visitors screened during the day?”
“No,” he said, “but it’s pretty busy during the day. You’d have to be crazy to expect to get away with harming a patient without getting caught.”
“Crazy is just what I’m afraid of,” I said.
“Security is aware of Bobbi’s situation and will be keeping an eye on her. Look, Bobbi isn’t the first assault victim who’s been here for a while. We haven’t lost one yet.”
I was comforted, but not much.
chapter seven
The strangely unseasonable weather had moved in again. Fog haloed the street lamps, the lights of the cars and shops, the bulbs strung along the frame of the freight crane in the parking lot, hanging like a shroud over False Creek and cool on my face as I walked from my car toward the ramp down to Sea Village. It had been only two days since Bobbi’s attack and I told myself it was unreasonable to expect the police to have made much headway in the case, but I was discouraged nonetheless. Nor was I encouraged by the rate of Bobbi’s progress. I blamed it on being raised on television, where the bright young detective catches the bad guys or the brilliant but irascible doctor pulls his patient back from the brink of death just in time for the final commercial break. Real life didn’t work like that, I had to remind myself. In real life, the bad guys often got away. In real life, likely as not the doctor working on your kid’s case had graduated at the bottom of his class, drank too much, and was in the middle of a messy divorce. Who needed real life?
A man was sitting on the bench under the lamppost by the top of the ramp, wreathed in fog and cigarette smoke. He stood as I approached, a little unsteady on his feet, dropped the cigarette, and ground it out under his toe. It was Norman Brooks. Swell, I thought. Reality, as someone once said, bit. After which, I supposed, it sucked.
“Were you at the hospital?” Brooks asked gruffly, breath stinking of alcohol.
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
“The same. Haven’t you visited her today?”
He lowered his head. “They kicked me out.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I bet.”
“Maybe you should try visiting her sober,” I said. He stiffened. “Fuck you,” he growled.
“Good night, Mr. Brooks,” I said, and started down the ramp.
He grabbed my right arm in a vice-like grip. “Don’t you walk away from me. I want to talk to you.”
I twisted free. He’d hit a nerve, literally, and my right hand tingled painfully. “Go home,” I said, rubbing my arm. “Get sober. Then maybe we’ll talk.”
“Jesus, you’re an asshole. I don’t know why my daughter thinks you’re so great to work for. I think you’re a pussy.”
“You’re mixing your meta-orifices,” I said.
He growled deep in his throat. “I know my daughter was assaulted on that boat, but I figure it was really you they were after. You pissed somebody off.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I agreed glibly.
“Was it this Waverley guy? You fucking his old lady or something? I heard she’s not too fussy. Or maybe you put nude pictures of her on the Internet. I checked you out. You like taking dirty pictures. Like of those lezzy twin sisters who run that porn website downstairs from your studio.”
“First,” I said, “I don’t know Mr. or Mrs. Waverley, carnally or otherwise, so I’ve no idea when or how I might have pissed either of them off. Second, as for taking nude photographs, it’s a dirty business, but someone has to do it. And third, Bobbi and I both work on Meg and Peg Castle’s annual calendar. They’re nice people, by the way, both married with kids.” I wondered if he knew that when Bobbi was in university she’d earned extra money by posing nude for life study classes. If not, it wasn’t my place to tell him. “And four, even if Mr. Waverley wanted to beat the crap out of me for some reason, why take it out on Bobbi?”
“So it was one of your drug-smuggling pals looking to settle a score.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “I don’t know any drug smugglers.” Well, maybe I did. Sort of …
“Don’t give me that wide-eyed innocent crap,” Brooks said. “I told you, I checked you out. I’ve still got connections. Christopher Hastings and his girlfriend were smuggling dope to the States in that old boat of his, till someone set fire to it. Hell, for all I know, it was you that did it. Now she’s your girlfriend and she’s graduated from dope smuggling to making cheap porn.”
“Now that you’re retired from the Mounties,” I said, “I hope you aren’t planning to set up shop as a private detective.”
“Eh? Why?”
“Because you’re a lousy investigator. Maybe Chris Hastings was smuggling dope in his boat. I wouldn’t know. I didn’t know him that well. I certainly wouldn’t call him a friend. As for Reeny, she doesn’t make cheap porn, she makes science fiction, and while it may be cheesy, it’s far from cheap.”
He shook himself, a little like a dog shaking off water.
“Tell me about the broad who hired you.”
“No, I don’t think I will. Besides, other than a physical description, which likely doesn’t mean much, there’s nothing to tell. Now, if you’ll pardon me, it’s late and I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
“I’m not done with you yet.”
“But I’m done with you,” I said. “You’re no longer a police officer, Mr. Brooks. Look, I know you’re upset about Bobbi. So am I. But blundering drunkenly about making a nuisance of yourself isn’t going to help her. Go home. Sober up. Then maybe they’ll let you in to see your daughter.”
“I don’t believe you about the Waverley woman. I think you do know her and that she or her old man is involved in Bobbi getting hurt. I’m gonna find out how. And if I find out it was you they were really after, that she just got in the way, I’ll pound the living shit out of you myself. Don’t think I won’t.”
He turned, a little too quickly, losing his balance and almost falling. He braced himself on the railing at the top of the ramp, regained his balance, and walked away with exaggerated precision. I hoped he wasn’t driving, but as I watched, he dug keys out of his pocket and fumbled at the door of a big GMC four-by-four parked in one of the spaces reserved for the staff of the Emily Carr Institute.
“Shit,” I muttered and trotted over to him. “You’re in no condition to drive,” I said. “Why don’t you take a cab home? I’ll put your truck in one of the Sea Village spaces so it won’t get towed.”
He got the door open and climbed into the truck. “I got here, didn’t I?”
“Probably blind luck,” I said. “Look, it won’t
