The Other Side

  “My mom wouldn’t have put me in the closet if it wasn’t him,” I told Doug.

  “Are you sure? Did you hear her fighting on the phone or anything in the days leading up to that?”

  I thought back. A memory kicked in: Mom on the phone, urgent and angry, telling someone it was over.

  “Yeah, but I thought it was my father.”

  “He was supposed to be in the logging camp at the time.”

  “There are camp phones. He might have heard something about what she was doing.”

  “Do you remember much about this Mark guy?”

  “I didn’t like him, but I didn’t like my mom being with anyone.” I’d read the reports. He was also a logger, and also married. He’d cried at the funeral, saying he knew my father had a temper but never thought it would come to this. He’d supposedly broken off his affair with my mother that week to go back to his wife.

  “I thought you might want to have a talk with him,” Doug said.

  “Damn, I’m dealing with this case right now.”

  “Let me know if you need any help.”

  “Thanks.” I hung up the phone, my mind thundering with thoughts that crashed into one another. I seized on one, seeing it from a different angle. Where was my father?

  Ally got up from the table and took her dish of SpaghettiOs to the sink.

  “Can we play dress-up?” We played dress-up, then house, then watched cartoons. I’d made sure all the doors were locked and was doing some periodic checks, but all seemed quiet. Moose, the family French bulldog, was pacing in the kitchen, then standing by the back sliding glass door. I knew the signs. The dog had to pee.

  Ally ran upstairs to grab one of her dolls. I turned off the alarm and slowly opened the sliding glass door, glancing around the perimeter. All clear.

  I said, “Okay, Moose. Do your business.”

  He zipped out the door and ran around the side of the house. I stepped outside to keep a better eye on him. That’s when I felt a blow to my left shoulder, hard enough to throw me to the ground. I managed to draw my gun and flip around, catching a brief glimpse of a large man just before his fist connected with the side of my head and knocked me unconscious.

  The next thing I remembered was waking up with a couple of police officers standing around me.

  “Hang tight,” one of them said. “We’ve got help coming.”

  My head was pounding, ears ringing. My body felt like it had been hit by a dump truck. I reached up, touched a trickle of blood under my nose.

  “Where’s Ally?”

  “He got her.”

  “Shit!” I tried to sit up, but everything started spinning. I collapsed back onto the ground, trying to catch my breath. After a moment I said, “Where’s her mother? What’s happening?”

  The officer said, “Looks like she arrived home, found you hurt—and Ally missing. The constable who had been following Sara from the hospital came in moments later. While he was attending to you, Sara took off. We think John left some sort of message, maybe a note.”

  I tried to push myself up again. The world squeezed down to a black dot. The next thing I knew, I was lying on a stretcher, looking up at the ceiling of an ambulance.

  I was trying to call Billy over and over from my hospital room when Jeff showed up—the RCMP had flown him in from the mainland. He’s older than me, in his late forties, but he doesn’t look his age. His hair is still blond, bleached from the sun like mine, and he has a dark tan. We spend a lot of time outdoors together. We became friends before we were lovers, kayaking together on the weekends. I respected him for his no-bullshit attitude, loved him for the fact that he was willing to put up with my crap.

  “What’s going on?” I felt frantic. “Where’s Billy?”

  “With the task force. They’re trying to find Ally and Sara.”

  My eyes filled with tears that I angrily wiped away.

  “I screwed up, Jeff. Big-time.”

  “No, you didn’t. You drew your gun. He was just too big and fast.”

  “I shouldn’t have turned off the alarm or—”

  “He’d have come in one way or another.”

  “Is Hoffman okay?” He’d been posted at the end of the driveway.

  “He’s fine, just pissed at himself. Someone, probably John, had set a fire down at the end of the road and he went to check it out. Billy says it looks like John made his way through everyone’s backyards and was planning on breaking into the house when you opened the back door.”

  I thought of Ally, how much Sara loved her. What would she do to save her daughter?

  “When can I get out of here?”

  “They want to keep you for observation.”

  “Dammit.” I felt so helpless. I wanted to be out there, doing something.

  “Doug called. He heard what happened. I told him you were okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  The way Jeff seemed to be waiting for me to say something else told me they’d probably talked about more than my concussion. I was right.

  “He told me about the guy in Kelowna,” he finally said. “Want me to talk to him?”

  “I want to find Ally and Sara.”

  He paused, and I thought he was going to push me harder, but he just said, “I could see if I can get hold of anyone on the task force, if you like.”

  “Yeah, please.”

  He left to make the calls. I stared up at the ceiling, wondering where Sara and Ally were and what John might be doing. I didn’t let myself think about the fact that my mother’s real killer might be sitting in a jail in Kelowna. Or that I had no idea where my father might be.

  The next morning they called the doctor in because I was nauseous. He did some routine checks and said it was probably the concussion. I kept calling Billy, but no luck. Finally he called.

  “We got them!”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus. Are they okay?”

  “They’re good,” he said. “A little shook up, but good.”

  “Where’s John?”

  Billy filled me in on the rest. The Campsite Killer wasn’t going to hurt anyone ever again.

  A couple of days later, I was released from the hospital. Jeff picked me up.

  “I’m going to Kelowna,” I said.

  “Want me to come with you?”

  “No, thanks, I’m going alone.”

  He nodded, understanding. He always knew when I needed space to figure shit out on my own, and I had a few things to think about. A lot had happened in the last month.

  We flew over to Vancouver. I stopped at my house long enough to change my clothes, jumped in my Tahoe, and headed out to Kelowna.

  Mark hadn’t been able to make bail. They brought him in, still in cuffs. He eyed me as they undid them, no doubt wondering who the hell I was and what I wanted. As a young man he’d been big, with huge forearms from hours working as a faller. I remembered a crew cut and a mean face with thin lips and cold blue eyes. I also remembered him drinking beer with my father while they watched the hockey game, his gaze lingering on my mother as she moved around the living room. Now he had a beer belly and the flushed face of a drinker, but his arms were still big and his face still mean.

  I introduced myself, then said, “Do you remember me?”

  His hooded eyes stared out at me. “Nope.”

  “You were friends with my father. Tom McBride.” He kept his face blank, but his head tilted back, on guard. “You’re Tom’s kid?”

  “Yes. I heard you got yourself into a bit of trouble.”

  He tightened his mouth, one of his meaty fists clenching. “The bitch is lying.” Yeah, yeah, the bitch is always lying.

  “The bruises on her body tell a different story.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Why you here?”

  “I want to talk to you about my mother’s murder.”

  “Yeah? Ask your dad.”

  “I’d love to. You know where he is?”

  We stared each other down. Finally he said, “No idea. He stopped t
alking to me before she was killed.”

  “Because you were seeing my mother and he didn’t like that. Your wife didn’t like it much either.”

  He shrugged. “I strayed. Your dad was no saint either. Had a real bad temper.”

  “Seems like you might have a bit of a temper too, Mark.”

  “What are you getting at, lady?”

  “Where were you the night my mother was killed?”

  “I already told the cops—I was home, with my wife. She vouched for me.”

  “She did, didn’t she? Of course, back then she thought you were coming home to stay. I wonder if she remembers things a little differently now.”

  He leaned back slightly in his chair. “She’ll remember things the way they happened.” His tone was cocky. “I was at home.” His mouth curled up in a smile. “So was your daddy.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I called Doug the minute I was out of the building. “I think you’re onto something. He’s being cagey about that night. Is the wife still around?”

  “Far as I know. I think she’s even in the same house. Want me to talk to her?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll do it. Just give me the address.”

  Eileen Braithwaite’s house was falling apart, the weeds and grass knee-high, the deck crumbling, a blue tarp covering most of the roof. I didn’t see a car in the driveway, but I could hear a TV blaring inside. I knocked loudly.

  A dog started yipping and toenails scrambled on the floor. A haggard-looking woman opened the door: early seventies, long white hair, dressed in a faded jogging suit. The suit hung on her, like she’d lost a lot of weight recently. A small white dog was going nuts at her feet. Smoke from her cigarette curled up around her.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m Staff Sergeant McBride and I was hoping to speak with you about your ex-husband.”

  “What did the scumbag do now?” She squinted at me. The dog barked. She gave him a little shove with her foot. “Give it a rest, Louie.” Louie shut up.

  I said, “I’d love to come in and talk about it.” She hesitated, then opened the door.

  I perched on the edge of her couch, which had been floral at some point in its life, but was now faded pinks and browns. She eased herself down on a La-Z-Boy, a full ashtray of cigarette butts on the coffee table. The dog, who also looked yellowed with age, settled in her lap, giving me a warning growl. I told her what her ex had been picked up for.

  “Asshole was always too quick with the fists.” She opened her mouth, pointed to a missing tooth.

  “You never reported him for abuse when you were together?”

  “Back then, you didn’t rat out your man. Now …” She waved her hand in the air. “Everyone’s running to the cops and their shrinks, whining about their problems.”

  “You split up for a while, back in the seventies.”

  “Yeah.” Her eyes squinted again, wondering where this was going.

  “He was seeing another woman,” I said. “Virginia McBride.”

  She leaned back in her chair, tense. “He was, but he came back home.”

  “And you took him back no questions asked?”

  “We had kids, mouths to feed. He was a good provider.” Never mind that he beat the crap out of her, and no doubt her children too.

  “The night Virginia died, you said he was here with you.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette, lit another, taking her time and watching me through the smoke.

  “That’s right, I did.” She sounded belligerent.

  “Now, with the benefit of time, is there anything else you can remember about that night, maybe him getting up while you were sleeping, maybe you thought he came back to bed…?”

  I wanted to show her that I was willing to work with her on this. I could see her weighing her options, what was in it for her, why it mattered to me. Any minute, she’d ask. And she did.

  “Why you want to know all this? Thought you got him for something else.”

  “His woman, she might change her mind in a day or so, then he’ll move on to another one. Do the same thing. Bet it was real hard on you when he started fooling around with Virginia. You home with the kids, him over there having a good time. Bet he made a lot of promises when he came back, how sorry he was, how things were going to be different. You just had to help him out with this one thing—because he was innocent, right? The cops were going to pin it on him, then he wouldn’t be able to look after you and the kids. But he skipped out anyway. How long did it take him to find another single mother on the side? A year? Two?”

  She sucked hard on the cigarette, blew the smoke out in a gust of air. “Six months.”

  “Six months. And for that, he gets to go free, to walk around, no headaches, no problems, no nagging wife, because you did him a favor. But what did he do for you?”

  She took another drag, nodding her head.

  “He’s a mean son of a bitch,” she said. “A real charmer, and then he’ll turn around and hurt you for looking at him funny. If he gets out and finds out I talked to you …”

  “If you talk to me, he’s not getting out.”

  She scratched a breast, gave a hacking cough, and sighed. “I’m dying.”

  Surprised, I didn’t say anything. She continued, “Got cancer, too far gone. Too much smoking.” She stared at the cigarette for a moment. “His favorite time for one of these was after sex.”

  And there it was, the thing I’d forgotten all those years. The snap of a lighter, the smell of cigarette smoke filling the air. My father didn’t smoke.

  “What really happened that night?”

  “He was here, then he went out, said he had to go talk to her, said she’d called him crying and he had to end it once and for all, she was getting all crazy on him. He stumbled home around midnight, climbed into bed stinking of beer and sweat. Next day we hear about the murder. Said he figured your dad must of come in later, but he’d get blamed for it.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think maybe there was a little more to it.”

  “I think you’re right. Did you ever see Tom McBride around after that? Or did Mark ever mention him?”

  “Never saw him, never talked to him.” Her gaze flicked up for a moment to a wooden fishing trophy tacked high on the wall. She realized I was watching and turned back to me. “And I never could figure out why Ginny got rid of Tom and hooked up with another asshole.”

  It was an odd statement, considering the source. “People do strange things,” I said.

  “That all?” She looked tired.

  “For now, but some other officers will probably want to talk to you.”

  “Might as well talk while I still can.” She broke into another cough.

  I sat in my truck for a long time outside my old house. Where had my dad gone after he got out of camp? There’d been three days when no one saw him—his boss gave him his last paycheck and that was it. I thought back to when I was a kid, he and Mark coming home drunk as skunks, cleaning fish in the garage, their hands covered in blood and scales….

  I called Doug. “We’re going to need some cadaver dogs, up at an old fishing cabin.”

  They found my father’s body two days later. He’d been shot with a twelve-gauge shotgun—in the back. They weren’t sure whether Mark shot him before or after he killed my mother, but it didn’t matter. He was dead, and I could finally lay my father to rest.

  For the next week, I threw up every morning, so I went back to the doctor. Then I went straight to Jeff’s office.

  “Got some news.”

  He wheeled back his chair. “Yeah? What’s that?

  “I’m pregnant.”

  He dropped the chair down. “Holy shit! How…like, when?”

  “I guess the last time.” I knew I’d skipped my pill a couple of times when I rushed to the station early, but I’d just taken them the next day, figuring chances were slim. Obviously not….

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Kee
p it, I guess.”

  He grinned, his face full of hopeful excitement. In a second he’d be handing out cigars.

  I said, “I’m still coming around to the idea, so you have to go easy on me. No baby balloon bouquets yet, no telling anyone. It’s early, and I’m older, there could be complications.”

  “Deal.” He stood up with his arms stretched wide. “Come on, give me a hug, Mama.”

  “You shithead.” But I walked into his arms.

  The next day I called Nadine Lavoie, told her I had some follow-up questions. She welcomed me at her office with a smile, but she looked concerned.

  “Is Sara all right?”

  “She’s doing fine, considering. I kind of lied about why I’m here. I need to talk to you about something else.”

  Now she looked confused. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s about me. I think I need some help. My parents, they were murdered—years ago, but I still get nightmares. And I’m pregnant….”

  “I see.” Her body relaxed. What had she thought I was going to say?

  I noticed that some of her books had been packed. “You going somewhere?”

  “Just taking a little sabbatical for the summer, while I consider moving to Victoria.” She touched her head where she’d been injured during the attack. “This made me do some thinking.”

  “About your daughter?” It was a random guess, but her body stiffened.

  “Yes, we’ve lost touch. She lives on the streets.”

  How did a shrink’s kid end up on the streets? I thought of the baby growing inside me. What kind of hell would my child end up in with two cop parents? How bad would I screw him or her up?

  Nadine shook her head, like she too was trying to clear away a negative thought, then said, “How about we talk, then I’ll see who I can suggest that you might connect with here?”

  “It’s a start.”

  She smiled. “We all have to start somewhere.”

  Read on for a sneak peek at Chevy Stevens’s new thriller

  Always Watching