WITH TIAGO’S DEATH and Kyler Hartshorne’s disappearance, all other avenues needed to be explored, and fast. JD’s task was to track down and question an amorphous set of party animals about Megan’s bit of gossip. Elijah had denied he’d spread a false rumour, and said he’d heard it from someone who’d heard it first-hand. He refused to say who that someone was, and unfortunately he and his friends and everyone else getting wind of the investigation were closing ranks. Nobody knew anything, and everybody pointed fingers at everybody else. The alleged source of the gossipmongering had become just another faceless ripple in a pond of lies.
With a portrait snapshot of Tasha Aziz in her wallet to renew her inspiration whenever it flagged, JD drove back to Riverside Secondary to talk to the counsellor, Robbie Clark. She figured he should best know the pulse of the school population, and might be able to tell her who did what and who was who.
She found Clark sitting in his small office looking dumbfounded. He gaped up at her as she stepped in. “I just heard about Tiago Garland,” he said. “How horrible. How horribly, horribly horrible.”
JD couldn’t argue with the sentiment. She was still feeling the effects of her part in Tia’s death — kind of a fluish funk — and being here in this puny office didn’t help. She was something of a claustrophobe to start with, so this was not a happy place for her, a cubicle with its tiny window and cheery montage smothering one cinder-block wall, photographs of kids achieving things, inspirational quotes probably pulled off the internet, somebody’s drawing of a cat, all overlaid with that distinctive odour of school.
She nodded bleakly. “Yes, I know.”
Clark offered her the visitor’s chair, and when she declined, he stood, maybe to keep them eye to eye. And they were so, almost literally, as she was tall for a woman and he was short for a man. He was clean-shaven, rotund, at least fifteen years older than JD, and his shirt had cowboy flourishes. Totally not her type, and the circumstances and setting were appalling, yet she found him … magnetic. Why? What attracts people to people? Some configuration of body and spirit that’s hard to pin down.
She went so far as to wonder, Are you single? Nothing more than an inside joke, but she glanced at his left hand anyway, just checking. Nope, no wedding ring. This hunk was up for grabs.
“What happened?” he was asking, fingertips pressed to desktop as if to keep himself upright. “They’re not releasing the details. The students are going to want to know.”
“Sorry. As soon as possible we’ll meet with the principal and tell her all we can.” She went on to say what she was looking for, any info he had picked up in his dealings with students, even if it was just vibes. Clark disappointed her with a shake of his head. “Occasionally kids come to me voluntarily for advice. Unfortunately they rarely report that they’re about to get into something risky. Wouldn’t it be a perfect world if they did?”
“This party I’m talking about isn’t necessarily about risk,” JD said. “I’m just hoping those who were present can tell me about an argument that was overheard between Tiago and Kyler Hartshorne. Tia’s sister Luna Mae’s name was mentioned. She’s the little Riverside girl who’s gone missing.”
Of course Clark knew who Luna Mae was. He grimaced his regret that he couldn’t help any further. “Have you talked to Kyler?”
“We can’t seem to locate him.”
Clark blinked at her as the news sank in. “What’s happening around here? First Tasha, then the kidnap, Tiago, and now Kyler, too?”
“Almost feels like a domino effect, doesn’t it?”
Clark considered the analogy with a nod. He offered to walk the halls, talk to students, see if he could get a bead on this January party, and whatever he found out he would pass on to her right away.
“Thanks,” she said, handing him her card. “That’ll be awfully helpful.”
As she left his office, she realized her curiosity about whether he was single was actually not completely LOL. Now, how sad was that?
* * *
Outside the lobby of the North Vancouver RCMP detachment was a small outdoor plaza with benches and trees. The plaza was deserted at this time of year, February being chilly and often wet. No rain was falling this afternoon, so Dion sat on one of the benches, eating a sandwich and thinking about rings. Like the one Looch had given Brooke a few years ago, a symbol of his love. Sterling silver and engraved like that famous ring from the movie about hobbits. Magic words of foreverness forged in metal.
Why couldn’t he be inventive like that?
He glanced over to see JD approaching, also with lunch. The rain had let up for a bit and the day wasn’t bad, actually. They sat together and watched another high-rise going up, blocking the view, hemming the detachment in even further. She told him about her odd attraction to Robbie Clark. She said, “It’s just fuckin’ weird, ’cause I’m not Niko Shiomi, who wonders if every guy she looks at is single — which, by the way, she was hoping you were, cutie pie.”
“I noticed,” he said.
JD shrugged. “Maybe it’s this Valentine’s Day bullshit coming up, everybody going around holding hands and cooing like turtledoves. Maybe I want to give the whole togetherness thing another try. Or maybe I just want somebody to give me chocolate, too. But him? If you stuck his photo in front of me and asked, I would say never in a million years. And he’d say the same about me, except he’d say it as he ran as fast as his little legs could take him.”
“I don’t know where you get your negative self-image, but it’s not helping any,” Dion said. He told her about Oliver Walsh and his determination to be a nerd, and how that wasn’t helpful in building friendships, or self-esteem, or anything else.
“Yeah, and that’s not me,” JD said. “I know I’m gorgeous, smart, and successful, and it’s just that nobody else gets it. I don’t care, though, and I value my singleness. But stay on topic. What do I see in this Clark guy? He’s got the shirt, the pointy boots. All he needs is a big hat and a twang. Which would be great if we were in Claresholm, Alberta. But we’re here on the raincoast. In the city. The nearest cow is miles away.”
“Partly it’s chemistry,” Dion told her. “But mostly it’s the moment. That’s why you’ve got to be careful not to make the wrong move. You were feeling bad about Tiago, and so was Clark, and you were wishing you didn’t have to go through it alone. Yet you’re such a loner that you’re no good at reading your own insecurities, and you mistook it for lust.”
JD put down her sandwich to let out one of her abrupt, harsh laughs, sending a flock of small birds resting nearby into the sky.
Dion shrugged.
“And when did you get your shrink ticket?” JD said, still laughing. But her phone rang, and she looked at the caller ID and said, “Speak of the devil.”
Dion watched her chat with the counsellor. There was nothing warm or seductive in her tone, and he doubted anything would come of her so-called attraction. Whatever she was hearing sounded positive, though, and she had her notebook out to scribble down the information. She said, “Thank you, sir. Much appreciated,” and disconnected.
“My cowboy came through,” she said. “Two names, first and last, with telephone numbers, of kids who might have some insight into the most awesome house parties held roundabouts lately.”
“You didn’t ask what he’s doing Friday night.”
They jostled each other. Then JD said, “Okay, damn you, what’s the matter?”
He stared at her. “What? Nothing!”
“Something’s the matter.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You look green.”
“I’m not,” he said.
But he was. He had a diamond ring in his pocket, and in a few days he was going to ask Kate to marry him, and he had a feeling she would say yes, and they would live happily ever after. So why was his confidence drifting out of sight, bit by bit, like a swimmer caught in a riptide?
He showed JD the ring.
She studied its not-so-expensive facets and nodded knowingly. “Cold feet.”
“It’s nothing to do with cold feet,” he said, re-pocketing the ring in its small, coffin-like blue velvet box.
“Sure it is. Don’t worry. It’ll pass.”
He finished his sandwich, thinking it over. “I talked to Oliver Walsh again,” he said. “I told him about Tiago, and he took it hard. But now that Tiago’s gone, I wanted to see if he had anything more to tell me. He did. It’s not much, but he said Tia gave him a hundred bucks, in twenties, the day before he died. Just out of the blue, no explanation except it was to pay off an old debt. Oliver couldn’t remember any old debt, and he’s not the type to forget, so he thought it was weird. Also, Tia wouldn’t tell him where he got the money. He usually had ten bucks at most in his wallet.”
“So, an unexpected gift. Anything else?”
“That’s where it gets weirder. After Tia gave him the cash he did this.” Dion forked two fingers at his own eyes, then pointed one straight at JD’s face.
“I’m watching you,” JD said. “So Tia’s watching Oliver?”
“No. How Oliver took it was that Tia was demonstrating something. Just wouldn’t say what.”
“Sounds like some serious shit going on.”
“But then Tia laughed, Oliver says. He described the laugh as ironic. He thinks all this weirdness has something to do with Kyler, but couldn’t say what, and didn’t go so far as blaming him for Tia’s death. But he did say he was afraid Kyler’s corrupting Tia.”
“Sounds kind of nerdy.”
“Being a nerd is his life’s mission.”
They stood, crumpling sandwich wrappings, and headed indoors. Dion went to meet with Leith about Kyler Hartshorne’s ongoing no-show, while JD went to make arrangements to interview some party animals.
* * *
JD had arranged interviews with the two house-party witnesses Robbie Clark had located for her. The first to arrive at the detachment was Dahlia. She was a talker. She didn’t seem to know about either Tia’s death or Kyler’s disappearance, and asked none of the usual questions, but rambled on as if interviews at police stations were as common as Starbucks in her life. She confirmed that she had been at the house party in mid-January. Whereabouts was it? She got on her phone and did some texting, and within minutes was able to give JD an address. Dahlia explained that the house belonged to Big Dom, who was away in Vegas, and that his son, Little Dom, who was actually a lot bigger than Big Dom, threw the party to celebrate having the place to himself for a week.
“Little Dom’s proviso was that the music not bother the neighbours,” Dahlia said. “And that everyone had to stay and clean up afterward.”
“Were his provisos followed?” JD asked.
“Not at all. The house was quite literally trashed and we all fled to the four corners of the earth not to have to help clean up.”
“Was there liquor?”
“Yes, there was liquor, because there were a few adults there. Well, people over the age of nineteen. But Dom, he’s really sticky about rules, and he carded everyone to make sure nobody underage drank.”
JD looked at her skeptically. “And that totally worked, of course.”
“Okay, no, but it kept it to a safe level, anyway. I had, like, one shooter.”
Little Dom was a worldly guy, Dahlia went on to tell JD. He had a ton of friends, both in school and out, and there were all kinds of amazing people at the party. She only knew a few to talk to, like Kyler and Rahim and a couple more names JD wrote down. Tia, she said, was a grade lower than her, and she only knew him to see him. And yes, there had been some kind of upset between Tia and Kyler at one point.
“What was the fight about, d’you know?”
“Well, I opened my ears when I heard Kyler yelling Looney Tunes in the poor guy’s face. Like, what’s that all about? I think Tia was chatting up this girl he liked, telling her about Luna, his cute little sister. You know, maybe he was trying to be the sensitive new-age kind of guy who cares about kids, because that can be very attractive to a girl, but I think it’s more that he’s a sensitive new-age kind of guy who cares about kids, full stop. Kyler, on the other hand, has a hate on for anybody who’s nicer and better looking than him, so he butted in and started calling Tia Tia Maria and his sister Looney Tunes, and Tia called him a prick, and then they started quite literally trying to kill each other. But Little Dom — did I mention he’s very big? — stepped in and told them to behave, and they did. And later I saw them by the back door talking quite friendly-like to each other — Tia and Kyler, I mean — so it couldn’t actually have been much of a fight.”
“And do you know what their friendlier conversation was about?”
Dahlia’s brows went up. “You know, I think it was also about babies. Isn’t that weird? Can’t be more specific, sorry.”
“Anybody else involved in that conversation?”
She nodded. “A very stoned couple with outrageously British accents, Sid and Nancy all the way. Older, definitely not from school. Dom would probably know who they are.”
JD asked for Little Dom’s contact info to add to her growing line of inquiry, thanked Dahlia, and welcomed in her next interviewee, Rahim.
His story wasn’t the same as Dahlia’s, but stories never were. The party house had been messy but never trashed, Rahim insisted, literally or otherwise. He and some others had returned the next day to make it spic and span, no worries.
Rahim had not noticed the British couple Dahlia had spoken of, but he did think he saw a friendly push and shove between Kyler and a smaller kid who matched the description of Tiago Garland. No, they weren’t trying to kill each other. He didn’t know what they were chatting about, and later they were on the back porch smoking a doobie and talking kind of seriously.
“Where did the doobie come from?” JD asked.
Rahim grew cagey and said he didn’t know.
JD asked him if he knew where Kyler might be or how he could be contacted, since he wasn’t at home and wasn’t picking up his phone. Rahim had a suggestion. Kyler had been bragging about a girlfriend lately, Jody, who lived in West Van. He remembered her last name because it was hilarious. Groper. Jody Groper. Apparently a cougar.
When Rahim was gone JD phoned Leith to tell him about the West Van cougar, a solid lead that might just finally snare Kyler Hartshorne.