Victoria Falls

by James Hornor

  Despite only having on her Chinese robe, Jenny slipped on a pair of boots, grabbed her car keys, and headed out the door. Charlie could see her handing the man the keys, and he was surprised that they were still in conversation almost ten minutes later.

  As Charlie headed up the stairs to his room, he heard the chime ring of Jenny’s phone.

  “Might be James calling her back,” Charlie thought, and he grabbed the phone from the kitchen counter and headed out to the driveway. By the time he reached the door, the ringing had stopped, and when he handed Jenny the phone, the man was in the driver’s seat, starting and restarting the car.

  “He thinks the relay is bad, but I just had the relay replaced last year.”

  “Electrical problems can be endless. Someone called; I thought it might be James.”

  “That’s not Papa’s number. It’s from the States. Maybe Heather got my number?”

  Jenny meant it to be playful, but Charlie’s response was more a shrug than a shared laugh. He headed back inside, and a few minutes later, he heard the truck start up in the driveway.

  “Let’s go cross-country skiing. It’s way too nice to stay inside.” Jenny was at the bottom of the stairs, and at the sound of her voice, Charlie emerged from his room.

  “Did he fix your car?”

  “He’s coming back this afternoon with a new relay. I feel like I’m in relay hell.”

  “What size are your dad’s cross-country ski boots?”

  “Size ten. I bought him new ones for Christmas.”

  Since Charlie was a size ten, he knew that his last excuse for not cross-country skiing had just evaporated. He was supposed to be heading home, but instead he would spend the afternoon with Jenny on cross-country ski trails near Banff National Park.

  “We’ll take the Lake Moraine trail. Moraine Lake has the bluest water you’ve ever seen.”

  As they prepared to head out, Charlie noticed that Jenny had a quick fifteen-minute routine that allowed her to be on the trail at a moment’s notice. As he was still getting on his boots, she was already in the driveway, arranging her small backpack and tucking her hair into her woolen hat.

  As they headed toward the trail, Jenny glided effortlessly along, moving in smooth strides as they approached the trailhead. It had been years since Charlie had gone cross-country skiing, and so he was amazed at how quickly he remembered the skating motion that was needed to navigate small rises and the heel-toe action needed to cross level or downhill terrain.

  By the time they reached the first trail marker, it was a little before noon and the sky was beginning to gray over, portending an afternoon snow. They stopped briefly for a water break, and as they were shoving off, Charlie’s cell phone began its rendition of “Sweet Melissa.” Charlie glanced at his phone. It was Heather.

  “Do you need to answer that?”

  “My office,” Charlie lied. “If I answer it, my afternoon will be completely ruined.”

  “Oh my God, where’s my phone?”

  Jenny checked every pocket and even rifled through her backpack.

  “You must have left it in the kitchen; why do you need it?”

  “All of our plans for Papa to come home tomorrow depend on us talking to him today. I better go back for it.”

  “Didn’t you leave him a message?”

  “Papa doesn’t listen to his messages.”

  “So should we both go back?”

  “No, I’ll go back and either catch up or I’ll go around the other side and meet you where the trail goes by the lake.”

  “Is the trail completely marked?”

  “The trail is incredibly well marked. You need to see the lake—it’s worth the effort of the five-mile loop.”

  At that Jenny backed up a few feet and changed direction.

  “You’ll be fine, Charlie. See you in about forty minutes. I won’t be long.”

  Charlie watched as Jenny disappeared back down the trail. She was already skiing much faster than before, and her promise to either catch up or meet him at the next trailhead seemed more reasonable. He continued to the next marker, and as he began to catch glimpses of the lake, it began to snow. At one point on the trail there was a small lookout, and Charlie surmised that he was probably as close to the lake as the trail would permit. Thinking that Jenny would appear from one direction or the other in a matter of minutes, he remained at the lookout and took in the panoramic view of the lake surrounded by peaks that reminded him of pictures he had seen of Switzerland.

  The only sound was the crystals of snow falling in the pine branches, and Charlie realized that he hadn’t experienced this depth of natural solitude since his teenage years at his grandparents’ camp in northern Michigan. His life now was one of constant movement and commotion. His daily mantra was if he hoped to survive, he needed to keep moving.

  Somehow Jenny (and perhaps his father) had found a different existence out here in the Pacific Northwest. They both worked off and on at the crisis house in Vancouver, but much of their time was spent here in Lake Louise. Their lives were simple, but intentional. He couldn’t imagine how they got by financially, and for a brief moment it dawned on him that perhaps his mother might have shared some of her limited wealth whenever she intuitively sensed that James was in need. He had no idea if Teresa and his father had stayed in touch after their meeting in Africa, but her knowing that James was his real father would have been a strong incentive.

  Charlie had been standing there for at least ten minutes and the snow was intensifying. He thought about returning on the same path he had just traversed, but he knew Jenny would be disappointed if he didn’t do the full loop. “Besides,” he thought, “by continuing on around, I’ll probably encounter her coming from the other direction.”

  With the intensifying snow, the two and a half miles that would bring him back to the first trailhead became increasingly more challenging. Jenny had failed to tell him that mile four was a series of small hills, and at one point he removed his skis and traversed one of the steepest inclines on foot.

  He now assumed that Jenny was behind him and, with her expert technique, would overtake him at any moment. At one point he thought he heard her screaming, and he stopped to listen. He was engulfed in the silence of the forest, and because his hands and feet were already numb from the cold, he decided to press on, already anticipating the warmth of the fire and the inevitable cups of tea that she would prepare upon their return. He finally reached the trailhead and mustered his last bit of strength to traverse the last two hundred yards back to the house.

  As he came into the clearing that he considered to be their very large front yard, he heard Jenny’s car running, and as he glided into the driveway, he saw her cross-country skis standing upright next to the front door.

  “She must have decided not to come,” he thought. “Probably had something to do with James’s homecoming.”

  As he removed his skis and placed them carefully next to hers, he half expected to see her in the doorway, apologetic about her decision not to rejoin him. Instead, there was only the sound of the falling snow.

  “Hello, anybody home?” Charlie thought of his similar salutation when he had first arrived.

  Opening the door, he glanced over at the fire and noticed that it was almost out. Instinctively he placed two logs on the coals and then called up from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Jenny, are you up there?”

  His own voice echoed in the second-floor hallway. He checked her bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the backyard. She wasn’t there.

  Charlie sat down in front of the fire and tried to sort out a logical explanation. He didn’t even have her cell number. He checked his bedroom and the front closet on the off chance that she might have gone snowshoeing. All the snowshoes were tucked carefully away. He was trying to remain rational, but the rational explanations for her sudden disappearance were down to two or three possibilities—none of them very reasonable.

  “She probably has multiple
pairs of Nordic skis,” he thought. “She may have decided to switch skis when she returned because of a faulty binding.”

  He realized the implausibility of that explanation, but as he sat longer next to the fire, it grew in plausibility, and for several moments Charlie was sure that she was still out on the trail and would appear at any minute. Besides, he couldn’t say for sure whether the skis next to the front door were there or not there when they left on the trail.

  As the sun began to set and the fire became the only light source in the room, Charlie turned on the same table lamps from the night before, and for a moment the friendly atmosphere of the living room seemed to dispel her absence; then, a few seconds later, it made it worse. He had abandoned the “still on the trail” theory and now was convincing himself that she must have decided to walk the three or four miles to the village.

  Suddenly he remembered that her car had been running when he had returned. He put on his coat and boots and headed out to investigate. It was nearly completely dark, but he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned off the ignition. The engine ground to a halt. He opened the door, and as he did something next to the door jamb fell into the snow. At first he thought it was just a paper receipt, but it wasn’t. It was Jenny’s white porcelain hair clip.

  Charlie sat there in disbelief. When they had stopped for water earlier that afternoon, she had removed her woolen hat for just a moment. Charlie remembered thinking how perfect it was that Jenny wore her hair clip even for trail skiing. Now he just sat there staring at it, and for the first time he allowed himself to imagine the unimaginable: the repair guy in the truck.

  So many thoughts came rushing into his head that for a few minutes he continued to sit in the driver’s seat with the car door open, the snow quietly covering his left arm and leg until he mechanically headed back into the house, still clutching the clip.

  At home he would have called 911 and been told that he could not file a missing person’s report until the person was missing for twenty-four hours (or maybe forty-eight hours). He couldn’t remember. But this situation had too many moving parts. Was it possible that Jenny had contacted their father and for some reason she had to rush to Vancouver? Maybe she considered taking her car, and then, thinking better of it, borrowed a car from a neighbor? But she would have left a note. And Charlie had already checked. There wasn’t a note, and he had looked everywhere.

  He now considered his own position. He was in Alberta, Canada. He had spent the night in the house alone with Jenny. He was there on a hunch that her father was also his father, but he actually didn’t know for sure. He wondered about his legal rights as an American citizen in Canada. If Jenny was missing and later presumed dead, he would surely be the prime suspect.

  He paused as the unthinkable began to surface. The only people who knew he was in Lake Louise were Jenny, Heather, and the repair guy in the truck. And did the truck guy actually see him? After all, the mechanic had been in the driver’s seat when Charlie had come outside with Jenny’s phone. Wasn’t he preoccupied with the ignition switch?

  If he just got in his car and drove home, would anyone be able to put all of those pieces together? Charlie thought of his fingerprints all over the house—including the bathtub—and for a moment he wondered if Canada and the United States shared fingerprint information. And there was the message that Jenny had left on James’s phone. She had mentioned that Charlie was the son of a good friend from Africa. James would remember Teresa Benjamin, and Charlie would be arrested in Winnetka in a matter of weeks.

  The other unknown was the guy in the truck. If he did abduct Jenny, was he smart enough to think that Charlie could be his alibi? Was he smart enough to have written down Charlie’s license plate number either that morning or when he returned in the afternoon? It was entirely possible that the mechanic had been completely undone by her lovely legs, her green eyes, and the openness of her smile. He could have formulated his plan that morning and by chance his return and her return to the house had happened to coincide. All of these variables rushed in on him, and he began to think of how unassuming it had been for Jenny to stand in her driveway at ten o’clock in the morning, wearing only boots and her robe.

  It was now almost 6:00 P.M., and Charlie realized that his only option was to stay another night. He didn’t have his father’s number in Vancouver. Jenny (and her phone) were gone. His one task for the evening was to call Heather, and he had already decided that he would have to tell her the truth.

  As he dialed her number, his one hope was voicemail. Instead, in typical Heather style, she answered in mid-conversation.

  “Please tell me you are already halfway home.”

  “Hi honey, I’m actually still in Lake Louise.”

  “Your office called here three times today. According to Craig, you aren’t answering your phone or responding to email. Are you trying to get fired?”

  “I’m in a somewhat messy situation here. Something unexpected has happened.”

  “Did your father die?”

  “Nothing like that. It involves a missing person.”

  “A friend of your father’s is missing?”

  Charlie could tell that Heather was multitasking as she often did on the phone, probably cleaning up the kitchen or folding laundry and only half listening to his replies. Her real intention was to find the opportune moment in the conversation to assert her own agenda and be sure that he would be home by noon on Sunday.

  “It’s actually his daughter. My half sister.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “She also lives here in Lake Louise.”

  “Can’t your father handle this? Why do you have to also be there?”

  “Look Heather, I wasn’t completely honest with you last night. I stayed here last night with my half sister; I haven’t actually met my father.”

  “What?”

  He could visualize Heather now drying her hands or pulling her hair away from her face as she actually began to focus on what he was saying.

  “James Monroe is in Vancouver. We were expecting him to be here tomorrow.”

  Charlie could tell that Heather was recalibrating her responses, attempting to zero in on his fault line.

  “Is your half sister married?”

  “She never married, which is odd.”

  As soon as he said “which is odd” he regretted using that phrase.

  “Why is it odd? How old is she?”

  “Maybe late forties, early fifties.”

  “Is it odd that she’s not married because she’s so attractive?”

  Heather had this ability to cut through to the truth that often elevated her role to that of prosecuting attorney. When she assumed this role, Charlie usually reverted to a defensive posture that only encouraged more questions.

  “So you spent last night somewhere in Canada with an attractive woman in her late forties who has never been married?”

  The way Heather said it, it sounded so incriminating. It occurred to Charlie that if he weren’t careful, she would somehow find out about his being in the bathroom while Jenny was in the bathtub. A part of him realized that she would eventually find that out as well.

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  With truth on his side, he was suddenly able to sound much more indignant.

  “Of course I didn’t sleep with her; she’s my half sister.”

  “And now she’s your half sister who is also a missing person? I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t get it” was one of Heather’s favorite taglines. She could sprinkle it into random remarks to add both incredulity and disdain.

  “I’m pretty sure she was abducted by an auto mechanic.”

  As he said it, Charlie was aware of how ridiculous it sounded, and he had a premonition that someone in law enforcement might have the same reaction. For Heather it was the perfect transition to sarcasm, which was another weapon in her prosecutorial toolbox.

  “Was the mechanic an alien? Was your half sister abd
ucted by aliens?”

  In any other circumstance, Charlie’s response would have been laughter, but the stark reality of his situation forced him to be silent. Heather pressed on.

  “Where were you when the abduction took place? Was it at night?”

  Charlie hesitated. Heather was clearly on a roll, and he was quickly losing all credibility. Better at this point to return to the facts.

  “We went cross-country skiing.” Charlie paused. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how she would react to that image. But he continued. “We went cross-country skiing, and Jenny went back to the house to get her phone. When I returned an hour later, she was gone.”

  “She’s probably at a girlfriend’s house.” Heather was picturing the neighborhoods of Winnetka where, despite the affluence, the houses are fairly close together. “She’s been away four or five hours and you assume she’s been abducted? She’s there, Charlie; she’s in the neighborhood. And even if she doesn’t come home tonight, she’s an adult. She has her own private life. Leave her a note, pack up the car and come home.”

  The way Heather said it, it sounded so easy. For a second, Charlie thought of telling her about the hairclip and the Chinese robe Jenny was wearing in the driveway.

  Instead he decided to agree with Heather, to allow her to envision him packing up the car and leaving Canada. He had no idea how he would explain things to her tomorrow evening or three days from now when he was still in Lake Louise. And so, as he had done on previous occasions with Heather, he lied.

  “Maybe you’re right. I’ll leave Jenny a note, pack up my things, and head out this evening. If all goes well, I’ll be home by midday on Sunday.”

  He paused to give her the satisfaction that she relished when she had her own way.

  “Goodnight, Heather.”

  “Goodnight, Charlie. Ryan will be excited that you’ll be here for his tournament. Drive safely.”

  Charlie hit the “end call” button on his phone, poured himself a whiskey, and sat by the fire. He had heard Jenny scream when he was on mile four of the trail, and now he knew that she had been screaming in desperation. He imagined the mechanic inviting her to sit in the driver’s seat, to try out the new ignition box, and he saw him grabbing her by the neck and hair, dragging her from her car to his truck as she cried out, screaming for help.