by Gail Bowen
“What about her own family?” I asked.
Beth Mirasty seemed confused. “I thought she’d told you all that.”
“No,” I said, “she didn’t.”
Beth looked at the photo. For a long time she didn’t say anything, and I had the sense that she was deciding whether to go on. Finally, she shook her head.
“I guess it doesn’t matter any more,” she said. “They’re all passed away except Jackie. He’s Theresa’s brother, and he wouldn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything since Theresa passed on. She was all he had. The parents drank, and they fought, and they beat their kids. It was a terrible thing.”
In the silence I could hear Taylor’s young voice. “Kokom, can I make a dress for my doll out of this silvery cloth or is it too good?”
Kokom said something too soft and low for me to hear, but they both laughed.
I turned back to Beth Mirasty. “Did they live around here? Theresa’s family?”
“In town. In a kind of shack on the outskirts. They burned it down one night when they were drinking.”
“What did they do?” I said.
She shrugged. “They found another shack.”
For a while we were silent again. Then Beth Mirasty said, “When I wrote to you, I said I needed to know if Theresa was happy at the last. Before her accident.”
“Her accident.” I had used the phrase “tragically and accidentally” to describe Christy’s death in her obituary; the newspaper had never reported that Christy committed suicide. Beth Mirasty didn’t know the truth. Her brown eyes were intent; I could feel the tension in her body.
I remembered that last day. Christy running across the lawn, hugging me, smelling of soap and sunshine and cotton. “I’ve missed this family,” she had said. And later, she had stood in front of a field white with tundra swans, splitting the air with their plaintive cries as they migrated north. “If they’re smart and they’re lucky, they’ll make it,” she had said. It was best to end the movie there.
I took the photo from Beth Mirasty’s hands. “Yes,” I said, “Theresa was happy at the end.”
Somewhere a clock struck. I looked at my watch. “I guess it’s time for me to leave. I have to get my boy up to camp.”
“I’ll walk down to the dock with you,” Beth said.
When we came through the clearing in the bush to the lake, I could feel my breath catch in my throat. Havre Lake was one of those northern lakes that is so vast it makes your mind stop. There is something anarchic about such lakes. They make their own weather and have their own intricate geography of islands and points and narrows through which they reach out into other unimaginably vast bodies of water. They exist on maps as huge, whimsically shaped expanses of nothing in the middle of the neat cartography of the places we know.
Angus and Beth’s son were fishing off the dock.
When he heard me, Angus turned and held up the fingers of one hand.
“Five minutes, Mum, please, just five. There’s a jack in there that’s so ready to be caught,” he whispered.
“Five, and that’s it,” I said.
Beth and I walked down to the beach and stood side by side, looking out at the horizon.
“I always feel scared when I look at these lakes,” I said.
“Can’t you swim?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, “but that’s not good enough here, is it?”
“No,” she agreed, “it’s not.” She pointed toward the west. “That’s where you’re going, Blue Heron Point. When we were growing up, the only store was over there. Then they built the hotel. Now it’s a little town. Not a very nice one.
“Anyway, when we were young, that was the treat, getting in the boat once a month before freeze-up and going across the lake to the store. Theresa used to take money out of her father’s pocket when he passed out, and she’d take the boat over there herself to get food for her and her brother. Sometimes when it got worse than usual at home, she’d stop on one of the islands and she and Jackie would stay there until the groceries ran out. Just sleeping on the ground. Kokom would make my dad take blankets out for them to lie on, and they’d be safe for a while. But they always had to come to shore.
“I’ll never forget watching that little girl start out across the big lake with Jackie sitting beside her. Two little dots in the boat, so small, until the boat was just a dot, and then it disappeared.”
I was relieved when I heard Angus shouting that he’d caught a fish. Beth Mirasty’s memories of Theresa’s childhood were taking me to a place I didn’t want to be.
Angus landed his jackfish, and it was a beauty. Beth offered to clean it and freeze it so we could pick it up on the way home. As we walked toward the Northern Lights Motel, Angus was ecstatic. The boys ran on ahead with the fish. I turned to Beth.
“Does Theresa’s brother still live around here?”
“He lives in Blue Heron Point.”
“Do you have an address?”
“Whatever pub opens first for the day.” She shook her head with annoyance. “It’s such a waste. He comes over here to eat sometimes if he hasn’t hocked his boat to buy a bottle. When he’s sober, he’s as good a guide as there is. Theresa taught him. But when he’s drinking, he’s just another drunk. If you want to talk to him, be sure to get there in the first hour after the bar opens. Before that he’s too sick with wanting it, and then after that he’s just sick.”
Beth stopped at the back of the motel with the boys. She sent her son inside for a knife. She said to Angus, “You might as well learn to do this now. Your mother can go and get your sister.”
Taylor had a lap full of dolls. With their painted faces, their bright scraps of skirts and their wishbone legs, they were odd and very lovely.
“Dynamite dolls, T.,” I said, and meant it.
Kokom said to Taylor, “In my room is a red box that had candy in it. A heart box. You can have it for your dollies.”
Taylor ran off. When she was safely out of the room, I heard the old lady’s voice.
“That Desjarlais girl. Let her rest in peace now. She’s been wandering all her life.”
I felt a chill. I turned. The old lady was sewing on her quilt again. I hadn’t noticed before how badly her fingers had been gnarled by arthritis, but her needle never stopped. She didn’t look up.
“The parents were no good,” she said. “When she was young like your little one here, the parents used to leave her with the babies. There were two babies then. The family had a big dog, female. The kids used to play with it. One day in the spring that female dog was in season. There were wild dogs or maybe wolves. They must have smelled the female dog on that little kid. They came and tore that baby to bits. It was a terrible thing. The parents blamed Theresa. They beat her something terrible. She brought her brother and stayed with us for a while. We wanted to keep her, but they said no.”
“How did she ever get away?” I said. I was really thinking aloud, but the old lady answered me. Her voice was strong and filled with anger.
“She didn’t. The wild dogs got her, too. Let her rest. It doesn’t matter any more.”
It didn’t take long to get Angus settled in at camp. As soon as he jumped out of the car, he saw two boys he had known from the summer before. They came over and grabbed his gear, and the three of them disappeared.
“Goodbye,” I shouted after him.
He ran back and gave Taylor a quick hug.
“Please don’t kiss me, Mum,” he said under his breath.
I gave him a manly pat on the back. “See you in two weeks,” I said. I took Taylor’s hand. “Looks like it’s just you and me against the world, kiddo. What do you want for supper?”
“Cheeseburgers,” she said.
“The north is famous for its cheeseburgers,” I said.
The drive into Blue Heron Point was not a pretty one. There’d been forest fires in the area the year before, and the charred trunks of trees rose spectral against the summer sky. On the rocky faces of
the hills kids had spray-painted messages: “OKA NOW,” “CARLA RULES,” “CLASS OF 91 NO FUTUR.” Blue Heron Point was the kind of northern town that exists for the people who come to fish. All the buildings faced out on the dirt road that followed the shoreline. There were two inns, a couple of motels, and, set back from the road, the Kingfisher Hotel. They all had bars, and they all had no-vacancy signs. There were two general stores with restaurants, and a liquor store.
“Which place looks best to eat, T.?” I said.
“The one with the dogs fighting outside,” she said.
In fact, the food was good and plentiful: a homemade cheeseburger and a dinner plate filled with greasy, salty French fries.
After we finished, I said, “Now for the hard part, finding a place to stay. I wish I’d asked Greg’s uncle if we could use his cottage.”
“But you didn’t,” Taylor said, twirling a fry in her ketchup.
“Nope, it didn’t work out,” I said. “Let me go and ask at the counter what they suggest. I’m too tired to drive any more today. Besides, there’s someone I want to try to find here.”
I looked at my watch. Six o’clock. According to Beth’s calculations, Jackie Desjarlais would have been drinking for six hours. Tomorrow would be better.
The woman at the cash register was not encouraging. It was the Tuesday after the long weekend, and a lot of people take their holidays the first two weeks in July. I paid for our lunch, thanked her and started to leave. She called me back.
“You could ask at the hotel about the fishing shacks,” she said. “They’re awfully small, but they’re clean and they’re right on the lake. Pretty views.”
The man behind the desk at the hotel was huge. He was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Jackfish in Lard Makes a Fisherman Hard.” When I asked about a room, he opened the registration book, ran a thick finger down the page and then grinned at me.
“You’re damn lucky, lady. There’s one unit left. Last empty bed in town. Twenty bucks. Pay now. The money’s up front for the shacks. I’ve put you in number three.”
The shacks were, in fact, one building, which must have been built before the province had passed its law about not building directly on lakefront property. The place was right down by the docks. It was old and had the frail, stripped-down look of wartime housing. The individual units were tiny, just one small room and a bathroom, but each unit had a small kitchen and a large window that opened onto a screened-in porch. It was obvious that they were a place to sleep for people who wanted to fish.
Taylor was enchanted. “It’s like a doll’s house,” she said, opening the little refrigerator and pulling out an ice tray that made six cubes.
We unpacked and then we went for a swim. When we’d changed out of our swimsuits, we sat on the dock and watched the boats come in. A sunburned man with a tub full of fish asked Taylor if she’d had any luck.
“Yes,” she said, “I got to stay in the little house up there.” She pointed toward the shacks.
He laughed. “That makes us neighbours. I’m staying there, too.”
Nice. We had supper at the hotel, and after we ate, I decided to call Jill Osiowy to give her the hotel’s number in case there were any changes about our July eighth show. It was almost seven, but she was still at her office. She answered on the first ring, and she sounded tense and distracted.
“You sound as if you could use a little down time in the north yourself,” I said.
“Sorry,” she said, “but I have company. Con O’Malley and his Corporate Choir Boys. It’s been years since I’ve seen that many pinstriped suits.”
“You didn’t mention you were having a royal visit,” I said.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “They just arrived two hours ago. I was editing some of the Little Flower tapes – on my own time, of course – and my secretary called and said we’d been invaded. I haven’t the slightest idea what they’re doing here.”
“Spooking you,” I said.
“You’ve got that right,” she said. “I’m spooked. CEOs are like cops. Even when you know you haven’t done anything wrong, you’d rather they weren’t around. Listen, Jo, I’d better go. I’ll call you tomorrow night.”
I gave her the hotel number and hung up. Taylor and I walked down the hill to the shacks. It was such a beautiful night that we stayed on the dock until sunset. I looked out at the lake and watched Taylor’s small silhouette black against the red sky and the dropping sun. How many nights had Theresa Desjarlais stood on the shore of Havre Lake and watched as the sun dropped in the sky and the water turned to fire? Finally, when the darkness closed in on us, Taylor and I walked to our cabin.
There was just one double bed. It felt good to lie there on the cool smooth sheets with Taylor’s body curled against me. Her hair smelled of heat and lake water, and I closed my eyes and remembered holding Mieka in just this way when she was small, and the boys, too, when they were little. I touched the silver circle of my bracelet and remembered Christy. “Did anyone ever hold you like this when you were little, Christy-Theresa?” I said. “Did anyone ever encircle you in close and protective arms?” And because I knew the answer, I wept.
CHAPTER
11
When the boy appeared outside the shack’s screen door saying there was a phone call for me up at the Kingfisher, Taylor and I were just finishing dinner. On the table between us was a map of Havre Lake; we were planning the boat trip we were taking the next morning. It had been a good day. We’d walked the shoreline from Blue Heron Point to Hampton Narrows, an hour and a half away, and Taylor had found a piece of driftwood shaped like a bird, some fool’s gold, and the torso of a Barbie doll. Serendipity.
She’d had more luck than I’d had. As soon as I knew the bars were open, I’d started checking around for Jackie Desjarlais. No one had seen him. In the last place we tried, the bartender told me Jackie had been blind drunk the night before, and if I had anything serious to say to him I’d be smart to wait until the next day.
At some level, I had been relieved. The prospect of a day without sadness or ugliness was appealing. Cut loose from responsibilities, Taylor and I had given ourselves up to the pleasures of cottage life. We went down to the beach for a swim, then we sat on blankets on the sand and let the breeze dry us off. At midafternoon, we walked to the store in Blue Heron Point and bought supplies: groceries, matches for fire starting, a bottle of sun block and a jar of blackfly repellent guaranteed to be environmentally friendly. On the way out of the store, Taylor picked up a baseball cap with the words “I’d Rather Be Fishing” written in fish across the front.
“It’s to keep the sun off my head,” she said. “Angus says too much sun can boil your brains.”
She’d put the hat on the coat hook by the door the way Angus always did at home, and that night as we followed the boy out of the cabin, she reached up, grabbed her cap and jammed it over her hair.
“Nice hat,” the boy said, and Taylor beamed. They talked about fishing all the way up to the hotel.
I went inside. The man who had checked us in was sitting on a stool behind the front desk. He handed me a message slip with a number I recognized as Jill Oziowy’s.
“The lady said to call her back reverse the charges.” He slid the phone across the desk to me. “I’m here to make sure those charges get reversed.”
Jill sounded edgy and excited. “Things are happening, Jo,” she said. “Last night when I finally got home, there was a message on my answering service. A man’s voice, muffled. ‘Check out the Lily Pad,’ he said, and hung up. Just like in the movies. It was after midnight, and I was dead tired. Those little trolls from head office had been nipping at my heels all night, so I didn’t go over to the Lily Pad till about seven this morning. Guess what? The place was closed up tighter than a drum, padlock on the front door, blinds drawn. There were two kids on the lawn by that wooden frog, but they were so pilled up I don’t think they knew where they were.
“I went around and checked out the back.
Same thing. Incidentally, you were right about that door, Jo, that’s a serious security system. I just don’t understand what it’s doing there. Why would the Lily Pad people tie up that kind of money in the back door of a drop-in centre for street kids?”
“Because it’s something more than a drop-in centre,” I said. The manager hadn’t moved from his stool. He was less than two feet away from me. As soon as my call to Jill had gone through, he’d pulled out a pair of scissors and started cleaning his nails. When I mentioned the drop-in centre, he stopped digging and looked up at me with quick and interested eyes.
I lowered my voice. “I can’t talk here,” I said.
“I’ll talk,” Jill said. “I remembered what you said about Helmut Keating taking all that liquor in on Saturday. I thought the kids on the lawn might have heard something. At first, I thought I was out of luck. Whatever drug those kids had been doing had propelled them to another dimension, but I just kept talking, and when I mentioned Helmut Keating’s name, I got a reaction. One of the boys pulled himself together enough to get out a full sentence: ‘They say Helmie blew town,’ he said. What do you make of that, Jo?”
“Interesting,” I said, and I smiled at the hotel manager. He didn’t smile back.
“Keating’s not in the book, but I called a friend of mine who’s also into good works and she had an address for him. Jo, you wouldn’t have believed his house. A big split level out on Academy Park Road.”
“The dysfunctional population business must be pretty lucrative,” I said.
“Right,” said Jill. “But listen, Helmie’s place was shut tight, blinds pulled. The neighbour was out watering her lawn and she said Helmut took off this morning, very early, in a cab. He had suitcases. That’s all she knew. Jo, it’s just a hunch, but I think Helmut Keating was my mystery caller. I think he’s decided to blow the whistle on the Lily Pad. I’m going to make some calls to people I know at the airport and the bus station. See if I can track down our travelling man. Then I’m going back to the Lily Pad. There may be a kid there who’s kept her eyes open and her brain unfried.”
