“Is it ever?”
He just laughed.
“So, what do we know about the victims?”
“Both easily identified, both carrying cell phones with those little attachments on the back for carrying cards. One had a credit card, and the other one had her ID.”
“Students?”
“No, actually,” he replied, “and that was my initial thought too, but they’re locals. Both of them live on Pendrell Street by Stanley Park.”
“Oh, nice area.” She rolled it around in the back of her mind. “And makes sense, considering where they run.”
“It does, and it’s really been developed in the last ten or twenty years.”
“Yeah, that’s a joke,” she said, turning to look around. “What square inch of Vancouver hasn’t been developed? Property prices have gone so sky-high that anything even ten years old is worth dropping and putting up as something brand-new.”
“No argument there,” Rodney stated. “So, back to our victims. Both are married. Both have jobs, and apparently this happened just a couple of hours ago.”
“Who found them?” she asked.
“A group of joggers. They meet every morning at six and come out this way.”
“So, these women were out here before them?”
“Yes, although the bodies were still warm when they found them.”
“How did they die?”
“Well, you can ask Dr. Smidge that question yourself.”
She snorted. “Oh boy, he won’t want to see me.”
“Well, it’s been a little bit of time since that last case piled up on his desk.”
She shook her head. “It won’t matter.” She sighed. “He’ll still blame me for it somehow.”
“Well, keep me out of the line of fire,” Rodney suggested, with a laugh.
She shook her head, as she walked toward the crime scene. Smidge was there bent over examining something. But the medical staff had two gurneys at the ready, just waiting for the go-ahead to load up the victims and take them away. She hadwanted to ask Smidge something, but, as he straightened up and turned around, he caught sight of her, and his glare was the first thing she saw. She raised both hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I didn’t kill them.”
“Well, you better find out who did,” he barked. “Two at a time, really? Seriously, like I don’t have enough work already? I’ve only just barely dug out of your last mess.” With that, he shook his head and stormed back to his wagon, grumbling all the way.
She sighed and looked over at Rodney. “How come you got off so lightly?”
“Hey, I stay out of his line of sight,” he admitted, with a grin.
“Well, at least he’s still speaking to me.”
“You’re about the only one he talks to,” Rodney noted. “You should remember that.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll keep that in mind while he’s barking at me all the time.” Of course that didn’t mean anything. She had to deal with him, and generally they ended up getting along. But he was hard at it and overworked, and that was nothing new. In a big city, like Vancouver, there was a steady stream of crime. It didn’t ever seem to slow down, and the authorities had no short supply of murders—to the point of feeling as if putting two people in the same room would result in only one coming out.
She had learned a lot about humanity in her lifetime, beginning as a child—when her brother had gone missing, and nobody knew anything about it. Nothing they were willing to talk about at least. That’s the part that really got to her.
She knew that people had to have known something, but nobody had ever spoken up. Whether it was out of fear of the person who committed the crime, reluctance to have the police looking into their own lives, or just because they didn’t want to get involved—that inconvenience factor—she didn’t know. It hadbeen a hard-learned lesson. Now she just stayed on the side of cynical at all times. It made for less disappointment that way.
Dr. Smidge ordered the bodies to be collected; then he stepped over to Kate. “Hope you catch this guy.”