And On the Surface Die

by Lou Allin

  Ann reached for her jacket. Her large hand had strong, blunt nails. “Oh, come on. They’re too young.”

  “So I hope, but they have brothers and sisters. And younger kids are always underfoot. They may have heard something.”

  “That’s true.” Ann opened the door for Sean. “And for the best picture of drug use out here, call Sooke. Ask for Corporal Hoicks.”

  Andrea Bonhomme passed her and settled into the front desk with a large thermos. She was tall and willowy, a retired loans officer. Her strawberry blonde hair was gathered in one gorgeous braid down her back. Like them, she wore traditional shirt and pants with a volunteer patch. Without people like Andrea to fill in the gaps, life would be much more difficult for the detachment.

  As Holly learned when she called, Corporal Hoicks had worked with the Drug Unit in Victoria and had his finger on the pulse of the Capital Region. The man’s voice was ragged with concern. “Christ, yes, it’s a regular epidemic. And we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg yet. Sorry for the lame joke. Meth is as bad as crack any day.” He explained that most people thought that the drug was limited to scabrous nether regions of urban areas. But even suburban housewives could become addicted. The unparalleled rush, hours of euphoria, the cheapness at ten dollars a “point,” or tenth of a gram, and the availability made a toxic and fatal combination.

  “So it’s here after all. My case isn’t just an anomaly.” She felt an undercurrent shoot through her core, like turning over a mossy rock and finding a den of poisonous newts.

  His laughter was grim and ironic. “It’s in Sooke, guaranteed. Didn’t take long to snake its way over from the street scene in Victoria. Their Specialized Youth Detox Centre has seen meth victims increase nearly six times in the last few years. Over seventy per cent of admissions are for meth. Average age, sixteen.”

  “Average,” she said with a sigh. “That means...” Her voice trailed off as another thought entered her mind. “Could they be making it here? We’ve had our share of pot farms, private and otherwise.” B.C. bud, the legendary provincial product, made up a sizable percentage of the British Columbia economy. Taxing it might pay for health care.

  “Brush up on your terminology. They ‘cook’ it. A whole new ball game for investigators. Get the guidelines report after that explosion in Vancouver? You gotta be careful as hell taking down a meth lab. Blew the house halfway to Whistler. Buddy of mine got second-degree burns busting down the door.”

  “I was just posted here from way up north, Corporal. Pardon me for being naïve.”

  He laughed in a friendly way. “We had a forum in Sooke last summer at the school. Showed that ‘Death by Jib’ video. Over fifty people came, parents mainly. Were their eyes ever opened. Should be a yearly experience, but if you overdo it, kids turn off.”

  “I can understand that. Any other initiatives I should know about? Or is the ferry sailing away without me?”

  “Our Staff Sergeant, Roger Plamondon, was instrumental in getting the Sooke Council to pass a bylaw to help authorities detect not only grow-ops but meth labs. Municipalities on the lower mainland anticipated us by a few years on that.”

  “Good thing I asked. I assumed we’d be operating under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.” A sheen of sweat gathered on her brow. How close could she have come to looking like a fool?

  “Getting search warrants under that relic could take weeks. The perps could be gone overnight.”

  “Sounds like a great idea. Very proactive. I left here long before this drug scene. What’s your take on the area and its possibilities for ‘cooking’, as you put it?”

  “I live in Saseenos, and I do volunteer work for the salmon hatcheries. It’s pretty wild country, despite the acreage in clear cuts. Five miles from town, all the better for an isolated lab. Abandoned farms, forests, ravines and twelve-foot brambles make a better deterrent than chainlink. All natural and very easy to camouflage from occasional helicopter flybys like the one that helped us find a cannabis patch on Farmer Road.”

  “True. And out this way? Past Otter Point to Shirley and Jordan River?”

  “In the interior, away from the coast road and tourist stuff, you might as well be in the northern bush. That’s the way they like it. Nothing can be seen from the road. Junkyard dogs. Keep a few chickens, goats or llamas to justify the fences. Maybe even call it an organic farm, the new rage. For a small place, high electrical use is a tip-off. But often they’re cheating and getting juice for free. That’s my next point. Fire’s one of the worst hazards with grow-ops. Bare wires going to the breaker box.”

  His comprehensive e-mail attachment an hour later illustrated signs of a potential meth lab. She read it with interest, instantly suspicious. As opposed to the stereotypical, more staid citizens of Victoria, with their legendary Empress tea room and haggis on Robbie Burns’ day, people from the Western Communities were mavericks. Irate over creeping suburban bylaws regulating open burning, the average man would stand up in council and say, “It’s my damn land, and I’ll do what I want with it.” Her father had quipped that “Anything Goes” was the local anthem. Laid back, super casual in dress, a large proportion were hippies in their early sixties. They ate “slow food”, organic if possible, and knew their homeless by name. Many had artistic sidelines like woodworking, pottery, weaving and painting, which they advertised by the roadside along with jars of flowers for sale on the honour system. Holly didn’t see any of these gentle folk as possible lab rats, but that didn’t mean that someone evil couldn’t move in. The population doubled in the summer from tourists and had added a permanent two thousand in the last three years.

  She thought of the trash angle of meth production. Recycling was free, and most property owners took advantage of the Blue Box program instead of trucking cans and bottles to the depot for nickels and dimes. Were the Capital Regional District trucks keeping an eye out for large quantities of discarded packaging, stained coffee filters, blister packs from cold remedy packages, lantern fuel containers, evidence of manufacturing? But what meth lab operator would locate on a well-travelled road? As for the other signs, strong odours similar to cat urine, ether and ammonia could be masked by burning wood as fall came on and fire warnings dropped to “green”. Windows blacked out with plastic or foil? If the place were unseen from the road, who would know?

  Ann returned around three as school let out and the lone bus began ferrying home the children. “I hate to think any of those babies are doing drugs.” She sat down heavily, rubbing at her back. “Still, I guess twelve is the new twenty. Why do they want to grow up so fast? You’re only a kid once, then it’s game over. Pop stars are the exception to the rule.”

  “I made copies of these for you and Chipper.” Holly handed Ann the meth info sheets. “Didn’t you say that Sean rides all over the area?”

  “He has a paper route before school. Delivers by six, poor kid. But on weekends he loves to tour the back country on his mountain bike.”

  “I know it sounds like we’re training young Gestapo members to spy on their parents, but tell him to watch for this kind of thing.” She pointed out a few paragraphs she had flagged with red ink.

  Ann frowned, leafing through the warnings. “Isolated. Rural. Sounds like most of our district.”

  Holly had another, more alarming thought. “Tell Sean to be very cool about it. Under no circumstances is he to approach these places. Strictly ride-by at normal speed. Do you think he can handle that, because if not—”

  Ann pursed her lips. “I know Sean, and I trust him. If the younger generation were more like he is...”

  “Say no more. Your opinion is good enough for me.”

  An hour later, Paul Gable called. “I thought you’d like to know that the school is having a memorial service for Angie. It’s tomorrow at eleven. In the gym. Sorry about the short notice. I’m glad I caught you in the office.”

  “And the funeral?” People usually wanted closure. That was another frustration in her mother’s
disappearance. Her father had refused even a memorial service, another reason why Bonnie’s family had severed contact with him.

  He cleared his throat. “Nate thinks it’s a waste of time and money, making businesses rich. He’s opting for cremation. But the kids have really gone all out for this service. A celebration of her life. Videos of Angie swimming at tournaments. Our choir will perform, too. Some of the kids will speak. And a few staff, too.”

  “Thanks for thinking of me. Of course I’ll be there.”

  She should have checked about the service herself, if only as a courtesy. Tomorrow would be a good time to catch Kim Bass and Coach Grove.

  When she got home, she saw her father sitting at the kitchen table in the bay window staring out at the waves etching white on the waters. Butterflies frolicked around the late dahlias on the deck. The rich and savoury smell of her father’s premier dish filled the room. Shogun was lying on a plush cushion by the counter, looking like a baby rajah. His paws held a large rawhide chewie. Down the stairs to the solarium, the sound of Patty Page singing “Old Cape Cod” drifted up like a balm.

  From his posture, she could see that he was looking at a picture on the wall. Then she remembered. September 30th. The anniversary of her mother’s disappearance. How could she have forgotten? Slowly she came forward, trying not to disturb him. The picture had been taken at Bonnie’s graduation from UBC. This was as formal as Holly’d ever seen her, black gown, hair rolled under just touching her collar. What did they call that style? A shag? Hadn’t her mother once joked that she had worn rollers to bed like a thorny crown? Soon after, Bonnie had adopted a no-nonsense short hair cut which required a quick brush kiss. “Ready to wear,” she had called it.

  Bonnie Rice had gone on to law school at Osgoode Hall and met her father while he was doing his doctoral work at the University of Toronto. They’d married and followed his job to Victoria, not far from her family in Cowichan. Holly ran through her memories like a bittersweet movie. Bonnie had never been the pie-baking, stay-at-home kind of mother. They’d laughed over her effort to make rice pudding like her grandmother’s. But she’d never parked Holly in a day care. Despite the awkwardness, she had taken Holly to work whenever possible. Content in a small law firm arranging simple wills and real-estate transactions, she made little money. Then when her own mother died from tuberculosis just after Holly was born, the special needs of native women and children began to claim Bonnie’s attention. Remote areas had unique challenges due to the isolation. First a safe place, then healing, education and goals for the woman and her children. Finally a job to maintain independence. Bonnie had fought long and hard for funding, appeared before the legislature, spoken until hoarse on television and radio. “Pro bono” must have been tattooed on her heart.

  Her gift was an ability to assess needs, then locate and funnel resources where they would do best, interfacing with literacy people, doctors without borders, prenatal care, shelters for the homeless and especially for battered women. She had worked for Victimlink, Cherie’s House and the Sexual Assault Centre, stirring many well-guarded pots on the way. There wasn’t a millionaire she hadn’t approached to sponsor a room, or buy furniture or business machines. As her profile grew, so did the number of people who wanted women kept in their place. Countless times, she’d fielded threatening phone calls from abusive husbands.

  Often she was gone for weeks, but she never forgot her daughter’s birthday, April 1st, a family jest. A brown paper package would arrive in the mail, a beaded jacket, an eagle feather carefully wrapped, a polished agate. “I’m sorry not to be with you, darling,” she’d say on the phone, when she could find one. “A word of birthday advice. Modern wisdom has it that a woman should never learn to type. It will enslave you. But I’ve found it handy. And your father’s such a good cook that you should get his recipes before you go off to school. Those two talents should sustain you. If you need guidance or are in trouble, call on your spirit animal, the deer. And don’t tell me how helpless they are. An antler in the heart can kill a man.”

  Holly could still recall how Bonnie had arranged for a huge divorce settlement for a woman whose arm had been broken and her vision compromised due to beatings in front of her young children. Her husband, owner of a large car dealership in Nanaimo, had avoided jail by agreeing to the terms.

  “I should have shot him when I had the chance,” Delores Ash had said behind dark glasses as she’d sat in their living room. Ten-year-old Holly had just brought her a cup of coffee and made sure it was safe in her shaking hand. She wasn’t sure if the sad lady was joking, but her mother’s face seemed serious. “I know you would have gotten me off, Bonnie. Probably with a gold medal.”

  And her mother added with a wry smile, “You have my number if you change your mind. But the bastard’s better off alive, where he can continue to pay for his crimes. Being dead is far too good for him.”

  Holly shook off the memory. Sometimes she imagined her mother by her side, offering advice, but she knew it was her own conscience, however shaped by the lost woman. Her career had taken a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn when she might have been out saving stands of Garry oak. Much though her mother loved nature, she put people first, and she would have applauded the change.

  Her father’s shoulders gave a slight heave, and she heard him whisper, “Holly’s home. You’d like the woman she’s become. But where, oh where...” He wore a gift from his wife, a thick and warm Cowichan sweater in muted browns and greys.

  Holly backed up and closed the French doors behind her as she passed through the TV room to the kitchen. Disturbing his thoughts without warning would be like interrupting a prayer. “Hey. What’s for dinner?”

  Norman seemed to slip something into a folded newspaper. When it came to emotions, he was a very private man. Some thought he was oblivious to matters of the heart. She knew otherwise. Even though her parents had drifted apart, something golden and good had brought them together to usher her into the world.

  “If I’ve made it right, your nose should tell you.” He grinned and tucked the paper under his arm.

  She lifted her chin to the ceiling and moved it back and forth like a flavour-seeking sensor. “Mac and cheese. Am I ever glad I found you in the Fifties. Hardly low-cal, but simple and comforting.”

  She saw Shogun roll over for a belly rub and obliged. His slanted eyes fluttered shut as if drugged. All men led with their groins, in honest fashion but often against their own interests. Perhaps even her father when he was young. “Did you get out with the dog?” she asked.

  “Soon as you left for work. Took him up Randy’s Place to the old gravel pit. Short and sweet.” He looked at her as he stirred a pot of Harvard beets. “But he wouldn’t mind another go, so to speak. If you’re not too tired.”

  She recognized the gentle blackmail. The old man was trying to get her to bond, not to forget her shepherds, but to move on, something he still couldn’t do with her mother. She gave him an arch glance to indicate that she was wise. “Let me get out of this combat gear, and we’re in business.”

  “No hurry. You’ve got half an hour.”

  A short time later she came down the stairs in capri pants and a CourtTV T-shirt, grabbed a leash, and whistled to the dog. They left the house and headed for the turnaround. A covey of quail, tiny, coroneted busybodies, were flushed from the blackberry bramble hedgerow. Holly made a note to collect some late berries for their dessert. Her Salmon Kings ball cap would serve for the collection.

  The turnaround at Otter Point Place led to an old path downhill through bushes, across from a small public access for Gordon’s Beach. This historic strip often attracted wind surfers and ocean admirers bearing the island signature cup of coffee. Her father’s home and others dotting the uplands had once been part of the Tugwell, then the Gordon farm. The family’s salmon trap had sat offshore at this point for many years. In December of 1912, the Gordon family awoke to a roaring sound. The barque County Linlithgow from London had mistaken the
new Sheringham Point light for Race Rocks fifty kilometres east. Instead of turning into snug Victoria harbour, the captain found his four-masted vessel gone aground. Accorded the best of hospitality from the surprised Gordons, the sailors refloated their boat at the next tide. Now an award-winning meadery occupied part of the property, with tastings and tours during peak season. The hives were often relocated into the clear-cuts in summer when fireweed was in bloom.

  But slenderly trusting the obedience of the young dog, Holly latched him on to cross busy West Coast Road, scramble over the high-tide flotsam and jetsam, then let him loose on the beach. The waves thrust fingers up the sloping cobble, then retreated in a curtain of noisy white effervescence. Shogun spied a woman edging the surf like a tightrope walker and instantly ran forward, deaf to Holly’s cries. Everyone he met was a friend, a charming but annoying trait indicating a lack of control by the owner. “Sorry,” she said to the lady who was carrying a colourful golf umbrella. “Everything that looks like a stick must be one.”

  “Border collies. Gotta love ’em. Smartest dogs in the world,” the woman replied, ruffling the dog’s fur, then setting off up the bank to a tiny driftwood cottage no bigger than Norman’s woodshed.

  Open to debate, Holly thought, a matter of wiring, not problem solving. GSDs were the Einsteins of the dog world. Border collies were clever card-counters at a poker table, peeking out from under their green plastic eyeshades.

  Shogun waded in and began herding waves, snapping and barking. The comic sight gave her the first laugh of the day. Along the shore, great mounds of seaweed had drifted in, kelp tangled like huge mounds of fat green spaghetti with bulbs at one end. A small tug miles out pulled a vast mat of chained logs. The captain chose his times with care. Serious wind and wave action could break the bonds and cause a shipping nightmare, not to mention the loss of tens of thousands of dollars of potential board feet.