Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

“I better tell Albert.” He found Albert at his desk and reported Steve’s conversation.

  Albert said only, “Thanks for all this. You’re a good citizen.”

  “How are you getting on?”

  “Set up video cams around the patch. Slow and steady is the policeman’s lot.”

  “Nothing on my obit?”

  “Working on that too.”

  “Thanks.” Was he really? “See you.”

  Noel and Kyra ate a small lunch, drove into the ferry lot and reached Gabriola at just after one o’clock. They waited for the foot passengers to unload.

  “We’ve got over an hour,” said Kyra. “Want to visit Jerry Bannister again? Ask him about his faggot friend?”

  “I object to that comment for about four different reasons.”

  “Three are obvious.”

  “Stop, Kyra.”

  “Aren’t you just a little curious?”

  Noel considered this. “I guess I am.”

  They arrived at Bannister’s trailer. It looked even more decrepit than a few days ago. Noel knocked on the closed screen. A noise behind the inner door. It opened. “Yeah?”

  A greyed-out version of the Jerry Bannister they’d seen last time. Noel said, “Hi. We’d like to talk to you.”

  Bannister squinted at them. “Oh. You guys.” He giggled. “Whazzup?”

  “May we come in? Or do you want to talk out here?”

  “Naw, come in, too bright out there.” He pushed the screen toward them.

  The mess in the dim kitchen area had grown, but hard to tell what was new. Jerry swept a pot off one chair, a tin can from another. The stuff tumbled along the floor. “Sit. I’m smokin’ so you get to join me. Heehee.” He pulled an unlit roach from his shirt pocket, lit it, dragged on it, reached it to Kyra. She refused. He giggled again. “More for me.” He passed it to Noel.

  Noel took it and faked a drag. Jerry was too high to notice.

  “Good weed. Right, fella?”

  “Good weed,” said Noel. “So. You and Roy were big friends, back in the old days.”

  “Yep. Great friends.”

  “Got stoned a lot?”

  Jerry grinned, and belched.

  “Still great friends over the summer.”

  “Yep.”

  “But sometimes you disagreed. About things.”

  “Naw, we were real good friends.”

  “But you did have an argument with Roy about growing pot. Want to tell us about it?”

  A new squint to Jerry’s eyes. “Nope. No argument. Nope nope.”

  “A disagreement?”

  “Never talked about pot with Roy. He’d stopped smokin’, nothin’ to talk about. He was such an asshole. My asshole buddy.”

  “Did he tell you to stop growing it?”

  “Don’t grow. That’s illeeegal.” One more of Jerry’s giggles.

  “Did you argue about anything else?”

  “Nope. Nope. Don’t argue with assholes.”

  “I thought Roy was your friend.”

  “Yeah. Asshole friend. Heehee.”

  “Did he maybe say something stupid to you?”

  “Lotsa stupid stuff.”

  “Like, maybe he misunderstood the situation, you with a friend in a bar in Nanaimo.”

  A quiver passed across Jerry’s face. He took a long draw on the roach. “He was an asshole. What’re you askin’?”

  “When he saw you in a gay bar with—”

  Jerry grabbed Noel by the shoulder and leaned his face close. “I go where I go and I talk to who I talk to. Lotsa different places. Got all kindsa friends. You saying I’m a faggot, faggot?”

  Noel pulled himself away. “Nope.”

  “Damn right.” He took another draw, then squinted in uncertainty. “How d’ya know?”

  Noel grinned. “I can tell.”

  “Damn right. Damn right.”

  Kyra started to speak but Noel glanced her down. “We’d like to know, though, why Roy got so angry with you.”

  “Yeah, he was pissed off, he sure was.” One more giggle from Jerry. “He saw me in a fag bar, I had to meet this queer there, he wanted some land cleared.” Jerry thought about that. “So I said, ‘Sure thing, sure thing.’ ’Cuz he couldn’t do it himself, he had this bad back. He paid me real good. He’s a painter, didn’t want to ruin his hands clearing land.”

  “A painter?”

  “Pretty good painter. Roy introduced me to him.”

  Whoops. Kyra leapt in. “Would that have been Tam Gill?”

  Jerry turned to her as if she’d appeared out of nowhere. “Huh? Who?”

  Noel asked, “Did the painter have a show at the Eaglenest Gallery?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” He took another draw. “Anyway, that’s that.”

  Not for Noel. “Was that Lyle Sempken?”

  The squint again from Jerry. For a moment he said nothing, then, “Who?”

  “Sempken. Lyle.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “What was the painter’s name?”

  “Well, I forget. Barry. Barry something.”

  “Barry.” Noel nodded slowly. “Thanks for your time. Come on, Kyra.” He pushed open the screen door, held it for Kyra, and they left.

  “And thanks for yours,” Jerry called after them.

  They drove off. Kyra said, “Lyle and Jerry. Good drinking buddies.”

  Noel shook his head, mock disbelief. “How about that.”

  “You really think Lyle was the man?”

  “Does Artemus represent a whole lot of gay Nanaimo painters?”

  “You figure Jerry for our pot grower?”

  “Could be. What time is it?”

  She glanced at her watch. “It’s 2:10. Off to Eaglenest.”

  Back to the ferry landing, past the convex mirror, along the strip of beach, up the road behind the cliff lots, to the house beside Eaglenest. Eight minutes. He turned down the curving driveway as if he owned it and parked at a carport containing two Jaguars, license on the black one Jag 1, the beige Jag 2. They heard a vehicle. “I hope that’s Rose leaving.”

  Their shoes crunched back along the gravel drive. At the road Noel found the lightning-split fir. They proceeded as silently as they could, Noel pushing through salal along a deer trail. Kyra followed. Their legs brushed against salal, huckleberry and kinickinick.

  Sluggish flies and those autumn spiders that build webs in empty space—good thing Noel was leading. Kyra waved a wasp away.

  The trail led to a grassy patch behind Tam’s cabin. Noel pointed to his watch, 2:31. Kyra nodded. For the moment behind a screen of trees, they made their way to Tam’s trail. Kyra looked back at the cabin. Under the front deck—Tam’s bike? She tugged Noel’s shirt and pointed.

  “Oh shit,” he mouthed. “Other transportation?”

  She whispered, “We’ll see. Pretend you’re invisible.” She glanced about, no one, and she muttered, “Come on, let’s do it.” She strode off quickly, head up, along the trail. In front of the house, a single van and the BMW. She scowled but kept going. They reached the rear of the greenhouse. Noel glided up beside her. No door here. Kyra fumbled in her bag for her lock picks.

  They proceeded along the opaque plastic side, pulled on surgical gloves, and draped surgical masks around their necks. Was Tam here? If Artemus came out they were hooped. Kyra comforted herself remembering he had no free moment at all today. In front of the door now. A knob lock and a deadbolt, no great puzzle to Mike’s star student. A three, nineteen and six for the deadbolt, an all-purpose Yale for the doorknob. “There,” Kyra breathed. They slipped the masks across nose and mouth, slippers over shoes and stepped through the doorway. Cloying air hit them as if all of summer were stored inside. She locked again. Wow, I’ve really done it in the field! She glanced at Noel for admiration, even congratulations. His face looked a tense nothing.

  A hum. Noel stared up. Ceiling ventilators. He willed himself to look around.

  Flowers, all sorts of heights and colors
in raised beds. They walked single file between metal tracks down the left aisle toward a partition at the back, and another door. A heavier bolt, but after a couple of minutes, open sesame. As Mike had said, no real security anywhere.

  A slightly cooler room. Because of the smaller area to vent? Maybe three by four metres, Noel sized to himself; and Kyra thought, about nine feet by thirteen. White tables against the walls, desk high. A sink on the house side. The longest table stood on the far side, its surface hidden by opaque plastic draped over a frame. A round table in the center contained buds or bulbs or pods or hips. Seed things? Tubes, jars, mystery items.

  What the hell were they looking for? Earlier the question had been theoretical. Now it was all substance. Noel hated this. Clearly Kyra didn’t—she was exploring everything, hopping from object to plant, a happy bee.

  Metal cylinders. He picked one up. A hinged top. Kyra snapped a picture. Pictures of the tubes, the pods, the bulby things. On a small table stood a plastic-draped microscope. Shallow drawers were built in underneath. More pods, or hips, dripping a thick black emulsion. Pictures of each table and the contents of drawers. Wide-views of the whole space.

  Noel drew back the plastic draping the frame. Flowers in pots, half a dozen, chrysanthemums, blackish. The biggest one stood maybe a third of a metre tall, two flowers fully open, two buds just about to open, more buds. Against their forest-green leaves, the black flowers—well, deep-deep-purple-almost-black—were stunning.

  • • •

  For half an hour Tam’s stomach had complained, but his work was going well so he ignored the growls. He loved working in oil, so different from acrylic, acrylic dried fast and pencil outlines showed. Oil is forgiving, it covers everything and gives you time to change your mind. For the hand, for example, he wanted a burnished flesh tone like from years of toil, and gnarled knuckles suggesting arthritis. He’d already redone it five–six times, he’d get it perfect. But right now, food.

  He set aside his palette and brush, stood back and looked at the painting. Oh yeah, that fold of robe, the deeper shade suggesting a moving shadow, that had taken time. But when it finally worked, when you got it, yeah it was like sex, both of you humming thrumming strumming together. He had to fix the foot, didn’t look as hard-worked as the hand. More splay? Bit of ochre on the side of the heel? His stomach turned on him again. He peeled away his coveralls, checked the key in the pocket, and washed his hands.

  In the kitchen he opened the fridge door, examined the contents. Peanut butter, jam, black bean sauce, wilted lettuce, a Dos Equis, two centimetres of milk that stank. Damn, I know I stocked a fridge this week. Yeah, the Nanaimo one. In the freezer a crust of dehydrated bread. A. will have something left over. He always does.

  • • •

  “Get moving, it’s 2:53,” Noel ordered.

  Out the inner door, close, lock. Kyra worked the camera across the larger room. Carnations at the peak of their bloom. More photos. She opened the door, stepped out, peered through draping leaves— Back so quickly she bumped Noel, threw him off balance, stepped on his foot, and he fell. She turned the deadbolt home and dropped to a crouch.

  “What?” Noel clambered upright.

  She put a finger across her lips. Noel slid into the free area between beds. They waited. Finally Kyra stood. “Tam walked by,” she whispered. “I guess he didn’t see us.”

  • • •

  In A.’s kitchen Tam made himself a cold chicken sandwich. No sign of Rosie’s van. Where’d she go? Oh well, back to work.

  • • •

  Only when striding down the neighbor’s driveway did Noel feel a modicum of safety. Kyra bounced along beside him, all energy. Behind the wheel, starting the car, backing out, the barest bit of his sense of control returned. “I’m wiped,” he said.

  “Huh?” Only the seatbelt kept Kyra from bouncing against the roof.

  “I need to sit still for a while.”

  “For pity’s sake not here. Drive to a beach.” She reached into the glove compartment for the Gabriola map. “Back to the ferry, right and then left.”

  He half-heard Kyra’s chatter about the ferry lineup, the curve ahead, highland cattle in a pasture, an oncoming cement truck.

  “At those stores, turn left down the slope and park on the right.” He did. Kyra said, “Now let’s walk on the beach,” and was out the door before he turned the engine off.

  Noel forced himself from the car. Kyra, on the sand, her shoes off, was high. He had no adrenalin left. He dragged himself through the fringe of trees and plopped onto the white sand. By the water a young woman supervised three preschoolers playing with pails and shovels.

  Kyra dug her toes into the sand, arms stretched overhead. “I thought you wanted to walk.”

  “I just want to sit.”

  “Don’t you like breaking and entering?” Kyra teased.

  “I wanted to be invisibly transubstantiated out of there.”

  Kyra dropped onto the bare log beside him. “We did a great job. We don’t know what we found, but we’ll figure it out.”

  “I’ll tell you, I’m never doing that again.”

  She looked at him in mock surprise. “Oh,” she said. She stood up and walked to the water’s edge. Little waves lapped her feet.

  • • •

  By the time they arrived at Lucille Maple’s Noel had perked up and Kyra had calmed down. Noel introduced Kyra. Lucille ushered them into her living room.

  “First of all,” said Noel, “how’d you get Rose away from the Gallery?”

  “First of all,” said Lucille, “it’s five minutes after four. You are allowed the tea you invited yourselves for. Myself, I’m having Scotch. Your choice.”

  “Scotch,” said Kyra. “On the rocks, thanks.”

  “Damn fool thing to do with single malt. Noel?”

  “Scotch, please. Straight. Water chaser.”

  “Right.” She headed to the kitchen.

  “If it’s single malt, I’ll have it the same,” Kyra called.

  Lucille did not break stride and returned a minute later. Three Dansk crystal glasses, Laphroaig, two tumblers, a jug of water. “There you are.” She poured a finger of Scotch in each glass and raised her own. “Cheers.” She sat back and told her tale:

  She’d called Rose a few minutes after talking to Noel.

  “Yes?” The frost of January in Rose’s voice.

  “I’d like to interview you for an article I’m writing.”

  “I’m busy, Lucille. The two shows this weekend—”

  “The article’s on the history of Indo-Canadians on Vancouver Island. The research is done but I want some firsthand tales. It’ll take a half an hour. I’ll buy you coffee.” She listened to Rose’s sigh of exasperation. “I won’t ask you anything about your shows.” Rose’s second sigh flowed dramatically along the phone line. “You do prefer that I get the article right, don’t you?”

  “Oh damn. Sure, but only half an hour. When are you arriving?”

  “Interviews are better on neutral ground. The village, two-thirty. Raspberry’s.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Rose tsked her tongue again. “But I’ll be bringing a stopwatch.”

  Kyra chuckled. Noel said, “Well done.”

  “Thanks. I was proud of myself.” Lucille sipped her Scotch.

  Kyra prompted, “You met her at two-thirty.”

  “She was late. I’d begun to worry, maybe she’d decided not to come. Worried for you, I mean. Four minutes, forty-eight seconds late when she stopped her van. Three minutes more till she’d lowered the chair and wheeled toward me.”

  “Did she really have a stopwatch?” Kyra asked.

  Lucille smiled. “Not unless her wristwatch doubles as one.” She patted her hand across her hair. “I ordered us cappuccinos, set up my tape recorder, and started asking about her growing up in a small minority group in an English-slash-Scots enclave, which is what the Cowichan Valley was, if you ignore the Natives, which everyone did back then. Her g
randfather came from the Punjab. He did laboring jobs, the usual racially unapproved-of-immigrant kind of struggle.” She sipped her Scotch. “He brought his wife and son over, had more children and supported the family as a logger. Then came the Komagata Maru mess in 1914—”

  “What was that?” Kyra asked.

  “A shipload of Sikhs wanting to immigrate anchored in Vancouver harbor but they weren’t allowed to land. They were ordered back to India and some were executed there.” Lucille grimaced. “But after the First World War things improved for her grandfather.” She sipped. “He started a small subcontracting business, not just labor in the bush. And eventually his son—Rose and Tam’s father—turned it into an independent company covering every wood thing from seedling to siding. Their older brother, Nirmal, he’s about sixty now, took the company public. It trades on the Toronto Exchange.”

  Noel drained his glass. “You got all that in half an hour?”

  “Of course.”

  “Impressive.”

  Lucille looked smug. “Actually, she stayed forty-nine minutes. Two cappuccinos. I had a hard time shooing her home. She told me how tough it was as a child in school. There were other Indo-Canadians in the Valley by then, but she didn’t have a white friend until high school.”

  Kyra nodded. She’d not had a friend of Indian ancestry till university.

  “She’s a pretty gutsy lady,” Lucille said, then, “Okay, now it’s trading time. I won’t ask what you were looking for. But what’s the new flower?”

  Kyra glanced at Noel. They hadn’t discussed this. Kyra took the reins. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s black. Kind of a long stem, bit over a foot tall, a bunch of petals.”

  “Black.” Lucille mused. “A tulip?”

  “Didn’t look like a tulip.”

  Lucille nodded. “Black.” She stood, headed toward the room across the hall, her study. “Help yourselves to more Scotch. I’ve got some looking up to do.”

  Noel glanced at Kyra, who said, “Much as I like that smoky taste—”

  Lucille was already tapping at her keyboard.

  “Thanks for the Scotch. We’re going.”

  From behind her concentration Lucille said, “Come back soon.”