Anderson gave a couple of short blasts on the horn, and pulled the throttle into neutral; they were there. “Okay guys, here’s where we begin. Put in your boats and get in once we’ve stopped. I’ve deliberately moved closer to shore, but this is a close as I plan to be – it gets shallow. You know the drill; pull into line perpendicular to the shore, and closer, and begin the first sweep. I’ll give the same two shots on the horn when it’s time to turn back the other way. You folks run the sweeps, keep the Sergeant and I informed on the radio. And – don’t be too hard on those kids in the canoe; they are not having the nice peaceful morning counting ducks that they had planned for.”
Andy and Marie grinned at him, and nodded. “Okay, we’re gone,” and they climbed in and started rowing toward the canoe, which was by then about a hundred feet in toward the beach, opposite where the Sergeant sat waiting on his ATV.
Each sweep along the shore took a little less than half an hour. By the time they made the third turn, it was becoming a little frustrating for the small-boat bunch, and mildly tedious for Anderson. He had been all wired up for this since Marjorie came to his house last evening, and now he was coming down as his mind and muscles relaxed into the routine of “east for 25 minutes, west for 25 minutes”. As his boat idled along at less than two knots, his thoughts began to drift.
Then, with a jolt that seemed almost physical, all the fears that had been eclipsed from his mind by the I-gotta-do-something part of his psyche, crashed into his consciousness like a blow to the stomach: What if we find Anita out here? How do we cope with it? How do we tell Genevieve and all Anita’s buddies. How do we deal with Fred? Anita’s too young to be floating around drowned in a lake. Indeed, did she drown? Did she commit suicide? Was she murdered?
Anderson called to Arnold, who had been propped against the edge of the wheelhouse roof staring shoreward through a big pair of US Navy submariner glasses he had picked up in a surplus store. “Hey, man. I’m kinda having a moment here, and it ain’t a good one.”
Arnold stepped into the wheelhouse, to be greeted by “What the hell do we do if we find Anita?” Arnold walked forward to the map table and looked across at Anderson. “I dunno. I’ve been assuming that’s why we’re doing this, and too focused to even think ‘what if’ or even wonder ‘if not, what?’ What are you thinking?”
“Don’t know either. I just know that if this amounts to nothing, it’s not over. The cops, I suppose, will have to deal with whether – beyond this morning – looking out here for Anita’s body is even reasonable. Even as we’re out here, there may be a rumour that she was seen in a bar in Toronto, or someone turns up with a Snapchat photo of her leaving a café in Kingston... both of which are, frankly, more likely than her floating around in a lake. There’s just this feeling in my gut that maybe we jumped the gun on this.”
Anderson took a quick look at the GPS, began a lazy one-eighty turn to go back west, and gave two quick blasts on the horn. Sergeant John came on the radio and said, “last turn, last sweep ladies and gentlemen. I’ve only one visitor on foot so far – a couple of birders out for an early morning stroll; I was able to make them happy by saying we had lost some test equipment and were out trying to find it. And some guy came in close to the shore with a little car-topper boat and motor, pissed off because there was traffic out here and he wanted his fishing spot all to himself apparently. He putted back toward...”
The hand-held radios squawked, and a voice – Marie’s – came across: “sorry to break in Sarge, but I’ve got something here. Big. Can’t tell what it is yet but I’m going to need help to figure it out.”
Corporal Beauchemin was in the middle boat in the line, one of the police rowboats. Arnold and Anderson had seen her wave as soon as she came on the radio, and Anderson had immediately swung the bow of the launch toward shore. The small boats were only a couple of hundred yards away, so he left the throttle alone; they would close the distance soon enough. Arnold took the police handheld from the map table, keyed the talk button and broke in: “John, do you want to call in Andy on the other inflatable and have him row in and pick you up? If it’s a body, I don’t think any of us out here know how we should handle this as well as you do.”
That decision had been made already; Andy was rowing to shore as fast as he could to pick up his boss. The PSP interns had stopped, of course, but had sensibly moved a good distance clear of Marie, her boat, and her newfound problem. Anderson swung the launch sideways as it neared Marie’s boat, took the transmission out of gear, and let it drift very slowly until it stopped, about fifty feet off. By then, the constable and his sergeant had arrived and joined the group of eight who were staring at a lumpy brown object just barely showing at the surface. The sergeant picked up a small boathook from the inflatable he was riding in and used it to reach across the object. He pressed the hook end down on the opposite side from where he was sitting and gently pulled the object toward him, causing it to slowly turn over in the water.
None of them – not one – was prepared for what they saw next. Yes, it was indeed a corpse, but not that of a healthy young woman who had just drowned. It barely looked human, except that it obviously had arms and legs and was wearing what looked like a brown canvas parka. The face was a nightmare of torn flesh, exposed bone and wisps of clinging hair.
For a few moments no one said a word beyond a couple of horrified gasps from the interns in the canoe. The sergeant spoke first: “this one’s been here awhile, and is certainly not our recently disappeared young woman. I won’t speculate from here, but I know there was an elderly man from out of town who went missing early last spring; they found his car along the east shore about 10 miles up past MacLean Point.
Anderson spoke up next: “I think I can speak for most folks around town – including myself – that it is a huge relief that this is definitely not who we feared it might be a few hours ago.”
Arnold was more to the point: “Anderson, why are you beatin’ around the bush again? Everyone here knows we’re talking about Anita and while this doesn’t solve the missing Anita problem, it sure as hell is good that this is not her.”
“Yeah, all of us out here on the lake know that, and are happy with this result,” said the sergeant. “Maybe, though, we shouldn’t talk too much about that. And of course I can’t speculate who it might be until we get confirmation. I can publicly say – if anyone asks – that this is not Anita Antoine, and I will also be saying that the search was conducted in response to a report from a female resident to something she saw in the water last night, and no, it had nothing to do with the continuing search for Ms. Antoine.”
Anderson had decided to bury his feelings in doing something useful, and had retrieved a couple of rolls of tie-down straps from a locker along the side of the launch’s well deck. He pulled off the ratchets and motioned to the sergeant, tossing the straps over to the boat he was sitting in alongside the body. “John, let’s call him Sam for now – I’m tired of talking about bodies. If a couple or three of you put these four straps around Sam, you should be able to roll him into your boat. Then we can tow the boat with Sam, and the other boat and the canoe, back to the village. In the meantime, you can make arrangements for the coroner to pick him up, and all these good folks can get back to what they normally do on Thursday mornings.”
The sergeant smiled, and nodded. “Yup, let’s just do that. Marie, and you folks with the canoe, take them around the other side of Frank’s boat and arrange a couple of ropes to tow them with. Arnold, would you mind giving Constable Andy and I a hand getting Sam into this rowboat? We’ll pull it – and Sam – over alongside the big boat so we have something to hang onto and steady ourselves.”
And so it was done. Fortunately Sam had not been a very big man, so the loading went easily enough. Everyone got onboard the launch and Anderson began the slow haul back toward the village. The ATC was left on the beach, where Arnold could drive over with the sergeant and pick it up. Conversation onboard was sparse; nobody felt much lik
e talking. Anderson had passed around some towels and alcohol wipes for anyone who wanted them, and between his thermos and the travel mugs and water jugs people had brought with them, everyone got something to drink.
The rest of the donuts, however, survived the forty-five minute trip home, untouched.
10:20 JULY 13
It was slow going. Anderson had to keep the speed down so the three little boats they were towing rode behind comfortably and didn’t twist or tangle or – worse – flip over. On the way back to the village, Anderson explained briefly to the sergeant that Marjorie Webster would meet him at the village when they got back in, expecting to be interviewed about what she had seen the night before. “I don’t suppose it’s as urgent now that we know the body is not part of an immediate search, but I think she does want to talk with you. I’ll call and let her know we’ll be back in soon. She said she’d meet you at my place if that’s okay.”
The sergeant nodded. “That will be fine. Yes, I do have to talk to her, so I can fill in the blanks. I’ve called the coroner and obviously he says an autopsy will be necessary; if the ID proves out that it’s the old boy I think it is, and the autopsy shows there’s no sign of foul play, just maybe I can close the file on that old missing persons case and get it out of the way. So, thanks for setting things up with, ah, Ms. Webster?”
“Actually, there are two Ms. Websters out on that island... Marjorie has a sister Wendy, but she was home through last night’s adventure.” Anderson dug in his jacket pocket for his phone and placed a call to the island, and explained to Marjorie that, in fact, they had found a body in the water – the body of an older man from many months ago – and that the sergeant indeed wanted to chat with her about last night.” He listened for a moment, said a quick goodbye, clicked off the phone and turned to the sergeant: “She’s on her way in. They have a little outboard runabout they use to go back and forth; I expect she’ll get to the dock not long after we get landed.”
“That’s good, thanks. Do you have a small tarp onboard? We’re gonna want to cover up Sam until the coroner gets here.”
Anderson nodded toward the locker in the well deck. “There’s a blue eight-footer in there.”
The sergeant spent some time with his officers, instructing them on what protocols needed to be followed when they got to the dock, as well as arranging with the corporal to go with Arnold and pick up the ATV from down the beach. For his part, Arnold spent much of the trip back to the village chatting with the interns, trying to put them at ease following what had been for them a rather traumatic morning. When Arnold came back into the wheelhouse, Anderson asked him how the kids were doing.
“Okay, I think. We owe them one – it’s been a stressful morning, especially, it seems, for Adumbi who was kinda shook up. Cyndi, though, seems like a tough little chick; she pretty much shrugged the whole thing off.”
“You gonna send ‘em back to work this morning?”
“Absolutely. No point in them sitting around moping about it.”
“Gack... you’re a tough man, Mr. Jamieson.”
“Ya think?” Arnold grinned at his friend, and they both chuckled. There had not been many laughs over the last day or two. “Oh, crap. I forgot to mention this morning that I had a call from Forbes last night. Sounds like a couple of the cottagers are pushing his buttons about getting that speaker in right away, and getting the TV and newspapers involved. Jeremy’s having a fit and wanting me to call a meeting right away.”
“Crap is right. Just what we need right now. These cottage guys seem to forget that they are on vacation out here but the rest of us have work to do and a community to take care of. You gonna do it?”
“I don’t really have much choice. I called Flo at the Spirit Inn earlier this morning and she’ll let us use their small meeting room tonight.”
“Tonight? Geez, that’s quick. Will you get anyone to come on such short notice?”
“Well, the way I see it is that it will have to be a special meeting anyway. It’s Thursday, and tomorrow is the start of the weekend, and I’d just as soon not have all the city folks show up, jam the meeting and start trying to push us around. Quick meeting, small room, short agenda, and beer after. With things like this, most of the good stuff happens at the end – over the beer.”
“Works for me.” Anderson throttled the launch back even further as they approached the village’s little harbour. They passed the gas dock at the marina, then the government wharf and then, about seventy-five yards further he pulled bow-first (and very slowly) into his dock at what was generally known as the “old industrial section”. Anderson sometimes grumbled to himself that the only industry that happened there was him trying to keep the old docks from crumbling into the lake in piles of rotting wood and rocks, but he generally took the long view: the local – and provincial – governments pretty much left him alone. For his part, he kept it from falling apart and cleaned up after himself (and others).
Nobody hung around. The sergeant helped the PSP interns put their canoe and gear on their old truck, thanked them profusely for their help and sent them on their way, presumably to their next study area far around the lake. Arnold took the constable in his pickup to fetch the abandoned ATV, and Marie pulled the inflatables up on the beach, making sure Sam was properly covered with an official-looking OPS-issued yellow tarp to await his date with the coroner.
Anderson fussed about his boat, putting straps and ropes away, making logbook entries, and watching the lake for the little outboard he knew would be coming across from Ship Island. He caught himself wondering why that little outboard seemed so important; it was, after all, just another in a day full of loose ends. He did, he supposed, feel a little responsible for Marjorie and her involvement in this less-than-happy situation, even as he realized that she owed him for answering his doorbell, not the other way up. He did, however, admit to himself that he was looking forward to seeing her.
Which he did. About half an hour later, the little outboard appeared and pulled in at the foot of the government dock, where the island cottagers tied up when they came into the village to buy groceries and booze. Anderson could see the two women walk along the dock to the shore and make their way to a small grey hatchback in the public parking area. He waved at them, and Marjorie waved back and shouted, “be there in a minute”. The car started up, backed out and drove up the road toward the shops; Marjorie turned and walked purposefully to the dock where Anderson was standing with Arnold – who had already returned from picking up the ATV - and the sergeant. “Hi Frank,” she said. “Just sending my sister Wendy off to get gas before we head to Maple Falls on a Walmart run.”
Anderson greeted her with a friendly smile and “good to see you again”. This is Sergeant John MacLeod from Maple Falls, and this is our friend and neighbour Arnold Jamieson. Arnold and Marion run the service station in town, and he’s always giving me a hand with stuff.”
The sergeant shook her hand and smiled. “Thank you for coming in to talk to me. I know it’s an inconvenience and I appreciate it. I don’t suppose this will take very long; Frank, could Ms. Webster and I just do our interview here on the boat, and then maybe walk up to your place? I need to stay here until the coroner gets here, although I could just brief Constable Beauchemin about how to handle it.”
“No worries, that’ll work fine. Make yourselves comfortable; Arnold and I will go up to the house and make some fresh coffee; we’ll just wait for you there.” Anderson and Arnold stepped off the dock and shook hands with the two police officers, who were sitting in the OPS vehicle with the doors open. “Thanks, Andy, thanks Marie. We’re glad you’re here to help our community with stuff like this!”
After the two men had turned and begun to walk up towards Anderson’s house, Arnold punched him on the shoulder and said, “You running for Mayor or something? ‘thank you for being here to help our community’ my ass – that ain’t what you said when you got that fine for pulling an overweight trailer with that little thing you cal
l a truck!”
“No, I guess not. That cop was just a bitch, without even a sense of humour!”
“She was nice; I had to do a couple of accident scenes with her and she was great. It’s you, ya miserable bugger; no wonder you haven’t even got a girlfriend, let alone a wife!” Both men were laughing as they walked off the road to Anderson’s front door.
“Actually, in another place, at another time, I had one of those. It just didn’t work out. At all.”
When they got into the house, Anderson started to make some fresh coffee as he had promised while his friend settled at the table and ruffled through the classifieds in the Maple Falls weekly newspaper. “Hey,” Anderson called across the room. “Is that meeting on for sure tonight?”
“I just talked to Marion about fifteen minutes ago; she reached most of the committee and they agreed to show up, so I guess we’re on.”
“Do you want me to make up one of those simple little agendas I usually do? I think it needs to be very short, like four items.”
“Four items? Really? There’s only one thing to discuss and it’s about holding a public meeting with that idiot from Vancouver, or wherever.”
“Yup. Four items: call to order, public meeting, adjourn, and beer.”
“Yeah, okay, that’ll work. Actually, maybe do it up exactly that way; perhaps a little humour will help keep it from getting too heavy.” Arnold paused a long moment. “How do you actually feel about this public meeting idea? You don’t usually say much at any of the committee meetings but folks look up to you, both sides. The cottagers think you actually know stuff, and even Jeremy calms down when you speak up. Am I wrong to be so negative about this? Should I rein in Jeremy a bit?”
Anderson finished pouring water into the coffee maker, turned it on, then went over and hunted for something on his desk. He found a couple of sheets of paper near the printer, and brought them to the table, laying them in front of Arnold. He sat down, saying nothing. The coffee maker snorted and snuffled across the room; other than that there was silence as Arnold read.
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