LITMIR.BIZ

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was crazy, as he went about telling his colleagues now. “That’s at least five clicks. You can run five clicks in an hour, sure, on an even sidewalk. But we’re talking woods here. We’re talking incline, nasty weather, lot of weaving and climbing. And say he’s fast enough to get there and back in the time frame — that doesn’t leave him a lot of minutes to commit the crime, does it? Three, four minutes? What, he races up to the girl, hits her on the head, wheels about, and starts tearing back to the worksite? Face it, Renee, it’s brilliant, but it’s a write-off.”

      Giroux seemed unworried by his logic. “Right,” she said. “So to put a mileage or timing on it, Spacey’s going to run it again. Soon as she gets in, we’ll set her up and get her on her way. I’ll send Thackray out to spot her from a distance. He can’t run, but he can handle a radio.”

      Leith gave up trying to convince her of anything, let alone who was in control here. He saw Bosko was studying the map up close, as if he could see a tiny runner making its way along the black line. Bosko said, “Jayne Spacey is quite the powerhouse, isn’t she? Why hasn’t she put in for promotion?”

      “She has,” Giroux said. “Twice. Always something gets in the way. Why, you’re not thinking of stealing her away from me, are you?”

      “She may just steal herself away.”

      Leith frowned at the back of Bosko, big and graceless, a circus bear in an off-the-rack suit. He’d never been great at reading between the lines, but it sounded to him like Spacey was going places, city-bound, to join that man in his shiny new Serious Crimes Unit. It didn’t surprise him, but did tweak his professional jealousy, and he said grumpily, “Did Spacey tell you about the menace? Who I fired, by the way.”

      Bosko turned, eyes vanishing behind white sheen as his glasses caught the light. “You mean Dion,” he said, as if he knew of the incident already.

      Giroux was looking at Leith too, expressing overblown shock. “What d’you mean, you fired Dion? You can’t do that. If any officer could fire any other officer, there would be no officers left to keep the peace.”

      “I know that,” Leith said. “Let’s just say he’s suspended till you get him in front of the board, or whatever you have to do. I’m not saying this lightly, but he’s got to go. He’s worse than incompetent. He’s dangerous. They were supposed to stay together on the mountain yesterday. He didn’t. He abandoned the search, got lost in the woods, and Jayne had to go find him, wasting an hour in the bush. Then they get back to the office and he physically assaults her. He grabbed her arm and pushed her down, all witnessed by Pam. All over some dumbass misunderstanding.”

      Giroux was upset, her plans and diagrams on hold as she dealt with this troubling personnel issue. “Dion assaulted Spacey? Why? Was she hurt? How come she didn’t mention it to me? Is she going to lodge a complaint?”

      “Actually, I heard something about crucifixion,” Leith muttered. He frowned at the awful ring of the word, reminded of the seriousness of being fired from the RCMP. It was tragedy to some officers, tantamount to execution to others. Dion struck him as an officer on the edge, the sort that might jump off a bridge. He glanced at Bosko, who was still looking at him, still shielded by the glare off his lenses.

      “Spacey won’t be pursuing the matter,” Bosko said. “She and I discussed it last night. It was a rough day. Tempers flared. But she did mention something about a notebook?”

      A demand was embedded in the question, Leith realized, and once again he felt there was some off-the-record connection between Bosko and Dion, and it worried him. “It’s not his duty notebook, I think,” he said, hesitantly. “It’s personal.”

      “Right,” Bosko said, still waiting.

      Leith walked to his desk, unlocked it, and produced the little book, which he had flipped through last night, finding nothing remarkable, lists and diagrams, strange catalyst for a dust-up. Bosko took it from him and slipped it into an evidence bag.

      “Well, excuse me,” Giroux said. “If that’s his personal property, you can’t just seize it without cause and without warrant. Can you?”

      “I have cause, and I can, actually,” Bosko said. “Don’t worry. He’ll get it back.”

      She blinked at him. “So what am I supposed to do with him today? Send him packing?”

      “Cancel the suspension, please,” Bosko said. “Give him a warning to be good. He’ll finish his week here then return to Smithers, where he’ll get his orders. I don’t have time to deal with it right now, but I’ll be making arrangements.”

      “And why exactly is he your problem?” Leith asked.

      “He’s my problem because he’s officially posted in North Vancouver,” Bosko said pleasantly. “And that’s my turf.”

      Giroux said, “Smithers isn’t his first posting? Wow. We all thought he was fresh out of boot camp. Why didn’t you tell us before?”

      “I’ve only found out myself,” Bosko said, and Leith thought it was a lie, and alarm bells were going off in his head now. No doubt about it, the troublesome Constable Dion was under investigation. He crossed his arms, wanting to ask more questions but afraid to step over the line, because a shadow crossed Bosko’s face, the first Leith had ever seen, and it looked like impatience. He didn’t know Bosko was capable of such thing. “Anyway,” the man said. “Excuse me, I have to make some travel arrangements. Don’t want to miss the bus.” He gave an apologetic smile but was on his phone already, thumbing in a number as he left the room. The door banged shut behind him.

      When he was safely out of earshot, Giroux said, “Who is that guy? I mean, really.” She sat at her desk and pushed papers around for a bit, still upset. “Hang on,” she said. “Dion. I know that name. Isn’t he the detective in North Vancouver who crashed his car last year? His colleague was riding with him, and died? Remember that, Dave?”

      If Leith had heard of the incident, it was long since forgotten. His memory banks were overstuffed with work-related crap these days, and didn’t have room for much else. But Giroux was already answering herself. “Couldn’t be him. The guy in the crash was older, and exper­ienced. A vet. Our Dion’s just a boy, and greener than spring.” She checked a folder and said with triumph, “Yes, I’m right, he’s the one. Crashed his car and was out of commission for a while. Lucky man, to walk out of that mess in once piece.”

      She assumed he’d been repaired. Leith wasn’t so sure. Dion must have passed whatever tests they’d put him through, but somewhere along the way there’d been an error. With that attitude, that temper… He looked up as Jayne Spacey walked in, bright-eyed and sharp as a whip, a study in contrasts. She bounced to attention, telling Giroux she was ready to hit the trail again, this time with a stopwatch, and would have bounced right out the door to put her boots to the ground, but Giroux called her back. “Hang on there, Jayne. Come here. Look at me. What’s wrong?”

      Leith didn’t see anything wrong with Jayne Spacey. No broken arm, no post-traumatic stress, no anger. She looked good as new, to him. A woman who was going places, places he would never see, damnit.

      Spacey hung in the doorframe. “Nothing’s wrong, boss.”

      “Don’t give me that. You’re sick.”

      “Bit of a cold. It’s nothing.”

      And Leith saw it now too, that the young constable wasn’t herself. Her voice was thick, nasally, and her eyes swam about, and it came to him in an epiphany that she had emptied her medicine cabinet to get her through this day. Nothing to do with the assault, probably, but yesterday’s traipsing about in the cold. Traipsing about looking for Dion.

      The women were arguing now, loudly, about Spacey’s fitness to run the trail in this condition, and the argument was lively but brief, ending in Giroux physically marching the young woman to the door and telling her, “Go home. Now. Somebody else can do this.”

      With Spacey gone, Giroux was

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