Murder at Gates Landing

By Doug David

Edgar Wheeler was a successful businessman who was despised by everyone who knew him. He abused his wife, bullied his children, and cheated his business associates. And despite his involvement in at least three suspicious deaths, he avoided prosecution as he manipulated his way into a small fortune.

When Wheeler was bludgeoned to death at the SeaVista Inn on Gates Island, California, Healy and Inspector Tony Montgomery pursued the investigation, gathering information about the victim and suspects, and through flashbacks it became clear that everyone had a powerful motive. Wheelers wife, his lawyer, his daughter, the innkeeper, and even the maid were serious suspects. A second lawyer became the prime suspect, but she was also murdered.

Healy and Montgomery realized that the Golden Octagon, a stolen Chinese antiquity, was integral to the murders and the investigation. Then as they closed in on the killer, there was a third murder.

Healy eliminated all the false leads and ultimately illuminated the trail of clues that led to the killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514405741

Doug David

Doug David’s formative years were shaped by a protected, conservative society. Schooled in a regimented religious environment, he moved into early adolescence watching cautiously as radicals questioned and changed the world.As a strong-willed child, a young groom, and a father of four with a motivation to excel, Doug lived and worked through one of the most astonishing periods in history, learned how to survive and thrive in a world undergoing immense technological and social change, and came out at the other end to look back and laugh about it all.In “Spreading the Honey”, he tastes professional and personal success and, with frankness and wit, shares his views on all aspects of life.

Book preview

Chapter One

A movement caught his eye as Cal Healy crossed the narrow channel, and when he looked up, he spotted a bald eagle floating lazily in meandering circles, its white feathers brilliant against the dark grey clouds that cloaked the island. Moisture from a light drizzle failed to dampen the charge he felt as he watched the soaring eagle. Nearing the island, Healy refocused and guided his Boston Whaler into its slip adjacent to the deserted government wharf at Gates Landing. He secured the boat and then looked around again, slowly this time, and gave a quick shake to his head. Despite the pervasive greyness caused by the low-lying clouds, the surrounding splendor of ocean and untouched coniferous rain forest stirred something deep in his soul and made him wonder why he had waited so long to return to his favorite place on earth.

The Sunshine Coast is separated from the mainland and Vancouver by the waters of Howe Sound, and getting there involved a forty-minute ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale. A second twenty-minute boat ride was required for travelers to Gates Island who could then take the Stormcatcher, a foot passenger ferry, from Langdale to Gates Landing. Connections sometimes required a wait; and many island residents, like Healy, chose to own boats that they moored at Wilsons Landing, a short drive from Langdale and directly across the channel from the island.

Memories of his first trip to the island as a teenager invaded his thoughts as Healy unloaded his gear. His mother had purchased a lot on the island shortly after their arrival in BC from Manitoba. That first summer, he joined his brother Ernie as they built their four-bedroom cabin, using skills gained through hours spent on small building projects with their father. Tragically, their father was killed in a construction accident when Cal was ten.

Healy grew to know almost every inch of the western part of the island where he spent his summer days as a teenager, hiking, fishing, water-skiing, swimming, and sailing. He was by nature somewhat introverted, and despite his active life, he made friends with only a few of his fellow islanders, often preferring to be alone or with his family. But he loved the place so much that he insisted on coming up alone in the middle of the winter regardless of the weather. Cold damp weather was not a hardship. Before the move to BC, he spent a successful winter on his own in the forest of northern Manitoba using the survival skills he learned from his grandfather, a First Nations Cree elder. The time in the wild developed in Healy self-sufficiency, toughness, and a positive and confident outlook that fostered success in everything he did.

As he reflected, he thought about one of the few island friends he made who was killed while climbing a rock face without proper training or safety gear. He fell to his death while Healy was at his home on the mainland. Healy shook off the momentary sadness caused by the memory and strode up the ramp from his slip to the government wharf. Everything at the Landing was as he remembered it from his last trip up two years earlier. Being midwinter, the island was as usual, cold and wet and green, but not freezing and snow white like winter in much of the rest of Canada.

He stowed the plastic storage bins and knapsack holding his food and gear in the wharf shed and began the one-kilometer walk to the cabin to pick up his utility vehicle—a Kawasaki Mule. The vehicle was approximately the size of a large golf cart, with an open cab, a roll bar, and a large open metal box behind the bench seat not unlike a mini pickup truck. Arriving at his property, Healy turned on the water supply at the insulated outdoor tap before entering the cabin. Once inside, he took the stairs to the basement and closed the breakers that provided power to the water heater and the baseboard heaters. He returned to the main floor and was pleased to see that someone—probably his mother—had remembered to prepare the fireplace when last in the cabin, so he lit the fire, knowing that the chill would soon be gone. Then he entered the minigarage that housed the Mule and was pleased when it started at the first turn of the key.

As he passed the Sea Vista Inn on his way back to the wharf, Healy noticed the lights were on, which on a dark and dreary winter’s day was not unusual. It was unusual, however, to see so many lights burning in the middle of winter. Rooms in the three-story Tudor-like structure were largely unoccupied during the winter months. Then Healy remembered that during the winter, Vera Evans made the inn available to small groups of up to twenty guests. The inn had a small restaurant, which doubled as a meeting room. Church groups, small businesses, school staffs, and even families would use the inn for retreats or midwinter holidays. Vera and her husband, Walter, owners of the inn, were two more friends Healy had made as a boy, mainly because they were so irresistibly friendly.

Gates Island, located at the mouth of Howe Sound, provided a suitable getaway spot for those not wanting to travel a significant distance from the busy city of Vancouver. The island, covered with west coast marine forest, had few roads, all of them gravel, and very little traffic. It could only be reached by boat, barge, or seaplane; and casual visitors usually arrived by the twice-daily foot passenger ferry—the Stormcatcher—that docked at the wharf. The area of the island known as Gates Landing was composed of approximately thirty summer homes and the Sea Vista Inn. The inn’s property included tennis courts, a nine-hole, par-three golf course, and a section of sandy beach.

Healy helped his brother Ernie build his family’s four-bedroom cabin eighteen years earlier. At the time, Ernie was ten years older than Cal, and he was taking a break from his graduate studies to build the cabin. It provided a summer home for the Healy family, which at the time included Cal; his brother Ernie and Ernie’s wife, Lisa; and of course, his mother, Marlene. The plan was that it would be a great place to bring Ernie’s children, and perhaps someday, Cal’s. That plan was derailed when Ernie and his wife, Lisa, were attacked in a home invasion. Ernie and the couple’s unborn child were killed. Those responsible were brought to justice mainly because of Healy’s determination to make sure the killers paid for their crimes. Healy experienced occasional pangs of sadness for years over the loss of his beloved brother.

Healy had fond memories of the many summer holidays spent on the island. It was a great place, and with the exception of a few travel holidays while he was in the army, he never had a desire to spend vacation time anywhere else.

Vera Evans, owner-manager of the inn, must have spotted him on his way back to the wharf because she was waiting in her North Face winter coat beside the road as he made the return trip with the loaded Mule. She stood at the side of the road, and he stopped to speak to her. Cal, how wonderful to see you back on the island. You’ve been away too long. We’ve missed you.

I’ve missed being here. It’s good to be back.

Marlene told me that you had left the army?

Yeah, the timing seemed right. How’s Walter? asked Healy, trying to deflect the conversation away from himself.

Oh, you know Walter, he never changes, she answered with a long-suffering smile. Walter was Vera’s husband, a likeable but somewhat fuzzy-minded adjunct to the inn’s staff. You must come for dinner tonight. I’ll invite Mort Lang. He’s here for the week. We have a group booking. A family business came up early this morning for four days. They’re from some kind of high-tech cable company that is apparently making big bucks.

Mm, thanks, but I don’t know, Vera. I’d rather spend the evening just getting used to being back here. Maybe tomorrow?

Well, okay, I’ll hold you to that. Just then, Vera waved at two people who drove by in a green John Deere Gator, the Sea Vista’s utility vehicle—a larger and more deluxe version of Healy’s Mule.

They’re new, said Healy.

Yes, the new handyman and the new maid. They’ve been here for a few months. The maid is just back from three days in the city visiting her mother, or no, I think it’s her aunt. I’m never sure.

Are they a couple?

No, nothing like that. It’s a coincidence that they were hired around the same time.

How many people will I know at dinner tomorrow?

Just me, Walter, Mort Lang, and, of course, our cook, Fiona. Why do you ask?

Well, could you ask them to keep quiet about my being ex-army. I just don’t feel like going through all the stuff on Afghanistan that people want to talk about when they meet a soldier in a social setting. If it comes up, tell them to say I’m a civil servant. That usually changes the subject fast.

Vera smiled. Still the silent Cal she remembered from years gone by. Sure, Cal, anything you say. What are you up to these days?

Healy grinned. I’m glad you asked. I am, as of last week, a newly minted private detective.

Vera smiled back and not wishing to delay him further said, See you tomorrow then. Around five thirty for drinks.

In fact, the army had been a big part of Healy’s life. He had served three tours in Afghanistan, and then he was an instructor at an armed forces training center in Quebec. He had left the armed forces at a point where the end of a three-year term coincided with his commanding officer’s refusal to grant him leave to deal with the family crisis that ultimately led to his brother’s death.

After a relaxing evening and a deeply refreshing sleep, Healy spent the next morning fighting with the blackberry brambles that had invaded the space around the cabin. The blackberries were allowed some space because of the delicious fruit they produced. Memories of the incredibly delicious blackberry pies that his mother, Marlene, made every summer made him smile as he pruned the dormant vines. Then the rain started in earnest around noon, so after a lunch of chicken soup and a Rueben sandwich, he rooted out copies of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, cracked open a Guinness, and settled in for an afternoon of rereading stories from his twenty- to thirty-year-old collection.

Chapter Two

The station chief of the Chinese consulate security division in Vancouver, Col. Li Chen, checked his watch, and picked up another of the endless reports he read daily about people living in the lower mainland and up the Fraser Valley. They were individuals his government wanted him to monitor. Most were Chinese nationals earning money in the crazy real estate market for which Vancouver was notorious. Li thirsted after something that would relieve the boredom he felt reading a tedious report about a consulate employee who spent too much time in one of the clubs on Granville Street. His phone rang, and when he saw the call display, he was immediately alert.

Check your e-mail, said the abrupt voice of his agency chief calling from Beijing.

Oh, oh, thought Li, as an ancient proverb popped into his head, "good medicine has a bitter taste."

Li straightened in his chair and clicked on the e-mail icon, opened the document in question, saw the photograph of a middle-aged woman, and said, I have it.

"The woman in the photograph is Kwok Yulin. She will arrive on Cathay Pacific Flight 838 from Hong Kong in two hours. We’ve been on her tail for days. When we pinpointed her whereabouts, she was in midflight. Meet her plane. She is booked into the St. Regis Hotel.

Look at the second photograph. We believe she has the last unrecovered and, by far, the most valuable object stolen in the Forbidden City last May. We want it back. Get the damned thing and return here. He paused portentously. The chairman insists that all the stolen objects must be returned to the Forbidden City.

The second photograph showed a jewel-encrusted octagonal cylinder about fifteen centimeters long and six centimeters across. It was exquisite and looked to be extremely valuable. It has a name. It is called the Golden Octagon. The caption under the photo described the object as a precious artifact from the Sung dynasty used by members of the royal family to store opiates. To Chinese historians and collectors, the object is priceless. On the black market, it was estimated to be worth at the very least one million dollars.

After hanging up, Li called his security team into his office and directed two agents to meet Kwok Yulin at the airport. There is too much security at the airport, so don’t confront the woman—follow her. Hopefully, she will go directly to her hotel. Photograph anyone entering the hotel lobby, and e-mail me the photos immediately. He turned to his computer technician. Hack the hotel computer and eliminate as many as possible contacts as you can from the guest list. Then he told a fourth agent, Identify the faces in the photographs as quickly as possible, and match them to the hotel guests. We need to identify anyone she contacts.

All the agents but one left to work on their assignments. When Li and his field agent, Shan, were alone, he passed him a photo of the missing object and gave him his assignment. When we know her room number, find a way in, disable her, and search the room. Don’t kill her. We don’t need the attention.

The agent lifted his lean five-foot six frame from the chair, pent-up energy evident beneath his casual attire. Gaining access to the room will be difficult. I may need to get in from above, which means I wait until dark. That will allow her at least six hours to pass it on to her contact.

We’re watching her. If we see her pass it to someone, you’ll be informed. We expect her to contact the buyer tomorrow, but for now we will just watch and wait.

***

Kwok Yulin was dressed simply in a dark coat belted at the waist. She was carrying a large shoulder bag and was pulling a medium-sized suitcase. An agent followed Kwok out of the terminal where he joined his partner waiting in a BMW sedan, and they proceeded to follow the woman who left in a cab. The cab deposited her in front of the St. Regis Hotel on Dunsmuir Street in the heart of the commercial district of Vancouver. The lobby of the hotel was surprisingly small, so the agents stopped before entering, not wanting to be noticed by the woman. Instead, they returned to their sedan parked across the street where they were well-placed to observe the front of the hotel.

The agents focused on the entrances to the hotel lobby and to the hotel’s restaurant, and they took photos of anyone entering or exiting through either door. They were in constant contact with their supervisor, Li, and at 7:30 p.m., they saw Kwok exit the lobby, walk twenty paces along the sidewalk and then enter the hotel’s restaurant. Apparently, there was no access to the restaurant from the hotel lobby. They informed Li of the woman’s movement. Go into the restaurant. Try to find out if she is meeting someone, said Li, and report back.

Li contacted Shan, who was by then on the roof of the hotel. The woman is out of her room. Do it now. Shan lowered himself down to the room, which was at the rear of the hotel. He did a thorough search and did not find the object, so he exited the way he entered. He called Li. I couldn’t find the cylinder. She must have it with her.

Meanwhile, the first agent watching the hotel entered the restaurant and stopped at the maître d’s desk. Good evening, sir, how may I help you?

The agent cast his eyes around the restaurant. I’d like a table, please.

Do you have a reservation?

No. Can you fit me in?

The maître d’ looked down at her desk for a moment, then looked up and replied I’m sorry, sir, I have nothing available until after nine. Would you like me to pencil you in?

The agent looked again and saw that Kwok appeared to be alone. He did a quick scan of the restaurant patrons and saw only one thing that puzzled him. It was the back view of a head with blond spiked hair. The figure was wearing jeans and a hooded jersey with the hood down. He couldn’t make out if it was a man or a woman. No, I guess I’ll go somewhere else. When he crossed the street, he reported to Li who told them to keep watching.

When the woman finished her meal, she left the restaurant and returned to her room. They noted that the blond with the spiked hair had exited the restaurant earlier and was captured digitally by the camera across the street, as were all the guests as they departed the restaurant. When the photographs were printed and given to Li, he grunted his displeasure when he saw that the hood, a beard, and large dark sunglasses largely shielded the face of the blond male. The sunglasses were suspicious.

The next morning, Kwok emerged from the hotel and inexplicably returned to the airport where she caught a return flight to Hong Kong, obviously unaware that she was the subject of so much attention. Li surmised that Kwok had transferred the object to someone in the restaurant, and he had his staff redouble their efforts in trying to identify the faces in the photographs. He also had his staff generate a list of known collectors of Chinese artifacts in the Vancouver area. Two more agents were assigned to interview art and antique dealers with instructions to offer a reward for any information leading to the recovery of the Golden Octagon.

Li reported to his superior in Beijing. We haven’t recovered the object. She must have passed it to someone in the restaurant, and we are putting our whole effort in to finding out who that was.

Where is the woman?

She is returning to Hong Kong. She left this morning.

I will see that she is met at the airport. We will interview her and pass along our findings. Li winced inwardly. He could imagine the shape the interview would take.

Chapter Three

Walter, Vera Evans’s jovial husband met Healy as soon as he put a foot inside the inn. Cal, it’s great to see you. Here, let me get you a drink. Guinness is your poison, if I recall. Cal waited until Walter handed him his