LEITH WAS FRUSTRATED. JD’s inquiries had been fruitful, and he now knew where the baby-bartering chatter had sprung from. But even after every party-goer had been tracked down and questioned, no witness could say definitively that there was something real behind the rumour. Nor could anybody provide the names of the British party crashers. One young person thought the van parked down the road some distance could have belonged to them. It stood out in this good neighbourhood because it was junky. Unfortunately, that person had not taken down the van’s tag number.
Somebody else had seen a couple walking away from the party toward the van, carrying a bottle of something, and in every other way matching the description of the British couple. But the accent wasn’t outrageously British. It sounded, well, Canadian.
But the clouds were at least starting to part, and the news could be good. If this was a case of underground baby-buying by a childless couple, it gave Luna Mae a greater chance of survival.
Better than if she’d been snatched by a random sicko, anyway.
In a late afternoon meeting Leith shared the theory with the team. Though the pile of statements before him was high, his theory was short. A couple wanted to buy a baby, and Kyler Hartshorne had conspired with Tia Garland to get them one. Tia, who had his own reasons for wishing Luna out of his life, had left the sliding door downstairs unlocked, and Kyler had slipped in and taken Luna. Kyler got paid ten thousand dollars — the so-called Uncle Bob inheritance — and had skipped the country. Tia got a share, and sick with remorse, he either deliberately or accidentally shuffled off this mortal coil.
Nobody on the team had any strong objection to the theory, though Leith noticed Dion looking less than enthused.
Dion’s lack of enthusiasm rained on Leith’s picnic somewhat, but he put aside his doubts and went on planning the next step. A more concerted hunt for both Kyler and the couple in the van would now get underway. Meanwhile he would take Dion on a new round of talks with Luna’s estranged parents, Zachary Garland and Gemma Vale. Time to see if the new information twigged anything in their minds.
“We don’t want to get their hopes up,” he told Dion, when they were driving southbound, Dion at the wheel. “And we don’t want them blaming Tia. But we have to see what their take is.”
Dion agreed, and went on to tell Leith about his doubts regarding the baby-buying theory. It wasn’t complicated. He had observed Tia in the hot seat last week, and simply didn’t think he was the type. “I don’t see him taking part in anything like it,” he said. “Kidnapping his own baby sister.” He had brought the car to a full stop for a traffic light, windshield wipers on intermittent, a river of cars ahead, red tail lights glowing in the late afternoon murk. “For what? A few dollars?”
Only technically a sister, Leith thought. A noisy baby, a source of trouble for Zach. Maybe she was more of an irritant for Tia. A presence he’d rather see gone. “How else do you explain the cash Tia was throwing about?”
“Hundred bucks is hardly cash.”
“For him it was large,” Leith said.
“That’s Oliver’s opinion. Maybe it was everything Tia had in his piggy bank, who knows? I can’t see a smart kid like Tia breaking the law for money.”
“The motive might be deeper. He resented Luna. She was noisy. He admitted that. At the same time, she got all the attention from Gemma and Zachary. He saw himself as inferior, the adopted son, where Luna Mae was blood. Or maybe switch it around; he thought he was saving her from Zach and Gemma. He thought the custody battle was tearing her apart.”
Even in profile, Dion’s contempt for the last suggestion showed. “And what, deliver her to a sketchy couple he’d just met at a party? No chance.”
“Maybe Hartshorne had something on him. Blackmailed him into it.”
“Or,” Dion said, “maybe in Tia’s mind the talk with the British couple at the party was a joke, but it wasn’t. Maybe Kyler carried on negotiations with the two privately. He went to the Vale house, found the door open, and took Luna. Tia felt guilty afterward, because he hadn’t taken the joke seriously. He should have spoken up sooner. But then it was too late to say anything, without implicating himself.”
The light turned green and all the tail lights began to move. “Except no,” he said, countering his own thoughts with a frown. “He’d have weighed the trouble he’d be in against the importance of finding Luna. He’d have told us on the spot. Keeping it to himself and drinking himself to death makes no sense. No sense at all.”
There you go again, Leith thought. Leapfrogging on your own conclusions. Dion’s conclusion in this case was the innocence of a fifteen-year-old, as if people of that age were incapable of criminal acts. “Even good kids can get themselves in unbelievable fixes, Cal,” he said. “They jump off cliffs, for Pete’s sake.”
Dion said nothing.
They arrived at the Vale home, and Leith realized that from day one of the investigation till now, in some way Gemma Vale had filled out instead of shrunk with misery. She’d become rounder, rosier. But he wasn’t surprised. How people dealt with tragedy could be unpredictable. Some lose their appetite; others eat.
The four of them took seats at the dining room table. Perry Vale served coffee and sat down next to his wife. Leith asked how Viviani was coping, and it was Perry who answered. “Not bad, actually. I think the grief counselling is helping. But she’s always been a quiet little girl, kind of hard to read. We’re worried, aren’t we, Gem? That Vivi’s talking to him, to Tia.”
Gemma’s nod struck Leith as distracted, not quite here. She seemed too busy fiddling with her rings to listen.
“At least we hear her kind of murmuring, in her room,” Perry explained. “Or did, when she was with us. She’s back with Zachary now. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that either, but we don’t have any say in the matter. In a perfect world, Gem wants full custody of Vivi. But she knows that’s not going to happen.”
Leith studied Gemma’s face, which remained focused on her rings, then Perry’s, which looked both present and haggard. “You’re not comfortable with Vivi living with Zachary?”
Perry looked at Gemma. Gemma shook her head slightly, her advice to say nothing. He looked at Leith and said it anyway. “Until now Vivi had Tiago. Now she’s alone with Zach. Gem was just never completely comfortable with how Zach is with Vivi. A little too … what?” he asked Gemma.
“Touchy feely,” Gemma admitted.
“So we’re just not comfortable with it,” Perry went on. “But Zach’s really her legal guardian, more so than Gem. Gem’s realizing she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. At least for the time being, till things settle. But she loves Vivi like she’s her own daughter. As do I. When the shock’s worn off, we’re going to be discussing a new visitation schedule. Week on, week off, hopefully.”
Gemma had taken to cupping her face in one palm and sighing. She leaned sideways against Perry’s shoulder, and his protective arm went around her, tight.
Leith asked Gemma if she had any evidence that Viviani was in danger with Zach. If she knew something, it was important to tell him.
She shook her head. “Of course not. She’ll be fine with him. Zach’s got a live-in girlfriend. They call that common-law, right?”
Which proves what? Leith thought. Nothing, just like Gemma being married to Perry proved nothing. The risk was everywhere — in the nicest of families, in church assemblies, in the dead of night or the light of day. All it took was a few moments of privacy and a bit of grooming. In his role as cop it sometimes seemed the hazard was always in the red zone when it came to children.
But he was here to share the team’s theory and seek feedback. As he’d said to Dion, they mustn’t raise Gemma’s hopes that Luna Mae was possibly still alive, possibly sold to a childless couple in a van who were looking for an easy adoption, which in the best-case scenario could mean that the child would soon be located and brought home.
Not a great ray of hope, in his mind, and he downplayed the news as he laid it out to the Vales, where the investigation had taken them and the new questions it had opened up about Tiago’s involvement. He noticed as he spoke that Gemma was staring across the table at him, her eyes growing wider with every word.
As he finished she gasped. “Wh …?”
And he watched her hopes climb faster than a monkey to the treetops.
* * *
First out the door and now waiting in the SUV, Dion drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and watched Leith having a few last words with the Vales at their front door. He used the time to corral his thoughts. Strange thoughts, especially toward the end of the meeting when he’d observed the Vales soaking up the news of a possibly promising lead: Luna Mae might have been kidnapped and delivered to an unknown couple, not sucked into the scarier unknown.
Something about their reaction, though. There was a word he was looking for to describe it. What had he seen on Gemma’s face as she listened, and also on Perry’s? Confusion, then disbelief, then hope. Which all made perfect sense. Yet …
Leith slid into the passenger seat and said darkly, “So that went well.”
Dion backed the vehicle out of the driveway. Once on the road, heading to their next stop, Zachary Garland’s apartment on Third, the word he’d been looking for popped into his mind. “It’s the ratio,” he exclaimed.
“What?”
“Gemma’s reaction to what you said. Ratio-wise, it was off. The news took her off guard, but it didn’t make her happy.”
“Didn’t make her happy? Course it did. She was ecstatic.”
“Not as much as she should have been. I couldn’t keep an eye on Perry so much, but with Gemma, it’s like she knew what you were going to say before you said it.” Seeing Leith wasn’t convinced, he took it further. “I think she’s involved in the abduction. We’re getting closer, and that’s making her sweat.”
“I really don’t think so, Cal,” Leith said, with the patience of a Sunday-school teacher. “I know you’re a hell of a perceptive guy, more so than me, but come on. There was nothing fake about her reaction. She’s been through the wringer this week. And you noticed I told her not to get her hopes up. What you saw was her trying. And failing, by the way. Her hopes shot up there so fast I thought she’d hit the ceiling. So I don’t know where you’re getting this —”
“Hard to say, though, isn’t it, with her hands all over her face? First she claps them over her mouth, then her cheeks, then her eyes. It’s like she was deliberately hiding from me.”
“Those are universal human reactions,” Leith exclaimed. His patience had been short-lived and he was back to his irritable self, gesturing to heaven. “Haven’t you ever clapped your hands to your face —”
“Not when I’m talking to two cops about a serious crime.”
Leith rolled his eyes. Dion didn’t see the eye roll, but could sense it, and it stung. He began to doubt his own epiphany, and already wished he could unsay what he’d said. Had he misread the woman’s universal human reactions? Probably.
I’m not a universal human, that’s why, he thought, and was flooded with self-pity. The car crash had changed the chemistry of his brain, made him weird, threw him out of alignment. Also, it had given him some contagious dark powers, such that anybody who got close to him either died or turned rotten. He should come with a package warning.
Should he advise Kate, as he gave her the ring? With this ring I thee destroy.
He grit his teeth. No. As long as he kept her close, she would be his cure. Already being back with her, he could feel himself getting more grounded. Day by day. Just had to stay positive and work at fixing the mess he’d made of his life.
For now, how could he fix what he’d just told Leith, stating that Gemma Vale was not a grieving mother but a liar and criminal? He couldn’t. All he could do going forward was not repeat the mistake of speaking his mind without thinking it through. Better yet, not speak his mind at all. Should just shut up and follow the leader for the rest of his life.
He steered their car down Forbes, turned at Third, and found a parking spot half a block from Garland’s low-rise. As they walked back to the building, Leith led a fairly one-sided conversation about the case, discussing Perry Vale’s worries about Viviani living with Garland. “Might be useful to see Zach and Vivi’s living arrangements, anyway.”
Dion followed him into the building and up the stairs to Garland’s floor. “How so?”
“Just get a feel for the father-daughter dynamics. I’m not saying there’s anything to the Vales’ concerns, but, you know.”
No longer speaking his mind about anything, Dion only shrugged. But when the door opened and he was invited inside, he looked around the place with interest. It was a fairly large, sprawling pad. Typical family mess evident everywhere. The walls, furniture, the ambiance wouldn’t betray any father-daughter secrets, but Leith was right, the interaction between the two might.
Garland was talking to Leith, excusing the mess and calling Vivi out from her room to say hi to their guests. Vivi came to stand at Garland’s side, and Dion believed the Vales were wrong to be concerned. Observation and intuition told him, almost to a certainty, that this father and daughter were comfortable with each other, that there was no issue between them.
Vivi had nodded a polite hello at him, and was now levelling her serious eyes at Leith, who was just as solemnly greeting her. The two had a connection, Dion knew. Leith had been the one to break the news of Tia’s death to her. She might have held it against him, seen him as a big ugly bringer of bad news, but if anything, her gaze held only empathy and understanding. As if they had both lost something special.
Dion thought about the girl losing both parents, and now her brother. He thought about Perry Vale saying he’d overheard Vivi talking to herself, and that maybe she’d been talking to Tiago. Talking to ghosts wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, in his opinion. He’d had some meaningful conversations with Looch, after the crash. Lying in the recovery wing of Vancouver General, all bandages and drool, telling his closest friend what an asshole he was. Or maybe it was just the morphine talking.
Shadow boxing, really. Crazy. But it did help pass the time.
Leith was telling Garland that he had an update on Luna Mae. He asked if he and Dion could speak to him alone. Viviani listened, her eyes jumping back and forth between the adults as they spoke. Dion saw her mouth fall open as if to object. She wanted to stay, wanted to know what was going on, but Garland ushered her off to her room. He made sure her door was shut and her music was on before returning to clear the dining room table of its junk mail and other odds and ends. There was a further delay when he went off to make coffee, though Leith had told him not to worry about it.
“Sorry,” Garland said, setting down cups. “Not sure I want to hear what you have to say.”
While waiting for the coffee to perk, Dion had compared this home with the Vales’. Their dining room table was long and solid. He recalled its dark polished surface reflecting the modern-art chandelier above. Engineer Perry Vale made a good income, and his top-notch home showed it. The Vale house was filled with the scent of aromatherapy and rainforest. Visually clean, too, as though no children lived there.
Here at Garland’s place the small table the three of them sat at was pale laminate, chipped at its corners, and above hung a Home Depot chandelier of glass and brass. There was a musty smell, like the ventilation system wasn’t great. There were open cereal boxes on the counter, dishes in the sink, posters peeling off the walls, mitts and coats and an unusual amount of camping gear piled in corners.
Dion focused on the discussion as Leith gave Garland the critical update. Again, the news was downplayed, the possible kidnap scenario, the lines of inquiry that were being followed up on, the caution that it was early stages yet.
Garland’s response, as Dion watched, was much like Gemma’s. When he learned that his daughter had been possibly delivered alive and well to an unknown couple, he seemed shocked. Then cautiously hopeful. Then thrilled.
The short conversation was over. Out in the street Dion forgot his resolve to keep his mouth shut and gave Leith his impressions of Garland’s reaction. Again, it was off, ratio-wise. There was just something not quite right, he said, trying to put it into words, Gemma’s show of hope, and now Zachary’s, a kind of lag, some disproportion of surprise versus relief.
He shouldn’t have bothered.