And On the Surface Die (23 page)

She cursed herself for not searching the buildings ahead of time, merely assuming that since no cars or trucks were around, that there were no means of escape. But they had the lab, and they had Neil.

“Aren’t you gonna read me my rights?” he asked with a sneer as he leaned against the wall. She could smell the stale sweat that soaked his shirt. His nose kept dripping, running down his chin. “I want a cigarette,” he demanded with a wheeze.

“You watch too much television. I’m not Dog, the Bounty Hunter. He makes way more money,” she said, then turned to Chipper. “Call it in, get a team from Sooke, and run his name through CPIC for wants. Run the plate, too. It could be stolen.”

They secured Neil, with a complimentary wad of tissues, while Holly pulled on surgical gloves and went back to check the house. If a gas flame was burning, they could lose the place. Though the hydro was working, the house was barely habitable, and the water came from a shallow well dug before her father had been born. Wallpaper peeled in strips, revealing lath and plaster, and the pissy smell of black mould permeated the rooms and made her sneeze. The ceilings were hammered tin, a decorative touch from an age of craftsmanship and pride.

Once this had been a cozy farmhouse with a pump at the kitchen sink and an outhouse instead of indoor plumbing. Bedrooms upstairs, a nominal term, contained only soiled mattresses and blankets. The kitchen had a Coleman stove and an ancient refrigerator with a round apparatus on top, circa 1935. The thought of opening it made her gag.

On the wall, a framed needlepoint sampler, the glass cracked and yellowed, read: “To know how sweet your home may be, just go away but keep the key.” Hard-working farm families had lived and died here, their only medicine a dose of honey and vinegar, their weapons a scythe, pitchfork and axe, their loyal partners a team of burly plow horses. In fifty years, perhaps forty, luxury homes would dot the hillside in this Victoria West. She went back into the lab, a former parlour off the foyer, built to face the afternoon sun. Plywood and sawhorse tables held boiling substances in assorted carafes with tubing in all directions. On the floor were empty boxes of cold medication, salt, lithium batteries and Coleman fuel. Unbleached coffee filters sat piled next to a round metal cooking screen and wire cutters. Pitchers, wooden spoons and a carton of Ziploc bags completed the preparations. She saw no finished product. Perhaps they worked batch by batch. It wasn’t a large operation, so chances were that gangs weren’t involved. That might give her a bargaining coin. Whatever Neil might say in this unguarded moment could affect later strategies. As for an immediate confession, he was no boy like Billy or Mike, but he had been caught in the act.

Holly finished taking notes and joined Chipper in the car. Neil coughed in the back. Black mould could make someone quite sick.

“I called it in,” Chipper said. “A specialty team from West Shore will be out here in an hour. After they make their report, this whole place is going to have to be assessed for the toxicity of the chemicals, the guy said.”

“Glad our part’s over,” she said, then turned to Neil. “We have a date at the detachment. I have more questions for you.”

Neil blew out a contemptuous breath. “Go fuck yourself.” “We expect you to cooperate. Meth isn’t friendly like pot, which has some acceptance in the community. Public feelings are running high against this cheap poison. You’re looking at some serious time here.”

Chipper stayed at the site to secure the property and wait for the investigating team while Holly drove Neil back to Fossil Bay. Once in her office, she had determined the tack to take in the preliminary interview. If he started thinking too much, they might not get any more information. As they came in the door, Ann gave them an unusual look and passed Holly a file.

Holly gave the papers a quick scan. “Good work, Ann.”

She sat Neil down in her office, leaving the handcuffs on as a reminder. “I see by your sheet that you come from Edmonton, but you did a year in William Head for dealing cocaine in Vancouver. First offense. You got off lucky in one of our Club Feds.” William Head was located in pastoral Metchosin on the glorious strait. It had a stellar view of Hurricane Ridge. Times she’d driven by, the inmates were in the yard chopping wood as if they were on a rustic vacation.

Neil fiddled with the cuffs, contorting his face. “Can’t you lighten up with these? They’re making my wrists sore. And how about some coffee? I’m not a friggin’ terrorist.”

Unlike the empathy she had for Billy and Mike, here Holly saw a source of evil. Crime had its hierarchies, and Neil was a cowardly bottom feeder. What approach should she take?

Lowering her voice, she chose her words carefully. “Consider yourself lucky that we took the leg cuffs off. I want the name of the other man at the house. I have his bike’s license, so it’s a matter of time. Make it easy on yourself and cooperate.”

“Brad Pitt. Elmer Fudd. Take your pick.” Then he added as his thin mouth curled into an ugly question mark, “I’m not afraid of you, babe. Whadda you gonna do, beat me up?” He shuffled in the seat and produced a pungent fart, watching her reaction.

A bottle of ruthless pine air freshener came to hand, and she sprayed it with abandon, nearly hitting his face. Sparring was fun with an ace up her sleeve. She tapped her pen on the desk, noticing that despite his shabby clothes, he wore a spanking new pair of two-hundred-dollar runners. “Maybe coffee would help, because you’re not thinking too clearly here, Neil. We’re not the problem. You need to be afraid of people who don’t have our ethics and represent only themselves, not the public welfare.”

He coughed pointedly. “Public welfare my ass. Horsemen don’t need the Mafia to do the dirty work. The force is bent enough.”

Holly ignored the flash of flame across her chest. Recent personnel scandals had proved a national embarrassment for Canada’s Mounties, the latest a constable at a lonely outpost cruising sex lines while on duty and offering his patrol car as a bedroom.
Hot cop
had brought very bad publicity. “Something much more West Coast style.” She got up and pulled off an information paper from the bulletin board, sticking it in his face.

A purple pimple rose from the side of his nose, volcanic in potential. “I don’t read so well,” he said. “Lady at school called me functional ill...ill...” His voice trailed off.

She re-tacked the paper. “If you’re new to the island, maybe you don’t know that most of the dope business is run by gangs. It’s a billion-dollar business, and it’s as protected as a newborn. The Hells Angels take a dim view of some amateur skimming their profits.”

He paled, swallowing back a bobbing Adam’s apple. Clearly he was running a penny-ante business. A few months, and he would have moved on, keeping his head low like a lizard. “What’s that got to do with me? See any Harleys at the farm?”

She leaned forward. “Here’s what. It’s no problem to spread the word via our undercover officers that you’re open for business and keeping all the cash. Don’t think they’ll ignore you because you’re small. This is a question of disrespecting their operation. And
respect
is a very important word.” Now she was whisked back to her father’s Seventies period, just before she left for university. He’d organized a
Godfather
party for his graduate students.

He paled, and his knee started a spastic reaction, riding up and down. He crossed his legs to hide it. “I need a drink.”

She brought him water from the cooler, placed it into his hands as he brought them to his mouth. “And they’re not the worst. Just home-grown. Let’s try another name. The Big Circle Boys.”

“Who? You’re making this up.” Water spilled down his T-shirt. She reached for the paper cup and tossed it into the basket.

“Dai Huen Jai. Chinese gangs. They don’t fool around.” She sliced her finger across her throat in amateur theatrics.

“Enough already. What does it matter? Game was over when Dickhead opened his big mouth.” He furrowed his brow, blood-flecked eyes moving back and forth in spasms. Had he been sampling his own wares? “But if I tell you all I know, you gotta protect me.”

“As much as we can. Don’t expect to get into the witness protection program on this petty information.” With some leisure, she opened a fresh page, drumming her fingers in thought. “We might be able to send you out of the area to do your time. That’s all I can promise. Prince George is lovely in the fall.”

He took a deep breath and rattled off curses. “Dave Barnard. He’s my partner. He’ll probably run to his mother’s in Nanaimo. Fucking baby. Dumb as a bag of nails, too. Damn near blew us up twice.”

She tapped the pen on a yellow pad. “I want the name or description of anyone you’ve sold to in around here. Let’s start with the high schools. Unless you went after younger kids, too.”

“Jesus. I don’t ask for passports.” His tongue ran around his thin lips. “If they resell it, what can I do?”

“Poor you. The downside of distribution.” She spat out the words, punctuating for emphasis. “As if you
care.
So give over, Neil.” He furnished her with several names, scratching one seedy ear for inspiration. One struck a bell. “Did you say Jeff Pasquin?” She looked up abruptly.

“Met him down at the old cemetery one night. Dude never gave me his name, but I saw it with his picture in the
News
Mirror.
Some swim-meet shit.”

“How many times did you sell to him? And when?”

His upper lip rose, revealing an oral hygiene as dubious as the yellow-birch stumps of teeth. Even his tongue was furry. “A couple. Think I keep records? This is a friendly business.” Next he’d be referring to his poison as “product”. “He’s an athlete, and as far as I know he’s still in training. Are you feeding me a load of manure?” She thought of the physical ravages of the addiction. Jeff was a poster boy.

A croaky laugh came from his chapped lips, a slit in his pasty face. “Oh hell. That’s a myth. Some people can use it and lose it, then go back to pot, booze, whatever turns their...crank.” He winked for a response but got none.

“That’s not what I hear. Users look wasted in very little time.” She pointed to a wall poster with an image of a young woman fit for a horror movie.

He used his thumbs and forefingers to frame the picture, then guffawed, nearly hitting her with a spray of spittle. “I tried it a few years ago. Rough high. I’m more of a mellow guy. Never used it again. Go figure.”

Holly completed the paperwork to move Neil to West Shore, then loaded him into the car. He would be installed in a cheery cell with stainless steel sink and toilet and no sharp edges. Some luck would give him glass-block windows next to the busy thoroughfare of Veteran’s Memorial Parkway. By this time tomorrow if he didn’t make bail, he’d be at VIRCC, Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre. Her stomach growling, when she’d finished, she stopped for a pulled pork sandwich at nearby Smokin’ Bones, adding a side of vinegary collard greens.

By five, she was back at the office. Chipper had caught a ride back from the Munson property. He brought cups of herbal tea, and they sat on the small sofa in the lunchroom.

Neither cared to be wired by caffeine at that time of day. They had taken their boots off. Chipper was rubbing a sore toe, the hazards of the stiff footwear.

He told her about the crew that had arrived to secure the site and begin the cleaning process. “What a mess,” he said, gesturing in excitement.

“The place was a sty, but I didn’t take an inventory. What did you find?”

He consulted his notes. “Acetone, red phosphorous, lye, muriatic acid, anhydrous ammonia.” He paused, shaking his head. “That’s tough to get, but some people steal it from farmers.”

“Chemistry background?”

“Not really. Lots of amateurs get into it. There are sites all over the web with instructions on how to make meth.”

“What’s the time frame for the cleanup?” she asked, wondering how to close the site to gawkers. “If Sean could ride over there, so could any kid.”

“It might take a week to go over the property for toxic waste. At least in the boonies, they couldn’t flush anything down the sewers. It’s different in the cities. Eighteen to thirty grand per incident in Vancouver. A lab in Surrey exploded, and twenty people had to be evacuated. Methane gas from a lab blew up in a Kitsilano sewer line.”

She blew out a breath at the nickel-and-dime budget at Fossil Bay. “Who pays? How could municipalities afford that?”

“They bill Ottawa, but here’s the crunch. They get refunded only if there’s a police report and charges are laid.” The conversation petered out. Chipper picked up a
Blue Line
magazine.

Suppose Neil had made it out a window? What if Chipper hadn’t been there to help? She turned back to her notes and double-checked for errors. Damn. Had she really written that he had “waved” his rights?

“You two look comfortable,” Ann said, coming in with an envelope. The results of the polygraph test had arrived.

Ten

B
eaming for a change like a proud father with teeth that looked like ceramics, Whitehouse sat with Holly in her office the next day. “We got several outstanding warrants for Neil and Dave. Break-and-enters in Edmonton. Auto theft. Failure to appear. Ran on their bail, which was too bloody low. Soft judges. The boys will do serious time. The Crown Prosecutor is rubbing her hands together.”

“The Nanaimo force picked up Dave. But this connection to Pasquin has me thinking.” She laced her fingers together.

“So she got the meth from him after all. Sneaky bastard.”

“Not with her knowledge. I think he gave it to her in some food.” She consulted her notebook from the day of the drowning. “That s’more.”

“More what?” His face assumed a quizzical look, clearly not the picnic type of man.

“It’s a campfire dessert. Graham crackers, marshmallow, chocolate bar. Everyone was eating them, and so was she, according to Vic Daso.”

“So the food caused a delayed reaction.”

“Depends on the health of the individual, but reaction time could be from thirty to forty minutes. Plenty of time to get out to the beach if she left immediately. She was young and strong, probably confused by the drug.”