by Lou Allin
Norman listened with customary patience. “Holly, my dear, I’m sorry to hear about your friend, but you can’t take it so personally. You’re starting to remind me of your mother. She wasn’t moody like I get. When she was passionate about something …”
“It’s not as if I can do anything about this. I wasn’t a witness. This poisonous little snake is going to take Chipper down.” She made a pistol of her hand and shot several times.
Norman wiggled his eyebrows, for him a nervous habit. Then he took a few small bites, casting worried glances across the table. “Eat up. I’m not giving yours to Shogun. He was over twenty-two kilos at the vet. You know what a chowhound he is.” The dog was seated at attention, staring at them, a string of drool coming from his mouth. She snapped her fingers and waved him away into the TV room, knowing that his incorrigible appetite wasn’t really his fault. Her father was trying to distract her, bless his silly heart.
“But Chipper. He’s so young and he has such … this just isn’t fair …” Against her will, she felt moisture well at the corners of her eyes and turned away. A third glass of wine appeared at her hand.
Her father gave her the cool assessment that made him the kind of a professor that could quell tempests with a rapier phrase. “Does this young man mean something more to you than you’re letting on?” He’d never questioned her on her love life, non-existent though it was. Her privacy was respected. “None of my business,” he’d often say about common gossip about departmental marriages and the occasional affair.
Her quick answer surprised even her, and the edge of her mouth rose in a nervous smile. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s my colleague. And of course he’s my friend. So is Ann.”
Was she protesting too much? Norman took her at her word, then blotted his mouth with the serviette. “You’re coming to realize that not much is fair in this man-made world. If it were, your mother wouldn’t …” His voice weakened and trailed off. His gaze looked up to Bonnie’s university graduation picture on the wall, lustrous raven hair falling to her shoulders. Holly was now seven years older than her mother had been when she passed the bar. Life was carrying them on while she lingered behind, forever ageless. When people asked to stay young, they needed to understand that it was not an unmixed blessing.
Injustice had come even earlier to Holly. In second grade, she had been wrongly accused of copying from another student on a spelling test and was made to stand in the corner by the asbestos-covered water pipe poking between floors. Her teacher Miss Henderson, pushing retirement age, had frayed nerves and often shook children, one hand for minor infractions, two hands for serious. The principal resembled Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny and was no help. When Holly had come home and cried to her mother, Bonnie had said, “I know you did nothing wrong. Miss Henderson will be retiring in June, about forty years too late. Stay out of her way and let her leave with dignity. Always take the high road even though it’s not the easiest choice. You’ll sleep better. And the view is better from above.” Perhaps now she appreciated the loyalty, misguided or not, that the principal had shown the teacher. A leader supported the troops. Problem was, there was nothing she could do but stew.
“After a life in the classroom, I’ve seen pretty much everything. Professors are rather tame, but every now and then … We’ve had a few who tippled or crossed the line on dating female students. Complaints come with the territory. Take the eternal carping about grades. A C used to be average.” Norman shook his head.
Holly forced a smile, unable to see her father committing any of those crimes. Nor was he an easy marker. He knew students often took popular culture because they thought it was a bird course. Then they found themselves with a fifteen-page essay exam and never-ending term papers with every footnote eyeballed. “You’ve been to a few grade appeals, I know, but …”
“And never lost one yet. My records are sterling.” He paused to brush his hand over his Brylcreemed hair in a mild preening gesture. “Not that professors don’t get involved. There’s so much temptation from those nubile young girls who idolize you, especially in the humanities. All that poetry, art, and music attracts the dreamers.”
“But surely you …” She gave him a fresh assessment. An attractive man, he was still no George Clooney. Imagining one’s parents as sex objects had to be the last thing on any normal person’s mind. She cast her thoughts back to her own university days. What about that law professor with the curly hair and chocolate brown eyes? His Irish accent could undress any woman without body armour and, acting many roles, he’d spun dramatic courtroom scenes that mesmerized them. Once, in innocence she was sure, he had put his hand on her shoulder as she wrote an exam and said …
Holly looked up.
“I’m the old man to you, but don’t be naive. There are a few who are out to make trouble. Think of the odds.” He spun out points on his fingers. “Hundreds of students passing each year through your classes. You’re going to hit a bad one every now and then. One girl threatened to tell the dean that I propositioned her unless I gave her an A.”
Holly stopped short of snorting wine out her nose. The batch was beginning to taste good. “Really? I mean, of course.” Her mother, frustrated over the years by her husband and the trivia he worshipped, had finally found a soul mate in a social work instructor at nearby Camosun College. Once Holly got to university, the divorce would have proceeded. This shocking fact she had realized only after returning to the island. Norman claimed that he had had no idea and was the one at fault in any case.
Intrigued, she’d gone to meet the man, surprisingly a decade younger than Bonnie. Ordinary next to her father. But he’d had something Norman didn’t. A passion to help others. Planning to hate him on sight, she found that the striking pastel portrait of Bonnie on his office wall nearly brought her to tears. He was an honourable man. Her mother would have had none other. He had a rock-solid alibi for the time Bonnie disappeared. He grieved as much as they did.
“So what did you do? It must have been complicated.” Could his advice help Chipper or the detachment?
He swept his hand in a grand gesture, narrowly missing the oil and vinegar carafes. “I told the little baggage to take it to the bank. I had always kept my door wide open, despite the lack of privacy. Male professors know that much. I bluffed her plain and simple like she was bluffing me. Little Miss Evil turned on her wicked heels and dropped the course that afternoon. I asked around and found that she’d tried the same thing on three other men in the last year. They’d capitulated. I went to the chairman post haste and put a letter into her permanent file. Game, set, and match.” He crossed his silverware on his empty plate and let his serviette drop in a gesture worthy of Clifton Webb.
“Nice going. I had no idea. But this is different. It happened out in the middle of nowhere. No witnesses. It’s going to be a case of ‘he said, she said.’ The way Chipper described her, I wouldn’t put it past her to give herself bruises.” She found herself surprised at the hostility she felt towards a girl she had never met.
“What happened to that union you talked about a while ago? Is there no one to speak for you?”
“We have the right to form one, according to a recent court decision, but you know how long it takes for wheels to turn and the organization to be built. According to the RCMP Act, the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, as cumbersome as a woolly mammoth, should be handling Chipper’s situation. Very in-house. That’s why the average person thinks that we close ranks to protect ourselves.”
She told him what she had learned about the process. The stats weren’t that bad, even though the press could sensationalize any event. Among twenty thousand officers across the country, there were fifty to sixty formal disciplinary cases a year. Four constables were asked to resign. They had uttered threats, improperly used a police vehicle, had sex while on duty, or committed sexual assault. That put Chipper in a very rare category. Lesser charges involved loss of pay and simple reprimands followed using bad languag
e or viewing pornography at the office. One officer was suspended for taking small change from the desk of another. Sacrificing a career for seventy bucks?
“I see. And since the protocol’s being fast-tracked, you’re thinking that Chipper …”
“May not get a fair hearing. And worse yet, he might have to face civil charges for sexual assault.” She forked into the hash, realizing that it was nearly cold. “And even if he’s cleared, the suspicions will remain. Everyone jokes about getting sent to Atlin up on the gold-rush trail. Just when I have us all working as a team.”
“What about the girl? What kind of connections does she have to carry this so far? Is she related to the Governor General? The prime minister?”
She gave a self-critical bark of a laugh. “That’s what I forgot to tell you. Her father is Leo Buckstaff.”
“Aha. The thick plottens.” He drew his slender fingers along his chin in contemplation. A mischievous gleam came into his eyes. “I know the old bastard. Pardon my language. The word suits him.”
A breath caught in her throat. “Tell me everything.” Karma was coming up roses for a change.
He started to clear the table. “Leo’s been a thorn in my side at the faculty senate for years.”
Holly barely noticed the Neapolitan ice cream he brought. The major three flavours in a block. Exotic for the time. The Toll House cookies redeemed the meal. “How long have you known him?”
He spooned up a mouthful. “He and I came in the same year. Pompous ass. Graduated from Yale like Dubya and thinks he rules the world. I’ve been on several committees with him. He hogs the floor and crushes any opposition. Hates foreigners, as he calls them, even though he came up from the States himself. He tried to deny tenure to Jerry Chan. The man nearly won a Nobel Prize for his work in chemistry. Almost succeeded until the entire department came down on him.”
“So he’s a bigot. That could be good or bad for us. It sure does explain his daughter’s attitudes.”
“He disguises his prejudice in ambiguous words. Scratch his skin, and you’ll find a holocaust denier too careful to be caught. We’ve made jokes about his wife washing his sheets with eyeholes in them. She’s another royal pain. Butter wouldn’t melt and all that. Heads up some charity but she’d run over a street person with her BMW and ask the victim to wipe off the bumper.”
“Surely not the klan in Canada.” The mother sounded like as much trouble as the father. Chipper would have the wrath of an entire family.
“He’s from South Carolina. His accent gets thicker every year. Calls the Civil War the War of the Northern Oppression. Or Aggression. Whatever.” Norman got up to bring cups of decaf.
“So you think he can be taken down?”
Norman gave a cautious whistle at her insinuation. “He’s a VP now. Wields plenty of power around the university in his little kingdom. Wants to be president, but that’s against protocol. We always fill that position from outside, even out of province if possible. Less cronyism. It’s significant that he thinks that he can get away with that breech. 101 percent ego.”
Holly felt more cheerful at this inside information. That accent wouldn’t help him up here. It might even alienate people. She felt her appetite returning and was sorry that she had seen the rest of her plate go to Shogun, who was now snoring on a sheepskin down in the solarium. “And his daughter?”
“Samantha? She who can do no wrong? Got into the university at sixteen. Thinks she’s the queen of every class. Obnoxious little prig. But brains don’t equal common sense.”
“So in temperament she’s like the old man.”
“That’s the word. But I haven’t had any contact with her, thank God. I think she’s majoring in psychology. Everyone who needs help does that.” He tapped his temple for effect.
She finished her dish of ice cream and called Shogun to lick the bowl. “I have a favour to ask.”
“From me? I’d give you the world on a string.”
“Wrong period, Dad; 1922.” He’d done his best to spoil her despite her mother’s influence as the tough cop. “Find out whatever you can about Samantha. She may have used this tactic before. Ask your colleagues but only the discreet ones.”
He smiled enigmatically and blotted his mouth demurely. “Discretion is my middle name. Do you have to deputize me?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ann had the CPC website on her screen when Holly arrived, including the four-page online form for making complaints. “This is such crap even if it is an improvement over the last one,” Ann said. “Look at the timeline. Complaints as well as the request for materials are acknowledged within a few days, but it can take up to six months for a report to be delivered to the complainant.”
“Six months is a lifetime when a career is at stake,” Holly added.
With her brain honed sharp as a straight razor, Ann provided an executive summary as she read. The most frequent complaint from the public was member attitude, a highly subjective situation which could include dismissive, rude, non-responsive, or biased behaviour. After that came the quality of criminal investigation. Typically an interim report was sent to the commissioner of the RCMP and the Minister of Public Safety. The commissioner was to prepare a response and then would come a final report. Timeliness was important to maintain the credibility of the force, and efforts were constantly being made to speed the process. When months and years went by, a case was severely compromised.
“I’m not sure this fast-tracking is better,” Holly said. “We could have a witch hunt.”
“A few years ago, before the latest scandals, this situation might have been dismissed, not that you or I would want that were the accusation true. The worst thing is that there is nothing we can do now to help him,” Ann said. “The idea about replacing us all with a provincial force is not an idle threat. One more huge scandal could start the process in earnest. It’s looking as if the only factor preventing it is the cost, which could run into the hundreds of millions in an otherwise bleak economic period So much for our proud history.” She snapped her fingers in a derisory gesture.
Holly looked at Chipper’s neat desk, where three pencils with perfectly sharpened points sat in a “Welcome to SuperNatural B.C.” coffee mug along with three pens, red, black, and blue, next to a tattered pocket dictionary. His computer screensaver played a series of scenes, one for each province. The Saskatchewan wheat fields gave way to the majesty of the Rockies. Imagine them someday without the RCMP. It could happen.
“I’m hoping my father will find something, but quietly. We don’t want this backfiring.” Holly told Ann what he’d said.
Ann pooched out her lower lip and nodded. “That’s the first good news we’ve had. I knew this girl was a psychopath in training. She had to leave a slime trail somewhere.”
“Have you heard from Chipper? There’s nothing on the answering machine. We asked him to keep us posted.”
“He could have called us at home, too, if he wanted to stay off the record.”
“It may be a question of his pride. Let’s stop brooding and get back to work on the French Beach assault case. He’d want to know that we’re tending to business, not despairing about his chances. The show must go on, as they say in the movies. I could use a bit of Ethel Merman’s energy right now.”
“Your dad sounds like a lot of fun. Mine was in business. Rarely home even on the weekends. And my mother demonstrates the phrase ‘only the good die young.’” Ann crossed herself for luck.
With Ann’s direction, Holly checked the records back ten years to when the detachment had been opened. Given the burgeoning population, the decision to expand west beyond Sooke had been amazingly proactive for an organization that resisted change.
Hours later, they compared notes. Aside from a few domestics and drunk and disorderly, no women had been assaulted, and certainly not in any of the parks.
“I’m no profiler, but we have a rogue male here. Chances are, under thirty.”
Ann chuckled. “That’s wha
t the stats say, but keep an open mind for the anomaly.”
“That Paul Reid character. If he hadn’t come by …” She kept remembering the Bible. Was she misjudging the man? Condemning him for an innocent act on the level of a repressed Victorian thumbing through the ladies’ underwear pages in the 1897 Sears Catalogue that her father had shown her?
Ann’s unplucked eyebrows formed a question arch. “I’ve been wondering about him. You said he lived alone. Sort of a recluse? You do see where I’m going.”
“Around here, there’s one on every corner. That’s hardly a crime.” The area was full of harmless eccentrics. Long before the draft dodgers arrived, artists, conservationists, gadflies of all varieties found homes on the island. If you were content with a mossy trailer, you could live on minimal pensions.
The phone rang with another noise nuisance call. Bread and butter of the small detachment, but Holly disliked it more than traffic duty. People felt that they lived “in the country,” where dogs could run free and bark their guts out. No one wanted to put up expensive fences for half an acre. Rover might be fine in the yard, but the next moment he was off chasing cars or deer. Dr. Joe and the crew at the vet hospital made strong suggestions about neutering, but people often ignored them, especially those with pit bulls. The worst “dropped off” their kittens and puppies so that they could have a “happy home” in the wild. More and more roosters were arriving from Victorian “city farmers.”
“Ouch,” Ann said, moving with obvious care.
“What’s wrong?”
“Damn. I reached the wrong way under the sink last night.”
“Take care of yourself. We may be short-staffed for a while.”
“It’s a muscle strain. Not my damn discs. Give me credit for knowing the difference.”
“Okay. You’re the boss on that subject.” Holly spread her hands in surrender mode.
Shortly before Holly came, Ann had tackled a robber on a crime spree and could have retired on a disability from her back injury. Through the force’s policy on accommodation, she had been allowed to stay on at a desk job. Holly had been told by Ann’s former boss never to call her after dinner when she might be into the sauce and adding a few painkillers. Their first few weeks had been prickly when Holly took the place Ann had earned, but common goals had brought mutual respect.
