Читать книгу Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle - Lou Allin - Страница 6

Someone’s gone down!” Belle cried, braking at the shoreline. A round pool of new ice, a lake within a lake, had formed in the older snow cover. A sled had travelled perhaps forty feet before breaking through and left only the pale blue hand locked into the new surface.

“Looks like he never even swam for it. Jesus, poor bastard,” Ed said, testing the edge with his boots and shielding his eyes against the glare. “See anything?”

“A flash of red just below. That fresh ice is a couple of inches thick already, but I’m not walking out on it. Too deep to spot anything else. We’ll have to go back for help. The police will bring a diver. And they’ll need an axe.”

They drove back quickly, pushing into the lodge as a surprised family of four lowered forks from their spaghetti. Belle called toward the kitchen. “There’s someone broken through about a half hour north.” She chose not to mention the hand.

“I’d better get Ben ready,” said Meg, a small line worrying her forehead as she gave a huge iron pot a stir. “You don’t think . . .” she murmured as she rushed out in search of her husband, leaving her coat hanging on the rack.

Since the area was well outside the city’s jurisdiction, Belle used the radio-phone to call the Ontario Provincial Police, then stood by helplessly while Ben packed his gear and rounded up some sleds, speaking softly to his wife as he gave her a hug. “I know what’s on your mind, and you can stop it right now.”

“But where is he? He’s always back way early for Sunday dinner. And the storm’s long over. Been clear since morning.”

“It’s the boozers and daredevils have the accidents. Jim knows how to handle himself in the bush. Maybe he had some problems with his research, Meg. Or worked extra hard for those exams,” Ben said as he lifted the cover from his largest machine, packed the rescue gear and, with an efficiency born of second nature, attached a fibreglass cargo toboggan.

Belle rubbed at her numb ears in the rising wind. “The O.P.P. said to wait until they arrived with the air ambulance. The plan is to leave the helicopter here where there’s plenty of space. That swamp lake is too dense with bush. I told them that we hadn’t touched anything at the site, not that there was anything to see.” Only one thing, she thought with a shudder.

While they warmed up on coffee, the drone of the rotors filled the still air; sound from above travelled far in winter with the dampening effect of the snow and the bare trees. A short man, whose confident bearing added a mental foot, climbed down and walked over, two constables on his heels. “I’m Al Morantz. I understand that a body was found. What can you tell me about the site?”

Belle made the introductions. “Ed and I found the lake following a trail not too far from here. Probably doesn’t even have a name, a little swamp like that. Track goes to the edge, and the rest is a refrozen hole.”

Morantz looked around. “We’re short on personnel, or I would have had our machines meet us here. I understand from what you said on the phone, Miss Palmer, that we can use the lodge’s.”

“Thought of that,” Ben said and gave the officers two sets of keys as he pointed toward the shed. One of them retrieved his diving gear from the helicopter.

Meg appeared in a patched-up snowmobile suit, carrying a thermos of coffee. “No arguments, Pop. I’m going with you.”

A barely perceptible frown from Belle with her lips framing a “no” got through to Ben. “Don’t think you should, Ma. You might be in these folks’ way.”

Arms folded, Meg got onto the two-up seat in stubborn silence, while Al and his men started the lodge’s other machines. Driving in cortège, unsmiling and heedless of the packs of laughing drivers on the trail, they reached the lake and cut their motors. Before anyone had time to react, Meg ran to the shore, her agonized voice breaking the sudden stillness. “My God. Oh, my God in heaven. That hand.” While the diver stripped to his wet suit, she inched forward on the dark surface of the new ice, her eyes exploring the shadowy grave until she slumped over in a sob, hugging her knees. “The little patch of red down there. That’s the scarf his grandmother knitted him for Christmas. I know it is,” she said, trembling as if she had aged a hundred years.

To the collective chill of the onlookers, the diver wielded an axe to break the surface. Tossing it back on to the shore, he disappeared with a stoic shake of his shoulders into the murky water, bubbles rising in his wake. His face around the mask was exposed, and the pain was evident on the second surfacing. “Can’t see too well. Could be ten feet to the bottom. One arm of the coat is hung up on a branch. Guess that pushed the mitt off.”

No one spoke. Finally, with the help of several officers, he hauled the body to the shore, bulky and sodden in the heavy suit and boots. Ben waved the men aside and unstrapped the helmet. It was Jim, or his pale double, a light slate cast to the features, sandy hair freezing brittle in the wind and jade eyes dulled by a final curtain. Ben knelt as if in prayer, his shoulders shaking, as he gently brushed the boy’s forehead. “What in the name of Christ were you doing out here?” he whispered.

Belle turned away, leaning against the solidity of a huge pine for support as Ben rocked the boy back and forth, and the rest of the group fell silent. “He’s cold. He’s so cold, Meg.”

His wife spoke slowly and deliberately, her voice struggling for control, wiping her tears away with the rough nylon of her suit. “No. No. No.” A litany of pain in a single syllable. “Jim never would have come to a place like this alone.”

Morantz waited a few moments before taking the Burians aside so that the rescue team could prepare the body for transport. The couple held each other, Ben shielding his wife’s face. With some firm and steady pressure on the stiffening limbs, the team arranged the body on the toboggan with dignity. Another man winched the small Ovation to shore, weeds and muck hanging from its handlebars. Attached neatly to the rear carrier with a shock cord was his duffel bag. Like a slate wiped clean, the lake began freezing again, guarding its secrets as tightly as the earth itself. Belle glanced around, any possible evidence trampled to mush by the footprints and machine tracks of the rescue effort.

“What happens now?” she asked Morantz.

Morantz tried to write a note on a small pad, then exchanged the pen for a no-fail pencil. “Just like an auto accident. First we’ll get him back to the hospital for an autopsy. Check for alcohol and drugs. Go through that gear on the sled. Get his medical records and rule out heart attack or seizures.” He paused. “But, Miss, I want to be clear about one point. You did say that his was the only track? No sign of another person?”

She gestured uselessly as if in violent denial of the facts. “One track straight to the lake. No sign of turning around, no other sled. But what in heaven was he doing here in the storm? Could he have been documenting an old trapper’s trail when it hit? Or taken a wrong turn trying to get home?” Belle asked, though experience told her otherwise.

“The storm was a bad one.” Morantz shrugged and closed his notebook. His conclusion was obvious; without other evidence, this tragedy was just another fatal human error, another statistic for the bean counters. The last frame in a shattered film script saw Meg tucking her scarf around Jim’s neck as if saying a loving goodnight, Ben standing stiffly aside, Jim’s helmet dangling from his hand. And then the convoy, a northern funeral procession, headed back to the lodge as a jay screamed through the diamond-chipped air.

Belle gestured to Ed, and they set off in silence. As they parted later in front of his house, he asked, “Come in for a drink? Maybe it might do you good to talk to Hélène. Her car’s back.”

“Talk? Talk about what, Ed? You were there, weren’t you? Jim’s dead. There’s no resurrection.” She saw his face sag, and instantly she regretted her brusqueness. “Sorry to be rude. I just lost a good friend and at my age, I can’t spare any. What just doesn’t make sense is what he was doing there.”

“Well, we took the trail to check it out. Why not him?”

“Maybe, but when? I suppose the time of death might give us a clue. God knows how rigor mortis works in those icy conditions. Anyway, take care of yourself. Hélène, too.” She slapped his arm with her glove and drove off.

Only as she opened her own front door and tripped over her briefcase did she remember that she had an appointment in town.

Evening work was a negative reality of her job, but that night the distraction was welcome. She had scheduled a preliminary visit to a newly divorced woman in Chelmsford who wanted to move home to her parents in Val D’Or.

Belle left the house in a charcoal wool pantsuit and white turtleneck under her parka. Pulled over her ears was an incongruous blue and red Norwegian soft felt hat, which used to prompt cries of “Smurf!” from rude children. Clutching her briefcase, a newspaper and a thermos of Bavarian Dutch Chocolate coffee, she tested the van doors. Frozen again! Third time this week. Belle swore softly and began the usual procedure with her de-icer spray. If that didn’t work, Plan Two involved her hair drier and a series of lively expletives.

She finally broke in, only to find the power antenna had seized. Nothing but static on the radio. Belle grabbed a tape of her favourite musicals and tucked it into her bra with an “eeeek”. Twenty minutes of body heat would thaw it enough to play. Whoever said that women’s liberation began in the seventies hadn’t listened to the grand old babes of the sixties, Lucille Ball in Wildcat, Tammy Grimes in The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Roz Russell in Wonderful Town. Those tough ladies made their own rules, and men loved them for it.

Edgewater Road was a winding, hilly six-mile run, which passed the Santanens’ at the final turn to the main highway. Derek Santanen had served eight months in the Sudbury Jail for drug dealing. His parents’ tiny place clung like a limpet to a narrow strip of land. It was built long before the road arrived, when camps were accessible only by boat or snowmobile. At well over three hundred pounds, Derek often turned to crime for its easy profits. Belle suspected that he favoured the house for its remoteness and for the many hidey holes for his stash. On one occasion, a police search had the cottagers lining the road and passing around pop and chips, while police divers explored his waterline fifty feet off shore to discover prime Acapulco gold in watertight containers. Derek Santanen might make a good starting point for any inquiries about the area drug trade.

Just before eight she arrived in Chelmsford, a quaint, predominantly French town. The glorious church and its spire anchored the village with the infinite grace of bygone centuries, every pink granite stone carted lovingly from the surrounding hills and carved by local masons. It might have stood in the Quebec townships. An ominous growl from the midriff reminded Belle that she hadn’t eaten since lunch. She stopped at a small grill and stationed herself at the counter behind a blonde girl barely eighteen and dressed in the same size. The girl’s eyes widened as Belle lip-read the menu, sucked in her breath and mumbled, “Une moyenne poutine.” A brief pause, then her voice jumped an octave. “Non, une grande poutine, s’il vous plaît!”

“La même chose pour moi,” Belle added quickly. Growing up in Toronto had not been the place to learn colloquial French, and her fledgling vowels amused shopkeepers so much that she was glad when they smelled her accent and switched gears into English without missing a beat. She watched the waitress anoint the mounds of crispy fries with tender chunks of cheese curds swimming in gravy, the lifeblood of the North, especially in winter.

Belle ferried the steaming plate of sin to a table and opened the Northern Life to scout the offerings of her real estate competition. She knew every lake and cottage for sale within one hundred miles, and considering that the Regional Municipality counted over ninety named lakes within its boundaries, that was a feat in itself. Holy moley, another Ramsey Lake cottage lot was on offer, probably one of the last. Central to downtown, the largest city-contained lake in the world, only Ramsey’s most remote sections remained undeveloped. Water and sewer were on their way, which would jack up the lot price by thirty thousand. Might be worth it, though. “Lakefront,” Uncle Harold had growled philosophically, “they ain’t making any more.”

Lights were off at 2334 Brentwood, but Belle was early. Well-prepared for such cold delays, she sipped the aromatic coffee, started the engine every ten minutes and played tapes. Nashville was a favourite, its parodies of country songs so true-to-form that they passed for legitimate. “He’s Got a Tape deck in his Tractor” always made her grin. Belle had been drafting a song in memory of the better parts of her mother. After all, she told herself, there are only about one hundred words in country music, so why not mine? She tapped out the chorus:

Come on up to Mama’s table,

If you’re hungry or you’re cold,

If you’ve got too many mouths to feed

Or if you’re growing old.

She’ll shelter and she’ll feed you,

She’ll have a hug to greet you.

You’ll always feel real welcome

At my Mama’s kitchen door.

The pencil got a chew. Oops, “have a hug to greet you” should come before the “shelter” part. At this point, the tune didn’t concern her. Maybe a music student from Shield could compose the score.

Startled by the sudden lights of a car, Belle spilt the coffee on her coat. As usual, she had forgotten a napkin, so she dabbed at the liquid with a tampon from the glove compartment.

Out of a battered Escort struggled a woman trailing three small children, one of them bawling like a frustrated weanling. “You must be Ms. Palmer,” the woman shouted as Belle rolled down a window. “Sorry for the delay. I had to go to the lawyer’s in town, and then all the kids wanted hamburgers. Come in and make yourself comfortable. I’ll settle them in the rec room while we talk.” She hefted the screamer over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, cooing and patting it for good measure.

“Do you mind if I look around upstairs first, Mrs. Mainville?” Belle asked. “It might save us some time, and you look like you’ve had a tough day.” Nothing like womanly understanding.

“Call me Joan,” the woman answered with a smile as she hustled the kids down the basement stairs.

Conventional suburban living with a country advantage: three bedrooms, newish kitchen, dining room in name only, living room with a view overlooking a pasture. Big yard for children. Too bad someone had sparkle-plastered the living room ceiling and installed red shag carpet half-way up the wall. It suggested a planetarium designed by Hugh Hefner. After making notes, Belle joined her client downstairs where Barney was mumbling mindless platitudes as the kids giggled. Both women winced at the numbing chorus. “I hate it, too, but what can you do?” Joan said.

“Better than violence . . . or is it?” Belle replied. “All kiddie shows should carry a warning sign.”

Joan took her into the laundry room to point out with shy pride an amply-stocked cold cellar. “I’m a fool for canning,” she said. “Don’t know how I’m going to take all of this to Mom’s, though.” Here sat the winter wealth of resourceful Northerners, jars of pickled beans, carrots and beets, and the inevitable green tomato chow, an innovative answer to a short growing season. “Guess my neighbours might like them.” The spotless jars and shelves pleased Belle, since a clean place always showed better, and she found herself accepting a jar of chow. Amenable to suggestions about the value of neutral colours, Joan waved a cheerful goodbye. Somehow Belle couldn’t mention the crimson carpeted wall; maybe if the place didn’t sell quickly . . .

Back home, she noticed the blinking light on her answering machine. A female voice spoke softly but deliberately. “My name is Melanie Koslow, Miss Palmer. I was engaged to Jim. I need to talk to you about the accident . . . in person if you have time. My schedule’s pretty full with my nursing course, but I’m usually at Tim Horton’s on Regent Street before class every morning at eight. Just look for a red wizard hat and pile of books. If those times aren’t good for you, call me at 233-4566 at the Shield Nursing Residence.”

Abruptly, her mind returned to Jim, the hand in the frozen lake and the the accident that—just maybe—wasn’t.

Later, as the moon circled the house, Belle curled up with a book, trailing Dave Robichaux through the bordellos of sultry New Orleans. The book snapped shut at eleven, and Belle fingered the light switch. A churchgoer only as a child, she maintained a cautious belief in a personally-designed afterlife. Prayers were a convenient method to take stock of the day and remember old friends. No one had ever answered her calls, and, while this silence perturbed her at first, in the long run it was saner. A premonition about not getting on a certain plane to Buenos Aires was fine; constant suggestions and recriminations from the other world would be not only distracting but might send the listener to a madhouse. So she maintained a one-way conversation with Uncle Harold, her grandparents and her mother, imagining a host of patient advocates nodding and blessing her each night. “Help me take good care of the old man, Mother,” she asked, gazing up at a framed silhouette of someone her own age “and keep us safe from all harm.” Somehow she just couldn’t call on Jim. Not yet.