The Killer Trail (6 page)

Chris broke the awkward silence. “How do you want to do this?”

“Let's tell her at supper. And Chris, I don't
want
to do this at all. I know you love Ann Marie, and she loves you. She'll understand. We all just need time to—”

Shaking his head, Chris could do no better than to mutter, “I need to make some calls,” and left the room.

Apart from a pout and a sad little “Oh, Daddy,” Ann Marie took the news fairly well that her father would be moving back to his apartment. Her parents took great pains to present a positive rationale for the move. They decided to break the news as she was devouring her dessert, vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. After supper, they shopped for groceries, and Deanna dropped Chris off at his apartment. His truck had been towed from Woodland Park to his apartment building after the police had finished collecting evidence and the slashed tires had been replaced.

Once Ann Marie and Deanna had left, Chris packed away his groceries. He glanced around the sparse, uninviting bachelor unit, hastily chosen out of necessity after he and Deanna had separated. Other than a bed and a futon couch, the apartment was unfurnished, with the notable exception of a family portrait taken during happier times, hanging on the living room wall. Chris' only extravagance was the Bose sound dock for his iPod, which lay next to his outdated television.

He switched on his television—and nearly dropped the remote when he realized he was watching highlights of an earlier press conference covering the arrest of Ray Owens in what the media had dubbed the “murder at Woodland Park
.”
He didn't recognize the officer identified as the lead investigator who was doing the majority of the talking, but he could see Sergeant Ryan standing next to him.

The newsclip cut to a statement from James Carrier's brother, who expressed appreciation to the police in apprehending the killer. His voice trembled as he pleaded for the public's help in coming forward with any information about Elizabeth Carrier. A photograph of a beautiful young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes appeared on the television screen. Next came footage of Ray Owens being escorted in handcuffs from a police car into the courthouse, where he was formally charged with several offences, including the attempted murder of a social worker from the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry. The reporter summarized Ray's previous admission at IFP accompanied by file footage of the Institute.

Only now did Chris realize that his private tribulations involving Ray Owens had become front-page headlines. It was an irresistibly sensationalistic story: a man who had murdered a defenceless senior and, after a questionable early release from prison, went on to kill two more people. The fact that he had attempted to kill his former social worker and was now suspected of having some connection with the disappearance of the daughter of one of his victims meant that for the foreseeable future, audiences would be riveted by any news about Ray Owens.

Chris figured the administration at IFP would be in damage-control mode over his connection with Ray and the so-called “murder at Woodland Park.” He realized that his manager, David Evans, would not be in his office at this hour but still phoned and left him a message to discuss returning to work. Next, he called his own office number to retrieve his work voicemail. His heart hammered as he listened to a disturbing message from David that both he and Chris' director wanted to see him the following day, and that David had scheduled Chris for a critical-incident debriefing interview for the next day.

He wasn't surprised about the debriefing. While the incident with Ray hadn't occurred in the workplace, it had involved a former patient who was about to be re-admitted to IFP. The administration would insist Chris discuss with a counselor what had happened in Woodland Park. And he knew he would probably need to jump through several hoops before he would be considered well enough to return to work. What did surprise him, however, was the name of the psychologist conducting the interview—Stephanie Rowe.

SIXTEEN

Friday, February 10, 7:09 a.m.
Chris woke from another spate of torturous nightmares of James Carrier's body, covered in blood with his torso blown apart. He had gone to bed late hoping that fatigue would set in and force his body into slumber. But the images and worries bashing away inside his head kept him wide awake into the early hours of the morning.

He prepared for his interview, acutely aware of his nerves, as nausea and a headache destroyed his appetite for breakfast. He was willing to bet that the CBC had a camera crew camped out in the IFP parking lot, hoping to get the latest update on Ray, and he was sure this would not win him any favours with his director.

Chris was even more anxious about seeing Stephanie again. They had known each other for the better part of a decade. Throughout much of that time, there was a strong mutual attraction between them. But they were victims of bad timing: when Chris first fell hopelessly in love with Stephanie, she was engaged. That engagement broke off, but by the time she re-entered his life some years later, Chris was married to Deanna. Happily married, he thought wistfully, but when he was being truthful with himself, he knew that while his marriage had been many things, happy was not one of them. In recent months, he had come to look back upon his marriage with Deanna as another case of bad timing on both their parts. But he refused to allow himself to focus on regrets because he knew Ann Marie was the amazing result of their union.

Chris had last seen Stephanie three years ago on the eve of her transfer to the West Coast Federal Correctional Center, where she had accepted a position as a behavioural consultant in the psychology department. He had recently heard that she was taking on brief contract work at IFP but he had not yet run into her. He couldn't help but wonder why she had offered to conduct the critical-incident debriefing with him. His pulse quickened as he drove into the IFP parking lot.

The Institute of Forensic Psychiatry stood as a state-ofthe-art, two-hundred-bed facility, providing court-ordered psychiatric assessments as well as treatment for men and women with mental health problems who had come into conflict with the criminal justice system. When Chris had last come to work, Ray Owens had been a distant memory. Now he couldn't get rid of him. He also knew that given the public nature of his recent ordeal, he would be on display at work, with people scrutinizing his every move.

He made his way to the reception office, dominated by a brawny security officer. “Hey, Horace. How're ya doing?”

“Holy Jesus, Chris, I've been reading all about you. Sorry to hear what happened, man.”

“Yeah, well, what can you do?” Chris got along well with Horace. They shared an interest in hockey and often commiserated over the Vancouver Canucks' trials and tribulations. To say that Horace was a fan of the Canucks would be an understatement—his Honda Civic hatchback was completely adorned in the team's signature blue, green, silver, and white. Chris knew Horace wanted to talk about his misadventures at Woodland Park, but he wasn't feeling up to it. Instead, he waved goodbye and walked through the door towards the psychology department, where his interview was to take place.

As he approached the office, Chris took a deep breath and glanced at his watch. Realizing he was ten minutes early, he stood motionless, deliberating whether to announce his arrival or wait a few more minutes before knocking on the door. While he hesitated, the door opened and there stood Stephanie, a look of confusion on her face.

“Oh, hi, Stephanie.”
Real smooth, Ryder,
Chris scolded himself
.

“Hi, Chris. Have you been waiting long?”

“No. I just got here. I... uh... was about to knock when you opened. So, how are you doing?” He was nervous and hot as hell, and wished he had worn a lighter shirt. Most of all, he was struck by how beautiful Stephanie looked.

“I'm well. Come in.” She stood back from the doorway. “It's been a while, hasn't it?”

“Yeah, I guess it's been about three years?” Stephanie's auburn hair was styled differently from how he remembered it, and the years had been good to her. Chris wondered which New Age fitness craze she was doing to keep her body toned, and immediately felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment.

“Chris, I'm very sorry to hear what happened. When the referral came to our office, I was assigned to take it. I hope that's okay with you.”

“Sure, yeah, that's fine. I mean, somebody has to do it, right?” He was taken aback by Stephanie's business-as-usual demeanour, but just like old times, he found he couldn't read her.

“All right then. Let's get started. You understand that your participation in this meeting is voluntary and that my role is to provide support and not treatment, yes?” Chris nodded his head in agreement, although he doubted he'd describe his participation as truly voluntary.
More like voluntold.
“The content of our discussion will remain confidential.” She handed Chris a consent form to review. Once he had signed it, they started.

Chris summarized what had happened on the trail, as well as his previous history with Ray Owens. Stephanie listened, took the occasional note, and asked how he was sleeping, eating, and concentrating. He was becoming more and more annoyed with the increasing frequency with which she kept asking him, “Can you please elaborate?” He also realized he had underestimated the intensity of what was being asked of him. He found it difficult to analyze how he had felt when he discovered the body and when he was forced to look through the barrel of Ray's rifle. Stephanie, adept at picking up on his long pauses and apparent struggles, placed her notebook on the table.

“Let's slow things down a bit and go over again why we're here today.”

“I know why I'm here, Stephanie.”

“All right, tell me your understanding of why you're here?”

Chris bowed his head and sighed, a move he knew Deanna always called his “here we go again” move. “For Christ's sake, you know the kind of work I do. Give me a break. Don't you think I know what you're getting at? I experienced a traumatic event as you like to say. So people want to make sure I'm not experiencing PTSD. That I'm not going to flip out on someone at work. I know your questions are standard procedure and that's why I'm here, but I'm telling you I'm okay.”

“I'll tell you what concerns me. We've been here...” Stephanie glanced at her watch. “...forty minutes, and I have yet to hear you say in real, specific terms what happened to you on that trail. In my opinion, you are avoiding acknowledging that you were shot. That a man almost killed you. That's a common—”

“Well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?” Chris interrupted, a sarcastic note in his voice.

“What's obvious?”

He was angry now. “That some bastard tried to kill me. It's not like I'm the first guy this has happened to.”

Stephanie paused briefly. “Look, Chris, there are two things about what you just said that interest me. First, you're right. You're not the first person to survive being shot. But that doesn't make it any less traumatic. Second, you said ‘some bastard,' which implies that you didn't know your attacker. But you knew your attacker—Ray Owens. A former patient of yours tried to kill you. Now, this same ‘bastard' is going to be coming to your workplace, where you'll come into contact with each other. So that makes me wonder how ready you are to return to work and how ready you are to see Ray Owens again, when you haven't even said his name out loud.”

Stephanie took a deep breath before saying in a softer, lower voice, “The point I'm getting at, Chris, is that all of your reactions today are normal, given what you went through. But it's important to acknowledge them, to talk about them. Or your future actions and reactions to everyday occurrences run the risk of not being normal.”

Now it was Chris who paused, looking for the most diplomatic way to get his point across. “Listen, Stephanie. I know what you're saying. I understand that—I really do.”

“So why are you being so resistant?”

“
You
need to understand something, too. Some people feel better by talking about things. That's fine—good for them. But I'm not one of those people. I have other ways of dealing with stuff, you know.”

“Good. Such as?”

“Such as... working it out in my own head. Running. I don't know, but I know what the problem is and I know I have to solve it on my own. I just do better on my own with this stuff, and I'm getting tired of hearing people say I need to open up—be
emotionally available
. Jesus.”

Stephanie looked confused. “Are you talking about your marriage now?”

Chris was annoyed by Stephanie's question. “What does it matter what I'm talking about? What I'm saying is, whether it's you or it's a marriage counselor, or... hell... freakin' Dr. Phil
.
I know what I need and don't need. And I don't need to be told that I need to talk about my marriage and my mother and my early childhood experiences and on and on and on. I don't need that.”