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Murder in the Great Big Playground

A tale of real estate, murder, politics and really great powder: Chapter Two
1505novel
Illustration by Phresha Levandale (deviantethics.com)

By Grant Stoddard

As the Perimeter bus rolled past Creekside, Minty St. James’ unequivocally favored grandchild girded her loins. Somewhere just south of Squamish Janna had, for the first time, begun to entertain the idea that something truly awful had happened. The surgically-tautened matriarch was well-known for her flightiness but going off the radar for this long was simply beyond the pale.

As she grabbed her skis, backpack and began walking briskly towards Minty’s Painted Cliff condo, Janna self-soothed with the knowledge that her grandmother was at her most vital and in the rudest of health. Since her husband Teddy St. James had passed in 2002, Minty had declared a personal jihad on the aging process and had been making serious headway. Unbeknownst to Janna, her grandmother had been simultaneously dating a cosmetic surgeon, nutritionist and personal trainer and had put their combined skill and know-how to good use. When they were together, the vivacious sexagenarian would be commonly mistaken for Janna’s mother; an occurrence that would make them both beam and giggle with mischievous delight.

“Gammy?” she said after a loud rap on the door came to no issue. “Gammy Minty, it’s Janna!”

“Looking for your grandma, eh?” said a shrill woman’s voice from behind Janna, startling her somewhat.

“Uh…yeah,” she said, regaining her composure. “Have you seen her?”

“Just when I came to clean last,” said the mousy woman, who produced a key from her pocket and opened the door. “She ain’t here, darlin’. Said that she’d be out of town for a few days, didn’t say where. I recognize you from your pictures. Such a pretty young thing. Why don’t you come in and warm up?”

Kindly house-cleaner Barb McCann was 10 years Minty’s junior but a hardscrabble life had etched deep lines in her face. Janna followed her into the grandiose foyer and headed straight for the bathroom; she’d had a premonition of Minty falling in her antique claw-foot tub or state-of-the-art steam shower and banging her head. The coltish debutante partially covered her eyes with her fingers and gently pushed open the door. She found nothing untoward and sighed with relief.

She darted up to the master bedroom to ensure that Minty hadn’t passed in her sleep.

She was again greeted by an empty space where her grandmother’s dead or dying body wasn’t. Of course Gammy wouldn’t go like that, thought the 17-year-old phenom and smiled weakly. On numerous occasions Minty had confided in Janna that she wished to shrug off her mortal coil at 100 years old with “the sun on my face, a drink in my hand and a strapping young buck on my arm!”

“Did ya hear about Chuck Jessup?” wheezed Barb as she ascended the stairs with audible effort.

Janna wasn’t listening. Her big watery blue eyes had scanned from the empty bed to the glossy, walnut armoire. On it sat Minty’s wallet, keys, cell phone and passport.

“Nice and tidy in here,” said Barb as she joined Janna in the room. “Looks like she hasn’t been here since Thursday. Usually it looks like the Fitz Slump spilled through the window!”

Barb followed Janna’s eyes to the grand dames’ personal affects.

“Oh dear,” Barb said, gravely.

As Rory McDougall piled up more icy flotsam from three days of non-stop snowfall, his grief turned to anger. He and Chuck had shared similar life trajectories and his old friend’s killing had brought his own hapless descent into sharper focus. The pair had been cocksure teens, each destined to make their mark; Rory in racking up snowboarding Golds, Chuck in the maverick expansion of the family business.

Just a decade ago neither would have fathomed failure; couldn’t have conceived of being snickeringly referred to by that failure ever after. They’d been equally reckless through the years; acquiring vices, breaking hearts and alienating many along the way. But whereas Rory had quietly accepted his alcoholic oblivion some years ago, Chuck Jessup was going down swinging; betting the diminished remainder of his family’s fortune along with other people’s money on a series of long-shots.

As Rory took another swig of Crown Royal from the monogrammed silver hipflask he got for his 21st birthday, he flicked through his mental Rolodex looking up the people who Jessup had been characteristically careless with. The list was as long as the line-up at the Village Gondola on a snowy Saturday morning. He knew of Chuck’s numerous lascivious liaisons, up to and including Minty St. James. Rory was initially stunned by this latest development as Jessup’s typical amorous targets were the latest hires at the Amsterdam – young, pretty, barely clothed and blissfully unaware of his reputation as a bad luck magnet. When they were still on their respective winning streaks, Rory and Chuck had been friends with Minty’s son Alex. Ever since they witnessed a svelte and bikinied 40-something Minty at the beach cookout she’d thrown at Lost Lake for Alex’s graduation, they’d both been besotted with her, even made attempts at clumsily flirting with her, while her husband Teddy manned the grill. It was on this day that Chuck claimed to have coined the term “cougar”.

Chuck had given Minty a wide birth in the years after Teddy St. James’ untimely death. Teddy had fallen foul of Jessup’s hypnotic patter and had lost millions on what was pitched as a “no-brainer.” Teddy’s heart attack, Minty told the girls at the Mallard room some months later, was brought on by the money-pit. Chuck and Minty’s semi-clandestine, inter-generational coupling had been going on since mid-November to the best of Rory’s hazy knowledge and he figured that all had been forgiven.

Rory spotted Hiroshi Steinberger headed for Citta and jumped out of his backhoe’s cab.

“Oh Rory,” he said with a thin, consolatory smile. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” said the blurry-eyed could-a-been, and looked off into the distance.

“They’ve given me a few days off,” said Hiroshi. “I’m more shaken up than I thought I’d be. I mean, I’ve seen some stuff in my day but this…this was truly gruesome. I mean, you heard about the taters, eh?”

Over a beer Hiroshi – who knew Rory quite well and Chuck in passing – attested to some breaks with procedure in the fledgling investigation.

“It was clearly a murder, eh,” he said after they knocked back shots in Chuck’s memory. “But I was told to take the body… I mean Chuck, down right away. They treated it like a backcountry accident, not a crime scene. Only today did it begin to gnaw on me that they’d need a forensics crew over there. With this blizzard, there’ll be nothing left to investigate.”

Rory shook his head and thought back to the long list of people who’d want rid of his compadre.

“Hiroshi?” said a voice emanating from inside the helicopter pilot’s jacket, taking them both by surprise.

Though he was officially off the clock, Hiroshi had kept his radio on.

“This is Hiroshi, Sarah, what’s up?” he replied.

“We have Janna St. James here at HQ,” said the tinny voice. “She says that Minty’s missing. We need all birds up for a sweep and I can’t get a hold of Bruce. Can you do it? I’m sorry about this…”

“I’ll be up in 15,” sighed Hiroshi, and mouthed the words ‘double espresso’ to the bartender. “Over and out.”

“Geez, all hell’s breaking loose,” said the pilot and turned to his left.

The bar stool next to him was empty and spinning; Rory McDougall was in full sprint along Village stroll.

Where did Rory go? Or Minty? And who stuffed purple potatoes into Chuck Jessup’s dead mouth? For the answers to these questions and more, come back next week to read Chapter Three of the serial novel.

This is the fourth year for the Whistler Collective Novel Experiment, a literary collaboration of local writers put on by the Whistler Writers’ Group, the Vicious Circle. Each week the Pique will publish the next chapter of the collective novel and all of the completed chapters will be posted online at www.piquenewsmagazine.com/collectivenovel/.

Recent Whistler transplant Grand Stoddard has spent the past five years working his way up from mailboy at Nerve.com to gonzo sex reporter, willing to try every lurid activity his crafty coworkers devised — from offering himself up as man-bait at a hardcore gay bar to attending an elite orgy, all the while wishing he could be safely tucked in bed. Working Stiff — the Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert is his new book. Having mastered the Kama Sutra at the tender age of 30, he’s arrived in Whistler ready for his next challenge — learning to snowboard. He’ll be performning at Group Therap, the sixth annual Literary Leanings storytelling event co-presented by Whistler Celebration 2010 and the Vicious Circle on Feb. 19 at the Path Gallery, 8 p.m. Tickets $10.



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