Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island (7 page)

Patty thought for a few seconds. “I guess you'd say Roy liked to help people.”

“Help?”

“You know. Like if a person needed her wood split or gutters cleaned, Roy'd be there.”

“Did he have any special friends?”

“Sure, Danny. And Steve Bailey. But Steve's not a Faith Bearer.”

“You have his address?”

She found Bailey's address and wrote it on a scrap of paper.

“Did Roy have a girlfriend?”

The giggle again. “Lots. As many as you can on a small island.” She caught herself. “Oh, I don't mean all at the same time. But Roy really wanted to get married. He must have proposed three times in the last couple of years.” Another giggle. “That we know of.”

“Was he dating somebody special?”

“Sue Smith. Friend of mine.” Patty took back the scrap and wrote another address.

“Did he propose to her?”

“Oh yeah.” More nods.

“Did she accept?”

“She said she needed time.” Patty sighed. “I just wish I'd never introduced them. She's so broke up about him dying and all.”

“Good evening, folks.” A tall man in his mid-forties, jeans and a white T-shirt. Newly shaven tanned face, brown hair greying, well-muscled arms. Beginnings of a belly-bulge. “My good wife not offered you a cuppa?”

Introductions, and Patty said, “Some Beach Reflection? Or juice?”

Both Kyra and Noel declined. “Get me some tea, would you, hon?” Danny smiled. “Puts your insides in real good harmony.” They sat. Patty left them. “You want to know about Roy.”

“Your wife was giving us a few details,” said Noel.

“About Sue,” said Kyra.

Danny frowned. “A good kid, Sue. Should of agreed to marry him. Maybe would of kept him home with her and he'd be alive now.” He suddenly shifted his tone. “Why you want to know about Roy?”

They were looking into Roy's death. No, they couldn't say who hired them, confidential.

“Roy used to say, ‘My dad worked hard all his life and got nothing, so I'm going to retire early.' He was nineteen then. Spent twenty years floating high.” He grinned, suddenly abashed. “Me too. It was the times.”

Yeah, Kyra thought, the generation halfway between her parents and herself. Just about Noel's generation, in fact. The islands used to be sprinkled with these guys and their women in Indian print granny dresses stoned at the side of their men. Grass, acid, sex, and off-key Lightfoot imitations. “But he wasn't retired. He was working for the Gallery.”

“Part-time retired. Long ago he got into woodcarving. Roy was good with his hands. Except when he was high he couldn't carve. Then one day he came clean. Overnight. Taught me to carve but I'm nowhere good as Roy. I used to drink.” He chuckled. “I go to AA now. And I'm a Faith Bearer too, I brought Roy in. You know The Bearers Of Eternal Faith?”

Noel nodded, and Kyra said, “Mmm.”

“Best thing ever happened to him. He was strict about doing the important things.” Patty returned with a steaming mug for Danny. “Thanks, Hon.”

A faint aroma like mudflats at low tide reached Noel's nose. “The important things?”

“Yeah, important. Every man's got to become an agent of revival, practice personal integrity all the time.”

Noel pulled away from Danny's track. “Why would anybody want to kill him?”

“Dunno.” Danny shrugged. “But we're pretty broken up about it. Aren't we, Hon.” He half-turned to look Patty's way.

Patty said nothing. A sloppy silence hung in the room.

Danny sliced into it. “Patty didn't take too much to Roy.” This time he turned fully toward her. “But we shouldn't speak ill of the dead, should we, Hon.”

“Roy was okay,” she said. “He just got a little eager sometimes.”

Noel said, “Eager?”

“He'd take the—the important things, maybe a little far.”

“What she says is true,” said Danny. “He kind of meddled too much with some good friends. People got to learn their personal integrity from inside. Nobody can push it on you.”

“He mucked around when my sister's marriage was breaking up.” Patty stared at the floor. “She and her husband Joe, they're good people. Just not so thoughtful.” She sighed.

“About themselves,” said Danny. “Not like we got to be.”

Kyra said, “Would either your sister or her husband have tried to hurt Roy?”

“They're not here. They left last year. It was supposed to be a trial separation.” She looked at Kyra. “The last straw was their compost, see. They couldn't decide which of them should get it. So Roy told them that was a divine sign they should stay together. My brother-in-law socked him and they took the next ferry off and haven't been back since.”

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Danny added.

“Sue should of said yes.” He looked hard at Patty. “Why you figure Sue didn't say yes?”

She stared at the ground. “Maybe she wanted to be part of a team with Roy.”

Kyra said, “A team?”

“Maybe she didn't want to live in a household headed by her husband.” She turned to Kyra. “Obedience. That's a Faith Bearer thing. Maybe she wanted to share, not obey.”

Danny tapped his left palm with the side of his right fist. “They could have shared. F.B. doesn't mean not sharing. Just mean's a man's got a duty to head the family. Like a volleyball team. Ya gotta have order. Like ya gotta have a coach and a manager.”

Noel said, “Did Roy owe anybody money?”

Both heads shook.

“Did he ever harm anybody?”

Patty looked at Danny. He said nothing. She said, “The painter. Tam Gill.”

“That was a long time ago,” said Danny. “Before he joined F.B.”

“Two years.” Patty nodded. “My birthday. We were down at the pub by the ferry. We'd all been drinking. Gill and some other guy was there. And then, you know how a crowd sometimes goes silent, and we hear Roy call Gill a ragtop or something. Which is silly, I never seen him wearing a turban. But they went at each other. And we all got thrown out.”

“Did they ever fight again?” Kyra recalled the grim sister, Rose.

“Just that once.” Patty turned to her husband. “That I know of. Roy worked over there at the Marchand place where Gill lives and they got along okay.”

Noel nodded. “Can either of you think of anyone who'd want to kill Roy?”

“Gee,” said Patty. “Like who?”

“You tell us.”

Patty and Danny shook their heads. “Roy was a good guy. A good all-round guy.”

Noel stood and took out his notebook. “You know a friend of Roy's, Jerry something?”

Danny's eyebrows lifted. “Sure. Jerry Bannister. He and Roy hung out sometimes.”

Patty asked her husband, “Didn't they have some big argument a while ago?”

“Yeah, but they got over it quick.”

“What was it about?” Noel asked.

“Roy got a bit eager about Bearing Faith, and it ticked Jerry off.”

Noel made a note, turned the page, wrote his own name and phone number, tore out the sheet and handed it to Patty. “If you think of anything, please call me.”

When Noel opened the front door, the dog lay splayed across the walk. Kyra and he held back as Patty went out and knelt beside her. “Such a good girl, Princess.” Princess licked Patty's round face.

Noel and Kyra walked across the grass, got in the car and drove away.

• • •

Sue Smith's home, on Elizabeth Close, was off Mary Avenue, off Jeanette Drive, off Bertha. Noel raised his eyebrows. “What's with all the girl names here?”

“The developer's mistresses?”

“Or his wives.”

“Better than Sperm Whale Lookout.” Kyra pulled into a short driveway.

“I don't know about that,” Noel retorted. “I loved Moby Dick.”

“Okay, let's get serious.” She stopped the car, and opened the door. “Though when I think of that compost, I giggle inside.”

More like the old Kyra, Noel thought.

They were high up on Gabriola, way above Whalebone. The boxy house provided a peekaboo view of the Strait of Georgia. A ferry chugged through tree branches down the hill.

The front yard was unkempt grass littered with rubber doggy toys, bones, balls. A doghouse sided with cedar shakes sat in slanting sun near the overgrown gravel path to the front door. No dog visible. Good. On either side of the front door, curtains protected windows from the bright sun. Noel knocked.

A mousy blonde woman opened the door. “Evangelists? I wish you the best in Jesus' Name but I found Him another way.”

“No—”

“Oh I certainly did. I was worried sick about getting a job, I was down to four dollars when this great peace came over me and I heard ‘Stop worrying' and I knew it was Jesus who'd taken me in His Hands, why I could even feel Him soothing my forehead and the next day the job just came to me.” She closed her eyes and bobbed her head and smiled brightly at them. “So there's my revelation.”

Chri— Criminy, Kyra thought. Noel spoke quickly. “We're not Evangelists. We're investigating Roy Dempster's death and if you're Sue Smith we'd like to ask you some questions.”

“Oh.” The woman studied their faces. “I always give the missionaries my story and then we talk about Jesus. You have Jesus in your lives?”

“Uh—”

“Sure,” Kyra announced firmly. “But we'd like to talk about your earthly boyfriend.”

Sue nodded and held the door open. “Poor Roy. Does anyone know yet who killed him?” They crossed the lino area in front of the door past shoes neatly aligned.

Murder does seem to be the accepted version of Dempster's death. Kyra shook her head. “We're still investigating.”

Sue was barefoot. Noel wondered, should we take off our shoes too? Sue didn't ask them to so he didn't. She led them over to a worn sofa under the front window. The thin red-flowered curtains didn't shut out much light, but, Noel noted, they did clash admirably with the green and yellow floral fabric of the sofa.

The sun's rays reached two chairs at an arborite table in the dining ell. Kyra looked for another place, then sat beside Noel. “Our sincere condolences on your fiancé's death, Sue.”

“Death means being with Jesus so you shouldn't condolence.” She wore a short tight T-shirt that told Kyra, Island Time is Jesus Time, above tight jeans. Her bare feet were dirty.

Noel's first impression of her prettiness gave way to an awareness of weather lines around her mouth and eyes. Jesus hadn't soothed her face. Her mind, then?

Kyra asked, “Do you know where Roy was the day before he was found dead?”

“Off birding.” Sue pulled a chair out from the table. “Birds gave him peace, he said.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah, he liked being out there, standing all quiet looking for birds. He said Carl said there was a strange bird near the bog so he went up to see.”

Kyra asked, “Carl?”

“Carl Pocock. Our pastor.”

“Here on the island?” Noel took out his notebook.

“Not this week. He's up north. Birding.”

“And where's this bog?” Noel made a couple of notes.

“By the clearcut.” Sue's words came out disinterested. “He said it was a great place to see different birds since it was logged. It's not a clearcut any more now it's growing back, but everybody still calls it the clearcut. Roy said it used to have eagles and ravens and hawks, but now it gets strange little birds.”

Noel jotted some notes.

“Roy came by around six,” Sue continued. “He already had his binoculars around his neck like he'd maybe see a weird bird right here in my backyard, so I knew he was getting on his one-track. He asked me if I wanted to go but I had a dog to groom. That's the job Jesus got me, grooming dogs and exercising them.” She wound her arms around her knees and her face became animated. “Roy wouldn't let me bring the dog 'cause dogs scare the birds. He thought watching them was a way of worshipping too. I keep wondering, if I'd'a gone, would he still be alive?”

Or you might be dead too, Noel thought.

Sue blinked hard. She leapt up, rubbing her eyes, and padded down the hall. They heard the rattle of a toilet paper holder and a noseblow. She returned, still wiping her face. “Sorry. I should be glad Jesus wanted him. But sometimes I think it'd be nice if he was still down here. Except now I don't have to decide whether to marry him or not.”

“You were unsure.” Kyra's statement a question.

Sue nodded. “He used to have a bad temper. Patty said I should wait and be sure he had it really under control.” Sue wound her arms around her knees again, a bundle of thin limbs. She looked at Kyra as if deciding how much to tell. Kyra let her face take on a sympathetic-keeper-of-female-confidences look. Noel dropped his gaze to his notebook. “See, the real problem is, I'm preparing to be a Born Again Virgin.”

Noel kept his head down only by force of mind. Kyra turned her smile of amusement into one of sympathy. “What's that?” she asked.

“We're bringing it back at our Church,” Sue announced. “It's for Jesus,” she hastened to assure. “See, long ago, if a woman didn't have sex for seven years she could call herself a real Virgin again and go into a nunnery. So some of us are doing it. Or not doing it, I guess.” She smiled.

Kyra returned the smile. “How close to the seven years are you?”

“Eight months without sex,” Sue announced. “Well, next week.

And I've given my past sins to Jesus too. Our Church doesn't like sex without marriage. And all that AIDS stuff.”

“Lot to be said for celibacy,” stated Kyra.

“Yeah, that's the word.” Sue nodded. “Roy joined the Faith Bearers, they're celibate too. Just till marriage. You see the problem, if I married Roy he wouldn't let me be a BAV. Also maybe I want children. It's just been hard to decide.” She scrunched up her face.