Seaweed in the Soup (26 page)

“A valid point,” Manners said. “How do you respond to that, Seaweed?”

“I've already responded to it, sir. I didn't know anything about the box until Inspector Manners and his team showed up.”

“If you are right, can you suggest who might have put the box there?”

“No, although several people have keys to my office. Others have ready access.”

“Are you are speaking of other policemen, Seaweed?”

“Cops and crooks are sometimes brothers under the skin, sir. Some-body set me up, that's for goddamn sure, and it might have been a cop.”

“Rein in your tongue, Seaweed. I won't tell you again,” Mallory snapped, with unusual severity. Lowering his voice, he went on, “You are entitled to the benefit of any doubt. Perhaps you are right, Seaweed. Some person as yet unknown may have planted the cocaine. Chief Detective Inspector Tapp will look into that possibility, and we'll get to the bottom of things soon enough. Meanwhile, Seaweed you can help things along and possibly even improve your position if you'll prepare a list of likely candidates.”

Superintendent Mallory looked at Manners. “You realize, Inspector, that pushing these charges is a serious matter for Sergeant Seaweed. It could result in the termination of his career. Have you given that any thought?”

“Indeed I have, sir. Ordinarily I might have turned a blind eye. Under the circumstances, I can't. Witnesses were present when Seaweed tried to attack me. He might have succeeded but for Constable Biedel, who intervened. If Seaweed isn't severely disciplined, it will send the wrong signal to the rest of the force,” Manners said, his voice hard with resentment.

“Sure that's the reason you want to see Seaweed fired, Inspector?” Bernie asked Manners sarcastically. “Sure you're not trying to change the tires on a car that's still rolling?”

Manners smiled thinly. “Excuse me, Chief Inspector, but I'm not done yet. If Seaweed has been trafficking in drugs, another question arises, namely, how did he acquire these drugs? There's evidence of Native involvement in Cho's killing.”

“Go on, Inspector Manners,” Mallory said.

“Well, sir, I should have thought it was obvious. Seaweed might have acquired them from Raymond Cho, and then killed him.”

“You are accusing Sergeant Seaweed of murder?”

“I'm just raising it as a possibility, sir.”

“This is becoming farcical,” Bernie said.

“Inspector Manners' reasoning may have some slight merit, Chief Inspector,” Mallory snapped. To me he said, with less emotion, “Are you ready to accept my punishment as regards the alleged attack on Inspector Manners, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you quite sure, Seaweed? Don't take this matter lightly.”

“I'm ready for whatever you decide to hand out, Chief.”

Mallory stood up. “Very well, you leave me with no other choice,” he said without enthusiasm. “Sergeant Seaweed. You are stripped of all rank and suspended from duty as of this instant. I will defer a final decision on your status, and you will continue to be paid until the cocaine matter is resolved. Turn in your badge and your weapons immediately. That's all, you may go.”

I saluted smartly and marched out of Mallory's office with Bernie Tapp right at my heels. Bernie shut Mallory's door. Standing in the corridor, Bernie said, “What the hell's wrong with you? You stood there like a trussed turkey and let Manners accuse you of murder. Why didn't you speak up for yourself?”

I shrugged, because I didn't care. A little voice told me that I ought to tell Bernie that I'd seen a woman who in my estimation was probably Ruth Claypole, hiding aboard Twinner Scudd's yacht. I decided to keep that opinion to myself.

Some things needed my personal attention.

≈  ≈  ≈

Back at home, I telephoned Charlie Charley. He lives on Cortes Island and has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from smoking too many cigarettes. Charlie came on and said in a phlegmy gargle, “Who's this?”

“It's your long-lost friend. The one you could have gone to school with if you'd stayed out of juvie hall.”

“Jesus, it's the old ratcatcher. I ain't robbed nobody since last month, so what do you want this time?”

“Has anybody seen Twinner Scudd lately?”

“Somebody told me he came through Campbell River last night and filled his tanks at the Esso dock. He'll be smoking weed on Quanterelle by now, I expect.”

“I'm coming up tomorrow if I can catch the 10:30 mail plane. I'll be needing a boat for a couple of days.”

“I don't blame you. The sun's shining up here, not a cloud in the sky. And the fishing's fantastic,” Charlie said, gurgling laughter rumbling up his clogged windpipes. “What do you need, a day boat?”

“An overnighter with radar. Something I can take into Desolation Sound and run onto a beach if I have to.”

“Yeah? I guess I can rumble something up for you, Silas,” he said throatily. “If it's Twinner's grow-ops you're interested in, I'll keep you company. We'll rip him off and go halfers?”

“No, this is personal. When I'm done with Twinner, his grow-ops are all yours.”

I hung up and phoned Lucas Air.

≈  ≈  ≈

It was late August, but it can get very wet and cold up around Desolation Sound way, even in summer. I put on wool pants, a wool shirt and waterproof Nikes. Then I packed a Gore-Tex jacket, a toque, a thick wool sweater, spare socks, toiletries, fifty feet of nylon rope, string, a butane cigarette lighter, matches in a waterproof box, two pounds of Thrifty's trail mix, five bars of dark chocolate and a water bottle. I put my own personal non-police-issue Glock in the backpack as well, along with a large folding knife with one saw blade and one cutting blade.

Outside my cabin, the pine siskin was trilling plaintively—letting me know that he was out of groceries. I shoved a few bits of meat into the escallonia before I left the reserve and drove downtown. It was exactly 9:15
AM
by my watch when I passed the Warrior longhouse.

I left the MG in the Fisgard Street parkade. Lou's Cafe, two blocks away, reminded me that I hadn't eaten since yesterday. I went in and slid into a booth near a window. The breakfast rush was over. Apart from a large, soft-looking woman puzzling over a Sudoku book at another table, the cafe was empty. Lou was wearing a yellow ten-gallon hat, and I had his undivided attention.

“Moran heard you got fired and he left a message for you,” Lou said, swishing a damp cloth over my table. “If you're looking for work where nobody won't bother you, there's a janitor's job going in his gym. Five bucks an hour, plus free room and board.”

“That's very tempting, I'll give it some thought later. Right now I'm busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Ordering breakfast. Got any beef sausage?”

“Is Elvis Presley alive and well and shaking his crotch in Las Vegas?”

“In the flesh at the MGM Grand, all ten of him. Gimme four crispy beef sausages, two eggs fried over medium and two slices of wholewheat toast. Marmalade. A large glass of OJ.”

“I know you want your eggs over medium. I know you want crispy sausages. I know you'll help yourself to coffee if you want some. What I don't know is, what I am supposed to tell the boys?”

“Tell them I'm catching the 10:30 flight to Cortes Island.”

Lou looked at his wall clock; it was 9:45. “You'll never make it.” He scuttered away.

I got out of the booth and helped myself to coffee. There's a wicker basket on a shelf beside the door where people drop their used newspapers. l picked up the local rag and took it to my table.

The item I was looking for was a scant few lines buried on page C3. I was reading it when Lou delivered my breakfast. Written under Dorothy Fredricks' byline, it read:

Police Officer Suspended

Victoria's senior police brass remain tight-lipped as to why controversial Native street cop Sergeant Silas Seaweed has been suspended from duty. Nobody will speak on the record. Insiders speculate that the suspension is connected to a recent surge in local drug-related criminal activity. If the allegations being whispered about this officer's activities are confirmed, severe disciplinary action is expected to follow.

“How'd you feel about getting your name in the paper again, Silas?” Lou asked, reading over my shoulders. “Ain't you learned how to keep your nose clean by now? A man of your experience? Them cops will throw the book at you.”

“For what?”

“For what you've done. Dealing in drugs. That's a big no-no, pal.”

“It's crap, idle gossip,” I said, picking up a knife and fork. “A storm in a teacup, it'll blow over in no time.”

“That's not what Fred Halloran told us this morning,” Lou said, setting my breakfast down on the table.

“Told who?”

“Everybody. Me. Moran. The usual gym bunch. Fred said they'll bust your balls. He says you'll get five years.”

“Fred's pulling your leg.”

“It's the worst thing can happen to a cop, going to jail. You'll have to stay in protective custody, or them cons will be all over you with Vaseline and baseball bats.”

I cut a piece of sausage and put it into my mouth.

“Fred says in these cases what they generally do, when a cop gets found with his hands in the cookie jar, he gets reassigned to desk duties,” Lou said. “You haven't been reassigned, you've been sent packing. They've got the goods on you, Fred said.”

I finished breakfast in a hurry, dropped money on the table and walked two hundred yards to the floatplane terminal.

Victoria is an island city. Victoria's Swartz Bay ferry terminal is about thirty miles from the Tsawwassen terminal, on the BC mainland. The Salish Sea is too cold for swimming. If you want to get here from there, you either have to come by boat or by air. Most people arrive on one of the BC Ferries. Government-owned, it is the world's largest fleet. Many visitors fly in to CYYJ—Victoria International Airport. Others get here on private boats, or floatplanes.

Regularly scheduled floatplane flights have been servicing Victoria's Inner Harbour since the '30s. The rent-a-cop manning Lucas Air's metal detector was half-asleep, and I had no trouble bullshitting my knives and my gun onto the plane.

That morning, I was the seven-passenger deHavilland Beaver's only customer and I sat in the co-pilot's seat. The plane had one bag of mail aboard. We left the dock right on time. The harbour was busy as usual. The pilot waited uncomplainingly in the takeoff lane while a canoeist who thought he had the right-of-way crossed the harbour ahead of us. The pilot then gave his 450 horsepower Pratt and Whitney engine full throttle. The noise in the cabin was over a hundred decibels when our floats cleared the water. As the plane gained altitude and banked left, the pilot adjusted his controls. The noise diminished, but the sound in the cabin was still too loud for ordinary conversation.

Snowy peaks gleamed like an armada of sails across the entire horizon. Over on the mainland, the Fraser River's wide blue mouth nibbled its way to the sea. Vancouver's highrise towers were easily visible thirty miles north of Tsawwassen. Gazing down from my window, I watched the plane chase its shadow north.

Dozen of fishboats were working the Strait of Georgia between Texada Island and Qualicum Beach. A cruise ship came into view. Immense, white as an iceberg, it was carrying three thousand tourists up the Inside Passage to Alaska. Ayhus, Hernando, and then Marina Island passed beneath our wings.

We were travelling over Sliammon tribal lands now. Approaching the Coast Salish Nation's northernmost limits. Seen from the air, Ayhus—otherwise known as Savary Island—looks like a giant two-headed serpent. According to the Sliammon people, Ayhus was a living snake until it incurred the Transformer's wrath and was turned to stone.

Then the southernmost peninsulas of Quadra Island and Cortes Island rose up, and we began our descent into Desolation Sound. Whaletown appeared as a series of white dots in the pristine blue and green wilderness. The dots grew larger and became a dozen or so houses, a steepled church, a post office, a general store and a government dock.

The tide was running strongly enough to create whitecaps when the Beaver's floats touched water again. Two rocks mark the entrance to Whaletown's bay. It was a choppy ride until we gained the lee of a promontory and smoother water. Fifty feet from the government dock, the pilot cut his engine, opened his door and stepped onto the port-side float. Momentum carried the Beaver forward. A man standing on the dock threw a rope, which the pilot caught and fastened to a cleat. The dockman pulled us in. We tied up behind a large all-weather Zodiac inflatable with a pilothouse and twin 250 Evinrude outboards. My ears were still ringing from the Beaver's engine noise when I clambered ashore with my backpack across my shoulders. The pilot hoisted Her Majesty's mail from the plane and delivered it to Whaletown's tiny floating post office. Small waves broke on the beach and lapped against the pilings underneath the general store.

The Gulf and Dawson Whaling Company created Whaletown in 1867. By 1870, nearly every whale in Desolation Sound and the Strait of Georgia had been killed, flensed and rendered into oil. Gulf and Dawson moved on, leaving nothing behind except a name and a few unemployed diehards. Now the whales are coming back. Whaletown is still a sleepy laid-back place, although things were livelier than usual that day. Children and adults were coming and going. The general store, located at the head of the dock, was having a going-out-of-business sale. A seagoing dentist was making her biannual visit. I counted twenty people, children and adults, before I spotted Charlie Charley.

He was at the wheel of a demolition-derby Ford, parked near the Columbia Coast Mission Church. Charlie, a bloated white-haired giant, was wearing the kind of dark glasses favoured by blind people. He can probably see a barn at a hundred feet. When I came within range of his limited vision, he stuck his arm out the window and waved a white cane. I went over, shook Charlie's hand and threw my backpack onto the back seat.