by Iona Whishaw
“I’m not sure when, exactly. I heard about it yesterday. Infection. They said it was amazing he survived as long as he did.” Lane wondered if she was saying too much. Would Mrs. Castle wonder how she knew so much detail? She thought of manufacturing “a friend who knew someone at the hospital,” but decided against digging herself in any deeper. “Well, I’d best be off. Oh. Why don’t I give you my phone number? That way if you have something you need or eggs ready, you can call me.”
Mrs. Castle had not moved from where she stood, so Lane opened her bag, found an envelope, tore a strip off it, and wrote the number. She went around the car and held the slip of paper out to the distraught woman. “KC 431,” she said. Vanessa Castle took the piece of paper and looked at it, misery etched on her face. Lane put a sympathetic hand on her arm. “You’re worried about Carl, because of what happened with that young man,” she said, more of a statement than a question.
“Just leave me alone,” Mrs. Castle said, going to where she’d left the trowel.
“Call me if you need anything,” Lane said to the woman’s back. She got into her car and began to back up the drive to the little flat patch where she could turn the car around. “Well, well,” she said. There was a lot to digest.
When she got home, Lane sat at her table with her pencil and a piece of paper. She wanted to get a handle on what she thought was anomalous about her visit. It wasn’t just that the woman seemed distraught—her son was missing, after all. She wrote down the things that struck her as odd:
She seemed to want me to leave, was relieved when I said I’d pay her and collect the money from Bales.
What had she been about to say? “My . . .” what? Son? Family? Father?
Seemed very upset about boat man dying. Why? Because she feared it could be Carl’s fate? Seemed more immediate. Does she have some reason to suspect Carl is involved in some way?
Grass was flattened ahead of where I parked. Could be egg buyers . . .
Lane put her pencil down. That last point was silly. What did she imagine? That Carl had driven there and was lurking somewhere waiting for her to go, the car under a canvas in the garage? No. There wasn’t a garage there. But it did raise again the question of why the sleek black car had been leaving the farm. Lorimer lived in, or near, town, she guessed, and no doubt had people who went to Liberty, that sleek supermarket in town. She sat and stared at the paper. Too many unconnected ideas. And she shouldn’t be sweeping Lorimer into the mystery because she disliked him. Unless there was a political connection of some sort. Vanessa had some fairly fascist views. Did she and Carl belong to some secret organization? Did Lorimer? Now there was something. Lorimer was running for office. If he belonged to a shady organization he might not want the voters to know about it. Well, she could start by writing all this down and looking at it again later to see how it held up.
The phones seemed to be working again. That phone man, as inadequate as he appeared, must have fixed them. Lane learned this when, with some trepidation about being cut off again, she phoned Angela to ask if she’d like to go on an expedition with her in a rowboat.
“That would leave poor David with the children,” Angela said in a voice that conveyed both worry and satisfaction.
“Oh, of course, how foolish of me. I hadn’t thought of that,” Lane said. She was certain she could tootle along the edge of the lake in a boat with an outboard motor and not get lost, but had thought Angela might like the adventure of it.
“The children mostly run themselves up here, but they do suddenly appear from time to time demanding food. David is capable of assembling some peanut butter or bologna sandwiches. I’ll make lemonade and leave it in the fridge. All right. I’m your man! Why are we doing this exactly?”
Why indeed? thought Lane. A wilder or goosier chase she could not imagine. “I got the idea from Gladys. She said the lake is full of little coves where would-be prospectors might set up shop. Some of the creeks apparently spit up a bit of gold every now and then.”
“You’re making me shudder. Why would we want to go and visit probably unwashed and possibly wild-eyed prospectors?”
“You don’t know they’re unwashed. They could be like our own resident prospector, Glenn Ponting, trained geologists living in comfortable and sanitary cabins. But I see your point. The reason is that I wonder if the poor man we found, whom the police have nicknamed Joseph P. because someone visited him in hospital and claimed he was called Joseph P. Smith, and was seen rummaging through his bedside drawer looking for something, maybe lived in one of the coves himself.”
“Wow! I didn’t know anyone had been to visit him. Who was it?”
“I don’t think the police know. He came once and never came back. It did alarm them and they put a guard on the patient’s room in case someone came back to finish him off, but there was never another visit, and then the poor guy died. Anyway, this whole expedition depends on Mather lending me his boat and motor.”
“Oof. Good luck with that. Let me know. When are you proposing for this outing?”
“Tomorrow morning, early. I’ll make some sandwiches. I don’t know how long it will take to get up as far as Kaslo. Right, I’m off to tackle Reg. He still doesn’t like me much, I’m afraid.”
“He never met a beautiful woman he didn’t think would swoon for him. Just turn on that Winslow charm.”
Lane sighed as she stood at the turn of the road where Reginald and Alice Mather lived. Since their son had been sent to prison the year before for his part in the death of a man found in the creek that fed Lane’s house, Reginald, who had been outgoing and had seen himself as the de facto leader of King’s Cove, had become more and more withdrawn and crotchety. Alice, his wife, on the other hand, a woman who had violent swings of mood, had become more visible and sociable of late. Lane wasn’t sure she could remember how to “turn on the charm.” It was a skill required of her from time to time during the war. She’d had to pretend to be someone else, either German or French, to be light, easy, attractive, to allay any suspicion that she might be anything but an attractive German or French girl. Looking back, that sort of charm seemed to her to be disingenuous and artificial. She was not even sure she could be convincing anymore without seeming insincere. Well, she would try to be ordinarily kind and courteous and see where that got her.
She opened the gate and walked up to the front porch, a long stone-flagged affair across the front of the house, with two chairs that she had never seen anyone sit in, and knocked on the door. She heard a shuffle inside, and a tentative bark. Then Reg was in front of her.
“Yes?” The charm of her smile was evidently not going to work right away.
“Good afternoon, Reg. It’s awful cheek of me, I know, but am I right in thinking you have a rowboat?”
“What of it?”
He was not going to make this easy. “It’s just that I’d like to go out on the lake for a bit of an explore, and I rather hoped, if you had a boat, and maybe even an outboard motor, you would lend them to me.” She leaned over to pat the dog, which was sniffing at her knees in a friendly manner.
Reginald Mather seemed irritated that his dog was not toeing the party line. “Get off with you!” he said to the dog. “Have you got any way to get it down there? You don’t expect me to be hauling it down for you.”
Relieved that he appeared inclined to let her have the boat, Lane said, “Good grief, no! It’s so kind of you to let me use it at all. I can tie it to the top of the car.” She’d never tied a boat to the top of a car, but she figured that between her and Angela they could manage it. In the event, Reginald was willing to help her with that part of it. He opened his gate and had her back up near where his car was parked, and together they lifted the boat out of the garage and up-ended it on top of Lane’s car. While he went back into the garage to find rope, Alice came out of the house and leaned on the porch pillar eating a piece of
toast. Lane smiled at her and, getting nothing back, opened up both her doors so that the rope could be tied through the car.
Reg came out of the garage with a length of rope and threw it over the boat.
“Careful driving down to the water. I wouldn’t trust him to tie his own shoes,” Alice remarked.
The boat affixed to the car, Reg went back into the garage and came out with a small outboard motor. It looked fairly beaten up and smelled of oil. “Know how to use one of these things?” he asked.
“Is it complicated?”
“Easy. There’s a cord here and you pull it to start the engine. Make sure the propeller end is in the water before you do it. You’ll need gas. Put this in the trunk.” He handed Lane the motor, which was heavier than she expected, and went back into the garage. Lane put the motor in the trunk, wishing she’d brought a tarpaulin to protect the trunk from leaking gas and oil. Reg returned with a galvanized metal gas can.
Having stowed it next to the motor, Lane wiped her hands on her handkerchief and stood next to the driver’s side door. “Thank you, Reg. It’s terribly kind of you. I couldn’t think who else to ask.”
Perhaps it was a sense of having helped a woman in distress, but Reginald Mather suddenly displayed a largesse that had been entirely absent throughout the interaction. “Don’t use it much anymore, do I? Glad to see someone get some use out of it.”
For reasons of her own, Alice, who was still on the porch, uttered a loud “Ha!” and went back into the house.
Back in her own house, Lane called Angela to say she’d got the boat and arrange for an early morning pickup, and then set about making sandwiches.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
May 1939
Klaus Lazek parked the truck in front of the Canadian Western Railway building in Dawson Creek, where the administration for the Sudeten refugees was housed. At home he had no difficulty confronting officials. Here he felt he was like a country bumpkin coming hat in hand to some faceless bureaucrat. At home he had a suit, good shoes, and a good education to back him up. Here he was clad in coveralls and wore heavy rubber boots stuffed with cloth to keep his feet warm and out of which he was sure he would never be able to get the mud. He pulled himself straight. The situation was dire. His new friends told him that the winter had been hard, and the spring came late here, and they had not enough equipment for the farming they were expected to do, and were well short of the money they had been promised for basic supplies. Thus, determined by survival if nothing else, he took off his hat, moved his blond hair off his face with a sweep of his hand, and asked to see the person in charge of the German settlement.
“Yes?”
“My name is Klaus Lazek. I am from the settlement of German refugees.”
“I can see that. What do you want?” The man behind the desk delivered these words in a perfunctory manner. He was young and smooth. He appeared to be attempting not to smell the man standing in front of him. His hands rested on the desk, his right hand still holding papers as if he had been interrupted in important work. He did not ask Klaus to sit.
“We are doing the best we can to build shelter, but money has been promised and we don’t see it. We should buy more materials for building and farming, and we must buy food. With the money we have we cannot do both. Also, we are trying to prepare more ground for planting, but it is very poor.”
The man behind the desk rubbed his chin and gave a regretful sigh. “Well, for the moment I’m afraid you’ll have to make do. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘money that has been promised.’ There is no other money. You are settled here solely on the basis of becoming engaged in farming. If you have misrepresented yourselves, well . . . that can have grave consequences.”
“We are not farmers. We never said we were. We are grocers and factory workers and electricians. We are grateful to be here, of course, and we will do our best, but we cannot operate without proper equipment and the money that we were promised when we set sail from England. How are we to get the equipment we need?”
“Look, Mr. La . . . whatever it is. There isn’t any money. I don’t know about equipment. As far as this office is concerned you’ve been given everything you need. Considering the state of the world at the moment I’m surprised you feel you can come here and complain. Good morning.” The man rose and indicated the door.
Lazek looked at him, at his well-tended hand with the heavy gold ring on it.
“You have taken our money!” he said, a sense of outrage building in him. “You come out and try to live on that so-called farm land, see how you do!”
“I suggest you remove yourself from my office immediately, or I shall have you removed. You cannot be the recipients of the Dominion of Canada’s generosity and then come in here making demands and accusations. It will certainly do your cause no good. I know of no other money, and if I did, at this point I would be inclined to use it for other purposes and not on an ungrateful group of German DPs. We are likely to be at war with Germany soon, and frankly I would mind how you go.”
Lazek turned and stormed out the door. “Generosity! Ha!” he said in German.
He stood on the street in front of the truck, trying to calm down. German DPs. It was an insult, he knew. But they were displaced persons. That was the truth of it, and as such apparently they were entitled to no respect here in their new country. The conversation had taken him to a very familiar place. Trying to reason with and get something from the faceless bureaucracy: the factory owner, the government official. They are all the same the world over, he thought. He looked back at the window of the administrator’s office. He could see the man watching him.
I will never forget that face, he thought. Because that one is dishonest as well as being heartless. Lazek decided he would pick up the minimum supplies they needed and could afford, and then he would try to find out who was above this man.
It was not long after that that he, and all the members of the settlement, were told to report to the rcmp.
Darling had firmly resisted looking up toward King’s Cove as they passed the turnoff. He did not want any of Ames’s backchat. He needn’t have worried. Ames was mired in glum anxieties about how to handle the Violet situation. They drove in silence for some minutes. Darling had the window open and was resting his elbow on it and looking out at the passing scenery, enjoying the warmth of the air blowing in. The road between King’s Cove and Kaslo was barely twenty years old, he knew, and though it was well used, it still had a raw feel, as though only recently carved out of the cliffs along the lake. Trees had been felled along the route, and their replacements were only starting to grow above the brush that now covered the once naked edges.
“I wonder how long the paddle wheel steamers will continue going up and down the lake?” he mused. “With roads going everywhere, wouldn’t it be easier to load your apples or what have you onto a truck and drive them to the station?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. I don’t have any boxes of apples to move.”
“You’ve got some kind of burden, though. You’re not providing much entertainment,” Darling observed.
Ames ignored this oblique invitation to share his feelings and slowed the car to negotiate the descending hairpin bend over the wooden bridge at the bottom of the hill, slowing even more as a motorcycle coming the other way passed them at a sharp angle. Ames shook his head, and then geared down to take the rise that would take them along the most terrifying and narrow stretch of road that skirted the very edge of a stark drop to the lake, far below. Darling pulled his elbow back, feeling slightly winded at the sight of the sheer drop immediately next to him, and thought about how near Lane had come to dying at this very spot during the winter.
Ames, hoping they would meet no more cars until the road widened again, said, “It’s bad enough in a car. I wouldn’t ride the damn thing on a motorcycle.”
As the road widened agai
n and was back on what Darling thought of as dry land, his tension eased. “So what is eating you?”
Ames held the steering wheel in both hands, as though trying to steer his own life with more care. Darling had issued a genuine invitation, somewhat at odds with his usual cavalier communications with Ames. Should he take him up on it? It suddenly occurred to Ames that without a father, he had no one to guide his thinking, though who knew if he would have confided in his own father. Maybe people didn’t.
“It’s Violet, sir. I think I’ve put my eggs in the wrong basket, as it were. I thought she was pretty and spirited, but more and more I’m finding she’s pretty and a little . . . I don’t know . . . mean. Mean-spirited covers it. She was pretty angry with me because I haven’t asked her to marry me, and I told her I wasn’t ready. She was unimpressed. But I suddenly felt that we would be at odds on so many things, especially on how to raise the kids.”
Darling sat back and pondered this communication. He wondered if he and Lane would begin to hit bumps of disagreement on the subject of, say, children. They certainly had never talked about children. The first bump might materialize on the subject of even having them. At the moment he couldn’t imagine himself with a child. But he could imagine Ames with children.
“I think you’re very right, Amesy, to put the brakes on. You were already feeling unsure before, and now you seem more certain. Your dilemma, if I am not talking out of turn, is that you admire Miss Winslow, who is a bit glamorous in her independence, but you would like to marry and settle down and have a family. That may take a more domestic model.”
Ames was silent. Finally he said, “You’re right there, sir. My big problem right now is that I hope she’s broken it off with me, but I’m terrified she’s going to call and apologize and want to make up. She can be volatile like that.”
“Sooner you than me, Amesy, sooner you than me. In the meantime we have a toothsome little murder to help keep your mind off it.”