‘Right, I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. Give me about half an hour.’ Millar hung up his phone as he reached his car, shaking his head. He really wasn’t in the mood to return to work so soon after leaving, but what could he do? In his line of work, he knew he was on call all day, every day. He grabbed a towel out of a duffel bag he kept in the back seat, and then dug around inside the bag looking for a snack of some kind—anything would do for now. He always kept an assortment of post-run goodies to tide him over until he could get some real food, whenever that may be. Settling on a bag of trail-mix that wasn’t too stale, he laid his towel over the front seat and got in. Ten minutes later, he turned onto his street and pulled up in front of his duplex. Parking on the street was a compromise. His neighbours had complained in the past with his odd hour comings and goings, so he did what he could not to wake them up. He had enough issues, he didn’t need his neighbours upset with him, too.
As he started to open his car door to get out, the storm finally broke and the heavens opened, lighting up the sky like mid-day and dumping sheets of rain. ‘Well, won’t need a shower, I guess.’ Millar closed the door again and reached back into his duffel bag. Fishing around, he found the box of baby wipes he kept in there for just this type of situation. Contorting his body around the steering wheel, he peeled off his shirt and shorts, and gave himself a ‘hobo shower’ as he liked to call it, wiping away as much sweat as he could. He grabbed the shirt and suit he had been wearing for the past sixteen hours at work and maneuvered into it, struggling to be able to pull up his pants and put on his socks. His car definitely did not have enough room for someone over 6’5” to try and use it as a dressing room, although it had been a bit easier when he was ten years younger and thirty pounds lighter. ‘Good enough for now,’ he thought. Fastening his seat belt, he caught a whiff of himself and made a mental note that he needed to put some deodorant in his bag. The baby wipes helped, but they weren’t miracle workers.
Fifteen minutes after leaving home, he arrived at the scene, which had already been taped off. Three cruisers were parked alongside, lights still flashing, and an ambulance was pulling away—no lights, no siren. ‘Never a good sign for whoever I’m here to see,’ he said under his breath.
A small crowd had started to form outside the line of yellow tape, which stretched nearly twenty-five feet along the sidewalk, tied off to a stop sign on one side and a lamp post on the other. ‘Where did they all come from?’ he wondered. The streets were usually deserted at this hour, unless there was something interesting going on—then everyone came out of the woodwork. It was amazing how quickly a crowd could form. The wail of a siren travelled through open windows, signalling something worth watching was happening, and giving people something to gossip about over the next couple of days. He slipped his tie on and stepped out into the rain. Walking towards the crowd of people he could just make out the shape of a body under a blue tarp. It looked like it was someone sitting on the ground, leaning up against the statue of Terry Fox. As he got to the line, one of the patrol officers noticed him. ‘Make way,’ he said to the crowd, holding up the tape for Millar to crouch under. ‘Morning, Detective. Detective Penner is over by the body waiting for you.’
‘Thanks,’ Millar said, wiping the rain out of his eyes. ‘Do you have an umbrella in your car? I forgot mine.’
‘Sorry, sir. I can give you my rain coat if you want,’ the officer said, already starting to undo his jacket. Millar looked down at him. ‘That’s okay. I’m wet already,’ he said. ‘Not sure how well that would work,’ he thought to himself. Millar was at least a foot taller than the officer and more than a few pounds heavier. As he started walking towards the statue, another flash of lightning lit up the scene, casting menacing shadows.
‘Well, this is lovely. Get any sleep?’ Millar asked Penner. His partner had left the office shortly before he had, only hours earlier.
‘Just climbed into bed when the phone rang. I should’ve stayed in the office. You?’
‘Didn’t even make it home.’
‘I can tell. Maybe time for a clean shirt?’ Penner said, screwing up her nose.
‘Nice. Thanks. So, what’ve we got?’ There weren’t a lot of people in the major crimes unit that Millar would let talk to him like that, but he had been working with Sue since they were new to the force, so she got a pass.
‘Young Jane Doe, maybe twenty-five to thirty. Big gash on the back of her head,’ she said. Millar was already looking around, surveying the scene. He always liked to see what was around the body before seeing the body itself. Sometimes the scene could tell him more than the body could.
‘One of the local ladies?’ Millar asked. There weren’t a lot of prostitutes in the neighbourhood, but there were still a few holdouts. A decade earlier, there had been a lot more, but times had changed. In recent years, there had been an influx of new residents who took pride in their homes, something that hadn’t happened for a long time, and the ladies had no choice but to find a new corner to work.
‘Don’t think so. I don’t recognize her. She’s not dressed right either, too nice. Looks like a new dress, new shoes.’ Another flash and crack of thunder, this time much closer together. ‘Man, I hope we can wrap this up soon, this storm sucks!’ Penner said, brushing her dyed red hair off of her face.
‘Ha. Are you new? Right, any ID on her?’
‘Not that we found, but the coroner isn’t here yet so we haven’t been able to move the body. Dispatch put in a call, so she should be here soon.’ Millar had his back to her as he looked around and she noticed his collar was sticking up. Without thinking she reached up and started to straighten it.
‘Hey, maybe I wanted it to be like that. You know, like the cool kids do,’ he said, recoiling away.
‘Terry, the last time that look was cool was about thirty years ago. Probably about the last time you were possibly cool,’ she said with a bit of snark in her voice. She liked prodding Millar, and he usually took it well.
‘Ouch! You’re just a ball of fun when you’re tired, aren’t you,’ Millar said, turning back to her.
‘Well, at least for me it’s only when I’m tired. Come on, the responding officer’s over here, let’s see what he’s got,’ she said, patting him on the chest.
‘It’s going to be a really long night,’ he grumbled.
As they walked over to talk to the first officer on the scene, they heard a familiar voice call out from the other side of the tape.
‘Detective Millar, Detective Penner, what can you tell us about the body? Do you know who it is?’ It was Arden Wall, a reporter from the local news. Millar turned to face him and saw a cameraman beside him, trying to get a clear shot with his TV camera, while holding his coat over the lens to keep the rain off. Penner just kept walking.
‘Right now I can’t tell you anything—I don’t have any info myself,’ Millar said. He wasn’t a fan of Arden. The odd time he was actually home to watch the evening news, he hated watching Arden conduct his interviews. He got what his ex-wife called ‘interview face’—he would lift his chin, squint his eyes and just look like an overly interested rat. Almost embarrassing when he was interviewing someone important.
‘Come on, you’ve gotta have something for me. Man? Woman? Child? Age? Come on, I need to have some information to put out,’ Arden said as another flash of lightning streaked the sky. The following blast of thunder sounded like a cannon going off. Some of the crowd took that as a cue to start heading back home, or at least back to wherever they had come from.
‘As I said,’ Millar said, getting closer and looking down at Arden, ‘I don’t have any information for you. If we get anything, I will let you know, but don’t hold your breath.’ Millar turned away, trying to catch up with Penner.
‘You know,’ Arden quipped, ‘you always seem a lot nicer when you’re being interviewed about one of your books than you are in person.’
‘Just like you seem much taller on TV. Fine, you want a comment. Here you go,’ Millar started as the cameraman quickly focused on him. ‘I am wet, tired, I want to go home and I think you should do the same. Good night.’ He turned and walked off, leaving Arden and the cameraman to stare at each other.
‘Just keep filming, maybe we can get something’ Arden said. ‘I’ll go try and find us some coffee and see if anyone in the crowd is talking.’