And On the Surface Die

by Lou Allin

  Only his set jaw revealed that he was holding himself in check. In the long silence, Shogun trotted over, first with his rubber hoop, then with his tug rope, then with Baby, a stuffed Dalmatian, nuzzling into Norman’s hand. Ignored, the dog padded off and slouched down on his bed. Finally, Norman nodded slowly. “She mentioned nothing, but the signs were clear...even for a cockeyed optimist. I thought we’d work it out. We always had. Twenty-four years is a long time, nearly our silver anniversary. I hoped she’d mellow, stop chasing these useless causes and settle down.”

  Useless? Because in the human drama someone always needed help? “Can you tell me anything else about that last week.”

  A deep sigh came from him. “She closed one of our savings accounts.”

  “What?” Holly cursed herself for not abandoning her exams and coming home immediately. If she’d been on the spot, she might have noticed something. Was that absurd? She hadn’t been a trained officer. But Norman had insisted that she carry on with her studies, that her mother would return. Then weeks and months had passed.

  He waved his hand in a half-hearted gesture. “It wasn’t that much. Maybe ten thousand dollars. Not like the RRSPs. Those resource funds my father left me.”

  This mention of money sent electricity down her core. Suddenly the substance of it demanded answers to obvious questions. “Why did she need money? She wasn’t in debt, was she?”

  Norman steepled his fingers, making order as he always did. “She didn’t care much about money, making it, that is. I don’t remember the time she had new clothes or the kind of silly outfits women seem to want. Instead of a purse, she lugged things around in an old canvas tote bag with an embroidered German shepherd. A birthday present from you, as I recall. She spent money helping others. Gas, that guzzling Bronco, motels en route. Mostly time away from a job where she could have pulled in a salary. Everyone thinks lawyers are rich. Only the unethical ones are. That’s what she said.” He gave a bittersweet chuckle. “Your mother had a sense of humour.”

  Holly remembered her mother in jeans and sweatshirts. She didn’t even own pajamas; she wore T-shirts instead. “Ten thousand sounds like a stake for a fast exit. Nothing long term. Even Mexico isn’t that cheap.” But she’d never leave me, Holly thought.

  She regretted her quick words. He looked wounded as a kicked pup. “If your mother had ever asked for a separation, or god forbid, a divorce, she was welcome to it. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy. If I hadn’t been so blind, I would have realized from the start that I wasn’t the man for her. She was just so damn wonderful, and I felt lucky. Then the years passed. I got involved in securing tenure. Remember how the university made those cuts? Thought I was going to be laid off. Mortgage rates jumped to nearly nineteen per cent. I took her for granted. In some ways, that’s worse than cheating. Such a stupid man I was.”

  Then the phone rang. “Just a second, Dad.” In the middle of their first frank conversation about Bonnie, she would have preferred to ignore this summons. Was it news about Billy?

  “I wasn’t sure if you had heard. Janice Mercer has disappeared,” Ann said. “In our own community. Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto maybe, but not here.”

  Holly recalled the interview with Janice. A strange girl, serious and studious to the point of being a prig. “I interviewed her at Botanical. Tell me more.”

  “I went in to do some cross-filing when a fax arrived. The Sooke detachment alerted us in case she’s been hitchhiking west. She never came home from school yesterday. No call, nothing. She doesn’t have any close friends. A couple kids saw her start off walking home alone. The parents are beating themselves up for not getting her a cell phone.”

  “Is there an amber alert?” A lot of good that would do without the hardware. The only flashing signs she had seen were on the Island Highway alerting drivers to the condition of the Malahat to the north or to ferry delays at the end of Pat Bay Highway.

  “No go. That requires the child to be seen leaving with an adult, often a family member. As in abductions in spousal estrangement.”

  “True. And it’s Sooke’s case, but we’ll do what we can. Contact Andrea, Sean and the rest of our volunteers. Tell them to keep an eye out. Is there a picture?”

  “Just sent over. I’ll run off copies and get them out to businesses out here. Could be a tourist noticed something.”

  Holly rang off with an increased appreciation for Ann’s gifts. If not for the accident, she would have made a top-notch commander, the perfect combination of instinct and skills.

  Twelve

  Chipper had taken the initiative and decided to do the Port Renfrew interviews on his own time on the weekend. He could hardly escape from his mother that morning as she pressed forward breakfast treats. Sliced mangos and bananas, scrambled eggs, parathas, even a sweet ladoo made of chick pea flour, sugar, ghee, cashews and almonds. Normally he didn’t take the food to work. Once he’d kept a chicken tandoori lunch in the cruiser and earned a stinging comment from a drunk in the rear seat. “What’s that Paki shit?” the man asked. “It stinks.” He’d thought of the care his mother had taken to marinate the meat in garam masala, but he kept quiet, biting down his indignation.

  His father, Gopal, a genial but small man with a resemblance to the Mahatma, was off to open the store downstairs. “Extra work on the weekend. I am very proud of you, son. It will not be long before you can take your staff-sergeant’s exam, yes?” He dressed in slacks and a cardigan, unlike Isha Singh, who loved her saris. Finding a source of cloth had been difficult before a new fabric shop opened in Victoria.

  “A few more years, Dad. I’m not even a corporal yet.” After turning off the CBC news, Isha began to clean the table, a hint that both her men should be on their way. Chipper finished a last piece of kulcha stuffed with potato and onion and baked. He washed down the morsel with a mango lassi.

  Isha, pleasantly plump, her lustrous black hair in a bun, wearing full white pants and a loose top for the house, added in the lilting tones he tried to repress in his own voice, “And we have a perfect girl for you. Father met the family last week. Just arrived from Jullundur. You remember that Auntie Bithika lives in Ludhiana, not far. Why, you might have met over there as babies when we visited.” She plucked a few pieces of lint from his shoulder and straightened his tie.

  Chipper sighed, feeling like the fatted calf. “I don’t want to get married yet. And no way an arranged marriage. We’re in Canada, not the Punjab. I’ve always lived here.”

  His mother wagged her pudgy finger as she packed parathas for him to snack on. “And the divorce rate. Fifty per cent in North America. In arranged marriages, the failures are only three per cent. Three! What is that telling you? You cannot deny facts.”

  Deciding not to anger her by asking if the story had run in the Delhi News, Chipper made his exit as his father opened the shop door below and set out the lottery advertising boards. For the longer trip, Chipper took the family car, an older Ford Focus wagon with a ding on the fender but a good sound system.

  On the way west, he relaxed with a CD of Rasa from the Shelter album. The eerie tones of “Narada Muni” transported him to exotic places. Electric bass, sarangi, the elusive Swedish nyckelharpa, all combined to center the body and soothe the soul. That prayers to Shiva could sound so erotic didn’t surprise him, given the history of sexuality in Indian art. His parents listened less and less to traditional music, but their tastes ended with Ravi Shankar.

  Another day of rain pelted against the pitted windshield as he threaded the bottleneck through Glen Lake and Luxton. It was depressing, nothing like the sunny plains of Saskatchewan where he had first been posted. There the farmer would have welcomed rain, but that’s why wheat grew there and ferns grew here. The wipers slacked back and forth at high speed. Through Sooke and Otter Point, where Holly lived, he eased to a conservative fifty instead of sixty as the pavement sluiced over. He didn’t recall any serious flooding spots in the vicinity, but there was no sense risking a hydropl
ane in this dinky toy. The bulky police car was a guzzler but had a better safety record.

  Once in Port Renfrew, he stopped first at the Tourist Bureau. “No, sir,” said the young native woman, given the dates of this mysterious visitor. “We closed down that day. Propane leak. Place was locked up until we could get someone to work on the heater. And Mr. Jenkins doesn’t put up any business cards on our bulletin board. Just the sign at his house and word of mouth.”

  Thirsty from the sweet and salty breakfast, he stopped for tea at a small restaurant, surprised that they carried herbal varieties so far west of the city. The server was Bengali himself and struck up a conversation. Placing his hands together in admiration, the man said, “And you are allowed to be wearing the traditional five pieces, then. Isn’t this a wonderful country?”

  Feeling like he was on exhibit, Chipper explained that he was rechecking information from a drowning incident. Dressed in an immaculate white serving uniform, the man wiped the counter and clucked in dismay. “Terrible, it was. Such publicity. Never a drowning here since I have been working. What will tourists think? A bad business, that.”

  “Do you know anyone who lives on the road to Botanical?”

  “Many places are for sale now that the real estate boom is on, and let me tell you, the prices are not cheap. People from Victoria are buying camps or acreage to enjoy our beaches.”

  He furrowed his brow and counted on his knobby fingers.

  “There are about ten places. But most are not full-time. Your best bet is to try Mr. Butch Miller. He lives around the last corner just before the beach. There will be a shack that has fallen down, a pile of shingles and wood now, then his house.”

  Chipper stopped at every house he saw, but it was evident that they were closed for the season and had been for weeks. Grass grew in the lanes, and windows were shuttered. Many were set far back from the road with concealing shrubbery.

  In front of a small, low cabin whose roof slanted to the back, Miller was rocking on the porch. Chipper looked up as a goat walked up from the rear, munching serenely, its white beard wagging. The flat top of the roof was thick with grass. “I should charge admission, eh?” Miller asked. “Got the idea at Coombs, that tourist place up island.”

  When Chipper introduced himself, the man asked him to sit, paddling his fleshy lip in deep thought. A fat red cat with two ragged ears lolled at the end of the porch. Chipper described the situation.

  “Let’s see, now. September 20, you say?” As he hesitated, Chipper thought how unlikely it was that anyone retired and without a business agenda could recall where he had been nearly a month ago.

  He went inside and brought back a Royal Bank calendar, leafing back. “Full moon?”

  Chipper’s mother always took note of that because she liked to plant her window-box herb garden according to the phases. And he remembered the interviews with the boys, who had mentioned the light on the beach. “I think so.”

  “Oh, yes. A glorious moon that night. And a bicycle? I saw someone go by around nine that night. Never came back. Not while I was there.”

  “And were you there until...”

  “Naw, went inside to read Zane Grey. I work through his books once a year. Riders of the Purple Sage. That’s crackerjack. Not like the junk today.” He wormed a finger into his ear and seemed to purr at the sensation.

  Chipper let him take his time. No sense hurrying the man. He might be a hermit, but he was a friendly one, instead of armed with a shotgun. He nodded and smiled as the old fellow ruminated.

  “Do recollect I heard some vehicle go by, though. An hour later, came back. Read till past midnight and never heard another peep. It’s quiet here. You notice the little things.”

  “What kind of vehicle?”

  “You got this old boy thinking now. Not a motorcycle. None of them quiet. Not a quad. Maybe a truck. But the size...” He paused and coughed into his sleeve. “Did see the ass end of it going out. Two little red lights set far apart. An older vehicle. Squarish. A van, could be.”

  Not long after, munching on the last paratha, Chipper assembled his notes in the car. What had he learned? That Angie had come alone? That someone else in an older car or van had followed? Maybe his information would help glue together a very puzzling picture. Altogether, he was pleased with his interview techniques. Old folks liked to take their time and enjoy a moment in the spotlight. He was learning.

  * * *

  As she did every few hours, Ann placed her hands on her hips and leaned backwards to stretch. She remembered the happy years of jogging and tennis, interspersed with the odd, discounted backache as little by little the discs had worn away. Genetics, or that summer she’d hauled lumber, stained and nailed it for her mother’s wrap-around deck and porch? Never did bend her knees properly. She was in too much of a hurry and thought she was invincible. Then the accident. The coup de grâce, the specialist said. And worse yet, though hip and knee replacements were a snap, nothing could be done for backs, in Canada at least, unless you were in danger of paralysis. The no-brainer miracle fusions of the past had been discontinued because surgeons noted that the neighbouring discs began surrendering to the increased stress.

  Sean hustled in with a handful of posters bearing Janice’s picture. He took off his long-billed ball cap and stood at attention in front of her desk. “I put one on all the hydro poles near where people park to look at the ocean. Now I’ll take more to the B and Bs.” He showed her a small notebook with a list of items checked off.

  Ann managed a large smile and a pat on the shoulder. “Great, Sean. You’re a big help. I see a promotion in your future.” She pulled out a package of red licorice whips from her desk. “Here’s a reward.”

  He pumped his fist in the air and left, whirling a whip in the air. Then it became very quiet in the office, only a steady drip from the eaves. With Janice’s poster in hand, she pondered the fact that two girls from a small high school had met danger within a few weeks. One was dead, another missing. And Billy’s suicide attempt. Holly had mentioned the suspicious marks. Ann agreed. Too many coincidences.

  She doubted that Chipper would find any new information in Port Renfrew. Absent witnesses, stale memories. What if she’d been there to investigate the drowning? Had everyone on the fatal night received a thorough vetting? What about the staff? Even in the sanctified halls of learning, people lied and got away with it. She had read that the Dean of Admissions at MIT had fabricated degrees nearly thirty years ago. And the Dean was a woman. Equal opportunity strikes again.

  She searched the files for the copies of the reports on the drowning. Hadn’t Holly mentioned doing routine background checks on the faculty? She didn’t remember hearing any results, not that she got all the information when it arrived. Finally the papers came to hand. Three staff had been at the beach. She discounted the Bass woman. One disturbed astronaut aside, females did not kidnap other females. That left Coach Terry Grove and Paul Gable.

  Within minutes, she had the secretary of Notre Dame on the phone. Helen Douglas was an old friend. They had attended concerts together, until Ann’s back problem prevented her from sitting for long periods. “Grove? He’s been here for over ten years. First post. Not a whisper of anything out of the ordinary. Of course he has his star athletes. Girls love good-looking male teachers. But he’s devoted to his family and new baby. Little rascal arrived last week. I went to the shower.”

  “What about Paul Gable?”

  Helen disappeared for a moment, then returned. “It’s only his second year. Transferred from a diocese on the mainland, where he taught for fifteen years according to our records. The job as Vice Principal here was his first big promotion. Why are you asking?”

  “Helen, you know I can’t reveal that. But I’m trusting you to keep this information to yourself. Consider yourself an unofficial agent of the law. I’m very serious.” She spoke in hushed tones with the perfect note of confidence. “Now if you have that contact number handy...”

  Minutes
later, Ann smiled as she read the area code. Then she dialed the last school where Gable had worked, St. Edward’s in Prince George.

  “Excuse me. What’s this all about?” a stern voice asked. And then, “Brittany Wilcox. You sit right there until you’re called. And give me that cell phone. You know school rules.” With an elaborate sigh, the woman returned to the conversation.

  Ann felt a slight headache teasing her temples. She had introduced herself officially and had every right to background information. Why the hesitation? Did they want to call the detachment to verify the number? Rather than set off alarm bells, she decided to play it safe. “It’s routine. He applied to be one of our auxiliary volunteers. Since he may overhear privileged information, we always do a thorough check.”

  The woman’s tones warmed. “That’s fine, then. Paul was one of our best teachers. We were sad to see him go. He started here right after university.”

  “Is there anyone else I could talk to? Someone who’s been at the school for a long time?”

  A humph rattled the line. “I am Sister Judith, and I have been here for thirty-five years.”

  Ann listened to the imperious voice. She could picture the Sister, mainstay of the school. Grizzle-hair in a bun, if not still wearing a habit after Vatican Two, a below-the-knee black skirt. Protective as a Rottweiler and cheaper to feed. Devoted to the administration and the reputation of St. Edward’s but unable due to politics to be a principal.

  Her extra decade on the planet had taught Ann to take little at face value, something a fresh-minted corporal like Holly needed to learn. She was getting used to her new boss, but the naïvete and lack of experience dismayed her. Her personal address book found its way into her hand. Nick taught high school in the nearby town of Vanderhoof. He was an avid mystery reader, particularly fond of Peter Robinson. His success with a senior-level crime fiction course converted even die-hard non-readers. Wouldn’t her son enjoy a bit of sleuthing?