Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

  He lay on the bed and read his book. Although a heavy tome, it was superbly engrossing. Mark Twain never skimped on words.

  Exactly an hour after he’d left, Peter returned. Noel was waiting on the veranda. The engine idling, Peter called, “Come in my car. I’ll bring you back.”

  Noel climbed in. The new-car smell of leather and polish hit him. “This is a sporty treat. Just got it, I assume?”

  “When I left my wife, I bought the car.” He backed, shifted into drive, and they wound their way out of the woods.

  So Peter was the instigator of the split. Another woman? Or maybe she’d stepped out on him, a lover on another island . . . So many human stories. “A good trade-off?”

  Peter laughed. “Maybe I just realized I shouldn’t be married.”

  Or possibly Peter had found someone new? Well, not Noel’s business. “Yeah, that’s a hard discovery to make.”

  “True. For some. But luckily for me, or maybe bitterly, I’d known that for a while.” They passed the Mansion and headed down the long drive toward the road to Friday Harbor. Peter stepped harder on the gas and the Mazda spurted ahead.

  The convertible seemed to be floating, tires a half inch above the cement. Very quiet engine, Noel thought. Their conversation? He felt uncomfortable about asking more, and curious at the same time. He was an investigator, after all. Know your client. To find a plagiarizer? Of course. But how complicated could the case be? It looked pretty simple. What more was hidden here? “Was there something specific that made the separation happen just at the time you decided?”

  Peter laughed. “Not really. An accumulation. Maybe from even before I got married.”

  “How so?”

  Peter slowed a little, turned right onto Bailer Hill Road with tires screeching—so we can’t be floating after all, thought Noel, as Peter gunned the engine. From his angle, Noel couldn’t see the odometer.

  No other cars on the road. Ah, island living, thought Noel. He tried to relax and enjoy the speed. But Peter wasn’t answering his question. Noel waited.

  Peter slowed as they reached a sharp right. “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. I’ve barely met you.” The Mazda made the turn on what seemed like two wheels.

  “And it’s none of my business.”

  “You’re right.”

  “That was pretty speedy back there. How fast were you going, coming down that straightaway?”

  “Just a hundred. I like to open her up for that stretch.”

  “Cops ever stop you?”

  “Couple of times. I pay the fine. It’s my price of admission.” He turned, far more slowly, onto a road named Little. Narrow, too.

  Now the car proceeded more slowly. Peter turned left on Cattle Point Road. Little Road was more than narrow; it was short.

  “A few weeks ago I took her to the mainland and ran her around the race track. She hit 180.” Peter caressed the dashboard, slowed at a stop sign at the T, and turned left.

  Noel assumed miles per hour, not kilometers. He was grateful for seatbelts, airbags, whatever was needed. He couldn’t imagine moving that fast—or wanting to. Peter was driving far more slowly now. They passed the airport. Weird how he calls the car she.

  Peter said, “You know, I enjoy talking to you. You seem like a great listener.”

  “You can say anything to me, or nothing. Or whatever you want in between.” Except, he kept reminding himself, he was an investigator, not a shrink. He also remembered Kyra having said more than once that sometimes it’s hard to draw the line between the two.

  Peter turned right on Spring. Downtown Friday Harbor lay ahead.

  Kyra too went out for dinner. She and Margery were meeting at Sasha’s Bistro, a retro Russian restaurant on the second floor of a building that had once been a grade school. Desks and kids all gone, walls between some classrooms torn down. In a corridor at the top of the stairs, she found Margery waiting, looking into a room. A dance floor? Kyra said, “Hiya, Marge.”

  Margery, watching the dancers, transfixed, raised a finger: Just a minute. They both stared in.

  Men in shirts and slacks, the women in blouses and skirts, ballroom dancing. Or rather, getting lessons. A one-two-three beat melody, relatively slow. Waltzing.

  Margery whispered, “I’d say it looked like the 1890s if I knew what those nineties looked like. Come on, let’s go eat. Hi, Kyra.”

  They crossed the stair landing. On the other side, the restaurant entrance, a dozen people lined up. Margery had a reservation, so they bypassed the crowd and were seated immediately. They ordered drinks, Margery a Manhattan, Kyra a Stoli martini, which arrived in two minutes. Margery raised her glass. “Congrats. Smythe’s real chuffed by those photos of Wisely practically dancing. Some whiplash.”

  “No ‘practically’ about it. It was the real thing.”

  “Whatever. You got the guy. Bet you’re feeling good.”

  Kyra grinned. “Yeah. I hate cheaters. And I love the bonus.”

  They talked about Margery’s day; she always had stories. Margery, Kyra’s supervisor at Puget Life Insurance, was also a good friend. They sipped their drinks. Margery said, “I sure wish all our cases were as clear-cut as Wisely.”

  “Me too.”

  Smythe was always unhappy when the company had to pay out on a large claim. Kyra said, “He doesn’t get why people buy insurance in the first place. Most people, when they make a claim, they really have a problem.”

  “Yeah, but after you’ve dealt with a Wisely, the next case tends to look skewed even if it’s completely honest. It’s like your eyesight’s been muddied.” She shook her head, as if weary of the job. “All our investigators say that’s how it is. You need to prove two or three clients are making honest claims, and then you see clearly again.”

  “Right. And then you get another Wisely, and the cycle starts again.”

  Kyra ordered Chicken Orloff, Margery pepper steak. More stories. The food came, chicken in cubes under a tomatoey sauce with cheese-mashed potatoes and pilaf rice, the rare steak surrounded by young fresh beans and tiny potatoes. Kyra said she’d be away for a few days, a case on San Juan.

  “Can you talk about it?”

  “Don’t know much.” She forked a piece of chicken. Lots of tarragon in the sauce. “Delicious. Noel’s there now. He’ll fill me in tomorrow. Plagiarism at that university there, Morsely.”

  “Well, at least we don’t have to deal with plagiarism at the company.”

  “Right,” said Kyra. “Just parallel crimes. Cheating is cheating, however you slice it. They really get to me, the frauds.”

  “So,” said Margery watching Kyra’s face, “you’ll be spending time with Noel.”

  “Yeah.” Kyra concentrated on her food.

  Margery cut into her steak and took a bite. “Mmm. Good and spicy.” A piece of potato. With mouth half full, she asked, “How’s your project going?”

  Kyra took some of the cheesed potato on her fork and stared at it. “It’s not.” Margery was the only person she’d mentioned it to.

  “You’ve talked?”

  “Not really.”

  “Why not?”

  Kyra wrinkled her brow. “Hard to. On the phone.” She finally put the forkful into her mouth.

  “I guess.”

  “After that case on Quadra we spent five days together. There was a true connection between us. Not sexual, but a real closeness. The best of friends. Friends who’d do anything for each other.” An ironic little laugh. “Nearly anything.” She shook her head. “He just said, No. And all the good stuff we’d had for the previous few days, it sort of shattered. I nearly cried.” She sighed. “I got into my bedroom and flopped onto the bed and didn’t know if I was more angry at myself or just embarrassed. I felt like from now on he’d look at me and see a fake, a woman who kept on being his friend just to get his sperm. I finally apologized, we had a drink, we went out for dinner. We talked about old cases, we laughed a couple of times. Back at his condo, he put both h
is hands on my shoulders and looked me gently in the eyes like he was trying to see into me. And he said, ‘Kyra, I just can’t.’ I took a sleeping pill and woke up when he knocked on my door, time to get me to the seaplane. I don’t want to hear him say ‘No’ ever again.”

  Margery nodded. “You’ve sounded so tense since you came back. Thanks for telling me.”

  “It’s hard. Trying to make it happen without losing what I have with Noel.”

  “How hard can it be to give you a small vial of sperm?”

  Kyra could feel her eyes tearing.

  Peter slowed as they drove decorously through town to a restaurant named Coho and parked. “I try to spread my business around the eateries and this is mine of the month. Hope you’re not a vegetarian. I forgot to ask.”

  “No.” Noel, very hungry, got out of the car. The mussels had been excellent but not filling.

  Roast lamb, with salad and new potatoes, was featured; Peter ordered that. Noel asked for the steak, rare. Peter requested a bottle of Washington State Pheasant Bluff Merlot. When it came, they sipped and nodded approvingly. They talked about Peter’s courses, his students, his department. Till Peter shifted. “What sort of cases do you handle?”

  “Almost anything that comes our way.”

  “Murder?”

  “We’ve had some of that.” Why does everyone want to know about murder?

  “Just on islands?”

  Noel shrugged. “It’s a sexy schtick.”

  “But why islands?”

  Noel remembered only too well. “We had a case on Gabriola Island, off Nanaimo. Kyra and I had been thinking about teaming up, and someone suggested devoting ourselves to islands.” Noel remembered his purported friend Lyle, and deep inside he shuddered. “This was after my partner died and I was at loose ends. And Kyra wanted more than her insurance agency.” He didn’t mention Kyra pushing him to take on the case just so he’d have something to do with his life. “Islands are by definition a limited amount of real estate, so we could keep our scope small.”

  “Your partner died? I thought she was coming tomorrow?”

  “That’s my business partner. It was my life partner who died. Before we could marry and I could legally call him my husband.” Noel noted Peter’s cheeks color and his eyes narrow. “But we felt married.”

  “Oh.” Peter took a large drink of wine and set his glass down. When he looked at Noel again, he gave him a small smile. “What line of work was he in?”

  A strange question. “He was a financial advisor. A bit more than a stockbroker.”

  “My condolences.” Peter lifted his glass again, sipped, and stared into the nearly empty bowl. He set it down. “More wine?”

  “Please. And don’t worry about condolences. I’m getting used to living on by myself. But I sure miss him.”

  A young woman with shining long brown hair arrived with their entrees, set them down and offered fresh pepper. Both agreed. She ground, and refilled their wine glasses.

  “Yeah,” said Peter. “Living alone, you can do what you want. But someone at home whom you love is pretty good too.”

  Noel nodded. “If I’m not prying, did you love the woman you were married to?”

  “Well I’d say that question is a first-rate example of prying.” He grinned. “It was like this. Marianne and I both come from very conservative families. We lived half a block from each other, and we’d known each other since we were sophomores in high school. We became the best of friends and each other’s lovers. Everybody expected we’d get married, so we did. But even before that, something inside me was whispering, ‘This isn’t you, Peter.’ And I didn’t listen.”

  Uh-oh, Noel thought, I think I see what’s coming here.

  Peter picked up his knife and fork, cut off a slice of lamb, put it in his mouth, chewed. “Mmm, tender and perfectly spiced. Mustard, rosemary. First-rate.”

  A familiar pattern, Noel thought. Wander close to the edge, withdraw to safety. He cut his meat in half. Beautifully pink. He took a bite. “Very good.” He forked some salad. “So marriage wasn’t you, you were saying.”

  Peter stared at his plate. He set down his knife and fork. He drew his breath in and let out a sigh. He shrugged. He folded his arms and looked over at Noel. “It’s strange how sometimes you speak to someone you barely know and say the most important things, but when you’re with people who’ve been good colleagues and acquaintances for a long time, it’s very difficult to say anything.”

  “That’s true.” Noel continued eating. They were having a normal conversation, right? He was hungry.

  “One of the good things about being so close to and then marrying Marianne was that I never had to worry about dating other girls, or women. Which would have been expected, like it was for all the guys I knew. And I was more than okay with that because, you know, the girls and then the women I knew, well, I just wasn’t attracted to them. Sexually, I mean. I got along with virtually every female person I ever met. Except for a couple of supposed sexies that kept trying to come on to me. Even after they knew I was with Marianne. I had to be rude to finally get rid of them. Marianne was like a protective barrier. Of course I wanted to stay with her.”

  “Even when you realized she wasn’t for you.”

  “Yeah. For a very long time.” He shook his head and took another bite of lamb, chewed, swallowed. Sipped wine. “Thank you for telling me about your late partner. Makes it easier to talk.”

  Noel nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So you understand what I’m saying.” Peter chuckled. “Or rather, what I’m not saying.”

  “I think so.” Noel sipped wine. Not a moment for taking a mouthful of dinner.

  “I didn’t want to admit it to myself even. All those years, lots of homosexual men and women around me, living completely openly. And I could not let myself say I’m a queer, a faggot, gay, whatever.”

  “It’s a complicated discovery.”

  “Finally I had to mouth the words in front of someone else, to hear what they might sound like to somebody else’s ears.”

  “You told Marianne.”

  Peter’s head drooped. “My best friend.”

  “Hard,” said Noel. He remembered telling his best friend Jason . . .

  “She cried. We both cried. Luckily, Jeremiah was off with my parents. She said she had no idea, she’d been wondering why I sometimes just didn’t seem to be there. At the table, in bed, the whole thing.” He shook his head. “We talked about still living together. After all, we did like each other. I didn’t resent having to be with her, nothing like that. We talked all night long. We were exhausted, but Marianne had to reconsider the last years through what I’d just told her. She’s a wonderful person, Noel, the very best. We tried being together for the next few months, everything normal. But it wasn’t. We each did a lot more crying. Not much talking, not much else to say. More and more I saw our marriage as a lie. A true marriage of convenience. To make this overlong story shorter, the end was that I moved out.” He shrugged again. “There. Your question answered.”

  “Yes.” Noel took another sip of wine. “You’re a brave man, Peter.”

  “Just did what I had to do.”

  “You lived very uncomfortably for a long time. You seem to have left that moment behind, and you sound healthy.”

  “Thanks for saying that.”

  “You know,” said Noel, “I think we should eat. This excellent food is getting cold.”

  Peter nodded, and lifted the wine bottle. Empty. “We need another. On me.”

  Noel raised his eyebrows. “I won’t say no.”

  It arrived. They talked about their lives, alone, with others. They ended with blackberry cheesecake. And finished the wine.

  On the dark return to Morsely, Peter drove more decorously through the dusk. No cops wanted tonight, no breathalyzer. He stopped in front of Noel’s temporary house. He said, “I’ll set something up with Jordan and let you know.”

  Raoul LeJeune checked into the Marrio
t under the name of Ralph Young; not much of a pseudonym, but who’d come looking for him anyway. He was tired—a long flight. He’d check in with the boss after he’d had supper. With luck he’d be home again in five days. If it all worked right. He unpacked his clothes, undressed, showered, shaved, put on slacks and a lightweight jacket, no tie. Seattle was a casual city. He looked at himself in the mirror—hair short so he never needed to comb it. Pushing thirty but still looking great.

  He ate at a restaurant he knew a couple of blocks away. Tomorrow to San Juan.

  Back in the room he took out his android, scrolled, and listened

  to it ring. “Hello, it’s me . . . Oh fine . . . Yeah, the usual place . . .

  Going over tomorrow . . . Haven’t checked on times yet . . . Yes I know, not all ferries go all the way . . . I’ll let you know when I get back here . . . Day after tomorrow . . . If you don’t mind, I prefer to call from Seattle . . . Of course I’m not superstitious, I just prefer it . . . Yep, I know the drill . . . Okay, we’ll talk then.” He broke the connection.

  He’d known the boss all his life; he enjoyed their collaborations. And he knew how to get done what had to be done. Raoul had finished tougher jobs than this. He knew how to keep a guy in line.

  THREE

  NOEL LAY IN bed. Sleep wasn’t coming. Okay, try and figure tomorrow. First, meet the student Beck. Locate some of the guy’s friends, get other people’s sense of him. Peter said Beck had a girlfriend. Check out that restaurant where he works. Get some of this done before Kyra arrives. Find out his relationship to Trevor. Were they friends? Should have asked Peter.

  Part of him was looking forward to working with Kyra again, spending time with her. But another part felt unsure: how would the upcoming days be spent? They hadn’t seen each other since after the Quadra mugging. There’d been a spousal dispute on Mudge he had consulted her on, more a conciliation project than a mystery. Her input had been valuable, but she’d not come up to Nanaimo to participate. Then he’d listened to her working through a case in Everett, some forged documents he’d been able to help her on. And he had no part in her insurance company cases.