The Children of Eli

by Mike Cranny

  She drew a long breath.

  “That island had many fish camps on it once. Our family owned the rights to a big chunk of the west side, villages too, mostly deserted when the settlers came. The smallpox had killed so many back then that we had too few people to use all our old places. The villages there got abandoned. Then the settlers came pretty quick after that. The first ones weren’t so bad — those Finlanders.”

  “And the others?”

  “The others — you mean the Brother Eli bunch?” She pursed her withered lips as if the words had a bitter taste. “The Divine Spirits was one name they had but they called themselves the Children of Eli. They took over from the Finns. Made people think they were holy, but they were evil people. Nothing divine about them. They posted the land and shot at our people. They ran booze through the islands and other stuff too. Moise and the other elders think they killed two of our fishermen. They ran things in that town too, in Harsley — booze, drugs, everything. You can ask Moise about that yourself.”

  “Moise won’t be back for awhile.”

  She stopped talking suddenly, her eyes focussed on something he couldn’t see. Some dark remembrance moved across her features — great pain or fear. That happened with old people sometimes.

  He wanted her to start talking again, about Moise and the good past, but then it seemed as if the dark memory had gone. She started to chatter, to talk about blackberry jam recipes, bingo, and the way young people were “going to the dogs these days.” Suddenly, she stopped, reached out her arm, pointed fiercely with a bony finger — he guessed in the direction of the Cat’s Cradle Island. She was very angry.

  “The old days were a lot different than now,” she said, her voice strong again. “We had no power back then. If the white man did something to us, it was hard to get justice. That Brother Eli was a bad one. He put machine guns over there on that island. They even chased white fishermen away. They killed people there, beat them up, tortured them. They did terrible things over at Monkey Beach. I know that from personal experience. The cops didn’t do nothing.”

  He waited for her to finish but she seemed to want to change the subject.

  “Why was that, Gran?”

  “I won’t tell about that.”

  He wanted to know what she meant. He tried to probe deeper, to try to catch the slippery eel of her thought, before she had drifted on to other things.

  “I thought that Brother Eli thing ended when the police arrested him?”

  “He disappeared.” She almost spat out the words. “But his people are still around. You have the Norgard family for one thing — that sneaky kid, young Lars. He’d be a little older than you.”

  “I know Lars. One more question, Gran, if you’re okay with me talking so much.”

  He waited until she looked at him.

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I heard Brother Eli had these gold coins. What happened to them, does anyone know?”

  The look in her eyes was soft as eagle down. She thought a minute and then she said, “Moise gets back soon, grandson — he’ll tell you.”

  And he saw that she had gone somewhere else. The anger, or fear, that he had seen in her eyes had gone too. The shutters had closed. He let the conversation ramble wherever she wanted it to go. At last, she began to tire and then without warning she fell asleep in her chair. He stood, got her quilt and put it over her to keep her warm. He tidied up the dishes, cleaned off the counter and put the biscuits away. His hand was on the doorknob, ready to leave, when he heard her stir. He looked back at her. She smiled at him; the look on her face warmed him.

  “You watch out for yourself, grandson. Stay out of those caves.”

  He turned to look back. He hadn’t known about any caves. He was about to ask her about them until he caught the look in her eyes that said she wasn’t going to say anything else on the subject.

  “I’ll be careful, grandmother.”

  “Go see your uncle Tony. He’ll give you a sweat. A sweat will help you. You always got along well with Tony.”

  She closed her eyes again. He waited until he heard her snoring, and then he closed the door quietly behind him. He figured he’d send Lee up to Rochville. The city’s police archives likely had something on the Children and the trial of Brother Eli and his close associates. Not that anyone on his team had time to look for gold coins or go on wild goose chases. Not with Fricke breathing down his neck. But what he knew for sure was that, sooner or later, he would have to go to Monkey Beach to try to recreate Nick’s final day.

  CHAPTER 11

  Archie had hoped to go directly to his briefing room but Cal Fricke, leaving Jameson’s office, spotted him right away. He moved out to block Archie’s passage, easy enough for a man of Fricke’s size. Fricke, chawing vigorously on nicotine gum, jerked a thumb in the direction of his office. Archie fell in behind the moving wall of tweed jacket that was Fricke’s back, knew every cop in the station was watching him as he passed. Most of them had experienced a Cal Fricke rage at one time or another, and now they were hoping to witness the tornado again for its entertainment value.

  Archie had an idea that Fricke wasn’t likely to disappoint them. At his office, Fricke banged the door shut and then demanded to know ‘why the fuck’ John Robbie wasn’t in custody. Archie shrugged. Maybe, he said, they would have Robbie by the beginning of the week but he wasn’t sure if their suspect was even still alive. He told Fricke about the pickup and the blood but decided not to mention the wetsuit.

  Fricke paused to take in that news. He was all wound up for a blowout and changing course was not an option, but he toned it down. He grumbled that finding the pickup was good but it wasn’t enough. Archie had, he growled, better find and arrest John Robbie “damn fucking soon.” Then he talked about Ray Jameson’s success rate on serious crimes and how hard it ought to be for anyone to avoid capture on an island, even one as large as the one they were on. His meaning seemed clear enough; Archie needed to come up with a bone fide arrest or Jameson would take over. Archie said that he was still trying to work out a motive and making an arrest seemed even less likely than it had a day ago.

  “I’ll make an arrest when it’s time.”

  “Don’t give me that shit,” Fricke said.

  “You want me to tell you straight or not?” Archie said.

  Fricke made a sound like an old grizzly, a thundering growl that started deep in his gut. Archie watched his face go through its moods, finally settling on something like acceptance of what Archie was saying. Archie knew that Fricke, for some reason, was getting pressure from the mayor and the media to wrap things up. The need to get results soon and to deal with the public was building. It was a part of the job Archie hadn’t thought much about when he took over the case, but he would have to hold a press conference and he had precious little to say to reporters.

  Finished with what he had to say, Fricke abruptly waved Archie out of his office and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the glass. Archie, under the gaze of a dozen or more officers and detectives walked, head high, to the dispatch desk. He stood at the counter until Delia John deigned to acknowledge him. She leaned on the triangle made by her hands and elbows. Her many bracelets rattled down her forearms. She looked up at him sideways, past a long, raven-black bang.

  “You survived?” she said.

  “Was there any doubt?”

  “Oh, yeah. There sure was.”

  It took him five minutes of talking to find out from her what he wanted to know. Then he left the station and headed down to Old Town to look for Lars Norgard — sneaky little Lars, his granny had called him.

  Norgard sometimes hung out with John Robbie and might know something that would help. After talking to Pete, Walter, and his grandmother, Archie was very curious about the Children of Eli. Norgard half-lived at Moffat’s Bar, the kind of place you could call a dump without insulting anyone, including Moffat. Archie drove there to find Norgard.

  The tavern was a low-slung buil
ding with a moss-covered, cedar-shingled roof. It sat on a gravelly bench at the edge of the boat basin and had a view worth a lot more than the business. The barmaid, Laci Laitenen, looked up as Archie pushed in through the storm door. Something from Robert Service, “how ghastly somebody looked in her rouge,” popped into Archie’s head and stayed there. Laci wore a miniskirt and a low-cut top, pretending she was twenty-one, which she wasn’t by a long shot.

  He nodded to her as he walked past where she was standing, and went deeper into the low-slung reek of spilled beer and stale smoke. The furniture was old, really old — retro on retro, and it was dark inside even though it was mid-afternoon. The few men drinking there likely didn’t care if it was day or night.

  He almost missed Norgard sitting in the shadows at a table near the dartboards with his back to the wall. Norgard supposedly made his living fishing a C-License but Archie knew his boat hardly ever left the dock. Mostly, Lars captained his table at Moffat’s. When he saw Archie, he made a move like he was ready to go, but then he settled back, tilted his chair against the wall like an old gunfighter, even nodded a half-hearted greeting. Archie slid into the chair opposite. Lars, waiting for Archie to open, spread his hands in the interrogative.

  “You want something, Arch? Cops short of work or something?”

  “Always got lots of work, Lars, but maybe I want to go fishing.”

  “Like — for what?”

  “You tell me. You’re the guy that does it.”

  “My boat motor’s broke. So I’m not fishing these days, not that that would be your business.”

  “That depends.”

  Norgard fidgeted, fingers mowing the stubble on his lantern jaw.

  “What are you really here for, Archie?”

  “Maybe I was just making conversation.”

  “Hell, Archie. This ain’t just conversation.”

  Archie kept his eyes fixed on Norgard and tried his damnedest to keep his cool.

  “I’m looking for John Robbie. I need to talk to him.”

  Norgard shrugged.

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  Archie looked past Norgard towards the dartboard; saw the name at the top of a chalked list.

  “You’re a good dart player, Lars.”

  “You got that right. But I still ain’t seen Robbie.”

  Friendly wasn’t going to cut it.

  “Your home-grow doing well?”

  He had surprised Norgard with that. He could see it in Norgard’s body language. Before Nick’s murder, he’d heard that the Rochville cops were following up a lead on a big marijuana operation. Norgard’s name had come up. They didn’t have much, but Norgard probably wouldn’t know that.

  “Robbie ain’t been around, Arch. I’d tell you if I knew anything, just to get you out of my space.”

  “Let’s forget Robbie for now then.”

  “Then what will we have to talk about, you and me?”

  “Are you still doing business with Bill Tran?”

  Norgard looked over at the bar and then picked at a dirty, cracked fingernail. Archie knew that he was weighing his options, uncertain. He was on his guard for some other reason.

  “I never see Bill these days.”

  “Okay. I got something else to talk to you about. Your mom and dad were with the Brother Eli bunch. They called themselves the Children of Eli, right?”

  “That’s no secret. So what? If we’re talking family, we could talk about your white, rock and roller, old man and your old lady, a princess of the Salish people they say. Match made in heaven, that was.”

  “Nobody’s perfect. But I’m more interested in your folks. Mine weren’t involved in criminal cults.”

  Norgard’s laugh was a kind of machine-gun stutter that had no humour in it. He tilted his head like an old heron and looked at Archie from under his brows.

  “You asked about John Robbie. I remember now. I saw him on the road to the ferry, couple of nights back.”

  Laci Laitenen materialized at Norgard’s elbow. Archie had been aware of her, watching them, maybe trying to listen in. She had a six-pack of beer and she dropped it on the table between the two men.

  “Your takeout, Lars. You said you had to be going.”

  “He’ll go when he’s ready, Laci — and he’s not ready.”

  Her thin lips compressed into a razor-thin line; her hard face was not at all flattered by the cold light from the window.

  “This police business?”

  “Fishing advice,” Archie said. “Don’t let us keep you.”

  She went. Archie leaned back in his chair, tried to decide how best to get what he needed from Norgard, and elected for the direct approach. He’d say what was on his mind and see what happened.

  “I hear Bill Tran and John Robbie do business together sometimes.”

  The other man’s hands wandered the tabletop. Then he slapped his hand hard on the table top, like he was angry or fed up.

  “I got no time for this,” he said.

  He stood up abruptly as if he was about to leave, which took Archie by surprise. Archie leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “I’d prefer you talk to me now, Lars. It’ll be more convenient for you.”

  Norgard looked hard at Archie. Then he sat down again, rapped the tips of his fingers on the table and looked over toward the bar where Laci Laitenen had put her back towards them, pretending she was washing out glasses.

  “I don’t know about what Robbie does, nor Tran neither. If you got something on me and dope, Archie, you got to prove it. End of story.”

  Archie kept his voice low.

  “Maybe this isn’t the best place to talk. I’m thinking that I’ll have to have you come down to the station for an interview, Lars. I know you’re holding out on me. I got lots of questions, even some about the Children.”

  Norgard’s eyes shifted. He rocked back in his seat, lit another cigarette and blew a smoke ring. When he spoke, his voice was almost inaudible. Archie leaned in to listen.

  “I don’t know nothing about them anymore.”

  Mention of the Children seemed to register with Norgard.

  “If it’s some sort of dope operation and you’ve got information we can use, I can give you protection.”

  Norgard laughed again, as if Archie had said something very funny.

  “You haven’t a clue, Archie.”

  “In two seconds, I’m going to formally arrest you for withholding information. You’ll go to jail for obstructing justice.”

  That was a lie.

  “Go ahead. You got nothing and we both know it.”

  Archie made a mental note about idle threats, wondered if there was more than one way to skin a cat. He shrugged.

  “I took a shot, Lars. You can’t blame me for that.”

  Norgard harrumphed. Archie didn’t change his position. He hoped the expression on his face hadn’t changed either. Then he was sure from reading Norgard’s eyes that it hadn’t.

  “I figured it would go like this, Lars. If I don’t have to pay for information I won’t. We have a budget for informants but I’ve got to account for every dime.”

  Norgard’s eyes narrowed. The corners of his mouth lifted in a foxlike smile.

  “How much we talking?”

  His eyes darted between Archie and the bar where Laci was still fussing around.

  “I’ll need enough to get the hell out of here. Plus this has to be kept between you and me.”

  “We can negotiate.” Archie heard himself and thought that he sounded too much like a TV detective. “There’s money but the amount depends on the quality of the information.”

  Norgard scratched his forehead. He waited until Laci had turned away again.

  “As I say, I ain’t personally involved. I might know something and I might not. Meet me at the Old Chinese Cemetery in two hours and I’ll tell you more. Don’t tell nobody you was talking to me and don’t leave me hanging out there long.”

  “You have my
word.”

  Norgard downed his beer and stood up suddenly, making out like he was angry.

  “I told you that I don’t know nothing, Archie. You got no right to harass me.”

  He almost shouted it. He picked up his six-pack and made a show of storming out. When he had gone, Laci rapped a beer glass down on the counter and shot Archie a peculiar look.

  Archie, standing now, touched the brim of his ball cap and walked out. The predicted rain hadn’t started, which was good. He felt positive about his talk with Norgard, although he also wondered if he was spinning his wheels. Robbie was still the key so far as he could see.

  He had some time to kill before he went to the meet so he stopped and bought some protein bars and a diet soda from a gas station. Then he drove to a nearby park to think. The predicted rain still hadn’t come yet and the rocks on the outlook were dry, so he picked one and sat down to look at the view. As he munched on a bar, his mind drifted to Streya Wainright. He wondered if he’d made a mistake with her, if he’d read her wrong. After all, she’d just acted like any normal person would have who had been called to the police station and asked for information. But then Streya was not a normal person.

  The wind dropped a bit. He heard an eagle somewhere off down in the forest. From the outlook he could see what he had hoped to see, the places within a half day by boat from Donaldson’s Dive Shop, the places where Nick might have been on the day he died. The sun, peeking briefly through the clouds, hit the windows of a boat heading out in the strait, crossing beneath his perch on the ridge, heading for the islands.

  When he started on the abalone poaching investigation, he had asked someone at Fisheries to send over a nautical chart. He went back to his 4Runner to get it. When he sat back down on the rock, he unfolded the chart and checked it against what he could see in front of him. He remembered his conversation when he’d called Fisheries, apparently they’d been trying to nail Nick for abalone poaching and the Harsley police already knew that. The chart was marked with their best guesses about where the poaching might have happened.

  The map was crammed with a skein of comments — Doubt It, Too Visible, Polluted, Nope. There were also lots of PO’s for Poached Out. Red question marks were around Cat’s Cradle Island, and there was a circled area on the west coast and marked with the words Perfect Habitat. It was right at the spot that Walter had shown him on the chart back at Kokishilah. Archie folded the chart and put it away. When he looked again, the boat he’d seen earlier had vanished.