“Why not?” Simon asked. “It’s an experience.”
“Yeah, I’m not exactly sure it’s a good one though.”
“The jury’s out. I haven’t found any reason to stop, but there are many compelling reasons to continue.”
“Well, that’s interesting. In that case, see where it goes.”
“That’s the plan.” And, with that, Simon waved his hand, turned, and headed in the direction of home. On the way, he stopped, picked up a newspaper, and then popped into his favorite little Italian restaurant for lunch. Then his sense of smell overrode his desire to eat. So he stopped eating and brought his leftovers home, before he continued the rest of his day. Thankfully his overactive sense of smell retreated on the way. As he returned to his apartment building, the doorman met him with an open door. “Hey, Harry, how you doing today?”
“Good. Sorry I didn’t see you this morning, sir.”
“I was up and out early, not an issue.”
“Glad to hear that.” Harry looked at the bag and smiled. “Had a good lunch, I see. The finest Italian in town.”
“It is, indeed, and my favorite.” And, with that, he headed to the elevator and upstairs.
As he dropped the newspaper on the dining table, along with the lunchtime leftovers, a headline caught his attention. “Another Hit-and-Run at UBC.” When was it time to change the road rules and protect these young people from the actions of poor drivers? He wondered if that was the case that Kate had just picked up, though it didn’t seem a traditional homicide case. As he stared at the headline, his fingers retraced some of the letters of the first couple words.
“Traffic,” he muttered.
He stared out the huge expanse of windows in his living room that overlooked the beautiful city of Vancouver. Somehow, from the back of his head, came a scream, from a long distance away; it was faint and indiscriminate. He couldn’t even tell if it was a scream of joy or one of horror. Then came athud, as somebody was hit.
He couldn’t see anything, yet he felt the blow. He bowed at his midsection and slammed down onto the kitchen chair, his breath gusting out in shock. He shook his head, turned, and looked around. “What in the hell was that?”
But, of course, nobody answered at all.
Chapter 3
Kate walked severalblocks of the neighboring area, her phone in hand. She mentally noted where the other accidents had happened, as she reached each one, even though—according to the coroner—the cases had no connection. True enough, no apparent relation had emerged, but it was early days yet. The crime scenes were all within a span of probably four or five blocks, and, given that a lot of heavy traffic was here—from the students and the rest of the traffic coming out of the university—this intersection itself had a bad history. Plenty of small pizza places, sandwich shops, little delis—all to tempt the college crowd—also contributed to quite a traffic jam in itself.
With that being mapped out, Kate walked back to the scene of the current death to find that everything had been cleaned up, except for the smear of blood on the road. The fire truck had just arrived to do something with that. She always wondered what that substance was that they put all over the pavement. She walked down the long boulevard, heading toward the main part of the campus, golf courses on both sides. Beautiful, stunning, peaceful, elegant, and yet such a killer.
She shook her head as she walked a good hundred yards, wondering if anybody could have been over here watching. Obviously, if they had been playing golf or walking through any of the grounds, they could have. So far, she hadn’t spoken to anybody but those who had been walking on the streets and who had seen the accident from that vantage point. She pondered the location, and, when Rodney texted her and asked where she was, she answered by calling him. “I just walked around the five crime scene areas along the boulevard.”
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
“The grounds are gorgeous and amazingly open for people to walk and to take advantage of the countryside. Where are you?”
“I just finished with another group who arrived. Sounds like they’d been here earlier and came back. I’m on my way to you.”
When he met up with her, she guessed, “So, as usual, nobody really saw anything.”
“One thought he saw her riding on a bike—or sawsomeoneriding a bike. He did describe the red hoodie though.”
“So beforehand.”
“Yes.”
“Did they have anything to say that was helpful?”
He shook his head. “Not really. They crossed there.” Rodney pointed, facing the intersection and using his left hand. “They were walking from here over to the other side. One guy glanced this way and saw the cyclist coming, so he was past the viewing point when she was hit.”
“Yes, but,” Kate said thoughtfully, “that means she was riding the bike then.”
He stopped, frowned, and nodded.
“So we know that the bullet hit somewhere after she cut out of his view, right? Could he explain how close?”