“Some is, but not all of it. Anyway, when the women bought their extra lots, it pretty much put the kibosh on Roland’s plans, crazy as they were. It’s why he’s been so hostile to them.”
“Sheesh!” Ingrid said, “He ought to get down on his knees and thank us for saving him from wasting all his money on that cockamamie scheme.”
“Roland knows the cove too well,” said Grace. She pointed out a window to the spruce-covered hill above the house. “I think he’s been spying on us from up in the trees. It’s the only spot that provides a view right down on our deck.”
Garrett stared out the window. “You actually caught him doing that?”
“No, but I’ve walked up there myself when he wasn’t around. There are several places where someone cut tree branches to improve the view.”
“Who owns the land?” Garrett asked Keith, who just shrugged.
“It’s his land, Garrett. Nothing says he can’t walk on his own land and trim the trees if he wants to. Much as I don’t like it if that’s what he’s doing, Grace is the one who just admitted to trespassing.”
“Can’t you do something about it, Garrett?” Sarah asked.
He spread his hands. “Pretty hard if he owns the land. If you actually caught him looking at your house with binoculars … maybe … but he’d just claim he was bird-watching or looking at the architecture or something.”
“I know the bird he’s watching,” said Ingrid. “It’s Grace. As for the architecture—look, we weren’t crazy about the design of this place either. It’s pretty far out for this neck of the woods. We recognize that, but the price was right and the view is spectacular—at least on the ocean side.”
Garrett sighed. The relaxed evening he’d been looking forward to was turning into a legal primer. He met Sarah’s eyes and knew she understood how he felt. “I suppose you could build a fence to shield the deck,” he said dubiously.
“Damn it, Garrett,” said Ingrid. “Reason we moved here was because of the ocean view and the big spruce on the hillside. I don’t see why we have to shutter ourselves off just because we live next door to an asshole.”
“A whale,” said Grace.
“I stand corrected,” said Ingrid. “A whale of an asshole.”
“I kind of doubt Roland would be quick enough to come up with either the bird-watching or the architecture excuse,” said Keith. “He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean. Remember when he burned his boat?”
“He what?” Garrett asked.
“It was the highlight of last year’s season,” said Ingrid. “He’d been doing something in his boat on his way back in after a day of scalloping and the engine caught fire. He tried to make it back to the wharf and almost did, but the fire was nearly out of control. He opened the sea cocks thirty feet from the wharf to try to drown the flames. The boat sank in the shallows but not before it blew against the wharf and set the dock on fire as well.”
“How did he get off?” Garrett asked incredulously.
“Jumped into the water at the last moment, swam ashore, and called the fire department. They managed to save most of the wharf. He had quite a time with the insurance company though, figuring out who had to pay for what.”
“Only thing not underwater in his fishing boat were the WSR and GPS antennas,” said Keith. “He had to bring in a crane and have the thing lifted out, and he spent the whole summer rebuilding and drying out the engine. Had to buy all new electronics.”
“My god!” Garrett stared at them. “If it was anyone but Roland, I’d say that was utterly unbelievable.”
“Story was all over Misery Bay,” Keith went on. “Fishermen were winning drinks in every tavern up and down the coast with that one.”
“Can we
please
stop talking about Roland,” said Sarah, coming to Garrett’s rescue. “I thought you invited us here for dinner, not a Cribby seminar.”
“To turn a phrase,” said Ingrid.
“You’re right,” said Grace. “Enough about the whale. We’re celebrating the renewed silence of the cove.”
So they settled back and talk turned to the wet summer weather, cove news, and as always, with Keith in attendance, local history. He told them about one of the more obscure shipwrecks off Lighthouse Point. There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands of shipwrecks off the rocky coasts of Nova Scotia.
“It’s how Misery Bay got its name,” Keith said. “The shoals and offshore islands here were a ship’s graveyard back in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Wrecks were so common that bodies sometimes washed up by the score, the way bales of marijuana do today.”
“I remember when we were growing up,” said Garrett, “Keith found a Native American dugout down in the bay. It had been sunk with big rocks, probably as a way to hide it.”
“Really?” said Grace. “That’s fascinating. Who do you think it belonged to?”
“Well, we actually raised it from the lagoon,” said Keith, “and gave it to the Maritime Museum in Halifax. They determined that it was Mi’kmaq in origin and was close to six hundred years old.”
“That what got you so interested in local history?” Sarah asked.
Keith broke into a broad smile. “It was the first thing,” he said. “I just sort of got hooked on it after that.”
“Maybe Roland sank his boat as a way to hide it too,” said Ingrid. “Too bad he wasn’t aboard when it happened.”
“Can’t sink a whale,” said Grace.
The conversation threatened to deteriorate into another anti-Roland tirade, but Keith saved the day by beginning one of his patented soliloquies, this one on an elderly woman who lived in the next cove.
“Abbey Whynot,” he announced, as though answering someone’s question. “Related to the Voglers, you know. Her ancestors were the first settlers at Ecum Secum. Old Martin Vogler built himself a hut on the shore near Balcomb’s Lake. I was actually walking around the foundation a while back.”
Sarah glanced at Garrett, her face a question mark. He just shrugged. There was no stopping Keith once he got on a roll. Non sequiturs were his specialty.
“Her husband was a whaler,” Keith continued, as if this comment justified the conversational turn.
“I met her once,” said Ingrid. “A lovely lady. She must be ancient now.”
“Ninety-eight … last Thursday,” said Keith. “It was also her eightieth wedding anniversary. Church had a little celebration and cake for her. Her husband didn’t participate. He was killed at sea seventy-five years ago at the age of thirty-four. Whaler went down off the Grand Banks in the blow of ’39. Sixteen men killed. Storm hit late on a Friday afternoon and blew for three days.”
Garrett couldn’t repress a smile. Keith’s memory for obscure dates was a thing of wonder. The man had to have a photographic memory and must have spent his evenings pondering old church records and recorded deeds. Of course, it was possible he just made this stuff up, knowing no one would ever question him or try to verify anything he said. But Garrett knew that wasn’t the case. Keith simply loved history and enjoyed nothing more than being the dispenser of information.
He let the historian rattle on, relieved that Roland was no longer the topic. But he had a bad feeling about the long-term consequences of the local neighborhood feud.
28
K
ITTY DID SOMETHING THAT RARELY
occurred to her. She actually dressed down for her appointment with Lloyd. She traded her all-leather outfit for a pair of designer jeans, admittedly, but they were the most ordinary thing she owned. She added a plain dark blouse and even eased back on the makeup. It was all a real sacrifice, but when she looked at the results in the mirror, she had to admit she still looked gorgeous. It just wasn’t possible to hide her incredible beauty.
She was no fool, and took Garrett’s warning to heart. Men found her irresistible, which had often helped her career. Lloyd was a type she’d met before. He looked at her like a lizard sizing up a fly. She knew from the very first moment that he would do anything—even act like a gentleman if he thought it would work—to get into her pants.
Her appointment with him was for late Saturday afternoon, which seemed like a time when there would be plenty of kids and other staff around. But when she pulled in and parked in front of the main building, she was immediately aware that there were no other cars. She saw no kids or staff either, but assumed they were busy back in the gardens or other buildings.
She was halfway onto the porch before she saw Lloyd. He stood buck naked in the window holding a camera. The instant she saw him, the camera flashed, catching her startled reaction.
The next moment, Lloyd stood in the doorway, still with no clothes on.
“I like to work au naturel in the garden when no one is around.” He gave her a lecherous grin. “Maybe you’d like to join me?”
Kitty looked straight at him and said, “Sorry, I’m working.” She sat on one of the chairs on the porch, paying his glorious prick no further attention.
“I once interviewed the entire Calgary football team in their locker room,” she said. “Two-hundred-fifty-pound giants were coming and going with no clothes on the whole time.” She glanced down at Lloyd. “Believe me, there was a whole lot
more
to see on that occasion.”
Lloyd wilted visibly. He was silent for a moment, then retreated inside. When he reappeared, he wore jeans and a T-shirt. He sat down across from her. “Your loss,” he said.
Kitty leaned forward and placed a small tape recorder on the table between them. “You don’t mind, do you?” She asked. “I like to be accurate.”
“I don’t know. Exactly what is it you want to talk about?” He looked thoroughly pissed off and sullen. Exposing himself to an adult had proved less stimulating than it had been for fifteen-year-old girls. Kitty might have passed for fifteen herself, except for her more mature demeanor and presence. She’d been around the block a few times and had dealt with unwanted male attention since she was twelve years old.
“Well,” she began. “I wanted to ask you more about your haven for young people. In my business, one has to get around, ask lots of questions. One thing I heard was that you were connected with some of the escort services in the city.”
He started to interrupt, but she moved quickly to defuse the question. “My feeling is that it’s sort of a requirement of your job. You know, to study the places your kids come out of in order to better understand what they’ve been through.”
Lloyd’s look of indignation turned on a dime. “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “We’ve had extraordinary luck in turning young kids’ lives around. It’s important to know where they are coming from.”
The man was an idiot, Kitty decided. He’d just exposed himself to her in the most provocative way possible, even taking a picture of her reaction. And now he expected her to believe that he was so concerned about his protégés that he hounded the escort services in order to
study
them.
But it was part of Kitty’s professionalism that she’d begun the interview the way she had, complementing his
work ethic
, for Christ’s sake. Now Lloyd was back on familiar ground, boasting about himself. God, but men loved to boast in front of a beautiful woman. That small fact alone had gotten her some of the best material of her career. All she had to do was shut up and let her interviewees skewer themselves as they bent over backward in their attempts to impress her.
“I know my way around the services in Halifax,” Lloyd said, smugly. “Studied them for years, and of course I know some of the inside story from the girls we have here. I know how those outfits work and the hold they have on their girls.”
Kitty had no doubt this was the truth. He’d learned how to exploit young girls, and it made sense that he’d learned that particular skill during his on-the-job training, so to speak, at places like Sweet Angels. She was beginning to feel that, if anything, Garrett had underestimated Lloyd’s level of pathology.
“That’s interesting,” she said, leaning forward, her cute little forehead wrinkling. “How do girls get into the business in the first place?”
“Unfortunately, they’re easy marks. Pimps find them in all the usual places, bus and train stops, diners, moping around on the waterfront with no obvious resources. And of course, many of them are brought in from other countries. It’s kind of interesting, really.” He was clearly back at ease now, expounding on a subject he knew lots about to a beautiful woman who seemed to hang on his every word.
“How do you mean?” Kitty asked, her attention obviously riveted on this fascinating man.
“Well, the foreign girls have grown in popularity in recent years. It goes in waves. Russians were very big for a while, then Hispanics, and the last year or so, it’s been all Asians. Hard to know whether the market reflects the customers’ demands or the availability spurs the demand. Be an interesting study there.”
“So knowing the tricks of the trade, so to speak,” Kitty said, “you can come back here and apply what you’ve learned to straightening these kids out?”
He nodded. “And it’s not easy. You wouldn’t believe how much a lot of these girls want to go back on the job. They love the work. It’s all they know.”
That last remark Kitty knew was at least partly true. The girls had no resources, no education, no support from family. For most, the pimp who got his hands on her was the first person some of these girls felt had ever loved her.
She realized Lloyd was back to scrutinizing her in great detail. That she had shown real interest in what he was saying had rekindled his desire for her.
“Take you, for instance,” he said. “You could probably never believe you might actually like such a life. But I can tell you, you would be very popular. In a year, you’d be rich. You’d have a stable of regulars, all high-end clients, good-looking guys, rich guys who would treat you nice. Take you out to dinner in the best places. Hell, I know one girl who was so gorgeous that a guy … a wealthy Arab businessman … took her to live in Paris.”
Kitty looked down. “I guess I can see what you mean. That would be attractive all right for some women.”
“Maybe you?” Lloyd asked. He leaned forward, placed one hand on Kitty’s knee. “I could make it happen. I know some people. You could make more money than you ever dreamed of.”