Free Death On a No 8 Hook (A Willows and Parker Mystery) by Laurence Gough Page B

understand,” he said, “that the most excitement we get around here is when some drunken logger tries to drive his pickup through a fir tree. My friend’s been feeling for some time now that his talents are being wasted. He’s looking for headlines, and he’s hungry.”
    “Bullshit,” said Dickie.
    Rossiter grinned. “I admire a man who can get to the crux of his argument with an absolute minimum of words, don’t you?”
    “Fuck off,” said Dickie.
    It was a short drive to the Lister house, but to Willows it seemed to take a very long time. He was tired. It had been more than twenty-four hours since he’d last had a hot meal. He needed a shower. And it was exhausting work, listening to the two Mounties chew away at each other. He hoped he wouldn’t have to spend too much time at the Lister house. He was looking forward to getting back to the city, back to his own set of problems.
    The Lister house was weathered grey clapboard, one and a half storeys high. It was partially screened from the street by a trio of gnarled apple trees, the branches crouching under the weight of clusters of neglected, overripe fruit. Dickie parked the cruiser at the mouth of a dirt driveway. His phone call had caught Naomi Lister’s father in the middle of dinner. Lister knew the policemen were coming to see him about his daughter, but he didn’t know why.
    Rossiter unlocked the rear door for Willows. Dickie had already started to walk away from the car. They skirted a Datsun station wagon with the Chevron logo painted on the side, went down a concrete sidewalk that meandered purposelessly through the trees. Willows noticed that the house needed a new roof, and that the windows were dirty. He followed Dickie and Rossiter up the front steps.
    The three men were almost at the top of the steps when the screen door swung open and Lister stepped out on to the porch. Willows guessed his age at about fifty. He was thin, with a full head of unruly white hair and a snub nose that supported the kind of old-fashioned wire-frame glasses favoured by Norman Rockwell. He was wearing clean white coveralls and a checked shirt in three shades of brown, scuffed leather slippers. His eyes were another shade of brown, and the skin around the eyes was slack and lifeless. He looked at Dickie and then at Rossiter and then at Willows and then back to Rossiter. “What’s wrong,” he said. “What’s Naomi done this time?”
    Rossiter cleared his throat.
    “She stopped paying attention to me the minute her mother died,” Lister said in a thin, apologetic voice. He looked at Willows again, and then away.
    “Can we go inside for a minute?” Dickie said.
    “Sure thing,” said Lister. He shuffled over to the porch rail and plucked a dead leaf from a potted begonia. His hand closed on the leaf, crushing it to powder. He brushed his hands together, very slowly, as if it was something he had never done before. Tiny flecks of brown clung to his palms. He wiped his hands vigorously on his overalls and then turned and led his three visitors into the house.
    The living-room was dim and warm, crammed with a mix of old and new furniture. It looked as if Lister had recently replaced all the original pieces and then found he lacked the heart to throw them away.
    There was a fireplace in the middle of the far wall. The brickwork had been painted a hard, glossy white. The hearth was filled with plastic foliage and a grouping of small ceramic animals. Willows guessed that Lister’s wife had created the little tableau, and that since her death the fireplace had become a kind of shrine.
    Dickie gestured towards an overstuffed chair. “You want to sit down, Bill?”
    Lister shrugged, his shoulders thin and bony under the checked shirt. His pale brown eyes strayed to the large wooden carving that hung over the fireplace and that dominated the room. Christ on the cross. Three feet high, carved out of yellow cedar. The forehead was wide, cheekbones prominent, nose large