Seaweed in the Soup (11 page)

“Do you know who Ronnie's friends were?”

“No, I've never seen them before. Two girls.”

“Tell me about them?”

“They were two Indian girls, yeah. A bit rough around the edges if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. I'm an Indian too.”

Tania's face fell. She put her glasses on and saw me clearly for what was evidently the first time. “Oh hell,” she said. “No offence, but I'm blind as a bat when it's shadowy like this, even when I'm wearing glasses.”

“Were you wearing glasses on Saturday night?”

“Sure, most of the time. I can't function without them really, but I'm vain.”

“As you were saying. Raymond's friends were a couple of Native Indian women.”

“Well, yes. One of them even asked me if there was a chance of a server's job going. I tried to put her off. Maria, I think she called herself. I told her we didn't need a server right now. In fact, we're always on the lookout for staff, only Thai food is a specialty. We can't use servers unless they know our menu and our way of doing business. She wouldn't have been a good fit.” Tania smiled disarmingly. “I hope you're not gonna put the thumbscrews on me for being honest.”

“How did Maria handle rejection?”

“She was okay with it. Told me she already had a job, but was looking for a change. She wrote her phone number down on a paper napkin and asked me to give her a call if something came up. Before you ask, I threw the napkin away. But I remember where she said she worked. It was the Ballard Diner.”

It was a rarity, but for a change, Dr. Tarleton's autopsy had been wrong. Ronnie Chew didn't die with a belly full of half-digested Chinese food. It had been Thai food.

≈  ≈  ≈

I drove from the Echo Bay village to Collins Lane and came to a stop outside Tudor Collins' wrought-iron gates. A long curving driveway ran from sight between glades of ornamental bushes and deciduous trees. I pushed an intercom button located on a stone gatepost. Before the intercom squawked, enough time passed for me to look around and notice a closed-circuit television camera aimed on the gates from a nearby tree. I told the intercom who I was and badged the camera. More time passed till there was a metallic click, and the remote-controlled gates swung wide. I had driven a hundred yards up the driveway when a man appeared with a spaniel at his heels. The Collins house wasn't fully visible, but a couple of elaborate brick chimneys rose above the treetops. I got out of the car.

The man was white-haired, of medium stature. I knew that he was over 70 years old, but he looked younger. His brown eyes were alert and direct. I badged him again and asked if he was Tudor Collins. He nodded. Before I could get a word in, he said categorically, “If you're here to ask me more questions about those two girls I'll tell you exactly what I told Inspector Manners,” he said, a slight note of irritation in his voice. “They were Native Indians, the same as you are. They weren't Chinese, or Japs. They weren't East Indians.”

“How can you be so positive?”

“Two reasons. First, because of the way the girls looked. Second, because of the way they spoke the English language. I've lived a long time. When I was a little boy before the war, Indians had a regular summer camp on the beach below Collins Lane. The women dug clams and picked berries while their men were out fishing in canoes. They were real canoes too. Carved cedar dugouts, not this plastic crap you see now. When the women weren't busy with something else, they'd be weaving fancy baskets. They'd bring clams and baskets up to the house. My parents always bought something. I've still got some of those baskets. I showed 'em to a dealer one time. He couldn't wait to get his hands on 'em, but I'll never sell. They're souvenirs of a vanished age, right?”

“If you like that sort of thing.”

Collins smiled at a memory. “Back then, English was the second language for many Natives and they had a peculiar way of pronouncing the English letter S. It's hard to describe, but it sounded as if they'd sort of swallowed the word when it was halfway out of their mouths. Slurred it, kind of. The word ‘yes,' for example, comes out sounding sort of like ‘yeshul.' You don't hear that peculiarity so much now as formerly. When you do hear it, you know that you're listening to somebody who learned to speak English in a place where there were few White people. An isolated reserve, say.”

“I was born on a reserve. Do I swallow my Ss?”

“No you don't, because I expect you live in town and were educated in White schools. Am I right?”

I nodded.

“That's a relief, I'm glad somebody believes some of the things that I say, because I've been starting to wonder.”

“What do you mean?”

“You're the second policeman I've spoken to.”

“You're referring to Inspector Manners?”

“Yes,” he said. “And before him there were those customs people.”

Customs people
?

Instead of pursuing that topic immediately, I said, “Collins Lane was gazetted over a hundred years ago. You folks have been here a long time?”

“We have. My ancestors bought this land from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1867. A hundred acres at ten shillings an acre. Shillings, mind you, not dollars. It should have cost us more, but the property wasn't considered agricultural back then. Too many trees and rocks. We don't own that much property now, worse luck. My dad managed to hang on to it all until the dirty thirties, when money became tight. Unfortunately, after all those years, Dad couldn't come up with the taxes. In 1938, 90 acres reverted to the Crown.”

“The Collinses must know all about that petroglyph, then. The one at the head of that ravine?”

Collins' eyes narrowed immediately. I knew that I'd broached an unwelcome topic. I also knew why he'd be anxious.

“I don't want to talk about it. Is this a murder inquiry or a fishing expedition, because I thought it was already settled. Mrs. Milton let the cat out of the bag when I saw her on the lane yesterday. She told me that those two Native women cut that Chinaman's throat,” Collins said, his face registering disapproval. “I knew there was something fishy about him, too. I mean, there he is, a gardener. Live-in help earning the minimum wage. The man can hardly speak English, and yet there he is, driving around in a 60-thousand-dollar car. No wonder the customs people flagged him.”

“Customs people? I don't understand. What are you talking about?”

“Bureaucrats!” said Collins, with a disparaging snort. “Another case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. It's less than a week ago since they were here. Customs and immigration inspectors. Two men. Standing where you are standing now, asking their nosy bloody questions. They were trying to trace a Chinaman. Wanted to know where he lived and so on. When they gave me his description, I told them that the man they wanted was probably Ernie Wasserstein's gardener.”

Collins gazed at me expectantly.

I nodded. “Did they tell you why they wanted him?”

“Of course they did, I would have kept my mouth shut otherwise. They told me he was one of those illegals. People who come out from China packed like sardines in fishing trawlers. Hundreds of 'em jammed below decks. The minute the trawler docks, the illegals clear off, disappear, clutter up the country. Why don't you bureaucrats combine forces for a change? Work together instead of protecting your own turf?”

I stared at him without speaking for a moment. By then Collins had begun to annoy me, and it probably showed. He went on lamely, “Actually, I wouldn't want Wasserstein to know that I blew the whistle on his man. It would create bad blood between neighbours.”

“You said there were two immigration inspectors. How did they identify themselves?”

“They didn't. But I know how to size people up. I took them at their word.”

“What did these men look like?”

“What did they look like? They looked ordinary.”

“Mr. Collins, this might be very important, so I want you to think back carefully. Were these men tall, short, well-dressed, what?”

Collins scowled at a memory. “They were a couple of functionaries in dark suits. One character was swarthy, short, as wide as a door. About fifty years old, with a ridiculous comb-over. He let his partner do the talking.”

“Did you tell Inspector Manners what you've just told me?”

Collins shook his head. “It didn't occur to me to do so at the time.”

I nodded absently, because I was thinking of something else. It was Collins, probably, who had gone to the trouble of camouflaging the petroglyphs with leaves and dirt. And I knew why. He didn't want the general public—especially First Nations people—to know anything about the petroglyphs, because if they found out and made a stink, the BC government would undoubtedly declare the property a heritage site. Collins' acreage would be whittled down further.

I said, “We'll need the tapes from the CCTV camera monitoring your front gate as evidence. I'll take it with me now.”

“Sorry, officer, no can do. I can't oblige you because the camera broke down ages ago and I have never bothered to get it fixed. It was mostly for show, anyway. We had a burglary here two years back. The burglar bypassed the camera and came over the fence instead of climbing the gate. He didn't get anything because my dog sniffed him out, raised an alarm.”

“Are you planning to leave town during the next little while, Mr. Collins?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Good,” I said. Raising my voice a few decibels I added, “You'll be hearing from us again. In the meantime, Mr. Collins, I advise you very strongly to keep this conversation and any comments about policemen, immigrants and Canada Customs strictly to yourself.”

He seemed offended. I was getting back into my car when he screwed up his courage and said sullenly, “And before you leave, here's another thing. How about cracking down on these speedsters? There was another crash on Sunday morning. A driver ran right off the road. Drunk probably, lucky he wasn't killed.

Collins was still scowling when I backed the MG away.

≈  ≈  ≈

The murder house was still surrounded by scene-of-crime-tape. I had expected a guard to be posted on the property and was mildly surprised to find that there wasn't one. The house was locked. After poking around in the usual places, I found a front door key stashed under a potted geranium. When I let myself in, the door swung closed behind me. I spent a couple of minutes admiring the Chinese rickshaw that was parked in the vestibule.

It was a wooden, runner-pulled, two-wheeled work of art covered with about ten coats of red lacquer, beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl flowers, birds and pagodas. I told myself that one of these days, I was going to find out how that rickshaw got there, and why. The Inuit kayak standing in the corner was an ancient bidarka. Built of bones and sinews and sealskin, of a type rarely seen outside a museum. That single yellow driving glove was still on top of the table. Instead of returning the key to where I'd found it, I dropped it into my pocket.

Every curtain in the house was closed. It was cool and dark inside. I went back to the MG and got a Maglite. With the light in hand, I combed the premises from roof to basement—something several members of the crime-scene squad had already done more than once.

In collecting its evidence, Victoria's forensics squad had concentrated its efforts on the house's front vestibule and hall, its kitchen, lounge, the basement staircase, and along the downstairs hallway that led to Cho's L-shaped bedroom. Fingerprint samples belonging to several individuals had been lifted from all of those areas. Cho's fingerprints predominated. Other fingerprints had been attributed to the housekeeper, and to Maria Alfred. I assumed that some of those still unaccounted for belonged to Maria's female companion. Some fingerprints had been smudged in a manner that, according to our experts, suggested that one or more individuals had moved around the house wearing gloves at about the same time that Cho met his death.

The house was well maintained. Given its antiquity and its proximity to the ocean, the place was reasonably fresh inside. Many disparate hair and fibre samples had been collected from Cho's bed, from his bedroom furniture and carpet, and from a downstairs laundry room. Forensics had taken away Cho's blood-soaked duvet and bedsheets, along with broadloom carpet and loose rugs. I searched Cho's bedroom and the downstairs washroom thoroughly. Where they had been exposed, the floorboards were covered with dark reddish dusty stains.

Cho's white Ikea washroom cabinet contained a man's razor, shaving cream, a package of ibuprofen tablets, a few bars of soap, toilet rolls and the like. I poked my fingers into cans of talcum powder and jars of cream. I opened the top of the tank, drained it, and looked inside. Nothing except rust stains. Forensics had taken away the male clothing previously hanging on the back of a chair and in Cho's wardrobe. The tallboy's drawers were empty. Used towels had been removed from hampers to be checked for bodily fluids and hairs. Bunnysuiters had cleaned drain traps from sinks to check for hairs and bits of human tissue. A dirty job, but some people get paid to do it.

Thoughtful, I went up to the ground floor and helped myself to an apple from a cut-glass fruit dish that was standing on the dining room table. I was eating the apple when I heard a car approaching the house. Its engine slowed, then stopped in the driveway. Somebody knocked on the vestibule door. I left the apple core on the table and walked quietly into the lounge. After thirty seconds, the knock was repeated. Another pause ensued. I heard the tinkle of splintering glass, followed immediately afterwards by a metallic click.

I was no longer alone in the house. Somebody had broken in. I concealed myself behind the lounge's heavy velvet curtains as the intruder's confident tramp went through to the kitchen and down the basement stairs. I took my shoes off. Walking in stockinged feet, I went quietly downstairs, stopped partway along the passage, and rested with my back to a wall. Farther along the passageway, sounds indicated that the intruder was opening drawers and moving things around in Cho's bedroom. Electric light showed in the chink between Cho's door and its frame. I opened a door on the opposite side of the hallway, let myself inside a dark utility room, and waited in its doorway. A month seemed to pass before a figure appeared in Cho's doorway holding something shiny in his hands. Unrecognizable in the darkness, he grunted, and backed into Cho's bedroom again. Holding the Maglite like a club, I moved carefully towards Cho's room.