Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

  “Now,” Noel took a drink, “what do we know? And what do we need to find out?”

  “Okay. Roy Dempster is dead. Looks like a blow to the back of the head. He was found lying on his stomach.” Kyra sipped more beer.

  “Do we accept he was killed?”

  She shrugged. “Maple’s column said so. Marchand thinks so.”

  “So we start with that assumption.”

  “Let’s brainstorm. Start with extremes. Every idea is equally valid.”

  “Yeah. Focus afterward.”

  “Okay. He had an epileptic attack, bashed his head, flipped onto his stomach and died.”

  “Oh sure.”

  “Don’t eliminate anything before considering it.”

  “We’d have to find out if he had fits.”

  “Okay. He was a pothead, now reformed. A member of the Something Bearers.”

  “Bearers of the Eternal Faith.”

  Kyra said, “Not suicide. You don’t kill yourself with a blow to the back of the head. What if Marchand himself bashed Dempster, created the uproar, then hired us as a cover?”

  “Except why? Anyway, he didn’t strike me as a murderer.”

  “How many murderers do you know?”

  “Who knows who’s a murderer.” Noel thought for a moment. “Okay, what do we know about motives?”

  “Blackmail? Jealousy? Maybe Dempster was having an affair with Rose. In the greenhouse. He lifts her from the wheelchair and lays her on the flowerbeds.” Kyra grinned. “Why is she in a wheelchair anyhow?”

  “I think I heard at Lyle’s opening she had a swimming accident.” Noel sipped, and thought. “The newspaper column hints at some sinister connection between Marchand and Dempster. Would people take that paper seriously?”

  “Maybe. It’s Marchand’s second mess-up in the last few years, remember. Tell me more about that fake picture he sold.”

  “He didn’t sell it.” Noel picked up one printout. “This is from Exhibitors’ Art On-Line. The article implies it was an honest mistake. Written as a cautionary tale. A charitable donation, and he got a tax break. That’s what made it complicated. You sell a forgery, it’s a crime against the buyer. But if you take a tax break it’s a crime against the government. Marchand paid $152,000 for the painting, so in fact he was the one who lost out.” He read to the bottom. “A School of Hals. Supposedly painted by one of Hals’ students, somebody Spätzler.”

  “I am impressed by the speed of your research,” Kyra said, half wry, half amazed.

  Noel heard both halves. “Good.” He read the rest of the printout. “Yeah, I see.” He glanced over to Kyra. “It sort of pushes what fake is—the painting’s been bought and sold as legit three times since it first got catalogued in 1876. But there’s some new test for figuring the age of pigments and the best guess is Marchand’s fake was painted in the 1860s. It’s been a successful counterfeit for a long time.”

  “Who’d you say Marchand gave it to?”

  “A private gallery.”

  “Hmm.” Kyra sipped. “Oh great, thanks,” she smiled at the buxom crewcut server who put down their order of nachos loaded with cheese, jalapeños and olives.

  “Okay. What else do we know?”

  Kyra shoved two nachos into her mouth, chewed, swallowed. “We know Rose Marchand, or Gill, has a greenhouse. And it’s easily contaminated.”

  “Would Dempster go inside?”

  “We don’t know. Or where he died, or was killed. And what Rose’s brother knows. And the Mounties are still investigating. We need some hard information. Can we talk with your friend Albert?” Another nacho.

  “I think so.” Noel reached for the plate. “What else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay then, tactics.”

  “We ask some people a few questions. Who first?”

  Noel checked his notebook. “Local Mounties.” He looked at her. She nodded. “And Danny Bourassa. Lucille Maple of the egregious column. And Tam Gill, I guess. The painter-sister Charlotte whatsis. And that Jerry something. Then Albert back in Nanaimo.”

  They finished their beers and food, and checked out the bathrooms. Noel caught his face in the mirror, a face he thought he knew well. Adequately formed, in balance, but nothing exceptional about it. He remembered Brendan telling him that he had a great face, that he loved Noel’s face, across the table, as they drove down new roads, beside his own on the pillow. For a moment an image of Brendan’s face came, not as in the portrait in their bedroom but as it had drained and yellowed over the last year, so slowly Noel had seen no change from day to day, so quickly as to horrify them both when a photo or a friend provided a point of reference. Noel ran cold water, rubbed it into his face and didn’t glance up to the mirror again.

  By the time he returned, Kyra had found addresses and phone numbers for Danny Bourassa, Charlotte Plotnikoff and the Mounties, the latter’s building close to the ferry. They retraced South Road up-island.

  In the Mounties’ parking lot a young woman officer told them Corporal Jim Yardley, in charge of the Dempster case, was gone for the day, he’d be on again in the morning. Noel checked his watch. Right, nobody commits a crime on Gabriola after 4:33 pm.

  Back in the Tracker, Kyra called Charlotte Plotnikoff on her cell-phone. The machine asked her to leave a message. She didn’t. At Danny Bourassa’s home a woman answered, “No but I expect him just after five.” Kyra said they’d like to talk with Mr. Bourassa about his friend Roy Dempster. The woman hesitated, then gave Kyra directions and identified herself as Patty.

  They drove over to North Road and came across a small shopping center, Folklife Village. “I need to buy film,” Kyra said. She turned into the parking lot.

  Noel turned back to the printout. “This place was part of Expo 86 in Vancouver. They dismantled it there and recycled it here.”

  Kyra scanned the little horseshoe mall. Wooden sidewalks all around, covered on the left and right sides. The cedar-sided buildings with large display windows housed a food market, pharmacy, clothing store, art gallery, café advertising jazz on Saturdays, hardware store, small library, wine store, DVD rental, and a realtor. “Not bad for an island mall.” She bought her film at the pharmacy and rejoined Noel.

  “Check out the local denizens.”

  “What?”

  “Like at that Eaglenest show I went to. Take a look.”

  Kyra glanced about. The men: jeans or tan chinos, and T-shirts or sweatshirts, work boots or Birkenstocks, more chins unshaven than razed. The women: jeans or blue or brown chinos, and T-shirts, one tank top, running shoes or Birkenstocks. On men and women, lots of long hair on many tied back and, more often than not, smiles or grins. The young, though, looked like teenagers anywhere, sloppy boys’ pants and bare young midriffs. “Gotcha,” Kyra said.

  “And the clothes don’t say who’s on welfare and who owns a yacht.”

  Along North Road, then down a hill to a subdivision called Whalebone. The streets had names like Moby Dick’s Way, Quequeg Place, Captain Ahab’s Terrace. “Turn right,” said Noel.

  They stopped in front of a green clapboard house. A large dog, part shepherd, mostly many other breeds, growled as they approached. “Nice mutt,” Noel muttered. The dog’s rumblings broke into a series of deep barks.

  A woman wearing a yellow turtleneck and jeans appeared at the door. “Stop that, Princess!” Princess slunk around the corner of the house. “She’s really very gentle. I’m Patty.”

  They introduced themselves. Patty’s head, Noel noted, was round. Hair cut to helmet her head, no protruding ears or extended chin, and eyes wide, in echo of her overall face. In fact she was round all around, not fat but large-curved, round fingers, short round forearms, rounded breasts, and, when she turned, particularly round buttocks. Trim bare feet in thongs, with round toes. She led them into a small living room. Chairs and the couch were protected by slipcovers, a red and yellow plaid, frills on the arms, each looking ready to head off square dancing. “Danny’s sho
wering,” Patty said. “He just came home.” A large print of a down-home Jesus dividing up a small fish hung on one wall. On another, a wedge of varnished fir, the words “Jesus is Lord” etched in. Noel stared at it. Patty said, “Danny carved that,” with hesitant pride.

  “He’s a woodworker, then?”

  “Oh no, just a hobby. He’s in site preparation so he gets real dirty, that’s why he’s showering. He doesn’t like to be dirty.” Patty giggled, and her lips rounded.

  Noel said, “About Roy Dempster. What kind of guy was he?”

  Patty thought for a few seconds. “I guess you’d say Roy liked to help people.”

  “Help?”

  “You know. Like if a person needed her wood split or gutters cleaned, Roy’d be there.”

  “Did he have any special friends?”

  “Sure, Danny. And Steve Bailey. But Steve’s not a Faith Bearer.”

  “You have his address?”

  She found Bailey’s address and wrote it on a scrap of paper.

  “Did Roy have a girlfriend?”

  The giggle again. “Lots. As many as you can on a small island.” She caught herself. “Oh, I don’t mean all at the same time. But Roy really wanted to get married. He must have proposed three times in the last couple of years.” Another giggle. “That we know of.”

  “Was he dating somebody special?”

  “Sue Smith. Friend of mine.” Patty took back the scrap and wrote another address.

  “Did he propose to her?”

  “Oh yeah.” More nods.

  “Did she accept?”

  “She said she needed time.” Patty sighed. “I just wish I’d never introduced them. She’s so broke up about him dying and all.”

  “Good evening, folks.” A tall man in his mid-forties, jeans and a white T-shirt. Newly shaven tanned face, brown hair greying, well-muscled arms. Beginnings of a belly-bulge. “My good wife not offered you a cuppa?”

  Introductions, and Patty said, “Some Beach Reflection? Or juice?”

  Both Kyra and Noel declined. “Get me some tea, would you, hon?” Danny smiled. “Puts your insides in real good harmony.” They sat. Patty left them. “You want to know about Roy.”

  “Your wife was giving us a few details,” said Noel.

  “About Sue,” said Kyra.

  Danny frowned. “A good kid, Sue. Should of agreed to marry him. Maybe would of kept him home with her and he’d be alive now.” He suddenly shifted his tone. “Why you want to know about Roy?”

  They were looking into Roy’s death. No, they couldn’t say who hired them, confidential.

  “Roy used to say, ‘My dad worked hard all his life and got nothing, so I’m going to retire early.’ He was nineteen then. Spent twenty years floating high.” He grinned, suddenly abashed. “Me too. It was the times.”

  Yeah, Kyra thought, the generation halfway between her parents and herself. Just about Noel’s generation, in fact. The islands used to be sprinkled with these guys and their women in Indian print granny dresses stoned at the side of their men. Grass, acid, sex, and off-key Lightfoot imitations. “But he wasn’t retired. He was working for the Gallery.”

  “Part-time retired. Long ago he got into woodcarving. Roy was good with his hands. Except when he was high he couldn’t carve. Then one day he came clean. Overnight. Taught me to carve but I’m nowhere good as Roy. I used to drink.” He chuckled. “I go to AA now. And I’m a Faith Bearer too, I brought Roy in. You know The Bearers Of Eternal Faith?”

  Noel nodded, and Kyra said, “Mmm.”

  “Best thing ever happened to him. He was strict about doing the important things.” Patty returned with a steaming mug for Danny. “Thanks, Hon.”

  A faint aroma like mudflats at low tide reached Noel’s nose. “The important things?”

  “Yeah, important. Every man’s got to become an agent of revival, practice personal integrity all the time.”

  Noel pulled away from Danny’s track. “Why would anybody want to kill him?”

  “Dunno.” Danny shrugged. “But we’re pretty broken up about it. Aren’t we, Hon.” He half-turned to look Patty’s way.

  Patty said nothing. A sloppy silence hung in the room.

  Danny sliced into it. “Patty didn’t take too much to Roy.” This time he turned fully toward her. “But we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, should we, Hon.”

  “Roy was okay,” she said. “He just got a little eager sometimes.”

  Noel said, “Eager?”

  “He’d take the—the important things, maybe a little far.”

  “What she says is true,” said Danny. “He kind of meddled too much with some good friends. People got to learn their personal integrity from inside. Nobody can push it on you.”

  “He mucked around when my sister’s marriage was breaking up.” Patty stared at the floor. “She and her husband Joe, they’re good people. Just not so thoughtful.” She sighed.

  “About themselves,” said Danny. “Not like we got to be.”

  Kyra said, “Would either your sister or her husband have tried to hurt Roy?”

  “They’re not here. They left last year. It was supposed to be a trial separation.” She looked at Kyra. “The last straw was their compost, see. They couldn’t decide which of them should get it. So Roy told them that was a divine sign they should stay together. My brother-in-law socked him and they took the next ferry off and haven’t been back since.”

  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Danny added.

  “Sue should of said yes.” He looked hard at Patty. “Why you figure Sue didn’t say yes?”

  She stared at the ground. “Maybe she wanted to be part of a team with Roy.”

  Kyra said, “A team?”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to live in a household headed by her husband.” She turned to Kyra. “Obedience. That’s a Faith Bearer thing. Maybe she wanted to share, not obey.”

  Danny tapped his left palm with the side of his right fist. “They could have shared. F.B. doesn’t mean not sharing. Just mean’s a man’s got a duty to head the family. Like a volleyball team. Ya gotta have order. Like ya gotta have a coach and a manager.”

  Noel said, “Did Roy owe anybody money?”

  Both heads shook.

  “Did he ever harm anybody?”

  Patty looked at Danny. He said nothing. She said, “The painter. Tam Gill.”

  “That was a long time ago,” said Danny. “Before he joined F.B.”

  “Two years.” Patty nodded. “My birthday. We were down at the pub by the ferry. We’d all been drinking. Gill and some other guy was there. And then, you know how a crowd sometimes goes silent, and we hear Roy call Gill a ragtop or something. Which is silly, I never seen him wearing a turban. But they went at each other. And we all got thrown out.”

  “Did they ever fight again?” Kyra recalled the grim sister, Rose.

  “Just that once.” Patty turned to her husband. “That I know of. Roy worked over there at the Marchand place where Gill lives and they got along okay.”

  Noel nodded. “Can either of you think of anyone who’d want to kill Roy?”

  “Gee,” said Patty. “Like who?”

  “You tell us.”

  Patty and Danny shook their heads. “Roy was a good guy. A good all-round guy.”

  Noel stood and took out his notebook. “You know a friend of Roy’s, Jerry something?”

  Danny’s eyebrows lifted. “Sure. Jerry Bannister. He and Roy hung out sometimes.”

  Patty asked her husband, “Didn’t they have some big argument a while ago?”

  “Yeah, but they got over it quick.”

  “What was it about?” Noel asked.

  “Roy got a bit eager about Bearing Faith, and it ticked Jerry off.”

  Noel made a note, turned the page, wrote his own name and phone number, tore out the sheet and handed it to Patty. “If you think of anything, please call me.”

  When Noel opened the front door, the dog lay splayed acro
ss the walk. Kyra and he held back as Patty went out and knelt beside her. “Such a good girl, Princess.” Princess licked Patty’s round face.

  Noel and Kyra walked across the grass, got in the car and drove away.

  • • •

  Sue Smith’s home, on Elizabeth Close, was off Mary Avenue, off Jeanette Drive, off Bertha. Noel raised his eyebrows. “What’s with all the girl names here?”

  “The developer’s mistresses?”

  “Or his wives.”

  “Better than Sperm Whale Lookout.” Kyra pulled into a short driveway.

  “I don’t know about that,” Noel retorted. “I loved Moby Dick.”

  “Okay, let’s get serious.” She stopped the car, and opened the door. “Though when I think of that compost, I giggle inside.”

  More like the old Kyra, Noel thought.

  They were high up on Gabriola, way above Whalebone. The boxy house provided a peekaboo view of the Strait of Georgia. A ferry chugged through tree branches down the hill.

  The front yard was unkempt grass littered with rubber doggy toys, bones, balls. A doghouse sided with cedar shakes sat in slanting sun near the overgrown gravel path to the front door. No dog visible. Good. On either side of the front door, curtains protected windows from the bright sun. Noel knocked.

  A mousy blonde woman opened the door. “Evangelists? I wish you the best in Jesus’ Name but I found Him another way.”

  “No—”

  “Oh I certainly did. I was worried sick about getting a job, I was down to four dollars when this great peace came over me and I heard ‘Stop worrying’ and I knew it was Jesus who’d taken me in His Hands, why I could even feel Him soothing my forehead and the next day the job just came to me.” She closed her eyes and bobbed her head and smiled brightly at them. “So there’s my revelation.”

  Chri— Criminy, Kyra thought. Noel spoke quickly. “We’re not Evangelists. We’re investigating Roy Dempster’s death and if you’re Sue Smith we’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “Oh.” The woman studied their faces. “I always give the missionaries my story and then we talk about Jesus. You have Jesus in your lives?”