Anthony Bidulka Read online

  Everyone has their Boogeyman. But who — or what — is scaring Saskatoon locals to death? Private detective Russell Quant is roused from sleep only to fall into a nightmare case when the family of a suicide victim hires him to uncover the real cause of death. But what is real and what is imaginary?

  Quant works to narrow his list of suspects only to find the number of victims growing. Russell is mystified as the trail of fear connects him to a vast landscape of people, including an elegant potash miner, dubious trailer park denizens, reticent farm folk, the Pink Gopher choir, and a gaseous psychiatrist.

  Compounding Quant's bewilderment is the complete and perfect disappearance of his once very real friend, Sereena, who has become a ghost he simply can't find. With the Boogeyman always a few paces ahead, Russell struggles to keep the hounds of failure from baying. Travelling from Saskatchewan's summer storms to the menacing Lotus Land of Vancouver, he finally touches down in the Canadian Arctic, where tragic hope resides. Russell returns home to bully attacks, a desperate chase through midnight woods, and a sadistic abduction. As Quant penetrates the truth of the Boogeyman, he finds himself on a perilous suspension bridge between idyllic childhood and grown-up violence

  Also by the author

  Amuse Bouche

  Flight of Aquavit

  Tapas on the Ramblas

  Copyright © 2006 by Anthony Bidulka

  Edited by Catherine Lake

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from Access Copyright, 1 Yongc Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  , M5E 1E5.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Bidulka, Anthony, 1962-

  Stain of the berry / Anthony Bidulka. (A Russell Quant mystery)

  ISBN 1-897178-24-7

  I. Title. II. Series: Bidulka, Anthony, 1962- Russell Quant mystery.

  PS8553.I319S73 2006 C813'.6 C2006-903479-6

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Insomniac Press

  192 Spadina Avenue, Suite 403

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 2C2

  www.insomniacpress.com

  a word for every year

  Trout

  Kuhio

  Mocha

  Oia

  House

  Bali

  Gong

  Zihua

  Giles

  Drivethrough

  Rainbow

  Silversea

  Amuse

  Hetlekulani

  Mashatu

  Happy 15th Herb

  and one more

  Love

  Writing the acknowledgement section for each book is one of my favourite things to do because I am continuously grateful to so many people who make up the world I live in as a writer. It's also one of the most difficult tasks because there is no way I can possibly mention everyone I should. Included in that list are the people who sit in the audience when I appear at bookstores and other venues. It astounds me that you show up. I hope you know that your presence is a very special gift. And then there are the letters, cards, emails, the wonderful folks who write to me via my website, and many other gifts and kindnesses that buoy my spirit and inspire me to write more, write better, just write. My thanks.

  I have the opportunity with each book to travel to many different cities in Canada and the United States. Every visit is an exciting, unique, wonderful adventure. Thank you to all the booksellers, store managers and employees, event coordinators, festival, conference and award show organizers for all that you do. These have been some of the best times of my career.

  To the people of the worlds of print, radio, the web and TV, thank you for paying attention and sharing your time and talent, air time and column space. You continue to make a difference. Your support means a great deal to me.

  Special thanks to: Aden Bowman Collegiate students and teachers for including me in your fantastic literary morning; book club participants for your interest and humour, excellent questions and fine hospitality; the talented writers it has been my honour to share a stage with over the past year, including Robert Taylor, Craig Hickman, Gene Kahn, Guy Vanderheage, Sharon Butala, Gail Bowen, Pride Week Coffeehouse participants, Gary Ryan, Murray J. Malcolm, Anne Metikosh, Patricia Nell Warren, Jeff Mann and Ellen Hart; Katherine & NeWest for the Magical Mystery Tour and more; the talented children of St. Michael's School-I loved your performances; Terri for the fantastic flamenco; Prairie Ink for superb tapas and sangria; Deneen for coming back; Oct 20 in Saskatoon-you people rock!; David and Dick for making honest men out of each other at last; James for Tree; Frances-you are forever my Captain Giovanna Bagnato-the store, the window, the sangria, the food, the crowd-you're #1; Keith & Martin, there is nothing common about your hospitality; Blossoms for knowing just when to brighten a day with flowers; the curiously enterprising Paul and Jan for Greek tapas, Korean onion rings and killer dinner parties; Taylor and Bugger because I couldn't not; Shelley N my poster girl!; Pat and Lynne for Victoria treats and mojitos on the beach; Kit-you are never invisible; Dori for pillow talk; George (aka Birch) for always putting me on your Reading List; Ross for unknowingly inspiring the Arctic locale; Kell for help with Moose Jaw street names; Huw for the best poster ever; Kevin Hogarth for great photos and teaching me about face powder; Farewell, Kenny; Holly and Jim for curry at the Bengal; Bob and Eleanor for the South African feast; CnC for 15th escargot and meat; Kathryn M for blowing bubbles in wine; Richard (Linklater!)-jazz & blues=good, 80s pop=bad!; Nowell for Atlanta welcome package; my fellow GWRs; Hi Moo and E!; my sisters and their marvellous clans; and Mom: ta da!!! Stardust memories.

  Andrew Frape of TechGuys created a killer website, a marvellous home for Russell Quant and all his stuff. Way to go, Code Monkey.

  Insomniac Press-Mike and staff-you make magic. With appreciation.

  Michele Karlsberg- pedalling my prairie detective while on a cruiseship holiday to foreign airline employees- wow, you are GOOD

  Excerpts from an editor's letter: "...I circled a great many ellipses.. .I did find the placement of the conversation a bit unusual. . .if you change the day of death.. .there are too many 'dudes' in this section...I know that it is difficult to explore such issues...loved the farting-hilarious...I did note that the pigs do sound like sheep.. .that is an excellent scene, by the way.. .not quite getting where you want it to be.. .I was very much drawn into your thought-provoking portrayals of fear and childhood...you revel in your smaller characters...we never hear her speak and yet obtain an amazing sense of who she is...you need to lighten it...please revisit this.. .Saskatoon has its own character.. .these are harsh consequences for Russell...I think you should check on this...detach yourself a bit...a complete and complex novel...the multitude of links are so subtle I almost missed some of them...my intention is to support you and your writing to the best of my abilities..." And I feel that from you every day. Thank you, Catherine.

  A book is nothing without you, the reader.

  And Herb.

  Chapter 1

  I awoke startled, my heart playing a spicy salsa beat within the cavity of my chest. Perspiration stuck to me like shrink wrap, yet the room was cool as a tomb. I was unaccountably frightened, disoriented, not fully conscious really, struggling to identify the source of my discomfort. Was it a dream? A nightmare? Someone was chasing me. A hand was reaching out for me, almost touchi
ng me. But no, it wasn't me the hand was reaching for, it was someone else, someone familiar, and I was watching from afar, helpless. Then the image was gone, replaced by a jarring clamour assaulting my fuzzy brain. My left arm shot out for the phone on the bedside table, knocking it to the floor. Thankfully, the action brought to an end the unsettling din, but then came something much worse. A deliberate, dark voice invaded my addled brain: The boogeyman is gonna get you. My eyes flew open, searching the empty space for what or who was haunting my room. I heard it again: a voice, disembodied. I rolled onto my side to the edge of the bed and reached down, fumbling for the phone's receiver. I pulled the handset to my ear.

  "What? What? What!" I called into the phone, loud enough to wake the two schnauzers at the foot of my bed, both completely hidden beneath the bedcovers I'd wrestled off myself sometime during the night.

  "What?" a voice repeated back, sounding not at all like the Grim Reaper in my head but rather more like a frightened woman.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I answered back, for some reason relying on repetition to propel me further into this unexpected conversation. "I was sleeping." Bet she was surprised. Through slitted eyes I saw that the clock on my bedside table read 2:37. "Did you say something about a boogeyman?" I asked.

  "Oh God, I'm sorry...you're gonna think I'm crazy." Her voice sat in the lower registers, but was no doubt feminine. Then, more to herself, "Maybe I am crazy."

  Well, I don't know who you are, but yup, I pretty much don't think too highly of you so far. "I think you have the wrong number," I growled, instinctively pulling at the bedsheet to cover myself. Barbra and Brutus, my mutts, growled their own displeasure at the rude awakening. "Oh be quiet," I said to them.

  "What?" this from the woman.

  "Not you." Well, maybe. "Wrong number," I told her again and was about to hang up when I heard her call my name. Huh? "Excuse me? Do I know you? Who is this?"

  "Russell Quant?" she repeated, haltingly.

  I debated a lie. "Yuh-huh," I answered, my tongue still thick and eraser-like with sleep.

  "He...he's coming to get me...I don't know why...but I can't take it anymore!"

  A ripple of shivers surged over me and I sat up in bed, focusing on the caller's voice, which was trembling like an aspen leaf in a breeze. She was definitely scared, not hysterical, but close. My shift in position caused Brutus to hop off the bed in search of a quieter resting place on the floor. His sister Barbra sighed greatly but stayed where she was. "Are you okay, miss? What's your name?"

  "He won't leave me alone. He wants to hurt me."

  I was more confused. "Listen, is something happening right now? Are you in danger?" My voice sounded anxious. I had to do something about that; it wouldn't do my caller any good if I sounded more scared than she was.

  She said nothing for a moment, but I could hear a sort of whimpering as she considered the answer to my question.

  "Should I call the police? Tell me exactly what's happening." I felt like a 911 operator. "Is there someone there with you right now?"

  And then-dial tone.

  It was turning out to be one of those mythical Saskatchewan summers. The days long and hot and dry, often punctuated by nameless winds born of the same capricious airstreams that give rise to the gentle Mediterranean zephyr, the dust-laden Saharan sirocco, the insistent French mistral, the dry Egyptian khamsin, the Rocky Mountain chinook and the indefatigable African harmattan.

  Our summer nights come late on a rising moon of many colours. And when it's hot enough and conditions are exactly right, careless skies unleash a fury so powerful it's as if the whole world is under the unpredictable control of Seth, the ancient Egyptian god of storms. These are wild, crazy storms that blow like hurricanes across the prairies, fracture the sky with kilometre-long, jagged fingers of lightning and deposit enough water to float an ark. After minutes or hours-one can never be sure which-the storm passes, leaving behind rainbows so perfect they might have been drawn by a child, fields of diamonds born of water droplets, and the sweet, sweet aromas of everything that is fresh and new.

  Yet as much as prairie folk pray for rain to bolster crops (whether you're a farmer or not does not really matter), they also need hot and dry conditions to turn thin green stalks into fat golden ones. So thankfully, in between these glorious bursts of wet, most of our Saskatchewan summer days are bone dry. And as dry as the weather was, so too was my business.

  My name is Russell Quant. A few years back I decided to leave my stable, scheduled, regular-cheque-every-month job as a police constable for the Canadian prairie city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and hang my shingle as a private detective. Saskatoon's population is somewhere over the 200,000 mark and growing, with a large network of towns, villages and farming communities surrounding it. So, there's stuff for a detective to do, just not always. And not always interesting.

  My cases have run the gamut from The Case of the Stolen Perogy Recipe to murder-with emphasis on the perogy side of the scale. And lately, business had been bad. My resume' of recent cases was looking pretty sparse and my bank account even more so. I had reached a point where I'd begun to think I'd never work again and would have to sell the family jewels-which consist of a green-tinged, silver ID bracelet from my first high school boyfriend (well, I pretended he was my boyfriend) and a pair of cufflinks (one broken) that had belonged to my late father but which he'd never used.

  You see, every year, sometime in June, the population of Saskatchewan slips into a comatose state of inactivity that lasts for the duration of our short but sultry summer months. People go to lakes. They golf. They camp. They have celebratory barbecues for no apparent reason. They eat copious amounts of tiger-tiger and grape-flavoured ice-cream. They attend a plethora of summertime festivals and go for long walks. They do just about anything but work. And apparently, troublemakers-the people who keep me in business-have the same routine. But come September, with the first whiff of cooler evening air, the populace grudgingly slough off their sloppy sandals and loose-fitting shorts and slip on their most rigorous dress shoes and slick business suits, at the ready for action. Kids are back in school. University hallways are packed. Committees are formed. Boards return from hiatus. Decisions are made. Hobbies are reborn. Business is done and, thankfully, evil-doers get back to doing evil. I could hardly wait. Until then, I was relegated to long mornings at home before schlepping to work to stare at the phone, rearrange files and hope for something interesting in the mail, like a flyer for two-for-one geranium plants at my favourite greenhouse.

  My office is on Spadina Crescent

  , just out of downtown, in an old character house that used to be called the Professional Womyn's Centre. Several years ago a young lawyer, Errall Strane, purchased the property, did some remodelling and in deference to a piece of history, renamed it the PWC Building. After renovations, PWC was left with four office spaces. Errall runs her law practice out of the largest suite on the main floor, the balance of which is rented to Beverly Chaney, a psychiatrist. Two smaller offices on the second floor belong to Alberta Lougheed, a psychic, and me. Mine is the smallest, but the only one with a balcony and a view that more than makes up for its size. From the small deck I can gaze across Spadina Crescent

  at beautiful Riverside Park and over to the South Saskatchewan River.

  Because of the disturbing phone call, which had kept me tossing and turning the rest of the night, it was close to 11 a.m., later than usual (really) when I pulled into the gravel lot behind PWC. I hustled up the metal staircase that hugs the rear of the building and takes me directly to the second floor. I think at one time it was meant to be a fire escape, but now the ancient railings are so unstable I'm the only one who dares to use it. Stepping indoors, I heard the unexpected; it was the sound of...what was that noise? It sounded distantly familiar. It was activity-maybe even bustle? I peered over the banister of the stairs that lead down to the main floor. The PWC reception area is dominated by a massive circular desk which divides the space in tw
o: a waiting area for Errall's clients to the right and one to the left for all the rest of our clients. The spot of honour behind the desk is home to our ever-cheerful group receptionist, Lilly. As I looked down, all appeared as usual, except for the fact that there were a number of people milling about, sitting in chairs, drinking coffee, chatting with Lilly. Who were these people? They appeared to be...clients. Some were for Errall (these were easily distinguishable by their serious manners and clothes to match). The others were for Beverly and...could it be...some for Alberta too? I glanced at Alberta's office door, decked out with a never-before-seen, handwritten sign that said in quite serious-looking print: Spirits At Work-Do Not Disturb!!! This Means You!

  Holy cow. Even Alberta was busier than I was. Could it be that it was just me suffering from summer doldrums? I looked down at my business attire, which over the past few weeks of heat wave and inactivity had slowly but surely deteriorated to consist solely of wrinkled khaki shorts, one of my collection of diva concert Ts (Cher, Shania, Whitney) and a pair of flip-flops that had seen better days. I backed away from the banister as if beyond it was the Twilight Zone and scooted into my office shutting the door soundly behind me.