Sea of Cortez Read online

  OTHER DETECTIVE LANE MYSTERIES

  Queen’s Park

  The Lucky Elephant Restaurant

  A Hummingbird Dance

  Smoked

  Malabarista

  Foxed

  Glycerine

  Indiana Pulcinella

  Matanzas

  OTHER NEWEST MYSTERIES

  Business As Usual, by Michael Boughn

  The Cardinal Divide, by Stephen Legault

  Cobra Clutch, by A.J. Devlin

  The Darkening Archipelago, by Stephen Legault

  A Deadly Little List, by K. Stewart & C. Bullock

  The Extra Cadaver Murder, by Roy Innes

  A Magpie’s Smile, by Eugene Meese

  Murder in the Chilcotin, by Roy Innes

  Murder in the Monashees, by Roy Innes

  West End Murders, by Roy Innes

  FOR MORE ON THESE AND OTHER TITLES,

  VISIT NEWESTPRESS.COM

  COPYRIGHT © GARRY RYAN 2018

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication — reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system — without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of copyright law. In the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying of the material, a licence must be obtained from Access Copyright before proceeding.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Ryan, Garry, 1953–, author

  Sea of Cortez / Garry Ryan.

  (Detective Lane mystery ; 10) Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-988732-39-8 (softcover).

  ISBN 978-1-988732-40-4 (epub).

  ISBN 978-1-988732-41-1 (Kindle)

  I. Title. II. Series: Ryan, Garry, 1953– . Detective Lane mystery ; 10.

  PS8635.Y354S43 2018 C813’.6 C2018-900601-3 C2018-900602-1

  Editor for the Board: Leslie Vermeer

  Cover and interior design: Natalie Olsen, Kisscut Design

  Front cover photo: Garry Ryan Back cover photo: Kevin Tadge / Stocksy.com

  Interior photo (page 1): Pixel Stories / Stocksy.com

  Author photo: Luke Towers

  NeWest Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Edmonton Arts Council for support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

  NeWest Press wishes to acknowledge that the land on which we operate is Treaty 6 territory and a traditional meeting ground and home for many Indigenous Peoples, including Cree, Saulteaux, Niisitapi (Blackfoot), Métis, and Nakota Sioux.

  #201, 8540–109 Street

  Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1E6

  780.432.9427

  www.newestpress.com

  No bison were harmed in the making of this book.

  Printed and bound in Canada

  for

  Karma,

  Ben

  and

  Luke

  CONTENTS

  chapter 1

  chapter 2

  chapter 3

  chapter 4

  chapter 5

  chapter 6

  chapter 7

  chapter 8

  chapter 9

  chapter 10

  chapter 11

  chapter 12

  chapter 13

  chapter 14

  chapter 15

  chapter 16

  chapter 17

  chapter 18

  chapter 19

  chapter 20

  chapter 21

  chapter 22

  chapter 23

  chapter 24

  Acknowledgements

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3

  chapter 1

  Lane looked at orange gold schooling beyond the toes of his black and red cross trainers. The kokanee rested before attempting another swim against the current and up through the culvert. The pipe was a metre in diameter and ran perpendicular to the two-lane paved road that had carried Lane and Arthur here. The highway was about thirty metres above the stream it bisected. Lane watched an exhausted fish being swept back out of the pipe and into the stream. The water’s usual olive green was visible here and there as it flowed downstream and into Lake Koocanusa. The lake was one hundred forty-five kilometres long and shared by BC and Montana. It ran roughly north and south along a valley in the Kootenay Rockies. Arthur had turned off the paved road on the east side of the lake along the way to a place called Jaffray.

  It was a dusty ten degrees Celsius in a valley predominantly forested with evergreens. Lane watched the wavering gold under the rippling surface. These fish don’t know or care which side of the border they are on. He looked west toward the lake, but all he could see was some of the creek’s white water, trees and the thick undergrowth.

  Arthur, Lane’s partner, put his hand on Lane’s shoulder. “My dad brought us here when I was eight or nine. He said Canadians didn’t appreciate what is right under their noses. He called the spawning of the kokanee one of God’s great miracles. They are born together, they die together and they give life to the next generation.” Arthur lifted his Blue Jays ball cap and wiped sweat off his scalp with the sleeve of his shirt. “I was more interested in the rocks.” He bent to pick up a grey stone shaped like a boomerang. Arthur’s round Mediterranean face was lit with a smile. “See what I mean?” Lane smiled and looked back to the gentler waters between the culvert and the rapids downstream. Thousands of kokanee waited their turn in the relatively calmer waters. I have never seen anything quite like this. What makes them gather together for generation after generation to swim upstream to spawn and die?

  “You gotta watch out for the bears.” A man stepped out of the trailer parked about ten metres back from the stream. He wore a frayed, grey-faded green shirt, grey–green work pants belted with a rope and lace-free white running shoes. The man’s black hair was uncombed. His face and hands told the story of twenty or thirty years of outdoor labour.

  Lane smiled and pulled up the waist of his black pants. These things must be stretching. “Any around today?”

  “Not so far but they will come. Always do.” The man lit a cigarette with an orange plastic lighter and inhaled a lungful. He pulled the cigarette out with his right hand and used it to point at Lane and Arthur. “You guys are from?”

  Lane lifted his chin. “Calgary. And you?”

  “Just up the road. Jaffray. Needed to get away from people for a few days. The kokanee are late, the snow is late and everyone is arguin’ about climate change.” The man turned, walked downstream and disappeared behind the trailer.

  Arthur frowned at Lane. “Scary-looking fellow.”

  “Gave us some friendly advice, though.” Lane looked back at the stream where the fish turned the water from green to a shifting, shimmering red gold. Lots of food just waiting for a hungry bear.

  “What’s that?” Arthur pointed downstream where the fish had to fight the white water to reach the pool below the culvert. A black bear perched on the edge of the far bank, then waded into the stream and climbed up onto a rock where it began to scoop with the open claws of its right paw.

  “Maybe we’d better go back to the car.” Lane reached out and tugged the back of Arthur’s white nylon shirt. The bear continued to fish as they watched it balance on three paws atop a flat rock. The bear is solitary, a hunter. The kokanee gather in a school.

  When they got into the car Arthur said, “We probably could have stayed and watched. The bear was totally ignoring us.”

  The man from the trailer reappeared and zipped up his fly as he puffed on the cigarette. He walked over to the BMW. Arthur opened his window. The man said, “If
you drive up the road about six miles you’ll find Little Sand Creek. There’ll be more fish there.” He turned and pointed at the busy black bear. “That black bear probably won’t bother you, but there’s been a grizzly around this week and he’s kind of ornery.” The man gave them a tip of an imaginary hat and waved as he walked back to his trailer.

  Lane drove up the trail. It wound its way up to the two-lane highway. They headed north on the pavement lined with evergreen trees. The sun shone through Lane’s window. He checked the odometer and made some mental calculations. “Six miles. That’s about ten kilometres?”

  Arthur looked out his window. “Dr. Keller said a holiday this winter would do us both good. He suggested some sunshine and a beach.”

  Lane started to answer and closed his mouth. He reached to turn on the music. Arthur put his hand out to cover the radio’s controls. “We’re going to talk.”

  “About what?” Lane heard the defensiveness in his reply and shook his head. He looked in the mirror and saw panic in his blue eyes alongside the increasing grey in his once-black hair and the deepening creases across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes.

  “About Christine, Dan and Indiana moving out. About what’s been bothering you for months. About your weight loss. About all of it.” Arthur looked out his window.

  Lane inhaled a long, slow, exhausted breath.

  “Dr. Keller says the weight loss is a symptom.”

  Lane eased into the curve and accelerated.

  “Slow down! You’re not going to avoid this conversation by scaring the shit out of me!”

  Lane’s right foot lifted off of the accelerator. “You drive, then!” He jammed on the brakes, pulled onto the shoulder and skidded to a halt in a dramatic cloud of dust.

  Arthur put his hand on the dash and looked left at Lane. His eyes were round and wide, yet he kept his voice level. “I’m not going to talk clichés about what happened. You’ve heard them all and none of them have made it any easier.”

  Lane shoved the transmission into park, heaved on the emergency brake, got out of the car and slammed the door. He looked back along the road, then turned and looked ahead. No traffic either way. He heard Arthur’s door open and his partner’s footsteps crunching the gravel. Arthur stopped. Lane turned. His chest ached, and he realized he hadn’t taken a breath. He inhaled, deeply, then took another breath. Keep breathing. In and out. It will make it possible to think.

  Arthur crossed his arms and leaned against the back hatch.

  Lane’s anger began to cool. Why not tell him? You never told anyone about what Lola said. “Back in July Lola came to see me at the office. It was early. She pushed her way in and closed the door. She said that she and John had decided it would be better if her grandson were raised outside of a house where a killer lived. That it was nothing personal, that I was only doing my job. But they were going to offer one of their properties to Dan and Christine rent free.”

  Arthur leaned forward, his feet shoulder width apart. “That odorous misandrist.”

  What? “I’ve never heard you say something like that before.”

  “I’m working on my vocabulary skills. Besides, Lola is an insult to my mother tongue. Why didn’t you say anything to me or to Christine? You always think you have to carry this kind of thing on your own. I thought it was the shooting eating away at you.”

  “I knew she and Dan wanted a place of their own and if I told her what happened, well —” He held out his hands. “You know what would have happened.”

  “Christine would have told Lola to shove it.”

  Lane nodded.

  “We all know what Lola’s like, and most of us can tune her out.” Arthur mimed turning a radio’s knob. “Why’d she get under your skin and why keep it from us for so long? We’ve all been wondering what was eating at you.”

  “Because it was so easy for me.” Lane stared at the pavement as a pickup whistled past. It left the stink of spent diesel fuel in the air.

  “What was easy?”

  “Killing. It was easy to kill Pierce. Just pull the trigger. I was surprised how effortless it was. I always thought that if I found myself in a situation like that, I’d find a way out other than killing. That’s not what happened. I even thought about shooting Cori Pierce when I had her out there alone in the storm. So I was afraid Lola was right about me. That the killing made me different.”

  “But you didn’t kill Cori Pierce. She’s in jail now and not getting out. She and her husband can’t hurt anyone else because you did what you had to.”

  Lane shook his head and shrugged. He looked at his feet, expecting to see a pool of vomit with a red pepper or two from the morning’s omelette he’d picked at. Or at the very least to feel a sense of relief as evidence of the release of the festering truth he’d just expelled. Enough time had passed; he wanted to move on, get over shooting Pierce, who would have felt no remorse at killing children. He lifted his head, inhaled and listened to the silence.

  “You actually thought that Lola had a point? That Indiana would be better not living with us? Without you? That’s why you’ve been putting distance between yourself and Christine and Dan and Indiana?”

  Lane shrugged. Why do I always feel that I’m about to be betrayed by those closest to me?

  Arthur shook his head and walked to the driver’s door. “Get in.” He waited until Lane was belted in, then asked, “Remember Lola’s licence plate?”

  “LOLAGETS?”

  “Yes. Gets under your skin. She saw a scar and she scratched it open. People like her have a knack for spotting old wounds and weaknesses. She finds them and tears off the scab. The end justifies the means with her.” Arthur shifted into drive, shoulder checked and stomped the accelerator. “She also has a talent for underestimating. She doesn’t know what a ruthless bitch I can be.”

  Lane reached for the controls at the side of his seat. An electric motor whirred as his seat leaned back. For a while he watched the trees go by; then he closed his eyes, inhaling the scents of pine and spruce.

  He woke up two hours later. He turned to look out the window and saw a man with shoulder-length red hair and a red beard. The man wore a conical black cap with silver stars and a cloak of red satin. Lane estimated the distance from the tip of his cap to the tip of his beard was at least a metre. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Radium. Hungry? I checked at the gas station. There’s all-you-can-eat ribs tonight at the diner. They’re supposed to be pretty good. Want to try some after we get checked in?” Lane turned to watch the wizard walk toward a ramshackle collection of buildings, wooden walls, totem poles and chainsaw sculptures. Lane’s phone chirped. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket. The message was from Nigel. “Mexico. The Playa del Carmen police say Sean Pike has died from gunshot wounds.” Lane pocketed the phone and stared ahead as they climbed the side of a mountain to a red-cedar-sided three-storey chalet at the end of the winding paved road.

  An hour later Lane and Arthur sat across from each other at a booth inside Jacks. The restaurant was on a side street running parallel to the highway at the east side of Radium. The interior was done in wood: pine benches, spruce table tops, fir flooring, cedar support beams, knotty pine walls and chipboard ceiling. Someone must have a connection at the local sawmill. The parents across from them kept a pair of toddlers busy colouring on the brown paper covering their table. The little girl peeled the paper from her red crayon and licked it. The boy focused on the paper, held three crayons in one hand and drew an arc from left to right. “A rainbow!” his mother said.

  “What was the text about?” Arthur asked.

  Here comes dinner. Lane spotted the waitress wearing a white Coldplay T-shirt heading their way. She balanced two plates the size of platters. “Watch out boys, the plates are hot.” She slid them onto the table and waltzed away. PINK was written in white across her tight-against-the-booty sweats.

  Lane regarded the side of pork ribs basted with pepper sauce and accompanied by coleslaw and
beans. “This is enough food for four or five people.” He leaned forward and sniffed. And it smells great! He picked up the tail at the end of the ribs and took a bite. “Mmmmm!”

  “You’ve got your appetite back.” Arthur arranged wipes and napkins at his right-hand side, then in the middle of the table, before sawing three ribs off and getting started.

  Lane sat back after finishing his second plate of ribs. He reached out and held his water glass with sticky fingers. Arthur’s head was turned sideways; he watched Lane out of one eye with a smile on his lips. The boy at the next table studied the detective and frowned. “Daddy, he ate two plates!”

  Lane looked at the boy. He felt the sauce drying on his lips and cheeks. There was laughter from another table. Then Arthur began to roar and most of the people in the restaurant joined in. Except, of course, for the little boy, whose eyes filled with tears. He leaned into his father, who put an arm around the child.

  The waitress hustled over, looked down at Lane and lifted his plate. It was piled with napkins and bones. “Want some more ribs?”

  Lane smiled and shook his head. “No, thanks, but I would like to buy ice cream for the little guys.” He nodded his head toward the next table.

  The waitress smiled. “Want me to ask?”

  “Please.”

  A few moments passed in relative silence. Lane reached over and grabbed the wipes inside the plastic wrappers. His hands slipped over the shiny surface. He gripped the top of the black packet, but his fingers couldn’t tear the packet open. “These things are impossible.”

  “What did the text say?” Arthur deftly tore open a pack and handed it to Lane.

  Lane wiped his face and fingers. “That Sean Pike is dead from gunshot wounds in Playa del Carmen.”

  “Mexico?” Arthur leaned forward, picked up another packet, tore it open and handed the wipe across the table.

  “Yes.” Lane felt refreshing wetness on his face.

  Arthur leaned back and laughed.

  “What?”

  “How much do you want to bet the body is already cremated?”