trade for a few years before joining the force, and he knew everything there was to know about foundations.
“Looks like the hole was covered with that bit of plywood, but it’s fallen down,” JD said. She pointed out the piece of wood half-buried in mud and a scattering of largish rocks that had maybe propped it up.
“Or dogs smelled something fishy and got at it,” Leith said. Dogs weren’t supposed to run off leash in the city, but sometimes they got away.
He could see water pooling in the dirt around the hole, building up and spilling into the crawl space. From the blackness within, a vague light shifted and flickered.
“The cause of all this fuss is in a duffel bag,” Monty said. “Ident’s in there, just checking if it’s human. In which case we got a problem, ’cause Dad sure isn’t going to fit through that hole.”
Dad, Leith interpreted — as he’d had to time and again since his arrival in North Vancouver — was Jack Dadd, the overweight coroner. Gauging the hole in the foundations now, he could see the problem. The wind shifted, and he could smell death.
“Freaky place,” JD said. She was looking up into the stark branches of the trees, the unappetizing fruit that hung there. “What can you grow in this part of the world? Crab apples?”
Monty looked around, too, but with something like admiration. “One week to Halloween, what a setting for a zombie bash. Great whadyacallit, ambience. Which reminds me —”
A grunt from the base of the house interrupted whatever Monty was reminded of, and Leith watched a white-suited Ident tech squirm from the hole — like a weird birthing — and into the hard beam of the floodlight. The tech made it to his feet and approached the detectives, removing his mask and spitting into the grasses.
“Yeah, well,” he said to Monty, “it’s a body, all right. Been there a while. Lying in a puddle. We got some pictures, but didn’t want to mess around too much. What d’you want us to do? Leave it as is, or haul it out?”
“How fragile is it?” asked JD. “Are we going to rearrange the anatomy if we move it?”
“I think we’ll get it out pretty clean.” The tech looked back at the foundations with a tradesman’s squint. “Shift it onto a tarp, pull it out slow. We got a clear path, no obstacles. I don’t see a problem.”
“It’s either that or a Jack-hammer,” Monty said.
Both he and the tech chuckled. JD appeared to get the joke, but didn’t seem to find it funny. A moment later, Leith got it, too. Jack Dadd. He obliged with a grin, briefly. Across the lawn the constables were toiling like concert roadies, setting up the polypropylene tent that would protect exhibits and equipment. Leith recognized one of them, a man who should be here next to him, in plainclothes, being a detective.
“So what do we know about who owns this place?” he asked Monty.
“JD’s given me a little history on that,” Monty said. “Eccentric dude named Harmon is on title, now living in Florida. We’re trying to contact him. He built it in the sixties, but not to code, and a few years ago it was declared unlivable and closed up. But he refuses to sell or upgrade. As a result, he’s blessed Lynn Valley with its first derelict mansion.”
“Wow.” Leith looked up at the house with interest. It was hardly a mansion, just a regular two-storey home, squat and graceless with a peculiar hip-roof construction and an odd wannabe-tower structure stuck at one corner. The roof was clad in dark metal, the siding in black-brown clapboards clustered with moss. In a neighbourhood of beautiful, bright homes, this one tucked back in the trees had the quality of a mould blemish.
Monty turned to the Ident tech. “Do we preserve the body in situ or do we preserve the hole? I guess we could rip up floorboards, approach it that way, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
Leith asked the tech how the ground in there was for prints.
“Lousy,” the tech replied. “All grit. We stayed off the drag path as best as possible and got a bunch of shots of scuff marks that aren’t going to tell us anything. Ripping up the floorboards will just drop a bunch of crap down, contaminate it all to hell unless we lay down some serious plastic. Again, not worth it. If there’s anything in there, it’s lost in the sand. We’re going to have to sift it all out one way or another.”
“Let’s haul it out. What d’you think, get some good video footage as we go?” Leith asked Monty.
Monty agreed. “Let’s do that.” And to the tech, “Bag got a zip, or what?”
“Drawstring at the top. Knotted, like, a million times. We had to cut a flap in the fabric to see in. Could see the top of somebody’s head and looked like part of a hand. I mean, if we cut the bag wide open, it’ll be that much harder to get it out clean. Best just to bring it out in one piece, bag and all, extra careful.”
“Go for it,” Monty said.
The full team filtered in over the next hour. The rain tapered to a light drizzle. Beyond the fence, Leith knew, the neighbourhood was wide awake now. The more inquisitive neighbours would be hanging about, coats and gumboots over their pajamas, asking questions and trying to get a glimpse through the gates. Here in the yard, the night sky was blotted out by the glare of the LEDs. Jack Dadd arrived. The grisly sack was tugged into view. The army-green canvas was soaked at the bottom, dry on top. Inch by inch, it was transported on its tarpaulin-cum-sled to the shelter. Dadd gave the okay to open the bag.
Some of those present wagered on a Halloween prank even to the last moment, until the heavy canvas was peeled back and what lay within killed all conversation. The corpse was stiffened into a twisted huddle — male or female, it was impossible to say. The camera flashed as the body, released from its bondage, slouched into a gentler curl against the tarp.
Even uncurled, the head remained tucked into its chest, as if shying from their prying eyes. The internal organs would be soup, seeped into the duffel bag’s fabric and the sand below, the rest gutted by bugs. No eyes visible, a mouldering nose, a fine gold chain around its neck.
“Female,” Monty guessed.
“Male,” JD said.
Leith was thinking male, too. The corpse had to have been a young man. Fair-sized in life, probably, but shrunken in death. The head was shaved almost to the scalp but for a bisecting flop of dark hair, flattened and brittle, the modernized Mohawk style. He wore faded black hipster jeans that were shredded in places, a mouldy-looking hoodie, also black, and one dark-blue running shoe. The body had brought with it that foul smell, dissipated by the open air, but unmistakeable. It was that odour that had caused the citizen’s complaint that had brought out the uniforms. Those first responders had made some calls, cut the padlock, entered the lot. Their flashlights had picked out the hump of bag in the crawl space, and they had decided it was sinister enough to call in GIS. And here they all were.
“She was young,” Monty said. “Time of death, Doc?”
Coroner Dadd was the only one present not huddling and grimacing at the rain, his grimace reserved for the fate of the victim before him. “It’s John, actually, not Jane. I’d guess two months, three at most.”
“Two to three months ago? How come we’re only getting complaints now?” JD said.
“The
