Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle

by H. Mel Malton

  Lug-nut, who had helped with the load by carrying my briefcase down to the van, dropped it gently at my feet and sat leaning into my leg. If he had been Rico, he would have said “Polly, take me home, please.”

  “I know, Luggy. Thanks for babysitting the pup,” I said, and stroked his head. He gazed at me with his tongue hanging out, drooling on my shoe. Of course all he’d understood of that was “Bluh-blah, LUGGY. Blah blu-blah-blah-SITTING bluh-blah.” Seeing as he was sitting already, there wasn’t much there for him, but then he was used to me blithering on at him. Dog owners end up doing that after a while, at least this one does. Amber was doing it already with her puppy, Portia, speaking in a high-pitched baby-voice that I predicted would drive everybody on tour absolutely insane inside a week. She and Shane were leaving together by the front door as I was entering the lobby. From the back, you’d think they were new parents, the way she held the dog, wrapped in a blanket, and the way Shane opened the door for her and carried the numerous bags of puppy paraphernalia out to the car. In another week or two, Portia would be too big to carry. I wondered if Amber actually knew what kind of breed she’d bought, and if she would ever let the poor creature walk about on its own four paws.

  I went to the back office to check in with Juliet. Rico had left two hours earlier with Ruth, after the music rehearsal. I’d told him that I was supposed to meet one of the cast after work on a private matter, and he said he’d ask Ruth for a ride. Seeing as Ruth lived at the opposite end of Cedar Falls (Rico’s antique shop was on the way for me), I hoped he was duly appreciative. Probably not, though. He’s a sweetie, but he’s a bit Rico-centric.

  Juliet was nowhere to be found, which I thought odd, as she had indicated rather heavily that she wanted a chat with me about my reaction to the daisy murder. Still, I wasn’t about to hang around for a dressing-down. I fired up the van and headed out.

  The Falls Motel is a mid-range establishment on the other side of the river from the Steamboat Theatre space. It is close enough to the falls to get a view of the cascade, but it’s hardly “at the foot of the mighty Sikwan Falls”, which is what its flyers claim. However, it’s clean and cheerful, with spacious rooms, kitchenettes (how I detest that word) and balconies overlooking the water. I was not surprised that Amber and Jason chose to stay there, but I would have expected Shane to get a room at the prestigious Sikwan Empire, a gorgeous, five-star resort hotel a couple of kilometres downriver. Shane, after all, was loaded, or at least that was the impression he gave. His clothes were very expensive, he drove an Intrepid, and besides, Juliet had told me so.

  I arrived at the Falls Motel Pub a little before five-thirty, and because I was meeting Shane Pacey (who may have been in mid-flirt with Amber, but was still mind-numbingly gorgeous) I scooted into the ladies’ room to freshen up. I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing myself reflected in a mirror since early that morning, when I’d once again plastered on the makeup to hide the bruising around my eyes. My nose was still swollen, and no makeup could hope to hide the fact, but I’d slapped it on anyway.

  The face which greeted me in the bathroom mirror was shiny and quite unlovely. I had spent the last few hours hauling theatre equipment, and the resulting perspiration had caused what little mascara I wore to slide down my face, making me look like the sad clown in a black-velvet painting. I wondered how long I’d been looking like that, and why none of my dear co-workers had alerted me. My hair was sticking up in front, where I’d repeatedly pushed it away from my face during the van pack, there was a smudge of grime on my forehead, and the foundation I’d blended (just like they tell you in the magazines) into my skin had worn off in patches, but gathered in the creases around my nose and on my chin. The tip of my turnip nose was glowing. If I washed my face, and just left the makeup covering my black eyes, I’d look even more grotesque. Saying a mental “to hell with it,” I ran hot water in the wash-basin, grabbed a handful of paper towels, pounded the bejeezus out of the “press once” soap dispenser and washed it all away. I also splashed some water on my bangs to erase the rooster-crest. The result was not as bad as you’d think. I like to go bare-faced most of the time anyway, and my eyes were now more yellowy than purple. I wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but at least it was me.

  The face-washing had delivered a sharp smack to my ego as far as “being pretty for Shane” went, which was just as well. I go off on these sad little tangents from time to time, reverting back to the hormonal “Pick me! Pick me!” thought patterns of a fifteen-year-old. Maybe we all do, I don’t know. Anyway, the face that stared back at me after I’d finished was familiar and comfortable. I decided to toss the Max Factor as soon as I got home.

  Shane was waiting for me at a table on the patio of the pub. The early evening sun was golden and warm, and he was basking in it, his eyes shut, his legs outstretched. All you needed to do was take a picture, stick a trendy brand-name in the corner of it, and you’d sell a million of anything. He had changed from his rehearsal clothes into a pair of olive-green pants and a khaki T-shirt with cut off sleeves. He was drinking beer from the bottle and when he lifted it to his lips, hardly opening his eyes to do so, it was one of the most sensual things I’ve ever seen. His arm muscles rippled, for heaven’s sake. I think I must have stopped walking towards him, just to gawk, because a waitress said “excuse me” behind me, and then squeezed by with a loaded tray, making a tiny “tsk” sound with her mouth.

  Shane noticed me and lifted a hand in greeting.

  “What’re you drinking?” he said as I sat down. The waitress was at his side instantly. I could feel her checking me out, the “what’s he doing with her when he could have me?” kind of thing. Very bad karma.

  “I’ll have one of those, please,” I said to her, pointing at Shane’s Kuskawa Cream Ale. “I’m glad to see you supporting local business, Shane.”

  “It’s good stuff. I’m taking a case home with me when this gig’s over.” He lifted his bottle in a toast to his surroundings. “This place is great. I’d forgotten how much I love the north.”

  “You mentioned that you grew up here,” I said.

  “Yeah. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. These things that keep happening. Jason disappearing and that ugly shit with the puppets. Polly, I think someone’s out to get me.”

  At last, I thought. Someone who is taking this business seriously.

  “Why do you think that?” I said. The waitress came back with my beer in what must have been Falls Pub record time.

  “Thanks, Alison,” Shane said and gave her a ten. “That’s fine,” he said. Beer was only three bucks, but maybe he was paying for both. Anyway, it figured that he knew her name. Waitresses at the Falls Pub don’t wear nametags. They barely wear clothes, come to that. Shane waited for her to go away before he answered my question.

  “There’s some things you should know about me,” he said, softly. “I don’t know where to start, though. Amber’s meeting us here in about fifteen minutes, and I don’t want her to hear this, but I think you should. She probably knows this stuff anyway, from Jason.”

  “What stuff, Shane?”

  “Well, I think you’re right about Jason being dead,” he said. “And I think whoever did it is trying to pin it on me.”

  Twenty-Six

  PRINCESS: In the palace there’s a rule that says you’re not allowed to speak / Unless the grown-ups say so; not a whisper, not a squeak.

  -The Glass Flute, Scene viii

  “Kuskawa is full of secrets,” Shane said. “Anyone who grows up here could tell you that. It may be Toronto’s cottage-country playground and heaven’s waiting room for a million retirees, but there’s a lot of shit below the surface.”

  I knew that as well as he did. Kuskawa, for all its monster cottages, thriving tourism business and pristine wilderness, had its seamy underbelly, just like everywhere else. You just don’t get to read about it in the newspapers, because community weeklies tend to promote church socials and local heroes and avoid the court rep
orts. Occasionally, there is a messy death, such as a traffic fatality, prompting one or two stern editorials and a call for a road-study at the council level. Or it might be a nasty case of domestic unpleasantness, with no names mentioned, because everybody knew everybody else, but you have to live here a long time before you get the real dirt.

  “I grew up here, too, Shane,” I said. “I know.”

  “You weren’t here in the late eighties, were you?” he said. I shook my head. I’d been working in touring kids’ theatre in those days, for a company out east.

  “This thing happened at Laingford High,” Shane said. “A teacher died, and it was pretty gruesome. A lot of kids were affected, and they covered it up, sort of. If you ask about it now, they’ll call it ‘The Incident’ and that’s all they’ll say.”

  “Were you affected?” I said.

  Shane’s face twisted. “Yeah, you could say that,” he said. “This guy, Mr. A., he was the drama teacher. He died just before we opened a rock-musical production of Hamlet. He was directing and I was Hamlet.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “Jason was stage-managing.”

  “Well, no, he was only a Grade Eleven student then. I think he was running follow-spot.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Mr. A. was found in his office, strangled with an audio cable. We were pretty good friends, and I kind of flipped out, a lot of us did.”

  “That’s awful, Shane. Did they find out who did it?”

  “That’s the thing. Nobody was really sure what happened, and the police investigation never turned up anything.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I couldn’t handle school after that, so I left and went to Toronto. I was in Grade Thirteen then, anyway. Nobody ever talks about it any more.”

  “So you think that Jason’s disappearance and the puppet-stuff with the audio cables is linked to ‘The Incident,’ as you call it?”

  “It has to be. You see, there were some people who thought I might be involved with his death in some way. The police asked me a lot of questions, and everybody knew that I was spending a lot of time at the cop shop. That’s partly why I left town.”

  “And now, ten years later, someone’s trying to throw suspicion your way again, is that it?”

  “Well, think about it. If somebody killed Mr. A. ten years ago and got away with it, the case is still open, and the killer could strike again. The only obvious person with a motive for killing Jason would be me, because of the Amber-thing. The puppet stuff is meant to point to me. Whoever it is wants to stir up enough old memories to get the police interested in me again. It’s the perfect set-up. Ten years after Mr. A. gets killed, Jason McMaster buys it and I’m the fall guy.”

  “But who would know that you’re back in Kuskawa, working for Steamboat?”

  “Lots of people do,” he said. “I’m kind of hard to miss.” He said it so unselfconsciously that it didn’t sound like a brag. It was just the truth.

  “This is totally off the wall, Shane. Why are you telling me?”

  “I don’t want to talk to the cops, Polly. That’s exactly what this somebody wants. I know you’ve been involved in this kind of stuff before, so I thought you could help. You know, find out who the somebody is.”

  “And if I do figure out who it is, what then?”

  “Maybe you could tell the cops—I don’t know. I hate the thought of people thinking I was mixed up in Mr. A.’s death, but people have long memories up here. They may not talk about it, but they never forget. Whoever killed Mr. A. wants me to take the blame.”

  “You should really go to the cops with this,” I said.

  “I can’t. I don’t want to go through all that again. It’s what I’m trying to avoid by talking to you, don’t you see?” Shane was being downright emotional, and it was hard to resist. His eyes were moist, and he had taken hold of my hand in a most familiar way, which I rather liked.

  “Well hi there, you two. Can I join you, or is this private?” Amber appeared next to our table, carrying her puppy. She spoke the words in a friendly way, but there was steel beneath the cotton candy, and her eyes were slightly narrowed. Shane snatched his hand away and sent me a “don’t say a word” look.

  “I was just leaving,” I said. “How’s the puppy, Amber?”

  “Oh, Portia’s just perfect,” she said, brightening at once. “Of course, she’s not house-trained yet, and she just made doo-doo on the carpet in my room, but I think I’m getting to know when she needs to go. Look! She knows her name.” The puppy had, indeed, opened its sleepy eyes and had commenced chewing on Amber’s hand. “Juliet says I have to let her get used to the feeling of having her mouth touched, so I can brush her teeth when she gets older,” Amber said. “Ow! Easy, Portia.” It was going to be a long haul. It still rocked me that Juliet had okayed the puppy-on-tour thing. Allowing Lug-nut to come along was different. He was a grown-up and reasonably trained. Portia was going to create havoc, I was certain.

  I bid my fellow Steamboat shipmates a fond farewell, thanking Shane for the drink (which I’d only half-consumed) and went out to the van, where Luggy was waiting patiently on the passenger seat. I’d left George’s truck at the theatre and would be bringing him in the next morning to collect it. From that moment on, I would have my own set of wheels and a company gas card. It gave me a feeling of freedom, even though the van, fully loaded, weighed a couple of thousand pounds.

  On the way home, I mulled over what Shane had told me. He certainly seemed sincere, but then he was an actor, and a good one. It was gratifying to think that someone other than me and possibly Tobin thought that Jason was dead. I didn’t want Jason to be dead, you understand, but I was sure he was. Shane had been convincing when it came to “somebody” having a motive to do the puppet stuff, and if the somebody had truly hastened Jason’s death in order to renew the suspicion that Shane was responsible for a decade-old “Incident”, then we were dealing with a nutcase. I just hoped it wasn’t anyone in the cast. On the other hand, it would have to have been someone connected with Steamboat somehow, in order for them to know about schedules, and to know the space well enough to sneak around murdering puppets.

  I went through the personnel list in my head as I drove in the slow lane along Highway 14, hugging the shoulder as the spring lumber trucks passed me, doing 140 clicks in a 90 zone. When I first moved to Cedar Falls, I’d regularly scribbled down the licence plate numbers of the trucks and phoned them in to the cops. It must have driven the local constabulary crazy, but it made me feel better.

  Could Juliet have bumped off Jason and violated my puppets? It seemed unlikely, unless she lost her mind when he spurned her advances the night of the party. I couldn’t see her damaging company property, though. Anyway, Juliet and Shane were old friends. She probably knew about the Incident and couldn’t care less.

  Amber was out of the question, and I couldn’t see Bradley knocking off Jason for any reason whatsoever. Meredith was a good bet, though. She obviously knew something about Shane’s past and made no secret of not liking him. She was trying to sabotage my stage-management authority and she seemed to like power. However, she had no connection to Kuskawa as far as I knew, and there was no reason why she’d know about the Incident. That left Ruth (no way), Kim and Sam, Tobin and I guess Rico, seeing as he’d been at the theatre every day since the party.

  I was stumped. I resolved to check out the Incident with Morrison, or even Becker, if he’d listen. I also planned to keep an eye on Meredith. Why had she accused Shane of “turning tricks”? What did that have to do with anything?

  There was a police car parked outside George’s farmhouse, next to Aunt Susan’s lime green station wagon and George’s Toyota. My heart hammering, I jumped out of the van and ran, expecting the worst. The Neighbour from Hell had attacked, I was certain, and George was hurt, even dead. I felt instant rage, the kind that tells you that a person you love fiercely has been harmed by someone who must be killed. I think I even snarled.<
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  On the porch, there was rather a lot of blood, and when I saw it, I did the brave, sensible thing and blacked out.

  Twenty-Seven

  WOODSMAN: If you’re a princess, don’t you have a duty to obey? / Do what you’re told, and bide your time—you’ll find your prince one day.

  -The Glass Flute, Scene iv

  I am not generally a squeamish person. During the birth of goat kids, which involves a fair measure of lessthan-attractive hot liquid matter, I’m in there up to my elbows, making comforting goat-noises. When I broke my nose at the party, I was reasonably stoic about the blood part. Just held a wodge of paper towels up to my proboscis and tried not to think of how much it hurt. Every month (guys can skip this part if they want) women have no choice but to deal with several gallons of the stuff, and while I know some menstruating people who are acutely embarrassed about the whole process and hide the evidence from sight as if it’s shameful, I don’t know of anyone who actually faints. In a way, it’s rather useful to have your body remind you on a regular basis that there’s healthy red stuff gooshing around inside you, just below the surface. It keeps you careful. I think this is why men tend to cut themselves more often than women do. Empirical evidence, I know. I don’t think anyone’s done a study yet. Guys keep cutting their fingers off with power saws and jackknives because they forget that they can bleed. Women remember.

  This inner strength, however, dissolves when I see gouts of blood that are neither my own, nor birth-related. The blood on the porch of George’s farmhouse was, I assumed, human, and smeared about as if the source had somehow been used as a mop. George’s porch is painted white, and the effect was dramatic; hence my swoon.

  I only blacked out for a couple of seconds, sort of crumpling up on the porch steps. I came to almost immediately, with Lug-nut’s reassuring dog-breath in my face and a pair of police boots directly in front of my eyes.