“Impressive. I love the stained glass window for the main building.”
“Local artist. She’s a genius. Wins every year at the Sooke Art Show.” Marilyn grinned, energized by talking about her project. “Call me in the late summer, and I’ll give you a tour. We can even have lunch. I’m lining up a cook who specializes in food grown on the island. All organic, of course. A couple of farms in the Otter Point area are signing on.”
“Sounds good. Maybe I can get my father interested in one of your weekends.” He might become more flexible about his popular-culture diets.
“Tai chi. Hot and cold yoga. He’s a tense man. Tries not to show it. Often cool cucumbers hide their feelings under a protective shell. Does he get colds and flu more than normal?”
Marilyn had seen through his façade to the passion within. He was not an old fossil, an enigma of a faithless professor. He was her father, a human being with harmless foibles. “He takes pretty good care of himself. And I’ll remember your offer. It would make a good birthday present.”
* * *
The next day, on a routine tour around Fossil Bay, Holly saw 150 something on the pavement in front of Marilyn’s. “Fuck you, Bitch” was spray-painted in white letters five feet tall, an arrow pointing to the cottage. Holly got out and knelt down to inspect the fresh work of a coward. Marilyn’s car was gone and the shades drawn.
Next door was a modest bungalow. Farther down, the street ended in a cul de sac and a greenbelt with trails to the clear-cuts beyond. She knocked at the door of the bungalow. From the living room window, a strange, whiskered face looked at her, ears twitching. Out of reflex, she stepped back. A weasel?
A trim woman in shorts and white athletic socks answered. Curly hair framed her face like a Madonna. For some reason, she was partially blocking the opening with her body, shifting her legs. No one liked the police at the door unless invited.
“Yes, officer? What is it?”
“I just—”
Before Holly could look down, a sleek brown shape scuttled out and raced for the bush. “Teasel!” the woman called, slamming the door behind her. “Dear god. He’s loose again. Help me, will you?”
“What do you want me to do?”
The woman motioned her to come along, and they both headed to the end of the road, where Teasel had disappeared into a thicket of berry bushes. The flowers on the salmonberries had just appeared, bringing out the trill of the Swainson’s thrush in nature’s orderly enfolding, and the blackberries were close behind. Heavy salal crowded the underbrush.
The woman, whose name was Kate, she told Holly breathlessly, was panting, hand at her chest. She seemed close to tears as they stopped at the cement barrier blocking cars and trucks from the trails. “It’s too thick. I’ll never find him.”
Holly moved a few branches aside, then looked at her, helpless at the distress. “Does this happen often?”
“Never. I’m very careful. There are cats in the neighbourhood, and the ferrets are so tame that their lives can be in danger. Luckily Rosey didn’t get out. She’s albino, a perfect target for predators.” Her eyes were wild with love and fear. “Albinos are rare for good reason. She’s called a sprite. That’s an unspayed female.”
Holly put her hands on her hips to buy herself a minute’s thought. Another one of those cat-up-a-tree situations that tied up police and fire resources. Still, public relations were important, and she hated to leave someone in panic. Perhaps the ferret would scuttle home on its own. No one ever found a cat skeleton in a tree. ”I’m not sure that we—”
“Can you sing ‘Morning has Broken’?” Kate’s pink cherub face wore one last hope. “Or just hum along. The louder the better. It drives Teasel crazy.”
“Won’t that make him run even farther?”
“Oddly enough, no. He’ll try to get me to stop.”
More than self-conscious, Holly cleared her throat. At a pitch note and the count of three, she and Kate began their duet, Kate singing an alto to Holly’s soprano.
At last there was a rustling in the bush, and a brown face with a sharp nose poked out. Intelligence gleamed in its beady black eyes. It bore a clear resemblance to a meerkat, and Holly half expected it to stand and peer around. “Teasel! You come here, and you come here now, mister!” Kate bent down to scoop up the ferret and wrap him in her bush jacket.
“They must be high energy,” Holly said, wiping her bloody hand where a bramble had scraped it.
“Not so. Ferrets are very calm and laid back. They sleep much of the time. Sometimes you can see their little bodies expand and contract as they breathe. It’s very restful.”
They were both laughing as they came back down the street, mission accomplished. “I noticed this spray paint. It wasn’t here yesterday,” Holly said, scanning the area in case the can was still around. “That’s destruction of public property. Do you know who did it?” She took it for granted that young people had been involved.
Kate shook her head. “Like the rest of us, Marilyn can’t stand these kids on their noisy quads coming through to access the clear-cuts.”
“They’re not supposed to run on roads, even to cross,” Holly replied. The other day, some young man in Sooke had received a ticket of over six hundred dollars for driving down Otter Point Road.
“Marilyn’s had some harsh words with them. Her partner was so sick, and often the noise kept her awake. Said she was going to phone your detachment. The riders don’t even have licenses, much less insurance.” Kate bent closer. “Sometimes only a man can get through to them. I thought of calling my cousin.”
“Have you seen the ATV? Colour? Make?” Holly took notes.
Kate described the machine. It had a death’s head on the tank. Expensive custom painting. “On weekends, that’s when they usually arrive. This boy’s thirteen or fourteen. Sometimes friends on bush bikes come with them. Sometimes during school hours, too. How many PD days do those lucky teachers get?”
“Not enough to make me sign on. Anyway, school closed last week, so it will only get worse. That death’s head shouldn’t be hard to trace. I’ll ask at the gas station. I doubt they fill up with a jerry can. Too much bother.”
Bush bikes and other off-road vehicles had grown in popularity, despite the rise in fuel costs. They operated on a sneaky basis, in and out for gas after dark, accessing roads and alleys to get to the clear-cuts. Once there, they found their way around the locked gates. What business did a kid have with a ten-thousand-dollar machine?
Holly called Marilyn that night and explained about the graffiti. She answered the phone as if she’d been waiting for a call.
“I thought it was the Jubilee calling. They’re keeping...Joel there until I can make arrangements. They’ve really been quite kind. And a staff sergeant from West Shore helped me locate the pencil case. And the money I gave him, too.”
“I’m sorry you had to get involved with this petty vandalism after what you’ve been through.”
Marilyn gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I didn’t know writing on the pavement was against the law, but the language is offensive, and it is paint, not chalk. I suppose I angered that little...young man when I complained about his machine. Don’t they have mufflers? I make noise, therefore I am. Maybe I was sarcastic. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
“Let me take care of it. I’ll find out who the bike belongs to.”
“Thanks so much. Who would have thought living out here could have such problems. What purpose do those gas-guzzling monsters serve?”
“Hunting or just raising hell. I suppose they have their uses on farms or in remote places. Like snowmobiles.” She thought of her own small red Bravo, sold when she left The Pas. She’d enjoyed the freedom of the winter, heading over swamps and through country only a moose or rabbit could navigate. Now she’d have to go up to Mt. Washington if she grew nostalgic about the white stuff.
At the Petro Canada station in Fossil Bay, Holly spoke to Mac, the genial giant with a billiard-ball head who ran the place. When she described the bike, he snapped his horny fingers. “I know that one. Scott Bouchard’s a spoiled brat. His family lives on Sproat Road. The father, Paul, is away on business most of the time. Leaves the kid to his wife, who thinks the sun shines out of his ass. Remember those broken tombstones at the old pioneer cemetery? Just got to wreck something, but try to catch them at it. My granddad is buried there. Next thing you know it’ll be chain-linked. Just plain disgusts me.” He gave her a brief description, and they checked the address in the directory.
The Sproat Road home was dark. Nobody home. She left her card with a “please call us” stuck in the door crack. As she headed down Otter Point Place, she noticed a strange bird standing in a driveway to the Dodo Farm. A turkey vulture. No obvious wounds, no broken wing, just calmly turning from scavenger to roadkill, prey for the next car rushing by. She debated catching it for the Wild Arc rehabilitation people. But without a net... It would have to take its chances. Like Joel, some creatures were too damaged for a normal life span.
Driving slowly by as the bird hopped a few feet, she checked her mental calendar. Tomorrow morning she was due for a taser upgrading seminar in Nanaimo. She wanted that paint off the pavement. Chipper could talk to the boy. His interview skills were progressing nicely.
C
hipper gave himself a final once-over in the washroom mirror at the detachment, surrendering a slight frown and brushing lint from his dark blue jacket. From a kit bag he retrieved a small comb and tweaked his short, curly brown beard. Some Sikhs saved their hair and nails, but he wasn’t that orthodox. After adjusting his turban, he rinsed the sink as his mother had taught him.
He thought about the office. Ann was only fourteen years older than he was, but with her grown son, she was more like a younger aunt. He got along well with her and had been prepared to accept her as his new boss. Then came the accident, and Ann’s career had taken a left turn into a desk. Had she handled the situation by the book, or had she taken one chance too many?
In another few years, like her and like Holly, he’d be a corporal. By thirty-five, a staff sergeant with a command of a dozen. To be posted to a major city in B.C., he’d have to leave the RCMP. And wearing the red serge, even if only on formal occasions, was a matter of great pride. Like many other officers, he was disturbed by the negative publicity the force had been getting thanks to a few bad apples. The taser deaths and other scandals had hit them hard. They weren’t adapting to the twenty-first century as quickly as needed but were preserving elitist mindsets, some thought. One political party had recently suggested a return to the provincial police system. BC. without the mounties? Unthinkable. Every time he saw a light in the eyes of a boy or girl when he went to the local grade school, it made a difference.
Holly had briefed him on the pavement painting. Though not classified as a hate crime, this graffiti was nasty and mean, a personal attack, not a mere ego tag. He agreed with Holly that he was a better choice to connect with this boy. She wasn’t a micro-managing control freak. Building on their individual strengths was part of her leadership challenge.
He decided not to phone the Bouchards. Their failure to call the detachment as Holly’s card suggested spoke volumes. An unannounced visit would give the boy no opportunity to prepare a story. It was the first week of summer vacation, so Scott Bouchard would have more time to ride. Not that he blamed the kid. Truth to tell, he liked these quads, and during the last big storm, had enjoyed one cool weekend on a big monster, helping with emergencies when roads were blocked. His thumb had tingled at the sheer power and noise. Holly didn’t understand guy things.
Meanwhile, a CD of the Arrogant Worms played a song he missed since coming to the island, “Last Saskatchewan Pirate.” He thumped the wheel to the lyrics. “Cause it’s a heave-ho, heave-ho, comin’ down the plains/ Stealin’ wheat and barley and all the other grains.” He’d loved the wide open nature of his last posting, not to mention the hot summers. The island made him feel claustrophobic, like a bug in a shoebox.
He parked in front of the house, noting the expensive quad with the skull decal inside the open garage. Though he knew that some of these death signs and Goth bravado meant nothing, they could frighten a woman living alone. He stood straighter and adjusted his vest, prepared to ride forth as Ms Clavir’s knight.
From a window came the sound of loud television, the inane audience roars of a game show. He knocked, then knocked again as hard as he could. The door was answered by a young teen, who wore a t-shirt with cut-off sleeves. His arms were pasty white and skinny. A nasty rash of acne covered his cheeks. His platinum blond hair was shoulder length.
Chipper introduced himself, pleased to be looking down from his height. “Are you Scott Bouchard?”
“That’s me,” Scott said from behind a fringe of double eyelashes, dark in contrast to the hair. He seemed wary at the sight of the uniform. “Are you looking for my dad?”
Chipper tipped back his hat and gave the boy an assessing look without the nuance of a smile. “Yes, I am, Scott.”
The boy made a dismissive sign with one hand and folded his arms in a stubborn posture. “What’s this all about? What do you want, anyways?”
Chipper noted that no “sir” followed any of Scott’s answers. This was one tough little nut. He hoped it wouldn’t boil down to a he said/she said argument. “Is your dad home, then? Or your mom?”
“She’s up in Parksville. He’s watching TV.” As Scott gestured to the other room, his jaw tightened, though his brow remained blank. “There’s no school now, or haven’t you heard?”
“I’m not here about school, Scott. I’d like to talk to your dad.” Chipper spoke as loudly as he could, not having been invited to enter. Stepping forward, he placed a boot inside the door. His father would have flattened him if he’d talked like that. Not with his fists. With his mild and hurt expression.
“What the hell are you doing out there? I thought you were bringing me a goddamn beer. It’s going to be warm by the time you get back. Hustle!” a rough voice called. Then a man in a Ducks Unlimited sweatshirt and jeans came to the door. His cheeks wore a “wife’s not home today” stubble. “Hey, what’s the problem?” He looked from Chipper to his son.