Sea to Sky (21 page)

Hunter did the same. When John remained silent, he asked “How’s your wife doing?” as gently as he could. He wondered if the older man had changed his mind about wanting to talk.

“She’s a strong woman. It amazes me sometimes how the physically weaker sex can show such emotional strength.” He paused. “She calls me her rock, but she’s mine. She’s my rock.”

Hunter couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that he had no woman in his life to be his rock, or to be a rock to. Unless he could count El Watson. But no. El was no rock. His landlord, Gord Young, was the closest thing he had to a rock. The retired medical doctor always seemed to understand him, listened without judging, dispensed sensible advice. The old man never turned the conversation around to himself, the way some people did.

“You’re lucky — both of you — to have each other.” Maybe it was a stupid thing to say. Their son had just been murdered and he was calling them lucky, but he had felt a need to respond in some way. Again, he waited for John to pick up the conversation.

“You’ve talked to the police?”

Hunter nodded. “And you?”

“Following up some leads, is all they’ll tell me.” He put down his glass and reached behind him to pull a sweater off the back of his chair. He draped the sweater over his shoulders. “I know if I put it on, I’ll end up being too hot, but it’s a bit cool in here. A ski bar doesn’t cater to patrons in golf shirts.” He nodded toward Hunter’s arm where it lay on the table, his fingers curled around the beer glass. He wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt that looked like a Scottish tartan.

“What can
you
tell me?” asked John.

Hunter inhaled and exhaled as he considered how much to say. He didn’t want to betray the confidence of the RCMP detectives, but he felt sympathy for John Irwin and wanted to give him something.

“Not a lot more. They’re looking for information on your son’s associates and his employer, maybe some kind of shady business deal. Perhaps your son knew too much. As far as I can tell, that’s the direction the investigation is taking.” He looked the older man in the eye. “Do you think they’re on the right track?”

John returned Hunter’s stare for several seconds, then looked away and nodded, almost absently. “Sounds like a good bet,” he said. Suddenly he clenched his fists on the table top so tight his knuckles turned white. “I hate this. I hate what happened, and I hate feeling so helpless.” His fists relaxed. “I wish I could put a bullet in the bastard who killed my son, but I can’t do that to my wife.”

Hunter understood. Sometimes the satisfaction of revenge can be obliterated by its consequences.

“Sometimes I think it would be better if I didn’t know what the detectives find out, but I can’t ignore the results of their investigation.” He leaned forward. “Listen. I know you probably have to go back to work, but are you going to stay on top of this? Are you going to stay in touch with the police?”

“I’m only involved peripherally because myself and Alora were — maybe still are — considered suspects. I can’t see the detectives keeping me in the loop, but as the father of the victim, I’m sure the RCMP will keep you informed.” He shook his head, frowning. “Aren’t you comfortable talking to them directly?”

John sighed. “Yes. Of course.”

“But?”

John drained the last of his beer and looked around for the server. Hunter shrugged, then raised his own glass and drank while he waited for John to speak again. John signaled the server for another round, then gave Hunter a wry smile.

“I told you that I lost my best friend,” he said. “It was a few years ago. You did, too, you said.” He waited for Hunter to affirm. “Men like us — you and me — we don’t make friends easily. Good friends, I mean, the kind you can … I don’t know … ‘bare your soul’ sounds so touchy-feely, but that’s kind of what I mean.” He snorted softly. “Like a brother, I was going to say, but some brothers aren’t good friends, are they?”

“I understand,” said Hunter.

“Well, I think you and I could be friends like that, if there was time.”

“If there was time?”

The older man shrugged. “You’re going back to work. Me? I’m going home. To Seattle. With my wife, and my daughter-in-law, and my grandchildren. We need to go home. Being here in Whistler… well, Whistler is now all about Mike’s murder. There’s no joy here. We need to go home.”

The server arrived with two bottles of beer, and both men nodded their thanks. In silence, they each filled their glasses.

“I think you’re right,” said Hunter. “We could be good friends.” He raised his glass and John raised his; they clinked them lightly together and drank.

“We’re leaving tomorrow.” John reached behind him and brought out a pocket-sized notebook which he opened on the table in front of him, then produced an expensive-looking ballpoint pen and began to write. When he was finished, he tore off the page and handed it to Hunter. “My address and phone number,” he said, then pushed the notebook and pen across the table. “Please.”

Hunter wrote down his own address and phone numbers, both cell and landline, then closed the notebook and passed it back to John. He folded up the page John had given him and tucked it into his wallet. “What time do you go?” he asked.

“We’ll pack up the van and leave after breakfast. Are you and Alora staying on?”

“Alora is flying back to California tomorrow. I don’t expect to see her again.”

John raised his eyebrows.

Hunter shrugged. “We didn’t know each other well. I guess we never will.”

There didn’t seem to be much left to say, so they finished their drinks in comfortable silence, the way friends sometimes do. John signed the bar tab, and both men stood up to leave.

“Call me. If you hear anything from the RCMP, even if they say they’ve already talked to me, please call me. Now you
have
to stay involved in the case.”

Hunter smiled. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

They walked side by side as far as the elevators, then faced each other. Hunter held out his hand and they shook hands; John laid a hand on Hunter’s shoulder as they did so. His eyes searched Hunter’s face, as if looking for something more.

“Of course I’ll stay involved,” said Hunter with a sad smile. “The case is critical to a friend.”

C
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A
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    TWELVE

It was after ten o’clock when the after-dinner speeches were done and groups of people began to drift toward the elevators and bars. Meredith said goodnight to Cordero, and found his parting words disturbing. “Keep your nose clean, sweetheart,” he said. It wasn’t the words so much, as the lack of a smile when he said it.

She couldn’t resist her own parting shot. “See you on the slopes, Dave,” with a nod to his cast and crutches as she overtook and passed him on the way to the door. The smile she gave him was, she thought, warm and friendly, but her feelings toward him were anything but.

She had sat beside him all during cocktails, dinner and dessert, followed by a round of liqueurs and the interminable speeches. The keynote speaker was a man who must have been a cheerleader during college, and his ‘rah rah’ energy level during his presentation on ‘Demand and Supply Chain Integration’ was distracting. It was hardly a fitting topic for a motivational speech. Meanwhile, Cordero spoke so low to the man seated next to him that Meredith couldn’t make out more than a few words, and at first he made no attempt to disguise his lack of interest in talking to her.

“How long have you been coaching soccer, Dave?”

“Long enough.”

“So, do you live in Santa Ana, Dave?”

“No.”

“Where is it that you live?”

“South of Los Angeles.”

“Do you have a card, Dave?”

“No. I ran out.”

The woman who took the seat to Meredith’s left began to tell her all about the company she worked for in Phoenix, and Meredith listened politely, tried to ask all the right questions and make appropriate comments, just loudly enough so that Cordero would hear, drop his suspicions (if that was indeed the problem) and perhaps start to warm up to her. There was wine at the table, and after a glass or two, Cordero did begin to make a little small talk, just minutes before the speeches were to start.

Meredith had started to become annoyed that the woman from Phoenix was insinuating herself into her conversation with Cordero when the woman gave Meredith a gift. “Did you hear about the man who was killed on the chairlift?” she asked, addressing both Meredith and Cordero.

Meredith was about to reply when Cordero beat her to it. “I knew him,” he said.

“Did you really?” The woman from Phoenix was wide-eyed. “Was he a friend of yours?”

Meredith leaned back in her chair and let the two of them talk.

“A business acquaintance,” said Cordero. He made a face as if he’d tasted something sour. “He was not a man I would have wanted to be friends with.”

“Oh, my. Why is that, Mr. Cordero?”

“Where I come from, a handshake is as good as a contract drawn up by a lawyer. It seems he did not feel the same.”

“Oh, dear. Did you do business with him then?”

Cordero seemed to be considering whether or not to reply when the chorus of “I Believe I Can Fly” erupted through the speakers, and three men mounted the dais to start the after-dinner speeches. Cordero more or less dismissed the woman from Phoenix with a wave of his hand and turned away.

Meredith tried to reintroduce the topic between speeches, but Cordero just said, “The man is dead. Not a pleasant topic for the table,” with a suspicious frown in her direction, and shut down. As far as she knew, there was no reason for him to be suspicious of her. There had to be another reason for his reluctance to talk.

She was tired and frustrated — not a good frame of mind for a private eye — and decided a short workout and a Jacuzzi were in order, but first she wanted to touch base with her new ‘partner’. She waited until the room door clicked shut behind her before pulling out her cell phone.

“Can you talk?”

“Yes,” he answered. “What have you got?”

“Remember that innocuous looking fellow at Irwin’s table the other night?”

“The one with the grey hair, drinking beer?”

“That’s him. Did you notice he was on crutches?” She thought it was possible that Hunter had seen the crutches on the floor beside the man’s chair from where he sat. “Did you see the cast on his leg?”

“What? You’re kidding.”

“He says he sprained his ankle coaching kids’ soccer back in California. He’s got a beer gut and doesn’t look like a skier, but then he doesn’t look like a soccer player either.” Meredith kicked off her pumps and began pacing from the window to the bed and back on the carpet. It felt good to set her toes free after a long day in dress shoes.

“So you’re thinking he could have hurt himself jumping from the chairlift? I can have the RCMP check with the local hospital.”

“Or it’s a cover.”

“Also possible. What’s your intuition tell you?” he asked.

She pulled back the curtain and looked out the window. It was snowing again. “That he’s not as harmless as he looked the other night.”

“Tell me more.”

“I managed to sit beside him at dinner. He’s a freelance consultant on purchasing contract negotiations. The way I read it, he’s a mercenary bully of some sort.” She tucked the phone under her chin and took off her jacket as she spoke. “Or maybe he’s an intermediary who promises to keep his client’s identity secret until the deal is made. Sound plausible?”

“Not my field, but it might make sense.”

“And listen to this. He didn’t like Irwin. He implied that Irwin reneged on a deal they’d made.” She stepped out of her slacks and tossed them on the bed.

“Good work, Stella. Sounds like he’s worth a closer look. What’s his name?”

She smiled at his use of her alias, almost as if it were a pet name. “Cordero. His name’s Dave Cordero.”

“Sounds Latino.”

“Yeah. So what?” She sat on the bed.

“Mexican?”

“He teaches soccer to kids in a barrio. Why? What’s the significance.”

“Maybe nothing.”

“Tit for tat, remember?”

“Mike Irwin’s wife said he bought a boat from a guy who reminded her of Mexican mafia.”

“South of L.A., by chance?”

“Huntington Beach.”

“Get the cops to follow up, okay? I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Meredith finished undressing and pulled on her workout clothes. She loved it when pieces of a puzzle started falling into place. She was humming as she headed for the elevator, and broke into a smile when she realized what it was.

It was the chorus to “I Believe I Can Fly.”

Hunter could hear Tom Halsey and his wife still talking in their kitchen as he sat on his bed in the basement guest room. He briefly debated calling Alora one more time. This time his motivation wasn’t to salvage their relationship — if it had ever existed — or to apologize. After the seed Meredith had planted in his mind, he had begun to wonder if finding him insensitive was the reason Alora wanted to stop seeing him, or if it was the other way around. Perhaps her need to stop seeing him was the reason she accused him of being insensitive. He knew that if he were truly looking for Mike Irwin’s killer, he couldn’t afford to cross Alora Magee off the list.

And she was flying back to L.A. tomorrow, unless he or the RCMP did something to stop her.

His cell phone beeped, indicating a message, so he punched in some numbers to retrieve it. As he waited for the message to play, he suddenly realized how tired he was. It was more than physical. Much more. He was tired of trying to understand Alora, let alone to please her, tired of playing games with the detectives, tired of the weight of the Irwins’ grief, tired of people in general. He thought about how uncomplicated life was sitting in his big Freightliner for hours at a time, seeing people from the height of his driver’s seat, at a distance as he passed them in their cars, on the sidewalks, in their homes, on the other side of shatterproof glass. As much as he had once loved his job as a detective, he had left the RCMP and taken to the road because this same emotional exhaustion had started to affect his work. He knew he was not yet healed.

The voice on the recording jarred him out of his reflection.

“Who the fuck are you? What gives you the right to hand out pictures of us all over the fuckin’ city? Whoever you are, leave us the fuck alone.”

“Glad I caught you.” Hunter had shaken off his weariness and was back in detective mode. “Just something you might want to start the ball rolling on before you pack it in for the night.”

“Hunh.” Staff Sergeant Shane Blackwell didn’t sound too happy to hear from him.

“Alora Magee, Mike Irwin’s ex, is booked on a flight out of YVR tomorrow.”

“Meaning?”

“Have you been able to corroborate her alibi for Saturday morning?”

He heard Shane sigh. “What’s this all about? You think your girlfriend’s guilty?” His tone implied he didn’t take Hunter seriously.

“Not exactly. I just don’t feel she can be ruled out, unless you know something I don’t.”

“Go on.”

“She has motive. And she’s been trying really hard to distance herself from me the last couple of days.”

“Could be another reason for that, dude.”

“Entirely possible, chief. But it’s got me wondering if I was just part of her cover for being here. One minute she’s in my arms, the next minute she doesn’t even want to talk to me.”

“Means nothing, Hunter. She’s a woman.”  He sighed again. “Okay. You might have a point, but we’ve got nothing to detain her on. She has every right to leave Whistler.”

“Can you take a closer look? Canvass hotel employees, ticket sales, lift operators, anyone who might remember seeing her on Saturday morning?”

“We’ll never get that done before she leaves. We’ll still know where to find her, and since the victim was an American citizen, I’m sure we won’t have any trouble getting the FBI involved if we do find something incriminating.” He paused. “Hell hath no fury, eh?”

Hunter clenched his jaw. He wasn’t angry at Alora for pulling the plug, he was relieved, but he wasn’t prepared to discuss it with Shane. He said nothing.

“You’ve spent time with her. You think she’s capable?” Shane asked.

“I hope not.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“I can’t help thinking about all of the naïve friends, relatives and neighbors I’ve interviewed who were convinced that Joe Blow couldn’t have killed his wife. To be honest, chief, I just don’t know.”

Hunter made arrangements to meet with Shane again the following morning, then dialed the Vancouver Police Missing Persons Unit.

“I got a call from a boy reported missing by his mother in Calgary. The message is on my cell. Any chance of tracing the call?”

The response was, “Not as easy as it sounds, I’m afraid. You know for sure it’s him? We get cranks calling in all the time.” Hunter wasn’t surprised.

His next step was to call Helen, see if he could play the voicemail for her so she could ID the voice. He hoped it wasn’t Adam. He hated to think that Ken and Helen’s son would speak that way, or would care so little about his mother that he wouldn’t realize it was her trying to find him. He checked his watch but he knew it didn’t matter what time it was. He had to make the call. He didn’t think he could play the message for her on his own phone, so he went upstairs to the kitchen.

“What’s up?” asked Tom. “I thought you were turning in for the night.” His wife was wiping down the kitchen counter.

“I might have a lead on that missing kid. I’d like to play the voicemail for his mother, if you don’t mind me using your phone.”

Tom’s wife had rinsed out and put away the dish cloth. “I’ll get out of your way,” she said. “Good night, Hunter.”

“There’s no need …”

“Didn’t get much sleep in Vegas,” she said with a grin. “I’m beat. See you in the morning.”

“I’ll be along in a minute, hon,” Tom said to the closing door, then to Hunter, “You can’t stay out of it, can you? You’re still a cop, Hunter. Why the hell are you driving a truck?”

Hunter shook his head. “It’s only been four days and I’m looking forward to getting back on the road already. It’s peaceful out there, Tom. It gives me the time and space I need.”

“Why do you need time and space on the job? I get mine out there.” He gestured toward the window, in the direction of Blackcomb Mountain. The window was a black mirror, reflecting the two ex-cops standing in the kitchen, looking beyond their reflections at a world they couldn’t see.

Hunter just smiled, and Tom punched his shoulder lightly as he walked past. “Good night, detective,” he said, and left the kitchen.

Helen answered on the second ring.

“You’ve heard something?”

“Just a voicemail, Helen. I’m going to play it for you. I want you to tell me if you recognize the voice.” She said nothing while his cell phone beeped for each button he pushed to bring up the message. He held its speaker up against the mouthpiece of Tom’s home phone. He could hear Helen’s voice even before he returned the receiver to his ear.