by Lou Allin
“With the wind.”
He tasted the residue with a wet finger. “Cocaine, if the usual mythology is true.”
Belle took the bag and dipped in, wincing at the bitterness. “Who says television doesn’t have educational merit? Hey, should we rinse our mouths with snow?” she asked. “Anything else?”
“Just these two bags. Oh, and cigarettes.” He passed her a half-full pack of Luckies, sodden with moisture. “American. I’ve never seen them for sale here. Too expensive.” They scuffed their way to the middle of the lake, noting the landing marks of the skis. Blurry steps packed the ice where a conversation might have occurred, and a snowmobile trail, covered by fresh snow, pointed to the end of the lake.
Belle punched his shoulder lightly in her excitement. “This could make the connection. At the very least, it proves that Jim’s theory was on the money. Steve should see this, with your permission,” Belle said, and packed the evidence into her pocket after Franz nodded. “A raid on Brooks could come soon, by the way.”
Some coffee warmed them while Franz tossed pine cones for Blondi to chase. “Come up next winter, and I promise to be a better host and show you around my camp. I have a few fine spearheads from a quartzite dig at Sheguiandah on Manitoulin. 7000-8000 B.C. Much sharper work than the hand axe you admired.”
“I’ll look forward to it, Franz. Why don’t you come for dinner tonight and tell me how you found them?”
He sighed reluctantly. “This is unfortunate timing. After my four o’clock class, Mother and I are off to Toronto to see Phantom of the Opera this weekend for her birthday.” Belle suggested an excellent Portuguese place on Bloor West, recommending the octopus. The dog resumed her place in the toboggan, and Franz followed Belle back to the island, lurchingly slow and steady on the old chestnut.
When Belle collected the van at the marina, it was barely three o’clock, so she stopped at the police building. Originally built as an armoury after World War One, it squatted downtown on its treeless square like an ancient toad. According to Steve, the staff hated the place; not only was it cold, uncomfortable and overcrowded, but security was a joke. Last year several prisoners had escaped, to be caught hours later playing PacMan at the bus depot. A classic tale of felonious stupidity, Steve had told her, like the guy who robbed a convenience store, then left his footprints in the snow right to his house.
At the main desk, a sergeant doing crossword puzzles pointed her to a sub-basement after asking a five-letter word for “criminal”. Water pipes covered in shredding asbestos led her down a dungeon hall, her steps echoing ahead in the gloom of a single, dangling fifteen-watt bulb. Steve stuck his face out of a door with a look of suspicion. “What brings you to my palace? A social call, I hope.”
“Where do you chain the man in the iron mask? And I thought asbestos had to be removed,” Belle responded, flopping into a comfortable brown leather chair cracked with age. She adjusted the stuffing to cover a spring and brushed white flakes from her shoulders.
“We’ve been lobbying for a new building for years. Just don’t do too good a job of it. Need a crime wave to raise our profile. A nice mass murderer or an arsonist. This year the money went to the Seniors’ Complex. So?” He looked at her quizzically.
“Presents. Franz Schilling and I found some drug traces in the bush today.” She placed the bags and cigarette pack on the desk, shifting a plastic plate with a crust of pizza.
Steve didn’t even examine it. Her news pressed his irritation button one time too often. “Are you still prowling around?” he yelled. “And disturbing evidence again?”
“Let me get to my point if you’re in that kind of a mood. We found this up at Cott Lake. It’s a miracle the stuff was still there. A brisk wind would have buried it. Come on, look at it. Don’t make me feel like a fool.”
“Wow, a cigarette pack! For me? I suppose you want us to check for DNA.”
“And the bags?”
After the usual rituals, he settled into serious mode, sighing and tapping a pencil onto a date on his calendar. “Congratulations. Every now and then a blind squirrel finds an acorn. We can’t cover thousands of kilometres of bush in the hopes of catching someone in the act. We have Brooks set up for Saturday night. Saturday, Belle, is that close enough for you?” He drew a stick man on his paper and confined him in a box. “If you want to watch the fun, and I know you will, be at the Beaverdam around eleven for the raid. But stay clear.”
“Yes, sir!” She offered a snappy salute and backed out of the office. Saturday Night Fever at last.
Belle arrived home about six o’clock to find the house inhospitably cold and unwelcoming. A rising wind had blown up and sucked the wood to ashes with the draft. Wood was a benevolent dictator to its grateful servant, usually good for ten hours or more before a temperature drop would trigger the propane furnace. She would have to restoke it for the night.
Belle refilled the stove with soft fat pine for quick coals, then took Freya for a short walk. At last the bitter temperatures were gone, even if most of the snow remained, as it likely would until May. Her boots crunched down the road, as she listened through the silence for sounds which carried miles in the clear air and insulating snow, the long, piercing whistle of a train headed south with lumber, or north with shiny automobiles for those who had cut that wood. She heard the familiar tinkle of Morris’s windchimes, a summer memory. Mo must have come out early to open up. Taking note of the cottages, she pictured their snowbird owners making a last forage to the cheap American supermarkets, or buying a breadmaker or air conditioner to offset costly supplemental health insurance premiums. Yet what were their electric bills when they had to leave the juice on all winter to protect the foundations against frost damage?
Back inside, Belle heaped maple and yellow birch over the new coals and heated tasty and filling Habitant pea soup as a accompaniment to a toasted cheese sandwich. As a treat for Freya, she opened a can of expensive dog stew, giant hunks of beef swimming in gravy. Then as Shana had suggested, she sprinkled on the Metamucil, dropped in a tablespoon of canola oil, and stirred the mess queasily. Freya materialized out of nowhere at the grind of the can opener, a thread of drool dropping from the corner of her smiling mouth. “Dig in, babe. It’s better than some people get.”
Tidying up her computer area after dinner, Belle rummaged through documents and notes from the office. But as she sorted them, strange papers caught her eye. Shield University memos addressed to Franz. One concerned a blood drive, and the other warned of a rise in parking rates. How embarrassing. She must have scooped them up that day in his office. No need to return them since the relevant dates had passed. The next sheet made her sit down in shock. It was a receipt for nearly six thousand dollars from the Forest Glen Wellness Center in Harrisville, New York. A private nursing home? Or were they all private in the States? She pulled out her atlas. Just over the border from Cornwall, maybe ten hours’ drive. Probably an old place in the Adirondacks.
Was it Eva? Was she in treatment for the nervous breakdown Rosanne had suggested? Was this any of Belle’s business? “Oh, here, Franz,” she could say. “Sorry I picked this up by mistake. Who’s the lucky patient?” Still, she was pricked by her usual rude curiosity. Perhaps there was an Internet contact in New York, someone who could do a bit of handy digging. The likely source for snooping came quickly to mind, the Dorothy L. Sayers mystery discussion group, three thousand strong. Though each person had a special nom de plume, she hadn’t chosen one (Miss Marple had been taken and she couldn’t remember Mary Astor’s role in The Maltese Falcon). “[email protected]” she typed. Her message was brief, even enigmatic, but DLrs loved that touch: “I am marooned in Ultima Thule and need an ally to sleuth around near Harrisville, New York. Is the game afoot?” In case the frosty lines might garble the connections as often happened in winter, she added her phone and FAX numbers.
Belle hopped into bed and tuned her radio to the last innings of the Jays against Oakland. Mr. Five Million had p
itched flawlessly, retired twelve in a row, then pulled a groin muscle. Mr. Four Million had fanned four times and tossed his bat into the stands. So much for their top guns. Management would have to curry the Syracuse farm team with a fine tooth comb. The radio crackled in and out as usual, reception fading as far-off stations smeared the signal at critical “three and two” calls.
Then an infernal shriek drilled into her ears like the squeal of chalk on a blackboard. The mandatory smoke detector, only this time as often before, smoke was not the problem. Gnats, little spiders, dust, anything could give the fussy monster a tantrum. Belle climbed onto a chair and wiggled the box in quasi-scientific fashion, muttering and coaxing to some success. Then only minutes later, as the Jays scored twice, the screech sounded again. “You son of a . . . you’re not keeping me up all night,” Belle said as she located a screwdriver and disconnected the detector. In the morning she would give the rascal a thorough shaking or better yet, buy another.
SIXTEEN
A message from a Geoff Garson, aka the Saint, flashed on the screen when Belle selected “new mail” the next day. A retired librarian from Notre Dame in Indiana, he was delighted, even flattered to accept the “Mission: Impossible.” Choose a librarian, she thought, for patient, meticulous work; they thrived on rooting up uncommon facts, the more obscure and useless the better. His information later that week showed that he was indeed an ace researcher, but it also brought some troublesome questions. Belle’s fax machine slowly churned out a picture and fact sheet. “Forest Glen Wellness Center, formerly Forest Glen Sanatorium. Founded in 1878 as a TB facility. During the 1950s converted by Dr. Brian Whitewell to a premier psychiatric hospital. Fees $75,000 U.S. yearly, excluding special treatment plans. Patients approximately 30. Single suites only. Two hundred wooded acres in the Adirondacks. A small stable of horses, tennis courts, jogging track, exercise rooms, indoor and outdoor pools. Specializes in schizophrenia, false memory, personality disorders, emotional trauma recovery. World reputation brings clientele from Europe, South America and the Far East.” Belle inspected the building with a magnifying glass. Stately Georgian brick, tastefully modernized through several eras. Two wings flanked an impressive portico over a stretch limo. She polished the lens and looked again. Manicured cedar hedges, classical topiary (a brontosaurus?), layered flower beds and lawns to kingdom come, probably rolled to within an inch of their lives by a gardener imported from King’s College, Cambridge.
In an impulsive mood, buoyed by her sudden success, Belle got the phone number from the operator, surprised that it was listed. “Forest Glen,” answered a plummy voice bearing the cachet of the Received Standard English pronunciation as only Miss Moneypenny could deliver. “How may I help you?”
Belle gulped and modulated her tone to quiet confidence. “I’d like to speak to Miss Schilling.”
The voice turned chilly and tense. “You don’t sound familiar, Madam. I’m afraid Miss Schilling has a specific list of callers.”
“Sorry,” said Belle and hung up. A foolish trick. Would the woman inform the family? So Eva was there. But how could Franz afford the fees on his university salary? And as an overtaxed, under-serviced Ontarian, she knew damn well OHIP wouldn’t foot the bill. A private medical plan? Doubtful. Few Canadians had that animal. More to the point, why was she there and what was the prognosis? She typed another message to Geoff: “Excellent work, Saint. Loved the picture, too. Any prayer of more personal data on a patient, Eva Schilling? Do you have contacts who work there or know someone who does?”
Belle spent the afternoon taking a very demanding primary school teacher (was there any other kind?) on a tour of Valley East bungalows under $120,000. Ms. Bly, a cod-faced woman of fifty, who might have been Don Knotts in drag, had precise objections to all six places. One was too near the fire station, too noisy. Another had the old siding, sashless windows, too drafty. One used oil heat, too smelly. Another had a barking husky next door. One had poplar trees, “common and filthy pests”. And the last, an older custom-built home with quality touches which Belle hoped her client would appreciate, got the loudest sniff.
“What fool wants hardwood floors? My mother used to spend all Saturday on her hands and knees rubbing that sticky beeswax around. Polishing, always polishing. She was a regular slave to it,” the woman said, writing in a small notebook. “I don’t fancy ceramic tile either. Much too cold on the feet.”
Belle hummed an evil internal melody and nodded with a slight sincerity since she agreed about the floors. Northern Ontario wasn’t Santa Fe, and it wasn’t Back Bay. Having a dog had put the last nail in the notion of oak parquet when she had built her house. Claws on floors reminded her of the odd cringe she felt whenever she ate raisins.
After arranging another tour the following week by planting in the woman’s head the concept of living a wee bit farther north in Capreol (“So many wonderful bargains since the sad closing of the Canadian National Railroad facility”), Belle stopped for gas at the last station before home. As she waited for her charge slip, she glanced at a four-by-four Chev pickup with supercab and eight-foot box across from her. What a boat. Probably mortgaging his soul to feed those twin tanks, Belle thought, smirking at the $90.00 on his meter. Then again, if you can afford a giant in the first place, you don’t worry about the cost of his keep. The license plate read 1BIGMF. How did he slip that past the Ontario censors? Suddenly she did a double-take. With Brooks at the wheel, Nick rode in the passenger seat, flashing her a toothy smile and showing no hard feelings. The lodge owner glared her way, whispered to Nick, and arced his cigarette onto the asphalt as they drove off. Belle braced for an explosion, but it snuffed out in the slush. Nothing like upping the ante. Now Brooks would know that she was pursuing the drug connection. Steve would have her head if anything sabotaged the raid.
After another fill-up at the liquor store, she reached home in time to throw the ball for Freya and use the leftover taco mix for a tomato soup and macaroni casserole. A can of precious hominy bought in Buffalo added a southern touch. To her surprise and delight, Melanie called to report that she was dropping her roommate off at the airport around noon the next day and wondered if she could visit.
“It’d be great to see you. Bring a Toronto Star. We don’t get delivery out here” was Belle’s answer.
What was on the Nostalgia channel, she wondered, spooning into the food? W. C. Fields in The Dentist. A Slim Jim in this early talkie, with his bulbous nose in training, he grabbed the giant block of ice from the delivery boy and set it absentmindedly on . . . the stove! When he returned, it was an ice cube, which he shrugged off as perfectly natural, scissoring it up with the tongs, and depositing the tiny piece back in the ice box. Of course, the film was a minefield of ethical blunders. He treated his daughter like a slave, locked her in her room, threw tantrums on the golf course, thrashed caddies and gyrated ham-handedly over helpless women in his dental chair while he pumped the pedals with abandon.
Still chuckling, Belle cranked open her bedroom window, amused to find another ladybug. Warm weather in September had sent hundreds clustering around her patio doors in an unusual infestation less bothersome than mosquitos or biting flies. She inspected the creature to see whether it had two spots, nine or none, then dropped the bright little memory of summer onto the thick branches of an aloe plant on the sill. “Flying home is out of the question, ladybug. You’ll have to stick it out until spring. Now find an aphid and behave.” The oblique reference to fire led her downstairs to check on the woodstove. It never hurt to be too careful. She assured herself that the damper was up, stood in front of the stove, gripping the wood-tipped handles, and said, “Check, double check, triple check” chanting as far as “octupal” in an effort to make sure that the round spinning “keys” were adjusted properly. Obsessive-compulsive, or just plain cautious? Just the other day a family in Chelmsford had gone to town while the stove roared, worked itself into a chimney fire and turned the house into ashes. She recalled her father balancing back an
d forth in front of the gas range when she was a child, looking, leaving, looking, leaving, never trusting his eyes. But then again, his aunt had died in a gas leak.
Finally she climbed into bed, prepared for a shudderfest over the latest Cornwell novel. The sleuth was a pathologist whose diehard fans ate gruesome realism by the pailful. A few graphic chapters taught Belle to slice a Y incision, pull out assorted organs, weigh them and set aside the stomach contents for analysis. She began to grow queasy and took a large slug of Scotch to disguise the reek of formaldehyde. No more Cornwell before bed. Something refined, Ngaio Marsh maybe. She rattled through assorted prayers for people she hadn’t seen in forty years, then surrendered to a deep sleep, imagining the faithful loons calling in their mating dance. But they wouldn’t be back yet, skating on the ice. Once she and Jim had seen a nest with a loon’s egg clinging perilously on a tiny atoll hardly bigger than their boat. Perhaps the human proximity, quiet as they had tried to be, had disturbed the parents, because a few hours later, the prize had vanished! To a safer place, or the stomach of an otter?
She woke in shallow awareness as her clock read two a.m., smelling a light, comforting smoke drifting in the window. A few snuffles and snorts sent her back to sleep, only to wake more fitfully with a pounding headache. A change in weather? Sinus problems? In her stupor she debated chugging aspirins, but decided to wait it out.
