Читать книгу Bush Poodles Are Murder - Lou Allin - Страница 6

A shy pink sky emerged in the east amid rising clouds of steam as the massive lake continued to cool, the last in the region to freeze. Belle flashed her remote start through the window at the all-wheel drive GMC van. Lights flashed, and the exhaust chugged into action. Past 250,000 klicks for the old girl this year. Mark at Robinson Automotive had suggested initiating a search for a new engine, should the “time come,” an alarming expression. Belle was frugal, not crazy, knowing that it might be safer to bite the financial bullet and make a trade. Missing appointments due to vehicle problems was a fool’s bargain. Still, thoughts of dollar-sucking regular payments in her seasonal business made her wince.

Fifteen minutes later, the van barely warmed, she plunked onto the hard seat, selected a tape of Joan Baez’s martial roars in “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and with a glance over the snowdrifts, eased cautiously onto the six-mile cottage road that confounded a newcomer and could lull an old timer into forgetting that a head-on lurked around every wicked hill and curve.

Soon she was past the airport, sighting the pumpkin streak of dawn which backlit the giant Superstack, icon of Sudbury’s largest employer, INCO, the International Nickel Company. Erected in 1972 at a cost of thirteen million dollars, this largest chimney in the world was designed to stem the problem of acid rain. Even prior to that ecological shame, turn-of-the-century open pit sulphur burning had already turned the core into a moonscape where astronauts came to train. On paper at least, the stack scrubbed the air cleaner than Toronto’s and piped residents home from twenty miles in all directions. If so, why were local firms always fishing for damaged paint claims? Who was zooming who?

Belle ducked in reflex as a prop job buzzed out of the small airport. Former giant Air Canada had long ago replaced its large planes with sewing machine models and trimmed its routes, squealing like a porker for government handouts. Upstart WestJet had come in to take up the slack. Still, it was encouraging to see flights again after that stark September when skies had grown ominously quiet, except for military jets. Northern Ontario hadn’t been isolated from those chilling months. The Powassan Post Office had closed for a false anthrax scare, and high schools had emptied on successive days with prankish bomb threats. Contrary to rumour, the doughnut shops hadn’t pulled fruit explosion muffins from the shelves.

She drove through the suburb of Garson, where her father lived in Rainbow Country, a small nursing home with a heart as big as the city’s nine-metre nickel of George VI which had welcomed visitors since 1949. Ten minutes later, she arrived downtown to a quiet street of mighty cottonwoods. Gaunt branches empty of leaves, they stretched seventy feet into the pure azure sky as if propping up the heavens. Belle appreciated the leafy cover, but despaired of the messy fluff which coated the sidewalks to mark their June rebirth.

She parked in the compact lot behind the restored mock-Victorian home that had been Palmer Realty since her Uncle Harold had spread his wings in the post-war boom. Opening the storm door, she pushed through to the foyer, shuffled Godzilla’s down parka into the closet, removed her boots, and snicked into a pair of shearling moccasins. In winter, dressing and undressing was a job in itself.

“All quiet on the northern front?” she called to Miriam, ensconced at her desk and operating a foot roller with orgasmic passion. Her bunions were a legendary gift from her Ukrainian baba.

Miriam shoved her pencil into the electric sharpener and honed it to a murderous point. “So slow that you’ll probably have to lay me off. Not that you pay a living wage anyway. Hostie.” She gave a growl, but Belle knew that complaints at work were a chosen addiction.

“Let me beat you to the Frenglish curses. Tabernouche. And Mr. Grieves in Chelmsford? Wasn’t he moving into town to the Seniors’ Complex? That last offer was within a few hundred of his price.”

Miriam drew a dollar sign, scratched it out and wrote a cent. “He agreed, but the commission on that crackerbox microhouse isn’t enough to finance a kiddie meal at Burger King.”

Belle took a seat at her desk in the large room and sorted papers. Slack time. She’d have to resort to the bête noire of cold calling, despite the pun. Since her specialty was lakefront, spring was when everyone wanted to buy. She felt ghoulish trolling for eighty-year-olds who realized that they couldn’t handle heavy physical demands without hiring men for dock rebuilding or tree cutting. Their children had fled the North for greener employment pastures and had no soft heart for the family vacation spot. Yet waterfront property could bring high prices, even with a ramshackle cottage, since “they aren’t making any more of it,” Uncle Harold’s motto. As the town spread, and many of the two hundred lakes in the region had become commuter or retiree territory, permanent houses replaced cabins and camps left from the Forties.

Her Rolodex spun. Mirko and his wife were in their late seventies. He wheezed with emphysema, an oxygen tank on wheels trailing his halting steps. It wouldn’t be the first time Belle had played unofficial social worker for an elderly couple as they struggled to cope with the ravages of age in a climate which took no prisoners. The Scandinavians, Italians, German, Greeks and Ukrainians who had peopled the Sudbury basin for over one hundred years were hardy but not immortal. Many miners, glad for a steady dollar in an industry sheltered from the Depression, had damaged their lungs before stricter regulations arrived. Others celebrated “Sudbury Saturday Night,” a classic country song, by lugging twenty-fours from the Beer Store, emptying ashtrays, ripping fifty-cent lottery tickets or dabbing bingo cards. To the horror of the Chamber of Commerce, Maclean’s magazine had dubbed the region Heart Attack, Stroke and Cancer Capital of Canada.

The line was busy. Hanging up half-relieved, Belle stuffed on her Norwegian felt Smurf hat and prepared to brave the chill. “I’m off to Tim’s. The usual chicken salad on rye?”

Miriam passed her a five-dollar bill. “It’s bloody cold. Bring me that chile in a bread bowl. And don’t fall crossing Paris Street. Except for collecting ten-cent beer bottles back of my apartment, you’re my sole source of income.”

The streets were plowed, but the sidewalks had snow-packed ruts. She eased down the block, wondering if one of those spiky canes wasn’t an idea whose time was coming for her. After punching the “cross” button, she reached the other side before a double slurry truck spewed a cocktail of salt and slush over a determined young man pushing a bicycle.

Tim Hortons, ignoring the apostrophe to save a buck on signs, welcomed her in typical Canadian style. Nineteen hundred franchises and now challenging Krispy Kreme with one hundred and twenty stores in the U.S. A hockey icon, Tim had founded the chain in 1964 and skated to minor sainthood ten years later driving his Pantera. Noticing the orderly progress of the indistinct lines, Canucks careful not to blunder in, assuring by nods and waves that they really were “next,” she gave her order, adding two Hawaiian doughnuts with cheerful tropical sprinkles. A familiar voice made her turn.

“Don’t rich realtors spend winter in Cancun?” Her good friend Steve Davis, a detective with the Sudbury Police, flashed dark brown eyes at her as he stretched his six-six frame across two seats in a booth. His raven hair had a new touch of grey at the temples.

“Only if I score on the roll-up-the-rim-and-win cup. And look around you, lawman. Talk about stereotypes.” She pretended to assess his beltline, a telltale inch of poundage added to the muscle. “Are those chocolate chip ones low-fat?”

He answered by finishing his muffin in one bite. She moved back to the counter to pay, then parked at his table for a moment, leaning on his comfy blue parka. “I thought crime rates dropped during the winter. Have you been reduced to trolling for litterers?”

He laughed, accustomed to their usual banter, sometimes prickly but reflecting mutual concern. “Break and enters, sure. Tracks in the snow are better than fingerprints. Snowmobile thefts jump, especially the high end jobbies, not your bitty Bravo. And palladium’s been disappearing from INCO again. That stuff’s worth a grand an ounce.”

“Any leads?”

He shrugged in a “who knows” gesture. “I have sources, but nothing definite. An inside job, though.”

“I heard on the radio that drugs account for eighty percent of the crimes.”

He blew out a contemptuous breath. “Number-crunching junk science. Gangs are adding a new element to the mix, though. We’re way behind the big cities, but catching up fast.”

“Enough about business. How’s the family?”

A cloud passed over his face, and he glowered into his coffee. Belle guessed that his rocky marriage had hit another snag. “Heather?”

His daughter, half-Cree, adopted from an abusive family in Sault Ste. Marie, had battled the odds and topped her class in junior kindergarten. Belle was charmed by the little girl and had worked wonders with her shyness by bringing Freya to babysit a few times.

“It’s Janet. Thanks to her friends’ high opinions, she has our daughter in this private school. Travingale Academy on Bancroft Drive.”

“Ouch. That must cost.”

“Overtime’s no biggie with me, but I’m wondering if this lifestyle might be out of my league.”

Belle gazed out the window to the drifts blasting down the avenue. In her hands the lunch package was cooling. “What do you mean?”

“Tuition was set in September, but there are optional extras. Dance lessons, field trips. Then before Christmas they asked for another five hundred bucks from each family. Rising costs of heating, repairs to their activity van, you name it.”

“It’s tough to run a private school in a core area of fewer than 100,000 people.” Belle rose to leave, hoisting her package. “I have to get this chili to Miriam before it resembles its name.”

They prepared to close at an early two thirty that quiet afternoon, taking the Northerner’s winter privilege. “Reservations at seven. Meet you and your beloved at the college,” Belle said.

Miriam stabbed at a star on her calendar, chuckling wickedly and patting her round stomach, twenty winter pounds that always saw August. “Dinner on the boss, a red letter day.” She picked up a post-it note. “That Brian Dumontelle called again to see if anything new had come up. You could be wasting your time. I don’t see him as a serious buyer.”

Belle looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean? He’s with the police. Makes a good salary.”

“How often have you taken him out looking? Seven? Eight? Nothing ever was exactly right.”

“Worse than a picky woman.” She furrowed her brow in memory. “And always trying to take me to lunch.”

Bundling up, like two bumper cars, they elbowed each other in joking fashion as they fought to get out the door. Half an hour later, Belle followed the salt truck up the airport hill, staying a cautious distance behind the whirling apparatus at the back. The old van was tacky enough without inviting a paint job. A shiny Audi pulled out to pass and hugged the left side of the road to avoid the Gerald McBoingBoing frost heaves that tossed the van like a hiccoughing mule.

As she got out at home, she retrieved her travel cup from the dash and flung a coffee puck onto the snow. Freya greeted her with licks and was rewarded by a walk to the end of the road at the schoolbus turnaround, then up what Belle called the Bay Trail. She liked naming places, queen of all she surveyed. When interlopers despoiled it by baiting bear, poaching moose or tearing up her foot trails with quads or snowmobiles, her hackles rose.

Slowly she picked her way up the steep hill, retamping a path with her snowshoes to ease the way for the animal. She passed Skunk Brook, blanketed with snow and bubbling secrets under its white mantle. Then past Froob Rock, where the dog liked to jump, crisp mahogany leaves hanging like forgotten socks from the oak saplings. Covered in summer with papery lichens, now it was a scarcely-defined form. At the end of the trail, they emerged onto a narrow bay, the wind whistling down the channel. Unlike the choppy lake, this thin, shallow arm was already frozen. Mid-January would stop Wapiti’s waves, provided that the temperatures dipped to minus twenty-five for a few days combined with a dead calm.

With memories of picking blueberries several feet below the snow, they sat companionably, sheltered behind a juniper spray. Atop the ridge, hardy red pines shot into the air, growing tenaciously from the thin, acidy Boreal soil, peat on rock.

“Think Melibee likes shepherds? Any dog lover . . .” Freya shook her head to dislodge flakes which had dropped from a branch into her velvety, erect ear. “Scratch that theory.” Belle’s barometer on human decency had suffered a few glitches. Maybe cats had more discrimination about character.

Back home, she tossed her closet for black corduroy pants and a thick emerald sweater, adding a silver chain as a token bauble. “A fashion queen I’ll never be,” she mumbled to the attentive dog, no doubt praying that her mistress would stay home for a game of bed hockey. “Too cold here and too expensive to follow the trends. Wait ten years and everything’s back. Why did I throw out those bell bottoms?”

As she left, Belle turned on the motion-sensor lights. Squinting through her pock-marked windshield, she made her way down the winding, snow-rutted road. With the warning reflections of headlights, it was safer at night, except when eleven feet of snow made a luge track, twisting and turning, impossible for two vehicles to pass.

Thirty minutes later, at Nickel City College, she parked in the lot. The Versailles Room lay at the end of several circuitous halls, past darkened classrooms where Belle had taught an occasional real estate course. The spacious restaurant boasted a curving seventy-foot-long glass wall overlooking a courtyard with interlocking, snow-filled fountains. After mentioning her reservation, Belle let herself be shown to a window table with a linen cloth and fresh carnation. The nervous young lady wore black pants, a burgundy cummerbund and white shirt.

Mindful of the drive home, Belle ordered a Blue Light and sat back to explore the menu, her tastebuds gearing up. Hungarian night. Sauerkraut soup to start, a julienned carrot salad, then goulash with dumplings, and cherry torte for dessert—$22.95 shrunken Canadian dollars. More than reasonable. The ingredients would be fresh and the students in top form, their grades depending on pleasing the customers.

Still thirsty from her hike, she finished the beer quickly, then glanced at her watch. She’d been early, but now it was nearly seven-fifteen. Had Miriam and Melibee been involved in a fender-bender on those slippery streets? She hailed the waitress for a refill and forced herself to think about business instead of wasting time. A couple from Ottawa wanted a place in Boreal Heights, a premier development. Hadn’t she seen something in the cross-listings? Never carrying a purse, she took a pad from her coat and scribbled a note.

Eight o’clock. Belle was tapping her foot, rearranging the salt and pepper. When did the restaurant close? Other diners were finishing their coffee and dessert, calling for the bill. With a sudden urge, realizing that she needed a bathroom, she avoided the questioning eyes of the waitress.

Minutes later, she emerged from the washroom momentarily relieved, only to see her server gesturing. “Belle Palmer? There’s an urgent phone call for you.”

In the shiny chrome and walnut-veneer bar area, a phone sat near the mint dish. When she answered, a shaky voice spoke in halting tones. “I’m at Mel’s. He’s gone, and I don’t know what to do.” Scarcely could Belle respond than the phone went dead. An outage, or had Miriam hung up?

After leaving twelve dollars on the table, she returned to the van, seething while she attacked the frosted windshield, breaking the cheap plastic scraper with her fury. Gusts whipped tiny tornados around the parking lot. What was wrong with Miriam? If the man had stood her up, why panic? Couldn’t she have come to enjoy the meal in spite of his rudeness? Perhaps he wasn’t the paragon he’d been painted. Belle felt her stomach rumble and buckled her seatbelt over the bloat of two beers without food.

Leaving New Sudbury and heading across town, she proceeded to Balmoral Drive on Lake Ramsey, where Melibee’s condo crowned a huge, pseudo-modern Italianate horror very near the spot where a tiny cabin had sheltered Franklin W. Dixon, aka Leslie McFarlane, creator of the Hardy Boys series. Had the town fathers thought about erecting a plaque for tourists? If she ever needed a second job, she had a few promotional ideas. She trudged through ankle-high drifts and skidded along the path to the lobby. With a chilled finger, she ran over the addresses, noting the penthouse. Then she rang the bell, turned as the bevelled glass door snicked open and headed for the elevator.

With her realtor’s eye and a thinly disguised sneer, she paused to assess the decor. Bauhaus whorehouse, black marbleized floors, red padded leather walls and baroque chandeliers in the lobby. Muzak warbled from the plush speakers in the elevator, but she couldn’t decipher it. 999 strings?

After a dizzying fifteen-storey lift, the doors opened to reveal an anteroom with dark Jacobean wainscotting, clay jugs with pampas grass from warmer places and striped Colonial style wallpaper. Using an imp’s head, she knocked at the double, brass-fitted doors. When no one answered, she pushed gently, ready to read Miriam the riot act.

Inside, all was still except for the ticking of a giant Seth Thomas grandfather clock. She shuffled her boots onto a rubber mat, testing the depths of the taupe carpet on her frozen toes. Ahead was an interminable shadowed passage. “Miriam,” she called. “Where are you?”

A spectral figure moved into the hall, then leaned with despair against the wall, where a dim plaster sconce cast a sickly light. Miriam wore a striking new dress, soft folds of apricot silk with golden threads and a cowl. Normally scorning makeup except for a dab of powder, she must have gone to a professional. Matching eye shadow, liner, shadows to minimize her Roman nose and perfectly lined lips. But her face was contorted in pain. “He’s gone, Belle.”

“So you said. But why stand me up?”

Miriam pulled away to stumble down the hall, punctuating her movements with choking sobs. Following her into a living room, Belle glanced over the turquoise suede sofas, the granite fireplace, the massive windows with lights from Lake Ramsey’s million-dollar mortgages sparkling in the distance. Patio doors led to a deck large enough to feast the Supreme Court. At her elbow was a gigantic Victorian sideboard redolent with lemon oil, a silver urn with an open bottle of Moët et Chandon swimming in water. Two glasses. Someone had been having a party. So where was Melibee? Off on a sudden business trip?

She felt a tug at her arm and looked down at a man’s body, his head bruising an exquisite Persian rug.