Forever Dead (11 page)

The words hung between us like a red flag and I said. “Look, I have no idea …”

But Lianna suddenly lashed out at me. “No idea, my ass. I had hoped you could help, but I can see there's no point.”

“Perhaps I can help you if you explain why you insist that it is your diary. The book I saw had Diamond's name on it.”

She looked at me, her eyes widening and narrowing like a camera focusing. Her anger vanished and she seemed to shrink back into a vulnerable snakelike bundle in the chair.

“He once asked me that if I outlived him, would I please burn all his black books, without reading them.”

I raised my eyebrows at her and Lianna hurriedly continued.

“He sometimes read bits of his diaries to me, about other people, and he could be pretty cruel — truthful, but then truth can be cruel, crueller still if the person is no longer around to soften the written words. I just wanted to carry out his wishes.” Her eyes flickered past me but refused to meet my eyes. She dabbed them with a handkerchief.

“Look, all I can tell you is that I saw a black book in his tent, so the police must be mistaken. You'd better ask them again.”

After Lianna had gone I stood by the window fiddling with the blind, my eyes unfocused, thoughts swirling. Things were getting decidedly suspicious. No signs of bear, the possible attempt on our lives, my fumigated insects, no larvae, the loss of my disks, and now the mysterious
disappearance of a small black book that I had seen with my own eyes, and Lianna's sudden vehemence when I remembered the book but didn't know where it was. Suppose there was something suspicious about Diamond's death? More to it than a bear? But what? Suppose that was the link? Someone was hiding something, and whatever it was, it had to do with Diamond's death.

I looked down over the quad and saw Lianna walking briskly toward a row of parked cars. I watched as she unlocked the driver's door of a candy apple red Porsche and roared out of the parking space, cutting off a cyclist who raised his fist at her as she sped away.

I sighed and went in search of Martha. I found her in my lab cutting liver to feed the newly arrived larvae and others, which I'd begged from a colleague.

“One of the larvae from you know where has pupated.” Martha raised her plump forefinger and pointed, the look on her face almost palpable — if a face could roll its eyes, Martha's face was doing so now.

I moved down to the cage in question and stood staring inside. I read the label. One of the grubs from Diamond's body. The ones salvaged from the lab next door where I'd left them the night of the fumigation. I looked inside. The fly was settled on a hunk of liver, its wings still clinging to its body. I'd pickle it and identify it later. Something twigged in my mind and I looked at the label again, remembering the pine forest where I had collected the grubs. Surely it wasn't possible? But I remembered distinctly the cedar twigs collected with the larvae and the cedar embedded in Diamond's wounds.

“Well, I'll be dammed,” I whispered. What the hell was going on here?

I stared at the newly pupated insect and realized I was out of my depth.

I hauled down my entomology and forestry texts and spent the next couple of hours immersed in them. Ryan called to say he had a ride back with Mac, who had come into town for a doctor's appointment, so I was able to stay until I found what I was looking for. I finally called it a day at 7:00 p.m. Now I needed Ryan as a springboard for the theory forming like a wasp's nest in my mind.

I pulled in by the barn and saw Ryan dismantling a cedar rail fence, making the most of the long daylight hours. I walked over and leaned on the fence watching him. I decided to be blunt and came straight to my point.

“Jake Diamond's body was moved after he died.”

“So what?” said Ryan.

“But it's weird, Ryan,” “Why? It's really no big deal. So the bear dragged him a short distance. There's nothing ominous about that.”

“It was moved a long way, Ryan. At least a mile and a half.”

“So the poor guy hauled himself all that way trying to find help before he died.”

I don't know what I was expecting his reaction to be, but his lack of interest to this point was disheartening. I needed to find a reason for my stolen disks before I could hope to find a lead. I was pretty sure I had that lead, but I wanted support.

“You think he could have crossed a river and walked over a mile in rotten terrain while mortally wounded?”

Ryan raised his eyebrows at that and finally looked at me with a modicum of interest.

“And,” I added, “you show me a bear that would do that and I'll make my name in zoology. It'd be a rogue bear in more ways than one.”

“How in the name of God do you know it was moved that far?” asked Ryan.

“There was no bear sign in the area where he was found.”

“No bear sign my ass. You saw the body.”

“Yeah, sure, but I think the bear killed him somewhere else. There were open tins of food and a chocolate bar in the tent, for heaven's sake, and you tell me a bear wouldn't return and ransack that? There were no droppings, no claw marks on any of the trees. We would have seen something. But there's more. I did some research in the library. Larvae on a dead body can tell people a lot of things. Have you ever heard of forensic entomology?”

Ryan raised his eyes heavenward. “Oh lord, Cordi, I can guess.”

“I spent the afternoon in the library reading all I could about it. Did you know that forensic entomology is the study of insects and crime? You can sometimes pinpoint time of death, where the person died, and if
they died inside or outside by the larvae and insects found on the body.”

“That's gross, Cordi.”

“It's kind of neat, really. If some guy accused of murder claims he found the victim outside and the bugs show he died inside, bingo!”

Ryan said nothing.

“Okay, okay. So it's gross, but once a person dies, especially if there is a lot of blood, flies are attracted to the scene and lay their eggs in the body. Every insect species has a different incubation period and you can tell by how long it takes them to develop into full-grown larvae just when the person died. Not only that, but only insects endemic to the area where the body is found should ever be found on the body unless it's been moved.”

“So?” Ryan wrinkled up his nose in disgust. “I hope there's a point to this, Cordi.”

“One of the larvae that I collected from Diamond's body pupated today. I haven't identified it yet and it may not tell me anything, but the cedar twig it was on when I collected it tells me a whole lot.”

Ryan interrupted me.

“Whoa, wait a minute Cordi. I thought all the larvae were destroyed?”

I told him about the larvae in my colleague's lab.

“Okay, so how does any of this tell us his body was moved?”

“Because there were no cedars anywhere near that body, Ryan. We were in a white pine forest.”

Ryan let out a long, low whistle. “No cedar. God, you're right.”

“I checked the vegetation maps for the area, went over them meticulously, and the closest cedar forest of any consequence starts upriver about a mile or so from where he was found.”

Ryan still wouldn't give up.

“Okay, so he got cedar twigs stuck in his clothes. I mean, he was in the bush for weeks before he died.”

“Not deeply embedded like that. They were deep inside, as if he'd been rolling around in the stuff and the bear's claws or teeth had driven them in.”

Ryan had stopped working on the fence and was deep in thought.

“Ryan, isn't it possible that my lab was fumigated and my data destroyed to get rid of any evidence that Diamond's body had been moved?”

“Whoa, Cordi. That won't work. No one knew you had larvae in the first place, except me and Martha.”

“That's not true. Remember? It was in the papers that I was a zoologist and had collected some grubs from the body before I knew it was human. The reporter thought it was a good gross slant and that he could get some mileage out of it.”

“Yeah, Cordi, but why would anyone want to hide the fact that the body had been moved in the first place?”

Good question. We wrestled in silence with our thoughts as I helped him wrestle the split rail into position.

“I don't think it was the first time they tried to get the larvae, either,” I said quietly.

“What do you mean, Cordi?”

“When that boulder sent us down the river. I'm sure it was no wild animal that sent that flying.”

“What?” Ryan wiped his brow and looked at me. “I saw a flash of purple just before the boulder fell. What wild animal that you know wears purple?”

Ryan continued to stare at me and finally found his tongue. “You saw it too? It looked like somebody's shirt or sleeve,” he said quietly. “But I thought it was my imagination. I mean, why would anybody do that?”

“I couldn't believe it myself,” I said. “There was no reason for someone to push a boulder at us — until now. I think whoever was hiding on that cliff thought I was carrying all the larvae with me. They must have watched us taking specimens and understood the significance of that. I still had my collecting pack with me, remember, but I'd emptied it at the far end to make it lighter. They wouldn't have known that.”

“Jesus, Cordi. That means someone tried to kill us.” He said it as a statement, and there was no mistaking the emotion in his voice.

“Whoever it was must have thought they'd destroyed the larvae until they read the newspaper article, and shortly after they struck again.”

“So you're saying that whoever it was who sent us into those rapids did it because of some bugs? What are you getting at, Cordi?” Ryan's voice made me feel as though I ought to admit myself to the nearest psychiatric hospital.

“Sounds crazy, but not because of the insects. Because of what the insects might tell us. Remember what I told you about forensic entomology? What if the insects said Diamond died three weeks sooner than the coroner's report? Or that he died inside a concrete bunker and not outside in the woods?”

“Isn't that pretty extreme? How would you get a bear inside a concrete bunker for God's sake? Remember, he was killed by a bear, so what does it matter if he was moved or not? The cops are interested in who did the deed and they already know that.”

“Do they?”

Ryan laid down the cedar rail he was preparing to put into place and stared at me.

“So what you're saying is that Diamond died in a cedar forest and somebody went to a lot of trouble to
move the body afterwards, back to his permanent campsite.”

“Exactly. But why do it? What possible purpose could it serve?”

“Maybe someone was with him when the bear attacked and panicked and couldn't help him. Maybe someone tried to help him, carried him, and got as far as the campsite and then panicked again when they realized he was dead. Now they're just too frightened and ashamed to come forward.”

I thought back to Don's behaviour and wondered if Ryan's theory could apply.

“But why fumigate my insects then?”

“Suppose whoever it was didn't want the body found in the area where Diamond actually died and they were afraid your larvae would expose them?”

“Expose what, though? What could there be about an area that makes it important enough for someone to move a body such a distance and then nearly kill us to kill the grubs? And then come back to finish them off in my lab?”

Ryan said nothing.

“I don't know, Ryan. All I do know is that I need to find out more about the circumstances surrounding Diamond's death.”

“Cordi, I don't like that look on your face. What are you planning?”

“I guess I'll have to call the coroner and pump him for information, and then go up there for a couple days and see if I can locate this cedar forest.”

“So you think that whoever took your disks is connected in some way to Diamond's death?

“I'm sure of it, Ryan, and it's my only lead. I can't let this go now. I've got too much at stake. So what about it? Will you do a search and get the coroner's name for me?”

We walked down to the barn to a small side door and up into what had once been a small hayloft and was now Ryan's office and darkroom.

Ryan tapped away at the computer keys, a nice soft whirring sound that I always thought sounded so much more intelligent, urgent, and critical than the old pounding of a typewriter key.

“He's in here somewhere,” said Ryan as he accessed the news database. “I don't know why you don't just phone the cops and ask for his name.”

“Because they'll want to know why and I'm no good at lying, and they'll think I'm nuts if I tell them my theory.”

“They'd have a right to think you're nuts, and what makes you think the coroner in charge of this case will be any more receptive to you?”

I shrugged, my stomach already in knots over what I might say to him. I walked over to the window and looked out across the fields. Ryan's office had a beautiful view of the escarpment, and at this time of day, with the sun turned to gold on the cornstalks, it looked like a piece of a paradise.

“He's an academic. Maybe I can appeal to that side of him.”

The quiet pinging went on. Ryan was into the newspaper database now, scanning the papers from the day after we had found the body. While Ryan worked on his computer I rummaged through our camping gear. It was gathering mould in the corner of his mudroom where we kept all our camping gear and where we'd just dumped our packs after our trip. I began sorting through it and making a pile of laundry. We'd both studiously ignored it, hoping the other would clean them out and throw the sweaty clothes into the laundry. I sighed as I pulled out sleeping bags and clothes. I separated them into two
piles, “dirty” and “okay for another year.” I picked up my khaki pants, every pocket bulging. I threw out all the garbage and checked the other non-garbage pockets, pulling out my knife and a wad of scrunched-up blue paper. At first I couldn't remember what it was, and I unscrunched it carefully. It was covered in doodles and scribbles. It had been smeared by the rain and the rapids into almost illegible handwriting. I could make out what looked like the word “antlers.” Then someone had scribbled and circled a few lines; there was something that looked like “red welt ock” followed by three numbers and something that looked like “NV.”