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The rain made launching the Zodiac difficult but Dan had more help than he needed. He also received more offers to join him than he could possibly accept, but this was a trip he had to make alone. The risk was too great to involve others and he would have neither time nor energy to spend on passengers. He was going to need speed, total concentration and more than a little luck in order to reach Ahas’wit in this weather but if, as he hoped, he could gain the first real evidence as to how these crimes were being committed, and by whom, then the risk was worth it.
The wind had veered ahead of the oncoming storm and with luck he could take advantage of the confused seas to make it to the village before the worst hit and then use the wind and waves to help him on the way back. It was risky and if it didn’t work he would have to find a place to run the Zodiac up onto the shore and ride out the weather as best he could. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but he needed to plan for the worst and he stowed a sleeping bag in a waterproof container, an extra tarp, several bottles of water and a handful of snack bars in one of the lockers. Thanks to Walker, he knew how to find clams and mussels to eat, and with luck there would still be some cloudberries and the bearberries Walker called kinnikinick as well as salal. And then there was camus root and seaweed. He would survive—although he wished he knew how to catch a fish!
The thought made him smile, and he realized that even though he had spent the last few weeks wishing Walker was with him to share his knowledge, the man had already taught him most of what he needed to know. Now it was up to him.
***
A STRONG GUST OF WIND pulled his mind back to the present. What was important now was to get out to Leonard’s village as soon as possible. That meant speed was of the essence, and not only because of the weather. Dan wanted that piece of cedar rope. It might have been just a piece of flotsam washed up on the beach but he thought that unlikely. Cedar rope, even if it wasn’t well made, took time to create, and he doubted it would be lightly discarded. Either way, why would Leonard pick it up? Something had to have made him leave his house in the middle of the night and head down to the beach, and Dan thought that whatever it was could well have been related to the theft. If Leonard had seen the thief and struggled with him, perhaps that piece of rope was somehow involved. If so, there might still be traces that could be used as evidence.
He was about to let go the lines when he felt the Zodiac rock and Richard stepped aboard.
“I’m going with you.”
“I can’t take you, Richard. It’s going to be too dangerous.”
“I made it here, didn’t I?”
Richard’s tears had stopped and his twisted grin reminded Dan of Walker.
“Hell. Look, I may have to spend a night ashore, maybe more, and I don’t have enough food for two. And I only have one tarp. I can’t take you.”
“You think I don’t know how to fish? How to live in the forest? Shit, it was us Indians that taught you white guys how to survive—and looking back on it that may have been a mistake.”
Richard softened his words with another quick smile before turning serious again. “Besides,” he continued. “Leonard was my brother. I’m the one who found him.”
It was a hard argument for Dan to refuse and having Richard come with him had several advantages: he would provide an entrée to the village, and he was obviously familiar with the local waters and could act as a guide.
“You’re right,” Dan said. “Thank you.”
If Matthews found out he had taken a civilian along and reported him he could be in trouble, but he had already crossed that bridge with Walker and although this was police business, it was still a private boat. Sort of.
***
AT FIRST THEY STAYED out in the middle of the channel, but as the waves built, the Zodiac spent as much time in the air as in the water and the propellers started to cavitate. That forced them to move closer to shore where the surge hid the jagged rocks beneath in a maelstrom of seething white water. It was Richard, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dan, both of them locked onto the console, whose directions helped them avoid tearing the hull off.
“Steer in a bit,” Richard said as they bounced and rocked wildly on the chaotic sea. “You can stay closer here.”
Even with the wind shrieking around him, tearing the words from his mouth, he stayed calm, his feet planted solidly on the deck, his eyes fixed ahead, and Dan once again marvelled at the skill and knowledge that came with this ancient culture.
By the time they reached Ahas’wit the muscles in Dan’s hands were frozen into claws from fighting with the wheel and his face was set in a rictus grin. He was so cold he wasn’t sure he would be able to speak even if he found someone willing to talk to him. With his white face and hunched, shivering body they would probably think that he was Bak’wus and slam the door in his face. That thought triggered another and he stopped for a moment and stared off into the distance, but the cold pulled him back to the present before he could flesh it out.
Richard led him to a house set deep in the trees and even before he opened the door he could hear the sound of many voices rising and falling above the moaning of the wind. They all fell silent when Dan stepped inside.
“This is Dan Connor,” Richard announced as he moved through the crowd towards an older couple sitting at the far end of a table. “He’s that cop that Walker told us about.”
So even here, knowing Walker gave him credibility.
The babble started up again and within minutes Dan had shaken hands with every male there, been greeted by the women, and was sitting down with a mug of hot tea in front of him.
“Tough trip.” The speaker was a man who had been introduced simply as Richard’s uncle. “Surprised you took it on in this weather.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Dan admitted. “But I didn’t want to wait three or four days until the storm blew itself out. It’s already been too long. You and your family deserve better.”
“Well, I appreciate you coming—we all do—but I’m not sure there’s anything you can do. There were four people in that house and at least three of them didn’t hear a damn thing. Leonard . . .? Guess we’ll never know.”
“So the masks weren’t stolen from this house?”
“Nah. Leonard’s house is down there closer to the water. His wife’s there now with her parents. They all live there.”
Dan looked at Richard. “Any chance you could take me over? I don’t want to intrude but I’d like to see where the masks were taken from, and I need to see where your brother was found.”
Richard glanced at his uncle and they both stood up.
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” the uncle said. “I’ll go down and tell them you’re coming—her parents don’t speak much English—and Richard can take you down to the beach and show you where he found Leonard.”
They excused themselves to the rest of the group, put their raingear back on, and went outside. They didn’t speak as they approached the beach. The tide was high and between the sound of the waves crashing on the shore and the wind screaming through the trees like a whole family of the angry banshees he and Claire had talked about before she left, it would have been impossible to hear anything.
Dan knew that even if there had been any evidence left behind on the beach, it would have been washed away long ago, but other than the cedar rope it was not physical evidence he was hoping for. He wanted to see where Leonard had met up with his killer.
Richard’s uncle turned off the path and entered a clapboard house sitting in a small hollow protected from the spray by a line of wind-stunted trees while Richard and Dan continued on towards the ocean.
“He was there.” Richard pointed to a rocky outcropping a little way back from the point, where centuries of wave action had created a sandy space between a group of large boulders. “Looked like he had fallen asleep.”
“Was he face-down or on his back?” Dan asked. He had never liked asking these questions of witnesses. He hated seeing the looks of pain such memories brought with them, but if he was to understand what had happened, it was something that had to be done.
“Face-down towards the water.” Richard had turned away, unwilling to keep re-living the scene, and his answer was muffled by the wind. “We should go back.”
“I need to go down and take a closer look, but you go on and I’ll join you. I won’t be long,” Dan said. He started down towards the beach then stopped and called back. “Those rocks are a long way from where this path comes out. Is there another path that goes that way?”
Richard turned around and stared at the rocks. “No,” he said. “This is the only way down unless you scramble down that bank over there, and it’s pretty steep.”
***
SOMEONE HAD PUT GREEN wood on the fire at Leonard’s house and when Dan entered a haze of smoke hung over the five people sitting huddled there, but no one seemed to notice. The uncle said something in a language Dan didn’t understand, and the older woman stood up and went over to an old woodstove where a kettle sat steaming. Moments later, she placed a cup of tea in front of him, said a few words and sat down again.
“Rose wants to thank you for coming. She says you are welcome here.”
“Please tell her I am honoured to meet her although I wish it was in happier circumstances.” He smiled at Rose then turned back to the uncle whose name he still didn’t know.
“I know this will be difficult, but I need to ask some questions. Could you interpret for me?”
“Sure. We all want to find who did this.”
Dan looked around the small room, at the sagging furniture and the smoke-stained walls. At the blanket-hung opening screening a space he guessed was being used as a second bedroom. At the dark entrance to another room where he could just make out an unmade bed.
There was poverty here, but there was also pride and love. He could see it in the carefully hung jackets, the boots lined up below them. In the gleaming black top of the woodstove and the silver shine of the kettle. In the photographs that hung on the walls, all of them portraying people standing close together, smiling.
“Was anything other than the masks stolen? Anything out of place?”
There were headshakes all around.
From his seat at the table Dan could see the place where the masks had hung. Two pale outlines on a smoke-darkened side wall towards the back of the room screamed their absence. In this house, the interior dark even in daylight and crowded with furniture, whoever had taken them had to have known exactly where they were.
“Have there been any strangers around here recently? Maybe a new crew-member on one of the boats? A friend of a friend? A guest? Anyone?”
It was Richard’s uncle who answered. “There’s always a few new crew-members when things open up, but that was back in spring and they all came from one of the other villages. No one from outside.”
Richard himself had remained quiet since Dan had entered the house but now he spoke out.
“Leonard had that white guy pulling shrimp pots when the season first opened back in March or April.”
“You remember his name?” Dan asked.
Richard shrugged. “Only met him once or twice. Didn’t last too long.”
“Do you know why Leonard let him go?”
“Short season—but I don’t think Len liked him too much. Said he was lazy. He sure looked weird. Had this long hair with red streaks in it.”
Dan sucked in a breath of the smoky air and fought to keep the surge of excitement in check. It was too soon to be making assumptions. There could be more than one person who fit that description.
“Would there be a record of his name anywhere? I think crew have to be registered with Fisheries don’t they?”
Richard glanced briefly at his uncle before he answered. “Pretty hard to keep track of everyone with all the openings and closings,” he said.
Dan heard the evasion behind his words. Fishing had been a way of life for the indigenous people of the coast for thousands of years. It was how they survived, the staple food in their diet, an intrinsic part of their culture, and they had never welcomed the white man’s intrusion into their affairs. In these remote communities the restrictions and regulations arbitrarily placed on them by an organization they neither respected nor wanted would often be ignored. They would fish when they determined the time was right and they would take who they wanted on their boat.
“How about other crew members? Is there anyone who might have known this guy’s name?”
The uncle was looking at him oddly.
“You’re very interested in this man. You think he might have had something to do with this?”
Dan shrugged. “I’m interested in anything out of the ordinary. Leonard having a white crewman on his boat was out of the ordinary, so yes, I’m interested. Do you know if he ever came here, to Leonard’s house?”
“Might have. Manny might know. He’s worked on Leonard’s boat for years. He might even remember the name. Richard, you want to go ask him?”
A cold gust of wind blew in as Richard opened the door and stepped outside. It made Dan shiver. Birdie, Leonard’s widow, put more wood on the fire, and smoke once more swirled in the room, only to be sucked out again when Richard returned a few minutes later.
“Manny says it was a weird name and he can’t remember exactly, but it sounded like Kung Fu. They used to tease the guy by calling him that and it would make him mad.”
For a moment Dan was back in Darwin, the shade from the palm tree dappling the courtyard and Ernie sitting across from him as they talked about the man with the long hair and the caftan. He calls himself by many different names and none make any sense. I’ve heard Dantor, Met, and Kalfu—or at least that’s what they sounded like.