Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

  • • •

  Motion caught Rose’s eye: a man, a woman. Tam. And one of his babes. Here at Eaglenest! Next they’ll simper over to the greenhouse or march into the living room—

  Something familiar about this babe. Rose wheeled closer. No danger of them seeing her, they were practically a two-headed beast. That female detective? Couldn’t be! Yes! She began a violent tack toward them, then stopped. She turned around abruptly. And wheeled away.

  • • •

  Inside the cabin Tam took Kyra’s hand. On the walls hung many paintings, a great range. From abstract expressionism to naturalistic portraits and surreal landscapes. Kyra turned to him. “Yours?”

  Tam nodded.

  “All of them?”

  Tam nodded harder.

  An easel stood by one of the two large picture windows overlooking the sea. On the wall by the kitchen, shelves of paints in tubes. The rack held a work in progress, a kind of diptych. On the right, girls and women in flowing dresses, red and yellow and orange, tiny, against a background of tan hills like desert dunes, but sunless; to the left a kind of sketch in shades of tan of a monster with many feet with a background of reds, yellows and oranges.

  Kyra said, “I like it.” She did.

  He turned to face her. “It’s coming along. And now, may I kiss you?”

  She heard herself whisper, “Yes.”

  He touched her shoulder and she flowed toward him, a single movement. He touched her cheek and his hand drifted to her chin. He raised its angle lightly, bent to her lips, touched his to hers, a bare brush of contact.

  She reached to his shoulder as if to hold him back. But he was rounded and smooth there and she wanted his shoulder closer to her so she drew him forward. His lips held hers. She felt his hand at the back of her head. She stepped in to him and her breasts spread against his chest. She felt his lips part and she knew she was going, going, Kyra the juggling celibate gone. But suddenly it wasn’t okay, not now. She slowly pulled away and could sense he knew the mood had shifted. He let her move-back happen, but slowly, slowly, and she liked that so much, his sense of her wanting it this way, that she nearly came back to him. She looked up at him. “That was nice.”

  He shut his eyes. Reopened them. Nodded. “Yes.” Touched her cheek with two fingers. “There can be more.”

  Her head could shake, her head could nod. How much would be lost, either way? She knew what a shake would bring, been there for months. A nod was uncharted territory. She gave him a tiny nod.

  He let his hand slide down her arm to her hand and took her fingers in his. She took his other hand and they drew close. He brought both hands to her shoulders. She felt herself tremble. She dropped her hands to around his waist.

  He glanced down at her, deeply serious. “You feel as nervous as I know I am.”

  She reached up and laid her hands against his cheeks. The smooth skin on her palms sent small quivers from her belly to her pubis. She knew he wasn’t nervous, but how sweet of him to say so. She drew his face down and kissed his mouth.

  He held the kiss for a long while. Then he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. “Got any condoms?” she whispered.

  “I think I have some left.” He winked.

  They came for each other twice in lusty succession, and again. He took pleasant minutes exploring her right clavicle, then her left, tracing each with his lips. A bones man, she thought. I have good bones. For a bit they slept. She woke. Well there you are, she told herself, first time. Well, in a long time. Clearly I needed that. Celibate no more. The better or the worse for it? A little of each. She glanced at Tam. A remarkable lover. In each instance able to tell precisely what she wanted, where and how to provide it. She studied his sleeping face, his fine round shoulder, the soft tickly hair on his arm. Was she in love? Don’t be silly. She had just had sex with a fine practitioner, that’s all. Tam was technically wonderful.

  She drifted off again. Woke. He wasn’t there. She got up, dressed, couldn’t find him in the cabin. In his studio-living room, she examined his work. His range was phenomenal. One of a pretty pink-cheeked child, another of an older couple; both, she thought, impressionist. There were some playful ones with fish and shooting stars, as if done by a ten-year-old. A realistic if sort of smudged landscape with lots of trees and clouds, a seascape of a boat tossed by stormy waves. If the variety of his pictures were any indication, Tam Gill was a complex man.

  She went to the bathroom and saw him on the deck when she came out. He kissed her brow. They sat side by side and stared at the water. Then she kissed his fingers. “I should go back to Nanaimo. And home to Bellingham.”

  He turned to her. “You’ll come back.” Almost but not fully a question.

  She raised her eyebrows. “I might.”

  • • •

  Noel heard Kyra’s key in the lock and looked at his watch: nearly four o’clock. Except for a slow forty-minute walk he’d been at the computer over five hours. He had called Albert at his office, at home and on his cellphone. Answering services all. Lyle had called to thank him for last night. And he’d really enjoyed meeting Kyra. He promised to be in touch soon, they should plan some time together. Most of Noel knew he didn’t want to. But the part that enjoyed being liked, appreciated, wanted, gave him real doubt.

  He’d copied his laptop Eaglenest files to his office computer. He’d found mentions of the correct Peter Rabinovich scattered around. Rabinovich had owned a hotel in Panama City before The Hermitage. A Panama newspaper, reporting on the Las Vegas venture, stated that Rabinovich had lived in Israel for seven years. Many of the Israeli entries citing Rabinovich were in Hebrew. Two in English mentioned his bar, The Wet Negev.

  Noel set the computer on standby. In the living room he found Kyra slumped on the sofa, a beer in hand. “Hi! How’d it go over there?”

  “Ask me questions, I’ll tell you lies.” Code from her childhood: You’ll find out someday.

  Noel cocked his head in acknowledgment. “Drink that down.

  Then let’s go to the casino. Then I’ll buy you a real drink. Then I’ll buy you dinner.”

  “The casino? Why?” Kyra sipped. “When are we going to have our talk?”

  Noel held out his hand for Kyra’s glass, took it and drank half. “We’ll talk over dinner.”

  She sat up. “Hey, you lose money at casinos.”

  “It’s for research.” Noel paced. “I found many Fascinating Facts about Vegas and got curious about the casino in my own backyard.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Back of Port Place. Then we’ll go up to Gina’s and have Mexican.”

  “You’re on.” Wow! An active dinner-out invitation. “And we can clarify what we know.”

  He said, “I’ll bring the laptop.”

  His security blanket? “Sure.” At the door she poked at the weak lock. “Get this fixed, Noel.”

  Downstairs, and out the door. Tell her about the obit? No, talk to Albert first. “Oh, Lyle called. He enjoyed your company.”

  “Good.” She stopped. “Tell me, d’you think you could get serious about him?”

  “Come on, Kyra, how can I know that?”

  She looked at him. He really was dear to her. “Watch yourself, friend.” She took his arm.

  They passed through the cool mall, well-peopled even on Sunday, and out again into the late afternoon sun. The asphalt parking lot intensified the light. In front of the casino, a gaggle of smokers in shirt sleeves. Noel and Kyra walked through a thin tobacco haze. Inside they had to stand a while, adjusting their eyes to bank upon bank of slot machines, most occupied. People pressed buttons rapidly. Decor nightclubby, low artificial light. A clinking rush of metal: to their right a slot delivered a shower of quarters into its trough. The winner remained expressionless. Then she picked up quarters and fed them one by one back into the slot. Where, Kyra wondered, were her friends, flocking to her side, patting her shoulder, Good on you, Mabel, hey! fifty bucks worth! Let’s go celebrate with a
coffee. But Mabel was in a closed loop, quarters back in, quarters maybe out again. How intimate.

  Kyra edged closer to Noel. “Why’s she using a machine that’s just paid out?”

  “There’s always more in there. Probability pays no attention to previous amounts.”

  She squinted. “How do you know?”

  “Didn’t math class teach you that?”

  They wandered on. Poker. Roulette. Eight blackjack games, the dealers, men and women both, wearing tuxedos. The players were mainly old, mainly pale, mainly saggy. The people at the slots interacted only with their machines, drop a coin, press a button, drop a coin, press a button. Or just press a button—that guy was playing the slots on a credit card. Ah, a man who reached up to pull a lever on the side of the machine. The exercise option? Tall workers—bouncers maybe?—stood around in orange uniform shirts, men and women. Smaller ones, karate bouncers? Or spotters who called the bouncers?

  Vegas casinos would be like this, Noel figured, only a hundred times as large. Three thousand rooms accommodate a lot of people.

  Kyra saw a group of twenties-thirties at a poker table laughing, enjoying each other. On Bowen Noel had taught her seven card stud, and blackjack. They’d played for matchsticks or M&Ms. One man smiled at her. She smiled back but the smile didn’t get her invited in.

  “Enough.” Noel pulled her sleeve. “Food.”

  “We’re here, we do research.” But she let him draw her to the other exit. “Oh, look, a food court.” She glanced at the menu. “Boring. If you lose all your money do they send you to a soup kitchen? Till your next welfare check comes in?”

  “Gina’s.” Noel marched away.

  Sometimes you’re so old male, Noel. But she followed.

  They climbed up the hill. He took her arm. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  Gina’s was bright raspberry with blue trim, a house converted to restaurant sitting on top of a rocky outcrop reached by a crooked road. In front of the door Kyra turned to him. “You know, your teaching me poker took me through my first year at Reed.”

  Noel quirked his lip. “I corrupted a minor?”

  “I only felt corrupted when you won.”

  “You did develop a good poker face.”

  Kyra kissed his cheek. No poker face there.

  • • •

  Rose had watched the car drive away. It took her the best part of two hours to feel calm enough to power-wheel herself to Tam’s cabin. Letting that woman in there! “Tam!” She waited. “Tam!”

  He came out, saw his sister’s face and knew why she’d stopped by. So he grinned.

  Rose said, “What?”

  “She’s clay in my fingers.” Tam shook his head, grin still in place. “If I were a sculptor, you’d say I created a work of art this afternoon.”

  “Tam! You let her into the cabin!”

  “Don’t worry. Like a beer?”

  Rose glared at him, turned her chair, and slowly wheeled away.

  FIFTEEN

  IN GINA’S THE hostess hello’d and how-are-you’d Noel and Kyra and led them to a table.

  Kyra glanced at the menu. “I should branch out. But it’s always back to a chimichanga.”

  “You guys ready?” A young man, short hair gelled, three rings in each ear, a nose ring, stud centered in his lower lip, set down a basket of taco chips and salsa.

  Noel said, “We’ll have a jug of margaritas, please. The small.”

  Kyra smiled. Sometimes a man being authoritative could be nice.

  “And,” Noel looked at her, “we’re still studying the menu.”

  “Our specials tonight are—”

  A lip stud. How does he kiss? The only special Kyra caught was chicken chili rellenos.

  Noel said, “Tuna mole sounds interesting.”

  “Okay,” the ringed man rapped cheerily, “I’ll be back.”

  “—someday,” Noel lilted.

  A great smile. “Ya got it, dad.” Flicked his extra menus and moved to the next table.

  “Who is he?”

  “Nineteen-year-old tree planter, twenty-six-year-old physics PhD, thirty-one-year-old downsized electrical engineer. He’s got a job in a restaurant. The growth industry.”

  Minutes later the waiter was back with a margarita jug. She settled for chimichanga. Noel ordered the tuna mole. The server said, “You won’t regret it, dad, it’s some dish.”

  Kyra poured, sipped, took a chip and salsa-ed it. “Yum. Okay, what do we know?”

  Noel opened his laptop and told Kyra about his Hermitage research. “And we know bits of Rabinovich’s history. Is it important? I don’t know.” Noel scanned the Eaglenest directory.

  “Okay, why did we just spend time at that casino?” Kyra sipped again.

  “Never been before.” He grinned. “Check out everything. Like why go to Vegas to stay in an expensive room with a school-of painting.” Noel drank too. “Mmm, good.”

  Kyra mulled for a moment. “We’re not focusing. We’re interested in the owner, not the guests.”

  “Eaglenest sells paintings to The Hermitage. Marchand’s people bought these paintings—”

  “Actually, Tam Gill bought them. Marchand’s team just locates.”

  “He makes the decisions alone?”

  “That’s what he said.” She detailed her visit to the Gallery. “Hey, I got photos of the paintings.” She described them. “You figure they’re for The Hermitage?”

  “‘December, special display of five new paintings.’ Tam say what they sold for?”

  “Nope.”

  “We’ll find out. I’ve got their names in the file.”

  “Good. Tam said the names. I don’t remember but I’ll recognize them.”

  Noel typed.

  “But where are they coming from and why can’t others find them?” Kyra took a couple of chips. “Another talk with Marchand.”

  The waiter appeared with their entrees. He scowled at Noel’s computer. Noel saved, slid the laptop into his tote bag and set it gently under his chair. “Enjoy,” the waiter said.

  They took a first bite, Noel’s mole delicious, Kyra’s chimichanga fine and spicy. She said, “Okay. Our three Marchand-Gills?”

  “Artemus, independently rich, Princeton, won’t show island artists, gives a leg up to others like Lyle, finds schools-of Old Masters, sells them for big money. A foundation, grants to small-scale technical projects in the Third World, to moderate drug projects like Lyle’s group.”

  “And his wife.”

  “Athlete, Olympic medalist, now paraplegic but impressive upper body strength, studied botany and chemistry, perfectionist, mucks around with flowers. Two species named after her. Respected. Botanists come to call. A large greenhouse.”

  “Right. Invented tools for it.”

  “Fears contamination. A big shed, plastic covered.”

  “Big,” she repeated, thinking. “Perspective?”

  “Huh?”

  She shook her head. “And Tam.”

  “Artist, technically very good, range of styles, buys for Marchand, does karate.”

  “Control freak,” Kyra added, “Handsome and sexy.” She grinned naughtily. “Great in bed.”

  “Kyra!”

  “Detecting is a complex art.”

  “Kyra. For fucksake.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But it’s the wrong kind of involvement.”

  “I’m very objective.” She set her hand on his. “I’m careful too. Always.” Well, mostly.

  Noel saw her, ten years old. He put a mental arm around her shoulder. To protect her. To safeguard himself. She had been more intimate with Tam Gill than she could ever be with him. No, he wanted only her friendship. Still it hurt that someone had been closer to her than he would ever be. He tried a laugh but it came out busted. He made himself say, “And how was it?”

  “My body felt like it’d been played by a great violinist.”

  He looked at her, a woman of thirty-six. “Kyra the Stradivarius
.” A couple of lines on her forehead he hadn’t noted before. “One more celibate bites the dust.”

  “Whatever the investigation calls for.” She noted his scowl; disapproving? sad? both, maybe. “I think Sue’s BAV stuff got to me. I never meant to be a saint. Even less a born again virgin.” But, she wondered, had she just hurt Noel? Not the sex part, that wasn’t what she and he had together. Something else. What?

  Noel returned to his tuna mole. It suddenly tasted off. He realized it wasn’t the mole’s fault. “Okay. Could Tam Gill be preventing others from finding paintings?”

  “How?”

  “Threats? Intimidation?”

  “Doesn’t sound like Tam. He’s a charmer.”

  “Okay, who does he charm to stay away? Or maybe he paints them himself.”

  “No way. They test carefully, pigment analysis and all that. You can’t forge seventeenth-century paintings in the twenty-first century.”

  “The forged painting Artemus gave away was viable for more than a hundred years.”

  “But it was found out.” She took the last bite of chimichanga. “Maybe it’s just his luck. Like repeat winnings from the same slot machine.”

  “Maybe others find these paintings, too, but Eaglenest offers the most money.”

  She shook her head. “My father would’ve heard about that.”

  The waiter arrived, took their plates, proffered the dessert menu. They shared a piece of chocolate cake and ice cream.

  “Now.” Kyra pushed her plate away. “Can we talk about our partnership?”

  “Potential partnership. Let’s talk on my balcony. Over a nightcap.”

  • • •

  “Don’t forget your computer.”

  “More chicken, Rosie?”

  “A wing. It’s delicious.”

  Artemus knew the paprika sauce was excellent but appreciated the compliment. And dinner alone with Rosie was just fine. The meal was a favorite of Tam’s but he had chosen not to join them. So, a good evening and Artemus’ private world was in fine shape. Rosie smiled warmly. He was not prepared when she spoke.