When the Flood Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  “Where was Eben going?”

  “He works up at the oil sands since the chicken plant fell through, only gets home four times a year. Had extra weeks after Christmas, but he ain’t been back since.” This encounter put a different complexion on the threat posed by the Beals. Eddie, it appeared, was a dog-loving farmer. Eben was hundreds of kilometres away when Dee was being run over. Eddie blew his nose again and stowed the hankie. “You going for your car? I can give you a lift that far.”

  After nearly a week of Dee’s Lexus, Lacey’s five-year-old Honda bounced like a pop can on the highway, blown about by semis and vibrating through the construction zones. No mid-range car had the solid ride of a luxury SUV, but then, a ten-year Mountie didn’t make nearly the salary of a corporate real estate lawyer. She arrived at the hospital to find Dee’s door shut. An RCMP constable stood before it. Through the glass she could see another officer placing a small recorder on Dee’s bed table. Statement time.

  No more than ten minutes later, the officers went away. Lacey went in. “More questions about the hit and run? Or did they learn about your window being bugged? At this rate, they’ll know what’s on that tape before I will.”

  Dee closed her eyes. “If you can’t wait for the laptop to be fixed, get the recorder back from Tom. There isn’t a criminal case and I won’t talk about the person who put the recorder there because that would lead to my legal affairs, and they are still confidential.” No words lost or missing in that whole speech. That must be a good sign.

  “Is it Jake Wyman?” Silence. “I know the recorder came from him.”

  Dee turned her head away. “I can’t do this.”

  “I’m sorry if I’m pushing you. But it’s important to be sure the person who hurt you doesn’t get a free pass.” Tears trickled down Dee’s cheek, pooling in her ear. Lacey reached for a tissue. “Oh god, I’m really sorry. What can I do?”

  Dee wiped her face with her non-IV hand. “I have a bigger worry now. Last night I didn’t really take it in that Jarrad’s death had anything to do with me.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “The police said he hasn’t been seen alive since I was last seen going down the backstage stairs at the end of the gala.”

  But that was the Friday night. He had to have been seen somewhere after that. “Maybe you misunderstood?”

  “I don’t think so. They asked about the end of the gala, how long I was off stage alone, where I went, did I see anyone else downstairs. My heart went crazy. If I’d still been hooked up to the monitor, the room would have swarmed with nurses.”

  “But Jarrad was caught on tape on Sunday night, moving his car. That was two days later, and several hours after you were hit. What did you tell them?”

  “I said I went downstairs before my speech to check my makeup. I didn’t see anybody then, but when I left the dressing room, Jake was there to take me upstairs.”

  “Then Jake is your alibi.” Or Dee was his.

  “That’s what I thought. But they didn’t care about him. They know Jarrad killed my dog. They know I smashed his windshield.” Dee groped for Lacey’s hand. “They think I killed him.”

  “That makes no sense.” It really didn’t. Jarrad was on the security recording long after Dee was unconscious in the ditch. “Are you sure they said that?”

  “Not those exact words. But they made it plain. You always told me, ‘If I ever have to question you, get a lawyer first thing.’ So I said I had nothing more to say to them without a lawyer present. You have to find me a criminal lawyer.”

  “I’ll phone your office and ask.” Lacey’s fingers were going numb, but pulling them away would upset Dee even more.

  “No! Keep my work out of it as long as possible. Call my divorce lawyer and ask her to recommend someone. The number’s on my desk at home.” Dee wept harder, all her faded bruises puffed up and streaked with tears.

  “I’ll get right on it. You just calm down. They won’t arrest you while you’re in this bed.” If they really thought she was guilty, they’d collar her on the hospital’s front steps in full view of the media. It’s what any PR-concerned police force would do in a high-profile case.

  When the physiotherapist came in, Lacey left. She couldn’t quite break her old conditioning enough to call and cuss out the homicide investigators for harassing an injured woman. It was the job. Not so long ago, she’d done the same, not exactly accused a hospital patient of murder as soon as their heart monitor was removed, but leaned on bed-bound suspects. With no justifiable target for her ire, she called Tom instead, hoping to learn whether the investigators had anything regarding Dee or were only fishing. Marie said Tom had taken the boys out to the lake. She thought the recorder was in his locker downtown; it wasn’t loose around the house, anyway. Did Lacey want to come over for lunch and look for herself?

  Lacey should have enjoyed a peaceful visit with Marie, but the first words out of the ex-nurse’s mouth were, “Why does Dan think you’re in Newfoundland visiting your folks?” When Lacey only stared, she added tartly, “You and your family are as tight as polar bears are with penguins. You’d never go to them when you’re exhausted and looking for shelter.”

  “Did Dan call here? What did you tell him?”

  “Relax. He hasn’t called. I got that in an email from another Force wife out in Langley.” Marie headed for the kitchen, assuming Lacey would follow. “There are things you haven’t told me about that breakup, Lacey, or why wouldn’t you tell Dan where you are?”

  “It’s, well, I just needed time to clear my head. I didn’t tell him I was going east, just that he could have the house back until it sells.” She could feel Marie’s eyes on her. Would she have to explain about Dan coming after her in their own house, or the probably irrational dread she’d had of him since the riverbank? Marie knew Dan. She wouldn’t believe him capable of putting his wife in danger — even accidentally. She’d say Lacey had read too much into it, that she’d overreacted. Hell knew how many times Dan had accused her of overreacting, until she’d made herself numb from trying not to react at all. If Marie did believe, that would be almost worse. She’d surely tell Tom. He would never again look at Lacey without doubting her, without wondering if she needed protection like any other weak woman. That would show through in every job recommendation he gave going forward. If he gave any. He’d had her back for years, and vice versa, but when it came to the male world of the Force versus a female — now a civilian — she had moved herself to the wrong side of the loyalty bar.

  Whatever she might have thought or seen in Lacey’s face, Marie didn’t push. She turned away to pull coffee mugs from a cupboard and said, “It’s not up to me to report on your whereabouts. If I’m asked directly when I last saw you, I’ll say you stopped here on your way east and leave it at that.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was a reprieve only. Sooner or later, Tom or maybe Wayne would mention her presence to some other old buddy in the Lower Mainland. Word would spread. Eventually Dan would track her down to Dee’s. He might show up there. And what would happen to Dee if Lacey fled to avoid him? She would have to face him.

  The things unsaid loomed over their lunch, stilting the conversation and turning every bite of her well-stuffed chicken wrap to so much packing material in her mouth. Eventually Marie sent her downstairs to look for the recorder. A cursory glance over Tom’s cluttered desk revealed nothing, and she didn’t feel right opening the drawers. She thanked Marie for the lunch and drove off, facing a long, hot weekend afternoon with nothing useful to do, until she remembered the museum. In the rush to question Jarrad’s ex-boyfriend yesterday, she had left the key card list locked in her tool box. She could work on that angle right away. On to Bragg Creek.

  Lacey pulled into the museum parking lot and found several luxury vehicles that could have been here for the gala last weekend. Were there honest-to-god art fanciers among the gol
d-plated guests? She parked at a distance from the shiny new rides, flashed her key card at the employee door’s card reader, and descended into the classroom wing. Ahead of her, women’s high voices chattered.

  “Ooh, Tami,” one squealed. “That’s so harsh.” Tami? Ugh. If she was here, the rest of the posse was, too. Working unobtrusively near them, Lacey might learn who’d gone off from the gala with Jarrad. Camille Hardy might be with the chattering horde, too — a good chance to eye her up and see if Jan’s theory’s had legs. Could Camille have been disguised as Jarrad on the security video?

  She took the stairs to the office level with renewed enthusiasm, and caught sight of Camille coming down the other staircase. The woman hurried across to her posse, who were clustered by the kitchen.

  “Sorry I’m late, darlings. My key card wouldn’t work, and I had to come in the front door like a bloody tourist. When are the Mounties going to give us our elevator back? Crime scene tape on the keypads is really going too far. Is Rob ready for us yet?”

  Oh, right, Rob’s emergency board meeting. A corpse on the premises had at least gotten him a good turnout.

  Camille saw Lacey. “You. Aren’t you a security person? Find out what’s wrong with my card. That Rob probably forgot to activate it.”

  Lacey took the card by a corner, wondering if there was any substance handy with which to lift Camille’s prints. Not that she expected they would match the set on the recorder, but getting something, anything, on this arrogant female was rising on her priority list. It occurred to her that Camille was demonstrating a complete lack of concern about Jarrad’s death. If she had wept behind closed blinds, she was disguising it very well.

  Rob appeared in the meeting room doorway. “Ladies, if you please. Refreshments are ready. Please take a minute to look through my report before we start.” He stepped out to allow them in and came over in response to Lacey’s wave. “What’s up?”

  “Camille Hardy says her key card doesn’t work. Can I use your computer to check its status?”

  “Sure. It’s logged in and you know which icon, right? If that’s the new card I coded for her on Monday, I tested it myself.” He looked past her, around the lobby, and his shoulders drooped. “I was hoping Jake Wyman would show up today to speak for my job, but he’s left me out to dry. Wish me luck in there.”

  “You got it.” Lacey hurried to his office. She had to scroll down the index twice before she was sure about the card. Then she went back to the boardroom.

  Camille spotted her instantly. “Did you fix it?”

  “This is your old card, Mrs. Hardy. The one you reported lost. It was cancelled as a security precaution. Your new card should work just fine. If you don’t find it today, please tell Rob immediately so he can cancel that one, too.”

  “My old card? It can’t be. The police thought Jarrad took it.” The last was directed to the posse, not to Lacey, and she quietly stepped out of Camille’s line of sight. Jarrad, or someone with him, must have used that card to access the vault. Then who put it back? And who had the new one now?

  Camille wasn’t worried about that, though. She said in thrilling tones, “Girls, I may be a suspect.”

  The others leaned forward, their perfect noses quivering like chihuahuas. One of them — Twyla, or was that Chareen? — asked breathlessly, “The police questioned you?”

  “They said I might have been the last person to see him alive. They asked if I lent him my card. The silly thing obviously doesn’t work, anyway, so I couldn’t have got him down to that vault, could I? I didn’t get the new one until Monday.” Except it would have been working all weekend, until Rob cancelled it on Monday. Analysis clearly wasn’t Camille’s strength. She likely hadn’t noticed it was missing sooner, what with the gala and the Finals party. Then on Sunday she came home from somewhere to find Mick collapsed in the den. Had she been out partying then, too? And did she have an alibi for Sunday afternoon, when Dee was run down?

  A collective “ohh” encouraged Camille to continue. “I’m sure I wasn’t the last person, really. I never saw him Friday except during our act, and I have a witness who can tell the police I was otherwise occupied right up to when I left with Mick.”

  But she had been with Jarrad when Rob went down, hadn’t she? That made her more of a suspect, not less.

  The one Lacey thought was Tami giggled. “But weren’t you with him? What would Mick say?”

  “Mick wouldn’t care if I did it on the stage.” Camille smiled. “Rob, have the police asked you about the gala yet?”

  Rob paled. “Yes.”

  “Did you tell them where you found me? And with whom?”

  “Yes.” A lesser man would have flinched, but Rob kept his smile while he waited for the axe to fall.

  “There. Isn’t he a dear? I’m as good as cleared.”

  As she turned away, Rob lifted a bemused eyebrow at Lacey. He made a tiny shooing motion and she left, still holding Camille’s old key card. So the police had used a similar technique on Camille as they had on Dee, claiming she was the last person to see the hockey player alive. If they had found prints besides Camille’s on her card, they’d have kept it in evidence. Unless they’d kept her new one. Meanwhile, their looking at cards confirmed that Jarrad had not been found with one. Since he’d been unreachable once he was behind the rack, the card must already have been in the killer’s hands. It was past time Lacey went through those elevator logs. It wasn’t a job she could charge to Wayne, but she would more than repay the time if it cleared Dee.

  She spent the next hour working backward through the elevator printout, starting from when the body was found. Nobody had gone down on Thursday, but that wasn’t unexpected. No vault access Wednesday, nor Tuesday. Nor even Monday. Jarrad had last appeared to a security camera outside the building on Sunday night, presumably just before he pushed the car into the river. Had he used Camille’s new card to wait inside the building until that violent thunderstorm passed? No, that new card was only issued on Monday. She turned back a page to Sunday, wondering why Jarrad had gone to the vault at all. Had someone suggested the hiding place to him, knowing it was off limits until the vaultmaster’s arrival? Camille could have taken him down there and left him, and he might have messed with the racks before accidentally getting trapped — unlikely, but possible. Why wouldn’t she have gone back to look for him, and raised the alarm? Chris claimed she hated Jarrad, yet Jan and Dee were convinced she’d been having sex with him for years. Which was it? Both?

  There was no vault access on Sunday, either. Lacey started on Saturday, working from midnight back to morning. Still nothing. Then she found herself looking at the long list of elevator uses on Friday evening, during the gala. Most had no key card number. They represented gala patrons moving from the atrium to the theatre lobby and back again. Were the police being truthful when they told Dee Jarrad was last seen alive that night?

  A line with a key card number caught her eye: 10:27 p.m. When the performance was ending, the elevator went to the vault from the studio level, stayed less than five minutes, then went all the way up to the theatre mezzanine. The key card number was Camille’s — her old card, now lying on the desk.

  Lacey sat back in her chair, grappling with the implications of the elevator logs. Nobody had taken the elevator down to the vault between gala night and the vault-master’s arrival. If Jarrad had gone to the vault at the end of his performance and never returned, he couldn’t have run over Dee on Sunday.

  Furthermore, if he was dead or dying by ten thirty on gala night, then who was in the dressing room with Camille an hour later? Rob might have lied for Camille, claiming Jarrad was alive when he and Camille came upstairs. He could then blackmail her to secure his job. It might even be Rob on the security tape, wearing Jarrad’s clothing. In fact, Rob might have lured Jarrad, the bisexual hockey player, into the vault using Camille’s lost — or stolen — card. He could have
urged Jarrad behind the rack for a tryst, below the camera’s all-recording eye … and Jarrad could have been crushed accidentally? Could Rob have come to work every day and complained of the smell and the flies if he knew what caused them?

  Her purely imaginary theory could fit the facts. Where it did not fit, she quickly realized, was with Dee. If Rob had left Jarrad in the vault, behind the rack, he couldn’t have gotten the Corvette’s keys. Were Jarrad’s keys missing? Besides, Rob had no reason to go after Dee two days later. He’d had all the opportunity necessary when he spent the night drinking with Dee. If he’d learned then that Dee had seen him and Jarrad slinking downstairs, he could have dumped the hockey player’s body into the river long before the vaultmaster arrived.

  Lacey gave up and stood up. The circumstantial evidence against Rob was a figment of her too-eager imagination.

  The yipping of the chihuahuas penetrated the glass walls. She watched as they tittered away up the stairs. Rob and Camille stood for a moment in the meeting room doorway. They were very close to the same height. Jarrad, if Lacey’s mental image of the stilted gala performance was accurate, was about as tall as Camille in her gold-toned evening flats. Ergo, he was about as tall as Rob. Disguise her hips or his shoulders, hide their hair under a ball cap, and it could be either one of them in those security stills.

  Camille followed her posse upstairs. Rob came to the office and dropped into a chair. “Thank god that’s over.”

  “I take it you still have your job.”

  “Yes. The little darlings gave me a free hand to cope with the press as I see fit. They don’t want to be seen on television commenting on corpses. I don’t think they realize this could be bad for our attendance, and thus our earnings. The idea that the directors are financially responsible for any budget shortfall at year-end hasn’t quite penetrated their sweet little têtes. I’ll do my best for them all the same. If this facility can’t make a go, it’s my reputation on the line as well as their money.” He looked exactly the same as he had earlier, concerned but not in the least overwrought. Maybe she was the one who was overwrought.