Comprehension bathes me in its harsh, incandescent light. Bob Stonewell, alias Stoney, is practising unlicensed horticulture on my land, doubtless assisted by his henchman, Dog. I recall Stoney’s arrogant vaunt after being acquitted last month for a similar crime: This year my grow ain’t on the property. They’ll never find it.
Closer inspection reveals about a dozen three-foot-tall cannabis plants, their branches adorned with illegal clumps of tiny, hairy, sticky leaves. Why am I always taken in by Stoney? Am I so gullible? Well, he is in trouble now, because this small garden of delights has obviously been discovered by the local mountie. No sign of him, however.
I lean down to one of the plants. So this is the magical source of those blurry, pleasant moments I have recently enjoyed. A robust, merry little tree. So sorry to see you go. I fondle one of the hairy clumps and put it to my nose to seek its intoxicating perfume, but I am suddenly aware of a stirring in the salal bushes nearby.
Constable Horace Pound rises from his leafy spying post and walks heavy-footed towards me, clutching a small camera.
“Why, it’s Constable Pound. But this isn’t the second Tuesday of the month.”
“I’m doing this on my own time. You know what’s growing here, Mr. Beauchamp? Oh, just a minute, you have the right to remain silent and anything you say may be used as evidence, and you have the right to a lawyer. And the first thing I should ask is do you admit you own this property?”
I smile, enjoying his dry sense of humour: he is having a joke on me. But do I not recall that this fellow is somewhat lacking in wit? He brings out his pad and makes some notes. I then proceeded to approach the male individual who I found crouching behind a small green plant which I identify as cannabis sativa.
“Constable, how long have you been sitting out here?”
“Long enough to see what I saw.”
“And what was that?”
“You tending these plants, Mr. Beauchamp. I note for the record there is a bag of WonderGrow fertilizer right over there.” He takes a photograph of it, and another of the path to my house. “And how many weeks have you been doing this?”
“I’ve been coming here on my days off. Waiting until I can catch the perp in the act.”
Stung by Stoney’s acquittal, this proud officer has been assiduously seeking revenge, checking for hidden garden sites near Stoney’s land.
“You are a patient man, but not patient enough. You have caught the wrong perp. You know perfectly well that I just stumbled onto these plants.”
“You were in personal contact with one of the plants, sir. You held it up to your nose in an act of smelling.”
Constable Pound obviously knows he has collared the wrong party. But I fear his long vigils have frustrated him: Any perp will do. I hunger to play the common fink, to squeal on the malefactor whose hammer I distantly hear. Tap-tap-TAP. Is that what Pound wants me to do — to cooperate, to roll over for him? This is laughable.
“And do you have a warrant to be on this property?”
I am not particularly elated to find that he does. He shows it to me, and it seems in proper form.
“Do you mind if I check through your house?”
For several seconds I am as silent as guilt. I think of the stash Rimbold left with me. Hidden with the cookies in a twist-top tin container in the fridge. But surely the officer is merely hoping to turn the screws, to encourage me to turn Crown’s evidence. I will devise my own unique form ofjustice for that sorcerer’s apprentice Stoney — though I would love to rat on him, to tattle the tale of his many strolls up the path just photographed.
“Of course not,” I finally say, finding inner wells of heartiness. He will see Stoney working on the garage. His attention will be diverted and I will have a chance to stash my stash. “Get your vehicle, come by, and we will have tea.”
His look is heavy with suspicion. “We’ll walk there together if you don’t mind, sir.” Perhaps he thinks I intend to uproot the evidence and scurry off with it.
When we emerge into my yard, he turns and takes a picture of the trail we have just exited. I look for Stoney, but he is hidden behind a tree. Dog, however, is sitting on the apex of the roof and peering in our direction. All hammering suddenly stops: just the tinny sound of music from the truck’s radio.
Pound turns and takes pictures of the house and garage, but too late to capture Dog, who has already descended from the roof.
As we recommence our journey, I hear an engine ignite and rumble into life. Stoney’s creaky flatbed two-ton truck comes into view, Dog at the wheel and beside him, cap slid down almost to his nose, a slouching Stoney. The truck chugs quickly up my driveway and with a roar of acceleration escapes down Potter’s Road.
Pound stops in his tracks, uncertain now of his next move. “Who were the individuals in that vehicle?”
“Ah, yes, that would be my work crew.”
Constable Pound will get the hint and chase after the perps while the trail is fresh. But he just stands there. The skin on his face seems to tighten, and he takes on the frantic look of a man helpless in the grip of a dilemma. Now he looks at me with a raw hostility, sizing me up, seeking potential for revenge. I can see he wants to blame someone other than himself for the bungling of Operation Stonewell.
And abruptly he turns and races to my back door, entering the house half a minute ahead of me. Aghast, I find him in the kitchen, hurriedly looking through the spice racks, examining a container of oregano, pouring out a sample onto his hand, smelling it. He runs his hands over sills and peeks under teacups, his frenetic search progressing ever closer to the refrigerator.
But of course this coming calamity was foretold; long ago I knew that wherever Stoney goes he lays down a trail of land mines. To have befriended him is to have accepted his curse. I muster in my mind the various defences in law: lack of intent, alibi, automatism, insanity. These will be available, too, upon the charge of murdering Stoney.
Now Margaret Blake’s half-ton pickup rolls into the driveway, braking hard near the open kitchen door. She sees me and steps out. “Arthur, I just drove by Stoney’s truck; it was parked off the road, and there was a police vehicle in the bushes. I was worried there’d been an accident.” Now she enters, and spies the constable crouching at the open fridge door, suddenly immobile, as if frozen into place. “Oh, it’s Constable Pound. . ”
“Ma’am, what did you just say?”
“I said I thought there’d been an accident. Are you hungry? What are you doing in the fridge?”
” Whose truck was beside my unit?”
“Stoney’s.”
Constable Pound is faster than a speeding bullet out the door, and runs pell-mell up the path leading to the marijuana plants. “What has been going on, Arthur?”
In partial explanation I pull out the cookie tin and show Margaret the contents: twelve home-baked peanut butter cookies and a plastic bag containing some cannabis cigarettes.
“Not very clever,” she says. “Never hide your stash with your homemade cookies. What a character you are. Have you been smoking this?”
“I’m afraid Rimbold turned me on.”
The bells of her laughter. “I’ll hold onto it in case he comes back.” And she finds a better stash, unbuttoning her shirt-top and tucking the pot into the cup between bra and breast. I glimpse a seductive roundness, a flash of untanned flesh. When she catches me staring I blush.
“I always used to get dizzy when I smoked this. Chris liked to get stoned, though.”
“Ah, yes. What should I bring for dinner tomorrow?”
“Just yourself.”
But will she set the usual three places?
I am alone, doing tai chi warm-ups (Flying Dove Spreads Its Wings), as Constable Pound returns — on foot and in a mood of dejection. He apologizes for his uncivil behaviour earlier. He asks me if he might use my phone to call the local garage: There’s a problem with his ignition. The perps, he tells me, have absconded with the evidence. He seeks to know whether I shall be expecting Stoney to return to work today. I tell him I doubt it.