Seaweed Under Water

by Stanley Evans

  “There’s an immediate opening on the squad that’s yours if you want it. This may be your last chance for a while, don’t blow it. I’ll give you a couple more days to think it over. In the meantime, go ahead. Interview this cabbie. Just keep me posted.”

  I nodded.

  Bernie picked up his cell phone again and punched the keypad. Waiting for headquarters to respond he said to me, “If you need any help, from forensics or anybody else, better go through my office. And for chrissake, Silas, be careful.”

  He spoke to headquarters for a while; I didn’t pay attention, particularly, to what was said. Bernie was about to leave the café when he suddenly remembered something. “By the way, there was a guy showed up at the hospital at Duncan with a broken jaw—Joseph Bickle, from Mowaht Bay.”

  “A Native man?”

  “I don’t know. He lives in a bunkhouse, not on the reserve.”

  Bernie turned away again and walks through the door. I watched through the window as he trudged across the street toward Swans pub, turned the corner onto Store Street and was lost to sight.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  After breakfast, I left Lou’s, went next door to my office and unlocked the door. When I opened the curtains, dozens of dead houseflies were prostrated on the windowsill. Half a dozen survivors crawled torpidly.

  The office’s housefly phenomenon has exercised my curiosity for years. For weeks at a time, sometimes, there isn’t a single bluebottle about the place, dead or alive. Then there’ll be a Normandy Landing, with flies buzzing on my window panes, flies landing on my head, patrolling the coat rack, flitting in and out of the fireplace, parading along the frame surrounding Queen Victoria’s photograph. I think they breed in dark spaces inside the walls.

  I went out to the corridor, collected a vacuum cleaner from the building superintendent’s closet and sucked every fly from sight. I was putting the vacuum back when the office phone jangled.

  It was Alf Gzowski. He said, “I hear you want to talk to me.”

  “Correct, thanks for calling, sir. I want to ask you about a fare you picked up outside Pinky’s recently.”

  “Oh yes? Sorry, I can’t talk to you right now, because I’m outside the Empress Hotel, waiting to take somebody to the Schwartz Bay ferry terminal. I’ll be free in about an hour.”

  “Can you come to my office on Pandora Street afterwards?”

  “I’m at work, you know. I don’t have unlimited spare time. How long will this take?”

  “A bit of luck, not long.”

  “Fine, I’ll come to your office, see you in an hour,” he replied, then immediately changed his mind. “No, second thoughts, better make it an hour and a half.”

  I replaced the receiver, leaned back in my chair. After thinking for a minute, I picked the receiver up again, phoned headquarters and asked for Bjorn Matthiessen, in Vice.

  When Bjorn came on I said, “What do you know about a guy called Karl Berger?”

  “Never heard of him. What’s he done?”

  “I don’t know, maybe nothing. He drives a Viper, probably spends more than he earns.”

  “Sounds exactly like me, except I don’t drive a Viper.”

  “Is there much of a Blue Movie industry on Vancouver Island?”

  “Nothing big. That’s to say, nothing commercial. The competition’s fierce. There’s millions of underemployed bimbos and jocks out there. They call themselves actors, watch Entertainment Tonight and fantasize about getting into the movies. I mean, to them it’s obvious that most of Hollywood’s so-called stars have no talent. What they’ve got are boob jobs, hair extensions, personal trainers and contracts. Unfortunately, only one wannabe in a million actually makes it to Hollywood. The rest join amateur dramatic societies, or end up freelancing in front of a minicam, having sex with dogs, cats, goats and each other for peanuts in somebody’s barn.”

  “Did you say cats?”

  “Silas, you don’t know the half of it,” Bjorn said, ringing off with a laugh.

  I looked at my wristwatch. It was nine in the morning. I got up and looked out the window. The street was jammed with traffic. Denise Halvorsen and Bob Fyles came into sight—weaving in and out between cars and pedestrians on hi-tech police-issue trail bikes. I locked up and traipsed across to Swans parking lot to pick up my loaner.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Driving across town to the Rainbow Motel, I remembered noticing the Songhees condos—and in particular, the condo project that had failed badly, soaking up Jack Owens’ and Jane Colby’s money. Those condos started at close to a million and went up from there. Penthouses overlooking the Inner Harbour fetched millions. Something had gone seriously amiss with Janey’s condo transaction, but in spite of that, her lawyer was now telling Owens he could relax, the pressure was off? How? Why? Jack Owens wasn’t saying, and, as far as I knew, the Colby family’s only substantial asset was the Fairfield house, which remained unsold and was owned by Janey’s father.

  Bernie Tapp’s unmarked Interceptor was parked on the street outside the Rainbow Motel construction site, together with a prowlie with its roof flashers going. Since my last visit, the site had been almost completely cleared and was now being levelled. Sixteen-wheelers were delivering fill to an area by the water’s edge. A construction trailer had been set up where the motel’s boat shack formerly stood. A surveyor wearing a fluorescent vest was running transits. The motel building was still largely intact, although some doors and windows had been removed. Bare-chested labourers were sitting on the steps outside the front entrance, joshing back and forth as they took a break from work. When I went past them to go inside, one of the workmen said, “Careful where you put your feet, pal. We’ve been tearing hardwood floors out.”

  I found Bernie Tapp up on a stepladder in the motel lobby, examining a hole in the suspended ceiling. A rookie constable I’d never met was supporting the ladder with one hand. When I entered, the constable waved me off with his free hand and said sourly, “Beat it, Siwash. We’re busy.”

  The word Siwash denotes Native Indian and supports the vilifications applied universally to aboriginals living between Tierra del Fuego and the North Pole—ill educated, lazy, as trustworthy as jackals . . .

  Bernie Tapp heard what was said and came down the ladder. He gave the constable an evil look but didn’t say anything—maybe he wanted to see how I would handle the situation.

  I am six feet four inches tall, 40 years old, with a muscular physique. To the best of my knowledge (it’s a wise man that knows his own father) I am full-blooded Native, mostly Coast Salish. Maybe there’s a bit of Blackfoot or Cree in me too, because I have a thin aquiline nose and my face is V shaped, rather than oval. Nobody’s ever going to mistake me for a WASP, which is what the constable appeared to be. He gazed at me with angry blue eyes and made a small threatening movement. I stood my ground, which brought him up short. He was about to make things worse when I asked, “Find anything interesting up there, Chief Inspector?”

  “I found what you thought we might find, Sergeant,” Bernie said, a disgusted smile twisting his lips. Eyeing the constable up and down he said, “You can leave now, Constable. I’ll deal with you back at headquarters.”

  The constable acted like he’d been kicked in the stomach. Flushing to the roots of his hair, he gave Bernie a sloppy salute and hurried off.

  “I’ll bust that racist swine,” Bernie muttered.

  “I have a better idea. Put him through sensitivity training. Then send him out to the Warrior Reserve to help Chief Alphonse with the kids.”

  Bernie nodded. “You handled it well, by the way,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his pipe.

  “Seen anything of Karl Berger?” I asked.

  Bernie shook his head. “Karl took a powder. The construction boss hasn’t seen him around here lately. Berger’s not at his home and his Viper’s gone. I’ve applied for a warrant to search his house. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find that videotape.”

  I looked up to the ceili
ng and saw where another bundle of coloured electric wires had been snipped off.

  Bernie lit his pipe with a kitchen match that he struck on his thumb. “How’d you make out with that cabbie—what’s his name?”

  “Gzowski. I’m seeing him in my office in an hour or so.”

  Bernie concentrated on his pipe for a minute. “You were right about hidden cameras. They’d been planted all over the building. We found two-way mirrors in some of the suites as well.” He frowned and added, “Remember that chiropractor we busted last year—the one who had two-way mirrors in his examining rooms and in the women’s washroom?”

  I nodded.

  Bernie sighed, shook his head, glanced at his wristwatch and said, “I was planning to see Henry Ferman next. Maybe I’ll put that on hold. Talk to this cab driver first.”

  “Sure.”

  We went out of the building. While I’d been inside, a mobile catering van must have been and gone. Now the demo crew was drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups, eating doughnuts and clowning like frat boys, which, come of think of it, is what some of them probably were.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  I watched Alf Gzowski park his cab in the no-stopping zone across the street from my office. Acting Detective Chief Inspector Tapp had usurped the chair behind my desk and was using my desk phone. I’d just been next door to Lou’s café to pick up a tray of coffee and doughnuts. I put the tray on the desk. Bernie put the phone down and chewed his lip for a minute. He looked at me and said, “The Saanich Police just nicked Karl Berger. He was in the Schwartz Bay ferry lineup, with a ticket for Tsawwassen.”

  “Did they find any blue movies in his luggage?”

  “No, but they found an ounce of cocaine.”

  Gzowski came in. He was a small, swarthy man with thinning black hair, a droopy moustache that added to his mournful air, and a mid-European accent. He was wearing the grubbiest black suit I’ve seen since Christmas, and brown shoes. Perched on his head was a chauffeur’s cap with a brass number on it that had probably emigrated from Zagreb with its owner. Gzowski sat down on the visitors’ chair and gazed hungrily at the coffee and doughnuts. “Go ahead,” I told him. “Help yourself.”

  Gzowski seized a chocolate-cream doughnut and vacuumed it straight into his stomach. He ate the second one in two bites; cream dribbled out of his mouth and down his necktie.

  Bernie said, “I understand, Mr. Gzowski, that you picked up a fare outside Pinky’s a while back.

  Burping, Gzowski reached for another doughnut.

  I said, “To refresh your memory, sir. You picked up a woman, Jane Colby, outside Pinky’s just over two weeks ago. It was a Friday night. There’d been a fight inside the bar.”

  Recollection dawned on Gzowski’s face. “That her name, Colby? She was drunk, which isn’t all that unusual for a Friday night. The reason I remember her is, when I got to Pinky’s, there were cop cars and an ambulance blocking the street.”

  “Now that we’ve cleared that up,” Bernie said, “Do you remember where you took the lady?”

  “I took her to the Rainbow Motel. When we arrived, the place was dark and it looked like it was closed. No lights on at all. When the lady got out of the cab, I was a bit worried. I didn’t want to leave her on her own like that. What happened was I helped her. Held her arm, made sure she got to the front door. As it turned out, she had her own key. She let herself in, and that was that.”

  Bernie exchanged glances with me then said, “And what did you do next, Mr. Gzowski?”

  “I went back to my cab and listened to the Canucks–Oilers replay.”

  “Who won?”

  “Oilers, who do you think?” Gzowski replied. “Hernandez scored at the end of the third period. The game ended five–four.”

  Bernie smiled scornfully. “Approximately how long do you think you were parked outside the motel?”

  “Quite a while, as it happened. I’d been busy all night, but there was a bit of a lull about then. I just stayed put, listening to the game.”

  “By ‘quite a while,’ do you mean half an hour? Maybe an hour?”

  Gzowski put his head to one side and said uncertainly, “Maybe half an hour.”

  “Apart from listening to the game, did you notice anything unusual?”

  “In the motel, you mean?”

  “Inside, or outside,” Bernie said patiently.

  Gzowski laughed self-consciously. “I’d been drinking coffee all night. When the hockey game ended, I needed a piss. Generally, if there’s a hotel or a restaurant handy, I just pop in and use their restrooms. I carry a plastic bottle around with me, just in case. But that night the street was quiet, there’d been a shower of rain, it was dark, there was nobody around. So I got out of the cab and was relieving myself against a tree when one of your constables saw me. Came round the corner from Superior Street and found me with my dick in my hand. He just completely lost it,” Gzowski’s indignation grew as he went on, “The officious little jerk threatened to charge me with gross indecency, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Which constable are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know his name. Some blue-eyed rookie fresh out of the crib,” Gzowski said angrily. “If he lives to be my age he’ll know a bit more about aging prostates and be more considerate.”

  Bernie rubbed his chin with his fist and said, “Mr. Gzowski. You’re probably the last person to have seen Jane Colby alive before she was murdered.”

  Gzowski had been lifting a coffee cup to his mouth. He started visibly and dumped hot coffee into his lap. “Jesus,” he said. “You don’t think I . . . ”

  “No, not at all. You’re not a suspect,” Bernie said. “I mean to say that you were probably the last person to see her alive except for the killer.”

  Gzowski, mopping his lap with a tissue, said, “I don’t think I can tell you any more than I have already. After that episode with the constable, I went back to my cab. Then things got busy for a while, like they always do when all the clubs and cabarets close.”

  I said, “You mentioned that a couple of things happened?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Gzowski said. “I picked my last fare up in Cadboro Bay. It was a routine call from the dispatcher to any driver in the vicinity of Cadboro Bay village. I was near the Uplands Golf Club, so I answered.”

  “Keep talking,” I said.

  “There’s this guy waiting to be picked up on Cadboro Bay Road, that’s all. So that’s what I did, I picked him up. He was standing near Pepper’s grocery store.”

  Gzowski stopped talking, took his cap off and scratched his head. He gave me a sidelong look and said, hesitantly, “This fare. I think he was a Native guy.”

  “You think?”

  “That’s right, I don’t know, because here’s the funny thing. I never saw his face. It was dark. He sat in the back seat of the cab.”

  I said innocently, “If it was dark, what made you think he was a Native?”

  Gzowski moved uncomfortably. “Because of the way he talked, I guess. It was just an impression. It’s like, you see a woman walking ahead of you on the sidewalk. You haven’t seen her face, but you have an idea she’s an Asian. Then when you catch up with her, it turns out she is an Asian.”

  I asked Gzowski where he’d taken his fare.

  Gzowski was still uneasy. He looked at me directly, though, and said, “No offence, I didn’t want to take him anywhere, to be honest. Some of your Native brethren have been known to throw up in the back of the cab or run off without paying. I’ll be perfectly honest with you, sir. If I’d known he was a Native in the first place, I wouldn’t have answered the call.”

  Bernie looked up at me. Neither of us spoke.

  Across the street, a tow-truck driver was connecting a hook to Gzowski’s cab.

  Gzowski drank what was left in his coffee cup and remarked jovially, “It turned out okay though. Matter of fact, it turned out to be my best fare all night. I took him all the way to Mowaht Bay, dropped him off outside the Leg
ion. There was $55 on the meter. He gave me two 50s and told me to keep the change.”

  Bernie said gloomily. “So he didn’t throw up in your cab after all?”

  “No, he did something nearly as bad though. He must have been soaked to the knees when he got in the cab, his shoes must have been sloshing water. He left a great soaking puddle on the carpets. Next day, when I found it, I thought he’d pissed himself. He hadn’t though, the seat was dry. It was just the floor carpet was wet. I had to use a shop vac and a heater to dry it out.”

  Bernie beat a little tattoo on the table with his fingers and said, “This fare. You think he was a Native. Can you describe the way he was dressed?”

  “Better dressed than usual, I would say, for a Native.” Gzowski was blushing as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He gave me a conciliatory smile and said, “Excuse me, officer; sometimes I put my mouth in gear before the brain is engaged.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “The main thing is, you wouldn’t recognize this man again if you saw him?”

  Gzowski shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t. Apart from him getting in and out of the cab, when the dome light came on, I never got a look at him. A guy with long, dark hair. He was wearing a nice linen jacket, though. I did notice the jacket.”

  “What colour was the jacket?”

  “Light coloured, maybe beige?”

  I said, “Wait a minute.”

  I went outside, showed the tow-truck driver my badge and asked him to forget it. He refused.

  I went back inside my office. With Gzowski’s cab in tow, the truck started moving.

  “Sorry about the interruption,” I said.

  “All right, to continue, Mr. Gzowski,” Bernie prompted, “did you have any sense of how old your fare was? Old? Young?”

  “Not quite middle-aged. Somewhere between 30 and 40.”

  Bernie told Gzowski to stay tuned, let him go, then sat for a minute fiddling with his pipe. When he had it going nicely, he blew smoke out the side of his mouth and said, “You think Gzowski is always that clumsy? Spilling coffee, squeezing doughnut cream over himself?”