Six Seconds Read online

  “I was listening on the radio after they spotted you in the river with the girl. That’s a helluva thing you did.” Graham looked to the mountains without respond ing.

  It was a bumpy thirty-minute ride over backcountry terrain to the warden’s station for the Faust region. It sat on a plateau near a ridgeline trail. In its previous life the station had been a cookhouse built from hand-hewn spruce logs by a coal mining company in 1909. Now it was doubling as the incident command center. Its walls were covered with maps. The main meeting room was jammed with people and a massive table was loaded with computers, GPS tracking gear and more maps. Sat phones and landlines rang, amid ongoing conversations as radios crackled nonstop over the hum of search helicopters.

  The station was also equipped with basic plumbing.

  Graham took a hot shower, changed into his clothes from his retrieved bag. As he joined the others, his chief concern was the girl.

  “What’s her status?”

  “No word yet.” Dawson offered him a mug of coffee and a ham sandwich. Graham accepted the coffee, declined the sandwich. “We know they landed at

  Alberta Children’s moments ago. While we’re waiting for news, I’ll update you on the search.”

  Referring to the map spread out on the big table,

  Dawson touched the tip of a sharpened pencil to a point along the river.

  “This is where the boy was found. Mounties from

  Banff and Canmore are at the scene, and the medical examiner’s just arrived.”

  “Do we have an idea who the boy is? Or who he belongs to? Any missing children reports?”

  Dawson shook his head. “Not yet. Too many pos sibilities.” His pencil followed the river. “You’ve got scores of campsites, day-trippers. We’re going through the registrations and we’ve got teams going to each site to account for each visitor. People are mobile. They’re on trails, or in Banff doing the tourist thing, or in

  Calgary, or wherever. It’s going to take time.” Graham understood.

  “We’ve gridded the area. We’ve got people on the ground, on the water, in the air, we’re searching every-”

  “Is there a Corporal Graham here?” Across the room, a young woman held up a black telephone receiver. “That’s me,” Graham said.

  “Call for you!”

  Taking it, Graham cupped a hand over one ear. “Dan, we heard what you did. You okay?” It was his boss, Inspector Mike Stotter, who headed

  Major Crimes out of the RCMP’s South District in

  Calgary.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You went above and beyond the call.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Dan, listen, I’m sorry, but they just pronounced her at the hospital.”

  “What?”

  “They just called us. She didn’t make it. I’m sorry.” Her trembling body. Her eyes. Her last words, spoken into his ear.

  Graham rubbed his hand over his face.

  “Give me this case, Mike.”

  “It’s too soon for you.”

  “I was coming back from leave this week.” “I’ve got some cold cases ready for you. Look, this one’s likely going to be a wilderness accident, nothing suspicious. We don’t need to be there. Fornier’s rookies in Banff can have it.”

  “I need this case, Mike.”

  “You need it?”

  “Did the chopper crew or the hospital indicate if she said anything? If she tried to speak before she died?” “Hang on. Shane was talking to them.”

  Graham looked at the mountains, feeling something churning in his gut until Stotter came back on the line. “Nothing, Dan, why?”

  “She spoke to me, Mike.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “It wasn’t clear. But I’ve got a feeling that this wasn’t an accident. We need to be on this. I want this case,

  Mike.”

  A long moment passed.

  “Okay. I’ll tell Fornier. You’re the lead. For now. If it’s criminal, it stays with us in Major Crimes. If it’s not, you kick it back to Fornier’s people. Look, Prell’s in

  Canmore on another matter, I’m sending him to you now, to give you a hand.”

  “Prell? Who’s Prell?”

  “Constable Owen Prell. Just joined us in Major

  Crimes from Medicine Hat.”

  “Fine, thanks, Mike.”

  “You sure you’re good to take this on. You’ve got two fatals so far and the river’s likely to give you more.” “I’m good.”

  “Better get yourself to the scene where they found the boy.”

  5

  Faust’s Fork, near Banff, Alberta, Canada

  The boy’s face was flawless.

  Almost sublime in death.

  His eyes were closed. Not a mark on his skin. He had the aura of a sleeping cherub as a breeze lifted strands of his hair, like a mother tenderly coaxing him to wake and play.

  His resemblance to the girl was clear. He was older, likely her big brother. His jeans were faded, his blue sweatshirt bore a Canadian Rockies insignia, his sneak ers were a popular brand and in good shape. He looked about eight or nine and so small inside the open body bag.

  Who is he? What were his favorite things? His dreams? His last thoughts? Graham wondered, kneel ing over him on the riverbank with Liz DeYoung, the medical investigator from the Calgary Medical Exam iner’s Office.

  “What do you think?” Graham raised his voice over the river’s rush. “Accident, or suspicious?”

  “Way too soon to tell.” DeYoung was wearing blue latex gloves and, using the utmost care, she grasped the boy’s small shoulders and turned him. The back of his skull had been smashed in like an eggshell, exposing cranial matter. “It appears the major trauma is here.”

  “From the rocks?”

  “Probably. We’ll know more after we autopsy him, and the girl, back in Calgary. At this stage, Mother Nature’s your suspect.”

  Graham glimpsed DeYoung’s wristwatch and updated his case log using the pen, notebook and clipboard he’d borrowed from the Banff members helping at the scene.

  “No life jackets,” Graham said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The girl didn’t have one. He doesn’t have one. Did anyone see life jackets?”

  “No. But if you’ve got a reason to be suspicious, would you share it?”

  “It’s just a feeling.”

  “A feeling?”

  “Forget it. I’m still thawing out. Did you find any ID? Items in his pockets? Clothing tags?”

  “No. Except for a little flashlight and a granola bar, nothing. Look, you guys do your thing. Get us some names and a next of kin, so we can request dental records to confirm. You know the drill.”

  He knew the drill.

  “So we’re good to move him?” DeYoung had a lot of work ahead of her.

  Graham didn’t answer. He was staring at the boy, prompting her to look at him with a measure of concern.

  “Are you okay?”

  DeYoung knew something of Graham’s personal situation and took quick stock of him, blinking at a memory.

  “Dan, you know the only time I ever met Nora was last Christmas. We all sat together at the attorney general’s banquet. We hit it off. Remember?”

  He remembered.

  “I’m so sorry. I missed her service. I was at a con ference in Australia.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “How are you doing? Really?”

  His gaze shifted from the boy’s corpse to the river, as if the answer to everything was out there.

  He stood. “You can move him now.”

  DeYoung closed the bag. Her crew loaded it onto a stretcher, strapped it in three areas, then carried it care fully up the embankment to their van. Graham watched the van inch along the trail, suspension creaking as it tottered to the back road. Then it was gone.

  For a moment, he stood alone in the middle of the scene.

  It had been cordoned on three sides with yellow tape. He
was wearing latex gloves and shoe covers. Nearby, members of the RCMP Forensic Identification Section out of Calgary, in radiant white coveralls, looked surreal against the dark rocks and jade river, working quietly taking pictures, measuring, collecting samples of poten tial evidence.

  All in keeping with a fundamental tenet known to all detectives.

  A wilderness death can be a perfect murder. Treat it as suspicious because you don’t know the truth until you know the facts.

  Graham resumed studying his clipboard, paging through the handwritten statements and notes he’d taken from the people who’d found the boy. Haruki Ito, age forty-four, photographer from Tokyo, was first. He’d flagged the women on bicycles. Ingrid Borland, age fifty-one, a librarian from Frankfurt, and Marlena Zimmer, age thirty-three, a Web editor from Munich. They all seemed to be pretty straight-up tourists.

  Nothing unusual regarding their demeanor. The guy from Tokyo was a seasoned news photog rapher, having covered some terrible stuff like wars and tsunamis. He was fairly calm, philosophical, Graham thought. It was a different story with the women, who were left shaken by their futile attempt to revive the boy. “That poor child. That poor, poor child.”

  Static crackled from a police radio, pulling Graham’s attention to the man approaching. He’d emerged from the tangle of emergency vehicles atop the riverbank where members from the Banff and Canmore general investigations sections were with the witnesses. He stopped at the tape. A wise decision.

  “Corporal Graham?”

  Graham moved closer to the new arrival. He was in his midthirties. Maybe six feet tall, wearing jeans and a checkered shirt under a black leather bomber jacket.

  “Owen Prell. Inspector Stotter sent me.”

  “Got here pretty quick.” Graham shook his hand.

  “I was already in Canmore.”

  “Mike said you joined Major Crimes from Med icine Hat.”

  “Worked GIS. They just set me up by your desk at the office. I’m looking forward to working with you.” Prell looked back to the patrol cars and uniformed officers. “The other members want to know if you’re done with the witnesses. The people would like to go.”

  “We’re almost done with them.” Graham flipped his pages. “Get them to surrender their passports. We’ll run them through Interpol. Just say it’s procedure and we’ll return them soon.”

  “Will do.”

  As Prell turned, a helicopter throbbed overhead, skimming the river. The RCMP’s chopper out of Ed monton. The instant it disappeared, Graham heard his name. The FIS member processing the canoe was waving for him to come and see something.

  Something important.

  Wedged in the rocks where the canoe crashed was a small metal plate displaying the label Wolf Ridge Out fitters. The screw holes aligned with those on the canoe. It was a rental. Number 27.

  Rental agencies kept records.

  “Prell!”

  The constable returned with his radio. An urgent request was made to the telecomms dispatcher to con tact Wolf Ridge and cross-reference its rental agreement for Number 27 with the park’s permits and wilderness passes.

  It took twenty minutes for the information to come back.

  The canoe was rented by Ray Tarver, of Washington, D.C.

  Park permits showed Ray, Anita, Tommy and Emily Tarver as the visitors registered to drive-in campsite #131.

  6

  Faust’s Fork, near Banff, Alberta, Canada

  Campsite #131 was upstream, deep in the backcoun try, secluded in a dense stand of spruce and pine, offer ing sweeping views of the river and the rugged cliffs of the Nine Bear Range.

  When Graham arrived with the others, he saw no movement.

  A late-model SUV was parked near a large dome tent. It was a typical campsite: propane camping stove, lawn chairs, four life jackets stacked neatly against a spruce tree, food kept a safe distance from the tent, and other items, including shirts and pants, hanging from a clothesline tied between two pine trees. Shouts for the Tarvers were answered by the river’s rush and the thud of the search helicopters.

  The site was silent.

  Lifeless.

  Graham declared it a second scene and as Prell and the others taped it off and radioed for a request to run the SUV’s Alberta plate, he entered the tent alone.

  Inside, he detected the pleasant fragrances of soap and sunscreen. There was also the sense that something had been interrupted but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Time had stopped here. To one side, was a sleeping bag big enough for two adults. Next to its left pillow, a Danielle Steel paperback. Next to the right, a large flash light.

  Across the tent, two smaller sleeping bags, side by side. A SpongeBob comic was splayed open on one, while a pink stuffed bunny sat on the other, arms open, awaiting its owner’s return.

  Graham picked it up, looked into its button eyes.

  Children’s clothes in bright colors erupted from small backpacks: sweaters, small pants. The larger bags on the opposite side were also open, clothes spilled from them, but not in a disheveled way.

  It was orderly.

  Graham searched in vain for a purse or wallet. Camp ers often hid them or locked them away. After making notes, he stepped outside, where Prell updated him.

  “The SUV’s a rental from an outlet at Calgary Interna tional. Customer’s Raymond Tarver, same D.C. address.”

  “Anything inside?”

  “It’s locked.”

  “Get the rental agency to open it for us ASAP. Tell them it’s a police emergency. Then we’ll get forensics to process it and this site. Nobody tromps around here or touches anything.”

  Graham nodded upriver.

  “What about the people in the neighboring sites?”

  “Some of the guys have started a canvas.”

  “Good, I want statements, time lines, background checks.”

  Six Seconds 49

  “Will do. Corporal, what do you suspect happened to the parents?”

  “I don’t know.” Graham surveyed the site again: the life jackets, the cooler of food kept at a proper distance from the tent, a pail of dirt near the fire ring- did they cook hot dogs, toast marshmallows and huddle under the stars together? Did they die together? “These people follow the rules, keep things safe, take no risks. I don’t know what happened.”

  Later that night, after Prell had gone back to Calgary, Graham watched flashlights and headlamps probe the dark river valley as SARS teams continued searching. Graham was alone at his own campsite sitting before a fire, listening to transmissions echoing from the bor rowed radio next to him.

  As the searchers reported, Graham reviewed his case.

  After a mechanic from the rental agency had opened the SUV, Prell found more items, including a wallet, a purse and U.S. passports belonging to the Tarvers. The flames illuminated the faces of Raymond, his wife, Anita, their son, Thomas, and their daughter, Emily, the girl who took her final breaths in Graham’s arms.

  What went wrong here?

  Graham wanted to believe that this was your nice, average American family. But where were Ray and Anita Tarver?

  Did they drown their children?

  Or drown with them?

  What happened?

  Had they been having a blissful mountain vacation before a horrible accident? Or was something else at work? Was there stress in the family? What was going on in the lives of the Tarvers before the tragedy?

  What about his own life?

  The firelight also captured the urn visible through the screen door to his tent.

  Graham ran a hand across his face.

  It’d been a hell of a day. He’d come up here to one of Nora’s favorite spots, to distribute the rest of her ashes. He’d come up to quit the force. He couldn’t go on without her because he had nothing left.

  Nothing.

  Because it was his fault.

  Then today happened. And in his darkest moment when he was in the river, certain he would die, he heard her, telling him not
to give up.

  To keep going.

  And then came Emily Tarver’s final cryptic words.

  How could he walk away from this?

  He owed the dead.

  The radio sputtered.

  “Repeat, Sector 17-”

  “We’ve got something here!”

  7

  Blue Rose Creek, California

  It was nearly 1:30 a.m.

  In the quiet, Maggie was losing hope of ever meeting Madame Fatima. As she got ready for bed, she consid ered all the messages she’d left. All unanswered.

  She’d try again tomorrow.

  Maggie drew back her bedsheet then froze. What was that?

  She’d heard something. Down the hall. In the study area off the living room. She glanced around, listening for a moment.

  Nothing.

  She was exhausted, dismissed it and tried to sleep but a million fears assailed her.

  Were Jake and Logan dead?

  Why hadn’t she heard from them? She ached to hold Logan, to talk to Jake.

  Just pick up the damn phone and call me, Jake. Let me know you’re all right.

  Why are you doing this?

  Why?

  For much of her life, Maggie had been a loner. But tonight she wished she had a friend, someone to talk to. When Maggie was six years old, her mother commit ted suicide after a drunk driver killed Maggie’s older sister, April, as she was riding her bike. Maggie’s dad raised her alone until she married Jake. Then her father took up with a younger woman, a drug addict he’d met in rehab.

  He moved to Arizona and Maggie hadn’t spoken to him in years.

  She’d called him to see if he’d heard from Jake, but it had been a short conversation.

  No.

  Jake had no family either. His parents divorced after he’d left high school. His father died of cancer five years ago. His mother died three years back.

  Maggie and Jake had always kept to themselves, happy to have each other. Able to handle any problem together.

  Until this.

  What really happened to Jake in Iraq?

  Maggie knew he’d driven on secret missions and that his convoys often came under fire, but he refused to tell her anything as she worried about his brooding, his nightmares, the outburst.