by Lou Allin
“Speaking as a taxpayer of sorts, I approve of your frugal car. B.C. always leads the nation,” he said. “Anyway, I have some news about Derek Dunn. We spoke about him in connection with that camcorder.”
They ducked under the bridge. A round of Douglas fir served as a seat for her, and he took his lawn chair. “Word in town was he’d been a bad boy. Broke the window at the liquor store. I found him in jail in Sooke sleeping it off, as they say. Visitors aren’t encouraged,” he said, swatting at a rare mosquito. “I left him some candy bars. Can’t kick a guy when he’s down.”
“It’s just a holding area en route to West Shore then the correctional facilities. I came to talk to you about Joel Hall.”
“Joel? I haven’t seen him. Sometimes he goes up the creek to sleep. The guys trust me to look after their gear.” He took a wad of pink gum from under the chair arm and popped it into his mouth. “But he never does. Has he been up to something? I didn’t like the cut of him.”
She realized that nobody had been at the bridge by the time he had returned. It wasn’t like he was going to see it on the news or read it in the Times Colonist.
“We found his…body back up by the creek. Or a family of tourists did.”
“Holy crow. I had no idea. Are you saying that kids…” He removed a large, battered straw hat, and his grizzled face fell into creases of concern. “What the hell happened to him? Some pretty steep places up that hill.”
“An accident’s our best guess. Unless someone wants an overdose. His arm tracks indicate that he had some savvy in that regard.” She watched Bill’s demeanour carefully. Tone spoke more than words, and body language spoke loudest.
His light brown eyes were sad as a bloodhound’s. She hadn’t noticed how clear and white the sclera were. Not a user, then, nor a drinker. “Can’t say I’m surprised. I warned him to stay off the junk. Crack, meth, coke, they’re killers. If an infection doesn’t get you, the poison will.”
“It wasn’t merely the drugs. His stash had been adulterated with something quite toxic.” She explained the circumstances.
He sat back in the creaking chair, staring at the ground. “God almighty. I’ve heard about that. Thought he’d be smarter about his sources. He lived a long time, considering his habits, I suppose. But you spin the roulette wheel enough…”
Holly took a deep breath, looking up at the bridge as a motorcycle roared overhead and a trickle of dust filtered down. “Two problems. We need to know where he got it in case this is happening elsewhere on the island. Users need to be warned. You can help us there. Tell me about his contacts.” Her heart went out to this well-educated but still homeless man. He had no addictions, nor was he mentally ill, unless he was a clever sociopath. Why live such an uncomfortable life away from society? Had he exiled himself? Maybe she should run his name as a precaution.
He shrugged. “That’s none of my business. I didn’t ask him where he bought, only that he keep it out of camp. Look in Sooke, maybe Victoria.” He swept his gaze around the area. “This is hardly a hotbed of drugs.”
“I trust you, Bill. You seem like a straight guy, but I’m only doing my job, so please don’t get offended. Second, his name isn’t Joel Hall, unless he’s squeaky clean, which is highly unlikely. There’s no trace of him in the system. We’d like to find his family. They may want to take him home for burial, wherever that is. He may have been gone for years. On the other hand, it may be a case of good riddance. What do you know about his history?” She couldn’t help thinking that Bill’s situation paralleled Joel’s. What she was saying might be stinging. To her, the saddest thing in the world was an unclaimed body. Everyone was somebody’s child.
“Hell, he hardly opened his trap. I tried to be friendly at the start, offered him my reading glasses when he had a paper. Wasn’t my kind of man, even though he talked some with Derek when they shared a bottle. ” Gulls screed down on the creek side where a chip bag pirouetted in the breeze. A wise bird picked up his prize and whisked it away, chased by jealous juniors flapping their anger. “But he seemed to know his way around this part of the island. Didn’t ask the usual questions of a newcomer.”
“That is strange. Didn’t he just arrive?” She was thinking about the wallet theft in Victoria. It was possible that he’d gone back and forth more than once. The buses were regular, even if they took all day.
“I sure as hell never saw him before, and I’ve been here off and on in the summer for the last twenty years. There’s not much to Fossil Bay, never was. Sooke is another story. He knew all about the free lunches and coffee. Good corners to hitch a ride. Location of the best dumpsters. When the food stores put out their old produce. Sometimes it’s possible to make a few quick bucks doing odd jobs. Folks are pretty trusting around here, and there’s lots of seniors. Once he stole a dozen eggs from a roadside stand.”
“All the lavender and flowers he could want, too.” She thought about all the survival skills that the homeless needed. “What else did he say?”
They watched a dragonfly hover over the creek, snagging midges. Its dazzling blue isinglass wings and sectioned, tubed body gave it a science-fiction appearance. Bill tapped his temple as if to prod his memory. “Let me think now. He mentioned Whiffen Spit and said he liked to fish there. Offered to let him use my tackle, but he laughed. Said he had easier ways of making money. Also asked about Algie’s Fish and Chips by the high school. That place has been closed a long time.”
“How long?” Knowing that might tell them when the victim had been here last.
“Ten years at least. I used to wash dishes there once a week before my pension kicked in. For awhile I thought Algie’s widow and I might…” He kissed his fingertips. “That’s another story. I wasn’t about to get a ball and chain along with a daily plate of fish and chips, even though I’m a sucker for halibut.”
Holly gave Bill her card. “I know you probably can’t call, but it’s a short walk to the detachment. If anyone turns up here who gives you trouble, give me a shout.”
“Hey, I’m no squealer. I mind my own business.” He folded his arms.
She met his wise old eyes with a sincerity he couldn’t ignore. “I can put you or anyone in need in touch with social service agencies. This happened on my watch, and I feel responsible. We don’t want anyone dying from neglect. Sometimes a bit of care can prevent more serious health problems. Diabetes is particularly deadly if undiagnosed.”
“I hear you. Buddy of mine lost his leg to an infection. He begs from a wheelchair down at Bastion Square.”
She thought of the roving nurses in Victoria who ministered to the street people. Monitored their meds, clipped their toenails, bandaged their wounds. Unsung Mother Teresas all.
He nodded and ticked the corner of her card with his thumb before tucking it into a pocket. “Will do. And thanks, Cap.”
Cap, Guv, where would it lead? But nicknames meant someone liked you. She sympathized with Chipper. He’d grown up in a less than multicultural neighbourhood and had endured considerable ribbing until he’d changed his name at ten. His father had understood, but his mother was very traditional and insisted on calling him Chirakumar.
Several hundred yards later, she turned right down West Bay Road, a transitional enclave which in typical island fashion mixed a variety of real estate. Deep and dark forested lots where the lights burned all day sheltered mossy-roofed doublewides, hunting or fishing cabins from the Fifties, A-frame kits with ramshackle add-ons of rough, greying lumber, then a spurt of neater box-house bungalows on quarter-acre lots, and finally the newly rich with their mansions. Snapping up cottage properties like great white sharks after chum, they dozed the structures, landing with large footprints and at least five bathrooms. Their long, winding lanes began with mammoth wrought-iron gates and stone posts bearing electric lanterns. Many gigantic cedar signs bore picturesque names: Hurricane Ridge, The Buck Stops Here, Tickety Boo, and the more literary Kenilworth.
Now that school was newly out, she wasn’t
surprised to be sent on a petty theft report. With their jurisdiction extending all the way to Port Renfrew, the police often answered calls to summer cottages. The absentee owner in Seattle or Houston arriving in June might discover a broken window and general ransack. A bush bike had been stolen from a shed. Chainsaws and generators, portable property, were very popular. Leaving liquor in a cottage was stupid, because it encouraged thieves to stop and party, an enticement to trash the rooms and leave a pile on the carpet in a primitive gesture. Houses on West Bay Road were year-round, complete with nosy neighbours, and thus less vulnerable. She pulled up to a modernized two-storey log cabin with a bright red steel roof. A B&B sign featured a classy soaring bird with a white head. Eagle’s Nest.
A knock at the door brought a woman in her forties. She wore cutoffs and a scooped neck blouse. Behind her the screams of young kids playing in the yard made her shield her ears. “Sorry, it’s summer. Please wake me when it’s over.”
Holly introduced herself and was led around the side to a quiet corner under massive spruces with branches trailing like ball gowns. A guest cottage with a spectacular ocean view had a window which had been jimmied, perhaps with a screwdriver or knife. “We were so embarrassed,” Jean McNair said in a slight Scottish accent. “Our guests were from Ottawa. They had the place for the week and spent two more nights away at Bamfield. Since we weren’t booked, we let them leave some belongings. When they got back, they found the theft. They left early this morning to get the ferry to Anacortes. Of course we’ll reimburse them from our insurance once the police report is made. I can’t even tell you on which of the two nights it happened.”
Holly followed her into the small cabin. Like most upscale boutique places, it had a cozy bedroom with pillows, bolsters and nautical-themed drapes and covers. On the glowing honey pine floors, dressers, bar fridge and sofa along with a small table and two chairs completed the furniture along with a plasma tv and microwave. “There’s a four-piece bathroom with jacuzzi. Sleeps four with the pull-out sofa. Parents take the bedroom. Kids stay here.” She reached over to a vase of larkspur and bluebells backed by salal leaves and nipped off a faded blossom. A bowl of potpourri scented the air with jasmine.
The small villages along the coast, under pressure from businesses like Jean’s, had discouraged the usual accommodation chains through draconian zoning and were able to charge from one hundred to two hundred dollars a night with bookings made through the internet. They boasted super breakfasts, including fresh baking and even eggs Benedict. In contrast, the nearest motel, a refurbished but ancient model, was far down the road in Sooke. “What was taken?”
Jean passed Holly a paper. “They left their video camera in the room those two nights. It was giving them trouble with the electronic settings. The man dropped it when they were taking pictures of the gardens at the Sooke Harbour House.”
“Wish I could afford to eat there,” Holly said by way of conversation. Condé Nast had called it the best small inn in Canada. There was a knock-three-times special price for locals.
“We try to serve as an information agency for our guests. See that they enjoy all the highlights of the area according to their interests. Some like to hit the beaches west or whale watch. Some come for the Art Show in August or the Fall Fair in September.” She pointed to a table set up with brochures of local attractions, including the Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery.
“And a Rolex watch, too?” Holly said, scanning the information in the paper for her report. “That’s traceable.” The police had solved an international murder case in England by matching numbers. Who would have thought that a body cast into the Atlantic would have surfaced tangled in a net? Karma.
Jean put her hand on her chest. “I feel so responsible. Things were kind of hectic. They had a teenaged girl who complained all the time, and you know what they’re like to motivate on a trip. The Rolex number’s on the paper. And the serial number for the camera. He said that the watch had cost him over ten thousand dollars, and he’d taken it off when he went into the hot tub.”
Holly checked her bargain Timex to date her entry. “Your notes will be a great help. I wish everyone kept such good records.”
“Better than Bo. He was absolutely useless.” She pointed out the window at a snoozing form which might have been a very fat dog or a small calf. “He’s an English lab. They’re much stockier.” Holly’s assessment put the dog twenty pounds overweight.
“Can you give me an approximate timeline? Anything at all.”
“We’re not even sure when it happened. They came in from their trip at midnight Saturday and just went to bed without noticing that the window had been opened. Nothing in the room indicated anyone had been there.”
Holly did a brief survey of the perimeters, looking past Jean. “You’re pretty closed in. Could the neighbours have seen anything?”
“I asked. No luck. The dirty rat, pardon my French, could have snuck through the shrubbery. There’s a vacant lot on the other side. Kids take the path to the ocean at Scorpion Beach, a little cove. It’s odd. We moved here for the quiet. Never had a breakin before when we were in Langford.”
“It’s becoming a crowded little island, at least along the edges, and with that comes trouble. You’d be wise to get one of the alarm services. Most people on private lots do.”
“It all seems so expensive, though I suppose it’s a tax write-off.”
“Very true. The cost is nothing next to the peace of mind. Or you can set up motion detector lights. That should scare someone off if you’re out.” Or get a German shepherd, she thought. Her dad had a fake protection shield sign stuck in the cribbing at the gate. Some generic name like Guard-All which wouldn’t fool a savvy thief.
As Holly closed her notebook and tucked it away, a curious frown crossed the woman’s bright face. She fooled with the end of one strand of hair. “Aren’t you going to…what do you call it… dust for prints?”
Holly suppressed a smile. Thanks to television and films, everyone was a detective these days. And results, even of DNA, were expected wrapped in a silver package between commercials. “How many nights are you booked each month?”
“Mmmmm. In a good season, fifteen, even twenty. It’s been slow this year with gas prices so high.”
Holly’s palms went up in surrender. “That’s my point. Over two dozen people could have come through, and your place is cleaned daily, I’m sure. It’s nearly impossible to solve crimes like this in a hotel or motel setting, even if we had the resources and the prints were on file from a known felon. Your best hope is that the camera or watch turns up in a hock shop in Victoria. We’ll get a bulletin out this afternoon to the dealers.” She recalled what Bill had said about Derek “winning” the device. Camcorders were ubiquitous, but perhaps because of the proximity there was a connection.
Jean blew out a long, disappointed breath. “Oh dear.”
Feeling as if she should try to do more, Holly gave the list of particulars another quick scan. “I see it’s a Sony. We might have good news for you.”
Back at the detachment, Holly grabbed a coffee and went to her desk. Then a call from Pirjo Raits at the weekly Sooke News Mirror came in. Fatal accidents in their community were rare, but they did happen. Two teenaged boys had recently perished in a crash. The utility pole still bore traces of their descanso, which was filled with seasonal flowers. Meeting Pirjo once at the Village Market and recognizing her picture, Holly had learned to pronounce the woman’s melodic name. Like vireo.
“I’m planning an article on the homeless, including what happened to that poor man at Bailey Bridge. Won’t make me any friends, but we have to deal with realities. Too many ‘we should’s’ and not enough ‘we will’s,’” Pirjo said. “We’re into a development boom, and more housing should be geared toward lower incomes. Instead, it’s going the other way.” Across the island, hundreds had become homeless when their trailer parks had closed and their units were too old and impossible to relocate. Laws protecting th
ese elderly people lagged behind faits accomplis.
“I agree. Hold their feet to the fire.”
“Most people don’t realize that many hardworking families are a paycheque away from losing the roof over their heads.” Recently the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. had been bringing this reality home. Thanks to stricter lending laws and only five major banks, Canada had a buffer.
Holly thought about the average house price of over $525,000 in Victoria, including ramshackle bungalows and barely-converted garages. Out here everything was twenty per cent less, but still higher than any place in Canada other than Calgary or Vancouver. Holly noticed that Ann was coming over with requisitions to be signed, which she left on the desk.
“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you,” Pirjo said. “What can you tell me about this individual? Sounds like a human interest story. Had he been ill? How old was he? Most important, who was he? I can get down there for a shot of the scene. Pictures always punch home the point better than words.”
“Hold on. Slow down.” Holly related the slim facts about the case. “We don’t have the identity yet. Pursuing the IDs in his wallet hasn’t turned up anything solid. The credit cards were stolen from a tourist.”
Holly pulled Boone’s report from the file to give Pirjo a more accurate description of the deceased. “It’s possible that he might have lived around here many years ago. If nothing breaks, we might be able to get a picture from the morgue. That’s usually standard procedure.” Gruesome though it was, sometimes family or friends recognized the face of a lost one. Programs were more sophisticated these days, especially with the eyes no longer suspiciously closed. Fortunately this was not a case of serious disfigurement.
“I’ll run this next Wednesday. Suppose he has some contacts in town, maybe even a relative? Five-ten, one hundred and sixty pounds, brown hair shading to grey, dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. Could be fifty to sixty. Carried a picture of a young woman signed ‘Judy’ with a Dolly Parton hairdo. Have I got it right?”
