The Children of Eli

by Mike Cranny

  “Stopped raining for a bit,” he said.

  “A news flash from the cops. Perfect. What can I get for you?”

  “Just coffee, Bonnie — if you don’t mind.”

  She flipped over a mug and set it on the counter, filled it with dark stale coffee. He dumped a stream of sugar in, followed that with three creams, and watched the liquid change from black-brown to the colour of concrete.

  “Lots of work with the restaurant, I guess.”

  She grunted, “Uh-huh,” continued with the waybill, said, “I’m used to it.”

  “Not much time for a social life.”

  “Not going to answer that one, officer.”

  He looked at the reflection of the dining room in the long, horizontal mirror that hung on the back wall where the blue and white ornaments left by the original Dutch owners still hung. He wasn’t used to employing this kind of questioning, the polite kind, and he was afraid it showed. He had hoped that because he had known her in the old days that she might be more cooperative.

  “My dad had a café up in Taggart Bay when I was a little kid. Couldn’t seem to make a go of it. The old man didn’t have a head for business, they say. He had to take a job up at the mill and worked there until the accident.”

  “That Taggart Bay place has gone under more times than a deep sea diver. The location is wrong. Too far from the mill for the guys that work there, too close to the mill for the tourists. An idiot can see it.”

  She caught herself. “No disrespect to your old man.”

  Even so, his old man would have had more pull with Bonnie and the kind of people she hung with. She was editing herself too — not normal for Bonnie Tran.

  “You got some problem, Bonnie? Something you want to talk about?”

  “No.”

  She was too emphatic.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I said no, for fuck’s sake.”

  She turned away, made it obvious that she wanted him gone. The conversational approach wasn’t working, so he went at it directly.

  “You know I came to ask you about John Robbie?”

  “It’ll have to wait.” She held up the waybill as proof that she had work to do. “I’m way too busy. Come back tomorrow.”

  He wondered if she really expected that he would leave just because she asked him to, said, “Stop what you’re doing so I can talk to you,” added, “please,” as an afterthought.

  She put down the bill, set her hands on her hips, and did her best to hold her temper. He saw that she was struggling with something, kept his eyes on her.

  “You’re going to have to make the time to talk to me, here or at my office.”

  He looked at the bruise on her arm.

  “Somebody grab you?”

  She glared at him, but the eyes had fear in them.

  “My sweater was too tight. What do you want me to say? And just so you know, I’ve got nobody for the next shift and I got lots of things to get ready.”

  “When’d you last see John Robbie?”

  “I haven’t seen John for weeks.”

  He watched her eyes.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. I’d know if I saw somebody.”

  “Exactly when did you see him? When was the last time?”

  “I can’t remember. I’m getting sick and tired of being harassed by you guys?”

  “What do you mean by that? Has somebody else been here?”

  She shook her head, looked away. He tried a few more angles, but she stubbornly refused to give him any information. He decided he’d give her a chance to stew a little, and then maybe have Stone bring her in for questioning. Not that that would work any better.

  “If I don’t hear from you soon, I’ll send someone.”

  He took a business card out of his top pocket and pushed it across the counter in her direction.

  She looked at it.

  “Detective — sheeit!”

  “I’d appreciate a call. Or John can call me himself.”

  She lifted her shoulders and dropped them, an exaggerated shrug like a schoolgirl asked about some boy she wasn’t supposed to be seeing.

  “He does what he wants. Anyway, I got work to do.”

  “Don’t wait too long, Bonnie.”

  When he was almost out the door, she picked up his card, crumpled it, and threw it on the floor — she made sure he saw it. He shrugged, grinned. Then something occurred to him.

  “Your brother Bill, in Empire City…”

  “What about him?”

  “I was wondering if he’d been up here lately. I thought you might have seen him.”

  He saw surprise in her face. She wasn’t as good at keeping her thoughts to herself as she used to be.

  “What would he want here?”

  “I don’t know but I’d hate to think that you’d go to jail as an accessory.”

  He had no business saying that to her but he did it anyway.

  “Accessory to what?”

  “We’re investigating a murder, Bonnie. It’s got a kind of Bill feel to it.”

  She shuffled a sugar shaker, lifted it up, put it down.

  “I don’t know nothing and I haven’t seen him or John and I’m tired of talking to you.”

  She turned her back to him and went into her kitchen. He finished, dropped a five on the counter. He called out, “See you, Bonnie,” but all he got in response was the muted slamming of a freezer door.

  He left the restaurant and walked out to his car, turned the volume up on his police radio, checked his cellphone for missed calls and got the result he expected, which was that Cal Fricke wanted to hold an update meeting. He decided he wasn’t ready yet to listen to Fricke or Jameson or somebody else whining about zero results and inexperienced detectives. Fricke would have to wait.

  At the highway, he had a thought. He headed in the direction of his home village at Kokishilah. The road took him over the river where he used to fish when he was a kid, past side roads leading into old logging shows, past the cut block where John Robbie lived — the use of an old house trailer for staying there as a sort of unpaid custodian. Lee had been there but Archie wanted to have a look for himself. But that would have to be later when he had time to be thorough.

  CHAPTER 10

  The village spread along the river for almost a mile, the houses mostly close to the road. The Kokishilah Tribal Office occupied a field across the road from the huge tribal longhouse, both buildings fronted by totem poles. Archie stopped first at the office, a non-descript, brown-sided, flat-roofed building, asked for the Chief, Pete Wilson. Pete generally knew what was going on the water: Archie was directed across the road to the longhouse. He found Pete busy with wires; he was trying to set up a sound system for some upcoming event, all the time arguing with Councillor Walter George who obviously had different ideas about how to do the job. They didn’t stop working when Archie walked in, pointedly ignoring him. Both had been good friends of Archie’s once, not so anymore, certainly.

  “Hide the bingo chips,” Walter said. “The cops are here.”

  “You’re a funny man, Walt,” Archie said.

  “Who’s being funny?”

  Pete Wilson looked up from the cables he was trying to sort out, nodded but didn’t smile.

  “You got time to talk?” Archie asked.

  “Sure — if I keep at this I’m going to screw something up.”

  He dropped the cables he’d been holding, motioned Archie to the cedar benches along the wall of the longhouse. They sat down almost side-by-side, stared off into the rafters; Pete waiting for Archie to say whatever it was he had on his mind, it not being polite to press. Archie breathed in the smell of stamped earth, of salmon, charcoal, and wood smoke — intensely familiar.

  “You know about Nick Donaldson, I guess?” He said that to his right knee. Pete spoke to his left hand, which he turned over and over as if looking for splinters.

  “Somebody cut his throat.”

  “How’
d you know that? We’re not releasing details.”

  “Maybe not but everybody knows it. Word gets around.”

  “You’ve got a boat at Nick’s in storage.”

  “I got three boats at Nick’s — if you count the two the tribal council owns. They’re all gillnetters and there aren’t enough salmon to put them in the water.”

  “You ever hang with him or work with him or anything?”

  “Not really. I played baseball against him. Why?”

  “I was hoping you’d know where he poached abalone, where he might go when he was out on the water.”

  “You should ask John Robbie.”

  “I’m having a hard time tracking him down right now.”

  “Try the Zuider Zee.”

  “I could do that, I guess.”

  Pete grinned.

  “Already thought of that move, I guess. There aren’t many abalone left anymore but poachers still harvest them. Look Arch, we tried to nail the bastards ourselves but we couldn’t pin them down. Somebody from your station tips them off.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I’m not kidding. There’s a lot goes on around here that people don’t know.”

  Walter George brought three mugs of coffee; one so battered and dirty that at first Archie didn’t recognize the old Vancouver Canucks logo. Walter kept the dirty mug and handed the others to Pete and Archie. Walter saw Archie staring at his cup.

  “It’s a lucky cup, okay? I won’t wash it until the Canucks win the Stanley Cup. I’d jinx the team.”

  Pete raised an eyebrow.

  Walter shrugged, sat down so that he lined up with them, all three staring at the far wall. After five minutes, Walter spoke.

  “What’s the topic?”

  “Nick Donaldson and abalone poaching.”

  “Too bad about Nick,” Walter said. “He was diving near Cat’s Cradle Island.”

  Pete turned so that he could eyeball Walter.

  “How’d you know that?” Archie said.

  His question was too abrupt, and he felt the quick shift in Walter’s mood.

  “I was out setting crab pots a couple of weeks ago and I seen him and John Robbie at the west end of the island. I doubt if they seen me. It was pissing down, and they were concentrating on what was in the water.”

  “Where was that exactly, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Walter didn’t answer. He shook his head like he was exasperated, went to the office, and came back with a chart. He spread it across his knees and pointed to the east shore of Cat’s Cradle Island where the chart showed a long, shallow reef.

  “Right there, near where the Children of Eli used to have their settlement.”

  He took a Sharpie from his pocket and marked the location with an ‘X’. He handed the chart to Archie, struggling to let go of the fact that he was still angry with Archie about something. Archie had an idea what it was.

  “You can borrow this,” Walter said.

  Archie let the chart lay where it was, not ready to accept whatever it was Walter had offered.

  “What do you mean, Walt, about the Children of Eli?”

  “Don’t you know about them? Jeez, Archie, where you been? You ought to talk to your granny. She can tell you all about Cat’s Cradle Island. The Children were a big deal in her day.”

  Archie didn’t have an answer for that.

  “I saw Nick heading there a week or so ago too,” Walter continued. “I think he went ashore — spent some time there maybe.”

  “How come you see so much?” Pete said. “Most of the time you’re in bed.”

  “How’d you ever get to be chief? You can’t even put up a sound system. I have to take naps because I get up so early, smart ass. I’m on the water by first light most days.”

  Pete raised an eyebrow in pretended disbelief.

  “What’s it like over there?” Archie asked.

  “You go to Monkey Beach,” Walter said. “That’s where the old settlement is, and the dock — such as it is.”

  “Monkey Beach?”

  “It’s called Jutilainen Cove on the charts. It used to be a place where the Sasquatch visited — the Bigfoot — back in the old days. That’s how it got to be called Monkey Beach.”

  Archie shook his head, “Sasquatch, Jesus.”

  “There are such things, Archie. You cut yourself off too much. You got yourself a big head…”

  Pete shot Walter a look. He caught it, looked into his cup, said, “That’s all I got to say on the subject.”

  Archie didn’t have a reply for that. It cut too close to the bone, thought but didn’t say, “Hell with you, Walter.”

  Pete picked up the threads and carried on like nothing had happened.

  “The Finns who first settled there laid out the town of New Jerusalem. They wanted to make a paradise on earth but that idea fell through. There were still some of them there when Brother Eli came with his Children of Eli cult. The Children took over, rebuilt the town, and built Eli a temple. They did a lot of criminal stuff to raise money, I heard. Most of the buildings have fallen down now. Their temple is still in pretty good shape though. And the old wharf is solid enough.”

  “So nobody lives there now?”

  “Not that I know of. It’s a weird place. I’ve been ashore once or twice. We’ve got a land claim there but that’s likely to take years before it gets settled.”

  Archie stood, drained his cup slowly and then put it down. He was thinking it was time he took off out of there and stood up to go. Walter kept his eyes on his own cup, “You should come out here more often, Archie.”

  “He’s got a point,” Pete said.

  “It’s your goddam home,” Walter said.

  Archie couldn’t think of anything to say to that except, “Yeah, I know.”

  Archie hesitated, thought he needed to say something more but instead he thanked them for the information, too formally he realized. As he walked out into the pale, late autumn sunshine, he heard Pete and Walter pick up their argument. He heard his name and figured that they were probably talking about him becoming a cop. Screw them. He wanted to be gone, but he had one more stop to make before he left Kokishilah.

  His grandmother lived in a faded, yellow bungalow at the edge of the village. She was old and her memory was almost gone but she might remember the Children of Eli and what they were all about. He almost missed seeing her, a tiny woman hunched over in her garden, hardly moving. She was picking the last of the dahlias — very slowly. She wore the old Cowichan sweater she had always worn, grey on grey. She looked up at the sound of the car door. She didn’t seem to recognize him.

  “You come looking to buy salmon?”

  Archie smiled and shook his head.

  “Not today, Gran. I just came to say hello.”

  She peered at him through half-shuttered old eyes, lifted a bony finger, tapped the air with it. He knew she was searching her memory.

  “I know you. You’re Darlene’s boy. You’re the boy who joined the cops. The one who started off bad and then wizened up.”

  “That’s me, Gran.” He walked up the gravelled walk so that she could see him better. “I’m Darlene’s boy, Archie.”

  She straightened up as best she could, dropped the dahlias into her basket and waited until he was no more than a few feet away. Then she held up her hand and commanded him to stop.

  “You’re at exactly the right distance for me to see you clear.”

  He waited while she studied him, looking at him this way and that, like she was trying to decide if he really had ‘wizened up’. He dared not laugh.

  She finished her inspection. “You’ve grown up real fine, Archie. You’re a good-looking boy. How come you don’t have a uniform and a real cop car?”

  “I’m a detective now. I’ve got a uniform but I don’t need to wear it since I got my promotion. And this is a real police car, just not marked like one. Those are for patrol.”

  “It looks like a Jeep to me. You’re Darle
ne’s boy, right?”

  She looked confused, and Archie wondered for a moment if he was doing the right thing. Then he saw the joke. She was playing with him. He had forgotten about her sense of humour. It was always a mystery to him how she could be so good-natured, what with all heartache she’d had in her time — to which he’d contributed. He was sorry for that now, was sorry for it then too, except that the wildness and hurt in him was something that just took over until he felt that his skin wouldn’t hold it. He forced himself out of that line of thinking and followed her, picking his way down the narrow path, dodging flowerpots and lawn furniture, as she hobbled on ahead.

  Inside, she made him sit down in a huge old chair covered with brightly coloured crochet work. She gave him milky tea and stale biscuits, and watched him like an old hawk while he ate. Sometimes she shifted to the language of their people and he had to struggle to keep up. He was surprised by her memories of things long, long ago, but her forgetfulness of the immediate past worried him. She asked him about people he’d never heard of and he had to cobble together answers that made sense. She told him that her husband Moise would be back from cutting railroad ties soon and would be able to tell him what he wanted to know. Except that Moise had been dead for twenty years.

  He turned down the renewed offer of tea and biscuits four times, when she forgot that she had already given them to him. When she made signs that she was anxious to go back out into her garden, he brought the conversation around to Cat’s Cradle Island. She seemed reluctant to talk and he had to coax her. She settled back into her chair, her eyes shone like polished jet.

  “It’s part of my heritage, Gran.”