Twilight Is Not Good for Maidens

by Lou Allin

  Most of the gang were up by seven with the sun to catch the noon ferry back to Vancouver. When Lindsay didn’t emerge by eight when breakfast was nearly over, someone peeked into her tent. She was gone, her sleeping bag and gear still in place as well as a full plastic barf bag. Her shoes were missing. Nobody went barefoot because of the stones. “I mean she was here, and then she was gone. We never heard a thing.”

  Everyone divided up in teams and took a turn around the campground. Jungle-thick in places, the temperate rainforest was nearly impassable off the paths. Where some giants had fallen, huge rootballs groped into the air. Past the bathrooms, someone spotted a red flash in the green bush and went to look. It was Lindsay, her body hidden by a heavy growth of skunk cabbage with leaves the size of platters.

  “You didn’t touch anything, then?” Holly asked, with a gulp.

  “We know better than that,” Mike said, taking deep breaths to walk and talk. “But we turned her over. Two of us have CPR. It was too late.”

  “I understand. That’s a natural reaction.”

  How many people had any experience finding a body? It wasn’t a life skill taught in high school or college. Many of her younger colleagues had managed to go through their first year or two without confronting a lifeless form. It was a rite of passage. Far worse if the body had begun to decompose or had been disturbed by animals in Canada’s wilderness. That was an experience to give bad dreams for years.

  Mike shook his head like a lumbering bear. “The girls are hysterical. Who could blame them? Her neck doesn’t look right either.”

  “And there was no sign of a fall? Passing out. Hitting her head?” Chances were that the girl choked on her vomit. A stupid and unnecessary way to die. What had he said about the neck? Her heart knocked and answered back.

  “Nothing to fall from. It’s pretty level.”

  “People slip on the ice all the time. One blow in a key spot can do it.”

  They made good time down to the beach on the wide but irregular dirt path. Logistics occupied her mind. The gurney would have to be carried, not rolled. Once in Port McNeil in the middle of a rainstorm, they’d taken a motorboat to a small island to rescue an overturned kayaker, wading into the surf up to their waists. Hypothermia had set in, and the young man could barely walk. Without the RCMP, he would have been dead, leaving his parents devastated. She’d been proud of being a part of the rescue.

  Starting at China Beach, the Juan de Fuca Trail had only been opened about fifteen years ago and was still in its formative stages. There were four trailheads with parking: China, Sombrio, Parkinson, and Botanical. The last time she’d come here had been in high school, on the edge of her adulthood, before their family life headed for the abyss.

  Breathing deeply and trying to make time, she had no moments to savour the scenery. Holding dominion were deer ferns and sword ferns along with the more delicate ladies ferns. The occasional bracken spread its leafy fists into fronds, begging to be turned upside down to make children’s hats. The padding of their feet added to the dull thuds of a five-toed woodpecker poking for grubs in a riddled, barkless tree. A tiny rough-skinned newt scuttled across the path. And Lindsay Cameron was dead in the midst of all of this ferocious life.

  How was Ashley handling her job at the entrance? Writing her phone number for any handsome male who strolled by? Puffing up her importance by searching their cars? At least it wasn’t high summer where fifty vehicles could be in the lot. Anyone camping on the beaches in October was a hardy soul.

  Accidental choking was one possibility. An undiagnosed heart condition. A stroke, even at eighteen or nineteen. And for the third choice, it was one she would never have considered before the French Beach attack. Unless something broke at the outset, this was going to be a tough case. Any initial errors were hers to make, the oversights numberless.

  To her discomfort, she was beginning to break into a sweat in the heavy vest and equipment. Finally emerging through a grove of Sitka spruce with overhanging branches as dark as a cave, she and Mike made their careful way down an eroded section of earthen steps to the end of the steep and rooted trail. After serious storms, blowdowns or mudslides could block the path. One large log had been recently cut with a chainsaw, the sawdust still orange and fresh, in chunks so fine that it was obvious the chain needed sharpening. Now there was a clue of its sort, she imagined, should there be a chainsaw massacre.

  With trails branching in all directions, it was simple to get lost in the rainforest on cloudy days without the sun to provide rudimentary directions. Vegetation was dense and lush, even without summer rains. Moss dipped from trees in antebellum Mississippi style. No wonder European visitors marvelled. This was no Black Forest with a carpet of pine needles and underbrush neatly trimmed, visibility half a mile. If the rainforest had a sex, it would be female and fecund. Where the salal didn’t dangle its sweet purple berries, thick groves of deadly blackberry dared the hiker to enter at his peril. The thumb-thick canes with ruthless spines shredded skin in seconds in payment for its rich sweets. Wind and waves and centuries had left weird and sinister root forms in the red, banyonlike cedar. Douglas firs stood tall and stately. Sedges with edges, swamp grasses, and leafy salal six feet high. As they progressed, peekaboo shots of the water flashed like strobe lights.

  Then past a concealing corner, the mighty strait spread out beyond them like a grey tablecloth. A bright orange metal buoy marked the mouth of the trail. At high tide, travel along the beaches was impossible. The huge bright balls signified escape points.

  Holly and Mike turned right along the soft path, passing wooden tent platforms. Neither the picturesque cobble nor the dense bush allowed gentle camping. Without the platforms, people might use machetes or hatchets to make the beach “pretty,” destroying the experience for others.

  Holly estimated the tide at a moderate three to four feet, still loud enough to limit conversation. Driven by a west wind, foam-crested breakers were rolling in fast and furious, smashing against the beach, sucking on the pebbled shore with winking bubbles at the brim. The effect was hypnotic, especially when the fog rolled back and forth across the strait. In his legendary journal, Quimper had named the river Sombrio for its dark and shady appearance.

  Soon they came to the campsite, spread out in narrow privacy along the edge of the path. At least thirty feet separated each tent on the coveted plank bases. She turned to Mike “How many in your group? How many tents?”

  “Six. Three tents. Friday night two per tent. Do you want to check the tent now?”

  “Lindsay comes first.” There still lodged in her heart’s wish the idea that the girl might still be alive. Deep comas masqueraded as death. But they had said that the body was cold, so that theory was a long shot.

  She slowed to take in the scene. “And who was sleeping where?”

  He pointed to one tent as they walked. “That’s mine and Britt’s. The next Justin and Josh and Megan. The last one is … was Lindsay’s. Megan was supposed to be with her, but …”

  “And you found her…?”

  “Past her tent a couple hundred yards. That’s why it took us awhile.”

  She thought of the family that would be getting the news. So preoccupied had she been at getting here that she hadn’t covered all the angles. “Did someone notify her parents? From Harold’s house?”

  Mike nodded. “Right after the call to you. Jesus. I didn’t know what to say. Just that there had been an accident. She was hurt. They didn’t ask more, and I didn’t add anything. They were coming right out. But from Nanaimo, who knows when they’ll get here? I hope they had someone to drive them.” As he turned away, his large hand brushed his eyes. The back of his neck was strong and tanned, one of the most attractive parts on young men before age’s thickening and creases.

  “Contacting relatives is the worst part of our jobs. You never get used to it, and you never want to.” Was it better to receive a child’s body or never know her fate, imagining torture and abuse? Children of al
l ages disappeared, often forever. Taken from a hospital nursery or home bedroom. Last seen standing at a bus stop. Heading to Vancouver for the Olympics. Even coming home from school, less than a block away. Don’t forget victims of domestic violence, her mother might add, usually men deciding that their family should die, but failing to finish the job with themselves. Every detachment had its wall of sorrow. Flyers put up by loved ones gave her the sharpest aches. “Have you seen this young man? He disappeared from a hiking trip in ___.” Sometimes decades later a skeletal fragment told their tale. Was that what they would find of her mother? Even without flesh, DNA would tell the truth, for the bones would speak. Better that than a life of unknowing. After ten years, it had come down to that for Holly.

  Mike led her along a path to the restrooms, two rough shacks shingled on top, male and female symbols on the doors in a quaint, civilized touch. He said, “She wasn’t used to the booze like some of us. You can’t mix, my dad says. Beer and vodka. Even wine. We left her alone. And I, uh, I feel …”

  He cleared his throat awkwardly and stared at the ground.

  “What is it, Mike? Did you remember something?”

  “I gave the bottle to her. I thought that, well, you know. And she got too far too fast. I’m not that kind of guy.”

  “Of course not.”

  Why did young people have to binge, and if they did, why not learn from the experience? Perhaps it had been Lindsay’s first time. Recently a man in custody had been taken to the drunk tank. He’d died hours later with triple the blood alcohol limit for survival. Yet officers swore that he had been walking on his own when they left him in his truck for a minute and tended to his friend. Apparently he’d chugged the rest of a hidden bottle. Her father had told her Dylan Thomas’s last words before collapsing: “I’ve had eighteen whiskies in a row. I believe that’s the record.”

  “So she was headed to the bathroom. Makes sense. But she would have been still very drunk.”

  “Why else would you get up in the middle of the night except to hit the can? She was sick as a dog, not off gazing at the moon. Course she needn’t have gone all that way to barf when the whole jungle is around.” He bit into a cuticle as if to tell himself that he was still alive through the pain.

  “I’m surprised she got that far. Was there a moon last night?” She hadn’t noticed. Holly thought of her first hangover, when she and her friend Val had gotten an older cousin to buy them a bottle of Bailey’s. They had been puke sick all night. Luckily her parents had been in bed when she wobbled home on her bike and crawled up the stairs. The next morning she could barely spoon her cereal, her hand was shaking so much. She’d told her mother that she had the flu. Bonnie had flared her nostrils, but let her keep the lie. Her ebony, accusing eyes told her daughter that once was enough.

  “It was cloudy, I think. And out here it’s like totally dark. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. I see where they got that old saying.”

  The path widened and a few downed trees made for impromptu benches for two young people, Josh and Britt. They both stood, nearly at attention, when Holly approached. Their eyes were red-rimmed and their hair uncombed. The boy had an iPod in his pocket, but the ear buds dangled over a shoulder.

  “Thanks for watching over … everything. Sorry to have taken so long.” She spread her hands in the universal gesture as she introduced herself as they walked on.

  Holly got their names and a brief summary of what they had done that morning. It matched Mike’s story.

  “And the other two, Megan and …”

  “Justin. They’re with her. Megan was her best friend. We didn’t want anyone else coming around. Or like …” Britt shivered and pulled her hooded sweatshirt closer over her ears. Broomstick thin, she wore a pair of jeans. “Animals. Even little ones.”

  “Was there anyone else at the other campsites?”

  They looked at each other and gave a mutual shrug. “I wasn’t really paying attention. A few others, maybe. We saw their fire way down the beach last night. I don’t even know if they’re still here,” Mike said. Beach fires were legal below the tide line. In the draining effect of the strait, the next day everything would be washed out to sea.

  Not good so far, Holly thought. If anything was suspicious, as Leonard Cohen said in “The Future,” things were going to “fly in all directions.” She looked at Britt and Josh, who had his arm around her as they walked. “How far are we now?”

  “Just up the way. Officer,” Britt asked, “she couldn’t have just died, could she? She was sick, but …” Her angular face was old and young at once. Each ear had a row of studs.

  “I’m not going to lie to you. We’ll know more when there’s been an autopsy. A team is on its way.” She checked her watch. Any minute now. What was taking them so long?

  “An autopsy? Gross.” Brit’s face screwed up and she swiped at her pug nose with her sleeve. Big Josh, well over six feet, pulled her closer. She was an attractive redhead with a killer-whale tattoo on one arm and freckles on her nose.

  This was turning into a parade. “On second thought,” Holly said, “you’d better wait here and direct the other officers and the ambulance personnel.”

  About a hundred feet past the bathrooms, a narrow winding path zigzagged into the bush. It might have been an animal path, or sometimes people thought they saw an artistic shelf fungus and left the main trail to thrash around. It was human nature to want to discover why a trail diverged. Sometimes it led to an impromptu bathroom.

  At the point where the path petered out were hummocks of grass and hand-slicing sedges. Standing to the side were Megan and Justin. She was softly crying into his shoulder. He was patting it, but looked stricken enough to join her. The death of a peer was an unusual tragedy for the young.

  Lying face up with a small beach towel over her head was Lindsay, dressed in a man’s shirt and shorts. Her father’s maybe. Norman had given Holly a hand-me-down for her first year in university. Dads did that. Holly snapped on latex gloves, knelt, and tried for a pulse. A thick broom bush partially hid her from the students. In the torpor, its black pea-like pods snapped.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Holly turned with a guarded frown. This was no time for accusations or hostility. “Did you find her like this? With the towel?”

  Megan said with shaky tones short of a whimper, “No, it was my idea. I’m sorry. She looked so helpless. She wasn’t breathing. We checked for that. I took CPR last year. If I’d stayed with her last night, maybe she’d be alive now. Some friend I was.”

  Holly bit back a comment. The moment was bad enough. The kids had done what they thought they should. They weren’t trained nurses and doctors. “That’s all right. Just as long as we know. It was your towel, then, Megan? Not hers?” Megan nodded. Holly introduced herself and took the information. “Mike, please stay. Megan and Justin can go back and wait with the other two, please. When the team comes, they’ll give you more instructions.” Her watch said nine-thirty already. What was keeping them? She hoped Ashley was keeping a sharp lookout, but she wouldn’t put money on it.

  Lindsay’s gold-flaked brown eyes reflected only the sky. When Holly looked below her chin, despite her self-control in front of Mike, she gave a short gasp.

  The bruised neck, its circumference reddened by the same tell-tale marks told the story more than any words. Alcohol had been only one factor. The girl had been incapacitated, but Holly would bet that she hadn’t choked on her vomit. She’d finished being sick long before that. She gave a quick scan to the scene as Mike stood, hands dully at his side. He seemed like the natural leader, perhaps a year or two older. Perhaps that discretion made him turn away from the body.

  Lindsay’s small mouth was bruised as if a fist had connected. Gingerly Holly lifted the lip and saw that the front teeth were wobbly. What struck her as odd was that Lindsay wore only one black pearl stud in her left ear. The bare right lobe looked red and irritated.

  “One earring,” she said in a whi
sper louder than she intended.

  “She had both of them last night. Megan was admiring them. Lindsay said she got them when her family took a trip to Hawaii to the Big Island. They were going again at Christmas. Now …” His shoulders rose and fell as if he were taking deep breaths. Then just as quickly he composed himself.

  “I asked you to stay, Mike, because I wanted you to tell me more about Lindsay.” She did a ballpark assessment. About her own height, five feet six, average weight, say one hundred and twenty five pounds, eighteen or nineteen years old if she were a freshman. Her rich chestnut hair fell in light waves to the top of her shoulders, spread out like a halo. Megan had said that they had turned her over. If someone had killed her and left her in a certain position, that information was gone. But wouldn’t it have been obvious to Megan?

  Who is she? Who was she? Who did she hope to be? The answers were moot. Setting aside the possibility that one of the students did this, something that the team would not dismiss out of hand, how long would it have taken? A minute or two? Three to pass out? Five to die and begin the inevitable processes as the spark left the cells one by one? Boone had told her about determining the time of death from stomach contents. This far from the tents, no sounds would have carried. The wind had been up last night. Even from her window, she had heard waves crashing on the beach half a mile away down the natural amphitheatre at Otter Point.

  Lindsay wore an unlaced pair of runners and no socks. Easy to slip on and off while leaving the tent. So she had come out here herself, with enough wits to put on her shoes. By her still hand was a mini flashlight, its glass head cracked. Used as a defensive weapon, or dropped on the rocks, or both? Too much to hope that it belonged to the person who had killed her? Another one for the detectives.

  “Is that her light, Mike?” she asked.

  “I gave it to her to use our first night. She’d forgot to bring one.”

  Holly took out her notebook and jotted a quick summary of the last few minutes. “You and your friends will be asked to stay around until things get organized. Then you’ll probably have to go to West Shore to make a more complete statement.”