Six Seconds

12

Near Banff, Alberta, Canada

Fear crept across Carmen Navales’s face as she studied the pictures Graham had set before her on the table in the Tree Top Restaurant.

Ray Tarver stared back at the waitress from his passport, his driver’s license and the tourist photo Graham had received that morning from Tokyo.

“Think hard,” he said. “Do you remember serving this man?”

Carmen caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

Earlier, Graham had noticed her watching him in the booth of the closed section of the restaurant where he’d been interviewing other staff. They weren’t much help, practically indifferent, so why was Car men nervous?

The RCMP knew all about places like the Tree Top.

Young people from around the world worked at the motels, resorts and restaurants in the Rockies, lured by the mountains, the tips and the party life. Sure, at times, things got out of hand with drinking, drugs, thefts, a few assaults. Last month, a chef from Paris stabbed a climber from Italy over a girl from Montreal. The Italian needed twenty stitches.

But Carmen hadn’t gotten into trouble out here. She was from Madrid and her visa was about to expire. Nothing to be nervous about.

Carmen was the last staff member Graham needed to interview. None of the others had remembered seeing Ray Tarver. I was, like, so hung over. Or, those tour buses just kept coming. It was all a blur, sorry, man, such a shame with those little kids.

Their responses eroded Graham’s hope that his Tokyo tip would lead somewhere because they still hadn’t recovered Ray’s body.

Carmen’s reticence frustrated him.

He tapped the photos.

“Ms. Navales, this is Raymond Tarver, the father of the family that drowned not too far from here. It was in the news. You must’ve heard.”

“Yes, I know, but I was in British Columbia at that time.”

“According to your time cards, you worked a double shift here the day before the children were found in the river.” Graham tapped the photo from Tokyo. “Ray Tarver was here the day before the tragedy. In this res taurant. In your section. On the day you were working. Now, please think hard.”

Carmen steepled her fingers and touched them to her lips.

“What’s the problem?” Graham asked.

“I need to extend my visa.”

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“I need to keep sending money home to help my sister in Barcelona. Her house burned down. I’m afraid that if my records show I’ve been involved with police-”

“Hold on. Look, I can’t do anything about your visa. But things might go better for you if you cooperate, understand?”

She nodded.

“You served him?”

“Yes.”

“And his family?”

“No family, he was sitting with another man.”

“Another man?”

Carmen traced her finger on the photo, along a fuzzy shadow behind the head of one of the laughing Japanese women. It bordered the edge and was easy to miss.

“That’s his shoulder.”

Graham inspected the detail, scolding himself for not seeing it.

“Do you know this other man? Have you ever seen him before?”

Carmen shook her head.

“Describe him.”

“He was a white guy, but with a dark tan. Slim build. In his thirties.”

“Any facial hair, jewelry, tattoos, that sort of thing?”

“I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“What about clothes. How was he dressed?”

Carmen looked at Graham.

“I think like you. Jeans, polo or golf shirt, a wind breaker jacket, I think.”

“Did he pay with a credit card?”

“Cash. And he paid for both. In American cash.”

“Do you remember their demeanor? Were they arguing, laughing?”

“They were serious, like it was business.”

“Any idea what they talked about?”

“We were crowded, it was loud, I couldn’t hear them.”

“How long did they stay?”

“About an hour.”

“Do you know if they left in separate vehicles?”

Carmen shook her head.

For the next half hour, Graham continued pressing her for details. When he was satisfied he had exhausted her memory, he stood to leave.

“One last thing,” Carmen said. “Every now and then, the computer guy would turn his laptop to the stranger so he could read the screen.”

Graham didn’t know what he had.

Driving back to Calgary, he weighed the new infor mation. The Tree Top was about a forty-five-minute drive from the Tarvers’ campsite. The photo put Ray in the res taurant the day before his family was found in the river.

Who was the guy at his table?

And why was Ray showing him his laptop? Was it an arranged meeting? Or spontaneous? Maybe he’d gone there to interview someone for a travel article?

Maybe it was nothing?

But some twenty-four hours later, his family was dead.

Now, Ray was missing and so was his laptop.

The questions gnawed at Graham as he worked alone at his desk.

Since the initial front-page stories, the calls from the public had slowed. Prell and Shane had followed up with a lot of door-knocking. Most of the information was useless, even bizarre. One guy claimed that the Tarvers had been “abducted by alien organ harvesters who will appear at the UN.”

Other tips were more down-to-earth, like the local rancher who’d insisted he’d seen a man resembling Ray hitch a ride on a logging rig. Graham had contacted all the lumber and trucking companies in the region.

No one had picked up anybody.

And nothing had surfaced concerning the where abouts of Ray’s missing laptop.

The Banff and Canmore Mounties had put the word out to see if anyone on the street was selling one like Ray’s. Graham notified Calgary and Edmonton city police, who circulated information to pawnshops.

Jackson Tarver agreed to release the family’s bank, credit and Internet accounts. If someone had stolen Ray’s laptop they may be using it, and this information could help track the computer down.

Nothing had surfaced so far.

What was he missing?

Graham’s cell phone rang.

“Danny, it’s Horst at the site.” Static hissed over the search master’s satellite phone, mixing with the river’s rush and a distant helicopter.

“You find anything?”

“Nothing. Our people have been going full tilt for twenty-four-seven for the past few days. We figure he likely got wedged in the rocks, or a grizz hauled him off. A couple of big sows have been spotted in the search zones. We could find him in the next hour, or the next month, or never. Know what I mean?”

“Right.”

“We’ll keep it going, but we’ll wind it down by the end of the week.”

It was early afternoon as Graham ate his lunch, alone, outside at a picnic table.

He chewed on the ham and Swiss he’d made at home, looked at Calgary’s office towers and the distant Rockies and tried not to think of his life.

Stay on the case, he told himself.

He was nearly finished his sandwich when the super intendent’s assistant, who spent her lunch breaks walking in the neighborhood, approached him.

“There you are. How you keeping, Dan?”

“Day by day, Muriel.”

“There’s going to be a barbecue with Calgary city vice unit at Lake Sundance this weekend.”

“I heard.”

“Come join us, if you’re up for it.” She touched his shoulder.

“Thank you. We’ll see.”

“Sunday. Around three. Don’t bring a thing, dear.”

Graham nodded.

But when Muriel left, he decided he was not up to it. He crumpled his lunch bag and tossed it in the trash. Back at his desk, he went at the file again.

At Graham’s request, Ray’s father had faxed him copies of the insurance policies Ray had taken out on himself and his wife. Each had a two-hundred-fifty thousand-dollar death benefit. Anita was Ray’s benefi ciary, Ray was hers. If they both died then Ray’s parents became beneficiaries.

Those were big numbers. People had committed serious crimes for less, but Graham saw no reason to suspect an insurance fraud, unless Ray Tarver emerged from the mountains unharmed to collect a quarter of a million dollars.

Graham returned to the Tokyo photo. He had to be missing something, he thought, staring long and hard at Ray and his laptop, until the light began to fade. With most of day and most of his coworkers gone, Graham began to dread what was coming.