Lethally Logged

by Amber Boffin

  “Okay, now that you’ve established that Andy didn’t dump you and you weren’t homeless, neither of which I believed…” This time Barrie lied. He had given her the benefit of the doubt; she had seemed so desperate. “Tell me, why didn’t you call the police for help? If you had, they wouldn’t have launched a search party for you.”

  Her lips quivered. She shifted her eyes. “They’d have thought I killed him, but I didn’t. I swear!” She fell to his feet, grabbing his jeans with her hands.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “You’re going to the police, now.”

  “Stop, you’re hurting me,” she shouted. “I’ll go. Don’t worry, I don’t need your help. I’ll be out of your life for good.”

  She slipped on her coat and picked up her belongings. She turned around, despair in her eyes, like a beaten dog desperate to be taken care off and escape her ordeal. “I’m innocent.”

  “Then you can go to the police without a problem. I can come with you.”

  “No. I know where it is.”

  Barrie followed her through his garage to the street. She walked off in the direction of the police station. He hesitated to follow her, to make sure she did go there, when his eyes fell on the poster Raj had been putting up around town. He pulled it off his window and stared at it. Had he been mistaken, and there was another woman missing? It didn’t really look like her.

  He looked at it again, narrowing his eyes. There was a resemblance. He was torn. Should he call the police to tell them of her visit? If she did go to them as promised, he might be making things worse for her. She did mention another woman to him who had pointed out the edible mushrooms. He wouldn’t be surprised if Kate had enemies, starting with the jealous girlfriends of the men she stole away from them. He had given her one night to sort herself out for the sake of old times, and the good days he had with her.

  First thing the next morning, Barrie headed straight to the police station, hoping he would see Raj rather than Sergeant Humphries. He didn’t expect to see a village gathering there. Arthur, Clive from the clothing and sport store on The Road, and Tina were all chatting in the waiting area next to the front door.

  Tina greeted him. “Hey, Barrie, I was wondering why I didn’t see you here sooner. Finally, you can tell us what really happened.”

  Barrie shook his head in dismay. “No idea what you’re talking about, and why are you here?”

  “We saw her last night. I recognized her from my mushroom class.” She brandished the portrait of the woman. “She looks like the portrait…a bit. She walked out of your garage. Isn’t that right, Clive?”

  Arthur stepped in. “Tina, be careful with what you say and who you start accusing when we don’t even know if this is the same woman as on the portrait. You just said yourself that there was only a faint likeness with the woman who took your mushroom course.”

  Raj joined the group. “Please, please, one at a time.”

  Maggie swung the door open. All eyes turned to the curly redhead, her mouth agape. She smiled. “What’s going on? Have they found her?”

  Barrie held the door open for her. He looked at Maggie with affection. She would understand, he thought. Perhaps he should hold back telling the police and discuss it with her first once Kate told her account of the story. He looked at the group.

  “Hey, Maggie, if you’re here for a confrontation, you’re in the right place. I’ll come back later. I don’t like gossip.” He stared at Tina. He knew he would have to explain himself now that Kate had been seen leaving his place, but he wanted to think about his approach first.

  “Barrie, I will say what I saw. It is my duty!” Tina shouted over the heads of Clive and Arthur.

  Barrie ignored her and whispered into Maggie’s ear, “Can I invite you for a coffee at Heidi’s when you’re done here, to make up for how I treated you last night?”

  Maggie hugged him. “No worries. I’ll come and get you. I’m not sure how long I’ll be. I’m picking up my camera.”

  “Good luck!”

  As Barrie stepped out, he could hear Tina’s high-pitched voice through the glass door. “I was here first.”

  *

  Maggie sighed. She wanted to get hold of her camera as soon as possible to be ready for her appointment. She had a pet portrait session this afternoon, which had come as a surprise. She had received the request this morning, commissioned by one of the loggers. At least, she thought it came from them, based on the logging company’s name in the email address, Value Forest Management. It was signed Stuart, no last name.

  The email hadn’t mentioned what pet she would be photographing. She could only speculate it had to be a small animal, given his working conditions. She couldn’t afford to ignore requests if she wanted her photography business to become sustainable.

  Maggie whispered into Arthur’s ear, “Why are you here?

  “I’m very worried about Ted. Adam told me what happened.”

  “Ted? Who is Ted?” Tina asked.

  Raj approached her. “Tina, eh, Ms. Tina Partridge, I’m ready to hear you now. Let’s go to the room over there.” He pointed to the interrogation room. “For privacy.”

  Tina followed him through the swinging doors.

  “Yes, I know. I think he ran away to avoid trouble,” Maggie replied.

  “Perhaps, but all the same, he’s a good man. I just want to hear that nothing bad has happened to him.”

  Clive, not one to keep his curiosity in his pocket, had been creeping up closer and closer to Maggie to eavesdrop. She liked him. He was kind. It was only now that she thought of asking him and his partner Tony to dog-sit. He had shown such affection toward Beans, to the point that she had once thought the dog belonged to him before Maggie adopted her.

  This wasn’t the time or place for discussing dog sitting, and Maggie’s own curiosity was nagging at her. “Clive, why are you here, if I may ask? I don’t want to pry.”

  “That’s all right, I already told Tina because we both saw her. You see, at lunch at Heidi’s I saw the picture of the man found dead, and I recognized him right away. He had come to my store with his girlfriend to pick up some gear for their hike.”

  “What gear? Do you remember?”

  “Yes, of course, but more importantly, I saw her walk past my shop last night. Tina says that she had come out of Barrie’s garage. Anyway, Tony, he’s so smart, put two and two together. She had to be the missing person everyone is looking for. So here I am.” Clive flicked his right hip to the side and swung open his arms. “But why are you here?”

  Maggie ignored his question; she wanted to find out if the belongings she had seen in the cabin belonged to that woman. “It might be important. Tell me, what did they buy?”

  “A backpack.” As he spoke, Maggie wanted to ask for a description but wasn’t able to without interrupting him. “Again, Tony’s idea, to stock guidebooks of the region, including ones about the fauna and flora. I prefer focusing on gear, but anyway, we sold one book so far, and it was to them. A book about plants and mushrooms.”

  It all seems to tie in. “What was the backpack like?”

  “She was wearing it when I saw her.” Clive grinned.

  Arthur looked at Maggie from his Picasso eye, as she liked calling it, the one with the blotch in the iris. He gently grabbed hold of Clive’s arm and sat him down on a chair, sitting next to him, anticipating a long conversation. “You’re really observant.” Clive seemed to puff up. “My memory isn’t so good. Was it a red backpack?”

  “No, that’s not a color this year.” Clive seemed horrified at the thought. “It’s from the new winter collection, the lightweight ones. In beautiful shades of blue, a blue rainbow…I’d say. It matched her coat perfectly. That’s why I recommended it to her.”

  The only coat Maggie had seen around that would be a good fit for the backpack she had seen in the trapper’s hut would be the coat hanging in Barrie’s hallway.

  Tina and Raj interrupted their conversation.

  “Tel
l Sergeant Humphries that the story will be out today, whether he likes it or not and without his picture.” Tina walked past Maggie, throwing a triumphant glance in her direction.

  Raj held her by the arm. “Be careful what you write. You can only base it on the facts, not speculations.”

  “I know my job, and I’ve read enough about this activist to know he must have made many enemies. I’m all for his causes, but I’d have never backed him. He was a political animal, looking for attention. The causes were just an excuse.” Tina sighed. “I’d hate to be a woman by his side, doing all the work without getting any credit for it.”

  Maggie couldn’t help but ask, “How do you know all that? Have you worked for him? And what is so special about him?”

  “I see you haven’t read the news much or seen my comments. Let me enlighten you all. I will have those details in my article anyway.” Tina explained that the red-haired, bearded man was Ben Fearon, a prominent activist who had gathered a large online following by carrying out controversial stunts to highlight the damage done by humans to nature. The more extreme the stunt, the more hits he got and money he received. Everyone was hooked to Tina’s lips. “I won’t give you any details of the terrible things he’s done. You can see for yourself online. He did get results with his sabotage operations, but I’m against it.”

  “Some of the people he must’ve been up against are people you can’t reason with,” said Arthur. “Not the ones you’d like as an enemy.”

  Tina was halfway out the door as she addressed Raj. “Now you see, Constable, why you need to find this poor woman and protect her. I’d better get on with my job.”

  “Who’s next?” Raj smiled at the remaining little group.

  Clive and Arthur spoke at the same time. “Maggie, we can wait.”

  “Well, it wasn—”

  Arthur pushed her gently toward the front desk, where Raj was standing. “Go.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be quick.” She reached the desk. “I’d like to pick up my camera. You said you’d only keep the chip as evidence, and I really need it for a job today.”

  Raj disappeared into a corridor to fetch it. Maggie pondered whether she would share some of her new insights, but they were still speculations at this stage. She had to speak with Barrie first. Raj placed her camera on the table. “Here you go, anything else?”

  “Yes, have they found her?”

  “No, at least not in the forest, so that search has been called off. Given all the new leads we have now, at least we know she’s alive!”

  “That’s a relief. Are you sure it’s the same person as on the posters?”

  “We don’t understand it; it seems the loggers gave the wrong description on purpose, if it is the same person. We just can’t carry on with the search with so little on who disappeared. It really all points to the woman Tina spotted in town. She was his girlfriend.”

  “Yes, and it was the same backpack I saw in the cabin.”

  “Now that’s interesting.”

  “Clive will confirm that.”

  “Good, good. Finally, a proper lead. Have you seen her too?”

  Maggie couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the woman in the window and the coat, not yet, for Barrie’s sake. That might have been the reason for his presence at the police station. She shook her head. “Will you search for Ted?”

  “How do you mean?”

  Maggie hadn’t discussed with Adam what to do with the note they had found and Ted’s disappearance, and she hadn’t managed to speak with Arthur in detail about it. In this instance, not being acquainted to him, she decided to speak. “He had seen the body, and he disappeared from his cabin. When we returned via his place yesterday, he was gone.”

  Raj’s dark eyebrows merged. “Seen the body, you say?”

  “Eh, well, I’m not really sure now. I think that’s what he said to us.”

  “Who us?”

  “Adam and I. You’d better ask Adam about it, and Arthur here. They both know him well. I don’t.”

  Raj leaned over his stretched arms, his palms resting on the table. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else you’d like to tell me, Maggie?”

  She could feel his breath in her face and was compelled to take a step back in search of an escape, when her eyes fell on the clock above his head. “No, really I must go, but if I’ve anything else, I promise I’ll come to you.”

  He bobbed his head. “All right for now, but don’t start solving the case on your own. I know how you can get into trouble. We’re focusing on this case, you know that?”

  Maggie nodded, thinking of Barrie and the logger’s afternoon appointment. She picked up her camera and waved goodbye without leaving the slightest time for questions from anyone. She walked out the door and marched to Barrie’s garage.

  She stopped in front of his entrance and checked her camera for the memory chip. Raj had indeed removed it, but she had set her camera up so that the pictures would also be backed up on the camera itself.

  She looked down at the little screen at a picture of the trapper’s cabin. It couldn’t be. A vague silhouette seemed to be standing just to the left of the cabin. It was too short to be Adam. The famous ghost? She couldn’t tell from the size of the picture. She would have to look at it on a big screen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Maggie jumped back, sensing the hand of the trapper’s ghost on her shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you like that. You had such a horrified look on your face, I thought I had to get you out of it fast. What are you looking at?” Barrie asked, sidling up with her to look at her camera screen.

  “I was deep in thought. We aren’t masters of our expressions. I wasn’t horrified, just checking if I had pictures left from my trip with Adam.” Maggie paused as Barrie raised an eyebrow. She knew he would have no patience for ghost stories. “Perhaps I was. I was looking at the trapper’s cabin picture and imagining how he had been killed.”

  “Killed? Or just died?” Barrie’s face grew pale.

  A pedestrian stared at the pair.

  Maggie looked back at him. She put her arm around Barrie’s shoulder. “Look, let’s go and have a coffee at Heidi’s, where we can speak quietly in our corner. You need a pick-me-up treat, and today is the fresh pretzel day. I know you like those.”

  “I could do with that. I have to say that I think I might have stepped right back into a mess I thought I’d gotten rid of, just because I wanted to help.”

  “It’s the woman I saw at your place?”

  “When did you see her?”

  “I knew it. The one with the blue coat. I saw her through the window when she looked out at me.”

  Barrie sighed. “I guess now I can tell you the story then.”

  They pushed the door of the Horizon Cafe. It was still quiet. Maggie weaved her way around the tables to the far end of the bar, where Heidi’s Main Coon cat meowed in anticipation of a cuddle. She ran her hand along his soft fur and up his endless tail.

  “He likes you. In fact, I think he only likes women. As soon as I approach, you’ll see…” Barrie put his hand out toward Spock’s head. The cat curled his back and hissed, his golden eyes on fire. When he removed his hand, the cat relaxed.

  Maggie laughed. “Maybe he doesn’t like engine-oil smell.”

  Barrie’s hands were black, his fingernails needing a good clean. “Eh. I see, I dropped my repairs when I saw you.” He slipped off his stool. “I’ll be back, but you’ll see, even with clean hands…”

  Maggie tickled Spock behind his lynx-like ears. “You’re a fussy puss.”

  Heidi greeted her with a warm smile. “Is he bothering you?” She removed the cat from the bar. “It’s so hard to make him get rid of that habit of his to climb up everything.”

  “No, not at all. I didn’t know he didn’t like Barrie. With Adam he’s fine.”

  “He’s possessive, maybe that’s why. Since Bill died, he’s taken up his role in our household. That’s what he thinks. Not me.
” Heidi chuckled. “I’m glad you’re back home safe; with all the stories I’ve heard about the trapper’s cabin…”

  Barrie returned, flicking his slightly cleaner hands in front of Maggie. He looked at the bar where the cat had been sitting.

  “He already left; you’ll have to prove it another time. What would you like? I’m having my usual cappuccino.”

  Heidi had already moved to the glass box where the cinnamon buns were stacked. Maggie pointed to the stand on which pretzels hung like wooden rings thrown by kids, the top prize going to the one at the back spoke of the stand. “I can’t resist them. They smell so nice.”

  Barrie rubbed his rough hands together. “Same for me.”

  Having served them, Heidi disappeared back in the kitchen, where the phone was ringing.

  “Tell me what’s happening, Barrie. You know that the woman at your place is the one the police is searching for?”

  “Yes, and that’s why I was there this morning. Are they still searching for her?”

  “Yes and no. All I know is that they haven’t spoken to her yet, but now they know she’s in Foxton. The hunt for her in the forest is over. She won’t be able to hide for long. All Foxton eyes are peeled, if you know what I mean.” Maggie thought of Clive staring out of his shop at all the passersby, and Tina, who would be hunting her down for her story.

  Barrie took a hearty bite of his pretzel, ripping it off like a hungry beast. Still with a full mouth, he said, “I told her. I told her. She always lies. I wouldn’t wish her on anyone.” He washed down his morsel with a gulp of coffee, the froth still hanging to his beard. “Tell you what, I bet ya she’s with Chainsaw. Either the sucker is involved in all this, or she’s wrapped him around her finger.”

  Maggie was quiet, listening attentively.

  He wiped his beard with the back of his shirt. “Before I tell you anything, I need to establish some facts. Can you tell me what you saw and what you know?”