have released the odours in a bigger way. A wet dead mouse smells a lot worse than a dry dead mouse, believe me. Also, we don’t know when that hatch came down. If it was recently, that could be another reason.”
JD looked at the house and the high fence that surrounded it. “October, September, August. Whoever dumped this guy knew the area, knew this place was sitting empty.”
Leith had to agree. It wasn’t a busy neighbourhood. Whoever had done this had lived close by long enough to observe that the house was up for grabs. Possible, too, that whoever had done it was an out-of-towner driving in random circles. That person might have driven by and noticed the Do Not Enter signs posted around and thought to himself — or herself — Aha, nice.
But what about the locks on the gate?
Looking around, he suspected the fence marched in an unbroken rectangle all around. Nothing but a shrubby lane ran along the side of the house and, maybe, continued around back. Must check for a weak link first thing. Or a weak board, in this case.
The concert roadie constable who should have been a detective — Cal Dion — approached from the area of the driveway. He looked both soaked and overheated, his cap removed and jacket unzipped. He skirted the corpse on its tarp, not even glancing down, as if to show how little he cared. He nodded briefly at JD and Leith and told Monty, “We’re done here. Constable Randall wants to know if it’s all right to go get a full statement from Mr. Lavender now.”
“Mr. Who?” Monty said.
Dion pointed south. “Mr. Lavender. Lives across the road there. He reported the smell.”
JD made a noise that Leith heard as a snort of laughter, while Dion clarified his request to Monty. “Jackie Randall and I were first on scene. We talked to Lavender and said we might be back. Randall wants to finish up with him. She also wants to start canvassing the neighbourhood. I told her we need permission.” He looked at JD as if daring her to laugh again. “So I’m here.”
Monty shrugged at Leith. “Want to weigh in?”
“Somebody else can deal with Lavender,” Leith said. “And we’re certainly not canvassing anybody this time of night. The body’s been down here a while. Another few hours won’t matter. Thanks, Cal.”
Leith had first met Dion on a case in the Hazeltons earlier this year, but it was a complicated working relationship, the kind he felt was best left at a comfortable distance. He got the distinct sense that Dion felt the same, only more so.
Though Dion nodded a yessir without argument and walked away, the story didn’t end there. A minute later, a shorter, stouter figure came squishing across the lawn to challenge Monty on the same issue, but with a lot more pepper. This was a constable Leith didn’t recognize. Young, probably new to the job, but already taking charge. “Constable Jackie Randall, sir,” she informed Monty. “Half the neighbourhood’s out on the sidewalk, so it seems a good time to ask questions.”
“Last I looked, the neighbours cleared out back home. Nothing to see,” JD said.
“All the more urgent to get knocking on doors,” Randall shot back at her. “Before lights out. And I do want to hand in a full report, which means completing my statement from the man who called in the complaint.”
“Anybody can talk to the man who called in the complaint,” JD said.
“I’m not anybody.” Randall was a head shorter than JD, but a few decibels louder. “I was first on scene.”
Leith opened his mouth to deliver his final no, but Monty beat him to it with a compromise. “If Mr. Lavender is willing, go talk to him, but leave the canvassing for now. As Dave here has just advised your partner, another few hours isn’t going to change things. The first forty-eight is long gone.”
Randall opened her mouth, but Monty made a motion like a magician sending his assistant up in smoke. She gave a brisk shake of the head that said, Wow, I’m working amongst idiots, and tramped away.
“What a little fireball.” Monty grinned. “That girl’s going places.”
There came exclamations from the area of the tent, and JD jogged over to hear the news. Leith and Monty followed. The dead male had been shifted over to expose his bad side, and his body on display was now speaking out — or screaming, more like. The left arm had been amputated at the elbow, and the face was mostly gone. Not taken by rot, but like flesh had been ripped from bone. The mouth gaped as though whatever agonies the man had suffered still coursed through him, showing a set of teeth chipped and knocked from the gums.
“Here’s the arm,” somebody said.
The severed limb was lodged between the dead man’s knees.
Leith wondered about the significance of the crude packaging. A deliberate insult, or a matter of disorganization? It didn’t strike him as either symbolism or panic, but it did point to a certain spontaneity.
He turned away from the body and its attendants, taking a break from the view. He had been through some scary cases in Prince Rupert, and in other postings during his years in the service. Transferring down to the metropolis sure hadn’t gotten him into a better class of crime. But whether in Prince Rupert or North Vancouver or Happy Valley, horror happens.
Some days ago he had told Alison — maybe trying to convince himself more than her — that down here in the big city, there was at least a better support system. The more mules, the lighter the load, right? He had told her as well that his North Van workmates seemed like an exceptional bunch. Broad-minded, empathetic, and smart.
Beside him, Monty said, “Hoo-boy, that’s some bad mincemeat job. Almost enough to turn you vegan, eh, Dave?” and laughed.
Four
CHARMED
Considering the length of Constable Randall’s interrogation of Mr. Lavender, Dion wondered if she had eyeballed the man as her prime suspect, instead of a harmless retiree who had called the sanitation department to report a vague stink on the breeze. The sanitation department had told Lavender there wasn’t much they could do about it, so Lavender had called 911.
On his climb up the front steps, Dion had predicted five minutes of conversation, at most. But five had turned to ten, and Randall was still harping at Lavender about wind direction, garbage removal days, troublesome neighbours.
Lavender seemed to enjoy having late-night visitors. He drew out every answer and ended it on a hook. Dion began to feel it was strategic. When Lavender invited them to move from the porch where they stood to somewhere more comfortable within, Dion decided he was one cop too many and told Randall he was going back to the vehicle to catch up on his notes. When she didn’t object fast enough, he left.
Out in the rain, he looked back at the house, at Lavender’s closed front door. Maybe Randall was right, and Lavender was now pulling out the machete and chasing her around the living room. But then there would be the sound of police-issued 9 mm gunfire — and a whoop of triumph, probably.
Jackie Randall could take care of herself. All Dion had to worry about was getting from here, under the covered archway at Lavender’s front gate, to his parked cruiser down the road without getting soaked. The neighbourhood looked sound asleep. The sky had reneged on its ceasefire and was doubling its efforts to drown the planet. Water drummed down, hit the
