Seaweed Under Water (7 page)

“Would it be against the rules for me to inquire if she's a ward of the government?”

“Strictly speaking, I need an order . . . but I assume the matter's important,” he said. Smiling a little, he swiveled his chair to face a computer screen, shuffled a mouse, got what he wanted and studied it in silence.

“Yes,” he said. “Keep it under your hat but Terry's one of ours.”

I asked him why she was in care.

Spots of colour appeared on Bonwit's pale cheeks as he said, “I'm very sorry, but I can't tell you.”

“Can't, or won't?”

“Both, sorry.”

I stood up and glanced out of his window. Bonwit had one of the best views in Victoria. The provincial capital building was laid out before me in all its splendour. A statue of Queen Victoria stood on its green lawns, its regal bronze gaze directed toward an immense sailboat, the size of a cross-channel ferry, rounding Laurel Point. A Twin Otter float plane was taking off for Lake Washington in Seattle.

After pondering for a minute I sat down again and said, “Terry's mother is missing, Mr. Bonwit, and I'm starting to have a bad feeling about things. It probably doesn't appear on your files but 20 years ago Terry's father went missing as well. He hasn't been seen since. His body was never found and several highly experienced detectives think Terry's mother murdered him.”

“So you're telling me what? That this is a murder inquiry?”

“It's too early to say. If she has been murdered, the sooner we get on top of things the better.”

“You're a police sergeant. Murder cases are generally supervised by a more senior officer, are they not?”

“Ordinarily, but I'm a Native, as is Terry. I have a special interest.”

Bonwit sighed. Leaning back in a chair he said, “Strictly off the record?”

“Strictly off the record.”

“Terry's dull, mentally subnormal. Some time ago, we received information that she was prostituting herself. Terry was apprehended and assessed. Terry can be hard to manage and was being shuffled around between her mother and her grandfather, both of whom found her to be a major challenge. After hearing expert testimony, a family court judge ruled her incompetent. That's how she ended up with us.”

“And that meant Crowe Street, or jail?”

“Crowe Street isn't perfect, but we had little choice in the matter. Few agencies accept violent clients. We count ourselves lucky that we got her into Crowe Street.”

“Terry doesn't seem a violent type.”

“She isn't. Not generally. Not until a trigger sets her off, and she explodes,” Bonwit said, moving uneasily. He cleared his throat and muttered, “Actually, we received two separate complaints about Terry's behaviour. The calls were anonymous, so it's no use asking me who made them. Before we could act on the first call, another came in. Terry was a minor and apparently she had been prostituting herself. Anonymous or not, we take such calls seriously. A government worker investigated. Ms. Colby couldn't even manage Terry properly when she was little. Now Terry's grown. She needs 24/7 supervision and wasn't getting it.”

“This prostituting allegation. Was it credible?”

“Of course. That goes without saying.”

“Terry's family-court hearing. Was it her first court appearance?”

“It was, but Terry Colby has been on our files for years,” he said, standing up and putting his hand out. “I can't say another thing and I sincerely hope that what I have said is kept strictly between you and me.”

I thanked Bonwit, shook his hand, gave my card and said, “If you think of something later, something in the public domain that might help my inquiry, please call me at this number.”

We parted friends. Bonwit was tapping his front incisors with my card when I went out.

Back on the street, a TV crew had set up a command post at the accident scene. Both ambulances had gone, but traffic squad uniforms were still running around with tape measures and cameras, and questioning witnesses. A man with a microphone was telling A-Channel viewers that the world would be a better place if hit-and-run killers were strung up to the lampposts and left dangling as a caution to the rest of us.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next day when I woke, it was pouring. Clouds of mist were impaled on the totem poles near the longhouse. A yellow school bus, parked almost invisibly outside the reserve office, its emergency flashers blinking like giant red eyes, looked like a mythical beast.
What do you know?
I thought.
The chief was right about the weather
. I put a hat and rain slicker on over my T-shirt and shorts and made the short obligatory morning dash through the downpour to my outhouse. After the recent spell of tropical weather, it felt distinctly chilly; the temperature had dropped steeply overnight. When I left the outhouse, I stood under the cedars for a minute, watching the school bus, now fully loaded and driving out of sight along the reserve's unpaved roads.

Alfie Scow came by with a fishing rod over his shoulder. He said, “Hiya, Silas.”

I asked Alfie what was going on.

“Chief Alphonse is taking the kids to Mystic Vale this morning,” Alfie replied. “He thinks it's time they learned some ritual.”

The kids had a long road ahead of them, I was thinking, as I returned to my house.

At nine o'clock it was still pouring. I'd already downed two cups of coffee, shaved, put on jeans and a wool tartan shirt and a pair of leather boots and driven myself to Lou's Café. It was Saturday, nominally my day off. Lou's regular breakfast crowd was absent. The place was empty, except for parking meter attendants, girding themselves for another major offensive against Victoria's vehicular scofflaws.

Lou is a short, burly, angry man, born in a country that had then been called Yugoslavia. He spent his formative years as one of Marshal Tito's resistance fighters, battling Axis foes in conditions of appalling discomfort, cold and danger. You'd think—for a man who'd survived such experiences—that peacetime would be a piece of cake and he'd never waste another minute fretting about life's mundane trifles.
Au contraire
. Lou worries about everything.

I draped my slicker over a hat rack and sat at my usual table under a window. When Lou came over, I ordered coffee, bacon and eggs, pan fries and sourdough toast.

Lou folded his arms and said, “What are you guys doing about the oil deficit?”

“What oil deficit?” I asked. “Alberta's awash in oil. And gas.”

“If that's the case, how come guys are buying my used cooking fat?” Lou countered. “A guy comes in yesterday, offers me 10 cents a gallon. Uses the stuff in his diesel truck engine.”

“I reserve comment until after I get my breakfast.”

A young couple came in, holding hands and laughing. Lou and I watched them sit in the far corner of the room, facing each other across a table. Still laughing, the man leant across and kissed his girl on the mouth.

Lou forgot about world oil shortages and went across to take their order.

I was thinking about Mystic Vale and young Vision-Questers, when somebody with a grip like a pipe wrench grabbed my elbow. It was Bernie Tapp. He said, “Yo, dickhead.”

I replied, “And congratulations to you, Detective Chief Inspector.”

“
Acting
,” Bernie said. “Acting DCI. What are you doing here? It's your day off.”

“Waiting for breakfast, but I'm a slave to duty, as you know.”

Bernie crossed to the percolator, filled two cups, brought them back and gave me one.

“I'm fiddling around with a missing-woman case,” I said. “A woman called Jane Colby.”

“Did you report it to Missing Persons?”

“Sure.”

“Clever of you, Silas, because Missing Persons is my business now. Better keep your nose out of it, if you know what's good for you. If I find you messing with my stuff I'll bust your balls.”

He was smiling. I drank some coffee.

Bernie, who has a way of dominating whatever space he's in, went on seriously, “On the other hand, how about joining me on the detective squad? Keep your nose clean and maybe we'll bump you up. Sergeant to Inspector isn't impossible. Just think what it'll do for your pension.”

“Not a chance, I'm happy with my present job.”

“You call that dog and pony show a job? Give your head a shake. Helping little old ladies to cross the road isn't work. I'm offering you something you can get your teeth into.”

Bernie raised the coffee cup to his mouth and eyed me quizzically over the rim.

It was a generous offer, so I mulled it over. In some ways, the prospect of joining Bernie's squad was not entirely unattractive, but, in my previous experience with the Serious Crimes Unit, I had disappointed friends and delighted enemies. Besides, I have a sort of blind stubbornness sometimes. I said, “I work better as a free agent.”

“In this life, nobody's a free agent. One way or another, we're all slaves.”

“I'd be free if I quit the force altogether.”

Bernie's expression didn't change. “That'd just free you up for slavery of a different kind. Let's say you did quit, waved goodbye to a good pension and to lifetime security. What would you do instead?”

“Private inquiries? I was talking to Henry Ferman yesterday. I guess it put ideas in my head.”

“Forget it. There's never been any money in that racket, there's less every day. The Internet's revolutionized the PI business. Any savvy guy with a laptop can solve most of his cases without leaving a desk.”

I said feebly, “Money's not everything.”

“Not till you run out of it.”

It was time to change the subject. “I met this girl, Terry,” I said. “She's half Native, Jane Colby's daughter. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about things. If Jane turns up dead, Terry will be an orphan. If nothing is done, Terry will probably spend the rest of her life in an institution.”

“Why?”

I told him.

“Judging by what you say, an institution is probably the best place for her. Besides, there's nothing you can do about it.”

“I think maybe there is.”

“In that case, you're an idiot,” Bernie said with sudden harshness. “This Jane Colby woman, is she Native?”

“No. She's the widow of a Native guy from Mowaht Bay.”

With a sudden movement, Bernie sat back in his chair and his mouth tightened. He said, “This woman. Did she marry one of those Mowaht Bay Rollins?”

“Yes. She was married to Neville Rollins, before he disappeared.”

“Before she murdered him, you mean.”

≈  ≈  ≈

A sudden muggy downpour drenched the pavement. Raindrops pocked the Inner Harbour's murky green waters as I hurried along Wharf Street to Jack Owens' office.

Jack Owens, chartered accountant, also worked Saturdays. He laid my card down on his desk and waved me to a seat. He was a slim, middle-aged man with blue half circles under his eyes. His voice was polite and toneless. He had a tailor-made blue pinstripe suit and a Hathaway shirt and silver tie, but the white bandage encircling his head detracted from his professional appearance.

“So you want to talk about Jane Colby, eh?” he asked, looking at my card, instead of me.

“How would you describe your relationship?”

“I'd describe my relationship with Jane Colby as an illness,” he replied in a level voice. “Fortunately, I seem to have got over it. I'll be quite happy never to set eyes on her again.”

“Mind telling me why?”

“I don't see why I should. My business with Jane Colby is personal, nothing to do with the police.”

“How's your head?”

Owens had been looking out his window. He turned toward me, eyes narrowing, and said, “It's all right, considering.”

“I suppose it must be, considering. You were struck on the head with a bottle, were you not?”

“Precisely. I was unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

“That time was two weeks ago, to be exact, inside Pinky's bar. Jane Colby was in the room with you. Your estrangement pre-dates that occasion, I believe.”

“You seem to know quite a lot about me. Or think you do.”

“Perhaps I do, sir. If I get my facts wrong, feel free to correct me.”

Owens stared into space, shrugged, leaned forward and picked up my card again. After looking at it for the second time, he let it fall onto his desktop and said, “So you're a sergeant?”

“A lowly sergeant of police.”

“I'd been in love with Jane Colby for years. She was on her own and I was married when we first met. I took my marriage vows seriously, so I didn't do anything about it. At first, that is. Jane was lovely, a talented pianist, fun to be around. I kept running into her at parties. One night I told her that she was very nice and that I spent a lot of time thinking about her. She told me she wasn't interested in married men. A week later, I asked my wife for a divorce. My wife was as shocked as I was. Our marriage had been no worse than most, but I was besotted with Janey. It's as I said—she was like an illness.

“When my divorce came through, Jane reneged on a promise to marry me. She consented to live with me, however. We bought a waterfront condominium apartment on the Songhees development. She moved in, everything seemed set, we were going to be together for the long haul—”

Owens suddenly stopped talking. His nostrils flared and his mouth tightened. He had been wearing glasses. Now he took them off and held an earpiece between his teeth while he reached into a drawer and brought out a silver cigarette case and a crystal ashtray, which he put on the desk. When he laid his glasses down, I noticed that the plastic earpiece was indented with tooth marks. Owens opened the silver box, took out a cigarette and lit it with a silver Ronson lighter.