Virgil Wood knew; that had to be it. Virgil knew who the dead man actually was.
It was late afternoon when I got back to Beach Road, and I let the car take me. It kept going past my driveway, past Seaview Market, on to Lower Road, and ended up parking me next to a brown house with a For Sale sign in front of it. It was the old poet’s place.
I got out and walked around the property. Like Sloan’s, the house was an old summer cottage with an addition. The old section was nice, though, with a glassed-in verandah facing the sea and a roomy, turreted second floor. Monkey-puzzle trees and stately rose bushes adorned the front yard; the back was simply spectacular.
An arbutus plank bridge, its handrails made of varnished driftwood, arched over herb and rock gardens, and a clear, active brook that fed into a network of lily ponds. The fantasia ended with a great lawn that swept into a gentle rise, where cherry trees planted at regular intervals seemed to guard the property from afar, like ancient warriors in their last stand against ocean and heaven.
I sat on a bench between two trees and marvelled at the man’s vision and incredible good luck. Starting in a tin shack on the beach, he’d found paradise a stone’s throw away and managed to hold on to it for what seemed like an eternity.
On cue, a neighbour started his lawn mower. I ambled over to the side of the property and took a peek over the hedge. I saw him from behind: big guy, shirtless, shaving his side of the sloped fairway in a yellow and green riding mower. Something about him was familiar. He veered his machine to the right, and I caught his profile. Tattooed arms, sandblasted beard and head, a face all too ready for trouble. It was Big Bill.
Staying close to the hedge to keep out of his view, I returned to my car. I got the digital camera from the glove box and went back the way I’d come. A sparse patch in the hedge gave me decent sight lines. I waited for him to swing by and got off a pretty good shot on the second pass.
I drove to Settlers Road and knocked on the old Scottish gentleman’s door. He was wearing pants this time, but the mutt was still yapping. It broke through some kind of barrier and came charging for my feet, a frenzied Shih Tzu that flipped over joyfully after making contact, raising its little black face to me and barking out amazing stories. I made nice with the mutt—“Little lion,” I said, “little /ion”—and it calmed down, awaiting further adventure. That got me in the door.
Worry showed in the man’s pale, lined face. “I went to the RCMP, like you advised. But they told me in no uncertain terms that I shouldn’t discuss it further with anyone.” He glanced at the dog, which listened like a third party, then added with clenched teeth, “Not even you, sir.”
I nodded, agreeing with him wholeheartedly. “That’s standard policy with all witnesses and informants. However, this case is closed, and I’m not here to ask you questions anyway. I just want to show you something.”
I held up the camera with the viewfinder turned toward him. He peered into it.
“Hey, that looks like the biker fella.”
“Yeah? Here, take another look.”
I showed him a sequence of lesser images, then stopped again at the money shot.
He stared some more, sighed, then swivelled his head to play with the light source.
He sighed again and nodded. “It looks to be him.”
“Good,” I said, tucking away the camera.
A wild gleam darted from his eye. “Big bruiser, huh?”
“I’ll say. Leave it with me for now. If they do decide to reopen the case, you might have to give another statement, maybe identify this guy if they care who he is. They might not. But for now, you’re not even supposed to be discussing this, remember?”
I was almost at the street when he shouted, “And I didn’t. I didn’t discuss a damn thing.”
I turned around and called back, “That’s right.”
The dog yapped excitedly from inside as if it knew they’d been had.