Seaweed on the Street (12 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Everybody in town knows that Indian kid wasn't acting on his own. He was just the driver. The guy that pulled the trigger is still running loose.”

“The case is still open,” I said.

“I've got a theory on it.” The old man crinkled his forehead.

I waited.

“I figure Harry was murdered by somebody who knew him.” The old man leaned forward. “Makes sense, don't it? Harry's out there at Calvert Hunt's mansion. He hears or sees something suspicious and goes to investigate. Finds a burglar lifting the paintings off the walls and recognizes him.” The old man stopped speaking to gauge my reaction.

I nodded encouragement.

“It's the only thing that adds up,” he said. “The paintings, what are they worth, a few hundred? Not worth a killing. Not unless the robber is recognized and panics. He knows he's not going to get away with it so he shoots first and thinks second.” His glance drifted toward the live-aboard boats and he added slyly, “Perhaps you don't need to look too far for a suspect, eh?”

I stifled a grin and said, “That's a possibility. Thanks for sharing your ideas.”

“Glad to help,” said the captain. Then he was seized by another idea. “One thing I don't understand. What was young Harry doing at Calvert Hunt's place in the first place?”

“Calvert Hunt and Dr. Cuncliffe are close friends. Family friends. Harry spent a lot of time there, swimming in their pool, playing tennis.”

The captain nodded wisely.

I said, “The summer that Harry was murdered. Did he work on boats as usual?”

The old man pushed his cheek out with his tongue and wrinkled his nose, thinking. “I believe he did. I wouldn't swear to it, but he probably crewed with Taffy Jones.”

“Where can I find Jones?”

“Taffy's fishing up at Adams River, won't be back for a few weeks.” The captain sighed. “Goddam shame, ain't it, the way things turn out. The world's full of deadbeats like Fred Eade who just go on and on, creating misery. A nice feller like Harry dies young. It don't make no sense to me.”

The wharfinger rose ponderously and fastened the buttons of his jacket. “I better get down there, see if those dreamers damaged my dock.”

≈ ≈ ≈

A stiff onshore breeze was blowing when I parked my Chevy outside Dr. Cuncliffe's house on Dallas Road. It was a '50s cedar-and-brick bungalow with a steeply pitched roof, built around three sides of a cement patio. I rang the doorbell, turned my back on the house and watched a couple of sailboats, heeled over to their gunnels, as they raced upwind along Juan de Fuca Strait. Across Dallas Road, a broad expanse of parkland extended to steep cliffs. Dense thickets of low bushes and trees dotted the park; mallard ducks floated on a pond. Hikers strode along the trail at the edge of sandstone cliffs. A big freighter, inward bound from Asia, was picking up a pilot. The ferry from Port Angeles was rounding Ogden Point.

A minute later Dr. Cuncliffe appeared from the backyard. He gave me a cheery smile and said, “I've been messing about in my greenhouse, don't always hear the bell. Been waiting long?”

“Just got here.”

Dr. Cuncliffe looked out to sea. “I hope those sailors are wearing survival suits. That westerly must be blowing over an icefield,” he said with an exaggerated shiver.

He opened the front door and invited me in. Passing him in the hallway I caught a whiff of his breath, pungent with alcohol. We went into the front living room. He grinned at me and said, “I've already started. What's your poison?”

“Scotch.”

He congratulated me on my taste, waved his hand toward a chair and busied himself with the bottles and glasses set out on a side table. Through the French windows that opened onto the front patio I heard a murmur of voices as two men walked past the house with their heads together.

Dr. Cuncliffe came up behind me, his footfalls soft on the carpet, and gave me my drink. We clinked glasses. After tasting it I tilted my head appreciatively. It was Glenlivet.

Dr. Cuncliffe gazed out across the strait toward the distant Olympic snowcaps and said, “It's a big country out there. Plenty of room to hide in.”

Moving slowly and somewhat erratically, Dr. Cuncliffe crossed the room again and sat in a leather club chair. I knew what he wanted to say, and I also knew that he wasn't quite ready to say it yet, so I took a chance and said quietly, “You're Calvert Hunt's doctor. Is Charles Service your patient as well?”

“Not really, although Charlie consults me from time to time. Why do you ask?”

“I'm curious to know how long Charles Service has been addicted to cocaine is all.”

Dr. Cuncliffe's face closed up in thought. He shrugged and said, “Coke? Charles has been on the stuff for a few years now. Off and on, that is. Sometimes he gets into a 12-step program and stays clear of it for a while, but he always goes back. A smart fellow like that, I'm damned if I can understand it.”

So my guess was right, but I didn't feel good about it. How many times have I sat with people, smiling and lying, tricking them into telling me the truth?

Dr. Cuncliffe screwed up his eyes and mouth in concentration and went on. “Damn shame. Charles is a decent sort. God only knows what possessed him to dabble with the stuff in the first place. Bloody foolishness. When I think what it must have cost him, over the years … ”

Dr. Cuncliffe looked at his glass and discovered that it was empty. Moving with difficulty, he got up and went unsteadily to the side table for a refill. Speaking over his shoulder, his voice half muffled, he said, “The reason I called you. It's about my boy, Harry.”

He turned toward me and said awkwardly, “I don't know how to put this, but the thing is, I've never been satisfied. About Harry's killing, I mean. The real reason for it. What I wanted to ask you, Silas, as a favour … Since you're working on that Marcia Hunt thing, maybe you could keep your eyes and ears open … ”

His voice trailed off. He was quite drunk. He went to a sideboard, pulled open a drawer and took out an unframed four-by-six photograph. “Here,” he said. “You can keep this.”

It was a photograph of Harry. I turned it over. A pencilled caption read: “Harry Cuncliffe. 1978–2000.”

Sudden drops of moisture glistened in Dr. Cuncliffe's eyes. He brushed his face with the back of a hand and said, “Sorry. Unforgivable. I'm getting maudlin in my old age, but he was my only son. There's just me now.”

I felt like I was mainlining on wretchedness.

He said, “I asked you a few days ago if you thought Jimmy Scow had killed my boy. Remember?”

“Yes, and I remember the answer I gave you. It was no.”

“Were you just guessing, or do you have evidence?”

“Let me put it this way. The evidence against Scow was tainted.”

“I know it was, because I attended every day of Scow's trial. I was hoping that the prospect of a jail sentence would soften Scow up. Encourage him to rat on his accomplices.”

I didn't say anything.

Dr. Cuncliffe sat down and said gamely, “How's your tipple? Help yourself, old boy. I'm a bit legless, myself.”

“We'll find him, Doctor. Find the guy who killed your son, and that's a promise,” I said. I meant every word, but by then I was thinking with my heart instead of my head.

I had another Glenlivet and then left him to his desolation.

CHAPTER FIVE

Imet Chief Alphonse in the Warrior band office. Smoke wisped from the briar pipe hanging between his front teeth. He looked at the raindrops running down his windowpanes and said cryptically, “First Woman is crying and bringing rain to our lands. Pretty soon, First Son will bring the west wind, dry the tears of his mother if she weeps too long.”

That was fine with me.

The chief burned more tobacco and continued solemnly, “George Putty is getting the heebie-jeebies from too much drinking. We've got to do something before he runs away.”

“Gregarious George?” I said. “What's George been up to this time?”

“Passing out in the street, panhandling. Making a nuisance of himself at Gottlieb's Trading Post. It's pathetic. George Putty is a Black Tamahnous. That man was respected from Seabeck to Fairbanks at one time. Now he's a disgrace. Never goes home, doesn't talk to his family.” The chief sighed and added, “Little Sam thinks that Little Earths have taken George's soul.”

“I suppose Little Sam wants to do some medicine.”

“Yes. Little Sam said he'd throw bones in the air and do Earth Dwarf Song. The very mention of bone throwing and Little Earth conjuring scared George out of his wits.”

“Well, drinking, Chief. I drink myself.”

“Not like George Putty. Getting drunk is all he does now.”

“I could lock him up long enough to dry him out, but that won't correct George's underlying problem.”

“Little Sam and me, we know what George's underlying problem is,” the chief said dryly. “I want you to think about it, Silas. George Putty has a lot of respect for you.”

“I wish Jimmy Scow had respect for me as well,” I said. “
He
seems to think I'm a halfwit.”

“Little Jimmy Scow,” Chief Alphonse repeated thoughtfully. “Now there's a
name
.”

I waited. The chief added, “He's spending a lot of time Canoe Cove way, diving into the sea.”

“Wolf ritual?”

“Wolf ritual is right.” Chief Alphonse took the pipe out of his mouth and looked at it. He put it back in his mouth again, took a few puffs and said, “I'll tell you this, though. I knew Jimmy Scow's dad. He had real power.”

“Jimmy told me his dad never used it.”

The chief frowned and said, “I heard Jimmy's dad sing Wolf Song in Haida Gwaii 15 years ago.”

That gave me something else to wonder about. I told the chief I'd think about George Putty.

The chief's prediction was being fulfilled. The wind had swung to the west and a rainbow was bridging James Bay.

≈ ≈ ≈

I was in Bartholomews, drinking Foster's draft at the bar and fretting about Barb. A philosopher on the adjacent stool was bemoaning the collapse of western civilization. Its ultimate achievement had been the 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air. Since then it had been downhill all the way.

“They don't make cars now,” the philosopher said with alcoholic belligerence. “They make shit. Give me a '50s Bel Air, give me any kind of iron built in the '40s, '50s. That's my idea of wheels. You telling me any Jap heap's the match of a full-size Chev?”

“I'm driving a 1982 Chev,” I answered, referring to my rustbucket parked across the street.

“Put it there, pal.” He extended his hand. “I wanna shake hands with a guy knows cars.”

He signalled the barman and ordered pints for each of us. “An '82 ain't no '55, but it's better'n a Mazda. You seen them Hyundais? Made outta recycled plastic and sardine cans. Shit. Ain't even got a carburetor, they got a fuel injector.” After a disgusted snort he lapsed into stuporous silence.

I stared at the liquor bottles arranged on glass shelves behind the bar and thought about my day.

After talking to Chief Alphonse, I'd driven north up the Malahat highway. Traffic was thin and I made good time. By six o'clock I was approaching Nanaimo, driving past a pulp mill. The mill's belching smokestacks and sulphurous stink were like a foretaste of hell, plunked down on the forested shores of B.C. by a satanic jokester.

Half an hour later I entered a room full of large men wearing wide-brimmed hats and showed my ID to the RCMP sergeant in charge. Within five minutes I was seated across a desk from Inspector Fred Wells. The Mountie was a man in his late 50s with a clipped moustache and the rigid bearing of a regimental sergeant major.

I said, “I'm looking for a woman called Marcia Hunt. She disappeared years ago after marrying a member of the old Wellington motorcycle gang.” I explained what was going on.

Wells' air of polite attention sharpened noticeably when I mentioned Frank Harkness's name. He looked at me through half-closed eyes and said, “Frank Harkness was a hard case. I remember him well. He was clever, good-looking and tough. Local kids destined to pump gas and sweep floors for a living joined his gang, and Harkness made motorcycle goons out of them. His bunch raised hell around here for a few years and kept this detachment pretty busy. When we put him out of business the gang disintegrated.”

I said, “Does the name Fred Eade mean anything to you?”

Hearing these half-forgotten names made Wells thoughtful, and his relaxing facial muscles drooped in the pull of gravity, making him seem older and less cynical. “Fred was a gofer. After Harkness bailed out, small-timers like Fred turned to other crimes. Without leaders they weren't very successful. Fred Eade pulled a clumsy bank holdup and we put him away. Hell's Angels rule the roost here now. Harkness's old-time biker buddies are either dead, in jail, pumping gas or on social assistance.”

“What happened to Frank Harkness?”

The inspector made the slightest movement in his chair and the tendons in his neck twitched, pulling down the edges of his mouth. “The file is still open. I'll tell you a story, and you can decide.”

Wells collected his thoughts and said, “Harkness was an American. From Oakland, California. One of those who came to Canada after the Vietnam War. Before the war, Harkness studied chemistry at UCLA until he was conscripted into the U.S. Marine Corps. At war's end, Harkness didn't return to civilian life with his comrades — he was serving time in a military prison because of some black-market scam.”

Wells fell into a glum silence for a moment, absently tapping the edge of his table with his fingers, then continued. “But in 1977 Harkness was living on a rented farm a few miles north of Nanaimo. Ostensibly, he was supporting himself as a construction worker. Harkness soon had enough money to buy the farm. He grew vegetables and raised a few sheep. To all appearances, Harkness was just another hobby farmer living on a half-cleared woodlot out in the boondocks.”