Lethally Logged

by Amber Boffin

  The trapezius man, as Maggie nicknamed him in her mind, spoke over the engine sound. “Did the medics get here?”

  Maggie nodded. “Yes, the air ambulance came. Did you call them?” She paused.

  They both reeked of diesel fumes and were covered in sawdust. They had to be loggers. They must have cut their way through the woods, or the logging operation was nearer than Adam had estimated. The two men glanced at each other without giving her an answer. Instead, the bearded man asked, “Why are the cops here?”

  “Sadly, the man died. It was too late when they arrived.”

  Abruptly, the driver of the quad turned his steering wheel as far right as possible with a thrust of the gas. He looked back at Maggie over his shoulder. “Go figure. Nothing for us to do here anymore.”

  In a cloud of dust, the pair disappeared into the woods as a bewildered Raj reached Maggie. “Who are they? What did they want?”

  “Loggers. And I think they called 911.” Maggie bit her lip at not having urged them to speak with the police.

  “What? We’ve got to speak with them.” Raj turned on his heels.

  Maggie held him back by the arm. She knew Raj would listen to her; he was her friend, after all. “Wait. Another thing. I’m sure, really sure I saw another backpack in there.” She pointed to the cabin. “Shouldn’t you send a search team out?”

  Raj bobbed his head as he always did when he was uncertain about something. The wind from the helicopter propellers above blew Maggie’s hat off her head. It was the air ambulance. The sound of its motor was deafening.

  Brigit was standing next to a stretcher with a long bundle on it. A cable was lowered and clipped to the stretcher. The load was slowly lifted up and attached to the side of the aircraft. Brigit put her arm around Adam’s neck with a peck on his cheek then followed the load up.

  Raj’s curled-up eyelashes nearly touched his eyebrows as he stared at Maggie without a blink. “I’ve already tried convincing Humphries. You are both sure?”

  “Yes, and I took a picture.”

  “Now we’re talking. That should convince him. Come with me then.”

  Maggie trotted behind Raj, flicking in her mind through the pictures she had taken. She hadn’t taken any of the bed, where the book and backpacks were, only of the man at the table and the door view. The loaf might hopefully be on one of them.

  Raj went straight up to Sergeant Humphries. “Sir, we have evidence of a second person. Shall I call for a search operation?”

  “Constable Gupta, what evidence? Only food was removed, as far as I could tell, and with everyone’s footprints in there, it’s impossible to tell when and who was there. I saw mouse droppings next to the omelet, and even a dead mouse under the bunk bed.”

  Raj shook his gold name bracelet, letting it slide down his wrist. “Maggie, can you show him the pictures you took?”

  All eyes were on her. She obediently took her camera off her shoulder.

  Raj stuck his hand out. “I’ll need to take the camera off you. It’s evidence.”

  Raj took hold of her camera, only for the sergeant to take it from him. Sergeant Humphries stared at the black screen at its back.

  Maggie pressed the viewing button. “Here, you see the table with half an omelet, and you can see the loaf wrapped in cloth next to the newspaper—”

  “Yes, nothing new there. An animal could have eaten those. Constable, did you bag the plants in the newspaper? And the dead mouse?” Raj nodded. “Good. It’s a simple case of food poisoning. I’ve seen it before with those wild foragers. An accident waiting to happen.”

  “The plants in the newspaper looked safe to eat,” Maggie said.

  “Really, so you’re one of them?” Sergeant Humphries shook his head. “Anyway, it looks like an accidental death to me.”

  “Sir…”

  “What now, Constable?”

  “What if there was another person, and they wanted to poison that person? It would be a good cover-up, blaming the man himself for picking the wrong plant?”

  Maggie was pleased to see Raj was better than she was at getting his point across to the sergeant. Nothing like pointing out indirectly that he’d better consider foul play if he wanted to cover his backside against his superiors. Now he couldn’t ignore the missing person, or so she thought…

  “Sir, there were two loggers on a quad just a—”

  “Whaaat! What did they want?”

  “Maggie said they called for the air ambulance.”

  If Sergeant Humphries were a bull, he would now have steam coming out of his nostrils and would be digging up dust with his right leg. “And you tell me now? Let’s get this moving. I want to talk to them. And you.” The sergeant pointed at Maggie with his chin. “Adam, take care of her. No more interfering with police.”

  Maggie wondered what exactly he meant, hoping she wouldn’t have to go back home and might be able to carry on with their trip. If there was a lost person out there in need of help, she wanted to be part of the search party. “If I can help to find the person, I will.”

  “No, you’ve done enough. We don’t need your help now.”

  “Are you sending us back to Foxton? On foot?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes, and on foot, the same way you came here. We aren’t a taxi service,” Sergeant Humphries bellowed as he fiddled with his walkie-talkie.

  “Adam knows where the loggers’ camp is…I don’t think you do, and I’ll get lost without him…” Maggie looked pleadingly at Raj.

  “Sir, you do want to speak with the loggers,” Raj intervened.

  “Yes, fine,” the sergeant grumbled under his moustache.

  Adam gently took Maggie aside, as if he wanted to show her something in his backpack and whispered, “Look, they don’t need me to find the loggers’ camp. The chopper can locate it easily.”

  “The sergeant doesn’t seem to realize that,” Maggie retorted. “Maybe we can find more clues about the missing person? I could imagine he or she might have headed in that direction.”

  “Maggie, not again. I know you can’t help your terrier instinct, but I think it’s best we go back to Foxton. The police are on the case now.”

  Maggie saw his point, and if she insisted on using the missing person, she would go nowhere with him. Another approach might work. “What about Ted?”

  “Yes, I have to speak with him.”

  Maggie felt she was on the right track. Perhaps another nudge would do the trick. “And what about the wolves? We’re so close, you said.”

  Maggie looked straight into his ice-blue eyes. Adam had such a soft spot for those wolves. It had taken a lot of questions about what he was doing during his trips into the bush to finally get insight into his secret escapades. He had opened up to her only the night before, telling her he wanted to surprise her and it was time to prepare her for the encounter.

  She had never seen him so emotional as when he finally told her Bella’s story. A farmer called upon Adam’s services upon hearing the constant bray of his donkey in the field and discovering a wolf in the paddock. This time, Adam instructed him to kill the poor beast, hearing it was overwhelmed by mange, a deadly disease, if left untreated.

  Having inspected the wolf, and seeing she was lactating, Adam went on a hunt for the cubs. That was when he found Bella, only a month old, hiding under a pile of wood, in dire need of care if she were to survive. Against all odds, under Adam’s care, she made it to freedom and had become an alpha wolf with a litter of her own.

  Maggie nudged him with her elbow. “What about Bella? We can’t go back now.”

  The crow’s feet around Adam’s eyes grew deeper and curled up like the tips of spruce trees in spring.

  Maggie insisted, “Since you told me of Bella’s existence last night, I can’t wait to meet her. I’ve never seen a wolf before. And taking pic—” She stopped short, remembering Raj had her camera. “Does she have a radio collar?”

  “Yes, a VHF one. It would be really hard to find her without it, now th
at the cubs are weaned and traveling with the pack. That’s another reason why I want to find her now. I need to change her collar; the battery is nearing its end.”

  “You see? I’ll get the bags while you convince Sergeant Humphries we can stay here. And if he doesn’t want us to, we might happen to take a wrong turn toward the north…”

  “Maggie…they know I don’t get lost easily. I’ll give them the directions to the loggers’ camp and tell them we need to speak with Ted. I’ll figure something out.”

  Maggie swung her bag onto her back. It felt as if its weight had increased. She looked down at Adam’s bag, a long one with an antenna tucked on its side. Her growing excitement at seeing the wolves was dampened by the thought of the mystery of the second backpack. Perhaps once the police spoke to the loggers, it would give new insight.

  Raj had told her he believed what she saw. She had to trust him to do his job. He was in a far better position to convince Sergeant Humphries to call for a missing person search.

  Maggie glanced down at her father’s pilot’s watch, the large display indicating that it was already four o’clock. She resisted the pull of talking one last time to Sergeant Humphries. He was busy communicating on the radio, holding his cap with one hand and pacing back and forth.

  Adam walked past him in Maggie’s direction and checked his pockets. Deep furrows zigzagged across his forehead, and only a few feet away from her, he swiveled around without a word.

  His ponytail swung from side to side as he disappeared out of sight. The news didn’t look promising…

  Chapter Five

  In the village of Foxton, Tina Partridge, the local journalist, entered the Horizon Cafe. As often was the case on Saturdays, the place was buzzing with customers. In order to keep customers coming through the shoulder season and into winter, Heidi had been testing themed weekends.

  She tried to make them as entertaining as possible, matching the food with the theme of the evening. The last one had been a culinary trip to Brittany, France. For the occasion, she had learned to make crêpes, the paper-thin savory ones that were typically topped with ham, cheese, and an egg. The local cider, a result of a bumper crop of apples, had been the perfect drink to go with the dish. The stack of cider bottles next to the entrance had disappeared in no time, to the delight of the local producer.

  This time it was all about mushrooms, given the good season for king boletes. It turned out that Tina Partridge was a mushroom fanatic and often organized foraging expeditions in autumn to share her passion and knowledge. She had promised Heidi three baskets full of boletes and chanterelles that she had collected with her group of enthusiasts.

  Heidi spotted Tina from the bar. She threw her tea towel aside and headed to the door, rubbing her hands against her apron. For the occasion, she had picked an apron covered in drawings of mushrooms.

  A chirpy man who had jumped up from his table beat her to the door. “Hey, Tina, come on in. The queen of mushrooms. My wife better not hear me.” He winked. Tina beamed. He held the door open with his foot and unloaded her of two boxes. “Let me help you.”

  “Thanks, and wait till you taste them. We can’t have a better cook for them.” She winked in turn at Heidi.

  It wasn’t often that Tina gave compliments. It was a good omen for the evening. Heidi gave her a friendly tap on the back. “Come, come on in.” She peered into the box Tina was holding, waving her hand over the fungi to catch their scent. “They look wonderful.”

  “Perfect, already a good turnout. Don’t forget, I reserved two tables.” Tina looked at the tables in front of the lake view, all occupied by young people drinking beer.

  “Yes, they know the tables have to be free by seven. You were wise to do so. I’m already fully booked.”

  “Good, because I’ve invited a chief editor of an important news agency.” Tina blew her fringe away from her eyes. “I’m counting on you, Heidi.”

  Heidi had heard that Tina had been freelancing for some news agencies in Toronto, eager to gain credit as a reporter. Her article on the body found in the boat had been retweeted extensively, to her delight. Since then, she had published an article about the mystery of the haunted trapper’s cabin, which she proclaimed was the reason for the increase in visitors to Foxton in the past month, ignoring the resplendent autumn colors this year.

  “It will be fine as long as I can get my hands on those mushrooms of yours.” Heidi nudged Tina forward toward the bar, keen to get on with her cooking.

  Heidi lifted the bar counter panel to let Tina through, taking the stack of boxes from the eager client. Spock, her Main Coon cat—named after the Star Trek character because of his ears—rubbed against her legs, his back curled.

  “Not now, don’t you see my hands are full?” Heidi kicked a toy mouse behind the bar. Spock ran after it, playfully oblivious to Heidi slipping into the kitchen and leaving him behind. “I don’t want him in the kitchen when I’m cooking.”

  “Understandably so. I’d never allow a pet inside the house…and not even my kids can convince me otherwise.”

  Heidi preferred to ignore the topic, eager to avoid another argument about her cat. To appease Tina, she’d had to remove Spock’s special cushion from the far end of the bar to a corner, hidden from sight. “Bettie, can you take the boxes from Tina?”

  Bettie, Arthur’s wife, had become a fixture of the kitchen staff after having stepped in when Heidi had lost her sous chef in the summer. Bettie inspected the mushrooms, lifting a plump king bolete to her eyes. Its perfectly smooth cap shone under the light, the ideal home for a gnome. “I’d really like to know where you found such a specimen! Without even a nibble off its flesh.”

  Tina raised her chin and swung her little hand bag around her trunk with force. “Only the ones who join my mushroom hunt can be privy to that information.”

  Bettie tapped her bad leg. “Maybe I should send Arthur. He’s good at finding hidden things, and he can still run around like a rabbit, unlike me.”

  Heidi pictured Arthur, the old gentleman running around his island and ducking into a rabbit hole followed by his sausage dog, Tinker.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Bettie.

  “Nothing.” Heidi turned to Tina, pointing to the large clock on the wall. “Now, you run along, otherwise we’ll never get it ready on time.”

  Tina always seemed to ignore any form of coaxing. “I’ve got to tell you about this irritating couple.” She grabbed hold of Heidi’s hand. “Did I tell you about them?”

  Heidi and Bettie looked at each other and at the clock. Bettie smiled at Tina, gently lifting Tina’s hand away from Heidi and tucking it under hers affectionately. “Why don’t you tell me all about it?” She winked at Heidi. “Let me get you a cup of tea.”

  Tina was in need of talking, and any ear would do, it seemed. “They kept on arguing as if they were alone in the world, but you know me, I won’t have anyone interrupt my lecture.”

  The pair stepped through the doors, side by side, nearly getting stuck midway.

  “Yes, I can imagine the scene…” Bettie replied.

  “He also kept on asking about the logging camp, asking me about it. How do I know where they run their operations!” Tina’s high-pitched voice faded as it blended with the roar of voices from the restaurant. “He claimed to love mushroom picking, but he kept wandering off, and it wasn’t mushroom hunting, I can tell you that…I knew who he was from the first time I saw him.”

  Although Heidi’s curiosity was slightly piqued, wondering what the man had been looking for, with Tina out of her way, she could focus on the pies that were just waiting to be filled with the mushrooms. She gently shook the box of golden chanterelles, checking for any unwanted mushrooms in the batch.

  The sound of Bettie’s distinctive broken gait followed the slamming of the swinging doors. “I managed to free myself from Tina, thanks to one of her fans, who wanted a selfie with her. What can I do to help?”

  “Can you clean the mushrooms?”

/>   “I have to say it’s a relief we have an expect to pick them for us. I’m sure I’d end up with a deadly one in the lot.” Bettie laughed.

  “Come on, I pick them myself. It isn’t that hard, and I’m still here…” Heidi paused as she looked out the window at the deep blue lake surrounded by blotches of intense reds, oranges, and yellows from the autumn leaves—a perfect Impressionist painting. She sighed. “I wish I had the time.”

  “I can take care of the cafe for a few days. I’m sure I can get Arthur to help. It’ll do you good to have a break.”

  “Maybe…” Heidi stared out the window.

  *

  Sergeant Humphries and Constable Gupta had received reinforcements and headed for the loggers’ camp. The sergeant insisted on driving the police quad, so Raj had no choice but sit behind him on what little space was left.

  They left a search party with dogs to comb the area for the potential second person, still a possibility the sergeant was reluctant to believe but couldn’t afford to ignore. He stated that they would focus on what really mattered—the loggers had called for the air ambulance, so therefore they had to be the last people to have seen the man. Dead or alive, that was still a question.

  Raj barely managed to hang on to the back bar of the quad, refusing to put his hands around the rotund waist of the sergeant. He still remembered what happened when he had hugged him after they nearly hit a deer. Over the sergeant’s shoulder he saw a rather large log across the path. “Sir, they went arou—”

  He was propelled off the quad as the sergeant rode over the log and got stuck. The wheels were spinning under the sergeant’s heavy foot on the gas pedal. The quad see-sawed back and forth with the displacement of the sergeant to the front or back of the seat. Raj rubbed his elbow but couldn’t repress a laugh.