I don’t leave her side over the next week. Though I hate lying, I call into work with ‘the flu’, explaining that I must have gotten it from Tim when he helped me with the tire. Considering the work I picked up for Tim in the past, I don’t feel too badly about not being there to help him.
Annie and I spend most of our time indoors. I read poetry to her or help her with her shell mobiles. She never talks about that night, and when I try to, she shuts me down right away. At night, we drink wine, lots of it—it helps us keep our minds occupied long enough to fall asleep.
That Friday, a week after that awful night, I talk Annie into coming on the boat with me for a couple hours to fish and take in the scenery. We pack a small lunch and a thermos of tea before heading down to the dock. As soon as I put my tackle box and rod into the boat, I notice that one of the seat floatation pads are gone. The cushions aren’t that buoyant, but they’re great padding for your ass when the sea gets choppy. I tell Annie to take a seat. She sits at the stern and waits quietly, her journal and pencil case in her lap.
After untying the boat, I start the engine and slowly head towards the other side of the island, where the best fishing spots are as well as multiple campers and camping spots all along the shore. This is a prime vacation destination for tourists. Since Annie and I first met here, the place has grown in population some, but not as fast as other islands like Salt Spring have.
What draws the visitors are the art studios, the bays, and fishing charters, but most of all, it’s the sense of community. A non-superficial vibe. It draws people in, and they probably don’t even realise why. There’s none of the West Van vanity, no desire to have the shinier car.
After fifteen or so minutes, we’re two bays over and I’m getting my rod ready for trolling. Annie brought a blanket and is lying with her back against the side of the boat, her legs crossed and her feet hanging out over the edge. Her flowery summer dress and the way she’s loosely pinned her hair on top of her head makes my heart ache. I’ve missed touching her, feeling her soft skin with my fingers, kissing her. Over the past week, she hasn’t wanted to be touched, and I don’t try.
After letting some line out, I place my rod in the holder and slowly drive in a wide circle around the bay. I want to catch a red snapper and if I let the boat go too slowly, I’ll get a dogfish on the line. As we make another turn, I glance at Annie. She is scribbling in her journal, her eyebrows knitted in intense focus. “Annie.”
Her face doesn’t move, only her eyes look up.
“I love you.” I give her a wink.
“You too,” she answers, then resumes writing.
I guess I’ll take what I can get.
I feel a cool gust of wind and then look up at the changing sky. Dark clouds snuck in without me noticing. I hear a dog barking from shore then, a woman screaming.
I see a woman with blonde hair leaning over something on the beach, her dog lunging forward and then jumping backwards. Annie doesn’t look, she just keeps writing.
“I wonder what’s going on over there?”
“Who knows,” says Annie.
“Maybe we should check it out. That woman sounds pretty freaked out.” I raise my voice and call out to shore. “Is everything okay over there?”
“No,” the woman calls back, sounding panicked. “There’s something here. Please help.”
I quickly reel in my line then accelerate towards the frantic woman. As we get closer, I can see more clearly. The woman is looking at something lying in the sand.
“Annie, look. What is that on the beach?”
“I don’t know, Jade. Maybe the woman is just crazy and wants attention.”
Her words are indifferent.
I pull as close as I can to shore and I can clearly make out the blonde woman’s face. She looks distressed as she covers her mouth and stares at the lump in front of her. “It’s a body. A dead body. I don’t have my cell, can you please call for help?”
I hear what she says, but my mind can’t believe it. I quickly tip the engine forward before jumping into knee-deep water, pulling the boat as I walk. When I hear sand scrape the bottom of the hull and I’ve pulled it as far up the beach as I can, I hand the rope to Annie and run to where the woman and her barking dog are standing.
In front of her lies what appears to be a male with black hair and no shirt. His back is higher off the ground than the rest of him—he’s lying on something. A backpack, maybe. His face is buried in the wet sand, and he’s wearing green Bermuda shorts. Seaweed wraps around his legs. I watch as crabs and sea worms crawl over his bloated, discolored body. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell the woman. “I didn’t bring my cell, but if you want to go and get help, I’ll stay here.”
The woman nods then quickly pulls her yapping dog up the beach toward the road.
I can’t believe that I’m standing only inches away from a dead guy. An eerie shiver runs through the inside of my bones. Did he get drunk and fall in the water? I picture his mother with the same dark hair, sitting at her kitchen table, stunned after receiving the news that her son was just found dead, half-naked in a cove. Nobody deserves to die this way.
My attention is diverted when I hear the crunching of rocks as Annie walks toward me. Carefully, I watch her expression. This is the last thing she needs to try to process. “Annie, maybe you should stay by the boat, honey. This is pretty grim.”
She doesn’t hear me. She just keeps walking toward the corpse. Before I know it, she’s standing over the man, her feet almost touching his side. I gently grab her arm, “Annie, step away. We’ve got to wait for the police to show up.” She yanks her arm forward and out of my grasp.
What she does next completely takes me off-guard. With one movement, she bends down, grabs onto the man’s shoulder and flips him over.
The horror sucks my breath out and makes my body freeze. A puffy blue face with cloudy eyes stares up at the sky. His mouth is open and there’s sand and seaweed coming out of it. Something moving on his cheek catches my eye. There’s some sort of worm or lice crawling out of a hole in his flesh.
I grab Annie’s arm again and pull her to her feet. “We shouldn’t be messing with him. The cops with be here and they’ll want to check for evidence.”
She still hasn’t taken her eyes off him.
“Annie, go back to the boat and I’ll stay here and wait. You shouldn’t be here after everything you’ve gone through.”
“I don’t mind. It’s not bothering me at all. It’s kind of a gift.”
“Have you lost it? How can you say that?”
“Because he deserved this.”
“How the hell do you know that, Annie.” I was getting angry—angry and frightened. “I know you’re feeling bitter, but not all men are evil.”
“This one was.”
“How can you know?”
“Because it’s Robbie.”
“What?” I look down at the body in disbelief. I can’t recognise anything in the face. It barely looks human. “Are you sure?”
Without a word, she slides a shoe under the swollen hand and flips it over.
I feel like I’m being sucked into the eye of a tornado. My head starts to spin, and my vision narrows as I focus on the back of the filthy hand and its star tattoo.
I feel a sudden and very unexpected flood of relief. It is quickly followed by a smaller wave of guilt. Then, as my vision clears, a slowly building uneasiness twists my gut.
In what feels like slow motion, I turn to look at Annie, who is now grinning as she stands straight, almost proud, like a hunter with her kill.
She couldn’t. He drugged her, raped her and then fled. If she wasn’t in any shape to run from him, she sure couldn’t have achieved the physical act of killing him.
But how, then? How did he die? I can’t see anything tied around his neck and as far as I can tell, he doesn’t have bullet wounds or stab marks. Maybe he just fell in the water when he was drunk. The more I think about it, the more that seems the likeliest possibility.
Thunder cracks overhead. Angry clouds engulf the morning sun, as a dark veil casts over the shore. I take Annie by the hand and lead her to a log that’s been set under a large tree.
“It’s better we wait here until the cops arrive,” I say. “It’s going to rain and I don’t want you getting wet.” I put my arm around her and press her into me. This time, she doesn’t pull away. I want to ask her more about Robbie and how he could’ve ended up this way, but by the look on her face, even if she does know something, she’s not in the mood to tell me. The elation is gone, replaced by a clenched jaw and widened eyes.
After about twenty minutes we hear sirens in the distance, getting louder.
Annie grabs my hand, and I look at her. Her eyes are fiery. “Don’t tell them.”
I stare at her. “About what?”
“The rape. Please, Jade.”
“It could be withholding evidence. We’ve got to tell them.”
Her eyes burn right through me. “If you even so much as whisper about what I went through, I will never trust you again.”
Two cop cars wind around the shoreline road and park above the beach, and three cops get out. They converse for a few quick minutes in front of their cars before making their way toward the body, toward us. Two younger cops follow behind a stodgy, older officer. As they approach, I stand up and walk over to Robbie’s corpse.
I introduce myself and Annie, who is still sitting on the log. They ask me how I came to find the body, and I tell them. Then they ask if I was familiar with him.
“No,” I say. My first lie.
“How about her?” The senior cop points at Annie.
“No. She has no idea who he is, we just happened to be passing by when the lady screamed from the beach.” My second lie.
Since we were just, apparently, at the wrong place at the wrong time, the cops don’t take any further statements. They let us go.
As soon as we’ve pushed the boat out and climbed back in, the rain starts. We drive toward home, neither of us saying anything. Annie’s focus is on covering her journal so it doesn’t get wet, whereas my mind is preoccupied with the fact that I just lied to the police, that I just committed a crime.
* * *
Morning breaks the next day with a bright sun, hinting toward a perfect summer day. Annie is quiet, but more at ease than she was last night. More at ease, in fact, than she’s been this past week. She touches me when she walks by, and smiles when she sees me looking at her.
In the afternoon, we visit the local market and pick up groceries for dinner. On the way home, we stop along the beach and watch eagles dive into the pristine waters and come up with fish. When we get back to the cottage, I head to the kitchen to empty our bags and Annie goes to the bedroom.
As I’m almost finished putting stuff away, I feel hands grasp my waist from behind. Turning around, I see Annie, naked. She’s smiling at me in a way I haven’t seen for quite some time.
With an aggression I have never before experienced with her, she presses her lips against mine. The counter bites into my back as she leans into me. I return her kiss, then grab her hand to lead her into the bedroom, but she wants me here, on the cool tile floor.
I try to be gentle with her, to take my time kissing and caressing her, but that’s not what she wants. She consumes me, panting and gyrating with every touch, rough and void of emotion. This isn’t my thing, but I go along with it for her. It’s a big step, considering what she’s been through.
Afterwards, we lie together, her head on my arm, our chests rapidly expanding and contracting.
“That was different,” I say, giving her a squeeze.
“Unenjoyable different, or good different?”
“Unexpected different.”
“Well, life can be stagnant without some surprises, don’t you think?”
“I guess so.”
She gets up on her knees until her face is over mine and then tenderly and slowly kisses me, offering the missing emotion from our carnal encounter.
* * *
The next morning, I wake to the sound of gulls squawking in the bay, and an empty bed. My heart is pounding and there’s a light sheen of sweat all over my body. I had just been on the lake .
I was standing on the dock. It was barely light out. There was a layer of fog over the water. A light blue boat appeared through the mist with no engine and nobody driving, silently floating towards me, as though I were pulling it. As soon as the craft was close enough, I saw a body lying motionless inside. The man had no shirt on, just shorts. The hand with the star tattoo was lying upon a red book with gold lettering on it. Annie’s journal.
I stagger to the bathroom, still half-asleep, and splash my face with cold water. It’s then, looking up at my reflection with my face dripping, that I see the words written on the mirror in bright pink lipstick.
I love you, but I need to be away for a while. Too much has happened and if I stay, I may say something I don’t mean.
This can’t be happening. In a panic I run from room to room, calling her name, as though I expect her to be hiding under the bed or behind a door. I don’t know why I bother. I can tell she’s gone. The energy of her, the beautiful, bright, warm energy, has disappeared.
Why now? I think. Why did she leave now? We were closer than we had been since the incident—at least I thought we were.
My brain is clearing from the sleep and the panic. I run back to the bedroom and pick up my cell phone, punching in her number. I wait, holding my breath as it rings. Then, I hear music - her ringtone. I return to the living room and find her phone on the coffee table.
I pick up the cell and look at the call display. My name isn’t there—just a number. No unflattering picture of me that she’d insisted on using for my contact. After I hang up, I open her phone and go to the contacts. The list is empty. She’d deleted everything.
Why would she leave her phone, and leave it on the coffee table for me to find? Why the hell would she clear her contacts? I think this even when I know the answer. She wants to completely disappear. She wants to leave no way to get a hold of her.
Slumping down on the sofa, I feel like my heart has just been torn out. A lump grows in my throat and my eyes start to water. If she’s gone, then I don’t give a shit about anything anymore.
There is a loud rap at the door. I am shaken from my stupor, and I get up to check through the window. I see a police officer and someone with him—judging by the similar set to his posture, a plain clothes cop.
“Wait, I’m not dressed,” I call, then run to the bedroom.
After sliding on my track pants and trying—and failing—to finger brush my hair on the way back, I take a deep breath and open the door.
“Good morning,” says the plain clothes cop, giving me a tight smile. “Are you Jade Banks?”
I nod.
“Ms. Banks, I’m Detective Dickson, and this is Constable Lyster. I was wondering if we could have a few minutes of your time? Is it okay if we come in?”
I hold the door open and the men walk in. The tall, plain clothes man is much older than his tag-a-long. There’s a sharp, easy arrogance to him. His sidekick looks like he’s still trying to fit into his rigid uniform.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?”
“Have a seat, Jade. This shouldn’t take long.”
I should be nervous. I should be remembering the lies I just told the police a few days before. I should be panicking, but all I can think about is Annie.
“I’m a detective from Vancouver. I was assigned to the case of the recovered body, a few bays over from here. A man named Robert James.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “But I already talked to the cops at the beach. I don’t know anything more than what I told them.” I don’t intend to sound rude, but I fail.
Dickson reaches into his blazer pocket and pulls out a picture. “This was found underneath the body. Does this belong to you?”
I take the picture and look down. It’s a picture of a blue square in an evidence bag. I’m confused for a moment before it hits me. What I’d thought was a backpack was actually a pad. A floatation seat pad that has Banks stenciled on it. Oh my God, it’s from my boat.
Denny. The name explodes in my brain. The air sucks from my lungs.
The detective doesn’t take his eyes off me, looking for a sign of guilt, I presume—something they probably taught him how to do in training. I stare back, trying to convey an aura of innocence, trying to breath at a normal rate. I’m a lot of things, but a murderer isn’t one of them.
“Did you know the man?” he asks, slightly tilting his head.
“Did I know him? No.” I’m only half lying. The truth is, I have no idea who Robbie really is, but I don’t think that’s what Dickson is asking.
Dickson stands, and Lyster follows suit. “Do you mind if we look around the property?”
“No, of course not. Anything to help with your investigation.”
He gives me a smile—a professional one.
The two men head to the door. Just before Dickson walks out, he turns to me. “Any idea how the dead man ended up with your floatation device?”
“I guess it’s possible that he was roaming around the area and stumbled across my wharf. My boat is always uncovered. Anyone can go into it.”
He smiles again and then follows the tenderfoot out into the yard.
As soon they’re out of sight, I look down at my hands. They start to shake. Thankfully, this wasn’t happening while the men were here.
I pour myself a glass of water and sit at the kitchen table. I take a long drink and look across the yard to the wharf. Watching as my small skiff gently rocks back and forth on the waves. How the hell did things get so messed up so quickly? And how, after everything we’ve been through, could Annie just walk out on me? I’ll wait to cry until I’m sure the cops are gone, just in case they see me and assume my tears mean something else.
The detective is walking out on the dock, toward my boat. He peers into the K&C, then takes out a pen and paper from a pocket and writes something down. Then he stands for a few minutes and looks out over the bay. He’s thinking, trying to piece together how Robbie could’ve taken the floatation pad and then ended up dead just a couple bays down. Solving crime must be a lot like putting a huge puzzle together. I don’t envy him.
However, if any information does come his way, I hope he shares it. I realise that I want to know what happened, maybe that way, I’ll find out what happened to Annie that night. If he did rape her, he’s exactly where he should be.
Not having anyone to nag me, I grab a smoke from a tin I hide under the couch and light one. Taking a deep puff, I immediately start to cough—I guess going without one for so long lowered my resistance. I walk outside and stomp out the rest of my smoke just as the cops get back in their car and drive off.
It dawns on me only then what I had done. Or rather, what I hadn’t done. I’m not sure why I hadn’t told them what I knew about Robbie.
I think of Annie and her fiery eyes. ``If you even so much as whisper about what I went through, I will never trust you again.’
I think about what I can tell her now. I didn’t say a word. I looked him in the eye and lied—lied to a detective from Vancouver. For you, Annie.
I walk back in the house and lie on her side of the bed, my face buried in her pillow.