Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island (29 page)

“Scotch,” said Kyra. “On the rocks, thanks.”

“Damn fool thing to do with single malt. Noel?”

“Scotch, please. Straight. Water chaser.”

“Right.” She headed to the kitchen.

“If it's single malt, I'll have it the same,” Kyra called.

Lucille did not break stride and returned a minute later. Three Dansk crystal glasses, Laphroaig, two tumblers, a jug of water. “There you are.” She poured a finger of Scotch in each glass and raised her own. “Cheers.” She sat back and told her tale:

She'd called Rose a few minutes after talking to Noel.

“Yes?” The frost of January in Rose's voice.

“I'd like to interview you for an article I'm writing.”

“I'm busy, Lucille. The two shows this weekend—”

“The article's on the history of Indo-Canadians on Vancouver Island. The research is done but I want some firsthand tales. It'll take a half an hour. I'll buy you coffee.” She listened to Rose's sigh of exasperation. “I won't ask you anything about your shows.” Rose's second sigh flowed dramatically along the phone line. “You do prefer that I get the article right, don't you?”

“Oh damn. Sure, but only half an hour. When are you arriving?”

“Interviews are better on neutral ground. The village, two-thirty. Raspberry's.”

“Yeah, all right,” Rose tsked her tongue again. “But I'll be bringing a stopwatch.”

Kyra chuckled. Noel said, “Well done.”

“Thanks. I was proud of myself.” Lucille sipped her Scotch.

Kyra prompted, “You met her at two-thirty.”

“She was late. I'd begun to worry, maybe she'd decided not to come. Worried for you, I mean. Four minutes, forty-eight seconds late when she stopped her van. Three minutes more till she'd lowered the chair and wheeled toward me.”

“Did she really have a stopwatch?” Kyra asked.

Lucille smiled. “Not unless her wristwatch doubles as one.” She patted her hand across her hair. “I ordered us cappuccinos, set up my tape recorder, and started asking about her growing up in a small minority group in an English-slash-Scots enclave, which is what the Cowichan Valley was, if you ignore the Natives, which everyone did back then. Her grandfather came from the Punjab. He did laboring jobs, the usual racially unapproved-of-immigrant kind of struggle.” She sipped her Scotch. “He brought his wife and son over, had more children and supported the family as a logger. Then came the
Komagata Maru
mess in 1914—”

“What was that?” Kyra asked.

“A shipload of Sikhs wanting to immigrate anchored in Vancouver harbor but they weren't allowed to land. They were ordered back to India and some were executed there.” Lucille grimaced. “But after the First World War things improved for her grandfather.” She sipped. “He started a small subcontracting business, not just labor in the bush. And eventually his son—Rose and Tam's father—turned it into an independent company covering every wood thing from seedling to siding. Their older brother, Nirmal, he's about sixty now, took the company public. It trades on the Toronto Exchange.”

Noel drained his glass. “You got all that in half an hour?”

“Of course.”

“Impressive.”

Lucille looked smug. “Actually, she stayed forty-nine minutes. Two cappuccinos. I had a hard time shooing her home. She told me how tough it was as a child in school. There were other Indo-Canadians in the Valley by then, but she didn't have a white friend until high school.”

Kyra nodded. She'd not had a friend of Indian ancestry till university.

“She's a pretty gutsy lady,” Lucille said, then, “Okay, now it's trading time. I won't ask what you were looking for. But what's the new flower?”

Kyra glanced at Noel. They hadn't discussed this. Kyra took the reins. “I don't know what it is, but it's black. Kind of a long stem, bit over a foot tall, a bunch of petals.”

“Black.” Lucille mused. “A tulip?”

“Didn't look like a tulip.”

Lucille nodded. “Black.” She stood, headed toward the room across the hall, her study. “Help yourselves to more Scotch. I've got some looking up to do.”

Noel glanced at Kyra, who said, “Much as I like that smoky taste—”

Lucille was already tapping at her keyboard.

“Thanks for the Scotch. We're going.”

From behind her concentration Lucille said, “Come back soon.”

THE FERRY PULLED out. They walked up to the front. Kyra stared down at the passing water. “Okay. We know Rose has a double greenhouse. In front, flowers for the garden. In back, a kind of lab with a bunch of near-black chrysanthemums. And seed-pod things with a lot of goo in them.”

“And she's damned secretive about the process. She's playing with flower pigments. Well, one flower anyway. Maybe she wants to make all kinds of black flowers?”

Kyra leaned her forearms on the railing. “But why grow black flowers?”

“To prove it can be done? For the genera books?”

The ferry's engines grew from heavy hum to roar. “I guess you have to be esoteric these days to get famous.” A hundred feet ahead a cormorant cut across the ferry's path.

“Does she want fame?”

“Maybe more like—importance?” Kyra considered this, suddenly visualized Tam, his face, neck. “Now Tam, I think he'd like a little fame. Except maybe his work's only good. Not great.”

“You don't have to do great work to get famous. Just different enough work for some influential art critic to say you're great.”

“Hasn't happened to Tam.” The
T
on the tip of her tongue felt good. Stop it!

“Think he's still trying?”

She mulled that for a moment. “Yes, I think so.”

“How?”

“A painting he's working on.” She remembered reds, and yellows. But something felt off.

“Could he be playing around with some pigment his sister's invented?”

“Could be.”

“Okay then,” Noel said, “we're back to forgery?”

“Everyone says it's impossible. And those paintings are authenticated.”

“Yeah, that problem again. Okay, let's leave it for now. Where does Rabinovich fit in?”

“He's the outsider who buys the paintings.”

An errant log bobbed by. Noel said, “Maybe Tam's using some color nobody's seen before.”

“Maybe I could wheedle that information out of him.”

“Stop it!” He was angry again.

“Oh, come on.” Literally flirting with danger. She liked the idea.

“Don't get close to him again. He could be dangerous. Remember those photos.”

“That's just supposition. And hardly dangerous.” She turned to Noel. “Look, somebody's got to work the field. You don't want to. That leaves me. And I can handle myself.”

“Not with Tam Gill.” Damn her anyway.

“How do you know? You've never even met him.” Could she? Yes. On the case, and in the bed. She stared out at flat, heavy water. What was this with Noel? Jealousy? Paternalism? She shouldered her purse, swirled around, and worked her way to the washroom. She sat glumly on the toilet and muttered “Fuck” fifty times. She wished she had a cigarette. Oh fuck to that too. Or— Maybe Noel really is worried about me. The ferry's quieting engines told her to get up.

Noel sat behind the wheel, staring straight ahead.

Kyra glared straight ahead. Tam actually could've messed up the film. Shit.

“So,” Noel said. “Supper?”

“I'm not hungry.”

“Then you're sick. Or really pissed off at me.”

“I'm not— Okay. Shit, Noel, yes I am truly pissed at how much you worry about me.”

“Sorry you are. But not sorry to hear it. How about this. Let's not be pissed off.” She'd actually said
pissed,
and
shit
, not her stupid
schmidt
. “Let's start over. Supper?”

“I suppose.” She smiled. She wasn't pissed off any more. “Where?”

“Want to float while eating?”

“Sounds good.” What a relief to say piss and fuck again.

“First we drop off today's film.” The ferry docked. They left the car at Noel's, crossed the street to the mall, and left the film. Then they walked to the wharf north of Cameron Island and the twenty-foot passenger ferry, the Protection Connection. A ten-minute ride mostly settled her and brought them to Protection Island and a floating pub, anchored along the seaward ramp of the ferry wharf. They went in. Quiet, half a dozen other guests. They ordered drinks, and fish and chips. They sipped, watched sailboats and cabin cruisers pass by, felt the gentle bob of the wharf from their wake, watched the sun's descent.

All too lovely and romantic, thought Noel. No, think positive, you've got Kyra to talk to. But he sensed an absence in her too, a missing edge. He wished she hadn't forced him to make that appointment with Lyle tomorrow. Especially after hearing about Jerry's meeting with him. All the more after her snippy comment about his unwillingness to work the field. He could if he had to. He just didn't enjoy it. He wondered if the guy who'd broken into his condo had enjoyed it.

Brendan had liked this place, Kyra knew. She listened as Noel talked. What if Tam sat across from her? Goddamn she had it bad. She could feel Noel's mind and conversation coming from somewhere else. Just like her own. Great view of Nanaimo harbor, the city and the mountain. Why was the person who attracted her always the wrong person? At least Noel was someone she could relax with.

They headed back to the little ferry. “You going to tell Lyle about our chat with Bannister?”

“I don't know yet.”

“Just figure it out before meeting him.”

“Mmmm,” said Noel. Bossy again.

At the apartment all seemed normal. The lock didn't look tampered with, but it hadn't last night either. Kyra said she needed a fast walk. She'd be back in an hour.

“Then we'll call Lucas,” Noel said.

“Why don't you while I'm walking. You mind?”

“Happy to. I like your father.” She left. He opened his laptop to the paintings' descriptions and called. After some pleasantries he said, “The paintings Eaglenest is showing, there're five of them and—”

“Five?” erupted from the phone.

“A lot?”

“A lot!”

“Look, if I describe them, can you ballpark a sales price?”

“I can try. But mostly it depends on how much someone wants them.”

“The first one's a school of Correggio.” They worked through Noel's list. Minimal information, but Lucas figured them all to be in the mid to high six figures.

When they finished, Lucas asked, “How does Kyra seem to you these days?”

“She seems well. Perky. A bit bossy.”

“Oh dear yes. I think she needs to be in control these days. She needs a stable situation, and a sense of direction.”

Noel laughed. “So do we all.”

They talked for a few more minutes, and said goodbye. Noel tore a clean page from his notebook, copied out the names and Lucas' estimates, placed it on Kyra's bed. Done with her for tonight.

• • •

Kyra walked along the sea wall staring at yachts and yawls, cabin craft and dinghies. Across the water, a few lights from Gabriola. Where Tam lived. Tam who might or might not be a suspect in Roy's death. The case wasn't her problem any more. But about Tam's paintings—New uses of pigments, of color? She decided, took the phone from her purse, and pressed the numbers.

Tam answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

No machine! “Hi. It's Kyra.”

“Oh, hi.”

“I just want to apologize for dropping in at an inconvenient time.”

“That's okay. I was surprised.”

“I have to be over on Gabriola again tomorrow.”

“Ah.”

“I should be free after lunch. Will you be around?”

“No. That is, yes but later. Should be back about four-fifteen.”

“May I come by?”

“That'd be nice.”

“See you after four.” She set the phone down. Her hand had gone damp. Damn. Tam Gill. Something about her last time there itched. Something about colors. What colors? She felt tingly warm and let herself smile.

When she got back Noel's bedroom door was closed. She made I-am-here noises but he didn't come out. Yes, a statement. In her room she found Noel's information and whistled. Three to four million dollars for Marchand. She slid the paper into her purse.

In the morning, over breakfast, they talked. Noel had forgotten, he'd need the Honda to get to lunch with Lyle. She called for a rental car. She dressed for the occasion, Brendan's slate-blue shirt, her taupe jacket, and tailored slacks. Right for her interrogation of Marchand. And too bad for Tam that he'd seen her clothes. Anyway, with him she wouldn't be dressed for all that long. She shoved her feet into her boots and bagged her runners.

“Give a call from Gabriola.”

She promised to. She picked up her rental, a red Taurus, and caught the 11:40 ferry. Only ten minutes late coming in. She'd arrive in perfect time at the Gallery.

• • •

It had been the best of mornings for Artemus Marchand. At 8:15 the last detail for the show slipped cleanly in place. Virtually nothing could go wrong, not at this point. That detail, Gordon Thompson from the
Globe and Mail
saying he'd be at the opening, was a breakthrough, a fully national contingent of reviewers. Islanders would read about the importance of the Gallery in every major daily and hear about it on the CBC. As well as in the
Gabriola Gab
, couldn't get rid of Lucille. But all that other stuff from her would be gone and forgotten.

The only remaining irritant, that damned detective. Should never have given her half an hour, five minutes was too much. Yes, asking Lyle to recommend an investigator had been foolish. Glad he'd not told Rosie the woman was returning. Rosie was in the greenhouse. He'd said, Surely everything is ready. The plants keep growing, she'd said.