“I think the word you want is pariah,” I said. “There’s nothing going on between Cynthia and me, and you must know it. Why do you talk like that?”
“Talk like what?”
“Try to stir things up. All you do is make a fool of yourself. You’re about as funny as a burning orphanage.”
“Oh Christ, don’t you start. I thought you liked me.” After checking his Timex, Lightning added, “What’s the holdup? Are you still on duty?”
I locked the door, closed the blinds, brought out the office bottle and two Tim Hortons mugs, poured an inch of Teachers into each and shoved one across the desk. Lightning drank his in one gulp. I poured him another and said, “Okay, start talking. You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“I thought you were finished for the day.”
“I won’t squeal if you don’t.”
“I guess you’ve learned to roll with the punches, Silas,” he snapped. “I never have.”
He’d lost me. “What are you talking about?”
Lightning had become defiantly angry—maybe it was the Teachers. “I’m talking about guys jerking your chains just because you’re an Indian or making fun of me just because I’m a fifty-year-old constable,” he snarled. “Seems like I joined just yesterday, but it’s nearly thirty years since I started pounding the pavement. Bootlickers with twenty years’ less seniority than me are wearing sergeant’s stripes. Oatmeal Savage kissed ass and polished brass right up the food chain to chief inspector. Where the hell did I go wrong?”
I could have told him.
We sat in the room’s semi-darkness, occupied with our different thoughts. I was wondering how to broach the topic of Maggie’s grisly death when Lightning said, “When I get this mess sorted out’ I’m retiring. Take my pension. Move to Arizona and live in one of them trailer parks.”
“You can’t. You’re talking about a career, not a merry-go-round. People don’t just . . . ”
Lightning interrupted. “Why not? Think anybody’ll miss me? I’ve been planning this on the quiet. When I go, there won’t be no tears shed for Lightning Bradley. The whole department will be glad to see the back of me. I used to go fishing with Bernie Tapp. Now, he won’t even give me the time of day. As for Oatmeal Savage and Superintendent Mallory, they hate me too.”
He was suffering, but what he said was true. Lightning had few if any friends, and no close ones that I was aware of. “Oatmeal” Savage, who ran the uniform branch, hated Lightning with a burning passion. I wondered why Lightning had chosen to let his hair down with me.
“Don’t be a jackass,” I said.
“I mean well, but sometimes I rub people the wrong way. Like just now with Cynthia. It was just a lousy joke, Silas. I screw up all the time, and not only on the job.”
His smile was a stiff grimace, because a genuine smile is hard to fake.
This time when Bradley reached absently for a cigarette, I didn’t stop him. He lit the cigarette, blew smoke out the side of his mouth, and said quietly, “Something happened. I should have told you and Bernie Tapp about it when you and him showed up at Collins Lane. But Bernie treated me like I was dirt underneath his boots. Made me look stupid in front of Mrs. Milton. I was so pissed off I kept my trap shut. That’s days ago, and if I tell Bernie what I know now, after all this time, he’ll go ballistic. I just don’t need it, Silas. I’ve got all the problems that I can handle right now.”
“Talking to me is the same as talking to Bernie. If you tell me something that I think he should know . . . ”
“Screw that! This is off the record, strictly between you and me. Maybe it’ll help to break the Cho case. I know you’re working on it. But it’s strictly private, and maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe what I saw isn’t important after all.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“I want your word, Silas. If I tell you, I want your word that you’ll keep it under wraps while you do some snooping on your own. If what I tell you helps to crack the Cho murder case, all well and good. Nobody needs to know you got the tip from me. If it doesn’t help the case, no harm has been done.”
“Are you serious about quitting your job?”
“Dead serious,” he said, tapping a bulge on his inside breast pocket. “The papers are all filled out, and when I leave here I’m gonna stuff ’em in the mail. This time next month, I’ll be on a plane heading south with the snowbirds.”
I thought, No you won’t, but what I said was, “What about Maggie?”
“She’s dead and gone, there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s a relief in a way.”
“Do you know how she died?”
“I only know what I read in the paper,” he said incuriously. “I haven’t been home for days.”
Lightning exhibited an eerie calm. He seemed totally uninterested in the reality of Maggie’s death. It was as if some important aspect of his normal psychological makeup was missing, or had been amputated. God only knows what strange beasts roamed his psyche.
I was silently brooding when Lightning said, “Look at it this way. This visit to your office is the same as an anonymous call.”
“You’re not anonymous, I know who you are. You want me to lie for you? I’d be in the soup too.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time, would it Silas?”
I shrugged. Telling convincing lies, dealing with liars and interpreting the truth behind other peoples’ lies is a big part of my job, that’s just the way it is. Some of my scruples go missing occasionally too along the policeman’s highway.
“Here goes. I’m relying on you to do the right thing, Silas,” Lightning said in a rush of words. “Last Sunday I’m in a patrol car with that punk, Ricketts. We’ve been told to keep a lookout for a couple of Native girls. I spotted ’em on Echo Bay Road, and Ricketts stopped the car. The girls start running. Ricketts is younger’n me, so he took off after ’em. I followed, but I’m too out of shape for chasing people through the boonies, so I went back to the car. Then I get a call from Ricketts. He says there’s been a murder at the waterfront house. I’m heading over there. With the trees and all, there’s dark shade along Collins Lane. I came around a bend and collided with another car. The other guy was speeding, and he went off the road into the trees. It’s a miracle he didn’t get killed. I stopped my car, and then I backed up to make sure he was okay. He was alive, but he was out cold. I didn’t see no blood, I just figured he was shook up. I figured he’d come to, snap out of it. Instead of staying with him and reporting the incident, I panicked. I drove away, I left him to it. I guess it worked out okay, because I know that the guy did come to, and he managed to drive himself off.”
“How do you know that?”
“Okay, I don’t know for certain. But it’s a fair assumption, because when Wondertits Leach drove me home later on, the car was already gone.”
“What kind of a car was it?”
Lightning was a thousand miles away. He pulled himself back and said, “What?”
“The car you ran into. What make was it?”
“Oh yeah,” Lightning sighed. “It was either a Lexus or it was a Mercedes. Late model, black.”
“Okay, you had an accident en route to the murder house, but there are still bits missing from your story.”
“What bits? What are you talking about?”
I remained silent. I thought it better to conceal police knowledge that cocaine had been found in Lightning’s blue-and-white, and in his house. That Lightning’s latent prints had been lifted from the inside of Cho’s BMW.
I said, “Let’s talk about Maggie.”
“I’m sorry she’s dead, but it’s been over between me and Maggie for years. We weren’t even friends anymore. We didn’t even talk politely to each other,” Lightning said sombrely. “That’s it, it’s all I’ve got to say. Thanks for the drink, Silas. You’re a White man inside.”
“There’s more. You can’t go yet.”
“I’ve said all I’m going to say.�
�
“In that case, I have to take you in.”
Lightning shrugged, shook his head, and reached inside his jacket. I thought he’d bring out his cigarettes again. But Lightning was wearing a shoulder holster, and he brought out a 9mm Glock instead.
He winked with an effort that tilted his mouth and said, “Don’t think I won’t use it, Silas. My back is against the wall. If you try anything, I’ll shoot.” He conjured up a thin smile. “But I know you won’t shoot me. We’ve known each other too long. No way you’ll shoot me, so there’s no sense pushing it.” Lightning stood up. “In case it’s bothering you, I’m not running away. I’ll be back. Next time though, I’ll bring my lawyer.”
Lightning went out. I didn’t try to stop him. Moments later, I heard footsteps in the corridor outside. Lightning was already back. With one hand holding the doorknob, he poked his head inside. A ribald grin on his face, he said, “You and Cynthia have got something going, Silas, right? Now there’s a nice piece of ass.”
I should have wrestled Lightning to the ground, stomped his lights out just on general principles, and then dragged him across to headquarters in handcuffs, but he still had the Glock in his hand, and besides, my brain felt tired.
I reached for the bottle to pour myself another drink but it was only a procrastinating reflex. I didn’t need another drink. I needed to drive out to Collins Lane and do some snooping, except it was pouring down outside and I’d left my raincoat in the car.
Rain clouds covered the entire sky. People hurried past with their heads down, water streamed off their umbrellas. My head and shoulders were soaked by the time I got into the MG.
About halfway along Collins Lane, I reached a point on the road where a sharp bend coincided with a sudden incline. For a moment, my view of approaching traffic was partially obscured, and I took my foot off the accelerator. I kept going for another hundred yards. Then I parked in a pullout beneath the dripping trees. The bush in that location was dense and nearly impenetrable to everything except small animals and birds. I put my raincoat on, and hiked back to the bend in the road. Within five minutes, I found small pieces of shattered white plastic and white-enamelled metal lying scattered along the soft shoulder. This, it seemed likely, was the place where Lightning Bradley’s Crown Royal had collided with a supposedly black Mercedes. After putting a few items in an evidence bag and storing them in the MG, I grabbed a shovel and poked along the road until I reached a footpath that led into the bush.
Indian kids learn early in life that what’s important lies off the trail. Things such as berries, edible roots, a bird’s nest, poison plants, dye plants. You have to get off the trail if you’re a vision quester on a religious journey. Plenty of rain had fallen by then, and moisture was penetrating the overhead canopy. The damp ground was littered with fallen rotting trees covered with moss and freshly sprouted mushrooms, some but not all of which were safe to eat. It was very dark in places. Maria Alfred could have remained safely hidden in these woods for weeks, except for Nicky Nattrass and his tracker dogs.
It took me many minutes to reach the petroglyph site. The skeletal figure and the wolf were already obscured by more leaves, dirt and other debris, but this time I didn’t brush them clean because I was more interested in finding out whether there was a cave nearby. Using the shovel, I dug around until I found a narrow cavelike opening. I crawled into an ancient, irregularly shaped sandstone tunnel, perhaps fifteen feet long and about a metre in diameter at its widest. The walls were daubed in red and black pictographs—human and animal figures made long ago by an artist who had used red ochre and carbon pigments instead of store-bought paints. A mummified male corpse lay on the dry earth. I knew he’d been buried alive, because if he’d been buried after death, he would have been interred in a box with his knees pulled up tight beneath his chin.
I’d seen enough, and crawled back out.
Back in my car, I phoned Bernie Tapp. I said, “Now we know how that Crown Royal ended up with a twisted frame.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Remember when Constable Ricketts found Mrs. Milton hysterical on the beach, Lightning was sitting in his Crown Royal on Echo Bay Road?”
“Of course I remember.”
“This is what appears to have happened. Ricketts called Lightning and told him about the dead man. When Bradley was driving to join Ricketts at the house, he was involved in an accident on Collins Drive. The other car was a late-model convertible, possibly a Lexus or a Mercedes. Lightning didn’t report the accident because he panicked. It was a hit and run.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Lightning told me all about it a few hours ago.”
“He phoned?” Bernie asked me incredulously.
“No, he dropped by my office. Right now I’m on Collins Lane. I found a bunch of white plastic and metal lying beside the road. Smashed automobile parts, the remains of an accident. It shouldn’t take us long to confirm what kind of a vehicle they came from.”
“Okay. Now I want to talk to Lightning. Put him on the blower.”
“I can’t; Lightning is not here. I don’t know where he is.”
Bernie sighed. I could imagine him, tearing his hair. He said angrily, “Let me get this straight. Lightning comes into your office for a little conversation. Then you shook hands and turned him loose?”
“No. Lightning pulled his Glock on me. He threatened to put a hole in me if I tried to arrest him.”
“Apart from that, you’ve had a quiet day?” Bernie hung up.
I drove across town to Ted’s garage. Ted was out, but his foreman wasn’t. I dumped the bits of white plastic and metal on a workbench and asked him if he could tell me what kind of a car the parts belonged to.
The foreman picked up one of the pieces. He pointed to symbols embossed on one of the larger parts. “I know exactly what kind of a car they came off, because we’ve had one in the shop a few times. It’s a 2008 Nissan Infiniti 350Z Roadster. There’s not too many of ’em around in Victoria yet.”
“Is your customer’s a black convertible?”
“No, it’s blue.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I was frying eggs for breakfast. The sun was shining, and I was thinking about a certain vehicle that I’d noticed recently. It had been parked under tarpaulins in Tomas Gonzales’ yard. Who knows what make and colour it might have been? The phone rang. It was Bernie Tapp. He said, “What are you doing right now?”
“Having breakfast and taking care of a sick bird.”
“Felicity’s ill?”
“No. The bird is a pine siskin. It has a damaged wing, but it’s getting better every day.”
I held the phone away from my ear while Bernie enjoyed a coughing fit. When he finished, I said, “By the way. The car that Lightning ran into was a 350Z Nissan Infiniti Roadster.”
“Better put out a BOLO.”
“I’ve done that already.”
“Good lad. Now stay put, I’m on my way over, we’re going for a drive.”
≈ ≈ ≈
Bernie showed up in an elderly Toyota Land Cruiser. A noisy, broken-down diesel that he had borrowed from the carpool. Its rear seats were separated from the front seats by an impermeable plastic security screen. With Bernie sweating and coughing beside me, we chugged out of Victoria and up into the mountains in low gears. Scorched air rising above the blacktop made the horizon shimmer. We turned off Highway 1 before we reached the Malahat summit and drove past Shawnigan Lake. An abundance of waterfowl, mainly Canada geese, flapped in the air and used the lake’s unruffled surface as a landing pad. Summer cottages, a motel, a general store and a restaurant with a Closed sign in its window lay along the green forested road like splashes of white paint.
A few miles beyond Shawnigan Lake School, we ran out of blacktop. We bumped slowly west along narrow washboarded logging roads into the boonies. The whole area was rugged and remote, peppered with small lakes and dense forest interconnected by twisting narrow roads, and seldom vi
sited except by hikers or off-roaders driving all-terrain vehicles.
I told Bernie about my visit to the house on Jinglepot Road, adding, “I sent Maria Alfred’s stuff across to HQ. Maybe Forensics will find something useful.”
Bernie’s grunt changed into another cough. As we travelled farther west, the heavens opened up. Rain fell unceasingly. Bernie locked the hubs, put the Land Cruiser into four-wheel-drive and drove on with sweat dripping down his face. He was holding the steering wheel like a running back holds a football and driving too fast, as usual. I bounced around on the Land Cruiser’s deflated shotgun seat, hanging onto the overhead grab bars during the wild, bucking ride.
Creeks overflowed. Water, loose earth and small rocks cascaded down from deforested slopes, creating minor avalanches and transforming the road into a ribbon of liquid mud. It took us over an hour to traverse one five-mile stretch. The vehicle’s noisy diesel, its busted muffler and the groaning springs made conversation impossible till Bernie stopped at a fork in the road. One fork led to an abandoned logging camp. After consulting an ordnance survey map and getting our bearings, we opted for a fork that ran alongside Sumatch Creek. On we went, with one or all of our wheels spinning without traction half the time, until we were forced to a stop by a red alder that had fallen across the road. Bernie locked the brakes and said, “Silas, I feel wrecked, a bit dizzy. Goddamn summer cold, so I’d better take it easy for a minute.”
I reached for the emergency axe and got out. Sweating, ankle-deep in liquid gumbo, I chopped the alder’s bushy branches off, dumped them over a bank, and then wrapped a choker around the trunk of the tree and dragged it out of the way with the Land Cruiser’s bumper-mounted winch. Soaked, my boots full of warm liquid mud, I got back in the car and we resumed our journey.
A couple of miles before it reached the sea, the creek widened into a small lake spanned by a single-lane bridge. Soon afterwards, a constable wearing yellow rain gear waved us down. We skidded to a halt. “If you go on for another couple of hundred yards, you’ll see parked emergency vehicles,” the constable told us. “I suggest you leave your vehicle there and take the footpath down to the creek. Careful, gentlemen, the footpath is very slippery.”
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