A Hummingbird Dance

Praise for
The Lucky Elephant Restaurant
, the second installment of the Detective Lane Series and winner of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery

“Lane and Harper are fine characters who deserve a series.”
The Globe and Mail

“Ryan has penned a haunting, psychological drama of the first order.”
Edmonton Journal

“Watching Lane and Harper unpeel the layers of this particular onion is an amazing experience.”
The Star Phoenix

“Ryan balances suspense with humour, creating books that are, quite simply, a great read.”
Aloft Magazine

“The second Detective Lane mystery is even better than the first, and that's saying a lot.”
Drewey Wayne Gunn, author of
The Gale Male Sleuth in Print and Film

“Ryan breaks down all forms of stereotypes including those surrounding disability, sexual orientation, race and religion. He doesn't give the reader any opportunity to disassociate from the novel's message, since he sets it all right here in Calgary. What emerges at the core is a message of respect toward all people.”
BeatRoute Magazine

Garry Ryan

Copyright ©
Garry Ryan 2008

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law. In the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying of the material, a licence must be obtained from Access Copyright before proceeding.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Ryan, Garry, 1953–
A hummingbird dance / Garry Ryan.
ISBN 978–1–897126–31–8
I. Title.
PS8635.Y354H84 2008        C813'.6        C2008–902312–9

Editor for the Board: Douglas Barbour
Cover and interior design: Natalie Olsen
Cover photo: Garry Ryan
Author photo: Karma Ryan

NeWest Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Edmonton Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

No bison were harmed in the making of this book
.

We are committed to protecting the environment and to the responsible use of natural resources. This book is printed on 100% recycled, ancient forest-friendly paper.

1 2 3 4 5 11 10 09 08    printed and bound in Canada

For Mike, Denise, Nick, Luke, and Indi
a
n
a
.

SUNDAY, JUNE 30

“Christine called.”

Arthur was sitting in a lawn chair with a glass of lemonade atop his generous belly. He still wore dirt-stained gloves, and the knees of his grey sweatpants were black.

Lane found himself unable to speak. His mind turned into a shovel, digging and turning over memories just as he'd spent yesterday turning over the soil in the flower beds. He thought,
I had it under control; I could handle it by not thinking about it. Now, just mention her name, and I'm back where it all started
. “The flowers look great.” He looked around the yard at the annuals and perennials Arthur had planted today for their first summer in this house. It looked like a Monet. All of those impossibly bright waves of colour running up against and into one another.

“Did you hear me? I said Christine called.” Arthur glared at Lane.

“I heard you.” Lane was already exhausted with memories of her. He thought about what she looked like and realized that today he probably wouldn't recognize her if he bumped into her on the street.

“She wouldn't leave a message. She did say that she'll call back tonight at ten. It's just enough time.” Arthur drained the last of the lemonade and took off his gloves.

“Enough time?” Lane thought,
Things should start to get easier now with this family. We've had more than enough time since it all happened
.

“We have to pick up Matt at the bus station in thirty minutes.” Arthur took a closer look at Lane.

“He planned on being gone for at least a week. It's only been two days.” Lane reached into his pocket for car keys.

Arthur walked over and put a hand on Lane's shoulder. “I'll drive. Matt left a message. He sounded pretty upset. He asked us to pick him up.”

Lane looked up at Arthur.

“Christine's call has really shaken you.” Arthur lead the way along the deck and out the gate to the driveway. He put his palm on Lane's cheek. “This is how I felt when Matt arrived with no warning, and no time to prepare myself.”

Automatically, Lane looked around to see if any of the neighbours had witnessed the public display of affection. “What did she say?”

Arthur opened the Jeep's passenger door, then walked around the front.

Lane got in and shut his door.

Arthur got in behind the wheel. “Put your seat belt on.”

Lane heard the sound of waves sifting their frothy way up a beach. His mind wandered in and out of focus. His hand guided the the seat belt automatically into the lock. “What did she say, exactly?” He looked at the deck and the honeysuckle growing up the chain link.

Arthur started the engine. “She said, ‘This is Christine. Is Lane there?' I explained you were at work and
she said, ‘I'll call back tonight at ten.' It's a good thing we kept the same phone number.”

“No indication of where she was calling from?”

“None.” Arthur eased the Jeep out of the driveway. “I've been trying to remember how old she is.”

“Seventeen.” Lane's cellphone rang. He reached instinctively into his sports-coat pocket. “Hello.”

“Lane? It's Harper. We've got a missing cowboy. You and I've been assigned to it. I'll call you later when I've got more of the details.” Harper hung up.

Lane closed his phone.

When they reached the Greyhound bus station on Ninth Avenue, he tried to recall how they got there.

“You look awful,” Matt said to Lane. Their nephew threw his bag into the back of the Jeep and crawled into the rear seat.

Arthur looked at Lane, nodding in agreement with Matt's diagnosis.

Lane watched the boy closely. His black hair was cut short. His chin was peppered with acne and he'd removed his earring. There were dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes.

Arthur and Lane climbed in. They waited, in silent agreement, for Matt to speak.

It was quiet for the first eleven minutes as they left downtown and drove north, then west toward the mountains.

“Hungry?” Arthur asked.

“Nope.” Matt looked out the side window.

“Want to talk?” Arthur asked.

“Nope.” Matt continued to look away.

They drove up Sarcee Trail in silence. When they got home, Matt grabbed his bag out of the back. “I'm going to bed.” His gently lurching CP gait seemed more pronounced as he made his way inside and downstairs to his bedroom.

“What do you think happened?” Arthur opened the door and stepped inside.

“I don't know.” Lane checked the phone to see if there were any messages.

“Should we go and talk with him?” Arthur paced the kitchen.

“Let him sleep. It looks like he needs the rest. Maybe he'll feel like talking in the morning.” Lane looked at the clock on the stove. It read eight o'clock.

“She said she'd call at ten,” Arthur said.

“I know.”

Lane's cellphone rang at twenty after ten. He flipped it open. “Hello.”

“It's me,” Harper said. “Shhhhh.”

“What?”

“Sorry, just got Jessica to sleep.”

“You're holding her now?” Lane asked.

“Yep. It's crazy, but if I walk and talk she falls asleep. The moment I stop talking or walking, she starts crying again. She's already got me tied around her little finger.”

“Kids.” Lane looked at the clock and thought about Christine not calling, Matt not talking, and Harper's infant daughter, who had changed the logical, outspoken detective into a proud daddy with her voice recorded on his pocket computer.

“Tell me about it. Anyway, I found out some more about our missing person. Name's Ryan Dudley. Went out for a ride on his horse. The horse came back without him. Sounds like a real cliché, eh? Same address as Tyler McNally who disappeared last year. Both disappeared on June thirtieth. Both went to the same high school.”

“How come we were assigned this one? I'm assuming the victims live in the country.”

“They live near T'suu Tina. You know, the reserve. The land north of there was recently annexed by the city, so it's our case.” Harper started making cooing sounds to soothe his daughter.

“The date is probably significant.” Lane looked at Arthur, sleeping and snoring on the couch.

“I'll check that out tomorrow. The chief called me. She thinks there's gonna be a lot of pressure to have this one solved quickly. Ryan was a rodeo competitor. The Stampede's only a couple of weeks away. You know how twitchy everyone downtown gets about Stampede attendance. On top of that there's some noise about a land claim. This one could get real messy.”

So, what else is new
, Lane thought. His doorbell rang. Arthur stopped snoring but did not wake.

“See you in the morning at the gym.” Harper hung up.

Lane closed his phone. The doorbell rang again. He walked to the front door, checked the peephole. A young woman with black hair and a face distorted by the fisheye lens stared back at him.

Lane opened the inside door. She studied him through the glass of the screen door.

He opened the outside door with his right hand. Lane looked at the young woman's face and felt like his heart was running a marathon. The girl had close-cropped black hair, a black, short-cut jacket, pink skirt, white socks and white shoes. Lane thought she looked like an impressionist's version of a twenty-first century rebellious female who had recently moved to the city from Avonlea.