Seaweed on the Street Page 3

  I walked back around to the front of the house and across the terrace to the front door. I rang the bell. After a longish wait a young Coast Salish woman wearing an old-fashioned black maid’s uniform with a white pinafore over it opened the door and stared at me. With my long black hair and brown skin, I wasn’t the usual front-door visitor.

  I announced that Mr. Hunt was expecting me. After some hesitation she let me in. The maid looked sullen and her face was flushed, but I didn’t think I was responsible. Without a word she showed me in to the reception room where I had spoken to Jimmy Scow. The maid withdrew.

  There were fresh dahlias on a refectory table. Morning sunlight, shining through the room’s stained-glass windows, picked out the deep red and blue colours in a Persian rug.

  The returning maid opened the door and stood aside to admit Charles Service. He turned to watch her go and shook his head. “Damn nuisance,” he said, lifting his arms and letting them fall to his sides in disgust. “She just quit on me. A single day’s notice. I’ll have a devil of a time replacing her. Good help is hard to find. Housemaids get jobs in motels now. Half the work, twice the money.”

  I doubted that Service’s duties as Hunt’s lawyer included supervising domestics and wondered why he seemed so upset about it.

  “Well,” said Service, apparently forgetting the maid and rubbing his hands with a satisfied air. “I suppose you’re wondering what this is all about, eh?”

  Before I could reply, footsteps sounded and the door opened. A stoop-shouldered, slightly built man with grey hair flattened down on his bony skull came in carrying a black bag. It was Dr. Cunliffe, the father of the murdered man.

  Seeing me, the doctor smiled in recognition and extended his hand. “Morning, Seaweed. Charles told me that you were coming today.” He inclined his head toward the upper regions of the house. “I’ve just been giving Mr. Hunt his weekly checkup.”

  Service said to me, “Dr. Cunliffe knows why you’re here.”

  The doctor nodded amiably and said, “I plan to sit by the swimming pool and drink coffee. Join me there later if you like.” He went out.

  Service said, “Funny, us running into each other last night. I hardly see you for five years, then I run into you twice in 12 hours.” He stopped speaking and looked grave for a moment before going on: “The Bengal Room. Do you eat there often?”

  I laughed and said, “On a sergeant’s pay? Are you kidding?”

  Service smiled. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “That business with Scow last night. To coin a phrase, it put a bee in the old man’s bonnet.”

  I remembered seeing Calvert Hunt fast asleep in an invalid chair and had to work hard to suppress a smile.

  Service said, “It’s all nonsense, of course, but Mr. Hunt wants to stir things up. I’m opposed to it, of course. We should let sleeping dogs lie.”

  I’d heard enough clichés so I looked him in the eye and said, “Why me? If this job is what I think it might be, you need a squad of detectives.”

  “You’re right, we need detectives. However, you were a detective once.” He stopped speaking before adding, “Mr. Hunt thinks you have special qualifications.”

  “Whatever they are. From Mr. Hunt’s point of view it’ll work out cheaper than hiring a private shamus, which is what you did last time.”

  Service’s mouth tightened. Before he said anything, I said, “Not that I mind. This will make a nice change from patrolling back alleys.”

  Service grunted. “It’s nothing to do with Jimmy Scow. It’s a missing person inquiry. Mr. Hunt wants you to look for somebody who went missing over 20 years ago.”

  He stared at me bleakly and slumped into a leather chair. Still staring at me, he put his palms together and touched his chin with his fingers.

  I sat opposite, wondering if I would hear any surprises. As a cop, I know plenty of dangerous secrets. Some involved the Hunt family.

  Service said, “Calvert Hunt is my boss. He needs help. But first you need to know how he operates.” Service stopped speaking and gave me a quick grin. “Calvert loves money. He spent his life making as much money as possible. Now he’s a billionaire. He ought to be the happiest man in the world, but he isn’t. He lives in self-inflicted misery.” An insubordinate ripple moved in the deep ocean of Service’s eyes as he added, in a cynical tone, “This is one of those deathbed repentance affairs. An aging parent, smitten with remorse.”

  I said bluntly, “Then I suppose he wants me to look for his daughter, Marcia.”

  A deep cleft formed between Service’s eyebrows. “Right,” he said, apparently astonished. “How did you guess?”

  “There’s a file on Marcia Hunt down at headquarters. I’ve read it before. I read it again to refresh my memory before I came out here.”

  “But why should there be a file on Marcia? She was never reported as missing. At least not officially.”

  “Police keep files on everything. Calvert Hunt’s daughter is not exactly a nonentity.”

  Service’s facial expression went through a series of changes, beginning with outraged indignation but fading to cynical amusement as he said, “What else do you know?”

  “I know this isn’t the first time you’ve had detectives out searching for Marcia Hunt. You hired a private eye a long time ago. Patrick Coulton. A retired city cop from Vancouver.”

  “You’re well informed. Yes, we did hire Coulton. But he got nowhere. After wasting thousands of dollars on fruitless inquiries we let him go. By the sounds of things he wasn’t even discreet.”

  “Coulton was a pro. He talked things over with a few city cops, but that’s all. He didn’t raise a stink, make waves.”

  “That brings up an important point. We can’t afford any scandal. So far, Marcia’s name has never appeared in print. It’s imperative we keep it that way. As I explained to Mr. Hunt, we daren’t risk a full-scale police inquiry. Some glory-seeking cop would run to the newspapers at the first hint of anything juicy.”

  “Too much secrecy can hamper an inquiry.”

  “Maybe,” said Service. “But we insist on keeping things hushed up.”

  I said, “Every police matter creates waves. If this were an ordinary case I’d probably set the ball rolling with newspaper ads. Offer a reward.”

  “Advertisements? Rewards? Are you nuts? Forget it, Silas.”

  We looked at each other in heavy silence. Service pulled back his cuff, glanced at his watch and said, “Mr. Hunt is probably asking for the impossible. Patrick Coulton couldn’t find Marcia when the trail was fresh.”

  “Just so I’m clear. Am I expected to make a serious effort, or is this a charade? Something to make your boss feel better?”

  “We want a decent effort, but we must be realistic.” Service pushed himself out of his chair. “Is Patrick Coulton still alive?”

  “No. He died years ago.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “Paddy was not very creative. But if he got his teeth into something he was like a bulldog.”

  “Well,” Service said, “let’s go upstairs and meet the boss.”

  I followed Service to the hall. A staggeringly broad staircase curved up to the second floor. As we mounted the stairs a side door opened and the young maid appeared, sobbing and lugging a suitcase. The Chinese gardener was standing in the room she had just vacated, holding a cup of coffee and looking startled, his mouth half open. Still sobbing, the maid ran out the main door and fled down the driveway.

  Service, his hand clasping the banister, watched her go. His glance carried to me, a step behind him on the stairs. He gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, his face expressionless. “So much for a day’s notice.”

  I said, “What’s her name?”

  “Effie.”

  “Has Effie worked here long?”

  “Five years or so. Then something trivial happens, and she’s out the door in five minutes.�
� He shook his head in annoyance as we continued up the stairs.

  A wide inner balcony encircled the second floor. We stopped outside a big double door. Service knocked. After a muffled reply from within, we entered.

  Calvert Hunt was sitting in his invalid chair near windows over-looking the gardens. He pointed outside. “What’s going on in this house? Was that Effie running down the drive?” Hunt’s deep voice was surprisingly resonant for a man of 85.

  “Yes, sir, that was Effie,” Service said unctuously, crossing the room to look out of the window himself. “Something upset her. A few minutes ago she told me she couldn’t work here anymore.”

  “Damn nuisance. I liked the girl,” Hunt said. He turned his eyes to me. “I know you. You’re the Indian cop who came here last night.”

  I grinned at him. “I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  He went on, “You were here five years ago as well. The day young Harry Cunliffe was murdered.”

  “That’s right. I was a crime-squad detective back then.”

  “You’re a smartass, but maybe you’re the right man to find Marcia. Mr. Service tells me that you quit regular policing to work with street derelicts.” Hunt bared long yellow teeth in a wolfish grin. “You may as well tell me. Did you quit? Or did you get pushed?”

  “People were lined up in the hallways when I left, throwing rose petals. Maybe they were glad to see me go.”

  Hunt smiled in cold pleasure. “A lot of people were glad to see me go, too, when I packed up a good job to start my own little business.”

  He stopped speaking to savour a delicious memory, then added, “I started out in life as a sawmill labourer. My boss was a slave-driving fool. If he’d treated me better I might have stayed with him. If I had, I’d be drawing a nice little pension now.”

  Hunt gave a bark of laughter and shook his head, pleased with the joke. Hunt’s “little business” was Seacoast Pulp and Paper, one of Canada’s largest corporations.

  The old man rose to his feet shakily, steadying himself with a cane. He was tall and skinny, but had a pot belly. He wore a well-cut grey suit, an old-fashioned wing-collar shirt with a black bow tie, and had a fresh carnation in his buttonhole. Service moved forward, ready to assist, but Hunt waved him away and crossed to the windows unaided.

  There was a large oil painting of Hunt’s pulp mill hanging over the fireplace. A small green object rested inconspicuously atop the painting’s ornate, heavily carved frame. I knew what that object was, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Before I could make up my mind, Hunt turned back into the room and looked at me from a distance of two generations.

  Abruptly he said, “When you drove up here, Mr. Seaweed, did you happen to notice what kinds of shrubs line the driveway to my house?”

  “Rhododendrons. I’m no gardener, but I think there are several different varieties.”

  “The door outside this room is flanked by two pictures. Describe them.”

  I said, “There’s a picture of a girl wearing a party dress to the left of the door. Looks like a hand-coloured photograph. To the right of the door there’s another picture, in a similar gilt frame, of a couple dressed in summer clothes. The woman is carrying an umbrella.”

  I was being tested and I could see how Hunt had become Canada’s wealthiest industrialist.

  “You’re observant,” Hunt said at last. “Unusually so. Probably your Indian blood, eh?”

  I don’t like being patronized and shrugged my shoulders at him.

  Hunt peered into a long dark corridor of history. “The girl in the picture is my daughter,” he said at last, pointing outside toward the garden. “I planted those rhododendrons myself, before Marcia was born. When she was little, we used to play hide-and-seek among them. Now she has gone but the plants are still here. I often look at them and think of her. If you live long enough, Seaweed, you’ll discover that memory is the curse of old age.”

  A self-pitying whine had invaded his voice; there was a sudden moist glitter in his eyes. But the lapse was brief. A moment later the old man’s teeth were showing in another icy smile. The pride that nourished his anger and bitterness reasserted itself. “Tell me something,” he said. “What’s your track record? You were with the serious crimes squad and got nowhere with the Cunliffe murder inquiry.”

  “I seem to recall that a man named Jimmy Scow got five years for it.”

  Hunt said angrily, “Scow was a joe-boy, just a gormless van driver. Harry Cunliffe’s real killers are still out there, somewhere.”

  This sudden fit of rage exhausted him. His animated expression faded and he slumped. He raised a feeble liverish hand for support and Service helped him to his chair. Hunt’s eyes closed and his head drooped toward his chest.

  “You’d better leave,” Service whispered. “Mr. Hunt needs his rest … ”

  “Wait!” said Hunt, blinking his eyes open. “I want this man to find my girl, bring her home.”

  Hunt roused himself, sitting erect and grasping the knob of his cane so tightly that his knuckles whitened. “Let’s get on with it. Dr. Cunliffe has warned me that my heart is weak. I don’t have any years left to waste.”

  Service moved to a chair and sat on the edge of it, leaning forward attentively.

  Hunt said, “Marcia is my daughter. I loved her but I make no apologies for calling her a young fool. Sometimes she nearly drove me mad with her wickedness and ingratitude. I devoted my life to earning money so that … ”

  He broke off suddenly, breathing like an exhausted runner. We waited until this angry spasm passed. In moderated tones he said, “Marcia was headstrong, wilful. She kept running away. Twice from this house, once from her boarding school. To be honest about it, Marcia was more of a trial to her mother than she was to me. I was born on the wrong side of the tracks, came up the hard way. My wife was from a wealthy Westmount family. She had rigid ideas about what well-brought-up young women could do and couldn’t do. There were constant arguments about how much effort Marcia should put into learning French, whether she should take dancing lessons. What kinds of friends she should have. Marcia was never easy, but as a small child she was … ”

  Again Hunt broke off his discourse and stared inward, revisiting scenes that we couldn’t know. “Never mind,” he said. “By the time Marcia was a teenager, this house was like an armed camp, with Marcia leading a rebellion. She didn’t want to take dancing lessons. She wanted to run downtown and associate with riff-raff. She’d bring street people home. Beggars, stray dogs, thieves and drunks. She’d expect us to give them money or put them up. She did these things out of kindness, but all it did was make us angry. We were always fighting. Looking back, it’s easy to see how Marcia must have hated us.”

  The old man’s eyes were sad as he stared at his feet. Nobody spoke. Then Hunt had another thought and his eyes brightened. “Marcia had one real talent though. She played piano beautifully. Even there she angered her mother and frustrated her music teachers because instead of practising Beethoven and Mozart, she preferred popular music. Marcia loved blues, jazz.”

  The old man’s circling mind returned to a happier time. He was smiling as he said, “She used to play ‘Smoke Gets in your Eyes,’ sing the words in her lovely, husky voice. Before Marcia left home for the last time she had a rose tattooed on her right shoulder. When Mrs. Hunt found out about the tattoo there was one helluva row.” Hunt’s voice faded and he looked at his feet again. He looked up and said suddenly, “Ever been hungry, Seaweed?”

  “No,” I said, after thinking about it, “I never have.”

  “’Course you haven’t,” he said gruffy. “A Coast Indian will never go hungry unless he’s sick. Lots of your tillikums worked for me in the bush so I know what I’m talking about. They were always bringing game into my logging camps. Deer, fish, edible weeds. Eyes like eagles, the lot of you. You could find my girl if you wanted to. Use tamahnous if that’s what it takes, track her down like a wounded animal … ”

  Hunt’s words tra
iled away. Smiling vaguely he closed his eyes. His fingers relaxed and the cane slipped noiselessly to the thick carpet.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Downstairs in the hall again, Charles Service said, “That jargon the old man just used on you. Tamahnous. Tillikum. What’s it mean?”

  “Tamahnous is a very complicated word. The closest I can come is magic, or spirit. Tillikum means people.”

  “Interesting,” Service said, sounding as if he didn’t mean it. “Find your own way out to the swimming pool, Silas. I have a couple of things to take care of. I’ll join you quick as I can.”

  Service went off toward the back of the house.

  I didn’t have much time so I went upstairs immediately and returned to Calvert Hunt’s room. I grasped the doorknob firmly and eased the door open. The old man was snoring in his chair, his head back and his mouth half open. Floorboards creaked as I tiptoed across his room to the fireplace, took a sharp pencil from my pocket and poked it into the small green fragile object, about the size of a mouse, resting atop the picture frame. Nobody saw me carry the object outside the house and into the sunshine.

  “Who the devil are you?” a voice said imperiously. “What are you doing here?”

  I turned. It was the dark-haired woman Charles Service had met in the Bengal Room the previous night. She had an assured manner and a boarding-school accent and was wearing a two-piece bikini. Her hair was still wet from her morning swim. She was more than pretty; she was stunning, and she had a sensual mouth.

  But I scowled at her. Lovely socialites ride roughshod over many, but not if they’re hard-nosed cops. “I’m here on police business, ma’am,” I said heavily. “I’m Sergeant Seaweed, Victoria PD. Who are you?”

  “Why, I’m Sarah Williams, Mr. Hunt’s niece. I’m staying here at the moment,” she said uncertainly. “I’m sorry, I thought you were another bloody prowler.”

  Her eyes turned to the thing impaled on my pencil. Her poise returned and she said, “What’s that you’ve got in your hand?”

  It was a tough question. I resisted a temptation to become lost in the interstices of thought and tackled it head-on. “It’s an effigy,” I said bluntly. “A Native shaman made it out of bulrush stalks. Grass effigies are almost universal. In England they’re made out of wheat stalks and are called corn dollies. I found this example in Mr. Hunt’s room.”