Overexposed

by Michael Blair

  Despite his apparent disappointment, I thought I detected a hint of relief in his voice. Not that I blamed him, if he was thinking about putting the moves on Maggie. Maggie’s expression, however, seemed a little desperate. Perhaps she’d been hoping Reeny and I would run interference for her.

  “We should get a move on,” George said, taking Maggie’s arm.

  I saw them out. “Have a good evening,” I said.

  “Count on it,” George said as I closed the door behind them.

  By eleven the house was more or less shipshape again, including the spare room. Before going to bed I made sure everything was locked up tight, even the door to the roof deck, but I didn’t sleep well at all and got up at seven Friday morning achy and grouchier than usual. The door to the spare room was closed when I went into the bathroom to shower, and still closed when I came out. Reeny usually kept it closed, so I’d closed it after tidying up. I hadn’t heard her come in, wasn’t sure she was even home. I thought about knocking, but didn’t want to disturb her. She would call me later, I was sure, if only to ask about the note I’d left on the dresser explaining the condition of her room.

  She still wasn’t up when I left for work. The rainy season was in full dress rehearsal, so I donned the Aussie hat Bobbi had given me and a waterproof jacket (I don’t care for umbrellas; I’m always losing mine and people are always trying to put my eyes out with theirs) and walked through the wet, quiet streets to the Aquabus dock. By the time I got to the studio I was feeling more or less human again. My good humour didn’t last long, though. At nine Mary-Alice arrived with another doggie client, a huge thing that seemed to be all hair and drool. The dog, I mean. Its mistress was a plump woman with an infectious grin and a maniacal giggle. Unfortunately, her dog was not half as well-behaved as Princess Grace had been.

  “Oh, for god’s sake,” Bobbi grumbled as she wiped dog slobber from her camera with the hem of her T-shirt.

  “Sorry,” the dog’s mistress said.

  I wondered how she managed to stay dry. I almost asked her if the amount of slobber produced by dogs of this particular breed was a selling point.

  “I think I’m going to have to be more careful about the clients I choose,” Mary-Alice said later.

  “Yah,” Bobbi agreed flatly. She went into the wash-room to change her T-shirt.

  Mary-Alice stayed around for a while. She hung over D. Wayne Fowler’s shoulder as he processed the films, asking a lot of questions, most of them intelligent, some of them, however, obviously intended to help him relax. I left them alone. Just before lunch, she came into my office.

  “I owe you an apology,” she said.

  “Well, it’s about time,” I said. “But it’s not really your fault, Mary-Alice. Mum and Dad always liked you better, so they spoiled you. You can’t help — ”

  “Oh, shut up, will you? What I’m trying to say is that you and Bobbi, Wayne too, you all make photography look so easy I thought it was easy. It never occurred to me that it looked easy because you were good at what you did. You can be pretty stupid about a lot of things, Tom, but photography isn’t one of them.”

  “Gee, thanks, Sis.” Her face puckered; she’d always hated being called “Sis” and I’d only ever done it to get her goat. It still worked.

  “Of course,” she said, “you haven’t half a god-damned clue how to run a business. I don’t know how you’ve managed to stay solvent as long as you have. No. That’s not true. I do know. You are good at what you do and people know it, so you’ve got by so far by waiting for the work to come to you. But not a lot is coming to you these days, is it?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice,” I agreed glumly.

  “You need to market yourselves more aggressively.”

  “Of course,” I said, striking myself in the forehead with mock astonishment. “That’s it. How could I have been so stupid? I’ll get right on it.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake, Tom, can’t you take anything seriously?”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said. I sighed. “Look, Mary-Alice, I know you’re right, but, well, I guess I’m just not the aggressive type. Neither is Bobbi, although probably more than me. Hustling business isn’t as easy as it sounds, either.”

  “You should incorporate,” Mary-Alice said. “That way, if things really go south and you have to declare bankruptcy, you won’t lose your home and your savings.”

  What savings? I said to myself. To Mary-Alice I said, “Things aren’t that bad. We might not be making a whole lot of money right now, but we don’t have much in the way of debt, either. The digital camera set-up is almost paid off and I could sell it tomorrow for a lot more than what we owe on it. Worst comes to worst, we could walk away from this place tomorrow without owing anyone a penny.”

  “And with nothing to show for eight years of your life,” she said.

  I shrugged, trying to appear indifferent. I wasn’t, of course. I worried about the future, when I had time, when I wasn’t too busy worrying about the present. Mary-Alice smiled smugly. I hated it when she was right, especially when she knew she was right, and knew I knew it.

  “I spend enough time on paperwork as it is,” I said lamely. “More than ever now that Mrs. Szymkowiak has retired to sell ladybug colonies. Incorporating would just mean even more paperwork. Besides, incorporating costs money, which, as you’ve noticed, we don’t have a whole lot of right now.”

  “I have some money,” Mary-Alice said.

  “That’s very generous of you, M-A, but I can’t take your money.”

  “I wasn’t planning on giving it to you. What I was thinking is, you need a new partner.”

  “I have a partner,” I said.

  “I mean one that can handle the business end of things while you and Bobbi do what you do best.”

  “No offence, Mary-Alice, but what do you know about running a business?”

  “I took business administration in university,” she said stiffly.

  “I thought your degree was in art history.”

  “It was, but I also studied gallery and museum administration.”

  “This isn’t either of those,” I pointed out.

  “It’s not all that different,” she said.

  I wasn’t sure she was right, but neither was I sure she was wrong. What I was sure of, though, was that I wasn’t at all eager to have my sister as a business partner. “It’s an interesting idea,” I said diplomatically. “But I’ll have to think about it.”

  Bobbi’s reaction when I told her about Mary-Alice’s proposition was predictable. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “You’ve been asking me that a lot lately.”

  “You aren’t really serious, are you? I mean, I like Mary-Alice since I’ve got to know her a little better, but I don’t want to work for her.”

  “You wouldn’t be working for her,” I said. “Any more than you work for me.”

  “I do work for you.”

  “You don’t call me ‘boss’ anymore.”

  “You never liked it when I called you ‘boss.’ That’s why you made me a partner.”

  “This isn’t a law firm,” I said. “I didn’t make you a partner. Anyway, that wasn’t it at all. Becoming a partner was your idea.”

  “All right, fine,” she said. “The point is, I don’t think taking Mary-Alice on as a partner is a very good idea. No offence.”

  “None taken. I agree with you. I think.”

  “You think.”

  “Let’s face it, Bobbi. Business could be better. Mary-Alice is right, we can’t just sit back and wait for work to come to us.”

  “Take out an ad in the Yellow Pages or the Sun.”

  “All that costs money.”

  “Money well spent, if it generates more business.”

  “Sure, but the more work we get, the more administrative overhead there is. We need someone to handle the billing and ordering and the books, scheduling, all that stuff. Since Mrs. S left, how many times have we screwed up the bookings a
nd ended up with two jobs at the same time?”

  “Fine. Hire someone. Hire Mary-Alice. But don’t, for god’s sake, make her a partner.”

  “Why not? If we incorporated, she’d be a shareholder, just as we would be. I’d still be the majority owner. You’d still own twenty-five percent. If Mary-Alice owned, say, twenty percent, we’d still be in control.”

  “You sound like you’re considering it.”

  “No, I’m not. But why are you so against it?”

  “I don’t know. The idea just scares me.”

  “Truth be told,” I said, “it kind of scares me too.”

  “Good,” Bobbi said, standing. “Now that that’s settled, I can get back to work. Don’t forget, we have that wedding shoot tomorrow.”

  I groaned. I had forgotten. We didn’t normally do weddings, but a job, as everyone seemed wont to point out to me lately, was a job. Bobbi wasn’t crazy about doing weddings either, but she liked to exercise her creativity, whereas I don’t have any to speak of. Brides — more precisely, the mothers of brides — don’t generally like wedding photos that look like shots of strip malls or construction sites. So for weddings and the like, Bobbi and I reversed roles. She was the boss and I was the schlep. It worked.

  When Bobbi left to organize the equipment for the wedding shoot, I called home. I got my voice mail. I called Reeny’s cell, got her voice mail, too. I didn’t leave a message either time. At two, the public relations director of Garibaldi Air Services called to discuss their upcoming annual report. They were scaling back a little but still needed some shots of the directors and refurbished terminal facilities. A few minutes after three, a courier delivered a package from the toy company, containing another batch of Virgin dolls. I called Beverley Wong and set up an appointment to meet with her on Monday morning.

  At four, Sergeant Matthias knocked on the door of my office. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure. Sit down.” I gestured toward the old sofa. Bodger was curled up into a furry ball at one end. Matthias lowered his lanky frame onto the other. “What can I do for you?”

  “Have you spoken to Ms. Lindsey today?”

  “No. She got in late last night and wasn’t up when I left this morning.”

  “I’ve left her a dozen messages, but she hasn’t returned them. I even went by the studio last night, but the shoot was cancelled due to a technical problem. Is she avoiding me?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “She just doesn’t think there’s anything useful she can tell you about her conversation with John Doe.”

  “She should let me be the judge of that,” he said. “What about the thing with the doll?”

  “She doesn’t take it very seriously. It’s the kind of thing that happens all the time, she says. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re taking it as seriously as you are. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  “At the moment, no,” he said. “I’ve been temporarily seconded to the coroner’s liaison unit until my partner returns to duty. She broke her wrist falling off a horse.” He smiled dryly. “Don’t ask.”

  “Okay, but what does your investigation into John Doe, or whatever his name is, have to do with Reeny?”

  “She’s the strongest link I have to Hastings, and Hastings is the common thread connecting a number of events and people involved in those events: John Doe, the Yeagers and the destruction of the Pendragon, and, lastly, Ms. Lindsey herself, who was evicted by the Yeagers, no thanks to Hastings, and who’s now apparently being stalked. There’s the mysterious Monica Hollander, who alluded to a package John Doe may have had in his possession when he died. Finally, there’s the vandalism to your van — which you neglected to tell me about, by the way — and the search of your house by a person or persons unknown.”

  “I should have told you this sooner,” I said. He cocked a sandy eyebrow. “Reeny was supposed to meet Hastings last night.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

  “What was the meeting about?”

  “She didn’t tell me that either. Personal business.”

  “You don’t seem happy about it.”

  “Darn right I’m not.”

  Bobbi came into the office, smiled, and made eyes at the sergeant. He stood. “I’ll be going,” he said.

  “Not on my account, I hope,” Bobbi said.

  “Duty calls,” he said, returning her smile. Bobbi saw him to the stairwell door.

  Reeny wasn’t there when I got home at five. The note I’d left leaning against the coffee machine that morning was still leaning against the coffee machine. Feeling like an intruder, I checked her room. The note I’d left on the dresser was still there too. Okay, she didn’t come home last night, I said to myself. So what? That didn’t necessarily mean she’d run off with Chris Hastings. There could be any number of reasons she hadn’t come home. I started making a mental list, then tore it up.

  I ate a ham sandwich and a banana, then went next door and borrowed the keys to Maggie’s eighteen-foot Boston Whaler. I spent the next couple of hours cruising up one side of False Creek and down the other, faithfully observing the no-wake speed limit, checking the marinas. I reasoned that if Chris Hastings had once lived on a boat, there was a good chance he’d be living on one again. I didn’t think he’d go back to Coal Harbour; he was too well known around the marinas there. And while there were dozens of marinas along the North Shore, Horseshoe Bay in Howe Sound, or in the Fraser River delta, he’d left Sea Village the week before in a small boat, so it was unlikely he’d travelled far.

  I didn’t think there was much chance I’d find him, or Reeny, but it was something to do; otherwise I’d just sit around and stew. I didn’t find them, of course. After checking the marinas in False Creek, I headed out under the Burrard Street Bridge into English Bay, past the civic marina and the Coast Guard Station, then opened up the 150-horespower outboard and jounced westward toward the Jericho Station of the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. It was rougher in the more open water of English Bay, but nothing the Whaler couldn’t handle. I was less confident of my own seamanship.

  I tied up at the RVYC public wharf and walked to the clubhouse. The weather had improved and Jericho Park Beach was busy with strollers, kids throwing Frisbees, parents watching their children frolicking in the wavelets along the shore, and people just sitting quietly on the massive driftwood logs on the sand, enjoying the late summer evening. It was Friday and the terraces of the clubhouse were crowded. My intention had been to seek out Chris Hastings’ cousin, Tim Fielding, and ask him if he knew where Hastings was. Trouble was, Fielding wasn’t there. In fact, according to the manager, Fielding hadn’t shown up for his shift, again, or called in, and the manager was losing patience with him, fast.

  On my way back to Sea Village I filled the Whaler’s tanks at the civic marina, the least I could do.

  “You needn’t have bothered,” Maggie said when I returned the keys. “You’ve done me enough favours.” I hadn’t done all that much, really. I’d taken Harvey to the vet a couple of times, lugged groceries for her, and watered her plants when she was away on a signing tour promoting her latest book.

  “Do you have company?” I asked.

  “You mean George?” she said. “No, not at the moment.”

  “Maybe you’d like to come over for that drink now.”

  “I’d love to,” she said. “But George is going to be here soon and I want to have my wits about me. He’s getting, well, rather persistent and I haven’t made up my mind about him yet.” She bounced up onto her toes and peeked over my shoulder. “Speak of the devil, here he is now.”

  I said good night and went back to my place, hopeful that Reeny had snuck in while I wasn’t looking. She hadn’t. I tried her cellphone again, but again got her voice mail. “Reeny, it’s Tom,” I said. “Call me. Thanks.”

  Fixing myself a plate of sharp cheddar and Carr’s Water Biscuits, I took a Granville Island Lager out of the fridge and went up to the roof deck, where I sa
t in the dark, nibbling and swilling and generally feeling sorry for myself. Snack finished, beer almost so, I closed my eyes and tried not to think about Reeny, where she was, what she was doing, and who she was doing it with. It must have worked, because some unknown time later I was awakened by a distant pounding on my front door.

  Hauling myself to my feet, I went to the railing and peered over the side. A man stood furtively in the shadows by the front door.

  “Who is it?” I called.

  The man looked up. It was Chris Hastings.

  “Let me in, for crissake,” he demanded.

  I went downstairs and let him in. As soon as he was inside, he snapped, “Is Reeny here?” He looked as though he’d been sleeping in his clothes and hadn’t shaved in a week.

  “No,” I said.

  “Shit,” he said, looking around the room, a bit wildly, I thought. “Is this another of her goddamned games? Christ.” He took two or three quick steps toward the door, and for a moment I thought he was going to leave, but he turned to me and said, “Where is she?”

  “Working, probably,” I said.

  He shook his head so violently I thought he would fracture a vertebra in his neck. “I checked with the studio. She didn’t show up for work tonight. No one knows where she is. The producers are pretty pissed.” He ran both hands through the tangled mess of his hair and began to pace back and forth across the living room.

  “Didn’t she meet you last night?” I asked him.

  He stopped. “What? No. No, she never showed up.”

  I didn’t know whether to be relieved or more worried. If she hadn’t met him, where the hell was she?

  He held his head in his hands. “Argh,” he groaned. Then he came very close to me and speared me with a look. “You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”

  I backed up. His breath was foul. “No,” I said, but he’d already turned away again, pacing and muttering, as though engaged in a two-way conversation with himself.

  “Shit, no, of course not,” he said. “I should’ve known better. Damnit.” Then he froze in mid-stride, stood like a raggedy statue, head cocked to one side as if listening intently to something. “Of course,” he said suddenly, as if struck by a revelation. He turned to me. “She didn’t come back here last night, did she?”