and Dion looked up the slope of low brush into a vague shadowland atop the ridge. “Now it’s loping,” Montgomery said.
“Really fast. He was like half wolf.”
Dion kicked at the brush through which the creature had supposedly run. The terrain was rough, sludgy, and snarled with tree roots and decaying logs. Even in the height of summer, when the ground would have been drier, he couldn’t imagine any human loping through it. Must have been an animal, a large dog gone wild. Just as he had expected, there was nothing to be seen here except more of the same.
Montgomery was briskly saying to the boys, “Well, we’ll keep this sighting of yours in mind for future reference. In the meantime, if you see anything else of interest, you can let us know. But my advice would be stay out of the woods till further notice, a’right?”
“No way,” Graham said. “I’d rather die.”
“What about that reward if you catch ’im?” Wong said.
“Sure you get a reward. A nice warm sense of accomplishment.”
As they gathered their bikes for the return trip, Montgomery and James Wong discussed gear shifters at some length, so Dion found himself alone with Ronnie Graham. Graham had less to say than his friend and seemed comfortable speaking freely only while in tandem with Wong. Dion recalled yesterday, the challenge nobody had put to the kid. The howl. He thought about Mike Bosko calling him defeatist and said, “Question for you.”
Graham, like Dion, didn’t like questions set up like this, with a warning shot. He looked worried, resentful, and chilled. He glanced around Dion, searching for his pal. But Wong was still talking to Montgomery.
“You didn’t seem so convinced about the howl you guys say you heard. What did you really hear?” Dion asked.
“We did hear it.” Wong and Montgomery were looking this way. Graham said, almost under his breath, “Yes, there was something in the trees. Right over there. I’m not lying.”
Montgomery joined them, but Dion halted Wong in his tracks, telling him to stay where he was just for a minute or two.
“What’s up?” Montgomery asked.
“Nothing,” Graham said. He was leaning against his bike frame, squeezing the brakes on and off, averting his eyes.
“He wants to tell us what they saw up here. He didn’t hear a howl,” Dion said.
“Is that right, Ronnie?” Montgomery said. “You want to say what really happened?”
Ganged up on, Graham confessed. “It wasn’t blood curdling. It was just some stupid guy trying to scare us. He howled, but then he coughed, too. We weren’t scared.”
“Did you see him?”
“I saw him running away. He stumbled. And howled again just a bit. But it was dark, and he was all black-like. He wasn’t running on all fours, but low, like this.” Abandoning his bike, he bent his knees and leaned into a shuffling run for a few steps. “He was … weird.”
Graham was flat out lying when he said he hadn’t been scared, Dion thought. Of course he’d been scared. Who wouldn’t be? James Wong had been scared, too, probably, but not scared enough, and he’d had to take the bizarre encounter and make it more spectacular. A tall tale that got taller with each telling.
“Could you describe this guy at all? Age, height, anything?” Montgomery asked.
“Just weird,” Graham said. “Hairy.”
Eight
MONSTERS
Since they were in the area, Montgomery swung by the Greer house to check up on progress. He parked behind an Ident van, and Dion stepped out and looked at the quiet neighbourhood. Nothing extraordinary about this block except the yellow crime scene tape over the gate. No signs of shock and horror, no trauma. Trees towered, crows cawed, and there was the gentle hum of distant traffic. Just another day in Lynn Valley.
He followed Montgomery through the gate and up the path, even into the house itself, which up to now he had seen only from the outside. Montgomery told him to go ahead and take a look around.
Upstairs, Dion talked to the techs, who were wrapping up loose ends, lifting, photographing, vaccing. The rooms were empty. The design of the place was generous, maybe eccentric, with broad and solid stairs and plenty of odd nooks, large rooms, and high ceilings alternating with low. He thought of his own cramped apartment with its thin walls through which he could hear the mumbling of neighbours and the banging of dishes.
He looked out a window at a moody skyline, a homey neighbourhood below, lights twinkling. Before the crash, he had lived in a high-rise just blocks from the waterfront. He could see all of Vancouver Harbour from there. Not so high — only the tenth floor — but with a good view of two bridges, the strait waters and, in the distance, layer upon layer of mountain ranges jutting into the skies.
There had been a good-sized balcony, too. He had hosted barbecues up there, stood necking with Kate there. Loved it there.
Compare that to this comeback, as Montgomery called it, living in the rear of a low-rise, its small balcony with a view of conifer needles too thick to let in even a strangled ray of sunlight. No Kate, no Looch, no nobody.
He pulled a face and studied the row of houses across the road. That would be Mr. Lavender’s residence, the man who had called in the tip that launched the investigation. And that would be Farah Jordan’s place, if he wasn’t mistaken. He looked down at the lot below. Some old apple trees and lots of overgrown winter-dead grass.
He looked at the window on the top floor of her house; it was visible from here, just past the sweeping branches of a tall fir. Seemed like a pretty good vantage point. Hadn’t she said she couldn’t see anything from her place? Had he asked? Must check his notebook.
Must remember to check his notebook.
He couldn’t make a note to check because he didn’t have a notebook to write it in. He made a mental note instead.
Back out on the sidewalk, Montgomery was about to beep open his minivan, but had to stop to take a phone call. As Dion stood waiting, a figure appeared, coming along Lynn Valley Road, heading this way in a hesitant fashion. A curious neighbour, probably. Dion watched the figure draw closer and resolve itself into a small older man wearing dark work trousers and a woolly brown sweater. His hair was thinning on top, worked into a bit of a comb-over, messed up by the breeze. He had a lumpy nose and pitted skin. He didn’t look happy, but called out, “Good day.”
He had drawn to a stop at some distance and was speaking not to Dion, but past him to Montgomery, who had finished his call and was tucking away his phone.
“Hi there,” Montgomery called back.
“You a policeman?” The man drifted closer.
“That I am.” Montgomery smiled across the distance with a friendly squint. Dion watched the man close the distance between them: twenty feet, a dozen, ten, eight, six.
“I know ’cause I seen you before. From my window.” The stranger pointed not so well down toward the road called Kilmer, his
