Читать книгу Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle - Lou Allin - Страница 31

Several weeks later, a giant wicker basket on her porch snapped Belle out of the doldrums of a Friday afternoon. Wrapped in bright red cellophane was an assortment of fresh fruit, California zinfandel, cabernet and chardonnay, no shoddy brands either, and expensive cheeses sampled only on holidays: triple-crème French Brie, Emmanthaler and a butterscotch square of Gjetost. A pound of cashews and a jar of macadamias completed the feast, along with palm hearts and marinated olives. What gourmet angel had been monitoring her wish list? The card was inscribed with a copperplate style that recalled her mother’s careful hand: “From a grateful client. If you’re free tonight around six, I have some perch who wish to make your acquaintance.” Belle grinned. Mr. Sullivan, Charles, had settled in.

She popped a macadamia into her mouth, moaning at the milky crunch, and took Freya scampering up a path behind her house. Checking the time carefully, she doubled back at Skunk Brook after the animal enjoyed a brief, peaty slurp and was home in time for a bath. As she prepared to leave, ladling out Mature Purina, extra oil and Metamucil, which the vet had recommended for the older dog, she rubbed the velvet ears. “We’ll find out if he likes pups, and maybe next time you can go.”

She strolled to the end of the road, encountering Charles beaming at the gate. He had a proprietorial touch in the way he escorted her down the lane. Wearing crisply pressed khaki shorts, a zippered safari jacket and dark green knee sox, he might be serving with the Raj in rural India, except for the spotless apron around his waist. “You didn’t have to bring anything,” he said as he studied the bottle she presented. “But the chardonnay should complement our friends.” He escorted her to a picnic table by the house, appointed with an Irish linen tablecloth along with an assortment of covered dishes. With a flourish, he filled two crystal goblets, and they relaxed in lawn chairs under a shady grandfather oak next to the house. Old-fashioned citronella candles warded off the bugs with less distraction than the popular electrical lanterns which crackled ruthlessly but dispatched only innocent moths.

“You’re all moved. I wish you had given me a call to lend a hand,” she said.

“No difficulty there, my dear. I’m a simple man and a frugal one. Hired transport can be expensive, so I packed only the bare necessities, as they say, my library and phonograph records notwithstanding.” He coughed and rubbed his back. “You were right about the wretched beds. My Lord, what white nights I spent until the new furniture arrived. Aspirins every hour. My ears are still ringing the ‘Anvil Chorus’.”

She laughed out of hard-gained wisdom. “My cottage had three varieties of chiropractic mine fields.”

He appeared surprised. “But your house is new. When did you build?”

“A couple of years ago. My uncle left me enough in his will for the basic package, and I added the rest a bit at a time. Did the painting and clean-up myself.” She didn’t confess how she had nearly blown the central vacuum by sucking up drywall dust.

Sullivan cocked an eyebrow. “Very wise. So many people overextend. Try to have everything at once. Not the way my family operated, nor yours, I’ll wager.”

“True enough. My parents waited until their forties for our first bungalow. They constructed a basement, covered it with plywood and tarpaper, and we lived there like blind moles until they could afford to finish. Suburban Toronto was loaded with blocks of flat structures with a doorway sticking up. Kids thought it was the way everybody lived.”

A few glasses of wine later, Belle went inside to use the washroom and was amazed at the transformation of the camp. Neutral curtains and paint, a tasteful brown corduroy sofa and a glass coffee table. One wall was covered with books, mostly music and philosophy at a glance. A stereo system played Brahms symphony which floated outside like a blessing. On other shelves sat a few keepsakes, a Toby jug of Falstaff bearing a droll resemblance to its owner, onyx boxes and a folded wooden shape which attracted her. She opened it tentatively to find a delicate carved triptych.

A throat cleared behind her. “Ready for our repast?”

She felt like a kid caught with its hand in a candy jar. “I’m being nosy, but I couldn’t help marvelling at this. What is it, Charles?”

His face seemed more disappointed than stern, though he softened at her appreciative tone. “You have an eye for antiquities. That’s fourteenth-century beechwood. Wiser to preserve it in a safe deposit box, but I enjoy the medieval presence, a link to a lost world of craftsmanship and faith.” Belle replaced the treasure with careful reverence.

The diminutive perch deserved its reputation, cornmeal-crusty chunks sweet and tender within. Steaming baked potatoes arrived with sour cream, chives and grated Monterey Jack, then a deliciously bitter salad of baby greens with tarragon vinaigrette, and for dessert, a mud pie. “Good old James Beard. Louisiana cuisine travels anywhere,” he said.

“Chocolate may unite the world.” Belle wiped her mouth in slight embarrassment after wolfing the pie. When he brought seconds without asking, she decided that he would make a toothsome addition to the lake.

Later that month, with the hot weather coaxing the loaded fields to sweet fruition, strawberry season began. Joining the hordes who had driven on a Sunday morning to the Valley, a rich glacial till deposit where farms thrived, she was entertained by the babble between rows as she knelt to scoot her canister along. “Old man’s no problem,” a woman in a tattered straw hat said to her nodding friend, their sweating faces as plump and scarlet as the berries. “Park him under a tree with a couple of beers, and he’s happy as a clam for hours.” At the cash, Belle found herself overloaded with quarts. Criminal to waste them. Anni might like some. Their paths hadn’t crossed in weeks.

As she turned later into her neighbour’s driveway, Belle thought that someone was visiting. By the house sat a gigantic General Motors van loaded like a dowager empress. Her nose pressed against the tinted windows. Leather seats. Keyless entry. Power everything. Yet where was the Geo? A firm knock on the back door brought no answer, and she was inhaling the redolent attar from a wild rose bush when she heard a scuffling. The dogs were peering timidly from behind the shed instead of clamouring for attention. Perhaps Anni had given them a two-by-four lesson. They weren’t even decent protectors, not a mean bone in their silly bodies. Anyone could cart off the last stick of furniture by wiggling a slice of bologna. Wouldn’t work with a shepherd, bred for healthy suspicion and territoriality.

She rapped again, then tried the door and found it open. “Hello? It’s Belle.” Not a sound. On a hunch, she paced the grounds in case the woman was puttering somewhere. On a boat ride? Anni’s small outboard often trolled down the lake on a windless morning, but the dogs always sat in the bow. Back at the door again, canine panting loud in the silence, Belle tried to shake off a growing uneasiness.

Best to leave the perishable gift safely inside on the counter. She tiptoed into the kitchen, resorting to the silly phrase, “Are you decent? I have something for you.” At each step she stopped and listened, hearing only the ticking of a clock and the hum of the refrigerator. Placing the berries by the sink, she glanced toward the living room. In the doorway was a foot. A foot in a beaded moccasin, then another, followed by legs, torso, arms and head, the conventional arrangement. On the glowing pine floor, her friend lay on her stomach. Dressed in cotton pants and a man’s striped shirt, she might have been sleeping if not for the dark, matted hair.

Enough, Belle thought as her head spun and she calculated the miles to the couch. Her knees weakening, she sat down heavily on the floor, trying to deny the ugly reality. Perhaps Anni was alive, could be saved, healed, restored to that brave posture. Without really believing the possibility, she averted her eyes and groped down the thin arm for a pulse. So still, and the skin quite cool. Had Anni fallen on the slippery pine boards? Rising shakily to her feet and grasping a chair for support, Belle scanned the room with an economy of movement to minimize dizziness. Several feet away, the oaken walking stick protruded from under an end table. Why wasn’t it in its usual place?

Sweat breaking out on her forehead, stricken as if by a sudden flu, Belle collected the familiar sherry decanter from the credenza and took a large slug, another and another until she fell back onto the couch, mastering with difficulty the urge to retch, hoping that the liquor would work its tranquillizing miracle. After a few minutes of deep breathing, she got up to search for the phone, lifted the receiver with two fingers and dialled the police, reminding herself to shut the door lest the animals seek out what their body language signalled they already knew.

“Is Steve Davis there? Please find him. It’s important,” she said in strangled tones to the switchboard operator.

“What’s up?” Steve asked, several eternities later. “Another restaurant we can case out?”

“A friend of mine is dead. Anni Jacobs. I found the body. Her house is down from mine. 1703.”

His even tone felt like a cool hand on her brow. Steve never wasted words. “I’m on my way. Half an hour tops.”

Steve had been Uncle Harold’s good friend before Belle had arrived in the mining town. With reluctance, he’d left his roots behind on a remote reserve, joined the navy and had risen through the ranks of Sudbury’s finest. A few years younger and overly protective, he often tried to give her unwelcome advice, which she shot back in kind, especially concerning his rocky marriage. Recently he and Janet had bandaged their wounds and adopted a three-year-old girl with serious emotional trauma. The fight to gain her confidence had been difficult.

The Bristol Cream had clouded reality by the time Steve arrived with several officers and a plump blond man in wire-rimmed glasses whom he introduced as Dr. Mitch Graveline. Apparently it was necessary to certify the body one hundred percent unlikely to rise again like Lazarus. Later, one of the town’s part-time coroners would conduct a post-mortem Helen Keller could have deciphered, given the head wound and the nearby stick.

Steve toured the room, pushing back a shock of thick black hair from his face, its coppery complexion highlighting a proud Ojibwa heritage. He glanced back over his shoulder. “We usually send the nearest patrol car to secure the scene. I pulled rank to take the call. Did you touch anything?”

“Did I what? Haven’t you told me a hundred times about people corrupting a crime scene?” She marshalled consonants in the rolling wake of the liquor. All able-bodied vowels could fend for themselves.

His six-six frame leaned toward her, and he narrowed his dark eyes as he gave an educated sniff. “Are you drunk?”

She waved off the accusation in cavalier fashion. “So I borrowed some of the sherry. And it was the sommelier’s choice for an impromptu wake. Check my prints and file them for future reference. Better scrape up some DNA, too, or however they collect the stuff.”

Zeroing in on the empty bottle at her side, he frowned like a principal preparing to issue a detention, then spoke firmly. “I won’t tell you to calm down, because if you get any calmer, you’ll pass out.”

“I came, I saw, I took her pulse and headed for happy hour.” Scattered thoughts outraced her manners. Following routine, Steve made her repeat the narrative. How many times would she have to tell this ugly story?

“Her pulse, right,” he said. Meanwhile Dr. Graveline, the invisible man, pulled on plastic gloves for the examination. She had been unaware he had remained in the room, so quiet and efficient were his movements.

“She might have fainted. I didn’t notice her stick at first,” Belle said, feeling foolish as she pointed to the end table.

“Hers, eh? Bag that when the doctor’s finished,” he said, with a motion to an officer hovering with an evidence kit. “What’s the wound like, Mitch? Could it have been a fall?”

“Trauma to the back of the head.” Gingerly the physician examined the stick, its knob darkened. “Let’s see now.”

One corner of Steve’s mouth rose. “The traditional blunt instrument?”

Graveline retrieved a giant magnifying glass and rotated the stick under a table lamp, examining the grain. “I’d say so. Oak’s a tough wood. Won’t split like pine. There’s minimal damage to the skull and little bleeding. We’ll know more later, but one solid crack in the right place would have done the job.”

“Only one?” Belle asked with blurry astonishment. “I know she was old, but wouldn’t the blow have to be pretty lucky? Or rather, unlucky?”

The doctor scribbled into his notebook and gazed up with the innocent liquid eyes of a Jersey calf. “Tell you a story made the rounds in Medical School. Seems that a band was playing ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ when a trombone player got so carried away with Dixieland spirit that he rammed his slide into a trumpet player’s head. Smack into the most vulnerable spot behind the ear. One more saint joined the chorus.”

“Murder by ragtime,” Belle said with a thin smile.

Steve cleared his throat pointedly. “How long ago?”

Sheltered partially by a wing chair, Graveline removed a thermometer he had placed unseen. Then he tested the flex of the joints. “Rigor is a temperaturmental creature, pardon the pun. So many variables. On average, it’s well underway after twelve hours. Offhand I’d say sometime last night, if no elves fiddled with the furnace or turned on an air conditioner. And with the consistent lividity, I think we can conclude that the body wasn’t moved.”

The atmosphere turned from laboratory to kindergarten when a stocky young woman clumped in, chewing like a mad cow. “No broken glass, forced locks. Nothing out of place outside. Doesn’t look like no robbery.” She blew an enormous bubble. “Those mutts are stupid. Could care less who runs around.”

Steve flashed her a punishing look. “That’s all, Officer. Check the grounds and make your report. First thing in the morning on my desk.”

Hoping that the bubble would splatter all over her ungrammatical and vacuous lips, Belle glared at her without effect. A woman was dead, for God’s sake. Then a bark sounded from the yard. She stood with the hint of a totter, the perennial animal lover. “The dogs are probably hungry. Missed a couple of meals. May I give them some food, Steve? I doubt if their prints will be a factor.”

At his nod, she left to rummage in the kitchen’s obvious places, locating a large bag of kibble, but when she took their bowls to the porch, they turned their heads away, same as Freya would react under serious stress.

Steve tapped his watch and flipped through notes as she returned to the couch. “All right. Dinner’s over. And mine’s getting colder somewhere between here and town. So much for a quiet Sunday afternoon shift. Let’s start at the beginning.”

Belle began with the bear-baiting, the campaign to foil the hunters, her innocuous day, ending with the sherry overdose turning her mouth into a sugary cesspool.

“Get serious. Are you saying that she caught someone in the act? And if so, why come back here? More logical that with all the attention they would simply have packed up and found a more remote spot.” Suddenly Steve rose from the couch and moved around Graveline to look at Anni’s shoes.

“Moccasins. But household ones. No sign of outside wear. So we’re clear there. She wasn’t marched back at gunpoint.” He raised a coal-black, expressive eyebrow. “What exactly did the woman do? Did she damage any vehicles like she threatened?”

“She said that she had torn the place down. I don’t know about any other sabotage. It’s been a while since we talked.” A picture of Anni on a mission impossible flashed through her mind. “She’d have told me. We had a kind of compact, a stew . . . ardship.” Sobering fast, she thought, flexing her vocabulary.

“A dangerous one. Playing Rambo. Could have made big trouble.”

Belle bristled, her eyes beginning to refocus. “So she was furious. You would be, too, if you were worried about pot shots at you or your family.” Yet “furious” was the wrong word, she thought. Anni was far too methodical and organized. For her, revenge would be a dish best eaten cold.

“OK, I get the point. But what else do we have? Nothing seems to have been taken. Break-ins are common, except that in cottage country, robbers don’t arrive when people are home. Most places are isolated enough for them to wait until the owners are away.” He paused. “Change the channel. Who might want her dead? This house on the lake is expensive property. And whose van is that, anyway? Don’t tell me she drove that monster?”

“Hold on. My head is hurting. One question at a time. The new van doesn’t fit, Steve, because all I’ve seen is a tubercular Geo that could hardly make the big hill. Small pensions. As a realtor, I’d estimate that this place is probably her best asset. Just a guess, though. She didn’t flash bank statements. Anni was a private lady.”

He gestured like an irritated director speeding the pace. “What about relatives?”

“She’s a widow, no children, but there is a nephew. Zack Meredith, a local man.”

“And what’s our nephew like?”

She pointed at the picture on the mantel. College graduation maybe. Short dark hair with a glint of fashionable styling gel. An open face. Boyish more than handsome. “That’s the fellow. I’ve never met him, but she described him as a wannabe entrepreneur. Hare-brained plans that he’s always urging her to bankroll. She was worried about that last time we talked.”

Steve’s scribbling speed increased with this disclosure, making her uncomfortable. “It’s not as bad as that. He gave her a lot of help with chores, and I know she loved him. Still, if nothing turns up, he’s your number one suspect. Cui bono?”

“Stop showing off. We’ll see who’s Mr. Bono when we find out if she left a will, which, at a conservative guess, she probably did. If we don’t find it here, we’ll contact the local law firms. She’s not new to the area, is she?”

Given Graveline’s smooth movements and her own bleary concentration, Belle had almost forgotten that a body lay nearby. Suddenly the back door opened and slammed, and figures moved into the room, rolling a gurney. Even though the attendants performed with surprising grace and dignity, Belle hit nine out of ten on the screaming mimi scale as a still, sheeted form was placed on a stretcher. I’m on the nerge of a vervous breakdown, she told herself.

Then they were alone again, after what seemed like a hideous dream. She swallowed hard and forced her gaze back to Steve. “I think she and her husband had lived here twenty, twenty-five years. Built the place themselves.” She looked around sadly, then closed her eyes, felt the breeze through the screens and heard a gentle lap of waves from the shore. “And she was so independent, Steve. This is no place for bingo lovers, mall hoppers, or people who expect fresh cream for their coffee the morning after two feet of snow.”

“She must have been a tough character. Know anything about her friends?”

Belle considered her words carefully, her mouth dry and sour. “I guess you’d call me her friend. In connection with our love for the woods. She didn’t seem to socialize out here. Did a lot of volunteer work at the Canadian Blood Services, though.” Her fidgeting hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They looked older, more wrinkled. She pressed them together as if in prayer, blinking the sting from her eyes. “I’ll miss her.”

Steve stood up. “This one’s going to be trouble if the nephew has an alibi. No sign of forced entry or any violence other than stick meeting head.” He paused as she gave him a disgusted look. “Sorry about that. Missed lunch and you know me. Anyway, we’ll be checking her records, financial statements, whatever might provide a lead. For one thing, I’d like to know who owns that van, if she doesn’t. And where’s her car?”

Outside, the smell of the roses had become cloying, funereal. Belle fought the urge to drive home at top speed and jump into a bath of purifying water, sloughing off every horrid detail, growing a new skin. Wordlessly, she passed Steve the strawberries she had retrieved. It would be a long time before she enjoyed them again. Their sun-drenched redolence would remind her of the sight of blood. Steve popped a handful into his mouth, tucked the rest into the white patrol car, then pointed down the road to a hollow where a small path began. “Before you leave, tell me something. Is that the trail that leads to the baiting site?”

“Yes, about half an hour in. But everything’s gone. Torn down and buried, remember?”

“These hunters sound like a wild card, but I might as well take a look now as later.” He thumped her back. “Sober enough to travel?”

Belle paused at the water tap at the side of the house and took a long drink. Then she filled her lungs with forest air, its piney coolness clearing her head. “I’ll be five hundred yards ahead of those black cop shoes, Mr. Spitshine.” She took off at a trot, glad to run off the sherry.

At the quick march, the half-hour dropped to twenty minutes. The sun had fallen below the hills, casting eerie shadows across the trail. Belle stepped lightly on the peaty turf, spongy and kind to the feet except for an occasional rock or root. Something fragrant was in the air, Labrador tea, perhaps.

But the wind shifted ominously, bringing a large order of carrion. As they passed the familiar carpet of trilliums now tinged with brown, Belle had a sinking feeling that Anni’s plan hadn’t worked after all. Nothing could have erased that aromatic picnic from the bruins’ primal memory bank. Bait was bait, the smellier the better. At the base of a striped maple lay a large black mound next to a small hump of fur. Steve covered his face with a handkerchief and waved Belle away. She sat glumly on a cedar stump, contemplating a parade of ants and gulping against returning nausea. “Let’s go,” he said a minute later, wiping his hands with distaste. “I’ve seen enough. That was a mother and this year’s cub. Half Freya’s size.”

“Mutilated?”

“Animals have been at them, maybe even other bears, but they’ve been cut open . . . and the paws are gone.” With a groan, he pocketed the handkerchief. “Hunting was part of life for my family on the Reserve. No fancy grocery stores in the back of beyond. Not even a town. We depended on wild game. But it was a partnership, a pact of respect. Leaving meat to rot would have been a crime.”

Belle coughed into her sleeve, breathing through her mouth. “It’s profit, Steve. Bear gallbladders are valuable. Why don’t you talk to the MNR about any similar reports. A car or truck might have been seen in another area.”

“This could fit the time if she caught them in the act, but we’ve been over that. Remember that she went home of her own accord,” he said as they walked, warm with sweat. “We still don’t know if she damaged a car or truck. Maybe they saw her near their vehicle or knew she walked the paths. Put two and two together and followed her.”

Belle shrugged. “A pitiful motive for murder. And why her stick? Wouldn’t they have had weapons? A shotgun or rifle?”

“Maybe they tried to scare her, and it got out of hand.” He brushed his ears and neck against the mosquitos swarming in the dusk. “Anyway, I’ll get the boys to hunt for tire tracks, although it’s probably useless with the dust and traffic. One other thing, Belle.”

Frustrated and ready for the soft womb of her waterbed, she couldn’t keep irritation from her answer. It was more like a whine. “I hate that. It’s so classic Columbo.”

“Where were you last night?” He touched her shoulder like a concerned brother. “Don’t take offense. I have to ask.”

She rubbed her eyes, then raised her hands in submission. “No alibi unless the dog will talk. I was home for dinner at six. Read a couple of magazines. In bed by ten. Am I going to hang?”

“Canada hasn’t hanged anyone since 1962. The end of capital punishment in fact, if not in law. And don’t worry. Only the guilty have air-tight alibis.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“Oh, and I need your prints for elimination.” He stepped back at her exasperated look. “No need to come downtown. I keep a kit in the car. Handiwipes, too.”

To save the dogs from the upset of a kennel, Belle persuaded Steve to let her take them until Zack was contacted. Later, cleaned and minimally fed, she sat on her deck in the darkness. A barred owl called from its perch to remind her that some predators earned an honest living.