Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle

by H. Mel Malton

  On the inside back cover, Gaby’s book included this statement: “I promise on my honer, to be Polly’s Loyal and trusted friend for ever and ever until death do us depart. I promise to do my best in every way. Together we fit like Two Pea’s in a fresh pod. If I don’t keep my promise I will first apologise then I will make myself write this out 100 times!” On the back cover of my own notebook, I’d written “I pledge to have a bonded partener and friendship with Gabrielle Kelly Murchison. I am sinning, I know, but it’s fun!” I had totted up the value of every stolen object in my book, like a bank manager.

  Gaby’s book was blank after the first few pages. Perhaps she had seen the error of her ways and told me that my friendship wasn’t worth it. I hope that’s what happened. I can’t remember. For some reason, I kept her book. Perhaps in the hope of future blackmail. My notebook, the one with the picture of the dog on the cover, was full.

  I remember the thrill of shoplifting. The heart-crushing, excruciating wait for the right moment. The quick slip-it-in-your-pocket. The sick, sweet pleasure of getting away with it. And I did, for what seems like ages, but was probably only a few months. I showered my parents with pocket-sized gifts at Christmas. I had a never ending supply of notebooks, pencils and erasers. All hot.

  I was never caught. If shoplifting is supposed to be a cry for help, as most psychologists would have us believe, how devastating it must be, and must have been, to have the cry ignored. I stopped stealing one day, when, after lifting a chocolate bar on my way home from school, the owner of the store followed me all the way to the door, his eyes boring into mine, his face full of suspicion and sorrow. I was not willing after all, it seems, to step over the line from petty theft to public disgrace. That’s the way I remember it, anyway.

  As I flipped through the pages of Gaby’s and my pathetic little testaments, my shame was strong, but I found I had little compassion for the child I had been. There was something else about the whole thing, too, something that transcended the disgrace of the theft, but my mind refused to cough it up.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and could see my small hands pushing the wrapped up notebooks into the secret hiding place I’d found in Emma’s shop, but I couldn’t recall when I’d done it, or why. Obviously, I wanted to avoid being found out, but that was not the whole story.

  I thought suddenly of confession—the churchy kind. I’d made my first confession when I was eight. What followed, since my parents were singularly devout Catholics, was a weekly routine of confession, penance and absolution before going to mass on Sunday. My confessor was Father Douglas, a gentle old priest who was an associate at St. Margaret’s Church in Laingford. The main priest was Father Christopher, a young, dynamic fellow with thick black hair and piercing blue eyes. Father Christopher scared me silly, but Father Douglas was very sweet, and when I thought about God at all (which was a struggle, as I wasn’t convinced that he was any more real than Santa Claus), I pictured him as a very large Father Douglas.

  Of course, seeing as I was too young to have any good, juicy sins under my belt, I made most of them up, as I imagine most Catholic kids do. I didn’t have brothers and sisters, so I couldn’t confess the “I was mean to my brother” kind of sin that Gaby padded her list with. I told Father Douglas that I had been mean to some person at school instead. I’d pick a schoolmate at random and weave a tale—usually one in which I had been wronged by this person and had lashed out in righteous indignation. I was a natural storyteller, sometimes even convincing myself that it had happened. When Father Douglas gave me a couple of Hail Marys to say in penance, I did them fervently, with only the very tip of my mind telling me that, if anything, I was doing the penance for having lied, not for having snapped at a friend.

  I had absolutely no intention of telling the priest about the Secret Stealing Club. For one thing, I knew that stealing was a mortal sin, and that it would turn my soul as black as licorice. In my mind, it wasn’t a sin unless you admitted it, and if nobody found out, your soul was safe. I knew that because the club was secret, I was technically receiving communion in a state of mortal sin, which compounded the offence, but there was no turning back. I had this theory that the holy wafer the priest put on my tongue somehow would fix things, like a kind of internal detergent.

  When my parents died, I was certain at once that my mortal sin had set them up. Maybe that’s why I hid the books. It certainly was why, after the funeral, I never darkened the door of the Catholic Church again. I had burned my bridges, and was, essentially, a murderer. To my relief, my Aunt Susan, who became my guardian, was an atheist.

  All this diving into the past and splashing around in long-buried guilt left me exhausted. It was late afternoon by then, and I was supposed to be getting ready to whoop it up with my beau. Somehow, I didn’t feel like partying, but I could hardly call up Becker and say I wanted to cancel because I had just remembered I was a thief and a murderer and I was kind of depressed. I put the Kountry Kow head away, cleaned up my work table and went to the well to pump up some water for a bath. As I poured hot water from the big kettle into my portable zinc tub, a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth popped into my head. Lady M., sleepwalking after the murder of Duncan. “All the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten this little hand . . .”

  I poured a bit of Body Shop musk bubble bath in instead.

  Seventeen

  Dine at home in style and win an evening out! Fill in a ballot every time you purchase a Kountry Pantree Pre-cooked Shrimp Ring, and you have a chance to win a free dinner for four at Kuskawa’s finest resort: the Mooseview!

  —A sign on the freezer-bin in the frozen fish section of the Kountry Pantree superstore

  “You’re quiet this evening,” Becker said. We were sitting in the main dining room at the Mooseview Inn, Serena and Winston Elliot’s masterpiece. Our table was right next to a huge window overlooking the Kuskawa River. Below us, the Mooseview’s private dock glowed like a highly polished dance-floor, reflecting an artful tangle of white fairy lights festooned in the trees beside it. The lights glinted in the mirror-still water, and a lone canoe, backlit by the tail end of a glorious sunset, slipped past the end of the dock. I suddenly wanted to be there, in that boat, not where I was, making awkward conversation with a man whose personality seemed to have changed overnight. A tea-light candle floated in a brandy glass full of blue liquid between us, casting oh-so-romantic shadows over Becker’s face.

  “Are you growing a moustache?” I said.

  He fingered the faint red stubble that adorned his upper lip and cleared his throat. “I was thinking about it. Do you like it?”

  “It’s a little early to tell. Ask me again in a week.”

  “I can shave it off if you don’t,” he said. Lordy. Mark Becker was seeking my approval about his facial hair. He had been treating me like fine china since picking me up, deferring to my opinion over how long it would take to get to the Inn (“d’you think we should take the back road? The reservation’s for seven . . .”), complimenting me on my outfit, which was nothing special, and even asking if I minded the walk after parking a hundred metres away from the front door. We had made small talk—really small, the kind people make when they hardly know each other. The unanswered proposal hung between us like the proverbial Elephant in the Room. I didn’t want to ask about Bryan, because that had already revealed itself as a touchy subject, and Becker had already asked me about the Kountry Pantree project. (I’d said it was going “fine”, which is really all one can say about a creative thing in the early stages.) In the intervening days since Becker had asked me to marry him, a weird reversal of status had occurred. I realized that, for as long as I had known him, he had been the bossy, opinionated half of the equation. I had responded in my usual feisty, “don’t you dare tell me what to do” way, and the resulting electricity had fuelled our fire. Or mine, anyway. To my horror, I was discovering that when Mark Becker was being solicitous and sensitive, he wasn’t sexy any more. Yeesh.

  I toyed with my w
ine and lit a cigarette. “You going to the town council meeting tomorrow?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t planning on it. Why?”

  “I think you should. The League of Social Justice is planning some sort of coup, I think.” Oh, great, Polly. Champion secret keeper, that’s me.

  “Coup? You mean they’re going to take over the council chambers?” Becker said.

  “It might not be that funny,” I said, cutting off his laugh. “They’ve apparently got hold of some information about the Kountry Pantree. Something that they seem to think will kill the project. It may get ugly.” Becker’s eyes lost their kicked-puppy look, and my heart sang.

  “Ugly, how?”

  “Well, Archie Watson was over at George’s this afternoon with a couple of the other members, and it looked like they were having a meeting. Odd, don’t you think, when his brother has just died? He told me they were planning something, but he wouldn’t tell me what. Susan wouldn’t let him. It was all very hush-hush.”

  “How did Watson seem? Was he as torn up about Vic as you’d expect him to be?”

  “Well, he was emotional, but then that seems to be a permanent state for him. I don’t think he and his brother were very close.”

  I looked up to see Serena Elliot herself bearing down on us, carrying two sizzling plates.

  “Now these are very hot,” she said, placing my escargot order in front of me with a flourish.

  She was wearing a screamingly expensive black sheath, which probably cost more than Becker’s Jeep, and the diamonds adorning her long, thin fingers were too big to be fake, if you know what I mean. As she leaned over me, a waft of her perfume caught me squarely in the sinuses, and I sneezed.

  “Gesundheit,” she said. “It’s Poison. My scent, I mean. It makes Winston sneeze, too. Heeeere you go, Detective Becker.” She deposited Becker’s plate in front of him and squeezed his shoulder. “Now you two be careful with these plates. We always have our staff say that because some jerk from the States tried to sue us once after he burned his little pinkies.” She immediately went off into peals of delightful laughter, and it occurred to me that she might be a mite tipsy.

  I muttered a thank-you, and Becker just stared at her.

  “Oh, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing playing waitress,” she said. She really had a lovely voice. “I just told Rachel I’d bring them over, because I wanted to make sure everything was all right. We do like to check in with our important clients, you know.” Important clients? A puppet maker and a policeman?

  “Thank you kindly,” Becker murmured, sounding exactly like Constable Fraser on Due South.

  “Everything’s great, Serena,” I said. “You guys have done a beautiful job with the place.”

  She ignored me and squeezed Becker’s shoulder again. “And I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am, we all are, about poor Vic Watson’s death,” she said. “Such a tragic thing. Such a good man.” It wasn’t as if Becker was related, I thought. She hovered for a moment, looking as if she might just pull up a chair and sit down.

  “It sure was sad, ma’am,” Becker said. His face was totally blank.

  “And I expect you’ve heard the rumours by now,” Serena went on. “About how someone, um, hastened his death in hospital. Why, everybody’s talking about it. But I can’t see it myself. I went to visit him, you know, Saturday evening, and he looked just awful. I told Winston I thought he would probably have another heart attack pretty soon. He was just white as a sheet. I suppose there’s going to be an inquest, is there?”

  “I don’t know about that, ma’am,” Becker said.

  “Well, if there is, I just wanted you to know that I was one of his many, many visitors that day,” she said, smiling so widely her plastic face took on a sudden sheen in the candlelight, like a polished apple. “There was quite a line-up after me, you know. Victor Watson was a popular man. If you want a list of who was there, you only have to ask. Now, enjoy your snails, darlings, before they get cold.” She sailed away, a galleon in full glory, tottering slightly on her three-inch heels.

  “Gosh,” I said.

  “Interesting,” Becker said, and began to splutter, the kind of sound one makes to hold back inappropriate laughter. The escargots smelled divine.

  “It’s Poison, you know,” I said in a Serena-voice.

  “Only for our most important clients,” Becker said in a strangled falsetto and beckoned Rachel, our real waitress, over to order another bottle of wine.

  We didn’t go to the movie. In fact, we decided to abandon the Jeep, as well, because there were two bottles of wine sloshing around inside us, plus a couple of Armagnacs we had with dessert.

  “We’re fried, you know,” I said, as Becker plunked down his Visa card.

  “Like eggs,” he said. “Taxi, I think.”

  “Gene’s playing tonight,” I said as we passed the piano lounge on the way to the front desk. It was a Monday, and the lounge was almost deserted. We exchanged a look, which translated into the agreement that “one for the road” was okay if the Laingford Cab Company was part of the deal. Gene greeted us like old buddies (which we were) and played to us like he was our own private troubador. He’s tall and thin, with a repertoire that would shame the biggest jukebox in the world. He dredged up several Beatles tunes, old Creedence Clearwater Revival stuff and even some Elton John, although I’m not saying which one of us requested “Candle in the Wind”. I will say, however, that Becker holds a secret, vaguely maudlin regard for Lady Diana, Princess of Wales (may she rest in peace). I made a mental note to probe further at a more opportune time.

  We were kicked out of the place long after last call, when our waitress Rachel from the dining room started putting the chairs upside down on the table next to us. Gene gave us a lift back to Becker’s place, saying it was the least he could do, seeing as we’d saved him from the Monday night Bingo Ladies, who usually swarmed him, demanding Elvis and Buddy Holly to go with their margaritas.

  Becker’s apartment was as bleak as ever. It was a good-sized, reasonably appointed two bedroom on the ritzy side of Lake Kimowan, but he had never bothered to make it more than a place to put his stuff. He’d moved in three years previously, on a trial separation from Catherine, his ex-wife. I think that a lot of people end up living in places like those—the “I’ve moved out for a while” kind of dwelling that begins as a temporary refuge and ends up being permanent. There were cardboard boxes in his laundry room that he’d never unpacked. Most of the furniture was Ikea stuff, an indication that Catherine had kept the honeymoon suite, and the only things on the walls were a framed Bateman poster (the lurking wolf one) and an abstract thing by Bryan (aged three) that would have been stunning if it had been framed properly. He had books, lots of them, which always help to furnish a room, but it was still bleak.

  “You interested in a nightcap?” Becker asked, fumbling for the light switch. What he actually said was more like “Yinneres dinna nicap?” (we were really rather sloshed), but I knew what he meant. I complied, but we had hardly had more than a sip of whatever it was he splashed into two glasses before we were tangled together on the Ikea sofa, making the kind of noises that would have made Bryan, had he been there, say “eeew, gross.”

  I will pull a discreet veil over the rest of the evening, or morning, I guess. There is nothing remotely interesting about booze-sodden coupling, although the participants may think so at the time. Usually, though, they don’t remember much about it. I didn’t, anyway.

  The next morning found us both standing in front of the open door of the fridge, guzzling liquids directly from the cartons: me, orange juice, him, milk.

  “Have we actually ever made love completely sober?” I said. He suppressed a belch and grinned like a jack-o’lantern. “C’mere,” he said.

  Later, he called a cab and went to pick up his Jeep from the Mooseview Resort, while I snooped around his apartment. There was ample evidence of Bryan—comic books, small clothes strewn here and there and the remains of
a bowl of breakfast cereal on the coffee-table, one lone Froot Loop palely loitering in a sea of pink milk. As I took the bowl to the kitchen and dumped it into the sink, I heard Bryan’s voice in my mind, complaining, “I was saving that.”

  The second bedroom was his: a small rumpled bed with a bunched-up Pokemon coverlet, a bookshelf full of children’s classics (most of which had “Mark Becker” written neatly on the flyleaf in a childish hand) and the usual assortment of stuffed bears and mangled action figures. In fact, though Bryan didn’t live permanently with his father, he had made his room far more homey than his Dad had managed with the rest of the place. I wandered back into the kitchen, made myself a piece of toast and ate it standing up against the counter, surveying the scene and drifting off into a daydream. What would it be like to live here? Where would my stuff go?

  I envisioned my worktable set against the wall by the window that looked out over the lake. I placed my books next to Becker’s on the shelves and hung my pictures on his walls (mentally sending Bryan’s abstract to the Framery to get the gold-label treatment and banishing the Bateman print to the bathroom.) I imagined my toothbrush in the Ducky cup with Bryan’s and Becker’s and filled the closet in the bedroom with my shirts and trousers. I let Rosencrantz and Lug-nut curl up on the sofa and stepped back. Not bad. Just weird. Alien.

  I turned around and looked at the sink, the dishwasher, the monster fridge. No more getting water from the handpump. Hot showers. A clothes washer, for heaven’s sake. A dryer. A freezer. A big TV and a stereo system. A computer and e-mail. A vacuum cleaner and a housedress. The possibilities were endless. Outside, a Sea-Doo screamed past on the lake and in the apartment below, someone started up the tunes—heavy metal, it sounded like, the bass coming up through my feet and making my teeth ache. No squirrels. No woodpile. No solitude. I couldn’t make it work, not in my head, anyway.