Slow Curve on the Coquihalla

by R. E. Donald

  "You mean, he might have stolen it?"

  "Possibly. It might also have been a loan."

  "If he did steal it, he could've hit Randy over the head to get it." Sorry got so excited that Hunter could tell he was having trouble keeping his hands on the wheel. "Hey, how about this! He hits Randy over the head and takes the money, here in Hope, say. Randy comes to, and continues on up the Coq. But he's got a concussion, so he blacks out, and drives off the road. Hey, wouldn't that explain everything?!"

  Hunter stroked his chin, nodding thoughtfully.

  "Or maybe Chuck hits Randy over the head, either for the money, or because he still hates his guts. Then he panics, so he drives Randy's rig up the Coq, finds a suitable spot to send it off the road, and hitchhikes back to town."

  Hunter shook his head. "Chuck looks like he used to be a tough customer, but I doubt he'd be capable of jumping clear of a moving rig without injuring himself."

  "Would it be that hard? How fast do you figure it was going?"

  "According to the wrecker who pulled the cab out of the ravine, it was still in second gear. Could've been less than ten miles an hour. But hitchhiking on the Coquihalla in the dead of night?"

  "Maybe Chuckie had an accomplice. Maybe the broad with big tits, eh?" Sorry started to giggle. "She could've cushioned his fall." He honked the horn, laughing uproariously at his joke.

  Hunter grimaced. "Possibilities," he sighed. "Improbable, but possible."

  As Hunter watched the green bowl of the Fraser Valley open up on either side of the Freightliner's navy blue nose, the jolly biker, to his own great amusement, speculated further on the criminal adventures of Chuck Wahl and his buxom moll.

  CHAPTER 15

  – – – – FIFTEEN

  Gord the landlord was puttering in the yard when Hunter turned his Pontiac into the driveway. Gord hurried over to maneuver the electric lawnmower out of Hunter's usual parking spot, and with an electric weedeater in his other hand, he managed to get two electrical cords wrapped around his ankles in the process. Hunter put the car into park and went to Gord's rescue. The air smelled of fresh cut grass, and bits of it clung to the old doctor's bare legs.

  "You shouldn't wear thongs to cut the grass," said Hunter.

  "I know," said Gord. "I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened."

  "Wearing thongs?"

  "Cutting the grass."

  Hunter laughed.

  "Any chance for a game of golf tomorrow?" he asked, once the car was parked and Gord's weedeater fell silent.

  "We just might manage a morning tee-off time at Squamish," Gord said, looping an orange extension cord around and around between the crotch of his thumb and his elbow. "I'll phone and book a time as soon as I've got this put away. How about a beer in the back yard? Ten minutes?"

  Hunter gave his landlord a cheerful grin and a thumbs up, and carried his duffle bag into the basement suite. There was a message from El on his answering machine asking him to meet her for breakfast Sunday morning. "I've got some interesting dope on Waicom," she said in her message. "Call me first thing tomorrow and we can set up a place to meet."

  Hunter groaned and went to the door connecting his suite to the rest of the house. "Gord!" he yelled up the stairs. "Can you book us for around noon instead?"

  After an hour or so of indulging in beer and dry roasted peanuts in the back yard, during which he promised to drop in to visit the Youngs' cabin on Shuswap Lake next time he was passing through the area, Hunter settled in at his desk with a mug of microwaved canned soup and the envelope of photocopies Suzanne had put together for him. He pulled a pair of drug-store reading glasses, half-lenses, out of his shirt pocket and perched them on his nose. Suzanne was right about Randy's notes on the computer printouts. On first sight, there was nothing to gain from them except a confirmation that he'd been interested in the Waicom shipments.

  The printouts listed the Waicom shipments, in order of date, giving the Ranverdan probill number, the Waicom bill of lading number, a two letter code for the origin and destination cities, specifically the first and last letter of the city in question -- VR for Vancouver, SE for Seattle -- the pieces and weight, and the gross revenue. There were separate printouts for each month. Randy had made large, loose brackets around the shipments from Seattle to Edmonton. There were some sloppy, almost illegible letters in the right margin, something that looked like ‘Rybds’, followed by a question mark. In addition, there were a couple of scrawled notations at the top of the page. One looked like ‘PC Rs’, the other like ‘TB’. The ‘TB’ was followed by a dash and ‘2X’.

  Hunter pulled out a foolscap notebook and started playing with the initials. If these followed the same pattern as the city codes, what could they mean? His trucking atlas was in the cab of The Blue Knight, so he called upstairs to his landlord to see if he had one. Gord knocked on his door two minutes later to deliver an old school atlas of the world, evidently left behind in the family bookcase by one of his daughters. Back at his desk, Hunter turned to the P's in the index. The first name that fit the criteria was Pacific, Washington, so he looked it up on the map. It was just east of Tacoma. Unlikely to have anything to do with the two Waicom shipments, but a possibility. He continued on through four pages of cities beginning with P, all over the globe and in small type, trying to pick out cities and towns somewhere enroute from Seattle to Edmonton. Rather than the first and last letters, he had to allow that PC could also be an abbreviation for a two-word name, such as Paden City, but since Paden City was in West Virginia, he moved on. He found his mind wandering repeatedly, distracted by names like Pas-de-Calais in France and Pass Christian, Mississippi. In the end, the only other possibles he came up with were Pincher Creek, Alberta, which was nowhere near Edmonton, and Port Coquitlam, B.C., a suburb of Vancouver.

  Maybe it wasn't a place. Maybe it was a person. He checked Pete's last name, which he had forgotten (it was Whitehead), and then skimmed through the list of drivers. Tom Buckingham was a possible for TB, but that was it. He repeated the process of looking up a place name that could be abbreviated as TB in the atlas. Fortunately, there were only two and a half pages. The closest he came was Tonka Bay, Minnesota, although he briefly amused himself by trying to make a case for Tumbarumba, Australia. A search for "Rs" turned up Richmond Highlands and Riverton Heights, both Seattle suburbs, neither of them on the truck route from the Port of Seattle to the border.

  By the time he was finished, his eyes burned and it was too late to call his daughters. He took a small block of cheddar from the fridge, along with a paring knife and a carton of Stoned Wheat Thins, and sat down with them on the sofa. He ate chunks of cheese on crackers, washing them down with apple juice, watching a late movie full of senseless violence, and then went to bed.

  The next morning he punched in El's number just after seven thirty. He was determined to finish meeting with her early enough to drive the thirty odd miles to Squamish in time for the eleven forty five tee-off time Gord had managed to secure.

  "Hello?" Her voice sounded thick and grumpy.

  "'Mornin', El! I need my coffee. Where's breakfast?" Hunter asked, sounding as obnoxiously cheerful as he could. He didn't feel at all guilty about waking her up; it seemed a small enough retribution for delaying his golf game.

  "Hunter? Just a sec." Then came a slightly muffled, "Damn it, Pete! Get your hairy butt outa my face. Get off the bed." And then louder, "You still there, Hunter? Hold on." He heard rustling and thudding, then a door open. "Go take a leak, you scamp, but keep away from my radishes." The door closed and she was back.

  "Mornin', good lookin'! How're things?" She seemed determined to be cheerful right back at him.

  "Peterbilt eats radishes?" he asked.

  "Nah. He just digs 'em up and carries them around. How about the Knight and Day?"

  "The one at Boundary and Lougheed?"

  "You got it. Meet you there at eight fifteen." Click.

  Hunter smiled. He could picture Peterbilt, a sprightly
and mischievous, if not overly intelligent, black Pomeranian, trotting around El's back yard dangling a freshly pulled radish, El bellowing along behind him. Eight fifteen. Good. That gave him just enough time to clean up his golf clubs in preparation for what promised to be a very pleasant afternoon.

  The waitress set down a big plate of eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and toast in front of each of them, then refilled their coffee cups. El stirred her coffee thoughtfully. "Do you think Suzanne wants to bail out?"

  Hunter swivelled his wrist, his fingers stretched over his plate. "She's pretty scared, but she seems determined to hang on to her dad's company. At least, for now."

  El grunted, loading her eggs with pepper, then picked up her fork.

  "So, fill me in on Waicom." Hunter scooped up a forkful of scrambled eggs.

  "It's like this, according to my good friends at the border." She leaned in over the table and lowered her voice. "Seems that Waicom is already under investigation by Canada Customs. A little matter of undervaluing computer parts on their customs invoices, which they can quite easily do on intercompany transactions, in order to avoid paying Canadian taxes on the stuff they bring in." She nodded knowingly and took a bite out of her toast. "It's no wonder they didn't want to make waves about the smashed trailer when they heard the authorities were involved. They wouldn't want to draw attention to themselves."

  Hunter put down his fork and leaned back. "But how ... ? I don't see what that would have to do with Randy." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "It's not like smuggling or transporting illegal goods, nothing that would implicate the carrier. It's a simple matter of tax evasion. I don't see how that would relate to Randy's behavior, or how it could possibly be a motive for his murder."

  El picked up her coffee cup. "It wouldn't. You're right. All it does is explains Waicom's ... uh ... discreet behavior after the accident. Except ... " She pointed at Hunter with her fork. "... remember that shit runs downhill, right?"

  "Hmmm. Like, what's sauce for the boss?"

  She nodded.

  "Well, I'm enlisting Sorry to help out on this. The shipper at Waicom in Seattle hasn't exactly warmed up to me, so I'd like to get Sorry in there to nose around."

  "I still don't think that's a good idea. Sorry's about as reliable as a ... a ... as that snake on his arm. And he's got a criminal record. How's he supposed to cross the border?"

  "He's an American, El. They can't keep him out."

  She shook her head. "I think it's a mistake."

  Hunter decided to change the subject. "Anything you can tell me about Randy's drivers?"

  El mopped up a mixture of egg yolk and bacon grease on her plate with a corner of toast and popped it into her mouth before she spoke. She didn't know much about the part-timers, but she was confident that both Tom Buckingham and Tiny Kubik had been devoted to Randy. "According to them, his shit didn't stink," was the way she put it. "Same with Murph, the Newfoundlander. You know him. All of 'em are straight, far as I know. Tom and Tiny are both married – responsible family men. Murph isn't married, but he's got a steady girlfriend in Cherry Creek. I think they might be engaged. Of the drivers, he was probably Randy's best friend. Him and Mike Albert, the old guy who's into antiques. He'd be willing to help, I'd bet, if you need any information."

  "What about Pete?" Hunter pictured the long faced driver who had been at Waicom the first time he'd been there himself, the driver who was planning to stop over in Kamloops for Randy's funeral.

  "Pete Whitehead? Pete's a prick. He's been with Randy a long time, but he's a guy who's only out for himself. Randy used to get pretty frustrated with him. Pete's always whining about his schedules, kept asking Randy to rearrange runs to suit his social calendar, then Randy'd have to scramble to find a replacement or juggle other drivers' schedules. I think the only reason Randy put up with him was because Ronnie had been such good friends with Pete's wife."

  "Ronnie?" asked Hunter with a puzzled frown.

  "Randy's wife, Veronica. The `Ver' in Ranverdan, except everybody called her Ronnie. Anyway, I wouldn't count on any help from Pete, but you should definitely talk to Mike."

  Hunter made a wry face. "I don't know, El. I don't want to come right out and tell any of the drivers I think Randy was murdered." The waitress came by to refill their coffee cups and take away their plates. Hunter waited until she had left. "I wouldn't want to spook them, make them think their own lives are in danger."

  El's eyes opened wide. "You think they might be? If they are, they should be told."

  "I don't think so."

  "Hmmm," said El, scratching the back of her neck. "Suzanne would find it pretty tough if she had a driver or two quit on her, wouldn't she?"

  "Besides," said Hunter, "I wouldn't feel comfortable going public with my suspicions, at least not until the RCMP buy into it and make it official. And I can't see any of the drivers willingly cooperating with an unofficial investigation."

  "They might, if you talked to them," said El.

  "Why would they?"

  "They're afraid of you, that's why."

  "What?!"

  "The other drivers are afraid of you. I've seen it. You intimidate them."

  "Why? Because I used to be a cop?"

  "Maybe that's part of it, but it's more than that."

  "What?"

  She frowned and thrust out her jaw, as if she were struggling to come up with the right words. "You're always look so ... somehow ... relaxed. And detached. You remind me of a lion walking around a herd of gazelles on one of those nature shows. You don't look like you're afraid of anything. And then there's your eyes."

  "My eyes?"

  "Yeah. It's like you don't miss a thing, almost like you can see right through people. See? You're doing it now." She pointed a finger at him. "You half close your eyes and you've got that spooky little smile. You look ... I don't know ... threatening somehow. Like you know something bad about me. If I didn't know you so well, know what a pussy cat you really are ...."

  He waved her finger away, a disgusted expression on his face. "Come off it."

  El shrugged. "Don't blame me," she said. "I'm just telling it like it is."

  Hunter shook his head as he picked up the check. What El was saying wasn't really news to him, though. There'd been times when he'd sensed it himself. He didn't consider himself a violent man, and he felt the best way to win a fight was to avoid it in the first place, but his martial arts training had made him confident of holding his own in a physical confrontation if push came to shove. He guessed it still showed.

  Some eight hours later, Hunter followed his landlord to an umbrella shaded table on the patio at the Squamish Golf Course. He plunked himself down in the plastic chair with a sigh and studied the score card briefly before tossing it on the table. It landed with a tinny clunk on the white-painted metal surface. "You know, Gord, I've been looking forward to this for weeks, and there were moments on the back nine when I wished I was sitting in a truck." A light breeze rustled the vine maples beside the patio, and he raised his eyes to the rolling grass carpet on the fairway beyond. A slow smile spread across his face. "Just kidding. I loved every second of it!"

  The old doctor studied his own score, then tucked the scorecard under the empty ashtray. "For what it's worth," he said, "you beat me. I buy the beer."

  "That seven wood is really working for you, isn't it?"

  Gord nodded. "I don't know why I bother carting my other woods around with me. Can't get a good hit with my driver to save my life." He turned to the waitress, and they ordered two pints of pale ale. Gord settled back in his chair, looked around at the other patrons on the patio. He caught Hunter watching a foursome of young women decked out in golf togs and sun visors on the adjacent fairway. "So how are your girls?" he asked.

  Hunter looked away from the fairway and pulled on his earlobe. "Okay, I guess. They're pretty busy, summer jobs and all. Haven't seen much of them the last few months." His eyes met the landlord's solemn gaze. "I guess they're growing up. It s
eems the older they get, the less time we spend together." Hunter sighed. "They're always busy. Like I said, I guess it's because they're growing up."

  "Good! Children are much more congenial when they become adults. They start to drink beer, learn to golf." Gord's eyes twinkled behind his bifocals. "You might soon find yourself spending more time with them instead of less."

  Hunter looked at him sceptically.

  "Unless, of course, it's more that you're growing apart. Growing apart generally takes neglect, willful or otherwise, from both sides."

  "I don't know if I'd say we're growing apart." He felt a shade of irritation. The subject was already painful to him, and discussing it was like running sandpaper over an open wound. The last thing he wanted was to create more distance between his daughters and himself. He just didn't know how to stop it from happening. "They're young women. They're busy. They've got other things they'd rather do."

  "You've been pretty busy, too. I suspect your girls are still too young to shoulder all the responsibility for the state of your relationship." Gord shrugged and smiled apologetically.

  Hunter frowned. He suspected Gord wouldn't have risked offending him unless he thought it was important. Maybe he's right, he thought. Maybe he just wasn't trying hard enough. Then he chuckled inwardly. El should see this, he thought. His elderly landlord obviously wasn't afraid of him, x-ray eyes and all.

  The beer arrived, and the two men hoisted their mugs.

  "Here's to the winner!" Gord toasted. "Who, in my opinion, is anyone who can make it around the course without losing all their balls!"

  After he returned from the golf course, with a stop for fish and chips at Troll's in Horseshoe Bay along the way, Hunter threw in a load of laundry, then settled down on the sofa in front of the T.V. He thumbed the remote through a few quick cycles of the channel spectrum, then turned off the sound and stood up. He stood briefly at the sliding glass doors, staring into the twilight muted yard and trying to concentrate on the mystery of Randy's suspicions about Waicom. He knew the next step would be to ask John Semeniuk about his note to Randy, and hoped that it would be possible to get the frightened man to cooperate. Would Semeniuk be willing to talk about it over the phone? His mind wandered, and he headed to the fridge, pausing to examine its meagre contents before closing it again. He walked to his desk, stared for a moment at the photograph of his girls beside the phone, then picked up a Time magazine he'd inherited from the landlord, and leafed through it. He checked on his laundry. Again, he stood at his desk, this time resting his hand on the telephone receiver. He turned away, and paced between the mute T.V. and the washing machine until his laundry had finished the spin cycle.