Still Water

by Amy Stuart

  “Ginny,” Helen says, her voice trembling.

  “You see?” Ginny says to Clare, Raylene. “I’m the only sane one in this shitty family. That’s what Rourke said. And he’s right! That I’m the normal one. The only one who can actually help a frigging little boy and his mommy. A dead little boy, as it turns out. And a mom who’s vapor. Vanished.”

  The room is quiet. For all her dramatic ways, Clare thinks, Ginny is wise, articulate. Smart. The front door swings open and Somers comes in, stopping short at the tension in the room. Jordan and Raylene stand but Helen stays fixed in her chair, eyes down again.

  “I’ve got Rebecca in the squad car,” Somers says. “She’ll be coming back to the precinct with me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll wring lots out of her now,” Ginny says.

  “Right,” Somers replies, rubbing her forehead. “We’ve still got those hotel rooms. None of you are supposed to be here while the warrant is in effect.”

  “I’ll take one,” Raylene says.

  “I will too,” Clare says without looking at Ginny.

  After a beat, Somers sits in the only empty chair around the room. She shifts her gaze on each of them in sequence, nodding, as if deciding whom to tackle first.

  “Listen,” she says finally. “I like to think we’ve been sensitive to each and every one of you. Taken all your concerns into consideration. But after what I just witnessed, I don’t know if that was the right approach.” Somers pulls a pad from her breast pocket and opens it. “Missing woman, pregnant? And some of you knew that and didn’t tell me? Because this is the first I’m hearing of it. I’m also hearing that the boy’s autopsy is yielding some surprising results. Arrows pointing in every goddamn direction.” She pauses to inspect the room, her mouth in a tight line. “So I’m going back to square one. I’m going to forgive you for not giving me the full truth the first time I asked. I’m going to give each one of you the chance to tell me anything and everything you know. About Sally. William. What they liked to eat for breakfast, what they were wearing the last time you saw them. Whatever you might have left out the first three or four or eight times I talked to you. Do you understand me?”

  No one speaks or moves.

  “The officers executing the warrant,” Somers continues. “They were respectful. Dainty. No one ripped apart any furniture or broke any lamps or anything. Not a single hole was punched through the walls. I’m not sure I’ll direct them to be so kind when they come back.”

  “Who says they’re coming back?” Jordan asks.

  “We have the right to access the property until we feel our search is complete.”

  “No you don’t,” Jordan says. “I know my sister’s rights. The warrant was closed. I’m on the title for the property as well. So I’m going to ask you to leave, Detective. You can come back with another warrant. I’ll have to assert our rights here.”

  “Oh,” Somers says. “That’s fine, Mr. Haines. I’m sure you know your own rights just perfectly. If you want to do things that way, that’s fine with me. How about I work on getting a warrant for your office as well?”

  Jordan smiles thinly. “Every single person in this room has retained me as their lawyer. Except for you, of course, Detective. Even her,” he says, angling his head to Clare. “Signed me on about an hour ago, didn’t you, Clare?”

  Clare feels caught out, her voice retreating into her stomach.

  “I’m quite sure you’re not allowed to search a lawyer’s office if your concern is with their client,” Jordan continues. “But I can check on that if you’d like.”

  “Right,” Somers says, standing. “Why don’t I look into my options, and you can look into yours?”

  “Will do,” Jordan says.

  Somers sets a card down on the coffee table.

  “Your names are with the front desk at the hotel written on the back. You can take your chances, but I strongly suggest you vacate the property before my officers get back.”

  “I’ll make sure everyone has a place to land,” Jordan says.

  Somers nods, her jaw still tight. She looks at Clare, disappointed, and Clare can only keep her eyes down until she is certain Somers is gone.

  The city’s light blares through the slit of the hotel room curtain. Clare wedges herself into the opening, the street below still bustling with cars, the odd pedestrian strolling though it is well past ten. A spider dangles from the ceiling on its invisible web, hovering along the window. When she closes her eyes she sees him. Clare sees Jason in their kitchen, squashing any insects under the toe of his work boots. In the first months of their marriage, Clare remembers watching in horror as he crushed the head of a dying mouse with the butt end of a broom. Putting him out of his misery, he’d claim, and while Clare knew the sentiment was right, it was the pleasure he seemed to take from it that disturbed her.

  The knock on the door is so quiet that Clare doesn’t hear it at first. She fumbles, reaching for the bedsheet and wrapping it around her, then dropping it in favor of the bathrobe that hangs in the closet.

  “Hello?” she says, peering into the spy hole.

  “Clare?”

  Rourke. His face is bent into a strange angle as he leans into the door. A satchel is slung over his shoulder.

  “Open the door,” he says.

  His tone startles her. She obeys before she can think better of it. When he enters the room she is aware of the mess, her clothes scattered on the floor, angry at herself for not holding him outside. He strides to the far end of the room and looks around. Rourke is in plain clothes. He wears a shirt unbuttoned, sneakers, and jeans, his gun holstered to his belt. Too casual.

  “What are you doing here?” Clare flicks on every light switch, squinting. She tightens her bathrobe belt and sits on the far bed. “Where’s Somers?”

  “She’s got a family. I take nighttime business.”

  “You have my number,” Clare says. “Why didn’t you just call me? Or text?”

  “I did. You never responded.”

  Clare is certain she’d checked her phone too recently for this to be true. There had been no messages. She gestures for him to take the chair across from her. She thinks of Malcolm in the alleyway, the pained way he reacted to Rourke’s name. He’s dangerous, Malcolm said. Clare swallows. How does she choose which way to go next?

  “You look nervous,” Rourke says, half smiling.

  “It’s late. I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I’m not here to make you nervous. I’d like us to work together.”

  This surprises Clare. She must choose her words carefully.

  “Can I ask you something?” she says.

  “Anything.”

  “How long have you been working this case?”

  “When did she disappear?” Rourke looks to his watch for effect. “Since then. Since the night she disappeared. Or the morning after, at least.”

  “Do you work more than one case at a time?”

  “I have a few lingering ones. I’ve only been at the precinct for a month. I’ve had no time to settle in. I’m still living on my boat, looking for a more permanent place to land. Somers has a few cases from before I got here and I help her with those when I can. But obviously this is my focus right now. Our focus, I should say.” Rourke pauses. “Why? You got something else for me?”

  Clare shakes her head. She opens her mouth to speak, to ask the question: Do you know Malcolm Boon? But her heart races too quickly. She is too afraid of what his answer might be.

  “Well.” Rourke extracts a file from the satchel. “I have something for you. The autopsy report came back tonight.”

  His voice is raspy. He hugs the report to his chest for dramatic effect. Why would he come here with William’s autopsy report? Clare wonders, noting the slight smile at the corners of his mouth. He’s enjoying himself.

  “What does it say?” Clare asks.

  “The coroner believes the boy was dead before he went into the river.”

  “I know. That’s
what Raylene said.”

  “Well, she was right. His lungs weren’t saturated. He hadn’t aspirated any water. The only way you’d avoid aspirating any water is by not breathing. Not gasping for air. Which means he didn’t drown.”

  Clare lets this sink in. She thinks of Raylene stumbling under the weight of the boy’s body, the look of horror on Helen’s and Ginny’s faces as Raylene set him down on the grass.

  “What does the coroner think killed him?”

  Rourke opens the file to examine its contents, his forehead creased. “They found a meningococcal strain in his blood,” he says. “Bacterial. Dangerous, but usually curable with antibiotics if caught early. The doctor said there were physical signs of high fever, that his blood counts were way off. No sign of antibiotics in his blood work. There were other things in his bloodstream, though. Not medical in nature. Lab’s still working on those. Who knows what he’d been given. But there was evidence the infection had been allowed to progress.”

  “You’re saying he died of an infection?” The implications wash over Clare. “Then someone put his dead body in the river?”

  “It seems that way,” Rourke says. “Yes.”

  Clare thinks of the way Raylene recounted the scene, Sally screaming. Jordan told me to just tell it that way, she’d said.

  “Who would do that?” she asks.

  Rourke shrugs. “That’s the million-dollar question. I have my suspicions. You?”

  He is leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. When the folder drops, Clare reaches to pick it up, their grips landing on it at the same time. Under her robe Clare can feel the pull of her shoulder, the new tissue resisting any movement in her arm. She winces.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Clare pulls the robe tighter. “What else did the autopsy say?”

  “There was evidence of decomposition.”

  “Meaning?” Clare asks.

  “That the body likely didn’t go into the water immediately after death. That it spent time on land first. Or buried. Exposed to the elements. Which”—he pauses, scratching his head—“makes some sense given where it was found. Bodies underwater decompose differently. And we’d searched that area so thoroughly in the first day or two.”

  “So he died, and someone put his body in the water, then fished it out, then put it back in?”

  “Or he never went in the first time,” Rourke says.

  Clare scrambles to recall her conversations with Raylene, Helen. With Ginny. Markus. Somers. The holistic measures. Rebecca’s assertion at the eddy that Sally must have jumped. That she wasn’t well. Where would you keep a body? A little lifeless child?

  “So he had an infection and they didn’t seek treatment,” Clare says. “And he died. And they needed to cover it up.”

  Rourke is nodding.

  “Then they killed Sally too? That’s a stretch.”

  “Is it?”

  “So what do you do now?”

  A loud beep jolts Clare. Rourke fishes a phone from the back pocket of his jeans and reads the message. He stands, tucking the folder back into his satchel.

  “I have to go,” he says. “That’s the coroner again. Pulling an all-nighter.” Before she can move Rourke is in front of her, a hand on her tender shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay? I know she’s your friend. I know this news it tough. You must be worried sick.”

  It takes all of Clare’s might not to recoil from him, the disingenuous look on his face, closer to trickery than sympathy. He is not a good actor. And she worries now that neither is she.

  “I could use some sleep,” Clare says. “If you don’t mind.”

  Don’t touch me, she would like to say to him instead. To hiss at him. Instead she forces a smile and stays still as he gathers his things and heads for the door.

  “You know where to reach me?” Rourke asks.

  “I do. Thank you.”

  When he’s gone Clare looks around at the room, the layout the same as so many she’s known these past months. The fear coats her throat. She finds her phone on the bedside table and checks for messages. Nothing from Rourke, so that was a lie. But one from Somers.

  Coffee tomorrow AM if u can? My treat. Just us.

  Where? Clare types. Then she walks to the door and bolts it shut.

  THURSDAY

  Finally Clare spots it, the Hummingbird Cafe, its sign painted in lowercase across an old slat of barn board, its storefront set back from the curb. Clare takes a deep breath and opens the café door, scanning for Somers, then finding a table near the back when it’s clear she’s beaten her there.

  At the next table a young girl slaps the salt and pepper shakers together like cymbals. The noise makes Clare’s head scream. Clare closes her eyes and thinks of the grove behind the house where she grew up, the path to the river hardened by summer’s drought. She pictures her nephew running that path, dodging craters of dried earth, a bucket and fishing net in hand. The quiet.

  In the small hallway to the kitchen at the back of the café, Clare sees an old-style pay phone with a phone book dangling from a chain. She stands and opens the white pages. St. Jude’s.

  What does Janice Twining get? Helen said yesterday. St. Jude’s.

  There are three listings: a church, a school, and a hospice. Clare rips the page out and folds it into her pocket before taking her seat again and ordering a coffee. A few minutes later, Somers walks in and beelines to Clare. She sets her phone on the table and plops into the chair.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Somers says.

  “Five minutes. That’s not really late.”

  The young waiter arrives with Clare’s coffee and two glasses of water. Clare watches Somers, the way she disarms the waiter with a quick joke before turning serious eyes back to Clare. Clare sips at her water in an effort to stay calm.

  “Are you a cop?” Somers asks.

  “No,” Clare says, setting down her glass. “Are you?”

  “Funny,” Somers says. “You’re funny. Listen. You’ve no doubt noticed that I’m not terribly happy with how this investigation is going. I’m picking up on some strange signals. Obviously my job is a lot easier when people tell me the truth.”

  “I haven’t lied to you,” Clare says.

  “You retained Jordan Haines as a lawyer.”

  “He asked me to,” Clare says. “Maybe I haven’t told you everything, but I haven’t lied.”

  “That distinction makes me antsy.”

  “Rourke showed up at my hotel room last night,” Clare says. “With the autopsy report.”

  “See? That makes me antsy too. I haven’t read that damn report yet. Why’s he showing it to you before me? Why’s he showing it to you at all?”

  The waiter arrives with Somers’s latte and hovers as they scan the menu. Clare orders oatmeal she knows she won’t be able to eat. After the waiter leaves they sip at their coffees and observe each other. Clare calculates the pros and cons. The prospect of Somers as an ally perhaps outweighing the risks.

  “Ask me anything,” Clare says. “This time I promise to tell you the whole truth.”

  “Do you actually know Sally?”

  “No.”

  Somers’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay. That’s what I’d call a whopper of a lie.”

  “I lied about that,” Clare says. “It was a cover. I needed a cover. To work the case.”

  Somers lets out a sharp laugh. “Work the case? You just said you’re not a cop.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’m confused. I really am. And I’m guessing you’re not running from anyone either? That story you gave me the other day by the river? Just part of this con?”

  “Actually, I am,” Clare says. “Running from someone.”

  “You’re losing me fast.”

  The con, as Somers called it, has gotten tiring. Clare takes a sugar packet and folds it until it breaks open.

  “I was hired to investigate what happened to Sally Proulx and her son. I work for someone. The g
uy you saw me with in the alley yesterday. I work for him. We were hired anonymously. I’m like a PI, I guess. I don’t know what you’d call me.”

  “Does anyone at High River know the truth about you?”

  “No. I presume not.” Clare pauses. “But since I don’t know who hired us, it’s possible that someone in High River did. And for the record, I did escape a bad marriage. Really bad. I left about eight months ago. I’ve been on the move ever since. So I guess my being at High River isn’t a huge stretch for me in some ways. I wasn’t lying about that part.”

  “I thought I was lost a minute ago,” Somers says. “Now I’m truly at sea.”

  “That guy in the alley. His name is Malcolm Boon. In the winter, my husband hired him to search for me after I left him. I didn’t pack a bag and leave a note. I ran away. Vanished. Malcolm caught up to me about six weeks ago. But instead of turning me in to my husband, he hired me as a kind of . . . apprentice. He looks for missing women. He’s hired privately by whoever wants them found. And I guess he figured who better to look for a missing woman than someone who is one.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I’m not,” Clare says.

  “And why on God’s green earth would you take the job? Did you even know this Malcolm guy?”

  Good question, Clare thinks. One she’s still unable to truly answer.

  “I didn’t know him. You remember yesterday on the drive to High River when you said you figured I didn’t have many options?”

  “Sure,” Somers says.