The Bear Mountain Secret

by Gayle Siebert

  “Sure,” Brent says; he gets to his feet and sidles around behind the chairs to the stairwell, stopping at the top, he looks back and asks, “anyone else?”

  “Nothing for me. I gotta get going,” Kevin says.

  “That’s enough beer for me, Brent,” Evan says. “How about bringing up a bottle of Courvoisier?”

  “For a small town guy, you sure got big city tastes, Briggs,” Brent responds. “That stuff ain’t cheap! It’ll go on your account.”

  “Not big city taste. Big money taste! Put it on my account, then. And bring glasses for everyone. Unlike the rest of you assholes, I’m not cheap. Maybe if you’d drink something other than Lucky for a change, you would acquire a little class.”

  “I like Lucky,” Preacher declares. “Besides, I want class, I drink Dos Equis!”

  “You got the beard, but it’ll take more than that to give you class, or make you interesting,” Kevin says, and everyone chuckles.

  As Brent thumps his way down the stairs to put in the drink order, Preacher calls after him, “More nachos! Or better yet, chicken wings! Or some of them dry ribs!”

  “Don’t you have your own restaurant?” Brent calls back. “Next meeting, you supply the food!”

  Bearon shakes his head, studying his plate as the bantering goes on around him. Sure, he’s a millionaire on paper, but in reality, he’s broke. Building his cabin, small as it is, nearly bankrupted him. Maybe he overspent on the Lodge. No matter. His barren bank account is a temporary inconvenience, to be solved when he gets the money from the will. He has no plans to share it with anyone, and he certainly doesn’t want it frozen while that woman’s claim works its way through the courts. Especially since the ruling would be in her favour. In truth, her showing up now is more than a minor inconvenience and he hasn’t yet worked out what to do about it.

  “The money train can’t start soon enough to suit me,” Preacher says, “as long as it’s under the table so Georgia can’t get her greedy fucking mitts on it.”

  “It’ll be so under the table even the rats can’t find it,” Bearon tells him. “For now, we got a Ceremony to plan.”

  Eleven

  Dot’s

  KATHY DRAWS A sharp breath and stirs in her chair. The hair on the back of her neck bristles with the feeling of being watched.

  She puts her book down on the bistro table and stands to have a look around. The only other people nearby are a young couple walking hand in hand toward the restaurant, and further off, a few people lounging under umbrellas or sunning themselves around the pool. A boy cannon balls off the diving board, prompting squeals from girls in the splash zone.

  She steps close to the block wall to look through one of the holes and sees nothing but forest. Of course there’s no one there, silly. Why would anyone be skulking in the bushes watching you read?

  She shouldn’t be spending time reading as if she’s on vacation but she needed a break to recharge her batteries, boost her enthusiasm, restore her energy or do something to get herself back on task. It seems as though she’s been on the run ever since she got to Dark River and her quest is looking more and more hopeless.

  There have been leads. The owner of the bowling alley turned out to be a Pakistani who immigrated less than thirty years ago. He said he picked a Canadian name when he got here because nobody could pronounce his Urdu name. A mechanic at Northern Transmission (too young). An elderly man in the Elm Street Senior’s Residence (he was an accountant for fifty years, did books for logging companies but no, he never worked in the bush and never heard of Pillerton although he went to Prince Albert once).

  She found an old list of Dark River residents and their phone numbers in the archives of the community newsletter, and has made dozens of phone calls to any listings with the initial H for their given name. Most numbers were out of service or now belong to others.

  Many people have told her about two guys, father and son, both named Hank. It was shocking, big shots who turned out to be serial killers. Both died in an explosion. She’d heard of them of course; unless you lived under a rock, you heard about them, but she hadn’t made the connection. At the time the news broke, a remote town in northern British Columbia called Dark River meant nothing to her. Still, she could kick herself for not realizing Hank is a common form of Henry like Bill for William, and included it in her online searches.

  Since hearing so much about those two Hanks, she’s found an abundance of information online: five year old newspaper reports from around the globe, often with photos. She breathed a sigh of relief when she concluded the father didn’t look like her, but the son! As much as she wants to, she can’t convince herself there’s no resemblance. It’s bad enough everyone knows her mother killed the man she thought was her father, and now she might be related to serial killers? Henry Junior would be too young to be her father, but he could be her sibling, and Henry Senior would have been the right age.

  The cliché be careful what you wish for comes to mind. If those two are blood relatives, she would have been better off never knowing. Maybe she should go home while she can still tell herself Hank Hazen Senior didn’t write those letters. But she knows it would always niggle at her and the only solution is to find someone who can tell her more about the Hazens in hopes it will prove they’re not who she’s looking for. Anyway, she’s paid for the room to the end of the week and there are a few more places she needs to check out.

  Approaching strangers is so far outside her comfort zone she’s surprised she has even been able to do it. It’s empowering to know she can, but at the same time, mentally and physically exhausting. So, about two o’clock she got a sandwich and a coffee to go at the motel restaurant and came out on the patio with a paperback she picked up in the gift shop, planning to read for half an hour. A respite from her search and a mental break from stewing about the Hazens. Now she’s well into the book and starting to get hungry. A check of her phone confirms it’s nearing supper time.

  She debates following the young couple to the restaurant to try the vegan cauliflower curry on the “Daily Specials” menu posted in the lobby, or heading back out to other places she hasn’t been at yet. She decides on the latter, thinking of a place she’s driven past several times. It looks like it should apologise for existing, yet the sandwich board on the boulevard boasts that it has “The Best Pies North of Kamloops!” She hasn’t eaten there, and maybe she should have. It looks old enough to have been there fifty years and might be a place loggers or miners would frequent. If nothing else, she can always have a slice of pie. Or just ask around and then come back to the motel for that vegan curry. And maybe, just maybe, change her return flight home to tomorrow.

  She picks up the sandwich wrapper, empty coffee cup and paperback and goes inside, flicking the lock lever on the patio door behind her. In the bathroom, she tends to the call of nature, then washes her hands and face and spritzes a cloud of perfume to walk into. Gloss on her lips and a sparkly barrette to hold her hair behind one ear, and she’s ready. She heads out the front and climbs into the Sorrento.

  Once on the main drag, she slows as she approaches an intersection with a Chevron service station on the corner, and makes a right turn. Half a block further along is the diner she had in mind. An awning over the front windows with “DOT’S DINER” in tall red letters supports three hanging baskets; those and tall ceramic pots with shrubs in them flanking the door are the only cultivated plants. A narrow paved lot fronts the road with vehicles angle parked both up against the building and facing the no-post barrier that separates the lot from the street. A sign on the corner of the building indicates more parking around the back, so she steers the Sorrento there.

  The back lot isn’t paved and is so rutted and potholed she’s glad she rented the SUV instead of the sedan. There are a few eighteen wheelers here, along with big pick-ups, some towing trailers. A large cube van for a linen service is parked at the far end next to the bushes. It reminds her of the lot behind Al’s Place in Pillerton. Always at
least a few farm vehicles there. She experiences a tug of homesickness.

  She finds a spot not far from the dumpster by the rear door, puts the SUV in park, pulls out her phone and calls Rick, only to hear his voicemail greeting: “It’s your dime! Shoot!” as if you could call anyone for a dime even if you could find a payphone. But he seems to think it’s funny. Is it a line from a movie? she asked him once. No, it reminds him of his father. It’s how he always answered the phone in the days before cellphones when there were payphones everywhere. She says, “I’m at this place called Dot’s Diner for supper. Hope someone’s feeding you! I’ll call again later. Love you!”

  There’s no worry about Rick not eating. If he goes near his mother, she’ll stuff him like a Galushki. The mental image of Rick a giant cabbage roll with just head, arms and legs sticking out gives her a chuckle; she’s smiling as she leaves the vehicle and walks the short distance around the front to the entrance.

  A cowbell jangles overhead as she pushes the door open and steps inside. She’s surprised at the décor. It’s bigger than it looks from outside, but definitely a diner, with the long counter flanked by bar stools separating the more formal booths and tables from the work area and pass through, but the colour scheme suggests a recent renovation. It’s pleasant. She thinks it must be a good place to eat after all, judging by how busy it is. There’s the noisy confusion of people in ball caps and cowboy hats and bareheaded, bearded and clean-shaven, in jeans and shorts and sweat pants, all chattering away as they eat. Mouth-watering food smells. The clatter of cutlery and crockery overlays it all and there are half a dozen TV screens silently running soccer highlights, baseball games and Global TV News.

  A couple of turquoise-and-white-shirted women and a young man are busy behind the counter. One is putting the makings of a fresh pot of coffee in the Bunn. The man picks up orders off the pass-through and heads out into the dining area with them. The heavily made-up woman with an inch of dark roots in her blonde hair looks up and makes eye contact with Kathy. As if Kathy is a block away, she calls out, “If you don’t wanna sit at the counter, hon, stay put ‘n’ I’ll be with you in a sec!” The buttons on her shirt struggle to remain closed across her breasts and she’s left the top several open, showing impressive cleavage. Her smile is warm, and Kathy smiles back. After a moment, the woman takes the full carafe off the coffee machine and comes out from behind the lunch counter. “Right this way, hon,” she says, and leads Kathy to a two-person booth against a short dividing wall.

  “Busy place,” Kathy remarks as she puts her purse on the bench and slides in beside it.

  “Yeah, drives me nuts sometimes but hey! It’s job security, ya know?” She drops a menu on the table. “My name’s Annie. I’ll be your server. Have a look at this, hon, ‘n’ I’ll be right back.” She scurries off, topping up coffee mugs as she goes.

  The menu is a single laminated sheet with breakfast and lunch on one side, supper on the other. Offerings harken back to the diner’s roots: liver and onions, roast turkey dinner, even a Denver sandwich. Kathy is surprised to find a Beyond Meat burger and a couple of other vegan options on the menu. When Annie returns, she orders the mushroom tortellini in creamy cashew sauce with a side salad and treats herself to a glass of house white. It’s only a short wait before Annie brings her meal, and before rushing off, calling, “give a shout if I can get you anything else, hon!”

  The food and even the house white is decent and the tortellini is such a large order she’s unable to finish it.

  “I guess I should’ve had the senior’s size,” she apologises when Annie returns later and asks if she’s still working on it.

  “Would you like me to pack that up for you hon?”

  “Yes, please!” Kathy tells her, thinking it will make a nice lunch even cold. “You know, I was going to go to the restaurant at the motel for dinner but I’m glad I came here instead.”

  “Oh yeah? Which motel?”

  “Riverview.”

  “Yeah, you were smart to come here! The food’s half the price ‘n’ twice as good. Can I get you anything else? A slice of our world famous pie maybe?”

  “Not allowed dessert when I haven’t finished my supper,” Kathy says. They share a chuckle, and Kathy continues, “thanks, but I’ll come another time for that.”

  Annie picks up the plate and when she returns with the little box of leftovers and the bill, Kathy says, “I know you’re busy, but quick question: I’m looking for someone by the name of Hank. He was working at a camp, a logging camp maybe? Somewhere around here about forty years ago. Would you have any idea who that could be?”

  By now Kathy has come to expect raised eyebrows and clucks and even chuckles when she asks this question, and everyone always asks, what’s his last name? Annie doesn’t disappoint; she frowns and chews her lip, looks around for a second, then says, “Well, there’s Hank Durkin over there.” She calls out across the room, “Hey, Hank!”

  A skinny forty-something man in a grey logger’s sweater and a Canucks ball cap is seated at the counter. He spins his bar stool and looks over the heads of the other customers. “Yeah, Annie?” he answers.

  He’s too young. Kathy shakes her head and tells Annie, “No, that couldn’t be him. He would’ve been a baby forty years ago. The Hank I’m looking for is sixty or even older.”

  “Nuthin’ hon! My mistake!” Annie calls out, then turns back to Kathy and says, “Well, anyways, that’s it, that’s the only Hank I can think of. But you know, the boss has lived in Dark River forever and would know if anyone would.”

  “Could you ask him?”

  “It’s not a him, it’s a her. I’ll tell her you’d like to speak to her when she has a minute.” She scurries off and Kathy watches her push through the swinging doors. Moments later, she comes back out alone. She picks up a coffee carafe and heads her way.

  “She says she’ll be out in a few minutes. Meantime, I’ll top up your coffee for you.”

  “That’s great, thank you Annie,” Kathy says as she watches Annie pour. Might be difficult falling asleep tonight, she thinks, but the coffee really is good. She sips it as she scrolls through Facebook and checks her email. Still no text from Rick. She sends him another text: “Are you still alive lol?” She’s just hit send when a fifty-something woman with salt-and-pepper hair appears in front of her. She has a mug of coffee in her hand and slides into the booth across from Kathy.

  “Hi,” she says, “I’m Franny. Hope you don’t mind if I sit. My feet are killing me.”

  “No. No of course not, Franny. I’m just glad you’re taking the time to talk to me. I know you’re busy. My name’s Kathy.”

  “All good, Kathy. I was ready for a break,” Franny says with a sigh. “Annie said you were asking after someone.”

  “Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m looking for a guy named Hank who worked in camp somewhere around here about forty years ago.”

  “Well, that could be the guy I knew. He started off working in camp but ended up owning half of Dark River.”

  “Oh! A self-made millionaire?”

  “He liked to brag he was but I don’t think he would ever have been more than an average Joe if he hadn’t married the boss’s daughter.”

  “That sounds like him!”

  “So, why do you want to know, Kathy?”

  Kathy takes a sip of coffee and studies Franny’s face for a moment. Deciding she can trust her, she says, “I’m looking for my biological father. And I may have a sibling I’ve never met. So where is this guy? How can I contact him, do you know?”

  “You can’t, unless you die and go to hell.”

  “Oh.” Kathy’s shoulders slump as the implications sink in. “But what about my sibling? I don’t know if I’m looking for a brother or a sister …”

  “Too late on that, too.”

  Kathy sinks back against the upholstery and breathes out a deep sigh. “You’re talking about the father-son serial killers.”

  “I am. And believe me, yo
u don’t want to be related to those two. But how could you be? I know Senior had a little girl, but she drowned when she was very small. I don’t think they had another one…although you do look quite a bit like Bridey.”

  “Bridey?”

  “Hank Senior’s wife.”

  “No, Bridey wasn’t my mother. I was born in Saskatchewan. Do you think Hank Senior would have cheated on his, er, on Bridey? Like on a trip to Saskatchewan maybe?”

  “You know, I only knew the Hazens from the outside looking in sort of thing. Gossip, and what I might’ve overheard when he was in here with his cronies. The Hank Hazen I knew was always polite and pleasant. Good-looking, too. His son, Hank Junior, though! That’s another story. Handsome, but cold, although maybe that’s just what I realize now that I know… You know…” her words trail off; she takes a sip of coffee, then continues: “It was shocking to find out they were serial killers.”

  “I guess it would be. You know, to find out anyone you knew…” Kathy nods and takes a few deep breaths, her mind in turmoil. Both her father and the sibling she seeks, serial killers? And dead? She nibbles at a hangnail on her thumb, realizes what she’s doing, and pulls her hand away from her mouth.

  “Tell you what, Kathy,” Franny says, “I didn’t know them well, like I said, but my best friend worked for them, as a live-in housekeeper. She helped out because Bridey had MS. She—my friend—inherited the land and even the sawmill when Hank Senior died. She would be the best person to talk to. When I get to my phone and have a minute, I’ll share her contact info with you. Just write down your phone number.” She pulls a pad and pencil out of her apron and pushes it across the table to Kathy.

  “Okay. Thanks.” Kathy writes her name and number and passes the pad back.

  “Well, back to work,” Franny says as she gets to her feet. “Nice to meet you, Kathy. If you’re staying in town a while, let’s get together for a coffee. Maybe Astrid will join us.”

  “I’d like that.”