Body Blows (19 page)

“Did you know his wife? The one who was killed?”

“That was Lorraine. Yes, I knew her. She was quite mad you know.”

“I didn't.”

“Oh, yes. Ask anyone. Beautiful, but right off her trolley. I think it ran in her side of the family. Her daughter was odd too.”

“I didn't know Leo had a third child.”

“
Third
? Acknowledged perhaps. I suspect there may be a few of his ‘love children' in the world — well, they wouldn't be children anymore would they? Which is one reason I never got involved with Leo Alexander in
that
way. He made a pass at me. Oh, yes. One day shortly after I started working for him. I said, ‘There'll be none of
that
, Mr. Alexander.' Yes, I did. I said, ‘let's remain professional.' He respected me for that.”

“I understand Leo was a suspect in the matter of his wife's death.”

“Not really. He was nowhere near the ranch that weekend.” She deftly slices the maiden cake into neat squares and lifts one onto a plate for me. “Still, it's an awful coincidence, don't you think?”

“I haven't been able to get much information. What happened?”

“Well, I don't know, exactly. I was with Mr.

Alexander at a meeting in Calgary. We were, well,
he
was, trying to acquire two new television outlets. There was a bitter round of negotiations. He was a tough horse trader. Then, in the middle of all that, he got a phone call from the ranch that Lorraine had been killed. So he went right back. It cost him the deal he was trying to make, but he didn't waste a second.”

“Were Leo and his wife getting along?”

“She didn't like living on the ranch. She was always flying off to New York or Europe or somewhere she could spend a lot of money.”

“Did you ever meet Raquel?”

“The maid? No, I never did. Of course I haven't been in Vancouver for quite a few years. Once Mr. Alexander closed up his businesses and moved into the hotel, I was out of a job. I don't mean that in a bad way. Mr. Alexander was very generous with my severance package, and I had a pension plan, and then when the library was established there was a yearly budget for that. But I was out of that particular job, looking after his appointments and keeping track of his social obligations. I enjoyed that job. I miss it.”

She settles herself across from me. “Now don't forget,” she says, “when you get a chance, mention the ranch pictures. I have the sailing years. I have his correspondence. I have just about everything except for Alberta.”

“I'd love to see that collection. Is it handy?”

“Oh, Lordy, no,” she laughs. “It just grew too huge. I ran out of room. Four years ago I prodded Leo into buying a nice little building not far from the University.”

She hands me a brochure with a colour photograph on the cover, a two-storey house of solid Victorian aspect. “The Alexander Library,” she says with pride in her voice. “It's not open to the public. By appointment only.”

“I'd like to make an appointment.”

“Don't be silly, I'll give you a personal tour,” she says. “Finish your coffee. Have another piece of maiden cake. You don't have to be one to eat one.”

Madge drives a beautifully maintained 1969 Austin-Healey Sprite, British racing green with a badge bar on the grill proudly carrying the insignia of the Victoria Sprite-Fanciers Club. It's a nimble little two-seater and she drives it well. I'm having trouble keeping up with her. Fortunately for me it isn't far from her riverside cottage to the Alexander Library.

There's a small gravel parking lot at the side of the building and Madge motions me to occupy the space reserved for L. Alexander.

“Who's more entitled?” she asks.

I don't think the hotel's shabby sedan rates such a valued place but since Leo hasn't bothered owning a car for some time, I think I'm safe.

For a man who would throw his bronze plaque into the first available dumpster, Leo appears to have amassed an impressive collection of framed portraits, testimonials, citations, and numerous awards, medallions, statuettes, and scrolls.

“You tell Leo I'll want that Hotelier's plaque right away. I have a spot reserved right over here.”

There is an open space at the end of a series of awards; one of them is similar in size and shape to the one currently in the police evidence lockup.

“You might not get it for a while,” I say. “Someone defaced it.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“The police are trying to find out.”

“Poor Joseph,” she says. “Always tidying up, aren't you?”

“Grasping at straws is what I'm doing, Madge.”

“Well, you have a look around while I check for messages. Start in there, it has the most exciting stuff.”

The largest room is devoted to yachting. Model boats everywhere — racing sloops, Grand Banks schooners, square-rigged China clippers. The walls are covered with oil paintings, photographs, newspaper clippings, ship's wheels, bells, tillers, winches, and flags. Every item is accompanied by an identifying brass marker or a framed card lettered in faultless calligraphy giving dates and places and names of the vessels involved.

There are photographs of Leo surrounded by sailing crews, hoisting tankards and loving cups, helming one of his racers, wind in his hair, salt spray in his face. The man in the pictures and the Leo I'm familiar with are quite different. It's the same guy, but this version looks heroic, maybe even a bit reckless; face scoured by sun and wind, eyes bright, hands on the tiller strong and confident. The Leo I've known for the past eight years is a paler version of the buccaneer in these pictures.

“You never knew him then, did you, Joseph?” Madge has joined me in the gallery.

“No.”

“Before your time.” She straightens a frame that didn't need adjustment. “I crewed for him a few times, in this little boat, his first one,
Lemony
.”

I can see her image in the picture she just touched, younger, quite pretty, standing behind Leo in the stern of a small sloop. They both look happy.

“That was taken so long ago,” she says. “Once he started getting serious about racing he needed a real crew.” She wipes an imaginary speck from Leo's image. “I just enjoyed the outings. Messing about in boats, as they say.”

The next photograph looks familiar.

“I've seen this one before,” I say.

“
Tyrannous
,” she says.

“He has a model in his penthouse.”

“Yes. She was his pride. A real racer.”

“Did he sell her?”

“
Tyrannous
went down, Joseph, off Cape Flattery.

Collided with a trawler in the fog. The fishermen picked them up. All but one.”

Another dead body.

“He was very upset.” She turns away from the picture, shakes her head. “The man's family was taken care of. He's like that. Very generous, very loyal.”

“Very unlucky.”

“After that he stopped racing. Bought a cabin cruiser.

Mimosa.
Said he wanted some comfort.” She points to a colour photograph on the other side of the room. “Over here. Twenty-three metre Burger, sleeps six.”

“Handsome vessel.” It seems like an appropriate thing to say, although I'm no judge of watercraft. The identifying card reads,
M
IMOSA
, COBBLE HILL MARINA.

“He hasn't been aboard for a long time. I'm not sure why he's hung onto her. Sentiment, I suppose.”

“The crewman who drowned,” I start, “do you remember his name?”

“Newton,” she says. “Yarnell Newton.” She turns brisk abruptly, too much memory lane, perhaps. “You have to sign the visitor's book,” she says.

“Be my pleasure.” I follow her into an alcove that has the unfortunate aspect of a shrine. A portrait of Leo, younger, standing in front of a building, one of his, presumably. “Do you get many visitors?” I ask.

“Well, of course the Yacht Club really covets his models, and the photographs, the trophies, there's even a movie he had commissioned of the 1987 Swiftsure race. It's quite a collection.”

She opens a leather-bound visitor's book and hands me a fountain pen. “I'm very happy you showed up, Joseph. It's a comfort to me, knowing you're helping him.”

“It's good to see you, too, Madge,” I say. “I'm always grateful for my Christmas socks.” A name has just popped out at me. Norman Weed is in the book. “Norman Weed? He's a friend of mine.”

“Yes. He's mentioned your name,” she says. “Nice man. He's been here a few times. Not recently, but usually once or twice a year.”

Well, now.

I page backward through the book and notice Norman's name scribbled more than once.

“You said Leo had a daughter,” I say. “Has she ever been here?”

“Haven't seen her in many years,” says Madge. “Not since her mother was killed. Rose is her name. She had to be institutionalized after it happened. Very sad.”

“Her name Alexander, too?”

“She had foster parents,” she says. “I forget what they called themselves, and she was married, for a while anyway. I don't remember her married name. Something western.”

“Western?”

“Like a cowboy. Buffalo Bill. Something like that. I think she met the man at a horse sale.”

chapter nineteen

M
imosa
isn't the biggest yacht in the marina, not by a long stretch, but she doesn't look out of place. She has nice lines, a flying bridge, a striped canopy over the stern deck. What do I know? A yacht's a yacht. Out of my league, financially, socially, practically. Ferry rides are my preferred mode of water travel and even they make me uncomfortable. Driving off a ferry is my favourite part of the trip.

I call out “Anyone aboard?” I don't know why there would be. My investigation, if you can call it that, has run out of notions. What have I learned so far? There's another dead Newton in the mix. That's no doubt significant. And Leo has a daughter who married “Buffalo Bill.” That, too, is new. Not particularly helpful, but new. If Leo's had seven lives, he seems able to leave them behind without a backward glance — wives, ranches, boats, buildings, children. “Searching for something he could love,” Madge said.

Aren't we all?

A familiar figure is bulling down the wharf in my direction. Lenny Alexander has his head down and totes a two-four of Kokanee and a bag of groceries.

“Mr. Alexander. Good afternoon.”

“Grundy. What the hell you doing here?”

“Working for your father.”

“He still in jail? I bet that's pissing him off.”

“He's asked me to look into some things. One of them was his boat.” Not precisely true, but close enough.

“Tell him to relax. I needed a place to crash, figure out a few things. I'm outta the house. She can keep the damn house.”

“I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you had … difficulties at home.”

“Why should you care?” He climbs aboard with his groceries. Looks around at the floating creature comforts. “See that dinghy over there? Guy just told me it's worth twenty-two million bucks. Believe that? The old man should be embarrassed. This tub only sleeps six. Ten if there's a crew. Don't think there's been one for five years. Just some dork who shows up once a month to check the bilge or whatever.”

“More boat that I'll ever own,” I say.

“You and me both, pal,” he says. He looks me up and down with a fraction less than his usual hostility. “How's he doing?” he asks. “Ahh! He'll be all right. Water off a duck's back with that old bastard. Wears a Teflon suit. You know what he'd tell me about my marriage? Cut her loose. That's what. Do what he did to my mother — Here's a few bucks, go get a job.”

“Do you have a lawyer?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says tiredly, “I'll survive. She'll keep the house, good riddance, overpriced cracker box, one of these days that hill's gonna turn to mud and the whole piece of shit'll slide down onto Capilano Drive.”

He hefts the case of beer and the groceries. “You want a beer?” he asks.

“That'd be great. Thanks.”

“Come aboard.”

I make the mistake of grabbing the rail with my left hand and feel a sharp twinge in my forearm. Woke it up.

Damn thing's been quiet most of the day.

Lenny leads the way below to a snug but well-appointed salon with a little less headroom than I'm at ease with. The seats are leather, the woodwork is mahogany, the fittings are polished brass. I've seen worse retreats.

He cracks a couple of Kokanees and slides one across the galley table in my direction. “Goddamn lawyers have me tied up so tight I can't piss without written permission,” he says. “My old man's richer than God, my lard-ass brother's richer than God's uncle, and I'm on a freakin' budget.”

We sip our beers for a minute listening to gulls and water and the slap of rigging on masts.

“You married, Grundy?”

“No.”

“Smart move.” He has a long pull at his bottle.

“Don't get married.” Belches delicately. “My older girl has a ring through her nose, who knows where else, failing in school, never home, I don't even want to think about what she's doing. The boy's a zombie. Spends all his time playing Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto and shit where he rips people's skulls off.”

“Kids grow out of things.”

“Think so? He's sixteen. At his age I spent my time trying to get laid.” He empties his bottle, sees that I'm still working on mine, opens another one for himself. “I don't even think he knows how to jerk off unless there's a control knob on a Playstation I don't know about.” He pulls out his wallet and extracts a small colour photograph, holds it up for my inspection. “Her I miss,” he says. “Melissa.”