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The sky was still dark when Dan woke the next morning, the water silvered with light from the low moon. The forecast bad weather had been and gone although heavy clouds were still massed to the north and the air carried the weight of rain still to come. Claire was asleep, her smooth back resting along his arm, her round bottom curled gently against his hip. Her slow breathing was barely audible, but yet loud enough to change the normal silence and solitude of his morning into the easy warmth of companionship. Careful not to wake her, he lifted the covers and slid out of bed.
Not long after he had moved Dreamspeaker to Port McNeill he had discovered a judo dojo. He had practiced the martial art for many years when he was working down in the city and since then had made desultory efforts at maintaining his form, but had never found either the resolve or the discipline to return to the daily katas he had once performed. Recently, a couple of fast uphill runs to the local detachment had let him know in no uncertain terms that he was getting out of shape, a knowledge confirmed by glancing at his reflection in the salon window. Perhaps it was time to resurrect his old habits.
The sounds had come from a detached garage squeezed between two houses high on the hill above the town. Going closer to investigate, he had found a fully functional dojo. The sensei was wearing traditional judogi with a black belt wrapped around his waist and he was both very old and very small, so short that Dan doubted he would reach as high as his shoulder. After a few minutes of watching the formal bows and the repetition of some basic moves, Dan started to turn away, not wanting to intrude, but he had been seen and the sensei called and beckoned him in.
“You wish to practice judo?” The voice was old but strong.
Dan shook his head. “Thank you, no. I’m sorry if I disturbed you. I was out walking and I heard you in here and thought I would check it out. I used to practice, but I haven’t worked out for some time.”
“Then now is a good time to return.” The old man gestured to the now vacant mat. “What level have you attained?”
Dan had reached black belt, but that had been years before. While he was well aware that without regular practice he would be no longer be qualified for that level he told himself that he still did the occasional kata, still remembered all the moves and even though he had gained several pounds he was still strong and, he thought, reasonably fast—certainly stronger and faster than a man much older and smaller than he was.
“Now? I don’t know. As I said, it’s been a long time.”
“So. We will find out.” It seemed the old man was not going to take no for an answer. He gestured towards the wall where several judogi lay along a shelf, carefully folded in the traditional way with the canvas pants inside the heavy cotton jacket, each neatly tied with an obi and labelled with the size. “Please.”
Looking back on it now, Dan still found what had happened then astonishing. He was probably half the age of the old man and twice the weight and while he might have slowed down since his time at the dojo down in the city, he was no slouch. He had also had boxing training at the police academy, and had won his share of street fights. As he stepped onto the mat and bowed to the tiny senior citizen who faced him he thought he would need to take it easy on the man. It wasn’t until he found himself on his back for the fourth time that he started to realize that he was going to have to call on every bit of skill and strength he could conjure up if he was not to look like a rank amateur. A minute later, lying on the mat after suffering the sixth throw, sweat streaming from every pore, he was very grateful to see his tormenter step back and bow to signify the end of the session.
“So. Now you practice, yes? You come tomorrow. Same time.”
Dan simply struggled to his feet and nodded. He was breathing too hard to speak.
That had been the beginning of his return to judo. Now he worked through his katas every morning, either on the stern deck if the weather allowed, or down in the vast empty space of what used to be the fish hold and which had now been transformed into a storage area for the driftwood he occasionally collected and carved. At least twice a week he climbed the hill to the dojo to work with the sensei and to help with some of the students.
This morning he put on a pair of old sweat pants and a worn and faded sweatshirt and went out on deck. The teak was wet under his feet, and the moon was low in the western sky, dodging between patches of dark cloud left over from the night’s rain, but there was more than enough light for him to work with. He lifted his face, allowed the damp night air to wash over him, and began his routine.
***
BY THE TIME HE CAME out of the shower, daylight lit the cabin and the smell of fresh-brewed coffee filled the air. Claire was standing at the stove in the galley wearing one of his T-shirts and looking out the porthole.
“Good morning,” he said, moving up to drop a kiss on the top of her head. “Is there enough for me?”
She reached for another cup and filled it.
“Good morning to you too. Are you heading up to the station? I wouldn’t mind the walk if you’re okay with company.”
“I’m more than okay with company and we could stop at the coffee shop and grab a cinnamon roll on the way.”
His love of cinnamon rolls was one of the reasons he had been putting on weight, but as his workouts were now keeping that under control he saw no advantage in denying himself.
“Crab for dinner and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Now there’s a healthy diet,” Claire said as she rinsed the cups in the sink. “Good thing your office is up at the top of the hill or I could end up wearing more than a few extra pounds.”
Dan doubted whether that was true. Claire was one of the fittest people he knew. He thought she was probably incapable of either sitting still for long periods or of gaining any weight.
It took them barely half an hour to walk the two miles up to the police station and despite the cinnamon rolls, neither of them was out of breath when they arrived there.
“What are your plans for today?” Dan asked as he slid his card into the lock on the rear door. “Are you staying at the marina?”
“Probably,” Claire answered, gazing back down the hill to the ferry dock where the cars had started loading for the trip over to Sointula. “I have a bunch of reports to catch up on, but if the weather stays nice, I might go out and do a little exploring.
“Sounds good,” he replied. “I wish I could join you, but I think this is going to take a while. I’ll be home for supper for sure.”
***
PORT MCNEILL WAS A small town, and while the RCMP had a small office to match, that office housed a bigger staff than other communities the same size because it looked after a number of tiny villages and marinas scattered among the islands of the Broughton Archipelago. This morning it was crowded with the normal crush of shift change, and Dan chatted with those who had worked through the night, listening to the usual stories and complaints and sharing the banter and the dark humor that came with the job. It took a while for everything to quiet down, and for Al Rediger to appear at the front counter.
“You have a desk with a phone and a computer I can use?” Dan asked. There were only four desks and two of them were already occupied.
Al shuffled a few papers and pulled out a book before turning to glance back at an empty desk in the far corner of the room. “You can have that one.” He inclined his head as he spoke. “Nyland’s down in Victoria for a couple of days. He won’t mind.”
“Thanks.”
Dan knew everyone at the detachment, but he was not part of their team and he was aware of the glances cast his way as he walked over and switched on the computer. There were disadvantages to being an outsider, but as far as he was concerned it was the way he liked it.
***
THREE AND A HALF HOURS and several cups of coffee later he pushed back his chair, stood up and stretched his shoulders. All he had to show for his time was an address for Paulie Benko’s townhouse and another for his landlord, an address for Reuben Crosbie and the name of the marina where he kept his boat, and telephone numbers for the men who had been on board the fish farm at the time Colin Farnsworth was shot, but who had since quit. He hadn’t been able to get a response from any of them. One of the phone numbers had an Alberta area code, and when Dan had called it he had reached an answering machine. The other was out of service.
It wasn’t much for three hours work and although he’d called the head office of the fish farm twice, he still hadn’t been able to reach anyone who could identify the powerboat Reg Johnson had told him about. The two people who might have given him that information had both been out of the office.
Dan headed back to Al Rediger’s counter.
“You got a vehicle I can use for the afternoon?” he asked.
Rediger barely glanced at him before using his thumb to indicate a rack on the wall behind him. “If there’s anything left, you can have it.”
Dan grinned. Rediger always knew exactly which vehicles had been signed and and by whom, and he would also know the make and model of the two still in the lot.
“Either of those an SUV?” he asked. The vehicles the RCMP bureauocracy had recently ordained for the various detachments scattered around the north island—an area where rough logging roads far outnumbered blacktop highways—were, for reasons no one had been able to figure out, compact sedans. Several had already gone in for major repairs, and all were a tough fit for a man with a broad six foot two inch frame.
“Number three, but Jarvis had it last. Probably needs cleaning.”
Jarvis was a recent addition to the staff, but he had already earned a reputation for his love of greasy food and his less than elegant way of eating it.
“I’ll take it.”
Dan took the keys, signed the book Rediger pushed his way, and headed out. He didn’t go far. A couple of minutes later he sat down at a table at the Haida-Way pub and surveyed the lunchtime crowd. Although he didn’t know all of them by name, he did recognize many of the faces. Almost all of them were local: fishermen waiting for an area to open, loggers hoping for a callout, workers from the big gravel pit up on the highway, plus a smattering of government and office workers. The few unfamiliar faces were scattered amongst the government workers tables and were undoubtedly visiting civil servants of some kind.
“What’ll you have luv.” His reverie was interrupted by a voice he had come to know well. Elsie Drake was a fixture at the Haida-Way. She’d grown up in Port McNeill, married a fisherman and started working as a waitress two days after the wedding. With time off to deliver three children who had mostly been raised by her mother, she had now worked at the Haida for more than thirty-five years.
She poured him a coffee while he scanned the menu. “The halibut’s good,” she said. “Marty caught it yesterday.”
“Halibut it is then.” Dan handed back the menu. “I don’t suppose you know Paulie Benko do you?”
“Paulie? Sure. Met him a few times. Odd kind of guy. Really into ghost stories. Talks about them all the time. ‘Alternate dimensions’ he calls it. Haven’t seen him for a few days. You looking for him?”
“Nothing serious but I’d like to talk to him. I’ve heard he might have left town.”
“Yeah? Doesn’t sound right. He might be kinda odd, but I think he likes it here. Got a job working on one of those fish farms. You might want to check with them.” She turned to go then stopped as a new customer entered the room. “Hey, you’re in luck. That’s Tor Stromgren. He’s Paulie’s landlord. Owns that big block of condos over there.” She nodded vaguely towards a window. “If Paulie’s left town Tor’s gonna know about it. He lives there too.”
She headed over to Stromgren’s table, poured him a cup of coffee and pointed back at Dan. Stromgren ignored the coffee, stood up and walked over. He was tall and angular, with thinning blond hair and piercing blue eyes set in a sharp face. He didn’t look happy.
“Heard you’re looking for Paulie Benko?”
“That’s right. You know where I can find him?”
“No, I don’t, but I wish I did. The bastard’s done a runner and he owes me two months rent.”