Free And On the Surface Die by Lou Allin

did Bonnie appreciate his career. “A waste of time,” she would say, considering the plastic black-cat clock he had found at a garage sale and mounted in the kitchen. “Why chew old bones? Do something for the living, for god’s sake.”
    “Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to—” He’d retreated into professor mode. Fifteen-year-old Holly had been outside on the deck, but with the thin walls of the house, she heard every word.
    “Give me a break, Norman. I know all about the past...and so do the women I help. We’re trying to make a difference.” Bonnie left to answer the phone, one of many calls which arrived at all hours.
    Coming back inside that sad day and trying to feign ignorance, Holly had never forgotten his defeated look. With his tenure assured at last, he’d bought the Otter Point Place house for Bonnie, a sunny change from their dark A-frame in East Sooke, where the sun cast a fleeting glance down through the dense firs, and lights burned in the daytime. But it hadn’t helped. She cared little where she hung her hat, straw in summer, a warm toque in winter. Holly supposed she got her contempt for fashion from her mother. Bonnie would have liked the freedom of the uniform. Imagine starting each day with a series of bothersome decisions about what to wear and what makeup might complement it.
    After dinner, they took their desserts and tea to the TV room for his favourite channels, Turner Classics or American Movie Classics. In keeping with his Fifties theme, they were watching River of No Return . Robert Mitchum was solid and upright for a change, even if he had killed a man in self-defense. Marilyn was buxom and casual, a wasp waist cinched in her blue jeans. Her scenes with young Tommy Rettig, Jeff in the Lassie series, were honest and touching. “Weren’t we watching this movie when I left for university?” she asked.
    “You can never see this couple too many times,” he said. “Mitchum wasn’t just the dope-smoking bad boy in the tabloids. He was talented in many directions. Did you know he composed a symphony that was played at the Hollywood Bowl? Orson Welles directed it,” her father said, a master of trivia.
    A sea change from Mitchum’s villainous roles. Even here in a quiet backwater, chances were strong that a sociopath lived within range, whether or not the person would ever act violently. “No return, no return, no return,” the theme song warned as she thought about her mother.Was he thinking the same thing? She shook her head and finished the prune whip. Not as good as his floating island.
    When the movie ended, she looked at her watch. “Damn.”
    Norman yawned and stretched. “What’s wrong?”
    “I should have written up my notes at the station. That’s going to take me at least an hour and a half.”
    He wagged a finger at her. “You always were a bit of a procrastinator. Unlike your old man.”
    She stuck out her tongue and headed upstairs to her bedroom, where a new Dell computer awaited. Once seated, she opened the palm-sized notebook. The routine had been laid down at the academy. Dates of each notebook on the cover, ink only, no erasures, any changes initialed. Crucial for a court case. Then the transcription into a formal report. No secretary for that, they were warned. Her handwriting wasn’t the best; she tended to think faster than she wrote. In university, she’d used a shorthand which helped her to take notes in heavy-content courses like Abnormal Psychology and Sociology of the Family. If she hadn’t memorized the Criminal Code, she could cite numbers on command. And not everyone realized that Canada didn’t have the official Miranda warning like on American TV shows, but a caution based on the Charter of Rights. Each notebook contained a glossary at the end, which included radio codes for incidents and other standard information.
    She was a long time getting to sleep. And the half moon was rising, not over the mountain like Kate’s,