And On the Surface Die

by Lou Allin

  She left a detailed message on his answering machine and crossed her fingers. This was Thanksgiving weekend, the second Monday in October. Perhaps he was away on a vacation or with a girlfriend. After the collapse of her career, would becoming a grandmother age or rejuvenate her?

  Then she took out her mat from the closet and did leg lifts and piriformis stretches. Back in the chair, she looked at the pamphlet from the pharmacy. Cold and hot yoga, whatever the difference, was being offered at the Evergreen Centre in downtown Sooke. Twenty dollars for three sessions. What did she have to lose?

  Thirteen

  Holly faced a marathon of dirty dishes after a five-star dinner with her father and a neighbour. While walking Shogun, Norman had made friends with a retired librarian up the hill at Randy’s Place. Her name was Madeleine Hamza. A multicultural cocktail, Swiss by way of Sweden, divorced from a mysterious Egyptian engineer, she was on the far side of the fifties, and owned four dogs, including a border collie. Norman had insisted she bring the last, a shy dog named Sushi, who was cavorting with Shogun on the front lawn as they sat outside on the deck. The eternal rain had declared a truce, and the evening was warm and inviting with a hint of autumnal woodstove smoke. The only jarring note was the CD of Spike Jones playing “Cocktails for Two” with all the bells and whistles. “In some secluded rendezvous” CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG. Holly raised an eyebrow at her father, who shrugged in defeat, went inside and replaced it with early Frank Sinatra.

  Madeleine said in a charming Euroblend accent which held Norman a willing captive, “I took the dogs up the Galloping Goose today. They have closed the Potholes Park in the north section. A problem with the water lines. Someone is still camping there, though. Bentley the corgi who runs the household chased over towards the river and took his time coming back.”

  “A bit late for camping. Must like to rough it,” Holly said. She’d loved running on the Goose in her teens. It followed an old train route to Leechtown, a defunct and deserted gold-mining centre north of Sooke. Named for a jouncing gas-powered passenger and mail car from the 1920s, the converted trail ran for fifty-five kilometres from Victoria and was one of the area’s prized possessions, open to horses, dogs, bikes and people, but nothing motorized.

  Madeleine’s th’s emerged like z’s. “They have a camper van, so I expect they have some comforts. Those Volkswagens were made to last. The people’s wagon. For myself, I prefer Volvos.”

  Norman nodded approval at her history knowledge. “Those vans are ubiquitous around here. It’s like an elephant graveyard. The island does a huge business in spare parts for classic vehicles.”

  In another quixotic display of atmospherics, the sun vanished like the wave of a magician’s handkerchief. Across the strait, dark clouds gathered on the Washington shore. It was much foggier over there, due to the height of the Olympic Mountains. “Very dirty and dangerous weather coming,” Madeline said with a shiver, pulling her shawl around her shoulders. “I have seen such storms in the Alps.”

  Norman cut himself another piece of pumpkin chiffon pie from the Otter Point Bakery, Madeleine’s offering. “Surely not so early in the year. Still, with global warming and all that soot from China, who knows? Old timers still talk of Typhoon Freda in the Sixties. You can still see the monster trees that went down in those 150K winds.”

  Madeleine nudged him. “But you were just a baby then.” Suppressing a squirm, Holly felt somehow that she was intruding on their date. It was pleasant to see her father interact and even banter with a contemporary. All she remembered of her parents those last years had been her mother’s temper vs. her father’s stubbornness. The phone rang as the espresso machine began steaming. “Pardon me,” Holly said with some relief, and went inside the patio door and up to the kitchen, perching on a stool by the counter.

  To her astonishment, it was Ann. “Sorry to call you at home, but you’re not going to believe this. Nick found out that Paul Gable was transferred here from St. Edward’s in Prince George after sexual assault accusations.” Ann sounded neither apologetic nor insistent about her self-assigned inquiries. It was simply the right thing to do.

  Holly pricked up her ears and began tallying the circumstantial evidence. Perhaps here was the missing link. She’d believed the boys and wondered why Billy had become a target only days later. Angie as a drug-induced accident might pass muster, but not the staged suicide. As an administrator, Gable would find it easy to liaise casually with the staff at Edward Milne and identify a certain young man who lived in tiny Port Renfrew. “Accusations from a female student, I presume?” Most men who molested children were heterosexual.

  “You guessed it. The whole thing was hushed up big time. Gable’s father-in-law was the mayor. Mr. Chamber of Commerce. Owned a couple of city blocks of businesses. See where I’m going?”

  “How did they get away with it?” Holly leaned forward, elbows on the counter.

  “Small town, smaller minds.” Ann laughed from the belly. It sounded good on her. “The same way any conspiracy works. Some people need to make sure. Others don’t want to know because it would destroy their well-padded lives. In this case, the girl was dismissed as neurotic. Finally the family moved to another province. There was no proof other than her word, and Gable had top marks as a teacher.”

  “How very sad. And Gable’s transfer?”

  “A precaution to protect a dirty little secret. Nick’s new girlfriend has a brother in Prince George. He’s a school psychologist on contract, and he believed the girl. Found himself out of a job when June arrived. No union protection.” She gave a low growl. “Since then he’s located several more teens with the same story about Gable, but they won’t go public. Afraid of gossip. Can’t say I blame them. It takes a lot of guts for a youngster to admit to being a sexual victim.”

  Holly thought of the centuries of abuse coverups in the church, its members far more protected than lay teachers. “Ann, that was terrific work. You may have broken open the case.”

  “What now?” The voice seemed eager, galvanized. Would giving Ann tasks other than record keeping transform the detachment into a fighting unit? But it was early times. Relationships were like seedlings. They had to be tended carefully at each step and repotted only when ready. She winced at her ridiculous analogy.

  “Corporal, are you there?”

  Holly stood and checked her watch. Seven thirty. Like her, most people would be finishing dinner. She wondered why Ann had been free tonight. Her mother lived in a nursing home in Sooke, Chipper had said, and Ann visited several times a week. “In light of Janice’s disappearance, I’m confronting Gable with this new information, holiday or not.”

  “Isn’t that Sooke’s jurisdiction?” Ann was a stickler for rules.

  “But it’s my...our case. Let’s see what we find at the house.”

  “We’ll need a search warrant to check his computer. There could be videos, too.”

  “Still too soon for that. Surprise is the best interview technique. It’s obvious that he’s not the man he seems.” A hypocrite was the lowest figure in her cosmos of hell. “I can’t wait for his reaction when I mention that girl in Prince George. And if he was innocent, why take the transfer?”

  “Do you think he’s connected with the disappearance of Janice Mercer? Would he go that far? In your reports, she’s barely mentioned. Angie’s tentmate, that’s all.”

  Holly searched her memory. This wasn’t something she could read in a notebook. Why hadn’t she seen underneath Janice’s goody-goody exterior? How she had gazed with fond adoration at Gable during the memorial service. Like the coach, he had his own admirers. The unloved and lost, the truly vulnerable. “I’m not sure. If he’s at home, where could she be?”

  There was a pause. Holly could see Madeleine and her dad peering at her through the glass doors, wondering why she had been gone so long. It was time for coffee and that bottle of Cointreau her father nursed. Ann spoke again. “May I come?”

  “But your mom. I hate to take
you away from—”

  “It’s fine. We had an early dinner here around five, then I drove her back to the home. She’s more comfortable there now that she knows the routine.”

  Clearly Ann’s back was better, or adrenaline was overriding her pain. If Holly refused to let her ride along, the hard-won progress between them might not only stop but retreat. She chose her words carefully. “We owe this discovery to you. Why not?”

  As she hung up, Holly chafed to remember the pathetic and meandering nature of the early investigation. When the wrong loose ends had been tied up, a bored and easily-satisfied Whitehouse had returned to his more high-power cases. Now she felt as charged as the sheet lightning crashing a hundred miles away to the south. Her crew and her investigation, and thanks to Ann, she was running with the bit in her mouth.

  After mumbling apologies, she dressed hurriedly and left the house in her car.

  Holly picked up Ann in front of a three-storey condo behind Sooke Elementary School. Quirky and semi-modern with strange arches on the roof, these small condos overlooking the harbour were ideal for a single person. They drove west again a few miles past the latest waterfront development. A gigantic conclave of boxy vacation condominiums had been recently completed. Quarter shares went for $170K. Would the idea fly? If not, someone was out hundreds of millions of dollars.

  They turned left into Whiffen Spit. At the end of the main street was the Sooke Harbour House, one of Canada’s leading fine-dining resorts. The geographical spit itself, a curvilinear toenail of land where Sooke River entered the ocean, had a host of walkers who enjoyed its gentle terrain and scenic views. Doggie poop bags were provided at the iron-work entrance gate.

  In the residential area of the spit, with communal beach access at the far end of a parking turnaround, Paul Gable had a West-Coast-style Craftsman home on Narissa Street with river-rock-studded pillars and wood trim. Tall firs, evergreen hedges and expensive bushes dotted the landscape in this elite part of town. In the driveway sat a Subaru Forester wagon, the rear open and full of boxes and bags. The double stained-glass front door was ajar, and a very tall straw-haired woman charged out with a suitcase in one hand and a cage with a green macaw in the other. The parrot screeched as the sunflower seeds in its tin bowl scattered to the ground. The bone-coloured beak could crack walnuts. “Pretty birdie. Kiss, kiss.”

  “Jasper! Knock it off!” The woman put down the cage and looked to her left and right. “I know he’s been loud. Which one of the damn neighbours called in? I don’t have time for this crap now.”

  Despite the seriousness of the moment, Holly and Ann barely suppressed laughs at the circus. Holly spoke first, introducing them. “It’s not about that, ma’am. We’re looking for Paul Gable. Is he your husband?”

  “Not for long. And you can call me Elanie.” In a studied, calming gesture, she smoothed her long silken hair with both hands, letting it cascade down her neck commercial-style. Her face was equine. Large white teeth reinforced the image, and she blinked behind unnaturally violet contact lenses. “I watch Psychic Detective, and I’m wondering if you’re clairvoyant, because I was about to call you.” She peered with circumspection at Holly’s Prelude. “Great car. But isn’t that a strange vehicle for the police?

  Holly pulled out her identification to satisfy the woman. She wondered why Gable hadn’t made an entrance yet. Where was the VW van? In the garage? It seemed better strategy to allow Mrs. Gable to speak first before she was prejudiced by the reason they’d come. “Is something wrong?” The woman didn’t look as if she’d been assaulted in a domestic argument. She wore a trim leisure suit in gold and black and pristine Mephistos.

  Elanie’s creamy porcelain face flushed as red as the late rhodos that bejewelled the golf-green lawn. Somehow she managed to retain her slightly surprised expression, possible with the help of Botox. “It’s what I found on his computer. This is the end. I hope he does time for this, the bastard. What a sick puke. Pardon my French.”

  “What did you find? Does he know...your suspicions?” Unspoken thoughts about flight passed from Holly to Ann.

  Elanie waved her left hand, sparkling gems on four fingers. Making a fist would be painful if not impossible. “I don’t use his stupid Mac, but my laptop developed a virus over the weekend. Too much spam.” She glanced at the bird, who was making a strange squawk. “Jasper was coughing. It’s a bad time to call a vet. An extra hundred if they’ll even see you. So I went on-line to do research. Have you ever tried to take a bird’s temperature?” Her right hand sported a number of bandages, childlike-patterned with balloons.

  “So to make a long story short, clicking everywhere in panic, I ran into Paul’s history. He didn’t even try to hide it, the simpleton. Don’t know why I never looked before, he’s always on-line, but he’s been such an inconsequential man. A nobody.” She shoved the birdcage into the back of the Subaru and turned to them, grinning in a frightening way. “Follow me, ladies. It’s showtime.”

  Inside, a Tara staircase topped by a large crystal chandelier led upstairs. The carpeting was off-white, a nightmare for pet owners. Elanie brought them down the hall. On the way, Holly glanced into the kitchen. European cabinets, granite counters and two islands overhung with copper pots. Not on a vice principal’s salary. The wife’s legacy?

  The study was dark. Elanie went to the window and yanked up the Roman shades. Through the window, a giant cedar was starting to sway in the rising wind. “I never come in here. It’s Paul’s den, his sanctum, he calls it. Now I know why.” At the computer, she called up site after site of young girls. Many might be of age but chosen for their youthful appearance. Sixteen posing as twelve. The sites could have been anywhere, Holly thought, from Ukraine to Utah. And the servers would change every week.

  “Could anyone else have been using the computer?”

  She snorted. “We don’t have any children. Jasper’s smart, but not that gifted.”

  Ann was studying the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, full of university textbooks and automotive manuals. The only file cabinet was locked when she inserted a pencil to test the drawers.

  Elanie snapped around, tossing her hands in the air. “I don’t know where the key is. He told me he locks it to protect his father’s rare coin collection. Even in this neighbourhood, we’ve had a few break-ins.”

  “So where is Paul now?” Holly asked.

  “Hell if I know. I got back Friday from a trip to Vancouver. Shopping for a winter wardrobe. No sign of him, not that he leaves love notes. The van’s gone. Damn dog, too. I assumed he was camping somewhere.”

  “Where does he usually stay?” Holly and Ann exchanged glances. The storm was going to complicate matters.

  “Anywhere he can park for free. There are spots all along the coast. More inland. He carries water, propane, food. Enough for weeks. You won’t catch me eating canned beans and rehydrated stew. Life’s too short.”

  Then Holly’s cell phone rang. It was Chipper. “Not you, too,” Holly said. “Doesn’t my staff ever take weekends off?”

  He told her what he had learned from Butch Miller. Holly gave no more than perfunctory answers, then hung up and turned to Elanie. “Doesn’t your husband have an old VW van? When we met after that drowning at Botanical, I—”

  The woman gave a mocking laugh and inspected her Dragon Lady nails with some perturbation. “He’s too young to be a hippie. Wishes he’d been a teenager in the Seventies. You know the kind. Listens to CCR, Dylan, that shit. God, what a bore that man is. Daddy was so right.”

  “Can you describe the tail lights on the van?”

  Elanie’s rolling eyes made a rare motion in the frozen face. “Are you kidding? No, I see you’re not. Oh, little round things, I think. I never ride in that rat trap.” She pointed to some pictures sitting on the bookshelves where Gable could admire them from his leather recliner. “That’s Joan. Can you believe he gave it a name? Joan Baez, whoever she is. Sounds Middle-Eastern.”

  Then she seemed to pull herself bac
k to reality. Her nostrils flared, and she placed her hands on her narrow hips. “I’ve given you the tour. This is absurd. If you didn’t come about Jasper, why are you here?”

  Holly explained their suspicions. “This new information looks especially bad for the system that transferred him. I doubt Notre Dame knew his history.”

  Her dark pupils burning with fury, Elanie nearly spat on the carpet. “History. That’s a good one. That man lied to me from day one. I thought he had family money, but it turned out to be wishful thinking. Sure, his father was a lawyer, but his real profession was drinking and off-track betting. Paul was supposed to come into two million when the old man died. A pile of debts was all that was left. Even the tightest pre-nup can’t anticipate that.”

  Ann asked, “And the girl who said he assaulted her?”

  The woman gave a casual cock of the head. “She made it up, the little tramp. He’d never have the nerve. Look, don’t do, is his motto. Not that this computer porn proves anything, but what an embarrassment. When this comes out, I’ll be a hundred years away, not sitting in court with a frozen standby-your-man smile.”

  Ann unfolded one of the posters she’d carried. “Could Janice Mercer be with him? We haven’t much time.”

  An ugly laugh resounded, enough to turn the strongest stomach. “Poor lost lambs. That’s what Paul called them. Is she with him? For her sake, I hope not.”

  Holly turned to Ann. “We’d better secure the scene. Report this to Sooke and have them send a constable. Then we’ll get rolling on finding Gable.” Sooke would fax a request for a search warrant to the Justice Centre in Vancouver. Gone were the days of cumbersome and time-consuming trips across the water for paper transfers. An hour or less was common now.

  Elanie moved to the window and pointed to the darkening sky. “Do I have to wait around? I don’t like the look of the weather. My sister in Qualicum Beach is expecting me, and that’s a long drive.”