Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle

by Lou Allin

  “Triple. Soon as you get . . . home. Your arteries have proved themselves.”

  He nodded toward some daisies in a vase by the next bed. “It’s time to send Mary LaGrotta some flowers for her birthday.”

  Mary was the sweet Italian girlfriend he’d left behind in Florida. She’d made him laugh like a teenager. “December’s a few months away, but a lady always appreciates a bouquet.” She hugged him fast and long until he squeaked.

  Next stop was the Sudbury Police Department. Belle gave her story to the detective on duty, and when he heard about the three other incidents in the area, he became very interested. “So I don’t know if Patch Wells acted on his own or not. If he’d had his way, Yoyo, the baby and I would have been his fourth, fifth and sixth victims.”

  The next day, along with the OPP, who had jurisdiction outside the city, Belle returned to Bump Lake. Her van was still there. Patch was gone, his cabin burned, and the authorities were making inquiries across the country. The Old Batty lurked deep in the bush, spewing its poisons. At last its secret was exposed.

  The next day Belle contacted Larry Celeste, a professor of mining and geology at Nickel City College. He was kind enough to listen to her story and got back to her within twenty-four hours, inviting her to his crowded office.

  “There are over ten thousand abandoned mines across Canada. Some of them are orphaned, the owner untraceable. Four thousand are contaminated. The total cost for clean-up could run over six billion dollars, at a conservative estimate. The boreal forest is especially vulnerable, fewer species, thin, acidic soils, slow recovery.”

  “I suppose they brought in the building material by barge. It was a hell of a mess, even after all these years.”

  “All stages from A to E, ‘acquiring’ to ‘exit ticket’, cause damage. Trenching, drilling, then when water comes into it, the real disaster. Acid mine drainage, metal leaching from uncovered tailings. Mines were nearly unregulated before the war. No rules, lost records,” he said, leaning back in his swivel chair.

  “And now?” She thought of the Nickel Rim South Development, high on its shiny hill.

  “We made some progress in the Eighties and Nineties with MISA, the Municipal Industrial Strategy for Abatement. ‘Exit ticket’ means that the company has to put up a cash guarantee when the liability is transferred to the public.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He gave an ironic laugh and pointed to a map with hundreds of dots across Ontario. “Even that’s losing its teeth lately. The Renabie Mine near Chapleau proposed a deposit of a hundred thousand dollars for clean-up. One single sinkhole that appeared later ate that amount.”

  They consulted a topo he pulled from a set of narrow drawers. “But there’s no cross and pick to indicate the mine,” she said. “That’s what confused me.”

  “From the few records I’ve been able to access, the Old Batty operated from 1920-1939. That’s a long time ago. Once the gold was gone, they dozed over the place and felled trees to block access. No roads. It’s not prime fishing or hunting territory, so . . .” He spread his hands.

  “I get it. They didn’t expect anyone to come poking around in the area.”

  “The Burwash facility kept the place conveniently off limits for the next several decades. And all this time, elemental arsenic ions began to leak into the aquifer. Not for years, maybe, but once the drifts filled up with water. With no one around, who would ever know except the bottom feeders, daphnia and fish?”

  Gary had mentioned daphnia. He had probably intended to test for accumulation of toxic elements in the famous benthos. She felt stupid for not pursuing it. “But again, why no cross and pick?”

  Larry motioned to grease his palm. “Here’s my suspicion. Gable Minerals was a small operation then. As it moved out of Sudbury and grew, it had enough money to pay someone to keep the site off the ordinance map in 1940. Then any revisions would have been moot.”

  She told him about Marshall Mincore and the politically ambitious Gable family with their gold mine and dream town for workers in Manitouwadge.

  “Think what it would look like if news got out that their old site was polluting the edges of a reserve right in our backyard.”

  He pointed to a thick article from MiningWatch. “It’s a national crisis waiting to happen, and not just in remote areas like the Giant Mine in Yellowknife, where the cost of freezing the tailings may run higher than the value of the gold. Red Lake has a toxic plume underground waiting to envelop the city in another ten or twenty years. The Campbell Mine there closed in 1960, but it left a little time bomb.”

  “What is the North supposed to do, start growing more organic produce in the empty shafts?” Underground endive was already a hot commodity.

  “ ‘Right to mine’ is the hot button. The prospect of putting jobs into the community, even for a short time, outweighs the long-term damage. Canada is the world’s largest producer of gold and nickel.”

  Steve and Belle sat outside on the deck, enjoying a cold Northern Maple lager, their last. The landmark brewery downtown had failed to skirt bankruptcy and closed its massive doors.

  “They found Patch? Where?” To express her delight, she whistled over the top of the bottle.

  “Off his own turf, he didn’t have the resources to hide. We picked him up on a bus to Prince George. I think he intended to disappear up into the remote lumber regions where no questions are asked. He’s in remarkable shape for a man of seventy plus, and he’s talking. Wants to make a deal that will give him the most comfort in his old age. You know what happens to guards who become prisoners.” He sliced a finger across his throat.

  Apparently Patch had discovered the Old Batty site on a hunting trip in the Sixties. Suspicious about the seepage, he had asked a few mining codgers at a local bar and drawn his own conclusions. Local history books from the Sudbury Public Library had mentioned the early gold efforts. With the help of an efficient librarian, it hadn’t been hard to track Mincore Metals to Gable Minerals. With his father-in-law long gone, a nervous Fred Gable had started the payments to Patch the year the prison farm closed, and his son Barry had continued them. The modest sums, only five hundred dollars a month, were paid under the justification that Patch was prospecting for new mining claims.

  “Prospecting for over thirty years in the same area? That’s not going to wash. And Rosaline?”

  “It’s going to be Patch against the three of them. They’re denying any knowledge of his crimes. The paper trail’s cold. Cash every month by mail.”

  “What about the . . . cheap scotch? Did he explain that?”

  “Seems he got Gary to have a quick belt with him just before he hit him with a rifle butt and set up the ‘accident’.”

  She didn’t want to imagine Gary fighting for his life in the water once the blow had disoriented him. Drowning was not as painless as freezing to death, but at least it was fast. “So Patch didn’t stuff the furnace vent or doctor the coffee.”

  Steve chuckled and flicked a wasp away from his bottle. The little devils loved beer. “Rosaline is a zoologist. She’d have access to mouse nests, if anyone would. Plus she owns a white Buick. And she would have known how to cover up or misdirect Gary’s research. But it could have been an accident. Remember that we also caught the kids that broke into the house. The fifteen-year-old leader told them that offices are a good place to hide money. That explains the riffling of the papers. And they had no vehicle to take away the heavy stuff like the generator or chain saw.”

  Belle grimaced, her eyes narrowing. Down on the water, a family of mallards came by, eight babies scuffling to ride on the mother’s dull and mottled back while the showy father in a black and white tuxedo bobbed his iridescent green head. She was still frosted about the poisoning. “Some things can’t be proved, I guess. But what about my office? Maybe I should get a videocam.”

  “Silliker had nothing to do with the date-rape drug in your coffee. We picked up Joey’s friends on a speeding charge on the 401 just east of W
indsor. They had three kilos of coke in the car, along with a cocktail of designer drugs. One boy worked a plea deal by turning in an old girlfriend of Bartko’s. Liz Ash. A real pistol. She was bragging about getting back at the ‘ho’ that gave her man so much trouble. She doctored your coffee and broke the sign as well.” He shrugged. “Now she’ll try to sell her information on Bartko. Women are fickle.”

  “The ‘ho’ begs to differ.” Inside, she smiled. At last, some mystique.

  “I know it offends your sense of justice, but Silliker, her brother and father probably won’t see a day in court. They pretended to be horrified at what Patch had done. Maybe they were, for all we know.” His chiselled lips curled at the edge as he hoisted his beer bottle. “And they’re model citizens.”

  “The Old Batty is back in the news,” said Belle. “A team of environmental assessors will be going over the property. A total reclamation is impossible, but the place will be made safer. Under the former rules, Gable Minerals won’t have to pay a cent, but they’ll be under much more scrutiny for their current operations.”

  “Your friend Gary played a part in this. That little pop can was a major factor. Where did he find it?”

  “Not at the mine, I’d guess. He’d have reported the pollution. Patch probably left it at the site on one of his excursions, and one spring at high water, tangled in brush perhaps, it floated down the creek.” Belle sighed, remembering how she’d said goodbye to Mutt. Another man sailing out of her life with the same ease.

  Steve seemed to pick up on her sadness and changed the topic. “So Yoyo’s become a little mother now? A new career for you as a midwife?”

  “Much too messy. Long hours, too. I owed her, though. And I gave her a couple of thousand dollars for her mother’s eye treatments. We’re hoping that the government will see reason and start funding that drug. Other provinces have.”

  “Gave her money?” Steve gave an exaggerated gasp and put a hand on his heart over the Sudbury Wolves logo on his jacket. “Going soft in your middle age?”

  Locking eyes with him, Belle shook her head. “Yoyo insisted that it’s only a loan. With her new job at RE/MAX, she’s on her way to success at last. She’ll pass the third qualifying exam with no sweat. How is your adoption working out? Any new developments?”

  “Warm up your listings. We’re going for a hat trick. Twin boys of four. Janet’s never been happier, and Heather’s over the moon.”

  Steve looked relaxed and confident. Her heart went out to him, and her fingers crossed in best wishes. His was a cherished friendship. And he hadn’t said a thing about her reckless episode at Burwash. What did that mean?

  With Steve gone, Belle went down to the garden with her latest purchases in a wheelbarrow. July 10th. Everything had been half-price and looked it. Scraggly and overgrown tomatoes, zucchini plants going brown at the edge, wilting lettuce. It was ridiculously late to try again, but she’d always had a garden, neglected or not. She knelt down and buried her hands in the warm earth like her forebears. Rutabagas had seen them through many bitter winters.

  Humming softly, she tucked in her hopes. Then she realized what song haunted her thoughts. Lerner and Loewe were right. It had been almost like being in love.

  BARON’S BITES

  1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

  1 cup all-purpose flour

  1 cup skim milk powder

  ⅓ cup melted meat fat (beef, lamb, or bacon)

  1 egg, lightly beaten

  1 cup cold water

  Combine flour, milk powder and salt in bowl. Drizzle with melted fat. Add egg and water; mix well. Gather dough into a ball.

  On floured surface, pat out dough. Roll to ½ inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes. Gather scraps of dough and repeat last two steps.

  Bake on ungreased baking sheets in 350°F oven for 50 to 60 minutes or until crisp. Makes about thirty-six 2 ½-inch biscuits.

  (Recipe courtesy of Debbie Snow)

  Copyright © Lou Allin, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing and Publication information available from Library and Archives Canada

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

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