Never Hug a Mugger on Quadra Island (3 page)

“Just like to know who's phoning. Eliminates the surprise.”

“I don't like surprises. Thought you didn't either.” In fact, Austin knew Steve hated being caught unawares. “I just landed in Vancouver.”

“Going over tomorrow?”

“Floatplane, first thing. When are you arriving?”

“Oh, end of next week.”

“Get serious, Steve. We have issues to resolve. The season is approaching.”

“You think I am not fully aware? No worry, I'm booked on the Friday 1:10 to Campbell River.”

“I'll get Randy to pick you up.”

“Thanks, Austin. You are too gracious.”

“Damn right I am,” said Osborne.

“When does Shu-li get in?”

“Thursday afternoon.”

“How nice for you. Direct from Calgary? Or is she gallivanting?”

Of course direct. There are direct flights between civilized places. Austin said, “Direct.”

“See you Friday.”

Austin broke the connection. He should call Shu-li. Even with her successful if abbreviated career, which had taken her to competitions around the world, her nerves got panic-attacked before any flight. Luckily her recuperative power was strong. Without it she'd never have taken all those silvers and golds.

No luggage yet—the carousels weren't even turning. He poked in her number. Answering machine. He broke the connection.

Shopping? She liked doing that. Visiting someone? A consultation? No, definitely not. Shu-li was far too careful. They all had to be careful.

•  •  •

Ten
AM
and Kyra and Noel, down in the underground garage, got into his Civic. Suitcases in the trunk, on her lap her big sack purse containing her needs: make-up, camera, iPhone, Mace, flashlight, tissues, Band-Aids, tampons. Which she really didn't need, now.

Earlier they'd futzed about with breakfast. Kyra didn't want much, piece of dry toast and milk. Thanks. Last night she'd drunk milk at dinner. No wine, Noel, really. She'd flopped onto the chesterfield and taken control of his TV remote.

The elephant in the living room, Pregnant, swished its tail but fortunately not its trunk. Noel respected Kyra's desire to not talk about it so the only conversations took place on the TV screen. What had she been thinking? She'd gone off the pill after nearly two decades when she read about terrible side effects on the body as it responded to synthetic estrogen. She'd detailed them to him in vivid and gruesome disgust: she wouldn't do that to her body any more. He hoped she'd be careful. He thought: Pregnant.

For a few minutes Kyra flicked channels and complained, Nothing on. Then she pleaded fatigue. She took herself and her fetus to Noel's study sofa-bed. Early.

Before turning in Noel manoeuvred around the elephant to phone Jason. He and Kyra would meet him at the Campbell River hospital around three. The elephant followed Noel to his room. He lay flat on his bed. How is she going to manage a baby? What will Triple I do with a baby? Where do I fit in? What happens to Triple I? The elephant moved into bed with Noel. A long time before he fell asleep.

What with Kyra's fatigue, Noel's insomnia, and the elephant, it was late by the time they got going. He drove onto the street. “We have to talk about this baby.”

“Yes, we should.” Kyra sounded academic and distant.

“What are you thinking about it?”

“Not.”

“How do you feel?”

“Ehhh.”

“What may I do?”

Kyra sighed, a deep blow-out of breath. “What can you do? All I know is I think I'm keeping the baby and that's as far as I've got.”

Noel sighed too. The elephant in the back seat patted his shoulder with its trunk. “Want to talk about this case or about visiting my parents?”

“Your parents. We'll talk about the case between Qualicum and Campbell River.”

“I didn't tell you, Alana's been there for a week,” Noel said.

“What is she now? Thirteen?”

“Seventeen.”

“No!”

“Yep. Graduating high school next spring. She came down to Victoria with Mum and Dad and me when I drove Dad to his treatment last week. Alana and Mum shopped while Dad and I went to the clinic.”

Over the past month Noel had been driving his father to Victoria for prostate cancer treatment. Over that time she'd taken on a couple of small cases for Triple I, one on Lummi Island, one on Mercer—not much of an island, it had two bridges. Minor problems, low fees. Bad in two ways—reducing the balance in her bank account, giving her lots of time to worry. Now she thought, Noel can run the business while I have a baby. She breathed deeply against a wave of nausea. “And how is your dad?”

“Well, they say the treatment's working.”

“And your mum?”

“It's been hard on her. And she can't do highway driving because of her eyes, and Dad can't drive with the chemo.”

Driving. They both looked out the window at the road, the cars and trucks whizzing by, a July-blue sky, black sheep and white sheep in the browning green fields. Kyra pressed a switch and her window descended. Real difference in outside color, the tinted windows easier on the eyes but distorting too. Warm scented air blew in.

“My parents are delighted you'll be there for brunch.” Noel said.

“I haven't seen them in ages. And I haven't seen Alana since she was about six.”

“They don't come up much.” Idle chat. The elephant, taking up a lot of room.

“How far is Qualicum?”

“Oh, thirty minutes.”

“I have to pee. Pretty immediately.”

They were passing Nanoose Bay. With the tide out, the mudflats were ripe. “Hang on,” Noel said. “There's a gas station at the stoplight.”

Kyra did not like Pregnant having such control of her bladder. She tightened muscles. Goddamnittohell.

Of course the stoplight was red. Kyra tightened more muscles. Noel whirred into the gas station. She got out, walked swiftly, collected the restroom key, peed with relief, returned the key. Satisfied. “Thank you.”

Noel wondered if needing to pee abruptly grew from pregnancy or anxiety. The elephant in back was momentarily asleep.

•  •  •

Tim Cooper enjoyed working their woodlot, and being with his father was great. But did they have to decide today what to take out in the fall? And parts of the southern lot, over 386 hectares, hadn't been checked on in a year. They should walk the land, see what had happened, before making any firm decisions. But not this morning.

His mind kept wandering from their fir, maple and cedar, heading in only one direction: over Discovery Passage to Campbell River, up to the hospital, to the bed his brother lay in. Derek hadn't moved in three weeks. Would he ever move again? Those were the issues of the moment, not a bunch of trees. His dad was planning on the noon ferry, still a couple of hours away. His mother, in the same hospital as Derek, wouldn't be at his side, but wherever a nurse was needed. Though she couldn't do much for Derek right now. But Derek needed someone with him. Someone other than Cindy. Cindy was—oh, okay, and she did care for Derek but she wasn't family. Tim had read that people in comas can maybe hear what's being said or feel someone's hand, they just can't react or talk back. If he had his driver's license, he'd take Derek's truck and be there right now. But that had to wait eleven months. What's going to happen to Derek before next year? He glanced at his watch again—

“Hey, Timmy! Come look at this!”

He jogged ahead and spotted his father bending over, staring at the ground. “What's up?”

“Here.” Jason Cooper pointed a little way into the woods at a heap of earth nearly five feet high. It seemed to be moving. “And here,” he gestured down to their feet.

“Wow.” A trail of ants three wide marching across the dirt road, many carrying tiny white eggs. They were transporting them from the heap which, as Tim looked closer, was actually a huge ant hill. “Neat. What are they doing with the eggs?”

“Probably starting a colony somewhere on the other side of the road.”

“Should we let them?”

“Course. They break down leaf matter.”

“And maybe trees?”

“Only when a tree's down. They'll speed up new soil production.”

One of the things Tim most admired about his father was the precision of his explanations. His father hated waste, in language as in most aspects of daily life. “So ants are good for the woodlot.”

“Part of the system. Take them away, the system's that much poorer.” Jason looked his son square in the eye. Tim and Jason stood about the same height, each half an inch under six feet. They both had high foreheads and blue eyes. Jason's beard was going white, Tim had yet to grow more than fluff. They both wore jeans and thin long-sleeved shirts. Jason said, “How come you were hanging back?”

“Thinking.”

“Derek?”

“Yep.” Tim dropped his father's glance. “You think—he'll come out of it?”

Jason lay his hand on Tim's shoulder. “Yes,” he said. “That's what I think.”

“But you don't know, do you.”

“I can't see the future, son. Much less control it. Except here on the lot.” He dropped his hand to his side. “This I can plan. We can plan.”

“Can we go over now? I'd like to.”

“Let's take another half hour here. We're too late for the 11:00 anyway.”

Tim looked at his watch. If they pushed, they might still make the 11:00. But he didn't argue. More than anything Tim wanted Derek to get better, and quickly. Right after that he wanted the mystery solved, why his brother was so god-awful beaten. If he could be the one to solve it, even better.

They walked for ten minutes to the northwest sector, the only sound the tromp of their boots on the forest floor among the big firs. The high sun was penetrating the thick foliage canopy, raising the tangy scent of newly growing branch tips and warming duff. A squirrel chittered and a pileated woodpecker rat-a-tapped. His father, staring at the near distance, said, “Oh dear.”

“What?”

“Over there.” He gestured forward, then crunched through brush and downed branches. The woodpecker and squirrel went silent.

Tim saw his father's concern. Half a dozen big fir, each maybe twenty inches in diameter, lay aslant, uprooted, crowns of downed trees interhooked with branches of upright trees. The root masses, spreading fifteen to eighteen feet, showed how shallow the roots had grown—very little topsoil here, old volcanic rock. “Must've been that windstorm in April,” Jason said.

Tim nodded. Roots intrigued him. Tim had learned the details of photosynthesis in his biology class but had been prepared for his lessons by his father's explanations when he was small. “What're you going to do, Dad?”

“Don't think we can get lumber out of those. Have to buck and split it for firewood.” He stared ruefully at the uprooted trees.

They'd be worth less than what they'd get for logs that went to the mill, Tim knew. Which these days was little enough. Sure hoped Derek would be okay by then, and willing to pitch in—Tim didn't want Randy around helping out again. Randy gave him the creeps. “Dad, you aren't going to hire Randy again, are you?”

“I've been thinking I might get Zeke to help out.”

Relief. “Great. Randy's bizarre.”

“He's not bad. A hard worker. Knows what to do without always being told.”

“Anyway, I like Zeke.” He glanced at his watch: 11:10. Plenty of time to get on the noon ferry if this wasn't July; with all the summer people there might be an overload.

Jason may have been thinking this as well. “Come on, let's get going.”

They walked back the fifteen minutes to the house, a rambling early 20th-century farmhouse in a clearing, surrounded by small barn, workshop, a couple of storage sheds. Eighty acres of the land had been a working farm—hay, cattle, a few sheep, and a kitchen garden—when Jason's mother's father, Harry, was a young man; then Harry had turned the pastures into more woodlot, way less drudgery, soil hadn't been great in the first place. He'd planted cedar and fir, and found work on the big island. Tim wanted to grow up the way his grandparents had, the farmhouse the comfortable place where Grandpa had lived, where Tim and his family lived. A happy place. Till three weeks ago.

Tim changed into shorts and a T-shirt, Jason into khakis and a short-sleeved shirt. They each took a banana and an apple and climbed into Jason's Corolla, deep blue, five years old, and drove down the long dirt drive to the macadam of Gowlland Harbour Road. The woodlot on the farmhouse side of the road belonged to Jason; across the road was Crown land held by Jason on long-term license. Good trees on both sides.

It was ten minutes to the ferry dock at Quathiaski Cove, four miles. But Tim felt nervous. Sooner they got to Derek's bedside the better.

Jason said, “Going to stop for a paper.”

Tim glanced again at his watch—11:38. He thought, Get the damn paper in Campbell River. He said only, “Is there time?”

“Sure.”

Tim felt the car speed up. Good. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Usually if something seemed wrong, he'd scan it and most often be able to figure out where or how that bit of out-of-placeness leapt the tracks. Not this time. Whoever had beaten Derek couldn't have had a reason because Derek was simply a nice guy everybody liked. Nothing stolen from the truck, the change in the glove compartment all there in the old film canister, even the ferry ticket card was there, and the truck itself hadn't been stolen or bashed around. For the dozenth time Tim said, “I'm not getting it, Dad.”

“Derek.”

“Why?”

“Yep, that's the question.”

“You'd think—if it was robbery—”

Jason shook his head. “Doesn't look like it.”

“You think—somebody was mad at Derek?”