CHELSEA ROMANOV WAS Zachary Garland’s new partner. She was twenty-eight, and Leith saw that she was clearly distressed by the kidnap of Luna Mae. He also found her more even-keeled than Garland, better able to deal with stress.
She wasn’t a suspect. For the night of the kidnap she had a strong alibi. All evening, she’d been in the apartment she shared with Garland. The alibi had been confirmed by Garland’s two poker buddies, who came across as credible and respectable. So unless the lot of them were a pack of liars, Gemma was wrong in her accusation that Chelsea Romanov was responsible for the kidnap of Luna Mae.
Romanov now gave her more fulsome statement to Leith, with Dion sitting in. On Sunday morning she and Zach, with Luna in a stroller, had gone for a walk along the Spirit Trail. Then after lunch, his visitation time over, Zach had bundled Luna into her car seat and taken her back to Riverside Drive. Two o’ clock was the drop-off time, and he’d left their apartment a bit early. Didn’t want to cause a scene by being late again, because as he well knew, even five minutes past the hour drove Gemma batty.
“He was late anyway, of course,” Romanov said. “He means well, but he always forgets something. I don’t recall what it was this time, but he dashed in, dashed out again, didn’t quite make it there by two, and I imagine they ended up in a huge argument about it.”
He had returned in an hour, and as always after a face-off with Gemma, he’d taken a while to chill. But soon enough he got into the Hockey Night in Canada spirit, and by the time his friends had arrived around five thirty, he was his usual happy self.
Romanov had helped Garland prepare snacks, the usual chips and dips, sandwich fixings, and beer. The guys played a round of poker before the game started, but Garland remained antsy, and eventually told Romanov why. He had unfinished business with his ex, no big deal, but had to go back to Riverside Drive for another chat. The hockey game hadn’t started yet. He excused himself, said he’d return in an hour, and took off.
“He told you all this, about one last chat?” Leith asked.
“Yeah, which is probably code for wanting to get the last word in,” she said. “But he was home in an hour, as promised, and everything seemed cool. He was revved about the game, and he and the guys had a good time, by the sounds of it. I just got busy cleaning up around the apartment, mostly. Headphones on.”
“Hockey’s not your bag?”
She almost smiled. “I prefer soccer.”
So Chelsea had tightly alibied Zachary, saying he was definitely home during the kidnapper’s window of opportunity. A lover’s alibi can be trusted only a degree more than a mother’s, Leith knew, but the hockey pals backed her up. And Chelsea struck him as honest and honourable. Her character had good bones. No criminal record and gainfully employed as an office assistant at a law firm in West Van since graduating from college. An ideal citizen.
Not that ideal citizens hadn’t been found to be dirty rotten liars, but for now Leith chose to believe her. He asked her how and when had she met Zach.
“Last spring,” she said. “But he was married then. Things didn’t get romantic for us till the fall, after they’d split up. We’d just kind of hit it off from the start, and pretty soon I moved in. Kind of a shock to go from being a single girl to having three kids, one of them a baby in diapers, and a hubby to look after.”
“I imagine so. Had your doubts some days, I bet.”
“Not really. It can be a bit of a crazy household, but I adore all of them.”
Again he believed her. It was the light in her eyes that only a fiend could fake.
She went on to describe how she had met Zach, a couple lessons at the gym where he worked as a trainer, learning some boxing moves. “Or call it assertiveness training if you want,” she said. “We had a lot in common. He’s funny. He likes hiking, camping. He’s part of a survivalist club kind of thing. So I joined up. Then when he broke up with Gemma last summer, we got more interested in each other.” She shrugged to say the rest was history.
“Have any idea about what happened to Luna?” Leith asked. “Even a wild guess?”
Worry sparkled in her dark blue eyes. She seemed to consider the question long and hard before answering with a headshake. “I sure wish I did. I’m sorry. But …”
“Yes?”
“Who would take a baby except a crazy person who just wants a kid of their own?” Her hand was massaging her midriff, the place where all worry seemed to settle. “Which means she’s probably okay, don’t you think?”
Leith’s midriff was feeling it, too, part fear for the child and her family, part fear of his own failure. “That’s what we’re holding on to,” he admitted. The words struck him as cold comfort, but Chelsea gave him the smallest nod of appreciation.
* * *
Nine-year-old Viviani sat in the glassed-off interview room, alone and waiting patiently. She was a pretty girl, Dion could see. She had a wild mass of dark, curly hair, but her face was pale. And freckled and calm. She seemed to be looking out at the world through half-closed eyes, ignoring the biscuits and 7-Up that had been placed before her.
Dion stood outside the interview room with Leith. Chelsea Romanov had given her statement, and she now waited to one side as her boyfriend, Zachary Garland, explained to Leith that Viviani and Tiago’s deceased mother was Brazilian — that explained their unusual names. Garland spoke quickly, getting it over with, the tragedy that had befallen his niece and nephew. Before their parents’ death in a highway collision, he said, the kids had grown up on the Seymour River side of town. So they had connections there, and that’s why he had made sure they continued their schooling there. Bit of a commute from his apartment on Forbes, but he wanted at least that continuity in their lives. Hanging out with the friends they’d grown up with.
“Smart kids, both of them,” Garland said, watching Viviani through the glass. His arms were crossed over his chest so tightly he seemed to be wanting to suffocate himself. “This one especially. Way too smart for me, anyway. Maybe even a genius.”
Leith raised his brows. “How so?”
Dion was thinking that Garland’s new girlfriend Chelsea was a dead ringer for Gemma, just a few years younger. Her grief seemed real enough, but whether it was for Luna or Zachary, he couldn’t guess. If he were to bet, though, he’d say her tears were more for her boyfriend. Luna wasn’t her child, and given the brief and infrequent visitation time Zachary had with Luna, Chelsea wouldn’t have had much chance to bond with her.
“It’s like Vivi knows stuff she shouldn’t,” Garland said, in answer to Leith’s How so? “Not just math and science and all that, but, like, politics, and, you know, metaphysical stuff, stuff even adults don’t understand.”
“Is Tiago the same?”
“Tia? No. Smart, like I said, but pretty much a regular kid.”
Garland’s eyes looked rubbed raw. Dion thought he showed signs of being on some kind of sedative. No wonder, with his baby girl gone all night and half a day. He’d be facing the fact that if his ex didn’t have her, a stranger did, and the chances of getting her back were getting slimmer by the minute.
Whatever the sedatives were, though, they couldn’t tamp down Garland’s impatience, and it now erupted in a raised voice. All these questions and pointless interviews were getting on his nerves, he complained. His mind was on Luna Mae’s disappearance, and nothing else mattered, least of all his relationships or what kind of kids Viviani and Tiago were.
Leith told him a full team was on the case, round the clock. Background could be just as important as pounding the pavement, he added.
“Well, my background is clean,” Garland snarled. “But how about that Perry guy? He’s the big unknown, far as I’m concerned. Creepy fucking dude. Him and Gemma have only been married, what, three months? What if he did something to Luna?” A pause, then he burst out, “What if he killed her? Got rid of her? That’s possible, right?”
Leith shook his head. “There were a lot of people in that house last night. Perry Vale had no opportunity to get rid of anything.”
“All the same. I don’t get how the law can just let one parent go and marry somebody else, and all of a sudden your own baby, not to mention your other kids, are living in a house with a stranger. It’s just not right. There should be a rule against that.”
“Gemma might say the same about you and Chelsea.”
“That’s different. She’s a woman. Women don’t hurt kids. Men do.”
Women hurt kids all the time, Dion knew. But rarely in the way Garland meant. He didn’t trust Garland, but couldn’t pin down why. It wasn’t the man’s aggressive attitude, because Garland had every reason to be punchy at a time like this. The history run on him had turned up nothing bad. He was hard-working, a boxing and fitness coach at a club on Marine Drive, with the shoulders to prove it. He had taken on the responsibility of his dead brother’s children, rented a three-bedroom apartment at no small cost. He had no criminal record or flags against him. Every reason to trust him, and still Dion didn’t.
Leith had moved on, meanwhile, and was worrying aloud about the present situation, the question of two big cops interviewing one small girl. A bit much, wasn’t it?
“She doesn’t seem anxious,” Dion said, watching Viviani through the glass.
Garland confirmed it. “Don’t worry about it. She’s a rock. Won’t bother her.”
The three of them went in, only Chelsea remaining behind. Garland sat beside Viviani. Dion sat next to Leith and observed.
Interview styles varied, he realized. But in his opinion this one, led by Leith, was overly soft-edged and roundabout, as if the kid were two years old instead of nine. And an advanced nine, at that. Was she doing okay, Leith asked. Did she know what had happened and why she was here? Did she have any idea what might have happened to little Luna?
Viviani’s answers were also gentle to an extreme, Dion thought. Like a reflection of Leith’s well-intentioned condescension. “I don’t know who took Luna,” she said. “I wasn’t there, ’cause I was staying with my friend Alexa, who lives on the other side of the river.”
Alexa’s mom had confirmed that yes, Vivi had been there that night. No, she hadn’t snuck out between seven and nine, unless she was a super ninja. The friend Alexa herself had backed it up, too, which ended that line of inquiry. The only question now was had Viviani observed anything in the days before the kidnap that might lend a clue as to what had happened.
“But I’m a seer,” the girl went on. “So I might have been able to help, if I’d been there.”
“A seer?” Leith asked.
Her mouth turned down, as if she didn’t believe her own claim. “Tia says I am, but I don’t know why, ’cause the only things I’ve seen are, like, totally unimportant. But he watches a lot of movies, and he thinks I’m like the kids in the movies who can see ghosts and stuff. And I’ve tried, sometimes, and it’s like I could learn how, maybe. But so far I haven’t seen anything. But if you want, I can go to Gemma’s house and see if I can pick up something.”
She was questioning Leith with her eyes. He told her that unfortunately the house was closed for a few days. She’d be home soon, though, he said.
“It’s not home,” she corrected him. “Tia and I live with Zach in town, and only visit Gemma for one week of the month. It’s nice to get to stay by the river. We both have friends in the area. I’m always glad to get back to Zach’s, though. But I think it’s important to be able to feel at home wherever you are, and not get too attached to things or places. Or even people.”
Dion agreed with Viviani. People change, or die, or disappear, so don’t hang your hopes on them. But Leith looked dismayed. “Sure,” he said doubtfully. “I know what you mean.”
Viviani studied him for a moment. She studied Dion, too, and then gazed sideways at Zach, whose thumbs were twiddling like frantic windmills, and said to him, “Poor Luna. We’ll find her soon.”
She went to sit in the waiting area, and before her brother came in, Leith said to Zachary, “You’re right, Vivi’s a bright little girl. But a seer?”
Zachary shrugged. “Like she said, Tia’s got an imagination. My brother was a smart guy, and so was his wife, so I guess they passed the genes down to the kids. Bit worried about Tia, though, frankly. A good enough guy, but his grades are dropping. And he’s moody as hell.”
“He’s fifteen,” Leith said. “Moodiness is a given.”
“I know. I was fifteen myself once. But there’s a limit.”
Dion watched Tiago enter the room and look around unhappily. He was lanky, with the same curly dark hair as his sister. Same freckles. He had a narrow face and narrow eyes. He gave Leith a fleeting smile and took the seat offered to him. He sat squarely next to Zachary, not acknowledging him, and to Dion he appeared more troubled than moody. Or was there a difference? On a better day, though, not set against a criminal investigation, maybe he’d be more moody than troubled.
Leith asked Tia to describe his day, and the answers he got were even more economical than Vivi’s. “Pal lives couple kilometres up the road,” Tia said. “Oliver Walsh. Stayed over. Biked. Few games. Movie. His mom made dinner.” He shrugged. “Didn’t hear about Luna till morning.”
“How did you hear about Luna?”
“He called,” Tia said, thumb indicating Zachary.
Zachary fidgeted a moment before leaning forward to explain his son’s attitude. “He’s angry I didn’t call him sooner.” And to the boy, with a pat on the back, “Wasn’t anything you could have done, kiddo.”
Tia set his mouth in a hard line.
Leith said, “Could you just give me a rundown of your living arrangements, Tia? I know it’s kind of complicated.”
“Not complicated. We live with Zach, except one week of every month we go stay with Gemma and Perry.”
“When did your week with Gemma this month start?”
“Saturday. Day before Luna went missing.”
As Leith looked at a calendar to orient himself, Garland lost patience and interrupted. “You got the visitation schedule, right? I get Luna overnight every other weekend, which is not enough by any stretch. Judge says it’s important for us to bond. Well, how can I bond with my baby when I only get four half days and two nights with her each month? It’s hardly time to get to know her all over again each time. Gemma wants me to have even less time, some goddamn hour and a half at McDonald’s or something. How am I supposed to work with that kind of person? The only fair time is equal time …”
He had stopped cold, maybe realizing this wasn’t the time or place for closing submissions. Or it had hit him that no time was what he might end up with at the end of the day.
Leith gave Zachary a slight nod, which meant Yeah, okay, thanks, now be quiet, and said to Tia, “Is it tough only getting to see Luna occasionally?”
Dion saw the teen’s mouth pucker. As if conflicted, Tia seemed to think over his answer. “Sure,” he said, but too late, and the truth was plain to see in his hesitation: No, she’s just a boring baby, nothing to do with me, what do I care? He dropped his lashes with a sigh.
Leith gave him a smile. “Sometimes siblings aren’t much fun till they get big enough to talk to, maybe shoot marbles with, and all that good stuff, right? Or I guess you’re not the marble-shooting generation.”
Even if Tia didn’t know what marble shooting was, he got the gist and returned Leith’s smile. “Yeah, true.”
“And young kids of Luna’s age can be demanding. Noisy, entitled. They can be a bit of a pain, right?”
Zachary began to interrupt again, to ask where this was going, but Tia had already nodded. “Noisy, yeah. Drives you …”
Nuts faded away. Tia glanced at Zachary, and seemed to shift away from him slightly. Dion made a mental note of the shift, as Leith asked, “D’you have any idea at all, Tia, what happened to her?”
“No, sir.”
With Tiago excused from the room, Leith said to Garland, “Sometimes it’s hard to talk to kids of his age, especially in a place like this. He might be more relaxed if I spoke with him one-on-one. If he’s agreeable to it. What d’you think?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“It’s just I get the feeling he’s holding back,” Leith said. “Probably nothing, but I wouldn’t mind the chance to chat with him alone.”
“Oh, he’s holding back, all right. What he gets up to out at the river there, I don’t even want to ask. Wouldn’t happen under my watch, but Gemma doesn’t give a shit about these two. They can run wild, stay out all night, for all she cares. He’s fifteen and busy getting in trouble. Mixing with the wrong crowd, checking out girls, sniffing out the gateway drugs.” Garland sat forward to project his words into Leith’s face. “I tell her, keep a lid on it, Gemma. But she doesn’t, because she doesn’t care. She only keeps taking the kids for her one week because she has to put on her generous, loving face in front of her new yoga-mat golf-club-swinging friends, because how else you going to fit into the clique? Right? Truth is, she’s thinking, They’re not my kids, they’re not even my ex’s kids, they’re my ex’s dead brother’s kids, the brother I never even met.”
“You have any hard evidence that he’s doing all these things?” Leith asked. “Partying all night, taking drugs?”
“No. It’s called reading between the lines.”
“Which implies to me he’s not ready to talk openly with you. He could be holding back something important, and that something could relate to Luna Mae.”
“More likely it relates to what he gets up to at Riverside Drive. Answering your questions could end up getting him in trouble that none of us needs right now.”
Garland had a point, Dion was thinking. But so did Leith, who gave it a final push. “I have no intention of digging up anything against Tia. I won’t press him about drugs, drinking, or anything else. I just want to ask him about Luna, what his thoughts are, if he can help at all. And there’s another thing, Zach. He’s turned down grief counselling, and you as his parent are maybe too close for him to confide in. That’s not your fault. Happens all the time. But he does seem closed off, to me. Troubled. Understandably so. So listen, maybe he’d be okay with talking to me about it, and maybe I could convince him to get help. Right? And yes, bottom line is whatever he has to say could land him in trouble, but only if he admits responsibility for Luna’s disappearance. In which case we all need to know, don’t we?”
Garland had been shaking his head through Leith’s patient spiel. “I gotta protect him,” he said. “If I don’t, who will? Letting him talk to the cops alone — all due respect — is not what I’d call protection.”
Leith nodded that he understood, and Garland departed, his big arms corralling girlfriend and kids out the door and away.
* * *
“Well, so much for that,” Leith said. He was at his desk, lounging in his swivel chair, and eating one of Alison’s homemade, low-sugar granola bars, which he had just dishonestly described to Dion as a damn good alternative to the Coffee Crisps he liked so much. Dion was planted in the non-swivelling visitor’s chair, apparently with something to say. Leith hoped whatever it was would open doors. He didn’t feel the Vivi and Tia interviews had moved them ahead a jot, but maybe his more intuitive partner had caught something worth following up. “What’ve you got?”
“It’s just a feeling,” Dion said.
“Feelings are good.”
“I’m wondering why Tiago’s so angry at Zachary. Whatever it is, it’s something to do with Luna.”
The granola bar fell apart, not enough sugar to bind it, and Leith chucked the mess in the waste bin. “You think Tia suspects Zachary is behind the disappearance? Something like that?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Or how about Tia’s an angry teenager because Dad’s putting his foot down about staying out late and partying? Your run-of-the-mill father-son power struggle.”
Dion looked unconvinced, and tried to explain his doubts. “It’s more specific than father-son conflict. Tia’s a smart kid, and so is Vivi. Vivi is close to both Tia and Zachary — you can tell by how she talks about them. I’m thinking if she’s got all this affection for Zachary, then Zachary must be doing something right. And Tia would get that. So whatever’s bothering him, it’s more about now than then.”
“Because he’s smart,” Leith said, joining the dots.
“Smart enough to get it that Zachary’s doing his best being a father to them both. And this isn’t just any old day. Luna’s been kidnapped. Tia would put aside their conflicts at a time like this, so whatever’s got between them, it’s fresh, and it’s big, which means it’s got to do with Luna. Like I said, just a feeling.”
And a superbly nebulous one, Leith was thinking. “Then again, how much affection does Vivi feel, really? Important not to get close to people. That’s a direct quote out of her mouth. Seems kind of a cold way of putting it.”
“Or her way of dealing with life. She’s already lost her parents. She’s knows nothing lasts.”
All the same, Leith thought, nine-year-olds shouldn’t be so philosophical.
He tried turning the conversation to a more productive tack. “Let’s get back to Tia’s anger. Seems to me Zach had a perfectly good explanation for it. He says Tia’s pissed off that he wasn’t informed earlier that Luna was missing, when he could have pitched in and helped search. An understandable source of friction, if you ask me.”
Dion hadn’t asked, and didn’t agree, which meant he disagreed. Leith gave up trying. All he could see in Tiago and Zachary was an ordinary father-son relationship with its ordinary father-son tensions, all set against a terrible situation. But Dion was stubborn, and when he built a theory, he stood by it. “All right, well,” Leith concluded. “If Tia has something to say, and if he’s as smart as we all think he is, he’ll come forward on his own and tell us. Right?” He swivelled his chair to look toward the window. “You know what irks me about Zach? Him ranting about custody battles in front of Tia. Kid has to put up with that bullshit from his dad? No wonder he’s angry.”
“He’s had to put up with the custody battle since Luna Mae was born,” Dion said. “It’s all just background noise to him. I get your point,” he added. “But I still think whatever’s bothering him is centred here.” He planted his finger on the desktop, symbolizing the case they were working on. “It’s about the kidnap, which means we have to talk to him alone, without Zachary hovering.”
“And apparently that’s not going to happen, and Zach’s got every right and reason to put his foot down. I guess I’d do the same, in his shoes.”
“We’ll have to keep trying.”
Dion rose to leave, but Leith stopped him. Asking Dion for advice was a bit like gnawing through one of Alison’s granola bars, a healthy choice but a bit of a chore. “What about Viviani? Any thoughts there?”
“Bring her to the Vale residence,” Dion said. “Maybe she’ll walk in and see what happened.” He was on his feet, ready to leave, and seemed to be snickering at his own reply.
Leith stared at him. “So she can see what?” he asked. Then recalled the nine-year-old’s nonsense about clairvoyance, and got the joke. Not much of one, but coming from Dion it was a riot. “Oh, yes, right, ha.”
He was still smiling at the great joke when Dion turned serious again and said, “David.”
Leith crossed his arms. “Calvin?”
“Nothing’s coming down. The witness you told me about, who’s supposed to be ratting me out for something I didn’t do. All I’m hearing is silence. So what happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was a false alarm.”
Bad place to talk about such private matters, Leith realized, the heart of a police detachment thick with detectives. But there were no ears nearby, and in some ways it was safer hashing out their worries here than in the local coffee shop.
Dion stood looking thoughtful and conflicted. Finally he said, “Will you tell me if you get any updates?”
“Not sure why I should. You’ll just bad-mouth the messenger.”
“I won’t bad-mouth you. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
An obscure promise, but Leith got it. If and when Dion’s luck ran out, Leith would be the first to know, and he’d know all, a full confession. Not much of a bargain, from his perspective, but it was about the closest the two of them had come to an understanding. After a beat he nodded acceptance. “Okay, Cal. Will do.”
* * *
The weather was rotten, but Dion walked with Kate hand in hand along the sands that rimmed the restless waters of the Burrard Inlet. He could see the two of them as if from afar, and they were a beautiful couple. They were built for each other, physically and emotionally: a perfect match.
Strange, though, how seeing them from afar was better than the actual in-body experience. Seeing their hands linked was more touching than the solid feel of her palm in his, and the conversation he imagined bouncing between them sleeker, wittier, sexier.
“So d’you think she killed herself?” Kate said.
She huddled against the sharp breeze as they walked, her collar up. She was talking about Brooke’s disappearance. It was news Dion had no choice but to share, because Brooke had been Kate’s friend, too, up to the summer before last. What he wasn’t telling her was how fairly sure he was that Brooke was the witness who had promised to come forward and turn him in for murder and who, for whatever reason, had changed her mind. None of that would he tell Kate, not in a million years.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I hope not. Probably she just realized she didn’t want to be back here, so she took off again. Back east, probably.”
He thought of how things had changed in all their lives. So suddenly, like a blackout switch. No more good times for the four of them together. Dinners, day-tripping, house parties. Hiking, biking, fighting.
The fights weren’t serious, but they’d happened, mostly because he and Brooke had issues and over the years had exchanged a few nasty words. She was jealous of Looch’s time, wanted him all to herself, and that was something she couldn’t have. But even the bad times were good times. He tried to put himself back in the frame of mind where he’d felt integral to something close and warm. His friends were supposed to be around him forever, and life was only going to get better.
Blackout.
But crying over the past wasn’t going to help. He had Kate back, a big step in the right direction. Build it up, he told himself. Say something brilliant, optimistic. What would he have done and said before the crash, when everything seemed so easy? Squeeze her hand and say whatever crossed his mind.
“It’s cold,” he said. He squeezed her hand. “Let’s go home and fuck.”