When the Flood Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  Sitting on that sunny gravel road under summery blue sky, two months and four mountain ranges away from Dan, and at least a kilometre from the nearest river, Lacey held out her hands, checking for scrapes across her palms from that desperate grab at the sodden bushes to keep herself out of the murky, swirling Fraser River. He’d helped her to her feet, swearing it was just a bit of horseplay, something to break the icy distance between them. There’d been no further mention of his moving home, or of counselling. A sleepless week later she’d called Tom and arranged to be in Calgary immediately following her exit interview from the RCMP.

  After a bit, obedient to the commanding voice in her head, she got to her feet and headed back up the road at a slow trot. There was, she remembered, a short path up from where she’d picked up Dee. It ran steeply up the hill and crossed the main trail near Dee’s backyard. She’d barely have time to shower and get down to the museum on time.

  The busy morning that followed kept her from thinking too hard about anything. Well, except about pushy Camille from the press conference. The woman poked her shapely nose into every area of the building. A handful of similarly streaked blondes followed her around, their high voices echoing acros the vast atrium like the yapping of a dozen purse puppies. Later they clustered in the outer office, watching through the glass wall as their leader flipped her hair and waved her arms at Rob, no doubt to punc­tuate some impossible new demand. Camille, the perennial headache.

  Lacey focused on adjusting the camera over the elevator door, which, she noted, was the same brand that covered Jake Wyman’s back gates. Nothing but the best around here. She went from that task to the next, working around the swirl of activity in and out of the theatre. Rehearsals were nothing to do with her. She would see the show on Friday with Dee.

  Dee was at the museum by late morning, calm and focused in the midst of a storm of queries from volunteers and workers alike. Yesterday’s despair might never have happened, save that the tension in her thin shoulders relaxed fractionally when she waved to Lacey. The mere presence of a police officer often had the same effect at an accident scene. People trusted you to handle it. You got good at projecting an air of calm competence even before you knew what you were up against. Fake it till you make it — just like Lacey was doing with this job for Wayne. Except that any of these workers or volunteers, or the nasty Camille, might have it in for Dee over some museum-related issue, and how could a stranger like Lacey hope to sort out the merely irked from the dangerously angry? Her phone went off; Wayne sent her down to the studio area to code keypads.

  Whatever else might be said about this job, it was giving her insight into how artists worked. This corridor beneath the theatre seats held small studios for rental by the hour, as well as a large room that could be divided for holding art classes. The inevitable messes could be cleaned up in a sloping stainless steel sink that was longer and a bit wider than a coffin. Two middle-aged women stood over the sink, sorting sculpting tools into bins. Occasionally a piece would roll down toward the drain with a pattering of plastic on metal.

  Beyond them, a short hallway connected the clay room to the theatre’s working underbelly, where scene­ry and props could be stored and artworks crated up for shipment. This hallway was lined with personal lockers, each with a keypad that needed coding according to Wayne’s list. Here artists could store their tools and masterworks between sessions. These were not ordinary bus station or even high school lockers, but cubbies rang­ing in size from breadboxes to deep, skinny spaces for stretched canvases. Across the aisle were walk-in closets tall enough to hold life-sized sculptures. Some of them contained rolling carts up to waist high, with a tool shelf at the bottom and a square flat top where the sculpting was done. One of the sorting women stepped on a cart’s bottom shelf and pushed off with her other foot, rolling across the floor, clinging to the flat top and laughing as she banged against the big window that opened onto the elevator lobby. No one else came into the area except a few lost rehearsal attendees. The women redirected them to the backstage stairs, pointing the way around by the corridors instead of letting them crowd past Lacey and her toolbox in the short, more direct hallway.

  Lacey smiled her thanks. Signage wasn’t her department, but if it wasn’t installed by Friday, she might spend all night retrieving disoriented guests and actors from the bowels of the building. Good thing she knew it so well by now: two asymmetrical wings connected by the third-floor skywalk and the main floor of the atrium. One wing held the galleries, with art at the top and history at the bottom. The other wing was two floors — a theatre with classrooms and other utilitarian rooms beneath. Theoretically only the actors would be down there. The offices and kitchen under the atrium would be swarming with caterers and staff, but that left a lot of odd corners and back halls where partygoers could get themselves lost. Accidentally or on purpose.

  By noon, she was inside the atrium’s information/security kiosk, kneeling on the floor with her head under the counter, twisting camera cables into a switching box. The midsummer sun beat through the immense window wall onto her back. Sweat glued her waistband to her skin and curls of hair stuck to her forehead. In the confined space, fresh glue and paint fumes assaulted her nose and throat. Beyond the windows, the river’s rumble echoed down her spine. When businesslike heels clicked across the paving-stone floor and stopped behind her, she backed out of her confinement with great relief. Even the dire Camille would be a welcome interruption at this point.

  “Security?” Dee tapped her ubiquitous travel mug on the varnished log countertop. “Can I have a safe-walk escort, please?” Lacey breathed deep and looked up at the sweat-free, wrinkle-free perfection that was Dee after a turbocharged morning.

  “You need an escort? Has something happened?”

  “It’s the protester out front. Rob and I have an appointment, and last time, he stood in front of Rob’s car for ten minutes. We’re taking mine, but he knows it and may stop us again.”

  “I can’t move him out of the way. We can’t touch him as long as he stays on public property.”

  “Just distract him. If he’s busy explaining his cause to a possible convert, he might let us sneak by without a hassle. You don’t have to identify yourself as anything but a curious construction worker.”

  “I look the part.” Lacey stood up and stretched out her back. “You want me to walk you to your vehicle first?”

  “Rob and I will sneak out a side door.” Dee waved at Rob and picked up her travel mug. “Give us three minutes to get into position, then go out and distract.” She and the curator disappeared down the stairs to the studio level.

  Lacey hung around inside the front entrance, watching Mr. Protest march up and down the shoulder by the parking lot exit, waving his sign at passing cars as they slowed for the turn onto the bridge. With his muddy rubber boots, greasy ball cap, and an equally filthy green plaid work shirt half-covered by a straggling grey-brown beard, he could play a hillbilly in any moonshiner movie. He might be a nuisance, but was he dangerous?

  After the three minutes were up, she strolled along the wide sidewalk of blue Rundle-stone slabs, wishing she were a smoker. Smokers could ask anyone for a light and then strike up a conversation. As a law enforcement officer, she had never needed an excuse. People were either flustered or flattered, depending on their conscience. Now she had no uniform, no authority, and no cigarette. She was going in undercover, an irony considering that one among her barrel of motives for leaving the RCMP was being rejected for undercover work. She kept her hands loose at her sides, fighting her instinct to be visibly ready for action.

  “Much traffic today?” she called as she approached.

  He shook his shaggy head, eying her up. After a bit he slurped his tongue over his teeth and said, “Nope. Midweek’s not the busiest. Couple of guys honked, though.”

  “Shows they’re paying attention, huh?”

  “Yup. Darn waste of taxpay
er money, this place. Here, have a pamphlet.” He tugged a trifolded yellow sheet from his shirt pocket. “Explains all about it.”

  “Thanks.” On the cover, in bold font, were the words, Make Jobs Not Pots. Lacey opened the sheet and scanned enough of the crowded paragraphs within to grasp the gist of his argument. Art didn’t bring jobs or economic benefits to the community. “You wrote this yourself?”

  “My brother did it. He’s good with words.” He reiterated the main point a couple of different ways before asking, “You gonna be working here long?”

  “Another few days, I expect. Only started last week.” That was true, and it should reassure him that she had no vested interest in defending the museum. “You gonna wrap up when the place opens, or keep picketing it all summer?”

  “Gotta talk it over with my brother. We take turns.”

  Two nutters. That was news to her. Did Dee or anyone else here know which was which? Lacey leaned her butt against the guardrail, settling in for a chat and, not incidentally, turning Nutter #1 away from the parking lot.

  “I’m Lacey. Which brother are you?”

  “Eddie. Eddie Beal. My brother’s Eben.”

  “How’d you get started, anyway? I never heard.”

  “We been protesting this since it was before the regional municipality two years ago. Big waste of money and ties up land that could be used for industry. Something to bring jobs to the locals.” Beyond him, Dee’s SUV was backing out of its parking space. Did she count as a local? Not likely.

  “This place won’t hire locally?”

  Eddie snorted. “We got a few of those artsy types living out here, might teach the odd class. Only other workers are the secretary — she’s from up Springbank way — and the boss guy from who knows where. Plus whoever he hires to shovel sidewalks next winter.”

  The SUV rolled up behind him. Lacey said, before he could turn, “What kind of jobs would you rather see?”

  “Me and Eben wanted a chicken processing plant. Lots of small farmers hereabouts raise their own birds. Need someplace to get them plucked, gutted, and frozen. Right now they’re hauling halfway to Rocky Mountain House.”

  “That’s quite a ways,” said Lacey, without a clue where Rocky Mountain House was. The SUV, not quite pausing at the stop sign, rolled onto the blacktop and turned to cross the bridge. Dee was off. The threat assessment was not finished, though. Eddie or his brother, or both, lived nearby, and their grudge against the museum made them prime prowler candidates. “Must have made you and Eben mad when the RM backed this place instead of your idea.”

  Eddie slurped his teeth again. “You bet. Bunch of us went up there arguing at the council meetings but they paid us no mind. We tried to take them to court, block the transfer of the land, but they got the case thrown out. Too many lawyers on their side. Too much money against us.” He waved his No Pots sign at a passing truck. “Our kind scraped by out here eighty years before the tourists found us. We just want to live on our own land, raise our kids in the outdoors, grow our own food, and cut our own wood where we still can. This art building brings more tourists to buy fancy coffee and pots. If we grew our own coffee or used our own clay, we might get something out of it. But we get nothing. All it does is makes Bragg Creek look better to outsiders, so more rich folks want to buy up old family acreages and split them up for big, power-sucking houses.”

  That pretty much described Dee’s house, and those of her neighbours. Whether Dee had been involved with the court battle or not, she would be considered one of the enemy. Did Eddie know who she was, where she lived? Or just that she was around the museum enough for her car to be recognizable? While Lacey groped for a way to ask outright, her phone rang. Wayne, wanting to know why she hadn’t finished in the kiosk. She rolled her eyes for Eddie’s benefit and waved as she walked back to the elitist log-colonnaded building.

  Gazing at its picturesque backdrop of lush young trees and rolling hills, with the southern Rocky Mountains snow-tipped in the distance, she wondered in what universe people would build noisy, smelly chicken-processing plants on land that was not only prime for tourism, but mostly upwind of the shopping district.

  Indoors, Wayne gave her the cold eye for dawdling outside, so she didn’t ask if he knew the protester had a brother picketer. Thanks to the pamphlet, she had Eddie’s full name and home phone number. She scribbled his truck’s licence plate number beneath them and shoved the paper into her back pocket. Later she would find out what Dee, Rob, or anyone else around here knew about Eddie and Eben. As a last resort, she would pull a favour with Tom and get him to check the brothers’ records. If either was likely to be a danger to Dee, there would be a clue somewhere.

  Chapter Seven

  No alarm, false or otherwise, disturbed Lacey’s third night at Dee’s. After breakfast, she walked down the hill road to the museum, stoking up her supply of fresh mountain air and wide-open views before she had to face that vault again.

  Her precaution was not needed. The vault’s master programmer had not yet returned Wayne’s call. His office said he was out of the country and blamed an unspecified time zone difference for the delay. Wayne fumed, but the vault lockdown was maintained. Instead, he sent Lacey hopping through a string of small finishing jobs that likely wouldn’t have been done for a couple of days yet. It was well past lunchtime before he called a halt.

  “We’ll go late tonight, McCrae, so get out for some fresh air. Meet me in the loading bay at,” he consulted his watch, “three o’clock. If I’m not there within five minutes, come tap on my van window.”

  Lacey was not going to make any comments about ex-sergeants who needed afternoon naps. A nap sounded good to her, too, but Eddie Beal had been picketing out front earlier and she had more questions for him. Five minutes later, with no sign of Eddie or his rust-bucket truck, she perched on a guardrail with her back to the river and her phone to her ear, talking to Tom. She’d already given him the gist of Dee’s prowler situation when she picked up her knapsack, so she cut straight to business.

  “Hi, Tom,” she said. “Do you know anyone at Cochrane detachment? Dee can’t remember the name of the constable who took her prowler report back in April. They may not have opened a file.”

  “I’m heading out on a call, McCrae. I’ll check the staffing list back at the office.”

  “Also have a person of interest. Ask what they know about Eddie Beal. Unofficially.” She gave him Eddie’s home address and licence plate, promised unspecified future favours that they both knew he had little chance of collecting, and hung up. She jogged awkwardly, still in her workboots, over the bridge and through the townsite to the gas station. After dawdling at the chocolate bar display while waiting for a customer to leave, she dropped a bar and a toonie on the counter and asked the scrawny young clerk if he was a local.

  “Yeah. Need directions?”

  “No. I was just wondering about that guy picketing the new museum.”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “The big building over the bridge?” She pointed out the window behind his counter.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Somebody’s picketing that place? Cool. What for?”

  “He thinks it’s a waste of money.” And this was a waste of her time. She gave it one more try. “Do you know a guy named Eddie Beal?”

  “Any relation to Jasmine Beal? She’s in my little sister’s class.”

  “No idea.” Lacey took her receipt and went around the corner to the mall boardwalk. Where would Eddie Beal shop if not the gas station? A grocery store and liquor store anchored the far end of the horseshoe, while this side was for tourists: candles, ice cream, souvenirs. The connecting strip included a bistro, an art store, a western decor place, the post office, and a bar.

  Thirty minutes of dawdling from store to store, pretending to look at stuff she had no interest in buying, brought no useful information. A man in the art store, w
ho had sized her up as a non-buyer the instant her workboots hit his varnished plank floor, knew about Eddie’s protest but dismissed him as a harmless crank. He turned away from her the instant a real customer walked in. The liquor store clerk tried to interest her in coming to a Scotch tasting. The bar waitress brought her a burger and salad, but no information about Eddie.

  “He don’t come in here daytimes,” she said past the stud in her lip. “Maybe try the night shift if you’re interested.” Which she clearly was not. Women didn’t tip women well, and she was saving her smiles for the men at the next table in their shiny, expensive mountain-biking gear.

  That left the grocery store and barely half an hour before Lacey had to get back to work. She scarfed down the food, left the money on the table, and hurried down the boardwalk. Inside, she buzzed the aisles looking for bottled water and prepackaged sandwiches to sustain her through the long night’s work. There were two tills open and she picked the one with the older cashier rather than the sulky teenager. As the woman ran her few purchases over the scanner, Lacey started the routine again, more comfortable by now with non-official snooping. She smiled at the cashier.

  “Do you live around here?”

  “Sure do. Need directions?” That question was a standard one in this tourist area. For the seventh time, Lacey said no.

  “I was wondering about that guy picketing outside the new museum. He a local, too?”

  “Who, Eddie? Sure is. Lived here all his life. Why?”

  “Just curious. I saw him with his sign, wondered if a lot of people here share his feelings about the artsy place.”