Holly Martin Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Lou Allin
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“grandfather” to let him hold the light. Losing patience, the old man threw the sphere to the child. Retransformed into a bird, Raven caught the light in his beak, flew out of the smokehole and escaped to bring sunshine to the world.
Suddenly she felt a squeezing in her chest. Was he admitting guilt by showing it to her? No one would be that stupid, or was it a clever ruse? “When did she give this to you?” It hadn’t always been in her mother’s life, though often it was unseen, nestled between her breasts to “keep it warm.” Had Holly noticed it first around the time she left for university? A milestone? The end of her dependence on the concept of family? Did that ever end?
“I brought it back from a trip to the Queen Charlottes and gave it to her. It’s Haida, a talisman. Very old. A hundred years, the seller said. It was tarnished when I found it, but I polished it. Cleaned up nicely.” He gave an ironic shrug. “Little good it did her.”
“And she gave it back? Why?” His alibi was solid. What did this mean?
“No. I found it.”
“How do you know it’s the same one?” she asked. He hadn’t answered her question about “when,” but she’d figured it out.
He pointed to a small scratch on the sun. “As I told you, it was an old piece. We thought that the flaw added character, a story within a story.”
He was right. Her mother had postulated that Raven had bumped into an overhanging branch as he left the house. Suddenly her eyes felt wet, betraying her, and she blinked. She leaned forward, and he sat back, splaying his large hands on the desk. Clearly he had no intention of removing it. “Then how did you get...when did—”
One of his stubby fingers waggled at her. “Not so fast. Here’s what happened.” He lit a fresh cigarette and opened the window. “Thank god there are no smoke alarms in here...yet. Damn nicotine Nazis.”
Holly felt pressure build behind her temples. Gall owned some precious part of her mother. She wanted to throttle him, to wrench the necklace from his chest. Bridge the gap to her mother with something intimate and palpable.
“She saw the rawhide getting thin. You can buy replacement strips at craft stores.”
A flame long guttering sprang to life. “So then what?”
He sat back in an odd reflective mood as if puzzling out the situation step by step. “That’s the funny part. I do some family counselling for the CASA in Sooke. They gave me clothes to take to the St. Vincent de Paul depot. That’s when I saw it. Must have been a couple of years after she...left.”
“Someone was wearing it?”
“No. It had been attached to a fresh piece of leather and was in their jewellery display. Costume junk for kids and teenagers.”
It might have been there for a while. She knew the cramped little building that provided cheap clothes, bedding, furniture, the occasional toy or bike for those with meager resources. “Did you ask where it came from?”
“One of the part-time clerks at the depot washes cars at Westcoast Collision. Got sucked up in the vacuum, he said. He heard a funny sound but didn’t think anything of it until days later when he changed the bag. The occasional spare change turns up. There was the amulet. The leather thong was broken. Didn’t like Indian stuff, he said, so he donated it. Someone else fixed it.”
Holly sat back in amazement. Back only a few weeks, and now this. If she’d been here from the first... Something hurt in her throat as her voice rose. “But the car, the truck, whose was it?”
With care and reverence, he tucked Raven back into his shirt. “I tried to find out. They do a hundred vehicles a week, more in tourist season. The kid’s honest but not that bright. He thinks it might have been a luxury car, like a Buick, leather seats. Maybe an SUV.” He tapped his temple in a “nobody home” gesture.
“That’s not much help.” She shot him a look. “Did you go to the police?”
“Bastards told me their resources were too stretched to expend any energy on a cold case. Years had passed. How did they even know this belonged to her? Others could have owned one. I lost my temper, tossed some papers around, and they threw me out. End of story.”
She gazed out the window to where students trudged back and forth in the quad, burrowing under umbrellas in the pounding rain. Her thoughts running too fast to express in any coherence, she let silence fill the musty room. Gall’s eyes followed her. From contempt or interest? Could she trust this man?
“Something occur to you?” His tone was cautious. As he lit another cigarette, his sleeve moved up his arm, revealing a medical bracelet, which indicated some vulnerability, from mere allergies to serious heart problems.
“Was she wearing it the night she disappeared? That’s the important point.”
He shrugged, reached for a cold cup of coffee. He hadn’t offered her any, but judging from the rime on the cracked cup, that was fortunate. “The last time I saw her, yes. A few days before Calgary.”
Rising slowly, she eyed the pile of letters. “I have to go. Any chance you’ll let me look at those?”
“What the hell for? There’s nothing relevant to her disappearance. You’ll have to believe me.”
“Why should I? I just found out that you exist.”
He grinned. “Funny, but you sound like your mother.” He glanced at the copier. “It might be painful for you. But if you’re sure you can handle it, why not? You’re a big girl.”
He made duplicates of the letters, put them in a brown envelope, and handed it to her. Then he picked up another CD. Women of the World, acoustic music by some of the world’s leading female artists. “Take this. I bought it for her last week. I’m always buying her things, almost forgetting that she’s...gone.” Holly took the gift with thanks. She hadn’t expected to like him, but the gesture was kind. He was exposing his wounds to her. “What do you think happened to my...to Bonnie?”
He took his time replying, as if the process opened deep wounds long scabbed over. “She was headed past Gold River, then up some backroads over to Tahsis on the west coast. Something about setting up an information centre, making contacts, that sort of thing. Helluva wild country, but she’d dare anything with that bloody Bronco. Last she called me was from a motel in Campbell River. The rains were bad that weekend. Even snow at the higher altitudes. It’s possible that she might have run off the road and never been found.”
“As simple as that?” The words were dust in her mouth. Somewhere, if she looked long enough... She couldn’t finish her own thought.
“Despite the notorious clear-cuts and the publicity about Clayoquot Sound, most of this island is still wild and lonely territory. But think about this: If you’re going to help good women get away from bad men, those men aren’t going to love you. They’re substance abusers, and they’re violent. The worst have served time. Their women and children are their only possessions.”
“Anyone come to mind?” How much did he know about Bonnie’s work?
“So many ugly cases over the years. She didn’t discuss names with me. Breach of ethics. And in a small community, I might even know the person.” His eyes were slightly narrowed, as if sizing her up. “So now that you’ve met the ogre in his den, what are your plans?”
“I’m posted to Fossil Bay now, and I have access to records. There’s a chance we might find out what happened to her.” She was conscious of using the word “we”, and suddenly felt traitorous towards her father. But surely they all had the same goal. “I’ll stay in touch if anything turns up.”
He tossed her one last question. Impertinent or frank. “Are you going to show the letters to the old man?”
The Old Man. She supposed he meant in it in the vernacular. Her father would never be old, would he? Mustering her dignity, with an even voice, she answered, “And