Vantage Point

by Scott Thornley

  “Palmer should have been fired long ago.” MacNeice exhaled. “He’s going to get someone killed.”

  “Well, not if he keeps picking women whose husbands are built like Brahman bulls, no-fear guys with short fuses. Last one was that firefighting Charles Atlas, the guy from the DFD beefcake calendar. I think Palmer’s got some kinda death wish.”

  “My point exactly.” MacNeice looked around, trying to focus on the sleek black flashes slicing through the air above the trees. But their calls were distant now; they were off somewhere riding the thermals. “Okay. Thanks for telling me. We’ll deal with it.”

  Most of the options he’d have for Palmer — desk duty, cold-case research, liaising with national and international law enforcement — might be considered “constructive dismissal” for a line DI with seniority. It was complicated, but he didn’t want to think about it now. “Show me your dead man.”

  * * *

  They stepped into a quiet and immense world on a leaf-and-needle carpet where scale tricked the eye and ear. MacNeice found it majestic, reverent. He felt compelled to speak in a hushed voice — in part because if he spoke normally, it could be heard a hundred yards away. Everywhere, tall trees reached skyward. But towering above them all was the metal cross and its platform, cantilevered outward like the bowsprit on a ship.

  Looking beyond Swetsky, MacNeice could see that the rock face was made up of a series of plates, some projecting far enough into space that they could provide shelter from a storm. Others, however, reached so far out that it would be tempting fate to stand beneath them. There was no telling when they’d decide to let go.

  Swetsky took two respirator masks out of his pocket. “Put this on when we get up there. He’s been here overnight.”

  [16]

  “I was expecting a call, Detective. I just saw the media ­briefing about Matthew Terry and his father,” the female voice said. No hello, no introduction.

  “Ms. Pretty, my name is Detective Inspector Aziz. The purpose of this call is to establish a time for an interview, either at your office or home or here at Division One.”

  “I’m okay doing it downtown, but if possible, I’d prefer to do it now. I mean, over the phone.”

  Aziz’s eyes widened. “Yes, we can do that, with the understanding that a face-to-face interview may still be necessary. For the record, this call is being recorded.” She pressed the Record button. “Ms. Pretty, can I assume that you know the reason for my call?”

  “Because I knew Matthew Terry?”

  “Start by describing to me, if you will, Ms. Pretty, the nature of your relationship with Matthew Terry.”

  “Please, call me Nancy. Matthew and I started dating about a year ago. We saw each other until a couple of weeks ago. It was intensely romantic — until it wasn’t.”

  “Who ended the relationship?”

  “I did.”

  When Nancy didn’t continue, Aziz took a page out of MacNeice’s notebook and waited. She could hear breathing and what sounded like a ring or bracelet tapping on a table.

  “Well, Matt could be — He could be charming. He was very smart, and to be honest, I was swept away.”

  “Go on.”

  “I guess I began thinking of us as a couple.” She chuckled briefly, and sadly. “I put aside or didn’t notice the tiny signals — some not so tiny — that Matthew wasn’t being entirely honest with me.”

  “In what way?”

  “I’m an analyst, Detective. Matthew had a Type-A personality. I am always analyzing, but with him I let that side of me slide.” Aziz could hear a chair squeak; Pretty was shifting her posture. “My father introduced us. He thought Matt was a brilliant investor. I suppose, in Dad’s eyes, he was also a good catch.” A bitter laugh this time. “Look, nothing I say can overlook how tragic this situation is, and I do feel terrible about it. But to be honest, my sympathy is for his father, a man I never met.”

  “What were the signals, Nancy?”

  She sighed heavily. “Do you know the poem ‘The Hollow Men’?”

  “T.S. Eliot? Yes.”

  Pretty cleared her throat and there were more chair squeaks. “Matt would send flowers to my office, he’d open the car door for me, in restaurants he’d pull my chair out, he put my coat on . . . He had his role down pat. He was an extremely attentive lover.”

  “Go on.”

  “It was all rote. He knows — he knew — exactly what to do. He probably studied me; he certainly out-analyzed me. And he delivered — overdelivered — on the details that would win my heart.”

  “And then?”

  “He slipped.” She breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. “He lost it. He couldn’t keep it up. That’s when the analyst in me kicked in. I ran like hell — not literally but mentally, romantically.” She stopped speaking.

  “The hollow man . . .”

  “Oh, yeah. Matthew was a hollow man. There was no core there, no there there, and there’s no cure for that.” She cleared her throat. “He’d been so incredibly interested in me, in my family, my history, in my mind . . .” She laughed, and this time it sounded like self-ridicule. “Christ. It’s so seductive to have someone be so interested, so focused on you. Extraordinary.” She sighed. “Though I guess I would have tired of that eventually.”

  “Then something happened?”

  “Well, I realized one day that I knew very little about him — only what he wanted me to know to fit the part — and I knew even less about his family.” She sounded exasperated with herself. “I could suddenly see through it, through him. I pressed him about his family. The things he said about them were so fucking cruel. He was smirking, and speaking in such a blithe, casual tone. I felt like I was looking at a ghost. Matthew was cold to the core — no soul, zilch. I sent him a letter afterwards, saying as much.”

  “You’re convinced he was playing you? For what reason?”

  “I’m a very good financial analyst, Detective, but Matt could have hired any analyst, so it wasn’t about that. I think he wanted to cement his relationship with my father through me. It would have been an effective strategy. In the movie version, Dad would become his father-in-law and most likely his business partner. My father would do that for me — all he wants is grandkids — and when Dad retired, Matthew would be in control.”

  “But wasn’t Matthew already wealthy?”

  “Yes, but my father is considerably wealthier. And more important, he’s much more connected, not just here but throughout North America.”

  “Did you know anything about Matthew’s business dealings?”

  “Not really, at least not then. Dad told me he’d made a considerable amount of money when he cashed in some shares, enough that he could stop practising law — where he probably also made a small fortune. It may sound disingenuous to you, Detective, but I’m not impressed by wealth. I’ve never taken money from my father or used his name to my advantage.” She laughed; this time it sounded genuine. “Admittedly, with a name as ludicrous as Pretty it’s hard for me to say we’re not related. And yeah, if I’m being entirely honest, the thought of being Nancy Terry wasn’t lost on me.”

  “And later, what did you learn about his business?”

  “When it was over, I spoke to Dad. He said Matthew was the chairman and principal investor in a tech company. The moment it was doing well, he resigned as chairman, cashed in his stock, and doubled his money. Of course, it almost bankrupted the firm. As I said, no soul. They’re doing well now and they’re better off without him, so at least that was good.”

  “Can you think of anyone who would want to harm Matthew Terry?”

  “Only his father, if Matt ever told him what he told me.”

  [17]

  MacNeice spotted two uniforms wearing masks on either side of the ravine, each pair standing as far from the body as possible while still adhering to Swetsky’s orders to secur
e the perimeter. He felt that if he drew an X connecting the four men, the corpse would be found dead centre.

  No longer sublime, the ancient rock face loomed over the men, rendering them insignificant. High above, from the viewing platform, the city spread out like a picnic table in the distance. Beyond it was Burlington, and to the right the seemingly endless blue of Lake Ontario. MacNeice felt like he was entering the domain of a vengeful mountain king. The ground beneath him changed from soft and dry to slick, wet grey rock. The water flowing over the Lower Falls had found a path around fallen stone slabs, creating rivulets everywhere. And after 450 million years of falling and grinding sandstone, that muck had the appearance of liquid lead.

  Any trees, if they had ever existed here, had long ago been crushed to dust. In spite of its name, he couldn’t think of anything lighthearted about the Devil’s Punchbowl, even less for the Lower Falls. This place had nothing in common with the gentle pine-and-leaf-hushed world below. Even coyotes steered clear of it. They knew nothing good would come from getting closer. MacNeice could imagine them passing silently by in the safety of the forest floor, with only furtive glances upward.

  “Over here, Mac.” Swetsky pointed to an enormous sandstone slab positioned directly across the water’s path. “We’ve called it everything from ‘the Subzero’ to a ‘VW minibus,’ but my personal favourite, from the Mick on the hill over there” — he nodded his head towards the cop standing high on the right — “is the ‘cathedral’s altar.’”

  Not bad. Though the Lower Falls were still forty or fifty feet farther on, there was something undeniably sacred about the setting. The slab was its own island, resting on a dry rock plate, around which the water bubbled and spat its way downward. At first MacNeice couldn’t see what Swetsky was pointing at, but as he climbed higher, he saw an outstretched pair of legs. They were relaxed, the way they’d be if their owner had fallen asleep on the grass after a summer picnic. As he continued upward, the rock and the body appeared to rotate in his direction. He could make out a cotton nightshirt, then the shoulders . . . and then the head.

  “What’s that on his head?” MacNeice asked, louder than he’d intended. Cop laughter rippled around the gorge.

  “Yeah, I don’t think this guy’s day was planned on a desk calendar,” Swetsky said. “But right about now’s a good time to slide that thing over your nose.”

  High on the other side of the ravine, a cop said, “Pinch it tight, sir.” Sure enough, a few feet on, MacNeice made contact with a smell so intense it had a colour — yellow — and it grew worse with every step. At first it suggested sweetness, but another step farther it quickly turned sour. It wasn’t a stench; those often clung to the ground. This one floated upward, carried on the slightest breeze. It had a taste as well, but its description had always eluded Mac. Once in the mouth, it was never forgotten.

  “It’s a bit pancaked up here and the mud’s bad around the edges, even though it may look solid on the surface. Follow my footsteps.” Swetsky made a short hop over a stream snaking downhill. “I’ll stand back a bit. Tell me what you make of it.”

  MacNeice was looking down, carefully stepping from rock to rock. There were several boot prints in the mud. When he was a dozen yards away, he squared himself on a larger rock and looked up at the corpse. A grey donkey’s head swallowed the shoulders to within inches of the two dark holes in the chest. The animal’s head looked like papier mâché, while the enormous and comical ears were made of grey and white velour. If it weren’t for the chest holes and the blood, it would have been an amusing costume. Nothing about it made MacNeice smile.

  “Weird, right?” Swetsky said.

  The body was slumped against the slab the way Matthew Terry’s had been against the bed. Arms relaxed at the sides, his hands were lying open on the gravel and mud skim. Knowing how sound carried in this strange place, MacNeice kept quiet but started cataloguing his observations: The body was clean. No scrapes or bruises on the knees, shins, or hands. No mud or abrasions on the feet. The blood flow, heavy around the entry wounds, dropped out of sight and reappeared in the folds of cotton over his lap. Curiously, there was no blood on the legs. MacNeice assumed that the body had been carried here clean and then shot sitting like that. That was going to a lot of trouble. A burp of blood, feces, and urine suddenly escaped the body to merge with the muck, swirling like oil dropped in a rain puddle.

  “He was dead before he got here, but dead from what?” MacNeice said quietly. He looked closely at the ground around him. Stepping off to the right, onto another rock, he squatted to study the terrain in every direction, each time casting an eye back to the corpse. Then he leapt to another, looked down, and squatted.

  A sharp whistle pierced the air from the other side of gorge. Swetsky looked over at the cop who was lifting his shoulders and throwing his hands out to the sides in a silent What’s up? Swetsky returned the gesture and turned back to MacNeice, who had jumped to another rock to study the ground.

  MacNeice took a photograph of a boot print in the mud. Tucking the camera away, he surveyed the path those boots had taken. He moved twice more before reversing his steps, jumping quickly and deftly from rock to rock till he was circling the body in the opposite direction. Each time he stopped, he looked down and then back to the body. Several stops later, he turned to Swetsky with a smile.

  “You want me over there, Mac?”

  “No,” he said, taking out his camera.

  Swetsky watched him point the camera straight down before taking a shot. Then he took several shots of the body, framing them vertically and horizontally. After a few minutes, he tucked the camera away and stepped from rock to rock until he was next to Swetsky. MacNeice launched the image display. A brass V, the one found at Amelia Street, popped up.

  “What’s that?” asked Swetsky.

  “It’s a brass letter V found at the other murder scene. Look.” MacNeice scrolled through the images from Matthew Terry’s bedroom. “Now this . . .” An identical V appeared in the mud and gravel. “Right over there.”

  “No shit. So our scenes are linked. But what’s he getting at with the V?”

  MacNeice scrolled to the next image: the body in repose against the massive rock, the Lower Falls, a rock wall rising to the sky with the cross standing watch above. “Makes quite an image, eh?”

  “You mean a dead guy in a canyon?” Swetsky swatted away a fly.

  “Gorge. I think these V’s are telling us where to stand so we can best appreciate the view.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “You and your wife drove through the Rockies to Vancouver last year, right? How many times did you pull off to take a picture?”

  Swetsky nodded. “Plenty.”

  “Right. And some of those places would have had a sign saying ‘Take a picture here.’ I think our killer is telling us where to stand for the best picture.”

  “Okay, but why here? There’s a goddamn viewing platform up top, with the whole city spread out in front of you and the lake and shit.” They both took the time to look up. “But he had to climb down here — or up from below — carrying a guy in a dress wearing a donkey’s head?” Disbelief spread across Swetsky’s face.

  MacNeice listened to a crow calling somewhere in the canopy. He marvelled at the volume of it, the sound amplified by the shape and size of the gorge. He smiled and turned back to Swetsky. “It’s a nightshirt.”

  “What the fuck’s a nightshirt?”

  “It’s what people wore to bed over a century ago.”

  Swetsky was truly lost. “I understand paybacks, biker-on-biker killings, mob hits, crimes of passion . . . but killing a guy in an old-fashioned dress for a photo op?” He snorted and looked back at the body. “So, we gonna take his head out of his ass?” Ripples of laughter from the cops.

  “Brilliant, and beautifully timed, John. But no, we’ll wait for the coroner and Forensics.” MacN
eice turned to leave. “Aziz had a hunch at Amelia Street. She went looking for the original clothes worn by the two victims. She found them stacked neatly in one of the closets. Have these men search the area.”

  “Looks like we’re back in business, Mac. I’ll also call dispatch and get some more uniforms. We’ll send ’em up to that market shop and to the houses above and below.” Swetsky pulled out his cellphone.

  MacNeice was already making his way carefully across the stream to the soft, dry land. “I agree. Let’s start by asking questions.”

  Swetsky watched him descend, impressed by his agility. He called after him, “You mean like ‘Have you seen a guy carrying a guy in a muumuu wearing a donkey head’ kinda questions?”

  MacNeice removed the surgical mask from his face. “Precisely.”

  [18]

  MacNeice arrived for his Tuesday-morning appointment early. With his cellphone tucked away in the Chevy and no one but Wallace aware of his Sumner sessions, he would use this time to think. Avoiding the magazines, he stood by the window looking out to the front lawn, waiting for something to fly by or land. However, minutes later, when a blue jay began hopping down the massive evergreen, he didn’t notice. He was lost in thought about the crime scenes at Amelia Street and the Lower Falls. He was convinced the bodies were set pieces, actors in a play. But which play, and why? More importantly, why these particular actors?

  The door opened and Dr. Sumner stepped forward. “Come in, Detective MacNeice.” Her greeting voice was always cheerful. He wondered how she managed that when her day was full of people’s anger, sorrow, grief, and guilt. “You know, Detective,” she said as she closed the door behind them, “if I were asked to make a graph of how many clients arrive early or late, they’d be fairly even, male to female. If I eliminated all but Dundurn’s finest, that graph would tilt sharply towards those who are consistently late. Except for you.”