Raven Lake

by Rosemary McCracken

  I must have looked worried because she added, “A boat will come by.”

  “When? Next week?”

  Then worry gave way to anger. “Why would anyone do that?” I was thoroughly ticked off.

  She shrugged. “We should’ve taken the paddles with us.”

  “Someone wanted to frighten us. Or worse.”

  She began to gather pieces of wood. “If nobody comes for us by nightfall, we’ll light a fire. This isn’t a designated camping spot and the rangers will come over to make us clear out.”

  My heart sank at the idea of being stranded on the shore of that isolated bay after dark. If the rangers didn’t see our fire, we’d be dinner for hungry animals. For rattlesnakes too.

  A few hours later—neither of us had watches but the sun was sinking low in the sky—a boat entered the bay, water spraying out from its sides. We took off our shirts and waved them. The boat headed in our direction. It pulled up in the deeper water several feet from shore.

  Riza took off her aviator glasses. “Pat Tierney. What’s the problem?”

  I have never been so happy to see someone I hardly knew. I introduced her to Jamie and explained our predicament.

  Riza gave a hearty laugh. “I’m sorry. It’s not a laughing matter,” she said, “but you never leave your paddle in your boat. It’s like walking away from your car with the key in the ignition.”

  Jamie’s face reddened. “I know.”

  “Tie the kayaks to the back of my boat. I’ll get you home,” Riza said briskly.

  We waded into the water. Jamie tied the kayaks to the motorboat and we climbed into it.

  I gave Riza my heartfelt thanks when she dropped us off at Bruce’s beach. I was grateful that we wouldn’t be out in the wilderness after dark.

  “Glad I could help you out,” she said.

  Jamie and I beached the kayaks and made a date to go out on the lakes the following day if the good weather held. “I’ll rent two paddles at the outfitters in town,” she said.

  We were halfway up the stairs to the cabin when it hit me. “Riza knew exactly where to drop us.”

  “You’re right,” Jamie said. “She did.”

  “I told her at dinner last night that I was staying with a friend on Raven Lake. But I didn’t say who the friend was or where his place was on the lake.”

  I had a pot of spaghetti sauce simmering when Bruce got home. I told him about our misadventure that afternoon and how Riza had come to our rescue. “She brought us to your beach. She knew where I was staying.”

  “Weird.”

  “It certainly is.”

  He picked up a spoon and tasted the sauce. “Nice and spicy.” He took another taste. “Frances called me at work this afternoon. I was in a meeting, so she left a message. Said we needed to talk.”

  “Did her message say what she wanted to talk about?”

  “No. I thought I’d call her this evening.”

  I figured Frances wanted to find out what he knew about The Green Funds’ holdings.

  “I went to the police detachment this morning,” I said. “I told Foster about Daniel’s connection to Wilf and showed him the email he sent you. He kept it.”

  He heaved a sigh. “Why did you show him that? He’ll say I withheld evidence.”

  “The police need to know. They’ll find Wilf’s friend who told him about Spadina Pharmaceuticals.” I paused for a moment. “Will you meet Frances tomorrow?”

  “No time tomorrow. Thursday is our busy day.”

  “Bruce, how well do you know the Laughtons?”

  “I met them last year. I went to see Mom at Highland Ridge one day and found Daniel with her. He told me they were friends when they were kids. He started inviting me over to Raven Lake.”

  “Did he talk to you about his work?”

  “A little, but mostly he talked about me. He wanted me to see a therapist, send out job applications, that kind of thing. He’s a good guy.”

  “What about Frances?”

  “She doesn’t say a lot but she’s the driving force behind Daniel. Now that he’s retired from teaching, she’s getting him gigs on the lecture circuit.”

  “She’s his business manager.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She probably got him the endorsement contract.”

  “I’m sure she did.”

  “An unusual couple. I wonder how they met.”

  “She was the department secretary when Daniel was a young lecturer at the university. His first book had just come out and she must have known he was going places.”

  Frances sounded like an unstoppable force. “She told you this?”

  He smiled. “In one of her more talkative moods.”

  “Foster asked me where he could find Daniel and I told him he had a place on Raven Lake. He must’ve gone out to see him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he must have shown him Wilf’s email. That’s what Frances wants to talk to you about.”

  “Probably.”

  “Meet her on Friday. Meet both of them, but in Braeloch. At Joe’s or at the Dominion Hotel. Not at their place on the lake.”

  He thought about that for a few moments. “I’ll give her a call after we eat,” he said. “But I don’t know anything other than what you saw in that email.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The next morning, Jamie drove over with two paddles. “You’ll be on your own on the lakes today,” she told me. “I’m taking Mom shopping in Bracebridge. She needs to buy a few things before I go back to the city.”

  I lost no time getting the kayak into the water. I wanted to talk to Riza.

  Movement on her dock caught my eye. As I came closer, I saw that she was tinkering with the engine of the motorboat.

  “Hi, there,” I called out.

  She turned and flashed me a grin. “You’re back for more adventures.”

  “I hope I won’t need to be rescued again.”

  “Hop in and we’ll go for a spin. I’ll take you to a spot that would be a very long paddle. Raven’s Nest.”

  I saved my questions for later and tied the kayak to the dock. I took my paddle with me when I climbed into the motorboat.

  I dug my map out of my pack and followed the course that Riza was taking. As we approached the Laughtons’ bay, an aluminum boat chugged out of it, headed in the direction of the boat launch. A figure in a navy windbreaker sat by the engine, white hair fluttering out behind her. Frances. Had she talked Bruce into visiting their cabin even though it was his busy day at work? I hoped not.

  I shook my head at the irony of warning Bruce not to go out on the lake with Frances, yet there I was flying over the water with Riza. I had misgivings about both women, but Riza’s upbeat personality had been disarming.

  We sped along for a good 15 minutes or so until Riza pulled up in front of a wall of rose-colored stone. She tossed an anchor overboard. “We’ll wade to shore.” She pointed to the top of the cliff. “There’s a path that will take us up there.”

  “I’ll never make it up there.” I was wearing water shoes, not sturdy hiking boots.

  “It’s a piece of cake.”

  On shore, we followed a path that brought us to the back side of the cliff where the land sloped down gradually from the summit. A trail, with a couple of switchbacks cut into it, led us to the top. It wasn’t quite the piece of cake Riza had said it was, but it was less difficult than I’d thought it would be.

  At the summit, we sat on a log with the serpentine lake stretched out below us. A large black bird swooped through the air, sunlight glinting on its feathers. Keeping my eyes peeled for snakes, I thought about how to broach the questions that were swirling in my mind.

  “Native people came up here to throw tobacco on the water,” Riza said. “They believed ravens were the guardians of the spirit world.”

  “The raven is a trickster in some native myths. He doesn’t play by the rules.”

  “I didn’t know that.” She paused for a few momen
ts. “You must’ve been scared when those renters showed up.”

  “You mentioned that on Wednesday evening.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. “How did you know my cottage had been targeted?”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “My neighbor’s daughter, Maria, owns some rental cottages. Maria told her mother that you’d taken one of them, and that you moved out when renters arrived.”

  It was possible that she’d heard about it that way so I let it go, but I had another question. “When you took us back yesterday, you dropped us at my friend’s place. How did you know where I was staying?”

  She gave me a cheeky smile. “From my neighbor again.”

  Of course, the neighbor.

  “Maria works at The Times. She told her mother that the guy who owns the newspaper bought a place on this lake. Last week, my neighbor and I drove over to take a look at it. No one was around so we walked down to the beach.”

  “And Maria told her mother that I was staying at her boss’s place.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I never realized I was so interesting.”

  “Oh, but you are,” she said with a wink of an eye. “Have the police found out who’s behind the rental frauds?”

  “If they have, they haven’t told me.”

  “You were smart to leave that cottage.”

  When we got back down to the lake, Riza announced that she was going for a swim.

  I stripped down to my bathing suit. Riza splashed into the lake in her birthday suit. Her hard, muscular body would have done justice to a woman half her age.

  The water was cool and silky, and we lingered in it for a while. I was the first to get out and I pulled on my clothes. An outboard with two fishermen passed close to shore while Riza was wading out of the water. She turned and waved jauntily at them. They stared at her with open mouths.

  I howled with laughter.

  Riza threw back her head and laughed too. “They got an eyeful,” she said.

  She was almost dressed when I heard her say, “Massasauga rattler.”

  I jumped off the rock I was sitting on. “A rattlesnake?”

  “Just a baby,” she said. “Massasaugas won’t bother you if you leave them alone.”

  I waded out to the boat and waited for her there.

  “That woman who was murdered a few weeks ago,” she said when she joined me. “She was that newspaper owner’s mother.”

  “Yes.” I wondered where this was going.

  “A terrible thing.” She shook her head.” And putting her in a storage locker.”

  “It was terrible,” I said. “Vi Stohl lived at Highland Ridge. She was elderly and confused, and no threat to anyone. Yet somebody strangled her and put her in that locker.”

  “When I heard the news reports, I wondered if I’d met her.”

  “Met her?”

  “At Highland Ridge. My sister, Lucy, lives there. I visit her once a week when I’m at my cottage. I may have spoken to Vi on one of my visits.”

  As I left the boat, I spotted two two-bladed kayak paddles on Riza’s dock. The blond wooden one looked exactly like the paddle I’d lost the day before. I picked it up. White Owl Paddle Co. Made In Canada was on the back of both blades. Just like on my paddle.

  “Something the matter?” Riza asked.

  “This looks like the paddle that was taken from my kayak. And the same company made it.”

  “I’ve had that paddle for years,” she said. “I always buy White Owls.”

  “Why have a kayak paddle if you don’t have a kayak?”

  “I had a kayak,” she said. “I sold it last month.”

  When I was seated in mine, she untied the rope and threw it to me. “I like you, Pat,” she said, “but you question everything I say.”

  “Don’t be so sensitive,” I said with a smile. “I always ask lots of questions.”

  I pushed away from the dock and gave her a wave.

  But I was uneasy as I made my way back to Bruce’s cabin. Very little of what Riza said rang true.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Jamie handed me a copy of The Highland Times when she drove over the next morning. “Front-page interview with Pat Tierney,” she said with a smile.

  “Cottage con hits the Highlands,” the banner headline read.

  I scanned the article. “Only a few lines about me. That’s a relief.”

  The accompanying photo was a long shot of the cottage I’d rented with the maple tree partly obscuring the front of the building. From a distance, it looked similar to many summer homes in the area and the article didn’t pinpoint its location.

  Chuck Gibson was quoted as saying, “My wife and I don’t know who will turn up at our door thinking that they’ve rented our place for their vacation. They paid their money and they may think we were the ones who ripped them off. We’re afraid it could get nasty.”

  Chuck and Gracie were terrified in their own home.

  I read the article more carefully. As far as the police knew, only two properties were targeted in the township: the one I’d rented and the Gibsons’ home. Why those two?

  “D’you mind if we stay on Raven today?” I asked Jamie as we took the stairs down to the waterfront.

  “Fine with me. Anywhere in particular?”

  “Riza’s place.”

  I told her my misgivings about Riza. “She knew I was staying here. She knew my place was targeted by the rental fraudster. And she has a paddle that looks like the one that was taken from my kayak.”

  “Do you think she’s involved in the rental scam?” Jamie paused for a few seconds. “Or the murders?”

  “I don’t know. What I do know is there’s more to her than meets the eye.”

  Riza’s canoe and motorboat were moored at her dock. We climbed the path to the house, took the stairs up to the second-story veranda and knocked on the veranda’s screen door. Flamenco music was playing inside.

  “She can’t hear us,” Jamie said.

  I walked across the veranda and banged on the door to the house.

  Riza opened it. She was wearing cut-off jeans, a tattered shirt and a white turban over her hair. “Well hello, Pat and Jamie.”

  “We saw your boats at the dock and we thought you’d be in,” I said.

  “I read about you in the newspaper this morning,” Riza said. “The man who was interviewed in the article has a place on this lake. That’s too close to home for me.”

  She looked down at her clothes. “I look a sight. I put on these old duds and crank up the music when I clean the house. Come in.”

  Inside, the air smelled like lemons. Riza picked up a remote and turned down the sound.

  “You like my little country home?” She had a big smile on her face.

  “Who wouldn’t?” I said. The house was a showpiece. Cedar paneling covered the living room and dining room walls. The rooms had vaulted ceilings and large windows let in plenty of light.

  She cleared magazines from the leather sofa that faced the stone fireplace. “Have a seat, ladies. I’ll get some refreshments.” She bustled into the kitchen.

  I went over to Jamie, who was standing beside a slant-top desk. She looked troubled. “What is it?” I whispered.

  She pointed to the desk. “My grandmother had a desk exactly like this. It was one of the pieces that Mom gave Frank. In fact, I’m almost positive it was this desk.”

  My mind moved into overdrive.

  Riza came out of the kitchen, carrying a tray with a bottle of white wine and three glasses. She put the tray on the coffee table.

  “Not for me, thanks,” I said, seating myself on the sofa.

  Jamie sat beside me and shook her head.

  Riza shrugged and poured a glass for herself.

  I took a deep breath and plunged in. “Frank Prentice was given several pieces of antique furniture last year. He put them in a locker at Glencoe Self-Storage and after he died this spring, the contents of the locker were auctioned off. The woman who bought the contents was Fr
ank’s friend and she knew the value of the antiques. But they weren’t in the locker when the contents were turned over to her.”

  I waited to see how Riza would react. She took a sip of wine and nodded at me to continue.

  “Your sister, Ella Prentice, lost her only child when Frank died,” I said. “She wanted some company the first time she went to his home after his death and she asked you to go with her. You found the storage locker’s rental contract, the keycard for the gate at Glencoe Self-Storage and the key to the locker’s padlock. And you took them from Frank’s house without telling Ella.”

  Riza had a defiant look in her eyes. “Ella had enough on her hands. She had to sell Frank’s house and his truck, and wind up his roofing business. His locker was up here so I took care of it. Saved her a trip up here.”

  “You checked out what was in the locker,” I said.

  “Of course, I did. Frank had some lovely pieces in there. I kept the desk and I sold the rest.” She finished her wine and poured herself another glass.

  “You had help moving the furniture. You couldn’t have done it alone,” I said. “Did Zoe help you?”

  Riza shrugged.

  “Your sister doesn’t know you took her antiques,” Jamie said.

  “Hey, I did her a favor. When Frank’s house sells, she’ll have to clear it out. The last thing she needs is more furniture.”

  “Why did you kill Vi Stohl?” Jamie asked.

  Riza scowled. “That’s a terrible thing to say. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Her body was in Frank’s locker and you had the key,” Jamie said.

  “Frank’s card had been deactivated but you didn’t need it,” I said. “You put the body into the locker during the day when the yard was open. You hid it in a rolled-up rug.”

  The security cameras hadn’t captured Riza putting the rug into the locker because they were only switched on after office hours. The same reason they hadn’t caught her removing Frank’s furniture.

  “Yeah, Frank’s card no longer worked.” Riza gave an elaborate shrug. “I have my own locker in that yard and my own card.”