Death on a Small, Dark Lake

by Lenny Everson

  Chapter 9

  "I have been," Seth Daily told me, "in a canoe twice." He looked at my orange craft tied to the end of the Hawk Lake dock. "But I only fell out of one once."

  "You're thinking...?" I asked.

  "I'm thinking," he said, "about the canoe I fell out of. It didn't look a hell of a lot safer than this thing." He was wearing civilian clothes, a plaid shirt, jacket and jeans, but I could see that he had a shoulder harness and pistol under his jacket.

  I raised one eyebrow at him and dropped the daypack into the middle of the canoe. It shifted under the weight. "You'll be happy to know that few canoes on the planet are more stable than this one." I'd taken the big Coleman plastic canoe. It was heavy, but stable.

  "At least the water's warm."

  "I hope we won't have to find out." I held the canoe steady while he stepped carefully into it, setting himself onto the front seat. I lowered myself just as carefully onto the rear seat and reached for the rope. A hand came down over mine. I looked up.

  "Good morning," Pica said, with a disarming smile. Her hand was small and warm.

  Seth started to turn around, and the canoe shifted dangerously.

  "Here," Pica said," I've got this bag of pickled mandarin oranges." And she smiled so sweetly, too.

  "From the bottom of my heart, I thank you," I said. "These would have made our feet light and the portages short. They'd have put a gleam in our eyes and made the birds sing more sweetly. But I'm afraid we must travel light and fast today, so we must regretfully decline your offer."

  Seth sat in the front of the canoe, wearing civilian clothes. The birds sang, for no particular reason. The sun considered coming up. Everything was damp with autumn dew, gleaming in the floodlights on the dock. A few late-season moths battered themselves against the glass.

  "Have a good morning, Pica," I said. "We really have to go now." I wiggled my hand, but she kept hers firmly on top of it. The sun came up.

  "Without me? That's a cruel thing to do. Hey!" She looked at Seth. "You're the police guy, aren't you? Have you come to arrest anybody? You're too late for Kele; he left last night. Him and Samuel Small Legs. So did the other two guys, Ned and Patrick. They left even before Kele did. I almost didn't recognize you in those logger clothes. Hey. You must figure maybe George was killed by somebody. Why else would a cop be here?"

  She went on, looking out across the lake, then at me. "You'd really like me to go with you, you know. You're trying to be all male polite and buddy-buddy with this cop, but you know he's probably got you on a list of suspects and there have to be other things to talk about except the thing you don’t want to talk about and I’ll do nicely, won’t I?"

  "He’s top of our list," Seth said. "I thought I'd lynch him in the parking lot. Save the trial for later. Then I remembered he's got the map."

  "Mister cop," Pica began.

  "Call me 'Seth'," he said.

  "Seth," she said. "You're going to spend the day with someone who'd rather be alone." She looked right at him. "And you're wondering if he's going to roll the canoe and stand on your head when you come up for air, if you find any evidence. Wouldn't you like to have a witness along? And I know a lot of useful gossip about the lodge."

  "You've got a point," he said. "Hop in."

  "Don't I get a vote?" I said.

  "No," Pica stepped lightly into the canoe. She even had a lifejacket with her.

  "My canoe," I pointed out.

  "Look," she said, settling in on the bottom of the canoe near the middle, "I knew George better than either of you and I might spot something you miss."

  I shoved off into the lake. "You're probably going to kill both of us," I said. "You probably did George, anyway."

  "I didn't do it," she said, "Belinda did it. She came back to this place just to kill him. Her and Kele, and now he's gone, Kele, you know. He took off before sunup and nobody knows where he went to, but maybe he took his sketching stuff and we’ll find out in a month or two when does a painting."

  "And Bob?" Seth asked. "I hear he's gone too."

  "Oh heck yes," Pica said. "He's like the wind; you'll never see him no matter how hard you try. He left this morning at dawn and wouldn't tell me where he was going. It was a lonesome bed without him, but what's a poor girl to do?"

  "Any idea where he went?" Seth asked without turning too much.

  "I know exactly where he is. We had a rendezvous planned for lunch. If I'd shown up. If you didn't take me with you. Maybe he went with Ned and Patrick: I noticed Ned’s car in the parking lot this morning."

  "I think," I said "that Sergeant Daily here should look into those preserved oranges you have."

  "It's such a beautiful morning," Pica said. Just look at the mist on the water and the loon out by the island."

  "That," I said, "is a seagull. And there's no mist on the water." I pushed on the dock, and the canoe drifted away from Hawk Lake Lodge.

  The lake is edged with rock shores and trees along the tops of the rock cliffs. A boat left the lodge shortly after we did, a kid in a bright-red lifejacket at the front hanging onto a propane tank, a pile of goods in the middle of the boat, and a guy in a blue coat at the back, hand on the motor.

  A parliament of crows vanished into the distance, cawing. From one of the cottages, the sound of a lawn mower, even though it was past summer, and the lawn was tiny and tilted at a rough angle. We kept to the shore at first, hitting the occasional rock, and having to back off a couple. We scooped the hitchhiking spiders into the water, and squashed the token ant.

  Some of the cottages were so well hidden that only the dock on the water gave them away. Others defied the wilderness in bright colours.

  It was a beautiful day.

  I should have known better.

  The sun came out from behind a cloud just after we passed the island, and the breeze dropped. The day began to warm up. Pica shrugged herself out of her sweater, then pulled off her shirt and brassiere.

  "Hey," Seth said, gripping the sides of the canoe, "who's rocking the boat?"

  "You know what," I said to the two people in front of me, "if neither of you turns around, this canoe will probably not flip over."

  "I thought you said it was a stable canoe," Seth started paddling again.

  "It is," I said. "I'm not so sure about me, though."

  Seth took a quick look back, said, "Oh," and turned his eyes to the front again. Pica laughed.

  "I guess it's warmer than I thought," I said.

  "I always take the chance to get in some sun," Pica said, stretching her arms up. "There's enough dark and cold in this country."

  "Not to mention bugs in the spring," Seth added.

  "You're making me uncomfortable," I told her." Speaking only for myself."

  "Of course," Pica laughed again. "But remember I have no feelings for other people. You shouldn't be surprised at sexuality out here; the whole outdoor experience is just alive with it."

  "You think so?" Seth asked, paddling strongly. Actually, I was paddling faster than usual, too, I noted.

  "Oh yes. Just ask Win here. The woods are full of life and death; life making life and piling itself in clumps and heaps all over each other. Lift up the moss, and you can find the bones of plants and animals, and other plants and animals madly having it off, trying to make new life before something kills them.

  "Everything's growing and eating living and dying and spouting spores and seeds and eggs and gobs of semen and little babies." She turned to look at me. "And Win here stumbles across the rocks and through the woods trying to pretend it's some sort of esthetic experience.

  "And when I offer myself on a bed of moss, he'll tell me thanks but no thanks. But he'll toss and turn in his sleep for weeks after. No wonder he takes pictures in the rain; he's watching nature cry in frustration." She leaned back into the sunlight and closed her eyes, her lips curved in a smile.

  "Is that true?" Seth asked.

  "Of course," I answered. "Every word of it. I
only killed George because he was having an affair with a pine tree I'd got especially fond of."

  Seth laughed. "Watch you don't get sunburn," he told Pica.

  "A bit late in the season," she said sleepily, “a bit early in the day.”

  We paddled in silence for another twenty minutes, till a cloud covered the sun and a wind came up. Pica put her top back on, and watched the shoreline go by.

  "How much further?" Seth asked.

  "Just beyond the next point." Ahead of us, a few rocks held three living spruce, and a fourth that had fallen into the water. When we rounded the tiny peninsula, scraping against some underwater rocks, the dam was visible not far away. Beside it, nailed to a tree, the yellow triangle portage sign.

  When I die, maybe it'll be just like going over a dam.

  When I die, maybe it'll be because I canoed over a dam.

  Pica was surprisingly helpful. When the canoe hit the mud bank at the marked portage trail, she scrambled out after Seth, helped him drag the canoe up enough for me to get out, then gathered up paddles, lifejackets, and the day pack, and was gone down the portage trail singing to the world while Seth and I were still stretching our legs.

  "Who gets to carry the canoe?"

  "Both of us," I said. "Just grab an end. It's a short portage."

  We launched below the dam.

  When we were well out on the lake, Pica spoke up. "The woods ahead of us could be a bit crowded."

  "How do you mean?" Seth rested his paddle on the thwart ahead of him. Like most novice canoeists, he had paddled too hard at the beginning and was starting to take breaks.

  "I heard that Kele's not in his cabin. Bob left this morning. And those guys that hired George were seen launching a canoe just before dawn."

  "You think they came this way?"

  "It's the most exciting place around, it seems. Did you bring any sandwiches?" Pica opened my daypack. "Hey, there's enough here for a week! What kind are they?"

  "Tofu," I said, "and zucchini. The tofu's healthy, and Aisha had a big zucchini crop this summer."

  "I'm glad," Seth remarked, "that I brought roast beef sandwiches."

  "I recommend we kill the cop for his sandwiches," Pica said. She poked at the sandwiches. "It must be love."

  "Love?"

  "Or inertia. I'm not sure most people would stay married to someone who sent them into the wilderness with tofu and zucchini sandwiches." She examined one with a critical eye. “I guess someone’s showing how much she cares for your health, but if it were me, I’d be eating leaves and sneaking Harveyburgers into my pack. Some things in life are justified, even if you have to conceal them for the sake of local politics.”

  "There's a big bag of beef jerky in the outside section of the pack," I said.

  "Does Aisha know about this?" Seth watched clouds gathering in the west.

  I sighed. "I think not, but maybe she's just not letting on."

  “You have to eat these sandwiches, of course, " Pica said, "since she may ask. Then you have to eat what you like to satisfy your inner desires. The compromises we make with ourselves," Pica said, "in the name of getting along with other people.”

  "Even our wives and husbands," I said.

  "Mostly them. That's why I'm never getting married. I'd have to compromise what I am. I don’t want to do that." She smiled a huge smile at me.

  "Could get lonesome at night," I offered.

  Pica laughed. "When I get lonesome at night, I'll let you know."

  "But won't you get a bit lonesome when you get old?"

  "I got old, really old, last year, in my soul. Now, every year, I let myself get a bit younger. My body's going to age, but my mind will get younger as the years go by. It's a plan. Can't see why other people don't do that. Can I have a sandwich?"

  I was going to point out that it was only ten in the morning, but I wasn't sure how far that would get me. Besides, there were more than I was likely to eat. "Sure. Have three."

  By this time we were getting near the end of Gull Lake.

  It was a bright day. The little waves caught the sunlight on Gull Lake and shone diamonds at us. The trees along the shore looked about as remote and mysterious as they were supposed to.

  Ahead, three loons warbled at us, then disappeared abruptly underwater, to appear further down the lake after a minute. It was a perfect day to be in a canoe with a nut case and a cop who probably wanted to have me making license plates for the next twenty years of my life.

  "You don't like us very much, do you?" Pica asked, laughing again a bit.

  There was a long paddling silence, then I said, "Which of us are you talking to."

  "You of course. It's your canoe. Seth, our policeman friend is trying to figure out which of us is lying the most, or at all. He's paid to not like anybody."

  "Is it always this noisy out on the lake?" Seth asked me.

  "Not when he's alone," Pica answered for me. "Are you going to shoot me to shut me up?" She was talking with her mouth full of sandwich and it came out muffled a bit.

  "Not till we get to shore," Seth answered.

  "He shoots people," Pica observed.

  "Anybody?" I asked, "or only known criminals?"

  "You should watch people more closely," she answered, "instead of watching water and rain."

  "What would I see, do you suppose?" The shore was getting closer as we neared the south end of the lake. I slowed my paddling.

  "He has a sadness in his eyes, like an old soldier." Pica began trying up the packs, stuffing sandwich wrap into an outside pocket. "He got transferred here from Toronto. He shot someone."

  Seth missed a beat in his paddling, but said nothing.

  "Oh yes," she went on. "I looked it up."

  "A long time ago," Seth said, "and a long ways away."

  Pica turned her head to me. "The kid was fifteen years old, and a member of a very visible minority and he had a big stolen pickup and was driving it right through some of metro's finest cops. Well I guess the kid broke a few cop bones before our friend here nailed him with one shot between the eyes."

  Seth said nothing, so I said, "On the other hand, he's very quiet."

  "Hell," she said, "you don't want quiet. If you've got to be among people, you'd rather they did all the talking, so you don't have to. Otherwise you’re going to be looking at the sky and the leaves and the water that other people would find so lovely and all you’ll be thinking about is how very very very much you don’t want to be here with us." She fished out another sandwich and started in on it. “Tofu,” she said, “is good for you.”

  "I can see the portage sign." Seth pointed ahead. The lake narrowed into a thin channel, choked with lily pads and logs.

  Beyond, nailed to a tree, was the triangular yellow sign.

  "What are those birds?" Seth raised his paddle to point just above the trees ahead.

  "Vultures," I said. "Turkey vultures."

  "We have vultures in Ontario?"

  "They used to be common, last century. They've been brought back, I guess. Mostly they live on roadkill, but there are a few out in the bush."

  "I like vultures," Pica observed. "They're honest. The wild is all about dying. Living and dying. Most people just pretend it's about living, but it's not. You gotta participate in the whole thing."

  "And poor George was a participant?"

  "We all participate," she said, looking into the trees. "Sooner or later, we all participate."

  A few minutes later, out on the waters of Fox Lake, I asked Seth, "Do you mind a little detour? Maybe an hour's worth?"

  Seth turned around to look at me. Or maybe to look at Pica; she had her top off again and was sunning herself. He sighed heavily. "A detour?" One of Pica's eyes came open and looked at him. He turned back to face the front.

  "Well," I said, "I remember a comment Belinda made about Bob. Something to the effect that she could tell us something interesting about what he was doing that day. The day George died."

  "And you just r
emembered this?" Seth spoke very evenly.

  "Oh," Pica spoke up, putting her top on again, "he doesn't like company very much. So he files anything people say away in his mental filing cabinet and hopes he won’t have to look in there again and see what he put there."

  "Yes," I said. "I did just remember it."

  "And what do you want to do?"

  "I was wondering," I looked at the clouds, once again gathering, if Bob could have got to Thomson Lake from here."

  "How do you mean?"

  "By taking a shortcut from the west end of the lake. Thomson Lake flows into Fox Lake. It's a tiny creek, I imagine, but I'd like to see if there's any way a person could either paddle or walk through."

  "Let’s do it."

  I turned the canoe to the west, and we followed the lake west, then south. The lake ended in a shallow bay. We finally rammed against a submerged log, not far out from shore.

  "Now what?" Seth pushed against the log.

  "We keep going." Together we pushed over the log, and over a few more, until the nose of the canoe was firmly wedged into bushes growing out of the water. There was no sign of the creek and no sign of any previous canoe.

  "Now what" Seth said again.

  "The creek's somewhere in these bushes."

  "I can't see it."

  "I can't, either," I said, leaning on the paddle to keep the canoe in place. I pointed at a notch in the hills ahead of us. "That's where the creek comes through from Thomson Lake. You might be able to walk it, but you sure aren't going to canoe it."

  "You're sure about that?"

  "He thinks he’s wild and brave,” Pica said. “And he’s tried taking shortcuts like that more than a couple of times. Trust him.”

  "I do."

  "He goes where nobody else goes, so he can find places where there's nobody else." Pica pulled up a late-season lotus and set it into the canoe.

  "Who made you queen of the personality profiles," I asked.

  "Hey, Mr. Policeman, watch this guy; I think he's going to brain me with his paddle." Pica laughed so loud we got the echo back from one of the cliffs.

  "He'll have to wait in line."

  "Darn," she said. "I feel threatened all to heck."

  We got back onto the lake, then followed the shore a bit. I pushed the canoe into a more solid piece of shore, then swung the back around and stepped out.

  "I'll be back in a bit."

  "Wait for me," Seth said. "I'd like to come, too."

  I looked at Pica. "Not me," she said, settling back into the canoe. The clouds were still in the west, and the canoe was in sunshine. "I'll stay here and eat all your sandwiches."

  I led the way through the dense brush. For fifteen or twenty minutes we followed the creek, which was small enough to step over, up into the hills. We dodged swamp and dense underbrush, then made good progress through a beech and maple forest.

  Finally, I paused, puffing.

  "How far did we get?" Seth rested against a moss-covered rock face.

  "About a quarter of the way to Thomson," I reckoned.

  "Could he have done it? Could he have got to Thomson Lake in the time he had?"

  "Possible," I said, "but very unlikely. Even if he had a bloody murdering drive to kill George, how would he know George was at Thomson Lake?"

  Seth just looked at me, breathing heavily and leaning on a maple tree. A crimson leaf fell onto his head.

  "They'd been gone for a couple of days. They could have been anywhere. And probably as a group. How would he know that George was alone at Thomson Lake?"

  "You might have thought of that before we climbed those last thousand rock faces," he said, scratching at a cut on his arm.

  "I had to know."

  "You just wanted to get away from that character in the canoe."

  "You have a point there," I said.

  "Nice nipples."

  I couldn't disagree with that. "Can't you arrest her? She's playing hell with my blood pressure."

  "Not in this province."

  I pondered that a minute. "I guess I'll live."

  "Figured you'd say that."

  When we got back to the canoe, Pica was sleeping, curled up awkwardly between the seats, with a couple of sweaters pulled over her and her head on a packsack.

  Less than an hour later, we were coming in to the other end of the lake. "I can see the portage sign," Seth called. We were entering a long, narrow bay, choked with lily pads, logs, and rocks.

  "The water's down this year," I said, "you can't get to the portage point by canoe." I pointed to the nearby shore. "We can land here. It's a little longer."

  "Seth," said Pica, "is thinking that things here are not what they seem to be."

  We were on the portage to Cedar Lake. Seth and I were taking turns carrying the canoe and a pack, and Pica and I were leading. She carried the daypacks.

  I watched the birds and the leaves against the sky.

  As the burly cop tromped along the trail, I asked, without pausing, "You mean what? That he's thinking about all this living and dying and killing going on under our feet?"

  "He's thinking that the portage sign was pointing at the wrong place, now that the water's down in the lake. Now he's wondering how many other things out here are telling him lies."

  "Like you."

  "Me, he's not worried about. He knows I lie as much as I can get away with. It's you and the rest of the creatures hiphopping through these woods. Kele's not much of an Indian, you know. I've gotta go pee."

  "Ready for a break?" I called to Seth.

  "Uhhh," he answered.

  I led him to a tree with a canoe branch. A canoe branch sticks out from a tree, high enough to lean the front tip of the canoe on it. Saves having to put the canoe onto the ground. Seth stepped out from under the canoe, and straightened up, slowly. I directed Pica to an evergreen bush off the trail. "There," I said. Then I added, "Behind the bushes, if you don't mind."

  "No problem," she said. "You go out of your way to get into the natural world, then want to hide some perfectly natural functions, that's your hang-up. Shall I try to pee quietly, so you don't hear me?"

  Within couple of minutes we were on our way again, me carrying the canoe, and the other two walking behind me, talking.

  "What did you mean when you said Kele wasn't a real Indian?" Seth asked.

  "Born white," she said, "and raised white, but now he hangs around the reservation hoping some red will rub onto him. Even his name’s one his mother picked from a book. It means ‘sparrow hawk’ I think, in Navajo or something.”

  "And who's this Samuel Small Legs he's got with him?"

  "Real Indian from the rez. He’s a medicine man type who spends his time trying to get the young guys to listen for the spirits. They just ignore him, of course."

  "Was Kele really boffing George's wife?"

  "Not more than twice a day, except on Sundays."

  "And I can believe you?"

  "Oh, I've never lied to you before, have I?"

  About this time, we came down a muddy slope to Cedar Lake. I got there first, and dropped the canoe with a thump onto the ground.

  As the other two came up, I was looking up at the campsite by the trail.

  Seth came up, and watched me look around. "Tell me what you see," he said.

  I huffed my way up the slope. The day had got quite warm, and I was sweating a bit. At the top, I gave the cop as clear a rundown as I could of the previous night's group camping social event.

  “Bob had a knife?” Seth asked me. “What kind of knife?”

  “A switchblade, I’d say. But I can’t be sure. It was pretty quick, and I’ve never actually seen a switchblade.”

  “Does he still have the knife, do you think?”

  “Chucked it into the middle of Fox Lake.” I told him about the altercation with Belinda at the portage.”

  “Most people here have knives?”

  “You’d be silly to go into the woods without one,” I said.
r />   “We’ll keep that in mind when the coroner’s final report comes in.”

  When I looked around again, Pica was out on the point, sunning herself. Her clothes were piled neatly beside her.

  "Still glad you asked her to come with us?"

  He sighed. "She was more or less local. She knew the victim and all his friends and enemies. And she could give me a rundown on the situation at the lodge, just in case I really wanted to know. I figured I'd have most of the day to talk to her. "Besides," he went on, "she knows there's no place else she could do this so safely. Her aunt won’t let her take off her clothes near the lodge any more."

  What could I say? "Pica," I yelled, "we're getting ready to go now."

  She opened one eye, then reached for her clothes.

  When we paddled up to the portage to Thomson Lake, I pointed ahead. There were two forms there, moving around an upturned canoe.

  As we got into shore, they stood up, and I could see the geobuddies, Patrick and Ned. They had a small fire going, its smoke drifting into the trees.

  Ned helped pull us up to the shore.

  "Good to see you," he said. "Someone bashed a hole in our canoe. We were trying to fix it with birch bark and pine tar."

  "That could take a while," I said, looking at a hole the size of my fist."

  "Especially with one of us standing guard all the time," Patrick said, looking around. "Whoever did it stole our rifle, too."