Creep. R.M. Greenaway
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the lawn the constables were toiling like concert roadies, setting up the polypropylene tent that would protect exhibits and equipment. Leith recognized one of them, a man who should be here next to him, in plainclothes, being a detective.
“So what do we know about who owns this place?” he asked Monty.
“JD’s given me a little history on that,” Monty said. “Eccentric dude named Harmon is on title, now living in Florida. We’re trying to contact him. He built it in the sixties, but not to code, and a few years ago it was declared unlivable and closed up. But he refuses to sell or upgrade. As a result, he’s blessed Lynn Valley with its first derelict mansion.”
“Wow.” Leith looked up at the house with interest. It was hardly a mansion, just a regular two-storey home, squat and graceless with a peculiar hip-roof construction and an odd wannabe-tower structure stuck at one corner. The roof was clad in dark metal, the siding in black-brown clapboards clustered with moss. In a neighbourhood of beautiful, bright homes, this one tucked back in the trees had the quality of a mould blemish.
Monty turned to the Ident tech. “Do we preserve the body in situ or do we preserve the hole? I guess we could rip up floorboards, approach it that way, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
Leith asked the tech how the ground in there was for prints.
“Lousy,” the tech replied. “All grit. We stayed off the drag path as best as possible and got a bunch of shots of scuff marks that aren’t going to tell us anything. Ripping up the floorboards will just drop a bunch of crap down, contaminate it all to hell unless we lay down some serious plastic. Again, not worth it. If there’s anything in there, it’s lost in the sand. We’re going to have to sift it all out one way or another.”
“Let’s haul it out. What d’you think, get some good video footage as we go?” Leith asked Monty.
Monty agreed. “Let’s do that.” And to the tech, “Bag got a zip, or what?”
“Drawstring at the top. Knotted, like, a million times. We had to cut a flap in the fabric to see in. Could see the top of somebody’s head and looked like part of a hand. I mean, if we cut the bag wide open, it’ll be that much harder to get it out clean. Best just to bring it out in one piece, bag and all, extra careful.”
“Go for it,” Monty said.
The full team filtered in over the next hour. The rain tapered to a light drizzle. Beyond the fence, Leith knew, the neighbourhood was wide awake now. The more inquisitive neighbours would be hanging about, coats and gumboots over their pajamas, asking questions and trying to get a glimpse through the gates. Here in the yard, the night sky was blotted out by the glare of the LEDs. Jack Dadd arrived. The grisly sack was tugged into view. The army-green canvas was soaked at the bottom, dry on top. Inch by inch, it was transported on its tarpaulin-cum-sled to the shelter. Dadd gave the okay to open the bag.
Some of those present wagered on a Halloween prank even to the last moment, until the heavy canvas was peeled back and what lay within killed all conversation. The corpse was stiffened into a twisted huddle — male or female, it was impossible to say. The camera flashed as the body, released from its bondage, slouched into a gentler curl against the tarp.
Even uncurled, the head remained tucked into its chest, as if shying from their prying eyes. The internal organs would be soup, seeped into the duffel bag’s fabric and the sand below, the rest gutted by bugs. No eyes visible, a mouldering nose, a fine gold chain around its neck.
“Female,” Monty guessed.
“Male,” JD said.
Leith was thinking male, too. The corpse had to have been a young man. Fair-sized in life, probably, but shrunken in death. The head was shaved almost to the scalp but for a bisecting flop of dark hair, flattened and brittle, the modernized Mohawk style. He wore faded black hipster jeans that were shredded in places, a mouldy-looking hoodie, also black, and one dark-blue running shoe. The body had brought with it that foul smell, dissipated by the open air, but unmistakeable. It was that odour that had caused the citizen’s complaint that had brought out the uniforms. Those first responders had made some calls, cut the padlock, entered the lot. Their flashlights had picked out the hump of bag in the crawl space, and they had decided it was sinister enough to call in GIS. And here they all were.
“She was young,” Monty said. “Time of death, Doc?”
Coroner Dadd was the only one present not huddling and grimacing at the rain, his grimace reserved for the fate of the victim before him. “It’s John, actually, not Jane. I’d guess two months, three at most.”
“Two to three months ago? How come we’re only getting complaints now?” JD said.
“The big rains only started this month,” Leith pointed out. “If the crawl space flooded recently, and the body was lying in water for the first time, it could have released the odours in a bigger way. A wet dead mouse smells a lot worse than a dry dead mouse, believe me. Also, we don’t know when that hatch came down. If it was recently, that could be another reason.”
JD looked at the house and the high fence that surrounded it. “October, September, August. Whoever dumped this guy knew the area, knew this place was sitting empty.”
Leith had to agree. It wasn’t a busy neighbourhood. Whoever had done this had lived close by long enough to observe that the house was up for grabs. Possible, too, that whoever had done it was an out-of-towner driving in random circles. That person might have driven by and noticed the Do Not Enter signs posted around and thought to himself — or herself — Aha, nice.
But what about the locks on the gate?
Looking around, he suspected the fence marched in an unbroken rectangle all around. Nothing but a shrubby lane ran along the side of the house and, maybe, continued around back. Must check for a weak link first thing. Or a weak board, in this case.
The concert roadie constable who should have been a detective — Cal Dion — approached from the area of the driveway. He looked both soaked and overheated, his cap removed and jacket unzipped. He skirted the corpse on its tarp, not even glancing down, as if to show how little he cared. He nodded briefly at JD and Leith and told Monty, “We’re done here. Constable Randall wants to know if it’s all right to go get a full statement from Mr. Lavender now.”
“Mr. Who?” Monty said.
Dion pointed south. “Mr. Lavender. Lives across the road there. He reported the smell.”
JD made a noise that Leith heard as a snort of laughter, while Dion clarified his request to Monty. “Jackie Randall and I were first on scene. We talked to Lavender and said we might be back. Randall wants to finish up with him. She also wants to start canvassing the neighbourhood. I told her we need permission.” He looked at JD as if daring her to laugh again. “So I’m here.”
Monty shrugged at Leith. “Want to weigh in?”
“Somebody else can deal with Lavender,” Leith said. “And we’re certainly not canvassing anybody this time of night. The body’s been down here a while. Another few hours won’t matter. Thanks, Cal.”
Leith had first met Dion on a case in the Hazeltons earlier this year, but it was a complicated working relationship, the kind he felt was best left at a comfortable distance. He got the distinct sense that Dion felt the same, only more so.
Though Dion nodded a yessir without argument and walked away, the story didn’t end there. A minute later, a shorter, stouter figure came squishing across the lawn to challenge Monty on the same issue, but with a lot more pepper. This was a constable Leith didn’t recognize. Young, probably new to the job, but already taking charge. “Constable Jackie Randall, sir,” she informed Monty. “Half the neighbourhood’s out on the sidewalk, so it seems a good time to ask questions.”
“Last I looked, the neighbours cleared out back home. Nothing to see,” JD said.
“All the more urgent to get knocking on doors,” Randall shot back