“Tell Wayne he can return the camera to Meg and Peg,” I said to her.
“Okay,” she said. I looked at her. She looked back. “What?”
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“You want a list?”
“I mean, with you. Are you all right?”
“Sure. Why?”
“You look tired.” She was neat as a pin, nary a hair out of place, clothes clean and carefully co-ordinated and accessorized, but despite her makeup, her complexion seemed dry and pale and there were dark smudges under her eyes.
“I haven’t been sleeping very well lately.”
“Oh?” I said warily. Call me insensitive, but my sister prided herself on the control she exercised over her life. If something was getting sufficiently under her skin to keep her up at night, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know what it was.
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’ll be glad when things get back to normal, too.”
She made a derisive gagging sound, got up, and left the office. I wondered if somehow I’d stumbled into a David Lynch movie.
When I got home that evening, I turned on my computer and looked up Waverley in the Internet telephone directory for Vancouver. There weren’t many. There weren’t any S. or Sam or Samuel Waverleys in Point Grey or elsewhere. It wouldn’t be hard to find Samuel Waverley’s gallery in Gastown, but I couldn’t see myself walking in off the street and asking for the owner’s home address. I was going to have to find some other way to get Anna Waverley’s address. Why I felt I needed it, I wasn’t sure.
After fixing something to eat, and eating it, I flaked out for a while on the sofa and tried to read. I came to at eight o’clock. Although it was late, I decided to go to the hospital, anyway. There was a good chance I’d run into Bobbi’s father, but there was also a chance he’d gone home or to a bar somewhere. As I drove past the Broker’s Bay Marina on my way off Granville Island, however, a parking space opened up, so, acting on impulse, I parked and walked out to the quay overlooking the moorings. The Wonderlust wasn’t in her slip. I went into the marina office. A middle-aged woman was behind the counter, leafing through a magazine. She looked up at me and smiled.
“Where’s the Wonderlust?” I asked.
“The Wonderlust? Police towed her away this afternoon. Said she was a crime scene.”
“A crime scene?”
“Yeah. A woman was raped on her the other day. Almost killed.”
My guts clenched, even though I knew that Bobbi hadn’t been raped. As I looked out over the marina, I had a sudden inspiration. I wouldn’t have recognized a Sabre 386 if one rammed into my house, but I remembered Witt DeWalt, the Mariners fan, telling me that the Waverleys owned a sailboat called Free Spirit. I turned back to the woman behind the counter.
“Almost forgot,” I said. “I was supposed to deliver some photographs to Mrs. Waverley. I was told she was staying on her boat. Which one is the Free Spirit?”
“I dunno who told you that,” the woman said. “She hardly ever stays on that boat. She and her husband live in Point Grey.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “Um, look. I have to deliver the photos tonight. They’re very important. I left the address at home, though, because I thought she was supposed to be on the boat. I don’t suppose you could give it to me, could you? I’d really appreciate it. Mrs. Waverley will, too.”
“Sure, why not?” the woman said helpfully.
Three minutes later I was heading up Granville toward 12th, Anna Waverley’s Point Grey address in my shirt pocket. Now that I had it, I still wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with it. I didn’t think Mrs. Waverley was very likely to speak to me if I just walked up and knocked on her door and told her that someone posing as her may have been responsible for my friend getting half beaten to death.
As I circled the block around the Vancouver General Hospital, looking for parking, I spotted what I thought was Greg Matthias’s Saab. I wanted to ask him some questions about the investigation. And if Bobbi’s father was visiting, Matthias might be able to keep me from doing something stupid or that I’d regret, not necessarily the same thing. Fortunately, Brooks wasn’t there. Matthias was, though.
“How’s she doing?” I asked him as I stood beside Bobbi’s bed. I gently touched the back of her hand with the tips of my fingers, hoping she’d wake up. She didn’t.
“No change,” Matthias said. “For better or worse. The doctors say it’s just a waiting game, but that they have every reason to be hopeful.”
“How long have you been here?” I pulled a straight chair next to the bed and sat down.
“Not long,” Matthias said. “Your sister and Wayne Fowler were here for a while about an hour ago.”
“And Bobbi’s father?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
“I stopped at the marina on my way here. The Wonderlust is gone. The woman in the office told me the police towed it away because it was a crime scene. Is that where Bobbi was attacked? On the boat?”
“The crime scene people found blood traces and evidence of a struggle,” Matthias replied. “Someone tried to clean it up, but didn’t do a very thorough job of it. Maybe they watch forensic shows on television and thought it wouldn’t do any good. We won’t know for sure if she was attacked on the boat until the test results are back. As for how she got from the boat to the bridge, the Wonderlust’s Zodiac is missing. Her attacker may have transported her from the Wonderlust using the Zodiac. The footpath between Granville Island and the bridge is well lit and fairly busy, even late at night. If she were dumped from shore, her attacker would have had to transport her by foot half a kilometre or more along the seawall and the promenade overlooking the False Creek Harbour Authority. Someone would have seen something. Likewise, if she ran and he caught up with her under the bridge, she’d have screamed for help and someone would have heard. Unfortunately, the scene under the bridge was too badly contaminated by paramedics and curiosity seekers to be of any help. We’re canvassing, but so far haven’t turned anything up.”
“If he moved her by Zodiac,” I said, “why dump her in the shallows in the middle of the civic marina?”
“I dunno,” Matthias said. “Maybe she came to, struggled with her attacker, fell overboard, and tried to swim ashore. We’re just going to have to wait until she wakes up.” He paused, looking at Bobbi, then started to add something else.
“Don’t say it,” I interjected quickly, before he could speak.
He nodded and said nothing.
“Did you check out Loth?” I asked.
“Kovacs and Henshaw talked to him, but I don’t think anything came of it. I’d have heard.”
“What about Anna Waverley? Could she be involved?”
“She could be, of course. She admits to being at the Broker’s Bay Marina at approximately nine o’clock that evening, although no one seems to have seen her. And how likely is it that the woman who came to your studio pulled Anna Waverley’s name out of a hat? Other than that, though, so far there’s nothing to connect her to Bobbi or you or the boat.”
“Except that she admitted to being on it once or twice.”
“Except that.”
“Maybe the woman who