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Murder in the Great Big Playground

A tale of real estate, murder, politics, and really great powder: Chapter Six
1509novel
Illustration by Dave Petko

By Kim Thompson

Every so often a bloated snowflake catches an airstream to be tossed aimlessly in an acrobatic moment of glory before joining Whistler’s slushy streets. A few snowflakes end their journey on the tongue of a snotty nosed kid or an eyelash of a beautiful woman like Janna St. James. Those are the lucky ones.

Janna St. James wiped back the tears that mixed with the snow and snot running down her face. The snowfall was unleashed, sending its energy through Whistler Village. You could see the twinkle of excitement in the eyes of every camera-happy tourist on the Village Stroll but it all made Janna want to puke.

She swallowed back the bile in her mouth. Her grandmother Minerva “Minty” St. James was dead. Gammy Minty didn’t pass away on her own terms — her last moments were ones of terror. Janna’s stomach lurched at the thought and finally allowed the vomit to splatter the pavement outside of Tommy Africa’s nightclub. To the passerby Janna looked like just another binge drinking college kid.

Only one name surfaced once Janna regained her balance – Rory McDougall. At one time Janna had a schoolgirl crush on him that bloomed when she turned eighteen. She could still taste his lips – a mixture of beer and cigarettes. But that didn’t matter now.

Janna was one of the few who didn’t take cheap shots at “The No-Go at Nagano.” But now every offside remark and bad joke came flooding back to her. And the tears came before she could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on her face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? She let them fall, her lips pressed hard together, walking blindly forward and running headlong into Hiroshi Steinberger.

“Janna?”

Hiroshi’s bloodshot eyes betrayed his night’s activities, sadly staring into a foaming beer at Tapley’s while willing the mess to go away. But that never works and Hiroshi’s reality came screaming back with the last drop of beer in his glass. The thought that Rory had anything to do with the murders made him sick. It didn’t make sense.

“Sorry,” she said wiping her face. “I don’t know if you heard but my Gammy was found dead.”

The verbal acknowledgement of Minty’s death was too much and Janna crumpled into a pile of sobs, leaving Hiroshi to awkwardly pat her on the back. She reminded him so much of his own daughter with the intensity of those green eyes. Rough tears began to well up in his own eyes until he picked Janna up off the pavement and practically dragged her into Tapley’s.

While Janna nervously ripped apart a napkin, Tapley’s was just warming up. Raucous cheers rose from the pockets of hockey fans around the bar. The Canucks were on the ice and taking the piss out of the Calgary Flames.

Hiroshi watched Janna from the corner of his eye, unsure of where to tread. He’d been the one scouring the Sea to Sky Corridor looking for any sign of Minty but sometimes a helicopter can’t save the day.

Hiroshi couldn’t help but stare. Janna had grown into quite a woman since the last time he saw her at one of Minty’s famous Rainbow Park barbeques. It was a hot day and his daughter and Janna hit it off. They spent most of the time in the lake only to suffer a nasty case of duck itch.

“How are you doing? Is there anything you need?” Hiroshi watched her reaction, silently cursing himself for being such a dumb ass. Is there anything you need? Could he come up with a dumber question?

“I want the bastard who killed my Gammy to rot in hell. No-Go doesn’t deserve the cell he’s sitting in.”

“Janna, it’s too early to jump to conclusions. Rory is a good man despite his obvious, well, shortcomings. You don’t understand the real story.”

“Unbelievable… you’re taking the side of a screw-up like No Go?”

Janna was banging her fists into the table and the hockey fans stopped cheering to stare at the couple. Hiroshi didn’t want to cause a scene so he spilled his story in rapid succession – hoping Janna would be too stunned to respond.

“I am the one who found Chuck at Joffre but you already know that. I mean I was shaken up. I’ve seen some stuff in my day but this…it was gruesome.

“It was a murder Janna,” he said, looking past her tears and into her eyes. “But I think something bigger is happening here. I was told to take Chuck’s body down right away. Don’t you see? They were treating it like a backcountry accident, not a crime scene. They needed someone to pin it on and Rory was the closest scapegoat.”

Hiroshi stared at his beer, watching the foam twist into the drink. He gave Janna time to stop sobbing.

“Take me there. Take me to Joffre. I want to see it myself,” Janna said, glaring at Hiroshi, settling her frustration on his face.

She looked at Hiroshi the way his daughter used to when they were on speaking terms. It was hard to say no then and it was harder now. She reminded him so much of his daughter. His heart staggered a bit, he missed her so much.

“Okay Janna. We’ll go in the morning but I don’t think we’ll find anything.”

In the wee hours of the morning giddy skiers and snowboarders lined up at the gondola. Sleep came in fits and starts for the blurry-eyed crowd as snowflakes reflected off headlights and covered up the slush Whistler streets. Life has taken on a single-minded purpose for those in the lineup. It’s not rational or understandable to the outsider. A 30 centimetre blanket of snow fell through the night, creating powder fever.

Janna’s fever had little to do with powder but her life now had a single purpose. She looked at the snow clinging to the trees and it made her feel hopeful. Gammy always said that every snowfall wiped the slate clean.

Still she hoped it wasn’t too clean and that Joffre would point to something. Janna couldn’t hear anything above the thwack of the helicopter. The tears came again but this time Janna wiped them away as the site of Chuck’s murder came into view.

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/.

Kim Thompson is an up-town gal with downtown sensibilities. Her astrological sign is the double thumbs up and she is at home in the Spud Valley. Kim is a section editor for the Whistler Question, which is pretty awesome because that means she writes about the best place on earth – Whistler.



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