Always Watching

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Frustrated about our visit and regretting some things I’d said, I’d planned to head straight back down to Victoria, but I drove around the east side of the lake, back through the village, so I could fill up on gas. While I waited in the car for the attendant, I caught sight of the corner store, a cream-colored wood building, with blue trim, where my mother had first met those commune members. Dread ran over my body as I remembered how anxious I’d been that day, watching her talk to them and sensing danger in the air. The store had changed over the years. Now a small outdoor café was attached to the side, where some teenagers sat on the tables, braving the cold for a cigarette, laughing, and texting on their phones.

I flashed to waiting in our old pickup truck, while Robbie and Levi approached a pair of teenage girls as they rested on the front steps of the store with their backpacks, drinking Dr Peppers in the sun. Their lives had probably changed forever when they decided to climb into the back of our truck and come out to the commune for a swim. I tried to think of their names, but they just blended with the other young women at the commune, all tanned with long hair, blissed out on pot and freedom. The only one who ever stood out was Willow. I wondered how she came to be at the commune, tried to think back, but nothing came to mind. Then I remembered that the community museum was just around the corner. After I paid for my gas, I parked my car in front of the small yellow building, thinking that I’d just pop in and see if they had any photos from the sixties.

The door jangled as I pushed it open. A woman, maybe early thirties, with blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, was sitting behind a glass counter covered with calendars and postcards. Below in the display case, logging tools, a railway spike, and books rested on red velvet. Behind her on the wall there was a framed artist-drawn map of Shawnigan Lake. There were also some photos of the Kinsol trestle, one with the old train crossing, steam billowing out from behind.

The woman set down the book she’d been reading and smiled. “Welcome to the Shawnigan Lake Museum.”

I smiled back. “Hello.” As I browsed around, I focused on some black-and-white photos hanging on the wall, rich people summering at the lake. Lost in thought, I heard her say something but didn’t catch the words.

I turned. “Pardon me?”

She said, “Are you visiting Shawnigan for the first time?”

“No, I grew up here.”

“Oh, yeah?” She studied my face. “Where did you live?”

“Out toward the trestle—but it was a long time ago. I live in Victoria now.”

“It’s being rebuilt.” I’d already noticed all the photos of the Kinsol trestle, happy to see they were fixing it up. It had been one of my favorite places when I was growing up, somewhere I went for comfort. It was the largest wooden trestle in the Commonwealth and one of the highest in the world. Years ago it had been burned in the middle by some students, and it came with its own tragic past. A young man had committed suicide by hanging himself from a beam.

I said, “Actually, maybe you can help me. There used to be some hippies living out by the river….”

“You mean the commune?” She cocked her head, waiting for the rest of my question.

Fear crawled down my legs, the sense of opening doors that should be left closed. “Do you know anyone in town who might remember them?” Other than me, who wasn’t sure she wanted to remember.

“Hmm. Don’t know….” She wrinkled her nose.

I glanced down at the book in her hand—it was a book on the history of the Malahat and Shawnigan Lake.

Noticing the direction of my gaze, she said, “I’m obsessed with history.” She smiled guiltily and shrugged.

“Well, there are certainly plenty of stories and legends about Shawnigan.”

She leaned over the counter, her eyes wide. “You mean like all the drownings?”

Growing up, I’d heard that the First Nations refused to come anywhere near the lake, saying it was cursed. Legend had it that there’d been a war between two tribes that took place in the center of the lake. The boats had capsized, drowning everyone, but their bodies had never been recovered. When we were young, and our parents took us to Mason’s Beach to swim, I’d been terrified, thinking the weeds touching my legs were ghostly arms reaching up from below. I assumed that was what she was referring to now, but I said, “The First Nations drownings?”

She nodded. “Those, and two others as well. One couple was killed in a speedboat accident. And there was a logger who drowned waterskiing. They couldn’t find the bodies, so they had to dynamite the lake… then they floated up.”

We looked at each other. I imagined bloated white bodies drifting up from the deep, felt the skin tingle at the back of my neck.

She added, “There’ve been lots of suicides too.”

I thought of my mother, wondered if the locals considered her death one of the tragedies or one of the suicides. The museum walls pressed in on me, my chest tightened, and I felt hot all over. I had to get out of there.

Take a moment, relax your throat. You are not your panic.

After a couple of beats, when I pretended to be studying a photo on the wall while I waited for my heart rate to settle, I said, “Yes, Shawnigan does have a fascinating history. I was hoping to find out a little more myself. That’s why I asked about the commune. I’d love to talk to some locals who lived here back in the sixties, and who might remember them. I’m looking for some old friends.”

“You know who you should talk to? Larry Van Horne. He still lives out on Silver Mine Road.” She pointed to one of the walls. “He donated some of the photos.” I looked in the direction she had pointed and noticed a photo of a logging truck. “That was his. He called it Big Red.” She laughed. “If you want some stories, he’ll have them. But he can be kind of grumpy.”

“That’s great. Thanks for the lead.”

I purchased one of the framed maps of Shawnigan, wondering if I should ask for her silence, but I had a feeling that it might just draw more attention to the matter, so I decided to leave it alone. As I walked out of the museum, I noticed a tall, ginger-haired man using the pay phone on the front porch of the corner store. He caught my gaze, then turned around. I had an odd feeling of connection, like I knew him somehow, but he laughed into the phone, and the moment was gone.

The woman at the museum had said Larry was in the big log house at the end of the road, and she wasn’t kidding—it was huge. I parked out front and walked up to the front steps, where I was greeted by an old white cat who hobbled out on stiff legs.

The door opened, and a short man, barrel-chested and wearing a gray wool Long John top with denim jeans, suspenders, and a faded blue baseball cap squished down on sparse gray hair, said, “Yes?”

I came up the steps. “Hi, Larry, my name is Nadine Lavoie. I was just—”

“Do I know you?” He squinted at me, and I wondered if he might’ve seen me in Shawnigan when I was a child, but surely he wouldn’t still remember me.

“I don’t think so. I was just at the museum and the woman there—”

“Beth.” His voice was gruff, his body language tense as he sized me up.

“Well, Beth said that you’d be a good person to talk to.” I was starting to wonder about that theory. But I wasn’t sure if his grumpy demeanor was genuine or just a defense mechanism, so I pressed on. “I’m trying to find some people who remember a commune that was here in the late sixties.”

Bushy gray brows pulled down over watery eyes. “Why you asking?”

“We knew some people there, when I was a child, and I’m hoping to track down some old friends.”

He continued to assess me, looking at my car, then back at me. Finally, he said, “Come in.” He shuffled into the house, reminding me of a sailor as he rolled from side to side. I followed him to his kitchen, noticing as I passed that the living room was dark, the curtains pulled. On the kitchen counter a small TV was blaring a hockey game, which he switched off, and there was a little table pushed against one wall, with a cheerful sprig of flowers in a glass Mason jar. He caught my gaze, said stiffly, “Just ’cause I’m a bachelor doesn’t mean I don’t like pretty things.”

I smiled politely, but thought it better not to say anything.

He looked around his kitchen, like he was trying to remember what you do when you have a guest. Then he said, “Coffee? Just made a pot.”

“Sure, I’d love some.”

He poured two cups, motioning for me to sit when I made to help. He shuffled over to the table, his gnarled hands shaking as he carefully set a mug in front of me.

“So what do you want to know?”

I took a sip of coffee, wondering how to form my question. I decided it was better to start off casual.

“Well, it was a long time ago, but I just wondered if anyone was still in town.”

“Not that I know of. They all moved down to Victoria. They were there, and then next time I drove by the site with my truck, they were gone.”

“That’s right, Beth mentioned the truck. I heard some of them sabotaged logging equipment….” I’d heard it myself at the commune, but I left that part out.

He sat back in his chair, his big hand plucking and pulling at his suspender, like it had suddenly grown too tight. He studied my face again. “You still live around here?”

“No, Victoria, but I have family in the area.” I didn’t want to give him too much information, so I just said, “We lived near the commune and used to ride our bikes out there to swim sometimes. My brother and I, we got to know a few of the kids. They were nice to us, but I remember rumors.”

“They were a strange bunch. Okay for the most part.” Again he gave me a look, like he was evaluating me, trying to figure out what I was really about.

“You met them?”

“Yeah, I stopped my rig and hung out by their campfire a couple of times. I was trying to tell them that they shouldn’t hobble the horses.”

I’d forgotten how scared I’d been for the horses when I was a child, knowing they could break a leg easily on all the trees on the ground. But I couldn’t remember ever seeing Larry at the site. I was surprised Aaron allowed it.

He was still talking. “They liked to lecture me on logging, so I’d let them. Heck, why not, pretty women with hardly any clothes.” He smiled, his face slightly turned away, looking at me from the corner of his eyes, gauging my reaction. “I used to give them rides when they were hitchhiking into town. They’d accept a lift in a logging truck, and then all the way to the village they’d give me holy hell for killing trees.” He laughed, but he started coughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. He reached for some cough drops on the table, I pushed them toward him, about to get him some water, but he motioned that he was okay. His cat climbed up on the table, and he pulled it into his lap. It made me think of the stray near my house. I’d been checking her box every day since the catfight but there’d been no sign of her.

When the coughing spell had stopped, he shook his head, and wheezed, “Getting old isn’t any fun.”

“No, it isn’t.”

The polite exchange over, he met my gaze. “That all you wanted to know?”

It was clear he wanted me gone, so I had nothing to lose. “Do you remember a girl named Willow?”

He stared off like he was thinking. “Don’t think so….”

“She had long, caramel-colored hair, big brown eyes, she was only about seventeen. Maybe you gave her a ride into town, say late July?”

“That was over forty years ago. I’m lucky if I remember what I did yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. I know it’s a stretch.”

“I’d say. But I wished I did remember her, she sounds like a looker.” He gave a bawdy laugh and instead of it being amusing, it struck me as wrong, this old man mentally leering at a seventeen-year-old. He said, “Why you asking?”

“She was just someone I remembered. I wondered if she was still in Shawnigan. I think she ran away from the commune or something.”

“Far as I recall, most people were running to the commune, not away from it.”

We held gazes. Again I wondered if he recognized me. Or had he known my mother? I looked down at my mug, took the last swallow of bitter coffee, and said, “Well, I’ve used up enough of your time. I should get going.”

I stood up, and he followed, shuffling behind. I paused at the door when I noticed a painting of a small boy picking berries. It reminded me of Finn, and I wondered if Larry knew anything about the case.

“I heard a little boy also died out there….”

His eyes widened, but then closed back down. He nodded. “That was a bad bit of business. Parents smoking too much wacky tobacky, and the kid dies in a puddle.”

“That’s so sad. Do you know if anyone was ever charged?”

“The cop who worked the case, Steve Phillips, he’s retired now, but he’s still in Shawnigan. You’d have to ask him about that.”

I nodded. “Thanks for the information. It was interesting.”

He just grunted.

At the bottom of the stairs, I turned around. “I’d love to talk to that officer. Do you know where he lives?”

We held gazes again, his revealing nothing, then he said, “He lives by the provincial park. Big white house at the end of Minnow Lane—he’s got a camper in the front.”

I knew the area well. In the summer evenings, after we’d been hauling hay all day, our dad would stop at the park and we’d race through the dark trails in the forest, over the open field into the water, washing away the hay and sweat.

“Thanks, that’s very helpful.” The words were barely out before he’d shut the door. But a corner of his blind lifted up as I backed down the driveway.

I felt him watching me until I’d turned around and driven off.