by Dale Mayer
Rather than going straight home, he headed down in the area with the building he wanted to buy and drove past to see cops still everywhere, including her. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was following her. He had been hoping to take her out for dinner, but that had all gone sideways when she went for a workout, and then he’d seen the fatigue and the weariness on her soul. The job was demanding and had to be stressful. The fact that she was doing so well was amazing, but he saw that it was taking a toll.
That was something he would have to deal with probably all of his life, if he planned on staying close to her. Which he did, at least for the foreseeable future, and wasn’t that something? Kate was the opposite of what he’d historically had for lady friends. Kate also looked to be a lot of work. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but it’s what it was, and, because that was where his interests had landed, he was willing to work with it.
As he finally drove toward home, he heard another report on a jumper. He frowned at that and called someone he knew in law enforcement in West Vancouver. When Ben asked him what his interest was in the jumper, he said that there just seemed to be so many of them right now that he wondered if the city needed something extra to help those people in need.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” his friend said, an age-old weariness in his tone. “I’m not even sure how to tackle something like that, but mental health is a huge issue right now.”
“Right now? I think it’s all the time, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” Ben said. “I mean, when you think about it, if it comes to that, you know—in some people’s minds—there are just no other options.”
“That’s the part that just blows me away,” Simon said quietly. “I mean, how is it that there are no other options?”
“Because these people either don’t have money, don’t have facilities or support, or they’re missing something major that would help them to avoid this last step.”
“Well, surely there are at least online chat groups for support,” Simon said.
“Sure, but unfortunately there are also online chat groups of people supporting the decision to do it as well.”
“Ouch.” Simon winced. “That should be monitored.”
“Yeah, except then we’re infringing on personal rights and privacy.” With that statement, Ben’s wariness and frustration was evident. Simon was sorry he’d reached out to his friend.
“Well, if you think of anything I can do to help,” Simon said, “let me know.”
And, with that, he rang off, as he headed back to his penthouse. He walked upstairs, still thinking about it.
Was there something he could do to help? This was not an area he’d ventured into, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t, if only he found a way. And that was always the problem—trying to figure out just what he was supposed to do, what his role in all of this rightly was. Generally he liked to stay well and truly clear of being in the public eye, but, on some things, he couldn’t. Some things were just too much out of control, hurting so many people, and maybe that’s where he was at right now. He didn’t know, but it was a struggle sometimes.
On instinct, once he got inside and settled, he turned on his computer and sat down, looking at some available suicide resources online. What was immediately apparent was you could join a lot of groups on social media and otherwise. A million therapists advertised their skill sets on the internet as well. Whether they were any good or not left a lot to be interpreted, and by people who were the most vulnerable. He wondered just how anybody was supposed to evaluate these services, especially if they didn’t have the money to try them out. That had to be difficult because did you just go talk to all these people? Not likely. If you were already struggling, the last thing you wanted was strangers digging into your mind and your thought processes, yet who else was there?
He kept searching and reading, and finally found on one of the sites a commemorative list of the names of people who had committed suicide. Frowning, he looked at the names and kept scrolling down the page. It was a group trying to support each other after a loss to suicide. When he got to one name, he stopped and frowned. He quickly made a phone call and said, “Louisa, this is Simon.”
She immediately started bawling. “Hi, Simon,” she said in between hiccups.
“I just saw something on the internet,” he said, hating to even bring it up, since obviously she was traumatized by whatever was going on.
“So you heard,” she said.
“I guess I did,” he said again hesitantly. “Is it true? Did he commit suicide?”
She started to cry even harder. “Oh my God,” she said, “it’s been the worst few days of my life.”
He looked at the list, noted no dates.
“When did this happen?” he asked.
“Just a few days ago,” she murmured. “I knew he was upset about something but to commit suicide, to jump? He was afraid of heights,” she cried out. “Why would he do that?”
Simon tried to console her as best he could, but not a whole lot he could say, and he was in shock himself. When he finally got off the phone, he sat down and pulled up all the information he could find, but there wasn’t very much available, and that was something else that just blew him away. When these suicides happened, did nobody keep track? Did nobody look into their lives to see why, or did it become just another statistic? Just somebody else who didn’t want to live and who took care of the job themselves?
More than a little stunned and upset, knowing that his friend had been a very vibrant guy, Simon couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t have reached out and said something to him? Then Simon checked his email and looked at the last few he had from David and found nothing suspicious, absolutely nothing to suggest trouble of any kind. Simon didn’t know what to say; there wasn’t anything really, but it made him even more aware of the problem. Yet it was this big blank in his world.
He saw the result but didn’t really know what was causing the problem, and that bothered him even more. He did a bit more research and found a few more places that had support for spouses of people who had committed suicide. He emailed those to Louisa with a note. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. I had no idea that David was even in trouble.
And, of course, maybe she hadn’t either, so she’d be left with survivor’s guilt, something else that wasn’t fair to her as well. He didn’t even know what to say or to do and was still flabbergasted by it all, even when he woke the next morning.
*
Simon’s Friday Morning
Determined to find out more, he contacted a couple lawyers and asked them about the suicide issue.
The lawyers had very little information either, with one saying, “Suicides are suicides,” he said, “almost in a world unto themselves.”
“But these people need help before they start jumping off bridges.”
“I know,” he said. “Right now there seems to be a rash of them, and they’re getting in the news, and unfortunately that sets off a new rash of suicides,” he muttered. “But I’m not sure that it’s this bad all the time.”
“How bad does it have to get?”
Not liking the lawyer’s attitude about it either, Simon rang off and sat down, wondering if he could do anything further. He wondered about the women’s shelter. He made a couple phone calls and ended up talking to his contact there. “Lisa, is there any help for some of your women, if—um—if they’re really depressed?”
“There is some help,” she said. “We have a group of doctors who work with us, some counselors.”
“Good,” he said in relief. “I’ve just become aware of the rash of local suicides lately, and I’m finding it a bit shocking.”
“It is shocking when you first become aware of it,” she said, “but honestly it’s something that a lot of us have been dealing with for a long time.”
“That just makes me feel worse,” he said. “I had no idea the issue was so bad. I just found out a friend of mine,
somebody I’ve known for years, jumped off the bridge a few days ago.”
“Oh, my goodness,” she said immediately, with sympathy. “I am so sorry. I think suicide is one of the hardest things for the survivors to deal with. It’s like, Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me that it was that bad? I could have helped.”
“Exactly. I’d have sworn he wasn’t the guy to do something like that.”
“Well, unless you know exactly what was going on in his mind at the time, it’s really hard to say that.”
“I know. I know,” he said, “and now I feel like it’s too little, too late.”
“Hence the whole problem with suicide,” she said quietly. “Honestly, when you have a friend in trouble, it’s just important to even talk them down off the bridge, if that’s what they need.”
“The trouble is,” he said, “I had no idea this guy was even in trouble.”
“And that’s probably the same for his wife too.”
“Absolutely. I just got off the phone with her last night, and she was completely unaware of what could have been so bad that he would do this, and she’s beating herself up for it.”
“That’ll be really hard on her,” she murmured. “Hopefully she has some support.”
“Well, I’ll be there. I’ve known them both for fifteen odd years,” he said quietly, “so she won’t be alone right now.”
“Just be aware that her survivor guilt could take her down a path where you don’t want her to go.”
“Ouch,” he said. “All the more reason to stay in touch.” And, with that, he hung up.
Chapter 5
Kate’s Friday Morning
Frustrated at having come to a dead end on the hunt for the drive-by shooter, already dealing with a murder-suicide on her case list and what looked like another child killing, Kate sat down with a heavy sigh and picked up her extralarge cup of coffee and took a sip.
Rodney sat down at his desk in front of her. “How are you holding up?”
“Sometimes this job sucks,” she said, “but I’m holding.”
“Yep, it does,” he said. “The successes, although there are many, sometimes feel like they’re few and far between.”
She nodded. “Just when it seems like you’re getting somewhere, everything stops. You think that people are cooperating, and the next day nobody has anything to say. You go through twenty, thirty, even forty interviews with people, and nobody saw anything.”
“And you’re always looking for the one person who saw something, even if they didn’t know it was important,” he said.
She stared at the stack of files in front of her. “We have a lot of cases right now,” she said, “and those are just the current ones from this week.”
He laughed. “And then there are the current ones from last week. And unfortunately there will be current ones for next week as well.”
She nodded. “I guess that’s why it’s bugging me. They just keep stacking up.”
“Don’t let it get to you too much,” he said.
She looked at him and said, “You’ve been here in the unit for what, ten years of this?”
He nodded. “Ten years in homicide.”
“How do you handle it?”
“One day at a time,” he said cheerfully. “You understand there are wins, and there are losses. You had a big win right out of the gate,” he said, “and now we’re in an ugly spot, where it just seems like the cases are piling up, and we’re getting nowhere.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, giving herself a mental headshake. “I guess that’s a good way to look at it,” she said and then stifled a yawn.
“You’ve got to make sure you get rest in between everything else,” he warned her.
“And how do you do that, when the faces of the dead wake you up in the night?”
“You say, ‘Thank you for reminding me of your existence. Now please let me sleep, so I can better fight for your cause tomorrow.’”
She stared at him in surprise. “Wow. That is good advice.”
He laughed. “I’m not just a pretty face around here,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
She laughed at that.
“Have you gotten any more weird emails?”
“No,” she said, “thank God. I have enough things to deal with without some weirdo.”
“I get you there.”
She added, “But, then again, I haven’t opened up my email today.”
“I do it when I first wake up,” he confessed.
“I used to. Then I decided I needed to have that bit of distance, so I don’t look at work emails until I come in to my desk.”
“That’s probably smart,” he said, “unless you’re expecting information, and then you’ll need to be into it all the time.”
“Well, it’s a fairly recent attempt,” she said, “so I don’t know if it’ll work or not.”
He shrugged. “It seems like, most of the time, information comes in at odd hours, so you’ll have to be a little flexible with it at least.”
“I know,” she said. “I was just struggling and trying something in the way of boundaries.”
He nodded. “And I get that. I really do,” he said. “You’ve just got to find a system that works for you and keeps your head above water.”
She smiled, nodded, and opened up her emails. And when one came in with something odd in the subject line, she said, “Uh-oh. Look at this subject line. ‘Are you there?’ it says.” She snorted. “Like where else would I be?”
He turned and looked at her. “Did you open it?”
She said, “It’s just opening now.” She picked up her coffee, took another big sip, and almost spewed it back into the cup. “Shit,” she said.
He slowly turned, looked at her, and asked, “Is it another one?”
She nodded. “It’s another one.” She studied the image in front of her, a growing disquiet inside. “Looks like the Lions Gate Bridge again,” she said, “and, although it’s a picture of shoes, I can’t tell the sex of the wearer from these. It’s a pair of runners.” She frowned. “Looks like maybe a wallet or something is stuffed inside them.” She scrubbed her face and said, “What the hell is going on?”
“Put it up on the wall screen, and let’s see if there’s anything else.”
She quickly transferred the desktop image to the screen on the wall. Two others in their team walked in just then, talking, Lilliana and Owen. They stopped when they saw the photo. Lilliana’s gaze zoomed in on her. “Another one?”
Kate nodded, as she stood and walked over to stand in front of it. “I just found it.”
“Why is somebody sending you pictures of the aftermath of a suicide?” Owen asked, not expecting anybody to give him an answer.
“This one had a subject line,” Rodney said, coming up beside her, his tone grim. “Are you there?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Owen asked.
“What it means,” Kate said, “or at least what my churning stomach thinks it means, is that somebody is killing people and making it look like a suicide.”
Colby walked up right behind her. “Please tell me that you didn’t just say that.”
Her shoulders hunched. “I got a third email today,” she said, nodding at the front wall.
He walked up to take a closer look. “Jesus. Confirm that a jumper was there overnight,” he said. “And then we need to have a talk about it.”
“Talk about what though?” Kate asked. “If this is murder, I don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s probably not. Odds are it’s just some asshat messing with you,” Rodney said. “They know that first one got to you a little bit because they saw you down there, and now they just want to jerk your chain a little bit.”
“Meaning that it’s just a sicko playing games?”
“Well, the other alternative,” he said, “is that we have a serial killer.”
“That’s not anything anybody wants to look at either,” Kate muttered.<
br />
“But burying our heads has never helped,” Colby said, his voice quiet. “This needs a full investigation, if only so we can write it off.”
Kate nodded. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll add it to my stack of paperwork.”
He looked at her and said, “The case files not going anywhere?”
She shook her head. “It seems like nothing’s going anywhere at the moment.”
“Well, maybe this will help, and you’ll find something about whatever it is that’s going on,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll produce something fresh enough to work.”
She nodded. “That would be nice.” She tossed one last look at the picture on the wall and said, “I’ll send these off to Forensics.”
“Good idea,” her sergeant said. “Did you send the others?”
She nodded. “But I’ll tag them with this third one, and then I’ll check in with the PD and see what we’ve gotten overnight for jumpers.”
And, with that, she sat down, ignoring them all, as she took care of everything else going on in her world. But, inside, she was using it as a means to escape their looks and their curiosity as to why she had been targeted for this.
She truly had no answer, but that wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to whoever was doing this. They had a reason; she just didn’t know what it was yet, and that was quietly terrifying. She hadn’t done anything wrong in her world that she knew of, but it wouldn’t change anything.
Several calls later, she’d done what she had set out to do, but the information was oddly disquieting, even though she had the confirmation she needed.
Rodney turned around to face her. “Anything?”
She nodded slowly. “They’re still searching for the body. It was on the Lions Gate Bridge, so West Vancouver PD responded to the call.” He sat back and exhaled. She nodded. “I know. And there was something in his shoes, like we thought. The officer in charge hasn’t seen the report yet and wasn’t on the scene, so he didn’t know more, but they will forward the details as soon as it’s logged.”
He nodded. “And what do you want to do now?”
