Six Seconds

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.