“Does she know who does own it?”
“She confirms what you learned from the marina operator, that it’s owned by a numbered corporation and that they’ve been trying to sell it for some time. In the meantime, they rent it out for parties, business meetings, and such. She and her husband have been on it a couple of times, she says, but she has no idea who the real owner is. Kovacs isn’t sure he believes her,” he added.
“How reliable are his instincts?” I asked.
“After a while in this game, you get so you can read people. If he thinks she’s lying about something, she likely is.”
“Where was she last night?”
“When she was asked to account for her whereabouts, Kovacs said she was mildly offended, but she answered. She told him she runs from Jericho Beach to Granville Island and back a couple of times a week, usually stopping to check on the sailboat she and her husband keep in the same marina, before returning along the same route. Last evening she got to the marina around nine, a little later than usual, spent half an hour or so on her boat, then headed back. She didn’t talk to anyone and couldn’t say if anyone saw her or would remember her if they did.”
“If she runs along the shoreline path,” I said, “she’d have gone right by the place where Bobbi was found.”
“Kovacs says that when he pointed that out she was quite upset that she might have gone right past someone in the water without noticing. But the path is more than fifty metres back from the water at that point. Unless she detoured along the path through Cultural Harmony Grove east of the bridge, she couldn’t possibly have seen anything. Besides, the off-duty paramedic found Bobbi just before eleven and neither he or the doctors think she was in the water for more than twenty minutes to half an hour.”
“It doesn’t take half an hour to drown, does it?”
“No. Just a couple of minutes. The paramedic found her near shore by the docks under the bridge. Maybe whoever attacked her didn’t want to get his feet wet and dumped her in the shallows hoping the tide would take her out. High tide was at eleven-fifteen or so. Or maybe she just fell and lay unconscious as the tide came in. Either way, if the paramedic hadn’t found her, she’d have certainly drowned.”
“How did he find her?”
“He was kayaking.”
“At eleven o’clock at night?”
“He works odd shifts.”
“Is there any sign of the van?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet. You should probably make an official report so you can start the insurance process.”
“I faxed a copy of the registration and the serial numbers of the cameras and a list of the other equipment she had with her to Kovacs this morning.” Along with the van, our “new” Nikon digital SLR and Bobbi’s older Canon 35 mm SLR were also missing, as well as tripods, a couple of slave strobe flash units and stands, plus miscellaneous lenses, light meters, battery packs and chargers, cables, and whatever else Bobbi hauled around with her. “I’ll call the insurance company this afternoon and see what else I need.”
Matthias stood. “I’ll need to talk to Wayne Fowler and your sister.”
“They’re in the back, packing files,” I said, standing as well.
“Are you going to see Bobbi later?” he asked, as we went out into the studio.
“If I can,” I said. “I don’t feel like going another round with her father, though.”
“Can’t say as I blame you. I’m going to try to drop by around six. Why don’t you meet me there? Safety in numbers.”
“All right, I will,” I said.
We went into the back room. The rotating “light lock” door to the darkroom had been removed and stood forlornly in its frame against a wall, yet another victim of the Digital Age; we hadn’t been able to find anyone who wanted it and there wasn’t space for it at the new studio. Wayne and Mary-Alice were in the darkroom, filling a couple of cartons with plastic jugs, bottles, and cans of old chemicals to be hauled to the hazardous waste recycling depot.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I said to Matthias.
We shook hands and I returned to my office to continue cleaning out my desk. A few minutes later, Mary-Alice came into my office.
“Greg seems to be handling it well,” she said. “Wayne’s a basket case, though.”
“He’ll be fine,” I said.
“How about you?”
“What about me?”
“Come on, Tom. I’m not a complete idiot, no matter what you think. I know how you feel about Bobbi.”
“I’m not sure you do,” I said.
“You’re in love with her.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Mary-Alice. Bobbi is my friend and, yes, I probably love her. Maybe not quite as much as I love Hilly, and maybe not even as much as I love you. But I am not in love with her. Not in the sense you mean. Romantically.”
“Bullshit. Do you expect me to believe that you and Bobbi have worked together for almost ten years without sleeping together even once?”
“I can’t help what you believe, Mary-Alice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what it sounds like,” I said.
The year before, Mary-Alice had been convinced that her husband David had been having an affair with his nurse/receptionist, and two years before that, that our father, a retired engineer, had been having an affair with Maggie Urquhart, my Sea Village neighbour. The latter suspicion had proved, at least so far as I was concerned, to be unfounded; I had no opinion about the former. Mary-Alice’s faith in her own infallibility was as unshakeable as the Pope’s. Of course, just because Mary-Alice, or the Pope for that matter, believed something to be true didn’t necessarily make it not true, although in this case, she was dead wrong.
I ushered her to the door of the office and out into the studio. “We’ve still got a lot to do by Saturday,” I said, but I could tell from her expression that the subject was only temporarily closed.
chapter five
I left the studio at a little past three, hoping to catch a short nap, a shower, and a bite to eat before meeting Greg Matthias at the hospital at six. There were a number of things I wouldn’t miss about the Davie Street studio: the creaky, unreliable freight elevator; the leaky windows; Dingy Bill, the incontinent homeless man who occasionally camped out in the stairwell; and clients’ complaints that they could never find parking. One of the things I would miss, however, was the twice-daily commute to and from work. The half-kilometre morning walk from my house to the Aquabus dock by the Public Market, the short ferry ride across False Creek, and the slightly longer hike from the ferry dock at the foot of Hornby Street to the studio gave me time to switch mental gears and prepare myself for the daily grind. The return trip at the end of the day helped me relax and recharge my depleted psychic batteries. And it was about the only exercise I got. The new studio space was at most a five-minute walk from home, hardly time at all to change modes, recharge batteries, or burn off a pint of Granville Island Lager.
Disembarking from the tubby little