Nowhere To Run
Authors: Carolyn Davidson
© Carolyn Davidson 2016
Carolyn Davidson has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
The sky held the grey tinged streaks of early autumn, and Sarah felt its yearly accompanying pull of nostalgia. There would be no school for her this September, yet still came the feeling of something sweet drawing to a close, paired with the approach of an unknown that could be either exciting or terrifying.
Drawing her eyes away from the sky she surveyed the field in front of her. Just five minutes away from the stunning cliffs of White Bluffs, the Bruce Trail meandered incongruously through what could easily be mistaken for the private property of a farmer’s field. This was one of many sanctuaries she would miss when she left Lion’s Head.
The sound of an airplane cut through the silence and Sarah watched as the distant shape made its way across the sky, arcing slowly over the field before it disappeared behind the clouds. Soon enough, she told herself, smiling slightly as she placed the iPod ear buds back in her ears and ramped up to finish her run to the top of the cliffs.
*
Sweat prickled Trudy’s forehead as she navigated the ascending trail. She didn’t remember it taking so long to get to the lookout point and she cursed herself now for not having worn clothes better suited to the weather; her jeans were constricting and the sweater she wore much too hot.
Reminding herself that her expedition had the added benefit of being good exercise, she pumped her arms while she walked, lifting her knees high as she stepped over the tree roots that snaked across the trail.
The air cooled suddenly as the trees to her right thinned and she saw the blue of Georgian Bay through their branches. She must be getting close. A flicker of colour to her left caught her attention and she stopped mid stride. A patch of tall grass overran rocks too strategically placed to have been dropped by nature; host to teenage trysts and celebrations judging by the charred firewood in their midst. At odds with the tableau’s muted shades, the fabricated brightness of neon pink winked in a fall of sunlight breaking through the clouds.
It was the same garish colour that she had seen splattered across the storefront windows when she visited the shopping mall in the nearest city of Owen Sound this past season. It had grated on Trudy then, fitness wear and summer styles that shouted out for the wearer to be noticed.
Moving closer, Trudy could see that the flash of colour belonged to a neon pink running shoe; a shoe worn by a runner that would have no further use for it.
*
The field was securely cordoned off with yellow tape and scattered with professionals gathering and recording information. It wasn’t enough, Inspector Susan Kovalsky sighed in frustration. Rubbing the bridge of her nose as though it would stop the frown of impatience from sticking, she cursed her phone. Were people purposely slow in getting back to her, or was it just the unmovable pace of the countryside?
The victim was a Lion’s Head resident. Her skull caved in by what Susan surmised to be the brute force of a jagged rock, further degraded by forest animals grubbing in the early hours of the morning. It was a memory she would be lucky to see diminish, much less forget.
She had seen the face of death before, of course, it went without saying after approaching twenty years on the police force. The slack absence of a nursing home resident who passed away before the days’ Jeopardy winner was announced, the bloody aftermath of a car driving too fast and a driver with too much alcohol in his system. She’d be hard pressed to number the bodies she’d been called to explain, and yet there was violence to this scene that shook her beyond what she knew herself to be sensitive to.
Turning away from the body, Susan flipped through the I.D. information the first officer on scene had handed over at her arrival. Nineteen year old Sarah Harmon, daughter of Terry and Marion Harmon, sister to Elizabeth, fiancé to Tommy Logan. Susan scanned again through the hastily scrawled notes: yes, that would be the Logans of Logan Construction, whose signs flanked the building sites of countless new homes you couldn’t help but notice on a drive through Lion’s Head. Catering to wealthy city dwellers looking for waterfront cottages, or retirees in search of a countryside retreat; it was a business that the Logan family had success in, judging by the Sold signs in front of the monster creations consistently springing up.
Footsteps accompanied by laboured breathing broke her reverie, and Susan looked up to see the arrival of forensic pathologist George Aldershot, likely gratified to be called in from his lone cup of morning coffee, if not for the morning hike up the trail. Not far behind him was Ginny Lee, crime scene photographer for the Grey Bruce OPP; the troops were coming in.
Squaring her shoulders and inhaling deeply, Susan focused on expanding her abdomen to most effectively use her diaphragm, as recommended by the good health gurus. She would need all the benefits an increase in oxygen could give her.
*
“That’s not true,” Tommy stared into Constable Gary Driscoll’s eyes in a manner the officer was tempted to describe in his note pad as ‘earnestly.’ Unless the kid was a virtuoso of deception, the tanned and well-proportioned features read nothing but shock and disbelief.
“There’s no way Sarah was going anywhere. The wedding’s in three months. Everything is all set.”
Tommy slumped back into the leather couch, muscled forearms propped on solid jean-clad thighs.
He leaned forward suddenly as if struck by possible elucidation: “Maybe she wanted to go shopping; she might have changed her mind about the dress.”
“Dress shopping in Vancouver?” Constable Driscoll held up the bagged airplane ticket. “Don’t you think a four hour plane ride is excessive for a shopping trip, even for a wedding dress? Besides,” he placed the clear bag on the table in front of the boy, “Have a look, it’s a one way ticket.”
The Constable noticed Inspector Susan Kovalsky enter the room unobtrusively and lean against the wall behind Tommy. He felt his shoulder muscles loosen slightly; he was pleased the Inspector had confidence in him, hell he had confidence in himself, but this looked pretty certain to be murder. There was no room for error in the first interview with someone who might well be the main suspect.
“I don’t know,” Tommy deflated again, refusing to look at the bagged airplane ticket in front of him. “Girls, you know, it has to be perfect.”
“How was the relationship, Tommy?” Susan stepped further into the room, settling into the chair beside Driscoll. “Were you having any problems? Any pre-wedding jitters?”
“Not that I know of,” Tommy’s eyes locked onto Susan’s as if he had found someone who could make sense of this mess, someone who would throw him a buoy to get him out of waters he couldn’t find foot in. “She would have told me, right? She would have told me if something was wrong.”
Identifying the victim hadn’t been a problem in this case; the girl’s driver’s license along with twenty dollars and what would likely turn out to be a house key were tucked in the pocket of her running shorts.
Knowing who the girl was didn’t save her parents the painful process of identifying the victim, and Susan now stood alongside Terry Harmon at the Wiarton Hospital morgue as pathologist George Aldershot lifted the sheet covering Sarah Harmon’s body.
The Inspector hadn’t been present at the notification of death at the Harmon’s house, so took the occasion now to assess the father’s reaction to his daughter’s murder. While she couldn’t claim to have perfected the skill of separating her natural empathetic reactions to observing such a horrific situation, she felt she had come very close, aware that from the professional perspective these moments contained information often invaluable to the case.
As far as she could see it appeared Mr. Harmon’s response was the natural one to the loss of a loved one, unnatural as it was that a parent should have to look at the face of a deceased child.
“It’s her,” Mr. Harmon said, eyes fixed on the pale still face of his daughter. His glance strayed to the wounds higher up on her skull and he choked, bending over. “It’s her,” he said again and Susan looked across at Aldershot, giving him a brief nod. The pathologist covered the girl again with the sheet, lifting it over her face with the care of a parent tucking a child in for the night.
“Come with me Mr. Harmon,” Susan said gently, taking the man’s arm and leading him through the front office of the forensic pathology unit to be taken back home to his wife and daughter.
*
It was obvious from the beginning that while Elizabeth was the first to grab attention, Sarah was the one to hold it. The school fell under her steady amber gaze, one by one, both boys and girls.
Anyone could see they were unhappy to be here. Unhappy to have left behind established friendships and routines. Skipping daintily through schedules crammed with ballet lessons, shopping malls trips, theatre tickets. And then dumped unceremoniously at the foot of the Bruce Peninsula District School.
Tommy was an easy mark. Feeling sorry for the new girl in town when she paused in the class doorway with eyes downcast, as if she couldn’t bear to see that all the seats were filled with students who had been coming here for years, and no seat open for her.
Except there was of course, when Tommy stood up and offered his chair, smiling his lopsided grin. She must have known she could have had her choice of seats; any student would have inflated with the pride and the improved status of having the new girl from the city sit beside her. The new girl with glossy brown hair reaching to below her shoulder blades, hair you could tell didn’t need hours in front of the mirror to make swing like that
It was no surprise that Sarah smiled back at Tommy and gratefully took his seat.
*
The Wiarton OPP station was humming with activity despite the late hour, and Susan felt the blood in her veins pulsing with a matching urgency to get things done. To grasp the details as they were uncovered and forge them into an answer before they scattered into the air like so much inconsequential dust.
Bringing her fingers to her lips to make a piercing wolf whistle, Susan gestured for the district staff to join her in the incident room. The Wiarton station covered crime in the surrounding villages of Ferndale, Tobermory and Lion’s Head as well as their own town’s small population, its staff numerable on two hands.
Susan walked to the blank crime board standing at the front of the room and tacked a picture of Sarah Harmon to its center. The photo had been copied from last year’s high school year book and enlarged, Sarah’s face composed over the navy vee of her graduation gown. A delicate gold chain crossed her exposed collarbones and disappeared into the folds of the gown. Susan took a moment to look into the girl’s even gaze while she waited for the staff to file in behind her, chairs creaking as late comers were seated.
Turning to face her team Susan began itemizing the information they had gathered so far. Aldershot’s initial pathology report had revealed nothing unexpected: the cause of death was trauma to the head. Contusions to the face and skull indicated multiple blows with considerable force behind them; the bruising pattern pointed to a fist sized rock as the weapon, something there was no shortage of on the rocky coast, although a bloodied stone had yet to be conveniently located. Time of death was put between seven and eight o’clock in the morning, approximately thirty hours before the body was found by a local hiker.
Catching Constable Ronald Knapton’s eye, Susan gestured for him to stand. The Constable had been tasked with informing the victim’s family of her death.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t with you,” she told him. “Fill us in on how it went.” Her words were heartfelt. Giving notice of death was one of the most difficult tasks of the job, but Susan would have preferred to have been there alongside her officer to witness the family’s reactions.
“It was pretty rough,” Ronald told the group. Knapton had been the first officer on hand to perform the duty, but he wouldn’t have been Susan’s first choice, although she couldn’t peg exactly why. A certain sensitivity missing perhaps. Regardless, she could tell from his demeanour that it had taken its toll.
“The mother took it real hard, got hysterical,” he told the group. “The father was pretty quiet, mostly looking after his wife. There’s a sister too, they were all in shock I’d say.”
“Why wasn’t the vic reported missing?” Susan questioned him. She had already verified that nothing had come through the station the previous day.
“The parents thought she was sleeping at the boyfriend’s place. Apparently she stayed over there pretty regularly.”
“Alright,” Susan nodded at Ron, “Write it up and I’ll pay a visit to the family first thing in the morning.” The girl’s father had just been through the identification, and Susan wanted to respect the family’s need to absorb the loss they had suffered.
Addressing the group she continued, “First inspection of the victim’s room found nothing out of the ordinary besides an airplane ticket in her dresser drawer, a trip no one in her family seems to have been aware of, including the fiancé.”
“That’s what we’ve got to go with until we get more from the crime lab.” She clapped her hands together. “I want Emily and Gary following up with the Logans, and Ronald, you and Barry can get started interviewing people who knew Sarah, friends and co-workers. I’ll have Alex join you when he’s back on the schedule. Maggie, you can get us set up to deal with the community and I want everyone else one the phones; once it hits the news we can expect a high volume of citizens volunteering information. Let’s get to it bright and early,” she told the assembled group. “I expect to see you all at the crack of dawn.”
Waving at the staff members to disperse, the room cleared, and Susan turned again to look at the picture of Sarah. The girl stared back at her, the expression of the hazel eyes impenetrable.
Her study was interrupted by a voice drawling in the near vicinity of her right ear. “I’m out of town two weeks and someone goes and gets murdered?”
Sergeant Alex O’Reilly. Hair slightly longer around the ears and neck, nose scattered with a few additional freckles, but the same way of talking as if there were more than enough hours in the world for whatever needed to be said.
“It’s about time you showed up,” she heard the harsh staccato of her own voice coming nowhere near the light hearted ribbing she had intended. “We could do with your help here.”
Alex dropped his arm around Susan’s neck and took the file from her hands. “No problem, boss. I already got most of the story from Driscoll.”
“The story’s nowhere near complete,” Susan stepped away from Alex and gestured at the bare expanse of the crime board. “We need to do a more thorough check of the victim’s room: the plane ticket was a find but there’s still her laptop to get checked pronto. Blood spatter analysis is outstanding - what went on up there? And the family, we haven’t interviewed them aside from the death notification. Friends, neighbours, we have to find out what people can tell us about Sarah.” Susan turned to face Alex. “We don’t know anything about the story, do we?”
Alex stepped back with hands held palms out in front of him. “I’m on it. We’re on it. I’ll scope out people who knew her in town and get on Janey’s butt, see what the story with the blood is.” He turned and headed towards the door.
A sheaf of papers waved in front of Susan’s face. “First site reports in, Inspector,” the station secretary’s voice chirped with disparate inherent cheer.
“Thanks Maggie,” Susan muttered. She felt the sudden stab of a headache reaching its grip around her temples. “So how was the holiday?” she called at Alex’s retreating back.
“You know, a beach is a beach,” Alex returned over his shoulder. “You did get an invite as far as I recall.”
*
“There’s no way that has anything to do with Sarah.” Elizabeth heard her father’s voice fracture with anger or stress, maybe a combination of the two. The sound reverberated through the house that had been void of speech since the policeman’s dinner time knock on the door. No wailing, keening, falling to the floor. Just the frozen silence of shock.
“It was years ago. No one remembers, Marion, no one cares except you. Everyone else has moved on.” The thud of a bottle being placed back on the table.
“Of course it’s easy for them to move on,” her mother’s voice shrilled in response. “They didn’t lose everything. They didn’t have to give everything up and move to the backwoods, leaving their entire lives behind them.”
“This isn’t the time Marion. Our daughter is gone for God’s sake! This isn’t the time to turn over coals that have been raked to death.”
A silence fell, as though both jousting partners realized they’d broken all rules of decency. Elizabeth stared up at her bedroom ceiling, waiting for the angry barbs of her parent’s voices to be obliterated again by the depth of the night’s calm outside her window.
“I’m just trying to make sense of it Terry,” her mother’s voice finally whispered, drained of all fight. “How could this happen to our beautiful girl?”