Tracy was eating cereal at the table. I sat down across from her. “Anything else you’d like to tell me about what Ruby said last night?” I asked.
She put down her spoon. “I really didn’t see Jamie. Ruby told me she’s working on something, but I don’t know what it is. Really, I don’t.”
She sighed. “Ruby said we should leave her alone. Let her get on with it, she said.”
I stared at her, exasperated. I’d hightailed it up north to find Jamie. Now that Tracy was no longer worried about her, the search was off as far as she was concerned.
But I was committed to staying in Braeloch for a few more weeks. And I was worried about Jamie. The police wanted to speak to her, and she was eluding them. And then there was the grow-op and the bikers.
“We need to tell the police that Al and Ruby know where Jamie is,” I said.
“I told Foster that I don’t know where she is, and that’s the truth. I’m going back to Toronto, and Jamie needs to get on with what she’s doing.”
She had that stubborn look on her face, and I knew I wouldn’t get her to change her mind. “You’ll stay at the house with Laura?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Keep an eye on her. And Kyle.”
Tracy looked at me steadily as she finished her coffee but said nothing.
I watched her Honda Civic disappear down the drive, then I went upstairs to shower and dress. I was back in the kitchen with a pot of coffee brewed when Foster called at seven-thirty. He’d turned his cell phone off when he returned to the hotel the night before and hadn’t heard my message until now. He told me he’d be at Black Bear Lake within the hour.
Farah slipped into the kitchen and gave me a baleful look. “It is dangerous here for me and Tommy.”
I handed her cutlery for four place settings and motioned her toward the table. “Sister Celia and I have to go to work tomorrow,” I said. “But Kerry Gallant, the man who lives in the house on the next property, works at home. I’m sure he’ll come over if there’s a problem. Why don’t I call him right now?”
Kerry answered on the second ring. I told him that Farah would be at the house with Tommy while I was at work and asked if I could give her his number.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll look in on them.”
We were in the middle of breakfast when Foster arrived. I told the others to go on eating, and I took Foster out to the deck, then around to the drive. There wasn’t much to see.
“Sergeant Bouchard seemed to think whoever was out there was making a social call,” I said when we returned to the house.
A frown creased Foster’s face as he lowered himself onto a sofa in front of the fireplace.
“Visitors knock on doors, whether they’re front doors or back doors,” I went on. “They don’t just peer in windows.”
“Sounds like somebody tried to frighten you last night,” he said. “Here at the house and on the highway.”
“They were two different people. Tracy and I were on the highway around the time Farah saw that man on the deck.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe they were working together,” I said.
“Bouchard didn’t measure the prints or the tire tracks?”
“He didn’t do anything.”
Foster made me go over what had happened on the highway again. “When did you notice the vehicle behind you?”
When I told him it might have come out of the driveway at Glencairn Conservation Park, he sighed. “I’ll take a look, but any tire tracks out there will be covered with snow this morning.”
“Is there a way of getting prints from under fresh snow?”
He looked thoughtful. “We sometimes get photographs using oblique lighting. Provided the temperature doesn’t rise above freezing.”
He hoisted himself off the sofa. “Don’t uses those doors today.” He inclined his head toward the doors to the deck. “I’ll get a forensics team over here. They’ll check for fingerprints on the glass.”
At nine-thirty, I headed out with Tommy and Farah. I dropped Farah off at Foodland to shop for groceries. I told her to get herself a coffee at Joe’s when she’d finished shopping and we’d meet her there. I parked the Volvo in the municipal lot, and Tommy and I walked over to the church.
Jesus of the Highlands was full again, but this time all eyes were on Sister Celia. A woman in the pulpit was big news for this congregation.
Celia wasn’t in the pulpit, though. She had pinned a tiny microphone on the purple liturgical stole she wore and stood facing her parishioners in the center aisle.
“Love God and our neighbor to very best of our ability,” she said. “That’s the great commandment. It’s what we were put on this Earth to do. But it’s not always easy.
“I was a teacher for many years. First in elementary school and later in high school. When I taught Grade Five, one of my students brought a small tree branch with a caterpillar cocoon attached to it to class. He asked if we could watch the butterfly emerge, and I agreed. We set up the cocoon inside a classroom window.
“A week later, the cocoon began to tear. After a few days, we could see the head of the butterfly with its tiny antennae. The next day, the tear in the cocoon was larger and we saw the butterfly’s folded wings. At recess that day, one of the boys ripped open the cocoon exposing a half-formed creature, part caterpillar, part butterfly.
“ ‘Bobby!’ I cried.
“ ‘I was only trying to help it, Sister,’ he said.
“Too late, I told him that the struggle to emerge from the cocoon is part of the process of becoming a butterfly. The exertion develops its muscles and its circulatory system. Deprived of that struggle, our little creature—our caterfly or butterpillar—died soon after.
“A struggle is also integral to our own evolution, our journey to becoming the best people we can be. We come out of church on Sunday fired up with good intentions. Then someone cuts us off at an intersection. Grabs the last bag of milk at the grocery store. Steals our handbag or wallet. And our good intentions fly right out the window. We crawl home and complain to our spouse or our friends. But the important thing is that tomorrow we try again. The struggle builds our characters.
“In the Apostles’ Creed, we speak of the Communion of Saints. That’s you, Tommy.” Her eyes were on the boy beside me.
Tommy looked up at me, his eyes big brown circles in his face.
“And you, Sherry,” she said to Sherry Vargas on the other side of the church.
“And you, Bruce Stohl.” She smiled at Bruce, who was seated beside Sherry.
“And you in the blue jacket and you and you.” She pointed to people throughout the church.
Those she had indicated smiled self-consciously. Some lowered their heads.
“We’re all saints in the making. We all have the capacity to do wonderful, generous things for our fellow human beings and the planet on which we live. We can also do terrible evil. But the fact that we are here today means our intentions are in the right place.”
She bowed her head and paused for a few moments. “The Lord be with you.”
Then she raised a hand. An accordion wailed the opening bars of “When the Saints Come Marching In.” A sax and two guitars joined in.
Celia began to clap in time to the music. And so did everyone else in the church as she and the two altar girls walked down the center aisle.
She’d done a good job of beating the bushes for musicians, I thought as we filed out behind them. I didn’t think Father Brisebois had encouraged music in his church.
“Well done,” I said to her at the church door where she stood greeting her flock.
“Am I really a saint?” Tommy asked.
She gave him a big smile. “You sure are, kiddo.”
“Well,” I said, ruffling his hair, “maybe when you’re asleep.”
After lunch, Celia took Tommy out on the snowmobile. Farah loaded a tray with jars and bottles, and retreated to the upstairs bathroom for a beauty trea
tment. I slipped into my room and lay down on my bed with the novel I was reading.
I heard Farah emerge from the bathroom and go downstairs. Not long after that, rapping sounded on the front door. I got up and looked out the window. Kerry’s black Jeep was in the drive. After her fright the night before, I didn’t think Farah would answer the door, but a few moments later I heard Kerry’s voice in the hall. I sank back on my bed and chuckled.
When I went downstairs a half-hour later to put the roast in the oven, I found Farah and Kerry drinking tea in front of the fireplace. Kerry lifted a hand to me in greeting. “Needed to stretch my legs,” he said.
The front door opened, and Celia and Tommy came in. “When can we go out on Molly again?” Tommy asked her.
“Sister Celia has work to do this week,” I told him.
“Tell you what, young man,” Kerry said, “I’ll take you for a spin tomorrow.”
The boy’s face broke into a delighted grin. “Right after breakfast?”
“You’ll have to ask Sister Celia,” I said.
“I’ve got my own machine,” Kerry said.
Kerry said his goodbyes, and Celia fed Tommy crackers and cheese at the table. Farah followed me upstairs.
“Kerry make paintings,” she said. “That is his work.”
I smiled and thought of Wendy who paid the bills at the house next door.
“He is very nice man. He is rich?” Farah asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“He has big place over there. Maybe I see it tomorrow.”
“Take Tommy with you if you go over there. I don’t want him here alone.”
She stopped outside the room she’d taken over from Laura, and turned to face me. “Kerry, he is lonely there?”
“I don’t think he is. But he enjoys company now and then.”
I knew Farah was entertaining romantic ideas about the man next door. She had been brought up in her homeland to marry and raise children, but the war in Iraq had forced her family to flee to Canada. Farah hoped to find a husband in Canada who could give her a nice house and fine clothes, and Kerry seemed to fit the bill.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her about Wendy.
Not long after that, Tommy poked his head around my doorframe.
I smiled at him. “Hey, kiddo!”
“Hey, Mrs. T!” He jumped on my bed.
I gave him a hug. “Have fun out there on Molly?”
He grinned at me and nodded.
I hugged him, and inhaled the little-boy scent of shampoo and chocolate. His eyes closed, and I tightened my arms around him. I hadn’t spent much time with him that week, and I felt badly about it. I kissed his head. He was now part of my family.
Like Jamie was. From everything I’d heard about her, Jamie Collins was an exceptional woman. And Tracy loved her. That was good enough for me.
I lay on the bed with Tommy in my arms. I heard more rapping on the front door, but I let Celia deal with it. While Tommy slept, my mind drifted. Foster had said he’d turned off his cell phone when he got back to the hotel the previous evening. Was he staying at the Winigami? He might be at the Dominion Hotel where Jamie had stayed that first night. I wondered if he knew she’d been there.
I should have told him that Al and Ruby were helping Jamie. But I didn’t think Jamie would want her friends—and their business—to come to his attention.
I groaned. What a mess this had turned into. Tommy squirmed in my arms. I pulled the duvet over him and eased myself off the bed.
Looking down at the sleeping boy, I knew he would go stir-crazy cooped up in the house for another week. Farah would be hopeless at keeping him entertained. Kerry might take him out on his snowmobile once or twice but that wouldn’t be enough to pass the time.
I decided to book a day off work that week and take Tommy to the Glencoe Wolf Center. Maybe we’d go on a dogsled ride. Norris Cassidy had to give me time to look after my family.
Downstairs, I found Celia preparing vegetables for dinner. “The forensics people were here,” she said.
“Could they lift the tire and boot prints?”
“Don’t know. They knocked to tell us they’d arrived, but they just drove off when they were done. Made a mess of the deck doors.”
I glanced at the doors, but she’d drawn the curtains over them.
“I hope Nuala eats meat,” I said as I checked the roast in the oven. “She must, because she ordered chicken for lunch at the Winagami.”
“Some people won’t touch animals with four legs,” Celia said.
I sighed. “That would be just my luck.”
I heard a car pull up outside. I opened the front curtains as Nuala stepped out of her Lexus.
“Hmm,” Celia said beside me. “Nice car. Fancy boots. Your company must pay its people well.”
Nuala sniffed appreciatively when she walked into the house. “Smells wonderful. It should go well with this.” She handed me a bottle of wine.
I looked at the bottle in my hand. Château des Grandes Maisons costs sixty-five dollars and change.
I watched Nuala remove her boots and slip on a pair of high-heeled sandals. They looked like René Caovilla footwear, which would have put her back six hundred bucks. I took in her black Prada pants and lime silk jacket, and thought of her Lexus and Soupy’s Porsche. Our Braeloch advisors had a taste for the high life.
I introduced her to Celia, who was arranging a tray of snacks in front of the fireplace.
Nuala looked around the room. “Nice place.”
“It’s one of Norris Cassidy’s executive vacation spots,” I said. “I’d like to try the Caribbean villa someday.”
I could almost hear the wheels in her head spinning as she tried to gauge my status at the company.
“You’re away from the crowds out here with that long driveway,” she said.
“We are alone here,” Farah said, coming downstairs with Tommy and Maxie. “My cell phone, it don’t work in this place.”
“Tommy Seaton and Farah Alwan,” I said to Nuala. “Tommy and Farah, this is Nuala Larkin.”
While Celia poured wine, Cleo wandered into the room. Maxie growled.
“Hold the dog, Farah,” I said.
Farah grabbed Maxie’s collar. “How long this cat is here?”
Cleo bolted upstairs. Maxie tried to run after her, but Farah held tight. It wasn’t the time to tell her that Cleo might be a permanent addition to the family. I went upstairs and put Cleo in my room.
“Had a good time at the Legion last night?” I asked Nuala when I returned.
“I stayed right until the end,” she said with a smile. “But I never got a chance to talk to your daughter. Where did she go?”
“Off to meet a friend.”
“Jennifer Collins?”
“No.”
“Pat,” Celia called from the kitchen, “the roast is ready to carve.”
Dinner turned out well. The meat was done to perfection, and Celia had whipped up a pan of Yorkshire pudding to go with it. Nuala’s wine slipped down our throats as smoothly as honey.
“Cheers!” Tommy said throughout the meal, holding up his glass of grape juice.
Nuala told us about a trip she’d taken to a ski resort in British Columbia the previous winter. “I’d never skied before,” she said. “I got myself up the mountain on the chairlift and I stood at the top wondering what to do next. This guy started shouting, then jumped on me and knocked me to the ground. He saved me from being hit by the chair that was going back down the mountain. The downside was I broke my wrist in the fall. I had to sit it out in the lodge for the rest of the week.”
I chuckled. I grew up in Montreal where skiing is a popular winter sport. My brother, Jon, was a hot-dog skier as a teenager.
“Where did you grow up, Nuala?” Celia asked.
“Small-town southern Ontario.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Dreary little place.” She gave a wave of dismissal. “Couldn’t wait to get out
of there. We were hours away from the ski centers like Collingwood, and skiing was something I always wanted to try. It looks like ultimate freedom.”
“Sports come easier when you learn them as a kid,” Celia said.
“By the way, whose snowmobile is that outside?” Nuala asked.
“I’ve rented it for a few weeks,” Celia said.
Nuala looked impressed. “Are you a snowmobiler too, Pat?”
I laughed. “I was a passenger, once.”
“On a snowmobile,” Celia said, “you can get into back country you can only access by canoe or kayak in the summer. But there are dangers out there—barbed wire fences and thin ice on the lakes. You need to keep your wits about you.”
Farah and I cleared the table after the main course. I noticed that Nuala had taken off her high-heeled sandals under the table. Those pricey bits of leather probably weren’t very comfortable.
“Do you like Braeloch?” Celia asked Nuala when we returned to the table with apple pie and ice cream.
“Very much,” she replied with a smile.
“It must have been difficult to leave your friends in Lindsay,” Celia said.
“I’ve moved around a fair bit,” Nuala said. “I try to look at the upside. There’s always something better ahead.”
“Maybe you’ll meet a nice man and settle down here,” Celia said.
Nuala laughed. “I’ve been doing my best to avoid that.”
“I like her,” I said as Celia poured our nightcaps. “Nuala’s bright and hardworking, and she really cares about her clients.”
Celia gave a small lift to a shoulder. “Nobody has eyes that color.”
“They are a remarkable shade of blue—or green. Turquoise, I guess it’s called,” I said. “Oh, I know they’re colored contact lenses. And her outfit was over the top. But so what? She’s single, and she probably makes a lot more money than her parents did. Why shouldn’t she make herself look good?”
Celia took a sip from her glass. “She was out to impress. Dinner with one of the big guns from Toronto.”
“That’s to be expected,” I said. “She wants to get ahead.”
“Hmm.” She looked at her watch. “Time for the evening news.”
Black Water Page 15
