Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island Read online

  “Why?”

  “Nowhere close to the standards of the master.”

  “And you want to know why Marchand’s so successful.”

  “I do.”

  “It’s his brother-in-law, Tam Gill, who goes to Europe. He talks about sniffing out the paintings.”

  “How does Marchand hear about them? What are his methods? Why is he so successful?”

  Kyra sipped her coffee. “Can’t he be successful?”

  “But why only he?” Lucas, long-time member of a small antique consortium, had left his tenured position in Political Science at Simon Fraser University fifteen years after he’d begun teaching there, furious at academic bureaucracy. He started his antique shop and became a happier man. Years ago he had explained to Kyra that his antiquarian friends and he helped one another. They were too old to compete. Now he said, “Marchand seems to have no help from anyone. Could he have a secret cache somewhere?”

  “If he did, would he pull out one or two paintings at a time to keep the price high?”

  “That’d make sense. If it’s a cache, for example, he must have gained access to some old Nazi or Communist hoard.”

  “Isn’t that possible?”

  “There’d have been rumors. We haven’t heard the least rumble.”

  How well connected was her father? “Could someone be forging them, selling them to him?”

  “Extremely doubtful. The paintings Marchand’s found have been well authenticated. Most of them by two of the best people in the field. I’ve seen them. They all come with their provenances.”

  “Maybe stolen?”

  “It’s a mighty small world. Theft, even from obscure sources, gets whispered about.”

  “Is there big money in these schools-of paintings?”

  “There can be. In good condition, a School of Cranach or Ghirlandaio, with a few discernible brush strokes of the master, a metre by a metre-three,” Lucas shrugged, “half a million to a million? Way more than a few years ago. Size, condition, scarcity, recognition factor all play their part.”

  Kyra sipped coffee. “Yep, big money. Who’s buying them?”

  “People with big money.”

  “Do you go looking for schools-of?”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. “In the old days we didn’t have to, the news would come to us. My friends and I share costs. We still have scouts across Europe. Since the late nineties, they’ve found very few. Two summers ago I wrote Marchand, asking him to talk to our small group. He wrote back saying he was far too busy. Last year I wrote again, but he never replied.”

  “Why didn’t you just phone?”

  “In our world we’re not quite so abrupt.”

  “Did you write him with a fountain pen?’

  “With a quill.” They smiled.

  “What makes Marchand such a good hunter?”

  “We’d like to know. Should we hire you?”

  “We?”

  “I believe the others would also be interested.”

  She thought about it. “Chances are pretty good I won’t be able to find out anything. If you and your friends who know the art world can’t figure it out—”

  “We don’t know Marchand and Gill. You and Noel do.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Got a lot of money?”

  “No. But a little.”

  “Okay.” Ethical to investigate an ex-client?

  • • •

  Not till he’d finished breakfast did Noel notice the red light on his answering machine blinking. Maybe Kyra, trying to reach him? Damn those breather calls, blocking them cut out everything. He pressed the playback button. A moment of silence— Shit! The breathing again, then a raspy voice, “ . . . nice new tires . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut. A click, and the message ended.

  “You fucker.” For minutes he didn’t move. All coincidence had vanished. Someone has it in for you, Noel. Who, damn it? And why? Call Albert— No, try to figure this out by yourself.

  When had the phone calls started? Five weeks ago. When he was already beaten down by Brendan’s death. Someone who knew that, wanting to beat him down some more? Whoever was calling, and had slashed his tires, had succeeded in rekindling Noel’s discomfort in being a visible person. Except there weren’t any newspaper articles with his byline, let alone media interviews. His only public activity was this investigating, only since two days ago. And Kyra had it right, asking people questions is hardly a public act. So timing made any relationship between clearing Eaglenest Gallery and the breathing caller impossible.

  Could it go back to that poor woman he’d maligned? But that had been years ago; why now? Anyway, since then he’d practically dropped from sight. Kyra was one of the few old friends he still saw. And he’d not accepted invitations from any of Brendan’s friends.

  Who the hell had it in for him?

  Maybe the time had come. Up on a high shelf he found three packets containing the notes for his book on the Chung murder case and the file holding forty-six pages of printed-out manuscript. He piled it beside his computer, clicked from standby to active, pulled up the Chung directory, and opened the paper file beside him. He reached page seven without taking in a word.

  He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. Couple of cobwebs up there. At least some spider was catching flies. The book needed a few active cobwebs. He could phone his editor. He had nothing to say to her. Too bad Kyra had gone. Call her? Tell her about the phone call too.

  Or go back to Gabriola and check out the property Dempster was looking after? But Yardley had found nothing. Anyway, the investigation was over, they’d done what Marchand wanted. Just write the report. Could Roy’s side job have had anything to do with the Gallery’s reputation?

  • • •

  Question: What is worse than sitting in your car for an hour and a half, minutes from the border, on a sunny fall afternoon as the engine idles, breathing in poison from the exhaust of the ancient truck to the left, all for the privilege of crossing back to the US?

  Answer: Knowing you chose the wrong lane. The car to the left and the van to the right had shot so far ahead they’re likely already in Bellingham. That, and the dull hard pounding of too-heavy metal shaking the SUV coming up on the left, vibrating through your tires, deep into your buttock-bones.

  Kyra turned on her CD player to drown out the sound, but the Bare Naked Ladies disk Noel had loaned her couldn’t stave off the pulsations. And the other CDs were no better, Moxy Früvous, Nina Simone, Liz Phair. She took her foot off the brake. Her Tracker rolled one car length. The throbbing kept pace, her seat a-buzz with it. Good thing she’d prepared herself for this with extra weight, some flesh to keep the bone from grinding away inside her derrière skin.

  Two lengths up, the thump-thump from the van softened; three. A car full of dogs now, German shepherds, three huge heads out the two side windows. She loathed dogs. A few weeks after she’d started investigating, Sam had begun pushing. Their conversations were versions of him saying: “Get a dog, when you’re alone it’s not safe.”

  “A dog?”

  “For your line of work.”

  Sam could rarely bring himself to say the word investigation. Or detection. “Not safe in Bellingham, Washington, for shitsake? Nice-salt-of-the-earth town like Bellingham?”

  “Sure.” Sam would shake his head, his show of weariness. “You’re out alone all the time.”

  “All the time? A couple of cases.”

  “Gone all night—”

  “It’s called a stakeout. What’re you saying?”

  “I’m saying you’re not here. With me. Next to me. In bed with me.”

  She’d say, “Sam, you were the one who said it’d do me good, getting a job.” And he’d say, “But not this kind of job.” And she’d say, “I like this kind of job.” And the anger would build. “Sorry.”

  “Think about getting a dog,” he’d say.

  Dogs are so fucking dependent. Hours of that going for a walk thing. And they drooled. Saliva all over yo
ur sweater. Your crotch. Maybe not from a small dog, a poodle, but who in her right mind wanted a poodle. Anyway, when she was alone on a case, a dog would get in the way. Sam just didn’t get her detective work.

  The dogs had moved five cars up.

  Sam never did buy her a dog. For safety’s sake, he’d bought her the Chevy Tracker. Perfect for your work, he’d boasted. And gas, insurance, maintenance get to be business expenses. She’d hugged him. She’d stared out the window at the white box on wheels. This was absolutely not the car she wanted to be seen in. Why hadn’t she sold it? Because Sam had given it to her?

  She needed food. Why couldn’t some enterprising lad with a hot dog cart decide to take on the border crunch? A big fat hamburger, heavy with relish, half-sour pickles, lightly fried onions, tomatoes, crisp lettuce—

  Two lengths forward. She looked at her face in the rear-view mirror. Hair sticking out more than usual. Eyes bright and brown as ever. She squinted at her reflection. The new weight padded the curve of her cheekbones. When she was fourteen Noel had told her her cheekbones were her finest feature. She believed him instantly. Did she really want admiration for her cheekbones? Her three exhusbands had all raved about her lovely cheeks. With that much agreement, should she argue?

  Eight car lengths farther. Ahead, the Peace Arch: Children of a Common Mother. The usual question waiting: Citizenship? Born in Brooklyn, a year old when she moved to Vancouver. Became a Canadian citizen at eighteen, just before going back to the States, Oregon, Reed College. A legal citizen of each country. Some border officials don’t like you to have dual citizenship. So when she entered Canada she said Canadian, and the other way around. Six car lengths.

  Five cars from the booth. Finally her turn. “Hello.”

  Two officials, a crewcut male and a hang-jowl woman, who said, “Nationality?”

  “American.”

  “How long have you been in Canada?”

  “Three days.”

  “Purpose of your trip?”

  The familiar guilt, border guards and police aroused it, clearly she’d done something wrong. “Family business.”

  “Anything to declare?”

  “No.”

  “Please get out of your car and open up in back.” She did. Crewcut left the booth—taller than he’d seemed. “Would you open the suitcase, please?”

  “Sure.” She did.

  Crewcut wore gloves. He shuffled around in the case, looked under a couple of layers of clothes, closed the suitcase, slid it to the right, on the left he lifted the carpeting. Ran his hand along the metal, took a small baton from his belt and tapped first the side then the floor. A hollow sound. He dropped the carpeting and smoothed it flat. “Please open that case on the back seat.”

  Kyra reached in, and passed him the open case.

  He took out a ball. He squeezed it. “What’s this?” He took out another.

  “Standard juggling balls.” He looked at her suspiciously as he felt the rest. Then he tilted his head at the unsmiling woman. They stepped aside and conferred.

  Kyra’s guilt increased even as she told herself it was irrational. Did people really smuggle stuff in juggling balls?

  The man and woman returned. He put the balls away, closed the lid and handed the case to Kyra. “You may go. Have a good day.”

  “Thanks.” For letting me into one of my own countries? After an hour and a half in line? Gee whiz.

  • • •

  On the ferry Noel consulted the map of Gabriola and, once off, drove along South Road to Brickyard Beach and up Ferne Road—he hadn’t been this way before—to the Taggart property. A long winding driveway passed through fir, cedar and broadleaf maples, then a lawn and garden in front of a low house, technically a rancher, one storey, sprawling, imposing.

  Before leaving, he’d checked his tires. They were fine. Now he stopped the car and climbed out. And felt foolish for having come. But he hadn’t been prepared to write the Marchand report. Or think about the new phone call. And the Chung manuscript had closed his brain down.

  He stepped up to the front door and knocked; the family could have returned. Without Roy, who would be looking after the property? He knocked again. He sensed the silence of a long-empty dwelling. The drapes were drawn over the three windows he could see.

  Off the deck, along a brick path to the side, more closed drapes. It’s true, houses don’t like being empty. The yard contained a tree with a tire swing and a garden area, unplanted. What had Roy been caretaking? Around to the back of the house. A nip of autumn held the air, but the sun still shone bright. Here at the edge of a brick patio sat a covered hot tub surrounded by built-in benches and planters. Beside the tub, a brick barbeque. He could live like this, cook a steak, lie in the tub, stare at the stars.

  More mown lawn and weeded perennial garden back here. Roy’s work? Woodshed, garage on the other side. Beyond the lawn, the property dropped gently to trees maybe thirty metres away. Noel walked down the lot.

  A thin path wound through the trees, the duff between them free of windfalls. Then the vegetation changed to scrawny alder, small arbutus, and fir seedlings. Of course, Noel realized—these lots abut the clearcut. Roy would have done his caretaking, then gone bird-watching back here.

  The trail, still visible but with more low growth, continued on. A deer trail? Birds rustled and a little stream seeped. In the spring would the ground be covered with those sweet small strawberries? About fifty metres along he was suddenly confronted by an impassable thicket of Himalayan blackberry vines, still a few drying berries, highest growth around. The path, even fainter, headed around the berry patch to the left. An extensive patch. When blackberries find conditions they like, they spread.

  Then suddenly the trail ended in a trample of mud facing the tangled vines. The Taggarts’ private blackberry patch: wine, jam, pies. Recently trampled, he noted, and the Taggarts had been gone since April. Gingerly grasping a vine between its thorns, he pulled it aside. It caught other vines, separating them from the rest like a door in the thicket wall.

  Behind the vines, planted in soldierly rows, thick green cannabis. The center of the blackberry patch was hollowed out. Not a few plants for personal use, but dozens, maybe more than a hundred. It looked high quality and close to harvest-ready. Like the pot Lyle had brought for Brendan. But Roy the Faith Bearer, growing pot? Albert would be most interested.

  • • •

  I like Bellingham, Kyra thought, as the I-5 bisected the city’s northern reaches. Slightly smaller than Nanaimo, about the same age, its history too was coal, logs, pulp and fish. Only 150 miles between the cities, both seaports, both with islands in view, both hilly, both with sprawling malls off a highway. What, she wondered, made Bellingham so not-Nanaimo? She’d thought for years, if she could figure this out she’d have figured out the confusing difference between Americans and Canadians.

  It’s in the architecture, she used to think. Houses in Bellingham are more, well, American. Verandahs, gingerbread. So she’d studied certain Vancouver neighborhoods, Strathcona, Mount Pleasant, parts of Kitsilano: verandahs, gingerbread. Like Nanaimo. Then she’d got picky; Canadian verandahs are higher, require more steps; perhaps American houses don’t have basements.

  The flags. Yes, a major difference. Especially now. But even before September 11th there’d been way more Stars and Stripes in American neighborhoods than Maple Leafs in their Canadian equivalent. A lot of Canadians thought it the height of ostentation to fly a flag when you know perfectly well what country you’re in. Flags belong at borders and embassies. What do these flags mean? This is the house of a patriot? Death to all terrorists? I grieve for those who died in Iraq? And what does it mean not to fly a flag? Surely not the opposite.

  She’d come to Vancouver in 1973 when her parents were hired to teach at the new state-of-the-art Simon Fraser University, a few years after the Maple Leaf was proclaimed the new Canadian flag. Some people missed the old Red Ensign and had refused to fly the new banner. Thirty-somethin
g years wasn’t long for a flag. Over two hundred for the Stars and Stripes.

  The Fairhaven exit, thank heaven. This bit of I-5 was concrete slab, not asphalt, and she always wondered how her castanets of teeth fared as the car bumped along. At least her speedometer matched the m.p.h. signs. Stop at Albertson’s for food or check the fridge first? Fridge, she decided, it’s only been three days.

  The utilitarian side-by-side duplex she’d rented after she and Sam had split was a green box with two doors, four windows, two straight cement walks flanked by two driveways. She parked the Tracker in hers.

  In the living room, a nondescript nubbly beige sofa, an armchair clothed in fading spotted blue, and a wood chair awaited her. She was fond of that one, a Hepplewhite from her father. But it wasn’t the sort of chair that commanded, Sit in me. The dining room held her computer on a door blank propped on two filing cabinets. The kitchen sported the fridge, a stove, sink, table and two folding chairs.

  At least Noel’s got a real home. Despite Brendan’s death Noel’s place is warm and welcoming. I’ve got a place that sulks, that whispers, I know you don’t want to be here.

  You’re right. But it’s not your fault, house. Kyra vowed right then to move.

  She opened the fridge and sniffed the milk. Off. She flashed to Jerry Bannister’s kitchen yesterday. She poured the milk in the sink and ran the water. Okay, go to Dos Padres for a margarita and chimichanga. Phone Sarah, her friend from the juggling group, also recently separated? Walk the three blocks, she needed the exercise. She checked her phone messages. Mike, her ex-burglar friend and teacher; a drink some evening? Sam, just calling to say hello. Amy, an old friend from Reed. Not many calls for three days away. Quickly she read her e-mails: no, she didn’t need her penis enlarged; a petition about the plight of women in Afghanistan that she’d seen word for word years ago. Noel: pot plants in a berry patch in the clearcut beyond the Taggart property—huh?—and he’d been trying to reach Albert. She wrote him back immediately: What the schmidt are you doing?

  • • •