by Lou Allin
“Oh, Debbie. One thing,” Holly called over her shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“Stop being so soft-hearted.”
Shortly after making a quick call, Holly was heading down Sooke Road for Langford, where West Shore was located. It was a huge detachment policing five communities, with a staff of officers, civilians and volunteers. Heading up the unit was a Detachment Commander. With units for Major Crime, Street Crime, Firearms and Fraud, it was a hive of activity. Holly had no desire to work in a large detachment, despite the possibilities for promotion, but it was the only way she could get involved with the canine unit, an idea she had recently. Drug searches, lost children, exciting field work.
The complex was perched at a busy corner at Goldstream and Veterans Memorial Parkway, so she parked around back and returned to the front, going in the large doors and up the steps. At the reception desk, she asked for her friend Sergeant Cliff Lloyd. “I’ll buzz you in, Corporal,” the secretary said, hitting a button for interior access. “He’s downstairs, first door on the left.”
“Hello, Cliff,” she said a few minutes later. “When are you going to send us some of those spiffy new Impalas?”
“Out there in the boonies you probably could handle crime with a five-speed bicycle.”
“Built for two. Point taken. Anyway, what about Derek Dunn?” She explained the original complaint and the tracking of the camcorder.
Cliff motioned her to a chair and sat back at his desk, biting on an apple. Given his seniority, he had an undemanding PR job of supervising community policing projects, leaving him on cruise control to sixty-five. “I checked the files. Derek has been a very bad boy. Picked up in Sooke for drunk and disorderly. Seems he threw a trash can through the window of the BC Liquor Store at midnight. Grabbed a forty-ouncer of Canadian Club and guzzled half of it before our patrolman got there. He was taken to their cells to sleep it off, then brought here. Tomorrow he’ll have a bail hearing. With his warrants in Vancouver, he’ll be waiting for trial at the Vancouver Island Correctional Centre.”
“We won’t miss him out in the beach-belt, but I need to talk to him about a camcorder theft,” Holly said, feeling somewhat claustrophobic in the windowless office. This job was even more boring than hers.
“I’ll run off his picture for your ID purposes, but it sounds like he’s your man.” He turned to the computer and punched in some data. The photos on his desk of a Malinois dog in action drew her attention. Almost as good as a shepherd.
“That would help. I also need to know if he had a Rolex on him. One was also stolen from that B&B.”
Cliff smirked as he pulled out a black and white picture from the printer, put it into a manilla folder and gave it to her. “Now that baby I remember. It’s in a box downstairs inventoried with his empty wallet. Nothing else on him.”
“Lead on.”
Shortly after, they were let into a locked storage room and, after consulting a register, Lloyd took a coded box from a shelf on the wall. He pulled out the Rolex and dangled it. “Wish I could afford something like this.”
“It might be a knock-off.” She checked the number in her notebook. 1690011835. “Perfect match. And they call this work?”
“Let’s have a chat with him. We put him in the drunk tank just in case he hadn’t sweated it all off in Sooke. But he’s not in the most hygienic state.”
“Doesn’t say much for your concierge services.” She wrinkled her nose. “Promise me I’ll still feel like lunch.”
On the upper level flush with the busy five-corner intersection outside, the cells had attractive glass-block windows for maximum light. Each room was empty and pristine, the floor whistle-clean. The drunk tank was more austere than the other cells, with smooth surfaces, a drain for easy cleaning and no sharp corners. Derek was snoring on the long stainless steel bench, scruffy head pillowed by his hands. Traffic purred by between flashes of sunlight, hardly audible thanks to the thick walls.
“Derek, wakee wakee,” said Cliff, playing the bars with a clipboard. “Room service is here.”
Derek sat up. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit over his small frame. He was in his early twenties and still had a boyish look. Brushing sleep from his face, he tossed back a hank of hair covering small plum-coloured eyes. A wispy moustache made him look more like a baby Fu Manchu.
He blinked at Holly. “What’s going on? I already told them I didn’t do nothing with that window. Other guy did it, not me. Bastard ran off, but I was too wasted to get away.” He swallowed in discomfort, then took a sip from a plastic bottle. “Could use some hair of the dog.”
“Breaking a window’s bad enough, but you’re in deeper waters, Derek.” She explained about the camcorder and the watch.
“Big deal,” he said, raising his right hand to nibble at a nail. “So I found it like the camcorder. People should take better care of their stuff.”
“If you find valuable property, turn it in. Don’t hock it at Diesel Debbie’s, especially under a false name. We frown on that.”
One case closed. The evidence would keep him off the streets for awhile. Then another thought struck her. “I also wanted to question you about Joel Ha—”
“Oh shit, yeah. I got the buzz about him. Tough break. He was an okay guy. Offered me some of his stash, but I don’t do drugs. Gotta draw the line somewheres. Look where it got him.” He gave a shiver and tried a crooked smile, which might have worked ten years ago.
“We’re still trying to find his real name. He has several aliases.”
“All’s I know is Joel Hall is what he called himself. He’s dead, right? Who gives a fuck now?” He seemed more puzzled than rude.
With a disapproving grunt, Cliff stepped forward, reached through the bars and took Derek’s collar in a meatloaf hand. “Watch your mouth, son.”
Holly waited until Cliff had backed off. “Someone might have cared for him. A mother? Wife? What can you tell us? Did he ever mention a family? Why was he here? Bill seems to think that he once lived on the coast long ago.”
“Billo has tough rules, but he was fair. He and Joel traded a couple of punches last week.” His eyes grew narrow and calculating, and his thumb flicked at his nails in an almost feminine gesture. “I might know something. What’s in it for me?”
Holly sighed and traded glances with Cliff, leaning against the wall with his beefy arms crossed. The usual back-scratching game. But wasn’t it played on the highest floors of Bay Street as well as the alleys of Skid Row? “That’s up to the Crown Prosecutor. We’ll tell her you cooperated.” Holly put her hands on her hips. “This isn’t a state secret. Jailhouse snitch on a murder rap. We just want to know who the man is.” She couldn’t keep her voice from rising in exasperation. Interrogation skills, Grade C minus.
Cliff stepped forward. “You’d be doing yourself a favour. This will be taken into consideration in your plea. Be smart for once.”
Derek rolled his head from side to side as if banishing a headache. No doubt he had one. “Okay. But I only talked to him once or twice. He wasn’t real conversational. Said he lived in Sooke as a kid. Dropped out of high school and hit the road a long time ago.”
Holly’s heart pumped up a beat or two. “That’s interesting. You’re doing well so far. How long is a long time?”
“Jesus, I’m doing my best. How the hell old was he? Figure it out for yourself.”
Holly tried to remember. If he’d been a teen when he left and was upwards of fifty now…he’d left in the Seventies. That jibed with the picture of Judy. Sometimes her dad’s studies came in handy. “What else?”
“And he hadn’t been back. Not ever. Who’d blame the guy. Knocked up some chick.”
“He had an old picture in his pocket. Judy. Mean anything?”
A raucous laugh escaped his mouth. “Judy. She’s the one. He showed it to me. Popped hers, he said.”
“What else did he say about her?”
“Ask her if you want. She works in Sooke at
the A&W.”
SEVEN
Holly smacked her fist into her hand. “I thought she looked familiar. People change in…” Thirty-five years? What would she look like? Her mother, a woman frozen in time? “Did he talk to her? I mean recently?”
He shrugged. “Guess so, but it’s not like they were getting back together or nothing. He learned about his kid. All growed up now and working in Alberta. He was kinda proud, though he didn’t show it. Tough guy, know what I mean? Maybe his heart was broken.”
Holly let that observation pass. It was important to get as much out of Derek as she could, even if some memories were an alcoholic blur. Otherwise he’d move on into the system and might do time far from the area. “Anything else? Even little details can help.”
Derek tipped back his head and closed his eyes. Cliff sent her a “forget it” look, but she waved it off. Then Derek snapped his fingers and started to laugh, an ugly sound. “When he was high, he used to sing a crazy song about Spain and France. What a wingnut. Then something about a queen, and the Rennie Saints. In a funny accent.” He puzzled at the idea. “I’ve been to Port Renfrew. They don’t have no team, not even a junior high.”
“And you said he went to school in Sooke. But an accent?” Stranger and stranger. “Wasn’t it English?”
“Yeah, it was English. What kind of idiot do you take me for? The melody was ‘God Save the Queen’.”
Satisfied that he had no more to give, Holly nodded to Cliff and turned to leave. “Do us all a favour, Derek. Find someplace else to spend your summers.”
“Damn straight I will. It’s too friggin’ cold here!” He wrapped his thin arms around his shoulders and pretended to shiver. “Can you get me a blanket? And when’s lunch?”
He wasn’t the only hungry one. Holly took advantage of her location to grab a plate at the nearby Smokin’ Bones Cookshack. Barbequed brisket sandwich with slaw on the side. Despite the token offerings of mustard greens and sweet potato pie, this was no place for vegetarians. Meat eaters pigged out on the luscious selections like pulled pork and ribs.
Might as well use the trip back through Sooke to check on Judy. Probably she would have the key to this sad man’s identity. Twenty minutes later, Holly stopped at the A&W. Did the woman still go by that name? She parked in the lot next to a couple of gleaming Harleys ridden by retirees with frizzy beards, their wives on the one-up seats. Behind her on the grassy knoll, a few homeless people played cards, their mutts lolling beside them. As for what the brown quart-sized bag contained, she’d rather not know. This wasn’t her turf, and she wasn’t sorry. Down the street, young vandals had smashed cars at the Used Auto Lot, forcing the owner to erect a chainlink fence and take one step forward to resembling shell-shocked Los Angeles. Everyone knew who was responsible, but no one could prove it.
Inside the restaurant, she watched the brown-shirted staff greet customers. Nostalgia posters lined the walls, featuring a ’57 Chevy and a roller-skating waitress. “Rock around the Clock” was playing at a discreet level, and a woman with ivory hair was doing a crossword in ink and singing along, pausing to sip from a frosty root beer. Holly walked over to a teenaged boy with apple cheeks and a cowlick who was filling the bussing dish with glasses and cups. “Yes, ma’am?” he asked.
She smiled back to put him at his ease. “Does a woman called Judy work here? Perhaps one of the senior staff.”
He brightened. “Judy’s one of our managers. Judy Springer.”
“Is she here now?” Three other workers were in sight, but all too young.
He shook his head. “She does her shifts Wednesday to Saturday. Opens up the place.”
“Do you know where she lives?” At his puzzled expression, she added, “We need some information from her. An identification. Someone she might have known.”
“Karen, come here for a minute, please,” he asked a bean-pole lady placing a bag of Chubby Chicken on a tray.
Following the directions, Holly drove to Grant Road, a busy, transitional area, main bus thoroughfare, and a popular shortcut. “Pulling a Grant” meant that an individual ignored the stop sign at West Coast Road and streaked at an inviting angle west towards Fossil Bay. The long road consisted of small hobby farms of a few acres, tract houses, about the only apartment building in Sooke, recent affordable townhouses on postage stamp lots, and a few monster homes West Coast style. Nine-thousand-square-foot lots were marching forward. It was a matter of time before sleepy Fossil Bay woke beside its giant neighbour.
Judy had a cozy little doublewide with an extra shingled roof for protection and a white plastic miniature picket fence. Tomatoes grew in clay pots along with herbs. A birdbath sat in one corner of the sunny space. Planted as a buffer between hers and the lot beside her was a cedar hedge, neatly sculpted. In the distance, Holly could hear the sound of a trimmer. Clearly, Judy maintained the small property with a sense of pride. The siding was pristine and no moss turfed the roof. To mar the picture, a smear of acrid smoke rolled down from the hill where someone was burning brush. It made Holly’s eyes water. She rubbed them with the back of her hand, blinking back tears.
She walked up the neat slate path and knocked at the screen door. From inside came the sound of a late afternoon talk show. Single voices were interspersed with the hilarity of audience participation. Nothing happened, so she knocked again, harder.
“All right, already. Hold your horses. Is that you again, Al? Hope you brought your own beer this time,” a low drawl said from another room before its owner materialized in front of the screen. The older woman, her hair in a bouffant that had gone out when Annette had left the Mouseketeers, was dressed in yoga pants and an oversized men’s white shirt. A bottle of hard cider was in her hand, and a cigarette hung from her full lips. Seeing Holly’s uniform, she widened her dark brown eyes and stood straighter. “Officer, is something wrong at the restaurant? I hope…” Her gravelly voice trickled off as happy sounds came from a commercial.
Introducing herself and confirming Judy’s name, Holly saw a neighbour crane her neck toward the door and asked, “Could we go inside and talk? All I need is some information about someone you may know.”
“Not one of my kids at work? Pam’s been having trouble with her—”
“Not at all.”
“Hate to drink alone.” Judy flipped off the television, then provided a glass of iced tea, which Holly took partly to diffuse the tension. It was sickeningly sweet, but she sipped it and nodded in appreciation. Then she took out her notebook. “I’ll get right to the point, because I don’t want to alarm you. A few days ago a homeless man died of an overdose—”
“I saw the story in the News Mirror. Put two and two together. The description fit.” Judy’s voice sounded more resigned than sad. Then her gaze dropped, and shiny glints appeared at the corner of her eyes. She shook herself and found a steel backbone after the years of betrayal. “Never thought he’d come to anything but a bad end. Just dumb luck it took so long.” Close-up and with no makeup, she had the hormonal challenges of errant chin hairs of those past fifty, but good bones, and the pretty girl she had been wasn’t far below the surface.
“I’m hoping you know his real name.” She opened the large brown envelope she’d brought and took out a picture of Joel’s most recent mugshot, passing it to Judy.
The woman took the picture, her hand shaking. She gave a brief nod then swallowed the last of the beer and put down the bottle. “I need something stronger. These kind of days don’t happen very often.” She got up and went to the cupboard.
Judy returned with a glass and a fresh bottle of Captain Morgan Dark Rum. Twisting off the cap with adept fingers, she poured herself two inches, blinking as she swallowed it all in one gulp. “God, what would Mother say?” she said with a laugh. “Roll over in her grave if she had one. She’s out there on the roses instead. Six feet tall like she always wanted to be.”
Another siren sounded, going the other way. Holly let the woman monitor herself. It didn’t help to hu
rry anyone. This was their show. Her job was to keep them on track and get the facts, in either order. “His name?” she prompted.
“Joel, Joel Clavir.” The tones were hushed, almost wistful. At one time they might have been a prayer, not a curse.
Holly’s pen stopped as she snapped to attention. “Pardon me?” Cylinders of a lock were falling into place. The name Clavir was very unusual, and this was a small community. Marilyn and Joel were in a similar age group. A former husband? A bitter divorce and a lifestyle change? Or a brother. In any combination, another piece of bad news for the woman. She was a magnet for tragedy.
Given time for thought, Judy barely restrained a hiss. “Yes, Joel. He turned up like a bad penny after all these years. But let’s be honest. We never would have made it.” She gave Holly a quizzical look. “How in god’s name did you know to come looking for me?”
“He was carrying your picture. From a high-school year—”
“That sentimental old fool. Who would have thought?” She gave a reluctant sniff. Her small chin started to wobble. Then she poured a solid triple and downed it like milk. Holly thought about saying Hey, take it easy. She didn’t want the woman blitzed out of her head and unable to think straight. But Judy put the bottle back in the cupboard, a good sign, and sat down again. “I’m not totally stupid. That’s enough for me. It’s gonna give me reflux, and I’m out of Zantac.” She tapped at her breastbone and gave a small burp. “’Scuse me.”
Holly considered saying that she was sorry about the loss, but somehow it seemed like history. “So you and Joel…”
“Joel and I were a pair in high school. Mr. Personality. Smile like the sun. Had us laughing day and night. And could he dance. We were going to get married when we graduated, at least that’s what I thought. You should have heard his line. Men. It’s bred in the bone, I guess. Then he left me high and dry. Never trusted one after that. Well, maybe this one. ’Cause I raised him to respect women.” Her gaze went to a framed picture on the table. A big strong man in his thirties, arms folded in confidence, standing by a late model car. Hills and mountain in the background. She touched it lightly with her finger.