Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle

by Lou Allin

He pointed with a truncated thumb, likely another hazard of bush life. A belt-knife rode on his hip. “Little Josie and me got a cabin back in the woods apiece. Just a shack. It’s Crown land, but I don’t even lease it or nothing. Nobody bothers me, except for in October when moose season opens. Have to watch my tail then.”

  Belle cocked her head. It wasn’t wilderness she would have chosen, unless she wanted to raise blackflies. “What brought you here in the first place?” Perhaps he’d grown up on the few hardscrabble farms in the area by Highway 69.

  He smiled, exposing one jagged tooth and a couple of gaps. “Saw old Burwash on the way in? I was a correctional officer there, guard they used to call it. Place closed down in ’74, not a dry eye among the staff, though I expect the cons looked forward to incarceration in a more civilized location, especially in bug season. No jackrabbit parole here. Drive ’em nuts in an hour, and they’d come crawling back.” He told them that Burwash had been constructed in 1914 on over 35,000 acres and expanded at the end of World War Two. It housed up to 670 criminals sentenced to two years less a day. The town, self-contained with churches, stores and schools, was built for the prison’s employees. With 150 families, it had a great spirit of camaraderie.

  She wondered how he survived out here year-round. Wood heat, of course. No utility bills. Canada pension, the Old Age four-hundred-dollar freebie, and perhaps the extra supplement of meat and fish provided for a simple but fulfilling life. “I like solitude, but this is too lonely for me.”

  “I get along. Whittle up pretties to pass the time. Sell them on consignment at the Science North shop.” He took one from his pocket. “Happen you might admire one. Keep ’er. I got lots.”

  “Thanks.” Belle considered the delicate willow instrument. Tourists were suckers for homemade items like blueberry jam, polished rocks and maple syrup. As she blew a shrill note, Mutt covered his ears. “Loud,” she said with a grin. “A great way to warn off bears.”

  “Pea’s the secret.”

  “Pardon?” She and Mutt spoke at once.

  “Dried pea inside.” He put a finger to his large, fleshy lips, his flinty eyes crackling with mischief. “Can’t tell how it got in that little place. Might want to patent the idea some day.” His eyes wandered to a couple of pop cans and an empty chip bag in a fire ring of rocks. “Damn kids picnicking at the lake now that school’s out. Not sure if picnic’s the right word for what they’re up to.” He bent down and collected the litter, stuffing it into his sack with the grouse.

  Mutt looked around for a moment in slight confusion, as if he had forgotten something. “Was there a tent here, maybe a sleeping bag?”

  Patch cleared his throat. “The tent blew down a few days ago, and some animal got into the sleeping bag. I have them both back at the camp. A bit of stitching and washing, and they’ll be good as new. If you can wait about ten minutes, I’ll—”

  “You might as well get some use out of them.” Mutt locked eyes with Belle and gave a nod toward the canoe. “Nice to meet you, Patch. Guess we’d better get going. It looks like a long haul.”

  They walked over to the canoe and stooped in preparation to lift. Patch followed and put a hammy hand on Belle’s shoulder. “Hey, now, pretty lady. That’s a man’s work.”

  She bristled but calculated the shoulder pain ahead. Five years ago, she would have declined. Now, discretion was the better part of bursitis. “A hand would be great. Thanks, Patch.”

  After the men hoisted the canoe into the truck bed, Belle rounded up yellow polypropylene rope to secure the boat against wind gusts and damage from movement. Patch waved goodbye as he gave a whistle to his dog.

  “That old geezer would have grabbed the canoe if we hadn’t arrived,” Belle said.

  “He’s welcome to the other gear, especially if it’s in as bad a shape as he says. He did make the offer to return it.”

  “Which he knew you’d refuse after that convenient story. Pretty crafty.”

  Driving back to Sudbury, still out of range of radio stations, Belle settled into the comforts of the large truck, especially the seats. Sweet lumbar supports and three-way adjustments. She wouldn’t be happy gassing up, though. With the recent price hikes, a brown hundred-dollar bill would bring little change.

  Mutt fumbled through Gary’s CD selection, frowning. “We never did agree on music. Copland is as modern as I want to get, and don’t get me started on jazz.” He slipped Appalachian Spring into the groove.

  “Jazz seems to be an acquired taste, like pickled eggplant. I like the classics, but the odd guitarist like Jeff Beck makes a break for me.” Belle went on for some minutes telling him about Yoyo’s Putamayo recordings. He made a good listener, the secret of making and keeping friends, from Dale Carnegie to Dr. Phil. Then she realized that she’d never bothered to ask about his writing. With the emphasis on Gary’s research, she’d quite forgotten that she was talking to an author.

  “Tell me about your books. How did you happen on Lucy Doyle? Was she a real person?”

  His smile showed that, like all writers, he was flattered by the questions. “Absolutely. She started with fetch-and-carry jobs at the old Toronto Telegram in 1890-something. I came across her in a History of Canadian Journalism course.”

  “A woman working at a newspaper when Victoria was still queen. I like Lucy already.”

  “She became a reporter later on, also a drama and music critic, a gossip columnist and editor of the women’s page.”

  “Quite a resumé. What happened to her?”

  “It wasn’t the path to riches. In her seventies, she was allowed to live free in a little cabin in a local artist’s colony, the Guild Inn. She was still doing research for her books. Never published, though.”

  “My mother told me about the Guild Inn. Rosa and Spencer Clark collected statuary for their mansion from some wonderful buildings under the wrecking ball.” Belle nodded at the trip down Memory Lane. “I grew up in Scarborough. We used to drive through that spot of parkland on Lake Ontario. It ran as a hotel for awhile.”

  “It’s demolished now. And that statuary’s all that’s left of parts of old Toronto.”

  Mutt waited for the thirty minutes it took her to list the Richard Lake cedar Panabode with double garage. Roll the dice, and let’s try $399,000. Later he dropped her off at home with a complimentary copy of his first book, Murder in Corktown. Born and raised in Toronto before it had boomed into Metro, her father might remember that historic area near Parliament and Queen.

  Belle made a sandwich and considered her next step. She hated driving back into town, but she needed to check on the old man. Mutt had waited long enough for her. She hadn’t wanted to ask for more indulgence.

  After settling Freya into her overstuffed chair, with a sigh she got into the van and headed back. Half a mile later, the red Jeep Liberty came chasing her tail. Not again. She flicked her right blinker and slowed, pulling to the side with a slow seethe and a selection of Miriam’s Frenglish curses, ending with sacrifice. The brake pedal seemed a bit soft. Wasn’t a tune-up scheduled next week? The Jeep flashed past, up a hill, and around a corner as if on fire. If anyone had been coming, a head-on would have sent everyone to an orthopaedic surgeon, if one could be found. Sometimes only an accident taught the right lesson. Too bad the innocent victim paid the same deadly price.

  At the gravel pit, she bumped over a trackless former rail crossing, now part of the TransCanada Trail. Packed with rough slag and smelly creosote, it attracted quadders and snowmobilers, not more fastidious hikers. Then she headed down the long hill that bottomed out passing Philosopher’s Pond, a small-trout paradise. Preoccupied by the idiot who had passed her, she forgot to ease up on the gas. Suddenly she found herself stomping on the brake with no effect. Sweat glazed her brow, and her heart trip-hammered while she watched trees fly by in a green blur. Where in hell was the emergency brake? As she fumbled with the controls, the vehicle teetered and charged up the steep hill like a bee-stung bull. With her luck, either the cour
ier man or a delivery of propane would be her next and last vision. But the woodland spirits smiled, and the van slowed as gravity asserted its domain.

  Ever so gently, she tickled the gas enough to reach the crest by the mailbox pavilion. “Pretend you have no brakes, because that’s the case,” she told herself. Easy. Easy. She sidled off in the deeper gravel and slowed to a stop, her leg shaking from the adrenaline rush. Safesafesafe. Belle pounded the dash in relief. If she’d been anywhere else, she’d have been a statistic. Life was a crapshoot, and this time she’d rolled sevens. Blowing out a breath, she grabbed her cell phone, then rummaged in her wallet for her CAA card. But Saturday? Bad time for mechanical problems. Still, she was alive, and the van was in one piece with only brush scratches.

  Riding into town an hour later in the cab of the tow truck, she told the driver what had happened. “Just gave out on you? Like stepping on a ripe plum? Only 20,000 klicks on the van? Brakes should be okay. Sounds like a busted line. Run any rough roads?”

  “Every other day.” She cursed her own luck and wondered if she had damaged the vehicle on one of her excursions up humped cottage lanes. She had the van dropped off at Robinson Automotive on LaSalle and asked for a ride to Enterprise, where she rented a van. If hers wasn’t ready by Monday, she would need a large vehicle to ferry clients. One of the curbside car lots had boasted a yellow Humvee. That would give Palmer Realty a distinct image, but at two miles per litre?

  Her father had been moved to Laurentian Hospital, the new megacentre eclipsing the older hospitals. Belle parked in a far-flung lot, wondering how heart and stroke patients fared walking uphill to the main entrance. Perhaps many never made it. Outside in a rudimentary plastic shelter, two women dangling portable IV’s puffed up a storm. Some vegetarians felt that Sudburians’ shorter life spans were due to the habits of fat, retired miners who loved their tobacco and beer. Perhaps the diversifying economy and the new fitness boom would turn the tide. Even Miriam had bought a treadmill. Belle preferred the bush, but in the long winters, often darkness or a week’s worth of minus thirty-five degree temperatures made exercise difficult, if not impossible for all but the extremists who thought frostbite was a badge of honour.

  At the Tim’s in the foyer, she purchased two coffees, milk and sugar for him, and a soft jelly doughnut. She found him in a double room on the third floor, the other bed occupied by a man with a bandaged head.

  Her father was napping, but she could see an improvement in his blisters. The dressings were off, and the purplish-black was fading as new tissue took over. “Wakee wakee,” she whispered and touched his arm, remembering those biceps big as a grapefruit.

  His cornflower blues snapped open, and he grinned, fewer teeth every year, a side effect of nursing homes, where brushing was low on the list of priorities. Then again, on a bad day, she wouldn’t put it past him to bite a rough hand. “Terry, is that you? When’s dinner?”

  Had the Prednisone disoriented him, or had he had another TIA? “It’s Belle. Your blisters, remember? We finally got you a diagnosis and the right medication. You’ll be fine. Palmers are tough. Remember those Crusades.” Trekking from Scotland to Jerusalem and back bearing green fronds must have taken years.

  “Oh, Belle, stupid, stupid of me. Told you that damn skin doctor was senile, didn’t I?” With his voice strengthening, he blinked and rubbed at a crust in his eye. “But the food is terrible, terrible. Cold tea. Cold toast. Cold everything. Cornflakes. I hate cornflakes. Your mother never had a box of cereal in the house, except for oatmeal, and that doesn’t count.”

  “One strategy to get people out as fast as possible. But look at what I’ve brought.” Weight was not a problem for him. He’d dropped from two hundred to a healthier one-eighty since leaving Florida. The occasional sweet treat wasn’t forbidden.

  “Thank God. But only one?” he asked with a pout. She helped him manage the coffee and fed him small pieces of doughnut, wiping the jelly that dribbled down his chin. He was wearing a set of white whiskers. No time for amenities when nurses were being laid off. Hospitals expected the family to pull its weight. As for family, she was it. If he wasn’t out soon, she’d bring his electric shaver. Dignity was second only to comfort for the elderly.

  Mentioning the near-accident might agitate him. “Soon you’ll be back at Rainbow watching Alex Trebek, one of Sudbury’s finest citizens.”

  “Oprah, too.” He gave a cough, and she backed up on instinct. A frightening survey had showed that one out of three patients developed complications just from being in the hospital. Infections, even broken hips.

  Meanwhile, his roommate was watching a game show on a mini-television hanging from a metal structure. “Say, do you want a TV? I didn’t think about that.”

  “How much does it cost?” He narrowed his eyes, coughed again and was handed a tissue. She hadn’t snatched her frugality from the sky.

  “Never mind that. You’re a rich man. We’re riding a bull market, and the loonie is headed for the bald eagle. I’ll see to it. What about that cough, though?”

  He waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s nothing. Bad air in here. Why don’t they open the windows?”

  “Be glad you’re in the only air-conditioned hospital.”

  “I miss your mother’s cigarettes. Harold’s, too.” Her uncle had reached eighty on three packs of unfiltered Camels a day.

  On the way to the elevator, she saw a familiar figure. Dressed in a cashmere skirt and cowled sweater, Rosaline Silliker was exchanging air-kisses with a lady in a faux python-skin jacket. “Darling. You’re looking wonderful. How’s your father?” the snake woman asked.

  Rosaline gave a brave smile and arranged a shoulder bag. “Same as his father, I’m afraid. Congenital heart disease. Now a little stroke. They’re making him comfortable. He’s pain-free and cognizant. That’s something.”

  Belle felt a certain kinship with the woman and wondered if once again it wasn’t a case of withholding expensive procedures from the elderly. To paraphrase a neighbour, “We have the technology. We just can’t afford it.”

  After arranging for a mini-television at a maxi-cost, she saw a Sudbury Star on a table in a waiting room, folded it, and left the hospital. When she remembered about germs, she dropped it onto a bench for the smoking brigade.

  Monday morning after breakfast, she headed down the road. The rental, a bare bones basic Pontiac Montana, was a pale imitation of the sophisticated Sienna. And it rattled. No sign of Miss Liberty, the red Jeep in a hurry. A good omen for a good day. As soon as business hours opened, she called Robinson Automotive. The owner answered. “Saw your note on the windshield. That tow guy was right. It was the brake lines.”

  “Did you say lines, as in plural?” That sounded like serious damage. Was it that last accordion trail by Lake Penage?

  “Both of them cut neatly in the same spot.”

  Her stomach lurched. “Cut? Are you sure?”

  “One hundred per cent. This isn’t a case of kids fooling around. I’d say somebody doesn’t like you big time. Better report it to the police. Can you keep the van in a safe place? Next time it could be worse.”

  Told that the vehicle would be ready by five, Belle hung up. “Safe” was a problem. For once she wished she had splurged and built a garage, despite the extra property-tax bite. As for the suspect, she gave a bitter laugh, knowing she was non grata to one persona. Joey Bartko. No matter how she rationalized that she was unhurt and that the repair cost was minimal, it had been focussed, deliberate, and in a legal definition, attempted murder. Somehow he’d found out, perhaps seen her at the bulletin board or heard the buzz in the village of Skead. What had she unleashed when she’d played environmental cop? Would he be satisfied or ratchet up the agenda? Even were the charges proved, with the long delays in the court system, he might not go to trial for months, and certainly, he’d be out on bail. She needed advice, and only one big brother came to mind. She balanced peace of mind on one hand with a humiliating lecture on the other. The s
cale tipped toward security. She wasn’t a family of one.

  When she got to the office, Yoyo was standing by the front steps. At her feet were the shattered plastic remains of the Palmer Realty sign. She turned to Belle with a shrug. “Guess the bolts gave out. Lucky no one was underneath.”

  “I should have replaced it long ago. It’s over fifty years old. I’ll call Ernie’s Signs to get someone to haul the mess away. This is not going to be cheap.” She bent to examine the corpse. The bolts were rusty, but had they been given a head start?

  On a lunch break, she walked over to Tom Davies Square to the Police Department on the hunch that Steve might be in. As he rose in rank, he said that he spent more time typing reports than he did collecting criminals. She gave her name to the sleek brunette receptionist in the modern lobby, a world away from the typical jowlly sergeant high up on a pedestal platform in Thirties films. With shiny floors and glassed walls, it looked like a five-star hotel. Where did they hide the ne’er-do-wells?

  As a vase of mauve and burgundy carnations sent spicy fragrances into the air, the woman punched buttons on the phone. “A Belle Palmer here to see you, Detective.” Listening to his reply, she delivered a world-class smile. “He’ll be right out.”

  Steve appeared from a corridor to lead her back to his office. Nothing like the rabbit hole he’d once inhabited, a basement burrow crowned with asbestos-covered heating pipes. He popped a small bag into a sleek new bullet-shaped coffee maker. “A single cup at a time, but it’s great stuff. Jamaican Blue Mountain. Keeps me from drinking too much or inhaling sludge, too. One for you?”

  “I’m on overload already, thanks.” She took a seat in a familiar battered and duct-taped leather armchair that looked like it had seen duty during Mackenzie King’s tenure. “Couldn’t part with the old beater, eh?” she said, gyrating around a loose spring as he doctored his coffee.

  “It has my bum memorized.”

  “That is important.”

  His office was crowded with organized mayhem. Graduated piles, file cabinets open and ready, bulletin boards of Canada’s Most Wanted, and post-it notes on every available surface. The usual pizza box was in the overflowing wastebasket. On the wall were pictures of Heather, “graduating” from kindergarten, racing down a soccer field at Lily Creek, braids flying, and grinning from a roller coaster ride at Canada’s Wonderland. None of Janet. Understandable but sad. Was that what marriage was all about?