Black Water

by Rosemary McCracken

  The Dominion Hotel’s lobby was deserted except for a stuffed moose head on the wall behind the reception desk. Christmas ornaments dangled from the antlers. A noisy bar behind the lobby seemed to be where the hotel made its money.

  I rang the bell on the desk. A good minute later, a teenage boy, his face scarred with acne, ambled out of the bar carrying a tray of empties. There was no point in asking if he knew Jamie. He would have been an infant when she lived in the area.

  But his face brightened when I asked if a Jennifer Collins had stayed at the hotel recently. He put the tray down on the reception desk. “The police asked us that. They think she had something to do with Lyle Critchley’s murder. That’s what Mara Nowak is saying on TV. Are you a private investigator?”

  “Just a friend.”

  “She’s not here now. She only stayed one night and she checked out on Friday morning.”

  “She say where she was going?”

  “I wasn’t here when she left. I work after school and on weekends. And during winter break.” He opened a door behind the desk. “Dad, someone’s asking about the Collins woman again.”

  A man with a thatch of iron-gray hair came to the doorway and took off his glasses. “We don’t give out information about our guests.”

  “Jamie—Jennifer—Collins is a friend. I need to find her.”

  “Sorry.” He peered at me. “I can’t even tell you whether she stayed here.”

  I smiled at his son who had picked up his tray. “I understand.”

  At the door, two men in black leather jackets pushed past me on their way to the lounge. I wondered what their hurry was. It didn’t sound like strip karaoke was in session.

  Outside, Celia hurried down the sidewalk toward me. “Jamie stayed at the Dominion on Thursday night,” I said when she caught up with me.

  “Well, she didn’t rent a car when she checked out. Sign on the door says the place is closed until Victoria Day weekend.”

  “Darn! I wanted to rent a car for Laura this week. Is there another rental place around here?”

  “Haven’t seen one.”

  I decided I’d worry about Laura’s transportation later. “Somebody must’ve given Jamie a lift.”

  Celia nodded. “As Bruce said, you need wheels to get anywhere around here. C’mon, we need to get back to Molly.”

  I followed her across Main Street, my mind in overdrive. Jamie must have known about the fire at Lyle’s place. It may not have made the ten o’clock news on Thursday night, but someone could have told her about it. She decided to drop out of sight and asked a friend to pick her up on Friday morning.

  “This way.” Celia didn’t break her stride as she turned into a walkway between two shops. Behind the buildings, a flight of stairs led down to the waterfront. I followed her down them.

  “What’s Bruce’s story?” I asked.

  “A lost soul, although a very bright one. He has a doctorate in philosophy.”

  Surprised by what she’d said, I nearly missed the last step. “What happened to him?”

  “He taught at a university in Alberta for a few years, then he had a breakdown. Drifted for a while, then turned up here last year. Father Brisebois took him on at the church.”

  “How old is he?”

  “My age. Forty-two.”

  He looked a good decade older than Celia. Too much rough living, I figured.

  “Bruce is an example of the huge economic gap in these parts,” she said.

  She patted Molly’s hood and I waited for her to go on.

  “The mega-cottages on the lakes sell for $1 million-plus. But there are people around here who are unemployed or earn the minimum wage. Like Bruce, they can’t afford a vehicle to get to jobs around the township.”

  She kicked a snowbank beside the dock. “I’ll put Bruce up in the rectory until Father Brisebois returns. On what we pay him, there’s not much that he can afford, and we have a heated building standing empty.”

  “You’re not afraid that he’ll pass out with a cigarette?”

  “I’ll think of some way to keep him in line.” She chuckled. “Lyle would have a fit.”

  “He didn’t like Bruce?”

  “Bruce has been known to be…somewhat irregular in his duties. Lyle never had a good word to say about him.”

  Somebody else that Lyle hadn’t got along with.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I walked into the Braeloch branch at the stroke of nine the next morning. At the front desk, a plump young woman with short fuchsia hair smiled at me. Ivy Barker, Administrative Assistant, her nameplate read.

  “The branch officially opens tomorrow,” she said, “but one of our advisors would be happy to—”

  “I’m Pat Tierney from Toronto.” I handed her my business card.

  Ivy glanced at the card. “Ah, the lady from headquarters.”

  I nodded and looked around me. The old house had been completely renovated. Keith had said that Norris Cassidy had put a lot of money into it but if the business didn’t fly, the firm should be able to recoup most of its investment.

  The large waiting area to my left held brown leather armchairs, coffee tables with magazines and a gas fireplace. An office was on my right. Its door was open, displaying dark wainscoting, a bay window that looked out onto Main Street and a ginger blonde behind an oversized mahogany desk. A brass plaque on the wall beside the door identified her as Nuala Larkin, Branch Manager.

  I stepped into the office. “Hello, Nuala. I’m Pat Tierney.”

  She got out of her chair, drew herself up to her full five-foot height and extended her hand. “Welcome to Braeloch, Pat.”

  I took in her artfully tousled hair, tailored charcoal suit and spike heels. She was in her mid-thirties, a power dresser, a woman who was going places.

  Her turquoise eyes smiled at me.

  I took her hand. Smart cookie. She didn’t want me there but she wasn’t about to show it.

  “And here’s Soupy,” she said.

  I turned to see a tall, dark-haired young man at Nuala’s door. The smile on his handsome face displayed nice white teeth. “Paul Campbell’s the name.” He held out his hand.

  “Pat Tierney. Good to meet you, Paul.” I winced as his big paw crushed my hand.

  “Everyone around here calls me Soupy.”

  I flexed my hand to see if any bones were broken. “I get it. As in Campbell’s Soup.”

  He actually looked impressed. “It’s Paul Campbell on anything official,” he went on, “but I’ve been Soupy since back in high school when our band got started.”

  “Band?”

  He smiled. “The High Lonesome Wailers. Country, rock and reggae. From Johnny Cash to Creedence Clearwater to Bob Marley. I’m lead guitar.”

  “An interesting mix,” I said.

  “Soupy,” Nuala chided. “Pat isn’t here to discuss your music career.”

  “The Glencoe Highlands is a hotbed of music,” he said.

  I held up a hand. “I’m sure it is. But right now, I’ll take a look at your client accounts. I understand this branch has quite a few clients already.”

  “The Wailers are playing a fundraiser on Saturday night. I can put tickets aside for you.”

  I flashed him a smile. “I’ll see if I can make it.”

  I spent the morning in the spare office looking over client accounts. Nuala and Soupy had drummed up seventeen clients. One of them was Veronica Collins, who had just over two hundred thousand dollars for the branch to invest. Not a bad start, although not the numbers that Keith wanted.

  At quarter to twelve, Soupy poked his head around the doorframe. “Have time for lunch?”

  “I’m taking the four of us out for lunch,” I said. “By the way, I see that Veronica Collins is your client.”

  “You know Veronica?”

  “We’ve met. So what’s the best place in town for lunch?”

  He laughed. “If you like burgers, that would be Joe’s.”

  Ivy appeared beside him
. “The really good places to eat are at the resorts. The Winagami is the closest and it’s a twenty-minute drive.”

  “Let’s go there,” I said. “We don’t officially open for business till tomorrow.”

  Ivy looked at her watch. “Nuala has gone to see a client, but she said she’d be back by noon. I’ll make a reservation for twelve-thirty.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I joined Soupy and Ivy in the reception area. Nuala still hadn’t returned.

  “We were talking about Lyle Critchley, the guy who was murdered out at his place last week,” Soupy said. “He came here the day he died.”

  “I hear you nearly had him signed up as a client,” I said.

  He nodded solemnly. “Almost.”

  “Mr. Critchley was at the door when Soupy and I got back from lunch,” Ivy said. “We saw him peering through the front window. Said he wanted a look at the place. So we opened up and asked him in. He checked the place out like he was thinking of buying it.”

  “Swanky place like this, you folks must charge a pretty penny to handle people’s money.” Soupy mimicked an old man’s voice. “Fireplace. Leather couches, too.”

  Ivy tried to hide her laughter. I laughed too, then felt badly because the man was dead. But he did sound like an aggravating old coot.

  “But I knew Lyle would be a good catch,” Soupy said. “He ran that heating company for years, probably had pots of money. I gave him one of our brochures and we made an appointment for this Thursday.”

  He sighed. “You win some, you lose some.”

  Ivy’s mouth puckered. “I know I shouldn’t say this, but he seriously creeped me out. You know what he said before he left? ‘I’ll be back.’”

  “Sounded more like a threat than a promise,” Soupy said.

  Nuala arrived just then, and we headed out to the small parking lot behind the building where I’d left my Volvo beside a cherry-red Lexus.

  “Nice car, Nuala,” Ivy said, looking at the Lexus.

  Keith must have given Nuala a whopping signing bonus.

  “I could walk to work,” Nuala told me, “but I never know when I may have to visit a client.”

  I clicked open the Volvo’s doors and got in behind the steering wheel. Soupy took the seat beside me, and Nuala and Ivy sat in the back. I drove through Braeloch and onto the highway.

  “Watch out for cars coming up,” Soupy said as we rounded a curve.

  I gritted my teeth. Backseat drivers are a pain in the butt, and Soupy wasn’t even in the backseat.

  “Pat’s driven a car before,” Nuala put in behind me.

  “Not around here,” Soupy said cheerfully. “You take your life in your hands on these roads. More people get killed on the stretch between Braeloch and Donarvon than on any other road in Ontario.”

  I resisted telling him I’d driven through the Canadian Rockies and all the way down the west coast of the United States to the Baja Peninsula.

  “Some say it’s these rock cuts,” he continued as we drove between two towering walls of rock. “This is the Precambrian Shield. These rocks are millions, maybe billions, of years old. That spooks some people.”

  In the rearview mirror, I saw Nuala roll her eyes.

  “But what bugs me about these rock cuts is they screw up cell phone reception,” he said. “That’s been the hardest thing about coming back here.”

  “Oh, you big city boy,” Ivy scoffed. “Life is so difficult out here in the bush.”

  The Winagami’s dining room was almost full. Many of the diners were families on vacation over the winter school break. The waitress seated us in front of windows that looked out on a snow-covered lake. Half a dozen snowmobiles were zooming across it.

  “Aren’t you and Mara are having your wedding reception here?” Ivy asked Soupy when the waitress had taken our orders.

  He nodded. “The twenty-first of July. Mara’s folks made the booking last year.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “Would that be the Mara Nowak on The Highlands Tonight?”

  “You bet!” His face beamed. “That’s my girl.”

  Across the table, Nuala smiled. “Some say winter is the best time of the year for weddings in these parts. No bugs and no bears.”

  “But tons of snow,” I said. “The place where I’m staying has a long driveway. If anything prevents the Corcorans down the road from plowing, I’ll be housebound.”

  “A lot of businesses rely on the snow to bring people up here with their snowmobiles and cross-country skis,” Ivy said looking around the room. “Especially at Christmas and winter break.”

  Our drinks arrived. White wine for Nuala and myself, beer for Soupy and Ivy. I raised my glass. “To the Braeloch branch,” I said. “May it prosper and grow.”

  The others raised their glasses.

  “I’m really impressed,” I told them. “Seventeen clients and the branch hasn’t even opened.”

  “A few of them are Soupy’s friends and relatives,” Nuala said.

  He gave a sheepish grin. “Figured I should call in some favors.”

  He took a folded newspaper from inside his jacket and opened it. “Here’s our ad.” He passed the paper to me.

  A full-page advertisement in The Highland Times announced the opening of the Braeloch branch the following day. A series of financial planning seminars scheduled for the coming weeks caught my interest.

  “These seminars are a great idea,” I said.

  “Nuala’s idea,” Soupy said. “First one is on Thursday night.”

  “We hope it will bring in some more clients,” Nuala said. “The topic is retirement planning. Next month, we’ll do strategies to reduce debt.”

  Soupy drew his chair closer to the table. “In May, when the cottagers return, we’ll hold a Saturday session on cottage succession planning.” His dark eyes shone. “We need to target the cottagers. They’re putting in master-chef kitchens and Jacuzzis.”

  “There’s a lot of wealth in this area,” Nuala added.

  “Wealthy cottagers have driven up lakefront real estate prices,” Soupy said. “We have a place on Three Hills Lake that’s been in our family for three generations. We would never be able to afford it today.”

  “Don’t overlook the local people,” I put in. “Many cottagers have financial advisors in the city.”

  Nuala nodded.

  “It’s young people you should go after,” Ivy said. “People my age are moving here for jobs in construction and the trades.”

  I smiled at her. “Good point, Ivy. Young families may not have a lot of savings, but they’ll grow. And many of them aren’t working with financial advisors yet.”

  The waitress arrived with our starters.

  “This afternoon, I’d like to go over the seminars you’ve planned,” I said as the woman placed a bowl of tomato bisque in front of me.

  Soupy glanced at Nuala, then speared a shrimp on his plate. Nuala looked at me too brightly.

  Tread carefully, I told myself. “Maybe I can pass along a tip or two. And I’m sure you have ideas I can take back to Toronto.”

  Nuala lowered her eyes and dipped her spoon into her bisque.

  I decided that they didn’t need to hear Keith’s caution that the branch had to deliver—and quickly. “You’re doing all the right things,” I said. “It takes time to build a business.”

  “My kids are with me this week,” I said on the drive back to Braeloch. “My daughter was talking about cross-country skiing this morning but my…little boy hasn’t done much skiing. I don’t think he can keep up with her.”

  I wondered if I’d ever get used to calling Tommy my son.

  “The snow’s still good,” Soupy said. “Have them try Highlands Park out by the reservoir. The trails don’t ice up like some other places.”

  “Braeloch College has an art program on this week,” Ivy said as I pulled into the parking lot behind the branch. “Drawing, painting, pottery, you name it. Your kids might like it. The college is across the lake from here.”


  “I’ll check that out.” Laura could hit the ski trails while Tommy was drawing or painting. But first I had to find them some form of transportation.

  The four of us went over the agenda for the launch the next day, and gave it a few tweaks. Then Nuala and Soupy showed me their plans for the seminar series. I made a few suggestions, but I mainly showed a lot of enthusiasm.

  When we’d adjourned, I followed Soupy into his office. It wasn’t as large as Nuala’s and it didn’t have a bay window, but it had a fireplace with a beautiful carved wooden mantle.

  “Does the fireplace work?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it does. It’s wood-burning, not like the gas one out front. I’ll have to get some firewood.”

  I sat myself in the chair across from his desk. “Soupy, what investment firm was Lyle with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  He lowered his eyes. “I offered my services and he said he’d be back this Thursday. I told him to bring his last quarterly statement.”

  I sighed. “Soupy, the first thing you need to ask a prospective client is whether he’s already working with a financial advisor. The client can take his business wherever he chooses, but we don’t want to look like we’re poaching from another firm.”

  “I figured he was on his own,” he said. “Old-timer like him probably had his money stashed away in a bank.”

  “But you didn’t know.”

  “Well, I would’ve known this Thursday if he brought in a statement.” His face brightened. “Police should’ve have found it among his papers. If there was anything to be found.”

  “Was Lyle’s company doing well before he sold it?”

  He smiled. “It was a terrific business. Mara’s dad bought it. He couldn’t believe his luck.”

  “What’s his business called?”

  “Nowak Heating. It’s north of here on Highway 36. Just past Donarvon.”

  Back in my office, I looked up Nowak Heating on the Internet. Its website had Greg Nowak down as the owner, and it included a map that showed exactly where its office was located. I printed it out, then began compiling a list of companies in the area from the local telephone directory.