“Maybe not. It wouldn’t be the first time someone fooled the machine, but be glad we’re not going to trial. A defense attorney would have a field day with those tests exonerating his client. Drugs. Dark. She slipped and fell. Short of a camera on the beach, we’ll never know. This one is a wrap. Huh, I’m always saying that, and you turn up something new. Stop it. That’s an order.” His rare attempt at a joke surprised her.
She checked her watch, counting the minutes before she’d see his back. “I promised his mother I’d check on Billy, even if she doesn’t want me to. I feel responsible. It’s different when you meet someone face to face in their home.”
“Grow up. If every officer felt like that, the justice system would collapse.” He eyed her through cobra-green slits, as if concealing a nictitating fold. “I’m not sure you’re tough enough for this. Probably be a corporal all your life, not that there’s anything wrong with that...for a woman.”
Holly felt her blood start to simmer, then reminded herself that Whitehouse was one second from gone. Excusing herself, she turned on her boot heel and left the office. “I’ll be at the General, Ann,” she said over her shoulder as she went out the door.
She seethed all the way down winding Sooke Road, then over to the Island Highway and off at Helmcken Road to the parking lot of the old General. Even the small deer that cropped grass in relative safety behind a chain link fence shielding a greenbelt didn’t improve her mood. The upbeat sounds of Victoria’s own Nelly Furtado singing, “I don’t wanna be your baby girl/ I don’t wanna be your little pearl/ I just wanna be what’s best for me” seemed a sound retort to Whitehouse’s sexism.
In the foyer, she stopped at Tim Hortons for a coffee to steady her nerves, managing to spill some on her uniform. She dabbed at it with a serviette and was offered ice water by the cashier. This small courtesy improved her demeanour. The world seemed divided between those who thought people were basically good and those who regarded them as callous opportunists. The half-full, half-empty syndrome. Which was she? Which
should
she be? Was the choice between sucker or cynic?
She approached the main desk, where a smiling volunteer offered help. “A young man was brought in today from Port Renfrew by air ambulance. I’m not sure where to find him.”
The woman punched buttons, asked blunt but efficient questions, and finally told her that Billy was in the Recovery Room. Holly got directions and, weaving in and out of the busy loom that was critical medical care, arrived in the ER lobby. Medical smells pricked her nose. Disinfectant. Soap. Ammonia.
She called a nurse over, introduced herself, and was told that Billy was still unconscious but breathing on his own. “He may have tracheal damage, but since he’s relatively stable, we’re not subjecting him to an invasive inspection. We can do only so much at once. Miracle workers we aren’t.”
“What would we do without you?” Everyone knew about the high burnout rate for front-line professionals. “May I see him? He’s been part of a case I’m on.”
The nurse took her through the doors to a curtained cubicle at the back. One side was open to a central control area with monitors and a technician. Billy lay on a gurney with bars to prevent falls. He was hooked up to oxygen and a couple of drips. “I’ve got to go,” the nurse said. “Dr. Morrison will probably be back for another look. She’ll answer your questions.” She wiped Billy’s brow with a cool cloth from a metal bowl. “He’s somewhere else now, but I have my fingers crossed.”
The first thing Holly noticed was an angry red line on Billy’s neck, raw and weeping in places. Narrowing her eyes in concentration, she recalled an elementary concept from medical forensics class. If he’d hanged himself, the mark would have been more vertical. This was horizontal. As if someone had choked him first. She could even see finger bruises on his neck where he’d tried to ease the noose. Where was the damn rope? For all she knew, the mother had thrown it away as an evil memento. Gritting her teeth, she trashed herself for forgetting proper procedures that should have taken every possibility into account. More problems of policing remote places. A detachment in Port Renfrew might have made the difference.
Footsteps sounded, and Mrs. Jenkins rushed into the room. She must have broken all speed records to get to Victoria, since the air ambulance wouldn’t have allowed her to travel with her son. Her thick braids were dishevelled, and she wore gum boots over her jeans. An old flannel shirt bore the stains and smells of canning salmon. She saw nothing but her son and went to his side, touching her forehead to his. “Billy. My god.” Then she began sobbing.
Holly stepped forward. “Mrs. Jenkins, the doctor’s on her way in a few minutes.”
The mother jumped at the sound as if she had just realized someone was in the room. “I don’t blame you for what happened. Billy told me that you were fair with him. I should have remembered that.”
The situation was delicate, but the timeline had to be established. No longer was she taking anything at face value. “How did you find him? I know it’s hard to go over this, but if you could...” Her gaze met the dark pools of the woman’s deeply shadowed eyes.
Mrs. Jenkins pulled a tissue from her leather shoulder bag and wiped her nose, the slender nostrils red and raw. She took a deep breath and placed a hand on her heaving chest. “Mike found him. See, last night Billy told him that he’d met a man at the town docks, a tourist, who offered him three hundred dollars for a morning’s fishing. Our big boat’s down, and all we have is a small dory. Can’t take anything but smooth weather, and seats only two, so we don’t make steady money. Billy was glad for the opportunity. He’s proud that he buys all his own clothes, and it was a new school year.”
“Then what happened?” This was making less and less sense. Despite the nature of the marks, she had hoped for easy answers, a history of depression.
“Mike came along around noon and found Billy in...in the boathouse.” She lowered her voice, stroking her son’s immobile arm, light walnut marble on the white sheet. “There was a note.”
Holly’s expectations swung like a pendulum. When a suicide didn’t leave a note, police became suspicious. That omission alone was no guarantee that foul play was involved, but suicides often had been thinking of self-destruction for month or years. Only a very sick person or someone with no regard for mourners wouldn’t want to leave reasons for such a decision. “In the boathouse? What did it say? You kept it, didn’t...” At the woman’s stricken face, she retreated. “Forgive me. I’m asking too many questions. Please take your time.”
The mother’s generous lips tightened. A small mole above her mouth twitched. “Not a note, exactly. Something scratched with a nail on the plywood wall.”
Holly’s bullshit meter started ticking big time. “And it said?”
The woman shivered.
“Sorry.
Just one word.
Sorry.
In big letters. ” She spread her thumb and forefinger to demonstrate.
“And you’re sure it wasn’t scratched there earlier?” Succinct, efficient, phony?
“No, it was freshly cut. I don’t know where the nail went.
It’s a wet boathouse. Maybe it fell into the water.”
“Did you recognize his writing?”
The woman thought for a minute. “It was rough, crude. Like when you write on wood and the grain gets in the way.”
Holly felt her fingers tracing round and round on her baton. “Something’s wrong here. He goes out on a job to make some good money, and then...or did he go at all?”
The mother shrugged, her shoulders drooping. “I sent everyone off with a good breakfast, then I left early to help a sick friend in town. Mike was pitching in at the Tourist Bureau where his girlfriend works. So we don’t know if Billy went out.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Work clothes and rubber boots. His slicker was in the boathouse. Usually it’s in the house. We had a small drizzle, more of a mist.”
This was making less and less sense to Holly. Who put on rubber boots to hang himself? Who brought along rain clothes? “What about the boat?”
“Tied at the dock. The loaded bait box was still in it. No sign of any fish being caught. Like guts or scales.”
“Look at this.” Holly moved the sheet aside and pointed to Billy’s neck and the telltale marks.
The woman had aged ten years since their last meeting. Her voice was on the edge of breaking. “My cousin committed suicide. Gunshot.” She touched the neck with gentle fingers, as if she could heal the welts. “Oh, Billy, my boy.” A moan from his lips riveted their attention, but he didn’t open his eyes.
“I’m saying that the marks are more consistent with someone strangling him. From behind. Then making it look like a suicide attempt.” She thought about demonstrating with her own hands but decided against it. Mrs. Jenkins was upset enough.
There was a sharp intake of breath. “You mean...” She wavered and reached for a chair. At that moment the doctor walked over. Mary Morrison, according to her nametag, had silvery blonde curls cut short. Stylish narrowed glasses were pushed back on her head. She stood over six feet with the presence of a Valkyrie.
“Relatives only for now, please.” She gave Holly’s uniform a quizzical look.
“Please, Doctor. What are my boy’s chances?” Mrs. Jenkins placed a shaky hand on her son’s moist forehead. “Could he—”
Despite her cool professionalism, Mary’s Cape Breton voice assumed a warmth that spread over them like a soft quilt. “In a hanging where the person... lives, there can still be serious damage to the neck. Fractures to the cricoid and thyroid cartilages and the hyoid bone.” She pointed at her own neck. “Subintimal hematomas, that’s like a blood clot, in the carotid arteries. So much soft-tissue swelling. Sometimes we need to operate for clots.”
“Operate? You mean the spine?” The mother asked a critical question. Brain damage aside, perhaps Billy would never walk again.
The doctor shook her head as her mouth firmed. Sometime that day, she had taken the time to apply a light coat of pink lipstick. Any powder had vanished in the sweat of the job. “In judicial hangings of the past, spinal damage killed the person. The long drop. It’s calculated. In these...other cases, technical death results from strangulation.”
“But my son’s still in a coma. What can we expect?” Mrs. Jenkins wobbled to one side and reached for the bed table.
The doctor helped her to a chair and insisted that she drink some water from the carafe. Then she spoke slowly and clearly, without patronizing. “There are lot of myths about comas. They’re not always as bad as they sound. Let me explain. Cerebral hypoxia, that’s lack of oxygen to the brain, can cause neurologic problems. But poor nervous system function like we see here may
not
be a predictor of a poor outcome.”
Poor outcome, Holly thought. A vegetative state. Billy was so young, so vital, so virile.
The doctor added, “There is hope. So we’re going to do all we can.”
“And the coma...” Holly understood the jargon, but she supposed that the mother filtered out the negative.
The doctor’s slender hand waved a caution. “We judge comas on a scale of one to fifteen in three areas. For eye response, there are four grades. For verbal response, five. And for motor response, another six. “ All so cut and dried, like scoring on a test. Holly asked, though she dreaded the answer, “Where does Billy score now?”
“He’s moaning, so he gets a two in that category.” The doctor pressed on the nail bed of his index finger. Billy’s eyes jumped open for a moment, then closed. “Eyes open in response to pain. Another two.”
“That doesn’t sound so good,” the mother said, giving another sniff.
“But look at this. Again, I’m not really hurting him.” Mary pressed again near his breastbone. One hand moved up above his clavicle. “That’s a five. So he’s at a nine. Nine to twelve is moderate to severe.”
Holly added up the scores. Medicine had to quantify everything. Still, ‘moderate’ sounded hopeful. “So you’re saying that if he opened his eyes voluntarily...”
The doctor smiled, more out of humanity than encouragement. “Or spoke a few words, he’d be close to what we call minor coma.”
“So there’s a chance he’ll wake up?” Holly took a deep breath.
“Soon?”
The doctor nodded very slowly as if to qualify her answer. “Yes, but—”
”I see. He may not be able to...you mean...brain damage.” The mother’s voice trailed off as she tallied the unseen possibilities.
As the roulette wheel turned on Billy’s chances, Holly was glad she hadn’t chosen a career in medicine, no matter how much satisfaction saving lives might have brought her. She couldn’t stand the failures any more than she could bear watching justice subverted.
“Let’s stay optimistic. We’ve given him an MRI, and the response is normal. No damaged areas. If we’re lucky, every day will show us improvement. Though I practice conventional medicine, I never discount the power of prayer or any kind of positive energy.” The doctor squeezed the mother’s hand. “And keep talking to him. Bring in his favourite music. Stimulate his skin with different textures.”
As the doctor left, Holly found a blanket and a more comfortable armchair for Mrs. Jenkins. She also brought her hot sugared tea from downstairs. Then she gave the woman a business card. “I know you’re not going to leave his side. When he wakes,” she stressed the word
when,
“anything he says might be very important. Call me.”
Back at the detachment, Holly filled Chipper in on the developments concerning Billy. “We’ve never followed up on whether anyone saw Angie on the bike that night. If it turns out Billy was attacked, it might prove that something complicated was set in motion when she died. This phony fishing trip smells like a rotten halibut. Where’s the person, and where’s the money? A ghost. Go to Rennie and check the Tourist Bureau to see if anyone inquired about getting a guide. Then interview people who live on the way to Botanical Beach. As I recall, there were several cabins very close to the road.”
“Most of them seemed closed up for the fall.”
“That’s why going back is important. Someone’s on a hunting trip. Someone’s visiting relatives. It’s a tedious but necessary part of policework. Turning over the same rocks. Sometimes something new pops up.”