Stain of the Berry (18 page)

I headed for my private kingdom-also known as my den-where I prefer to nap because the sofa is as soft as marshmallow and for some reason I love to fall asleep surrounded by my bookshelves and travel knick-knacks and framed photos of loved ones. It took my brain a while to settle into rest mode though, with random thoughts about the case of Tanya Culinare's death whizzing through my head like pinballs looking for a hole to land in. But eventually sweet sleep overcame me to the gentle tune of two dogs snoring.

When later came, I felt a second wind, and pleased to have it, and decided upon an alternate plan. My mother and father had been farmers who came into "the city" only when they needed something they absolutely could not obtain from a local small town store or their own land, barn or chicken coop. As a result, many of the things city folk take for granted, Mom had never before experienced, and our annual fair, the Saskatoon Prairieland Exhibition (the Ex) was one of them. That evening was the last night of the six-day event that features death-defying rides, win-defying games of chance, SuperDogs, a kick-ass petting zoo, beer at the Prairie Patio, an ugly hat contest, spudnuts, thick slices of fresh-out-of-the-oven 76 of 163

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Doukhobor bread slathered with chunky strawberry jam, Chuckwagon races, and a Grandstand where one could rock out to classic bands like Prism and Trooper.

I have a longstanding agreement with my friend Doreen that during exhibition week I can park in her nearby back alley parking spot just off Lome Avenue instead of spending endless minutes trying to find a bootleg spot that would cost me big bucks. In return I always bring her back an elephant ear and a corn dog, the only two reasons she would ever visit the fair herself. It works out well for both of us. So that evening, about 7-ish, Mom and I pulled into Doreen's backyard, walked the half block to the entrance on the corner of Lome and Ruth Streets, paid our nine bucks, idly wondered just who Lome and Ruth were to rank streets named after them and entered the rambunctious, colourful, lit-up-like-a-Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, wonderfully seedy world of a prairie fairground.

Things were going well: delicious church basement ice-cream and souvlaki on a bun were being consumed, Mom shocked the teenyboppers around her (and the roadie running the show) by showing off remarkable marksmanship at a game that required shooting water at a target to power a racehorse-she won, quite handily, six times in a row and came away with a ridiculously huge panda bear. We fed Styrofoam cupfuls of sunflower seeds to baby goats at the petting zoo. Then things turned ugly. Namely, we ran into Jane Cross. With Errall.

The conversation was awkward and stilted, Jane and I unable to enjoy our usual verbal bantering in front of my mother because it generally contained a liberal sprinkling of innovative swear words, which left us with little to say to one another except "how 'bout that weather?". Mom had known Errall's ex, Kelly, because Kelly had been a school chum of mine, and although Mom wasn't quite wise to the lesbian thing, she instinctively knew something wasn't quite right with Errall (or, as she called her, Carol) showing up every place with a new "goot friend." So we dumped them as quickly as we could, begging off to catch one more Slingshot-Killer-Upsy-Daisy-Curlicue-Upchuck-slam-o-rama ride, or whatever it's called, before the fireworks, which were slated to begin at 10:40 p.m (not 10:30, not even 10:45, but 10:40 on the dot).

We, of course, went nowhere near the midway ride lineups; Mom had no interest and I'm not a fan either. Something about the up-and-down-round-and-round-side-to-side-all-at-the-same-time just doesn't sit right with me or my stomach. I like to watch, but Mom had other ideas, and with not-quite-subtle maneuverings, both physical and verbal, she got us back to the shooting gallery games and proceeded to procure a menagerie of stuffed animals. If this were Vegas, they'd have comped her a room and front row seats for Cirque du Soleil...or took her for a little "ride" into the desert.

As 10:40 approached, I pried Mom away from her water gun so we could find a good spot from which to watch the fireworks dispky. And still I could not catch a break, for despite all our efforts and the thousands of strangers who walk through the Exhibition gates every day, who should end up next to us but Jane and Errall.

In a way it was okay, seeing as they were willing to take a load off me by offering to hold some of Mom's furry winnings, which somehow I'd ended up with while she, completely unencumbered, chewed the buttery niblets off a cob of corn.

The first firework sprayed high into the black velvet sky like a spatter of phosphorescent paint. All together now: Ooooo. Ahhhhh. Ohhhhhhh. Ayyyyyyy.

And so the pyrotechnics progressed. I wasn't paying full attention, I have to admit. My eye kept dropping from the sky onto that other little firecracker in town known as Jane Cross, and my mind kept asking the same question: What does Errall see in her? Sure, I suppose she is cute enough when she isn't scowling. And I suppose there is that whole rough and tumble bravado that appeals to lesbians of a certain ilk. But did Errall know that this woman had once sprayed me in the face with hairspray? And that she calls me "bub" even though I've asked her politely not to?

And it was over Jane's cabbage-shaped head, which was closer to the ground than most around her, that I caught sight of something even less appealing: a set of eyes fastened upon me with heated intensity.

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Crikey. I was getting a bit fed up with being watched. Was this the same guy I'd caught peeking at me through a set of binoculars at PWC? Or the fellow in the rental outside the Moose Jaw casino? Maybe another fake Doug Poitras? Or a friend of Grace Jones?

Well, it was time I found out.

I whispered in my mom's ear to stay with Errall until I came back from the washroom, shoved a walrus and two monkeys into her arms, and took off toward the eyes.

The Ex fireworks display happens on an empty slip of land that separates Kidsville (where they keep the short people rides, clowns and the best candy apples) from the main midway and it was into the latter that Mr. Sneaky Eyes disappeared. I didn't have much to go on, but in the kaleidoscope light of a nearby, whizzing ride called the Zipper I caught a quick glimpse of who I was after: a slight guy of middling height with a red baseball cap worn slightly askew. Better than nothing.

If anything the temperature had risen since sunset and the flashing lights and swirling machines of the Ex appeared grandly dramatic against the charcoal backdrop of the prairie night sky and helped light my way. For several minutes I dodged in and out between the swooshing rides with calliope tunes, root beer and candy floss booths and lineups for tokens, almost catching up with the guy several times but never quite. I'd see the red hat bobbing up and down amongst the throngs of fairgoers and merchandise hawkers and I'd push them aside as politely as I could, but I always found myself a few too many seconds behind.

Eventually we ran out of midway. The demarcation line between fair and no fair was as clear as white to black and there was no doubt I'd entered no man's land, an end of the line, nothing-here-to-see-folks kind of place, completely cut off from the supersonic light, clanging noise and frantic activity of the fairground. In the sudden darkness I nearly tripped over a writhing mass of electrical cables as I raced past the last hot dog stand and a portable bathroom.

From the blackness came: "Get him, boys."

Not exactly the words you want to hear in a situation like that.

There were three of them. Red Cap was among them and seemed to be the leader. They surrounded me like the hyenas from
The Lion King.
Now where's that "Hakuna Matata" spirit when you need it? I didn't have much time to consider the answer as the goons jumped on me like retirees on a $4.95 all-you-can-eat buffet.

They weren't pros or anything, and I quickly got the sense their hearts weren't really in it. They just wanted to scare me.

Mission accomplished.

Red Cap's buddies were wearing skullcaps pulled low (more for disguise than style, I think) and jeans pulled lower, but that was about all I saw of them as they wrestled me to the ground. The next thing I knew Red Cap had his face in mine, so close I could barely make out his features. I could feel hot breath and spittle on my skin as he spoke, his voice seething with anger. "You leave us alone! Do you hear me?

Leave us alone!"

And then came the howler monkey.

Jane Cross landed on the back of one of my assailants (not Red Cap) with the precision of a four-year-old playing leapfrog. It did the trick. Not expecting someone to attack them, the boys quickly got off me and the one with the tiny, screaming broad attached to his neck tried to swipe her off as if an icky-creepy-crawly spider had just fallen on him. He twirled around and did a jig but she wasn't giving up 78 of 163

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her hold so easily, or her yammering. Red Cap grabbed hold of Jane's shirt tail and yanked as hard as he could. She gave him a donkey kick that sent him flying. By this time I was up and ready to join the fracas.

Even though it was still three-to-two for the bad guys, this was not at all the scene they were expecting, and with an extra powerful buck, Jane's victim dumped her unceremoniously onto the rough ground and took off into the shadows of night, quickly followed by the other two.

I rushed to Jane's side and knelt down beside her.

"You okay, Jane? Are you hurt?"

She looked up at me, wounded...in pride, but not physically. "Ahhhh, shit, man, what was that about, bub? And why'n hell am I always having to run to your rescue?"

I did a double take. "Huh? Just when exactly have you ever rescued me before?"

Jane brushed off my helping hand and popped into a standing position like a Weeble that wobbles but won't fall down and busied herself flattening down her short dark hair. "Whatever," she mumbled. "So who were those guys? I can tell trouble when I see it."

"Oh really," I said standing up and checking my own hair. "What was your first clue? The flying fists or the verbal threats?"

"Or maybe it was you screaming like a girl and covering your face so they wouldn't mess your makeup,"

she shot back.

I had to laugh at that. She joined in.

"Mom?" I asked.

"With Errall. She's okay. I saw you take off after that guy and guessed the only thing you were cruising for was a bruising."

"Suppose you were wrong?"

She ignored that. "So what's up, Quant? You got troubles you can't handle?"

"I can handle them just fine."

She turned serious. "Quant, you were just jumped by three guys. They weren't about to give you a chance to fight back. They meant business."

I nodded my agreement. But I'm a lone wolf. Awwwhhhhhoooooooooo! I work alone. "I'm okay. I got it covered."

She eyed me with undisguised doubt. "Uh-huh. Whatever, bub."

Rescuer or not, I still wasn't fond of her calling me bub.

I tried to sleep, but my body was having none of it. Random spots of pain, compliments of my fairground wrassle, dotted my body like blips on a radar screen. Finally I could ignore it no longer and got up. Barbra and Brutus registered the disturbance with disapproving, half-lidded stares but moved nary a centimetre from their warm, soft spots at the foot of the bed. I shuffled over to the full-length mirror next to my walk-in closet and surveyed my naked body. Sure, maybe the Badstreet Boys weren't intent on doing me serious damage, but they'd done enough. The skin around my ribs, chest and thighs was beginning to show telltale bruises. I turned around and stared at the small scar, just above my buttocks, from a knife wound 79 of 163

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I'd suffered last year. God, what kind of life was I leading? Becoming a detective was supposed to be a dream come true, a dream of living a carefree, I'm-my-own-boss-on-my-own-terms kind of life. I hadn't counted on the people-beating-me-up-and-stabbing-me part. Or had I? Wasn't that part and parcel of being a PI? Did something about me get off on the violence, or at least the threat of it? Was this my version of playing extreme sports or being an astronaut or riding a Ferris wheel?

With Jane's help I'd hidden what had happened from my mother, so she was peacefully asleep in the guest bedroom at the other end of the house. No need to worry her. She'd go home tomorrow none the wiser and that was for the best. I knew sleep was not an immediate option for me so I threw on a lightweight tartan housecoat, tiptoed into the kitchen for a glass of water and retired to my office. The dogs skipped the kitchen trek but joined up with me in the office, looking as if they'd been awakened from a thousand year sleep, thought I was insane and were solely interested in the nearest soft spot in which to curl up in and get back to it. I slipped into the chair behind my desk and the schnauzers cuddled up on the rug in front of the unlit fireplace.

I couldn't decide between a game of internet backgammon or checking out eBay art auctions and in the end settled on checking my e-mail. The inbox contained a promise of increased size from Kristy Cream, a few happy birthday greetings including one from my friend Christopher (I call him Kit) Egan in Minneapolis and a message with an attachment from Jared. It was the Pink Gopher Chorus contact list. I opened it and printed it off. Eleven names with phone numbers and addresses. Finally, something to go on: my investigation was up and running once again.

Monday morning, after another barnyard-animal-heavy breakfast, my mother got in her van and headed for home and I got on the horn to Darren Kirsch. After promising to never call him again (with my fingers crossed behind my back), I forwarded him Jared's e-mail with the Pink Gopher contact names and he agreed to run a check on them for priors with the police department. That done, and with Jared's list, Duncan's group photo, map of Saskatoon, to-go mug full of coffee and a litre of water in hand, I hopped into the Mazda and set out to attack the list from an entirely different angle. I call it the personal touch.