by Lou Allin
Belle extended her hand and enjoyed the warm smoothness of his skin when he pressed it a moment longer than necessary. “Unfortunately, I have an appointment in half an hour to show a house. You know real estate.” She flashed a bright and earnest smile. “You’ve been helpful in addressing my concerns. I just had to check. Jim was a good friend.”
She hummed tunelessly as she left the office and headed straight to the nearest Tim Horton’s for sustenance. “No, no, no, dear Doctor. I still don’t buy this convenient scenario. Even you were starting to question your findings. If those drunks who went down on Matagamasi last year had the wits to swim for it, a sober Jim would have tried and made it too. He knew how to build a fire, always had a lighter or wet-safe matches in his suit.”
Fresh-baked aromas wafted under her nose as she ordered her brew. Despite the imminence of dinner, she found herself pointing shamelessly at a giant croissant dripping with white chocolate and sprinkled with almonds. Detective work definitely sharpened the appetite.
She moved the sugar container pensively, as she alternately munched and sipped, pondering the unsettling details of the autopsy. Had Jim had the flu? Had he been on any medication? Sometimes cold pills caused drowsiness, especially combined with a fever.
The information she had so far left three probable causes for Jim’s death. An accident, a planned murder, or an opportunistic killing. But only a fool would count on meeting his victim in a blizzard. Even if Jim had been attacked, why weren’t there any traces of injuries? Why no signs of another sled? Maybe she was looking without seeing. Her mother’s time-honoured theory was that lost objects often were exactly where they were supposed to be, so what was she missing? Suddenly Belle noticed that she had poured half the sugar bowl into her coffee.
“Go for it, darlin’. Sweets for the sweet,” an oily voice drawled. Tony Telfer sat down without an invitation. In a bizarre combination of Yellowknife, Calgary and Toronto, he wore a snappy beaver hat and a pair of snakeskin boots with his woollen trenchcoat. A builder just on the lucky side of crooked, he was always trolling. Once the hook was taken, he coaxed the client into expensive features like designer closets, Jacuzzis and gigantic Malibu foyers. King of short-term corner-cutting, he substituted utility grade for number one wood, spruce for pine, half-inch for five-eighths-inch plywood, and supplied shingles which shed their grit faster than the perch of a hyperactive budgie.
“Moving any insulation these days, Tony?” asked Belle. His brother Charlie had made front page news a decade ago by constructing an entire subdivision with the same batts of insulation, ferrying it on to the next house after each inspection. By the time buyers turned on their thermostats in September, Good Time Charlie was long gone to warmer points unknown with a sizable profit from each home.
“Come on, Belle. Charlie’s the black sheep of the family.” He flashed an army of gleaming white caps from Sudbury’s best dentists.
“And you’re the wolf?” she laughed, snapping her teeth. “So how’s your business, to speak in the loosest possible terms?”
“Grrrrrreat. Tony the Tiger knows. Heard about that new park on Wapiti? I have an angel who’s going to put up a block of condos, no expenses spared. St. Pete style, only tasteful, you know? The old doll wants to remember hubby by bringing over all his relatives from the old country or something. I think my proverbial ship is coming in. There might be a little dinghy in it for you, Belle.” He drummed his fingers near her coffee cup as she smothered a laugh.
By now the courts should have frozen Julia Kraav’s assets. Tony had a big surprise coming, but Belle wouldn’t spoil his pleasure today. “You’ll never get the zoning, my friend. No way.”
“Oh no? Just watch me once the park goes in. It’s long overdue. That whole lake is crying out, ‘Tony, develop me, develop me.’ ” He chuckled wickedly, twirling an imaginary mustache like a Perils of Pauline villain. “And I’ll tell you something else, dearie. This is going to be so sweet that I think I’d kill anyone who got in my way. Figuratively speaking, of course.”
Berlin of the twenties, Canada of the nineties. Money makes the world go around. That clinking, clanking sound. No matter where or when you lived, commerce trotted along like a hungry puppy which would grow up into the Hound of the Baskervilles. Belle left a fifty cent tip on the table and glanced over her shoulder as she left to see whether Tony grabbed it.
On her way to the DesRosiers, Belle picked up a bottle of Glenlivet as her contribution to the evening. A good guest always came with a thank-you present, her mother had said. Their ice hut had provided several small lake trout that week. She knocked and entered simultaneously, twirling the bottle on the kitchen table. “Crank up that hot fat. I feel a chill,” she said. A hiss of oil, and the race was on. The deep-fried fillets revved up her taste buds with their mustard and corn meal batter doused with New Orleans hot sauce. Hélène had shaved a cabbage for cole slaw and sliced potatoes. The fry-for-all was doing no favours for anyone, but who cared? Remembering Jim laughing as he grilled her a fresh pickerel over a crackling campfire, Belle savoured every bite. They’d all be thinking of that senseless death until the Scotch ran out.
Belle described her meeting with the good doctor. “Monroe looks like a charlatan.” She sprinkled vinegar over everything not moving. “Never missed a chance, though. Wanted to have a drink at the Camelback. No doubt rent a room nearby, too.”
Hélène agreed. “I’m no fan. He used to be our family doctor. I’ve known some gets tranquilizers like candy from him. My sister, for one, floats around in a blue fog when it’s that no-good husband she oughta get rid of. Darn near killed herself and her daughter hitting a slurry truck last year.”
“Thought we were here to cheer up. Where’s that dessert?” Ed poured another slug into his coffee royale while Hélène brought in the sugar pie. Belle moaned in anticipation. Was there any greater invitation to gratuitous gluttony than this sinful French Canadian concoction? As if the marathon meal hadn’t been enough, Hélène sent Belle home with a three-pound chunk of moose meat and a recipe for jerky. “Réjean, my cousin from up near Bisco, got lucky this year and remembered his old aunt. It’s been in the freezer since the season was over, but good for drying. Let me know if you like the garlic flavour. I got sweet and sour, too.”
When Belle got home, Freya seemed unusually yappy, as if something had disturbed her routine. To the Purina, Belle added milk. “You have the best diet of us all. Sometimes I think that I should try a bowl. Cheap, quick, maybe no worse than those vegetarian mushburgers I brought home last week.”
They moved into the video room, Belle into her recliner, Freya with three chile babies. A frustrated mother, the dog was forever assembling them, squeaking and licking the toys, and dragging them to bed.
TNT’s choice was The Great Lie with Bette Davis and Mary Astor, two classic bitches in the archetypal woman’s picture. Hollywood was ripe for a return to the heyday of strong female leads, Thelma and Louise having been at the cutting edge of nothing.
Before turning out the lights, Belle selected an exotic new cream: orange, lanolin and witch hazel. The costly treat had been initially disappointing, but out of cheapness she decided to give it another try. The lights went out to mutual sighs and scrabbles. She hoped the dog would not snore. Instead of sheep, Belle counted snowmobiles.
A few hours later, as the full moon poured through the bathroom window, the phone rang. She glanced blearily at the clock. 3:30. Picking up the receiver, she heard a click. And then silence. Freya sat up and shook her head as if to wake up, ears pricked for sounds. Nuisance callers. Belle unplugged the phone and looked out for a moment as the Northern Lights dazzled the lake like a hyperactive rainbow, drowning out Orion and Betelgeuse. In the uneasy dimension between disturbing dreams and a pleasant reality, Belle saw Freya chasing a rabbit across tracks in front of a never-ending train. She heard the muffled drone of snowmobiles outside which mimicked the roar of the engine in her dream. Freya barked once. “Calm down, girl. Wait
for me.” And Belle fell asleep, the chimney smoke gently curling into the night.
NINE
On Tuesday, the famous shrimp dinner day, Belle left herself plenty of time to reach the nursing home. When he had lived in Florida in his own house with his own dog and own cat, time had been a joke with her father: “I get up at ten to six every day, not a quarter to six, not five to six, but exactly ten to six.” Now lagging hours and minutes measured only intervals between mealtimes. Belle knew he didn’t realize her difficulties in maintaining a schedule given long distances and the vicissitudes of winter.
A mile past her house, a spectacle had occurred, a rural version of Canada’s Funniest Home Videos. The plow had sloughed off the road at a wickedly banked corner. Looking like a metal mantis conceived by an idiot, the gigantic apparatus was flailing its legs and flexing its lifts, trying to free itself, but only sinking perilously closer to the hydro pole. Belle held her breath at the possibility of the pole snapping like a matchstick, stranding most people in a cold, dark and waterless hell. The sheepish operator assured her that he had radioed for help.
Across the road from Carlo’s place, a large red fox, its tail bushy and bold, stood fearlessly watching her car. As she drew abreast, it bounded easily up the hill through heavy snow. Belle hoped that the creature had been supping on Carlo’s cats, a wish probably shared by all his neighbours. An electrical engineer from Brownsville, Texas, Carlo lived a hermit’s life in a ramshackle cottage. When the septic system clogged, and when pump repair and frozen waterline bills became too onerous, he did without plumbing, to the dismay of adjoining home owners. Once in a blizzard he had knocked timidly at Belle’s back door with a small bottle in his hand, seeking drinking water. Although he had a woodstove, he holed up in his triple-insulated bedroom with only a tiny space heater, he said. He bathed at work and ate out, yet he looked strangely debonair on the rare occasions he did appear in a three-piece suit and fedora, as if he had stepped out of a film noir.
A few years ago, somebody dumped two cats secretly into his trunk at a gas station in Point au Baril. This accidental conjoining had relieved his conscience from all responsibility, so he had let them multiply until they had decimated the bird and squirrel population for a mile in each direction. Feral survivalists, the Darwinian remainders terrorized little children in the summer and ransacked garbage more ruthlessly than the bears. With no vet care, they likely carried rabies as well. Wrenches sticking out of his overalls, Carlo was bending over the rusted helm of an ancient Mustang, one of the seven or eight in his personal inventory. An enterprising cannibal, he juggled batteries, tires, and licenses routinely to stay mobile. “How many cats left now, Carlo?” Belle asked as she stopped and rolled down the window.
A cloud of garlic, his universal panacea, drifted into the car. “Oh, come on, do not tell me you are still mad about that,” he grinned, wiping a greasy hand on his overalls, then pulling a comb from somewhere to rake his thick black hair. “Say, when can I come and rent a room with the most beautiful woman in Canada? Hot water would be fantastic, not to mention your company.” He gave a theatrical leer to emphasize their ongoing joke.
“Don’t be so cheap, Carlo. You make enough to equip your cottage quite nicely. You have another twenty years to retirement with Ontario Hydro. Why not enjoy them in the twentieth century?” She grinned. “And as for your social life, take out an ad. Men, especially ones with bucks, are at a premium, or didn’t you know?”
He cocked his head like a whimsical jay. “Perhaps they would be interested in me only for my cars. I’m going to Windsor to buy another Mustang. A red fastback 1970 V-8. You must come for a ride. You will look like a queen. And I will treat you to dinner at the airport.”
The airport? Carlo ate there regularly and chatted with the staff. “Seen any strange plane landings on the lake, Carlo? After dark?” she asked.
“That’s not allowed, you know.”
“Don’t be naïve. I’m talking about drug landings.”
“Oh ho!” he chuckled, sticking out his lower lip and paddling it thoughtfully. “It could be true. There is a lot of money to be made that way. I travel back to Texas three times a year to see my family. Lucky for me I am honest.” He patted his chest in appreciation of his ethics.
“What about suspicious characters at the airport? I know you’re one, but anybody new?”
He mugged shamelessly, clearly enjoying the spotlight. “I talk to everyone, the pilots, the mechanics, and especially the beautiful flight attendants. But there is one flyer I never trusted who comes through once in a while with a Beechcraft. Very unfriendly. He has been in the restaurant, but he refuses to enter into friendly conversation. I don’t like the looks of him.”
Wishing Carlo well, Belle drove off, keeping the window open to air out the garlic. Medical science might prove him right. Garlic cloves were being touted as cures for any ailment from colds to cancer.
Before that shrimp lunch with Father, she had allotted an hour to the unsavoury task of a chat with Ian MacKenzie, Melanie’s estranged boyfriend. According to her, he lived in a townhouse complex near the New Sudbury Shopping Centre. Perhaps he would be home, perhaps not. Perhaps he had a helpful roommate, perhaps not. So many unknowns. Belle was grateful not to be a genuine private investigator. Selling real estate put more kibble in the bowl. As she reached the first set of traffic lights which spelled city, she noticed that the town was in the grip of an icefog, a strange meteorological combination of cold, vehicle exhausts and moisture. Like a London pea-souper, but marginally healthier. A surreal gleam surrounded streetlights, and people drove with unusual caution, hoping the late morning winds would clear the air.
The covey of older townhouses, three stories and garage apiece, was beginning to fray at the edges. 1245 Nottingham had a skitter of snow in the driveway and no signs of feet or tires. She rang the bell. No answer, but a face peeked from the third floor. She rang again, and again. Finally the door opened, and a head peered around with half a body exposed, state-of-the-art biceps a definite plus. “Who are you, who were you, and who do you hope to be? I was working out.” His blonde crew cut was wholesome enough, but a sullen curl to his lip reminded Belle of a musclebound weasel.
“I’m Belle Palmer. Are you Ian MacKenzie?” she asked.
“We’re both doing well so far. What’s the story? Where are your brushes or encyclopedias?”
“I was a friend of Jim Burian’s, and I—” A slam of the door cut her sentence in two.
“I only want to ask a few questions,” she called against the traffic noise behind her.
“It must be our little Mel put you on to me. This is a joke, right? You can’t be a police investigator or you would have shown me your ID.” A loud cheer followed.
Belle took a stiffer tack. “There may be things the police don’t know yet, and you may find yourself involved. Make it easy for both of us.” There was definitely something in his defensiveness, she imagined as her heartbeat quickened. Perhaps it had been unwise to come alone.
The cheers turned to roars, and a thumping began. Was he pounding the wall in mirth or rage? Mel had said that he got violent. She hadn’t smelled liquor, though. Vodka?
“OK, OK, I confess. I did it. I creamed the little bastard with that pretty scar. He took my girl. I took him. ‘Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?’ ”
Hardly had Belle time to correct him with, “ ‘Mother of Mercy.’ The censors were picky that year,” when the door opened again. She locked eyes with a wild-eyed blond man, then looked at his clothes. Pyjama bottoms on . . . one leg, the other in a heavy plaster cast.
“Heeeeeeeere’s Ian!” he yelled. “And don’t ask, honey, ’cause I cracked the sucker in Mattawa the week before Jim bought it. Check the hospital if you don’t believe me, and now, if you’ll forgive me, my jammies are beginning to ice up.”
Well, at least he’s a film buff, Belle thought. I could write Investigations for Dummies. Despite his animosity to Jim, she couldn’t conv
ince herself that it might be possible to drive a snow machine and orchestrate the accident. Ian was a jerkwater, to use her father’s old term, but he was off the list.
She started the van and navigated through the fog across town. The last fifteen years of massive early retirements in the nickel industry had left Sudbury with a critical shortage of geriatric care. One huge highrise nursing home overlooked the million dollar mansions on Lake Ramsey, its twin building stood in New Sudbury, but their waiting list was longer than the Monica Lewinsky impeachment proceedings. When her father had fallen ill in Florida, the only spot available was in Rainbow Country, a converted two storey apartment building. Rainbow was older, smaller and a little shop-worn, but it was immaculate and gave excellent care. She knew most of the staff by name, and they knew her. Every rash and cough was chronicled, and when necessary, nurses had called to report her father’s falls or the doctor’s advice. Best of all, given her father’s healthy appetite, the meals were tasty and generous. Quiches, stews, roast beef, even pie and ice cream appeared on the menu. In the winter, though, without the brief pink of the flowering crabs out front, the building was depressing. The Rainbow nurses and staff put up holiday decorations and dressed festively, but still . . . Belle had thought about ordering Final Exit, a self-help manual for suicide with dignity as an alternative should she ever see the end of independence.
Belle stopped across the street at the restaurant which they had frequented when he could still walk: Granny’s Kitchen. It was run by a voluble fat Italian woman who was her own best marketing device. Belle had appreciated the owner’s kindness and patience when listening to Father’s order (always the same), cleaning the littered floor or scouring the bathroom after his visit to the facilities. “How you doing, Maria?” she asked. “The usual: shrimp dinner, easy on the fries, hold the seafood sauce but lots of coleslaw; cherry pie and ice cream.” She gazed at the menu she knew by heart. “And a foot-long chili dog for me, I guess.” Meanwhile, she went next door to the confectionary for his National Enquirer, pausing at the bank machine to call up $100.00.
