“Did these fellows tell the police?”
“John Wayne over there?”
Arthur sees an RCMP boat at the coast guard dock, Jasper Flynn tying up. The sergeant has learned that the perpetrator’s lawyer is in town, up to no good. He intends to keep an eye on him.
“Our people don’t talk to him unless they have to. Anyway, he’s not asking. He’s got it sewed up.”
Arthur puts on glasses and studies the map again. The Deer Group, the Chain Group, the Broken Islands. Narrow channels, reefs, and dead-end inlets. A boater would need intimate local knowledge at night, radar, sonar. Flat out, it would be two hours to Alberni or Ucluelet.
He tries without much success to envision Angella racing through dark unknown waters in a high-powered cruiser.
Before returning to his cottage to clean up for dinner, he finds a pay phone and calls Kim Lee.
“All good at farm?”
“Good. Happy. Not worry.”
“Stoney?”
“Every day work hard. Take truck.”
“Margaret?”
“Happy.”
A wind has come up by the time he reaches Brady Beach, and he can see angry clouds rolling in. Mrs. Cotter has not locked up, but he finds the key under the mat as promised. He has to tug the door to open it. The interior is spotless, but the place still confounds him with dread.
He must shower, though he feels unnerved at the prospect–Dr. Winters’s nakedness, the bath towel on the bed, are clues that she was attacked after taking a shower. Avoiding the bedroom, he undresses under the cougar’s glare. He talks to it, needing sound: “Maybe she’s innocent after all.” Angella. “Or did she have a local confederate with a fast boat? Unlikely. Just can’t see that silly woman murdering anyone.”
Other possibilities are emerging, like mushrooms in the fall. He must take written statements from the two young braves. Inez Cotter, as well. It seems likely that the quarrel she overheard involved Eve Winters. The other person, Ruth–her surname escapes–is single, a UBC graduate student. The remaining two are paired.
He must not forget about the condo builder from Topeka, with his late-night rambles. Who knows, maybe he carries a vial of roofies in case opportunity presents itself. More important, what about Holly Hoover, who may well be familiar with street drugs? Could it have been the Holly Golly that the Native boys heard speeding away? Or was it just a beer-fuelled weekend jaunt, a couple of locals…
From the trail that takes him to the Breakers Inn, he passes by Hoover’s home–Claudette pointed it out to him, a renovated construction trailer. No lights within, but the evening hasn’t fully set in. He doubts that she will answer her door.
A couple of men with shovels are poking around in the bushes by the path to the inn. They follow him with their eyes, as if hoping he will lead them to the treasure. It has begun to rain as he climbs an outer staircase to the roofed deck. There he takes in the black western sky, sees the Deer Islands, the hazardous channels that separate them.
Within, a long table is set for seven, Mr. and Mrs. Galloway toting trays of seafood to it. Arthur engages a pair of German hikers. As they’re describing their close encounter with a black bear, he turns to see Jasper Flynn come up the stairs, bearlike himself in a bulky RCMP jacket.
He pretends surprise on seeing Arthur. “Now there’s a likely suspect,” he says. He declines the Galloways’ offer of a drink. “I’m on duty, just paying a courtesy visit.”
The owners seem anxious–a man in uniform is not good for business–so Arthur beckons Flynn to join him outside.
“Returning to the scene of the crime, Mr. Beauchamp?”
“I generally make it a rule to do so.”
“Always a good idea, sir. Especially if you lead us to the dough your client ripped off from this joint. Just kidding.” He tweaks his large, overgroomed moustache. “Glad you’re staying here. They’re good folk, the Galloways.”
“As it happens, I’m not staying here.” Flynn came up by the lobby stairs, so Arthur assumes he peeked at the guest registry.
“Oh, right, Nick’s lodge. I hear his girlfriend’s running it. Nice lady. Anything I can do to help you out?”
Mrs. Galloway beckons: dinner is served. “I hope you’ll have a chance to talk to this fine lady,” Flynn says as he turns Arthur over to her. “She heard them talking that evening–Faloon and Dr. Winters.”
Mrs. Galloway nods. “She told him exactly where she was staying, at Brady Beach.”
“Got to scoot. Try the butter clams, they’re always good.”
As Arthur trudges back down the road in soaking rain, his stomach starts to protest the butter clams. The way is tricky in the darkness–he has, of course, forgotten to pack a flashlight. He makes out that Holly’s trailer is still unlit. Twice, he wanders into dense foliage.
When he finally fumbles his way to the cottage gate, he again strays, collides with an apple tree, then follows the fence to the seaward side of the house and the front door. There is dim light here, an eerie fluorescence in the ocean. The door swings open with a tug. He’d forgotten to lock it–yet another memory lapse. “Arthur Beauchamp, meet Dr. Alzheimer. Bloody God, I’ll be in diapers soon.”
As he fumbles for the light switch, he becomes aware, from the scent of patchouli, that he is not alone. Pale light through the windows glimmers on a mass of curls, a woman on the floor. Then the room is starkly lit by lightning, and he can see she is propped up on her elbows, looking out at the storm.
A soft, drawling voice: “Power went out.”
“Holly Hoover, I presume?”
“It’s okay, I talk to myself too.”
“Actually I was talking to the door. It doesn’t seem to be behaving.” It is warped. It takes a hard pull to lock it. No mention of that in the police report.
Hoover flicks on a cigarette lighter, holds it until Arthur finds a kerosene lamp and lights it. A well-proportioned woman in sweater and jeans, a tanned, youthful face framed by, as Claudette promised, an explosion hairdo.
“I don’t want anyone to know I’m here, Mr. Beauchamp.” Arthur turns down the lamp to a glimmer. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Not at all. I don’t have anything but instant coffee.”
She rolls a cigarette with practised fingers. “I brought a couple of cider. You want?” Two bottles on the floor beside her.
“I’ll have coffee.”
As he gets a kettle going, he ponders the reason for this clandestine visit. He wonders if she’s on drugs, with her slow, husky voice.
“This has been eating at me. I’ve got nothing against Nick. He’s a famous underworld figure, I respect him. He gave me a room.” A resigned sigh. “That caused him hassle.”
“Claudette suspects you slept with him.”
“Yeah, I did. I guess it went all over town.”
Arthur returns with his coffee, sets kindling aflame in the fireplace. The sky flickers, a rumble of thunder. Or was it his stomach? One ought not to eat clams in April. Holly has a cider in one hand, a cigarette in the other, an ashtray on her midriff. She has kicked off her shoes; her feet are on the window ledge. Arthur asks her how she came by her current occupation.
“I quit college two years ago for a life of fun, but found I couldn’t make a living off shell necklaces and homemade bath oils. Had to find something that would pay. I had a bad habit of fucking anything on two legs anyway, so the transition from sleazy amateur to skilled professional actually gave me a sense of self-worth. Things were going fine, I could afford trips to the city, top-shelf bud, I was saving up to scuba in Cuba. Now this shit. I’d like some legal advice, Mr. Beauchamp.”
He adds logs to the fire, and stands close to warm himself. “Will you answer some questions first?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you always use a condom during sex?”
“Except with women.” She turns on her stomach and blows him a smoke ring.
What’s she stoned on? Patchouli easily trumps the odour of marijuan
a. “What happened to the condom Nick wore?”
“Hanging off his dick the last time I saw it.” A few moments. “Am I expected to remember? It got trashed, I guess.”
Arthur wonders if a prostitute would keep the occasional used safe, an excellent blackmail tool. But Hoover seems candid. Arthur is feeling queasy but must soldier on. He extends Angella’s photo. “Ever see this face around town?”
She studies it, looks up. “When?”
“March 31.”
“Looks vaguely like a dorky dame who came hurrying out of the pub as I was going in.”
Arthur wishes he had other shots of her. Hoover hands it back, shrugs. “I’m not good at faces.”
“Was Eve Winters in the bar as this woman was leaving?”
“Sitting on a stool. Her, I recognized. Doctor Eve. I knew she was staying in town, Inez Cotter mentioned it. Went up to shake her hand, I’m a fan. We got to gabbing, she started coming on, she’s très gay. I was impressed, she was famous. I didn’t want her to know I was low-life, I told her I made jewellery. Which I used to when I was a Zen chick. I didn’t want a scene, some drunken bozo coming up to the bar and blowing my cover, so I just finished my drink and split.”
“But that’s not totally true, is it? That’s what you told the investigating officer.”
“Right. That’s not the whole story.”
“Go on.”
“Okay, let’s say something else happened. Let’s say these two ladies actually decide they want to get it on. Let’s say they arrange to leave the bar separately, to avoid gossip.”
“Tell it to me straight, Holly.”
She drains her cider, takes a breath, and tells him she took Winters across the inlet in her canoe, unobserved. A misty, romantic evening, a tingle in the air. Some hand-holding on the dock, an invitation from Winters to share a bottle of wine.
“I was conning her into bed, it didn’t feel right. Money wouldn’t be involved, I wanted to assure her of that. So I found the balls to tell her how I made a living.”
“And how did Dr. Winters react?”
“Cooled her right out. I got the impression she was disgusted at herself, stooping so low. She thanked me for the company and took off for Brady Beach. I stood there feeling stupid, had a cigarette, and went home.”
“And you didn’t mention this to Jasper Flynn?”
“I was freaking, I didn’t want to be dragged into this. He wasn’t much interested, anyway. Then I got to feeling nervous about it, and a week ago I went to Alberni to tell Jasper the corrected version. That I paddled her across. Not the making out, the hand-holding stuff, out of respect to Dr. Winters, but I mentioned she asked me up for a drink.”
“And what did he have to say?”
“He was like, don’t complicate matters, I don’t have time right now, I’m late for my son’s hockey game, I don’t want to see you charged.”
And without bothering to solicit a written statement, he sent her on her way. She has told no one else. Her confidences are disarming on her face, but it’s unclear why she hadn’t told the truth in the first place. If it’s the truth. The partly consumed bottle of Chablis, the two glasses in the sink, suggest Winters was entertaining someone: If not Hoover, who was her guest?
When the sky lights up again, Arthur thinks he sees movement outside, a dark form by the window. But he’s skittish, it’s the shadow of a bush moving in the wind. His discomfort has now progressed to his lower intestines.
“Am I in any kind of trouble?”
“None, I should think. You made amends with Sergeant Flynn. You’ll tell the truth in court.”
She slips on her shoes. “Jasper will yank my licence. If he even knows I talked to you, he’s going to be pissed purple.”
“Why?”
She merely shrugs.
“You seem to have a special relationship with him.”
“People talk, but it’s nothing like they think. I don’t pay him off in money or in kind. Jasper’s not corrupt, but he’s lazy, he figures I save him a load of work keeping the boys happy in the camps. Not as many brawls, guys fighting over the girls, of which there’s a shortage. I’m doing a public service, I cut down on sexual crime. So, yeah, he tells me not to be obvious about it.” She rises. “I’ve got to go.”
He follows Hoover to the door, torn between obeying the demands of his bowels and wanting to talk more with her–does she know anything about date-rape drugs?
“You will be subpoenaed, Holly. You will be sworn. You will risk perjury if you don’t tell the truth.”
“I intend to tell the truth. I know Nick’s getting a raw deal, but I don’t want to become a suspect. I’m here because I want it on record I told you the whole story early on. I don’t want to be accused of making this up.”
Arthur takes her rain slicker from a peg. He’ll be a gentleman, hold it for her. She turns, pinches his bearded cheek. He steps back, startled.
“You know what–someone told me you were a vicious son of a bitch in court. But you don’t seem so bad. I like you, you’re cute.”
Arthur is all business. “I’ll need your statement in writing.” He puts his shoulder to the door to open it. He can still feel that light pinch. Somehow it aroused him, a little sample of pain to tempt him, she reads him rightly as a masochist. “Do you have a flashlight?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to see anybody. Can’t have people thinking you invited me over and we rode out the storm in the dark.” She smiles, seductive in the yellow lamplight. Suddenly, she is pressed to him, and he is momentarily overcome by patchouli and hot breath and buoyant breasts pooling against his ribs.
He backs up, and she stays in step with him, like a dancing partner. She stabs her tongue into his ear, an electrifying sensation, then whispers, “How do you want me to pay for the advice?”
“No charge.” A strangled sound, it barely escapes.
“Thanks, counsellor.” Her hand goes between his legs, hefting the baggage there, her fingers tracing along the stiffening spine of his penis.
Then she is gone.
At 3 a.m. he is still awake, tossing and farting. He has given a wide berth to the murder bed, is on a foam mattress in the loft. Outside his small window, the wind groans in the trees, and a swollen sea lashes the beach. He ought to test the door again, to ensure the lock clicked shut.
The byplay with Hoover, the exchange of advice for a crotch caress, keeps returning like a dirty joke. Did you hear the one about the hooker and the lawyer? A subtle joke, because who knows who’s screwing whom? Arthur feels used by her, but isn’t sure why. Had he somehow invited that intimate au revoir?
That he had fantasies involving her is disgusting. A young prostitute…Her lick and fondle, her offer of more, her warning about nasty rumours: a shot across the bows? A threat to embarrass him in court if his questions are too probing?
“‘More is meant than meets the ear.’ Who said that? Milton?”
This vocalizing to the void has got to stop, it’s a habit from the garden, talking to his beets. He tries not to think of the farm (he shouldn’t have allowed Stoney loose with the backhoe), it only keeps him awake. But two cups of instant coffee are doing that anyway.
The kids must still be arriving. He closes his eyes and counts goats, but the image of them springing over a broken fence makes him more fretful. His thoughts finally find their bumpy way to Margaret. He is in dire need of her comfort, her confidence, her ability to keep her amateur farmer husband from tripping over his feet. He must devise a face-saving plan to bring her down from that tree.
He backs up, that’s wrong. He must think in new ways if he’s to grapple with the ineffable inexplicableness of the female psyche. Margaret wants no face-saving plan. She wants to be rescued. You’re going to perform like Cyrano or else.
The storm abates for a while, and there is an eerie silence but for the murmur of trees shedding rain, then the winds start anew. He finally surrenders to sleep and agitating dreams of looking on whi
le Margaret hugs a fleshy, muscular tree.
15
After his fitful sleep, Arthur is anxious to put a gruesome night behind him, and, as Syd’s Beaver coasts into Blunder Bay, he entertains thoughts of a nap. But he is suddenly wary because Stoney is waiting at the dock, effusive in welcome, eager to be the porter of Arthur’s bag.
As if trying to shield Arthur’s view, Stoney walks backwards in front of him. “While you were gone, I must’ve put in fifty hours, I wanted to surprise you. Struck a spring, it looks like, it’s filling fast. We weren’t expecting that rainstorm last night, she kind of caved in on the sides, but not a problem.”
When Stoney steps aside, Arthur sees a berm has been cast up beside the pond, a clay mound on which Lotis Rudnicki and Shiftless and Underfoot and two geese are standing, watching events unfold. Nearby, Dog is hitching a chain to the backhoe, which is running, but with a slight cough.
“Had to make an emergency run for diesel yesterday, missed the gas station by five minutes. I would of siphoned the Toyota, but the tank was locked, and I couldn’t find where you hid the key.” An accusatory tone. “Anyway, when I got back, I parked the old girl by the edge there. Must have slipped out of gear overnight, and started rolling. It was one of them chance events you can’t predict.”
Arthur manoeuvres past him to the pond, where he observes the cab of his Fargo, or that part of it that shows above the water.
“We’ll have her flushed out, carb cleaned, the fuel lines, everything, and she’ll be ready to roll when the roosters crow.”
Arthur watches in an exhausted daze as Dog uncoils the chain and wades into the water fully clothed. While fastening the chain to the undercarriage, Dog slips, submerges. Finally, to Lotis’s applause, he rises. He waves to Stoney, who climbs aboard his backhoe and puts it in gear. Predictably, it utters a final cough and dies.
Stoney taps at the fuel dial for several moments, as if that might correct the problem. “There’s always something, eh, Arthur? Maybe I can use the tractor to pull it out?”
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