by Lou Allin
“Are you saying…I mean were you—”
“Pregnant. Sure, they had birth control then, but Sooke is a small town. One doctor for all of us. The condom broke. Hey, it happens.” Judy gave a bitter chuckle and threw her arms up. “Nature, what a joker. When you’re ripest for sex, it’s all out of control.”
Holly nodded womanly support. “You wouldn’t be the only one.” She looked at the picture. “Nice dog. Malamute.”
“My son, Shiloh. Against all odds. But I did get a job as soon as I delivered. God, I must have juggled plates and washed dishes in every restaurant from here to Victoria, any one on the bus line. It was tough. My parents had no money. Dad hurt his back on a hali boat. We ate a lot of macaroni. Mom bought peanut butter by the gallon. Made our school lunches, and we damn well better eat them.”
So Holly had her identification. She could get this case off the books if… She held her breath. “Clavir is an unusual name. Did Joel have a sister?”
Judy smiled and waved her hand. “Sure, that’s Marilyn. I see her around town at the stores every now and then, not that she comes into the restaurant. Junk food isn’t her thing. She’s okay, not snooty. I kind of like her. No fault of hers that her brother was an asshole. She went into massage therapy and has a nice little place. Sort of woo, woo, but hey, if it works…”
Holly sat up a few degrees to signal to herself that she needed to leave. There was bad news to deliver. “I’m glad that you’ve provided identification for Joel, but I have to wonder why he came back after all these years. Was it to see you? And why now, of all times? Had he kept in touch?”
“He could have been on the moon for all I know. That bastard never sent me a friggin’ buck. He had no idea I worked here until I saw him ripping into the dumpster when I went out with the trash. Gave him a piece of my mind, all the things I’d wanted to say. Know what?” She eased back and took a deep breath. “It didn’t make me feel any better. He was just a pitiful character. Like an old whore. His looks and body were gone. Only a mother could love him, as the saying goes.”
“So why—”
“Why did he come? For nothing but his own benefit, I can tell you that. Maybe he wanted to score off his sister’s lottery win. It was in the papers. People turn into jackals.” She shivered to add to the effect. “Catch me winning, I’d move to Maui in a heartbeat.”
Holly remembered that ironic piece of fortune. “Good point. We know he’s been in and out of jail most of his life. Theft, drugs, assault. Who knows what he got away with?”
“Assault maybe, but nothing worse. He wouldn’t have the guts. Joel was sneaky, but he was a coward. I should have seen that, but you know what it’s like when you’re a teenager. Love is deaf, dumb and blind.”
They went back outside, and Judy coughed at the smoke, banging theatrically at her birdlike chest. “Damn. Can you do something about that? I have to keep my windows closed some hot days. Isn’t it illegal this time of year? I saw the sign at the Fire Hall reading Danger: High.”
“Everyone’s still burning off the trash from the storm last winter. I don’t like it either. But it’s not my jurisdiction, I’m afraid. Call the Fire Department. They’re the enforcers.” The area, still largely rural outside the core, was in conflict about burning laws. Closer to Victoria, the rules were strict. Out here, people felt like they had a right to burn even garbage. And then there were the enormous piles dozed up and left in clear-cuts. In the dry season, there was a moratorium for the companies. Even a spark from a dozer could start an inferno.
Back in Fossil Bay, Holly stopped by Marilyn’s, but the car wasn’t in the drive. She tried her cellphone. “Marilyn, please call me. It’s Holly,” she said, leaving no message because of the sensitive subject. With the work beginning at the wellness centre, perhaps she was out there supervising. A third body blow after Shannon and Brittany. She hoped that Marilyn had close friends. She hadn’t mentioned any parents. At her age, perhaps they were no longer alive. As Holly headed back to set up a speeding check at Jordan River, a call came over the radio at the giant lighthouse. “Another weird one,” Ann said. “We have a complaint about a dognapping at the RV park. Go figure.”
It was a new one, all right. Boomer the beagle belonged to a former Vietnam vet who lived on Fossil River Road near an RV camping park. His dog made the rounds every afternoon in search of an occasional hot dog. This time, Boomer had been grabbed by a tourist family.
“I’ll check it out. By the way, we have an ID on our victim.” She told Ann about her talk with Judy.
Ann whistled. “Marilyn’s brother? She never mentioned him, not that she got that personal with me. She’d always tell me to relax and breathe deeply, not gab during a massage.”
Shortly after, Holly reached the RV park on the river flats. The people camped next to the dognappers, a couple from Calgary, told her what they had witnessed. The man put up his hands defensively. “I didn’t learn about Boomer being a local until later. This guy, his wife, and kid from Switzerland, said that they had found the dog and were going to take him camping for a month up island.”
“Take him camping? Then what?” Holly asked.
He shrugged. “Leave him off at a pound or something. Say they just found him.”
“Do you have any idea where they went?” She had learned the license of the rental Cruise Canada Class A. She could hardly initiate an Amber Alert or an AllPoints Bulletin.
He scratched his head and looked at his wife. “Port Renfrew, then Lake Cowichan? That sound right, hon?”
His wife agreed. “They had a map which showed the rec sites. Basic and cheap. Must be five or six around the lake. Can’t say which one they picked.”
Back in the car, Holly glanced at the time. Five p.m. Friday. The Cowichan detachment wouldn’t appreciate chasing after dogs, and the rec sites had no phone access, often only a camper host who collected the money and was paid with a free site. Tomorrow, other overdue personal plans could piggyback upon the trip. She could still hear Auntie Stella’s voice: “Your mother and I have waited long enough.”
EIGHT
Port Renfrew, a tiny fishing town of a few hundred, hadn’t changed much since Holly’s last visit in high school. Then it was all bush roads requiring four-wheel drive. Now bridges had been refurbished by the forest companies, and roads had been surfaced to urge tourists to take the Great Circle Route. Marilyn was still not answering her phone, and when Holly passed on her way out of town, the Audi was missing from the drive. Business on the mainland again? As Holly had suspected, a check on Joel Clavir had yielded nothing. Off the island, he’d never gone by his real name, having left his life behind in more ways than one.
Botanical Beach had often called Holly to its unusual shores. At low tide, the marine life on the protected rock-shelf beaches drew international attention from scuba divers or rubber-booted strollers. But she passed Rennie with Pandora Peak in the distance, turned north, crossed two bridges at the San Juan River, and headed east on Harris Creek ML (Mainline) toward Fairy Lake. The miniature bonsai island close to the highway, a popular picture, brought cars screeching to a halt.
As she travelled in and out of clear-cuts across the high hills, the sights reminded her that over ninety per cent of the island had been logged once, twice, if not three times. In her heart she almost welcomed the recession and the lowered demand for wood. Maybe the government would wake up and stop exporting raw logs, a self-defeating concept.
She left the San Juan watershed and headed up in a cloud of dust toward Harris Creek and the legendary spruce. The giant Sitka stood a few hundred feet in, as old as the first of the Tudors. The new fence gave little protection against harm by some fool with an axe. Noble giant companions sat nearby in the cathedral grove. In this accessible area, the largest trees survived on a combination of water sources, or the whims of a beneficent timber company officer. “Hello, old friend,” she said, pouring a libation of club soda over the fence.
An hour later, having crossed Robe
rtson Creek, turning at Mesachie Lake, and passing Honeymoon Bay, she found the Swiss family on majestic Lake Cowichan at a rustic site with no more than a water tap and outhouse.
She hoped that the sparkling blue lake was as clean as it appeared, yet with the many creeks flowing in from cut areas, appearances were unreliable. For over a century, companies had bought or leased the land for peanuts, supposed stewards of the renewable resource. Every now and then, as in the Clayoquot Sound initiative, the world paid attention and saved a few trees. Some land was being returned to the First Nations, but they were attracted to jobs too, and some had been tempted to welcome mining ventures on the vulnerable territories.
Fifteen dollars a night attracted frugal families. Four or five cars were parked in the camping areas with one tent trailer and several tents. Kids were splashing in the shallow waters, their happy cries bouncing off the natural sink.
The Cruise Canada RV with a red-and-white flag stood out. A clothesline was strung for towels and bathing suits, and under the awning shaded by the huge trees sat a couple in their late thirties. Their young boy, possibly ten, was playing with a beagle with a ragged ear. Boomer. Holly had put on her uniform for emphasis but not the stifling vest. Already she was taking chances Ben wouldn’t approve of.
“Officer? Or are you a…ranger?” The man’s tone was respectful. The dog got up, trotted over, and jumped onto her pants, leaving dust marks.
“Otto, komm hier.” He waved it over, and the dog came, tail wagging. A shiny blue collar was around its neck. At his request, the pale boy clipped on a leash and took it back to a picnic table, where he gave it a piece of cheese.
Holly was surprised that the dog had mastered German so quickly but supposed that the universal hand gestures did the trick. She introduced herself. “I’m afraid that back in Fossil Bay, you may have taken someone else’s dog…by mistake.”
With broad shoulders and a Teutonic lantern jaw, the man looked like he was accustomed to getting his way by mere posture. “That cannot be so. We found Otto a couple of days ago. He had no collar and was to us a…stray as you call it?”
“He’s not a stray, and he must have slipped his collar.” Her language was neutral and her smile polite but not overly friendly.
“Miss, officer.” He bent forward, lowering his voice. “My boy has many health problems. Life for him has few pleasures. He loves the dog.”
Holly softened for a moment. “I can see that, but Boomer’s people love him, too.”
His wife muttered a few words to him, and he bit his sculpted lips, swallowing a retort. Did he imagine he’d be sent to jail? “We don’t want any trouble.”
Sensing tension, the boy started to cry. “Bernd. Nein.” The mother put her arm around him as tears streaked down his face.
Holly let the boy give Boomer a final hug, then loaded the mutt into the rear seat and drove off. This was a no-win situation for everyone.
Heading back east around the north side of the lake, and seeing the mile marker for Youbou, she felt nervous about seeing Auntie Stella again. The old woman might imagine that Holly’s resources would allow her to begin the long trail to Bonnie. That simply wasn’t the case. Not only had years gone by, but investigatory processes weren’t for her personal use.
In an hour, she was driving past the town in all of its summer finery, flower baskets and bunting. The small former logging community had a healthy population of Natives and a thriving reserve. Like other parts of the island, it was becoming gentrified, huge summer homes going up for the wealthy as they took over cottage properties along Lake Cowichan. The first wave of three-storey condos had surfaced as if a Monopoly board game had come alive. With mall shopping in Duncan and Victoria only an hour away, the Warmlands community would get its share of retirees.
Travelling up Rice Road, named for a family that had been here before recorded time, she stopped at a familiar century cabin within a grove of apple trees. Memories of delicious fruits came flooding back. She’d bitten into many pallid imitators since. Stella had explained that the harvest had three seasons: early, mid-season and winter. Duchess and Melba varieties were best straight off the tree. From the Cox’s Orange Pippin and King, she made her famous hard cider and sold it in a roadside stand. And the winter Belle de Boskoop and Calville needed ripening in storage to enhance their flavour. Any tyro who imagined that all apples were Red Delicious was in for a pleasant shock.
Stella had five acres cleared for hay cutting and backing into the hills. A small barn and corrals helped manage her goat herd. A runty but perky white dog with snowy fur trotted out barking. It seemed to have fraternity with everything from Pomeranian to chow, spitz, husky and even poodle. Friendly but wary, it drew back from Holly’s outstretched hand. In the back seat, Boomer gave a bark and pawed the window, sticking his head out. “That’s enough, you. My car is sacred,” Holly said, opening the sun roof for ventilation and leaving the windows down. The day was mild, and a stiff breeze rustled the leaves, sending a rooster weather vane creaking slowly.
Out of the front door came Auntie Stella, brandishing a broom. “It’s you, sweetie. What is that dog you have with you? I hope not a male. We can’t have any lovemaking with Puq. She won’t be spayed until the end of the month. I’m bartering two wool sweaters with our vet.”
Holly nodded. “No worries. He’s in custody.”
Stella shook flour from her apron. She wore a generous gingham dress and a pair of soft moccasins. “So how do you like my new baby doll?”
The small dog had overcome its initial shyness and was rubbing its head on Holly’s leg. The blue pants didn’t take kindly to dog hair. Looking into the sharp brown-marble eyes was like reading a history book. “Who would have thought? Bringing the breed back from extinction. It’s better than Jurassic Park.”
Following Stella inside, Puq snuggled down on a comforter in a willow-wicker basket, head between her paws but her eyes tracking her mistress. The house had a wood cookstove in the kitchen and living space with a bathroom and two bedrooms in back. Stella laid a plate of seed muffins and a tub of fresh churned butter onto the large cedar-slab table with five hundred years of growth rings She took one for herself and slathered it. No one ever went hungry in Stella’s house, nor did she stint herself. Her first words jolted Holly back to reality and confirmed her own inadequacies. “What is the news about your mother?”
Holly swallowed a mouthful of her auntie’s aromatic cider. “I…well…I’m not making excuses, but…” From outside, an errant goat gave a protracted baaaaaaaaah.
Her auntie flicked a glance at the window then narrowed her round eyes at Holly. Though blearing lately with cataracts, they seemed to penetrate to her soul. Nobody put anything by Auntie Stella. If you didn’t have her good opinion in the community, you might as well leave town. “No? Listen to your own words. I’m not proud of you.”
Holly flushed, her appetite gone in seconds. She reached for the glass and saw that her hands were shaking, then clasped them in her lap. “But Auntie Stella, with a full-time job…it’s not like on television, where information comes at the push of a button.”
Before Holly could crawl like a guilty worm, Stella’s voice softened with the emollient of mercy. “That’s good that you’re working hard, making the island safe. But nothing is more important than your duty as a daughter. She would have moved heaven and earth for you. That was her job. This is yours.”
“I know.” Holly’s heart lost a beat, then picked up the pace. Was she mistaken, or did the cider have a kick?
“And much time has passed.”
“I did learn—”
Stella raised a hand that could part an ocean. “This morning I saw a deer track across the crimson sun. In the Warmlands is your mother’s ancestral home. Your journey starts here.”
A modern day shaman, her auntie had a gift. Though she was untutored in academic knowledge, her intuition and common sense helped her find lost children, rescue marriages and solve problems beyond the abilities
of so-called geniuses. As a judge of people, she was peerless, never suffering fools gladly. For the last twenty years, she had headed the tribal council and pushed through countless incentives to nourish and succor her people. Holly gulped back a lump of anticipation.
Stella began slowly rocking, as if it helped her think. She picked up her needles and yarn and paused to consider her pattern. “This is the hub of the wheel. Your mother came here often in the course of her efforts to help her sisters. You were with her, sometimes, until you went away to school. That was part of a plan. On that you have not faltered.”
Memories were returning. Happy, painful, necessary. With her interest in the natural world, Holly had paid little attention to her parents’ jobs. Her father’s campus she had visited to use the library or go to concerts. Bonnie had taken her to work until she began school. Stella was right about the hub idea. Her mother must have used the area as a mid-island base. From that point, it was possible to drive north as far as Port Hardy or west to Alberni, Tofino or Gold River in less than a day, weather permitting. Many isolated communities remained on the island, most without doctor’s care and few with schools or libraries. Bonnie took the resources where they were needed.
“Is there anyone I should talk to?”
Stella pointed at her eyes. “You need to look first before moving. Even a deer knows that.” She was off on her allegories again.
“But I don’t know—”
“Your mother used my spare room as an office.”
Holly stood up, her body pointed toward the bedrooms. Why hadn’t she thought of this? Her mother may have acted like a one-woman travelling band, but she had paperwork, even with the confidentiality of her job. “Her records are here? Why didn’t you tell me?” She recalled her mother’s faithful Bronco, filled with boxes of files and supplies, everything she needed at hand. Holly could count the Christmas holidays they’d spent together on the fingers of one hand. What holidays meant to Bonnie was more alcohol to fuel domestic disputes, the saddest time of year.