LITMIR.BIZ

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skin. She was on her stomach to Leith’s left, next to the leg of a wood-and-glass coffee table. A young woman lay ten feet away, face up, before the fireplace. She was slim, wearing blue jeans and a short-sleeved sweater, bare feet. Her long, glossy black hair criss-crossed in swaths over her face, as though draped to hide her features.

      The coroner moved in with his kit and an assistant, obscuring the view.

      The clothing of both victims seemed intact on first sight. No visible trauma, and aside from the upset furniture, no signs of violence, even. But all it took was a little imagination to hear the screams, to see the struggle, to feel the fear. Violence had swept through this house and left no sound but the music playing, an absurdly hopped-up pop song Leith had heard before somewhere, sometime.

      Mother and child had already been pronounced dead. They remained only to be studied, charted, photographed, and stared at by people like Leith, who should be doing his job and analyzing. But he wasn’t there yet. He was thinking again of the gross error he had made in transferring his family to this city. His big responsibility in life was to keep them out of harm’s way, and instead he was bringing them right into its embrace. The north wasn’t crime-free, by any means, but the victimology was more predictable. Down here, high density brought out the weirdos and the guns, no doubt about it, which meant anybody could be mowed down, at any time.

      This poor little thing was at the very same tottering age as Izzy, when the tiny legs were losing their baby fat and gaining muscle tone. She should have been learning to talk, too, stomping about with her eyes open to the wonders of the world. Leith looked sideways at Paley, who was done speaking with the coroner and now stood beside him, relaying the findings.

      “Strangled, he’s thinking.” Paley was staring down at the adult victim. “Looks like bruising around the throat. There’s that tea towel. Does that look like it’s been twined into a rope, to you? That might have done it.”

      “The hair over her face …” Leith said.

      “Yeah, yeah. The hair placement — that’s remorse, right? Or apology, or something like that.”

      “Looks more like insult to me.”

      The coroner stood and moved away, leaving the assistant making notes.

      “Or that,” Paley agreed. “As for the baby, she might have fallen and hit her head on that coffee table, we’re thinking.”

      “Do we have names yet?”

      Paley didn’t answer, too busy staring over Leith’s shoulder. Leith turned to see why and watched a young man approach from the hallway, also in white coveralls, shirt collar and tie showing under the unzipped throat of his Tyvek. He looked familiar to Leith, and not in a happy, well-met kind of way.

      This was someone he had worked with in the not-so-distant past, up north in the Hazeltons, for a few long weeks through the bitterness of February. So Dion had somehow made it back to North Van, just as he had promised, and instead of being demoted to janitor, as Leith had thought most likely, he had advanced from uniform to the suit-and-tie brigade. Which meant they would be working together again. Hoo-ray.

      “Well, there you are,” Paley exclaimed as Dion came to stand with them. “Heard you were back, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch, but wasn’t expecting you today.”

      “All hands on deck on this one,” Dion answered cheerfully. “So to hell with orientation, they just pushed me out the door.” He glanced at the bodies, then glanced at Leith, and looked at Leith again, with surprise. Then a shockingly huge smile, as if this meeting really made his day. “I was wondering when I’d run into you! How are you doing? Got set up okay?”

      As Leith recalled, their northern parting of ways had been unpleasant. But maybe it was all water under the bridge. He smiled, too, and shook Dion’s extended hand, their first physical contact, barring one brief skirmish at the Hazelton detachment. “Getting by,” he said. “How are you?”

      “Great, great.”

      The reunion formalities over, Dion became businesslike. He gestured at the two bodies and said to Paley, “Just talked to Dadd and got suspected cause of death and his timing estimate —”

      The name Dadd — Jack Dadd, the coroner — threw Leith each time.

      “— adult female died about twelve hours ago, so it happened last evening. But I guess you have the basics on this one, Doug?”

      “The basics,” Paley echoed flatly.

      “Strangled,” Dion said. “Petechiae and some edema visible. Damage to her tongue — she probably bit it — and narrow bruises on the neck, but no cutting. The child, at a guess, likely died of head trauma. TOD about six hours ago, he says — that’s quite a bit later than the adult, so it was probably secondary TBI.”

      TOD, TBI. Time of death was common enough, but TBI made Leith think a moment. Traumatic brain injury. The new, improved Dion opened his notebook, found a page, and studied it. “The homeowner’s name is King, and he’s got it rented to Lance and Cheryl Liu,” he told Paley, with glances at Leith to include him. “The Lius are new in town, out from Alberta. They took the place on March 1st. Lance Liu has just incorporated a company called L&S Electric. He’s not been reached yet. I called the L&S number and got voice mail, so I’ll follow up. The name L&S suggests there’s a partner, so —”

      “Hey,” Paley cut in. “That’s all very fuckin’ fantastic, but did I ask for a report? Did I?”

      “No,” Dion said. “You want a report?”

      “Too late, I already got it, didn’t I?”

      Leith suspected this was more a skit than a real conversation. In spite of the age gap, these two were friends from way back.

      “Sorry, Doug,” Dion said, not sounding sorry at all. “It was hairy at the office. Jim was buried, so I task-shared. You want me to follow up on this L&S thing?”

      Paley rolled his eyes. Leith was glad that Dion was apparently okay now. The northern Dion he knew had been remote, unlikeable, and … well, unsmart. The new Dion was now outlining to Paley the task he had butted his way into. Probably the most important task on the board at the moment, hunting down their best and only suspect — the missing husband, Lance Liu.

      The conversation between the two seemed snappy and efficient, and ended on a positive note. Paley moved off to supervise the removal of the bodies, and Dion remained by Leith’s side, pointing down at something. Leith followed the line of his finger to the child’s feet.

      “One shoe on, one off,” Dion said. “Where’s the other shoe?”

      Booties, not shoes, thought Leith, a bit of an expert. “I saw that,” he lied.

      “Probably under her body,” Dion told him. “Keep an eye out. Also, I don’t see a vase.”

      He turned and headed away, unzipping the bunny suit.

      Leith watched him go, then looked at the child’s feet, at the pink velvet bootie on one, a tiny striped sock on the other, green and yellow. Vase, he thought. What?

      * * *

      The Level 3 office had once been occupied by Staff Sergeant Tony Cleveland, now retired. Cleveland had kept the door shut and the screens closed. He hadn’t liked drop-ins, so nobody had dropped in. Now the slats were open, and so was the door. Dion poked his head in and took in the view. He saw that Cleveland’s classic etchings of famous bridges were gone, and modern posters were up instead, large photographs of this or that, mounted behind glass with minimalist steel frames. The new occupant, Sergeant Michael Bosko, sat at the desk, working at his computer and talking to himself. Or so it seemed.

      With a nod toward the visitor’s chair, Bosko acknowledged Dion, then carried on bashing his fingertips on a heavy-duty laptop and chatting via Bluetooth.

      “Yes, of course,” Bosko said, smiling. “They call it the acid test.” He quit typing and peered at the laptop screen.

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