Serpents Rising

by David A. Poulsen

  “So maybe he’d heard about his dad and is scared,” I said

  Cobb turned back to us. “Could you see what he was wearing?”

  Jill looked at the sky, thinking. “He was a ways off so I can’t be too detailed, but jeans, a greyish jacket with a hood, a dark toque. And he had a backpack, blue, a couple of shades of blue, I think. That’s about it.”

  “You okay with going a little farther?” Cobb asked.

  “Sure.” Jill nodded.

  We continued south past a car wash on our left. A little farther on, an opening forked off to the left, either a street or an alley; we’d have had to climb up an incline to find out. Cobb seemed to take note of that route, then chose to stay on the path. It continued its way south with a couple of twists along the way then down under a bridge, this one for vehicles. As we came out from under the bridge, we could see Stampede Park ahead and to our right on the other side of the river. Cobb stopped.

  “There’s a lot of places he could have ducked off and lost you, especially if that’s what he was intent on doing.”

  Jill nodded and all three of us looked around for a few seconds.

  Cobb smiled at her, nodded at me. “Jill, thanks again for the help. In fact, thanks to both of you. I’m going to cruise the area for a while, see what I can see. Adam, maybe you can walk Jill back to the shelter.”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t need —” Jill began.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I have to go back that way to get my car anyway.”

  Cobb said. “If you happen to see Jay again —”

  Jill held up a hand. “I know … call you. I will. I’ll keep my cell phone with me from now on, promise.”

  Cobb nodded. “Thanks.” Then he continued down the path away from us.

  Jill and I watched him go, then turned and started back the way we had come. We were walking slower than we had when she was showing us the route Jay Blevins had taken. Not talking much at first.

  As we emerged from the tunnel a second time, I finally said, “How long have you been volunteering down here?”

  “You asked me that before.”

  “And you didn’t answer. Actually, you said something about it being a pickup line as I recall.”

  She laughed and I did too. “I guess it’s been two years, maybe a little more. I had a friend who’d been working with the shelter and she got me into it. Then she moved to Vancouver and I liked volunteering so I just stayed on. I know it sounds corny but when I see people like that couple that were there when you came in today and I know there’ll be stuff for their kids to eat at least for the next few days and I see their relief, their gratitude, it’s pretty cool.”

  “I can see that it would be. What about the shelter part? That must be difficult sometimes — people strung out, hypes, people carrying God knows what disease…. I would think there are times —”

  “Mostly there are moments when I wonder how much good we’re really doing. But every once in a while, not nearly often enough, there’s a success story. Someone goes from our shelter right into treatment and comes back maybe three months later and they’re still clean. I know three months doesn’t sound like much, but to an addict that’s a couple of lifetimes. Those are pretty special times.”

  We walked in silence for a while and were almost back to the shelter.

  “What about you and Cobb?” she asked. “You don’t seem exactly … uh … the same. How did you two come to be working together?”

  “That’s a question that’s going to need a coffee to answer. If you have time maybe we could —”

  “There’s a Starbucks up the street.”

  “Unless that was a pickup line.”

  “It’s okay, mine was too.” She smiled.

  We were nearing the front door of the shelter. “Are you sure Celia can handle things for another half hour or so? She didn’t look confident.”

  “Confident, no.” Jill smiled. “Competent, yes. But we better keep your answer to twenty minutes, just in case.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. And we sped up in unison.

  Nine

  “What can I get you?” I asked Jill as we walked into the trademark smells and sounds of Starbucks. When I was a kid, I’d lie in bed in the morning and listen to the voices of my mom and dad as they talked in the kitchen and I could smell the coffee they were drinking as they talked. Early on I associated the notion of being a grown up with the act of drinking coffee.

  The sounds of that particular Starbucks were two-fold — the first was the high-pitched call of a particularly enthusiastic barista with vivid red hair and a powerful, almost painfully screechy voice. “One venti, non-fat, extra-hot, decaf, Toffee-Nut Latte, no whipped cream, double sprinkles.”

  She went on a break just after Jill and I came into the place, which saved me the unpleasantness of having to kill her. The second and far more soothing sound was the stereo system playing a compilation CD of Neil Young songs. I’d seen him in concert a couple of times — liked the man, loved the music. Had to be a good omen.

  “Maybe I’ll have a Caramel Macchiato,” Jill answered.

  “Great, grab us a table. I’ll get the drinks.” A couple of minutes later, I handed her the Caramel Macchiato and sat down opposite her with a Verona blend for myself. She smiled her thanks at me.

  “I met his dad, you know,” I said.

  “When you say ‘his’ could you be more specific?”

  I pointed up at the ceiling speakers. “Neil Young. His dad was Scott Young. Sportswriter, wrote kids books, Scrubs on Skates. I read it four or five times when I was a kid.”

  “Neil Young. Now why wouldn’t I have known that was who you were talking about?”

  “You like him?”

  “Neil or his dad?”

  “Neil.” The speakers were pumping out “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

  “I like him a lot.”

  “Great,” I said. “That means you can stay.”

  She laughed. I liked her laugh, not just the sound of it, but the way her face and even her shoulders were part of it.

  Silence returned. I gave it a few beats, then said, “Well, now about the question you asked earlier. Cobb and me.”

  She nodded and sipped the Caramel Macchiato.

  “My wife died a few years ago. Eight actually. In a fire … a fire that was deliberately set.”

  She set the drink down, sat up straighter; her face lost its colour. “Oh my God. Adam, I … I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. If I’d had any idea —”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. Really. I hired Cobb to do some investigating and that’s how we came to know each other. I hadn’t seen him in a long time but he knew I’d done some writing about the drug scene in Calgary and a few other places as well, so when he needed help finding Jay Blevins he thought I might be of some use.”

  “Did you ever find out who…?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  She smoothed her hair with one hand and seemed to be studying me. “You’re sure that someone …” Her voice trailed off.

  “The fire department and cops have people that look into that kind of stuff; they’re good at what they do. They’re sure it was arson. For a while I was the prime suspect.”

  “I can’t imagine how awful that had to have been.”

  I nodded. “It was pretty bad.” I picked up my coffee cup but set it down without taking a drink. “So was not finding the killer.”

  Jill looked down at the table for a long minute. “Are they still looking for the arsonist?”

  “If they are I don’t know about it. I guess it’s one of those cold cases now. If some clue happened to drop out of the sky and land on the right person’s desk, maybe they’d do more investigating, but otherwise not much is happening.”

  “You said you hired Cobb?”

  “Not right away. One year after the fire I received a note in the mail from the person I believe set the fire. The note was … laughing at me I gues
s, literally and figuratively. It was a reminder of what happened and the ugliest thing I’ve ever known. That’s when I hired Cobb to try to find the person who murdered my wife. He worked as hard as anyone could possibly work. But we haven’t found the killer … yet.”

  “That’s twice you’ve added ‘yet’ at the end of a comment about finding the killer.”

  “That’s because someday I’ll find him.”

  Neither of us spoke. Jill held her coffee, I drank some of mine. And I knew that so far my first meeting with her had been pretty much a downer. It was time to change the mood.

  As if to help me, “Rockin’ in the Free World” came to an end and was replaced by “Harvest Moon,” one of the great romantic songs of all time. I said, “So, what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Well, you know, who and what is Jill Sawley in twenty-five words or less?”

  “Twenty-five words. It takes more than that to tell you about how my being born took fourteen hours and almost killed my mother.”

  “Fair enough. Dumb idea anyway. How about one thing that’s important in your life … besides the shelter.”

  “That’s much better. And easier. I don’t even need the twenty-five words. My daughter, Kyla, she’s eight and she’s great. Her words, not mine, but I agree with her assessment wholeheartedly.”

  I smiled and nodded. “A daughter, Kyla. How cool is that.”

  “Why is it that the words ‘how cool is that’ felt more like ‘that sucks’ coming from your mouth? You don’t look like one of those guys who can’t stand kids.”

  “I’m not, not at all. And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that.” I looked down at the contents of my coffee cup for a long minute. “Listen, Jill, I’m not very good at this. Since Donna died you’re the first woman I’ve talked to for more than five minutes who wasn’t a relative or someone trying to sell me insurance.”

  “Well, if it’ll make you feel more comfortable I have a terrific special this week on term life. No medical required.”

  I laughed. “Sign me up. Okay, I need a mulligan here. Let’s start over. You ever see Sleepless in Seattle?”

  Jill nodded and smiled. “A long time ago. Chick flick. You saw it?”

  “And liked it, even if it was a chick flick. Anyway, you know the part where Tom Hanks is trying to get back into dating again and he’s totally clueless?”

  “Vaguely. Doesn’t he ask one of his friends for advice?”

  “Rob Reiner. And that’s because the Tom Hanks character has been out of the dating loop forever and doesn’t know where to start. Think of me as Tom Hanks. Thing is, I don’t know the protocol here. Is this where you tell me your life story, then I tell you mine?”

  She shook her head. “Uh-uh. Life stories are first date stuff. This isn’t a date so it doesn’t qualify. And besides, if I don’t get back to the shelter, Celia could stage a mutiny.”

  She finished the last of her Caramel Macchiato and stood up. I followed her lead.

  “Uh, so Kyla, she’s eight and she’s great — is there a Kyla’s dad in the picture?”

  “Dad, yes. Husband, no. We split four years ago. He lives in Toronto. Sees Ky three or four times a year. A month in the summer. He’s a good father and a good guy but we’re oil and water.”

  I exhaled. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. “Oh, well … uh … in that case, I was thinking maybe we …”

  She swung her purse over her shoulder. Smiled at me, touched my arm. “You have my number. Call me.”

  And she was out the door. I had planned to walk her back to the shelter but I sat down instead. I was breathing okay but my knees were shaking. “Jesus, I wasn’t this bad when I was fifteen.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud. A woman, mid fifty-ish, sitting alone at the next table leaned in my direction. “I think the phrase you were searching for goes something like ‘maybe we could go out sometime.’”

  I looked at her. She was smiling and she looked like somebody you’d like to have for your aunt.

  “You could have slipped me a note,” I said.

  She laughed. “I could have but I would have missed out on some lovely entertainment.” She straightened up and picked up the book she’d been reading. I glanced at the title, something I do, or at least try to do, whenever I see someone with a book on the LRT, doctors and dentists waiting rooms, and in coffee places. She was reading Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda.

  I pulled my parka off the back of the chair. The reading lady looked over at me again.

  “A couple of hints,” she said. “The daughter’s name is Kyla. That’s a good thing to remember.”

  I nodded and said, “Thanks for the tip.” I started to stand up again, sat back down. “You said you had a couple of hints. What’s the second one?”

  “If you’re going to reference pop culture you might want to be a little more current.”

  “Sleepless in Seattle? That was bad?”

  “Not bad. Just old. I recommend cultural references from the current millennium.”

  “But she’d seen it.”

  “You were lucky.”

  I grinned at her and held out my hand. “Adam Cullen.”

  She shook my hand. “Kay Towers.”

  “Kay, I appreciate the help.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Let me ask you something. You have any nieces or nephews?”

  “Five. Plus a couple of grand-nieces. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious, I guess. Kay Towers, you have a great day.”

  She smiled and said, “I am.”

  This time I stood up for real. On my way out I put five dollars on the counter and told the barista, “Whatever that nice lady over there is drinking, please take her another one.”

  And I stepped out into the night to another nice surprise. The wind had swung around to the west and the temperature had come up a few degrees. An Alberta Chinook. I started off in the direction of the Honda humming “Harvest Moon” as I walked.

  Neil Young. Good omen.

  Ten

  I got back to the apartment just after six o’clock. Cobb hadn’t said when he expected me to start my watch — surveillance — of the warehouse on Garry Street but I figured around nine would be about right.

  That left me time to go for a run, warm up a leftover hamburger-noodle casserole, take a hot bath — I’m a shower guy but this felt like a long, slow bath night — and maybe delve into another of Donna’s photo albums before hitting the road.

  By eight o’clock I was sitting in the living room, Donna’s photo albums encircling me.

  I found myself studying certain pictures: Donna in the grade nine drama production of Annie playing Miss Hannigan with a suitably nasty air about her; Donna as a member of the Lady Marauders, the volleyball team that the caption noted were the Christmas tournament champions that year; Donna with friends at the lake, with her parents at a backyard barbecue; and so on.

  I wasn’t sure what I was learning. Despite her own claims to the contrary, Donna was not unattractive. In fact, I didn’t even see her as plain. Mostly she reminded me of girls I had known who, as the phrase goes, “walked to the beat of their own drummer.” Which I think is code for didn’t-give-a-shit-about-what-other-people-thought-of-them.

  I glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes until I had to leave. Enough time to get a start at least on the album entitled “Donna Leybrand, 15 Years Old.” Donna in her grade eleven year.

  But five minutes would have been sufficient to get through that album. While none of the previous albums had used every page, this one’s photos took up maybe a quarter of the pages. For the first time, not all of the photos were fastened in place. On some of the pages, pictures lay loose. There were fewer captions too, and those that were there were less detailed than what I’d seen to that point.

  It was like Donna had lost interest that year. Teen rebellion? Raging hormones? Or simply attention directed elsewhere, a perfec
tly normal and common occurrence among fifteen year olds. Changing priorities in a teenager’s world.

  Whatever it was I didn’t have any more time to contemplate. It was time to make my detecting debut. I threw together a couple of tuna bunwiches and a Thermos of coffee, added a giant Dairy Milk chocolate bar and two cans of Red Bull, grabbed my binoculars, and headed out the door.

  During the fifteen minute drive to the warehouse on Garry Street I made a phone call. There was a question I needed to have answered.

  Lorne Cooney’s wife was a high school English teacher. Lorne and I hadn’t worked together since the drugs series we’d been putting together when Donna died. But we bumped into each other from time to time, had met for coffee a couple of times, and once for a few beers in the Liquid Lounge at the Westin.

  Today, it was Rachelle Cooney I wanted to talk to, to ask just one question. It was she who answered my call. She recognized my voice and said, “Sorry, Adam, Lorne’s at a meeting for the Young Conservatives.”

  “Covering or joining?”

  “Are you kidding me? Covering.”

  “I was kidding you, Rachelle. There are so few of us lefties still around in Alberta, I didn’t want to think we might be losing another one.”

  “Nothing to worry about there.”

  “Actually though, it was you I wanted to talk to anyway. I’ve got one quick question for you. A school question.”

  “I’ll bet that’s one more question than you asked a teacher while you were actually in high school.”

  “I’m deeply offended. And I’ll have you know that English was my favourite class.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Well, it would have been if you’d been my teacher.”

  “Shut up and ask your question before I become ill.”

  “When do they teach To Kill a Mockingbird? I seem to remember it was high school but I don’t recall what grade.”

  “Even though English was your favourite subject.”

  “Uh … yeah.” We both laughed that time.

  “Well, fewer schools are teaching it these days, which I think is a shame — it still holds up even after all this time — and it varies. Some schools teach it in grade ten, but I think most still have it as part of the grade eleven curriculum. We do at Crescent Heights.”