Ocean Drive, page 2
* * *
The Work-Flex offices had all the warmth of a DMV kiosk. Cam sat on the flimsy skeleton chair and filled in the application.
Skills: carpentry, light electrical.
Last employer: he wrote government.
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
Cam checked the box and wrote in manslaughter, thinking how much worse the term looked on paper than murder.
He handed the sheets to the sunburnt man, watched his eyes narrow as he read the application.
“You put down carpenter and electrician,” the clerk said.
“Right.”
“You didn’t write down what school.”
“Self-taught. Well, my uncle taught me.”
“I see, but that’s not really a qualification.”
“I can do the work.”
“Yes, sir, but when Work-Flex contracts out, we need to ensure our clients they’re getting accredited, certified tradespeople. No disrespect to you or your uncle. It’s just our policy.”
The rest of the exchange ran by with Cam nodding, gripping the handle of his backpack so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach for the man’s throat.
* * *
Job hunt by day. Bars at night.
He was too tightly wound to attract women. When he managed to snag one’s interest, his low tolerance for booze caused him to unspool too quickly.
At one Ladies’ Night he was cornered by a woman who said he reminded her of an old boyfriend. They talked and drank. She asked him about jail. Even felt the scar on his chest and shoulder.
At the end of the night, he’d walked out with her number. When he phoned the next evening, she said her ex was in town. No, don’t phone back, howzabout I call you once the craziness in my life has eased up a bit? It has nothing to do with what you told me. Swear.
* * *
His PO told him the job-skills course started next Wednesday, 9 a.m.
“What they do, they start by running a few tests to see what your personality type is. They give each one a colour—if you’re, say, blue, they use that to figure out what you’re good at, what you’re gonna enjoy doing. Afternoons they workshop resumés and run practice interviews. Might be just the thing to help you find a job. Sound okay? Great.”
* * *
Wednesday came. Turned out he was red.
* * *
“My name’s Jingjing,” the woman said. “It can be something else if you want. I go by Sasha sometimes.”
He told her Jingjing was fine. She was around his age. Dressed in a pink sweater and dark black skirt, trailing a nylon baseball jacket, dropping a pom-pom toque on the table that he’d bought that morning from the Salvation Army.
“Usually I take the money up front. Since it’s a GFE, and I’m here all weekend, let’s say half now and half when I leave. Sound good? And I gotta see your ID first. Send a picture to my gal-pal, just in case.”
He complied. When Jingjing asked what he wanted to do first, he shrugged. She suggested they watch TV. When they settled on a game show, she unzipped him and made short work of him.
“I don’t know how this’ll play out,” he told her later as they moved to the bedroom again. “If I’ll cry or, y’know, be rough.”
“You can do what you like,” she said. “Slaps are fine, long as it’s light. Fuck my ass, okay too, but you gotta wear a condom, and listen, I say stop. Long as you don’t break the rules, you’re fine. That okay, boo? You like me call you boo?”
“I don’t know.”
She stayed all weekend. It cost him more than the apartment’s deposit.
* * *
The next Monday, Cam dialed the warehouse office and told them, sure, he could start tomorrow night.
Two
White-grey coils of smoke carried over the shuttered storefronts and restaurants of the White Rock promenade. The houses clinging to the hillside beyond Marine Drive would normally have a view of the beach and the water. The smoke from the fire had obliterated that view.
As she turned onto Magdalen, Meghan Quick saw the alternating flash of the fire truck lights. Thought, Here we go.
The fire truck was parked diagonally along Sunset Lane, backed up onto the curb. She recognized Emmet Nance under his visored helmet. He nodded briefly and kept relaying hose to the firefighters closer to the house.
“Almost out, Sarge,” Emmet said.
“Here’s hoping.”
3457 Sunset Lane was a narrow three-storey Dutch Colonial, the roof mossy and in need of repair. Weathered paint-peeled wood, thankfully separated from its neighbours by a mulched but unplanted yard. The owners—was this the Reeds’ place?—hadn’t kept up its maintenance.
Smoke unfurled from the upper windows. Meghan parked her department-issue Ford Interceptor around the corner on Sunset Lane. She threw back a handful of acetaminophen, washing them down with cold coffee.
White Rock, BC, population just under twenty thousand, a great deal of them seniors or young families. “The newly wed and the almost dead,” as the saying went. Trains slowed down when they rolled through White Rock, and the beachfront thoroughfare was mined with speed bumps. Nothing happened here that couldn’t be blamed on rowdies from Surrey or Americans from the other side of Semiahmoo Bay.
Growing up in White Rock, Meghan ached to move away. And had, first for college, then training at Depot, followed by a series of posts around the country, from a rez in Manitoba to a security detail in Ottawa. After eleven years gone, now married and with Rhonda wanting to start a family, Meghan had seen a posting for White Rock and admitted to herself that going home would have its advantages.
That was twenty years ago. Now Staff Sergeant Meghan Quick was the detachment commander for the White Rock RCMP, a fearsome crime fighting squad comprised of two dozen officers and a few civilians. Divorced, mildly hungover, and wishing she was still in bed, Meghan swilled icy French roast and waited for the smoke to clear away.
Denny Fong was waiting at the foot of the steep drive. Her most junior officer had been blocking the street for nonexistent traffic. “Never seen a fire this close,” Denny said as Meghan approached. “You think it was electrical?” Wanting to ask, without seeming eager, if it might be arson.
“We‘ll find out,” Meghan said. “This was the Reeds’ place, wasn’t it?”
“Far’s I know, still is.”
The Reeds were one of those families that had received their entire allotment of tragedy within the briefest of windows. Emily Reed had fallen victim to a stroke, which caused her husband Richie to retire early to care for her. He’d been struck down by a speeding car three months later. Emily had held on almost a year before a second stroke claimed her. Meghan had been at both funerals, Emily’s only a few weeks ago.
Meghan heard a crash from inside the house, a billowing of dust and smoke from the opened bay window. Emmet came down the drive, horked and spat. He adjusted the valve on the hydrant.
“It’s out,” he announced.
“Nicely done,” Meghan said. Emmet was a few years older than her son, Trevor. He’d refereed Trevor’s soccer games, what felt like a lifetime ago. “Neighbours okay?”
Emmet gestured beyond the hood of the truck, where a small group of robed and pyjamaed fortysomethings watched. Their mood was almost festive. Enjoying the entertainment provided by the burning house and flashing lights. Meghan thought they looked like a swinger’s party, missing only the martinis and bowl of keys.
“Someone should call Alexa,” Meghan said. The Reeds’ daughter was probably back at college by now, thinking her family’s troubles were over. Meghan didn’t have the girl’s number in Buffalo, but Elizabeth Garrick would. Liz and Emily Reed were cousins, and the widow was the girl’s closest living family.
A rumble from inside the house, followed by shouting, stopped Meghan from dialing Liz’s number. The door of the Reeds’ house was kicked open. Dale Miller staggered down the drive. He shook off his helmet and ran a gloved hand over his blond hair, smudging it with ash. He sat and bent his head between his legs. When he looked up, his face sought Meghan’s. Tears, from the smoke or something else.
“Body,” Dale said.
Donning a mask, Meghan followed Emmet into the house. Her eyes watered instantly. Smoke hung in the foyer, and the carpet was wet, but the damage was on the top storey. Their boots squelched as they took the stairs.
The second floor was high-ceilinged and crammed with stacks of magazines, boxes of old receipts, damaged by water and fire-extinguishing chemicals. The windows had been forced open. Meghan felt herself shiver as a gust came off the bay, fluttering the tattered pages.
“In here,” Emmet said. He led the way into a small bedroom away from the windows.
Here the walls were brownish-black and the smell of char was heavier. Meghan coughed and gripped the door as nausea crested and ebbed. The slender body, burned, lay next to the skeletal frame of a bed.
This would have been Alexa’s room, Meghan realized. The guest room now. The body was turned on its side, legs wedged next to the dresser. Scorched beyond recognition, alternately red and black and earthy brown, skin cratered like coal.
Meghan had brought her camera. She documented the room, the position of the body. With Emmet’s help, she shifted the dresser away and shot a better picture of the corpse.
“Likely female,” she said, pointing to the unburnt fabric beneath the bottom leg. Paisley, a fragment of skirt. The arms were contracted, fists clenched, knees and back slightly bent. The extreme heat from the fire caused the muscles to contract in a classic pugilist’s pose.
Meghan handed Emmet the camera and wiped a line of perspiration from her brow. “Let Dr. Varma know she’s getting a body from us. She’ll want it sent to Peace Arch. They have the facilities. After Greg’s done, of course.”
Greg Grewal, the arson investigator, had trailed them up the stairs. Balding, attired in a white Tyvek bunny suit, paper boots over his shoes, Grewal grimaced as Emmet spat on the floor.
“The locus was likely this room,” he said. “If it’s electrical it might be in the ceiling. Possibly the attic, but I doubt it. The heat came from here.”
“Are we talking arson?” Meghan asked, knowing that Grewal was famous for his thoroughness. It drove Dale and the others crazy, waiting for his pronouncements.
“Could be, yeah, but I won’t know for sure till we take a good look. Either way, hope this lady was asleep when it happened.”
Meghan nodded. The fact that the body was on the floor, away from the mattress, gave her doubts. But like Grewal, she’d hold onto her opinions until all the evidence was in.
“Heard this happens in Seattle an awful lot,” Emmet said. “Homeless break into a condemned place, smoke their crack or whatever, nod off, and—” He spread his hands in a gesture of growing conflagration. “Poof. Y’know?”
“Who was first inside?” Meghan asked.
“That’d be Dale. Me right behind him.”
“Was the front door unlocked?”
“We had to kick it.”
“Had to,” Grewal said, “or you made the decision to?”
“Had.” Emmet was facing away from Grewal and mouthed the word asshole to Meghan.
“You’re sure it was locked?” Meghan asked him.
“Swear it was, yeah.”
She left the room, took the stairs, pausing on the landing as Dale and another technician swept past her. On the ground floor she looked at the back windows, saw no glass on the floor. The back door was also locked.
The kitchen had been relatively untouched, though water dripped from a puncture in the ceiling. Meghan examined the fridge. Babybel cheeses and Diet Coke, a bag of shrivelled mushrooms. A half-finished carton of cream. The best-by date was next week.
She opened the cupboards beneath the sink, found a garbage bin mounted to the inside of one door. A yellow plastic bag from the Price-Low inside, along with a receipt dated six days ago.
Meghan’s throat made a sound like disappointment. The house had been used as a home, by someone familiar with it. Odds were good that the body was Alexa’s.
Alexa Reed, twenty-nine, a grad student at SUNY Buffalo, her whole life ahead of her.
She’d babysat Trevor a few times. Meghan remembered driving her home afterward, the girl excited to sit up front in a real-life cop car. Thirteen years, one divorce and several promotions ago for Meghan. She wondered what the years had held for Alexa, tried to remember if she’d spoken to her at the funeral.
What the hell was Alexa doing back here?
* * *
In the years following her husband’s murder, Elizabeth Garrick had undergone a grand renaissance. She’d forged ahead, raising her son, Max, while keeping her husband’s business afloat, even expanding it. The twenty-storey tower at Panorama Place was her idea, the first building over four storeys tall in White Rock history. She also chaired the Roger Garrick Foundation, sponsoring Little League and peewee hockey. This, too, was a way to keep Roger’s name alive.
That was the public version, anyway. Meghan could admit there might even be some truth to it. She found Liz hard to read properly, knowing what an industrial-sized bitch the younger version had been, and was also aware of her own lingering envy.
Lizzie and Meg had been neighbourhood friends, thrust together by their parents often enough that they’d spent much of their childhoods in each other’s company. That had changed in high school. Liz, a year older, had matured early, in that cigarette-smoking, black-makeup and jean-jacketed way. She’d quickly been accepted by the senior crowd. Meghan, tall, gangly and haltingly becoming aware of who she was, didn’t move in the same circles. Liz had cooled on Meghan, eventually shutting her out.
Liz had married Roger Garrick, eleven years older than her and already wealthy. They made a good couple, seemed genuinely happy, and Meghan thought the gold-digger comments were unfair. Roger was, if not handsome, debonair, quick-witted and an excellent party host.
They’d seemed golden together.
Meghan hadn’t crossed paths with them very often. When she did, it was always in the midst of a minor bylaw infraction—the Garricks and some other swells smoking a joint aboard one of Roger’s yachts, or disregarding the noise restrictions to play music. She knew from Bob Sutter, the previous detachment commander, that policing White Rock was about issuing kindly reminders rather than filling the jails. The Garricks would wave to her and continue their good times elsewhere.
Secretly Meghan had thought, upon hearing of Roger’s death: at last, the real world comes knocking on Lizzie Garrick’s door.
When she arrived at the Garrick house, the porch lights were on, casting long silver rays past the pool room, down past the train tracks to a stretch of rocky beach. Liz stood near the water, smoking a cigarette, watching the first smear of dawn over the water. The dark surf rolled toward her, dying at her feet.
She turned, caught sight of Meghan, waved. Started back up the beach. Meghan met her at the edge of the lawn.
“Some bad news, Liz.”
“I’ve heard. Should we go inside?”
She led Meghan through the screened-in porch, Liz slipping out of her sandals, discarding her jacket on an antique dresser. Meghan paused to stomp out of her boots.
They sat together in a rose-painted room that Meghan guessed would be called a parlour. Couches, a credenza, decanters of various liqueurs. Who had a parlour in this day and age? Liz sat with the ends of her black crocheted shawl tucked around her bare legs. Meghan asked if the widow needed anything.
“Nothing, no,” Liz said. “Max is at Stacy’s parents’ place. They’re not such good friends anymore, but her mother asked could he stay over for pizza and a movie. There aren’t many kids in our social circle. I thought it would be good for him.”
“He’s doing all right?”
“Splendid. And Trevor?”
“Doing good. Enjoying college.”
“And how is Rhonda?”
“Says she likes living in Chicago.” Meghan thought her ex had met someone, but there were more pressing topics right now. “There’s a chance the girl in the fire isn’t her,” she said. “Isn’t Alexa, I mean. Do you have any idea what she might have been doing there?”
“Not the slightest,” Liz said. “I purchased her flight home for Emily’s funeral. It was round trip. I’m not sure of the date she was supposed to fly back to Buffalo, but I can look it up.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Liz Garrick lit a cigarette, watched the smoke curl toward her ceiling. “I had to practically force her to attend. You imagine that, Meg—not going to your mother’s funeral?”
“Grief hits people in different ways. ’Specially at that age.”
“Of course,” Liz said. “Here I am thinking of how it looked, ignoring what the poor girl was going through.”
“How about you?” Meghan asked.
Liz swatted the air dismissively. “I imagine I’ll cope. And who knows, Meg. Like you said, it might not even be her.”
* * *
In daylight, with the first responders gone, Meghan went back through the Reeds’ house, accompanying Greg Grewal. The arson investigator wanted to point out the source of the blaze. Meghan had a few things she wanted to look at herself.
“Point of origin’s here,” Grewal said, pointing to the junction of wall and floor in Alexa’s bedroom. “Fire burned up and out from here. Accelerants were dumped, and then it caught the polyurethane stuffing in the mattress.”
“What type of accelerant?”
“Kerosene,” Grewal said.
“You’re sure?”
