The good news is that Skyler is in Ontario and will be staying there. Still, Brian found a way to make Skyler’s choice of job — custodian of an empty tract of wilderness — seem sinister. “He could easily grab a flight out here, hop on the ferry, do the dirty deed, and hop back, and no one would notice he’d been gone.”
Arthur is more concerned right now with those unremembered lines from Dr. Hawthorne’s report. Before heading off to the General Store, he locates Niko in the garden’s cucumber patch, and tells her she is relieved of guard duty — the bad guy everyone is worried about is three thousand miles away. She almost seems disappointed that the adventure is over.
As he hoists her basket of pickling cukes, the RCMP van rolls up the driveway, bearing Pound and Zoller, unwanted guests but somehow not unexpected. Zoller alights outside the barn. He is out of uniform, wearing the Day-Glo orange safety vest that he favours — it matches the Hummer. He hauls out a pole with a metal club duct-taped to one end and, armed with this weapon, enters the barn.
By the time Arthur deposits Niko’s harvest by the kitchen door, Zoller has returned to the farmyard and is probing some blackberry brambles. Pound remains in the van, morosely watching him. He waves listlessly at Arthur, tilts some Alka-Selzer to his lips.
Now Zoller is orbiting the Cadillac DeVille, bending, examining the tires for tread, his awkward weapon precariously balanced on his shoulder. As Arthur approaches, he rises with a defiant look. “I tried Stoney’s Pinto, but it broke down. It’s a mute point, because Stoney said I could have this here vehicle for a preferred rate. I hope you got no awkward repercussions over it.”
“What is his preferred rate?”
“He said I could have it for nothing.”
“The keys are on the dashboard. Put that damn thing down.”
“It’s a metal detector, this here’s a magnet.” He lowers it.
“Do I take it my truck is ready?”
“I believe Stoney said words to that effect and that he would try to bring it around hisself.”
His vagueness makes Arthur uneasy. “I’m astonished that you two are so chummy. I thought he might be on your list of suspects.” Arthur has little doubt as to who is the brains behind Operation Hummer.
“Robert Stonewell isn’t a person of interest. The exact time my vehicle got stole, he was inside the hall undergoing interrogation by yours truly, and my further inquiries have determined he neither aided nor abetted in his felony. In fact, he’s at my beckon call by agreeing to be of assistance to the state by keeping an ear out and donating this means of transportation.”
Zoller has succumbed to Stoney’s machinations with staggering ease.
“I’m checking every inch of this island’s thirty square miles.” Zoller clicks his heels. “Permission to explore your property, sir.”
“Make sure you close the gates.”
Zoller takes off up the trail to the north pasture, where Yoki is working. Arthur wanders over to Ernst Pound, who apologizes for the intrusion. “I’m dropping him off here. I’m tired of driving the dimwit around.”
He’s buttoned his regimental shirt askew, and he smells of old sweat and gloom, but he seems relatively sober today, so Arthur offers him a succinct account of the Skyler threat, and the recent lessening of it. Pound listens with weary impatience.
“Just like I said, it’s what the bull left in the meadow. That’s all I get on this rock. It’s game over, Arthur. I’m going to quit the Force. I’ve done eighteen years. All I ever wanted to be was a cop. It was my only dream.” He looks about to cry. “I gave up trying to make corporal long ago.”
Arthur quickly looks away so as not to see the poor fellow fumble for his dark glasses and a tissue. Zoller is halfway up the hill, poking his magnet into a thicket of broom, a hostile invader that the Woofers have been commanded to repel. Shy Yoki stands by, with clippers and a spade, as Zoller disappears into the thicket. She can’t restrain a giggle when he comes out the other side with a rusted metal bucket dangling from his magnet.
Pound speaks in a croaking voice that builds in intensity. “You got to save me, Arthur. My super just sent me a letter warning it’s the last straw, that tank of Kurt’s getting boosted, my auxiliary constable’s frigging car! Stolen from under our noses! I’m looking at a disciplinary proceeding, a suspension. I’m suicidal, my life’s at stake.” He sighs with a resonant tremolo. “You know what’s going on, Arthur, everyone confides in you. I’m begging you to intervene, help us find his frigging Humvee!”
Arthur is tempted to trot out his old standby: I want to help but am ethically bound not to. He knows that’s a stretch, but all his instincts tell him that trying to mediate this standoff would be like stepping into quicksand. Yet he pities Ernst Pound. “We’ll talk about it on the way to the General Store, all right?”
§
They follow a crew cab into the store’s parking lot, and Arthur quickly alights from the RCMP van, relieved to be free of the morose Mountie, regretting that his heart went soft, that he offered to mediate. Ernst wept his thanks.
Felicity Jones, shortstop for the Pieces and a chum of Tildy Sears, is among the work crew climbing out of the truck and heading up to the bar. She returns Arthur’s greeting, then gathers her friends in a whispering huddle. Clearly, the story of the stalking killer is spreading, at Garibaldi warp speed. He will have to reveal all to Margaret before she gets a twisted version.
Entering the store, he checks to see if his cell phone is still on. It’s nearing noon, and he hasn’t heard from Reverend Al. Barring some procedural delay, Dog ought to be out by now, celebrating, hitting up Al to fund a six-pack for the ferry. Maybe the circuit judge was late getting to Saltspring. Maybe Al forgot Arthur’s cell number.
Arthur rings Stoney, resignedly listens to his message: “You have reached Loco Motion, vehicle rentals, repairs, and twenty-four-hour taxi service.” Arthur demands he pick up, and when ignored he announces, in a voice so loud that heads turn, that he is waiting at Hopeless Bay for his Fargo to be brought to him. “Otherwise I’m contacting an old client, known on the street as Cut-em-up Hymie.”
As he picks his way through the grocery section, Wellness and Wholeness converge on him. “We think it’s so brave,” says Wellness, “that you decided to stay on the island.” Wholeness urges him to turn up for their regular healing circle. “Sharing our anxieties with friends can bring peace and strength.” Arthur tells them he appreciates their concern.
Shopping done, he lines up at the Canada Post outlet, studies a new flyer on the cork board. It demands to know why Dog has been denied his day in court, and warns that Garibaldi is becoming a police state. Below the text is a photo of the stubby little fellow holding a puppy. For the full story, supporters are asked to go to www.garibaldicommunitybulletinboard.ca/savedog.
Abraham Makepeace is involved in a complex special-delivery transaction. “It costs twice as much as regular and is just as slow, you want the truth.”
“Just do it my way, and quit carping,” says the combative island ancient, Winnie Gillicuddy. Probably another birthday gift for one of the centenarian’s scores of descendants.
Makepeace grumbles, “Okay, make my day difficult,” and begins the paperwork.
Winnie turns to Arthur. “Well, what’s your excuse for letting Dog stay locked in the hoosegow? He hasn’t finished chopping my winter wood, I’ll have you know.”
“I stand falsely accused, madam. They may be releasing him even as we speak.”
“Damn fool government should legalize that shit.”
When Arthur takes her place, it’s four minutes past twelve, but Makepeace grants him a rare exception to his traditional noon-hour break. “Only because of your dire situation.”
“Fama crescit eundo. The rumour grows as it goes. I am under no threat.”
“That ain’t the way I see it.” He produces a few envelopes
and a magazine, but fondles the fax awhile. “Couldn’t help glancing over this when it came in. Appears you’re dealing with a psychopathic killer. His rehab didn’t take.”
“Fine. Thank you. I’ll take it now.”
“Let me make sure these here pages are in order. Here, on the last page, this is what scares me. ‘In brief, the subject’ — I guess he’d be the sadistic killer you prosecuted — ‘the subject claims that he is no longer angry and embittered, but his assurances do not ring sincere.’”
Arthur wrests the fax away, numbly walks out to the ramp to the Brig, and orders a bottle of malt whisky and a soothing black tea. “You look a little pale,” says Emily LeMay. “Feeling guilty?”
About Dog, she means. Arthur bleakly studies the fundraising jar for Dog’s defence. He adds another twenty, takes his tea to a table by the oceanside window, and reads Dr. Arnold Hawthorne’s fax. Its appendix of qualifications states that he’s an experienced doctor — not of psychiatry, but psychology — who lectures at Queen’s and specializes in antisocial personality disorders. He prepared this report for the parole board last year, before Skyler’s release. The first few pages describe the standard tests: word association, completing sentences, interpreting images, the Rorschach.
Not unexpectedly, Skyler got straight A’s on the Hare psychopathy checklist — for multitudinous traits: superficial charm, grandiosity, lack of remorse and empathy, pathological lying, need for stimulation, failure to accept responsibility for his actions. “Subject continues to deny any involvement in the death of Joyal Chumpy.” An antisocial personality disorder of this type, Hawthorne warns, correlates strongly with a high risk of recidivism.
As Arthur is only too aware, Skyler earned his parole nevertheless, a mere six months after he was eligible.
In his concluding paragraphs, Hawthorne comments on a “remark made in passing” by Skyler about “some unfinished business.” Arthur takes a deep gulp of his tea, reads on: “When pressed about particulars, he reacted as if confused, then said he’d been joking. However, his words were spoken in the context of his trial and conviction. They suggest he may be prey to an obsession of some kind.”
Arthur sees that Tildy Sears has joined Felicity Jones and her beer-quaffing workmates. He catches her eye, and gestures her over — he hasn’t the strength to rise himself.
“Ah, Tildy, just the one I wanted to see. I’ve had some second thoughts about that security system the stars use.”
§
Driving him home in her banged-up Jeep, Tildy detours to Evergreen Estates and stops at the Pan-Abode she shares with Moose when he’s on shore leave. As she alights, she wags a finger at him.
“You totally ain’t going to say nothing, eh?”
She has asked him twice. As if the whole island doesn’t know about her dalliance with Brian, who, luckily for him, will be long gone when Moose, a heavily tattooed former amateur boxer, returns from the cold north seas.
“I would not compromise a lady.”
“Whatever,” she says, a word of a myriad uses. She picks up a few boxes of electronic gear, and when they’re under way again Arthur dimly hears, obscured by rattling doors and sonic booms from the exhaust, a familiar, distant tune.
“Too weird,” Tildy says, in obvious reference to his ring tone. As he digs into his pack for his phone, she mockingly sings, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.”
He hollers a hello to Reverend Al, hears his strained, doomful voice, only a few words making it through the racket of the Jeep: “idiot,” “screwed up,” “pissed off.”
Tildy pulls into the Shewfelts’ driveway. In the quiet shelter of their pruned hedges and under the watch of their garden gnomes Arthur steels himself and says, “Please give me that again, Al. Calmly.”
“I’m trying to be calm, damn it! Dog’s been screwed by his counsel, some supposed big Vancouver name. He didn’t show, didn’t call. The judge waited until noon, when word finally came in that this joker missed the ferry because he’d been hauled over for speeding. Then the judge, who’s a nincompoop —”
“Careful, Al. Are there any reporters in range?”
“Just Forbish.” To whom he calls out a proposed headline: “‘Local Do-gooder Framed in Travesty of Justice.’ The damn judge wouldn’t let me speak.”
Provincial Judge Eddie Hayward is better known as Haywire. The good reverend had sought to intervene, to speak up for Dog, but Hayward announced he couldn’t “hear” him: a term of art favoured by sticklers of rules.
“He was saying you have no standing in court. Were you a lawyer, he would not have been so deaf.”
The judge then told Dog he could speak for himself, and the shy little fellow apparently froze. Hayward was in a cranky mood, and took it out on Dog for his counsel’s negligence by remanding him in custody for three more days. That was after the Crown counsel claimed to have information that Dog was part of a major trafficking ring between the islands and the mainland.
Al didn’t get the name of this brazen prosecutor, but her wild accusation has Arthur in a sputtering dither. He feels somehow to blame for matters going so awry.
“Anyway, Dog got bumped over to Thursday — on Garibaldi.”
The last Thursday of the month: Haywire’s regular Garibaldi day, mostly traffic tickets and small claims. Al identifies the defence counsel as B.J. Bingham, whose secretary claimed vaguely he was “currently unavailable.”
Arthur knows him. Ballentine J. Bingham, big in name only. A garrulous hairy ape, a stoner, the go-to counsel for the soft drug trade, but hardly a leading light of the defence bar. Maybe he was on speed when he was pulled over. Arthur will have a word with the Legal Aid Society about this.
What else could go wrong today? It’s said that bad news comes in triplet.
As if in response, to fill the quota, a vehicle appears over the brow of Shewfelts’ Hill. It’s Arthur’s Fargo, its bed piled high with black dirt or manure. The engine gives off a happy, well-tuned sound and the brakes hold as it slows for the final downhill curve before accelerating on the flat. Stoney is at the wheel of the smoke-filled cab — from what Arthur can make out he looks distracted, upset, so it’s likely he heard about Dog’s setback. Roaring past, he’s oblivious to Arthur’s attempt to wave him down.
He considers urging Tildy to take up pursuit, but sighs in defeat. “Let’s carry on.”
“Twinkle, twinkle,” she sings.
§
Brian is in the kitchen, at the sink, cleaning Dungeness crabs so freshly caught their limbs are still trembling.
“Where did those come from?” Arthur doesn’t hide his bearish mood as he puts groceries away.
“The planet may be going to shit, but Nature still provides from her pillaged loins. While putting about in your runabout, I retrieved four of these fine fat fellows from your traps. Yoki and Niko will share two of them.”
“I haven’t set any traps.”
“They were out in your bay.”
“I don’t own the bay.”
“My bad. Poached crab would be apropos, but I’ve already started the barbie.”
Heat is shimmering the air above the brick barbecue by the picnic table, on which dishes and cutlery are arrayed. The sun is weakening, and there’s a late afternoon chill, so Arthur is glad to see a wood fire in the pit. He must remember to make amends to island crabber Gomer Goulet, an apology and a bottle of rum.
“You don’t seem too happy, Arthur. I detect an uncharacteristic testiness.”
Arthur passes him the fax, and after dispersing his purchases goes into the living room, where Tildy has spread out her supplies: tools, wiring, cameras, motion detectors, a fearsome-looking siren, like a small tuba. When triggered, Tildy explains, the system will call 911.
She is muttering, trying to decipher a manual. “Warning. Battery must not be exposed to rain. What
battery? Okay, forgot the battery.” She promises to return with it, and heads off.
Arthur dials and listens again to the recorded message from Stoney’s round-the-clock taxi service. He frets about how to get Brian to the morning ferry. He won’t be sorry to say goodbye to his caustic guest with his unnerving alarms.
He finds Brian outside, by the barbecue, sampling the newly bought Glenlivet as he squints over the psychologist’s report. Finally, he hands it to Arthur.
“No need to grovel in apology for having doubted me.” Brian throws the two crabs on the grill. “We’ll know the worst on Wednesday if Skyler doesn’t turn up for work. But I suspect he’ll wait awhile, try to lull you into a state of unguarded passivity.”
Arthur again wonders why Brian seems intent on taunting him. Has he held this grudge for twenty-five years? I was angry at you, angry at the verdict. Does he honestly blame Arthur for his own law career going downhill? Or is his behaviour just his way of working through the creative process — he has confided he’s cranking out a horror script.
Breaking through the fog of his worry comes a familiar engine hum. Arthur’s Fargo magically reappears, purring down the driveway, coming home.
“Forgot to mention, Stoney came by earlier. He wants your professional opinion as to whether there’s any chance of Dog getting out of jail in his lifetime. You really ought to get off your heinie and do something about that, Arthur.”
The truck pulls up close enough for Arthur to confirm that the payload is well-composted manure, dark and rich with a healthy smell. Stoney fishes out a few cans of beer and joins them, looking grumpy, his jacket open over a crude message T-shirt stencilled with “Save Dog.”
Stoney takes a peek at the crabs on the grill, accepts a cigarette from Brian, blows a smoke ring into the still air. “Maybe you wanna call off Cut-em-up Hymie.”
Sing a Worried Song Page 20
