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Dan and Annie leaned on the railing of her boat looking out over the pass. Dan had anchored in shallow water as close as he dared, and set both the depth-sounder and the GPS to monitor Dreamspeaker’s position. He had left Walker in the wheelhouse with the VHF beside him and instructions to use it if any of the alarms went off.
“Was there anything about the logo on that helicopter you can remember?” he asked her.
“Not really, except the colour. Guess it didn’t really look like anything specific—just some kind of weird symbol or something.” She shrugged. “I never really paid that much attention. Just wanted the goddamn thing to fuck off.”
“Ah well,” he answered. “It was a long shot anyway and it’s probably not important.”
“Right.” She turned her head to look at him. “Guess that’s why you came back here, huh? To check out something that’s not important?”
He laughed. It was never a good idea to underestimate this woman. While he had no knowledge of who she was, or where she had come from, or even how she had come to live in this tiny, remote cove, one thing he had learned was that there was a lot more to Annie than met the eye, and there was not much she missed.
“Well hopefully the guy at the airport in Rupert will be able to help. He’s seen one up there a couple of times and it sounds very similar.”
He passed her the box of cookies he was carrying.
“Last one,” he said. “I’ll restock when I get back to the marina. Bring you up a carton next time.”
She nodded her thanks and they started to walk to the top of the ramp leading down to the shore, but she stopped a few feet short of it and angled her head, a puzzled look on her face.
“What?” asked Dan. “Is there something wrong?”
“You know when I saw that thing, it made me think of a witchdoctor or something. Nothing I can put my finger on. Maybe a bit African, although I’m damned if I can think why.” She looked at him. “Come back inside for a minute. I might be able to find something in one of my books.”
Dan glanced across at Dreamspeaker, lying quietly at anchor where he had left her, and followed Annie inside. He had only been in Annie’s salon once before, and that was over five years ago, but he remembered the surprise he had felt when he had seen her library. Hundreds of books had lined every wall, and there seemed to be even more of them now, stacks piled on two low tables with more on the floor beside an ancient leather chair.
Annie headed over to the wooden shelves that climbed from floor to ceiling on the starboard wall and ran her fingers along a row of hardcover spines until she found the one she wanted. She pulled it out and headed into the galley, beckoning him to follow.
“Maybe there’ll be something in here,” she said as she laid it on the table and opened it up.
Dan looked over her shoulder as she turned the pages. Each one was filled with symbols, some simple, some incredibly complex. A few he recognized, and some he could guess at, but most made no sense at all. Why she would have a book like that he had no idea, but it had obviously been opened many times as many of the pages were tattered.
“There!” she said, smacking her hand down on a bright yellow and gold design. “I thought I’d seen something like it before.” She turned the book around and pushed it towards him. “Might not be exact, but it’s close enough—and the colour’s right. Probably why I thought of it: that bright yellow’s kinda hard to miss.”
“Vèvè for Ayizan,” he read. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Voudou,” she answered. “A vèvè’s a religious symbol, usually a geometrical drawing that represents the spirits, and Ayizan’s the most ancient of the loa. What?
Dan was staring at her in astonishment.
“How the hell do you know this stuff?” he asked. “You spend all your time reading?”
For the first time since he had met her she looked embarrassed. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I like to learn about things. Just because I live out here don’t mean I’m stupid.”
“You’re far from that Annie. In fact I think you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.” He reached out and gave her a hug, feeling her stiffen with shock. “Thank you. You just might have started me on the road to solving a murder—although how the hell Voudou could tie in with this is hard to figure.”
As soon as he was underway Dan called Markleson. “I need you to get someone up in Rupert to check something out,” he said.
“Some reason you can’t ask them yourself?” Markleson asked.
“Doubt if they’ll follow through,” Dan replied. “They don’t know me, and it’s kind of an unusual request.”
“I see.” There was a brief silence and Dan heard the snap of a lighter followed by a spasm of coughing. “Goddamn it, I gotta quit this shit. So what do you need?”
Dan explained what he had learned from Annie.
“So you want me to have someone look up this . . . what do you call it?”
“Vèvè of Ayizan,” Dan said. “Yes, and then send it up to Rupert and ask one of them to take it out to the airport and ask the guys at the fueling shed if it looks like what was on that helicopter they saw.”
“Vèvè of Ayizan,” Markleson repeated. “You know how crazy that sounds?”
Dan smiled. “Yeah, I do. Seems weird to me too, but Annie was pretty certain.”
“Well.” Markleson sighed. “I guess at least it’ll give the guys something to talk about.”
“Might impress them with the breadth of your knowledge.”
“Yeah, right. Listen, you headed back?”
“Got one more village to visit up the end of Seymour Inlet.”
“Well come see me as soon as you get in. There’s some other stuff came up.”
***
THE LAST VILLAGE WAS a repeat of all the others. The items stolen, a chief’s staff, two Raven rattles, and a bentwood box, had been kept in the chief’s house, the theft had occurred at night and no one had heard or seen anything or anyone unusual. Once again, the community came down to the beach and shared the descriptions with Walker as he sat in the Zodiac, and once again they brought him baskets full of dried salmon, packages of something wrapped in some kind of seaweed, and stems of some plant that looked a bit like asparagus.
“You want some of this?” Walker asked as they headed back down the inlet. He held out one of the small packages.
“What is it?” Dan asked, peering at it suspiciously. “The salmon’s great, but I’m not sure about seaweed.”
“Yeah, you said that about the salmon once, but I notice you’re happy to eat most of what they gave us.” He thrust the package into Dan’s hand. “Try it.”
Dan cautiously nibbled a corner, then took a larger bite. “This is good!” he exclaimed. “What is it?”
“Dried herring roe. They put in some salmonberry shoots and then wrap it in kelp. Beats the hell out of that canned shit you call food.”
Dan didn’t answer, but he found it hard to disagree.
***
IN ORDER TO AVOID PUTTING Walker’s canoe in the water, Dan carefully timed his arrival back at the marina for late afternoon. Markleson seldom stayed at his office later than 5:30 pm and having to go and see him before he left for the day was the best excuse Dan had come up with. He still hadn’t figured out how he was going to get Walker to Vancouver, but he knew for sure if the man got back in his canoe, even crippled as he was, he would disappear.
“Sorry to rush off but I won’t be long,” he said as he jumped down onto the swim grid and stepped onto the float. “I need to catch Markleson before he leaves. Want me to bring you back anything to eat?”
Walker didn’t deign to answer.
***
TWO HOURS LATER DAN was still sitting in Markleson’s office, a stack of photographs spread out on the desk in front of him, a haze of blue smoke drifting over his head.
“So what’s all this got to do with me?” he asked.
While each photograph was very different, they were all identified as stolen traditional and sacred objects. There were carved throwing sticks, incised stones, woven baskets, and something called a Pukamani pole, all from an island somewhere near Darwin, and Markleson told him that an aboriginal man who had tried to protect them had been stabbed and beaten so badly he was in a coma and not expected to survive.
“The people down at Head Office think it has to be linked to what’s happening here,” Markleson answered. “And I tend to agree with that. Look at them. All traditional items taken from a remote, indigenous community and all items that can’t be easily sold.” He pointed to a report attached to a photo of what appeared to be a smooth stone incised with a pattern of lines and circles. “If you read the reports, they’ve even got a few of the locals there talking about seeing some kind of ghost spirit—and the timing’s right too. Their theft happened just before the most recent of ours did. Pretty big coincidence if they’re not linked.”
Dan shuffled the photos for the third or fourth time, trying to make some sense of them.
“So you think that there’s a single person masterminding all these thefts? A collector deciding who steals what from places half a world apart? Doesn’t seem too likely.”
Markleson lit another cigarette. “I don’t think anything. That’s not my job, as I was very clearly informed when I said I thought you would be more useful here. All I know is that the people at the National Contact Bureau down in Vancouver are very interested in both cases, and they want to talk to you about them.”
“The guys from NCB are up here?” Dan had been involved with the National Contact Bureau, the Interpol liaison organization in Canada, several times during his years on the anti-terrorist squad, and it was not a time he wanted to be reminded of. “Have they found some of this stuff?”
“Not that I know of, but you can ask them yourself when you’re down there tomorrow.” Markleson slid an envelope across the desk. “You’re due in Vancouver at 0930 hours. Your ride leaves at 0800.”
“My ride?” Dan stared at the envelope in confusion, then reached out and opened it. An official form slid out.” “They’re sending a plane?”
It might not be his worst nightmare—that would be something happening to Claire—but it was close.
“You think I could drive down? Save them some bucks on the plane and that way I would be able to get around while I was down there.”
Markleson shook his head. “Not possible. Even if you left now—and you look dead on your feet—you couldn’t get there on time. The last ferry to Vancouver leaves from Nanaimo in half-an-hour and it would take you at least four hours to get there. Besides, last time I checked, you don’t have a car.”
Dan massaged his forehead. As he had told Claire, he hated flying. It was one of the few things that truly terrified him. Commercial jets were something he avoided like the plague, and even the thought of having to use one of the fleet of small planes the RCMP Air Services operated was enough to put him in a cold sweat. But on the other hand, if he absolutely had to fly, at least a small plane would be better than a helicopter. He could only pray they wouldn’t send one of those. A helicopter would be unbearable.
***
THE LIGHT HAD FADED by the time he left the office, and haloes of mist hovered around the street lights. He debated dropping into Gus’s pub for a quick beer but decided against it. He had already been away from the boat too long and it wouldn’t be fair to Walker.
And speaking of Walker . . . was there any way he could turn this into an opportunity to get Walker down to the city?