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Although it had been late when Dan and Claire got back to the marina, Claire still had to leave early the next morning and she and Dan shared a cup of coffee out on the aft deck as they watched the light return to the land. Two days together had not been enough for either of them, but she had a government contract to fulfill and Dan had his work to return to—and a phone call to make she reminded him before she kissed him goodbye.
Dan watched her boat disappear around the point and felt the first hint of aloneness. That was all he could call it. It wasn’t loneliness, because he was used to his own company and enjoyed it, but Claire was a woman whose presence he enjoyed and he was becoming more and more aware of her absences.
It was still too early to call Mike, but he could stretch his legs and go up to the office to let the desk guy know that the owner of White Lightning might be phoning. He had made an ostentatious show of checking the name and port of registry inscribed on the stern of the yacht right after he stepped down onto the float. Although it was information he needed to know, he knew the way he had done it was a reaction to his confrontation with the man on board and the knowledge bothered him.
He had thought he was past that kind of juvenile response. During his training he had been made very aware of just how vulnerable he was to it—and in turn of how vulnerable it made him—and he had worked hard at disciplining himself to control it. It was what had motivated him to take up martial arts after he graduated from the academy, a practice that demanded a calm, clear mind and that would punish such adolescent, hormonal behavior with an immediate and painful rebuke. He nodded to himself. It was time to get back to his judo practice.
He checked his watch and headed up the float. Mike tended to get in to his office late, so that call could wait. Once again Dan recognized there was a measure of avoidance in the decision, but he dismissed the thought. If the owner of the White Lightning actually phoned, he wanted to know about it, plus the police computers could access far more information than the one he used aboard Dreamspeaker. It might take a little playing around, but he should be able to get into the Ship’s Registry files where he could check the registration number and find out who the owner was.
This early in the morning—it was not yet six o’clock although it had been light for well over an hour—the town lay quiet under a pale sky that was neither blue nor gray but some indistinguishable color that held a little of both. The streets were empty and the only person Dan saw on his walk up the hill to the station was a woman walking a small black dog.
The sight gave him an idea: was there a registry for dogs? Belinda had said that the dog belonging to the woman on the yacht was an Afghan. Surely there couldn’t be too many of those around—in fact he couldn’t remember ever seeing one before. If he could find an Afghan Hound registered in Vancouver where the yacht was registered, then perhaps he could track her that way.
He dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it had come. Just because the yacht was registered in Vancouver, it didn’t mean the owner lived there. He could live anywhere, and Dan already knew the woman was not the owner’s wife.
He decided to take a detour into the park and spend half an hour performing stretches and working on a basic judo kata. By the time he arrived at the station he felt newly invigorated from his workout and his subsequent jog up the hill and he was covered with a fine sheen of sweat. He could feel the beginning of a few muscle twinges, but he felt good. He could still do it. If he got back to the daily routine he had kept before he moved onto the boat he would be back in shape in no time.
It was shift change when he arrived and the place was crowded. He knew most of the people he met as he moved through the hallways, although none of them well, and he was aware there was some resentment and mistrust. That was partly because he didn’t appear to have the same constraints and requirements they did, and partly because of his free access to Markleson, the North Island Commander, who worked out of the same building.
He acknowledged the few greetings he received and made his way to the front desk, where the desk sergeant, Albert Rediger, was already ensconced in a chair barely big enough to handle his bulk, a copy of the Saturday Globe and Mail spread out in front of him.
“Hi Al.” Dan leaned his hip against the counter. “You had a call from the White Lightning?
Without glancing up, Al reached under the newspaper, pulled out the logbook and flipped through the pages.
“Never heard of it. What the hell is it? A new pub or something?”
“It’s the name of a boat. I guess you’d have to call it a yacht. It was anchored out in the bay a couple of days ago. I asked the owner to call me.”
“This owner got a name?”
“Not one I know, but he would have asked for me.”
Al ran a tobacco-stained finger down the page. “Nothing here from any White Lightning,” he said, “but some guy named Walker called. Asked for you but wouldn’t leave any message.”
“Walker?”
Dan could hardly believe he was hearing right. Walker was both the most elusive and reclusive person Dan had ever met and the man had no liking for either telephones or the police. Hell, Dan had just spent the last couple of days trying to find him—assuming this was the same person. But how many guys called Walker could there be?
“You record a phone number with that?” he asked.
“Yeah. It came from the reserve over there in Alert Bay. You think that might have been the guy you’re interested in?”
“What?” Dan was still stunned by the idea that Walker had tried to contact him. “Oh! No, that’s someone else. Walker’s a friend.”
Al shrugged and stuffed the logbook back under the newspaper. “Well, that’s all I got. I hear from the White Lightning guy I’ll give you a call.”
Dan slapped him on the shoulder and started back down the hall. He had almost reached the door when Al called out to him.
“Hey Connor! What’s a burial garment for a sailing ship? Six letters. Starts with ‘s’.”
Dan smiled. Al was a devoted crossword fan. “Shroud,” he shouted over his shoulder.
***
WALKER HAD CALLED HIM. It seemed so unlikely that Dan couldn’t get it out of his mind. He could only recall two other times in all the years he had known the man that Walker had reached out to him, the most recent being the previous year when Walker’s friend, Joel, had been in trouble. Was Joel in trouble again? That seemed unlikely. Joel was as reclusive as Walker, although for different reasons, and he had been proved completely innocent of the crimes he had been suspected of. Right now he was no doubt back on his little island in Haida Gwaii, talking to the ravens who were his constant companions.
It had been Joel and his ravens who had taught Dan there was more to the world that met the eye. Although everything he had learned up till then told him it was ridiculous, he had to acknowledge that not only had ravens helped him rescue Walker, they had helped him solve the case—and the paddle that had started it all was now mounted in the wheelhouse to remind him of that fact.
But why would Walker phone the police station? He knew Dan lived aboard his boat and seldom went into the office. Why wouldn’t he simply call Dreamspeaker on a radiophone—or by VHF for that matter? Alert Bay was only a few miles away across the strait so he would have no problem reaching Dan’s boat.
There was an empty desk in the squad room and Dan sat down and dialed the number Al had given him. It rang for a long time before it was answered.
“Yes?” The voice was ancient, quavering and heavily accented with the guttural vowels and slurred sibilants of the Kwakwala language.
“Hello, is Walker there please?” Dan asked.
“Walker?” There was a long pause, a sigh, then, “Him no here.”
“Is he . . .” Dan started to ask when Walker might be back, but thought better of it. It was unlikely the woman knew Walker’s plans even if he could make her understand. “Thank-you Grandmother,” he said. “Gilakas’la. I will call again later.”
There was nothing more he could do. He would have to let Walker find him in his own way, at his own time.
***
MARKLESON ARRIVED IN his office a little after eight o’clock by which time Dan had walked down to the coffee shop and picked up two large coffees and a couple of cinnamon buns to go. Markleson’s eating habits were notoriously bad, and Dan hadn’t eaten before he left the boat so he figured he might as well take the easy route and please his boss while curbing—or perhaps more accurately indulging—his own hunger pangs.
“You find out anything about those two guys from Banks Inlet who are supposed to have gone missing?” Dan asked as he cleared a space for his coffee among the accumulated piles of paper.
“Yes and no,” Markleson answered, reaching for a bun. “I talked to the guys at the station over in Alert Bay. They hadn’t heard anything, but a woman from the Aboriginal Justice office there said she had heard the same rumor. The problem is she hasn’t been able to confirm it. She’s working on it but it could take a while.”
“How about the guy who fell off the barge? The coastguard find him yet?”
“No. They’ve called off the search. It’s a recovery now, not a rescue. Unless some boater finds him washed up on some beach we’re never going to see him again. Pretty shitty way to go.”
He took a bite of his cinnamon bun and washed it down with a gulp of coffee.
“So you got any good news for me? You find Jimmy?”
“Not exactly,” Dan replied. “But I know where he was four days ago.”