by Lou Allin
“It’s pretty steep there,” Dave said, rubbing his jaw. He looked half-asleep, running on sheer guts.
Len made another note, flipping a page. “And the door was unlocked when you got there, Belle. And you saw a purse? Do women have more than one?”
Hélène said, “A closet full. I remember two or three of her favourites. A turtle purse I brought her from Florida.”
“Bea transfers her things back and forth, leaving the one she’s using on the hall table. It was open but nothing was taken, not that she carries much but credit and debit cards. The weekly payroll for the bakery was gone, though. Bea kept it in a leather bag. About five thousand dollars. The police found the bag stuffed in a garbage can a block away. They’re withholding that information, I believe.” Dave gave a groan that touched Belle’s heart. “I know people have been killed for less, but when something like this hits close to home . . .” His voice trailed off.
“So everyone at the bakery knew she carried the payroll every Friday. Sounds like a focus.” Belle turned to Dave. “Anyone missing at work?”
“The staff’s long term, some with twenty years, but Bea does have a few turnovers in the joe jobs. Len’s going to talk to her business partner.”
The PI removed his glasses to polish them on a serviette. The heavy lens magnified the pattern on the tablecloth. “It’s coming together. An inside job, maybe, like the dog knew the intruder.”
Belle thought of the one drawback to hiring temporary help. Good old boys get to scope out an isolated lakefront property, marking portable property such as chainsaws, snowmobiles and electronics while checking for an alarm system. “Any handymen at your place recently? Someone you don’t know personally?”
Dave searched his memory. “God, that old place always needed a fine tuning. We had the new roof and guttering this year. Furnace man. I’ve called a yard service when I got too busy to mow. Nick’s Plowing, too, for two-foot dumps.”
Len was scribbling notes, stuffing out another cigarette in a growing pile of butts. “This lady’s got a brain on her, Dave.”
Proud to help, trying not to preen, Belle remembered Freya’s close call at the vet. “Here’s another idea. What about drugs? If someone put a sedative in ground meat, then balled it up and threw it . . .” She gave a demonstration.
Dave spread out his hands. “But when I got there, Buffalo was fine.”
Belle added, “And barking at eleven o’clock, my arrival. But sedatives can wear off fast in a healthy animal.”
“Too late now for any toxicology,” Dave said, “but I’ll suggest it to the detective.”
Len said, “I’m spending the day at the bakery tomorrow, interviewing everyone from soup to nuts. What was that partner’s name?”
“Leonora Bruce. Bea sold her forty-five per cent of the business when Dr. Bustamante died. She wanted fewer responsibilities and more time with Micro.” After placing a finger at the corner of one moist eye, he shook himself back to firmer ground. “It worked out well. Leonora knows absolutely everything about the staff and the operation. Bumble Bea will run under her direction until the will is probated and the legalities straightened out. My wife left everything to Micro, of course. The business is a family tradition.”
Belle asked, “So you’re not going to take over?”
He sat back, hands laced behind his head, a faint smile emerging on his face. “Fundraising is my life. A new campaign every month. Not making things, but making things happen for people with needs they can’t meet themselves. And in the recent times of government cutbacks, more necessary than ever.” He paused and reached into his pocket for his wallet, passing her a card. “You know the phone at home. If anything occurs to you about that morning . . .”
The card was plain and simple, no embossing, no graphics. David Malanuk, Fundraising Consultant. An office in the old Maley Building. For once, Belle was caught cardless. “I don’t have any with me, but of course I’m in the book.”
Dave nodded, his eyes catching hers for a moment, but as they all rose, Hélène called him over with a school paper of Micro’s which she’d magneted to the fridge. Belle could see a page of math problems and a gold star.
After the two men left, Belle stayed to help Hélène clean up, but more to get answers to a puzzling question. “Dave’s wonderful. I can see why Bea loved him.” She finished drying a cup, not wanting to sound too crass, but acknowledging the elephant in the corner. “Did he have some . . . uh, plastic surgery on his face and hands? If you were anyone else, I wouldn’t be so rude as to ask.”
Hélène attacked the room with a can of air freshener, spreading a berry-scented cloud over the smoky fug. “Such a tragic story. Bea said that when he was a teenager, he rescued a boy at scout camp when a fire from a candle broke out in their tent. Beating out the flames, he suffered first-degree burns on his face, neck and hands. Spent a few months at Sick Kids and had more surgeries over the years. Badges of honour, Bea called them.”
NINE
As she snarled at the seventh straight day of rain, Belle lugged her garbage to the coffin-sized box, noticing one over the three-bag limit. Casting an eye down the road, she strolled to the end of her neighbour’s driveway and dropped it into their bin. The McNairs wouldn’t be coming out until eleven feet of snow threatened the old camp’s roof.
She looked along the drainage ditch where she’d planted tamaracks eight years ago as a privacy fence. One of the few deciduous conifers, its golden needles sprinkled a glow across the green landscape of cedars and pines. Already they were threatening the hydro wires. Most ominous, a monster cedar by her house had developed a lean after the last windstorm. Soft-wooded cedars were deceptive. They looked healthy but often were rotten to the core, never falling straight, but twisting like a drooping ballerina in Swan Lake.
As she frowned, she wondered whether to ask her handyman Johnny to trim everything. Probably off with hunting buddies getting his moose. Then a familiar rusty white pickup chugged down the road. It stopped beside her, and the driver turned off the motor, rolling down the creaky window. His dark face spoke volumes, a thin cigarillo clenched between his teeth. The lashing of the waves and the croak of a soaring raven, always a curious bird, soundtracked their hostile tableau.
“I know what you did with my traps,” he said. “That was a cheap trick.”
Cold anger sparked like a welding arc from her teal eyes. “Let’s talk about your poisoning job. That’s not a cheap trick, it’s a felony. What if a kid had gotten into it?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Poisoned meat tossed into my yard. My dog started munching it. You’re lucky I got her to the vet in time.”
“That’s crazy. I have three cocker spaniels, Larry, Curly and Moe, and they sleep on my bed. You had no right to touch those traps. Who the hell are you anyway?”
“If you’re so familiar with this territory, why don’t you find out? And as for your cruel traps . . .” She paused for emphasis, then put her hands on her hips gunslinger-style: “Prove it. So what. What are you going to do about it?”
He tapped an ash from his cigarillo. “Take back your woods, madame. I’m heading north to set up my other traplines at Thor Lake. And don’t be telling me you hike there, too, unless you like railroad tracks.”
Narrowing his eyes, he ground the starter with a flurry of Frenglish curses, and with a chug of black smoke, drove off, his quad bouncing in the back. “Va te faire foutre,” he called out the window, adding the traditional digital message. The frost in his deep voice and the way his dark eyes simmered in controlled anger gave Belle mixed feelings and reminded her of Steve. The meat and timing was too coincidental, yet he sounded honest. Who would lie about owning cocker spaniels? They weren’t the brightest dogs, so the Three Stooges idea fit. She didn’t know his name and presumed he still didn’t know hers. In another time and place, they might have been friends. If he’d limited himself to beavers.
“I hope that’s the last I see of
you.” She took off the snick on the latch on her garbage box. Trash collectors were very ergonomic and appreciated one less step. As she turned, she noted more familiar bike tracks in the dirt and paused at a new connection. Was the Junior Crime Stopper another candidate for the meat toss? She remembered a black comedy she’d seen at Miriam’s on a girls’ night out: The Young Poisoner’s Handbook.
Ten minutes later, Belle sat in her van by the community mailboxes, having ripped open the new tax assessment with a groan. Closing on five thousand dollars. For what? No sewer, water, sidewalks or streetlights. A whopping increase of eight per cent. Where would she get the extra cash? Propane had gone up thirty per cent, and the hydro rates had risen under the new government.
Then a pink limo with “Call 487-7653, and IT’S-SOLD” pulled up beside her as the fuchsia-tinted window rolled down. Cynthia Cryderman manoeuvered her mammoth burgundy wig through the window. “Belle. Do you still live on this road? I’m out to take pictures of the Givens place. I’m surprised you didn’t get the listing. Prices for quality homes on Wapiti are making this the next Lake Ramsey. 465 K. Imagine popping that commission into your bank account.” Her large round eyes, accented by veils of mascara, rolled over Belle’s van like a judge at a dog show. Not even leather seats. Utilitarian at best.
Belle smiled neutrally and gritted her teeth until her jaw ached. She’d never liked Cheryl Givens, with her patent snobbery and Mercedes SUV. But she wouldn’t have turned down a chance to sell that brick monster with 350 feet of frontage, double garage, boathouse with marine railway, sauna and sleep camp.
“Say, the offer to join my firm still stands. Twelve per cent partnership. Run a branch from your office with your own staff. Your cottage connections are pure platinum, and you have the youth to run after them. I’m a city girl.” She batted her eyelashes like a coy debutante. “Lord, I can’t forget that old brewery at the back of beyond on a logging road southwest of Shining Tree. All my associates came down with the flu, and I had to go up there myself. My driver got us stuck in the muskeg. I broke both heels on my favourite Manolos.”
A realtor’s curiosity led Belle to continue the unpleasant conversation. “A brewery? Is it feasible? How did it get up there in the first place?”
“There’s a natural spring, and they hooked onto a hydro line to the gold mining operations to the east. With a short rail spur to the CN lines and good roads to Timmins and Kirkland Lake, they were in a position to cover the northern market for awhile. Labatt’s drove them out in the Sixties. But the infrastructure is there, and with the microbeer hoopla, all natural stuff, who knows? This Allan Ritchie who bought it looks like a drifter, but he must have family money somewhere. Quite the eccentric.”
Belle tucked the tax bill into her pocket to gather moss, dust or lint, whichever came first. She watched the limo take off down the hill and bounce perilously over the heaves. Its muffler scraped on the broken asphalt, and one hubcap flew into the bush to join a collection dangling from the poplar branches in a whimsical effort at Found Art. A yellow metal sign read “Rough Road: Chemin Cahoteux.” Warnings were cheaper than repairs.
At the office, as Miriam passed her on the way to the bank, she found a call from Steve on her answering machine. “Meet me for lunch at Café Korea. Noon.” She tapped her teeth in anticipation and more than mild annoyance. How many messages had she left after Bea’s death? Still, a good lunch could make up for nearly anything. And he’d pay. Detectives made more than she did and got regular pay cheques. Like rust, crime never slept.
After driving down LaSalle, she parked at a spot in the Montrose Mall and entered the restaurant at twelve fifteen, her eyes cool with satisfaction. Grow up, lady, she thought as she saw Steve hunched over a small table beneath a framed copy of a Toronto Star rave review. He looked up with such a pathetic smile that she melted. His was a brutal profession.
“I’m late.” A white lie tickled her throat, but she merely shrugged. He deserved more. When would they graduate from petty arguments? Yet below those scuffles, a solid foundation anchored their friendship, as deep and valuable as the ore load buttressing the city.
“Sorry for not getting back to you,” he said. “I was over in Algonquin Bay, our sister city in serial killers. Talked to Detective Cardinal. Remember a couple of years ago?”
She searched her memory, fingering the condiment bottles. Soy, fish and hot sauce. “They got the guy, but he went after teenagers, didn’t he? Gory sex stuff. Did you learn anything helpful?” The redolent aromas of stir-fry garlic and ginger root began whispering her name.
He cracked his knuckles. “Our renowned profiler gave us a picture so general it could fit every ne’er-do-well in town. We could sweep down Brewster Street with an industrial vacuum. Then I was tied up helping Janet with her father in the Sault. He had a stroke, and her mother was weighing their options. Hospital needed the bed, but there were no nursing home vacancies.”
“How well I know the drill,” she replied. “Everything okay now?”
“Holding. Janet will be staying on to organize the home care. Heather’s with me, so I’m juggling babysitting arrangements.” He looked almost relieved. His fights with his wife, a sunny but brittle character, hadn’t lessened since they’d adopted the half-Cree, half-Italian toddler, but merely changed to broils about how to raise the sweet girl, now in Grade Two. Belle remembered meeting Janet’s mother once at a birthday party for Heather. The blue-haired former socialite, whose husband had been a VP at Algoma Steel, was a haughty type who always reminded her daughter of her risky marital choice.
She checked the menu specials chalked on a board behind the cash. “So what do you want to try? They have Japanese, Thai, Indian and Vietnamese food, too.” Half of the room held shelves with Asian groceries and coolers for frozen items.
He signalled a waiter, who brought two large, steaming bowls of noodles with Korean sauce and vegetables. Steve grinned at his coup. “I know you’re busy, so I ordered already. A hottie, like you.”
“Maybe fifteen years ago in a tank top. That jargon reminds me of those female teachers with their student lovers.”
“Right. You’d rather live in the Thirties in those films you love. If you’d been born then, you’d be my mother now.”
“That’s a frightening prospect.” Tucking into the bowl with chopsticks, she asked the question they’d both been tiptoeing around. “What’s going on with Bea’s case? Is the detective any good?”
He gave her a warning lip curl but then spread his broad hands in frustration. “Burns made the grade two years ago. He has a law degree from Osgoode Hall, prefers to work the streets instead of the courts. He’s been liaising with the guys in charge of the other two cases.”
“Guys. Don’t you have any female detectives?”
“One of them caught the first murder. Maybe that’s why there’s been no headway.”
“Joking isn’t going to bring Bea back. Are there any leads? You have the time frame. Between Micro leaving for school and my arrival.”
“Between seven thirty and eleven. Pretty generous.”
“Bea probably got to work by eight. Doesn’t that narrow it down?”
He twirled a noodle on his fork. “Yes, I heard that, but there were exceptions.”
“Early fits for me. I don’t see how she was killed anywhere but in the bathroom. That home was pin neat,” Belle added.
“That busy time of the morning, the boy having left, the doors could have been open.”
“I’m thinking someone came up from the lakeside or the greenbelt where he wouldn’t be seen. Wouldn’t set the dog barking.” She tossed over the memories of that meeting with Len like coins in her hand. “Did you check out everyone who’s worked at the house?”
Steve gave a sigh, but he was weakening. “That might not jibe with a piece of information we’re withholding. Near the other two murder sites, we found an empty flower box from the Rosary. No record of any such order in the neighbourhood. It could have been taken
from the trash out back of the store. Nothing’s turned up yet on John Street, but it’s been windy. Could have blown to Mattawa by now.”
“Roses were her favourite,” she said, recalling the funeral. “Her husband ordered . . .” She stared at Steve, who was shaking his head.
“First choice in all domestic murders,” he said as he worked a stubborn mushroom into his chopsticks. “But Malanuk was in Ottawa all that week, coordinating a telethon to raise money for a Braille library. Jerry Lewis didn’t have a higher profile. He left the Lord Elgin Hotel at seven after an early breakfast. At eleven that morning, he was buying gas in North Bay, still an hour away.”
“I’m glad he’s in the clear. What a nice man. I met him at the viewing and later at Hélène’s.”
“You’d make a terrible detective. Those kinds of judgments are fatal.”
Ignoring him, she browsed through her dish for a water chestnut. “Micro’s a sweetheart, too. He’s staying with the DesRosiers for a while. I took him on a hike.”
Steve looked around and lowered his voice as two bald motorcyclists in full leathers came in and settled at a nearby table. “Don’t get wild on me, but one of the guys today went out on a creepy limb. Kids younger than that have been known to kill their parents.”
“What?” Her face flushed with fire hotter than the chilis in the bowl.
“The King brothers in the States. Only nine and twelve. She did have a massive contusion on the back of her head from a blunt instrument. It’s easy to strangle someone who’s unconscious.”
Remembering Micro’s small, delicate hands, she leaned forward and said with a hiss that surprised her. “Have you seen him?”
“No, I only—”
“Micro is a quarter Bea’s size. And then he got on the school bus, carrying a parrot for Show and Tell? Spare me.” She tossed him a steely glance. “Oh, and he took the payroll money. Watch out if he buys a car.”
Steve crossed his wrists in a mock protection gesture. “The bag turned up in a garbage can down the street. No prints or trace evidence. Relax, I said it wasn’t my idea. Are you adopting him or what? This is a new side. I think I like it. Everyone needs to experience the challenge of parenthood. You get off easy with your dog.”
