by H. P. Bayne
“You want me to go back and try to talk to her?” Sully asked.
“Not yet. I’d like to get ahold of someone else first.”
“Who?” Dez asked.
Dez predicted Lachlan’s answer before it came, accompanied by an eye-roll.
“Tim Whitebear.”
9
Sully gave up the passenger seat on the drive back out to Edge Creek, allowing Lachlan to ride shotgun and read—often aloud—from contents of the Whitebear file.
“They found his car parked on the approach,” Lachlan said. Sully leaned forward to accept a scene photograph the private investigator passed him, an image showing a four-door car parked haphazardly, its nose-end partway into the brush lining the road.
“Did they dust for prints?” Sully asked.
“No perceived need at the time,” Lachlan said. “They didn’t figure on foul play being involved. They checked the car at the scene, of course, but they didn’t do much by way of processing. Everything looked normal enough: no blood or signs of a struggle inside the vehicle or around it, no indication a second person had been inside the car, driver’s seat and mirrors positioned as they should have been for Whitebear. All the details lined up for suicide. There was no cause for him to be all the way out there, other than one. It seemed he’d deliberately driven there, all but put his car in the bush and stumbled out to the tracks and laid down. At least, that’s the way investigators saw it.”
“What did they figure on for a reason?” Dez asked. “Was he depressed?”
“Shelby said he’d been having a hard time at work. He’d been upset about something, but he wouldn’t talk about it.”
“When was that, relative to his death?”
“A couple of weeks.”
“Anytime close to when the graffiti was painted?” Sully asked.
Lachlan turned partially in his seat to enable him to meet Sully’s eye. “Yep. Which is why I hadn’t ruled it out as possibly connected.”
“I’m curious,” Dez said. “We’re going by the assumption Tim didn’t get himself drunk on purpose, right?”
“I’m not assuming anything,” Lachlan said. “Quickest way to taint an investigation is to assume things before you’ve got proof to back it up.”
“Okay, okay, I know that,” Dez grumbled. “I meant, it’s one of our working theories.”
“What are you getting at?”
Sully could practically hear Dez rolling his eyes.
“If he didn’t pour the booze down his own throat, how did someone else manage it? Were there signs he was restrained and force-fed the stuff?”
Lachlan pulled out some photos and flipped through them, setting a few to the side. When finished sorting, he held these ones up, positioning them for Dez and Sully to see. Whitebear’s hands. “Body wasn’t in the best condition, for obvious reasons, but I don’t see any evidence here of restraints.”
“If he was slightly incapacitated, might be he didn’t pull at them much,” Sully said. “Restraints would probably only leave marks if someone’s struggling.”
“Good point,” Lachlan said. “In which case, we need to consider how else he might have been incapacitated.”
“How complete was the autopsy?” Dez asked. “I mean, did they go full forensic on it or keep to basics?”
“They did both external and internal, so fairly full. The pathologist examined in some detail the worst of the injuries. He determined the fatal injuries were a severe impact to Whitebear’s head and a broken neck, both suffered when the train collided with him. Additional blunt-force trauma to other parts of his body would have been enough to contribute to his death had the impacts to head and neck not been immediately fatal on their own. In other words, he was definitely killed by the train.”
“What I’m wondering is whether they found any signs of older injuries,” Dez said. “Put it this way: If I were going to kill someone like that, and I’d hit him on the head to incapacitate him, I’d make sure to position the guy so the injured part of him took a second, more severe impact. You know—to hide the initial injury.”
Lachlan was silent a moment, which told Sully he was mulling over Dez’s thought. “Pathologists often take tissue samples to check whether there are signs of healing. Antemortem injuries would show initial healing while those suffered immediately at the time of death or postmortem wouldn’t.”
“Were tissue samples tested?” Dez asked.
Lachlan was already thumbing through the report. Less than a minute later, he slapped the file shut on his lap. “No.” He met Dez’s eye. “Guess we’ll add Dr. Peter Lemchuk to our list of interviews.”
As the city dwindled then faded around them, Sully’s anxiety grew. Nearer the spot where the phantom train ran, Sully found his thoughts returning to his meeting with the strange spirit on the train. No one else could see the ghost train by day, but they weren’t him. He might have managed to escape by the skin of his teeth last night; could be today he wasn’t so lucky. Then again, maybe Marc was right and the reaper hadn’t meant him any harm to begin with.
Either way, he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
Lachlan had located a map of the scene as well as the photos, as if to use them for reference—despite their having told him they’d already been out here. Sully smirked at Dez’s exasperated sigh as Lachlan leaned forward far enough his forehead nearly touched the windshield glass, as if the couple of feet would help him to see better.
“Should be just ahead,” Lachlan said. “You’ll want to turn left.”
Sully caught Dez’s eye in the rearview mirror and chuckled silently at his brother’s head shake.
“There!” Lachlan cried out suddenly, as if he’d sighted a hidden entrance to Fort Knox. “Right ahead, through those trees. You see it?”
“Yep,” Dez said, tone one of exhausted patience.
The fact Lachlan ordered a stop suggested he either hadn’t heard or hadn’t been listening. Dez signalled a left turn and parked on the rutted trail.
“This is where they found the car,” Lachlan said, holding up a scene photo by way of comparison. He turned to Sully in the backseat. “Do you see anything yet?”
Sully studied the area. No immediate sign of Tim, but that wasn’t unusual. Sometimes ghosts took a while to sense he was there and to present themselves. In this case, he had already accepted the fact he might never see him.
“Nothing yet, but I’ll go check around.”
They left the SUV and Sully led the way forward.
“Where exactly did Tim get killed?” Dez asked Lachlan.
Sully turned his head far enough to see Lachlan, toting the file, checking one of the scene photos. Sully let him take the lead and peered over his boss’s shoulder as they reached the track.
The location surrounding them was different by day. Just a normal stretch of track, nothing to indicate a ghost train carrying dead passengers had rumbled through here the previous night. If the scene looked different night to day, it had changed even more during the passage of seventeen years. The tree line was different, and the brush along the edges of the track had grown wilder. A drawing had been attached to the file, showing the distance from the approach to the site of Tim’s body.
Luckily, since Sully could see no sign of the man’s ghost anywhere.
Having pointed out the spot where Tim had been found, Lachlan peered at Sully expectantly. “Well?”
Sully shook his head. “Nothing.”
Lachlan’s eyebrows lifted. “But you saw him a few months ago. And again last night.”
“The first time, I saw him with you, not on the track. And he took off on me last night, remember?”
“Okay, but if you saw him with me, he must be around, right?”
Sully shrugged. “Not necessarily. All it meant was he has some connection to you—or you to him. The other ghost I saw with you wasn’t haunting you.”
“The only connection I have to either of them is that I was plagued by the fact I couldn
’t solve their cases.”
Sully nodded. “And that might be enough to attract them to you from time to time. I think sometimes ghosts move between people, hoping to find someone who can help. A lot of the time, it’s police officers who attract them, for obvious reasons. I mean, Dad was always bringing home one ghost or another, especially when he was with Major Crimes.”
Lachlan’s shoulders drooped. “So what now? I was really hoping we could get Whitebear to give us some answers.” He turned to face the tracks and yelled into the otherwise-silence. “Tim Whitebear? My name is Lachlan Fields. I was with the police department at the time you were killed, and I tried to look into what happened to you. I’m a private investigator now, and I want to reopen the case.”
Sully laid a hand on the older man’s arm. “Lachlan?”
“What?”
“You probably don’t have to yell. If he’s anywhere near the tracks, he’ll be close to the spot he died. We’re already there.”
“And you still don’t see him?”
Sully scanned the bushes and the visible railway. He started to shake his head. Then he stopped.
He did see him. A face peering furtively from between the branches along the side of the track.
“He’s here,” Sully said. Then to Tim, “It’s okay. We’re here to help, not to trap you. We’re trying to find out what happened to you so we can help you to move on.”
Somewhere, Sully had put a foot wrong. Tim took a step back, farther into the concealment of the bushes.
Sully tried again. “Wait. Your son, Gabe. He’s missing. We need to find him.”
Tim stopped. He stilled, holding his position a long moment. Sully held his breath, waiting.
“What’s happening?” Lachlan asked.
Sully shushed him, then returned his focus fully to Tim.
At long last, the ghost shifted forward, emerging from the brush and materializing fully in front of Sully. Now appearing as a full-bodied apparition, this was clearly the same man Sully had seen the day he’d first revealed his gift to Lachlan. Tim wore dress pants and a button-down shirt, the material torn and bloodied.
“Does he have injuries showing?” Lachlan asked.
“Yeah, pretty obvious ones.”
“Like in the photos?”
“I didn’t see them all, but I’d expect so. Most are to the left side of his body. His arm is nearly severed. And his head and face are pretty messed up but not to the point he’s unrecognizable. There’s blood showing through his shirt on the left side too, around the lower chest-waist area. I think he’s got at least a few broken ribs under there. His legs look more or less okay, but his left hip is clearly broken or dislocated. He doesn’t give me the impression of pain, so I don’t think he feels anything, which suggests he died very quickly. Maybe instantly. The only exception is a dull pain at the back of his skull. I don’t know for sure what that means yet, but it might turn out to fit Dez’s theory about an incapacitating blow.”
“Huh,” Lachlan said. Although Sully’s eyes remained on Tim, the changing sound of Lachlan’s voice suggested he’d turned to address Dez. “He’s good.”
“He is,” Dez said. Then to Sully, “Think he’ll communicate?”
Sully skipped a direct answer in favour of finding out. “Tim? My name is Sullivan Gray. I’m trying to find out what happened to you. I know you didn’t kill yourself, and I know it wasn’t an accident. I can’t hear anything you might try to say, but you can show me.”
Tim didn’t move, although his focus remained on Sully—a good sign.
“You can trust me. I can help. It’s what I do.”
Whether it was the words or something else, Tim seemed convinced. He drifted forward, closing the distance to Sully. Once he’d reached him, he paused, as if unsure what to do next.
Sully took a deep breath and eased it out. This was the part he hated. He’d need to ask Tim to show him what he knew of his death, which meant Sully would be forced to experience it through Tim’s eyes. And that meant falling headfirst into all of the agony and terror of homicide.
Sully pulled off his glove and extended his fingers toward the ghost. “Touch my hand and focus on what you want me to see.”
Tim moved slowly, bringing his good arm up until his fingertips reached toward Sully’s. Already cold from the bite of the winter air, the sudden proximity of the spirit gave Sully the sensation of dipping his hand in a bucket of ice. He suppressed a shiver and held on, waiting for the inevitable, when Tim finally connected.
The ghost shifted slightly forward.
The vision hit, not with the breath-stealing impact Sully so often felt, but more gently. It wasn’t a death he was seeing but life. The inside of a hospital room. Tim standing next to an exhausted-looking Shelby’s hospital bed. Her eyes, barely visible beneath half-masted eyelids, were aglow with light and love as they focused on a tiny bundle nestled in Tim’s arms. Tim watched her only another moment, the woman he loved. Then he peered down at his son—and knew he’d never want to look away again.
He was perfect, this tiny being. Tim had done some good things with his life, but nothing ever had, ever would touch this. He’d helped to create this life, and he knew without question there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep this boy safe.
His boy.
The hospital room faded to black.
A darkened parking lot, virtually empty of vehicles and pedestrians. Tim, a lone figure stepping through the circles of light cast from the poles high overhead. His car was just ahead, an old four-door car in need of a paint job and a new battery, with a rear door that didn’t close property. He’d need to fix it now that he had a baby, before Gabriel was old enough to start fiddling with the door handles. If the child took a tumble from the car while it was moving, Tim would never be able to live with it. Perhaps if he played his cards right, kept putting in the extra hours at the office, he’d be able to afford a new vehicle altogether.
He dug the keys from his pocket, uncertain why he bothered locking the doors. Everyone who happened upon the beater would be able to tell one sharp tug on the back door would be all they needed to get inside.
Tim dropped in behind the wheel, leaned forward to slip the key in the ignition.
A sound from the backseat startled him. He sat straight up, head turning to see.
He didn’t make it.
A crack to the back of his head stunned him. A second had him slumping over the wheel.
Darkness returned and didn’t leave, save in pieces. He saw the red glimmer of taillights. A wall the colour of a robin’s egg. A loon.
Then all sight ended completely. A piece of cloth bound across his eyes kept him blind to the world around him. His head spun, and his stomach got in on the ride. The urge to vomit struck him only a moment before the horrific realization he wouldn’t be able to if he actually tried. Something—a tube?—was down his throat.
And he was halfway to drunk.
His father, a residential school survivor, had used alcohol as a coping mechanism for memories of abuse. As a result, Tim had his own memories, his own scars. He’d swore to himself he’d never drink, and he’d kept that promise.
Until tonight. Because there was no denying what he was feeling now wasn’t solely the result of a concussion.
He was fast approaching intoxication. If the feeling inside his belly was any indication, he wasn’t anywhere near where he would be soon.
Head cleared enough by the force of panic, he began to struggle. Another impact against his head silenced him.
He was aware of nothing else. Not until he found himself staring down at a mangled corpse that looked very much like himself.
It lay in the verge next to a halted train, body twisted and blood-soaked, arm nearly severed, back of the head in so bad a state that bits of what Tim believed were brain matter had spilled out. The eyes were open but sightless. The mouth was agape but no breath or sound escaped.
Two men he recognized as railway employees were nearby, o
ne pacing wildly as he spoke very fast on a cellphone, the other staring dumbly at the body on the ground, as if what he was seeing had yet to fully register.
Tim understood the feeling. He was lost too. It seemed moments ago he was in a parking lot, about to return home to his wife and son. Now he was … what? Dead? Was this what death felt like? He hadn’t been raised with religion of any kind, and he’d never missed it—until now. There were no signposts here, after all, nothing directing him anywhere. Was he supposed to go home? Was he expected to find his way to some sort of afterlife? The men with him would be no help, certainly. The one who’d been pacing—Pete, he thought he was called—was now collapsed on his ass on the ground while the other had yet to move a muscle, as if struck dead on his feet.
As he stood next to these two men, Tim had never felt so alone. The city lights shone in the distance, but he felt no less lost, no less directionless.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
The activity started around him shortly after: flashing emergency lights; police officers in and out of uniform; important-looking men in expensive jackets and shoes watching from nearby; a paramedic team going through the pointless motions of checking the body for signs of life. Tim knew what they would find, knew it because he was standing right here. All the proof of death anyone needed.
If only they could see him.
The train stayed where it was throughout much of the night, unmoving until the sun began to rise somewhere the other side of the eastern tree line. Tired now of watching this broken version of himself on the ground, Tim wandered away, far enough to distance himself from the bulk of the activity.
The train’s headlights broke up the darkness ahead, and he moved toward that end. There, he happened upon a couple more coverall-suited cops, these two examining something at the very front of the train. Point of impact, Tim thought. He decided he didn’t want a closer look.
But then, something else commanded his attention. Something else on the line ahead.
Another train.