16

  IT WAS A RELIEF to finally escape the office and hit the road on the child porn case. Poor Burke had not been able to save Perry Dorn, but Delorme was optimistic she could find this mystery girl and save her from further abuse.

  She drove out to Trout Lake and parked in the small lot above Lakeside Marina. As she went down the wooden steps, a chill breeze was blowing off the water. The air alone at this time of year was worth the drive. Pure oxygen, with the first hint of frost. It made you want to do things, embark on new projects, solve crimes.

  Delorme had taken swimming lessons here as a kid—not right here at the marina, but just a few hundred yards away at the Ministry of Natural Resources dock. The instructors would order their victims to plunge in off that dock when the water was barely fifty degrees and practise hauling each other around with various rescue holds. She had had to practise mouth-to-mouth on Maureen Stegg, and it still gave her a peculiar feeling in the pit of her stomach to think about it.

  The fresh air was invaded by the dock smells of rope and creosote and gasoline. Most of the boats had already been hauled away for winter storage, but a couple of cabin cruisers lay anchored a little way from the wharf, rocking gently on the rippling water. Delorme’s heart gave a little kick when she saw the Cessna shining in the sun, the tail number the same as it was in the photograph of the girl.

  “Can I help you?”

  The man was wearing expensive sunglasses and a Lakeside Marina baseball cap. A hardy type apparently, dressed in shorts, although it was not by any means shorts weather.

  “I’m wondering what it costs to rent space here.” Delorme had never owned a boat, and had no idea of the correct terminology. Probably should have said “to lease a berth” or some such thing.

  “Depends what you need,” he said. Delorme saw his eyes angle down to her hand, looking for the wedding band that wasn’t there, and back up again.

  “Need?”

  “Well, if you’re going to be using power and lights and so on, that’s one thing. Also, size is a factor, obviously. You from around here?”

  Delorme turned and pointed to the Cessna. “Out there by the plane. Right at the end of the dock. How much would it cost to dock there?”

  “Not much turnover in those slots, I’m afraid. Those are the most desirable, the most expensive, and they’re rented by the same people year after year. Even when they move away—Sudbury, Sundridge, doesn’t matter—they hang on to those spots.”

  “So that plane, for example—that’s always anchored in the same spot?”

  “Oh yeah. Planes change even less than the boats. That guy’s been floating there for at least since I’ve owned the place, and that’s ten years now.”

  “Really? Can you show me what’s so special about those slots at the end of the dock? The ones that look like they’re fenced off?”

  The guy grinned, big white teeth in a face still tanned from the summer. He thinks he’s getting somewhere, Delorme saw. He was kind of cute with that curly blond hair and the big grin—ropy muscles, too—and he was probably used to girls on vacation paying some attention. He was certainly not the child molester—too young, hair the wrong colour and texture, and too thin.

  He opened a gate and led her along the dock.

  “These boats go for what?” Delorme said. “Forty grand?”

  “Oh, you’re way low. More like seventy, eighty, even more. Here we go. You see here?” He rested his hand on a blue box attached to a light post. “This connects you to all the comforts of home. Electricity, cable TV, satellite, you name it.”

  “Don’t all the docks have that?”

  “No, no. Just these two. Couple of others will get you electricity, but that’s it. Plus these, as you can see, have extra security. We’ve got the lights overhead, the extra cameras. Anyone breaks in here is going to get caught.”

  “And the other docks it’s open season?”

  The guy looked hurt now. “All our docks are secure. I’m just saying you pay extra, you get extra.”

  “And what’s the insurance situation?”

  “Insurance, you’re on your own,” he told her. “Obviously we have our own fire and theft and so on. And massive liability. But if your boat gets stolen or vandalized, it’s your insurance going to pay, not ours.”

  “I see. I’m Detective Delorme with Algonquin Bay Police Services.” She had her ID out, showing him. She could see the guy’s interest in her cooling drastically; it was always the way. Some men may be turned on by the idea of female cops, but in Delorme’s experience it wasn’t many, and it was never the right kind.

  “Jeff Quigly,” he said, shaking her hand none too enthusiastically.

  “I’m conducting an investigation into a couple of violations that may have taken place in the neighbourhood, and I need your help.”

  “Oh, sure. Anything I can do.”

  Anything I can do to get you off my dock and out of sight, he meant.

  “I need to know who rents these slots from you.”

  “What, both these docks?”

  “That’s right. And not just now, but for the past ten years.”

  “Even if I wanted to, I don’t know if I have all that information.”

  “You just said the tenants don’t change much.”

  The guy had folded his arms across his chest. He was looking out across the lake now, no longer at Delorme.

  “Look, I don’t think I can be giving out information on our renters. That’s not the way I do things. People have a right to their privacy.”

  “You run a marina, not a hospital. It’s not privileged information.”

  “No, but look. Suppose I give out the information that this slot is rented by so-and-so. And so-and-so’s boat just happens to be out. A thief might take that to mean so-and-so is on vacation, touring the Great Lakes somewhere. Cruising down to New York or something. And his house gets burgled. What does that make me?”

  “Innocent. Mr. Quigly, I’m not a thief, I’m a police officer investigating a crime.”

  “Yeah, well see that’s another thing. What are you investigating? Sure, people drink on their boats, they smoke dope, but it’s a weird time of year to be investigating that stuff, and I don’t think you should be asking me to compromise people’s privacy over some minor infraction.”

  Delorme didn’t want to reveal the nature of the crime. Mention child molesting and the place would go wild with rumours. And she didn’t want her quarry to get even a whiff of the investigation before she was ready to put the cuffs on him.

  “I have to count on your discretion,” Delorme said. “You can’t be mentioning this to anybody.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I’m investigating an assault.”

  “Really.” He shook his head. “Must’ve been minor or I’d have heard about it.”

  “I can’t give you any more detail than that. Are you going to help me? I could go get a warrant, but that’s going to take at least a day and it’s just going to delay getting a criminal off the streets.”

  Quigly took her into the marina office. It was a cluttered place with a detailed map of Trout Lake on one wall and a gigantic model of the Bluenose leaning up against the other. There were fishing photographs and enlarged cartoons of sailing jokes everywhere. He rooted through a file cabinet and came up with some manila folders.

  “Rental slips going back ten years,” he said. “You’re not going to find them in any kind of order, though.”

  17

  DELORME ORGANIZED HER LIST of names geographically, and that put Frank Rowley at the top. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting from a man with his own plane—an oversized brick mansion high on Beaufort Hill, maybe. Or one of those old Victorian places down on Main West. But Frank Rowley, it turned out, lived in a plain little house of white brick just a couple of blocks from the bypass. Delorme pulled into the drive and parked behind a tan Ford Escort, a modest, unassuming vehicle that did not fit with her idea of a man who flew.

  A small maple in the front yard had dropped all its leaves in a colourful circle, but a trim row of holly bushes against the front of the house was deep green. Even before she got out of her unmarked, she could hear the screech and wail of an electric guitar. It sounded as if some tormented ghost had broken loose in the neighbourhood.

  The guitar screamed, halted, then started up again. A Beatles riff this time, but Delorme couldn’t have named the song.

  In answer to her knock, a completely bald man of about forty opened the front door, still wearing his guitar. Men and their toys, Delorme thought.

  “Mr. Rowley?”

  “That’s me. Can I help you?”

  She held up her ID. “Can I take up a few minutes of your time?”

  The interior of the house smelled richly of something baking, and Delorme noted with approval a white scuff of flour on Rowley’s bald head.

  She followed him into the living room, where dolls and stuffed animals were strewn across a colourful rug like victims of some benign catastrophe. There was a child’s scooter, and large gaudy books splayed open on the couch and chairs. Delorme tripped slightly on the edge of the rug.

  “Sorry,” Rowley said. “It’s got a bad repair—only reason I could afford it.”

  “You have kids, I see,” Delorme said. “How old are they?”

  “We have one daughter—Tara. She’s seven. She’ll be home from school soon. Please, have a seat.”

  Delorme sat in a deep armchair with split-log legs and arms. All of the furniture had a comfortable, country-style, lived-in look, lots of wood everywhere, and cushions and throw rugs, not to mention the larger rug with its deep blue and black chevrons. And the owner of all this, a middle-aged man with a guitar over his shoulder and a head that would not have been out of place on a billiard table. The man in the pictures had almost shoulder-length hair, and in any case Delorme had no reason to suspect Rowley, since his plane merely appeared in the background of one photograph. Also, his daughter was too young. But she sized him up anyway.

  “Mr. Rowley, you have a pilot’s licence, is that correct?”

  “That’s right. I work for Northwind,” he said, naming an airline that flew small planes out of Algonquin Bay to northern cities such as Timmins and Hearst.

  “Business is slow these days?”

  “No, I work four days on, four days off, which is why you find me here doing the house-husband thing.”

  “And you keep a small plane at Lakeside Marina, right?” Delorme read him the tail number from her notebook.

  “Why? Did something happen to it?”

  “I just want to make sure I’m talking to the right person.”

  “You are. Can I get you a coffee or something? I was just about to make a pot.”

  “No, that’s all right. Thank you.”

  “And I’ve got some pretty spectacular muffins that should be ready soon. Tara’s crazy about them.”

  Rowley switched off a Vox amplifier and leaned his guitar against the wall. It was a big black instrument with lots of knobs and chrome, and Delorme thought it would be more suited to country music than the Beatles, but guitars were not her strong point.

  “Are you down at the marina a lot, Mr. Rowley?”

  “Depends what you consider a lot. If I go there, it’s just because I want to take Bessie up.”

  “Bessie?”

  “Bessie the Cessna.” He grinned. “That’s just her name, don’t ask me why. I take her up once or twice a week for maybe an hour or two at a time. Wendy—that’s my wife— wanted me to get rid of it. Too dangerous, she says. But I can’t give it up. I just love to fly, and it’s a lot more fun on your own than it is for work.”

  “I can imagine,” Delorme said. Rowley looked like a man who enjoyed his life, baking muffins and playing guitar surrounded by scattered books and toys. “Do you know many of the people at the marina?”

  “Well, I know Jeff Quigly, the manager.”

  “Anybody else?”

  Rowley shrugged. “Not really. I don’t hang out there. I don’t go to the bar afterwards or anything, like a lot of guys do. Place is kind of a clubhouse, when you get down to it. But it’s not a club I’d want to join—you know, guys whose idea of a good time is to get a case of two-four and go out on the lake to get absolutely rip-roaring drunk. Not something I enjoyed in my twenties, and I’m sure as hell not interested in my forties. Besides, I got a wife and kid. I don’t know where these guys find the time.”

  “Tell me a little about them. I need to know more about the people who hang out at the marina.”

  “Why? What are you investigating?”

  “Assault,” Delorme said.

  “Oh, wow. Well, when I was talking about beer parties, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that any of these people would be capable of violence.”

  “No, of course not. It’s witnesses I’m looking for. Can you tell me anything at all?”

  “The only one I know very well is Owen Glenn.”

  Delorme wrote the name in her notebook. She had already come across it at the marina, where the records showed he did not rent any of the slots that interested her.

  “Owen’s a fellow flier. Owns a little Piper he likes to take up about once a month. I bump into him a lot, especially in summer. But we’re not buddies or anything. He’s much more conservative than I am. The couple of times politics came up, I had to politely excuse myself, you know what I mean? He’s the kind of guy who thinks Mike Harris didn’t go far enough with the budget cuts and who wishes we were in Iraq.”

  “So he doesn’t own one of those cabin cruisers you see parked out there all the time?”

  “No, he just has a little skiff, same as me.”

  “Do you know any of those people?”

  “Just to say hi to.”

  “Really? But you go right past them to get to your plane, no?”

  “The skiffs are around the north side of the marina. Under the deck of the bar? I just row out from there to the plane, so it’s not really conducive to chatting with my neighbours, if you want to call them that.”

  “Do you know any of them by name?”

  “Sure. There’s Matt Morton. He owns a cruiser. I’ve known Matt since high school, although I wouldn’t exactly call us friends. He was kind of a sports guy, and I was more of a—nerd, I guess you could say.”

  “An artistic type,” Delorme suggested.

  “An artistic type!” Rowley grinned. “Exactly. That’s me. Now all I have to find is an art I can master.”

  “You were doing a pretty good Beatles impression, from what I heard. You play professionally?”

  “Just a hobby. I play in a Beatles tribute band. Sergeant Tripper? We play weddings and bar mitzvahs mostly.”

  “Which slot is Mr. Morton in at the marina?” Delorme knew the answer, but detectives learn early always to confirm a fact when the opportunity presents itself.

  “Matt’s moored at the end of number three, on the north side.”

  “Which is where, in relation to you?”

  “About as close as you can be. I mean, sometimes I can see right down into his cabin. Not that I want to, particularly.”

  “Why? Have you ever seen anything disturbing?”

  “In Matt’s boat? No, nothing at all.”

  “How would you describe Mr. Morton?”

  “Matt? I don’t know. Medium-sized kind of guy. Used to play football in high school. Brown hair going grey—like all of us. Not that I’ve got much to worry about.” He grinned and rubbed a hand over his pate, missing the flour.

  “Any kids?”

  “A boy and a girl, I think. I don’t remember their names.”

  “What about the slot opposite to Mr. Morton?”

  “The south side? I don’t know them. Huge boat, though.”

  According to Jeff Quigly and the marina’s records, the slot was rented by one André Ferrier. The rent was always paid on time, but the marina hardly ever saw him.

  Delorme took down the information, then snapped her notebook shut. “Like I said, Mr. Rowley, at this point I’m just looking for witnesses. You’ve been very helpful.”

  She gave him her card. On her way to the front door she tried to catch glimpses of other rooms, but there were no walls, no objects, no furnishings—nothing obvious, anyway—that matched the settings in the photographs.

  “If I think of anything else, I’ll give you a call,” Rowley said. “But I’ve sure as hell never met anybody out there who seemed capable of assault.”

  “You might be surprised,” Delorme said. “I’m constantly amazed by who turns out to be capable of what.”

  18

  FREDERICK BELL FINISHED HIS strawberry shortcake and scraped up the last dabs of whipped cream with his fork.

  “Are you sure this is low-fat?” he asked his wife, Dorothy, who was organizing things in the fridge.

  “I got it out of Heart Healthy,” she said, her voice muffled a little by the fridge door. “It’s not high-calorie.”

  “But that’s if you only eat one serving. What if you find yourself lusting for another?”

  “You don’t get another.” Dorothy laid claim to a large store of common sense. It had served her well in her years as a nurse, and it served her equally well as a psychiatrist’s wife. “If you have another piece, you’re just defeating the purpose of reduced calories.”

  “I’ve devoted my life to missing the point and defeating the purpose. I don’t see why I should stop now.” Bell swallowed the last of his tea. It was cold, but he didn’t mind cold tea; tea of any kind was good. Some British habits died hard.

  “I found a really charming little cottage near Nottingham,” Dorothy said. “I left the picture for you on your desk. I don’t suppose you looked at it yet.”

  “Alas, I have failed you once again.”

  “Frederick, what’s so hard about taking a look at a picture?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I just haven’t accepted this idea of retiring back in England.”

  “We’ve talked about it. I thought we agreed we’d both be happiest there. It’s a pretty little place, a short walk from the sea. And it’s near the Trent river. You’ve always said you wanted to live near water when you retire.”