“What do you think this place is? Wal-Mart?”
“Got one or not?”
Mac folded his arms, gazed into space and said, “I own one. Right now, it’s out in the yard, locking my bike to a rack.”
We went outside together. Mac took the lock off his bike, gave it to me and asked, “When can I expect it back?”
“Never. I’ll give you a new one tomorrow.”
Half an hour later I was steering the Chev along dirt roads. It was a warm night and I drove with the windows down. When I slowed for sharp curves, I heard waves, pounding the shores of Mowaht Sound. Little eyes, peering down from the branches overhead, reflected my headlamps. A barred owl, feasting on its kill in the middle of the road, swept up into the trees at my approach. Mowaht Bay’s streets were deserted when I arrived there, about two in the morning. Apart from a few pole lamps on the government wharf, the township lay mostly in darkness. A motion detector lit up when I stopped in the Legion parking lot. The HANE bunkhouse was invisible in the dark. After thinking for five minutes, I drove on.
The woods were intensely dark when I parked in the bush near the Mowaht Bay Reserve.
I drank a couple of slugs from the glove-compartment mickey and put the bottle in my pocket. I switched on my flashlight, climbed the reserve’s five-wire fence and floundered around in the dark forest till I picked up the game trail.
≈ ≈ ≈
The area around Boss Rollins’ logging donkey had been cleaned up—just a little; there weren’t quite as many empty bottles and other junk lying about as previously. I crossed to the logging donkey, positioned the flashlight and set to work with Mac’s bolt cutter. It took me several minutes to sever the bike lock holding the furnace door shut. Instead of cutting cleanly, the bolt-
cutter’s blades merely flattened the multi-strand cable. I had to twist the cutter back and forth strenuously for a while, until the cable parted.
I was sweating when I dragged the rusty furnace door open and looked inside.
Designed to burn firewood, the furnace was now a rusty mausoleum; rodents and insects had feasted within it for years. My heart palpitating like an amphetamine junkie’s, I gazed at the mummified remains of a man sitting upright on the fire grates, still thinly draped in the rotten, lace-like fragments of the jeans and red flannel shirt he had been wearing when somebody shot him.
Conquering revulsion, I crawled inside the furnace and checked in what was left of the mummy’s tattered pockets. They were empty, but there was a jagged hole in the dead man’s temple, where a .25 calibre bullet had penetrated. The bullet was still lodged in the corpse’s lower mandible. I backed out of the furnace on my hands and knees. When my heartbeat returned to normal, I used my cell phone and called headquarters. Tony Seamann, the duty sergeant, wasn’t familiar with the Mowaht Bay area, so it took a while to explain my situation, exactly where I was and how to get there. Before hanging up I said, “And listen, Tony. No sirens, that’s important. Okay?”
“Got it,” Seamann assured me. “No sirens.”
I sat on a tree stump and finished the mickey. Alcohol didn’t stop my racing thoughts, but it took my mind off that eyeless corpse.
The purple starlit night was full of sounds. A distant coyote answered an owl’s hoot. Small night creatures went about their business in the dark. Water trickled along a creek. I left the empty mickey bottle on the stump, went back to the logging donkey and closed the furnace-door. Kneeling, I used Mac’s bike lock and made the furnace as secure as I’d found it.
No sooner had the lock clicked shut than a voice said, “Stand up, turn around slow and raise your hands above your head.”
I was kneeling on the donkey’s deck, a foot or so above the ground. I stood up and spun around fast. Boss Rollins was standing below me, about four feet away. It was too dark to see the gun in his hand; otherwise I wouldn’t have swung my flashlight at his head.
Rollins evaded my swing. He could have shot me, right then, but apparently he needed to keep me alive for a while before I joined that mummy in the furnace. He fired a bullet between my feet. I dropped the flashlight and raised my hands. The light went out, but Rollins didn’t need it. He wasn’t alone. Somebody else was with him, and had her own lamp. She focussed its powerful beam directly into my eyes, blinding me temporarily.
“Don’t move!” Rollins commanded. “More tricks, and I’ll beat your brains out.”
I believed him and turned my face away from the light.
Rollins asked, “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“How did you know that Neville was inside the furnace?”
“So that’s brother Neville, is it?”
Rollins didn’t answer.
I said, “I didn’t know what was in there till 10 minutes ago. Finding your brother was a fluke. The first time I saw it, the logging donkey’s furnace-door was welded shut. It was a nice piece of work. I guess you did it, right?”
Rollins grunted his assent.
I said, “It struck me as a bit unnecessary, somebody going to all that trouble, but I doubt I’d have given the matter any more thought, if I hadn’t come back for a second look around. That’s when I noticed that somebody had sawn through the weld and put a bike lock on the furnace door instead. I began to wonder what for. I’m still wondering.”
I waited for him to say something, but he stayed silent.
“Seaweed’s dangerous, you’re wasting time,” the person holding the lamp said coldly, speaking for the first time. “Deal with it now. You know what’s needed.”
It was Tess Rollins. I was already in a state of shock. Hearing Tess’s voice nearly made my heart stop. I turned my head to gape at her, but that flashlight still blinded me.
Boss Rollins stepped close and lashed out with his gun while I was still looking over my shoulder. The blow was hard, and it landed on my jawbone. I took a nosedive. A knob of rusty iron came up off the deck, banged my head and nearly tore my ear off. Things went red, then black, and that was it.
I’d been cold-cocked.
≈ ≈ ≈
I don't know how long I was out. Not too long probably. I came to inside that rusty tomb, in pitch-blackness, sitting alongside a grinning mummy because the furnace was too short to lie down in. Fortunately for my state of mind, the furnace door wasn’t completely shut. The Rollinses were standing outside, arguing, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying. My head ached. My left ear was caked with dried blood, and it burned as if somebody had used a blowtorch on it. I started to inch out of the furnace, but the door, barely ajar, was too narrow for me to get through. When I shoved it wider, it creaked noisily. The Rollinses stopped arguing.
That’s when we all heard the noise of approaching sirens. I managed to get out of the furnace before Boss started shooting; luckily, the sirens spooked him and his aim was off. Bullets ricocheted off metal as I made a run for it into the trees. The wailing sirens grew louder now as three police vehicles turned off the highway and raced toward us through the reserve. After a while, I heard more noises as the Rollinses drove off in the other direction in Tess’s Mercedes. I reached Harley Rollins’ house before the police did. I went inside to Rollins’ bathroom, soaked one of his expensive white towels in warm water and wrapped it around my head.
Then I went outside and sat down on a lawn chair. Suddenly, my hands began to shake and my knees turned wobbly. Red and white lights began to flash intermittently between the trees as cars screamed toward me along the reserve’s woodsy road, until blue and whites with RCMP markings arrived.
After 10 minutes of strenuous SWAT team athletics involving megaphones, bulletproof vests and trigger-happy shotgun-toting constables, the RCMP inspector in charge concluded that I might actually be the unarmed policeman I said I was, after which things calmed, a little.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I was sitting in Bernie Tapp’s office with a band-aid the size of a birthday card plastered across my forehead. The ER surgeon who’d wo
rked on my ear had left me with me with more stitches than a catcher’s mitt. I was tired, groggy. My head ached, my back teeth ached, and I needed a drink. Twelve hours had passed since I’d opened that furnace door, and thoughts of spending eternity with Neville Rollins were still giving me goose bumps.
“We had no choice,” Bernie Tapp was telling me. “The Mowaht Bay Indian Reserve is under RCMP jurisdiction. We had to notify them first. They insisted on handling matters themselves. Besides, they had a SWAT team handy and ready to go. We told ’em you didn’t want sirens, but I guess they didn’t listen.”
Bernie had described a typical RCMP fiasco, one that had worked to my advantage. If I’d been forced to wait till police arrived quietly from Victoria, I’d be rooming with Neville by then. I cleared that grisly thought from my mind by asking, “Where are the Rollinses now?”
“Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine. The Mounties picked ’em up for questioning, kept ’em for a few hours, then apologized and turned ’em loose.”
I was incredulous. “They didn’t lay any charges?”
Bernie made a wry mouth. “Not yet. The Rollinses’ story is that you were trespassing by night on their private property. It was dark, and you hadn’t identified yourself. The Rollinses didn’t recognize you. They admit that things got a little bit out of hand, but it’s your fault, they say. You acted suspiciously.”
“What about that mummy? How did they explain that?”
“They didn’t try to explain it,” Bernie answered. “Neville went missing nearly 20 years ago. They insisted they had no idea he was in the furnace. Now that they do know, they want to be left alone so they can get on with their grieving in private. The Mounties found it hard to argue.”
“Rubbish. But for those two grieving hypocrites, Neville would still be alive.”
“Maybe. I haven’t heard the rest of your story yet.”
“In a minute. What about Harley Rollins’ gun?”
“Oh yeah, the so-called gun. You told the RCMP that Harley was packing a .25. They had a good look around, but didn’t find it. All they found was an empty mickey of rye, with your fingerprints on it. Harley Rollins says he’s never owned a .25 in his life.”
“The sonovabitch tried to kill me with a .25, so what about the bullets?” I asked. “Harley took three or four shots at me when I escaped the logging donkey.”
Bernie shrugged. “Ever try to find a bullet in the woods?”
“It isn’t impossible.”
“For your benefit, they’re still investigating. If a bullet hit a tree, they might find it and will let us know. In the meantime . . . ” Bernie shook his head. “It’s only your word against his.”
“Even you don’t believe me?” I asked.
“There’s something wrong with this picture,” Bernie said heartlessly. “First, you tell me, Tess Rollins did her best to fuck your brains out. Now, you tell me, Harley Rollins did his best to blow your brains out. So, with what’s left of your brains, think this through again. Take your time, there’s no hurry.”
I took a deep breath and began to speak. Bernie listened politely, but he didn’t seem impressed. When I’d said my piece, again, Bernie leaned back in his chair and twiddled his thumbs. He made a slight sucking sound with his lips and said, “Buddy, I think you’ve earned yourself a little convalescent leave. Take a few days off, why don’t you?”
“Thanks very much.”
“We seem to have reached a stalemate. If you have any more bright ideas, give me a ring. With a bit of luck, who knows? Maybe we’ll crack this case yet.”
I went home.
≈ ≈ ≈
I woke after lunch, sweating in my bed and wondering which was worse—my pounding head, my aching molars or that sore ear. It was a close-run thing. I threw cotton bedsheets aside and put my feet on the floor. After a while, the world stopped spinning. When I reached up and touched my ear gently with my fingers, it felt swollen but intact. My only consolation was the bottle on my bedside table. I took a long swig to pacify my teeth, following which, after one unsuccessful attempt, I managed to stand. It was not my finest hour. I staggered outside to the privy and reached it without falling down. That rustic one-holer, situated in a cedar grove downwind of my cabin, is a very private place. I sat there for a while, posed like Rodin’sThinker, with the door open.
Fog blanketed the reserve; it was too dense to see anywhere but up, where the fog was thin enough to reveal the sun’s diffused golden orb. Once, a low-flying float plane passed overhead. My headache slowly diminished and my teeth settled down, although I began to wonder if I had an infected ear. That led to dark musings about the dating possibilities available to one-eared bachelors. Such dates might be dismally few. I’d probably end up like Henry Ferman, a figure of fun in a Brillo-pad wig. I returned to my cabin, poured another two fingers and sipped it while fixing coffee and bacon and eggs.
Last year, I had treated myself to wrought iron patio furniture, so I ate breakfast in my garden. Summertime, that little oasis is sunlit all day. As gardens go, it’s small—a mere 20 feet square—surrounded by a cedar privacy hedge. The Garry oaks and arbutus trees make acidic soil, so for years, I’ve been digging seaweed in to sweeten it. Now, I grow dahlias with heads as big as cabbages, along with chrysanthemums, hollyhocks, pansies, begonias and a buddleia. The rest is lawn that I keep short with a hand mower. One of these days, maybe, I’ll get around to building a small greenhouse in here.
When the fog burned off, a one-legged raven flew in and perched on a totem pole near the Warrior Longhouse. There was something in the raven’s unwinking stare I didn’t like. It was still glowering when somebody drove up and parked outside my hedge. A door slammed, and the raven flew off. I peered through a gap in the hedge, and there was a shiny S-Type Mercedes convertible. The garden gate opened and Tess Rollins swaggered in. Unbelievable, I thought.
She looked pretty good; her eyes were drawn as boldly as Tutankhamen’s. She was dressed in a crisp white shirt that showed off sensational cleavage, shorts made out of some kind of shiny white rubber and white leather sandals. A leather bag draped her shoulder. It was a simple outfit that even I could recognize as ruinously expensive. She smelled of sandalwood and seemed uncharacteristically shy.
She smiled and acted as if yesterday had never happened, and I went along with it. After all, I reflected, if she tried any funny business I could always strangle her. I even gave her a brotherly kiss and a brief hug, carefully maintaining discreet
airspace between our pelvic regions. Then we started to laugh and our tensions faded, although not entirely.
“You look wrecked,” she observed, sitting on one of the chairs beside my table. “And I don’t like the colour of that big fat ear. Is it supposed to be green?”
“Just passing?”
“I’ve got a few minutes to waste,” she replied, taking a bunch of grapes from her bag. She handed them to me saying, “Forget what I said about your ear.”
“You didn’t soak these grapes in cyanide, did you?”
“Hell no,” she said, popping one into her mouth.
The grapes were sweet and delicious. I ate a few, adjusted my chair till it faced hers and said, “So. What’s up?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m feeling horny. I guess it was all that excitement last night. So I thought, What the hell, let bygones be bygones, right? So how about it?”
“How about what?”
“Don’t be coy, Silas, you know exactly what I mean,” she said, wiggling her tight little rubber-clad butt. “How’d you like to jump my bones?”
“I thought we’d left that merry-go-round. How about coffee instead—or perhaps you’d prefer a drink?”
“A drink would be a start. And another kiss to show there’s no hard feelings?”
Laughing in spite of myself, I stood up. She stood as well, gently kissed my cheek and nibbled my good ear. Her voracious sexuality was repellent and attractive at the same time. She was trying to fondle my balls w
hen I pulled away.
Grinning wickedly, she said, “Got any decent Chardonnay?”
I went inside my cabin, took out a bottle of homemade white plonk from my fridge and put it on a tray along with a couple of glasses. When I got back outside, Tess was using my outhouse. She’d left her bag on the table so I opened it. It was chocablock with freshly minted $100 bills.
When Tess rejoined me, I gave her a glass of plonk, clinked it with my own glass and said, “Cheers.”
“Skol. Did you like what you saw inside my bag?”
“You were keeping an eye on me from the privy?”
She gazed at me with steady dark eyes.
I grinned at her and said, “Sure, I love money. What’s it for?”
“You, possibly, only it’s not a gift. If you want the money, you’ll have to earn it.”
“To change the topic just slightly, do you know Pinky’s?”
“That club on View Street?” she said, apparently a little puzzled. “Yeah, I’ve been there a couple of times. It’s not very upscale—I prefer the Bengal Room.”
“Sometimes, income governs taste. Janey Colby spent the last night of her life in Pinky’s.”
“Did she?”
“You know she did.”
“I hope she had fun,” Tess said cheerfully, ignoring my comment. “Oh and by the way, I love this wine. Is it just me, or do I detect traces of eucalyptus, kerosene and wormwood?”
“Berries and English crumpets. According to witnesses, Janey was drunk. She’d been drinking heavily all night. More importantly, Janey had been watching triple-X movies in the back room. One movie featured her daughter having sex with your brother. Harley and Terry are blood kin, so it was incest.”
Tess Rollins’ happy mood faded noticeably. She moved uneasily in her chair and bit her upper lip, but didn’t say anything.
I drank a little wine and went on, “It’s time for a revisionist history.”
Tess shook her head. “That might be okay, if I knew what ‘revisionist’ meant. Why don’t you explain it to me in simple words?”
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