Here is a free sample of Immersed in the View for your reading pleasure!
argie was puffing by the time she got to the park. She was getting into better shape. She could go farther than she had been able to when she started, but she was still in pretty sad shape compared to what she had been as a beat cop, getting plenty of exercise walking the streets. Sitting at a desk was not good for her, and she had not been getting as much exercise as she had thought she would once she arrived in Calgary.
She still hadn’t started cycling in to work, using the new pathway over Deerfoot and under Blackfoot, then through Pearce Estate Park and continuing downtown. She had followed it a couple of times on Google Maps to make sure she knew the way, but hadn’t yet tried it in real life. She was working her way up to it and wanted to make sure she knew the route really well before she tried it, not wanting to get turned around and lost.
She had promised herself that once she reached Valleyview Park, she would give herself a break. Walk around the pond, have a drink of water, take a few pictures, and get her breath back before returning home. The whole route was only about three kilometers and, once she was comfortable with that, she intended to increase the distance by adding a loop through the pathways by the Max Bell Arena. Calgary had a lot of green space and pathways; she might as well make use of them.
Margie slowed to a walk. It was a clear morning, the sun shining brightly and the greens of the trees and blue of the pond looked like a painted picture. Despite the early hour, it was already 18 degrees Celsius. Actually, it hadn’t gotten below 18 the night before. The last few days had had 36-38 degree highs, almost unheard of in Calgary. Most homes—the ones in Margie’s neighborhood, anyway—did not have central air conditioning. She had been lucky enough to find a window AC unit a month before when the first heat wave had hit at the beginning of June. It was never 30 above the first week in June, she was told. There had been a few flakes of snow on Victoria Day, just a week before that. Calgary didn’t normally hit 30 until August.
With the AC unit in Margie’s bedroom, they could at least sleep. Christina had said at first that she would be fine in her own room, she didn’t need to come sleep with Margie like a little kid who’d had a bad dream. But that didn’t even last a full night. With the house heating up and holding on to the heat, Margie’s bedroom and the unfinished basement were the only tolerable spaces.
Now it was already Canada Day. July first. Margie didn’t have to go in to work, and Christina was out of school, so they had stayed up a bit late the night before to watch a movie while they waited for the house to cool. But Margie had promised herself she would still go for a run, and knew that she would need to head out by six if she wanted to beat the heat. She was glad that she had.
She nodded and said good morning to an elderly man walking around the pond with a cane. She had seen him there before. And she could see a couple with a pair of dogs approaching that she recognized as well. A lot of people wanted to get out and enjoy a bit of fresh air before it got too hot.
Margie sipped her water, then put it back into the holder on her running belt and took out her phone for a few pictures. She walked by the little waterfall, bubbling happily away. Even just this little slice of nature, listening to the trickle of the water and the whistles of the red-winged blackbirds, helped to restore her peace and serenity after all the recent news. Down below that, there was a marshy area with cattails and some scum and plant matter floating on top of the water.
There was something in there. She had seen a muskrat a couple of times in the pond and figured that was probably what it was. He was remarkably brave about all the people and dogs who walked around the pond. Most of the time, he just ignored them unless they got right to the edge of the water, and then he would dive, disappearing below the surface.
But as she got closer, she could see that whatever was in the water was much larger than that. It was obscured by the weeds, but it looked as though someone had dumped a dark blue suitcase into the water. A short distance away, she could see the bottom of a shoe floating on the surface of the pond, which confirmed to her that it must be luggage. Why would somebody throw that into the water?
Margie left the pathway to get close to the water’s edge where she would be able to see better. The closer she got, the more clearly she could see that it was not a suitcase and random assortment of clothing that had been dumped into the water.
What she had initially taken for the fabric side of a suitcase was the broad back of a man in a denim shirt. The shoe she could see floating a few feet away was still on the foot of its owner.
Chapter 2
Hey! Some help over here!” Margie shouted to the man and the woman walking their dogs.
She scrambled out onto the large sandstone rocks at the edge of the pond and tried to reach the man. Facedown in the water. Not a good sign. Floating just a little too far away for her to grab his shoulder or shirt. She shuffled toward his feet, her knees protesting at the hardness of the rocks. She would end up with bruises just from kneeling there. Margie reached out again, overbalanced, and nearly toppled into the water.
She drew back, breathing hard, her heart racing. She hated the water. She couldn’t swim. She couldn’t even wade, not without going into full-blown panic mode. But she forced herself to try again. She was a police detective. She had a responsibility to the public. She was a first responder, and it didn’t matter whether the emergency was on land in the water; she was expected to take action.
There were concerned questions from the dog walkers as they approached, not yet sure what was going on.
Margie caught the corner of a pant-leg. She hooked her fingers around it to pull it tightly into her palm, then tugged the entire leg toward her. The body was heavier than it looked, dragging on something as she tried to pull it to the edge.
The man handed his girlfriend the second dog’s leash and hurried to Margie.
“What happened? Did you see?”
Margie shook her head. “No. I just got here. Saw him.” She continued to tug the body closer, wondering whether she would be able to break the water tension and get it out of the water. The victim was not a small man.
The dog walker knelt down at her side, closer to the head. Because Margie had already pulled the body closer to shore, it was easily within the man’s reach. He grabbed an arm and the cloth of the denim shirt and pulled hard, bringing the body to the shore and partially out of the water. Margie got her hands around both of the legs and hauled on them, trying to bring them up onto the rocks she knelt on.
“Let’s try it together,” her helper suggested. “One, two, three!”
On three, they both tried again, and managed to pull the body out of the water and drag it up onto the rocks. Margie was out of breath—not from running anymore, but the exertion and the adrenaline rush.
“What do we do?” the man asked. “Is he breathing?” He called over to his girlfriend. “Did you call 9-1-1?”
The woman nodded impatiently, still talking to the dispatcher on her phone, answering the series of questions that Margie knew the operator would be asking her. Name? Location? Phone number? Nature of the emergency? Are there any weapons present? Is everyone safe?
Margie looked down at the bloated face turned to the side and knew that it was way too late to be attempting any lifesaving measures. She shook her head at the dog walker. “He’s dead.”
“We should do something. Should we do CPR?” her helper asked.
“No. It’s too late.”
“Sometimes you can’t tell,” he objected. “On TV, sometimes they think someone is dead, but they can be revived. If we keep his blood pumping until they can shock him…”
“No,” Margie told him again. “I’m a police detective. I’m an experienced first responder. It’s too late.”
He looked around. “Where is your police car? Don’t you carry those v-fib machines?”
“I was just out for a run.” Margie went through the motions of checking for pulse and respiration, in order to reassure him that they were doing everything they could, even though she knew it was far too late,
A siren whooped. The fire station was only a few blocks away. First responders must have been dispatched from there. With just a few blares of the horn, the firetruck came into view. It pulled into the parking lot and a couple of firefighters climbed out.
Margie stayed where she was. The man looked around, not sure what he should do. He stood up as the firefighters with black masks approached, giving them room to get in and see to the victim.
“Sorry,” Margie told them. “Too late to do anything for him. I’m Detective Patenaude.” She repeated it, pronouncing it clearly for them, “PAT-en-ode. I came upon the body by chance. I will take control of the scene until it is assigned to someone.”
“Parks Pat?” one of the firefighters asked, the skin beside his eyes crinkling in a smile. So the name had spread further than just the homicide department.
“Yes, that’s me,” she agreed, her face warm.
“Well, lucky us.” The firefighter also checked for any signs of life but, like Margie, he knew there was no point in it. “Have you called it in?”
“Not yet. The young lady called 9-1-1. I was busy getting him out of the water.”
Becoming suddenly more aware of the water, Margie backed away from the edge of the pond, her throat constricting.
“You need a radio?” the second firefighter, a redhead, offered, indicating his shoulder mike.
“No, I’ve got my phone and I know the numbers.” Margie got to her feet and stepped back from the body. “There’s nothing we can do until the crime scene techs and medical examiner’s office get here. Let’s make sure there is no more contamination of the scene.”
The two firefighters agreed and also took several steps back. Margie had nothing with her but her running belt. No yellow tape. She didn’t even have her police ID. Luckily, everyone had taken her at her word that she was in law enforcement.
“Thank you,” Margie told the man who had helped pull the body out of the water. She nodded to his girlfriend, standing farther away. The young woman looked both anxious and excited, her skin very pale in the bright morning sun. Margie pulled out her phone and dialed Staff Sergeant MacDonald.
“Detective Pat,” Mac greeted. “You’re off duty today. I thought you were going to be spending the day with your daughter. Get off the phone and go enjoy your holiday.”
It wasn’t actually a day of celebration for Margie and her daughter, but it wasn’t the right time to point this out. “Actually, I was out for a run this morning… and I found… a body in the pond.” She was aware that her voice squeaked up slightly at the end of her statement, making it sound like a question.
There was silence from MacDonald for a few seconds. Margie pictured him running his fingers through his silver hair, eyebrows raised, trying to process what she had just told him.
“You found a body,” he repeated.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is this some kind of a joke?”
“No, sir. Sorry.”
“Well, that’s going above and beyond, don’t you think?”
Margie chuckled. “Yes, sir. It wasn’t exactly planned.”
“Where exactly is this body? Am I your first call?”
“A bystander called 9-1-1. We have first responders on the scene. We’re all in agreement that there is nothing we can do for him. You’re my first call.”
“You’re supposed to be off today, but I’m going to make you primary since you’re already there. There isn’t any point in calling someone else to take over. Are you able to handle the preliminaries?” He sounded suddenly uncertain. “Your daughter isn’t there with you, is she?”
She appreciated his concern. “No. She’s still at home asleep. I just went out for a quick run. The body is in Valleyview Park. I can get things started on this end. I can’t spend all day, but I’ve got a couple of hours. I don’t think there will be much for the forensic team to do. The scene is pretty small.”
“Any sign of violence? Cause of death?”
“I haven’t made any kind of examination of the body. No blood or trauma that I can see.”
“Okay. Valleyview… I think we had a drowning there a few years ago. Is this a drowning?”
Margie looked back toward the body. “A definite possibility. I don’t imagine it will take the medical examiner long to find out.”
“Give them a call.”
“Yes, sir. Will do. Can you send me a couple of units? I was just out on foot, so I don’t have crime scene tape or anything. We’ll need a little crowd control and to canvass the houses around here to see if we can narrow down time of death and if anyone saw or heard anything last night or this morning.”
“I’ll send you some backup. Could the body have been there longer? A few days? Sometimes it’s hard to be sure. If the body sank or was hidden…?”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s a very small park. Nothing like Fish Creek or Glenbow. Just a little pond with a pathway around it. And lots of foot traffic. Runners, walkers, dog people. I don’t think it could have been here any longer than last night or early this morning.”
I hope you enjoyed this sample of
Immersed in the View
By P.D. Workman
