tick through her troubled young forehead to lodge itself permanently in her consciousness, where it would secrete its poison every time she thought of her father's death.

  As if she could feel what he was imagining, Suzanne shook her head and ran her hand over her forehead and through her hair, pulling it back off her face as she stared off at the horizon. "I don't understand. He was such a good driver, a defensive driver. He never even had any close calls. Never. Most of the time, I'm nervous when somebody else drives, you know? When I'm a passenger?" She turned to him, as if searching his eyes for understanding, and he nodded. "I have to watch the road as if I was driving myself. But with Dad, I could close my eyes and go to sleep. He was the best driver ..." Her voice trailed off and she sighed.

  Hunter nodded again, and they both watched the sun slide behind the graying uneven hills, leaving molten strips of cloud in its wake. The sound of voices and laughter drifted from a neighboring yard, along with the faint smell of a barbecue.

  "Maybe it's because I used to ride with him when I was little. I would fall asleep on the back seat of the car. I remember the sound of the wind
shield wipers, and the rain on the roof, and Mom and Dad talking in quiet voices about wherever we'd just been, or who we'd just been to visit. You know, my grandparents or whoever. I always felt so safe. So safe."

  Hunter hesitated. All the questions he was rehearsing in his head sounded so official. After twenty odd years of being a police officer, he didn't know how to sound like a truck driver just trying to help out. "Your father – did you notice anything unusual about him in the past few weeks? Did he seem upset, preoccupied? Anything different about him somehow?"

  "Why? What are you trying to say?" She jerked around to face him, her eyes suddenly sharper and darker.

  "Suzanne, I ... ." He took a deep breath. "I didn't know your father as well as you did. If there's anything ... uh ... out of the ordinary, about his death, the only way I can find out is by asking questions. I'm not implying anything. It's too early yet. I just don't know. You do still want me to try to find out why it happened? Or do you want me to butt out?" Hunter tried to look her in the eye, but she had turned away and was watching her fingers stroke the rounded edge of the arm of her chair.

  "Dad made these chairs himself," she said with a dreamy smile.

  Hunter waited, admiring the evolving sunset, which had turned the farthest mountains purple, and painted pink and gold and violet streaks in the clouds. He cleared his throat.

  "Sorry, Hunter. I guess it just shocked me a bit. The possibilities, I mean." She met his eyes. "Was he acting different? Yeah. Maybe. He did seem a little worried about business. The week before, he spent a lot of time in the office, going over old paperwork and comparing numbers. He asked me for a computer print-out of all the business we'd done with Waicom since last September. Waicom Electronics is one of our regular accounts. We haul imported computers and computer parts from the port of Seattle to their distributors in western Canada, usually eight or ten loads a month. In fact, that's what Dad was ... ." Her voice trailed off as she rubbed her forehead, then her cheeks, with both hands. Hunter noticed how slender and pale her fingers were; her wedding band slid up and down above her knuckle.