She was getting distracted by the details, verging on short-tempered being left out of the loop. Death and games had no business interacting. “Okay. Sorry. Humour me and slow down. Does this have anything to do with the body? Was the victim geo...caching?”
“No sweat on that. The vic...the man looks like a regular here at the bridge. The game explains why this family was in the area, that’s all. Good thing they weren’t farther back, because a cougar and cubs were reported in the bush along Tugwell Creek, and bears are always around.” Black bears, not grizzlies. The smaller brother was much less dangerous, both in size and temperament.
She nodded, flexing her shoulders, reminding herself that being in charge carried stress as well as prestige. “I need to talk to them. They probably want to get on with their vacation. Meanwhile, don’t let anyone else pull in to admire the view. Say you’re conducting an investigation.” Number ten in the one hundred useful ambiguous phrases for law enforcement.
“I can put up neon cones or crime-scene tape. There’s some in the trunk.”
Chipper was a by-the-book man, but this time she didn’t agree. “Then everyone will stop to gawk. Be firm, but try not to provoke interest.‘Investigation’ could mean anything. Vandalism. Stolen goods.”
He made his face as bland as a pail of chocolate milk. “Okay, Guv.”
After tossing him a wry look, she walked over to the family and introduced herself. Frank and Chrissy Jones were from Sudbury.
“Mr. Jones, can you take me to...” She mouthed “the body” so as not to alarm the children.
He gave her a blink and a subtle nod. “You guys stay here. I’m going with the officer. Mom will give you a drink. And kids, I’m real proud of you. Remember that helping the police is important.”
If only all parents thought like that. Holly knew the value of an upbringing stressing the right attitude. Some wouldn’t turn in their child if he torched a school.
As Chrissy handed out juice boxes from a cooler, Frank led Holly up a narrow path by the stream into the rainforest.
Spared from the axe, giant red cedars and Douglas fir sent their branches up to three hundred feet into the air. Bigleaf maples were festooned with grandfather-beard mosses. In the dry weather, the forest colour had lost some of its lustre, and banana slugs napped in the moist patches under leafmould. Horse droppings showed where a few locals exercised their animals. Every now and then they passed a massive barkless stump with two deep holes six feet up the butt. These were cut for springboards, a pioneer practice which boosted up the axe-or saw-man to spare him the thickness. Before power tools, a ten-foot-diameter tree had taken a day to cut. Now the monsters, if any were left, were felled in minutes by a chainsaw. Whimsical people put piles of cobblestones in these holes, turning the stumps into wooden goblins. Moss asserted its dominion, and an occasional red huckleberry grew on top like a natural flower pot. The British navy had been cutting masts on the island before Confederation. A tree eight hundred years old would have been alive at the time of the Crusades. Now heli-logging was tracking the last giants into formerly unreachable corridors. Joni Mitchell was right about a tree museum. If Holly had been Minister of Forests, she’d ban taking anything over three feet in diameter.
“How far is it?” she asked, beginning to flag at his manly pace but too proud to show it. From the looks of his strong and sinewy legs, the Boston Marathon shirt he wore was well-earned.
Frank had a pleasant voice. “Only another five minutes.”
“Are these caches always located in out-of-the-way places?”
“The object of caching is to offer a challenge, but without bushwhacking where kids might get lost. The cache is never in plain sight, though. Logs are good, big rocks.”
“And you get the coordinates online?” When she looked at nature, she saw a different world. The heavy ground cover of salal, blackberries and huckleberries. A spaghetti plant, aka goatsbeard, dropped its fragile strands. The hard brown-and-cream carapace of a shelf fungus jutted from a dead aspen. “Can’t be easy to get a satellite reading with the thick canopy.”
Frank nodded. His head was nearly shaved. A cyclist, too, perhaps. The van had a rear carrier with a lightweight racing model. “It was easier in Victoria. Royal Roads campus had several. There was even a pub tour for grownups. We’re going west and heading around Lake Cowichan on the loop. But here sometimes you can’t get a fix. So you’re told to walk so many paces.” He showed her a print-off. People had related their experiences. They had names like Moss Troopers. Island Rovers. Virtual Dogs.
“And these caches look like...” Asking questions was her job. It wasn’t prudent to pretend to know everything. Listening was a primary tactic of interrogation.
“This is wet country. Generally a waterproof container is used. Tupperware works best, but sometimes only a big coffee can in a garbage bag.” He used his hands to approximate the size and shape.
“Sounds like fun for kids. Parents, too.”
Frank nodded, brushing a spider web from his face. “Much healthier than sitting at a mindless video game. This gets the whole family outside. And while they’re in the car, they’re planning ahead.”They had come about three hundred feet along the winding, narrow path. On one side a steep bank led to the rocky creek. High tide backed into the freshwater streams.“Over there,” Frank said. He stood down by a mossy log in a small clearing, watching his feet lest they trample evidence. Like most of the world, he had probably seen his share of forensics shows.
Gesturing to him to stay put, Holly walked up to the body, looking from side to side at the surroundings and stepping carefully. With shaggy brown hair streaked grey at the temples, the man looked younger than Bill, but his skin was weathered from outdoor living. He wore faded, ripped jeans, a plain sweatshirt with one sleeve rolled up and scuffed runners. Lying on a comfortable bed of bracken, he had one hand over his head in an almost demure posture as if to shield himself from sun. Her eyebrow lifted as she scanned the area, creating a mental grid. “Make haste slowly,” Ben had advised, quoting her the Latin like the good Catholic boy he’d been at fifteen when he’d nearly entered the priesthood. “What you do often can’t be undone.” She was not the coroner, but merely here to secure the scene, whatever Boone might decide about an autopsy.
At first sight, it seemed like a slam dunk. Near the body was a classic collection of drug paraphernalia, a clear bag with white-powder residue, spoon, plastic lighter, a water bottle and a faded plastic pencil case stamped “007” with the original Sean Connery in action mode with his Walther PPK. What a strange collectible for a loner. His hairy arms wore an embroidery of needle marks. Lab tests would probably reveal an overdose. Was this the man Bill had said he hadn’t seen recently? Or the panhandler? And speaking of Bill, where was he?
The equipment was a HIV/AIDS minefield. It would have to be carefully removed. Nearby was a rolled-up sleeping bag and a small backpack, both of which looked new. She blinked as a tiger lily lifted its orange Turks head to a shaft of sun, before a cloud shadowed the path. Then came the pad of heavy feet and heavier breathing.
“Christ on a cupcake, are you trying to kill an old man, making me haul butt up here? Why not just put a gun to my head?” a gruff voice with a hint of humour asked. It was Boone, his stomach surrounded by suspenders and broken-down brogues on his feet. His teeth clamped an empty corn-cob pipe in homage to his former addiction. A battered leather doctor’s bag dropped onto the ground. He rooted through it and snapped on a pair of latex gloves.
Holly turned to Frank and introduced them. “Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Jones. You and your family can leave now. We have your contact numbers if any questions arise. It was a sad introduction to the island for you.”
Frank gave a quick nod. “Glad I could help. Almost went into police work myself, but the wife would have divorced me. It’s duller but safer being