By the Time You Read This

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.”