Invisible Dead

by Sam Wiebe

  When he ascertained I wasn’t in the forest—and this is just conjecture—he came back to the cliff to look for signs of a fall. If I wasn’t in the forest I must have tried to make my way down the cliff face. He’d want a body to present to Rhodes.

  I can’t put myself in his headspace. I think I bothered him. He’d come after me on foot, with no gun. It had been personal or it had been a game. Likely both. Gains seemed so detached from emotion that finding someone to hate might have made him happy. But that happiness was contingent on bringing me down. As I moved farther away from him, it became exasperation. Charles “Ill-Gotten” Gains couldn’t be defeated, least of all by a shoeless nothing with one good hand. I didn’t get to win.

  So when he saw me below him, making my way up the grass between the riverbank and the road, he was prepared to match and exceed any effort I could make. I wouldn’t get away.

  I looked up and saw Gains peering at me over the edge. He was still, perhaps trying to fathom how I’d made it down there. I was limping. I’m sure he noticed that.

  My throat was raw, my jaw hurt. My lungs felt like the moisture had been salted and smoked out of them. I didn’t say anything. It took all my effort just to give him the finger.

  I laughed at my own audacity, and at the blank look of rage that crept over Gains’s face. I waved for him to come down.

  Gains started down the sheer cliff face.

  There was simply no way he could make it. Maybe he thought I’d climbed down here, and somehow controlled my fall. That was what he started to do.

  He hung down off the cliff and found a ledge for his feet, swung down till his hands gripped that same ledge, not incautiously but hurried, angry. He made his way a few yards down and I thought, he can do this, the son of a bitch.

  Below him the cliff receded inward. There were no more footholds. His legs flailed, searching for purchase. He was supporting his weight with his arms, swinging as if he could drop down and cling to the cliff face itself like some type of creeper.

  He tried it but the angle was off, the depression too great. Gains fell with nothing in reach until he hit the bottom.

  It was a sickening sound, less a unified thud than the accumulated sounds of a dozen wrapped and fragile things breaking at once. The rocks that greeted him at the bottom were uneven and jagged, and his body was forced to submit to their geometry.

  Before impact he’d seemed to hang in the air like a moth with damaged wings. He didn’t scream. Even after impact, in the silence, he might stand up and give chase. It wouldn’t have surprised me.

  After an interval listening for sounds of life, I approached him. I hoped to find a working cellphone, shoes, anything. I had the knife out, which was a pointless precaution. Gains was quite dead.

  His legs were a ruin of blood and bone. His back was contorted unnaturally. One arm was broken, but his hands seemed unbothered by the fall. His manicured nails shone off his small hairless hands.

  I worked his bloody shoes off. I reached into a pocket and felt nothing but blood. There was a cellphone, lodged in his breast pocket. I had to untwist his torso to get it out.

  He’d gone out in a glorious mess, which is what some people seem to want. Maybe he would have regretted not bringing a bunch more people with him. His eyes were open and blood leaked out of his mouth. Underneath the blood the blank expression remained. Gains had met Death head-on and hadn’t been impressed.

  —

  The town was a stretch of strip malls including the one with the vet clinic, plus a surrounding blot of housing large enough to sustain its workforce. It had the feel of a company outpost. The houses had a lack of creativity, a disdain for yards and all but the most utilitarian community services.

  There was a church, though. There are always churches. I knocked on the door but no one answered.

  I sat—collapsed—on the steps. Gains’s cellphone came to life with a bouncy Virgin Mobile jingle as I hit the power button. Jeff answered his home phone on the twenty-first ring.

  “Chen,” he said.

  “It’s Dave. Need you to pick me up. I need some clothes. You might want to bring the gun from the office.”

  “Can it wait a couple hours?” he asked.

  “You have something more important than rescuing your partner who’s been missing half a week?”

  I heard him and Marie murmur sleepily to each other.

  “I’m going to be a father,” Jeff said.

  I looked around at the tired township, bathed in the first glow of the day, all doors still shut. I heard a car, a newer model, not a Jeep.

  “Take your time,” I said.

  —

  I called my mother and told her I’d clean up my mess, and that I’d never go another day without calling her, and that yes I was aware there was a dead dog on her back porch. I called the office, asked Shuzhen for my messages, and asked her to look up something for me. I called Shay but nobody picked up.

  Jeff arrived around ten with some Zellers clothes and my ID. He insisted on driving me to the hospital. I told him to forget it. He told me just once he’d like me to not be an idiot about everything.

  It turned out my hand had been set badly and needed to be rebroken and reset. What you get, I guess, when you force a frightened veterinarian to perform field surgery.

  I was dehydrated, had a bruised windpipe, an infected cut on my left foot and an assortment of slices and scrapes. My first meal back in Vancouver was hospital food.

  After that came the dialogues and trialogues with police officers and lawyers. I was questioned about Gains, whose body had been found by a wildlife official.

  Ryan Martz tried to talk to me off the record, just between us old friends. He said it looked like someone had beaten Gains to a pulp and tossed him off a cliff. He asked if I’d heard of Gains, if I was aware of his pedigree.

  Martz brought up an internet clip on his laptop. It was Gains, younger, executing an ankle lock on a much taller opponent. An amateur bout, filmed with a camcorder. Most shocking was the grin young Gains cracked when his arm was raised. A whole lifetime of victories ahead of him.

  “This guy isn’t some sick shut-in that abducts teenagers,” Martz said as he walked me out of the station. “Gains was known. He has people. They’ll be interested in what happened to him.”

  “I’m sure they’ll find strength to cope,” I said.

  Martz told me about the break-in at my apartment. He told me to make a list of what was missing and he’d help check the pawnshops. He asked if I wanted a brochure full of tips on how to minimize the risk of burglaries.

  Don’t own anything nice. Or buy everything nice and stay home all the time, cocooned in your luxury. Don’t befriend anyone who makes less money than you. Don’t associate with unsavoury elements. Move into a bank vault.

  I appeased my mother with a visit. I sluffed through coffee and dessert. River drove me home in my car.

  “School going all right?” I asked her.

  “Meh. It’s all prerequisites this semester. Auntie Bea has been nice about it, but it’s school, y’know?”

  “You want to come work for me?” I asked.

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m not going to talk you out of it,” I said. “You’ll have to stay in school, but I’ll start you in the office and show you what I know.”

  “Which’ll take all of eight minutes,” she said.

  I told her she could keep the car for the next day. I got out and approached the patio.

  The glass had been broken. The landlord had taped sheet plastic over it.

  I slashed it and stepped through, turned on the lights. Rhodes hadn’t lied. I could see where his men had tossed the place, upsetting the shelves of the bookcase, overturning cushions. Someone else had taken the things of value.

  The TV was gone. The liquor cabinet was vacant. The stereo had been removed and the components taken. The record crates were empty.

  But the bed was undisturbed. I changed the sheets and fell into
it, and didn’t bother getting up for a long while.

  39

  IT WAS TWO DAYS until I was up to visiting the Overman compound again. I’d spent those days handling business and assuring creditors and other parasites that I was still a viable host.

  I’d corresponded with Caitlin, Caitlin’s cleaning service, Wayne Loam, Dolores Gunn. And I’d left a message for Terry Rhodes.

  It was half past noon and no one was expecting me. I’d been delighted to wake up and see clouds on the horizon, thick, roiling clouds. The weatherman on CBC said there was a chance of rain, but he’d been saying that for months. I think he decided that was a safe bet for Vancouver, recorded all his broadcasts over a weekend in June, and took the summer off.

  Nick Overman opened the door. I reintroduced myself and shook his hand. I watched him smile while he struggled to remember me.

  “Dan Wakefield,” he said. “You’re partners with Jed Chen.”

  “Close enough,” I said. “Can I come in?”

  He allowed me inside and turned off the TV. He’d been watching sports highlights and having a nip of gin. Did I care for one? I told him some days I had trouble caring for anything else.

  “You’re here to see Pop,” he said, mixing two highballs at the ornate rosewood bar. He had seventy-dollar French gin and no-name-brand tonic. A man after my own heart.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  “He’s down for an hour or so. He usually naps before Marian comes back at two.”

  “Is it all right if I wait?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Nick said, “if you can sit through some ESPN.”

  We watched a few minutes of draft picks and golf bloopers, and a roundtable discussion on league expansion. “You’re either growing or dead,” one personality said. I savoured the gin.

  “Nice way to spend a Saturday,” Nick said as he got up for refills. “Kids at their practice, wife at her charity thing, Pop getting his rest.”

  “About your father,” I said.

  “Is it urgent? I’m sorry. Should I have woken him up?”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I wanted to ask him about a property he owns. A little group of cabins up one of the North Shore Mountains.”

  Nick smiled. “Camp Broken Arrow,” he said. “That’s what I named it as a kid. We used to go there as a family, way, way back. Cheap vacation, nice getaway on weekends.”

  “I can imagine circumstances where it would be very pleasant to stay there.”

  “I haven’t thought about that place in twenty years,” Nick said. “I think Pop sold it.”

  “He’s still listed as the owner.”

  “Is he?” Nick frowned. “I could check on that.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  He left the room a minute, came back with a fresh ice tray. He hammered the cubes out and brought the drinks back to the couches.

  “I’ll be honest,” Nick said. “Pop’s finances are—well, the word ‘labyrinthine’ comes close to the mark. He was a good income generator, but his methods were less than meticulous, and occasionally, well.” He shrugged. “ ’Tween you me and the fence post, he associated with some shady characters. Not everything was one hundred percent squeaky clean.”

  “Like Terry Rhodes and the Exiles,” I suggested, “far as shady characters. People like them?”

  “Yes,” Nick said sharply. “Pop used to get a thrill associating with tough guys. He used them as security for a few corporate events. It was—not a success.”

  “But he kept ties with them,” I said. “Maybe let them use the cabins?”

  Nick rubbed his hand over his mouth and chin as if stroking a beard he didn’t have. “Now you’ve got me interested,” he said. “Only way to sort this out is to ask him. You’ve got time?”

  “Nothing but,” I said. “After this I’m off for the rest of the summer.”

  “Summer’s almost over,” he said.

  “Good.”

  He left and I watched him through the living room window, round the corner of the compound toward his father’s place. I waited and sipped my drink. It was damn good gin.

  He came back shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Marian really has him doped up. He’s been having trouble sleeping, more than usual. Started around the time of your last visit. Coincidentally, I’m sure.”

  “I have that effect on people,” I said.

  “Refill?”

  I didn’t stop him.

  “Can you answer a question for me?” I asked.

  “Shoot.”

  “I don’t know much about finance.”

  “That’s not really a question.”

  “Your father’s got this property and he owns it outright,” I said. “No mortgage.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “And with his ailments, plus his messy bookkeeping, his assets, like the cabins, are just sitting there.”

  Nick nodded. “His doctors warned him. They said he could live twenty years in a garden or two in a boardroom. He made the right choice. In that instance.”

  “So who pays for upkeep and maintenance on the cabins?”

  Nick spread his hands. “As I said, it’s a jumble. Maybe the place isn’t maintained.”

  “But your father does no business.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you have his power of attorney.”

  Nick had been sipping from his glass. He paused and lowered it, set it on the floor.

  “Which means what?” he said.

  “I don’t know much about taxes but I know you have to pay them. Property taxes being one example. Otherwise you end up in arrears, penalties mount up, you lose the place.”

  “It’s possible the camp is in arrears,” Nick admitted. “I could check it for you.”

  “I already did,” I said.

  Nick stood up. He looked down at his drink, at me, smiled. “Bit weak, this one. Top yours up?”

  “I’m good,” I said. “About the camp.”

  “This is really bothering you, isn’t it?” He slid open the drawer of the bar and brought something out.

  “I spent some time there courtesy of Terry Rhodes,” I said. “When I looked into the finances of the place, know how many irregularities I found?”

  “Considering Pop’s penchant for bending the rules, and Terry Rhodes’s penchant for obliterating them, I’d say a few.”

  “None,” I said. “Property taxes have been paid regularly. Utilities, too. From accounts controlled by you as administrator of your father’s funds.”

  Nick turned around very slowly. He balanced the tumbler in his hands. As he sat down he stirred his drink with a silver teaspoon. His face became haggard and grief-stricken almost as if on cue.

  “My father had a deal with Rhodes,” he said. “It’s a deal I have to honour. Otherwise Rhodes has threatened a scandal, and the old man wouldn’t last through that. Can you understand, if not condone it?”

  “All I want is to understand,” I said. “I’m no authority. It’s your word against mine.”

  Nick ran his forearm under his nose. “I appreciate that.”

  “But I do need to understand.”

  “All right.”

  “Why did you kill Chelsea Loam?”

  Nick blinked. His brow furrowed. He went through a silent film star’s repertoire of exaggerated masks of feigned surprise.

  “Why would you think I—” he let the unvoiced bit hang in the air.

  “Killed her?” I said. “I like the way you phrased that. Not ‘why would I do that?’ but ‘why would you think I’d do that?’ And to answer that question, because of how much you wanted the diary. You paid or enticed Rhodes to get it from me. You gave him and his men the run of the cabin for that purpose.”

  “You’re being silly,” he said.

  “You’re the only one Rhodes would answer to. Not because you have more money than him, but because you have clean money, and ways to make money clean. He told me himself he’d’ve killed me if it was up to
him.”

  “Maybe I did want it back,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t want some prostitute’s lies scandalizing my father.”

  “It’s the twenty-first century. No one’s all that scandalized by rich people with wandering dicks. And as much of a busted old minotaur as your father is, he’d probably be proud.

  “No, Nick,” I continued, “it’s not about what the diary contained, it’s what it might’ve contained.”

  “Meaning?”

  “If you thought it mentioned sex, you’d be concerned. But you wouldn’t sell yourself to Terry Rhodes. You’d only do that if there was something more at stake—if there was a chance she’d written down something about who killed her.”

  Nick said nothing.

  “Rhodes knew it, too. He knew when he brought Chelsea to you the power you were giving him. And he knew when he learned about the diary that if he told you about it, you’d sell yourself to him all over again. That’s assuming you two haven’t had a partnership this entire time.”

  I took a drink, ice slivers amidst the diesel-and-lavender burn of gin.

  “And the best part? There was nothing about you in the diary. Not a word. And yet look at all the misery you caused to get it back. At least three others dead, one of them a friend of mine. Just to shut up someone who was already silent.”

  “It’s hardly evidence,” Nick said.

  “It’s not evidence at all. Just the truth—fragile, unprovable, all but useless.”

  “I didn’t kill her,” he said.

  “Nick.”

  “I didn’t. Swear I didn’t.”

  “I’m a private investigator, not a cop. There’s nothing I could accuse you of a big-money lawyer couldn’t help you slip. You don’t have to convince me.”

  “Terry—”

  “I know his part,” I said. “I know Chelsea had a good roster of regulars. As she slipped into addiction she had to work harder and take greater risks to make the same money. Risks like going with Rhodes, seeing who he set her up to see. When he pitched her to you, did he tell you it was sex only, or you could do what you wanted with her?”

  Nick didn’t answer immediately. He was leaning back in his chair, hands in his pockets. When he spoke his voice had assumed a childish tone, like a son who’s totalled his father’s car calling from a drunk tank. He’d become small.