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Dan stood there, unable to move, the rain beating on his head and soaking the back of his sweater, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes were showing him. Walker, the man he thought had disappeared, the man he believed would need to spend months in physiotherapy, was here with Annie, looking completely happy and relaxed. It didn’t seem possible, and yet it made perfect sense. Walker had a habit of doing the unexpected and Dan had been with him when Annie had offered him the invitation. He hadn’t taken it seriously, thinking Walker would never take her up on it. Obviously he had been wrong.
“You going to stand there all day lettin’ the rain in?”
Annie’s voice brought Dan to his senses.
“No. Sorry. I just . . .”
“Yeah. I felt the same way when he arrived, but here he is.” She poured another cup of tea and handed it to him. “Didn’t expect to see you back here for a while either. There been more thefts? Another murder?”
“Nothing we know of.” Dan slid onto the bench beside Walker. “I’m hoping you can help me solve the ones that have already happened.”
“You talking to me or to him?” She nodded towards Walker, who still hadn’t said a word.
Dan smiled. “Both of you would be good,” he said, and it was true. While Walker had taught him to see and appreciate the world around him, Annie had shown him the value of respect. Of not making assumptions based on looks or lifestyle. He was a better man thanks to the two of them, and better at his job as well. He valued both their friendship and their perspective.
***
THEY SPENT THE REST of the morning catching up. Walker had arrived on a fishboat and had been carried aboard. He spent his first few days hobbling around the deck, using the railing to support himself, but was now strong enough to do three or four laps with no assistance. He still limped badly, and always would, but the improvement from the last time Dan had seen him was remarkable.
“That doctor you set me up with did a real good job, even if you did trick me into seeing him. Wanted me to stay and have a bunch of physiotherapy, but I figured I could do that myself.” He grinned. “It ain’t like I haven’t done it before.”
“So how did you manage to get on board a fishboat?”
“Called Charlie. Remember him? He’s the guy who lost his regalia. He’s waiting for you to bring it back.”
“I’m working on it, Walker. That’s what I need help with—but you didn’t answer my question.”
Walker grinned. “Used that fancy phone you left with me and asked him to come down to Vancouver and get me. My cousin sprang me from the hospital and got me down to the wharf at Steveston.”
“The cousin I went to see when I got back, who told me he hadn’t seen you since I dropped you off?”
Walker’s laughter was good to hear. “I told him not to tell anyone where I was.”
“Glad you found a use for the phone,” Dan said. “I was kind of hoping you would call me.”
“Figured you would find me, you being a detective and all.” Walker’s smile took the sting out of his words. “So what happened in Australia—and how’s Claire?”
“Claire’s fine. She’s enjoying her work and she’ll be glad to hear you’re okay. We’ve both been worried about you.”
“And the thefts? You think they’re connected?”
Dan nodded slowly, but didn’t answer. He did believe they were connected, but exactly how was something he had yet to figure out. His eyes drifted to the window where rain streaked down the glass, but the air inside was dry, warmed by the woodstove Annie kept going night and day. It was all so very different from Australia, yet the link was undeniably there.
“I don’t have much to go on, but that helicopter Annie saw may have something to do with it. One very like it was seen up in Rupert, and there was another one I heard about in Australia. They’re not common, and the one in Rupert may have come off a yacht. It was registered to a guy in the Dominican Republic, but his daughter lives on Porcher Island. She uses a name from Voudou, and that graphic on the helicopter is from Voudou as well.”
“So you got helicopters, Voudou, traditional regalia, and two countries half a world apart?” Annie lifted the kettle from the stove and refilled their cups. “Pretty odd mix.”
“Yeah. And, and it’s always sacred objects stolen.”
“They say they’d seen a helicopter over there in Australia?”
“Not where the theft occurred, but there’s one not far away that sounds like it’s the same kind as the one seen here.”
Annie leaned back and looked at him through the steam rising from her cup.
“If that’s all you got, this one’s going to be pretty hard to figure out. Maybe you need to take a break for the winter. Go on back to that marina of yours where you’ll be safe, and hope something else turns up.”
“He’s already got something else.” Walker had remained silent while Annie and Dan were talking, but now he leaned forward and glared at Annie. “He’s got those reports of spirit sightings to follow up on. And Jimmie’s family shouldn’t have to wait until the weather gets nice to learn who killed their son.”
Annie’s eyes held sympathy as she looked at him across the table. “No, they shouldn’t, but Dan shouldn’t have to risk his life out there in Hecate Strait either. Maybe he can get the information he needs while he’s tied up at Port McNeill.”
Walker shook his head. “The answers are going to be out here, not down there.”
“Thanks Annie, but Walker’s right.” Dan had come to get information, but it felt good to be sitting here chatting with two of the three people he cared for most, realizing that they cared for him too. They were his family. The only one missing was Claire and if the gods of the airwaves were looking on him favourably, he would talk to her later.
He smiled at Walker. “I don’t think those spirit sightings are going to be of much help. There’s no way a spirit stole any of these things—and it’s pretty easy to dress up as a spirit. Dye your hair green and put on some weird outfit that would scare any local who happened to see you.”
“So that’s what you think happened?” Suddenly the old Walker grin was back in place. “Got some crazy guy running around in a white sheet shouting Hoo Hoo?”
Dan stood up and moved to the window. “Something like that.” He was quiet for a moment and then he turned back and let his eyes roam over the now-familiar space; the scarred wooden table, the worn cushions on the bench seats, the cast-iron woodstove. “I spent a lot of hours crammed into that sardine-can they call a plane thinking about all this stuff. I still don’t know who, or why, or even how, but I know it wasn’t spirits and I’m pretty sure it’s associated with Voudou, and that means I need to talk to a woman called Samantha Chauvet up on Porcher Island.”
“You think she’s the one doing all this? One woman? Collecting traditional regalia from all around the world and killing people if they get in the way?” Annie’s face was a picture of incredulity.
“Probably not, but she may be able to help me figure out who is.” He looked at Annie. “You got any books on Voudou in that library of yours?”
“Might have something on it somewhere, but it wouldn’t be much. Why?”
He reached into his pocket for the notebook he always carried, flipped to the page he wanted and passed it to her.
“There was this guy in Darwin. Called himself a bunch of different names. I think they might belong to Voudou.”
“Darwin? Darwin, Australia?” She gave him a puzzled look, picked up the notebook and disappeared into the salon. It took a while but finally she returned with a thick book on the religions of the world.
“Like I said, there ain’t much on Voudou here, but I checked out the index.” She lay the book on the table, opened it to the index, and lay Dan’s notebook beside it. Then she pointed, first to one name, Dantor, and then to a second, Kalfu. “Got two hits. Nothing on that other one.”
“Well, I might have written it down wrong. They were just names I heard.”
They sat there quietly, each caught up in their own thoughts as they stared at the open book.
“You going to tell us why you figure Voudou is mixed up in this? I know they have a bunch of spirits, but it seems like a pretty big jump. Maybe there just wasn’t enough oxygen on that plane and you got confused.” It was Walker who asked the question, and Dan was pleased to hear the familiar sarcasm was back in place.
He smiled. “Well every theft involves sacred items, right? And every sacred item has a special meaning, its own kind of spiritual power, at least to the people that own it.”
“Yeah, sort of, but not to anyone else.”
“No, not to anyone else, but maybe there’s someone out there who doesn’t understand that. Someone who thinks they can use that power themselves. Who doesn’t understand it’s not really power as much as tradition and culture and belief.”
“So you’re saying maybe it’s not a collector? Maybe it’s someone who really believes in spirits? Who thinks wearing a mask and shaking a rattle can give them some kind of magical power?”
“Something like that,” Dan agreed. “I know it sounds crazy, but then all of what’s happened is crazy, and at least it provides some kind of motive. Some kind of trail I can follow.”
***
ANNIE STOOD UP AND pushed another piece of wood into the stove.
“You want to stay for lunch?” she asked. “Got some soup here and it’s getting pretty late in the day to start up north.”
She lifted the lid of a pot and the rich aroma of fish chowder filled the air. It was a hard offer to refuse and Dan didn’t bother trying. Within minutes she placed three steaming bowls on the table, then added a plate of warm bannock that had to have been freshly made that morning.
“I can see why Walker never appreciated the food I gave him,” Dan said as he grinned at the man he was talking about. “You keep giving him meals like this he may never leave.”
“Kinda helps when he’s the one catching it,” Annie replied.