Sea to Sky (5 page)

The young sergeant had taken down notes as Hunter talked, but now clicked his pen closed and put it back in his pocket. “You want us to find a woman in Whistler — right away — without a name or photograph? How do you propose we do that?”

Hunter smiled crookedly. “You may already be too late.”

C
H
A
P
T
E
R

    FOUR

Alora watched Hunter walk away with Staff Sergeant Blackwell. The taller, younger cop named Pike pulled out a chair for her and motioned for her to sit, almost bowing. “I’ll keep you company until they’re done,” he said in a mellifluous voice.

“I need the ladies room,” she said. She felt an urgent need to pee.

“This way,” he said, and began to escort her toward the restrooms.

“I can find it myself,” she said.

“No problem.” He smiled, but continued to follow her. “I’ll just wait for you in the hallway here.”

She finished in the stall and washed her hands at the sink before looking at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep. She had replayed the scene with Mike over and over in her mind, then Hunter’s brief embrace. He’d behaved like a white knight, they’d exchanged a few seconds of tenderness, and then he’d grown aloof again. Pulled back. Just like in L.A. If he wasn’t interested in her, why did he accept the invitation to join her this weekend?

All that didn’t seem so important now. Mike was dead. She let the cold water run and splashed her face, then combed her wet fingers through her hair. It was a little frightening that the police didn’t want her out of their sight. Did they really consider her a suspect? What about Hunter? She patted her face dry with a couple of tissues and applied some fresh lipstick.
Cowgirl up
, she told herself.

Back at the table, the waiter took her order for a Spanish coffee. Sergeant Pike asked for a hot tea. She didn’t want to be here, and had to fight a restless urge to get up and run, with no destination in mind. She absently rubbed the tips of her fingers along the table until she realized he was watching her — for signs of nervousness, she guessed.

“This is very upsetting to me,” she said. “My ex-husband was a bastard, but we were very close at one time. As a defense lawyer, I’ve met a number of bereaved spouses but when it happens to someone you know, murder is a frightening thing.”

“I imagine you’re relieved, on some level. I understand he was stalking you.”

“Yeah. I’ll be able to sleep better now, and not be continually looking over my shoulder when I’m out in public.” She sighed. “I don’t know why he was so obsessed with me. He had a new wife, two cute kids.”

“How did you spend this morning?”

“I went over my whole day with your partner, there,” she protested. “I
am
a lawyer. I know I don’t have to talk to you. I have nothing to hide, but I don’t like feeling that I’m under suspicion.”

“Of course. We’re just looking for background at this point. You must know the drill. I’m just trying to fill in the blanks for myself, if you don’t mind.”

So polite, she thought. Disarmingly so. “I was rattled last night after seeing him here in Whistler. It was a total shock. So I didn’t sleep well, and dreaded running into him again, so I decided to just stay in bed until I heard from Hunter.” She had dozed off, woken up, dozed off again, she told him. “I guess it was around 10:30 before he called.”

The waiter set down their order, first her Spanish coffee, then his tea.

“Did you order room service this morning? Did you bring in your paper?”

“You mean, can anyone vouch for the fact that I was in my room?”

The young cop just smiled.

“No. Look. I am just not capable of killing anyone. I never even expected Mike to be here, so how could I have planned something like this? It’s just a coincidence that we were here at the same time. I hope you’ve been talking to his colleagues or whatever you call them at the conference. Mike was an all around asshole, so I am sure he’s pissed off more than one of his coworkers, or competitors, or even his bosses. I hope you’re checking out that angle. It’s not always a relative, you know.”

“Of course, we’re looking at all the possible angles,” he said, taking a cautious sip of his hot tea. “Tell me more about last night.”

Meredith sat on the bed in her room, watching the TV news. She’d been back in the lobby of the Coast Peaks Hotel with a magazine in her hands, watching people come and go, when two men arrived and approached the front desk. They spoke in low voices and held up badges for the desk clerk, so she took them for plain clothes police. The desk clerk called the manager, a slightly overweight dark-haired man in a navy pinstriped suit, who led them over to the concierge desk. The concierge pointed them toward the restaurant.

A short time later, Mike Irwin’s family emerged from the restaurant. The father had his arm around the mother, who had covered her mouth with a tissue and appeared to be crying. They walked a few steps, then stopped as he embraced her, his hand rubbing her back. Behind them was Irwin’s wife. She held the boy by the hand, and carried the little girl. The woman’s face was expressionless, and the little girl was sucking her thumb. The little boy was looking up at her, and Meredith heard him ask, “What happened, Mommy? Why is Grandma crying?”

The manager ushered the adults into the hallway leading to the hotel’s administration office, while a female desk clerk took the children by the hand and led them to a couch in the lobby. Meredith heard her say, “Mommy is going to be busy for a few minutes. Let’s sit down here and we’ll find you something to play with. Do you like to color?” The little girl nodded, her face serious.

“Why do those men want to talk to Mommy?” asked the boy.

“Just some business,” said the clerk. “Mommy will tell you about it later.”

A short time later, the two women returned to the lobby, then headed to the elevators with the children, while Mike Irwin’s father left with the police. At that point, Meredith rose and walked quickly toward the elevators to stand behind the little family.

The older woman was saying, “… best for the children, don’t you think?”

Irwin’s wife nodded, then bent down to the kids. “We’ll go play in our room with Grandma until Grand-da gets back. Won’t that be fun?”

Meredith got into the elevator with them. The older woman closed her eyes and took deep breaths, while Irwin’s wife muttered, “It so hard to believe,” and sighed, shaking her head. Neither woman even looked in Meredith’s direction.

Meredith cleared her throat. “I couldn’t help noticing,” she began, and smiled sympathetically at Irwin’s wife. “Bad news?”

Irwin’s wife compressed her lips, closed her eyes and nodded.

“I’m so sorry,” said Meredith, as the elevator door opened and the sad little troupe stepped outside.

Once in her room, Meredith turned on the television and searched for local news. A red banner with white lettering appeared above the news anchor’s head. BREAKING NEWS it read, and at the side of the screen appeared a photograph of a chairlift as the news anchor began speaking.

In Whistler today, chairlift attendants were shocked to discover that one of the passengers riding on the Harmony Express chairlift was dead. Our Whistler correspondent, Yoshika Sullivan, is live on the scene.

An attractive Asian woman in a white jacket with a fur lined hood spoke into the black ball of a microphone.

We’re live at the base of the Harmony Express chairlift on Whistler Mountain. Behind me is where the body of a man was removed from one of the quad chairs earlier today. Police are not releasing the details, nor the name of the dead man, but homicide detectives have been called in so it is believed that foul play is suspected. The chairlift was shut down after all other passengers on the lift had been able to disembark. At present there is no estimate on when the lift will re-open.

Meredith switched off the TV and stood at the window, watching the snow. She knew that the dead man they referred to was Mike Irwin. She would now have to decide whether to stay or leave the conference. The decision would have been easier if she wasn’t sure that the man in the sheepskin jacket had noticed her watching Irwin. Whether or not her job here was over, she couldn’t risk exhibiting suspicious behavior, like checking out of her hotel room before her scheduled stay was over.

She picked up the telephone receiver and held it to her cheek, considering how to word her call. Then she dialed her client. Whatever the decision, it was her job to keep the client informed.

Hunter had spent an hour sitting with Alora after the two RCMP investigators left. His own informal interview by Sergeant Pike had been followed by a more intensive, recorded one by Staff Sergeant Blackwell, while Sergeant Pike sat and talked with Alora. Hunter knew that the two officers would compare notes later for inconsistencies in both their stories. He’d been on the other side of the table often enough to know that homicide detectives were not infallible, and that there was a very real risk that he himself would be considered a prime suspect based on last night’s confrontation with the victim. In spite of the fact that he had been a guest in Tom Halsey’s home, he knew Tom couldn’t unreservedly vouch for his presence there until after they’d met in the kitchen at around ten o’clock.

He had no idea what kind of evidence they had found so far. The police weren’t sharing anything with him. They told him that Tom Halsey had given them permission to search his house, and then asked Hunter for permission to search his car. “Absolutely,’ he said. They had requested that both he and Alora not leave Whistler without notifying them.

“I have to leave tomorrow by mid-afternoon,” he’d told Staff Sergeant Blackwell. “I drive a truck, long haul, for a living. I’m scheduled to pick up a loaded trailer Sunday night.”

“Loaded to go where?” asked the detective.

“Northern California,” he’d said.

“Not gonna happen.”

“I can’t afford to stay here.” Hunter supposed Tom Halsey would let him stay a few days longer, but he couldn’t afford not to work. He had payments to make on his Freightliner tractor, rent to pay on his basement suite in North Vancouver, and he was still paying his share of expenses for his two teenage daughters.

“I can’t afford to let you leave,” countered the detective. “Look. You know how it is. I don’t want to arrest you, but I will if I have to. Then you’ll be in custody until at least Monday morning.”

Hunter sighed and nodded. “Okay, chief,” he’d said.

Alora had gone to her room to rest, and the police had driven Hunter back to Tom’s chalet in his own car, which they planned to search after searching the house. Not allowed into his room, he parked himself in Tom’s kitchen and made a call to his boss’s cell.

“Watson!” barked his dispatcher. Elspeth Watson was a freight broker with a small stable of independent owner operators, Hunter included. The drivers owned their own tractors, as the big trucks used for hauling trailers are called, and paid their own expenses. Watson Transportation found loads for them and negotiated a fair rate from the companies whose goods needed transporting. She collected money from the customers and paid the drivers the going rate for their services, less whatever the difference was between the driver’s share and the fee she was able to negotiate with the customer. She had to hustle to find good paying loads and keep her drivers working. There wasn’t a big margin in trucking, but El was good at her job and managed to make a modest living for herself and her drivers.

“Hello, El,” said Hunter. “I’ve run into a situation here. How critical is the delivery on that load to Redding?”

“Very,” she said. “I told you that, Hunter. The customer’s plant is going down without those parts. I told you they needed them by Monday at ten p.m. at the very latest so they can install them before the Tuesday morning shift. Even leaving Sunday night was stretching things, and I would’ve given the load to Samuels if you hadn’t promised to make the deadline.”

“Right.” Hunter paused to think.

“So what’s the problem? Don’t tell me you’re in love.” Even though El had never met Alora, she’d known of her since the previous summer when Hunter had recruited Alora to be the defense lawyer in Los Angeles for one of El’s drivers.

Elspeth Watson routinely said things to him that he would never accept from others. He considered her more of a friend than a boss, but he never underestimated her power over his livelihood. He pictured her, old stained blue jeans, steel-toe sneakers and an oversize navy polo shirt, sitting at her computer with her little dog, Peterbilt, in her lap. She was a big woman with a big voice and, as tough as she might come across, an even bigger heart.

“I’m a murder suspect,” he said.

There were fifteen seconds of silence at the other end of the line, followed by, “Come again?”

“I’m a murder suspect, El. Alora’s husband showed up here in Whistler, and this morning he was found dead.”

When El responded, it was almost a whisper. “You?”

“Of course not!”

“Alora?”

Hunter realized he couldn’t answer her question. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“Then who?”

“If I knew don’t you think I’d tell the police?”

“Then find out. You need to be free to pick up that load tomorrow night.”