by Amber Boffin
“It was a lovely wedding, and you were right about the quality of the food at the lodge, it was delicious.”
Sergeant Humphries’s eyes widened and his hand moved toward his belly. She pulled out her bag of muffins, letting it clumsily fall to the floor, allowing the sergeant to pick it up for her.
Feigning embarrassment, Maggie said, “I’m so sorry, they’re carrot muffins I baked them this morning…” The sergeant’s eyes glowed, she went on, “I was about to bring them to Adam Clarkson, the conservation officer, for his help yesterday, but…would you like one?”
The sergeant stretched his hand briefly toward the bag he had placed on the table. Maggie stood up and said, “I’ll see Constable Raj Gupta for the details of the statement. Thanks for all your help with this affair. I hope you solve this mystery fast.”
Maggie had discreetly placed one muffin on his desk and walked out of the room, throwing a glance back at the sergeant, catching a glimpse of his smile at its sight. At the door she nodded toward him. “Bye.”
This time he responded, “Have a nice day, Maggie.”
Her approach seemed to be working. Perhaps it would with Adam as well. Nothing like home-baked muffins!
Constable Gupta pulled out a chair for her. “I hope he treated you well. He can be tough. So please, go ahead and tell me when and how you found the body.”
Maggie repeated her story once more. Seeing the constable seemed focused on his task, perhaps afraid to make a mistake, she waited until he had finished typing to ask, “How did you figure it was an accident?”
Constable Gupta slid his chair back, relaxing in it as if he were preparing for a nice long chat. “Oh, easy, all the signs were there. He was a daredevil, and he was drunk and driving too fast, I’m sure of it, so it was obvious. Fortunately, no one else was hurt!”
“I see, not much proof, though. What about his suit? I can see he’d wear one at the Christmas party, but don’t you think he’d then drive a car, not his snowmobile to the party? I remember seeing a black suit under…”
Constable Gupta shook his wrist, a gold name chain bracelet sliding down toward his hand. “Mmm, I never thought of that. I’ve never been on a snowmobile. My wife thinks it’s too dangerous. I know his brother is a fanatic snowmobiler, and I’ve seen him use his sled to commute. I think they both competed in races… If I had such a sled, I’d use it all the time!”
“But I don’t get why he’d go by sled in a dress suit in the middle of winter.” The constable raised his eyebrows. She added, “I mean, he just had his plaid jacket on top of his suit, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, I see what you mean, and no gloves or boots either, and it sure gets cold here. That’s why it was an accident. He must have forgotten to put on his boots and gloves. That’s why he must have been drunk.”
Grasping a chance to find out more about Peter, Maggie said, “I heard he left the party early. Maybe he had an argument with someone.”
With another shake of his name bracelet, as if it were a foreign object newly on his wrist, Constable Gupta replied, “I did hear something about that, what was it…? Oh yes, something with the solar panel guy.”
As the constable was about to add, out came the sergeant. “Gupta, we have the coroner coming now.” This time Sergeant Humphries nodded and smiled at Maggie as she took her leave.
*
Constable Gupta heard a phone call coming from the office between the coroner and the sergeant, with only the sergeant’s voice reaching him.
“So you can’t prove he was drunk?” Silence. “I’m sure he was! I need that proof. Do your job properly. Do it again.” The sergeant’s voice trembled slightly as he said, following a long silence on his side, “I’m not an idiot, eh…I knew you can’t measure it when the body was in the water, but…” A sound of a chair being wheeled back and forth drowned a few words until he said, his voice louder again, “Can’t prove it’s an accident? Well, it has to be an accident. I’m sure he was drunk.” Heavy steps could be heard walking toward the door of the sergeant’s room as he said, “No, I disagree…”
Instead of the end of the sentence, Raj heard the door slam and could no longer distinguish the sergeant’s voice. He shrugged with a shiver at the thought that this might not be an accident.
Chapter Seven
Maggie remembered it was Adam’s day off and decided she would bring him her muffins, hoping to start afresh on better grounds than a dead body. Adam had told her he lived on a farm between Foxton and Algonquin Park. He lived there alone, since he had divorced a few years back; his ex-wife couldn’t stand living in the countryside.
Maggie expected fields and maybe some animals, but not the llamas that greeted her as she drove up the path, running alongside her blue truck like two watchdogs. A tractor spurted smoke as it drove back and forth in the field behind the empty chicken pen. That must be him. She took her time looking around.
The little white house looked very neat with its yellow windows and daffodils already poking their heads out along its wall. The wood for the stove was evenly stacked against the house, not one log misaligned. A red barn a little farther down, stood next to a field with rows of fruit trees. The back of what looked like a vintage khaki Land Cruiser from the early seventies with a white roof poked out of its entrance.
As she walked toward the building, the vintage tractor headed her way, puffing like an old man. The inquisitive llamas were sniffing her hair, but as soon as Maggie reached out to touch them, they took a step back, ears flat, looking offended.
Adam pulled over and jumped out of his tractor with a broad smile. “G’day! Crikey! That’s a nice surprise. No more bodies, I hope.”
Maggie suddenly became aware of his Australian accent and wondered why she hadn’t picked up on it earlier; perhaps there had been too many things that day, or it was his outfit, shorts, low leather boots, and his leather hat that gave it away today. Perhaps it was the warden uniform he’d worn the day they met, making her assume he was Canadian rather than an Australian in the north.
She was brought back to reality by a loud “Scoot!” and the llamas taking off together in a dust cloud. Adam stood in front of her. Maggie would normally have been the one to start the conversation and ask questions; instead she smiled at him shyly, as if under a spell that was only broken when he started speaking.
“I hope they didn’t bother you. They can be a bit nosy and very inquisitive…but they’re good watch ‘dogs.’ They even scare bears away! You don’t seem afraid of them, though. Do you like animals?”
Maggie’s uneasiness was replaced by her usual keen observation as she studied the head of one of the llamas. “I love ’em. I’ve never seen a llama up close. Very strange-looking eyes with their horizontal slit pupils.” She giggled a little. “Made up like drag queens with long fake eyelashes. I’ve heard they can spit or bite if they don’t like you.”
“You’re fine as long as their ears don’t start pointing back-wards…” said Adam, lifting one corner of his mouth.
Following his eyes, she saw the ears of the second llama swivelling around and stepped back only a little, not wanting to look afraid. “Do you keep other animals?”
“I’m out in the bush often and not here enough for that, and besides, the orchard, the vegetable garden, and the hay field are more than enough for me to deal with. Do you like insects?”
She tried to look open minded as she could.
“I have beehives.” He laughed.
Standing on tiptoes to look over a wooden fence in the distance to where he was pointing, she said, “I see them now. You got me a little worried for a moment, imagining what insect you would have had as a pet. I love honey. You must get other visitors then, especially bears.”
“I’ve an electric fence. Keeps bears and skunks out. Would you like to try some honey? It could go with those muffins of yours.”
Adam pointed with a wink to the plastic bag of muffins Maggie had been holding tight against her chest, away from the
llamas. Welcoming his invitation, curious to see his home, she thrust the bag into his large hand. “They’re for you, but your honey does sound delicious!” Following him through a small wooden door into a kitchen, she said, “You know, I saw the sergeant for the statement. I was a little nervous at first, but it all went well. I gave him one of those muffins…”
“He can be a little rough, but he’s not a bad bloke. No doubt your muffin would’ve appealed to his sweet tooth. You were spot-on there.”
Adam gestured to Maggie to take a seat at an old wooden table as he put on the kettle. She ruffled her curls. “Yes, I think he liked it, although he didn’t say it outright. I just noticed a crumb on his cheek, so I know he ate it. Oh, and the body is Peter Wigmott’s. The police think it was an accident and that he was drunk and driving too fast. But I’m not so sure.”
“Why’s that?”
“How does a snowmobile at high speed end up in a pond at the far left side of a curve bending to the left? The centrifugal forces should’ve made him slide to the right side, no? Very suspicious, if you ask me…anyway, have you noticed anything else?”
Adam seemed to think for a moment staring at the steam coming out of the kettle. The loud whistle broke his silence. “I saw a few scratches on the side of the sled, but that isn’t surprising given the fall. There was also something around the handlebar…” He lowered his voice, slowly pouring the hot water into a round indigo teapot. “Something weird.” With a brisk movement he placed the teapot in front of Maggie, a drop of water landing on the table. “The skidoo was still new based on the odometer. Powerful beast. No surprise there given that Peter was a fanatic and a real good snowmobile racer.” Adam stopped pouring the tea mid air as if he were visualizing the snowmobile then carried on speaking, looking into Maggie’s eyes, “I remember seeing him race his brother, Fred. They were always winning the local races. Peter seemed to care more for his sled than his brother did, though. Different characters, I guess. But I must be boring you with snowmobile details.”
Maggie shook her head, her unruly curls hitting her cheeks. She had half listened to him, mesmerized by his two light-blue irises and how the pupil changed size as he spoke from a little dot to a large black hole. “Not at all, fascinating…” Realizing her remark might sound strange, she asked, “Does a snowmobile brake like a car? I remember as a child I didn’t use the brake; just by decreasing the throttle, it stopped quickly.”
“Yes, but you still have a brake in case of emergency. Say you’re driving full speed and an animal’s crossing, then you’d still brake using the handle brake like on a bicycle.”
“I see. Do you have a snowmobile?”
Adam tightened his ponytail. “I do, I use it in winter to patrol parts of Algonquin Park and sometimes to track wolves for a study on their interbreeding with coyotes. It’s less tiring than snowshoeing, although I do a fair bit of that, too. Great to get into the bush. Have you tried it?”
Maggie fondly remembered trying to follow her father across a frozen beaver pond, getting entangled in the cattails and refusing to move.
“Snowshoeing? Only a little, but I plan to pick it up now that I’m here. It must be really nice and quiet in winter. I’ve also walked on frozen lakes, but I was always afraid the ice wouldn’t be thick enough and never went far.”
Adam replied with a laugh, “Speaking of ice, the Wigmott brothers were mad. They used to cross a lake that was only partially frozen by going full speed across the open water with their sleds!”
Maggie widened her eyes, visualizing what seemed to her impossible, a snowmobile on water. “That’s dangerous. It must have gone wrong at times? Well, sadly this time it certainly did go wrong for Peter.”
Lifting the large teapot, one last drop making its way into Maggie’s cup, Adam jumped up to set the kettle before she had any chance of leaving. She looked around the yellow-painted kitchen. A thick butcher maple countertop in an L-shape sat along the back wall, and an army of utensils were neatly lined up on a magnetic rack, with a row of spices sitting on a shelf beneath it. On the walls, pictures of a different kind of bush stood out: very red soil and sparse greenery, with a few vividly coloured birds that looked like parrots in the middle.
She enquired. “This must be Australia. Pretty birds, what are they?”
“Yep, all the photos are from down under.” Adam walked to the picture Maggie was pointing at, bringing it down for her to look at. “Rainbow lorikeets, cute little things, but surprisingly dangerous, as they have a strong bite.”
Adam lifted his large hand up, holding out his thumb in front of Maggie’s eyes. A very long thumbnail caught Maggie’s attention. Was he a guitar player? As if Adam had understood what she thought, he said, “No, the scar there, in the inside of my thumb. I was trying to rescue one when I was a boy. It bit me, and it would not let go of my thumb!”
“It looks like a little pinch. Did it survive?”
“Sure, I saved it, what do you think! The smaller the bite, the more dangerous it can be in Australia, with snakes…”
“Oh, snakes. I’m not afraid of them, no dangerous ones here.”
Adam’s Australian accent was coming out stronger. “Yes most of them, but you’ve just got to be careful, like with the salties…you know, the sea crocs that can jump out of the water. It’s best not to swim when they’re around.”
“You won’t get me in the water if there’s the slightest chance of one being there! Are you trying to scare me?” said Maggie, feigning fear.
“Didn’t think you’d be easily scared. Having said that, those animals aren’t dangerous either as long as you respect them and their space, not different from us humans.”
Sensing a kindred spirit regarding wildlife, Maggie replied, “I agree, we really can live alongside wildlife by understanding their behaviour, and the more I observe, the more it fascinates me.” Not seeing any picture of Canada, she asked, “What brought you to Canada?”
Adam added a thick layer of honey to a second muffin he had just placed on his plate, making Maggie wonder if she had put enough maple syrup in them for the sergeant to like them.
Licking his fingers after taking a bite, he said, “Tasty…” and wolfed down the remainder, a few crumbs still hooked to his stubble of a beard. “My mum’s an Aussie and dad’s a Canuck. It was a case of too hot or too cold for either of them.”
“What do you mean?” asked Maggie, scratching her cheek, signalling for him to remove his crumbs, to no avail.
“I was born in Canada, then my mother wanted sun in winter, so we moved to Australia. Australia was too hot for my father, so back to Canada when I was sixteen.”
“I see, and what do you prefer?”
“I like it here, the diversity of plants, very green, lots of water, and a lot of space.”
“But Australia is known for its space too, far views. It looks spectacular.”
“Yes, but the liveable part is really around its rim, at the ocean; most of the rest is desert. I like the lakes here, and the lushness, endless forests with wildlife, seasons, mountains: a real variety.”
Adam looked out the kitchen window at the field and woods. Maggie could empathize with him, sharing the love of her country and its wilderness and missing it when living in England. She hadn’t been to Australia, still a place she wanted to explore, but she knew it would be too dry for her to live there, and she loved the changing seasons and real snow that lightened up the landscapes, unlike the British drizzle in winter that only added more shades of grey.
Adam moved his chin forward toward her, causing the crumb to finally fall down. His eyes transfixed on her red hair, he asked, “What about you? Your last name sounds Irish.”
“Yes, my red hair, a preconceived idea, though, as you’ll find more dark-haired with light eyes in Ireland than-red haired. I was born here, in this village, so I’m more local than you.”
“I didn’t mean to offend. I like red hair.”
Maggie felt herself blush. “My great-grand
dad came from Ireland, and when he came to Canada somehow he dropped the O in the name; we don’t know why. My ginger hair comes from my mother. It ran in her family, not from the Irish side as far as we know, since her parents and grandparents were Canadians.” She laughed. “You see, it’s not all what it seems to be.”
“So you just moved from England back here, did I get it right? Why was that? You don’t mind me asking…?”
“No, no, I get that question all the time.”
“Oh, then you do mind! Sorry!”
Maggie, seeing Adam shifted on his chair backward, farther away from the table and from her, extended her arm across the table without thinking and grabbed his forearm.
“No, not coming from you. My move back happened so fast. A combination of circumstances. I was kind of lucky. I had a good offer for my stake in the company I had set up, which made me free as a bird after a long period of hard work. Sadly, my parents passed away at the same time, killed in a car accident, leaving me their home here.”
Maggie wiped a tear with the back of her hand. She picked up her cup to hide behind it and took a sip to get rid of the knot in the throat before she could get too emotional in front of Adam, the last thing she wanted.
“It soon dawned on me that I really missed Foxton and that I wasn’t made for the city life. I need fresh air…nature, so here I am. Enough of the past. You’re a wildlife expert, so where can I take good pictures of wolves and other animals?”
Having steered the conversation to a safe topic, less emotional, she relaxed. Adam talked to her about the best places to view the animals she wanted to photograph and of a number of tree huts she might be able to use.
