by Cathy Ace
As I drank my coffee that Saturday morning, and looked forward to my time in Harrison, I felt annoyingly thick-headed. The case that had caused me an almost sleepless night – and had me reaching for the bottle of Bombay just once too often – was a sad and puzzling one. A seventeen-year-old girl had been found wandering at the side of the highway that cuts through Maple Ridge, a now suburban, though once more rural, community nestling in the shadow of the Golden Ears Mountains, about forty miles east of Downtown Vancouver. When initially questioned the girl had claimed her boyfriend had just killed her father, at her family home. A comprehensive search of the home, and other possible locales, had turned up nothing; there was no damning forensic evidence, and neither the boyfriend nor the father were anywhere to be found. By that time the traumatized girl had been too heavily sedated to be of any further immediate use, so Bud had called on me to help his team by finding out whatever I could about the girl herself. I’d spent most of Friday at the girl’s home, then the entire evening and night interpreting my findings, and writing up my report. I’d finally sent an email to Bud around midnight, pointing him and his team in the direction of the city of Kelowna – about three hours away – where it was clear to me, from some cryptic notes in the girl’s diary, that her boyfriend had links. After being hunched over my laptop beside a pizza – with extra cheese and pepperoni, of course – for hours, I was frazzled. After that, there hadn’t been much I could do but gulp down a few Bombays and worry through the night. So I decided I should take two bottles of water with me on my road trip, instead of the usual one; a breakfast of bananas, water, and aspirin meant I set off telling myself the weekend could only get better.
The drive to Harrison from my little house in Burnaby is quite something, and pretty much sums up my experience of my new home; preferring to not take the highway, I crawled through knots of traffic until I reached the back roads through Mission to Hatzic, and finally found myself in the delightfully lush Fraser Valley. The corn growing in the fields on both sides of the road was as high as Oscar Hammerstein’s elephants’ eyes, and I promised myself I’d stop at one of the roadside stalls to pick up a couple of dozen ears on the way back home.
When I arrived I parked in my usual spot, just opposite the Java café on the lakefront, and pushed myself out of my little red Miata. It was about eleven, and I felt justified in getting a coffee before I did anything else; besides, I needed a loo break, and that was the best place to go.
Fortified by a large mug of tooth-coating mocha with whipped cream – and a chocolate dipped biscotti, of course – I crossed the lakefront road to the paved walkway bordering the sandy beach. I planned to wander along the front as far as the hotel beyond the lagoon – an area created to allow for relatively safe bathing at this end of the lake.
As I set out I heard a voice behind me calling my name, ‘Cait? Cait Morgan?’
I turned to see a figure some yards off that was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t put a name to the face; despite the fact I have an eidetic memory, that’s not unusual for me, because I’ve seen a lot of people whose names I’ve never been told, having given so many lectures and presentations over the years.
The woman was waving excitedly and heading right for me with a big grin on her face, so I felt I had to do the same. It’s usually at this point in an encounter I try to come up with some witty way of saying, ‘How lovely of you to remember me – who on earth are you?’ but my wit wasn’t working terribly well, it seemed, so I said, ‘Hello, nice to see you,’ and left it at that.
The woman was about my height – short – and about my girth – overweight. She, like me, had long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail but – unlike me – she was wearing a sensible all-weather jacket. She was predictably weighed down by what seems, these days, to have become the omnipresent backpack. As I squinted at her I realized another summer had slipped by without me getting my eyes tested.
‘Let me re-introduce myself,’ she beamed. ‘I’m Lottie Wentworth, from Black and Wentworth Public Relations Plus; you worked with one of my colleagues in London on a campaign for a new brand of vodka back in the Nineties. Remember?’
In a flash I was back at the advertising and PR agency I’d worked at in Soho all those years ago; the campaign she was talking about – to launch Valkyrie Vodka – had been the one that made me decide to give up the marketing communications game and go off to get my master’s degree in something useful – criminology. The ‘colleague’ she mentioned was as memorable as the campaign itself, given she was the most vacuous nitwit I’d ever met; Jemima Hetherington-Knox could hardly spell ‘cat’, yet was supposed to be their best writer. She drove me nuts. After an interminable month, struggling to get her to come up with three acceptable stories about why trendy young things-about-town should drink this allegedly smoother vodka, it dawned upon me I could no longer cope with the pointlessness of my life, so I put together the best proposal I’d ever written, and it got me into Cambridge, and out of the agency world forever. If Lottie Wentworth had been the woman to employ the grammatically-challenged Jemima, then she was indirectly responsible for my current life, for which I supposed I should be grateful. Of course, if I hadn’t gone to Cambridge I’d never have met Angus, nor suffered a truly psychologically and physically damaging relationship – so I supposed I could blame her for that too. On balance I decided to play nice.
‘What a small world,’ was about all I could muster as I smiled through gritted teeth, and screamed internally, I thought I’d escaped from all you lot!
She bowled along regardless, as all these PR types do. ‘I was just saying to Jeremy that I recognized you, but we were never introduced properly. I was sure you wouldn’t have known me, but I remembered you from the television and the newspapers, of course. All that bother you had in Cambridge.’
And there it was; less than a minute had passed, and she’d already mentioned the nadir of my life. Great. What would she do for an encore? Introduce me to her ‘significant other’ as the person who’d been accused of beating her abusive lover to death?
‘Ah,’ I replied, probably looking suitably sheepish.
She came closer and almost whispered, ‘I’m so glad that all worked out for you; a terrible ordeal, I should imagine.’
I was pretty sure Lottie Wentworth didn’t possess sufficient imagination to come even close to countenancing what I’d endured, but I let it pass. That was all behind me; I reminded the woman in the bathroom mirror each day that the police never charged her, and her character was never truly besmirched. Of course, given that Britain is ruled by the ‘no smoke without fire’ brigade, I suspected that, in Lottie’s mind, I was as guilty as Hell.
I didn’t know what to say to the woman; she seemed to expect some sort of exchange, so I put my ‘be nice to the client’ face on and asked the obvious question, ‘Are you two on vacation here?’
As I spoke I asked myself, Why do you always play up a Canadian accent when you talk to British people, Cait? Is it because you’re trying to distance yourself from them? Trying to show you’ve changed, moved on? I replied to myself, You’re the psychologist, Cait – shrinker, shrink thyself.
‘Oh yes, we’re having such a lovely time – isn’t it all so pretty around here?’ Lottie’s entire persona bubbled with energy. It annoyed the heck out of me.
‘Well, I guess we call it “Beautiful British Columbia” for a reason,’ I replied.
‘Are you on holiday too?’ she continued.
Haven’t I just given you a big enough clue for you to deduce I live here? was what I thought, but out of my mouth came, ‘No, I live here now,’ in what I hoped was my most reasonable-sounding voice.
She gave me a knowing glance that riled me; I knew she was thinking I’d simply run away from the UK to hide from the journalists, because her nasty little micro-expressions were shouting as much at me. I added tartly, ‘I’m a professor of criminal psychology at the University of Vancouver. Have been for some years now.
It’s a wonderful place to live and work – there’s so much more space and room to breathe here than in London.’
Sometimes I find that letting out just a little steam means I can keep the rest of it in, and when you’re dealing with a particularly stupid person, they never seem to notice anyway. The Lottie-person certainly didn’t.
‘Oh absolutely,’ she gushed, ‘if only we could get away and run the agency here, eh Jeremy?’ They both literally snorted with laughter; it was like something out of a comedy sketch poking fun at the nouveau riche, English, upper-middle classes. Sadly, Lottie and Jeremy were alarmingly real, and they were spoiling my Harrison Saturday. I wasn’t happy about it. All I could think about was how to escape.
‘But surely you’d miss the bright lights of London, Lottie?’ I ventured.
‘Well, yes,’ she continued to gush, ‘I suppose you’re right. I mean, where would one be without the theatre, and all those marvelous restaurants and so forth? And London is so happening these days.’
I wanted to get away. Badly.
‘Well, don’t let me hold you two guys up – have a great vacation. Nice to bump into you,’ I lied. I gave them a little wave as I began to move away.
From behind me, a familiar voice called, ‘Cait? What are you doing here?’
I turned to see Bud Anderson walking toward me, pulling Marty – his rather overweight black Labrador – on a leash behind him. They were both all smiles. They were also both panting.
‘Hi, Bud,’ I replied, with genuine warmth this time. I was non-plussed; Harrison is supposed to be ‘out of the way’.
‘Who’s this then?’ asked Bud in his usual direct manner, nodding at the couple who were still standing beside me.
‘This is Lottie, and Jeremy. I did some work with Lottie’s public relations company back in my London ad agency days in the Nineties. They’re here on vacation and they’re just off to explore,’ I said, hoping they would be.
‘Hi Lottie, Jeremy,’ said Bud as he shook hands vigorously with each of them in turn. ‘I’m Bud Anderson. Cait’s doing some work with me right now – but of a rather different nature. She helps me find murderers.’
Lottie looked alarmed. I smiled inwardly.
‘I’m a cop,’ added Bud, by way of explanation.
‘So they’re still keeping an eye on you, Cait?’ said Lottie, snorting again.
I wanted to stab her, and rip out her tongue. ‘Not exactly, Lottie.’ I smiled as broadly as I could.
‘We don’t need to keep an eye on Cait,’ said Bud as he put a strong arm around my shoulders, ‘she’s the one who keeps an eye on us, aren’t you?’ He beamed almost manically at me, then at Lottie. ‘In fact, she’s helping me on a case right now, but you know –’ he tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially – ‘I can’t say too much at this stage,’ and he winked at the somewhat taken-aback Jeremy.
‘I tell you what,’ added Bud before anyone else could draw breath, ‘if you knew the “old Cait”, I think you should get a chance to see the “new Cait” at work. Why don’t we all get a coffee across the road and I can show you what I mean. My wife’s gone off with a group of her friends to walk around the lake a-ways, so I said I’d hang out with Marty. He’s not up to hiking any more, poor guy.’ And with a look from Marty that intimated he might be ready for a bit of a lie down, Bud steered us all toward a restaurant’s rooftop terrace overlooking the lake where dogs weren’t merely allowed, but were actively welcomed. Bud ordered a round of coffees, and some coffee cake, while doing a gentlemanly job of settling us all with just the right amount of sun shining on our faces, and only the slightest breeze at our collars.
I was puzzled; Bud had something up his sleeve and I didn’t know what. I’d already had a few surprises and it wasn’t even noon; how could the day possibly become any more complicated? I just hoped Lottie didn’t come out with any more smart remarks, and begged everything that was holy to not let her bring up the subject of my dead ex, Angus, at all; I’d never discussed it with Bud, and I didn’t see it as appropriate to have it raised now in front of the man who had the right to hire or fire me from potentially lucrative contracts.
‘I don’t know if you know it,’ announced Bud once we were all comfortable, ‘but Cait is quite a star; she’s a leading light in victimology theory development and application around the world, and she’s doing some great work for us. But there’s a puzzling case she knows nothing about; it happened around here. It’s the sort of thing I know Cait excels at helping my team with; how about it, Cait? Fancy hearing about a strange one?’
Unusually for Bud, he was being really annoying; I tried to show my confusion and irritation as I half-smiled at him and sulkily replied in the affirmative.
Bud carried on regardless, and I was beginning to feel more than a little uncomfortable. ‘Around here, you see,’ explained Bud, as though talking to two five-year-olds, ‘crime is investigated by the RCMP,’ he pronounced the letters as though it were the first time Lottie and Jeremy would have heard them. ‘And, as we all know, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police – the Mounties – always get their man.’ He paused for a laugh, but poor Lottie and Jeremy weren’t at all clued in, and I suspected they’d both had a sense of humor bypass at an early age in any case, so he quickly moved on. ‘I head up an integrated team, where we pull together people from all the local-operating forces to focus on homicides – it’s an excellent, innovative model.’
I felt disappointed for Bud – a well-known champion of the approach – that this drew nothing but the slightest smile from Lottie.
Bud continued, ‘About three months ago there was a fatal car crash just around there.’ Bud pointed to the shore of the lake that ran away to the right of us. ‘A young man, a youth really, was found dead in his car. He was alone, and he’d burned to death. Very crispy.’ Bud was enjoying Lottie’s expression almost as much as I was, and Jeremy gripped her hand in horror. I could tell Bud was doing his best to not smile as he spoke, and, to be fair to him, he was succeeding, for the most part.
He took a deep breath and explained, ‘Despite the level of degradation it was quickly established the young man was a local, from Agassiz just along the road, and we discovered he’d actually been dead before his car hit a tree and burst into flames. It was all really sad because it was during grad celebration week here, and he was seen as yet another victim of what we call Grad-Madness. At least that’s what we thought . . .’ Bud paused for dramatic effect, and because the coffee and cakes had arrived. As we all tucked in I was still puzzled about how this case might involve me; I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
‘So, Professor Morgan – Cait – if you were to approach this from the victim-profiling point of view, what would you be trying to find out, and what would you deduce from that?’
I almost choked on my coffee cake. True, it was a bit dry, but that wasn’t why I choked, and Bud knew it. His eyes were glinting and I could see the devilment in them. He was being playful, but I hoped his wicked game would be more at the expense of Lottie and Jeremy than myself, so I decided to go along for the ride.
‘Okay.’ I took a slurp of coffee and cleared my throat, ‘Forensics – cause of death?’
‘Massive dose of warfarin,’ stated Bud baldly.
‘How did it get into the body?’ I queried.
‘Booze. Giant bottle of American bourbon found at the scene; bottle broken, contents largely gone, but residual stomach contents told the story.’
‘Age?’
‘Eighteen.’ Bud’s shoulders heaved and he shook his head sadly as he spoke. ‘Barely.’
‘So where’d he get the illegal booze?’
‘Why is it illegal?’ interrupted Lottie.
‘Legal drinking age is 19 here,’ answered Bud, in a delightfully patronising voice.
‘So?’ I pushed.
‘Seems a barman at one of the hotels back there –’ he stubbed a thumb over his shoulder indicating the streets a
block back from the lake – ‘sold it under the counter to him.’
‘Question the barman?’
‘Yep. Swears he knew nothing about the warfarin. We believe him.’
‘So how did the boy know the barman?’
‘The barman’s only 22 himself; they went to the same school in Agassiz. Knew each other from there.’
‘So, the victim is a loner,’ I observed.
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Jeremy.
I smiled. ‘It’s grad week, the victim’s out on his own, drinking and driving at the lake – it doesn’t sound like he’s the center of a social whirl.’ Then to Bud I said, ‘He’s a loner, knows older kids well enough to get booze from them. If the barman stole the booze from the hotel stock, then there might have been other intended victims, possibly many. Potential act by an annoyed customer at the hotel, or an ex-employee with a grudge?’
‘The booze was not from hotel stock,’ replied Bud.
‘Curious,’ I replied thoughtfully, then asked the obvious question, ‘so where’d the barman get the bottle of booze?’
‘Now this is where it gets interesting,’ whispered Bud conspiratorially. We all drew closer to him.
‘The barman claims to have accepted the bottle in exchange for a pair of his old sweatpants.’
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘With whom did he do the swapping?’
‘Pete the Bum,’ replied Bud.
Lottie, Jeremy, and I all looked at each other; for once we were all in the same place – completely in the dark.
‘Who’s Pete the Bum?’ I asked. Lottie and Jeremy nodded, their mouths full of cake.
‘Pete the Bum is a local character; he’s lived here for years. He left behind the hurly burly of Downtown Vancouver, and pushes himself about this place in his wheelchair, living off the kindness of the locals, and generally making himself a gentle nuisance. The locals put up with him in the winter, then he pays them back by not annoying the tourists in the summer. In truth he’s pretty mobile, but prefers the wheelchair; it lends him an air of authority, he claims.’
