Six Seconds

9

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Searchers in Sector 17 found Anita Tarver’s corpse entangled in a logjam along a stream that flowed off the Faust River.

Less than twenty-four hours later, her naked body lay on a stainless steel tray in the autopsy room of the Calgary Medical Examiner’s Office, a few feet from the bodies of her son and daughter.

As Graham watched Dr. Bryce Collier, the patholo gist, and his assistant conduct the procedures, he imag ined moments in Anita’s life with her children. The birthdays. The Christmases. Getting them ready for school. Their excitement at the big plane trip for a vacation in the mountains. Anita kissing them goodnight under the stars.

Had they known what was coming?

Like most detectives, Graham disliked autopsies. But it was part of the job. In his years as a Mountie he’d seen the aftermath of fires, electrocutions, drownings, stabbings, shootings, hackings, hangings, strangula tions, beatings with hammers, bats, hockey sticks, pipes, car-wreck decapitations and lost hikers entombed in ice.

But no matter how many autopsies he’d viewed, he could never adapt to the room’s frigid air, the multicol ored organs, the overpowering smells of formaldehyde and ammonia. Because they all signified the penulti mate defeat.

And now, more than ever, it signified that he was to blame for his wife’s death.

When the autopsies on Anita Tarver and her children were completed Graham joined Collier in his office. He liked Collier’s tiny Bonsai tree and the calming gurgle of his small feng shui fountain. Objects of optimism. What always gave Graham pause each time he came here was the large print beside Collier’s framed degrees and awards: Van Gogh’s Twilight, before the Storm: Montmartre.

The worst is still to come, Graham thought.

Collier opened a can of diet cola, poured it into his ceramic coffee mug and began making notes in his file.

“I’m attributing cause as consistent with blunt trauma from the rocks and the manner as accidental. Noncriminal.”

“Not a doubt in your mind?”

“Unless you know something we don’t?”

“Emily tried to tell me something before she died.”

“Yes, Stotter mentioned that it was incoherent.”

Graham exhaled slowly.

“Isn’t that correct, Dan?”

“It is. But we haven’t found the father yet and there’s every indication he was with them in the park.”

“You think daddy did it?”

“I don’t know what to think, Bryce.”

“I see. Well, unless something concrete tells me oth erwise, what we have here is a wilderness accident.” Collier sipped from his mug. “We need dental records to make positive identifications. Do you have next of kin for the call?”

Graham consulted his notes. On the park registration form, in the section on who to alert in case of emer gency, the Tarvers had listed Jackson Tarver in Belts ville, Maryland.

“Ray Tarver’s father. I’ll make the call back at my office.”

Graham wheeled his unmarked Chevrolet sedan out of the M.E.’s lot and headed east on Memorial Drive which hugged the Bow River across from Calgary’s gleaming office towers. After passing the Calgary Zoo, he took the Deerfoot Trail expressway, north to the Southern Alberta District headquarters for the RCMP.

The Stephen A. Duncan building near the airport. In the Major Crimes section he saw no sign of Corporal Shane Wilcox, the file coordinator, or Prell. Good. Graham was a team player, but he liked working alone. He started a fresh pot of coffee then went to the washroom and studied the mirror.

What the hell was happening?

What was the use of going on? Without Nora, his life no longer held any meaning. Maybe that’s why he risked it, in his vain attempt to save the little girl. But who was he really trying to save? What happened to him in the water? He swore to God he’d heard Nora telling him not to give up.

And the girl?

Her dying words haunted him.

Everyone believed it was a tragic accident but he remained uncertain.

Maybe he was losing his mind.

He splashed water on his face then went to his desk. It was neat and, unlike the desks of the other Mounties, it was bereft of framed photos of loved ones. No keep sakes or mementos to hint at his personality. Just a phone, a glass cup holding pens and pencils, a yellow legal notepad and the Tarver file.

That’s all he had left in this world.

He opened the folder and prepared to make the call to notify the Tarvers’ next of kin. Being the bearer of news that destroyed worlds was also part of the job.

The worst part.

As a traffic cop, Graham had been punched, slapped, and had people collapse in his arms as he stood at their door, cap in hand, to tell them what no one should ever have to hear.

Ever.

At times they’d see his police car pull up, watch through the living-room window as he got out and ap proached their home. They’d refuse to let him in. Because they knew. They knew that as long as they never heard what he was going to tell them, their world would remain intact. If they didn’t hear the words then their daughter, their son, sister, brother, mother, father, husband or wife would not be dead.

No one knew how much he feared the day it might happen to him.

Then it did happen.

“We couldn’t stop the bleeding. We did all we could for her. I’m so sorry.”

After five rings, a woman answered the phone in Maryland.

“I’m calling for Mr. Jackson Tarver.”

“One moment please, he’s in the yard.” Footsteps on a tiled floor, a back door creaked. “Jack! Phone! I think it’s that salesman again!” A man far off grumbled some thing as he approached the phone. Graham squeezed the handset, grateful he was alone in his office.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Tarver? Mr. Jackson Tarver?”

“Yes?”

“Sir, Corporal Daniel Graham with the Royal Cana dian Mounted Police in Calgary.”

“Police?”

“Yes. Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you at home, but it’s important that I confirm your relationship to Raymond, Anita, Tommy and Emily Tarver of Washington, D.C.”

Silence hung in the air as realization rolled over Tarver and he swallowed hard.

“Anita’s my daughter-in-law. Tommy and Emily are my grandchildren.” Tarver cleared his throat. “Ray mond is my son. Why are you calling?”

When Graham delivered the news, Jackson Tarver dropped his phone.