She Felt No Pain Read Online Free
to admire the ocean.” View spots were magnets to fresh arrivals from the urban mainland. If they didn’t run off the road in slack-jawed amazement, they were likely to screech off onto the berm, flattening the sword fern. Jaded residents were used to seeing the ocean lapping at the front door and only wondered when a tsunami might knock. A sunny Sunday might be the one day they’d go to the beach unless they were surfers monitoring the happy convergence of high tide and gale-force winds.
TWO
O n my way,” Holly said. On the temperate south island with snow and freezing temperatures rare as walruses, the homeless lived in “paradise”. The truth was that the brutal, uncompromising rains of winter made life equally problematic. Green moss or black mould grew on everything that didn’t pulsate and much that did. In Sooke, with more population and resources, the homeless had a better support system. One of the churches served a weekly meal, the Salvation Army pitched in, and the Salvation Army provided cheap clothing, gear and blankets. People said with humanitarian pride that they knew their “street people” by name, and they were usually harmless, trundling bottles or cans for returns to the supermarkets and basking in July sunshine on the green near the BC Liquors.
She collected Marilyn, filled a jerry can with gas at the Petro-Canada and put it in the trunk, smiling off the woman’s twenty-dollar bill. “Your tax dollars at work,” she said with a grin.
Ten minutes later back at the Shirley turn, they filled the tank, and the engine started purring immediately. Once again, riding a wave of sorrow, Marilyn’s lips quivered as she offered a departing wave of thanks. “Bless you.”
Holly watched the dowager silver Audi make steady progress down the road, disappearing over a hill. Everyone handled grief differently, but Marilyn seemed to have a core as strong as the muscles common to her trade. Then Holly covered the next few kilometres to the detachment at tiny Fossil Bay. Set in a community of only a few hundred, the outlier post of three officers handled policing another fifty kilometres of blacktop west to Port Renfrew. From there a logging road looped back up to Lake Cowichan, home of yet another of the 126 detachments in British Columbia’s E Division, the largest in Canada with over six thousand employees.
The white frame building with a cedar-shingle roof was a refurbished cottage with an entrance room, where Corporal Ann Troy and rookie Constable Chipper Knox Singh had their desks, filing cabinets and computers. Remaining were Holly’s office, a lunchroom, a small bathroom, and dark and drear interrogation room. Suspicious of the black mould that lurked under the old linoleum, Holly hoped to update when the budget allowed. The furniture consisted of castoffs from larger detachments, with chipped corners and mummifying duct tape. Holly had made some progress in getting the rooms painted and put up a few landscape prints, but here was the equivalent of Fort Zinderneuf on a day off. Truth was that the post would probably be disbanded before it was remodelled.
Coming through the squeaky front door, she left her hat in the closet, where three sturdy black umbrellas were planted in a stand. With the rains of winter and spring over, they had now entered the dry season. The danger of forest fires replaced floods. Holly took a reusable plastic cup of water from the cooler and sipped. “Tell me more about the complaint, Ann. I checked Bailey Bridge last week. Just an old fire pit and a dozen beer bottles. Did our volunteers report anything recently?” A squad of retirees and youngsters on bicycles made their job easier by reporting suspicious vehicles and property damage. A small percentage of the citizens of Fossil Bay operated their homes as mere summer cottages, so the occasional break-in often went unnoticed.
Ann rose to stretch her aching back as the palsied arm of the wall clock shuddered to nine
TWO
O n my way,” Holly said. On the temperate south island with snow and freezing temperatures rare as walruses, the homeless lived in “paradise”. The truth was that the brutal, uncompromising rains of winter made life equally problematic. Green moss or black mould grew on everything that didn’t pulsate and much that did. In Sooke, with more population and resources, the homeless had a better support system. One of the churches served a weekly meal, the Salvation Army pitched in, and the Salvation Army provided cheap clothing, gear and blankets. People said with humanitarian pride that they knew their “street people” by name, and they were usually harmless, trundling bottles or cans for returns to the supermarkets and basking in July sunshine on the green near the BC Liquors.
She collected Marilyn, filled a jerry can with gas at the Petro-Canada and put it in the trunk, smiling off the woman’s twenty-dollar bill. “Your tax dollars at work,” she said with a grin.
Ten minutes later back at the Shirley turn, they filled the tank, and the engine started purring immediately. Once again, riding a wave of sorrow, Marilyn’s lips quivered as she offered a departing wave of thanks. “Bless you.”
Holly watched the dowager silver Audi make steady progress down the road, disappearing over a hill. Everyone handled grief differently, but Marilyn seemed to have a core as strong as the muscles common to her trade. Then Holly covered the next few kilometres to the detachment at tiny Fossil Bay. Set in a community of only a few hundred, the outlier post of three officers handled policing another fifty kilometres of blacktop west to Port Renfrew. From there a logging road looped back up to Lake Cowichan, home of yet another of the 126 detachments in British Columbia’s E Division, the largest in Canada with over six thousand employees.
The white frame building with a cedar-shingle roof was a refurbished cottage with an entrance room, where Corporal Ann Troy and rookie Constable Chipper Knox Singh had their desks, filing cabinets and computers. Remaining were Holly’s office, a lunchroom, a small bathroom, and dark and drear interrogation room. Suspicious of the black mould that lurked under the old linoleum, Holly hoped to update when the budget allowed. The furniture consisted of castoffs from larger detachments, with chipped corners and mummifying duct tape. Holly had made some progress in getting the rooms painted and put up a few landscape prints, but here was the equivalent of Fort Zinderneuf on a day off. Truth was that the post would probably be disbanded before it was remodelled.
Coming through the squeaky front door, she left her hat in the closet, where three sturdy black umbrellas were planted in a stand. With the rains of winter and spring over, they had now entered the dry season. The danger of forest fires replaced floods. Holly took a reusable plastic cup of water from the cooler and sipped. “Tell me more about the complaint, Ann. I checked Bailey Bridge last week. Just an old fire pit and a dozen beer bottles. Did our volunteers report anything recently?” A squad of retirees and youngsters on bicycles made their job easier by reporting suspicious vehicles and property damage. A small percentage of the citizens of Fossil Bay operated their homes as mere summer cottages, so the occasional break-in often went unnoticed.
Ann rose to stretch her aching back as the palsied arm of the wall clock shuddered to nine
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