Never Hug a Mugger on Quadra Island (14 page)

“I wasn't here.” More cereal, stoking the skating muscles.

“You and Derek, you're good friends as well as brothers?”

At last Shane looked up. “We're close. I love Derek. I love Timmy. Now will you let me eat my breakfast?”

Mighty recalcitrant. “Look, Shane, your father's asked us to try to find out why this happened. Anything you tell us might be helpful in ways you wouldn't realize.”

A heavy sigh. Shane shook his head and turned his face back to the cereal bowl.

“What?”

“I don't know why Dad asked you.”

Behind Shane, Noel noticed Tim standing at the den door; not wanting to disturb?

Shane went on, “What do you think you can do that the Mounties can't? They know this area, you don't know a thing.”

“We're looking at this with new eyes, and if—”

“Just go away and leave us alone.”

“Shane, was Derek involved with people who could get him in trouble?”

Shane's voice gruffed up. “How the hell should I know? I hadn't seen him for months.”

“Do you know if he was involved with anything illegal?”

“Derek? Derek wouldn't do anything wrong.”

“Illegal, I asked.”

Shane shook his head.

“Was he part of a gang?” More silence from Shane. “Did he do drugs?” No response. “Pot? Coke? Crystal meth?”

Suddenly Shane stood. “Will you please stop? For godsake, leave it alone!”

“Maybe he was a dealer? How does he support himself? How did he?”

Shane glared at Noel. “You know, you're messing with my inner balance.”

“Your what?”

“Leave us all alone.” He was backing toward the den door. Tim had vanished. “You're a menace to our family. Go away and stay away.” He disappeared around the corner.

A thump of running shoes headed up the stairs. It'd be worthwhile to go watch Shane skate. All this self-absorption could lead to an impressive performance. Energy like that put into something productive? Wow.

Kyra reappeared. “Heard the last of it. I didn't want to interrupt.”

“He's a piece of work all right. Alana ready?”

“Couple of minutes, she said—” A sudden triple clang of a large bell.

“Doorbell?”

A few seconds, and Tim led a man with longish blond hair into the kitchen. Familiar, but Noel couldn't place him.

Tim said, “Austin, these are my Dad's friends, Noel and Kyra.”

“Oh yes,” said Austin. “Good to meet you, Kyra.” He smiled, just for her, he reached out his hand. She took it. Firm but gentle. The slightest flirtation? He turned to Noel, an equivalent now manly smile, “And Noel.” A strong grasp of Noel's hand. “Welcome to our island.”

“Ah,” said Kyra, “you live here?”

“Whenever I can. Otherwise I'm in Ottawa. But I come here as much as possible. You know Ottawa.” A small gentle grimace.

“I've visited,” said Kyra.

“And what brings you to Quadra? It's a beautiful island, of course.”

“Derek” said Noel.

“Terrible. If someone beat up a person close to me, I'd—well, I don't know what I'd do.”

“We—” Noel began.

Kyra interrupted. “Noel and Jason have been friends since high school.”

“Then you know the pride he takes in his sons. Each in their ways.”

Kyra said, “You've been a great supporter of Shane.”

Austin smiled self-deprecatingly. “I've tried to help.”

“And your support of him has paid off.”

Austin's brow furled. “How do you mean?”

“He's becoming a first-rate skater.”

“With the best coaching, he stands to become one of the greats. He's already a competitor for others to measure themselves against.”

“He has good coaching now?”

A smile. “Sure does. Carl Certane.”

Pronounced with a soft
a
and a sounded final
e
. Unlike Linda. “I've heard of him.”

“I persuaded him to take Shane on. Though once he'd seen that young kid skate, he didn't need much convincing.”

Noel broke in. “Is Derek a skater, too?”

“Hockey.” Flatly said. “Not that there can't be some greats in that world, too. Like Gretzky, obviously. He could have been a superb figure skater, he had the grace and the power. And especially the timing. Most hockey players rely only on brute force.”

“You saying that's how Derek played, too?”

Austin shrugged. “Never saw him play.”

Noel broke in. “Do you know him at all?

“As well as the rest of the family. I don't think he had—has—anywhere near Shane's discipline. Discipline's at the base of all great work. Without it— Ah, Shane,” Austin beamed as Shane appeared. “Ready to go?”

“Without what?” asked Shane.

“Discipline, Shane. What it always comes back to.”

“Yeah.” Without enthusiasm.

“We've talked about it before, we'll talk about it again.”

Shane's eyes half closed and he nodded, looking at the floor.

“Ready to go?”

Shane headed for the door.

Austin said to Kyra and Noel, “Good to have met you again. Come see Shane at his practice.” He followed the young man out.

“Just what I was thinking,” said Noel.

“What were you thinking?” Alana, her hair still damp, arrived clutching her backpack.

“That we might go watch Shane skate.”

“Yeah! I'm for that.”

“After we make some inquiries.”

Out to the car. Down the drive to the road. Just before the B&B Kyra said, “Stop for a couple of minutes, please. Need to go to my room.” She grabbed her purse and fled.

Noel turned to the back seat, Alana lying across it, leaning against the door behind the passenger seat, her head clamped together with earphones. He started to speak, then thought better of it. And Kyra had to speak to him about the baby. The elephant tooted quietly. Minutes, and Kyra was back. “Better?”

“Always. As of late, anyway.”

“What're you thinking? About the case, I mean.”

“Like I said, so many nice guys. Jason, Sam, Derek, Mike by all reports. Tim.”

“You're not mentioning Shane.”

“You're right.”

“What about those two guys we talked to yesterday?”

“Yeah. Something about them. Don't know what.”

They drove in silence, each musing. At the ferry dock they drove into line.

Alana pulled the phones from her ears, stretched and opened the door. “You think Shane and Austin are up there somewhere ahead of us?”

“Alana, stay here. Leave them alone.”

“Hey, I wasn't going to—”

“Good. Close the door.” He turned and sat on one leg to face her. “Tell me what you think is going on. With the family. With everyone you've met since leaving Qualicum.”

She stared out the front window. “You mean did one of them beat up Derek?”

“Or two or more.”

“I thought about that before going to sleep. I was pretty tired but I was stoked, too. See, there's this computer in Derek's room. I'd gone online to research Austin Osborne. Oh—” seeing Noel's glare, “Linda said it was okay.”

“People you've met. Firsthand impressions.”

She grinned. “I see what you mean. Okay. Linda. I like her. She's straight with you, she seems kind to everybody. I think she's a good mom to Shane and Tim. Maybe she's a great mom to Derek but I haven't seen them together. But I bet she is. By extrapolation.”

“Good. Go on.”

“Jason, I don't know. I just saw him at dinner. But I think he's a good dad and he's gentle with Linda. He'd have to be or you wouldn't be his friend all these—”

“You've seen Jason and me together, just talking, when no one else was around?”

She thought. “You're right. But what I've seen and heard from him, he seems okay.”

“Not someone who'd beat up his son.”

“If he would, he didn't show it since I've known him.”

“Shane? Tim?”

“Shane's just gorgeous. But he's, like, not there. He's inside his head. I want to see him skate but I don't want to get to know him. If you've got to be like that to be a great skater, hey, forget it.” She fiddled with her earpieces. “Now Tim, he's a good kid. Kinda young for me, but just to hang out with? Way up on his older brother. And there's no way he'd hurt Derek. And Shane couldn't've, he wasn't even around. He thinks too much of his body to want to get into a fight with anybody else's.”

Noel studied her face. “Good, Alana. Smart.”

“Thanks. Now can I tell you what I found out about Austin Osborne?”

“Sure.”

“He's, like, had this great competitive skating career, won everything in sight. Then one day he was out. Overnight.”

“Why?”

Kyra said, “The line's moving.”

Noel swung himself around, started the engine and followed the car in front up the ramp. He stopped a foot behind it. An officious ferry worker gestured Noel further on. He started the engine again, inched ahead until suddenly Noel was facing the palm of the ferry worker's hand, stop sign. Noel slammed on his brake, a nano-span away from the forward car. He muttered under his breath.

Kyra said, “Never mind.” Turning back to Alana she said, “So he was out of competitive skating. You find out why that happened?”

“Couldn't get a hold on it. Couple of people I read said 'cause he and his partner had been cheated out of a gold at the Nationals about the time he stopped competing. Hey, he got the silver, and that's pretty good.”

“Maybe not good enough for him.”

“Or maybe he was involved in that scandal when some of the judges traded votes so that their skaters won when they shouldn't have, and maybe Osborne thought he'd been cheated and gave up. Nobody actually said that and maybe I read it wrong, I was pretty tired. But he was awesome. And then he went with the Ice Follies and made lots of money. And now he owns this big skating equipment company.”

Noel thought, first-rate researcher.

Kyra said, “That's all good to know. No, no—” seeing Alana's sudden troubled look, “it really is. Valuable context.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Anything else about him? Or anyone else?”

“No. Not really.” Alana lapsed into silence, her left index finger playing with the two rings on her right middle finger.

“But?” Kyra waited.

Alana looked up. “I tried to get a handle on Derek.”

“Oh?”

“Well, there I was in his room, it had to be able to tell me something about him.”

Kyra liked this. Herself, she believed in the narrative power of medicine cabinets. “What did you learn?”

“The room was real neat, shirts in the closet, sweaters aligned in his drawers, desk clear except his computer and printer, shoes lined up on the closet floor.”

“And what did this tell you?”

“Well, either he's a neat freak, or Linda cleans up after him.”

Noel laughed. “Very good.”

“But I don't know which.”

“You'll have to study the situation further.” He beamed at her. “So everything was in its place, and you figure—”

“Well, one thing wasn't.”

“Okay. Tell.”

“In the closet, he had his hockey skates, two pairs, they were hanging from the wall by their tied-together laces. I turned them upside down and a memory stick fell out.”

“And?”

“It was kinda weird. Why'd he put it in his skate?”

“You were curious.”

“Yeah, like really. So I stuck it into his computer and booted it up. Really really slow computer, took forever.”

“But you finally got see what was on the stick.”

“That was weird too. All that memory, and just one file.”

“What did you find on this purloined file?”

“Yeah, I did kind of purloin it, didn't I.” Giggle followed by small malevolent grin. “A list of dates. I copied them out. If the computer was that old, the printer was probably a loud cranking dinosaur.” She took a folded piece of paper from her pocket. “After I thought I was such a smart detective, what's on the file? Just a bunch of dates.” She handed the paper to Kyra.

Kyra and Noel read it. Six dates, the fifteenth and thirtieth of the month, mid-June to the end of August. After each date, the amount of $3000. Added together, $18,000.

“Like, just so unimportant. I really tried to find something.”

“Most of what we find is unimportant. So we keep on looking, trying to see a pattern.” Kyra turned to sit forward. Noel's niece had the makings.

The ferry closed in on the Campbell River dock.

•  •  •

Austin Osborne had guided his Porsche convertible onto the ferry at 1 mile an hour. He'd noted the lip toward the end of the lowered ferry ramp rose a couple of inches higher than the ramp itself and the chassis of this Porsche, a fine vehicle, was low-slung enough to bottom out. Usually he rented a large safe sedan, but he'd been feeling sporting so had chosen a sassy motorcar. He hoped his good spirits would remain—some heavy-duty decision-making in the next couple of days.

He and Shane had talked little after leaving the Cooper house. Which was fine. They'd have their chat on the ferry. Which was now.

Austin was silent. Shane felt relieved. If Austin talked, he wanted something. Shane wasn't in a giving mood. He knew he'd have to tell Austin how the situation had shifted. So Shane kept his own counsel. The roof of the Porsche stayed closed. Good, he didn't want people to see him with Austin, not right now. Over the years Shane with Austin had been a great thing, it made Shane proud. And his friends kind of jealous.

The Porsche stopped behind an SUV, built like a tank. Nearly three times as high as the Porsche. If it rolled backwards, it'd crush them. But surely it wouldn't. Lots of other things were less certain, way less. What could he do? What in the world could he do?