Authors: Carolyn Davidson
“I know,” Susan felt herself grasped in an embrace, made more awkward by catching her with her arms half raised in front of her. “I don’t get down to the city much. How’s he doing?” she moved to the side to let a trolley of food trays ensconced with individual juices and jello cups pass, and felt herself itching with the urge to leave.
“Oh, you know your dad,” the woman smiled again and shook her head as if scolding a mischievous schoolboy. “He doesn’t take much to getting involved. But we get after him, we make sure he joins in for a meal with the group at least once a day.”
“That’s good,” Susan struggled to picture her father glaring from a table of senior ladies and their fruit cups. “I appreciate it.”
Unable to think of anything else to say she smiled again at the lady and pressed the elevator button. “I’m running late, but it was really good to see you again. And my dad of course. Take care.” Susan cursed herself for forgetting the woman’s name, and for the awkward words stuttering from her mouth, and bolted into the elevator.
Back in the relative comfort of her car, Susan decided it was time to take a break. She needed food to reenergize her for the drive home. This part of the city was still mapped out in her mind, and without the help of the GPS she quickly found herself near the neighbourhood she’d last lived in when the city was her home.
Happy to see a diner she was familiar with still in business, Susan parked the car on a nearby street and walked the short distance to the restaurant. Stepping inside she found the place looked unchanged, and she slid into a window booth, scanning the one page menu. She noticed a list of draught beers and changed her mind – after the afternoon she’d had she deserved more than a coffee. When the pony tailed waitress made her way to Susan’s table she asked for burger, fries and a pint of Creemore. Health kick begins tomorrow, she told herself, leaning back into the vinyl bench.
Foot traffic on the Danforth was busy approaching five o’clock, and Susan settled in to do some people watching while she waited for her food. The fall evening was a cool one, and people pulled their collars up against the wind, still for the most part eschewing the heavier coats hanging in their closets, waiting for the coming winter. Watching the stream of faces passing the window, Susan felt something close to nostalgia. The seemingly endless mix of races, colours and indiscriminate styles was something you didn’t see up North.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she would know someone, that the features of a passing face would sharpen into focus, and with the slight drop of a chin or tilt of a cheek would reveal themselves to be someone she recognized from her years in the city. Strange how you could walk the streets of a place every day; drive your car, buy your groceries, eat your meals, all without making so much as a dent on the landscape. Move to another town without leaving a shadow.
Enough deep thoughts, Susan laughed at herself, turning her attention back to work. She had managed to meet with the two other potential suspects after Mr. Bird, and after a bite to eat would be headed back to Lion’s Head.
Taking a long drink of the lager, Susan mentally reviewed the afternoon. Her second interview had been with a woman pushing eighty, settled in the plush apartments of a retirement village overlooking the Scarborough escarpment. It appeared as though the financial losses she had suffered through Terry Harmon hadn’t caused her much hardship, and even if they had, she wasn’t physically capable of a violent revenge. Heirs and heiresses were also out of the picture: Mrs. Harrington had informed her that she had never married.
“I think I had a much happier life for it all in all,” she told Susan unbidden. “I never had to bend my ways to anyone’s whims.” She freely disclosed to the Inspector that anything she left behind would be divided amongst her favourite charities. After a healthy provision was put aside for her Shih Tzu of course, she had told Susan, stroking the small dog’s disheveled head.
There was no doubt the next interviewee had the physical capacity to take violent revenge, and the anger. She interviewed Daniel Boucher in the garage of his East Scarborough home, questions asked over the drone of his table saw. He was making bunk beds for his daughters, he explained tersely, when questioned. Three children under the age of five, and even the garage was overrun with family detritus; the overflowing shelves held everything from tricycles to an inflatable pool.
Daniel’s biceps looked like a testament to hours spent lifting weights, Susan observed, although where he found the time she couldn’t imagine. “Guy’s a bastard,” he told Susan flat out when she questioned him, not lifting his eyes from the blade sawing through wood. “I was stupid, took a tip without looking into it. Paid the price, too.” The unwanted portion of wood fell to the floor and he straightened, wiping sweat from his forehead with his forearm. “I’d strangle the guy if it was legal,” he looked Susan in the eye with a half-smile. “But I’m well aware it’s not.”
Susan left him alone with his project after five more minutes of questioning. Alex had called in with Boucher’s alibi confirmation earlier in the day, and the completion of the interview was nothing more than painstaking follow through. It was hard to argue with attendance at a Grey Cup party two hundred and fifty kilometers from the murder, alibis provided by friends and family.
The trip hadn’t delivered any solid answers, but she didn’t regret turning over stones that needed checking under. Alex had assured her he would phone her if there were any major developments in her absence. No harm checking in, she told herself, taking her phone from her pocket and placing it on the table, just in time to make room for her plate to arrive, complete with a mouth-watering burger with sweet potato fries piled beside it. More nutrients than regular potatoes, she reasoned, savouring the first bite.
“Okay, everyone,” Susan nodded to the packed room in front of her, standing room only for the late comers. The staff meeting included all detachment members plus Owen Sound lab and forensics, an inclusive meeting that was overdue. While she had held individual meetings with staff members earlier in the week, the broader focus was necessary to gather all the information team members had gained, and sift through it in search of answers.
Glancing at the notes in front of her Susan nodded to Alex; “Alright Sergeant, you’re up,” she gave him a slight smile. Susan watched Alex as he walked to the front of the room. He looked casual and relaxed in spite of the dozen pairs of eyes on him, his perennial calm apparently unruffled by either the attention of his colleagues or the urgency of the topic.
He glanced around the room and brought his hands together. “Okay, I’ve got a few things to bring up, so I’ll get right to it. First up is Lee Daly,” Alex pointed to the name on the board. “My witness had him watching the trail where Sarah ran up the Bluffs in the days before her murder,” he refreshed his colleagues. “I had a look into his past with Emily’s help,” he nodded to the Constable in the back row. “He’s a local boy, born in Dyers Bay. Apparently his music career almost took off around the time he finished high school. He had a record deal in Toronto and toured around the province for a while. It’s a couple decades ago, but anyone heard of the Ringers?” he asked the group with a questioning lift of his shoulders.
When his colleagues looked at him blankly he nodded. “That’s about it. They fizzled out before they took off, record was a bomb and the label dropped them. Lee moved back to Lion’s Head and hasn’t done much besides playing local gigs since.” He glanced down at his notes. “Married once back in his twenties, divorced two years later, since then he’s been living alone here in town, bit of a reputation as a lady’s man when he can get away with it.”
“Whereabouts the time of the murder?” Susan questioned.
“At home alone sleeping at time of death, however he reports helping his mother move into Sunset nursing home nine a.m. onwards,” Alex responded. “Which doesn’t completely rule him out, but it would make it pretty tight to get home and clean up after the murder. As far as watching Sarah in the weeks prior to her murder,” he finished up, “he denies noticing her at all, said he spends time on the shore soaking in the scenery and ‘getting inspiration for his songs’.” Alex finished up.
Looking again at his notes he added, “I’ve also got our victim reading up on some dark stuff, about abortion and religious beliefs on that issue, but I think our Inspector will go into that a bit more,” he nodded at Susan.
“Thanks Alex,” Susan stood up again. “We’ll pass it over to our lab people, see what science has brought us so far,” she gestured to Derek who took centre stage. The forensic specialist put slides of the murder scene on the overhead while he detailed print, or rather lack of print, information, explaining with obvious frustration the lack of evidence due to the amount of rain that had fallen the night after the murder.
“We’ve been over her body with a fine toothed comb, but nothing out of the ordinary in terms of fibres. We found a couple hairs on her clothing, but they belonged either to the vic herself or the boyfriend, not surprising as she often slept at his place.”
A few more officers gave their findings and Susan made relevant notes on the crime board, noting with slight satisfaction that the blank space was filling up. They were making progress however slow it felt. She noticed with approval that Constable Beckstead seemed to be gaining some confidence, presenting with brevity and clarity the information she had gathered from Sarah’s peers.
“One other outstanding,” Susan told the group, wrapping up the meeting, “a necklace Sarah is wearing in the photo.” She tapped the photograph on the board gently. “Not sure if it’s important or not, but I’d like to see if it was something Sarah wore regularly. Ask her family members and her boyfriend, if so I want to know where it is, have another look in the vic and her boyfriend’s rooms.”
Handing two of her officers enlarged pictures of the necklace taken from Sarah’s graduation photo, she concluded in what she hoped was a rallying tone. “You guys are doing a great job, I appreciate it, and it’s going to bring this perp in to us. Keep it up.”
Slow and steady, she told herself, turning off the overhead. Her team of officers slogging through it day in and day out to get this guy would surely outmatch the chances of one perp, who was out there somewhere thinking he or she had gotten away with it.
*
Eddie saw her at school just one time after that night at the party. Not too surprising seeing as he didn’t make it to school much, having calculated the bare minimum of attendance that would allow him to pass. He had long ago learned that the teachers didn’t tend to phone his home if he was absent anyway.
He was sitting in his car in the student parking lot, deciding whether to go in or not, when he saw her get off the bus and walk towards the school, her books under her arm. She was surrounded by a stream of kids, but she seemed somehow separate, contained. He was so close to getting out of the car and approaching her that his fingers lifted the metal door handle, but he released it with a snap when he realised he had no idea what he would say to her.
It was better he waited until he sorted himself out and was making some real money anyhow, if he had any thoughts of competing with Tommy Logan. If it was up to him he’d be dealing with some serious cash by now anyhow, not nickel and diming it with tools poached from neighborhood sheds. His father kept telling him he was too young to get involved, which meant he’d had to figure something out on his own unless he wanted to be skint. Which he didn’t. He had plans.
Eddie watched Sarah until all he could see was the back of her head, her smooth hair shining in a sudden burst of sunlight, and then she disappeared into the school doors along with the other students. Eddie watched the doors close behind her and then he turned the car engine back on and spun out of the parking lot.
*
Clare felt most grounded when she was walking the trails. It might be strange to feel grounded when you could look to your left and see the rock face plunging almost perpendicular to the path you walked, but that was how she felt. There was a soothing rhythm to the continuity of footstep after footstep on the earth of the trail, hard in the winter, soft and giving in the spring, covered in a blanket of leaves in the fall.
It didn’t make her a bad mother that she needed this time to herself. It wasn’t as if she left the baby all alone, her mother was happy to come over and watch him while she got a little fresh air. Little Tommy was a good baby, rarely crying unless he was hungry or wet. And Tom loved being a father; you could see the pride in his eyes when he held the baby. They were a happy family.
Before she started going for her walks she’d had no idea she had it in her to go so far. She would leave their house for a walk at tea time and it would seem like only minutes had passed before she would look up to find herself as far as Dyer’s Bay.
One afternoon she’d walked so far she had been surprised to find the sun was suddenly on its way towards setting, and she had had to come down from the cliffs and knock on a stranger’s door to ask to use their telephone so Tom could come and get her. Tom hadn’t been happy about that, her gone past dinner time and then to be knocking on a stranger’s door, he said it made them look like they were flat out crazy. He didn’t understand the way time could slip away from you when you were out walking.
*
Susan held her keys in her hand as she approached the front door of her house, considering as she usually did when climbing the veranda steps that she should sand the old varnish down and repaint the wood when she had time. She was tired this evening, lucky that her constitution was such that she could go days with little sleep without her performance being affected, but tonight she would hit the hay early.
She had made an offer on this house two months after her transfer up North, feeling sure enough that she would settle here that she didn’t want to waste time renting. Tucked into the edge of the forest off Pike Road, it was a ten minute walk from Lake Huron’s reedy edge, and close enough to work that she didn’t waste time in transit. A slightly ramshackle bungalow, it could do with a bit of upgrading, but it suited her fine.
Key in the door, she was taken unawares when a sudden presence behind her put a hand on her arm. Stifling a cry, she reached instinctively for the gun at her holster, stilling her hand with its fingers wrapped around the weapon’s holster when she saw who it was. John Thibeault’s ice blue eyes started into her own, their dark rims as detailed at this distance as if they were painted in minute brushstrokes, flecks scattering the perfect pale circles of the irises.
“No need,” his husky voice rasped, and Susan could feel his breath warm against her cheek. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
Stepping back to increase the distance between them, Susan looked warily around her. A grey sedan was parked at the side of the road past where it curved towards the lake, which would explain why she hadn’t noticed the vehicle when she drove in.
“I hear you’ve been poking around Parry Sound way,” he said flatly.
“Yeah?” Susan responded, having no idea which way the conversation was leading. “Who told you that?”
“Who told me doesn’t matter,” Thibeault responded. “I just came here to put your mind at rest.”
Susan gave a quick start of laughter. Nothing about John’s sudden appearance was likely to put her at rest. “How’s that?” she asked him.
“I thought I’d save you wasting any time, looking for who done what they did to the Davies girl.”
Susan kept her face impassive as she waited for him to continue. She’d heard rumours that Thibeault had distant Indian ancestry, although he wasn’t involved in the nearby Saugeen reserve as far as she knew. She guessed there to be some truth in it from the strong lines of his high cheekbones and impenetrable gaze, if not from the light shade of his eyes.
“He paid his dues,” John told her now. “We took care of it.”
“What was his name?” Susan asked, knowing her question wouldn’t be answered. “How were you certain he was guilty?”
Ignoring her questions John descended the steps fluidly, and without further discussion he was gone, walking unhurriedly to his car.
Susan closed the door behind her as she entered her home, making a mental note to contact the Parry Sound detachment to inform them of her conversation with John Thibeault, and suggest they have a look at any unsolved, most likely violent, male deaths that had turned up in recent months. Alex’s mention of a man burned in his car came to mind and she shuddered unwittingly.
She grabbed a beer as she passed the fridge and opened the back door, letting the screen slam shut behind her as she flopped on to a patio chair. Have to pick up some recliners, she reminded herself, leaning back into the hard wood of the upright deck chair that had come with the place.
At least one home improvement she had made was the bird feeder, she laughed to herself. Noticing the abundance of brightly coloured birds she hadn’t seen in the city frequenting her well treed back yard, she had dropped by the Home Hardware not long after moving into the house and picked up a bird feeder and a big bag of seed, which she prided herself on keeping topped up. The birds were demanding houseguests, going through more food than she would have thought possible, more than likely in large part due to the red squirrels who managed to find their way onto the feeder through acrobatic stunts that outsmarted any attempt she’d made at adjusting the feeder’s location, stringing it high between two tall pines.
Susan took a long draught of the cold beer and let herself relax into the privacy of the forest that backed her property and the coolness of the bottle in her hand. The silence was punctuated only by the call of various birds she was gradually coming to recognize, the gold finches and cardinals melodious tones often interrupted by the shout of the blue jays and the combative caw of the grackle. The forlorn sigh of the mourning dove was the only bird song she wasn’t overly fond of, bringing back memories of the city birds she’d hear when she took refuge in her favourite place as a teenager, the small cement balcony that extended a meter or so from her family’s apartment window.
She had been nine years old when her mother died, an event that was never openly discussed in her home. They had been a family of three, made secular in part by her father’s attachment to the bottle, a fact of life that made relations with friends and colleagues unpleasant or short lived, and furthered by the distance of her parents’ extended families living overseas in Europe.
From what she understood her father’s parents had immigrated to Canada from the Ukraine when her father was a young child. She knew her Grandmother had died shortly after the move, leaving her Grandfather to raise his son alone in their new country. She was also aware that her father was said to have inherited his attachment to the bottle from his own father, but Susan had no time for excuses or searches into the past for answers when it came to her own family.
As for her mother’s side, she spoke of her family often, but never made the trip back to Europe to visit them. Susan knew she had her mother’s wide cheekbones and too strong jaw and the same fair colouring, but beyond that she didn’t trust what was real and what her memory had embroidered upon. From her father she had his long limbs and stubborn nature, and that was as far as she wanted to look for commonalities. The two met when her mother’s family was visiting friends in Canada and they had fallen in love. As far as that had got them.