Death's Last Run

by Robin Spano

  “Is that a magazine?” Clare took a long sip from her bottle of amber-colored local beer. It wasn’t Bud, but it wasn’t bad, either.

  “Yeah. I’m not mad if you borrowed it. There’s an article I need that tells you how to use a scarf or a sock as a cock ring.”

  Clare curled her legs up on the deep blue sofa. Her duffel bag was only half-unpacked, but that could wait. She’d been at the apartment for a couple of hours and she still had no clear read on Jana. “You might have an easier time with a scrunchie. Or a sweatband.”

  “Hey, good idea. You want to smoke a joint with me?”

  “Sure.” Clare didn’t, but she had to take the in. “I haven’t smoked pot in ages, so forgive me if I cough a lot. I’ve been dating this straight-laced dude who thinks two beers is a wild night on the town.”

  “Are you still dating him?”

  “No. We broke up for good when I left Toronto.” It was easy enough for Clare to rep this emotion — all she had to do was think of Noah. Minus the fact that she and Noah were neither broken up nor together. “God, I can’t wait to get laid by someone who’s actually fun.”

  Jana opened a small wooden box on the coffee table. She plucked out a joint that was as fat as a cigarette, if not quite as perfectly round. “You want a tourist. No drama — fun for a day or two, then they go home. Or an Australian. The town is full of them. They’re here to party and they don’t get attached.”

  “Sounds perfect. You know where I can find either of those?”

  “They’re everywhere. Coffee shops, bars, gondolas. Australians are easy to spot because they talk funny — they say oy and no worries and the dingo ate my baby.” Jana’s accent was actually pretty good. “Tourists are easy to spot, too — they’re walking through the village in the après hours with lost looks on their faces. They want to hang with locals because we know where the sickest parties are. We sometimes let them — the ones who aren’t too gorby.”

  “Oh.” Clare assumed gorby came from GORB — Geek On Rental Board. She didn’t want to ask, though — that would be gorby. “Are you local, then? You grew up around here?”

  Jana shook her head. “Salt Lake City. But I’ve lived up here over a year. So I’m, like, more local than a weekend warrior, or even someone with a condo who only uses it for holidays.”

  “Right,” Clare said. Sacha had lived in Whistler for around a year, too.

  “But you have to be careful right now. Australians should be good, but maybe don’t hang with tourists for the next week or two.”

  “Why not?”

  “Um. I’m not supposed to say.”

  Clare’s eyebrows shot up. “What? You can’t tease me like that.”

  “My roommate died. My boyfriend told me not to trust any strangers for the next little while. He says he’ll tell me when things are clear.”

  Clare wasn’t sure how to react. She’d been briefed on Jana’s boyfriend — a local drug dealer, Richie Lebar. She met Jana’s eyes with sympathy.

  “Anyway, if you see the December Snow Betty, let me know.” Jana set down the joint without lighting it. She stood up and went to the kitchen.

  Clare took a chance and followed. “I’m sorry about your roommate. Are you okay?”

  Jana opened the freezer and pulled out a tub of ice cream. “Want a sundae? I always have one before I go out partying. I use organic chocolate sauce. It gives me energy.”

  Clare eyed the Breyer’s carton and was tempted to explain that ice cream did not give you energy — even with organic chocolate sauce. But there were too many other conversations going on, all of which were more relevant to her job. “I’m happy with beer, but thanks. Where’s the party?”

  “Just, around. I figured I’d start at Avalanche — I work there, so I get half-price drinks. Then I’ll see what other people are up to. You want to come?”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No, it’s cool. You know you look like Sacha?” Jana peered at Clare. “You could be her sister. Not her twin, though. Sacha was prettier. She had these perfect chiseled cheekbones. No offense.”

  “None taken.” Clare was happy in her Lucy costume — no makeup, messy hair, baggy jeans and a flannel shirt. Amanda had shopped well. It was like getting paid to stay in pajamas all day.

  Jana brought her sundae into the living room. Clare followed again and they sat together on the couch. Jana set down the sundae, untouched, and picked up the joint.

  After Jana had inhaled a few tokes and Clare had pretended to do the same, Jana said, “I miss her like crazy. It’s like half of me is gone.”

  “You and your roommate were close?”

  “We used to talk without talking. Have you ever had a friend like that?”

  Clare thought of Roberta, the way they could work together on a car engine, sometimes go hours without saying a word, just passing parts and tools to each other like they were sharing the same brain. “Yeah,” Clare said.

  “Except she never told me she was going to kill herself.”

  “Your roommate . . . um . . . she killed herself?” Clare didn’t have to feign shock — there was something about hearing it through the mouth of a grieving friend that made any death feel freshly tragic. “Was she depressed?”

  “No, and she wasn’t a drug addict, either, which is the reason the stupid cops are trying to give.” Jana took a deep draw in, held the smoke in her mouth for several seconds. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of her. Her death has been all over the news. Sacha’s mom is a bigwig American senator.”

  Clare shook her head. “I don’t watch the news much.”

  “Hm.” Jana frowned, like she thought she was more famous than this. “Maybe in Toronto, it’s not that big a story. It’s on all the big American news stations. I’ve been interviewed by Fox News, CNN, MSNBC . . .”

  “It’s sad,” Clare said. “I guess she was a really cool person?”

  “The coolest. Anyway, the reason you have to be careful with tourists . . . oh shit, I promised I wouldn’t say anything. Here, you better smoke some of this before I lose all my senses.”

  Clare wondered if the cliffhanger was intentional. She lifted her eyebrows in what she hoped was a conspiratorial way and said, “Oh, come on. I love gossip.”

  “Me, too! Okay, but this is top secret.” Jana peered into Clare’s eyes.

  “Who would I tell? You’re my only friend in town.”

  “Good point. There’s apparently a cop in the village, like an undercover with the FBI, and Richie told me I have to watch everything I say. That’s why you can’t sleep with tourists right now — we don’t want to give the undercover any ins. Cool?”

  “I promise.” Clare tried not to lose the beat as her brain raced into rapid fire. “Not a word about the undercover and I’ll let you vet my hook-ups.”

  “Good. I mean, we’ll probably spot him a mile away. We had a cop in town before. A narc. I would have known even without Richie saying anything.”

  “How?” Clare doubted Jana could spot a cop unless sirens were blazing, but she was curious what she thought the tells might be.

  “He never inhaled.”

  Clare took a deep drag and made sure it went into her lungs.

  “You know the one thing a cop would never do? Drop acid. Richie even agrees.”

  “Why not?”

  “They just wouldn’t. Anyway, that’s why we came to Whistler. Sacha dragged me up here for the acid.”

  “LSD?”

  Jana nodded. She fingered the jagged blue crystal that hung from her neck.

  “Like, the Magical Mystery Tour drug? The one that was in style in the same decade as this wallpaper?” Clare nodded at the living room walls with their bright orange and lime green floral design.

  Jana grinned. “Kind of retro, huh? I’ve had some crazy nights tripping to these walls.”
<
br />   “Seriously though, that’s pretty rad. You came to Whistler because Sacha heard the drugs were good.”

  “Better than good. There’s this tab called Mountain Snow. Purest high she’d ever had.”

  Clare laughed. “So because this tab is called Mountain Snow, Sacha wanted to live at a ski resort? Was she high when she made that decision?”

  “No, silly. The drug is made here. Sacha tried it in New York when some guy who had just been to Whistler gave her a tab he brought home. But it wasn’t available in the States. I mean isn’t.”

  Score another point for Amanda — she’d been smart about landing Clare this roommate. Clare let the wasn’t/isn’t slide — for now. There was obviously something illegal — something more than casual pot smoking — that Sacha’s friends were involved in. Or they wouldn’t be so concerned that an undercover was coming to town.

  “Um . . .” Clare had a zillion questions. “So you lived in New York, too?”

  “Yeah, we went to college there. Sacha finished her degree a semester early, and I was just ready to get the hell away from school. I only need three courses to graduate.”

  “What did you study?” Clare asked, mostly to be polite, but you never knew what would be relevant.

  “Hotel and tourism management. Sacha’s degree was in international relations. We met at a frat party and clicked hard. There was no separating us after that. So when she said she was coming up here, even though I wasn’t quite finished school, I thought yeah, that’s kind of perfect. Because where better than Whistler to finish my education about tourism?”

  Right. As long as she could, you know, find a way to get credit. But Clare wasn’t here to be anyone’s guidance counselor.

  “Last time I took Mountain Snow — like, a week ago — I asked the universe to bring Sacha back into my life. The very next day, I put the ad on Craigslist for a new roommate.” Jana set down the joint and grabbed Clare’s hands in hers. “We have to do Mountain Snow together. How about tonight?”

  Clare gulped. “I’ve never done acid. I’m actually kind of afraid to.” That, and there was no way Amanda would let her. Because Jana was right about one thing: an undercover cop would not drop acid on assignment.

  “Come on. How else will I know if you’re Sacha?”

  “What?”

  Jana pulled the sundae bowl toward her. “I brought two spoons. You want some now, right? I always want ice cream when I smoke pot.”

  Clare took a spoon and dug in. The chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream tasted amazing — cold and rich and soft against all sides of her mouth. She felt like she was biting into Wonderland. Except Alice was dead.

  Clare had definitely inhaled.

  EIGHT

  WADE

  Wade pushed the sealed white envelope marked with an N across his cheap metal desk. They were in Wade’s cramped office at Avalanche — because where else would Wade be? He’d done nothing but work in the three and a half years since he’d opened this damn bar.

  He had trouble releasing his hands when the envelope got to the other side. There was enough cash inside to put a big dent in Wade’s problems.

  These were his best friends in the world. Why couldn’t he tell them the truth?

  Stu Norris took the envelope. Wade watched him quiver as he slipped it into his inner jacket pocket. He wondered how Stu reconciled these envelopes with his position as police inspector — which in Whistler made him head cop in town. Was he torn between his friends and his job?

  “How much is in here?” Norris asked.

  “Eleven grand.”

  Beside Norris, Chopper leaned back on two legs of his chair, twirling his blond dreads like he didn’t have a care in the world. Wade watched them, side by side, such different men — they always had been — Norris small and nervous, Chopper big and bold. And Wade somewhere in the middle, on both counts.

  “It’s been a good week,” Chopper said. “These dudes in Seattle have been moving Mountain Snow like crazy. Keeping me up nights in my lab, but that’s cool. I dig the midnight oil.”

  “Shame,” Norris said, “that production has to stop.”

  Wade frowned. He met Chopper’s gaze, and Chopper looked confused, too. “What are you talking about?” they said virtually in tandem. Neither of them laughed, like they normally would, at the synchronicity.

  “Richie didn’t tell you?” Norris shook his little head back and forth. “He was supposed to tell you both. Piece of shit drug dealer.”

  Chopper tumbled his chair forward so it was back on all four legs. “Relax, man. Richie’s cool. Whatever this problem is, it can’t be the end of the world.”

  “You vouch for that?” Norris said.

  “Are we back to that?” Chopper held his palms face-up in the air. “I brought Richie in over a year ago. He’s been nothing but lucrative for us all.”

  Norris wrinkled his mouth. “I don’t like his attitude. Stomps into my office, tells me how to do my job. And I don’t like how he looks at Zoe in her photographs.”

  “Please. Richie’s not a pedophile.”

  “Not like that,” Norris said. “He eyes her up like . . . collateral.”

  “You think he’d hurt her?” Wade asked. “I mean, if things got bad?”

  “No!” Chopper shook his head vigorously, blond braids whipping back and forth. “Richie’s good shit. And yes, I vouch for him. His bling is only skin deep.”

  “You have an extra cigarette?” Norris asked Wade.

  Wade pulled two cigarettes from his pack and passed one to Norris. His ashtray was overflowing, but he didn’t feel like crossing the room to the garbage bin. “Shit, Stu. This must be bad. I haven’t seen you smoke in years.”

  Norris’ small limbs trembled like he’d just had a quintuple espresso. He clutched at the cigarette and flicked Wade’s lighter a few times before he got it. He took a deep draw in and exhaled before saying, “I have to get out of here. My family belongs in a city — not in this frivolous ski town.”

  Chopper and Wade exchanged glances again.

  “Frivolous?” Wade said.

  “Zoe needs a real cello teacher, someone worthy of her talent. My wife needs an intellectual community. Do you know that her book club in Pemberton actually chose a murder mystery for last month’s discussion? And I need . . .” Norris picked at his fraying cuff. “I don’t know what I need. A new jacket, for starters.”

  Wade took a sip of coffee, which he’d laced with cherry brandy to take the chill out of his bones. It was a cold winter, difficult to keep the office warm.

  Chopper said, “What’s really eating you, man? You’re not deep-throating that cigarette because of cellos and literature.”

  Norris cast his eyes around Wade’s office like he didn’t trust the Grateful Dead posters on the walls. “I hate my bosses.”

  Wade was tempted to laugh but held back. “You sound like you did when we were seventeen. Remember the first time we wanted to hit the road with Avalanche Nights?”

  “Of course I remember. My parents said no, as usual. Trying to keep me boxed into life as they knew it.” Wade watched Norris’ fingers curl as he spoke, clenching like he wanted to form a fist. Odd that he was still so angry, twenty years after leaving home. Odd, too, that he couldn’t bring himself to form that fist.

  Wade turned his gaze to Chopper. “Do you remember? When we got to Stu’s place, the truck loaded up with all our road gear, Stu came storming out of his house and said in exactly that voice he just used, ‘I hate my parents.’”

  Chopper gave Wade a sideways smile. “How the hell do you remember that?”

  “I remember that whole ten years,” Wade said, “from age sixteen to twenty-six, probably verbatim. God, I even loved the hangovers.”

  “My wife calls those the lost years,” Norris said. “I tend to agree. You and Georgia should have a chi
ld. I guarantee you’ll stop pining after ten years of musical failure.”

  Wade wouldn’t call it failure, exactly. The band had had some good reviews. They just couldn’t make a living. “Did we really plan to be thirty-eight and still living within half an hour from the shit-hole where we grew up?”

  “Would you guys stop trashing our home?” Chopper looked at both of them sternly. “Some people think this is the most beautiful place on Earth.”

  Wade took a deep breath and said, “Richie suggested reviving the band, getting together for an event here in Avalanche.”

  “Yeah.” Norris snorted. “He said that to me, too. What’s in it for Richie?”

  “Come on, Norris.” Chopper waved his hand in front of his face to move the cigarette smoke away. “Richie’s on our side.”

  “So was Sacha,” Norris said. “Until everything went so fucking wrong.”

  They were all quiet. Sacha’s death had messed them all up, in very separate ways.

  Chopper said, maybe to deflect tension, “I like the band revival idea. I’m game for another night onstage.”

  Norris shook his head and muttered, “Are you two done reminiscing? We have grown-up issues here, problems that live in the present.”

  “So kill the suspense, Stu. Why the hell would we have to stop production of Mountain Snow?”

  “Sacha Westlake’s mommy,” Norris said through clenched teeth, “doesn’t like my suicide verdict. She wants the FBI to come investigate. So instead of having my back, telling the Americans to stay at home because they trust their man in Whistler, the RCMP says sure, come play in our sandbox. Let’s share the investigation.”

  “Can’t you just give them what they need?” Wade didn’t see the big deal. “Show the dude your files, let him poke around town until he’s satisfied?”

  “No, because they won’t give me a name. Their man is undercover, and apparently that means keeping me in the dark, too. Me — the head cop in town.”

  Wade said, “You like the verdict, though, right? You think they’ll come to the same conclusion.”

  “I don’t like that a young girl committed suicide on my slopes. But I think that’s what happened. Don’t you?”