Chapter 1
The wind through the trees masked the sound of my approach.
I studied my target. He was powerfully built, about three to four inches taller than me, but I still had the advantage of having my pants done up around my waist, while his were bunched around his ankles. The feather boa kind of threw me, though. You just don’t expect a peeping tom to be sporting a scarlet red string of poultry fluff. Apparently my guy was special!
For the last week I had been getting the creeps while I worked at my computer in my basement walk-out apartment; creepy like someone’s watching me, creepy. There are a lot of un-lady-like things that we lady-like types don’t want to be caught at, but I draw the line at someone watching me work. Okay, rubbing the pressure spot underneath my bra or scratching my nose (but you always think, “Gee, I wonder if they think I’m picking it?), or even pulling out a wedgie—these are things that no one wants to have an audience for, but watching me at my computer is just too intimate for me to tolerate.
Old Boa Boy is in for a little surprise.
The streetlight glowing through the leaves of the large birch tree dappled Boa Boy’s undulating butt and I shuddered to think what was happening on the other side of it.
My friend and business partner, Pearl, was inside impersonating me and it looked like the gauzy curtains were effective at disguising our physical differences. She must have been playing it up at the computer because my peeper was riveted and didn’t hear me as I brought my stun gun up and applied some shock therapy to his perverted ass. (Yes, I know stun-guns are illegal, and yes, I had called the police, but he was always gone by the time the officers got to my place so I decided to stop this creep once and for all.)
So there he was, my little whacker-diddler, doing the funky chicken on the ground. Funny how, with just one little zap, you can get someone’s complete attention. Well, okay, you get their attention after they come to and stop jerking around.
I tapped on the sliding door to let Pearl know the peeper had been peeped, and pulled out my flashlight to see just who he was.
Merde-on-a-muffin! This was going to be complicated.
There, splayed out with his ‘finest’ wrapped in the red boa, was Richard Branscome, a.k.a. Dick, or Dicky to his friends. Dicky just happened to be the husband of our current client, Yvette. We were in the process of enlarging their home office and finishing their basement. We had never found out what exactly her business was because after a few minutes of listening to her, your mind glazed over and moved on to quieter venues. Yvette was a little fireball who talked so fast I thought she was going to blow a lip. The speed of her tongue and her tendency to slip into French made listening to her an exercise in guessing.
But I digress. Here lay Dicky, with more than just his tongue hanging out. He’d always been a little odd but, hey, aren’t we all? Just varying degrees. And, speaking of degrees, our Dicky is ten degrees short of an Easy Bake oven. He was always hanging around trying to impress us by throwing around construction and design terms, but he was more a source of amusement for he never quite used them right.
As Pearl rounded the corner she let out a low whistle. “Oh, serious shit!” She stood over top of our little conundrum and shook her head. “Dicky, you little dip-twit!” Then the laughter took over as the two of us ventured a look at how the boa had been commissioned into use. Apparently, Dicky had wound it around his ding-dong and must have been doing a little pulling back and forth action on either end of the boa, but when the jolt of electricity had interrupted his delusions, he yanked both ends and strangled poor “Little Dicky.”
“Damn, we had better release the pressure or he’s going to lose it permanently.”
Pearl just looked at me. “Well it would serve the little pervert right. And besides, I’m not touching that thing. Who knows where it’s been!”
"Do you think we should call the cops or an ambulance?” We both stood there and stared for a moment. Finally I reached down to check his pulse and his breathing. “He seems okay. Colin’s not home or I would have him come and check him out.”
Pearl made the observation that if we called the cops, we would most likely be out of a job and I would have to explain where the stun-gun came from.
“Okay, then how about we haul his sorry ass over to the trees. He won’t know it was us that caught him and then we won’t have to explain to his wife why he has two little scorch marks on his butt and an out-of-service twinkie? He should come around soon enough.”
Right on cue, Dicky moaned.
“Okay, I’ll take his arms.” said Pearl
Good old Dicky got a few scratches as we dragged him the fifteen feet to the trees on the edge of the property, but nothing that should fester too seriously.
“How high did you turn up the stun gun?”
“I’ve never used it before so I didn’t know what to set it at. I wanted to make sure I took him down – not just pissed him off. And since none of my brothers would let me test it out on them, I thought a ‘nine’ would work nicely.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, a ‘nine’ and I kind of left it on him for a few seconds.” Pearl raised her eyebrows at me. “Hey, it didn’t come with an instruction booklet.”
We high-tailed it back to my apartment and quickly decided that I should sit at my desk looking like I had been hard at work all evening, totally unaware of the events outside my patio door. Pearl would disappear so if Dicky decided to look he wouldn’t know that she had been there.
There you have it—the best laid plans . . .
About ten minutes later I thought I should make sure he was no longer a lawn ornament, so I decided to make it look like I was going out for a little stroll.
Taking the garbage out to the bins at the back gave me an excuse to come around the far side of the building. Casually looking around, I saw no signs of Dicky so I did a round of the property.
Nope, nothing. I went back in; made sure all of the blinds were closed tight and got ready for bed.
Chapter 2
I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Kate. Kate Nia O’Malley. My father, Shamus Claude Patrick Harvey O’Malley hated his unusual string of names (derived from his three-quarters Irish and one-quarter French heritage) decided I only needed one name. So, twenty-nine years ago, while filling out the form to register my birth, he put N/A in the space reserved for a middle name. The clerk at the registry office assumed the “/” was an undotted “i” so, officially, Nia became my second name.
I have three older brothers which is how I ended up doing design and construction. My first aborted degree was in fashion design, you know, the “would you like fries with that” kind of diploma? The second trip back to post-secondary landed me in the School of Business. I’m not big on paperwork, in fact I loathe paperwork, so I then had a go at archaeology, but discovered that I really didn’t want to work in dusty old warehouses, identifying and cataloguing shards of bone, pottery and bits of chamber pots. I love a good mystery, but sadly, these were not the kind of mysteries that really turned my crank.
My two oldest brothers, Patrick and Reagan, had a successful construction company where I had worked during my summer vacations and picked up a few skills with power tools as well as some very colourful language (which, of course, I only used when one of said power tools developed a mind of its own). So, to ensure that I was able to maintain my independence and not have to move back in with the folks, I started taking on the little renovation jobs that my brothers didn’t want to be bothered with. This turned out to be a lucrative and full time business which I found I enjoyed. Well, mostly enjoyed. I’m not a take-it-apart kind of gal, but more of a build/put-it-back-together kind. That’s where Pearl comes in. Where I have almost a phobia about destroying something—Pearl loves nothing better than to demolish. You’d think with a delicate name like Pearl her calling would be for something a little more refined, but that’s not what she’s about. Crowbars and sledgehammers are metal extensions of her limbs.
Pearl and I make an interesting combination. She looks like a “Pearl,” with reddish-blonde, delicate features, clear, ivory colored skin, and big blue eyes so when this 5’ 5”doll picks up a load of 2 x 4s, people are a little surprised. No, make that a lot surprised. I, on the other hand, stand five feet, eight inches, have dark brown—almost black—hair and am, what I consider to be, average looking.
Now, about the stun gun: it seems that my pheromones must be out of whack, because the series of fellows that I’ve been attracting are acutely weird. None of them drooled or wore underwear on their head, but they all had quirks that I just didn’t immediately pick up on. My brothers claimed that I was a Creep Magnet and thought some protection might be in order. So last year’s Christmas gift had been my own personal stun gun.
I never thought I’d actually use it as I really don’t like hurting people. In fact I prefer to settle differences in an adult fashion, but really, who wants to have a conversation with a disgusting perv? Hence, the ‘persuader’, aka stun gun.
*****
Rolling out of bed the next morning, I put on the kettle for tea, filled a bowl with cereal and fruit and turned on the computer to catch up with email and the latest news when the signature tap-TAP-tap-tap-TAP told me that Pearl was at my door. Using her key she let herself in and detoured to the coffee maker before she joined me in my office.
My office is a blend of work space, guest bedroom, storage and treasure room as well as sewing center.
“Any fall-out from last night’s zap-and-drag?”
“Apparently not. I did a tour du place before bed and all was quiet. With any luck, our little perv will be off-site today.”
“It’s going to be awfully hard keeping a straight face when we talk to him. All I keep seeing is that sea of red feathers with his dipsy-doodler aiming for the night sky. Sad, very sad. I wonder if he has any other hobbies.”
The sound coming from my door was more of a whispered roar than a yell. “Kate! KateeEEEE! I need coffee! STAT!”
“Ah, the landlord knocketh.”
Opening the door to Colin was always an adventure. He had one whole closet, (I know, because I built it for him,) dedicated entirely to costumes. His outfits were complete—from the top of his 5’9” flaming red head down to his toes, no detail was spared. Once a week he would pick out a persona: pirate, pixie, lion, lamb (one of my favorites), bookworm, butterfly, Humpty Dumpty, maybe even Little Red Riding Hood, and head off to do rounds at the hospital then continue on to his clinic. Parents never had to worry about their kids being afraid of the doctor—everyone loved to see if today was Dress-up Day with Dr. Colin.
Today’s theme: frog. And the giant frog was leaning against my door jamb looking like he was going to croak any second, literally and figuratively.
“Awesome! Green suits you. The green face paint is pretty authentic.”
“It’s not make-up. We were doing tequila shooters last night.”
“Just tequila shooters?”
“Okay, there may have been a little more involved… WHERE’S THE COFFEE? Owwww.” Then a whispered, “Where’s the coffee, pleeeease?”
A huge coffee mug appeared over my shoulder. “There you go, Kermit. I put some cream and a few ice cubes in it to help ease the queaze in the stomach.”
“Angel of mercy!” And with two hands holding the mug like it contained the contents for a transplant, Colin turned as gently as he could with his flippy frog feet, and made his way to the car.
Pearl and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Following him out to the car to ensure that he actually made it, Pearl couldn’t resist. “He really is a ‘ribbiting’ character, isn’t he?”
Resting the stein-sized mug on the roof of his SUV he started patting down his non-existent froggy pockets looking for keys.
“Hold on, I’ll get them for you.” Grabbing my set of keys to his place (which is the main house), I hustled around the corner to his front door as quickly as I could, because, quite frankly, I just couldn’t stand to see the pain on that little amphibious face any longer.
Just inside his door on the teak and tile table was a huge geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck) clam shell where he kept his assortment of keys. I grabbed them all, along with his honest-to-goodness leather doctor’s bag and headed back.
The frog was standing a little taller now that he’d finished most of the coffee. “God giveth life, and so does Kate and her coffee.” As he tried swinging his legs into the vehicle, the flippers caught between the seat and frame. “Guess I didn’t think this one through!” Leaning over to remove his footwear, he stopped mid-lean, and bolted upright. Little beads of swamp-water-sweat broke out on his forehead.
“How about I drive you to the hospital on my way to work in half an hour?”
“Perfect. I think I’ll go and… no wait, I’ll just go back inside. There won’t be any thinking involved. Too painful.” Picking his feet up in exaggerated steps, his mutterings and moans followed him through his front door.
Pearl and I grabbed the last of the coffee and headed to the office. As we gathered the blueprints and other essentials for the day, we turned on the radio only half listening. The word Tofino caught my attention as it was one of my favourite places to storm watch. And it would be my favourite place to surf, if only I could surf. “The search continues for William Gostin, a long time Tofino resident and commercial fisherman. Mr. Gostin was reported to have gone out early Saturday morning before the storm and did not return. Local Search and Rescue teams will continue the search to locate Mr. Gostin and his boat.”
“Now that would be a nasty way to go; lost at sea.” said Pearl. “Especially around here. Boy, that water’s cold!”
Living on an island carries a bit of cachet. You know the kind where you get to sign your emails with your name and then “From an Island in the Pacific”. So what if the island happens to be off the coast of Canada and the northern tip of Washington State—it’s still in the Pacific. And, compared to the rest of Canada and most of the continental U.S.—our winters are balmy. Especially down here in Victoria at the very southern tip. But as kind as the weather is to us, the water is a different story. Nasty cold. You wouldn’t last more than an hour without the proper gear.
“Maybe that’s what we should try with Colin. Give him a little dunkin’, you know, just to jump start his heart. I wonder if it would work like the defibrillators do?” Raising my index finger as if this was the key detail, I added, “Hey, and he IS in frog attire!”
“Yeah, you and whose army? He’s one scrappy little frog.”
“I guess we can’t put this off any longer—we have to get to work. I wonder if Yvette knows about her hubby’s predilection?”
Pearl smiled. “You mean that he’s a disgusting perv?”
“Well, she is a bit of an odd case herself, kind of like a nice Tasmanian Devil type. She’s going to spin herself off the planet one of these days. Looking at my watch I realized that it was time to get doctor frogman to the hospital and our butts to work.
*****
Dropping Colin off at the front doors to the hospital, it was fun to watch the double-takes from the visitors and staff. “That costume does show off his cute little butt. You know,” admitted Pearl, “I wouldn’t mind sinking my teeth into those delicious frog legs.”
“Dream on, girl. I live in his house. How awkward would that be if and when you broke up? And, it would only be a matter of time. Neither of you are the committed relationship types.”
“I was just saying …”