HALFWAY THROUGH DINNER Leith received a call he couldn’t ignore. He used the opportunity as he left the table to ask Alison a rhetorical question. “You want to bring another kid into this way of life?”
“One thing you don’t do is waver,” Alison told him, pointing her fork his way. “You already said yes, and it’s going to happen, so be happy.”
After putting on his coat in the hallway, he returned to apologize. She was right. With some big decisions, regret was not an option, and having a child was about as big as it got.
Driving out to Riverside Drive, he saw once again a lot of police cars outside the Vale home. Dion was already on scene, next to the graffiti-covered gateway that provided access to the steps down to the jumping rock. In the dimming light he was talking to a man who was oddly dressed in skin-tight rubber.
Leith raised a hand as he approached.
“This is Corey Bloom,” Dion said. “He discovered the body.”
Bloom, Leith thought. Garlands, Vales, and Blooms. What’s next, Twigg? Corsage? Boutonnière? “Good evening,” he said to Bloom. The odd garb, he saw now, was a wetsuit. A mostly dry wetsuit, it seemed. Bloom looked angry.
“You were, what, going for a swim?” Leith asked him.
“Whoa,” Bloom said. “Another detective.”
“He’s a kayaker,” Dion said. He gestured at a truck down the road and the bright yellow, banana-like object propped against it. “I’ve got his statement and he’s eager to go.” To Bloom he said, “Thanks for your help, Mr. Bloom. Sorry you lost your window of opportunity and couldn’t get your ride in. Better luck tomorrow.”
Leith now recognized the kayaker as a criminal defence lawyer he’d seen around the courthouse but had never had to face on the stand. He hoped he’d never need to; Bloom struck him as a man who’d hold a grudge.
The lawyer slopped to his truck down the block and went about wrangling his boat onto its roof rack. Leith asked Dion, “Who’s in the water?”
“Pretty sure it’s Kyler Hartshorne. He’s been in for some hours. Maybe overnight.”
The air felt heavy with pending rain. They trotted down the steps, Dion with his flashlight beaming ahead. A crew of half a dozen could be seen here and there below on the limited elbow room of the narrow beach. The steps led to the mound of bedrock stretching into the swirling grey-green water, and from there Leith climbed with difficulty, following Dion’s lead, around lapping water to a narrow strip of beach below the jumping rock, where the body lay covered by a tarp.
The tarp was pulled back and Leith looked down at the dead man’s face. It was distorted, stained by lividity, swollen and eerie, but it resembled the photographs of the young man the team had been searching for. Hair, clothes, build — they all said this was Kyler Hartshorne.
Leith resisted the urge to swear at the corpse. A dead Hartshorne meant that little Luna Garland would not be found alive and well in his custody. A dead Hartshorne couldn’t have the truth slapped out of him. A dead Hartshorne couldn’t pay for what he’d done.
A whistle came from the jumping rock above. Leith looked up to see a constable in uniform waving down. Niko Shiomi was back on active duty. “Come take a look,” she called.
Easier said than done in this vertical terrain. Leith gestured upward to the more limber Dion. “Go take a look, would you?”
* * *
Dion, standing next to Shiomi at the precipice, leaned forward and saw what she was pointing out to him. Tucked in the crag, on a flat rock and protected from weather, was a piece of lined notepaper. Weighing the paper down was a crushed-looking nylon wallet. The wallet was black, decorated with a peeling insignia of skull and crossbones.
Dion summoned an Ident member to photograph and document the note and wallet. He was aware of Shiomi’s eyes on him as he worked, and also aware, with mixed emotions, that he was working to impress her. The Ident member checked the wallet and stated there was a wad of bills inside. Some twenties, fifties, and four one hundreds. Dion looked at the ID and saw it showed the face and name of Kyler Hartshorne. The other contents would be inventoried later — right now he wanted to see the most interesting bit. The note.
The Ident member opened the paper and held it out for viewing. Dion read the ballpoint scrawl, then took a snapshot with his phone. “Thanks, good find,” he told Niko. He gave her a brief smile, then hurried back down the rock to show Hartshorne’s final words to Leith:
Dear Mom, I’m sorry for what I did. You’ve been a good mom but I’ve been nothing but trouble to you and you’re better off with me gone. Sincerelly yours, Kyler. PS: I’ve left you some money to take care of things.
“Things,” Leith said. “Take care of what things? Funeral arrangements?”
“What’s he done?” Dion added. He mentally counted up the tasks ahead of them. Hartshorne’s mother, Millie, would have to be notified as soon as possible. Maybe she would be able to confirm their suspicions, maybe even provide leads to some much-needed answers. Gemma and Zachary would have to be told as well, and their hopes for Luna’s safe return would be hung out to dry once more.
With a wince, he recalled his suspicions from yesterday that Gemma and Zachary hadn’t responded appropriately to Leith’s news. He’d be more careful with his snap judgments from now on, and doubly careful not to voice them to Leith.
The river coursed along by his feet, a deep tumult, like the havoc Kyler Hartshorne had wreaked in so many lives. Maybe Hartshorne had done an unforgivable thing, stolen a child from its crib. Maybe he felt bad enough that he’d killed himself in the end. Or that was sure to be the theory that would go up on the board.
As he read the note again, Dion had to wonder if it was really that simple.