“Chipper, listen,” she said after she hung up.
As she filled him in, his soft brown suede eyes narrowed, a transformation from boy to man. “Very bad stuff. I knew a guy who went to sh—I mean fell apart getting on it. Gave up everything. He lost his job, went three times to a rehab centre. It never stuck. Don’t know where he is, and I don’t want to know.” His sudden passion seemed to indicate that the person might have been close, a relative or friend. She thought of asking, but saw his jaw quiver as he grew silent, looking out the window to where a steroidal seagull was dueling with a crow over a crust of bread.
“Whitehouse is going to have a heart attack. He thought he’d seen the back of us.” She left a message on his voice mail at West Shore. Accident or something worse, the development called for more interviews and certainly a search of Angie’s room. Breaking the news at the Didrickson house, the last thing on Holly’s mind had been an intrusive search. Had her bereaved father already cleaned out the room or left it intact like a family shrine? At one household she’d visited, the mother had showed her the perfectly preserved room of their baby who had died in its cradle ten years before. Angie’s room probably had a computer. What about a diary or other information about her relationships?
She closed her fist as the wind rose and a flurry of rain smashed the window like bullets. Somebody knew where that meth came from. Suddenly she felt as if they weren’t in Kansas any more. With drugs knocking at the door, even Toto wasn’t safe.
Five
She drove down West Coast Road through corridors where massive Douglas firs had fueled life for over a century. Now that the rains and cooler weather had arrived, the smell of wood fires filled the air, despite B.C. Hydro’s fourth cheapest power in North America. Many retired neighbours, who had long careers in the forestry industry and enjoyed access to the scrap lots, appreciated the free heat. Suddenly a clear-cut broke the sylvan dream, a few token trees left standing amid the wreckage.
Long rows of power poles marched by the roadside, fragile nineteenth-century technology. After every storm in which lines were taken by falling trees, calls came for the wires to be buried. In new subdivisions, they were. Otherwise, the cost was prohibitive.
The microcosm of the timber industry on Vancouver Island continued. On one side, like a miniature graveyard with tiny white stakes for monuments, were acres of trial seedlings. On the another, a forest planted in 1948. Trees a foot and a half in diameter for six decades of growth. Her mother had been born that year.
On Otter Point Place at last, she crested the sloping driveway and parked her car behind her father’s toy-sized Smart Car, bright red with a bumptious attitude. A muted bark caught her attention. The hillside overlooking the strait resembled a bandshell, reverberating with sounds from all directions. Next door lived Katie, a black lab. Up the hill on the next parallel street, Randy’s Place, were several dogs and a new litter of puppies. She pushed open the back door and found a furry head in her groin. A border collie, young and agile and ready for play. White paint seemed to have been spilled down its ebony head in perfect symmetry. Strange to see a dog in the house after all this time. Bruna had been part of her childhood, followed by Nikon. He’d gone to Rainbow Bridge a month after her mother had vanished. After that, closing himself off to all comforting connections with the excuse that any dog was too much expense and trouble, her father had lived a solitary life.
“What’s going on?” she called as she ruffled its silken fir and traced its ribs ever so slightly, a sign of fitness. “Where did this guy come from? Is it a stray? It looks too healthy to have been on its own for long.”
Her father came through the TV room with a dishcloth in his hand. The smell of liver and onions made her stomach lurch. Doing the shopping for him, she had stocked Chef Boy-ar-dee ravioli in the cupboard, her default meal.
“He’s a rescue. Got him today,” he said. “And he’s been neutered already. A bonus.”
“Why have you been keeping this a secret?” she asked with a nervous laugh. It was his house, and he could do what he wished. His occasional sadness worried her, though he always seemed to pull himself together. Company might smooth things out. As for the comical but shallow breed, there was no accounting for tastes. On the island, border collies could do no wrong. They had free passes for any mischief.
His lean and serious face seemed to relax as he petted the animal. His eyebrows were growing fuzzy and unruly, another sign of an old man. “Suppose I have. Just wanted to think it over. I’ve seen him over by Wink’s at the soccer field. There’s a rescue place on Sooke River Road. Run by a lady called Shannon.”
“Why a border collie?” She didn’t like to discourage her father, but everyone knew that breed was high energy. This wasn’t a farm. It wasn’t even fully fenced, with the front open and one side a hedge of cedars.
“Thanks to the wise breeding of working dogs, their health is excellent and their disposition generally good. I know you loved our sheps, but their health problems cost a fortune. And this man doesn’t eat more than two cups of kibble a day. A few quality treats like bison sticks are allowed. Very economical.”
“But what about exercise? Aren’t they pretty demanding?” Watching her watch him, the dog wheeled, grabbed a rope tugger and presented it to her.
“Depends on the individual. But Hogan/Logan can settle down quickly, and he’s already house-trained, so that’s another plus. I’d never take on a new pup. Bonnie always kept each shepherd in bed with us and trained them in two weeks flat. She’d get up at all hours of the night to take them out.” He reached over and pulled out a bag with tennis balls and Chuck-it wand. “Shannon suggested running him off his feet with this device. Modern version of the atlatl.” He mimed a toss, and she ducked as she laughed.
“Hogan/Logan? Did a poet wannabe name him? Or does he have a split personality?” She succumbed and gave the rope a tug up and down and from side to side. The dog fixed her gaze with the same insane focus that genes had given him for sheep. Was he one hundred per cent nature, or would nurture play a role?
Her father sighed. “He’s had a sad history. His first owner wanted a rescue dog to help her train for marathons, but was refused because she worked long hours. She got a pup from a breeder.”
“Marathons. It’s a dog’s dream. Plenty of exercise.”
“Shannon said that pups shouldn’t run those distances.
And the rest of the time she left him alone in a yard in Esquimalt fourteen hours a day. He barked his brains out.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Though not warming to the animal, she felt sorry for his bad luck.
“So she gave him up. Points for one good decision. For the last six months, he’s been in foster homes. They changed his name to Logan.”
“Enough already.” Holly snapped her fingers at Hogan/ Logan and pointed away. To his credit, the dog stopped pestering her, picked up a ball and turned to the other human. “Logan’s even worse. Any ideas?”
Jackie and Bryan’s diesel truck chugged up the drive next door. The dog dropped the ball and gave a roaring bark. Thirty pounds of attack dog. “Small guy, big voice. Doesn’t he sound like a warrior, like...a Shogun?”
But when she tried to pet him, the dog growled and veered away. “What’s that about?” she asked.
Her father waved his hand. “He’s
