Another Margaret (The Randy Craig Mysteries Book 6)

by Janice Macdonald

  On the other hand, there was a good chance I was overanalyzing the whole situation. Maybe all I needed was a friend to talk to. I decided to let Sherry Hite worry about that one, and proceeded to navigate the lumps in the mattress toward oblivion.

  Waking up presented no problems. Birds were singing, Guy was on his way, and huge semis were roaring along the road outside my window. I showered, dressed, and went out to forage for breakfast. I spent the rest of the day rereading Atwood’s Survival as a consideration to the environment in Canadian literature, making several notes that seemed applicable to Ahlers and the Peace Country. I also double-checked Guy’s arrival time three or four times with the agenda the motel office had given me and finally went down to wait for him near the station.

  Guy was Greyhound-grumpy for about an hour, but he cheered up after catching sight of his seventeenth swan. We tacitly refrained from discussing the next day’s plans. Instead, we explored the town, ate an anchovy-free but otherwise laden pizza, caught a movie, and headed back to the motel.

  I know that boxers and football players abstain the night before, but we weren’t planning on battering anyone the next day, so what the hell. Maybe there were much simpler reasons than I had considered for why I had lured Guy up north to be part of my summer adventure.

  12.

  We’d driven down the road three times before I spotted two tire tracks meandering off the beaten path behind a large copse of Balm of Gilead. Guy started to protest as I nosed the car toward them. “What are you doing?”

  “This has got to be it. The grocer said it was between the Bide-a-while and the Dew Drop By, and we’ve been back and forth between them.”

  “But this isn’t even a road. Self-respecting goats would turn up their noses at this thing!”

  “I’m sure this is the road in.”

  “You did take out complete coverage on the car, didn’t you?”

  “Guy!”

  It seemed that “summer places” had caught on since old Mrs. Quinn’s day. Trumpeter Lake was surrounded by cabins. Some of the larger places on the far side of the lake had that all-year look, but those on this side were charmingly unkempt and identified by silly names, like proper cabins should be.

  We made several sharp turns through the long grasses and bushes before suddenly popping out into a clearing. The cabin looked much like the others we had passed, just a bit older. There was a wooden porch leading to a screened door, a wooden door behind the screen. Small windows looked over the parking green. I presumed the picture window faced the lake beyond. An outhouse, painted the same rusty red as the cabin, sat off in the woods to the left. A lean-to shed next to the cabin housed storm windows, a push mower, and cobwebs.

  There was no other car in sight, but I was nervous anyway. When you’re persona non grata with someone, it doesn’t do to just drop in for an unannounced visit. Breaking and entering takes that to a whole new level.

  I hadn’t discussed a game plan with Guy, but he was beginning to sense where my mind was headed. He cleared his throat. “Cat burglary isn’t one of my fortes, you know.”

  “Who said anything about stealing cats?” I countered, with more breeziness than I actually felt. “I just want to look around.”

  “Oh sure, isn’t that what Hitler said about Poland?”

  “Since when did you turn in your Amoral Anonymous membership card?”

  Guy rose up in his seat, wounded. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Anyone who is so into games should have no problems with playing on the fringes of danger.”

  “I’ll have you know that anyone with a true love of games is a most moral person. To whom else are rules of such vital importance, I ask you?”

  There was no way to win this one, so I let it drop and put the car into Park. I turned the key off, and the birds immediately sounded as if they had turned up their volume knobs.

  I felt as if I was trespassing as soon as I stepped out of the car. And, I guess, technically I was. I’ve never quite figured it out; if they don’t put up a “No Trespassing” sign and then shoot you anyway, are they legally in the right? Since then, I guess I’ve done more than my fair share of bending and entering, but I’ve never felt quite so intensely vulnerable as I did up in that sunny glade.

  Despite his compunctions, Guy followed me around to the lakeview side of the cabin. I could see why old Mrs. Quinn put up with being teased about her summer place. The view from the front porch was gorgeous.

  There is something about the colour green in the Peace River County that is unlike a green in any other place on earth. Maybe it’s the combinations of all the different verdant shades put together; whatever it is, it’s enough to knock your eye teeth out every time you turn a corner and come up against it.

  The grass was lighter than the leaves of the poplars, which was lighter in turn than the Balm of Gilead, which gave way to darker pines. The lake reflected all these hues and added a bluey-green of its own to the spectrum.

  The dock was unpainted and accessible straight from the cabin’s back door. There was a small, sandy beach, a lawn with an old picnic table, and a canoe that had been drawn up and turned over next to the trees. A picture window took in the whole scene. It was to this window that Guy was gluing himself, shading his eyes to peer into the cabin.

  I came up from behind. “What do you see?”

  “Not much. A fireplace, an overstuffed couch, some wicker chairs, a desk, and I think this thing, over to the right here, is the edge of the kitchen table.”

  He was close to being a complete cataloguer. Two doors led off from the room he’d described, and the kitchen seemed to take up the corner to the right of the window. I rattled the door beside the window, although I knew it would be useless; there was a newish-looking Yale deadbolt gleaming at me from shoulder height.

  Guy, in the meantime, had headed around the far side of the cabin. “Randy, come here! I think I found what you’re looking for.”

  I picked my way through the long grass and found him removing a screen from a high window. The butterfly bolts appeared disinclined to budge, but Guy soon had the screen leaning beside him. He then pulled out a Swiss Army knife and inserted it into the lock mechanism of the window. With one twist, the window was unlocked and Guy was shoving it open.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Finding you a point of entrance, which I presume is why we are here.”

  “But that is illegal.”

  Guy looked at me as if he was disappointed in me, the way high school teachers would look when they’d called on you for an answer you couldn’t muster to their satisfaction.

  “You are digging into the background of the author whose body of work you are studying. If anything, this amounts to social anthropology. And don’t tell me you weren’t planning something like this in the back of your mind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why would we drive all the way out here only to peer through windows? We might as well go in. Just driving onto the property is trespassing, and we’ve already done that. It’s not as if we’re planning to steal, damage or even disarrange anything. No one will even suspect we’ve been here, so what are you waiting for?”

  I was impressed, both with his argument and his lock-twisting skill. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Oh, I’ve developed a plethora of skills over the years.”

  “What happened to all that hoo-hah about morality?”

  “Really, Randy. Morality is a choice one makes, not a blind compulsion. If one were not cognizant of the options, how could one make an informed choice?”

  I shook my head at Guy’s semantics.

  “Oh forget it,” he replied. “It’s a long story involving junior high curfews and monster movie marathons. Now are you going to climb in, or do I stand here holding up this heavy sash all day?”

  Put that way, I could hardly refuse. I hooked one foot onto Guy’s bent knee and hoisted myself up over the sill.

  I
’ve never been the most graceful of people, but I don’t think there is a delicate way of entering a house by means of a window. I was stranded with my arms and torso dangling in forbidden territory and, for a second, I felt like giving up. It was the realization of what Guy’s perspective must be on this scene from below that inspired a burst of scrambling and an awkward somersault onto a bed about two and a half feet below the window.

  I was in a small, dark room, presumably behind one of the two doors we’d spotted. The only light was coming from the window. Guy’s voice was coming from the same direction. “Do you think you can find your way to the deck door, or do I have to follow your example of delicate little cat feet?”

  I groaned and slid off the chenille bedspread, making a mental note to myself to straighten it before we left.

  Lazy motes of dust hung in the air of the main room. They were probably everywhere, but there was more light by which to see them in here. I headed for the deck. The deadbolt slid back and clicked open. Guy entered the room like Inspector Clouseau pursuing Cato, but he ruined the effect by sneezing several times in a row.

  I shrugged. “There went the atmosphere.”

  “It’s the so-called atmosphere that’s making me sneeze,” Guy protested, after blowing his nose into an oversized hankie. “Doesn’t that woman ever clean the place?”

  “It’s a summer cabin, Guy. Who knows when she was here last? All the grocer said was that she closed up the house late last fall. That could mean anything from the day after Labour Day till Hallowe’en.”

  “All right. So what exactly do you expect to find here?”

  “Evidence.”

  “Evidence of what? Slatternly housekeeping?”

  It was hard to answer Guy’s question, so I sniffed and turned my back on him. I honestly wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I just had a feeling that I would know it when I found it. Guy began to open kitchen cupboards. Like a magnet, I made for the desk. In contrast to the rest of the dusty cabin, this area was pin-in-place perfect. Pens and pencils were arranged in the top drawer. Letter and legal-sized pads of bond paper were in the second. I found a couple of packages of carbon paper in the third drawer.

  I wonder what space aliens, or students today—and yes in some ways those two categories are interchangeable—would make of carbon paper. I remember being amused by finding it, since I had left off having to wrestle a piece of the messy blue paper between two sheets of typing paper in order to create a second copy the minute my trusty Kaypro personal computer came into my life. Now, of course, I back everything up on flashdrives and email myself copies of works in progress to a variety of mailboxes, in case my laptop crashes.

  Carbon paper was the flashdrive of its time. One always made a copy of everything, because you never knew when some well-meaning assistant was going to tidy the editor’s desk and lose your masterpiece. I wondered why Dr. Quinn didn’t just bring her Compaq computer from her university office up to the cabin with her. Then it occurred to me that I couldn’t see any grounded sockets in the cabin, so maybe she just left high-tech to her urban run.

  Guy had continued from the kitchen through to the second bedroom, the one I hadn’t used as an access point. “Randy, come here!”

  I entered a larger space than the first bedroom. There was an iron-frame double bed covered with the requisite chenille spread; a large closet was set into the wall. Side tables stood on either side of the bed.

  Guy was grinning in the open doorway of the closet.

  “What is it?” I asked, trying to sneak a look around the bulk of my fellow investigator.

  “Evidence,” said Guy drily, stepping aside to allow me to peer inside.

  The closet was divided as dramatically as I’ve always imagined the Red Sea parted; hangers were shoved to either side. On the left were assorted cotton tops and pedal pushers—standard cottage garb. On the right was a collection of very frilly, feminine dresses.

  I could understand what led Guy to identify this as evidence. In a million years, neither of us could imagine Hilary Quinn in one of those frothy concoctions—it’d be like sticking a carrot into a Singapore Sling. They actually reminded me of what Carol Burnett used to wear as her television character Eunice.

  “They aren’t hers, are they?” Guy asked.

  “No. In fact,” I said, checking some labels, “they are at least a size bigger than the clothes on this side.”

  “Maybe her mother’s?”

  “They couldn’t be. I mean, I’m not sure when she died, but these dresses are current style—if you can use the word ‘style’ to describe them.”

  “So they’re someone else’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they could be Ahlers’, is that what you’re thinking?”

  “Well, why not, Guy?”

  “Because it fits too neatly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that, if this were a mystery novel, then these would be Ahlers’ clothes. We’d discover that Quinn was her lover and Ahlers had been murdered in a fit of pique. But there’s one problem: this is real life. Things like that just don’t happen.”

  “Joe Orton was killed in real life.”

  “That’s close to being a perfect oxymoron, Randy. And you’re overlooking one other reason why they can’t be Ahlers’ clothes.”

  “And what’s that.”

  “How could such a tasteful writer dress so tackily?”

  I smiled inwardly at Guy’s superficiality, but he did have a point. There was something a little too loud, a little too strident, a little too gaudy about these dresses. They practically screamed from the confines of the closet. Dresses like those could make a statement from three counties away. No wonder the grocer was so sure there had been folks around the cottage. From his vantage point across the lake, he wouldn’t have been able to miss these walking flower gardens.

  While my eyes recovered from staring at the brightly printed frills, Guy continued to poke around. I shook myself and went after him. A storage closet contained an ironing board, brooms, an old dressmaker’s dummy, and the water heater. I confirmed my suspicions of Quinn’s—or perhaps Ahlers’—low-tech needs by noting a pale green Hermes portable typewriter standing next to a mop pail.

  The small bedroom had no closet, just a chest of drawers and the small iron bed I’d encountered previously. I was grateful Quinn hadn’t put the dresser under the window. I straightened the bedspread, opened and closed the dresser drawers, and pulled down the window sash and relocked it.

  By this time Guy was outside, refastening the storm window. I closed the bedroom door behind me. Everything looked the way we’d found it. I checked the big bedroom and was glad I had. I must have dropped the open packet of carbon paper on the bed in my surprise over Guy’s discovery. I picked it up and double-checked the closet door, even though it appeared to be well and truly closed.

  “Randy, let’s get out of here.”

  Guy sounded strained. I glanced around once more, shut the bedroom door and made my way to the deck. Guy had tripped the lock and was waiting for me in the doorway. I stepped out into the freshest air I’d ever breathed. It felt as if I’d been holding my breath the entire time we’d been inside. Guy pulled the door closed and shook it to be sure it was locked up tight before he turned back to me. His smile did a reverse-Cheshire and disappeared from his face.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “What’s what?” I looked down to see what he was pointing at, and my heart plummeted down around my appendix. “Oh my god.” I stared at the packet of carbon paper, still in my hand. I looked around frantically. “We have to go back in and replace it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. We have just spent half an hour making sure we haven’t left signs of our awkward break in, which may I remind you took us long enough to hoist you through that window, and you want to try that all over again?”

  “Well, then I have to find somewhere to throw it away.”

  “And have someon
e wonder what’s up if they find it? The object was to make it seem as if we’ve never been here, not to broadcast the fact.”

  “Well, what should I do?” I wailed.

  Guy looked pained. “Oh, bring it with us and we’ll ditch it somewhere. No one ever remembers how much carbon paper they have. She’ll probably never miss it.”

  “There’s another whole unopened packet in there,” I volunteered.

  “In that case, we’re home free.” Guy opened the passenger door and stepped back to let me in. I handed him the car keys and sank over into the bucket seat, clutching the only item I’d ever stolen in my life. I was a burglar! I wondered if some cosmic Victor Hugo would sic a Javert on me for a half-empty packet of carbon paper. I had a feeling Dr. Quinn wouldn’t like it one bit.

  13.

  I didn’t notice much of the ride back. I was too immersed in the problems I seemed to have created on this trip. I had travelled here to discover a setting for Ahlers’ life, and instead I had stumbled upon a reason for her death.

  “Let’s review things, okay?”

  “Fine by me,” said Guy with his eyes straight ahead.

  “Ahlers seems to have been writing about the Peace River Country.”

  “Check.”

  “Quinn comes from, and still maintains a cottage in, the Peace River Country.”

  “Check.”

  “No one knows Ahlers, but they all know about Professor Quinn and her ladyfriend.”

  “Check.”

  “And Quinn, the stolid professor, seems to have some sort of ‘in’ with Ahlers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, she has scooped everyone with an article just as each book comes out. It’s as if she’s the first person to read them.”