Читать книгу When the Flood Falls - J.E. Barnard - Страница 9

Later that evening, squinting against the sunlight from her bedroom window, Lacey tossed her second knapsack’s worth of work clothes into drawers. After stashing her small toiletry kit in the nearest bathroom, she checked the other rooms on the top floor more thoroughly than she had the night before. Two more bedrooms, a lounge area overlooking the vast living room, and the huge master suite at the other end, overlooking the garage. The best view down onto the deck was from Dee’s ensuite, a room larger than Lacey’s kitchen in B.C. It wasn’t ideal, but if the lights came on, they could see anyone escaping up to the trail. Lacey’s room looked down the driveway. She was pretty sure the tangled underbrush around the spruce trees would keep anyone from running off that way, although they might dive into it to avoid the lights and creep away later.

With the sightlines established, she went downstairs to find tea waiting and Dee on her phone, sitting through a long rant from that Camille woman they’d mentioned earlier. Shameless eavesdropping revealed that Camille wanted an annotated list of all the loaner paintings in the opening show, with full biographical details on the artists and the current owners. She clearly expected Dee to order Rob to drop his thousand-and-three other jobs to compile her list. After repeated suggestions that Camille consult the printed catalogue for the opening show, which was readily available down at the museum, Dee finally disconnected.

“Damned grand-standing tramp,” she said.

“You really don’t like her.”

“Usually I can take or leave her, preferably the latter, except that she’s on the museum board, too, and therefore impossible to completely avoid. Today she’s really pissed that Jan interrupted her moment of glory at the press conference.” Dee guzzled her cooling tea. “Also, she really is a tramp, not that it’s a crime, but it’s really low class of her. She drapes herself all over her husband’s protege in public. Mick’s a nice old guy, mentored this kid practically since his first pair of skates, and now that the little jerk is a hotshot NHL player, he’s got Mick’s wife nibbling his ear in front of Mick’s friends and neighbours. It’s impossible to avoid knowing she’s got her teeth into more than that. Mick deserves better. Sorry, another call about the gala.”

So Blondie this morning was the woman everyone loved to hate around here. Hot gossip. Lacey shuddered. She’d heard plenty of cop-shop gossip in her time, but really tried to avoid the junior high kind of nastiness. She tuned out the next phone call and watched the last vestiges of sunset trail away from the sky. Three days ahead of the event, the museum’s opening gala schedule was already too familiar. Friday daytime was for media tours and interviews. The evening portion would involve select local dignitaries, donors, and celebrity guests swilling pricey booze and watching some kind of upscale variety show. Lacey might not be employed for long after Friday if Wayne didn’t thaw toward her. He could easily replace her with someone more electronically apt, who didn’t need to be coached through the use of a power screwdriver.

Ten minutes later, Dee popped out her earpiece and yawned hugely. “That’s enough for tonight. Anyone else can talk to my voice mail. I’m so glad you’re here, Lacey. I’ll sleep like a log now that you’ve got my back. But we’ve been talking about me and my troubles ever since you got here. What on earth is going on with you? Leaving Dan and the RCMP both in the last six months? This is not the old cautious McCrae.”

Lacey drained her mug, buying time. How could she summarize all the events of the winter? One too many puke-inducing sexual abuses of children. Disgusting domestic violence calls. Her growing disillusionment with the Force and the eternal argument with Dan over starting a family she didn’t want. The whole mess with young Dominic and old Gracie that finally smashed her commitment to the job. And then the final fight with Dan, and the terrifying week that followed. It was too much to condense, but she had to say something.

“The Twitter version: I’m halfway divorced, halfway between homes, and in a temporary job. Also broke while I wait for Dan to sell our house and for my RCMP pension payout to arrive. Is that one hundred and forty characters?”

“Hell if I know,” said Dee. “I’ve never picked up a Twitter habit. Ninety-nine percent of my day is confidential, anyway. Nothing to tweet about. But you’re living at Tom’s? And he got you the job with Wayne? Is he still married or are you two …?”

“We are not. I like his wife. And his kids. I’ve been sleeping on their rec room couch for the past few weeks, working for his friend just over one. When the museum security is finished, I might be reduced to mall security guard. Who knows what I’ll be able to afford for a home on those wages. Calgary is almost as expensive as Vancouver.”

Dee squeezed her hand across the coffee table. “Aren’t we a pair? All that golden promise from our university grad party and poof! Where are we now?”

“We,” said Lacey, “are in one hell of a nice house, thanks to your rising real estate stardom.”

“Stay with me as long as you like. It’s bound to be safer than staying at Tom’s. Sooner or later, you know …”

Lacey did indeed know. Once you’ve had a man’s body and found it good, he never seems quite as out of bounds as before, even if he is married now. Between shift work and the fights with Dan, she’d gone months without sex. It didn’t need saying out loud, but one extra beer when she and Tom were both tired to death, and they could skid right off that narrow rail again, rationalizing it as they had before: just stress relief.

“Just as well you’re here now,” Dee went on. “You can come to the gala as my date.” Her phone buzzed, then, and after a glance at the number, she added, “Aw, shit, I have to take this one last call. Back in a sec.” She left the room.

Lacey took her mug back to the kitchen and stared out into the late twilight at the dog pen. Were the dogs staring back at her, waiting for her to come within biting range? She stepped into the dining room, where the French doors framed the rear terrace and the wooded hill. Yup, all these open drapes — Dee was much calmer tonight. Either the pills were kicking in, or she’d been able to get a grip simply by knowing she wasn’t alone. In the living room, the vast windows displayed the Rocky Mountains, coldly blue against the amber streaks of sunset, their jagged tops still partly shrouded in snow. She stood there admiring the million-dollar view, wondering whether going outside would set off the dogs, until Dee came in from her office beyond the wide log staircase. She looked even more exhausted than before.

“Poor Rob. One of these days Camille Hardy will get taken down to size.” She dropped into an oversized armchair. “And I hope I’m there to see it.”

“You used to be the one doing the sizing. Getting mellow in your old age?”

“Not at all. But steering this museum through the construction phase requires a certain amount of diplomatic tongue biting, more so since Camille is tight with Jake, who’s the single biggest donor. She was tighter still with his ex-wife, the ex-president. Even so, I can’t let her drive Rob insane. His competence is the only thing standing between the museum and utter disaster. Look, I’ve got to get to bed. You have everything you need? Watch TV if you want; it won’t bother me. But please close all the curtains before you come up.”

Dee may have slept well, but Lacey did not. She checked all the door and window locks, leaned out of windows to make sure the motion-sensor lights were still plugged in, drew all the drapes, and at last went upstairs to bed. Her bedroom curtains she left open, and the window, too, so she’d hear anyone on the porch. Then she lay staring at the glossy log ceiling, as much as it could be seen in the absence of streetlights. She hadn’t counted on every outside noise being quite so loud. Creepy rustlings and other unfamiliar wilderness sounds mocked her through the half-open window. Would footfalls stand out above all that background noise? No comforting hum of traffic here, no sirens or horns blaring, none of the nighttime concerto of Surrey or Calgary. No gunshots, either, which was nice. Peaceful country living.

She was drifting off at last when something thumped against the porch beneath her window. She leaped out of bed and leaned out, but all was dark. What had happened to the motion lights? She ran downstairs in the dark, silently to avoid waking Dee. She switched on the porch lights at the front door and dashed outside … in time to see the rump ends of two small deer dis­appearing into the underbrush.

In the morning she met Dee by the coffee pot. Power Women Weekly would surely approve of Dee’s intimidating perfection, from the spotless shapely pinstripe skirt and jacket to the sleek chignon. If that Camille woman had ever met this Dee in a boardroom, she would think twice about making demands. Dee was filling a steel travel mug and clearly ready to click out the door on her business-class heels.

“You’re up early,” she said. “How’d you sleep?” Lacey confessed to rousting the two small deer. Dee grinned. “Hazard of the neighbourhood.”

“You’re in the city all day today?”

“In and out. I’ll be back to the museum, but first there’s a vital meeting for my big East Village development. I’ll likely be home for supper, but if you’re hungry first, help yourself to anything in the fridge or freezer. Or there are a couple of decent restaurants down the hill.” Dee waved her mug in the general direction of the hamlet. “Not as many as before the last flood. Quite a few businesses never re-opened.”

“That bad?” Lacey tried to imagine flood water spreading over the peaceful valley. Down beside the churning river, she could envision it all too clearly, but the water didn’t look that high from here, staying inside its banks as far as the eye could follow them. That would be reassuring if she hadn’t seen a lot more gravel and boulders and trees down those banks just a few days ago. All below the water now.

“Oh, yeah, definitely bad. The Elbow River took out a swath of riverbank just upstream from here and detoured straight along Whyte Avenue into the business district. A once-in-five-hundred-years flood, except now they’re saying it’ll be more frequent than that. It made a major mess and everyone’s paranoid it’ll happen again despite the expensive flood mitigation the province is doing.”

Lacey shared the villagers’ paranoia of flooding waters. She shivered.

“Cold?” Dee glanced at the clock and gathered up her stuff. “Coffee’s ready, espresso machine’s there if you’d rather. You know where the tea stuff is. You have plenty of time before work. No commute.”

“I think I’ll go for a run,” said Lacey. “Where’s good?”

“My old route is out the back, on the trail behind the dog pen. Go uphill past the next houses and follow the wall around Jake Wyman’s place. Watch out for horse droppings up there. The trail eventually drops behind the hill and reaches a back road.” She took a deep breath. “You’ll recognize it. That’s where I … where Duke … the accident happened. Then the same way we came back the other day. About six kilometres total. Stay on the pavement, though, not on the river path. The riverbank could be undermined in places.”

No fear of Lacey not staying as far from the water as possible! “Sounds great.”

“Oh, and watch out for thundering herds of hockey players.”

“Huh?”

“Running, riding, biking, anything to keep in shape. There are half a dozen staying at Jake’s place for the Stanley Cup Finals, including whichever nitwit was driving yesterday. You’ll meet them at the gala. Hot today and gone tomorrow if you’re looking for some no-complications sex. Every girl’s answer for the post-divorce blues.”

This morning’s Dee was so chipper it was surreal. “Including yours?”

Dee smirked. “Maybe. But let us not be distracted from more important matters. I bet you don’t have an evening gown to wear on Friday night.”

“I’m not going to the gala.”

“Of course you are. We need a security presence in case something goes wrong with the door locks or whatever. Or if Eddie sneaks in with his protest signs. I already talked to Wayne. You’re his rep for the night, and my date. I’m not coming home alone at two o’clock in the morning when I could have my own personal bodyguard.”

“I suppose you also fixed it so I’m getting paid to attend?”

Dee grinned. “Natch. Don’t worry, I’ll find you something not disgraceful to wear. Go run. And watch out for deer.”

“Hockey players and deer. Check. If I meet a deer on the trail, what do I do?”

“Make some noise. They’ll get out of your way. Bears are unlikely this late in the spring, and you’re too big for a cougar’s lunch. I’d say you should take the dogs, but they know you don’t like them.”

“It’s mutual. Between the bears and the dogs and who knows what else, I was safer on the mean streets of Surrey.”

Five minutes later, Lacey stood on the red-gravelled path beyond the dog run, conscious of two sets of hostile canine eyes on her back. The trail ran downhill from here as well as up, its contours quickly lost amid the aspen and spruce. She would investigate that direction after work. Any prowler had to be leaving his vehicle within walking distance, in the yard of some empty house or on a road where the trail crossed it.

For the moment she turned uphill, walking and then jogging, her legs and lungs settling into their familiar rhythms. Lush spring undergrowth sprawled onto the path, the low bushes bursting with small wild blossoms. Instead of the familiar Surrey fug of traffic fumes, car horns, and emergency sirens, all around her were pine-scented breezes and birdsong. It should have been soothing, but her brain could not let go of Dee’s problem. Was there danger? From where, or from whom? Could she stop it before Dee got hurt or went completely around the bend?

Jake Wyman’s estate wall crept alongside, its brown bricks deliberately blotched with grey to play optical tricks with the surrounding woods, like those paintings of tree trunks that suddenly became spotted horses. An open stretch revealed the imposing reality: interlocked brick twice Lacey’s height, interrupted only by wrought-iron gates that were secured with motion-tracking cameras and a keypad lock. Nothing visible through the gates except more trees. Multi-millionaire privacy. Up here, there was not a single other access point from which Dee’s prowler might come. On one side, the wall, on the other a thickly treed slope with snarled, spiky underbrush as far down as the eye could penetrate.

Soon the trail turned downward, and she left the civilizing presence of the wall behind. This side of the hill felt more isolated, even lonely. When had she been so alone before? Her previous wilderness experiences were hiking the Algonquin Trail, continually meeting other hikers, and skiing the busy trails at Whistler with other locals and tourists. For most of her adult life, the RCMP was at her back, in spirit if not in fact. There was a void behind her now, almost tangible in its emptiness. No spouse, no partner, no fellow officers to cover her moves at a moment’s notice. Just Dee. And when Dee no longer needed her? She shut her mind to the questions and simply ran, red gravel crunching beneath her feet, her eyes alert for branches, bears, deer, horse shit, or other hazards of life on the eastern fringe of the Rockies.

The burn-off effect worked, as it always had. By the time she passed the spot where she’d picked up Dee and the setters, her head was clearer, her body calmer. The gravel road stretched peacefully ahead in the sunshine, devoid of vehicles and yet comforting in its tidy signage, trimmed-back shoulders, and other signs of human encroachment on the wilderness. She was alone, isolated for the moment by choice, but human habitations were close enough for comfort. Then she turned the corner, and there was the river.

She found she was jogging on the spot, watching the distant line of brown through the intervening trees. This far up the long slope of the road, she could tell herself it was not rushing water she heard but the wind among the spruces, and yet her heart thudded as if she teetered on the edge of the torrent. She could not force her feet forward. Crouching on the gravel shoulder, resting her elbows on her knees, she struggled to get her breathing and heart rate down. The breeze rolled over her and birdsong filtered through the nearest trees, and her whole body shuddered with completely irrational panic.

The sound of her own voice jolted her. “McCrae, you cannot be this much of a wimp.” It was the voice in her head that had gotten her through the gruelling training at Depot. The voice pushing her to run just one more circuit, swim one more lap, haul one more classmate up from the bottom in the dive-training course. This time she’d had to say it out loud, just to get her own attention.

Her head came up. “Okay, McCrae. Enough with huddling on the dirt like a scared rabbit. You are genuinely afraid of ever being trapped in a sunken boat in murky water again. But this is not that situation. This is a peaceful morning run in beautiful country. Why are you terrified of that water way down there?”

The answer rang through her head as loud as if she’d screamed it. Dan.

And just like that, she remembered. They were walking through the river park on a grey spring day in the Lower Mainland. The drizzle had lifted while they were staring into their cups at Tim Hortons, not talking about the unthinkable, the literally unspeakable half hour two weeks earlier. The day she’d told him at knifepoint to leave the house before the neighbours called the cops on them and destroyed both their careers. He’d left, then, but she’d ended up handing in her resignation the next week, anyway, fed up to her scalp with the barely veiled hostility her male subordinates offered their first female shift boss and the lack of official or unofficial support against any of it. This was her first face-to-face meeting with Dan since, and they weren’t talking about that devistating half hour. Domestic calls made up half their workload, too many to pretend there wouldn’t be a next time.

It was his idea to walk instead of sit. Fresh air, a fresh angle on their problems. Counselling would be a fresh angle, she’d said. I’ll think about it, he’d responded.

They walked shoulder to shoulder into the park, away from the few damp dog-walkers, stepping around puddles on the paved trail, while the leaves dripped and the river rushed past, swollen by spring rains farther up the Fraser Valley. He wanted to move home while they worked out a friendly separation. Give his shift buddies time to get used to the idea or they’d ask too many questions. She wondered out loud why it was more important to avoid questions than to face the fact that he’d attacked her in their own kitchen. He’d said, so calmly she didn’t believe she was hearing right until it was almost too late to react, “They’d ask fewer if I was a grieving widower.” And he’d shoulder-checked her sideways, off the path and onto the slippery riverbank.

Sitting on that sunny gravel road under summery blue sky, two months and four mountain ranges away from Dan, and at least a kilometre from the nearest river, Lacey held out her hands, checking for scrapes across her palms from that desperate grab at the sodden bushes to keep herself out of the murky, swirling Fraser River. He’d helped her to her feet, swearing it was just a bit of horseplay, something to break the icy distance between them. There’d been no further mention of his moving home, or of counselling. A sleepless week later she’d called Tom and arranged to be in Calgary immediately following her exit interview from the RCMP.

After a bit, obedient to the commanding voice in her head, she got to her feet and headed back up the road at a slow trot. There was, she remembered, a short path up from where she’d picked up Dee. It ran steeply up the hill and crossed the main trail near Dee’s backyard. She’d barely have time to shower and get down to the museum on time.

The busy morning that followed kept her from thinking too hard about anything. Well, except about pushy Camille from the press conference. The woman poked her shapely nose into every area of the building. A handful of similarly streaked blondes followed her around, their high voices echoing acros the vast atrium like the yapping of a dozen purse puppies. Later they clustered in the outer office, watching through the glass wall as their leader flipped her hair and waved her arms at Rob, no doubt to punc­tuate some impossible new demand. Camille, the perennial headache.

Lacey focused on adjusting the camera over the elevator door, which, she noted, was the same brand that covered Jake Wyman’s back gates. Nothing but the best around here. She went from that task to the next, working around the swirl of activity in and out of the theatre. Rehearsals were nothing to do with her. She would see the show on Friday with Dee.

Dee was at the museum by late morning, calm and focused in the midst of a storm of queries from volunteers and workers alike. Yesterday’s despair might never have happened, save that the tension in her thin shoulders relaxed fractionally when she waved to Lacey. The mere presence of a police officer often had the same effect at an accident scene. People trusted you to handle it. You got good at projecting an air of calm competence even before you knew what you were up against. Fake it till you make it — just like Lacey was doing with this job for Wayne. Except that any of these workers or volunteers, or the nasty Camille, might have it in for Dee over some museum-related issue, and how could a stranger like Lacey hope to sort out the merely irked from the dangerously angry? Her phone went off; Wayne sent her down to the studio area to code keypads.

Whatever else might be said about this job, it was giving her insight into how artists worked. This corridor beneath the theatre seats held small studios for rental by the hour, as well as a large room that could be divided for holding art classes. The inevitable messes could be cleaned up in a sloping stainless steel sink that was longer and a bit wider than a coffin. Two middle-aged women stood over the sink, sorting sculpting tools into bins. Occasionally a piece would roll down toward the drain with a pattering of plastic on metal.

Beyond them, a short hallway connected the clay room to the theatre’s working underbelly, where scene­ry and props could be stored and artworks crated up for shipment. This hallway was lined with personal lockers, each with a keypad that needed coding according to Wayne’s list. Here artists could store their tools and masterworks between sessions. These were not ordinary bus station or even high school lockers, but cubbies rang­ing in size from breadboxes to deep, skinny spaces for stretched canvases. Across the aisle were walk-in closets tall enough to hold life-sized sculptures. Some of them contained rolling carts up to waist high, with a tool shelf at the bottom and a square flat top where the sculpting was done. One of the sorting women stepped on a cart’s bottom shelf and pushed off with her other foot, rolling across the floor, clinging to the flat top and laughing as she banged against the big window that opened onto the elevator lobby. No one else came into the area except a few lost rehearsal attendees. The women redirected them to the backstage stairs, pointing the way around by the corridors instead of letting them crowd past Lacey and her toolbox in the short, more direct hallway.

Lacey smiled her thanks. Signage wasn’t her department, but if it wasn’t installed by Friday, she might spend all night retrieving disoriented guests and actors from the bowels of the building. Good thing she knew it so well by now: two asymmetrical wings connected by the third-floor skywalk and the main floor of the atrium. One wing held the galleries, with art at the top and history at the bottom. The other wing was two floors — a theatre with classrooms and other utilitarian rooms beneath. Theoretically only the actors would be down there. The offices and kitchen under the atrium would be swarming with caterers and staff, but that left a lot of odd corners and back halls where partygoers could get themselves lost. Accidentally or on purpose.

By noon, she was inside the atrium’s information/security kiosk, kneeling on the floor with her head under the counter, twisting camera cables into a switching box. The midsummer sun beat through the immense window wall onto her back. Sweat glued her waistband to her skin and curls of hair stuck to her forehead. In the confined space, fresh glue and paint fumes assaulted her nose and throat. Beyond the windows, the river’s rumble echoed down her spine. When businesslike heels clicked across the paving-stone floor and stopped behind her, she backed out of her confinement with great relief. Even the dire Camille would be a welcome interruption at this point.

“Security?” Dee tapped her ubiquitous travel mug on the varnished log countertop. “Can I have a safe-walk escort, please?” Lacey breathed deep and looked up at the sweat-free, wrinkle-free perfection that was Dee after a turbocharged morning.

“You need an escort? Has something happened?”

“It’s the protester out front. Rob and I have an appointment, and last time, he stood in front of Rob’s car for ten minutes. We’re taking mine, but he knows it and may stop us again.”

“I can’t move him out of the way. We can’t touch him as long as he stays on public property.”

“Just distract him. If he’s busy explaining his cause to a possible convert, he might let us sneak by without a hassle. You don’t have to identify yourself as anything but a curious construction worker.”

“I look the part.” Lacey stood up and stretched out her back. “You want me to walk you to your vehicle first?”

“Rob and I will sneak out a side door.” Dee waved at Rob and picked up her travel mug. “Give us three minutes to get into position, then go out and distract.” She and the curator disappeared down the stairs to the studio level.

Lacey hung around inside the front entrance, watching Mr. Protest march up and down the shoulder by the parking lot exit, waving his sign at passing cars as they slowed for the turn onto the bridge. With his muddy rubber boots, greasy ball cap, and an equally filthy green plaid work shirt half-covered by a straggling grey-brown beard, he could play a hillbilly in any moonshiner movie. He might be a nuisance, but was he dangerous?

After the three minutes were up, she strolled along the wide sidewalk of blue Rundle-stone slabs, wishing she were a smoker. Smokers could ask anyone for a light and then strike up a conversation. As a law enforcement officer, she had never needed an excuse. People were either flustered or flattered, depending on their conscience. Now she had no uniform, no authority, and no cigarette. She was going in undercover, an irony considering that one among her barrel of motives for leaving the RCMP was being rejected for undercover work. She kept her hands loose at her sides, fighting her instinct to be visibly ready for action.

“Much traffic today?” she called as she approached.

He shook his shaggy head, eying her up. After a bit he slurped his tongue over his teeth and said, “Nope. Midweek’s not the busiest. Couple of guys honked, though.”

“Shows they’re paying attention, huh?”

“Yup. Darn waste of taxpayer money, this place. Here, have a pamphlet.” He tugged a trifolded yellow sheet from his shirt pocket. “Explains all about it.”

“Thanks.” On the cover, in bold font, were the words, Make Jobs Not Pots. Lacey opened the sheet and scanned enough of the crowded paragraphs within to grasp the gist of his argument. Art didn’t bring jobs or economic benefits to the community. “You wrote this yourself?”