by Ingrid Betz
“Amateur,” she breathed, angry at herself. “‘Little girl! Didn’t I say?’” St. Denis would scoff. The thought helped her pull herself together.
She pushed off from the bank and began to paddle with deep deliberate strokes, ignoring the blisters on her hands. The stiffness of her muscles eased as the blood warmed in her veins. A breeze roused to life, dispersing the pockets of mist that hung above the river. Light flooded over the eastern ridge and the ice crystals on the opposite bank melted, winking. Struck by the first rays of the sun, a stand of withered brown goldenrod looked momentarily fresh and yellow.
On a calm stretch of river she let the current carry her along while she ate an oat cake and a packet of raisins. Thinly in the distance she heard the helicopter change course. Her shortcut joined up with the main route through the park. Another two hours of hard paddling, she figured, would take her to St. Denis’s camp. She was encountering other canoes now.
In a backwater next to some boulders, she spotted a red canoe floating lazily. A fly fisherman flicked his line through the air. Verena heard the soft plop of the lure dropping into the water. She had moved almost abreast of him when he lifted his head. His face under the visored cap sported a youthful beard.
“Nice morning,” he called.
“Greet people back.” Borrowman had drummed into her, exasperated by what he called her European reserve. “Smile. And don’t try to hide your face. Studies show the brain registers evasive behavior more strongly than it does friendliness.”
“Any luck?” she called back.
He grinned, revealing even white teeth, and held up a trout, its scales glistening. “One more and I’ve got breakfast.”
He reeled in the line and cast it again. The water was green silk, shot through with wavering golden depths. Verena dipped her paddle and continued on her way. When she looked back, he was playing a tautened line, his shade-dappled face oblivious to everything else.
She was riding a stretch of shallow rapids when she heard the helicopter return. It beat the air above the trees and she pictured it swooping down over the river like a giant eye and discovering her paddling in mid-stream. No reason, she told herself, why she should be of interest to them, here on the main waterway far from the mine. Regardless, a primitive terror surged through her. The panic of the prey, she’d heard it described as once when a protester, chased down by the police, had thrown himself off a highway overpass. Her eyes ransacked the shore for cover but there was none, no overhanging brush, not even a boulder large enough to cast shadows.
She ducked her head and focused on steering a course between the stones partially submerged in the fast-flowing water. Polished as eggs, the stones came in all sizes and colours, brown and rust and speckled and grey. The helicopter burst over the tops of the spruce and hovered overhead. They’d be equipped with a camera if they were searching. Catching her on film. Her back, exposed and bent as though for a blow, prickled at the knowledge. She forced herself to straighten up, to turn and wave. Who would expect a fugitive killer to smile and wave? Like a dragonfly the machine lifted into the sun and dwindled away over the horizon. But the fear stayed with her.
For some time now she’d been aware of a large group travelling behind her. High-pitched yells and occasional whoops drifted around the river bends. Kids by the sound of them; she’d passed a group on the trip upriver yesterday. She heard them through the trees as she lowered the canoe into the water after the final portage, arms trembling with exhaustion. They were gaining on her.
Only the final lake to cross now, thank God.
The wind, always stronger on open water, whipped the waves into choppy peaks and she had to paddle hard to make headway. The worst of her blisters had broken open and the muscles in her back were burning. She heard voices and a glance backward showed half a dozen big canoes setting out from shore.
Halfway across the lake, she was able to make out the big white letters spelling St. Denis Outfitters. Canoes were lined up at the dock and campers milled about. It looked like some kind of bottleneck was holding things up. A man in a uniform appeared to be questioning people. As she drew closer, she could make out a yellow stripe down the side of his trousers and realized he was an RCMP constable. The fear in her stomach solidified.
The Henry, she thought.
“Whatever you do, don’t let the police catch you with the rifle.” Borrowman’s voice had been laced with desperation as he warned her. “If there’s a chance you could be searched, get rid of it. Throw it in the water if you can. If they trace the shot, we’re finished. Promise?”
She’d promised, but even as she did, she’d thought of the Armalite lost under the fruit stand in Belgrade. There had to be another way.
Slowing her stroke, she allowed the paddlers behind her to catch up. Teenagers, they were, in high spirits, calling out and waving, as their heavily-laden canoes laboured past her on either side. A couple of adults accompanying them joined in. Verena waved back and fell into line behind the last canoe.
She could make out St. Denis now, with Jim and another man, moving through the crowd on shore. As the flotilla of canoes approached, St. Denis motioned vigorously for them to stay away from the dock and beach their craft on the sand. After a lot of jockeying for position and shouting by the grown-ups, the canoes nudged ashore and their youthful cargo tumbled out, the boys laughing and roughhousing, the girls shrieking about wet feet. No one paid any attention to Verena maneuvering her canoe in among the reeds at the far end of the beach. Light-headed, she waded ashore.
“Everybody help with the unloading,” a man’s voice sang out and, groaning and protesting, the teens followed instructions. More or less.
City kids, decided Verena. Boys of fifteen or sixteen with street-wise faces and sharp, knowing eyes, girls with shrill voices and heavy thighs packed into too-tight jeans. Their comments were a mixture of teenage humour, bravado, and exaggerated complaint. Had she ever sounded like that, or even thought like that? Verena didn’t think so. Busy on the dock, St. Denis gave no sign that he’d seen her.
The RCMP constable strolled down to the beach to inspect the group. He had a ginger-coloured moustache and a casual manner at odds with his uniform and holstered sidearm. Loud enthusiasm greeted his approach.
“Hey! The Mounties!”
“Okay, Guido, come clean! What’d you do?”
“Somebody get me a phone. I gotta call my attorney…”
“Everybody pipe down!” One of the adults, who’d been unloading tents, shouldered his way to the front. A man in his mid-twenties, he sported an Aussie hat on his head and a whistle on a cord around his neck. Inner City Wilderness Experience read the logo on his jacket.
Verena listened to the men introduce themselves while she took her time dragging her canoe close and hoisting her equipment onto the beach.
“Constable MacCrae, RCMP. You in charge here?”
“Yes. Mark Lessing.” He gestured at a young woman wearing a hat that matched his own and a similarly harassed expression. “My assistant, Sue Stanton. We’re from Toronto. Is there a problem, officer?”
“You have any weapons with you? Firearms?”
“I got a Swiss Army knife,” piped up the boy named Guido. The front of his T-shirt was emblazoned with battling space aliens.
“Only penknives and a couple of axes for chopping firewood. This trip was strictly to give kids a wilderness experience,” said Lessing. Mock groans filled the air.
“Yeah, bugs. Burnt toast. No phones, no video games…”
“How long have you been in the park?” MacCrae wanted to know.
“A week.”
“A month, more like,” giggled a girl in a pink headscarf and Verena, folding her tarp, saw a look of commiseration pass between the two men.
“Can you tell me where in the park you’ve been?”
“Sure. Here. Let me show you.” Lessing
took a map from his pack and opened it along well-worn creases. Tracing the route with his finger, he named the lakes and rivers as he came to them. MacCrae listened, asked a couple of further questions and thanked him for his co-operation. His gaze ran over the group, resting without particular emphasis on Verena emptying water from her hiking boots, before he nodded.
“Have a safe trip home.”
“Hey, you not gonna arrest anybody?” yelled a boy.
“Not at the moment.”
“You volunteering, Sid?”
Lessing cut short the banter. “Okay. Enough horsing around. Everybody pick up their backpacks and follow Sue to the parking lot. Don’t forget anything. The bus will be waiting. And no wandering off,” he called after them as the group began to straggle up the slope, still trading insults. He turned back to MacCrae, while Verena bent to tie her bootlaces.
“Is it serious? Whatever you’re investigating?”
His answer was too low for Verena to catch. Lessing whistled. “You’re kidding. Looks like soon it’ll be all over the news,” he added, with a glance up the hill where a van emblazoned with the call letters of the Huntsville television station was just pulling into the parking lot.
Verena swung her backpack over her shoulder and trailed after the last of the girls. She was unsure of what to do next. The important thing was to avoid getting into any camera shots. Raised voices reached her from the dock. A party of campers was objecting to the hold-up and St. Denis, from what she could see of him, looked fit to be tied as the English saying went. She climbed the slope as far the equipment shed and was about to duck inside to wait, when Jim caught up to her with an armful of paddles.
“Ms. Vitek?” he said in his soft-spoken voice. “Paul says to wait for him in the office.”
“Thanks.”
She had her hand on the telephone, debating whether to call Borrowman’s number on the landline when St. Denis pushed open the door. He tossed his cap on the desk and ran blunt fingers over his bristling hair.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Your call could be traced.”
Silently she replaced the receiver. Nothing had changed, in his view she was still an ignorant girl.
“Seems your mission was a success,” he said curtly.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“An effing nuisance for my customers. It’s been a circus ever since word got out a man was shot.” He grunted. “Any problems I should know about? A tail?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Let’s hope. Are those blisters on your hands?”
“Yes.”
“Foolish not to take gloves.”
She ignored his comment and turned to the backpack leaning against the wall. “The canoe is on the beach, with my gear beside it. I’ll give you the rifle now.”
St. Denis stooped to dial open the safe, took the leather case she handed him and thrust it inside. “I’ll ship it back when the commotion dies down. Your flight leaves when?”
“Eleven-twenty.”
“Two hours and change from now. We’ve got Jim’s nephew helping. I’ll send him up to drive you to the airport.”
“Give me a couple of minutes to change.” She indicated the closet. “My clothes are still in there?”
He picked up his cap on the way to the door. “Last time I looked.”
She stopped at the sight of a sheet of blue stationary pinned prominently to the bulletin board. Printed across the top was a flight number and a Bracebridge Airport arrival time. “Your son is coming after all? Danny?”
“Next week.” St. Denis held the screen door open. “You want me to give you something for those blisters?”
“I’m fine.” From the parking lot came the rumble of a diesel engine starting up. “Any message for Borrowman?”
“Aside from telling him he was right and I was wrong?” St. Denis grimaced, or it might have been meant as a grin. “All I can say is, you’d better keep a damned low profile. I’m not going to jail just because you’re a crack shot.”
Verena nodded. The Inner City bus was leaving and she was aware of an aching desire to be on it, to be a schoolgirl once more, the genuine article, not a fake. The way she’d been in Salem and never would be again, innocent and anonymous.
23.
THE CHINESE WORKERS AT THE MINE had been very decent about it, all things considered. Peter gazed at the blank sheet of paper on the desk in front of him, wondering how to begin. They’d driven Marigold to the hospital in Huntsville in their SUV, with the back row of seats turned down so she could lie flat. Give them credit, they’d taken care not to compound her injuries, transferring her from the ground onto a piece of plywood that they then slid into the SUV. All the same, the sound of her moaning still ricocheted around in his brain in sync with the terrified animal look in her eyes, and it was a mercy when she passed out a second time. The woman named Mei Ling had run to the dormitory and brought back a pillow for her head and a blanket to cover her with. On the drive to the hospital Peter had been allowed to sit beside her, holding her unresponsive hand in his.
Mr. Hsi himself accompanied them. He sat up front next to the driver. “Unfortunate accident,” he repeated several times over. Once the SUV turned off the gravel track, it gathered speed on the secondary road. The driver did his best to avoid potholes, but it wasn’t always possible.
“Unfortunate, yes,” Peter mumbled. He was still in shock. Not just over the fact that Marigold was injured, but over what she’d been trying to do. He should have guessed, he should have seen it coming—how could he who knew her so well, have been so blind?
“But still an accident,” persisted Hsi.
“Definitely. An accident,” repeated Peter as if by rote. To what extent, he wondered, would he be held responsible?
“Not the fault of Happy Long Life Company.”
He saw what Hsi was getting at. “No, no. Miss Green had no business being—where she was. Doing what she did. I apologize,” he repeated miserably for what had to be the tenth time. “I had no idea…”
“No?” Hsi’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror. “If true, this is not big problem.”
Peter supposed it wasn’t, for them. A few litres of bile lost, nothing much damaged. It wasn’t as if the bears had escaped their cages. The workers were already inside reinserting catheters while he was still kneeling beside Marigold on the gravel. He’d flinched at some of the human-sounding wails echoing up from the shaft. By the time Marigold was loaded into the SUV, they’d even recaptured one of the cubs. He’d watched through the rear window as it was dragged out of the bushes on the end of a chain, yelping like an unwilling puppy.
The northern bush unreeled steadily on either side of the road. Peter hardly noticed. He kept his gaze fixed on Marigold’s face, paper-white with the freckles standing out like spatters of gold paint. He’d waited for a sign that she was coming to: the flicker of an eyelid, a change in her barely detectable breathing—anything. But there’d been nothing. All the life that was left in her seemed to be concentrated in her hair. The combs had fallen out and it spilled onto the rough grey blanket in vivid coppery waves. Automatically he smoothed a lock from her forehead.
A bell clanged while the SUV idled at a railway crossing on the outskirts of Bracebridge. Peter became aware that Hsi was watching him over the back of the seat. “After the hospital, do you wish to go to police station? To make a report?”
“Report?” He glanced up in alarm.
“Report the assault. To say the men jumped her.”
For a minute he’d thought Hsi meant they were going to report Marigold for willful destruction of property, or whatever the term might be. On the other hand, why would they? The company was just as keen to avoid publicity over the incident as he was. Perhaps more so. Their entire Ontario bile operation was at stake.
“There’s no n
eed to involve the police,” he said. “Is there?”
“It’s up to you.” Hsi shrugged and waited. A freight train rumbled past and by the time the last car had passed Peter knew what he was expected to say next.
“I mean, what would be the point? Ms. Green was running with the cubs in her arms when she tripped and fell. The men following behind fell over her. Isn’t that how it happened?”
Hsi gave him a shrewd look. He said nothing more until the Huntsville General loomed into view. “So Cormier Lab will not sue?”
“Sue?”
“We understand this is customary in North America when an injury occurs. Courts are very favourable.”
“Not necessarily. Not in this case,” said Peter, alarmed all over again. He didn’t know about damages but he knew the courts were more than likely to view Marigold, and by extension him, as part of an illegal operation and that would spell the end of his dreams for the Lab.
“So testing by Cormier Lab can proceed as agreed.”
Put another way, if Peter was willing to keep the police and the law out of it, they were willing to continue the partnership. For a minute he felt sick to his stomach. The way he supposed people ever since Judas’s day had felt, after they accepted thirty pieces of silver and realized just what it was they’d agreed to.
He stared at the blank sheet of paper on the desk in front of him, faced by his original dilemma.
Cormier Lab might have won a reprieve, but in order to fulfill the contract without Marigold he’d need to find a replacement who was not only qualified and capable, but also discreet, and willing to close an eye when it came to doing work on the shady side of legal. He picked up a pen and started jotting random phrases for a Help Wanted ad. “Must not love animals,” was probably the prime requisite, he thought bleakly. But he could hardly write that.