Strange Things Done (9 page)

The squeaking of a microphone behind her caused Jo to turn away for a moment, toward the stage, where a young woman with a nose ring and thick sweater began strumming a guitar. Her hands bore an interesting collection of rings with oversized stones and skulls. “This one’s for Marlo,” the singer said, causing small waves of hushed discussions to ripple through the audience. She began to hum something low and lovely, the eerie strains reaching all the way into the shadows of the bar. When Jo turned back to Caveman, he had already slipped away, and there was a fresh drink that she didn’t remember ordering, sweating on the table in front of her.

The kitchen in Jo’s new home smelled like a mixture of mold, chocolate, and something oddly pungent. Sally had been baking again. Various mixing bowls had been added to the pile in the sink, turning the water there an unapologetic shade of brown. The beaters were still in the mixing machine, coated in chocolate, calling to Jo in their syrupy voices.
Eat me … eat me.
She yielded up a finger and scraped off a line of crusty icing, placing it lightly on her tongue.
Mmmmm.
Plenty of rum.

Jo leaned against the doorframe, one ear against a cold telephone receiver, listening to the distant ringing in her father’s living room. It was late—almost midnight. She hoped that Frank was still up, watching
House
(he was always a sucker for a bit of misanthropic humour) or reruns of
Law & Order
. She could picture Pepper Spray, Frank’s Scottish terrier, barking in disapproval at the telephone, as though it were another yippy dog. Frank and Pepper’s heads would turn in unison; their twin expressions (surprise and accusation), closely clipped grey hair, and matching moustaches presenting the appearance of familial relation. They’d be sitting on the plaid blanket that had covered the couch for years.

Jo was eyeing the half-eaten tray of rum-fudge brownies when Frank picked up, compacting the sense of culpability she experienced at the sound of his voice.

“Jo? About bloody time.” Pepper was indeed making aggravated little sounds in the background. “Shut it, furball,” he said to the terrier.

“I’m sorry. I meant to call you to let you know I got in okay, but there’s no cellular service here, and things kicked off so quickly.” (Jo ignored her father’s derisive snort at this.) “The RCMP found a body in the river this morning.” This sad fact would at least give them something to talk about, something that wasn’t an admission of guilt or a defence.

Jo tried not to blame Frank for persuading her to accept what the VPD had asked her to do: to kill the publication of her story about the tactics of a serial killer operating in the Vancouver area. Her conversations with her father as of late had circled around their mutual feelings of recrimination and self-blame. It was exhausting.

“A body?” Frank sounded alert now.

“Yes. A local politician.”

“Foul play suspected?”

“Possibly. She’d been drinking, but the police don’t think she was alone before she went into the water.”

“Suspects?”

“Frank, they interviewed me. I met the woman last night, in the parking lot outside the local pub.”

“Did she say anything relevant?”

“Not to me. To someone I was with.” She was loath to say any more. “Who might be a suspect.”

“Who?”

“Just someone who was giving me a ride home.”

“Name please.”

Jo listened to her father breathing into the receiver for a moment as the wind hummed outside. His familiar voice was almost comforting. She wished for a moment that she could tug on the frozen telephone wires to bring him closer. “Christopher Byrne,” she said.

“Jesus, Josephine! One week in a new town and you’re getting into the vehicle of a strange male in a dark parking lot in a place with no emergency cellular service. Haven’t I taught you anything?” His breathing sounded laboured now.

Jo thought of the dire warnings she’d received over family dinners when she was growing up, the stories her parents had told of young women turning up in her mother’s emergency ward or disappearing altogether in Frank’s district. But she said, “I am an adult, you know.”

“Fat lotta good that will do you in an isolated place with the wrong person. You of all people should know that.”

Jo had the fleeting image of a woman’s body in long grass, a snail leaving a silver trail down one pale arm. The blue necklace of bruising around the throat. One flame-mangled ear. The Surrey Strangler’s second victim.

“I mean, Christ,” Frank continued. “The police think this Byrne guy had something to do with this?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well, I’m going to find out. Get me his driver’s license number or date of birth and I’ll run a CRC.”

“No,” she said, her tone sharp. She cleared her throat, and said more softly, “No. I’ll look into it myself.”

“But it would only take me …”

“No thanks, Frank.” In the ensuing pause, Jo thought of the warm taste of rum-laden chocolate. Comfort food. She crooked the receiver under her chin while reaching for the pan of brownies. “I need to do this myself.” She thought she heard Pepper growl at something in the background as she cut herself a thick slab of sweetness.

“If you say so,” Frank grumbled, clearly unhappy with the decision. “Let me know if I can do anything. I just … you know, I’m feeling …”

“Oh!” she said, grimacing at the skunky flavour of the laced brownies.

“What? Are you okay?”

“Just bit my lip,” she lied, because there was no way she could answer the question without lying anyway, and there was no way she was going to tell Frank that her housemate had cooked up quite a lethal batch of pot brownies. She swallowed down the lie, enjoying the dark, velvet aftertaste.

7

Sharp tongues of flame devoured the vehicle, crackling and popping ravenously as the tires sagged and something—melting rubber around the windows perhaps—dripped ominously. Black smoke billowed from the silver SUV into grey skies as Jo was drawn closer. There was something she needed to know about what was inside, some question she needed answered, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was. Then the back window exploded in an angry flash, sending shards of glass raining down everywhere.

The heat of the fire reached her face. She felt her skin melting like snow, running over clean bones, only she couldn’t stop because she could see someone in the passenger seat. A dark outline against the blaze. Now the corpse was calling her, but the tone was not what she expected; there was no sense of redress. Something was not quite right. This was not the way the dream usually went, because when the charred skeleton’s jaw swung open and it turned its face toward hers in accusation, it merely whispered softly, “Wakey, wakey.”

In the muddy hours before dawn, Jo was nudged rudely awake by the long nose of a rifle, her thoughts still milky. The room was dim. The heady scent of Verbena perfume replaced the lingering memory of smoke and decomposition.

“Rise and shine, sweetheart.” A woman’s voice.

Jo sat up slowly. Her heart was fluttering like a June bug in a glass jar and her mouth was dry. She eyed the gun. She knew this person was going to kill her now. She had made a terrible mistake somewhere …

“Not loaded. Thought we’d be able to skip the coffee this way.” A low chuckle. The figure was blurred and shadowy, a soft, surreal extension of the gun.

Jo reached for her dark frames on the nightstand, almost knocking over a glass and spilling the golden dregs of whisky and melted ice. She felt lightheaded. The figure at the foot
of her bed snapped into sharper relief as Jo slid her glasses
in place.

Sally.

Her housemate was not going to kill her. Jo felt something unexpected then, not quite relief. She felt glad to be alive, here in the middle of nowhere, in Dawson City. The feeling surprised her, a sudden warmth washing over her body. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had that feeling. Not since before things had all gone wrong, since the woman had been found in that car. She knew she should feel outraged, but instead she felt a kind of gratitude toward Sally.

“What the hell were you dreaming about, anyway?” Sally asked.

The sky was just beginning to bruise in violent colours behind a fan of feathery clouds: a showy performance to kick off a mundane Tuesday morning in Dawson City. Sally’s thickly gloved hands lifted a white, birchbark horn to her mouth, making a mournful call that echoed in the still air. The two women stood rigidly silent for a moment, as though overwhelmed by the solemn presence of the trees. Then came the distant notes of other hunters playing the same lament, an anguished baying that tugged at the heartstrings. Another lull.

Finally Jo broke the silence. “Can’t we just order a pizza?”

Sally whispered, “You wanna make it through a winter in the Klondike, you’d better hope we find us a bigger rack than mine. Here, gimme those binoculars a sec.” Sally looked different now. Smaller, mostly, in her sturdy Yukon snow boots. She wore a white quilted parka, trimmed in fur a shade darker than her own hair, which was tightly braided in two sections. Over her coat, she sported a bright orange hunter’s vest that gave her an air of pragmatism hitherto undetected and unsuspected by Jo.

Jo handed over the binoculars, watching as Sally scanned the tree line. Fiery slashes of crimson bearberry leaves steeped the foliage in bloody hues. Jo glanced at her watch before clearing her throat. She didn’t have much time. She’d need to be at the
Daily
shortly after sunrise.

“So I’ve been thinking about Marlo …” Jo said.

“Less thinking, more hunting, please.” Sally shoved the binoculars back toward Jo, the fur around her throat stirring in an icy gust of wind. She made another call, this time using only her hands around her mouth. A nasal braying sound, softer this time. Imploring.

“Listen, I hate to interrupt you in mid …” Jo waved her hand, searching for the right word “… seduction. And I do appreciate the scenic tour, but I’ve gotta go. Some of us have to work this morning, you know.”

“Tell Doug you were delayed. It’s moose season. Everyone will understand. Filling the freezer is the first priority in Dawson.” She glanced at Jo. “Yours too. And once you’ve seen the grocery prices in The General, you’ll know why. There are only two choices here: you can be predator, or you can be prey
.
” Sally picked up a pale slab of bone from a leather bag and knocked it twice against a tree trunk, making a hollow sound. “And I need you to survive because I need your rent.”

“I’d kill for some good, East-Van Chinese takeaway right now,” Jo muttered under her breath, “Soup with dumplings from the Bamboo Garden … wontons … hot.”

“Shhh.” Sally paused as a wolf struck up a melancholy tune. A cold sound that reverberated up Jo’s spine.

She shivered and lifted the binoculars. During the night, snow had transformed pine into surreal, Dali-esque shapes. Soft, rounded, alien forms. The world at this hour was shadowy and suggestive, promising both wonder and some kind of unnamed primordial violence. Jo searched the darkest parts of the forest for life, but found no movement. She blew weakly on one gloved hand in a useless attempt to stave off the numbness that was spreading rapidly through her fingers and toes. She heard Sally squeaking lightly through the snow, soldiering ahead, but something held Jo firmly to the stillness of the moment. When she couldn’t stand the needling sensation in her fingertips any longer, she wrapped leather binocular straps around her neck, shoved hands deep into pockets, and shuffled through the snow to catch up with Sally.