Never Hug a Mugger on Quadra Island Read Online Free PDF Page A

glanced at his watch: 11:10. Plenty of time to get on the noon ferry if this wasn’t July; with all the summer people there might be an overload.
    Jason may have been thinking this as well. “Come on, let’s get going.”
    They walked back the fifteen minutes to the house, a rambling early 20th-century farmhouse in a clearing, surrounded by small barn, workshop, a couple of storage sheds. Eighty acres of the land had been a working farm—hay, cattle, a few sheep, and a kitchen garden—when Jason’s mother’s father, Harry, was a young man; then Harry had turned the pastures into more woodlot, way less drudgery, soil hadn’t been great in the first place. He’d planted cedar and fir, and found work on the big island. Tim wanted to grow up the way his grandparents had, the farmhouse the comfortable place where Grandpa had lived, where Tim and his family lived. A happy place. Till three weeks ago.
    Tim changed into shorts and a T-shirt, Jason into khakis and a short-sleeved shirt. They each took a banana and an apple and climbed into Jason’s Corolla, deep blue, five years old, and drove down the long dirt drive to the macadam of Gowlland Harbour Road. The woodlot on the farmhouse side of the road belonged to Jason; across the road was Crown land held by Jason on long-term license. Good trees on both sides.
    It was ten minutes to the ferry dock at Quathiaski Cove, four miles. But Tim felt nervous. Sooner they got to Derek’s bedside the better.
    Jason said, “Going to stop for a paper.”
    Tim glanced again at his watch—11:38. He thought, Get the damn paper in Campbell River. He said only, “Is there time?”
    â€œSure.”
    Tim felt the car speed up. Good. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Usually if something seemed wrong, he’d scan it and most often be able to figure out where or how that bit of out-of-placeness leapt the tracks. Not this time. Whoever had beaten Derek couldn’t have had a reason because Derek was simply a nice guy everybody liked. Nothing stolen from the truck, the change in the glove compartment all there in the old film canister, even the ferry ticket card was there, and the truck itself hadn’t been stolen or bashed around. For the dozenth time Tim said, “I’m not getting it, Dad.”
    â€œDerek.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œYep, that’s the question.”
    â€œYou’d think—if it was robbery—”
    Jason shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it.”
    â€œYou think—somebody was mad at Derek?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œDerek couldn’t make anybody mad.”
    â€œI don’t know, Timmy. I just don’t know.”
    At West Road they turned right onto Heriot Bay Road. A couple of hundred meters along, at the school Tim had gone to all his life until last year, they turned right again, passing the Village Square and Niko’s Sushi Bar and Grill, great restaurant once, closed now—Tim hadn’t cared for the sushi but the steaks were great—and on to Q-Cove Plaza. Jason parked in front of the Drugmart, jumped out, went inside, came back in less than a minute with the Mirror . Tim noticed his father check his watch before climbing in behind the wheel.
    Jason started the engine and winked at Tim. “Plenty of time.”
    They drove downhill to the ferry line-up, the Powell River Queen there already. Two and a half rows of cars ahead of them—not that many, usually more on a summer morning. The 8:00 and the 9:00 would’ve likely been overloads, Tim figured, maybe the 11:00 too—Oh, but they were already loading. Maybe they wouldn’t get on? Damn!
    â€œWe’re fine,” said Jason.
    Was Tim that readable? He wished he could be more secretive. He wished he could see into the future. Heck, he’d settle for seeing the past—to see what happened out where Derek got beaten up. And why. Maybe if he could figure out why