Day Into Night, page 11
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” Star says. “Shelve is probably a bad term. Cases go cold after a certain period of time. Law enforcement is a finite resource you know. It doesn’t mean the case is totally abandoned.”
“But some of them are never solved.”
“That’s true,” says Bill. “It’s not a perfect world.”
“Maybe they would be,” I say. “If they had a little extra help.”
Star looks at me like a father at a deluded child.
“From someone really motivated,” I add.
He sighs — a really deep sigh. “Porter, I was a cop for 20 years and I’ve been a private dick for another ten. They’re depressing jobs, both of them, because in the end, it doesn’t matter how motivated you are. You only catch the stupid ones, the rush jobs and amateurs. Every once in a while you might get a professional, then he gets a good lawyer and he’s out before you’re retired and you gotta try to catch him again. This guy, this Lorax, is a professional. He’s not a raving nutcase who leaves a lot of clues. He’s careful and I’m willing to bet he works alone. Those kind are the hardest to catch.”
We drive in silence for a few minutes. Star eats potato chips, the crumbs precipitating onto his belly. I can feel the weight of the metal fragment in my pocket and take it out, look at it through the opaque sandwich bag. Evidence preservation by Zip Lock.
Star looks over, raises an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me that’s what I think it is.”
“I just want to get it analyzed —”
“Jesus Christ, Porter.” Star shakes his head, stares at the road, his jaw clenched. For a few minutes he doesn’t say anything, which is probably for the best. “That’s obstruction,” he says finally. “Theft. Tampering with evidence. Criminal Code. Not to mention that you’ve destroyed the chain of custody in case that hunk of metal has any unique evidentiary value.”
“I know, but they won’t tell me anything. I want to know what killed Nina.”
Star starts to say something then changes his mind.
“I can’t send it through the RCMP,” I say. “I was hoping you could help.”
Star is silent for several blocks. At a stoplight, he slams the transmission into park, turns in his seat and looks at me. “Porter, do you really think this is going to make a difference?”
“It would to me.”
“You think you’re going to solve this thing?”
“I just want to be involved. Before, with Nina, I couldn’t. Then nothing happened so there was nothing for me to do but sit and wait. Well, I’m tired of waiting. Solve this thing — I doubt it, but at least I’ll be informed. There’s nothing worse than being in the dark.”
The light changes and someone honks. Star slaps the car into drive and hits the gas. We surge through the intersection, rock as we take a corner. He’s obviously furious with me and, worse yet, he’s silent. For the rest of the trip I’m not sure if he’ll help me or turn me in. He pulls to the curb in front of Cindy’s townhouse, turns to face me, his heavy forearm resting on the steering wheel. For a minute he just stares, then he sighs.
“Give it to me.”
“You’ll send it in?”
“I’ll hang onto it, think about it.”
Grateful, I hand him the little package. “Thanks.”
I fumble out my crutches. Star watches, shaking his head. “Porter —”
I’m on the sidewalk, balanced on the crutches. “Yeah?”
He points a thick finger at me. “You be careful.”
Cindy is paying the babysitter, a 16-year-old brunette who winks at me. The kids are tearing around the house like wind-up toys. Cindy hollers at them to settle down. They actually pause for a moment before resuming their game of tag. She sighs, collapses in a chair at the kitchen table. “I gotta find a man,” she says wearily. “A wealthy one.”
“Better call the want ads.”
“One mom,” she says. “Slightly used, but ready to please.”
“You’ll be reeling them in by the dozens.”
She chuckles sadly. “Unfortunately, they all think it’s catch and release.”
I nod, pat her hand. All day she works with dysfunctional families, violence, incest. When she gets home, she’s a domestic engineer with three kids. She’s always taking care of somebody, and by evening, she’s burned out, has a glazed look in her eye.
“Order a pizza,” I tell her. “My treat.”
She raises her hands as though offering a benediction. “My saviour.”
“Order two.” Then she’ll have leftovers.
She looks at my crutches, propped against the wall. “What happened to your foot?”
“Twisted my ankle, going for a walk in the woods.”
“Bad?”
“Not so bad. Just slap a slow-moving sticker on my back.”
“Consider it done. You home for a while?”
I think about the man in camo. “No, I gotta go south again tomorrow.”
She nods, begins to clean the kitchen, orders pizza. I head downstairs to my room next to the furnace. The townhouse is tiny but I don’t mind living in the basement. I don’t need much space; between fires in summer and travelling in winter, I’m not often home. I take a shower in the tin stall next to my room, then flop on my bed and stare at the joists and subfloor that’s my ceiling. Overhead, the patter of running children rolls like thunder. I think about the last few days.
At the top of a shelf built of plywood and rough lumber, there’s a shoebox filled with my past. I take it down, spread the contents on my bed. Newspaper clippings. An old videotape with the titles of shows Cindy has taped crossed off the label. There’s only one show on the tape now, a Crime Stoppers segment a minute long. I pop it in my ancient tape player, lay on my bed and watch. There’s a brief snippet of some scene from The Young and Restless, then the screen flickers and Mike Matchok, the RCMP spokesman for Crime Stoppers, takes centre stage. He stands stiffly in the clearing where Nina died, in front of the blackened feller-buncher, and begins to narrate.
“On or about January 12th, 1995, a person or persons unknown ...”
Like a current hit single on the radio, the words are familiar, burned into memory by sheer repetition. The Crime Stoppers program provides re-enactments, where perpetrators are played by actors, in hopes of jogging a witness’s memory. Constable Matchok provides a brief narrative of what might have happened before Nina and I arrived, while the camera zooms in to show the back of a man, dressed in nondescript parka and wool toque, glancing about furtively and then climbing onto the feller-buncher. He releases a clasp on the machine’s engine compartment, plants an indistinct shape that looks in the dim light vaguely like a pipe bomb. The man’s face is never shown, but in my mind’s eye his face is painted forest camouflage. He retreats and the scene changes. It’s morning. A Forest Service truck drives up a narrow logging road bordered on both sides by large trees, laden with snow. Clearly, there are two passengers, and my gut clenches in nervous anticipation. The truck parks next to the feller-buncher and an actor in a Forest Service uniform, playing me, says something to the passenger in the truck, then walks past the camera. There is a synthesized explosion — a bright flash of light — and men are shown running toward the feller-buncher. My real truck, windows shattered, is shown in an RCMP impound lot. Constable Matchok walks in front, wraps up the video segment with the standard plea for information, offers $2,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for this heinous act. All calls are kept strictly confidential.
Two thousand dollars. I’d offer more if I had it. I’d offer everything.
I start the tape again, watch Matchok stand in the forest. Cindy comes downstairs, knocks on my door. “The pizza is here,” she says. She comes into my room, sees what I’m watching.
“Oh, Porter —”
She sits on the edge of my bed, glances at the newspaper clippings strewn about.
“I heard about it after you left,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”
I shrug, try to look calmer than I feel. The truck is driving toward the feller-buncher again. Cindy leans across the bed, grabs the remote, shuts off the tv. For a moment, the only sound is the plastic squeal of the worn tape. Then she touches a button on the vcr and that too stops.
“I saw it on the news,” she says. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”
I nod, mute. She pulls herself farther onto the bed, puts an arm around my shoulder.
“Mom called. They heard it down there too, wanted to see if you’re okay.”
“Tell them I’m fine.”
Cindy studies me. “You’re not fine though, are you?”
I don’t answer. For a few minutes we sit together in my dim bedroom, staring at the dead tv as though it might have a hidden message. Some people lash out when they’re upset; I turn my anger inward, against the advice of my one-time shrink — an East Indian with a Ph.D, on contract to the Forest Service to help the staff with the stress of downsizing. My stress was a little different. We spent a few 50-minute hours together. He tried but I just didn’t want to talk about it. I still don’t and Cindy knows this. She leans against me, stroking my shoulder. It makes me feel like a child and I flinch away.
She sits up, her concern clear. “What are you going to do?”
I look at the scraps of newsprint scattered over the bed. Partially visible is a picture of Nina, a driver’s licence photo like a prison mug shot. In black and white, she looks like ancient history: some file photo from the fifties. I wonder if it’ll take me that long to get over what happened. “I don’t know,” I tell Cindy. “But somehow, I’m going to stop this.”
8
IT'S SURPRISING HOW completely you come to rely on your set of wheels; like many things you really don’t appreciate them until they’re not usable. Then your relationship with your truck gets ugly. You call it names, kick the tires, pound the dash, consider shooting it. But like any grieving process, you move past denial and anger and eventually have to make up. When I was in Edmonton, I stopped at the Land Rover dealer and picked up a new starter. For the price I paid, it should have come with a trip to the UK. But at least I’d be mobile again.
The view beneath Old Faithful is familiar — rusted cross beams and greasy ball joints. Like a Harley driver, I’m intimately familiar with the workings of my vehicle. I can appreciate its underlying form — or the form under which I am lying; Zen and the art of Land Rover repair. I slide farther beneath, shield my eyes from dribbling encrustations. At the periphery of my vision, I see Carl’s boots. I’ve been telling him about my lunch with Telson.
“She saved your food?” Carl is impressed.
“Yeah. Had them put it into one of those Styrofoam trays.”
“And this is after you freaked out?” I can see his chin as he peers down through the engine compartment. “I’m starting to like this girl.”
“She’s probably gone by now,” I say. “She’s just visiting. Passing through.”
Carl chuckles. “Sure. Whatever. Any breakthroughs on the arson fires?”
“No, not really.” I search the oily grime around the void where my starter used to be, looking for any clues regarding the disappearance. Occasionally, these things just fall off. But not usually while parked. “It was just an organizational meeting. The cops have been called in and they put together a task force.”
“Really?” Carl’s voice is disembodied. “A task force?”
“Yeah. They’re pretty serious about catching this guy.”
“And you’re on this task force?”
“They still need someone to do the dirty work.” Around the ring gear housing there’s a lot of gritty gunk and I’m thinking maybe I should scrape a bit of it away before I mount the new starter. Makes for a better ground. “Can you hand me my knife. It’s under the seat, driver’s side.”
Carl’s feet vanish and a door creaks open. There’s a moment of silence, then Carl’s voice, muffled from inside the cab. “Where did you say it was?”
“In the springs. It’s a little hard to see, but it’s there.”
Scraping sounds. A drop of oil which has been defying gravity plops onto my cheek.
“I don’t see it Porter. You sure you didn’t take it out?”
At first I’m slightly annoyed with Carl for being so blind and making me drag myself out from under the truck, across an emery board of gravel. Then when I look under the seat, I’m confused. Confusion quickly gives way to anger.
“Shit — someone took it.”
Carl scratches his chin, tries to look helpful. “You sure?”
I try to remember taking the knife from under the seat, but the memory doesn’t exist. “Last time I saw it was before we went into the bar. I distinctly remember putting it under the seat.”
Carl is nodding. “What about later that night? We were pretty hammered.”
Ihadn’t thought of that.“I don’t think so.I think someone stole it.”
“Your truck was sitting in the parking lot for a while.”
“Well, shit —” The passenger-side doorlock on Old Faithful doesn’t work and anybody could have taken the knife. I grab a screwdriver and handful of wrenches and crawl under the truck again. More bad news — like some evil psychology test, the bolt holes in the starter housing don’t match the holes in the ring gear housing, no matter how hard I try. They gave me the wrong starter.
I worm my way out from under the truck, brush dirt from the orange fire coveralls Carl’s lent me. I rest the new starter on the edge of the engine compartment, stare gloomily into Old Faithful’s greasy bowels. I’ll have to take the bus to Edmonton again, bring the starter as a carry-on. Maybe I’ll meet Travis the salesman, sell him the starter. Hell, sell him the truck so he does-n’t have to take the bus. Cut my losses.
“Doesn’t fit?” asks Carl.
I shake my head, repack the clean but useless component in its box.
“There’s a guy out of town collects Land Rovers,” says Carl. “He might have a starter.”
“Really. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“His stuff is pretty old —”
“So is mine.”
On the trip out of town, Carl pulls a box of crackers from under his seat. Some people keep tools down there; others keep knives. Carl stores food — like a squirrel. At least it’s fairly secure — I don’t think I’d steal anything edible from among the dust and crap that inevitably collects under a truck seat, particularly a Forest Service truck seat. But today I’m hungry and the crackers look fairly well preserved. We munch as we head for Land Rover Heaven. “Just to let you know,” says Carl. “This guy is a Jehovah’s Witness. You might end up with more than a starter. You might end up saved.”
“He can save my Land Rover.”
We’re both dressed in fire coveralls, like we’re working together again.
“I hear they have another big one,” Carl says. “Up by Slave Lake.”
“Really.” Any big fire is a hot topic of discussion. “How big?”
“Grew to three thousand acres overnight.”
I think of our buddy Red Flag. No one called me. “Lightning caused?”
Carl nods. When the weather gets hot, there always seems to be a lightning-caused fire somewhere near Slave Lake. There’s a lot of muskeg up there, covered with volatile dense black spruce. It’s like dropping a match in dry grass. Even if it’s not really dry, a lightning strike can smoulder in the moss until the fuel around it is ready to burn.
“What do they have on it?”
“The Electra and the Ducks. Coupla crews.”
“What about you guys?” I ask. “You have any action?”
Carl shrugs. “Nothing much. A little camper fire. But our turn is coming.”
We ride in companionable silence for a few minutes. Carl glances at my ankle, wrapped in a tensor bandage. “How did you do that?” he asks, no doubt wondering how I made it back to town without my bike the other day. I hesitate, then tell him the story about my walk through the bush, seeing the man in camo. The interrogation. It’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version and Carl is quiet for a few minutes, leaning forward over his steering wheel. “You think that was him?”he asks. “You think it was the Lorax?”
“Maybe.” I’m unexpectedly reluctant to agree. “Could’ve been a hunter.”
Carl nods, chewing his lip. “There’s another week of spring bear yet.”
We’re both watching the trees at the edge of the road. Dense evergreens. The Lorax could be out here and we’d never see him. I shiver, try to shake off a feeling that I’m being watched. I’m suddenly desperate for conversation about anything normal.
“So, Carl, you seeing anyone in town?”
“Why?” he asks. “You available?” His chuckle is a little forced and I get the impression my old friend is very lonely. “The gene pool here is kind of crowded,” he says. “What about you? You gonna see this girl from the bar again?”
It sounds so romantic — the girl from the bar.
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“You should,” he says. “Get on with things. You’re becoming a monk.”
We’re both quiet for a while. We never talk about Nina, not directly anyway. When we used to work together in Fort Termination, I think Carl had a bit of a thing for her. She was in the office a fair bit, helping out in the radio room or with the filing.
“Here we are,” says Carl. “Get ready for the sales pitch.”
Land Rover Heaven is about 20 miles from town, on a large acreage next to the Curtain River. The mailbox, handmade from a section of tree trunk, says Ryerson. The driveway is a narrow lane, pinched together by dense spruce, so the house remains invisible until you’re at the front door. The house is old but well maintained. Chickens free range. So do kids. A half-dozen children play on a metal swing set and come running to the Forest Service truck when we stop.
“Are you a forest ranger?” asks a carrot-haired little boy as I get out.
“That would be the other fellow,” I tell them, and Carl is mobbed.
“Is your dad home?” Carl has a panicky look in his eye. I think he’s childphobic.
