Uninvited

by David Anderson

  * * *

  Next morning, I woke to the sound of heavy rain beating off the roof and window panes. When I looked at the clock I discovered I’d slept in, but Peterman hadn’t woken me. I hurriedly showered and pulled on some fresh clothes, feeling flustered and ashamed. I wondered if I could manage to slip downstairs without anyone noticing I was late. Unlikely.

  The guests were all at the breakfast table and Peterman and Marie were busy serving them. I couldn’t see Nora anywhere. Then the stairs creaked and there she was, behind me. I gave her a ‘you too, eh?’ grin.

  “That storm last night would have woken the dead,” Wheeler remarked at the head of the table. They were all tucking into large platefuls of hash browns, bacon and scrambled eggs, washed down with steaming mug of freshly ground coffee. My belly rumbled.

  “What storm?” Toby replied.

  Wheeler scowled at him. “You didn’t hear the thunder, see the lightning?”

  “Nope, I was so tired I slept like a log.”

  Wheeler looked offended. “Lucky you, must be your clean conscience. I thought this place was totally soundproofed but apparently not.” He glared at Peterman, blaming him with cold eyes.

  “I use earplugs and eyeshades,” Abby Mackie said, breaking the silence. “Works like a charm.”

  Nora tugged at my arm and we grabbed some breakfast for ourselves and sat down at the side table. Toby gave us a friendly nod but no-one else paid us any attention. I noticed a long raincoat hanging on a peg by the back door. Someone – Wheeler probably – had been outside. The coat was dripping wet.

  I piled more Canadian back bacon onto my plate. Doing anything outdoors today was going to be a challenge. Wheeler stood up and I quickly speared a thick slice of back bacon with my fork, sure that another speech was coming. I wasn’t wrong.

  “I thought we’d do something outside today to relax a bit,” Wheeler began, “But as you can see, the weather is against us. It’s raining so hard I could barely see more than a few feet in front of my face.”

  “Will the rain stick around long?” Georgia asked, right on cue. I winced at her feeding his ego. Don’t suck up to him, Georgia.

  “No, it’s not the rainy season yet,” Wheeler explained, as if Georgia was in kindergarten, “This is just the sort of brief, intense dump we get in the summer and it won’t last longer than a day or so. Right, Peterman?”

  The housekeeper nodded and cleared his throat. “The ground around here is so dry and hard right now that rain runs straight down the gradient and into the river,” he explained. “Later in the year we get the really prolonged precipitation. That can last for weeks and then the ground turns to mud.”

  “I guess you mostly stay indoors when that happens?” Toby asked.

  Wheeler jumped in. “I never come up here in the autumn for that reason.”

  “It looks like we’re stuck inside today,” Wheeler concluded and sat down again, his pretentious announcement over. And he hadn’t said a word about Brett Sanders.

  There wasn’t much to do in the house. Wheeler disappeared, the guests hung around the big living room making gossipy chit-chat, while Nora and I cleared up the kitchen under Marie’s beady eye. Afterwards Nora and I snuck back upstairs and talked quietly in my room, with the door closed.

  Inevitably our conversation soon turned to yesterday and Sanders’ body in the shed. We’d have something gory to tell our friends about when we got home. It was tragic but kind of fascinating and spooky too.

  Nora sat on the bed with her back against the wall and read her Kindle. Restless, I went over to the big bookcase that took up most of the opposite wall. There were bookcases all over this mansion; glass fronted, tall, short, antique, stripped pine; every kind you could imagine. Our bedrooms were no exception but the books up in this part of the house looked even more boring and unreadable than the ones down below. I pulled up a round-backed wooden chair, sat in front of the bookshelves, and inspected the books.

  There was lots of outdoor stuff but nothing practical, just a load of old hard covers by some pioneer guy called R. M. Patterson, and a shelf of matching titles by a fisherman named Haig-Brown, who seemed to spend all his time with his feet stuck in rivers, doing his best to empty them of salmon and trout. On the next shelf there were books by surveyors who took photographs with old box cameras, bush pilots who flew from lake to lake, and that sort of stuff. All of these books were either signed or inscribed by the author. I hadn’t reckoned Wheeler to be much into fiction but on the bottom shelf there were novels in brightly coloured jackets by someone called Zane Grey. None of these names meant anything to me.

  I wondered how many of these books Wheeler had read and bet it wasn’t a lot. But I had to give him credit; they sure looked right at home in this enormous wood-beamed and wood-columned house stuck in the middle of nowhere.

  My leg was going to sleep so I stood up and went to the window. The amazing sights I’d gazed at yesterday – the broad, grey mass of water gleaming and tumbling in constant lively movement, the tall rock formation on the opposite bank, the dense conifers and bald mountain peaks in the distance – were all hidden now by an intense curtain of heavy, noisy rainfall. Wheeler’s paradise retreat was at the mercy of the weather.

  There was a knock at the door. Toby Andrews came in. He was holding a bunch of magazines.

  “Brought you guys these,” he said sheepishly, “They’re superhero adventures. I found them downstairs and thought you might like them.” He handed me a stack of old Marvel comics.

  “Better take good care of them though,” he added, “I think they might be rare ones.”

  I looked at the one on top and discovered that Wheeler was a Hulk fan. That figures.

  “Bring them down again when you’re done,” Toby added.

  “Thanks,” I said, and promised to return them. Toby looked over at Nora, who was still holding her Kindle.

  “You guys having fun?” Toby asked.

  “Sure am,” Nora replied, “Long as I don’t have to do much, I’m as happy as a dog with two tails.” She was always coming out with cringe worthy stuff like that. “I’ve just been reading a really good book,” she added, “What’s happening downstairs?”

  “Julius is discussing religious belief, specifically Christianity.”

  I didn’t know much about that. “How come you’re not involved?” I asked, remembering that Toby was some kind of priest.

  Toby glanced down at the comics. “Oh, discussions like that never go anywhere,” he replied, “They quickly become boring. I try to keep out of them.”

  “What does Julius believe anyway?” I asked, daring to use Wheeler’s first name.

  Toby sat down in a high-sided rattan chair opposite me.

  “Well, like the super rich often are, he’s what they call idiosyncratic about it; ploughs his own furrow.” Toby smiled ruefully. “He likes to get his way and carries that into religion too.”

  “Believes whatever suits him?” Nora said bluntly, “Some New Age talk, secular humanist underneath?” She was more into this stuff than me and sometimes went to church with her friends.

  Toby nodded. “What I would call a spiritual narcissist. God wants you rich and that kind of thing. But I’m working on him.”

  “I imagine his donations would be pretty welcome,” Nora said. It came out sounding meaner than she probably intended and I felt my cheeks go red.

  Toby ignored any slight. “He has bigger temptations than the rest of us,” he replied.

  “And a lot more money and power to feed them,” Nora added.

  I thought it was time to get off this topic – it was kind of interesting but not so smart to express open criticism of our employer. Anyway, that Wheeler was what Toby called a selfish narcissist was probably why he’d been so successful in the business world, which everyone said was totally cutthroat.

  Toby shrugged. “Some of his money is going to a good cause. He’s matching our theology college’s building fund dollar for dollar. I ca
n’t complain about that.”

  “Conscience money,” Nora insisted. I groaned inside. Nora, let it go!

  “Maybe atoning for his lack of one,” Toby replied with a wink. With that, he rose and left the room.

  Nora grinned at me, not a bit sorry.

  * * *

  “As you know, cell phones don’t work up here. And there are no landlines, of course,” Wheeler informed us all after lunch. “I have a satellite link in my office, but due to the weather, I haven’t called the helicopter company yet to come and pick up Sanders. I’ll do it later this afternoon or this evening.”

  “How soon can they come?” Georgia asked.

  “Tomorrow at the earliest. They’re due anyway at the end of the week, but I suppose I’ll have to sort this out before then.”

  He rose from the table and, as if dismissed, so did his guests. Nora and I gathered up the dishes, rinsed them and stuffed them in the dishwasher while Marie watched us with a critical eye. Peterman hadn’t shown up for this meal at all.

  “Is your husband doing something else?” Nora asked her, as if she’d read my mind.

  “He’s lying down with a really bad migraine,” Marie replied, “He gets them from time to time. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I hear those can be very nasty,” Nora replied, “Please send him our best wishes.”

  Marie actually smiled. “That’s very good of you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Nora gave me a quick sideways look, meaning; Maybe the old bat’s human after all. At least, that’s how I interpreted it.

  I wondered what Marie thought about yesterday’s grim event and its aftermath. Now would be a good time to ask.

  “Do you think there’ll be a big fuss about Brett Sanders?” I asked her.

  “I have no experience of such things,” she replied, giving me a wary look, “But I don’t think it will be too bad. Such tragedies happen from time to time up here in the wilderness.”

  “His death is pretty mysterious though, isn’t it?” Nora said, probing deeper. Sometimes we made a good tag team.

  “I suppose so,” Marie conceded. “I’m sure there will be an autopsy.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” I agreed, placing the last of the cups in the dishwasher and swinging its door closed. “What do you think the cause could have been?”

  “I’ve been wondering about that too,” Nora added, keeping up the teamwork.

  Marie looked uncomfortable. She raised her hands in a shrugging gesture. “From what I heard, he was poking around that meteorite, went closer than he should have; even touched it. No wonder he fell over dead.”

  She knows something we don’t, I thought.

  “Marie, come with me,” a stern voice called from the hallway. It was Peterman, wearing some kind of tight bandage around his head. He was obviously annoyed.

  At once, Marie dried her hands on her apron and hurried to him. Nora and I exchanged looks, said nothing.

  I grabbed a second cup of coffee before rinsing the pot. As I stirred cream into it I happened to look up and saw Wheeler staring at the two of us from the hallway door. For the second time I felt my face flush in embarrassment. Surely there’s no way he could have overheard us just now? Has Peterman told him something?

  Wheeler, in full rain gear, strode across the kitchen and exited by the back door.

  “Where’s he going?” I whispered to Nora, as if she would know.

  Turns out, she did. “I heard him say earlier he was going to check on the body,” she replied.

  Not before time.

  Just then Toby appeared, in his outdoor clothes too. He went over to the freezer and took out two heavy bags of ice.

  “I think I’ll bring poor Brett some fresh ice,” Toby said, and hurried after Wheeler. I considered tagging along after them, listened to the rain pounding on the window, and decided against it. So instead of pushing my luck with Wheeler, I drank coffee instead. The label on the packet of beans said it was something called Tanzanian Peaberry; all I knew was it was the best brew I’d ever tasted. Nora fetched chocolate biscuits too.

  Five minutes later I’d just finished the last dregs from my mug when heavy footsteps sounded on the concrete outside and the back door flew open.

  Wheeler stormed in with Toby right behind, water dripping from their rain jackets. I knew immediately that something was wrong. Wheeler seemed ready to burst.

  “It’s gone,” Wheeler blurted out, “Vanished.”

  “Brett’s body has disappeared,” Toby explained.

  “Are you sure?” Nora said.

  It’s definitely missing,” Toby replied, nodding, “We’ve searched everywhere and it’s not there any longer. There’s not a trace of him.”

  “Fetch my guests at once,” Wheeler commanded.

  We called them in from the lounge and they gathered around the kitchen table. Wheeler broke the news and seemed more exhausted now than angry.

  “We searched the shed and the whole area around it on all sides, in case an animal dragged the body outside,” he said. “Visibility is crap in this rain but we’re pretty sure it’s not anywhere near the shed.”

  “Are there signs that an animal got in?” Georgia asked, an appalled look on her pretty face.

  “No, none. The door was still locked,” Wheeler replied.

  “Then what happened? Where did it go?” Ned Mackie said.

  Wheeler scowled at him. “I’m as baffled as you are, Ned. The big bathtub is still there, half filled with water, and the tarpaulin is lying on the floor beside it.”

  “It’s as if he got up and walked out the door.” Toby’s words hung in the air.

  I imagined Sanders’ dead body rising up out of the tub, pushing against the stretched tarpaulin, like a ghost in a sheet.

  Toby broke the silence. “And there’s one more thing.”

  All eyes turned to him.

  “Something else is missing as well as the corpse,” he continued, “Last night when we left the shed I noticed a long handled axe hanging on the wall near the door.” He looked sombrely at the faces around him.

  “What about it?” Ned responded.

  Toby paused, pursed his lips. “It’s gone too.”

  Chapter Six

  Ned and Abby Mackie stood on each side of the big tub, as if they expected Brett Sanders’ body to suddenly reappear by magic. Behind them, Toby rubbed his eyes as if he still couldn’t believe what they were telling him. Georgia studied the floor. Nora’s face was pasty white, and I gave her a pat on the shoulder. Somehow what was bugging everybody else didn’t really hit home to me, at least not yet.

  Last night I hadn’t paid much attention to the inside of the shed. Now I took a good look at the layout of the place. Like everything else about this place, the shed was large but there were no windows apart from the skylight in the middle of the roof. An impressive range of shiny new equipment was stashed around the walls. At the back, piles of boxes made small pyramids. Cupboards bulged, tools hung on racks, spades and other large gardening implements stood propped near the door. A tall stack of propane gas cylinders completely filled one corner, stacked almost to the ceiling.

  No-one seemed to know what to do next and Toby wandered to the back of the shed. I followed him, never able to resist a good fish around. Right against the wall stood some steel shelves stacked with interesting looking small wooden boxes. Toby seemed to know what they were and took one down. Next thing I knew he swore the F-word under his breath. I peered over his shoulder.

  He gave me an embarrassed look. “Sorry about the swearword, Nick, but I recognised the manufacturer’s name on these boxes. Take a look.” He opened the box and pointed to the brown, cylindrical contents.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “They’re sticks of industrial dynamite. There must be a dozen boxes of the stuff here, as well as fuses and blasting caps. Very unusual things to have lying around.”

  “Could they go off?” I asked, backing away a little.
<
br />   “No, don’t worry about that,” Toby replied, “Dynamite is much safer than, say, nitro-glycerine. It can’t go off accidentally. Even fire won’t make it explode; it’ll just burn up instead.”

  “Are you sure? Don’t the sparks from a fuse make it go off?”

  Toby smiled reassuringly. “Yes, I’m sure. Remember, I used to play around with this stuff when I was a kid. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. It works like this; the burning fuse you see in movies has to be attached to a blasting cap in real life. It’s the small explosive charge in the cap that sets off the dynamite.” He took one of the brown sticks out of the box and pointed at the top end with his finger. “No cap inserted into the stick here means no explosion.”

  It did sound as if he knew what he was talking about. I swallowed hard. “Well then, I guess we’re okay,” I said. But I was relieved when he put the stick back in the box and the box back on the shelf.

  Wheeler stormed in the door, dripping wet and scowling as usual.

  “I’ve searched all around again, and the damned body’s not here.”

  “Where else could it be?” Georgia replied.

  Wheeler gave her a look like death. “Logically, it can’t be anywhere apart from this bathtub, and yet it is.” He was almost accusing her of something.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not hiding him in my bedroom,” she replied.

  “Any signs of an animal?” I blurted out, hoping to defuse things a bit.

  Wheeler turned his attention to me. ‘That’s a sensible remark. I haven’t found any tracks or scat.”

  “Even that doesn’t make sense,” Toby said, “It would need to be a huge animal like a bear, strong enough to drag the body outside, in which case there should be plenty of signs. Bears usually make a terrible mess.”

  “Maybe the door didn’t shut properly?” Abby Mackie suggested, “In which case a bear might have got lucky.”

  Wheeler inspected the door then snorted through his nostrils. “This door has spring hinges, meaning it self-locks, so that couldn’t have happened. You can try it for yourself.”