She Felt No Pain Read Online Free PDF Page B

gambles with camcorders. Probably he stole it. Is he around?”
    “Went to hock it, ask me.”
    Holly frowned as possibilities tumbled through her mind. “It’s too far to Victoria. More likely he sold it to a kid on the street, or for nothing at a junk shop. What’s his name?” She took out her notebook.
    “Says he’s Derek Dunn. I don’t ask for IDs. Hell, sometimes I change my own middle name. Dick used to be an ordinary handle. Now...” He reached down for a bottle of an over-the-counter painkiller, shook out a few, and showed her one. When she blinked, he washed it down with water from a plastic jug.
    Dating a fresh page, she wrote down the name and got a brief description, including a shortened right index finger which Derek said had been cut in a table-saw accident. “Thanks for the information. I’ll check on it. For the record, how many...people are staying here now?” She could see at least four makeshift tents of tarps, branches, and plastic sheeting, more for privacy than rain protection, since it was dry under the bridge. All she could smell was the briny tang of the ocean. Where did they take their garbage? And where did they do their business? In the woods? She’d peed on her shoe in the bush more than once. If it were a crime to drop trou in the deep and dark, ninety per cent of the province would be in jail.
    He said, “Varies a bit, more on weekends. I draw the line. Should have been a social worker. If a kid tells me he’s been abused, I know where to send him. A youngster didn’t even start shaving came last week. Said his parents were okay with his travelling, but I sent him packing. So...there’s three, counting Joel Hall.” He nudged a thumb toward a sleeping pad on cardboard beside the concrete bridge support. “Haven’t seen him since last night when we had a bit of an altercation. Could be he’s found a lady friend with a soft bed. He’s past fifty but a charmer when he wants to be. You want to hitch into town, any guy with a pickup will stop.”
    Holly gave the scene a final scan. Recently a surprising legal decision had cities scrambling. When the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that since the number of shelter beds was “insufficient” for the area’s needs, the homeless had earned the right to erect tents and sleep overnight in parks. Officials were outraged, since they had just spent tens of thousands cleaning up a camp hidden deep in the dense bush of Mill Hill Park, a wild green space in a millionaire community. The next week, a number of homeless people in Victoria had pitched camp in legendary Beacon Hill Park, managing to squash rare flowers. In a renewed game of push and shove, the city responded by counter-ruling that no fires would be tolerated and that tents had to be taken down by seven each morning. The issue of impromptu bathrooms went unmentioned. In the moral outrage and confusion that followed, suddenly another forty-five shelter beds materialized. Out here, far from civilization and away from most eyes, things were different. As long as they kept relatively out of sight, cleaned up their mess, and remained peaceful, people were left alone. They weren’t displacing lawn bowlers or frightening carriage horses in front of the legislature.
    “Thanks...Bill. I appreciate your honesty and sense of responsibility,” she said, shaking his hand. “But there is one final important thing.” Timing was critical in policing, and she had learned this technique from her father’s Columbo tapes.
    His light green eyes crinkled in suspicion. “What’s that, officer?”
    “The dry season is well underway. You’ve seen those signs prohibiting open burning. Even in provincial parks, fires aren’t allowed. We may be rainforest, but the undergrowth gets like tinder. A cigarette butt tossed out a car window can do it. And with those winds off the strait...” She gestured to a colourful para-sailor skittering down the bay.
    He gave a cooperative nod. “I hear you. But we