Long Gone Man (14 page)

Thirty-four

The rain forests of British
Columbia were different from the Quebec woods of Wilmot's childhood. In this forest, the trees were taller and greener, evergreens instead of hardwood. Mixed in with the firs was the red, exposed skin of arbutus trees, bark shedding and limbs stuck out at weird angles, gnarled and swollen like the joints of an arthritic elder. They were the only relief from the endless green. This forest would never blaze with changing colors in the fall, but that wasn't the only difference.

He walked along, head down and eyes searching the rough trail for pitfalls, and tried to think what else was missing. Suddenly it came to him. He couldn't hear his footsteps. He was walking on moss-covered rock, and the deep thump, like walking on a drum, of an eastern forest was absent.

A crow cawed. Wilmot searched for the source of the familiar sound. How long had it been since he'd been entirely alone outside? Maybe never. He felt oddly vulnerable and unimportant.

Beside the trail, a Douglas fir, over a hundred feet tall, had crashed to the ground. Caught up in its roots were large rocks that had been torn from the earth with the tree. Wilmot stepped closer and the ground slid out from under his slick city shoes. He caught himself, regaining his balance but feeling shaken. A fall, a broken bone or even a sprain, could be a disaster.

Glenphiddie Lake sat in a bowl just below John Vibald's mansion and took up about twenty acres, including the wide belt of woods that surrounded it. In total, there were about one hundred acres of flat land between two mountain ranges, most of which belonged to John Vibald. Everyone on the island was aware that developers from Vancouver wanted to buy the land and its lake to build luxury summer homes and bring hundreds of new people to the island.

Debate raged. Some wanted the expansion, while others were fighting hard against it. In the end, it had come down to one man. No houses could be built without the water. John Vibald had held the future of the whole island in his hands. Now he was dead, and the land belonged to his heir—a very good reason to kill.

The trail came to the lake. Beams of light fell from the sky to the surface of the water. Sun and shadows painted the still surface where the reflection of the jagged peak shimmered and dragonflies danced. The beauty of it was shocking and overpowering. A deep sense of peace suffused Wilmot. Standing there, actually seeing the lake and smelling the crisp scent of evergreen air, Wilmot felt he should be silent and worshipful.

He pulled himself away and took the trail back into the woods, but at the treeline he stopped for one last look.

Wood smoke filled
the air. Wilmot stepped out of the woods and saw three buildings set in a meadow. They appeared shabby and run down.

Wilmot checked his watch. It had taken fifteen minutes, but he had stopped at the lake for probably five minutes. So someone walking briskly could go up through the woods, shoot Vibald, and be back in under a half hour.

Thirty-five

Steven David held a glass
in his hand when he opened the door.

Wilmot introduced himself.

The front door opened into the living area of a log house the warm color of honey. Over the living area, the ceiling soared to two stories with floor-to-ceiling windows facing west towards the dying sun. “Magnificent,” Wilmot said in awe.

Steven shuffled ahead of Wilmot and pointed to a leather chair opposite the one he fell back into.

Wilmot started off asking the questions that every interviewee expected as he studied the man across from him.

“I spent the evening here with Chris Ruston playing chess,” Steven said in response to the first question. “He stayed overnight because of the weather.”

“Did either of you leave the house?”

“No. We were together the whole time, except when Chris went outside for a cigarette. I have asthma, so smoking makes me wheeze. I made another pot of coffee and did the dishes while he had a smoke.”

“How long was he gone?”

Steven shrugged. “Don't know. How long does a cigarette take, a couple of minutes?”

“But you said you were able to do the dishes and make coffee. That's more than a couple of minutes.”

“Maybe he smoked more than one cigarette.”

“Could he have been gone a half hour?”

Steven David turned his hands palm up. “Perhaps.”

Wilmot changed tactics. “This is a very remote place. How did you all come to live here?”

Steven smiled. “I'm the only real Canadian. I used to come here in the summer when I was a kid. I loved it. Years ago, Vortex was playing Seattle and we had some time before a job in Vancouver, so I talked the band into coming out here to Glenphiddie Island. The Utt family owned the land then. Do you know them?”

Wilmot nodded.

“It was for sale, dirt cheap. John made the family an offer and they accepted. Just like that we bought the top of a mountain. It was the only thing any of us had ever owned. Touring around, it was all we talked about.” He pointed to a woodbin. “Put another log on the fire, will you?”

Wilmot got to his feet and added a log to the grate. He used an iron poker and rolled the logs together, watching the sparks fly up. “All of you owned it?”

“Not quite. The rest of us only own the property our houses sit on. John owns the remaining land.” He held his glass over the table beside him. It clattered onto the tabletop as it left his trembling hand. “John and Aaron both became Canadian citizens.”

“Not Mrs. Pye?”

“No, Thea is still an American.”

“I heard that you and Mr. Vibald had a violent argument shortly before his death. What was it about?”

“John found out I am writing a book about our days in Vortex, about life on the road.”

“And Mr. Vibald wasn't happy?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because he didn't want the truth about him to come out.” Steven crossed his legs, smoothing down the material stretched over his knee. “John didn't make his money from records and performing. At best we were just a bar band. Alan was the real talent. He had his pick of bands to choose from, and other guitarists were always stealing his riffs. I still hear them when I turn on the radio, but none of them are as good as Alan. That's why John kept him so close.”

“Why did Mr. Openheimer stay?”

“John was our connection, the man with the drugs. That's what kept us with Vortex.” Steven turned away. “That's how John got rich. In those days, there was no problem laundering money. I'd see John with grocery bags full of it after a gig. One time, Thea came back from a variety store with a bag full of pop and chips and John dumped all the stuff out on the bed to get the bag. He opened his shirt. He had all this money stuffed inside and he just started shoving it in the bag. You should have seen Thea's face. I thought she'd climax right there. Man, did she want some of that, but not even Thea could pry money out of John. He was tight. And he was smart. That money went into legitimate businesses, into investments. We never would have stayed on the road so long if John hadn't pumped money into the band. I think that's why he started dealing in the first place.”

Steven's long, slim fingers massaged his temple. “Aaron bloody Pye, John's bum wipe, actually sold the drugs, and if they'd ever been caught it would probably have been Aaron who went to jail. John would have walked like he always did.”

“And you were going to tell the world about it.”

“I didn't kill John, if that's what you're thinking.” He got to his feet and picked up his glass. “Will you join me, Sergeant?”

“No, thank you.” Wilmot watched as Steven went to the sideboard. His shuffling gait was uneven and his balance was off, as if he was drunk . . . or ill. His hands shook as he poured Scotch into his glass, spilling a little. Steven David ignored the spillage and shuffled back to his chair.

“What can you tell me about Ms. Brown?”

Steven, about to take a drink, lowered the glass. “Who?” His face mirrored his question.

“The woman staying with Mrs. Vibald, who was with Vortex back in the seventies.”

“Oh, yeah, met her this morning . . . haven't seen her since John experimented with a girl singer . . . back then he was always trying out different things. We went back to just the guys after she left.” He frowned. “She had something special . . . remember John being really excited about her. Don't know why he dropped her. Maybe it would have turned out to be
Ace and her band Vortex
if she'd stuck around.” His hand mimed a banner. “John wouldn't have liked that.”

“Ace?”

“Yeah.” Steven smiled. “Yeah, it just came to me. That's what she was calling herself.”

Wilmot felt a surge of excitement. “Any last name?”

Steven frowned, concentrating. “Not that I can remember, but maybe it will come to me later. She was good, really good, and she was overshadowing John, but I remember being surprised when he let her go.”

“Where was this, when he let her go?”

Steven rubbed his jaw. “New Mexico . . . Arizona . . . before Las Vegas, Taos maybe, but that's only a guess.”

“And you never saw her again?”

“Don't think so.” His right hand slid down to his lap, where it lay fluttering like a dying bird.

“How do you feel about development coming to the mountain?”

“It's just wrong. More houses, more noise, and maybe even boats on Glenphiddie Lake.”

“Would someone kill to make it happen?”

Steven David reached out and clasped his shaking hand. “I'd have killed John to stop it happening.”

Wilmot straightened. “Is that a confession?”

“No, I didn't kill John. I don't think John would ever have sold, but Janna owns it now and she'll surely sell.”

“Can you tell me anything about the night John Vibald died?”

“Nothing.” Then Steven David smiled. “Except perfume.”

“Perfume?”

Steven shook his head. “Nothing. It was just a silly thought.”

Wilmot got to his feet.

Even using his arms to push himself up from the chair, it took Steven two tries to rise.

Outside, the warmth
had seeped out of the day. Wilmot buttoned his coat and turned up his collar.

An owl called and flew from a tall pine. The bird's outline was barely visible against the sky. The light was almost gone. There was no twilight here, no gentle evening, only sudden darkness. With those clouds blocking out the moon, it would be a black, black night. The thought of being lost out in the tangled wilderness sent a shiver down his spine, never mind the embarrassment he'd face if his detachment had to mount a search party for Sgt. Wilmot. It would be impossible to find his way through the woods after dark without a flashlight.

Of course! If someone had walked through the woods to kill John Vibald, they would have passed close to this house, and they must have had a flashlight. Surely the light would have been seen through the trees while Steven David was doing dishes, but he hadn't mentioned a light. Was it possible Steven David knew who the killer was? A car swung around the curve of the drive and captured Wilmot in its headlights.

Thirty-six

Sgt. Wilmot raised his right
arm to block out the light, then lowered it as the cruiser swept by, making the turn and stopping with the hood pointing in the direction it had come from.

He slipped into the passenger seat. As soon as the door slammed behind him, Duncan put the car in drive and eased back along the drive.

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“What do you know about the development company that's trying to buy up Glenphiddie Lake?”

“They're from away.” Duncan didn't keep the disgust from her voice.

“Anything else?”

“They've been spreading money around.”

“You mean bribes?”

“I don't know if there's anything illegal going on, but they're spending lots of money to get things to go their way, wining and dining and fancy presentations to show how rich everyone on the island will be.” She sighed. “You can't beat greed. Greed wins out over right every time.”

“Is everyone taking sides?” Wilmot asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Which side are you on?”

She glanced quickly at him and then back at the road. “I know we aren't allowed to get involved in the local politics.”

“Just satisfy my curiosity. I'm sure you have no real interest in politics, just tell me what you think.”

“The problem with growing up in the islands is that everyone from off-island treats you like an extra in
Deliverance
and thinks you came from the bottom of the gene pool with webbed toes and gills. Our opinion doesn't count. Skeena Mountain should never be developed. It should belong to everyone.”

She glanced over at him. “There's a white orchid up here, very rare, called the phantom orchid. Grows with some fungus that only occurs in nature. You can't dig this orchid up and put it in your garden because it needs exactly the right conditions, the right combination of trees and fungus. That orchid will disappear if they start cutting down trees and putting in houses.”

She pressed down on the accelerator and gripped the wheel tighter. “I think the government should buy Mount Skeena to save it for all of us, never mind the other things they'd be saving besides the water and the orchid. Buy it at a fair price and keep it for future generations as a natural resource.”

Wilmot braced himself as they swung too fast into a curve.

She pointed her finger at Wilmot. “Sitka spruce, what Howard Hughes's ‘Spruce Goose' was built from—they grow up there. Some of those trees are three hundred years old and only grow on a narrow strip of land along this coast, nowhere else on Earth. How many other special things grow around Glenphiddie Lake that we don't know anything about yet? When they're gone, they're gone.”

Duncan wasn't done. “And water is going to become an issue soon. We have to stop it falling into private hands now, have to stop polluting and exploiting it. And as for tourists and people from away,” she glanced over at him, “we already have far too many of them. Let's not encourage any more to come here.”

“Could you slow down just a little?”

Duncan touched the brake gently, and Wilmot let out the breath he'd been holding. “That's the most words I've ever heard out of you,” he said. “If you feel this strongly about Glenphiddie, those conservationists must be going crazy.”

“My uncle was part of a delegation that went up there last week. Vibald told them to get out, said it was his land and he'd sell it if he wanted to. He told them he'd had a really good offer and he was tired of this place.”

“Give me their names. We have to interview them tomorrow. And between you and me, I agree with everything you just said.”

Wilmot's mind switched tracks. “It's really black up here, isn't it? How long a drive is it from Steven David's to the Pye home?”

“Under ten minutes walking through the woods, twenty-five minutes by car. But it would have taken at least double that last night.”

“How do you know?”

She slowed for a switchback. “Because I drove it and walked it this morning.”

Wilmot digested this and then nodded. “Could someone walk through those woods at ten at night without a flashlight?”

“Never. Not even on the brightest moonlit night.”

“Steven David said he didn't see anything. If one of the Pyes had been walking by his house in the dark, it would have been just luck if he had seen their light.”

“It likely wouldn't show up in the fog. And don't forget that the Utts can also walk to the Vibald home.”

“So how many people could have killed John Vibald?”

“Two from Steven David's, three from the Pye household, and two from the Utt place . . . seven.”

“And don't forget Lauren Vibald and Singer Brown, nine.”