Plots

by Sky Curtis

  She was jiggling her arms. Nervous. “I couldn’t find the air horn.”

  “Sorry, we keep it over the sink so you can grab it on the way out.” Most of the time. Now that I had stopped daydreaming, I felt like I was moving underwater.

  “It wasn’t there.” She turned on her heal and went back inside.

  I remembered I had left it on the sideboard. “Sorry,” I called to her back, “I didn’t put it back after our walk.”

  Perhaps that’s why Ralph had gone into the woods without one. I was so stupid. That could have cost Ralph his life. My heart skipped a beat. But he was fine. There he was, standing in front of me, a lopsided grin on his face. I saw him through crinkly plastic wrap. What was going on with my eyes?

  Ralph said, “If I hadn’t seen the tooth marks in the garbage can, I would say it never happened.”

  I pulled myself together and laughed. “You think I’m a liar?”

  “Oh, God no. You’re as straight as a die.”

  If only he knew.

  “Cindy and I are heading into town to check out the planning department and the ownership of the land next to ours. Large tracts of land being divided into small plots is a new trend. I want to make sure it isn’t Crown land and to ascertain if Darlene was murdered because of her job.” His head tilted. He didn’t believe me. Thank heavens he let it pass. I had to admit it was pretty far-fetched. But not really. People became very passionate about protecting land. Ursula Major in particular. And even Dick Worthington. But I let it go. “What do you want for dinner? We can pick something up. We don’t have to have Cindy’s pasta recipe.”

  “Well, pasta is so heavy. And I think we should forget using the barbie outside. Too buggy. I don’t want that bear to come back because of the enticing smells. Let’s have something simple, like a roast-up. Chicken, zucchini, potatoes, and bang it in the oven. I can do it.”

  One thing about Ralph, he always pitched in. I put a mark on the plus side. “That’s nice of you. It will give me time to work on the information I get in town today.”

  “Oh, and after you go by the police station to hand in that phone, would you mind picking me up some beer? I think we still have lots of wine.”

  I stared at him blankly. He knew?

  “What? You think I didn’t know? You told me you’d been to visit Darlene’s parents and then the next thing I know you’re futzing around with a phone, pretending it was Cindy’s. It had interesting stuff on it, so I figured it had to do with Darlene. In fact, it’s Darlene’s phone. Isn’t it?”

  I whispered, “Yes.” This was terrible. Straight as a die? I could have died on the spot.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a federal case out of you stealing evidence.”

  “You’re not?” I couldn’t make my voice any louder than a squeak. I had been caught lying.

  “No. I figure you couldn’t get it into Kowalchuk until later today in any event, what with everything happening around here. Bears. Garbage cans.” He swept his arm around him to prove his point. “I would have to say that you were very diligent, getting it to him as fast as you could.”

  “Thank you.” Oh my God, had I ever dodged a bullet. Sort of.

  “On the other hand, I don’t like being lied to. I’m a cop, Robin. I can tell when someone is lying. Their face always gives it away. Don’t do that again.”

  That was it? Don’t do that again? “I’m so sorry, Ralph.” I felt close to tears. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I am always so honest.”

  “You still are. It eats you up to lie. I can smell the guilt. Sometimes, crime reporters have to be devious, and you certainly have been that, but in your personal life, no, you’re honest. I’m just saying, be honest with me. This phone business? It’s over. Let’s move on.”

  “That’s very generous of you.”

  “So, tell me. What’s on the phone?”

  I could have said “nothing,” but he’d find out soon enough. Also, he’d know I was lying and I couldn’t do that anymore. “There was a threatening comment on her Facebook page from an environmental animal rights group. Ursula something.” I thought for a moment and tried to visualize her page. My mind was fried. More like pickled. “Ursula Major. Militant. You know, the type. Plus, Sparling had said on the stand that he hadn’t had a relationship with Darlene outside of the theatre, but there are dozens of emails between the two of them, setting up places to meet and ah, you know, do the dirty. And her mother’s emails to her made it clear that she had been abused in the family and perhaps bullied into starting a criminal action against Sparling.”

  “Really? All that paints quite a different picture about her death. So, as far as motive goes for someone to kill her, we now have three. There’s a plot against plots, and two other possible plots. Ursula Major. Sparling. And a family member. I wonder why the police didn’t figure this out.” He paused and thought. “Maybe she didn’t have a computer and did everything from her phone. Maybe it looked so obvious that she was randomly killed by a bear that they haven’t bothered to pursue other possibilities.”

  “Here, let’s go inside. I have to get my wallet.” I said, as I opened the screen door. Cindy was in the kitchen, pretending to be tidying up. Eavesdropping. “There was no computer in her bedroom. And I know lots of people who do everything on their phone. Emails, banking, Facebook, searches. So that wouldn’t be unusual,” I said. “But, then there’s Worthington,” I added. “He pretty much said he’d kill anyone who meddled with his hunting ground.

  Cindy piped up, “I don’t have a home computer,” picking up on the earlier part of our conversation. “I work on one at the office, but as for my personal life, everything is done on my phone.”

  “There, see?” I said. “But wait a minute. Cindy, you said ‘personal’ and that’s reminded me that her mom said she had two phones. A personal one and a work one. Besides, the local police wouldn’t think to check Sparling’s sent emails on his computer because that sexual assault case was months ago and he was found innocent in Toronto, miles from Huntsville.”

  “Well, at least you’d think they’d check her Facebook page. If they’d done that, they’d have seen the threats from Ursula Major,” said Ralph.

  “Let me check something.” Cindy took Darlene’s phone out of her pocket and tapped on the Facebook icon. “They would never have found her page. It’s not under her name. See?” She stuck the phone under Ralph’s nose. “She’s called Darland.”

  Ralph nodded. “Well, that explains that. But still, the local force should have searched her room more carefully. They should have found the phone. Where was it?”

  To us it was such an obvious hidey-hole. Cindy snorted, “Up an ass.”

  Ralph took her tone as an up yours insult to him. “No, where was it?”

  I intervened. “It was in a teddy bear that had a pouch in its bottom where you could hide things.”

  Ralph’s face screwed up, trying to picture a stuffed bear with this anatomy. “I doubt I would have looked there either.”

  “It’s was a thing from decades ago; there were a bunch of stuffed animals you could buy that had pouches built in for pyjamas and other things,” I said.

  “I guess that sort of excuses the locals. Not many people would have guessed to look there.” He shook his head as if to clear his mind. “Well, girls, have a good time in town. Don’t forget the beer.” He walked back outside, letting the door slam behind him. Cindy and I both jumped. He turned and laughed. “I like the sound of a screen door slamming. It reminds me of my childhood.”

  Cindy and I walked towards my beat-up, rusted-out red Sentra. I called over my shoulder, “Take care of Lucky. Don’t let her out.”

  Cindy shouted, “And I’m not a girl, little laddie, I’m a grown woman.” Then she grunted at me. “I wish he’d stop calling grown women ‘girls.’”

  “He’s doing
it to bug you, Cindy. If you stop reacting, he’ll stop doing it.”

  “Oh, and women get raped because of what they wear? He should stop doing it. I’m going to react every time. It isn’t a game, you know. Men need to smarten up.”

  I put my hand on the chrome handle and paused. Should I say anything? Should I get into this? Or should I quietly get into the car? I got in.

  Cindy reached for the door handle from her seat and tried to slam the door but it only creaked shut with a soft click. I did my best not to laugh and jab into her already edgy mood. The door had been askew on its hinges ever since Calvin, my oldest boy, had swung on it years ago. She crossed her arms with great deliberation instead. And stared at me.

  Okay, I would get into it. “If you fight fire with fire, Cindy, you only get a great big fire. That isn’t the way to create world peace.”

  “I’m not talking about world fucking peace. I’m talking about men using diminutive names for women. Calling them ‘girls.’” She snapped her head forward.

  “If you ignore him, he will figure it out. If you keep fighting him, you put that negative energy into the universe and feed bad karma. Try it. Ignore him and see what happens.”

  “I’m not going to ignore it. I have a voice and I’m going to use it.”

  “Okay, do it your way. See if it changes him.”

  “You and your damn Buddhism.”

  I laughed. “Where do you want to go first, the police station or the Town Hall?”

  “I think the Town Hall. It’s getting late and they might close at four or four-thirty. The police station never closes.”

  “You still got the phone?” I’d lost track of it.

  Cindy patted her breast pocket. “It’s right here, close to my heart.”

  “I can’t believe that Ralph knew about the phone all along.”

  Cindy said grudgingly, “He is a cop.”

  “Yeah, but still. I didn’t think he was that smart.”

  “He’s very smart, Robin. You’re looking for reasons to ditch him. You’re nervous of getting too committed. You can’t accept that someone really likes you.””

  As I drove along the dirt road, skirting muddy potholes and feeling the wheels slip here and there on sodden leaves, I thought about what she had said. Was I just merely nervous about taking the next step up in our relationship, or was the relationship in trouble?

  “You might be right.”

  “I’m always right.”

  “Sure you are.”

  The car bumbled along the paved road into town while we sat in companionable silence. I yanked the wheel into a parking space behind Huntsville’s Town Hall and we walked toward the very shiny and very tall glass doors. Cindy seemed so confident. Me? I felt like the unfortunate sidekick. But it was my story and I was going to chase down all the facts. I stood up to my full height, picked up my pace, and cruised through the doors ahead of her. My eyes quickly scanned down a list of the various offices, their names engraved on removeable black nameplates that were screwed onto an official-looking board. The Planning Department was on the third floor. I trudged up the stairwell, Cindy following me.

  “They should have an elevator,” she gasped. “It’s a government building and they need to have complete access for everyone.”

  “They do have an elevator. But we’re taking the stairs. It’s way better for your health and therefore your outlook on life.”

  “Fucking Buddhism,” she panted.

  Finally, we stood in front of a fake wood counter. Behind a Plexiglas barrier sat a young woman of about twenty-five with blonde hair tightly pulled back into a ponytail. She was adding up a column of figures. Pinned to the lapel of her khaki blazer was a silver name tag with blue lettering. Elisa Lizette. I briefly wondered why Elisa was behind a Plexiglas wall. What was there to steal from a planning department? I imagined a robber sticking a gun through the little slot for paperwork at the bottom of the barrier, saying, “I have no future. Give me some plans or I’ll shoot.”

  I spoke into the circle of little holes that had been drilled into the protective plastic glass. The holes hadn’t been neatly done with a sharp drill and had small fibres around the edges.

  “Hi, my name is Robin MacFarland. I would like to know who owns the land beside my family’s property on Peninsula Lake.”

  Elisa stood up and straightened out her pencil skirt, smoothing the creases over her flat belly and trim thighs. I did my best not to hate her. She leaned over her desk to the furry holes and spoke loudly. Did I look old enough to have lost my hearing? “I’m going to go into the back room to look it up on the computer there. You wouldn’t happen to know your lot number would you? Or your district?”

  “No,” I spoke just as loudly. I love sarcasm. “Sorry, I don’t.”

  “No one does, don’t worry. Your name’s MacFarland?”

  “Yes, Robin MacFarland.”

  “How do you spell that?”

  I patiently spelled out my name and she leaned over her desk, exposing magnificent cleavage, while she wrote it carefully on a scrap of paper. I heard Cindy’s sharp intake of breath behind me. Elisa scooped up the paper and waved it cheerily in the air. “It’ll only take a sec. I’ll go look it up.”

  As soon as she was out of earshot Cindy muttered, “I’d like to look her up.”

  “But what about Andrechuk?” I whispered out of the side of my mouth.

  “I’m too old for Andrechuk.”

  “Sh-h-h. Here she comes.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  God.

  “So,” Elisa chirped, “it was owned by a numbered company based in Toronto, and now it’s owned by a new numbered company, based in Huntsville. Sorry, that’s all the detail I can give you.”

  Fucking privacy laws. “It isn’t Crown land, then.”

  “No, there isn’t a lot of Crown land around here. You have to go further north for that. You are the third person to ask about this property in the past little while.”

  Interesting. “Can you tell me who else was asking?” I guessed one was Andrew.

  “No. Confidentiality issues and all that.” Elisa was trying to structure her face to look authoritative. She had almost pulled it off when it conked out from the effort. “But one guy? OMG, so handsome.”

  Who was it? Certainly not Andrew, who looked like a chipmunk. Then I remembered what Andrew had said that Sunday dinner at my house. If Sparling was Andrew’s theatre friend, he was probably the one who had told Andrew the land had been sold to a developer. It was probably Sparling. “How long ago did he ask?”

  “I guess I can tell you that. Let me check.” She walked away into the back room.

  “Nice little wiggle on her too.”

  “Give it a rest.”

  Elisa jiggled back. She was vying to be a future Shirley Payne. “After Easter weekend. Late April.” She wasn’t going to give an exact date. And then, as if to make up for her pigheadedness in following the rules, she offered, “He actually wanted to know about all properties near yours that were going to be divided up.” Her mouth snapped shut. She’d said too much.

  “A few weeks ago, then. About a month,” I said. I did a calculation. This was right before Darlene went missing. What was he up to? He was rich. Maybe he wanted to invest in local property? What did all this mean?

  Cindy modulated her voice. “And when was it sold?”

  “I’ll check.” This time her flounce into the back room was a little less enthusiastic.

  Cindy watched carefully. “Naw, she’s not for me.”

  “She’s way too young for you anyway, Cindy. She’s half your age.”

  “Just having a little fun.”

  Elisa shimmied up to the desk. “It was actually sold almost a year ago. Before last summer.”

  Really? That was news to me.

 
Elisa sat down. She wasn’t going to answer any more questions. She tapped her pencil on her column of figures. We’d worn out our welcome. But I had one more. “And the surveyor, Darlene Gibson? When did she start surveying the property?”

  Elisa’s eyes widened as she looked up, her pupils pulsating. “I’m not allowed to talk about her. Anyway, she wasn’t a full-blown surveyor. She was an assistant. Measuring right of ways and stuff like that. She only measured stuff. She stopped showing up for work. Just like that! Her work phone and computer and bear spray? Gone.” She snapped her fingers in the air.

  The news hadn’t got around.

  I pretended astonishment and imitated her, adding a question mark. “Just like that?” I snapped my fingers.

  “Yes, poof. She was here one Friday evening, handing in her clipboard and tape measure, and never showed up the following Monday. She’d been out checking that the new builds were fifteen metres from the water’s edge. She was really good at measuring. People try to cheat, you know. This was like the beginning of May sometime. Maybe the end of April. So, we got a new assistant surveyor.”

  “The office didn’t report her missing?”

  “Why would we?” Elisa’s eyes grew wide. “She went missing on the weekend. It had nothing to do with us. Unless it was overtime. Maybe she was working overtime. I doubt it though. Cut-backs. Anyway, I have to get back to work here.” She squiggled on her chair.

  Cindy and I said nothing as we clomped down the stairs in our hiking shoes and exited through the very tall and very heavy glass doors. Once we were in the car I said, “Well, that narrows it down. At least we have a bit of a time frame now. Late April, early May. Not that long ago. Right when the bears are good and hungry. On a weekend. But what was she doing with a clipboard?”

  Cindy did up her seatbelt. “Measuring. Let’s get that phone in.”

  The car coughed as I started it. “No. It doesn’t make sense. She wasn’t at work taking measurements, yet she had a clipboard. But Elisa said she’d handed hers in. What’s going on here? Did she go back to get it?” I pulled out of the parking lot and headed over to Huntsville’s cop shop.