Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island by Sandy Frances Duncan, George Szanto Page A

don’t you ragheads go back where you come from!’ And, can you believe this, the guy giggles. My grandfather came from the Punjab eighty years ago and my friend is third generation Iranian-Canadian.” He smiled. “I found out later Roy’s father arrived from Cornwall after the Second World War.” He sipped his tea. “Easy to talk about now, but I felt kind of furious.”
    She was intrigued. “What’d you do?”
    â€œMy friend figured what set Roy off was me saying Roy’s neck was so red his father must’ve been a peckerless rooster. He came at me swinging— You really want to know?”
    â€œOf course.” She enjoyed hearing his voice. And saw that Tam Gill knew this. “Tell me.”
    â€œWell, Roy gets his right arm back for a roundhouse and lets swing but I duck and bring up my own arm so that the tops of our arms make contact—here, bring up your right arm.”
    â€œWhat? How?” She extended her arm.
    He slid the two cups aside, reached over the table, took Kyra by the elbow, made an ell, brought her arm up and toward her so as to bring her to half-standing. The tops of their arms touched halfway between wrist and elbow. “Now push.”
    She pushed. Her heart was pumping hard. His forearm angled below Kyra’s, pushing back and up. She was swung to his right, instantly off balance. Tam laughed. “Exactly!”
    She ran the fingers of her flipped arm across her hair. Her forearm tingled. “Okay.”
    â€œYou see what happens. I go with his swing and take it in the direction it’s going. He doesn’t make contact so he goes half-around. My hand slips to his wrist, I grab it and hold on. When you swing like that and suddenly your arm stops, your body keeps going, your shoulder gets caught up, you fall to your knees or flat on the ground, depending how hard you swing. I catch Roy with a kick in the ribs and knock the air out of him, and it’s all over.”
    â€œWish I’d seen it.” Their eyes locked. Exceptional large dark brown eyes. Quick pulse, as if she’d been in the fight. Say something else. “Did you hurt him?”
    A chuckle from Tam, and his gaze dropped. “I figure he ached for a few days. But a medium-low rib kick won’t break any bones. I could’ve taken out his knee easily enough, or the dramatic kick to the head. But this wasn’t a big-deal fight. I shouldn’t have lost my temper but I’d had enough to drink, and he was a loutish bully.”
    Loutish. No one says loutish any more. Kyra breathed deeply. More relaxed now, and she was charmed. Roy had been provocative and racist. And loutish. “And then he changed his ways after that, as Lucille Maple wrote?”
    â€œOh, Maple. My brother-in-law pays too much attention to her. You must have more important cases to investigate.” He sipped his tea, looking at her. “Anyway, it’s not Artemus’ business to find out who killed Roy.” He leaned back in his chair.
    Kyra, pleased he’d accepted her professionalism, tried not to look his way. But her gaze was drawn to his cycle shorts, T-shirt, gloves, cycle shorts— Concentrate!
    Gill said, “Do you get many murders in your business?”
    â€œDo you think Dempster was murdered?”
    He shrugged. “Seems that way.”
    â€œActually my experience of murder is rare. I investigate divorce cases, insurance claims, that sort of thing. And you, you paint?” She would ask the questions. “Are you successful?”
    â€œModerately.”
    â€œAh.” Modest or truthful? “I gather you spend time in Europe.” It was all becoming too much let’s-get-to-know-each-other, not enough wily-snoop-collects-information. “Doing what?”
    â€œI sniff out schools-of paintings for the Gallery. Know what a school-of painting is?”
    Kyra nodded. “Done in the school of some major