Seaweed on Ice Read online

  PRAISE FOR STANLEY EVANS

  “Evans’ combination of [Coast] Salish lore and solid plotting is a winner.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “A fast-paced, entertaining story with enough plot twists to keep the reader guessing.”

  —Times Colonist

  “A mystery novel worth reading and lingering over.”

  —Hamilton Spectator

  “A gritty murder-mystery with some violence and suspense thrown in for good measure.”

  —Oak Bay News

  “Tightly written mystery . . . a pleasure to read.”

  —Comox Valley Record

  “Evans does not disappoint.”

  —WordWorks

  “Well worth reading. Evans knows how to set a scene, creates vivid minor characters, and is capable of spitting out the requisite snappy dialogue.”

  —Monday Magazine

  “An exciting introduction to a Coast Salish cop with a lot more entertaining stories to tell.”

  —Mystery Readers Journal

  “Sharp, calculating and extremely convincing style of writing.”

  —Victoria News

  “Evans is a forceful story teller.”

  —Parksville Qualicum News

  “[An] evocative series.”

  —Montreal Gazette

  “Makes great use of the West Coast aboriginal mythology and religion.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “The writing is wonderful native story telling. Characters are richly drawn . . . I enjoyed this so much that I’m looking for the others in the series.”

  —Hamilton Spectator

  SEAWEED ON ICE

  Stanley Evans

  to Helena and Olivia

  THE WARRIOR RESERVE does not exist. All of the characters, incidents and dialogue in this novel are imaginary. Any resemblance to actual persons or to real events is coincidental. Depictions of Native mythology and religion are based on ethnological research and do not necessarily reflect the present-day observances and practices of Canada’s West Coast Native people.

  CHAPTER ONE

  My troubles started after a young sea lion hauled itself onto the beach below the Warrior Reserve. Old Mary Cooke told us that in a previous life the sea lion had been a beaver. Now he was a lost soul who didn’t quite know how to be a sea lion and was too stubborn to learn. He was no good for anything, except barking—he shone at that. His barking kept the whole reserve awake. After a week, we were really fed up.

  Then Chief Alphonse had a dream about a one-legged dwarf. When Chief Alphonse yelled at his dream dwarf it turned into a sea lion. Old Mary Cooke said it was a dream from the unknown world. Chief Alphonse took a spirit stick from his medicine bag, made some medicine over it with his hands and told his dream to the sea lion. The sea lion stopped barking, waddled into the ocean, and that was the last we saw of it.

  I was looking forward to balancing my sleep deficit, but that night howling winds and a cold snap hit Vancouver Island, freezing beaver ponds and driving deer down from the northern peaks. Driftwood being pounded onto the shore outside my cabin brought me awake before dawn. Above the tumult, I heard revving engines—hunters were leaving the reserve in SUVs. Our tribe was getting things ready for Winter Ceremonial; fresh game was needed.

  I got out of bed, threw a couple of logs into my wood stove and opened the damper.

  My phone rang. It was Moran, sounding ticked. “Get over to the gym, Silas. I need you right away.”

  “You mean right away immediately? Or right away when it’s daylight?”

  “Right away immediately. Isaac is missing. He hasn’t been home the last two nights.”

  “Call 911.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Moran asked bitterly. “Are you too busy to help your old friends now?”

  “Take it easy. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I promised.

  I opened the faucet to fill my coffee pot. Nothing. The pipes had frozen. Outside, my rain barrel was covered with ice—I had to bust a hole to get water. Inside again, I heated it to wash, shave and make coffee. After that I spent 15 minutes scraping ice off my car’s windows before I could drive it downtown. A wrecker was winching a car out of a ditch near Catherine Street. I slowed down after seeing that, and parked in my usual spot behind Swans Hotel.

  Moran’s Gymnasium occupies the top floor of a two-storey heritage building. Once, when Victoria was young, the place was probably a ship chandler’s or a gold-rush outfitter’s or an opium den. Now the bottom floor was rented to a woman who sold second-hand ladies’ fashions. I entered the building through a side door and climbed a steep flight of stairs to the gymnasium.

  Walking into Moran’s is like stepping into the 1950s—except seedier. Moran didn’t believe in opening windows, so a couple of ceiling fans were blending the odours of sweat, liniment, long-dead cigars and coffee into a mix potent enough to kill canaries. Old boxing posters covered the gym’s exposed-brick walls. Bare light bulbs cast inadequate rays over weight-training machines and punching bags. Despite the weather and the early hour, two hopefuls were already hammering each other in the boxing ring. A couple of old pugs sat on folding chairs, checking the Racing News. Three young gym rats were there too, fooling around with speed bags. Tony the masseur had a half-naked man stretched out on his leather-covered table. Tony glanced up from pummelling his client’s muscular back. “Chrissake, it’s Silas Seaweed. You here for a workout?”

  “I’m looking for Moran.”

  “Moran’s around here someplace,” Tony said. “Help yourself to coffee.”

  I was splashing coffee into a mug when the washroom door banged open. Moran appeared, zipping up his fly. He looked angry as usual, but I didn’t take it personally—Moran had spent his whole life concealing all emotions except cynicism and rage. As always, the old scrapper wore a wrinkled grey suit, white shirt, red necktie and a black fedora. He looked rather likeable, in spite of two cauliflower ears and meaty red lips.

  Moran came over, planted his feet like a boxer and said belligerently, “You took your own sweet time getting here.”

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “It’s like I told you on the phone. I ain’t seen Isaac Schwartz in two days.”

  I couldn’t understand why Moran was so upset about it. “Isaac’s a grown man, not a kid. Maybe he took a day off.”

  Moran’s eyebrows came together in a scowl. “He don’t get days off. He’s my resident janitor. Isaac’s slept in this gym every night for 20 years.”

  I’d tasted the coffee and was now dumping it in the sink. “What’d you make this out of, acorns?”

  Moran wasn’t listening. He hunched his shoulders and said, “Day before yesterday, Isaac swept the gym and emptied the garbage cans. After lunch he went out, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him.” He reached into his pocket for a cylinder of Rolaids, peeled back the silver wrap and popped a tablet into his mouth. He offered one to me, but I shook my head.

  Moran burped. “Goddammit,” he said. He looked miserable.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s take a look at Isaac’s room.”

  Moran opened a door next to the locker room and switched on the light. I’d known Isaac Schwartz for years, but this was the first time I’d seen how he lived. His home was a windowless fleapit, about 12 feet by 10, with as much charm as a welding shop. An unframed picture of the Banff Springs Hotel was taped above an iron bed. There was a chest of drawers, a wooden table, a kitchen chair. The room was lined with books. Cartons full of books jammed the space beneath the bed. Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Reitlinger’s Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe lay on Isaac’s table, along with miscellaneous cutlery, odd cups and plates, a jar of Roberts
on’s marmalade. Isaac’s bed was the only neat object in the room; it looked as if a soldier had just readied it for inspection. The top blanket was stretched tight and folded with a sharp crease where it covered the pillow. I pulled the blanket aside, exposing musty flannel sheets and a mouse-coloured pillow flecked with spots of blood. A damp greyish blotch discoloured the centre of the bottom sheet. This glimpse into the secrets of male desolation was too much for Moran. He cleared his throat noisily, shuffled his feet and turned his eyes away.

  I lowered my face toward the stained sheet and sniffed. “Did Isaac bring women in here?” I asked.

  Moran flushed with embarrassment. “What kinda question’s that?”

  “I’m asking you. Did Isaac bring women in?”

  My question disturbed Moran’s tough-guy pose. “Hell no,” he said, evading my eyes. “Isaac Schwartz never picked up a girl in his life.”

  “The hell he didn’t,” I said. “How old are you?”

  Moran’s mouth opened in surprise. “What?”

  “I asked how old you are. About 70?”

  My abrupt questions were getting to him. Moran mumbled, “I’m 76.”

  “Isaac was probably older than you. I guess he was in his 80s.”

  “So what?”

  I smiled. “You think Isaac was past it, Moran? Couldn’t get it up?”

  Moran’s head sagged under the weight of his embarrassment. “Jesus,” he said, still blushing, “Maybe Isaac could get it up. But so what? It makes no difference. I know he never brought no women into my gym.”

  “Why not? Give a man a prescription for Viagra and there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

  Moran’s lips tightened. “Well, even if he did, he wouldn’t tell me about it. The guy’s been with me for 20 years but I hardly know him. He sweeps the floor, locks up at night and that’s that. He’s kind of a loner. Isaac’s only real friend is Nimrod.”

  “Yeah, Nimrod,” I said. “Nimrod was quite a handful, in his heyday.”

  “You got that right,” Moran replied, finally agreeing with something I said. “But Nimrod’s no fun neither. Not since he found Jesus and went on the wagon. I ain’t seen him lately either, come to think of it.”

  Isaac’s table had a single drawer. I opened it. The drawer was cluttered with old keys, nuts and bolts, a hairbrush, a pair of opera glasses, a shoe horn and an ancient Webley .38 eight-shot revolver. I lifted the gun and sighted down its empty barrel. The gun was rusty and hadn’t been fired in years. I put the Webley on the table and shoved more junk around in the drawer until I found a cigar box at the back. It was full of old letters and photographs. One photograph showed a stern-faced old man with a huge walrus moustache, sitting in a bamboo chair. The photographer’s trademark was embossed in the lower left-hand corner: “Mueller, Bad Harzburg, 1883.” The reverse side was blank. It occurred to me that in the whole world there was probably nobody, apart from Isaac Schwartz, who could now identify this long-deceased man. There were a few family snapshots, one of which showed a young couple accompanied by two small children dressed in sailor suits. The letters were written in a heavy, undecipherable Gothic script. A Canadian Immigration ID card attested that Schwartz, Isaac Jacob, a German, had arrived in Quebec City from Bremen aboard the steamer Samaria on April 23, 1948.

  I showed the ID card to Moran. He sighed. “The poor guy should have stayed in Germany. He never had much fun in Canada.”

  “Jews weren’t having much fun in Europe back then either.”

  Two faint black parallel lines scuffed the linoleum floor between Isaac’s bed and the door. With Moran trailing me, I followed the lines until they faded out a few feet beyond Isaac’s room. We went through the gym and down the steps. Here and there I saw faint black smudges and traces of the same parallel lines. At the bottom of the stairs a narrow corridor led to a rear emergency exit. Moran opened the door. Nothing. The only thing worth looking at was a dumpster, but it had just been emptied. I told Moran I’d report Isaac’s absence to Missing Persons.

  We shook hands and I left the gym. For a few minutes I just stood on the sidewalk. In Victoria’s grey December light, the Sooke Hills rose up indistinctly, their forested shoulders mantled with clouds. Icy breezes picked up a sheet of discarded newspaper and blew it skyward. I followed it with my eyes as it flapped and twisted in the air before falling to the ground beside the grassy banks of the Gorge waterway.

  Archaeologists had discovered the remains of an ancient house down there and had started excavations. It was still early, but two people were hard at work near the water’s edge, shovelling dirt onto sifter screens—shaking out ancient bones and harpoon points. Those things had belonged to my ancestors, so I went over to see what was going on. The diggers turned out to be a couple of greasy long-haired guys dressed in black coats and combat boots—teenaged devil worshippers, to judge by the upside-down crosses hanging from their necks. They saw me coming and ran off, screeching and flapping their arms like bats. I let them go.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I’m a Coast Salish Native, born on the Warrior Reserve. Once, I was a member of Victoria’s detective squad. Now I’m a neighbourhood cop stationed on the ground floor of a grimy brick palace. My bathroom with attached one-room office corresponds with my diminished status. There’s a tiny cast-iron fireplace with a brass surround, a battered coal scuttle that I use as a wastebasket, an oak desk and a vinyl swivel chair. There’s also a hat tree, two metal filing cabinets, a floor safe and a couple of chairs for visitors. Except for missing-kid bulletins and a print of Queen Victoria in her widow’s weeds, the beige walls are unadorned.

  Neighbourhood cops spend their days lubricating a city’s delicate machinery. They’re supposed to be visible and accessible, so I opened my curtains and smiled at passersby as I listened to my voice mail. Somebody wanted me to mediate a husband–wife donnybrook. Somebody else reported that a wolf had been sighted loping across the Bay Street bridge. A merchant had left an irate message about the serial shoplifters who kept looting his store.

  Detective Inspector Bernie Tapp came in to use the toilet. Bernie is a tough-looking cop, a little under six feet tall. People take one look at his lean muscular shape and figure he’s a lumberjack or a longshoreman. Bernie is only about 50, but that day he looked haggard and gloomy. I like him, and from time to time, I suspect, Bernie reciprocates my sentiments.

  I was pitching scrunched-up balls of junk mail into the cold fireplace when Bernie came out of the bathroom. He nodded at me, then glanced out the window and said, “Aleister Crowley.”

  Bernie had spotted a couple of goths and was studying them. They were women, about 18, dressed in black and wearing combat boots, their heads tilted self-consciously high. When they reached the corner of Store Street they turned left and went out of view.

  “Aleister’s a boy’s name,” I said.

  Bernie’s face twitched a little. “Aleister Crowley was a Satanist,” he said. “A magician and practitioner of the black arts. The guy who inspired L. Ron Hubbard. Those two are a couple of Crowley’s latter-day admirers.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been boning up on the subject.”

  “I’ve talked to some of those jokers,” Bernie said, folding his arms and drumming his fingers against his sleeves. “They hold black masses at midnight, get their thrills making pentacles, drinking chicken blood. Practising sex magic.”

  I felt my mouth making an involuntary O. “Sounds like fun. Where do I sign up?”

  “I expect there’s a long waiting list.”

  “Feel like breakfast?”

  Bernie nodded. As I locked up, pale sun was pushing the greyness from the sky, a gradual yellow light painted the street. A man with a rhinestone nose stud, dressed in a Santa Claus outfit, was stationed outside Swans, rattling a few coins in a bucket. Shoppers scurried past him with bowed heads. I pointed toward the wreckage of the old Jamieson Foundry. The foundry dated from the same era as my office. Back then, Victoria had been home port to sealing schoo
ners and coastal steamers. In those days Jamieson’s had employed scores of men. But a quarter-century had passed since the last ingots had been poured, and for years the Jamieson building had stood empty. Vagrants used it as a flop. Two nights previously somebody had torched the place.

  “I found a full-grown cougar inside Jamieson’s once,” Bernie said. “I’ll never forget those big yellow eyes, staring at me from the dark. I thought it was a prowler and shouted: ‘Come on out with your hands up.’”

  “A live cougar? In downtown Victoria?”

  “It was alive until I shot it. I couldn’t get over how big that cougar’s feet were. As big as my hands. That was a bad winter, too.”

  Lights flickered inside the foundry’s dark recesses. An arson investigator, wearing rubber boots and a long yellow raincoat, waved a flashlight across bits of charred rubble.

  “Soon there won’t be any pioneer buildings left in this town,” I mused.

  Bernie shook his head. “I dunno. I’m tired of looking at old red bricks and rusty corrugated iron. Gimme modern. Gimme cedar and glass any time.”

  Police and ambulance sirens began to wail. Two patrol cars raced across the Johnson Street bridge and Dopplered past us, going north. Bernie’s cellphone started to bleep.

  “There goes my breakfast,” he grumbled after listening to the call. “It’s gonna be one helluva day, I can tell.”

  “What’s up?”

  “That was Bulloch. According to him, my monthly report is late.”

  “No more promotions for you then, pal.”

  “I put it on his desk yesterday,” Bernie said, with weary resignation. “He’s probably filed it under T, for toilet paper.”

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Lou’s Café is almost next door to my office. As usual, it was crowded. Graveyard-shift workers from the Esquimalt dockyards were having breakfast before going home to sleep the day away. Clerks from nearby government offices were watching Lou’s wall clock. In half an hour they’d be doing exactly the same thing at work. I helped myself to coffee. Lou looked up from flipping pancakes on his grill. “Hey, Silas. You look hungry.”