She saw Marilyn at the post office that afternoon mailing a letter. Dressed in casual jeans and a sweater, she turned with a smile, brushing back a curly lock of hair that had strayed over her eyes. “I wanted to thank you, or rather Constable Singh, for taking care of that paint on the road. It was embarrassing to have clients pass by it. You don’t expect that kind of vandalism in Fossil Bay, though it only takes one teenager.”
“Glad to do it. Graffiti, even if it’s not as ugly and personal as yours was, can make an area look lawless and unsafe. Once it’s there, like litter, more appears. The downside of human nature.”
Holly stepped back to let a bow-backed woman with a Yorkie get to her box. “Did the boy call you? I wouldn’t have put it past him to send an e-mail or text message.” Because of her business, Marilyn’s e-mail would be easy to obtain.
“He came over and painted the road with some kind of smelly driveway sealer, then left a short note in my mailbox. ‘Sorry. Won’t do it again.’ Probably cost him a lot to write it. Video games would be his forte.” She shook her head. “Listen to me sounding like the older generation. Most kids around here are decent. One does my lawn.”
“Constable Singh told me that he put the scare of impoundment into Scott’s father. A ten-thousand-dollar machine is a chunk of change.”
As they were leaving the building, Holly turned again to Marilyn. “There is something I’m not sure I should mention...”
Marilyn’s brow furrowed, and she waved a casual hand. “What’s wrong? I’m not afraid of this Scott Bouchard, if that’s what you mean. Isn’t this matter over and done?”
“I’m sure it is, but I’m talking about something the boy said. That he had heard you arguing with a man a few weeks ago. That it was...violent.” Was she being intrusive or just following up? Worrying a loose tooth? Should she even mention the envelope?
Glancing away, Marilyn stiffened. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know that it’s—”
Holly moderated her voice. “Not any of my business, you mean, but violence against women is
everyone’s
business. When we first met, your eye looked...” Bonnie Martin’s radar had been supersensitive to these “accidents”, and she’d coaxed the abused women from denial. “Did Joel threaten you? You might feel better telling someone about it.”
Leaning against the cinder-block wall for support, Marilyn swallowed heavily. Her knees seemed to weaken, and Holly gripped her arm as she took a seat on a bench backed by fragrant Nootka roses. “I’m sure he was exaggerating. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I was too ashamed to tell you, to tell anyone. Joel was always a bully.”
“And he was trying to get money from you? Big money, that is?”
“The lottery, what else? That’s why he turned up in the first place. He’d seen the story in the paper halfway across the country. I gave him a down payment I’d set aside for the carpenter’s supplies. It was so embarrassing. Maybe I could have had Joel prosecuted, but frankly I just wanted him to go away. It’s an ugly thought, but the more money he had for dope, the more likely he was to be out of my life, one way or another.”
“Never be afraid to come forward. Women don’t have to take that any more.”
Marilyn nodded, her lips firm. “I know that now.”
“We saw a few hundred of what you gave him. Nothing more turned up in his backpack.”
“It’s possible that he spent it. Money always flowed through Joel’s fingers, except it usually belonged to others, like Aunt Dee.”
“There was an envelope he asked Pastor Pete to keep for him.
He couldn’t oblige, of course. It hasn’t turned up. Perhaps that’s where the other money went.”
“I’m sorry to admit that I just wanted him to slip back down his snake hole, as long as it was off the island. He had a habit of ruining everything that was good.”
“At any rate, it’s over now,” Holly said, mustering a smile. “You have your project ahead of you.” And even Norman sometimes paid tradesmen in cash to get a lower price by cutting out the government. She wasn’t working for Revenue Canada.
Holly thought hard about the situation all the way home. She had never met Joel Clavir alive, but she’d known many similar types. People like Pastor Pete loved reformed sinners. Holly hadn’t the time, nor the resources, to invest in 24-7 reclamation of souls. The world was better off without them, though she’d never admit that professionally. In this case, a kind of rough justice had been done. But that damned envelope. As she passed Bailey Bridge, she remembered the geocaching concept. Hadn’t Tim Jones said that there was a hiding place in the vicinity of Bailey Creek? Police work was 90% shoe leather and 10% inspiration. Maybe 2%. If nothing else, she’d get a pleasant walk. But first she had to do some research.
T
hat night after chili soy burgers, a lentil casserole with too much sage, and carrot cake, Holly left her father watching
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
and fired up her computer. The geocaching.com website was huge. Signing in with a free membership, she got the basic rights to hunt and seek. The site also sold clothing, geo-coins and metal travel bugs.
Logging onto the Google Earth map, she navigated to Vancouver Island, marvelling at the hundreds of caches peppering the south end. In Victoria they were often historical sites or even pubs. “Earth caches” meant a geological spot like the Oligocene fossil deposit on Muir Beach. She fine-tuned the map and found troves at Kemp Lake, and even at the small community hall in Shirley. The Bailey Creek cache was supposed to contain small plastic toys. According to the location log, it required only twenty minutes of uphill climbing from the parking area. Few people wanted to do extensive bushwhacking. “Codes” provided extra clues. You could choose whether to use automatic deciphering or solve the puzzle yourself. She chuckled to discover an alternate universe with the proverbial “fun for all ages”.
Over ten people had logged the Bailey Creek site in the past year. Five who had failed had left frowny faces but said that the scenery was “cool”. One obvious problem bothered her. It seemed imperative to have a GPS. Despite the clues, she couldn’t stumble around blindly.
The next day, when Ann discovered Holly’s interest, she said, “Hold on. Reg bought one of those gimmicks two years ago. Seemed silly at the time, but now it may come in handy.” She put her spoon down beside her homemade bean soup.
After rummaging in one of the supply closets, Ann brought over a bulky Garmin GPS, peering at it like a strange animal and handing over a foreboding guidebook. “Haven’t a clue how to use it myself, but if you need help, Sean’s your man. He’s mentioned this geocaching,” she said, going to a drawer and pulling out fresh batteries. Ten-year-old Sean Carter was one of their special volunteers, too young for an official position, but always alert to “situations” in the neighbourhood such as abandoned cars and vandalism. He shepherded Ann around his local school on DARE (Drug Awareness Resistance Education) days. “He’s been kind of blue lately. His older sister has childhood leukemia, and the family’s been giving her all their attention, obviously. They’re in Victoria at the General overnight sometimes. I’ve gone over to stay with him.”
So Ann gave up some of her evenings on a couch to help others. “I hate when kids get sick. Damn, it’s so unfair,” Holly said.
Ann’s voice was upbeat. “Her prognosis is good. She had a bone marrow transplant. Leukemia’s not a death sentence any more, thank god.”
Holly flipped through the guidebook. This was not her
métier
. And if kids had an expertise she didn’t, why not let them loose? “Do you think he’d like to help me find that cache this weekend?”
“I’ll set it up. The extra attention will mean everything to him. People say that kids shirk responsibility. That’s bull. They thrive on it.”
* * *
With “Gotta Fly Now” still pounding in her ears from her father’s breakfast music, Holly met Sean at Bailey Bridge on Saturday at nine sharp. He had chained his mountain bike to a tree and was checking every tool on a gigantic Swiss army knife, blowing out dust and making sure the blades were shiny. His honorary RCMP patch, an old one Ann had found, was sewn onto his denim shirt. “Thanks for reporting, volunteer Sean,” Holly said, giving him a crisp salute and keeping her face serious. She’d worn her uniform to add to the drama but was happy to omit the bulky vest.
“I brought a GPS,” she added. Even two hours last night had left her no wiser about its functions.
Sean gave the Garmin dinosaur a polite look, but his scorn for out-of-date technology couldn’t be hidden. “That’s okay. I have my own,” he said, patting a slim unit on his belt. “Got it for Christmas. It’s a lot...smaller and lighter than that one you have.” As a second thought, he added with an earnest nod, “But yours is good, too.”
Holly tucked the device into a small packsack she’d brought along with some drinks. “Hope you like root beer,” she said.
“Cool. Anyway, I ran off the Bailey Creek cache like Corporal Ann asked,” Sean said, showing her the printouts. “So we start at the parking lot. Uh, should I call you Officer or Corporal Holly?”
“Just Holly is fine, since we’re officially off duty,” she said, hiding a grin. “Corporal Ann says you’re quite the expert on geocaching.” She watched his eager pink face swell with pride. His light brown hair was neatly combed around a stubborn cowlick. She fought the urge to smooth it down. Memories returned to her of her mother hauling out a handkerchief and spit-wiping a smudge.
“I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. Scored everything from here east to the city. My parents took me on the Grand Circle Tour when school let out. There’s a whole bunch of neat stuff there. I bought a couple of travel bugs, too. We camped out and made fires in a pit. Lake Cowichan is awesome for swimming. My mom usually doesn’t like me to go into the ocean here. I almost stepped on a jellyfish last time. That’s dangerous.” He added a mock shiver.
Holly was amazed at how fast Sean could talk. Once wound up, there was no stopping him. “Lead on,” she said. “You’re da man.”
Walking slowly, they took the path up from the lot. A larger dirt track broken by quads ran up the right side, and a smaller creek path angled down the left. He frowned at the directions on the sheet as he squinted up through the leaf cover. “We can’t get coordinates under the trees, so we’ll have to do some guesswork. We want North 48 degrees 23.235, West 123 degrees 51.767.”
Though the site had three stars out of four for moderate difficulty, this was harder than it looked. As Sean manipulated the unit, he was so focused that Holly felt like a total amateur. Operating a compass was her limit. Who said that kids had short attention spans? “Do we take the left or right fork?”
“It doesn’t say. They don’t want to make it too easy, like for babies. Let’s try the right.”
They tapped in and out of the satellite feed, checking in every fifty feet. “Closer, closer. It says we’re a hundred feet away.” Then Sean stopped and frowned. “What the heck? Now we’re going away from it.”
Holly tried to think of the angles, the road, the path, the creek. Two ravens danced overhead in avian harmony, dipping and diving in a game. “What now?” She tried not to sound impatient. How humiliating it would be if they had to give up. But Sean clamped his jaw and pointed ahead.
“We’ll back up and take the left path instead. The clues talk about a mis...mistletoe. It was encrypted, but I figured it out. Only wusses hit the translate button,” he said. “But what’s a mistletoe?”
Her moment had arrived. “A cute little parasite that grows on trees. In England, the tradition about kissing under it started because it was one of the rare plants still green in winter. But in my knowledge of island botany, it’s possible that the mistletoe idea is only figurative.”
His face puzzled as he looked up at her. “Figurative?”
“Not the real thing.”
They doubled back and took the other path, which led downward to the creek. Salal, false azalea and fragile red huckleberry branches brushed at their clothes. The massive thumb-thick branches of the Himalayan blackberry were emerging with thorns that could shred skin and blind an animal. Holly stumbled on a fir root arching its back onto the trail. “What kind of a cache would we be looking for? What size?” She hoped her computer research had given her some credentials.
“They start at micro, that’s like an old film cannister or a medicine bottle, then small, then regular Tupperware or ammo cans, but in the city you’re not supposed to use ammo cans or anything that looks dangerous.”
“Makes sense. People could panic over a bomb scare.” Ammo cans were ubiquitous in the boonies, where many households contained a shotgun.
“Then they go all the way up to large, like a five-gallon bucket.”
Holly laughed and wiped her sweating brow. “Wish we were looking for that size.”
“Ours is regular,” Sean said with assurance. “Like you could use for leftovers from supper.”
“Sounds easy enough to spot.”
He shook his head. “Not really. A lot are covered with camouflage paint.”
A blaze on a mother bigleaf maple so thick with moss that it housed at least six other biospheres of ferns in its crotches caught Holly’s eye. Then they crossed the creek by skipping over rocks. In the wet season, it would have been a roaring, impassible torrent. On this humid day of activity, a few dunks cooled her sneakers. Back and forth they went like modern prospectors, taking readings, scanning near and far. Sean pointed up a high hill, crumbling at the top, a goat path if a path at all. “The first road we were on is beyond that, and we’re about parallel now. The cliff is too steep. Something’s not right. It’s possible that the rains last winter washed the path away.”
“Is it always this tough?” She stopped to rest her arms on her knees. Sean wasn’t even breathing hard. Here was one kid with stamina. Inside his cargo shorts, his legs were skinny but muscular. Scabs on each knee proved his fortitude.
He walked a few more yards, checked the reading and gave a whoop. “I bet it’s back across the creek. I think I see an opening by that tree.”
They trip-tropped across stones onto a gravel delta and scrambled up the low bank, following what looked like an otter’s slip. Sea otters were nearly extinct all the way to Alaska from two hundred years of trapping for the world’s most sumptuous fur. River otters were smaller, and often quite comical, floating on their backs in the sun, even “holding hands” in one viral video. Then Holly took a few mental bearings and realized, despite the zigging and zagging, that they were in the vicinity of where Joel had died. A chill ran over her neck as Sean thrashed with a stick. From her pack she retrieved two thick pairs of gardening gloves.