Grave Situation (30 page)

He leaned back from the desk,
feeling wretched. In his mind, he watched Brian walking into the
airport terminal amidst a trickle of other passengers, his son’s
eyes seeking him out. When they found him, Brian’s face lit up. He
lifted his arm in a wave and began to run toward his
father.

Allan felt sick.

How am I going to break this to
him? Goddamnit.

Allan left for home at four
o’clock. He parked in his driveway, shut off the car, and sat there
for a while, staring at his home. Then he stepped out and went next
door to ask Bob Ruse if he would care for Buddy while he was away
in Acresville. Bob said he would and then invited Allan in for
supper with his wife and two children. Wanting to avoid calling his
son just yet, Allan accepted. He followed Bob inside, settled down
to fettuccine alfredo and garlic bread. While eating, he tried to
remember the last time he had a home-cooked meal.

Afterwards, he stayed for a time,
not saying much. He wasn’t prepared, he realized, for small talk.
His manner was pleasant, yet his replies were brief—a feigned
smile, a nod or a shake of the head. The painful phone call ahead
troubled his mind.

At six, Allan left a house key with
Bob and then excused himself. As he walked through the back door,
Buddy came trotting out of the living room, tail in the air. Allan
reached down and scooped him up, rubbing his fingers behind Buddy’s
ears. The cat began purring.

“Looks like I’m going to be
leaving you for a while. Bob is going to stop over everyday to feed
you.”

He put Buddy down and then filled
the cat’s dishes with fresh food and water. After removing his
jacket, Allan looked at the pile of dishes in the sink—a sign of
how languid he’d been.

He went into the living room,
unfastened his shoulder holster, and put it on the chair by the
fireplace. He glanced at his watch: 6:17. It was an hour behind in
Toronto so Brian was probably in the middle of supper. Allan’s
palms were damp as he stared at the phone on the coffee table.
Abruptly, he turned away and went upstairs to the bathroom. He
stepped into the shower. Twice he soaped. Twice he rinsed. Then he
leaned heavily on the tile wall. He stood under the spray, allowing
the hot water to jet over the back of his neck. For a long time, he
stayed like that.

It did nothing to relax
him.

Only when the water began to cool
did he step out and dry off. He wiped the condensation from the
mirror above the sink to meet his reflection. A tired man gazed
back. The dark sacs beneath his eyes had deepened. The lines in his
face seemed sharper somehow, as if he had aged five years in as
many hours.

Man, you’re looking
worse.

In his bedroom, he dressed in a
T-shirt and plaid sleep pants. Then he went downstairs to call his
son. Buddy, he saw, was now on the chair by the fireplace, sniffing
the leather of his shoulder holster.

The time was seven ten.

Tentative, Allan crossed the room
and took a seat on the sofa. For minutes, he stared at the
telephone in front of him. He didn’t want to go through with
this.

Finally, he reached for the handset
and stabbed at numbers. As the ringing began, he sighed. Part of
him wished no one would answer. When Melissa picked up, he felt
himself tense. Voice low, he asked for Brian.

There came a brief pause and then
Melissa said, “Hold on. I’ll get him.”

From her dry tone, Allan wondered
if she was still bitter over his remark last week.

Within no time, Brian came on,
voice beaming, “Hi, Dad!”

“Brian.” Allan tried to smile.
“What’s going on up there?”

“Just playing in my room. Mom’s
going to get my clothes packed on Friday. I can’t wait until this
weekend.”

Biting down on his lip, Allan
closed his eyes.

In a low tone, he said, “That’s why
I called you, son. I have some bad news…”

“Bad news?” Brian cut in. “What,
Dad?”

Allan drew a breath. “I’m not going
to be home this weekend. I have to leave Halifax tomorrow on a
case. It just popped up today.”

The line was silent.

“Brian?”

Softly, his son asked, “When…when
will you be home?”

Allan exhaled. “I don’t know. Maybe
next week. Maybe the next.”

More silence.

Fuck, I hate this.

“Brian?
”

“I’m here.” Beneath Brian’s words
was an undertone of disappointment.

“I’m very sorry, son.”

“You have your job, Dad. Mom told
me that before. You have to catch the bad guys. I
understand.”

Allan felt his heart in his throat.
All at once, tears sprang to his eyes. It was a moment before he
trusted his voice to speak again.

“I love you, Brian. Don’t ever
forget that. Right now you might not understand how hard this is
for me. But I really wanted to see you, to spend some time with
you.”

Brian was quiet again.

Through the phone, Allan could feel
his son’s dejection and he hated himself for it. In hindsight, his
choices in life had caused this. He could have gone back to Patrol
or quit the force entirely before Melissa left him. Then he
could’ve kept his marriage intact.

“Tell your mother that if she
can’t get the money refunded for the plane ticket, I’ll send it to
her.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her.” Pausing,
Brian added. “Well, I should get going.”

Allan winced. “All right,
Brian.”

“Bye, Dad.”

“Good night. I love you,
son.”

All Allan heard in return was a
click and then the buzz of the dial tone. Thumb and finger to his
eyes, he cradled the phone, ensnared with grief.

As he stood up, his thoughts drove
him to the fireplace. He picked up the silver-framed picture from
the mantle. It was a snapshot of another man’s life, in another
time. Melissa and Brian smiled back at him. A Christmas tree,
bedecked and lighted, stood behind them. A motley array of lights
glinted off their chestnut hair.

Allan swallowed.

This home. This woman and the life
they had. This little boy whom they had shared their love.
Everything that defined who Allan was. Gone.

He had taken the photograph on
Christmas Day, 2008. Only seventeen months had passed since then,
but the memory of that night seemed so long ago, so
surreal.

Face haunted, Allan fell into a
deep reverie.

* * *

“Say Cheese.”

Voices in perfect synchrony,
Melissa and Brian obliged.

Through the viewfinder, Allan
framed their smiling faces and pressed the shutter release button.
A flash lit up the room.

They had just finished opening
their presents. Wrapping paper lay torn and strewn everywhere.
Brian rushed back to the toys Santa had left him, while Buddy
playfully swatted at a low-hanging ornament on the tree.

Allan handed the camera to Melissa.
Flipping it over, she checked the count on the film.

“The roll’s
almost finished,” she said. “I’ll take an extra one to Mom and
Dad’s. I want to
get lots of pictures.
Kevin and Mary are over there with the kids. Hopefully I can fit
everyone in a single frame.”

“How’s your brother doing?” Allan
asked, watching Brian sort out pieces of his Lego set.

“Don’t know. They just got in last
night. I imagine he’s fine. Mom told me he had a hard time getting
Mary to go on the plane though.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She never flew
before.”

“A couple drinks would cure
that.”

Melissa laughed. “I’m not sure
about that.”

Brian looked over. “What time are
we going over to Grampy and Nana’s?”

“In a few hours,” Melissa told
him. “ You can still play with your toys for a while. Then you’ll
have to get a bath and get dressed.”

“Aww, do I have to?”

“Yes, you have to, young man. We
can’t have you going over to see Grampy and Nana in your
pjs.”

With a child’s earnest
concentration, Brian was pushing the Lego pieces together, forming
what looked to be the wall of a house or perhaps a castle. Allan
smiled at the sight.

Just then, a beeping sound came
from the kitchen. All three looked. Allan realized that it came
from his pager. He went over and picked it off the counter. Reading
the message, he winced.

Great
, he thought.
Just great
.

Behind him, Melissa appeared in the
doorway. “What is it?”

“I have to go to work.”

“You can’t be serious?” she asked
with incredulity.

Distracted, Allan read the address
at the bottom of the message.

At last, he said, “I’m afraid
so.”

“My God, Al. It’s Christmas. Can’t
they leave you alone for one day?”

Expelling a breath, Allan pocketed
the pager. “Tragedy honors no holidays, sweetheart. Some people
find this time of year very stressful. It was my turn to be on
call. Henderson did it last year.”

Melissa folded her arms, staring at
the floor. “How long will you be?”

Allan shrugged on his coat. “It’s
an apparent suicide. So, it shouldn’t take long.”

Brian came into the kitchen.
“You’re leaving, Dad?”

“I have to go to work for a bit,
son. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Brian followed him to the
door.

“When can we put my train set
together?”

Allan picked him up. Brian wrapped
his arms around his father’s neck.

“You get it all out and ready,”
Allan told him. “And we’ll put it together when I get home. It
might not be until we come back from Grampy and Nana’s
though.”

A big smile lit up his son’s face.
“Okay, Daddy.”

Allan put him down, watched him
scamper back to the living room. He didn’t wish to
leave.

To Melissa, he said, “See you in a
bit. Depending on how long this takes, I just might have to meet
you guys over at your parents.”

“Try not to be long.”

Allan opened the back door. “I’ll
try.”

“Gun.”

Allan blinked. “Wha…”
Instinctively, his hand moved to the inside of his coat. He turned
around and gave her a funny half smile. “Thank you.”

When he passed her in the living
room doorway, he stopped and kissed her on the cheek.

“I don’t know what I’d do without
you,” he whispered.

“Perish, probably.”

Allan chuckled. Upstairs, he
retrieved his handgun from the safe in the bedroom closet. Then he
went back downstairs and left.

A light snow fell, big flakes that
coasted listlessly from a colorless sky. Half an inch was already
piled on the ground.

Cleaning off the windshield, Allan
stepped into his car. His watch read 9:46 a.m.

With any
luck
, he thought,
I’ll make dinner
.

That wasn’t to be.

His callout took him to an empty
warehouse lot in Bedford where an alert patrolman had found an
idling Pontiac with tinted windows. The officer found a middle-aged
man dead in the front seat with a single bullet hole in his
head.

At first glance, it had all the
markings of a suicide, but as Allan started his investigation, he
quickly realized that the large amount of blowback on the gun
didn’t extend to the hand holding it. Not a speck. An ID tech’s
swab tested positive for GSR on the frame of the gun behind the
cylinder, but not on the web of the hand between the thumb and
index finger.

A collective hush fell over those
at the scene as their thoughts fused into one realization—this
wasn’t a suicide, but a homicide staged to look like one. That
meant no quick wrap-up to the case. No quick return home for roast
turkey and rich desserts, no exchanging of gifts and greetings or
family visits. All that would have to wait.

Allan checked his watch. 11:03 a.m.
He exhaled, his breath clouding in the frigid air. He took out his
cell phone and called home.

On the fifth ring, the answering
machine kicked in with Melissa’s voice, “Hi. You have reached the
Stanton residence. Sorry, we are unavailable at the moment. But if
you want to leave a message, we’ll be sure to get back to
you.”

At the beep, Allan said, “Hi,
honey. You must be getting ready to head over to your parents. It
looks like I’m going to be later than I had anticipated. I’ll do
everything I can to make it. Bye.”

It was after nine that night before
Allan could make his way home. By then the wind had come out of the
north, a steady blast that numbed bare skin in seconds. The snow
had accumulated. Inside Allan’s car, the heater couldn’t kick in
fast enough.