A uniformed officer directed him along the riverside path towards the bench beneath which her backpack had been found, about a hundred yards from the pagoda and framed by a semi-circle of tall pines that screened it from casual view. The backpack had been placed in a plastic evidence bin sitting in the path. Ron Leclair, the lead investigator from Missing Persons, squatted by the bin, flipping through a student notebook with a latex-gloved hand.
The bag’s contents were spread out in the bin beside it—a wallet, a folded towel, sandals and three neatly folded articles of clothing, including a green cardigan, a white tank top and a denim skirt. Did that mean she was wearing nothing but panties when she disappeared? Green wondered. Or had she changed into a bathing suit? The folded clothes suggested they had been slowly and deliberately removed rather than ripped from her body in a moment of passion. Or rage.
The entire fifty-foot circle around the bench was cordoned off, and a solitary officer dressed from head to toe in a white jumpsuit stood inside the enclosure, methodically dusting white powder on the painted wooden slats of the bench. Green recognized Sergeant Lyle Cunningham from the Ident Unit, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Ron Leclair was doing this by the book every step of the way, knowing that if this ever became a crime scene, or worse a homicide scene, they would need all the forensics they could get to nail the killer.
At the moment, though, it looked anything but. There were no signs of disturbance, no broken branches or gouged turf to suggest a struggle. The bench sat all alone on the bluff near the end of the gorge, overlooking the white water and the sun silhouetting the high-rises across the river. It was a perfect spot for a romantic tryst, with the backpack tucked safely out of sight in the tall grass beneath. It was also a leisurely ten-minute stroll across Hog’s Back Road from the bustle and crowds of Mooney’s Bay beach. What better place to escape for a moment alone?
The problem was that the romantic tryst had been two days ago. What had happened in the interval, and why in all that time would she not at least have put her clothes back on?
The obvious answer send a sliver of dread down his spine. The black ornamental fence was intended to prevent the public from diving off the bluff into the water, but when he peered over the fence, he spotted a well-worn path meandering along the rocky bluff on the other side, suggesting that many had already breached the barrier in order to get closer to the thrill. The roar of the white water masked the voices of the officers nearby, but from their gestures Green suspected their speculations were much like his. Had she gone over the fence and fallen? Dived? Been pushed?
He followed the fence to its end point downstream, rounded the end and clambered back up the path on the outer side to reach the rocky outcrop. Below him the water tumbled down in foamy chaos. Spray landed cool and slick on his skin, and up close, the roar of the falls thundered in his ears. Suddenly he realized how far the drop was. He clutched the rock face and shut his eyes as dizziness washed over him. Why hadn’t he remembered his fear of heights before embarking on this excursion? Now the safety of the fence was some twenty feet away, and the eyes of half a dozen police officers were fixed on him.
He forced his eyes open and willed them down to study the rough grey rock at his feet. There were no telltale scuffs or drag marks to suggest someone had slipped or been pushed over the edge. Loose bits of gravel and broken glass lay undisturbed. Studying each square centimetre of the ground, he picked his way out over the rock until he was directly opposite the bench. Nothing. If Lea had met with tragedy, there was no sign of it here.
What then? Had she simply run off with a boyfriend? Been carried away by the romance of the moment and lost all track of time? Had they got so drunk or high that her judgment and memory went out the window? But later on, when the drink and the drugs wore off, surely she’d realize she’d forgotten her backpack and return for it. Surely she’d phone her mother.
What girl would leave her mother frantic with worry for two whole days?
Don’t even go there, Green chided himself, acutely conscious of the heavy, silent presence of his cell phone in his pocket. Of course she might, because teenagers are idiots, whose parents’ existence are barely even on their radar. Hours are suddenly days. How time flies when...
“Mike, what the hell are you doing out there!” Sullivan’s voice crashed through his thoughts. He tore his eyes from the ground in front of him to see Sullivan peering down over the fence. Sullivan was one of the few who knew Green was terrified of heights, and his eyes were wide with astonishment.
To Green’s relief, he sized up the situation immediately. “You want a hand over there?”
Green nodded. Sullivan vaulted over the fence and slithered down the slope, grasping at shrubs to slow his pace. Out on the clifftop, he made his way over to Green with sure, nimble strides that belied his bulky frame.
“It doesn’t look as if she fell or was pushed over,” Green shouted, more loudly than he needed, even with the roar of the falls. “There are no marks on the ground.”
Sullivan squinted down into the foam. “There wouldn’t be if she jumped, though. All her clothes were neatly folded like she’d taken them off to go in the water.”
Green shuddered at the thought. “Suicide?”
“Probably just misadventure. We’ll have to ask her mother if she was a good swimmer and liked to dive. The mother should know if her bathing suit is missing too. That will tell us if she set off with a swim in mind.”
Green nodded, but a small inconsistency nagged at the corner of his mind. If she had been wearing a bathing suit, why hadn’t her panties been found among her clothes? “Can we carry on this discussion back up there on flat land?”
Sullivan chuckled. “Sure. Want a hand?”
“No! Just walk behind me.” No point in giving the guys more to laugh about. Green knew that, as a Jew with two university degrees and an aversion to blood and guns, he was an oddity in the locker room as it was. His knees were wobbling when he clambered back over the fence, but he feigned nonchalance. He glanced questioningly towards Ron Leclair, who was just closing the student notebook.
“Not much useful stuff in here that I can see,” Leclair was saying. “It’s her English notebook, seems to be mostly class notes, doodling and lots of stuff that looks like Shakespeare.”
One of the officers guffawed. “Oh, like you’d recognize Shakespeare if he bit you in the ass, Ron.”
Leclair grinned. “Well, it’s not Don Cherry, is all I’m saying.”
“Any names, contacts, phone numbers hidden among the Shakespeare?” Green interrupted.
Leclair sobered as if only just remembering his inspector was here. “Not that I could tell. But maybe you should take a look, sir.”
Green ignored the jibe. He doubted Leclair was aware of the hint of mockery in his tone. Plenty of police officers had university degrees nowadays, and even Green’s masters degree in criminology was not unusual. Unlike Green though, for many it was less about knowledge than about gaining a toehold up the promotional ladder. Leclair himself was ambitious enough that he’d probably go home and read a Shakespeare play that night, so that he could sound better informed in the morning.
Green nodded distractedly. “I want Ident to give everything a thorough going over first,” he said.
Lyle Cunningham looked up from his camera. He had identified one useable print on the left side of the bench where the paint was still fairly new and glossy, and he was focussing his lens for the shot before he lifted it. “I’ll get to it tomorrow. I’ve still got lots to do at the scene here tonight. When it gets dark, I want to check the vicinity for semen and blood.”
Green rifled through his memory quickly. It hadn’t