Burnt Out Part 4 …Predator and Prey

Beast of Prey

I’ve come out of retirement to help in a RCMP cold case in order to try to solve my ex-partner’s murder.

It’s too far to commute between my Toronto condo and Norfolk County where the crime took place, so I have to make arrangements to find accomodation near the RCMP detachment.

Fortunately, Clare, my new partner, has found me a place and so I’m temporarily back in the city to gather my clothes and personal items I’ll need while working out of town.

Returning to my condo alters my perspective and makes the events of the past year seem surreal.

I suddenly feel detached and alone, overwhelmed by the task ahead and torn between the need to escape the painful memories of Sarah’s death and the desire to find her killer.

But coming back to my Toronto condo heightens the grief I feel at mourning Sarah’s loss.

I reaalize that mssing someone deeply is a profound experience akin to acute homesickness―except there comes a time when you can't go home again... and that's what I’m feeling now.

I felt that way when my parents passed and I felt that way when Sarah died.

And now, standing in my Toronto penthouse staring at the room where Sarah used to sit, I'm totally bereft―empty as the flower barrels on my rooftop patio and desolate as the October sky spilling over the roof.

I don’t know how to navigate this storm. Maybe I don’t.

Maybe I don't ask why, I just ask how.

Just play it as it lays and go on—don’t ask how I’m going to make it through another day, another week? Just don't think about the rest of life, only the next moment and cross another item off my list. Yeah, I make lists―it keeps me focussed.

Though now I have real task―finding the Destroyer―the unseen beast who laid waste my life, and robbed me of my reason for getting up each day.

And I won't rest until I get him, if he doesn't get me first.

Suddenly I feel I can't breathe and need fresh air. I open the slider to the roof and let a cool breeze buffet me. It's definitely fall now and the air smells like apples. I step out and drink in chilled air.

I lean back against the wall out of the wind and look off to the west as far as the eye can see. It's out there where it happened―a routine patrol on a day much like this. So sudden and unexpected, I still find it hard to comprehend.

We were standing in a flat near some cliffs where shots were heard. Hunters, we thought, or teenagers trying out a gun. It was a place where firearms weren't permitted―near a conservation area.

One moment she was smiling and the next she wasn't.

A long distance sniper targeting police we figured afterward, and he disappeared without a trace... until now. But I want to see proof―his fingerprints have marked my soul. I'll know if it's him or not.

The air is so clear, it's desolate. The sky above gun-metal blue and cloudless―and then, out of nowhere, comes what looks like a raptor, menacing and circling, high above me.

I gasp in surprise and feel the frisson, the sudden chill of death.

It's some kind of beast of prey and there's a carcass near. I watch it, walking the wind in ever widening circles, like a stone in water, making ripples.

It glides silently and stealthily and on one pass I can just make out its red face. I can finally identify it. It's a turkey vulture and preys on death.

It's out of place in the city as I am but doesn't descend, just makes one more pass above me and then heads west...

West to where I've been―where Sarah sleeps in the dark earth―where her killer still prowls seeking prey, and where I'm bound to return and lay the matter to rest.