Never Hug a Mugger on Quadra Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

  He tried to roll onto his right side but before he got there his encased foot jammed a line of coal-hot pain from toes to hip. Despite the painkillers. He stared again at the ceiling.

  Maybe he could talk to Harold, Harold had always been kind to him. No, that was a betrayal of Austin. Maybe if he pleaded with Austin, I can’t go on, please don’t make me . . . But he’d tried that, three times. Each time Austin said, consolingly, Of course you can, Shane. It’s essential. Consider the consequences if you don’t.

  He’d acceded to Austin once. He wouldn’t again. And what consequences then?

  He twisted to his left. Some pain, but less than the other way. Possibly by staring at the curtain that hung between him and the old guy in the next bed, sleep would come. He lay still. He took deep breaths trying to breathe the pain away. But it was Austin who had first taught him about breathing, and now the exercise was contaminated with Austin. Maybe Carl’s exercise: stretch the muscles, then relax them. Head muscles, neck, shoulders, arms, fingers. Chest. Stomach— He gave up. Because somewhere in his brain, Austin was grinning, whispering, Shane, it’s not going to help, you will of course acquiesce.

  In the past Shane might have shouted, No! But right now he didn’t know what to do, or even think. His leg throbbed. He shifted again to his back. Small tears slid down his cheeks. He felt his chest begin to shake, realized he was panting. Not good, stop! But he couldn’t. Derek, he thought, Derek!

  Outside light began to brighten the room. Safer out of the dark, he slept.

  • • •

  After lunch Noel and his brother walked down to the beach. Despite Seth’s declaration that he and Jan would get to his parents’ place by mid-afternoon yesterday, they hadn’t arrived until after dinner—a two-ferry wait in Tsawwassen. Why, on just an average summer day? Paul Franklin explained: in July and August, Friday afternoon is, by definition, not average; there’s always an overload on the ferries between the mainland and Vancouver Island. People don’t like whichever side of the Strait they’re on so they have to cross to the other side. Seth and Jan got to the house exhausted. They’d spent breakfast, the morning and a superior two-quiche lunch with salad and wine catching up, family stories that Kyra participated in too; she’d gotten to know the Franklins well during summers on Bowen Island. Now, while the Four Superwomen, as Paul called them, Astrid, Jan, Kyra and Alana, cleaned up and gossiped, and Paul took his nap, Noel and Seth walked.

  The beach, today pocked with seaweed debris tossed ashore from what may have been a storm somewhere north of Seymour Narrows, stretched for miles. The water lay flat, broken by splashing children and the occasional whisper of incoming tide. Only strong winds could create breakers; this afternoon the air hung still. When Seth and Noel spoke, their words were quiet. They talked about Seth’s work with NASA, he’d been seconded to an Astrophysics lab at UCSD. And what was he doing there? His specific role was classified, national security kept him from saying more. But life was good. And Jan’s work with autistic kids? At the start wonderful to do so much for these children, after a year depressing as she watched them make so little progress, then satisfying when she realized she was helping. Their son Keith, at Stanford, had spent two weeks with them earlier this month.

  “And you?” Seth asked. “The work’s good?”

  “Yes. Interesting. A pleasure working with Kyra.”

  “How about personally? Anyone new there?”

  Seth had of course known Brendan, and had liked him. Now Noel said, “No, and I don’t think there will be.”

  Seth said, “You’re not looking?”

  “No.” Noel shrugged. “If someone appears, who knows.”

  Seth carried on, “Kyra’s okay?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “She seemed a little tuckered over lunch.”

  “She has a right to be.” Noel told Seth about the car accident. “Not two days ago.”

  “On Quadra, right? Alana was real excited to go with you. She didn’t get in your way, I hope.”

  “No, she was helpful, and a delight. She’s got a good inquiring mind.”

  “What’s the case? Can you talk about?”

  “Sure. It’s not covered by national security.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Noel repeated what they had so far discovered, ending with the green van that had sideswiped Kyra and Shane, and forced Tim and his bike into the ditch. “Both kids are more or less okay. Shane’s broken leg may keep him from the Olympics. That must hurt a whole lot more than the wounds.”

  “Tough on both of them.”

  “Kyra and I’ve been trying to figure if somebody’s after the three sons, or if it’s a coincidence.”

  “Similar green van doesn’t sound like coincidence.”

  “And the three of them being harmed within three weeks doesn’t either.”

  “You’ve told the RCMP?”

  “Yeah. They’re checking out all vans registered on Quadra.”

  “The lady with the walker saw a bunch of vehicles?”

  “Right. And— Hey, she called one of them a truck, then said it was a van.”

  “Maybe less and less of a coincidence.”

  “We’ll have to get back to Mrs. McDougal. Maybe she had a better look at the guy who got out of the truck, or van, than she thought.”

  “Worth asking.”

  “But why? Why try to kill the Cooper sons?” Noel chucked a rock in the water.

  “They hurt someone and the guy wants revenge?”

  Noel nodded. “Could be.”

  “Or maybe the Coopers have something this guy wants? Money? Property?”

  “Not money. Jason gets by, but without Linda’s salary it’d be harder times.”

  “Their land?”

  “They’ve got their woodlot and licenses on two others.”

  “I don’t know anything about woodlots. Any money there?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought much.”

  “Maybe someone who wants the woodlots. Another tree farmer. Or a developer.”

  “No idea. I’ll ask Jason.”

  “Or maybe there’s a creep out there who just likes hurting people. Which doesn’t explain why he wants to hurt these three brothers.”

  “If it’s the same van, then one time he came from the van and attacked with a blunt instrument, and twice he attacked with the van itself.” Noel stopped walking and stared out at the smooth sea. He mused out loud: “Timing of the attacks. First, after dark. Second, at dusk. Third in the dark.”

  “One three weeks ago, the other two the same evening. Is he getting desperate?”

  “And— Damn.”

  “What?”

  Noel kept his eye on the sea, as if an answer could be found just under the surface. “There’s something but I can’t grasp it.”

  “Maybe not desperate but scared. Something the Coopers are doing that—”

  “No. Wait. Let me think.” Noel closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Derek in the dark, Tim at dusk, Shane in the dark—

  “How could the Coopers harm—”

  Seth went on. Noel didn’t hear him. A shudder took him. Zeke Pete saying, maybe a curse on the Cooper family? Hadn’t felt right. Why not? Derek in the dark but out of his truck, recognizable in the moonlight, Mrs. McDougal had said. Tim in the twilight, identifiable. Shane in the car, invisible. How did the van guy know Shane was in the Honda? Night, and the windows were tinted. Which meant—Another shudder. He was after the car. He’d tried to kill Kyra and himself. Not Shane.

  Take it easy. Just a hypothesis. Try it on Kyra.

  • • •

  “Isn’t it nice, the boys out for a walk,” Astrid observed. “They so rarely see each other.”

  “Uncle Noel comes down to San Diego at least once a year,” Alana pointed out.

  “I meant a walk from home, from this house, on the beach right here—” Astrid, flustered, looked out the screened sliding door, past the patio, north along the beach.

  “It is lo
vely,” Jan soothed, “for them to have a good natter. Let’s get these dishes under control and go for a walk too.” She was an inch taller than Kyra, nearly Seth’s height. A handsome woman radiating calmness and good will, she frequently touched another’s shoulders, arms, cheeks. More than Kyra liked, but her touch was soothing. Now Jan stood by her mother-in-law at the door, her arm across Astrid’s shoulder, while Kyra and Alana cleared the table.

  On a trip to the kitchen Kyra looked at the tableau of the women’s backs, their heads tilted toward each other, and felt a pang of desire for her own mother, Trudy. She was back now from Turkey—she’d been teaching Canadian Literature, seconded from Simon Fraser University. On her way off Vancouver Island, Kyra would phone her.

  My god, this embryo will turn me into a mother! Kyra nearly dropped seven plates onto the tile floor. Of course she’d known that fact, but it was emotional reality hitting her now. A mother. Forever and ever. Here she was, thirty-six, wanting her own mother. Did you ever stop being a mother? A child? That marriage commandment, till death do us part—the parent-child commandment never said it as such, but it was much more of an absolute.

  Dishes stored in the chugging dishwasher, Alana scrubbing quiche pans in the sink, Kyra wiped down the counters and wrung out the dishcloth. Jan and Astrid entered the kitchen, offering to help. Offer rejected.

  “To the beach then. Meet the boys.” Astrid said. “Paul won’t be up for an hour.”

  “Men,” Alana mouthed. Kyra caught it, and smiled.

  They collected hats and rubbed on sunscreen. The condo owners were expected to go out the communal front door to the paved path to the beach. But Paul, since their unit was the farthest corner one, had built stairs down from their patio. His unapproved action had brought on some raucous strata meetings, until common sense prevailed: nothing really wrong, and they were handsome stairs. The women walked down the path.

  “Where are your parents, Jan?” Kyra asked, as they attained the beach.

  “Dead.”

  “I’m sorry.” Kyra meant sorry about both—dead parents, and that she’d asked.

  “They were daredevil skiers and got caught in an avalanche. I was twelve.”

  “How did you manage?”

  “Boarding school, an aunt in the holidays.” Jan’s tone was even. She smiled and squeezed Kyra’s forearm. “Sounds worse than it was.”

  “Then you got married and had children.”

  “Well, I did a few other things, but essentially, yes.”

  “How did you find motherhood?” She shouldn’t be a bulldog. But intensity of the moment made her hold and drag and shake the subject.

  “Fine. I love it.” Jan smiled at Alana, and Astrid smiled at both, at all.

  “No, I mean really.”

  “Are you thinking of having a baby, Kyra?” Astrid asked.

  Kyra looked out at the Strait. Two fishing boats. An enormous cruise ship in the hazy distance on its way to Alaska. She pressed on. “A friend cites biorhythms, she’s older than I am, if she wants a baby she’d better get on with it. I don’t feel that way”—didn’t she?—“but she keeps talking about it.” She paused to excavate a pebble from her sandal. The other three waited. The sun was hot on their backs and heads and the saltchuck glistened too brightly to look at. Its salt and pepper smell stung their nostrils. Adjusting her hat, Kyra persisted, “What’s it really like, being a mother?”

  Jan said, with asperity and another arm-squeeze, “First you’re pregnant and then you don’t sleep for a number of years and then you have a person you keep coping with.”

  “Sounds awful!” said Alana. “Why would anyone?”

  Astrid laughed. “That’s a truncated version. There are things they don’t tell you in the pre-natal classes, but the rewards are greater than the drawbacks.”

  “Mom, you didn’t find Keith or me that bad, did you?”

  “No, dear, not at all.” Jan drew Alana into a hug. “Just a bit frantic at first.”

  “Is your friend married?” Astrid asked.

  “Well, sort of,” Kyra hedged. “How about you, Alana? Do you want children?”

  “Sure. But not alone. I don’t want to be a single parent. I know a girl who got pregnant last year and the guy ditched her and she dropped out once the baby was born even though the school tried to keep her in. Too difficult to do both, she said.”

  “My friend’s worried about labor.”

  Jan cast Kyra a hard look. “Most women survive. At least in the US and Canada.”

  “You tell your friend,” Astrid contributed, “once through labor, you forget it.”

  “How were your labors?”

  “Seth had a shoulder in the way so he took hours, and that was a bit of work. Noel was a breeze. Look, sweetie,” Astrid smiled at Kyra in a way that made Kyra think Astrid didn’t believe in the friend, “You tell your friend that women are built to give birth. Muscles adjust over pregnancy and the pelvic structure loosens up. After nine months the only thing you want is to have the inside lump outside.”

  “She’ll be pleased to hear that, maybe,” Kyra said. She didn’t feel very pregnant. She wasn’t tired and right now she didn’t have to pee urgently. Her breasts were tender, but so what. She felt the sun and prickles of perspiration in her armpits and a discomfort in her gut. Maybe she shouldn’t have had the second helping of quiche.

  “Look, there are my boys!” Astrid waved at distant figures who waved back.

  Alana rolled her eyes.

  • • •

  Noel sidled in beside Kyra and, sotto voce, asked her to stop on the patio for a brief confab. There he suggested the guy in the van had been out for detective blood, no way of suspecting Noel was not inside. He mentioned the woodlots—enough value for someone to commit personal attacks?

  “If somebody was after us, then the woodlot isn’t the issue,” Kyra said. “Conversely . . .”

  “Yeah, that’s right. At least maybe, from what we know.”

  “We’ve got to talk to Jason. And Mrs. McDougal.” Kyra winced.

  “What? You okay?”

  She shrugged. “Guess so.”

  “Maybe you walked too far?”

  “Hardly. It was okay. Who knows?” She looked strained.

  “Kyra, you really want to keep it? Raise it by yourself?”

  She took a breath, exhaled. “Right now I think, absolutely. Earlier, in the kitchen, I knew I had to get rid of it. Back and forth like that, three times this afternoon. Schizzy.”

  “How’re you going to decide?”

  “Toss a coin?”

  “Be serious.”

  “I don’t know how I’m going to decide. And I don’t know if I will decide.”

  “If you just let it go—”

  “I know, I know.”

  “I wish I could help, Kyra.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “What?”

  “Try to convince me one way or the other.”

  “You don’t have to tell me not to dare. This one’s all yours.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But if you want to do any out-loud thinking, I can react or not, your choice.”

  Her eyes misted up. He put his arms around her. “Whatever you decide, it’ll be the right thing.” Her head nodded against his shoulder. “Ready to join the others?”

  She found a tissue in a pocket, dabbed her eyes. “Let’s be sociable.”

  Inside, the kitchen smelled of the large forty-cloves-of-garlic stuffed chicken that was roasting. Paul offered drinks. Noel and Seth allowed how vodka-tonics would be just right. Kyra, with a wry smile, asked for juice.

  Alana said, “Vodka-tonic for me too.”

  Seth mock-glowered at her. “We let you go away for a week, and what?”

  Paul interrupted. “She can have a thin one.”

  “Thanks, Grandad.” She turned to her father, wrinkled her nose at him, grinned as well.

  Kyra thought, Family is good. She had that kind of relation with he
r own father, teasing and joking. With her mother, starting with returning home for vacations from Reed College in Oregon, she’d been a bit more formal. Why? Was she to blame? Or was her mother blaming her for something and she was withdrawing? She’d wondered if her mother had disapproved of her serial husbands, Vance whom she’d left after a few months when she discovered he enjoyed slapping her around, Simon the depressive who’d killed himself, most recently Sam who’d told her that to be happy she needed to live her own life and when she did, as a detective, he’d turned so jealous of her work he’d become impossible. But then her mother had taken up with a millionaire car salesman. Maybe she’d never figure it out. And what would her mother think of this pregnancy?

  “. . . to being all together,” Astrid was saying, raising her glass of red wine, followed by a chorus of “Yes!” and “Cheers!”

  Kyra watched Noel. He looked happy, but was part of him feeling, like her, that there was work to be done on Quadra and Campbell River? The idea, that the green van man was trying to stop Noel and her from investigating Derek’s beating, gave her pause. No fear, not yet, just desire to get at the real situation. She sipped cranberry and soda water. It softened the squirmy feeling in her stomach.

  They moved to the table where they found chicken, vegetables, potato casserole, salad. Noel said, raising his glass. “Another first-rate meal, thanks to all of you.” Astrid smiled, gratified, and said it was easy, she’d done most of it before they got here. More glasses on high. They ate. Desert appeared, crème caramel. Noel’s phone rang. He got up.

  Paul dipped into his crème. “Excellent!”

  Noel stepped out of the room and raised the phone to his ear. “Yes? . . . Yes? . . . You mean now? . . . Sure, of course.” He waited, listening. “Okay. See you there.” Back to the table. The others, except for Kyra who was watching him, were deep in conversation. He squatted by her chair. “Jason says Derek is coming out of the coma.”

  “Whoo. Let’s go.” She stood.

  Noel stood too. “Sorry, everyone. Major doings. We have to go back. Now.”

  Seth: “What’s happened?”

  “Derek, the man in the coma. He’s coming out. He might remember things.”