Читать книгу Holly Martin Mysteries 3-Book Bundle - Lou Allin - Страница 11

Whitehouse called that morning. “I had to stay at the Didrickson house until after eleven. Jesus. I hate that Sooke Road. The berm is crumbling between a couple of rock cuts, and the oncoming jackasses are over the line. I deserve danger pay,” he said.

Holly wished that she’d been invited to the search. “No surprises in her room, then?”

“Not one secret diary.” He paused. “Ferreting around in underwear drawers like a pervert. I didn’t sign on for this.”

Holly suppressed a smile at the more human image. “If you’re sure. I can go over it myself. Maybe a woman—”

“What do you mean, ‘sure’? Listen here. I’ve done a hundred similar searches. There was no sign of drugs of any kind. Are you suggesting that I take the Canine Unit over there to sniff the place out?”

Did dogs include crystal meth in their repertoire? Was this his idea of a joke? “Of course not. What about her computer?” Safe to assume every teenager had one.

His tone was gruff. “That’s the first place I looked. Her password for booting was automatic, so no problem. Doesn’t look like she had anything to hide.”

“Proves that she trusted her father. He seemed like a decent guy.”

“My kids zipped their lips around me. But while they lived in my house, I gave their rooms a thorough and unannounced search every month. Kept them honest, I’ll tell you.”

Holly couldn’t imagine her parents in this invasion of privacy. What kind of relationship did he have with his children? And where was his wife? “What about her history?”

“Just swim stuff. Didn’t even belong to Myspace or Facebook.” He paused. “That’s unusual in itself. She was no joiner, I guess. Her word-processing program was used for school assignments.”

“So she was serious and didn’t waste time. That fits with what we know. How about the Favourites command?”

A deep sigh came over the lines. She could sense him drumming his knobby fingers. “Winter Olympics. Swim information. University websites like Calgary and Waterloo. Nutrition. Crystal Meth B.C.”

“What?” Hair on the back of her neck prickled.

“She was a contributor. Signed in to the forums, even under her own name. Her posts were extremely anti-meth. That’s what the website’s for. To help addicts and inform the public.”

“What about the password?”

He sniffed in disdain. “Angie had a tiny notebook with all her dedicated passwords. Good thing no one tried to clean out her bank account.”

Holly remembered a few classes from basic training. No computer geek herself, she knew enough to protect herself from phishing. “Erased files can be retrieved.”

“Are you telling me that? I collected the hard drive to send in to Forensics. That’ll take another week.” He let a moment pass. “A waste of time. All we’re doing is looking for a smalltime pusher or someone who passed on this crap. This case has had all the resources it deserves.”

She told him about the memorial service. “Fine, fine,” he said before hanging up. At least he hadn’t asked her again about whether she’d contacted the staff. Clearly he was moving on.

The secretary at Notre Dame said that Kim’s free period was at ten, same as Terry Grove’s. That gelled with the memorial service at eleven. Taking her car, Holly reached the Sooke limits, turned up busy Grant Rd, then over to Church past one of the few surviving farms in the core. A small herd of beef cattle grazed the stony ground, oblivious to the rampant development around them. A familiar old black bull with a broken horn raised his head and lowed. That’s when she realized that she was driving the same route that had taken her to high school for three years. An assembly line for the petty kingdom of girls.

Notre Dame Academy on Warren Street had capitalized on a strong Roman Catholic presence in the post-war period. It had been well supported by the timber and fishing barons who wanted their daughters safe nearby. When enrollment gradually dropped, not long after Holly had left, it went coed. Now the ballooning population of the Sooke area, with its cookie-cutter developments for younger people and their children, might inject new blood.

The Romanesque red brick building with white trim had two stories, a gymnasium at one end, and a fenced athletic field out back with a baseball diamond and soccer goal posts. In Holly’s day, the Saints soccer team had excelled. She remembered watching some of their games at Fred Milne Field. Opponents came from all over the province. Today a homemade sign read: “Game of the Year. Comox. Meet at the Log. Bring your helmut.”

She entered the building as a bell rang, signaling a period change. The students paid her no notice, probably imagining that she was here for the service. The uniform was short kilts on the girls and dress pants for the boys. Both wore white shirts and dark ties, though a cardigan was allowed. Only on weekends did Notre Dame students experiment with Goth or gangsta couture. She’d seen them gathered around food joints at the Evergreen Mall, talking on cell phones and passing around cigarettes.

Notre Dame hadn’t been Holly’s choice. Her family had been free-thinking agnostics, but her father had perceived that a better education might be hers, religious instruction aside. Sending her all the way to Victoria to historic St. Margaret’s was too expensive. “It’s time you had a fresh perspective,” he would say. “The island is a small place, and you don’t want a mind to match.”

“What about the heaven, hell, and sin stuff?” she asked, sprawled on the sofa and leafing through the school brochure.

“This says we have to go to mass every Friday. Even confession?”

He chuckled. “Fairy tales, my dear. But mind your manners and don’t make fun of them. Catholics don’t like that. You’re there for the small classes. And the Latin. A good basis for any discipline. What’s the name for skunk cab—”

Holly didn’t need to open her threadbare Plants of Coastal British Columbia. “Lysichiton americanum.”

Her mother flipped a rolled-up Mother Jones magazine onto the table. “Say what you will about public school, “she told Norman, “it’s moving forward instead of being rooted in the past. A live culture. Not like dead languages and the frivolous things you teach.” Her voice rose, and she paced the room, gesturing passionately.

“Snobs are better than thugs, Bonnie.” Sitting in his recliner in the solarium, her father rattled the Sooke News Mirror. “Look at this police-beat report. Drinking and vandalism at the old graveyard again. Tombstones broken and defaced. No pride in their pioneer heritage. If they had more homework, they wouldn’t have the time to get into trouble. And at least Notre Dame keeps a sharp lookout on absenteeism.” He shot a smile at Holly. “Not that we need to worry about that.”

On the way to the main office, she passed a familiar mural depicting the timber industry, in this community everyone’s “friend”. The long panel in Grandma Moses style showed a stream full of shimmering, leaping fish. On one side, trees were being cut, logged and hauled as neatly as a pack of yellow pencils. On the other, an army of jolly planters was investing in silviculture futures. A picnic with happy children was arranged in the final corner. No clear-cutting, no run-off, no burning and no diesel fumes. Did anyone really believe it, or were they glad to keep their jobs in the faltering industry? The alarming fact was that the companies owned over eleven per cent of the island, and eighty per cent of the old growth had been logged in the last forty years. Other than inaccessible mountain passes and a few protected areas like Cathedral Grove, little of the original beauty was left.

“Office”, the sign on the smoked-glass door read: “Visitors please register.” Holly had gone there every day as a student. Finished her work in half the time, she had made an ideal messenger and often carried supplies around the school. The secretary, an older red-headed woman with buck teeth but a welcoming smile, told her that the principal, Dave Mack, was at a conference in Burnaby. Brightening as he saw her face, Paul Gable came from an adjoining office. “Corporal Martin. Good to see you again. I’m so glad you could make it.” He gave her tailored suit and low pumps an approving glance. “You didn’t wear your uniform. That’s probably better. In this age, the days of Officer Friendly are over, sadly enough. Much too adversarial now.”

“I’d be glad to give a talk on Career Day or whatever it’s called.”

He beamed then pulled out a pocket planner and made a note. “What a super idea. I’ll give you a call in April. And I’ll have our counsellor reel in the girls. We need more female officers.”

“I’m afraid I’m here on business, too.” She sighed. “We have an inspector in from West Shore and some new developments.”

“I heard about the interviews and hoped that they were just a final formality.” He straightened his striped tie and adjusted the folded handkerchief in the pocket of his sportcoat. Then he pulled out a pack of gum and pushed out a square, popping it in his mouth. Nico-Ban. “This isn’t going to be good for the students. What a nightmare.”

Holly nodded in sympathy and tried for a confident smile. “I need to talk to Ms Bass and the coach again.”

Gable looked around as the secretary bundled papers together and went into the hall, leaving them alone. His voice lowered, and he leaned forward, checking that the door was shut. “Is it true that crystal meth was involved? Lindsey Benish spread the word, not that I trust that little...girl. Meth here, for god’s sake. And brought on the class trip? I blame myself.” He twisted his face in embarrassment. She imagined that he must have faced serious criticism with the drowning happening on his watch.

“How could you have prevented it? Strip-search the students?”

He shook his head in concern. “We try to keep current, but even our drug awareness programs can’t offer total protection, not when a new chemical thrill lurks around every corner. Our nurse is only part-time, but she monitors the drug scene. Listen to this.”

He told her about “cheese”, the latest high. A combination of black heroin and cold medication, one snort for a couple of dollars. Problem was, the unreliable nature of the purity of the heroin had killed several youths in Vancouver.

“Alcohol is still the main problem, though. Teenagers are picked up every weekend, usually remanded to their parents. How would you say Notre Dame stacks up?” Holly was making the logical connection between any kind of mood-altering substance.

He gave a furtive look around the office and into the hall. “I’m going to level with you, but I’d rather you didn’t spread the word around, because who needs that publicity? Sure, we have a few bad apples. Bring beer to school, take off on their lunch hours. For a second offense, they’re expelled. Three so far this year, no matter how their parents bitched. And we’re working with the liquor stores this spring for a Dry Grad. The system’s far from perfect, but we’re as proactive as we can be.”

It had been the same when Holly had been a student. With all the aging hippies in Sooke, getting marijuana was as easy as buying a pop. Beer was also in quick supply. She remembered tasting her first after a soccer game at sixteen. She’d kept herself clean after changing majors, knowing that a career in law enforcement had no room for substance abuse. They’d been warned that even a misdemeanor could prevent them from entering the RCMP.

“People blame the school, they blame the parents, but everyone’s in charge of himself. We tell the students about these critical choices.” A worm of a question crossed his large brow. “Do you know any more about how she got it? Do you suppose she came in contact with someone in Port Renfrew? It’s a tough place. The students mentioned seeing a few local boys the first day at the beach.”

“I have a couple of names to follow up on.” She wondered if he knew about Billy and Mike and guessed that he was grasping at any opportunity to pass the blame away from his own students. “We have doubts that she took the drug on her own.”

He gave a sharp intake of breath, then exhaled slowly. “My thoughts exactly. Certainly not Angie.” A frown passed across his features like a dark cloud. “But who would do such a thing? I see now why you need to re-interview people. How can I help? Can I show you around?”

“I graduated from here...more than a few years ago.” She pointed at the old regulator clock, out of place in a digital world. “Several times I sat out a detention in this office. Skipping religion class.”

He assessed her with a smile. “From your age, no disrespect meant, you must have been here in the glory days. Five hundred students. They came in from Victoria, even Duncan. We offered more electives then, the drama club, band and choir. Fewer sports, of course. All girls. I can’t imagine that. Half of the teachers were nuns, I hear.”

She made a brandishing gesture. “Let me tell you, they wielded a mean pointer and weren’t afraid to break it over your head. How about you? When did you arrive?”

“This is my second year. The wife was sick of winter and wanted to move to the island, and they had an opening, so I transferred from a diocese on the mainland. Pulled a few connections, and the timing was good. We hit here just before the housing market went bananas. Forty per cent assessment increase in one year.” He mimicked a rocket. “But I didn’t know about the enrollment crisis. We’re scraping by with only two hundred and twenty-five. If we don’t see a substantial jump in numbers...let’s just saying I’m praying as hard as I can.”

“The new housing developments might save the day. Who says sewers aren’t a blessing in disguise?” Many plots in the core which had no percolation for septic systems could now be parcelled out and sold. Money in the bank for retirees.

“Let’s hope so. I like it here. So does Elanie.”

The clock ticked on, prodding her. “Is Coach Grove in his office?” She remembered the layout of the school. Holly had played intramural baseball. Right field. She always cringed when the ball came her way. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Imagine you’ll drop it, and you will. Still, her hitting and base running had compensated for that embarrassing weakness. Was that choking mechanism waiting for another opportunity?

Gable’s stomach rumbled, and he gave it a rueful pat. “Oops. Shouldn’t have skipped breakfast. Terry should be there. With a small staff, we know where everyone is at any time. I’ll give him a buzz to stay put.

“I guess you know your way to the gym, Officer,” Gable said, giving a slight scowl to a student with a mohawk, who entered and thumped onto a bench. He looked as if he had been sent there as punishment. “Not you again, Len. Same old story?”

“It’s a bunch of bull, Mr. Gable. I was only...”

His words stuttered out in the changing voice of a young man as she went off down the hall. A bell rang, and students poured from the classrooms in a noisy but vibrant flow. Some went to the water fountains, others jostled each other. They all carried spine-challenging backpacks. A couple of whoops echoed, and a male teacher with a trim moustache emerged from a door. “Settle down. This isn’t the circus. I have a nice fat pack of detention slips,” he said, patting his pocket in a mock threat.

She could smell the gym before she got there. Cold, sweaty, with the silent cheers of thousands over the years and testosterone embedded in the walls, the varnished wooden bleachers that pulled out from the wall, the caged clock for basketball. Opponents. Saints. Banners on the wall from tournaments when the school was larger. Dingy grey padded mats and weight equipment. A thick rope snaking from the ceiling. The locker rooms hid at the far end. In the back corner was the coach’s lair. “Terry Grove”, a paper nametag said on a door. Not Mr. This man wanted to be a friend as well as a mentor. She knocked smartly.

At the request to come in, she found Grove with a Dagwood sandwich, as her father would say. No doubt it beat the dismal cafeteria fare. Mayonnaise dripped down his chin.

“Paul gave me a call,” he said, reaching for a pile of serviettes. “You have more questions about Angie. I’ve already heard the rumours. News travels. Small community, smaller school.”

The layers of meat and cheese made her stomach churn with hunger. “I’ll be fast. Don’t want to keep you from your lunch.”

Once again she’d forgotten to make herself something to eat.

She took the institutional wooden chair that he offered. He put down his sandwich and pointed to the coffee machine on a side table. When she nodded, he filled a cup for her. “Decaf okay? Fair trade. Got it at Serious Coffee.”

“Perfect.” She sipped the brew, making a mental note to pick up some for her father. At her mother’s request and his own thrift, he’d always boycotted Starbucks.

Holly opened the notebook, turned to a fresh page and dated and timed it. “I came back to the school to try to track down this meth connection.”

He shook his head, eyes deep with sorrow. “Those tests must be mistaken. Angie was a dedicated athlete. A brush with pot or a beer maybe. But meth? She gave a terrific talk on it for her health class. She was dead set that kids stay away from it. Even handed out cards with the B.C. Meth website. And the pictures of addicts. Holy crow. Put me right off my lunch.”

Whitehouse had found research for the speech on the computer. “That’s what I hear. But suppose someone slipped the drug to her.”

Terry’s face purpled, and he pounded the table. His eyes were wide with contempt. Was he acting? “That would be criminal.”

“Exactly...coach. If she drowned as a result, we might have an involuntary manslaughter charge. Maybe even voluntary.” He looked puzzled. “I don’t know anything about the law other than TV shows, but isn’t manslaughter like murder? Like when a drunk driver kills someone?”

She gave a bittersweet smile. “One up the ladder from criminal negligence. Here’s a similar case. A man let his son handle a loaded pistol. Showing off. A few days later, the boy took the gun from the closet and shot and killed his sister.”

“I see. It’s like the drug was a loaded gun.”

A knock sounded at the door, and a slim young woman with close-cut chestnut hair came in. “Hi, Terry, I...” She caught a look from Grove, then noticed Holly. The girl gave her an unabashed assessment from top to bottom, as if measuring the competition. “Coach. Sorry. Guess I’m...interrupting.”

He brushed crumbs from his Saints sweatshirt. “That’s fine, Katie. I’ll be free in...” He looked at Holly, and she held up five fingers. “A couple more minutes.”

“Great. See you then. I brought the forms all filled out with my parents’ signatures.” She waved a bunch of papers. The door closed.

Grove cleared his throat with some difficulty. “Kaitlin Pollock. Katie. I’ve got her set up for a scholarship. She’s our best swimmer next...next to Angie.” He leaned forward and raised a thick eyebrow. “She’s good, but Angie was one in a million.”

Holly made a note. Had jealousy been a factor? “Was Katie on the camp-out? I don’t recall seeing her.”

He shook his head. “She had the flu that weekend. Left school on Thursday.”

Holly asked Grove to keep an ear open. Then she gave him her card, recently arrived from headquarters. It seemed odd to read Corporal by her name, but it felt good, as if she were working toward a goal, not letting life pass her by. Her father was proud of her. Again she thought of Ann’s bitter disappointment. Reg had mentioned a mother in a nearby nursing home.

Kim Bass was sipping coffee in the faculty lounge when Holly tracked her down. Lounge wasn’t an accurate description. The stuffy room was small and crowded with stark furniture more suitable for a prison, hard wooden chairs and scarred melamine tables. The walls were an ugly pea green unrelieved by anything but a school calendar and a dusty bulletin board. Mindless elevator music burbled from two loudspeakers on the wall. Obviously people were not encouraged to linger here. A crusted coffee maker had a half-full carafe, and a tea kettle sat next to a tray of sugar and cream packets.

Dressed in dark brown slacks and a soft deerskin jacket with a beaded pocket, Kim was chatting with an older woman in her early forties. The merriment in their voices and relaxed posture indicated that they were close friends. Kim saw Holly and turned. Uncertainty flashed across her face, no guarantee of either guilt or blamelessness. Often the best liars had total control; they could also fake the nervousness of innocence, a double blind.

Introductions were made. Chris Wallace, the Spanish teacher, packed up her Tim Hortons travel mug. “Nice to meet you. Gotta run now. Grade elevens are getting ready to put on a play they wrote. Jennifer Lopez theme. Poor girl meets rich man. Typical fairy-tale world. What did we do wrong?” She winked at Kim, whose face pinked as she touched a beaded necklace featuring a double-headed eagle. Once, twice. Was she trying to reassure herself with this totemic image?

Holly explained her reason for the visit. “Now that these complications have appeared,” she said, “I need to know more about Angie as a student of yours.”

Kim drained her mug with a wince, then gave a half-smile. Holly hadn’t noticed before that she had a small gap between her sparkling front teeth, an attractive feature in the days of assembly-line beauty. “If this is coffee...you know the saying.”

Holly let a beat or two pass. She liked this woman, but she remembered her initial days on the force. Several times she’d been one-hundred-eighty degrees wrong in her first estimates. Witnesses gave false information, sometimes not their own fault. With an endless variety of focus and five complex senses, people saw things different ways, could even be led in the wrong directions. Drained by hours of steady interrogation, confused by the options, innocent people confessed to murder, especially young people and the mentally challenged. “It’s a rather delicate situation.” She told Kim about the accusations. “Two students...and I consider their testimony as biased as the typical teen’s—”

“Probably less biased than an adult’s.” Kim passed a broad hand over her brow. It was stifling in the room, the sun streaming through the glass. She got up and levered open a window, and a cool breeze rushed past them. The instructor sat back down and levelled her olive black eyes at Holly. “It’s possible that Angie had a crush on me. Nothing was ever said or written. It’s something you sense. And even so, she might not know her own mind at this age. I was in love with my Grade Eight history teacher, Mr. Bradshaw.”

Possible crush, Holly wrote, leaving her face impassive. It was critical to keep opinions out of reports. Stick to the facts and let the justice system sort them out. If this woman had nothing to do with the death, “outing” her served no purpose. “Did she try to talk to you after class? Or outside the school?” She hesitated. Two questions at once. Bad form.

Kim’s voice was even and serious. “Sometimes when school let out, she’d come by the classroom for a few minutes. She walked home, so she didn’t need to catch the bus.”

“Was she discussing her schoolwork?” Holly winced again.

Leading the witness. Her techniques needed refining, but at least she knew that.

Kim gave a sigh. “Angie was an overachiever. She brought in her essays for my opinions on improvement, not to argue about the marks. In the normal scheme of grading, the huge numbers, sometimes two hundred essays each week, I don’t have time to make thorough comments.”

Holly nodded. Her father made the same complaints. “I don’t envy you. Maybe gym teachers made the right choice.”

A soft smile greeted that humour. “Often she wanted to move deeper into a point. And she brought some poetry.”

“Poetry? Part of her assignments?”

“I teach Canlit, but I don’t mind looking at creative writing from my students or any others in the school. We’re starting a little magazine this year. Spawnings.”

Holly sat up. “Pardon me? Did you say—”

Kim was laughing out loud, apparently at Holly’s expression. With her broad smile and a touch of crinkle at her eyes’ edges, she was even more attractive. “I know. It’s provocative. Sounds like Allen Ginsberg and those one-word Beatnik titles. But who around this fishing community could dispute it? I thought it was very clever. Angie was on the screening committee.”

The scenarios might be multiplying. “Does that mean she had a say about what was included? Could that have made her any enemies?”

“About poetry? Who would think? It’s the antithesis of violence.”

“Or should be. What about rock lyrics and rap music?”

Kim gave this some thought. “I suppose. Do you want me to send you a list of the students whose work she read, those who didn’t make the cut?”

“Might be an idea.” She passed Kim her card. “What were her poems about?”

“The normal teen angst. ‘Misery, companion mine, to my depths you do entwine’.”

Holly winced. “Ouch. I see she had no career there. But no one else has suggested that she was unhappy.” For once, Holly wondered if they were on the wrong track, if Angie had taken the drug herself. Even that theory didn’t explain where she had gotten it.

Kim gave her a wordly look that revealed her greater experience with teens. “She wasn’t unhappy. She was just exploring the concept. Young people think that writing about the small things in our lives, a flower, a delicate lichen, even a pet, is a trivial pursuit. They’ll learn. I sent Angie to that William Carlos Williams poem about finding a plum in the...fridge...icebox. So simple, so pure.” She closed her eyes. “Know what? There was a lovely fresh plum on my desk the next day.”

“Back to my original purpose, I have to ask...I mean...off the record...” She swallowed back her hesitation. Kim Bass was a likable person, trustworthy and credible, or so it seemed.

“I get you. This is a Catholic school, Charter of Rights be damned. It’s not exactly Don’t ask. Don’t tell. But close enough.”

“I understand.”

“I live with another woman who writes romance novels. We’ve been together for three years. I was glad to take this job to repay my student loans. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the boomers have been retiring in droves. I’ll be out of here in June. I have an offer back home in Canmore. With her occupation, Judi can relocate anywhere. Oddly enough, I miss the snow and cold. It’s so much cleaner.” She looked out the window, where it had clouded over. Sooke weather changed on the hour. Fat raindrops teared runnels down the window. “How I hate the rain. I think I have SAD. Thank god they put in those special lights in the library. Fifteen minutes a day, and you cheer right up. I’m overdue for my fix.”

“Your personal information will be confidential.” Holly heard a bell ring. Her watch read eleven. “Time for the memorial service, I guess. One more question. Did Angie confide in you about other students?”

“Absolutely not. She was no gossip. All the same, Angie was mature for her age, but she wasn’t one to make a teacher a pal. We’re supposed to be leaders, not friends. I looked over that essay on meth for her. It was passionate. No way in hell she took those drugs herself.” She checked her watch. “Guess I better make sure I have some tissues. If that’s all, I’ll leave you now and hit the bathroom before the service.”

Minutes later, Holly found herself in the last row of the bleachers. At least half the seats were empty, a far cry from the old days. Perhaps the school would close after all, just desserts for the discomfort it had inflicted upon her. Standing in for the principal, Gable began the service as the crowd quieted. A large screen showed videos of Angie’s triumphs in her swim meets. She poised on the starting blocks, intent, focused, a picture of youthful perfection. Then the video faded to black. Across to the podium came the president of the senior class, a boy with Harry Potter glasses, poking them back on his nose every two minutes. For his age, the comments were surprisingly mature. He ended by reading Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young”. Had Kim given him the idea?

Then came the head counsellor, followed by Coach Grove, awkward in a role other than pep talks. She noticed that his gaze kept gravitating toward the statuesque Katie. But the girl next to her, Janice, was it? was fixated on Paul Gable. Such temptations lay in wait in the educational minefield. Now female teachers were being accused of seducing young male students. Women were proving to be as reprehensible as men when it came to sexual foibles.

The choir finished the hour-long service by singing “I’ll Fly Away”. By then nearly everyone except the most stoic was wiping their eyes, and a chorus of sniffs filled the air as tissues emerged among the females. Angie might not have had any close friends, but her peers recognized the tragedy as a harbinger of their own passing. A lone kilted piper played “Amazing Grace”, walking out at dirge pace until the sound faded in the halls and the gym was totally quiet, except for the drip of water from the metal roof. Then the bustle of finding umbrellas began as people got up.

As Holly stood to the side, she noticed Nate Didrickson filing out, Buster the golden retriever plodding at his heels, bleary eyes searching the crowd for its lost mistress to part the clouds in its vision. Nate was with a woman with similar facial features, perhaps his sister, and had the boy Robin by one hand. The lad’s dark suit echoed his father’s, down to the white carnation boutonniere. Then the last handshake and hug had been accepted, and everyone had left for the cafeteria to take refreshments and sign the guest book.

Nate saw Holly and whispered to the woman, who then said to the youngster, “Come on, dear. We’ll get some cake. Dad will be right along.” They walked off as the senior dog slumped down with a relieved sigh and appeared to nod off. Buster had been freshly groomed and given a bright blue collar ribbon, no slight chore under the demands of such grief.

“My condolences again. It was a lovely service,” she said. “Corporal Martin. Thank you for coming.” He took both her hands in his in a warm embrace. “I didn’t expect...” His voice trailed off.

“I understand that Detective Whitehouse visited your home.” He coughed into his hand. “Sorry. This time of year, the debris burning starts my allergies going. What were you... Oh, yeah. Whitehouse. What a know-it-all. You should have seen the mess he left in my little girl’s room. Clothes and books all over the place. It took me...” Then he broke off and turned away, one hand shifting to his swollen, puffy eyes. “Funny, but I still think she’s coming back.”

She touched his shoulder gently, hoping that the light contact would be accepted. Common perception was that female officers had brought a new sensitivity to policing. Often they were of greater use in domestic violence cases because of the way they could defuse a situation without using brute force.

“He got me steamed, searching for drugs in my angel’s room. There is no way she took that toxic junk or drank more than a beer, probably a light one at that.”

There had been some alcohol in Angie’s system, but he might have been right. For some, the excitement of the illicit beer itself was as much a charge as the small buzz of a single drink. She hadn’t intended to bother Nate again after Whitehouse had done his job, but while she had him here... “I’ve been speaking with her teachers to get to know her better. Did she confide in you? I mean as much as a teenager does.”

“She had some concerns about Robin. He’s been her responsibility ever since her mother...passed. She went over his homework with him every night.” Nate gave a nod to a very old bow-backed man and his wife with a walker who had been slowly making their way across the gym. The woman gave a sob as she hugged him. The man said, “We’ll miss our girl, Nate. You come by to talk any time.”

“Thanks for your support.” Nate returned his attention to Holly.

“Sweet people. They live next door. Angie was like a granddaughter to them. Anyway, she said there were drugs at school sometimes. It disgusted her. I wanted her to tell the authorities, but you know how kids are about that. We used to call them squealers.” His quiet tones took on an edge. “Now it’s ‘dropping the dime’. Gangster talk. Makes me sick.”

“Did she mention any names?”

He gave a contemptuous snort. “If she had, I would have passed them on to the authorities. She knew that. That’s the problem today. Everyone’s covering up. The whole community has to work together to make this a safe place, and I’m not just talking about Neighbourhood Watch.” He ran fingers through his hair, freshly trimmed for the occasion. “Just see out the year, I told her. Concentrate on your classes, your swimming. Get to university, and you’ll forget there ever was a time called high school. Life will sort itself out.”

Holly felt a kinship with this girl and her dislike of childish cliques. In a time warp, they might have been friends. Finding out why and how she died assumed the nature of a personal challenge, more than a job. Was that wise? She had no choice, and she hoped she never would.

She left the school wondering whether she should have dismissed Kim so quickly. Was she naïve to discard the gossip? Did this partner of hers even exist? Yet why plant the seeds of doubt in a father’s imagination? She was beginning to understand how damaging passing on information in a case could be. Discretion was a narrow line between total candour and silence. And the coach. Loyal husband or playing his own little games with Katie? Should she do a background check, or was that overkill? She felt certain that the meth had come from someone at the school, a student or, god forbid, the staff. Then there was the wild card. The boys from Rennie.

Chipper met her at the Otter Point Bakery. They opted for the pizza buffet and started chowing down as the friendly owner brought more selections hot from the ovens. “No chicken pie for you today, Officer?” she asked Chipper, who grinned as he took another slice. The quaint room had Chinese antiques in wicker cases, along with silk scarves and carvings. They advertised a high tea as well as fresh meat and vegetable pies. Tourists crammed the place in summer.

Chipper nodded as Holly told him about the school. “Whitehouse checked in,” he said. “He’s off to Vancouver for a couple of days. Since there are no new leads in our case, I guess he’s shelved it. Told me he thought that Angie took the meth on her own.”

“Like hell she did. This is so frustrating.”

“Too right. What does he care about us? No surprise, though. First lesson I learned in my first year. Ninety-five per cent of police work is dreary and routine. Glory boy wants none of that.”

“And the other five, you get your head shot off and an official funeral better than you could afford.” She munched on a Greek pizza slice, then selected a pepperoni piece.

“Don’t forgetting shooting someone yourself.” He wiped his mouth on a serviette. “Did you ever have to do that?”

Her memories had to be pried from their dark corners. “I drew my gun once...after a dangerous car chase. The guy was cornered, and I was afraid he was going to run me over or drive into a crowd. The warning shot stopped him.”

Chipper stared at her. “Wow. You made the right choice and lucked out.”

“It’s not always that easy.” She checked her watch. “We’d better get a move on.”

“More interviews?”

“Just one. The boys from Port Renfrew. Maybe I can combine it with a speed check in the French Beach area. Sun’s back out. Good travelling weather.”

“French Beach. Good idea. The locals have been complaining to Ann.” He looked at her uncertainly. “But the boys. By yourself? Do you want—”

She shot him a cool, sideways glance, and he backed off. “I’ve made a preliminary call.” She explained that Billy’s mother had sounded worried, until Holly had insisted that they were talking to everyone who’d been around the park that night in hopes of finding someone who’d seen Angie riding the bike.

They took the bill to the counter in the adjoining bakery where she picked up an apple pie and a loaf of seven-grain bread. “Routine. Do people still believe that? It’s such a cliché on television and in movies,” Chipper said.

“Even if it turns out that they were on the beach, we can’t haul them in like felons unless we have a good reason. And don’t forget that relations between the races have been prickly lately.” In Sooke, a native man had been seen sleeping on a cardboard mat. Since he was in a bushy area with makeshift shelters where the homeless crashed behind the dumpsters at the Evergreen Mall, he was ignored. By the time he was discovered to be in a diabetic coma instead of drunk, he came close to dying. A tragedy borne of neglect. Good Samaritans were vanishing in a fog of perceived danger or possible lawsuits.

“That sounds like a double standard. We already brought in the two students from the high school.”

She cleared her throat. “Because they were directly involved that night...or part of an alibi.”

Back at the office, Chipper began reading the latest bulletins. Ann was under a pile of paperwork, requisitions for stationery and equipment. “It’s so quiet here that I heard a hummingbird outside,” she said. “Guess they didn’t all head for California.”

Just as Holly was leaving with the radar equipment and ticket pad, Ann answered the phone. A few tsks erupted while the other party talked in a voice nearly loud enough for all to hear. “We’ll send someone right out,” she said and hung up. “More theft from a construction site in Shirley. Six new strata homes with ocean views. Big money. But it’s remote, so no one’s minding the store at night. Broke into a metal storage shed. This time it’s a generator, nail gun, a small table saw and a houseful of exotic hardwood flooring.” Shirley was a small community formerly known as Sheringham Point after the picture-perfect lighthouse on the bluffs. When it had got its own post office, the name was too long for a stamp.

Holly whistled. “And they’d need a truck to haul that equipment.” She turned to Chipper. “Take the Suburban and canvass the nearest neighbours. Ask the guys at the volunteer fire station. A few of them sit out front around lunch time. See if you can get any latents in the place where they broke into the shed.” Thanks to his bush postings in Saskatchewan, Chipper had SOCO training.

He rubbed his neck. “A construction site? Fifty people have had their hands on things, not to mention deliveries.”

She shook her head. “I know, but we could get lucky running them through CPIC. They should haul out an on-site trailer and hire a guard. A junkyard dog’s no use if the place isn’t fenced.” The Canadian Police Information Centre catalogued the names of anyone currently accused, cases pending, probation and criminal records.

She headed back down West Coast Road, the window open, enjoying the warm breeze and the bright sun. In the summer droughts, when they held their breath that forest fires wouldn’t start in the bone-dry duff, even logging was halted in the sere woods. Then the fall and winter brought exponential rains. Finally the precipitation slowed as March brought daffodils. Or so it had gone. Global warming was causing new weather patterns, and they weren’t pretty. Her father had told her of a rare storm last April. One hundred millimetres of rain in a day. Some blamed the clouds of pollution from coal-power generation in burgeoning China.

Still uncomfortable from stuffing at the trough and feeling dangerously like a snooze, Holly settled in about five kilometres east of Fossil Bay. She cozied the car behind a rickety fence once belonging to a farm hacked out of the wilderness and now reclaimed by brambles and salal. Big city units had the new Stalker LIDAR laser guns, better suited to dense traffic areas. She used the old Basic Handheld K Band Radar, heavy but reliable. Some alert drivers saw her in time and braked quickly, slipping under the radar. Others must have been gawking at the stunning oceanfront or listening to music. Along with several gentle warnings, two of the three tickets went to tourists, one in a rented Mustang and the other in a Buick. The most satisfying citation tagged a yee-haw roofer flying low-level at 110 kmh in a battered Ford pickup. Like a primitive telegraph, the message would be received from other drivers, who observed the ticketing, that speeding in this area was unwise today.

Finishing the paperwork in a moment of pristine quiet, she recalled an article about the life of an average American officer in an urban department. “Twenty-five recently-dead bodies, fourteen decaying corpses, ten sexually assaulted children, and serious personal injury at least once on the job.” Having refilled the government coffers and made the road safer, she closed down the unit and headed west for forty-five minutes. She was two kilometres short when she was flagged down near a shiny Toyota Sienna van. A balding man dressed in baggy shorts and a Yankees sweatshirt braced himself against the vehicle, while a woman of a similar age sat crying in the passenger seat. By the side of the road, a small deer lay still in a pool of blood. “Didn’t mean to hit it. The poor thing came out of nowhere.”

This year’s fawn, all legs and hardly as large as a dog. As she bent over to look, the only living thing was her figure reflected in its glazed eyes. A brief candle snuffed out. At least no one was hurt. Roosevelt elk exacted a higher price. She glanced at the dented hood. “Happens all the time. I can help with your insurance claim.” She gave him her card, grateful that the animal was out of its misery. Standard procedure in critical cases was to use the shotgun.

“We’re from New York City. Zoo’s the place we see deer. What should we do with it? Are you going to send for the SCPA or whatever you call...”

“Since we’re out of the town limits, it’ll remain where it is, as long as it’s off the road. Even dead seals on beaches are left for the tides.” She noticed that he looked disgusted. “Tell you what. Help me haul it deeper into the woods. Cougar or bear will probably come shopping.”

His voice skyrocketed as he looked around. “Bear? Cougar?”

The disposal didn’t take long. Holly pulled some towelettes from the console, and they cleaned up.

Billy Jenkins lived at the end of a long rutted road a few miles east of Port Renfrew. A homemade plywood sign at the turn advertised “Woodworking. Native carvings. Fishing Charters” with an arrow. Holly took care not to let the ruts damage her undercarriage but winced at the occasional thump. In a bigleaf maple tree festooned with lacy strands of witch’s hair, a barred owl greeted her, usually a night bird but at home in the luminous curly hynum moss which coated the tree like a bayou beauty. A brown hare hopped to safety.

At last she came to a small clearing. Large firs had been trimmed or topped to prevent damage in a windstorm. In the yard, a circus of carvings caught her eye with their skill and majesty. Several rampant bears pawed the air. Despite the fact that totem poles had a more northerly origin, artful sculptures of all heights surveyed the quiet kingdom. Smiling in admiration, she discovered an eagle, a raven and a turtle on the posts. Two carved chests would make ideal storage for sheets and blankets. An artist coaxing buyers down this road probably did a good business in the summer.

The cabin with add-ons was painted a bright blue, a complement to the green moss which coated its cedar-shake roof. A huge woodpile was tarped beside it. On the shady side, sword fern nestled against the clapboard. A sizable garden wired against deer, in a common Stalag 17 effect, bore salad vegetables and potato plants. In a grassy patch, two mountain bikes lay on their sides. The recently-built deck had potted begonias in red, white and salmon. Showy burgundy dahlias, which lasted into the fall, added a cheery look.

“I’m Janet Jenkins. Come in,” Billy’s mother said, opening the screen door. She wore loose jeans and a red flannel logging shirt. “The boys will be back at three. They’re helping my husband Tom with the firewood.” Mike was staying with them because his mother was in Victoria getting radiation for breast cancer. His father had gone north to earn money at a fly-in, fly-out mine in Yukon, she explained.

The house opened into a living room, kitchen at the side. A small television sat on a crowded bookshelf. The number of other doors indicated two more bedrooms and a bathroom.

“They aren’t in any trouble, are they? You said this was routine,” Janet said as she took a blue enamel pot of coffee from the stove. She added a can of condensed milk and a sugar bowl, urging them forward on the circular pine table.

Holly had a slight stomach ache from the pizza overload, but she couldn’t refuse the hospitality. Her duty belt needed a bottle of Maalox. “Apparently they were on the beach at Botanical the night when a girl drowned. I need to know what they saw, if anything.”

The woman’s pleasant tan face shrank as she smoothed a crease on the freshly-ironed tablecloth. Rich black hair was pulled into a bun with an attractive shell holder, and her glowing, unwrinkled skin belied her forty-plus years. “My brother drowned. It’s a bad way to go. His fishing boat filled up with a rogue wave, and he never made it to shore.” She made a small fist, her hand worn from work, then reached for a tin of hand cream on the table. “Damn marine reports were wrong.”

Holly nodded, managing a smile to ease the woman along. “That’s so true. Weather changes by the hour around the lower island.”

“And we’re cut off out here. No cell coverage. Damn phone lines go down once a winter. Can’t even call an ambulance.” Janet finished anointing her hands and picked up her coffee. “Still, I prefer it to Victoria. It’s freer, you know? Not as many rules, and we help each other.”

A few minutes later, Holly heard voices outside. Through the calico-curtained window she watched two young men walking toward the house, followed by a mixed breed, German shepherd and collie at a glance. The dog lacked one front leg but handled its mobility without complaint. One boy had an axe over his shoulder, the other carried steel splitting wedges and a maul.

Janet said, “There they are now. Do you want me—”

“Please stay here. I’ll talk to them outside. Thanks for your hospitality.”

She excused herself and met the boys on the deck, explaining her visit. The dog was friendly if muddy. She gave its head a rub but steered it away from her pants. “I’d like to talk to you separately, if that’s all right. Maybe you could come back in a few minutes, Mike.” She saw them give each other odd looks. Mike pulled out a pack of bargain-priced Canadian brand cigarettes, lit up, and strolled off, his short legs slightly bowed like a sailor’s. Chances were that after all this time, they’d rehearsed their stories. She should have been out here earlier, from the minute they’d learned the results of the tox scan.

The taller at well over six feet, Billy wore green workpants and a hoodie. His clothes were covered in fir debris and the occasional oil stain. One temple bore a scar, the kind fashionable for nineteenth-century dueling Europeans. His nose was blunt but strong, and his hands could rip phone books in half.

She smiled to put him at his ease, but his eyes cut to her notebook. “The ranger says that he believes you and Mike camped in Botanical the night Angie Didrickson died.”

“Angie?” he repeated. “Mom said something, but I—”

“Angie drowned that night.” Surely news would have travelled fast. What was wrong here?

“Oh yeah, I heard about that. I was sorry.” A nuance of emotion passed over his face, raising a dimple in one cheek. Juvenile or ingenuous or both? Oddly enough, his voice cracked from time to time, mild as a girl’s.

“Did you know her?” He attended Edward Milne, but they could have met at twenty teen haunts. The video stores, Willie Blues Snack Shop, the A and W, Sooke Pizza and Wink’s, which nailed the student lunch trade. Aside from school, the Port Renfrew teens got to Sooke from time to time, hitched a ride, stayed with friends or relatives. Rock concerts in Victoria would pull them farther east. K-Os was playing at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.

“Not really.”

What did that mean? “You did or you didn’t?” His hesitance made her suspicious, but the ambiguous teenspeak often meant “yes, but I’m afraid to admit it.”

He looked off to where Mike was tossing sticks for the dog.

“I might have seen her in Sooke...but we never talked.”

“She was beautiful. I imagine you’d remember her.”

“Yeah.” He blinked but didn’t meet her gaze. To some that spelled guilt, but the gesture was inborn in his people. It was disrespectful to lock eyes, especially a youth to an elder. Did he seem nervous? “What did you do that night in the park?”

Her begging-the-question technique worked. Instead of denying being there, he seemed to search his memory. “Made a fire. Cooked hot dogs. Went for a swim. We built a fort of driftwood.” Common practice for beachcombers. More shelter from the wind than rain. But she didn’t remember any food debris. Maybe here were two teenaged environmentalists.

“Can you give me a timeline? Start with dinner.”

“Uh, six, seven. I dunno. Before dark. We just hung out and talked.”

If she recalled correctly, dark came about eight o’clock.

“About what?” The devil was in the details, Roy had taught her. Once a suspect makes one mistake, he makes others. The cascade effect.

“Stuff. I mean girls, movies, school. Nothing important. The sunset was awesome. And we saw a couple of cruise ships. My cousin works on one. It’d be sweet to go to Alaska.”

“Then what happened? See anyone else?”

“Uh-uh.” He spread out his hands. One leaking blood blister dominated a finger, the price of working with wood. “Went to bed, I guess. Ten maybe. On the beach. We had sleeping bags.”

“By the big butt stump of driftwood? Was that your camp?”

Suddenly a wary look crossed his face, as if he knew he might have said the wrong thing, placed himself in the wrong spot. Innocence and experience collided. “Maybe down a kilometre from that. The shelter wasn’t anything special, more dug out in the sand. The main logs were already there.”

Why was he trying to minimize the fort now? Distance himself from where the girl had died? The sun flickered behind a cloud, but she felt the heat coming. “All right, Billy,” she said, and relief flooded his square face.

Mike took his turn next. The habit of reclusiveness wasn’t as strong for him. His eyes weren’t as intelligent as Billy’s, more crafty like a fox, though those animals were oddly absent on the island. Mike confirmed much of what Billy had said. Perhaps they had practiced their stories. A total consistency often spelled collusion. “So you went to bed around—”

“Moonrise. Eleven-fifteen.”

Strange that he named an exact time. Moonrise could be checked. “And you saw no one?”

“Guess we wouldn’t.” He toed his workboot over a knot in a board. “You’re not allowed to camp on the beach. But we were here in the time long ago. It’s really all ours.” That he stopped without making derogatory remarks about whites spoke for his self-control, but perhaps he didn’t want to antagonize the police.

“I don’t disagree.” She looked at her watch as if she were growing short of time and wanted to wrap up the interview. “That was a pretty cool shelter you made on the big fir root. Gotta hand it to you.”

He seemed flattered, rubbing a hand through his thick hair. “I’m pretty good at it. Get the pieces to fit just right. Don’t need no nails at all. Nice and tight. The wind gets up at night.”

She excused him. So there was a discrepancy in their description of where they had camped and the time they went to bed. But both denied seeing anyone on the beach.

Before leaving, she dropped one more penny onto the table as Billy rejoined them. “I need your fingerprints.”

They both tensed and looked at each other for a brief moment. Beads of moisture freckled Mike’s forehead. Billy cleared his throat. “We didn’t touch anything....not that there was anything to touch. Are you gonna check the driftwood?”

He gave a childish laugh, then coughed into his hand.

For once, a lie came in handy. On a beach, with winds and tide, not many pieces of forensics would remain, and not for long. “Of course not. But a car was broken into in the parking lot that week. A couple of prints showed up. This will eliminate you.”

Was that a visible relaxation in their muscular shoulders?

“Sure, why not?” Billy said.

Normally the print kit wasn’t carried in cars, but with distances making time a premium, Holly had changed the protocol. She took them to the Impala, opened the trunk and set up the equipment on a picnic table, offering them a wet towelette at the end of the process. Her real intention was to check against the prints on the condom package. Teenaged boys sure as hell didn’t use them in a same-sex encounter. But as ubiquitous as condoms were, often given out free, one might have lingered in their wallets or backpacks. And if so, that might break their story. Had one of them, or both, had sex with Angie?

Holly pulled in to the detachment as Ann was closing up. “How did it go?” the woman asked.

“They seem like good boys, but something is going on,” she said, explaining her procedures.

Ann gave a sign of approval at the fingerprint idea. “Why not? It’s not impossible that they were involved with those thefts. Clearly, it’s a local.”

Ann’s old Taurus chugged out in a cloud of blue smoke. With a sigh, Holly went inside to type her report. Then she set out the package of prints for the courier the next day.

By nine, her father had already gone to bed, but he’d left her a plate of meatloaf, garlic mashies and carrot coins in the fridge. She heated the tasty meal in the microwave, then sat in his recliner in the solarium. The wind had been up all day, the tides at a horrific 9.5, and from the beaches surf pounded the rocks like incoming mortars. As she finished the last juicy bite and stretched back in the fullness of comfort, she saw in a seat fold the newspaper he had been reading, a tell-tale piece of white sticking out. Inside was an envelope type-addressed to him with no stamp or postmark. Her hand hovered over it as she weighed the ethics. A plain piece of cheap copier paper lay inside. With hesitation, she read it. “I hope you’re still losing sleep. You won’t get away with it, you know. The mill of God grinds slow but exceedingly fine.” Her heart chilled like a cold marble slab. No wonder he hadn’t been himself. And the wording. “The mill of God.” Hardly garden-variety prose. Who was harassing him, and for how long? Was he being blackmailed? She got up, her knees wobbly and her strategy uncertain. Secrets buried in more than one heart never kept their own counsel.

She climbed the circular stairs slowly, thinking at each step.

Then she looked at his door, closed against the unwelcome night heat rising from the woodstove in the foyer. A slit of light appeared under it. “Knock knock,” she said.

An umhmmm followed, so she opened the door of the smaller corner bedroom. Only a highboy dresser and bed table served for furniture, and piles of books and magazines leaned in pillars. Wearing striped pajamas and a silk paisley dressing gown, Norman was propped up by pillows in a monkish single bed. A patchwork quilt covered one end, his mother’s work. Shogun lay on a soft foam pallet on the floor, his head sprawling, and his legs splayed, exposing his pink belly in a position of complete trust. A rope tug toy lay beside him. He was snoring. Another reason not to sleep with dogs.

The sight amused her, but she hadn’t come for this. She sat at the end of the bed, focusing on her father’s eyes, sad as an old bloodhound’s. When the woodstove started burning in the fall, he developed allergies, a vicissitude of age, he claimed. “I have to confess something, Dad,” she said.

“Oh my,” he said. “Your old man’s not a priest, though sometimes I live like one.” He put down his book. Peyton Place. “Bestseller in 1956. We kids used to find the paperback copies in the drug store and read the forbidden pages.”

Wasn’t he a wizard at sidetracking, or was he covering embarrassment for the personal approach? “You’re joking. Show me one.”

A slight smirk on his lips, he leafed on, then passed her the book. Something about getting it up good and hard, Rodney.

“That’s it? Pretty tame for these days.”

He was chuckling when she touched his shoulder, a rare gesture, brought his sea-blue eyes to hers, fawn like her mother’s but with emerald flecks. They saw the world so differently, he in his historical tower, she on the drawbridge tossing criminals into the moat. “This is serious. I found that note. Didn’t mean to... No, of course I did. I was wondering why you were a bit thoughtful lately.”

He said nothing, but reached for a glass of water by the bed. Then he took off his black horn-rimmed Mr. Peepers glasses. “Don’t worry about...those letters. They mean nothing.”

“Now letters? How long has this been going on? And no Judy Garland imitations, please.” She tortured herself about the unspoken fact that her father had been a suspect, had no alibi other than being in his office late that night marking papers. An old maintenance worker had claimed to have glimpsed a figure in his office, but the man had serious cataracts, a less than ideal witness. With no sign of her mother or the Bronco and no other forensic trails, the police had been forced to declare the case cold.

“A poison little note comes every year around the anniversary of your mother’s disappearance.” In clear sorrow, he rubbed the bridge of his hawk-like nose where the glasses had left a mark like a bruise. “Anniversary. What an ironic word.”

“Who’s doing this? Where are the rest? You know, we could have dusted them for prints. Was the stationery always just copier paper?” She gave a laugh. “My god, we could have taken DNA from under the flap.”

“Same paper and the same message, with minor variations. And the envelope’s never sealed.”

“Cleverer than I thought. How do these messages get to you?”

“They’re left around the department, the offices, sometime in the week before the date. Often a cleaning person finds one and brings it to me. Last year I didn’t get anything. Maybe it was thrown away by mistake. There’s no proof. Hundreds of people pass through. We don’t have a...what do they call those spy things?” He passed a hand through his thinning hair.

“Eyes in the sky. Closed circuit television.” In the driveway, a caterwauling emerged. Felines from the surrounding houses made the front lawn a combat area. “Give me a name. You must have your suspicions.”

He blew out a heavy breath. “Larry Gall. I’m sure he’s behind this nonsense. That’s why I never keep anything. Why let the idiot get to me?”

Shogun growled and raised a lid over one sleepy eye. She was becoming used to his grumblings. “So who the hell is Larry Gall?”

“He teaches social work at Camosun College, or so I presume he still does. He and your mother were quite...close, so some say. Activist causes brought them together. I wouldn’t be surprised if he goaded the police into...” He sucked at his tongue as if a bad taste lingered. “You know. Their investigation.”

She had another thought, but considered the phrasing carefully. “If they were...close, do you think that he had anything to do with her disappearance?” She refused to say death to her father. The lie kept hope alive.

“I can’t believe so, but you know me. I like to think the best of people, not imagine that they could harm others. She always spoke well of him. I respected your mother’s opinions on...most subjects. We were different, but we shared the important values.”

Bonnie had a temper, but she rarely meant the harsh words she said and calmed down later. Norman was slow to anger. But to protect what he held dear, nothing was beyond him. On one of their rare hikes, they’d met a cougar. Placing little Holly behind him, he’d raged and waved his arms, jumped up and down until the beast retreated. Then he sat on a stump and cried, shaking with relief. He’d saved their lives. She owed him one.

“Why didn’t you tell me then about Gall? Why let all these years go by?”

He shook his head slowly from side to side. “You were working so hard at your studies. You wanted to come home and help search, but I talked you out of it. It was just gossip. I’ve never even met him.” The hesitant look on his face made her sure that he was still trying to convince himself. “The man is harmless. He’s just a wounded beast, striking out at the only person left.”

“Even if he hasn’t made any threats, this is harassment. I’m going to talk to him.”

Norman folded his hands on his chest. “Don’t do that, my girl. Waste of time. He’ll never admit it...or perhaps he will. That would be like the man. Those kind think that they can save the world. Tell me, is it getting any better?”