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  FIVE WAYS TO DISAPPEAR

  B.C. Blues Crime

  Cold Girl

  Undertow

  Creep

  Flights and Falls

  River of Lies

  Five Ways to Disappear

  FIVE WAYS TO DISAPPEAR

  B.C. BLUES CRIME

  R.M. GREENAWAY

  Copyright © R.M. Greenaway, 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Publisher: Scott Fraser | Editor: Allister Thompson

  Cover designer: Laura Boyle

  Cover image: woman: shutterstock.com/ShotPrime Studio

  Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Five ways to disappear / R.M. Greenaway.

  Names: Greenaway, R. M., author.

  Series: Greenaway, R. M. B.C. blues crime novel.

  Description: Series statement: B.C. blues crime

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200380850 | Canadiana (ebook) 2020038094X | ISBN 9781459741560 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459741577 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459741584 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8613.R4285 F58 2021 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

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  To my brothers, John and Rafael,

  with love

  and

  To my mentors, Holley Rubinsky and Deryn Collier, with gratitude

  Contents

  PART I: CROSSWINDS

  ONE: WHIRLWIND

  TWO: RED SKY IN MORNING …

  THREE: JANGLE

  FOUR: PURPLE SMOKE

  FIVE: BAD DREAMS

  SIX: WHIRLY-GIRL

  SEVEN: WINDFLOWER

  EIGHT: FLUTTER

  NINE: WILDERNESS

  TEN: FLOWN

  ELEVEN: THE CALM BEFORE

  TWELVE: GHOST STORIES

  THIRTEEN: SEARCHLIGHT

  FOURTEEN: BROADWATER

  FIFTEEN: TWISTER

  PART II: MAGIC

  SIXTEEN: CLOWNS

  SEVENTEEN: VANISHING ACT

  EIGHTEEN: BOZO

  NINETEEN: WHITE RABBITS

  TWENTY: PHANTASM

  PART III: DAY’S END

  TWENTY-ONE: GONE

  TWENTY-TWO: STICKS AND STONES

  TWENTY-THREE: RIDDLES

  TWENTY-FOUR: BLUR

  TWENTY-FIVE: SHELTER

  TWENTY-SIX: PAIN

  TWENTY-SEVEN: MAGENTA

  TWENTY-EIGHT: SEEING RED

  TWENTY-NINE: HALO

  THIRTY: KIN

  THIRTY-ONE: UP

  THIRTY-TWO: RAVINA

  THIRTY-THREE: TAKEDOWN

  THIRTY-FOUR: EPHEMERA

  THIRTY-FIVE: FLAW

  THIRTY-SIX: ALMOST GOLD

  THIRTY-SEVEN: RED SKY AT NIGHT

  THIRTY-EIGHT: WAYWARD

  THIRTY-NINE: BARE

  FORTY: FLOWERS IN THEIR HAIR …

  FORTY-ONE: DAY’S END

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PART I

  CROSSWINDS

  ONE

  WHIRLWIND

  March 15

  BEAU GARRETT LAY damning the devils that were trying to kill him. They had been at it again through the night, sitting on his lungs, binding his bowels into knots. Jabbing and twisting spikes into knuckles and knee joints. Hard to catch a breath. He rolled over on his mattress. He worked his oversized hands into fists and thought, What if I die here in bed? What about the kid?

  With the shifting of his body he was able to fill his lungs. He looked around his room. The white ceiling had a dark-blue hue, not even a streak of dawn light yet. He turned his head and could just pick out the forget-me-nots in the forget-me-not wallpaper and the clutter of pill bottles on the window sill casting shadows. If he could only fall asleep again, that would be a good thing. But his mind was working now. Wondering.

  What had he dreamed?

  About ghosts from his past, that’s what. Evvy, his wife, Sharla, his daughter. Only natural he’d be dreaming about the two of them pretty steady since they’d each shown up at his doorstep just lately. Two separate visits, each stirring up the mud of his past, disturbing him with dreams that made no sense.

  In all the dreams he’d ever had of Evvy, she was young, like when they were first married. There were no fights in his dreams. No violence. No fun, either. They’d be in strange places talking about things he couldn’t remember on waking. Sometimes Sharla would be there in the background, a little girl instead of the dumpy fifty-something woman she’d become.

  Sometimes Sharla wasn’t even a girl, but a dog, cat, bird. One time she’d been an eel. He didn’t like dreams. Didn’t trust them. On waking he’d have to remind himself that the years had rolled on, and Evvy was no longer twenty-five like in his dreams, or thirty-five like when they’d split up. No, she’d be a seventy-nine-year-old bag of bones now, much like himself. Old and tired and full of pains of her own.

  Or so he’d been telling himself till she’d shocked the living hell out of him early yesterday morning by appearing on his doorstep, banging on the front door, in spite of the sign telling visitors to go to the back, the back door being easier for him to deal with. And when the knocking had become insistent he’d made his way through the living room, out through the little porch with its clutter of old furniture, and opened the door to find a nice-looking older woman standing there, who he’d realized after just a flash of confusion was Evvy. Not a tired bag of bones at all. At seventy-nine she was looking as fit as a fiddle and not a whole lot different from the day she’d thrown him out and they’d told each other good riddance so loud the neighbours had called the cops.

  Her attitude hadn’t changed a whole lot, either. Still antsy like he was about to deal her a blow, but still ready to give as good as she got. And down roadside sat a car, idling in the mid-March chill. The balding guy in glasses sitting behind the wheel was looking through the driver’s side window, staring up at Beau. Probably her new boyfriend, here as backup in case the abusive ex got ugly.

  The meeting on the doorstep had been brief. Evvy said she was looking for Sharla, who’d up and left her Chilliwack home without warning, taking her grandson Justin with her. Had Beau seen her at all?

  To that question Beau had flat out lied, and he still wasn’t sure why. Probably spite. But lie he did, telling Evvy he didn’t know what the hell she was talking about and shutting the door in her face. Watched the car spit dust and drive away.

  Truth was Sharla had come by just three days before that. Like Evvy, she’d ignored the sign and knocked on the front door till he opened up. Unlike Evvy, he didn’t recognize her, his own daughter. Nor did he know the little boy she’d had with her. Both of them were loaded with backpacks and suitcases and shopping bags and what looked like a fish tank half full of water. The woman had addressed Beau as Dad straight off, then more or less pushed her way in as he worked out that this was the daughter he hadn’t seen since she was nine, and had only spoken to once since then.

  That phone call had been about twenty years ago, first day of the new century, as a matter of fact, her in her thirties wanting to reconnect, him not having much to say. And now she was back, standing in his living room, snapping words at him, saying how hard it was to track him down, wow, isn’t family great. Beau had never been able to keep up with fast talkers, and most of what she said went in one ear and out the other. The boy was Justin, she said. Her grandson, who she’d been taking care of for a couple of years. Since Justin’s mother, Kim, had died.

  “Kim,” Beau had said, getting a word in edgewise.

  “Kim, my daughter, who I told you about when I phoned,” Sharla had said. She gave him a little glare, too, and looked something like Evvy. Then she said meanly, “Kimmie was three then. Day one of the new century and I gathered up the nerve to get in touch. Thinking you might want to see us. You said you did but I could tell you didn’t. So why bother. Well, you’ll never see Kimmie now, as she’s dead. Leaving this little guy, who’s your great-grandson, which is why you should be happy to get to know him a little. Bloodline, right?”

  Beau had stood looking down what seemed like a mile at the shrimpy white-haired child, who had only stared right back at him.

  Sharla then said something about g
oing south with a guy she’d met who was into hedge funds or something, and she was leaving Justin for just a couple days as she didn’t trust Evvy to use it against her in some kind of custody thing they were having over the boy. Just a couple days, here’s his stuff, Sharla had more or less said, and then she’d left without so much as a please or thank you for taking care of Justin, in spite of Beau saying he could do no such goddamn thing.

  That’s what the dreams were all about. After years of living alone, these people were back, littering up his thoughts. Evvy most of all. Showing off that her life had carried on without him just fine, thank you. New boyfriend and all. Nice car, too. Older model, but good set of wheels. A Buick.

  His thoughts cycled back to the questions he’d been asking himself. The old question that didn’t bother him much: What if I die here in bed? And the new one, which did: What about the kid?

  He knew he’d die one of these days. The pain told him so, coming on pretty much the day he’d moved here to the North Shore. He wondered if the house was cursed. Except he didn’t believe in curses. He’d gone to the doctor, but didn’t believe in doctors any more than he believed in curses, and sure enough the pills had helped a little but bothered his stomach, so he’d quit them. And quit doctors, too.

  Serve them all right, he thought. I die here in bed and they come back to find the kid has starved to death. He pictured them all in tears. Then he pictured the kid waking up and looking for breakfast, and when breakfast didn’t come, finding his great-grandpa laid out here stiff as beef jerky, mouth an open suck-hole for moths and flies.

  No. Mustn’t do that. Get dressed, put the teeth in at the very least, give the kid instructions about going to the nosy neighbour, Louise, when the time came, then he could damn well die in style. He pushed himself up. Puckered his eyes, had a bit of a coughing fit. Then he set his feet on the floor and cranked himself upright. The bridge no longer fit so good, but damned if he’d go back to that maniac who called himself a denturist.

  Maybe because he was dying, Beau felt like he was watching himself from above as he went about his daily routine. He watched himself select his best clothes and pull them on. Watched his big knobbly hands fight with buttons and zippers. Watched himself shuffle down the hall to the bathroom, duck the doorway, wash his face and comb his silver-black hair. Wanted to be cleanish as they packed him up and shipped him off to hell. He saw himself peering at the mirror and knew what he was: a train wreck of a once-strapping old man who’d never been anything to look at, not in the best of times, now going through the motions of living a life he had never been good at.

  Why was he feeling so grim? So angry? The fantasy was blown, that was it. Fancying that Evvy missed him. Imagining her attending his funeral and remembering the good times, realizing what she’d missed out on, all full of regret and mourning.

  Now he knew. She wouldn’t mourn him one bit. She’d celebrate. She’d get the house, sell it, go off on some world cruise with the new boyfriend.

  Fit as a fiddle. Laughing in the sunshine. Like a girl again.

  He’d get his revenge. He’d put off dying for a while. Live, get fit himself. No chance he’d find a new woman to show off back at her, but — it struck him now, a genius plan — he’d do one better. Connect with the child who she was fighting over with Sharla. That’s what he’d do.

  Justin would call him Grampa — Great-Grampa being too much of a mouthful. And once this visit was over, the boy would beg to go visit Grampa. Prefer seeing Grampa Beau over Gramma Evvy. She’d always been a jealous bitch. The kid preferring him over her would drive her apeshit.

  With hair combed flat with water, Beau lifted his chin to glare at the mirror. Not so bad. What had attracted Evvy to him in their teens was his size. He saw his young self through her young eyes, such a big, broad-chested powerhouse. The flesh had withered now, but the frame was still intact. Just needed to get out more, build up the muscles and work out the kinks. That’s what the doctor had said. Exercise is a must.

  Come to think of it, he hadn’t been outside in over a month. Least not out walking. Just the cab ride for groceries a couple times, and taking out the garbage.

  He’d do it. Go for a goddamn walk.

  He returned to the living room and got his bearings. The sky was still dark, the room a mess of shadows. He noticed the goldfish in its little tank, filter burbling. Shook some flakes into the water. Then looked in on the boy, down the hall in the small bedroom not much bigger than a closet, no furniture really but crates for clothes and a mattress on the floor. The kid was sound asleep like a little pale-haired chipmunk curled up against the cold, blankets all a mess around him. Now that it was springtime and the days warmed up pretty quick, Beau kept the thermostat right down. So it gets cold at night? That’s what sweaters and blankets are for, he’d told Justin.

  The kid had talked back some, but only in four-year-old gibberish before doing as he was told, putting on a sweater and carrying on playing. He seemed like a happy enough kid, considering what a disaster his family had turned out to be. Mom dead, grandmother Sharla running off with some guy and abandoning him with an old fart who was no better than a stranger.

  Back soon, don’t get up to any trouble, Beau told the boy, but only in his head. How do you make a kid like you? Buy ’em things. We’ll get you a proper bed soon as I can figure out how. A bed shaped like a firetruck, how’s that?

  He wedged his feet into his size-thirteen boots. Pulled on his fake sheepskin coat. Left the house out the back, heavy rubber-tipped cane in hand. He moved stiff-legged down the wooden steps. Any dawn light that might have come through was smothered in clouds, and he could hardly see the path before him. A brisk wind came and went, and it brought wetness. He now remembered the umbrella but couldn’t face climbing the stairs to fetch it.

  He made his way around the house to the road and started downhill. Walking was always a chore — downhill easier on the lungs but harder on the joints — but he was on a mission now of getting fit and being a lovable grampa. There was a spot he liked, about a half-hour walk when he was feeling his best, and something like an hour coming back uphill. He imagined taking the boy for walks to that special place, telling him his life story as they went. His life story wasn’t great, but he’d whitewash it. Borrow someone else’s heroic acts. They’d even carry on farther, get on the bus and go to town. Get hot dogs and milkshakes and go to the movies.

  There was a mist over the ground, a fresh chill in the air. Beau’s was the last house on a road that some ambitious pioneer had named Paradise, which went winding up into the foothills of the North Shore mountains. The road petered out into forest above and stretched over train tracks into suburbia below. His property was almost what you’d call “up in the country,” because further development had been stopped by city planners some years ago, for whatever reason, as his loudmouth cousin Liz had explained to him on her deathbed.

  The inheritance was a huge surprise, as Liz hadn’t liked him any more than he’d liked her. Must have lost her marbles when writing up her farewell papers, leaving it all to him. Fancy day that was, getting the letter, back when he was healthy. Few months later found himself moving from a condemned trailer in Mission to this million-dollar property in North Vancouver.

  Most would call it a shack, Beau supposed, just a squarish one-storey with hip-roof on a grubby plot of land, paint peeling off its clapboards, but it was the nicest place he’d ever had. And the city tax notice made it plain soon enough it was a lot nicer than he could afford. This particular cloud had what he’d call a grey lining. Paying the property tax, even with the pensioner’s reduction, gouged his modest bank account every year like clockwork. A millionaire he might be, but he carried on living like the poor bugger he’d come into this world as.

  Should sell and move back to Mission.

  Maybe one day.

  Across the road his neighbour’s house stood silent and dark. A fat hairy cat hunched on the window sill, as always, and a sleek white sedan covered in dew sat in the driveway. Beau knew Louise Maxwell was out of town, as he’d seen her leave in a taxi two days back. Off to Reno, he supposed, because Louise was a gambling addict. She’d told him so back when he’d first moved in and she’d come over with a pie and tried small talking him. At least four times a year, especially in the colder months, she liked to fly to warmer climes and throw away her money. Dumb cow.