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Thaw

LATE MARCH, AND THE GROUND was still frozen, but the snow was on the wane. Spring break-up was washing over the central interior, and 90 percent of logging operations had shut down to ride it out. When Leith arrived at the Law home the sky was pelting rain and the midday light was muted to a premature dusk. Frank Law had been released pending his remand hearing but hadn’t been home more than a week before he’d screwed up badly, caught drinking and driving, and was sent back to the slammer. In Terrace. So much for reprieve. The youngest bear, Lenny, opened the door to Leith’s knock and directed him out back to the fleet of oversized Tonka toys in the yard, in particular to what he called the grapple-skidder. Leith had no solid idea what a grapple-skidder was, so he walked between the half-dozen machines until he found one emitting a clanging noise. He climbed the rungs and looked in to find Rob lying sideways on the operator’s seat, wrestling at something within the manifold with a wrench in each hand. His bare arms were striped with grease and his face contorted. He glanced around irritably when Leith rapped his knuckles against the mud-spattered, projectile-proof glass.

“Need to talk,” Leith shouted.

He waited between the machines until Rob came to earth with a thud and asked what he wanted.

“Charlie West,” Leith said. “Where exactly did she go when she left?”

“Charlie? Went north, I thought. But now I’m hearing she went south, so I’m guessing Vancouver. I told you, the lawyers said not to talk to you guys.”

“Thing is, she didn’t get to Dease Lake. Her sister hasn’t heard from her since last September, around the time she left you. No news of her showing up elsewhere either. With that in mind, d’you have any suggestion where she may be now?”

Rob shook his head, eyes squinched with fatigue or impatience, or both. He gestured at the house. “Gotta go clean up, get out of the rain.”

Leith followed him across the yard. “Has Frank been in contact with her since she left?”

Rob’s voice was dispirited. “Why should he be in contact with Charlie?”

“Why d’you think?”

They were inside the house, in the kitchen now, Rob running hot water, dousing a rag in soap. He didn’t pursue the why, and that said it all. He shrugged and spoke to the soap. “Seems to be a rumour Frank was screwing around with her. No clue why. He wasn’t interested in her whatsoever. Doesn’t matter. He’ll get his trial next month, and then he’ll probably go away for a long time. We got other things on our minds. She’s gone, hell knows where, and the last thing we need —”

“We’re concerned about her,” Leith said. “I understand you don’t want to hear this, but she’s missing, and I plan to find her, and you’re my best lead. Okay? So help me out.”

Rob made a noise, part disgust and part defeat. He said, “I’m having a beer. Want one?”

Leith said no to the beer but followed him into the living room, where Rob in his dirty coveralls sat heavily in an armchair, leaned back, and closed his eyes. The can of Labatt’s dangled in one hand, popped open but untouched.

The silence stretched until Leith broke it, putting to words what had bothered him since the last round of phone calls with the girl’s hometown. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Dead,” Rob said, still slumped in his armchair. “Why should she be dead?”

“Well, I don’t know. You tell me. You might as well, because I’m going to dig up the Hazeltons till I find her.How did it happen, Rob?”

Rob gave him a hard look. “She left in September. We never should have got together, me and her. Nothing in common. But no, I didn’t kill her, and Frank didn’t kill her. You’ll have to look elsewhere.”

Leith set his mouth, depressed at the odds against finding her. The land here was too broad, too hostile, too easy to vanish within, dead or alive. “Tell me again how you met Charlie.”

“Wesley Logging had equipment to sell,” Law said wearily. “I went up to take a look. Met Wesley’s niece, Charlie, we partied, thought we’d party for the rest of our life together, and came back to Kispiox. Didn’t turn out quite that way. Didn’t even last a year.”

Leith knew the name well. “Wesley Logging, run by Norm Wesley?”

“That’s the dude. Ended up spread eagle in the mud flats last September, as I hear it, full of buckshot.” Law didn’t look hugely affected by the loss, just a little disappointed. “Never got any equipment off him in the end. It was standing shit and rust, that’s what.”

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