Murder at Lost Dog Lake

by Vicki Delany

  Perhaps it was all a game for Joe, but now that push came to shove, the trophy wife turned out to be not so much fun after all.

  With a wince of regret for my hand, absolutely perfect for ‘going for control’, I scrambled to my feet. “I need a potty break as well. Why don’t I go with you?”

  “Me too.” Barb joined us and we stumbled out into the night.

  “Christ.” We heard a low growl behind us as we scampered through the undergrowth. “Why do women always have to go to the bathroom in sets?”

  “Maybe they’re up to something in there,” Joe chuckled. “Plotting to take over the world or some such.”

  I considered tossing back a reply, but dismissed the idea as juvenile. Rachel was close to tears, again, and there was no need to rattle her any more.

  The rain hadn’t let up one iota. It still fell in a steady stream, dripping down our jackets, for those of us fortunate enough to still have jackets. My nice dry clothes soaked up the rainwater in no time and I was back to shivering and cuddling my arms. At least the lightening storm had stopped and the skies were quiet. From a vast distance one loon called to another, was answered, and I was reminded of why I loved this country.

  With all the subtlety of a herd of wild buffalo we stumbled up the trail to the treasure chest. In turn, two of us chattered brightly together as the third tried oh so casually to do her business.

  We arrived back at the camp and Barb was ducking down to slip under the tarp, when Rachel grabbed my arm in a grip like a vice.

  “What really happened up there, Leanne?” she whispered, her voice low and serious but fully in control. “Did Richard honestly fall and drown?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I find that a bit hard to believe. This isn’t deepest, darkest Africa, you know. It’s nice, civilized, comfortable, old Ontario. Believe it or not, even I know the difference.” Her green eyes stared at me, deep and intent. I wondered why this intelligent woman pretended to be such a dummy.

  “People die in Ontario, as well as they do anyplace else.”

  “True enough. But not many like this.” And with that she ducked and disappeared into her tent.

  The card game broke up shortly after our return and everyone headed to his or her tent.

  “Leanne, can I talk to you for a sec?” Craig said, as we all scuttled for our beds.

  “Sure.”

  He tossed me a huge smile. His hair was wet, his face smudged with mud and smoke and his clothes tattered and filthy, but he was still an amazingly attractive man. Charmed, I smiled back.

  “I guess we’ll have to delay our date a bit. With so much going on around here, I hope you haven’t forgotten about it.”

  “I remember.”

  “Good. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe I can come down to Toronto and we can go out for dinner. You think of someplace really nice. I want it to be special.”

  “Sure,” I said, uncomfortable at the suggestion. I hadn’t forgotten that he had asked me out, but it seemed a bit out of place for him to mention it right now. With the remains of Richard resting on the rocks and the shocked widow weeping softly nearby.

  “Good night, then.”

  “Good night, Craig.”

  Much mild grumbling continued for a long time as everyone adjusted to new positions in the tents, but eventually we settled. All but one, that is.

  For a long time I could hear Craig moving about outside, checking on the lone tent on the rocks, putting out the propane stove and the fire. Finally all was quiet. I hadn’t heard Craig crawling into his tent, so it was likely he sat and thought long into the dismal, rainy night.

  We had done our best to set up the sleeping accommodations but this was not a cultivated, groomed campsite. It was nothing but a refuge in the storm. I shared a tent with Joe, Barb and Dianne, which made things somewhat crowded. It was called a four-person tent - more like four-tiny-toddlers in my opinion. I had stripped off my wet clothes and crawled, clad only in a pair of underpants, into my sleeping bag. If I had to run for my life in the middle of the night, too bad.

  I lay awake for a long, long time. Eventually Craig stumbled into the other tent and everyone’s breathing settled into place, slow and rhythmic. I even smiled as Barb set up a rousing chorus of snores. How normal it all seemed.

  But outside our little enclosure, a man lay, cut down by the hand of another human being and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get that thought out of my mind. Animals kill because it’s what they do, no more and no less, and nature simply doesn’t care. If a rogue bolt of lightening had struck Richard down, or a storm-tossed wave had overturned his canoe, we would all mourn and his loved ones would suffer no less, but there would be some acceptance of the natural order of things. But this was hard, too hard to accept.

  I lay on my back and stared up into nothing, listening to the steady drumming of the rain hitting the roof of the tent. The inside of the tent was absolutely black, I opened my eyes wide but there was not a glimmer of light for them to become accustomed to, so all remained pitch dark. I concentrated on the steady drumming of the rain only inches from my face.

  The rain continued long into the night, eventually slowing to a dull pattern sounding much like a mischievous child throwing handfuls of gravel against the tent walls.

  But still sleep wouldn’t come. When I could hear the gentle pitter-patter no more, I pulled the sheet out of my sleeping bag, wrapped it around myself like a character in a low-grade TV show, and, gripping my flashlight, slipped out of the tent.

  A heavy blanket of clouds obscured any trace of moon and stars. I could hardly make out the ground at my feet and flicked my little flashlight on for some company. It had stopped raining but everything was sodden right through. I found a miniscule patch of dry log under the middle of the tarp, close to the remains of the fire and sat down gingerly. Pulling my sheet tightly around me, I huddled into myself. It was not a pleasant sensation.

  From the two tents nearest to me I could hear heavy breathing and light snoring, accompanied by the odd groan and snuffle and occasionally the thud of a heavy body shifting. The single tent that stood alone on bare rock offered nothing, for which I was profoundly grateful.

  With everything so wet there was no hope of an incompetent like me being able to light a fire, so I sat alone in my misery, wondering what I was doing here. Hard to believe that in one single day things could have changed so much - from a sparkling adventure in the panoramic wilderness to a terrifying adventure in the goddamned wilderness.

  It seemed unfair that the others were able to sleep. Even Dianne, the grieving widow and Craig, the failed guide, were sawing logs, but here I sat on a rotting old stump that was happily spewing splinters into my barely protected butt, contemplating the mysteries of the universe.

  Someone killed Richard. In more inhabited surroundings, it could conceivably have been a thrill killing, or a case of mistaken identity, but we hadn’t seen another soul or canoe since long before we landed at the portage to Lost Dog Lake and the storm broke over our heads. Unless we escaped to the realm of spy-fiction or fantasy, which would give me a nice outlet of either aging Nazi agents determined to see the rise of the Fourth Reich or a warrior-maiden with some sort of vengeance oath against us, the killer was one of the little band of people sleeping so peacefully as I kept watch. And if someone was only pretending to sleep but was actually lying awake torn by guilt and the fear of retribution, I heartily wished that someone would show him (or her) self to me and we could be done with it.

  On that cheery note, I felt the probing fingers of sleep reaching through to my subconscious at last, and I took myself back to my tent and my now-welcoming sleeping bag.

  Unexpectedly, I slept well. Wrapped in a gentle cocoon of exhaustion I was only dimly aware of the winds dying down and the rain starting up again. They had trained me well at Police College: while my body slept my mind was hard at work, attempting to make some sense of the last few days.

  Chapter 15

>   Day 9: Early Morning.

  When I became aware of my surroundings once again, the rain had stopped, although the force of the wind was enough to have trees bending and creaking in submission and waves breaking over the shoreline. It was still dark, threateningly hostile, an all-encompassing blackness. Earlier on the trip I’d enjoyed the peace of the soft night, now it was just plain mean.

  My subconscious had done a good job of sorting things out while I slept. Speculation and ideas were fighting their way through my brain, trying to catch my attention.

  I didn’t know much about these people, almost nothing really. It would be difficult to come up with a motive for murder with so few facts. As The Greatest Detective himself had said: ”It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts”.

  Easier said than done.

  In mind only I hovered over the wretched, rain-soaked tents and studied the occupants. Who would have wanted Richard dead?

  Dianne. For the police, the next of kin is always the most likely suspect, unfortunately for good reason, but I couldn’t see that Dianne had much of a motive for killing Richard. Follow the money was another one of our credos and in this case it appeared to be she who had the money. As I had learned from bits of conversation overheard, financially Dianne stood to gain nothing by Richard’s death (unless, of course, there was more to their relationship than I had been able to gather). She was threatening to cut him off, not the other way around.

  Which line of thinking brought me, of course, to Joe, who appeared to have a lot to gain or lose from the dynamics of Richard’s marriage to Dianne. Although, once again, I could not figure out how Richard’s death would do Joe any good at all. Dianne would give him, quite simply, nothing. Rather, once again judging by what I had overheard, Joe had much to lose and nothing to gain by the death of Richard. It was Dianne who the threat to the survival of their business.

  Barb? Not a possibility as far as I could tell. Even if Richard attempted to besmirch her honor (did any of us have any in this day and age? Did we want any? I don’t think so, and a good thing too), she didn’t seem the type to creep up on him with murder on her mind, rather she would scream and howl and make sure we all knew precisely what was going on.

  Rachel? Again, no reason came to mind of why Rachel, with the body of a pop star, a mind like a steel trap, and the pretences of an air-headed bimbo, would want him dead. The opposite would appear to be the case: Joe’s business needed Richard. But there could be insurance issues. Maybe Joe did stand to win with the death of Richard.

  Like Barb, if Richard offered Rachel some sort of insult, she would more likely laugh out loud than sneak up on him from behind to avenge her honor.

  Craig didn’t like Richard much, that was obvious. Craig may have felt that Richard was impugning his authority a bit (the old moose stags at the rut routine one more tedious time). But such was scarcely motive for a dark and silent murder. In humans, as in nature, the rutting stags loved nothing more than to make a flamboyant display to all assembled to demonstrate their supposed superiority.

  Jeremy? He was an obnoxious, pig-headed boy, eaten up by jealousy because of Barb’s interest in Craig. I would have more expected Jeremy to murder Craig over Barb, but not Richard. He didn’t seem to have paid any attention to Richard at all.

  So far I had not a single motive for the murder of poor old Richard.

  I had thoroughly disliked the guy and now I was thinking fondly of the dearly departed, wrapped up all nice and dry in his comfy sleeping bag, nothing but the best in all weather technology, while I lay here, cold, hungry and still slightly damp. I wondered how my raincoat was faring, hiding in the rocks.

  The raincoat. My eyes flew open with the realization of what that meant. We all, except for Craig, owned almost identical raincoats. Bright yellow, total waterproofing. We laughed about it, back at the lodge, how we had all bought nearly identical yellow raincoats.

  Is it possible? I sat up in a flurry of excitement. Maybe the killer wasn’t after Richard after all. Maybe he (or she, never forget, she) saw the yellow raincoat, assumed it was his or her enemy and struck blindly. Maybe Richard really was struck down in mistake for someone else. What a hopeless, sad way to go.

  That thought opened up a huge range of possibilities. If anyone in this group thought the yellow mac was someone else? The possibilities were almost limitless. Even me? Was one of them after me?

  What on earth for? Jealously of my sagging boobs and starting-to-protrude-no-matter-how-much-of-the-gym-I-did stomach? Lust for the self-same attributes? Maybe someone is after my fortune in a two-person P.I. agency and a dingy urban townhouse in a not very good area. I don’t think so. Better chances that they are in pursuit of a bat in hell.

  I dozed again.

  Like some sort of mischievous elf, the night teased us with the promise of relief from the storm, but morning returned full of nothing but rain and wind and more rain and wind and still more rain and wind.

  I awoke with a feeling of heavy dread as water fell in torrents once more across the roof of the tent.

  When I finally struggled into consciousness, most of the others were up and greeting the day with moans, sighs and grumbles. Dianne wept gently, lying in her sleeping bag, face turned to the tent wall.

  I pulled my wet shorts and sweatshirt out of my pack and dragged them on over my protesting body. The fabric was cold and clammy; definitely not the best start to what could only be a horrid day.

  Crawling across Joe, I reached Dianne and patted her arm ineffectively.

  She flipped over and stared at me with red, swollen, pain-filled eyes. “Oh, Leanne. I loved him so much.” Behind me I could hear Joe scuttle for the entrance. Nothing quite like a display of female emotion to have a man running for safety.

  I lay down beside Dianne and hugged her tightly. “I know, dear, I know.” Of course, I didn’t know at all, but it seemed the appropriate thing to say. And she wasn’t my ‘dear’ by any stretch of the imagination. We slip into platitudes with such ease.

  “I was so rude to him on this trip. Plain rude. And now I’ll never be able to tell him how much I loved him. I would have done anything for him, absolutely anything.” Confession over, she burst into another deluge of tears. I continued, simply, to hug. We lay there for a long time, as my right arm grew numb, and Dianne cried in heavy, gut wrenching gulps.

  The torrent of rain hitting the tent lightened up and then, to my delight, it ceased altogether.

  The rain and the tears stopped at almost the same moment, and the sobs turned into dry hiccups. Dianne wiped at her eyes and nose with a towel and began to mumble an apology.

  “You stay in here as long as you want,” I told her, guiltily glad to pull my arms back and clamber to my knees. “We’ll leave you alone for a little while. I’ll go and see what Craig’s plans are for getting out of here. You call me if you need me.”

  “Okay.”

  What remained of our group sat huddled around the propane stove. A pot of water was reaching the boil, and Craig clutched the coffee tin in his hands. He poured a ration of grounds into the pot as Barb laid out cups and spoons, sugar and dried milk. I could have kissed her. Once the water was at a full boil, Craig took the pot off the heat and placed it to one side to let the coffee grounds settle. Eagerly we held out our plastic cups like shipwrecked sailors waiting for the daily water ration.

  I gulped the dark liquid. At least it was hot, if not very good. A burning throat was almost worth it as the welcome heat spread through my miserable, damp body.

  “What a joy.” Rachel expressed my thoughts perfectly. She had actually managed to apply a little eye makeup and lipstick. Some women’s need to keep their own, natural face hidden never fails to surprise me.

  Coffee distributed, Craig placed another pot of water on the stove and measured out oatmeal.

  “What’s the plan, Craig?” Joe asked.

  “Plan?�
��

  “For getting out of here, you fool. You might be happy to sit around the fire like a new-age hippie, but for the rest of us, this holiday is over and we want to get the hell out of here.”

  “I am well aware that the trip is over, Joe.” Craig’s handsome face was lined and drawn, deep bags had settled under his eyes and I would swear those gray hairs in his beard weren’t there yesterday. “But thanks for reminding me anyway.”

  “Cut the sarcasm, guide-boy. Just get us back to the road.”

  I braced myself for Craig’s response to the insult. But he only shrugged his shoulders and added oatmeal to the still-cold water.

  “I don’t think we’re going anywhere today.”

  The circle erupted into a babble of shouts and protests. Even Dianne stumbled out of her tent, wiping her face on a towel and demanding to know what was going on.

  “Quiet down.” I managed to make myself heard above the din. Nothing like the voice of authority, even from one who doesn’t have any.

  “Fill us in, please, Craig,” I asked pleasantly. “It has stopped raining, we do have an emergency situation here, and we would all agree that it is time to return to the lodge. Right?”

  “Wrong.” Craig pointed over his shoulder. The lake was still dark and troubled but at least the rain was holding off. Always the optimist, I assured myself that the sky was lightening, just a teeny bit.

  But Craig had seen more. A shimmering silver curtain, a solid wall of rain, advanced towards us. Thick, black clouds accompanied it like outriders before the main army.

  “That front will hit in a few minutes. I don’t mind the rain too much, but I won’t venture out on the lake with that wind.”

  “But the wind is behind us, right?” Barb offered. “It’s coming this way, so that means that when we get to the other lake, it will be at our backs. That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Right,” Craig agreed. “Normally. But this isn’t normal weather. That wind can shift in a heartbeat. If it turns on us we would be swamped.”