Tempers flared. But she did mention something about a notebook?”
A demand was embedded in the question, Leith realized, and once again he felt there was some off-the-record connection between Bosko and Dion, and it worried him. “It’s not his duty notebook, I think,” he said, hesitantly. “It’s personal.”
“Right,” Bosko said, still waiting.
Leith walked to his desk, unlocked it, and produced the little book, which he had flipped through last night, finding nothing remarkable, lists and diagrams, strange catalyst for a dust-up. Bosko took it from him and slipped it into an evidence bag.
“Well, excuse me,” Giroux said. “If that’s his personal property, you can’t just seize it without cause and without warrant. Can you?”
“I have cause, and I can, actually,” Bosko said. “Don’t worry. He’ll get it back.”
She blinked at him. “So what am I supposed to do with him today? Send him packing?”
“Cancel the suspension, please,” Bosko said. “Give him a warning to be good. He’ll finish his week here then return to Smithers, where he’ll get his orders. I don’t have time to deal with it right now, but I’ll be making arrangements.”
“And why exactly is he your problem?” Leith asked.
“He’s my problem because he’s officially posted in North Vancouver,” Bosko said pleasantly. “And that’s my turf.”
Giroux said, “Smithers isn’t his first posting? Wow. We all thought he was fresh out of boot camp. Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“I’ve only found out myself,” Bosko said, and Leith thought it was a lie, and alarm bells were going off in his head now. No doubt about it, the troublesome Constable Dion was under investigation. He crossed his arms, wanting to ask more questions but afraid to step over the line, because a shadow crossed Bosko’s face, the first Leith had ever seen, and it looked like impatience. He didn’t know Bosko was capable of such thing. “Anyway,” the man said. “Excuse me, I have to make some travel arrangements. Don’t want to miss the bus.” He gave an apologetic smile but was on his phone already, thumbing in a number as he left the room. The door banged shut behind him.
When he was safely out of earshot, Giroux said, “Who is that guy? I mean, really.” She sat at her desk and pushed papers around for a bit, still upset. “Hang on,” she said. “Dion. I know that name. Isn’t he the detective in North Vancouver who crashed his car last year? His colleague was riding with him, and died? Remember that, Dave?”
If Leith had heard of the incident, it was long since forgotten. His memory banks were overstuffed with work-related crap these days, and didn’t have room for much else. But Giroux was already answering herself. “Couldn’t be him. The guy in the crash was older, and experienced. A vet. Our Dion’s just a boy, and greener than spring.” She checked a folder and said with triumph, “Yes, I’m right, he’s the one. Crashed his car and was out of commission for a while. Lucky man, to walk out of that mess in once piece.”
She assumed he’d been repaired. Leith wasn’t so sure. Dion must have passed whatever tests they’d put him through, but somewhere along the way there’d been an error. With that attitude, that temper… He looked up as Jayne Spacey walked in, bright-eyed and sharp as a whip, a study in contrasts. She bounced to attention, telling Giroux she was ready to hit the trail again, this time with a stopwatch, and would have bounced right out the door to put her boots to the ground, but Giroux called her back. “Hang on there, Jayne. Come here. Look at me. What’s wrong?”
Leith didn’t see anything wrong with Jayne Spacey. No broken arm, no post-traumatic stress, no anger. She looked good as new, to him. A woman who was going places, places he would never see, damnit.
Spacey hung in the doorframe. “Nothing’s wrong, boss.”
“Don’t give me that. You’re sick.”
“Bit of a cold. It’s nothing.”
And Leith saw it now too, that the young constable wasn’t herself. Her voice was thick, nasally, and her eyes swam about, and it came to him in an epiphany that she had emptied her medicine cabinet to get her through this day. Nothing to do with the assault, probably, but yesterday’s traipsing about in the cold. Traipsing about looking for Dion.
The women were arguing now, loudly, about Spacey’s fitness to run the trail in this condition, and the argument was lively but brief, ending in Giroux physically marching the young woman to the door and telling her, “Go home. Now. Somebody else can do this.”
With Spacey gone, Giroux was back at her roster, once again looking for volunteers. “So which of you wants to do it? I would, but I’m about half the size of Rob Law.”
“Get Mike Bosko to do it,” Leith grumbled.
Giroux gave him a sour look. “How about you? About time you shifted your weight.”
Leith was fit enough, just barely, but desperately didn’t want to run that trail. He said, “One of the constables, then. Thackray.”
“I told you, Thackray can’t run.”
Leith’s mood was starting a dangerous downhill slide. Maybe it was the fact that Spacey had been wooed away by Mike Bosko, while he hadn’t even been courted. Maybe it was distrust of Bosko’s weird agenda. More likely it was just the threat of having to run up a mountainside in the pouring rain. He raised his voice. “What d’you mean Thackray can’t run? He’s a cop. He’s got to be able to run. It’s a prerequisite.”
“And Ecton’s been working all night,” Giroux went on, ignoring him. “Lynn Daniels couldn’t compete with Rob Law any better than me. Well, a bit better. Augie’s on another file that requires his undivided attention, and my other two are testifying in Prince George as we speak.”
There were half a dozen others that she and Leith ran through before he gave up. They were out-of-towners, all good candidates, he thought. But Giroux seemed to think it unnecessary to pull them from their tasks when a perfectly good David Leith was going to be sitting around twiddling his thumbs all day.
He looked at the sleety grey window and saw himself slogging along at two thousand metres above sea level with a stopwatch. Exercise was not his thing these days, and so what he if was looking more solid than ten years ago? Alison said it looked good on him, and he agreed.
Giroux said, “Don’t mope. You’re not our last resort. Constable Dion can do it.”
“Dion cannot do it,” Leith snapped. “He’ll fall and break his neck. And while he’s at it, he’ll cause an avalanche that’ll wipe out your precious village.”
But the Queen of the Hazeltons only nodded, a mule at heart. “He can do it. And he will. After he and I have a little talk.”
Leith considered her stubborn face and considered the menace of Dion, and sighed. “No. I’ll talk to him.”
* * *
In civilian clothes, jeans and sweatshirt, boots and leather, Dion stepped into Giroux’s office, finding not Giroux but Constable Leith standing by the window, his back to the outdoors. He looked more tired than usual, and pissed off in advance. “Weren’t you told you’re
