Authors: Carolyn Davidson
“I know the officers asked you a lot of questions when they arrived at the scene,” Susan told the girl across from her, “but you’ll have to bear with me while I cover it all again now. Any new detail we come up with could be helpful.”
The girl nodded, leaning forward over the table in a posture of concentration.
Susan examined the witness over the crime scene report she held in front of her. It wasn’t a bad idea to do some interviews at the station; it helped stress the seriousness of the interview. People usually fell into the category of nervous to the point of reticence, or became incessantly forthcoming in their desire to be of assistance, and it looked like Trudy was of the latter variety.
“It must have been a horrible shock for you,” the Inspector began, offering the remark as a question.
“Oh yes, you can’t imagine,” Trudy responded. “I was almost as far as the Bluffs, I was going for a big hike. I’ve been trying to get fit,” she patted her jeaned thighs self-consciously. “I don’t run, but they say walking is just as good, as long as you go fast enough to get your heart rate up.”
Susan nodded, raising her eyebrows to convey interest.
“Anyway, I was having a good walk, I had the trail all to myself with the summer tourists gone, it being a Monday and all, and then I saw her.”
The Inspector waited for the girl to continue, watching as she folded her hands tightly on the table in front of her.
“Actually, I really just saw her shoes,” Trudy looked up at Susan, brown eyes wide as if to describe the shock she felt. “I didn’t want to go any closer, I was scared of what I would see. I called out to see if maybe she had fallen and hurt herself, and when she didn’t move I phoned 911 right away. It was lucky I had my cell phone with me.”
Susan consulted the notes in front of her. “Can you describe to me in detail what you saw?” The initial interview report had Trudy remaining at the trail’s edge, but Susan wanted a second account of what the girl had witnessed.
Trudy took a deep breath and glanced again at the ceiling. “I could tell that it was a girl, or a lady, lying on her side. Her head was at a funny angle, and I could see her hair was matted, or wet.” She shivered visibly again.
“Do you know I went to school with her?” Trudy’s cheeks were patched with red and her eyes glistened with a sudden crystal brightness. “I had no idea who it was until I heard the policeman say her name.”
“That’s right,” Susan studied the girl. “You’d be the same age. Were you friends with Sarah?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say friends,” Trudy shrugged. “I mean I’m sure we would have been if we spent time together, but we just kind of moved in different circles.”
“What kind of ‘circle’ did Sarah move in?” Susan questioned.
“She mostly hung out with her boyfriend. You know Tommy Logan?” Trudy questioned, tilting her head as she looked at Susan.
“Yes, her fiancé,” Susan replied.
“Yeah, well he’s my cousin. Sarah hung around Tommy and his friends mostly. I just saw them around school is all.”
Susan let a few seconds pass before redirecting the interview. “Okay, so let’s backtrack to the beginning. You said you left your house just after two in the afternoon?”
“That’s right,” the girl nodded eagerly. “I’m not working right now, I took the year off after finishing school to decide what I want to do,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve just been kind of helping out around the farm this year.”
Susan nodded, waiting for her to continue.
“Actually, you’ll be the first person I tell this to,” Trudy allowed herself a smile before covering her mouth with her hand, “But I just found out I was accepted at a college in the city. I’m going to study nursing.”
“That’s great,” Susan responded perfunctorily. She was formulating her next question when there was a soft knock on the door. She stepped outside of the interview room to answer it, closing the door behind her.
“Sorry Inspector,” Maggie bobbed on her feet apologetically. “I’ve been trying to put them off, but the Owen Sound TV people are here, they’re waiting for their interview.”
“Alright,” Susan sighed inwardly. Television interviews were a part of the job she had yet to grow anywhere near comfortable with. “I got it.” She wagged her head over her shoulder towards Trudy, “you can show her to the front; let her know we’re done for now.”
Heading towards the station entrance she turned back to ask Maggie, “Lady or man?” Clarifying when Maggie looked at her with scrunched nosed confusion she added impatiently, “The news anchor. Who did they send us?”
Maggie smiled sympathetically, “you got the old guy, Donaldson”.
Susan cursed to herself as she headed to the front of the station. She’d dealt with both local news anchors during various cases, and while she’d come to a sort of mutually respectful agreement with Eileen, she still found Jim Donaldson self-serving and overbearing.
“Shit,” she said aloud this time as she stepped outside the station doors to find the man himself in full preparation mode, makeup people dusting his jaw line and smoothing stray hairs, while she’d completely neglected a stop at the toilets to check for food in her teeth or stains on her shirt. I wonder if it’s too late to turn back for a pit stop she asked herself. Too late, she decided. What good is vanity anyhow; it was a murder investigation not a fashion show.
“Hi Jim,” Susan approached the reporter briskly, deliberately taking the initiative in reaching through the primping arms of his small entourage to pump his hand. “Good to see you. Let’s get to business when you’re ready.”
“Let’s do it,” Jim stood, brushing his assistants aside. “It’s go time team,” he made a whirling motion in the air with his finger to the two camera men who stood waiting. “Inspector, we’ll have you on the front steps of the station, sound good?”
“Okay with me,” Susan responded, heading back towards the doors. They could have her on the face of the moon if it meant getting this over with.
Standing in front of the Wiarton OPP station doors, Susan mentally reviewed what she wanted to put out there. It was important to reassure the public, but she also wanted people being careful, and coming to them with any information, big or small. Fact was, there was a killer out there and they had no idea what kind of creature he or she was.
Susan tuned in as she heard Jim making his standard news report introduction, straightening her posture as she prepared for the cameras. She felt sweat inching down her chest and armpits in spite of the morning’s cool breeze, and was glad she’d grabbed her jacket on her way out of the building.
“That’s correct, Jim,” she replied in answer to the anchor’s introduction, focusing slightly over the heads of the people gathered around the ongoing interview. “The body of a local woman was found yesterday afternoon on the White Bluffs peak of the Bruce Trail.” She paused. “As you can understand, we’re not prepared to provide detailed information at this point.”
The twenty odd people who had gathered, likely attracted by the city TV vehicles parked in front of the district police station were silent, hanging onto her every word. “The victim is a nineteen-year old Lion’s Head resident by the name of Sarah Harmon. It is a suspicious death, and we currently have all of our manpower working around the clock to bring the offender in.”
There was a scrabble of movement in front of her as people called out questions. “That’s all of the information we’re prepared to give at this time,” Sarah spoke over their voices. “But I do want to ask that anyone who has any information relating to the incident contact us at the Wiarton police station immediately.” Avoiding eye contact with Jim as she saw him composing a question, she added a firm “thank you” and turned back to the station doors.
Alex gave her a thumbs up as she passed him in the hall. “Sounded good, Inspector,” he winked, “I caught it from the side door.”
“Any one interesting in attendance?” she slowed to ask him. “I saw a few unfamiliar faces there. Have Ginny send me the footage, I want to make sure we can place them all.”
“No problem,” Alex responded. It may be the stuff of fiction that the murderer was often in attendance at police interviews, but at this point they weren’t letting any stone go unturned, crime show superstition or not.
*
“I see.” Alex put on his most attentive face, the face he’d have on if he was speaking to his slightly demented but eternally sweet grandmother, had she been alive to have a conversation with him. “And how long did you say she had worked here?”
“Oh, it would be about three years now. We didn’t have many hours for her, but she’d be here a day or two a week, making a bit of pocket money, you know how the teenagers do.”
Mrs. McKinnon heaved what might have been the tenth sigh since the interview began, and Alex felt the stale air of the library flutter around him and fall back to stillness. “She was a dear girl, a real dear girl, that one.”
“Was she a good worker?” Alex asked, trying to find a way to relevant information in the interview.
“Sure, she was always good to have around. Dependable, turned up when she said she would. A daydreamer though, that’s for certain. She’d be started on a row of returns and I’d turn around to find her staring off into space, looking at the back of a book as if her fortune was written there. I always told her she must be in love, it was the only thing that got a rise out of her,” the librarian smiled sadly.
“She had that look about her, you know,” Mrs. McKinnon continued, stroking her much-creased neck thoughtfully. “Some faces just spell tragedy. Whether it be the look in their eyes or the set of their chin, you just know. Disaster is looming.” Her Scottish accent seemed to be developing into a thicker brogue while telling the story, and Alex half expected her to address him as ‘laddie’.
The Sergeant let his eyes wander around the library as he nodded thoughtfully and held his pen at attention. The few tables and surrounding chairs sat empty and the lone computer’s curser flashed in unreciprocated anticipation.
“I’ve only met a few of them in my time, but I’ve not been wrong yet, sad as I am to say it.” Mrs. McKinnon’s vest covered bosom shook with yet another sigh as she continued. “Clare Everett was another. I guess you would have been too young to remember her.”
“Tom Logan’s first wife,” she informed him when Alex looked at her blankly. “That’s many years ago now, I’m not sure why she came to mind for the life of me.”
A brief silence fell over the room, and dust motes stirred in the air as if released by the stilling of voices.
The front of the library opened and Mrs. McKinnon brightened considerably. “Good morning dear, what are we looking for today?” she approached the teenage girl with gusto, as though ready to singlehandedly unearth whatever book she might need from the packed shelves, computer be damned.
Alex gave a wave of thanks and stepped outside, squinting into the early afternoon sun. Rubbing the bridge of his nose he stopped mid step as a thought came to him, and turned to reopen the library door.
The librarian looked at him curiously as he approached her. “Forget something, did you laddie?” she asked. There it is, Alex smiled. “I did, as a matter of fact,” he said to her in a casual voice. “Did Sarah often sign books out herself?”
“Of course she did,” Mrs. McKinnon replied easily. “She was a good reader.”
“Would you by chance have records of the books she signed out?” Alex enquired.
The librarian looked at him strangely. “Well, I guess I would,” she said slowly. “We are all computerized here, have been for the last five years or so.” She ran a finger over the keyboard on the counter in front of her. “Not that I was so pleased when we first made the change, I can tell you. Nothing wrong with the card system if you ask me, but I guess the world isn’t asking,” she laughed. “Progress, isn’t that what they call it?”
“I guess so,” Alex smiled at her. “Now, would it be too much trouble if I asked you to print me a list of the books Sarah borrowed in the last year or so?”
“Well, I don’t see why not,” Mrs. McKinnon hesitated. “You are the police after all. And what’s privacy to us anymore when we’ve passed on to the next world,” she gestured vaguely towards the library ceiling.
“Righty ho, just bear with me a moment then.” Pushing her glasses higher on her nose she squinted at the computer. A few tentative taps later the library’s printer coughed out a number of pages. Giving them a quick glance Alex folded the papers securely into his pocket and backed out of the library thanking Mrs. McKinnon for a second time.
Interesting, Alex mused as he headed towards his car. Looked like the girl hadn’t been into light reading.
*
Elizabeth stared out the window of the town pharmacy at the nearly deserted street. Too far from noon for lunch seekers, too far from five o’clock for the trickle of people to begin finding their way home.
Her boss had told her she shouldn’t come to work, but what was she supposed to do, stay in that house with her mother and father? One more person hiding in their room, trying to avoid looking at each other. Anyhow, she needed her co-op hours for college, life didn’t stop because Sarah was gone.
Her mind flashed suddenly to a memory she didn’t know she had stored there, the sharpness of the colours and scent so intense she had to grip the windowsill for stability. She and her sister were maybe six and eight years old, in the backyard of the cottage their family used to rent the last weeks of each summer. Elizabeth was lying on her back under the blue sky, the reeds that grew up through the sand tickling her bare calves. Her sister lay beside her facing the opposite direction, Sarah’s face upside down, her chin parallel to Elizabeth’s forehead. They were laughing as the inverted images of themselves transformed into circus characters with eyebrows bizarrely turned into moustaches drawn under each other’s eyes, more absurd the longer they stared. She could see Sarah’s skin with the unflawed smoothness of childhood, coloured with summer sun and scattered with a few small freckles across her nose. The image was so clear it seemed that if she lifted her hand she would touch her sister’s face. And then it was gone.