Seaweed Under Water (16 page)

I remembered reading the police report that Harley Rollins had temporarily lost his licence over a DUI charge. “It must have been a bit awkward for Mr. Rollins, not being able to drive.”

“Indeed it was, sir.”

“So how did he get about?”

“I'm sure I don't know, sir. Does most of his business by telephone, I suppose. If he absolutely had to go somewhere in a hurry, he'd use a taxi, I suppose, or get a lift from one of his many friends.”

“Or he could use a boat?” I asked innocently. “Using a good fast boat, he could get from Mowaht Bay to Victoria in what, a couple of hours?”

“In good weather, perhaps,” Rhenquist said, adding apologetically, “Technically, his driving ban extended to boats, I believe. Besides, a boat isn't very practical, is it? Not as a usual thing. I mean, the water's quite often rough in Mowaht Bay and along the Straits. Especially in winter.”

Rhenquist rose from his seat, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and said, “Goodbye, sir. I must be getting along.”

I nodded. He went out.

Two commercial fishermen wearing paint-smeared coveralls came in to get take-out coffee. I was going to ask them something, when my cell phone rang. It was Bernie Tapp.

Bernie informed me, “I'm calling from headquarters. They're taking Fred Colby and Terry Colby to the morgue right now.”

“You think that's wise? Terry's got the mind of a child. Seeing what's left of her mother will terrify her.”

“Maybe. We'll soon know,” Bernie replied. “Anyway, it's up to you, you said you have an interest. If you want to witness the proceedings, better get over there.”

“I'm at the Oak Bay Marina. Be right over.”

“What are you doing in Oak Bay?”

“Tell you when I see you.”

Bernie gave an affirmative grunt and hung up. He had sounded a bit terse with me, which was unusual. I wondered why. I paid for my meal and went out of the café.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bernie was waiting for me on the street outside the morgue; we entered together. A clerk directed us to a small, dimly lit room with curtain-draped walls where the dead woman lay on a gurney beneath a yellow plastic sheet. The room was hot and it smelled powerfully and unpleasantly—a heavy, cloying, almost sickening jungle scent. It was like being in an alligator swamp.

Bernie and I waited for five minutes before Fred Colby came in. He walked slowly, using a walking stick, and appeared calm. Constable Denise Halvorsen and Sister Mildred escorted Terry Colby in a moment later. I wondered if Sister Mildred had sedated Terry, who appeared peaceful and composed.

A male attendant flicked a wall switch and a small spotlight shone down on the gurney.

Bernie murmured something to the attendant, who drew aside the yellow sheet to reveal Jane Colby's face.

Death had exiled Jane Colby to the Unknown World. This was probably the first dead person Terry had ever seen in her young life, and I half expected her to faint, or to become agitated. She didn't, because Jane Colby did not look dead. It was as if she were alive, peacefully sleeping. By some wizardry, a cosmetician had transformed the ghastly object dredged from the Inner Harbour into a lovely temporary work of art.

Jane Colby's long yellow hair—thinking back, I suppose it must have been a wig—flowed down her face in lovely soft shiny waves, covering her ears and resting on the upper part of her shoulders. Jane's eyes were closed; her unwrinkled unblemished skin was pale, flawless. Her red lips were full, moist-looking.

When Fred Colby, visibly moved, leaned forward to kiss his daughter, the morgue attendant restrained him gently and whispered something in his ear. Tears welled up in Mr. Colby's eyes. Denise Halvorsen handed Mr. Colby a tissue, and he blew his nose.

As for Terry, she let out a small gasp and asked her mother to open her eyes.

Speaking in her normal voice, Sister Mildred said, “Terry, dear. Your mommy can't open her eyes, because she is sleeping. Your mommy is in heaven with Jesus.”

“When can I talk to her?” Terry asked, in a baby-like voice.

“We don't know that yet, do we?” Sister Mildred replied. “That all depends upon when Jesus
wants
you to meet your mommy, doesn't it?”

“Does it?”

“Yes, it does, so you be a good girl and remember to say your prayers,” Sister Mildred said, putting an arm around Terry's shoulder.

Bernie cleared his throat. Denise didn't say anything. She didn't have to. The dead woman, until now
officially
anonymous, was anonymous no longer. This was Jane Colby, for sure.

Sister Mildred took Terry's hand and led her from the room.

Bernie Tapp, Fred Colby and I went into the morgue office, where Colby signed a few necessary forms. When these formalities were completed, the three of us went outside onto the street. Earlier, Mr. Colby had mentioned that he had come to the morgue in a cab, so Bernie offered to drive him home. Mr. Colby accepted.

Bernie said to me, “Listen, Silas, You and me, we've got a few things to talk about. Meet me in Mom's Café?”

“See you in half an hour,” I said.

Bernie and Frederick Colby went off.

≈  ≈  ≈

I got into the loaner and let the engine run for a minute while I switched on the radio and scanned the horizon for Interceptors. There weren't any, so I put the loaner into gear and headed for James Bay. My car radio was tuned to a rock station, playing Pink Floyd's
The
Dark Side of the Moon
. Then the disc jockey reminded us that Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd's co-founder, had died prematurely, at the age of 60. The jockey then went on to say that Barrett had left the band in l968 because of mental instability, exacerbated by his use of LSD. I seemed to recall that Barrett had died of diabetes, which we used to call sugar diabetes, which is the disease ravaging North American Indians, which . . . I tried to concentrate on my driving. It wasn't easy. Sometimes I get these loops playing endlessly inside my mind. I finally deleted the diabetes loop, whereupon I became conscious of my geographical surroundings. I was in James Bay.

Again, I got that odd feeling I sometimes get when going along James Bay's quiet, tree-lined streets, the feeling that sends shivers down my back. It starts between my shoulder blades and works south. That day, I felt it rather powerfully. Maybe it was because I couldn't entirely banish the memory of Jane Colby, lying dead in the morgue. Maybe it was because another Ford Interceptor was following me. And maybe it was something else entirely. I made a mental note to consult Chief Alphonse about all this the next time I saw him.

I stopped the loaner in the dusty unpaved parking lot outside Mom's Café. Within shouting distance of Victoria's Fisherman's Marina, the café is a rusty corrugated-iron building, mainly patronized, until recently, by fishermen and blue-collar workers who know good hamburgers when they taste them. Mom's had recently been discovered by the local smart set. Today there were BMWs and Audis in the lot, in addition to pickup trucks. I noticed a shiny Ford Mustang parked outside the café's rear entrance, where, atop a garbage can, a Siamese cat was grooming itself. I glanced at my wristwatch and saw that it was nearly 3
pm.
Where had the day gone?

I went in and sat at a vinyl and duct-tape upholstered booth near a window. The girl behind the lunch counter picked up a coffee pot and a menu, and came over to see what I wanted. I ordered coffee and apple pie à la mode. She filled my cup and went back to propping up the counter.

The same two fishermen that I'd seen in the Oak Bay Marina's coffee shop were standing together beside Mom's Wurlitzer, pondering the music selections, which have changed little since Jim Morrison was laid to rest in Paris's Père Lachaise cemetery. They fed the Wurlitzer some coins and listened in respectful silence to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” the song that members of the Pink Floyd band had recorded as a tribute to their troubled former bandmate.

I was eating pie and ice cream, brooding about the impermanence of life, when Bernie Tapp came in. Bernie signalled for coffee en route to my table.

I stated, quite loudly, “I'm being followed.”

Bernie's features sharpened. Three young women seated across the room turned to glower.

Deliberately strident, I went on, “Everywhere I go I see unmarked Ford cars. The guys driving 'em pretend they're fishermen, but they can't kid me. I know what they really are. They're gumshoes.”

Speaking in the usual casual tone he uses when he's lying, Bernie said, “You're paranoid, pal. Better rein yourself in. If you don't, the next thing you know you'll be hearing strange voices. You'll be buttonholing strangers on the street, end up tranked to the eyeballs in a psych ward, a mere shadow of your former self.”

“Hogwash,” I said. “If those guys by the Wurlitzer aren't working for Internal Affairs, that spider crawling through your hair is a vampire bat.”

Brushing a hand across his hairy scalp, Bernie scowled at the men lounging by the Wurlitzer. They went out without a word. “Assholes,” Bernie snarled. “Bunch of buffoons and nitwits.”

I said, “Better come clean, Bernie, and tell me who they are and what they want. We know each other too well. You ought to know better'n try to flannel me.”

“I don't know anything about it. Your pal Bulloch probably borrowed them from the Mounties,” Bernie said, as he stared into space. I followed his glance. The two “fishermen” were getting into their Ford Mustang. When they drove off, dust rose from beneath their wheels, until they reached blacktop, on Superior Street.

“Remember telling me about the first time you ran into Terry Colby?” Bernie asked.

“I remember.”

“How did she know
then
that her mother was in trouble?”

“Terry didn't tell me that her mother was in
trouble
. Terry told me that she'd
lost
her mother.”

“Okay, but how did Terry know that? I mean, there she is, isolated in that care home, not talking to anybody. It was only a week or so since she'd seen her mother.”

“Sorry, Bernie, I don't see the relevance, and besides, you're stalling. It's time you came clean.”

Bernie picked up his coffee cup, drank and then set the cup down on the table in the exact centre of a paper napkin. “As far as you are concerned, buddy, the late great Detective Chief Inspector Bulloch has reached the end of his rope. Complaints about you keep rolling into headquarters, and Bulloch has had it up to here with you. When he leaves the force and sinks out of sight forever, he'd like to take you under with him.”

“I thought he'd already left.”

“Technically. He's still on the payroll a few more weeks.”

“I'm not entirely surprised. You did tell me that a very reliable sex-obsessed woman called Daphne had reported me.”

“She's not the only one. I don't suppose Harley Rollins likes your manners either.”

“Did he file an official complaint?”

“No, but I should think he's considering it.”

“Boss Rollins attempted to have me murdered, he's not entirely unbiased.”

“In your opinion, that is.”

“You don't believe me?”

“Actually, I do believe you. Except I'm your friend, Bulloch isn't. He's hated you since the days you were a detective constable under his direct command. He hates you because you deliberately get up his nose. Bulloch was Victoria's chief detective. You interfered in the Calvert Hunt murder inquiry, solved the case yourself and made Bulloch look bad. You did the same thing with the Ellen Lemieux case. You're a neighbourhood cop, one step up from a Boy Scout. Let me remind you: nowadays, your job is to help little old ladies across the road.”

I felt a growing irritation and opened my mouth to tell Bernie that I'd never sought credit for solving either of those cases. He went on, “Forget Internal Affairs. Bulloch would have bled you white, but he's on the way out. I'll close the operation down. It was his last desperate attempt to ruin you.”

“Old cops and old cons are the same,” I mused. “They keep going back to the spot where their skids were greased.”

“Some old cops, maybe. Police detection works best when there's cooperation. The force works because it has an established hierarchy, established leadership, set rules and regulations. Bureaucracy is a necessary component of our business.”

He was right. I said, “Let's meet for breakfast, tomorrow? Eight o'clock, Lou's Café?”

“Okay, I'll see you there. Maybe you'll see sense, take me up on my offer. You'd look good in an inspector's uniform.”

“Gotta go,” I said, getting up from my seat. “I've another appointment at four o‘clock.

But when I got back to the reserve, Chief Alphonse was absent. Maureen, the band secretary, told me he'd be away for a day or two; our scheduled conversation would have to wait.

≈  ≈  ≈

That night, I had trouble sleeping. About three o'clock, I got out of bed. Crazy ideas flapped around in my head like deranged birds. I tried to wash them away with a slug of rye. I drank it quickly, poured myself another and sat down in an armchair, trying to evolve theories that would explain recent events without recourse to the supernatural.

Chief Alphonse believed that, in his quest for power, Harley Rollins had stayed underwater for a long time. But had he? In the minds of Coast Salish and other First Nations peoples, the natural and supernatural worlds are inseparable. Each is intrinsically joined to the other. Religious knowledge, and practical knowledge, both are necessary for survival. Many Coast Salish Vision Quests involve swimming and diving in deep cold water where—in states of breathless trance—Questers encounter the supernatural overseers that afterwards govern their lives. People prepare to receive spirit power after rigorous cleansing rituals involving fasts and bathing. Only individuals socially and physically cleansed are thought ready to engage in Vision Quests, and to receive the knowledge and strength necessary for survival.