Never Hug a Mugger on Quadra Island (26 page)

“Not money. Jason gets by, but without Linda's salary it'd be harder times.”

“Their land?”

“They've got their woodlot and licenses on two others.”

“I don't know anything about woodlots. Any money there?”

“I wouldn't have thought much.”

“Maybe someone who wants the woodlots. Another tree farmer. Or a developer.”

“No idea. I'll ask Jason.”

“Or maybe there's a creep out there who just likes hurting people. Which doesn't explain why he wants to hurt these three brothers.”

“If it's the same van, then one time he came from the van and attacked with a blunt instrument, and twice he attacked with the van itself.” Noel stopped walking and stared out at the smooth sea. He mused out loud: “Timing of the attacks. First, after dark. Second, at dusk. Third in the dark.”

“One three weeks ago, the other two the same evening. Is he getting desperate?”

“And— Damn.”

“What?”

Noel kept his eye on the sea, as if an answer could be found just under the surface. “There's something but I can't grasp it.”

“Maybe not desperate but scared. Something the Coopers are doing that—”

“No. Wait. Let me think.” Noel closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Derek in the dark, Tim at dusk, Shane in the dark—

“How could the Coopers harm—”

Seth went on. Noel didn't hear him. A shudder took him. Zeke Pete saying, maybe a curse on the Cooper family? Hadn't felt right. Why not? Derek in the dark but out of his truck, recognizable in the moonlight, Mrs. McDougal had said. Tim in the twilight, identifiable. Shane in the car, invisible. How did the van guy know Shane was in the Honda? Night, and the windows were tinted. Which meant—Another shudder. He was after the car. He'd tried to kill Kyra and himself. Not Shane.

Take it easy. Just a hypothesis. Try it on Kyra.

•  •  •

“Isn't it nice, the boys out for a walk,” Astrid observed. “They so rarely see each other.”

“Uncle Noel comes down to San Diego at least once a year,” Alana pointed out.

“I meant a walk from home, from this house, on the beach right here—” Astrid, flustered, looked out the screened sliding door, past the patio, north along the beach.

“It is lovely,” Jan soothed, “for them to have a good natter. Let's get these dishes under control and go for a walk too.” She was an inch taller than Kyra, nearly Seth's height. A handsome woman radiating calmness and good will, she frequently touched another's shoulders, arms, cheeks. More than Kyra liked, but her touch was soothing. Now Jan stood by her mother-in-law at the door, her arm across Astrid's shoulder, while Kyra and Alana cleared the table.

On a trip to the kitchen Kyra looked at the tableau of the women's backs, their heads tilted toward each other, and felt a pang of desire for her own mother, Trudy. She was back now from Turkey—she'd been teaching Canadian Literature, seconded from Simon Fraser University. On her way off Vancouver Island, Kyra would phone her.

My god, this embryo will turn
me
into a mother! Kyra nearly dropped seven plates onto the tile floor. Of course she'd known that fact, but it was emotional reality hitting her now. A mother. Forever and ever. Here she was, thirty-six, wanting her own mother. Did you ever stop being a mother? A child? That marriage commandment,
till death do us part
—the parent-child commandment never said it as such, but it was much more of an absolute.

Dishes stored in the chugging dishwasher, Alana scrubbing quiche pans in the sink, Kyra wiped down the counters and wrung out the dishcloth. Jan and Astrid entered the kitchen, offering to help. Offer rejected.

“To the beach then. Meet the boys.” Astrid said. “Paul won't be up for an hour.”

“Men,” Alana mouthed. Kyra caught it, and smiled.

They collected hats and rubbed on sunscreen. The condo owners were expected to go out the communal front door to the paved path to the beach. But Paul, since their unit was the farthest corner one, had built stairs down from their patio. His unapproved action had brought on some raucous strata meetings, until common sense prevailed: nothing really wrong, and they were handsome stairs. The women walked down the path.

“Where are your parents, Jan?” Kyra asked, as they attained the beach.

“Dead.”

“I'm sorry.” Kyra meant sorry about both—dead parents, and that she'd asked.

“They were daredevil skiers and got caught in an avalanche. I was twelve.”

“How did you manage?”

“Boarding school, an aunt in the holidays.” Jan's tone was even. She smiled and squeezed Kyra's forearm. “Sounds worse than it was.”

“Then you got married and had children.”

“Well, I did a few other things, but essentially, yes.”

“How did you find motherhood?” She shouldn't be a bulldog. But intensity of the moment made her hold and drag and shake the subject.

“Fine. I love it.” Jan smiled at Alana, and Astrid smiled at both, at all.

“No, I mean really.”

“Are you thinking of having a baby, Kyra?” Astrid asked.

Kyra looked out at the Strait. Two fishing boats. An enormous cruise ship in the hazy distance on its way to Alaska. She pressed on. “A friend cites biorhythms, she's older than I am, if she wants a baby she'd better get on with it. I don't feel that way”—
didn't she
?—“but she keeps talking about it.” She paused to excavate a pebble from her sandal. The other three waited. The sun was hot on their backs and heads and the saltchuck glistened too brightly to look at. Its salt and pepper smell stung their nostrils. Adjusting her hat, Kyra persisted, “What's it really like, being a mother?”

Jan said, with asperity and another arm-squeeze, “First you're pregnant and then you don't sleep for a number of years and then you have a person you keep coping with.”

“Sounds awful!” said Alana. “Why would anyone?”

Astrid laughed. “That's a truncated version. There are things they don't tell you in the pre-natal classes, but the rewards are greater than the drawbacks.”

“Mom, you didn't find Keith or me that bad, did you?”

“No, dear, not at all.” Jan drew Alana into a hug. “Just a bit frantic at first.”

“Is your friend married?” Astrid asked.

“Well, sort of,” Kyra hedged. “How about you, Alana? Do you want children?”

“Sure. But not alone. I don't want to be a single parent. I know a girl who got pregnant last year and the guy ditched her and she dropped out once the baby was born even though the school tried to keep her in. Too difficult to do both, she said.”

“My friend's worried about labor.”

Jan cast Kyra a hard look. “Most women survive. At least in the US and Canada.”

“You tell your friend,” Astrid contributed, “once through labor, you forget it.”

“How were your labors?”

“Seth had a shoulder in the way so he took hours, and that was a bit of work. Noel was a breeze. Look, sweetie,” Astrid smiled at Kyra in a way that made Kyra think Astrid didn't believe in the friend, “You tell your
friend
that women are built to give birth. Muscles adjust over pregnancy and the pelvic structure loosens up. After nine months the only thing you want is to have the inside lump outside.”

“She'll be pleased to hear that, maybe,” Kyra said. She didn't feel very pregnant. She wasn't tired and right now she didn't have to pee urgently. Her breasts were tender, but so what. She felt the sun and prickles of perspiration in her armpits and a discomfort in her gut. Maybe she shouldn't have had the second helping of quiche.

“Look, there are my boys!” Astrid waved at distant figures who waved back.

Alana rolled her eyes.

•  •  •

Noel sidled in beside Kyra and,
sotto voce
, asked her to stop on the patio for a brief confab. There he suggested the guy in the van had been out for detective blood, no way of suspecting Noel was not inside. He mentioned the woodlots—enough value for someone to commit personal attacks?

“If somebody was after us, then the woodlot isn't the issue,” Kyra said. “Conversely . . .”

“Yeah, that's right. At least maybe, from what we know.”

“We've got to talk to Jason. And Mrs. McDougal.” Kyra winced.

“What? You okay?”

She shrugged. “Guess so.”

“Maybe you walked too far?”

“Hardly. It was okay. Who knows?” She looked strained.

“Kyra, you really want to keep it? Raise it by yourself?”

She took a breath, exhaled. “Right now I think, absolutely. Earlier, in the kitchen, I knew I had to get rid of it. Back and forth like that, three times this afternoon. Schizzy.”

“How're you going to decide?”

“Toss a coin?”

“Be serious.”

“I don't know how I'm going to decide. And I don't know if I will decide.”

“If you just let it go—”

“I know, I know.”

“I wish I could help, Kyra.”

“Don't you dare.”

“What?”

“Try to convince me one way or the other.”

“You don't have to tell me not to dare. This one's all yours.”

“Thank you.”

“But if you want to do any out-loud thinking, I can react or not, your choice.”

Her eyes misted up. He put his arms around her. “Whatever you decide, it'll be the right thing.” Her head nodded against his shoulder. “Ready to join the others?”

She found a tissue in a pocket, dabbed her eyes. “Let's be sociable.”

Inside, the kitchen smelled of the large forty-cloves-of-garlic stuffed chicken that was roasting. Paul offered drinks. Noel and Seth allowed how vodka-tonics would be just right. Kyra, with a wry smile, asked for juice.

Alana said, “Vodka-tonic for me too.”

Seth mock-glowered at her. “We let you go away for a week, and what?”

Paul interrupted. “She can have a thin one.”

“Thanks, Grandad.” She turned to her father, wrinkled her nose at him, grinned as well.

Kyra thought,
Family is good
. She had that kind of relation with her own father, teasing and joking. With her mother, starting with returning home for vacations from Reed College in Oregon, she'd been a bit more formal. Why? Was she to blame? Or was her mother blaming her for something and she was withdrawing? She'd wondered if her mother had disapproved of her serial husbands, Vance whom she'd left after a few months when she discovered he enjoyed slapping her around, Simon the depressive who'd killed himself, most recently Sam who'd told her that to be happy she needed to live her own life and when she did, as a detective, he'd turned so jealous of her work he'd become impossible. But then her mother had taken up with a millionaire car salesman. Maybe she'd never figure it out. And what would her mother think of this pregnancy?

“. . . to being all together,” Astrid was saying, raising her glass of red wine, followed by a chorus of “Yes!” and “Cheers!”

Kyra watched Noel. He looked happy, but was part of him feeling, like her, that there was work to be done on Quadra and Campbell River? The idea, that the green van man was trying to stop Noel and her from investigating Derek's beating, gave her pause. No fear, not yet, just desire to get at the real situation. She sipped cranberry and soda water. It softened the squirmy feeling in her stomach.

They moved to the table where they found chicken, vegetables, potato casserole, salad. Noel said, raising his glass. “Another first-rate meal, thanks to all of you.” Astrid smiled, gratified, and said it was easy, she'd done most of it before they got here. More glasses on high. They ate. Desert appeared, crème caramel. Noel's phone rang. He got up.

Paul dipped into his crème. “Excellent!”

Noel stepped out of the room and raised the phone to his ear. “Yes? . . . Yes? . . . You mean now? . . . Sure, of course.” He waited, listening. “Okay. See you there.” Back to the table. The others, except for Kyra who was watching him, were deep in conversation. He squatted by her chair. “Jason says Derek is coming out of the coma.”

“Whoo. Let's go.” She stood.

Noel stood too. “Sorry, everyone. Major doings. We have to go back. Now.”

Seth: “What's happened?”

“Derek, the man in the coma. He's coming out. He might remember things.”

Astrid said, “His parents must be so relieved.”

Alana too got up. “May I come with you again? Please?”

Noel thought, if the van guy is after Kyra and me, it'll be dangerous for you. He didn't say this aloud. No one should know there might be a risk. For anyone. “You haven't seen your parents for a long time, Alana. Let alone your grandparents.”

“I really want to come with you.”

“We don't know if Derek is really coming around. Could be a wild goose chase.”

“I've started on this case. I want to see what develops.”

“We'll report everything—”

Seth said, “How long will you be gone?”

“It could take a while.”

“Alana, you can go with Noel and Kyra for two days. Noel says you're helpful. If they're not finished with the case then, you get on the bus and come back by yourself.”

“Daddy—”

“Two days. Your grandparents see little enough of you.”

She tucked her lip behind her teeth. And conceded.

Seth had said, “She's very keen to go along.”

Noel had said, “She's useful.”

“Thanks, bro. We'll look after the folks.” He patted Noel's elbow, then put his arms around their parents' shoulders.

Bro
. How Californian. If they were gone three days, Noel would avoid a chemotherapy trip to Victoria. He backed out of the parking space. North, then west, turn and onto the new Island highway. He speeded up.