He reached into the pocket of his shorts and produced a grubby business card, which he handed to me. “I can design one for you, if you want,” he said. “I don’t charge much.”
“I don’t have a computer, either,” I said, taking the card. He looked at me like I was one of the creatures in his picture book.
“How do you do e-mail, then?” he said.
“I write letters,” I said. My face burned. He smiled very sweetly, shook his head and stood up. The top of his head came up to my chest.
“You need a computer if you want to be competitive,” he said. “Call me when you get one, and I can help you do your website. It’s not hard.” He walked away, heading for the circulation desk. I looked down at the card in my hand.
“Webmaster Bryan,” the card said. “For all your Internet needs.” Sometimes the universe likes to remind Luddites like me that the rocket ship left a long time ago, and most of the world was on it. I sighed, pocketed the little Webmaster’s card and took his place on the red cushion. I pulled The Big Book of Animals off the shelf and started looking for gopher pictures.
When I got back to the truck, where I’d left Luggy and Rosie in the cab (It’s okay—I’d parked in the shade with the windows down), there was a note on the windshield, under the wiper.
“Polly,” it said, “when are you going to get a phone? Call me at home. M.B.” Detective Constable Mark Becker really hated that I didn’t have a telephone. I’d explained that if people were truly eager to get in touch with me, they could leave a message at George’s house, or they could come and find me. Being phone-free meant that I was saved the hassle of bill collectors and telemarketers, but he said I was just in denial.
It surprised me that he’d said to call him at home, because summer is an awfully busy time of year for the local police force. The population quadruples, and the streets fill up with city drivers who can’t leave their road-rage at home. Every season, a fresh gaggle of underage drinkers descends on the bars, camp counsellors on day passes and sophisticated urbanites who may only be sixteen but look thirty. Cottage break-ins, loud parties, out-of-control campfires and downtown vandalism are all part of the policeman’s summer lot. The cop shop’s usually short-handed from June to September, and everyone works double shifts. I figured Becker had noticed my truck (it’s George’s really) on the way to arrest some mid-afternoon mischief-makers, and it was nice that he’d left me a note, even if it was terse and completely devoid of affectionate terms. “Dear Polly” would have been nice, or “Darling . . .”, but it wouldn’t have been his style, and I would’ve known at once it was a fake. I scurried back into the library and called from the payphone in the lobby, but I just got his machine.
“Hey, Becker,” I said. “Polly, returning your call. I’ll try again when I get back to the farm.” If it had been urgent, he could have come into the library and found me. Maybe cops are allergic to libraries. He was probably still out arresting people.
I had a couple of stops to make before heading home. I don’t go into town much in the summer if I can help it. The traffic jams are frustrating, and the line-ups are wretched. Still, Laingford is the only place you can get a case of beer within a ten-kilometre radius of Cedar Falls, our rural village address.
It was a Friday afternoon, and I’d avoided the northbound highway and taken a back route into town. The stream of cars, campers and mini-vans peeling off the highway onto Laingford’s main street made it look like Highway 401 in rush hour. I waited in the beer store line-up for an eternity, got my two-four of Kuskawa Cream Ale (a local brew, and therefore much healthier than the conglomerate brands), then braved the downtown gridlock so I could drop off a classified ad at the Gazette. Along with my Kountry Pantree gig, I was also preparing for a small exhibition of artwork in an empty downtown storefront. Two artist friends and I had decided to take advantage of the tourist boom to stage a “Weird Kuskawa Art” show. We’d rented the storefront for next to nothing from a retailer who’d gone belly-up the previous summer. It was my job to do the advertising; hence my visit to the local paper.
I was standing at the front counter filling in a classified order form for our ad when a beefy man with a very red face stormed into the building.
“Where’s that Grigsby?” he shouted. “Where’s that slimy little two-bit reporter who can’t get his facts straight? Where is he? I want to see him right now!” I froze, and the receptionist, who had been talking quietly to someone on the phone, muttered something into the receiver and rose slowly to her full height, which must have been close to six feet.
“Archie Watson,” she said, in a cold voice, “that ain’t the right way to behave in a newspaper office. Have some respect.”
“It’s Grigsby who oughta have some respect, Bonnie,” the man called Archie Watson said. “You see what he wrote about me in this week’s rag?” He looked vaguely familiar—I knew I’d met him somewhere before, or maybe I’d just seen his picture in the paper.
“I never read the Gazette,” Bonnie said, primly. “Too much to do around here to waste my time reading. Now if you sit nice and quiet over there, I’ll see if Cal is in and if he’s free, though I don’t see why he’d want to talk to you when you’re acting like such a maniac.”
“He wanted to talk to me bad enough last week,” Watson said. “Begged me to return his calls. So I talk to him and then he twists everything around and makes me look like an eejit.” Bonnie gave him the kind of look that suggested that an idiot was exactly what he was. She picked up the phone, punched out a number and kept her eye on Watson, who had not obeyed her instructions to sit down.
“Cal? Archie Watson’s here to see you and he’s loaded for bear, dear. Shall I tell him to get lost?” Bonnie listened to the response, nodded to herself and placed the receiver gently back in its cradle. Then she turned to me with a smile.
“How’s that ad comin’, sweetheart? You got your words figured out?”
“Well?” Archie Watson said, leaning over my shoulder.
“You wait your turn,” Bonnie said.
“I’m a busy man,” Watson said.
“I’m sure this here young lady is a busy person, too, Archie. Didn’t Selma teach you no manners at all?” Watson let out an exasperated breath right behind me, and I resisted the urge to wipe my neck.
“I, uh, I’m not quite finished,” I said. Bonnie, determined to torture the man, flicked the form around to her side so she could read it.
“Weird Art of Kuskawa, eh? I like that. Got any nude paintings? Maybe you could get Archie here to pose for you. That’d be weird.” She chuckled at her joke. I could feel Watson vibrating with frustration behind me. “Have a seat, Archie,” she said. “Cal’s on his way down.” But he didn’t have time to sit because the door marked “Editorial/Sales” opened, and a young man stepped into the reception area.
“Archie,” he said, striding towards the big man, who was one stage away from hyperventilation. “Good to see you.” The young man, Calvin Grigsby, I assumed, held out his hand in such a natural manner that Watson shook it automatically before thinking better of it and snatching his away.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” Watson growled.
“Of course you do. Everybody does, sooner or later,” Grigsby said. “Come on back, and we’ll talk about it.” Grigsby’s easy manner put Watson completely off his stride. I’ve never seen anyone turn the other cheek quite so effectively before. It was impressive. Watson followed the young newspaperman meekly and even turned to close the door behind him.
“Wow,” I said.
“Cal’s a people person,” Bonnie said with pride. “The sales people call him in if a client’s getting into a tizzy about a mistake or something. He’s like human Valium.”
“Useful trait in the business you’re in, I guess. What was that guy so upset about, anyway?”
“Oh, Archie’s hopping mad about that new store going in,” Bonnie said. “His family has run Watson’s General Store since the town was born,
and he thinks he’s going to lose all his customers. Cal probably quoted something stupid he said.” Watson’s General Store was up at the top of Main Street, a handsome brick building with the original wood and glass counters in the front—a big tourist attraction. The front of the store featured hand-scooped ice cream and candy displayed in big glass jars. It also sold groceries, bread and fresh produce and had an excellent meat counter at the back.
I remembered where I’d seen him before, wearing a big white apron and smiling cheerfully as he handed over a slab of steak wrapped in butcher’s paper. Watson’s wasn’t cheap, but it was family-run, and the service was great. Remembering the array of cleavers and knives behind Archie’s counter, I thought privately that having him mad at you could be dangerous. Better Calvin Grigsby than me, I thought. Fortunately, the work I was doing for the Kountry Pantree was behind the scenes. Nobody ever looks at a person dressed as a cow and wonders who designed the costume. In the mind of the average Joe, store mascots just are; they’re a given, a fact of life, like those little plastic forks you get with Kentucky Fried Chicken. There was no point in worrying about Watson coming at me from behind his meat counter, waving a chopper and calling me a slimy little two-bit puppet maker.
I paid for the art show ad and grabbed a copy of the Gazette on my way out. If I was working for the Kountry Pantree people, it would probably be a good idea to keep abreast of the situation. I had a nasty feeling that this mascot-gig was going to turn out to be trouble.
Three
Why waste your money at a flower shop?
Kountry Pantree’s prices won’t make you drop!
Make our Bouquet Boutique your fresh flower stop!
—A full-colour ad in the Laingford Gazette summer supplement
The midsummer evening light had ripened into that particular golden colour which makes everything touched by it impossibly beautiful. From the top of the hill leading down into George’s valley, the big old brick farm house, weathered barn and outbuildings looked like they’d had warm honey poured over them. Curve after gentle curve of meadow, in diminishing shades of tender green and bronze, receded into a horizon wreathed in mist. Near the house, I could see the stooped figure of George, in a bright red shirt and straw hat, tending his vegetable garden, watched over by a scarecrow that looked more than a little like him. I’d made the scarecrow that spring, borrowing an old barn coat and hat from the mud room and using a mop head for the hair. Poe, George’s tame raven, perched on the scarecrow’s shoulder. (Nothing scared Poe except thunderstorms.)
Off in the distance, in the apple orchard, George’s goats were snacking on windfalls and grass, and could easily be mistaken for a herd of deer, if you didn’t know better. There was no sign of Susan or Eddie, but I figured they were probably in the barn, preparing for the evening milking.
I drove slowly down the driveway, savouring the scene. After the bustle of Laingford, this profound peace was reassuring. There really are some quiet places left in the world, I reminded myself, then wondered (as I often do) how on earth I had managed to live in Toronto for so long without going completely bonkers.
George straightened up and came over to greet me as I clambered out of the old Ford pickup. Luggy and Rosencrantz met him halfway, Luggy sniffing politely at his boots and Rosie trying as usual to climb up his body so she could lie like an infant in his arms.
“Off, Rosie,” I said in my best “I mean business” voice. She ignored me. George crouched to her level, gently squeezed her paws and placed them on the ground, then patted her head as she settled down.
“She is learning,” he said in his soft Finnish voice.
“Huh. Faster than a speeding pile of frozen molasses. How’s the veggie garden?”
“It has been a good growing season,” George said. “Too good. There is too much, almost. Tomatoes, zucchini—the zucchini is taking over. I should not have planted it so close to the onions.”
“The zucchini was Susan’s idea, wasn’t it?”
George looked at me a bit sadly. “Yes, it was her idea. A good one, Polly. I just put in too many seeds, that’s all.” What he meant was “stop being so critical of your aunt,” and he was right, but somehow I couldn’t help it. Once you start down the blame road, it’s hard to stop.
“Well, you’ll have lots of zucchini bread and frozen zucchini for the winter, anyway,” I said.
“Do you need any tomatoes? Let me give you some.”
“That would be great,” I said, and we spent a pleasant few minutes wandering in the jungle of George’s garden, filling a basket with warm tomatoes, ripe almost a month before their usual time, a couple of fat ears of corn and some green beans. I had spent a few frustrating seasons trying to make a vegetable garden of my own up at the cabin, but finally gave up after the deer, rabbits and groundhogs made it clear that anything planted so close to the forest belonged to them, not me.
“I’ll come down on the weekend and do a little weeding in here,” I said. Wild vines, the bane of every Kuskawa garden, were starting to get a stranglehold on the corn and beans.
“No need,” George said. “Eddie and his girlfriend are going to do that on Sunday.”
“Oh.” I should have been glad that Eddie was making such an effort to be useful, what with doing the barn chores and all, but I couldn’t help feeling redundant. The veggie basket on my arm grew a little heavier—yet another favour I wouldn’t be allowed to return.
I borrowed George’s little red wagon to haul my beer, a few other purchases and the veggies up to the cabin. I had a couple of hours to kill before Susan’s Social Justice meeting, and I didn’t want to stick around at the farm long enough to be invited for dinner. I wanted to sulk, and that’s best done alone.
When I got home, I cracked a Kuskawa Cream and rolled a small joint, smoking it on the porch and watching the tendrils of blue smoke curl up in a spiral overhead. I’m not a heavy dope-smoker, you understand. Just the occasional puff for recreational purposes. The previous year, when I’d met Mark Becker, and we’d given in to a ferocious mutual chemical attraction, I’d ruined it by offering him a post-coital joint. Not the brightest move in the world, considering that he’s a policeman who takes his job seriously. He’d gone ballistic, threatened to arrest me, and it had taken a long time to patch it up. Now we worked according to that U.S. military dictum: Don’t ask, don’t tell. I never smoke around him, and I confine my indulgence to the times when I’m certain not to be seeing him. He still looks steadily into my eyes whenever we meet, though, to see if I’m under the influence of narcotic substances. Not a very comfortable state of affairs, but it was the best we could do.
As usual, the dope lubricated the creative cogs, and I went back inside to do some more work on the Kountry Pantree sketches. Rosencrantz was asleep on her favourite chair, curled up into a unbearably cute ball of fuzzy puppyness, her tail wrapped around her nose. I wanted to gather her up and nuzzle her, but it wouldn’t have been fair to wake her up unless I was willing to put in some dog-time. One must let sleeping puppies lie.
I am a firm believer in developing tactile relationships with companion animals. I regularly get close up and sniff the various composite parts of Lug-nut and Rosie to make sure they’re clean and healthy. (This is not as disgusting as you might imagine, folks.) They let me examine their teeth and ears, massage their fuzzy necks, bellies and paws, clip their nails and do all those rather intimate things that responsible dog owners must do for their pets from time to time, and I like to think that their tolerance of such behaviour is because they’re used to it. Mother/Alpha dog and all that. They like to lick my legs after I have a bath, too, but that’s probably way more information than you need. It grosses Becker out, which is not surprising. Not only do I avoid smoking dope around him, I also try to remember not to stick my schnozz into Luggy’s ears when he’s around. I don’t doubt I’ll end up one of those eccentric old hermits who leaves all her worldly possessions to her dogs.
I pulled the library books out
of my “I Brake For Frogs” book bag and turned to the top-quality chapter on cows I’d found in Farm Animals Explained. Not that I really needed to know about the four stomachs of a bovine ruminant, but if you’re going to build a costume that looks like a cow, you have to have some idea of how the common cow is put together. Goats I knew back to front and sideways, but my experience with cows was limited.
An hour or so later, I had a fairly respectable sketch of Kountry Kow, complete with apron, udder and a cunning tail that, if the cow mascot made the final cut, would swish, thanks to a secret wire inside.
I slugged back a cup of elderly coffee, washed my face in a basin of rainwater and headed down to be grilled by Susan and her Social Justice League.
George’s driveway was crowded with vehicles, several of them bearing store logos. A purple mini-van announced that “Emma’s Posies (45 Main Street E.) are Bloomin’ Lovely.” A boxy, boat-shaped sedan had “Downtown Drugs: Your Family Drugstore” written on the door, and I guessed that the yellow Camry belonged to the owner of the Laingford photo shop, because it had a huge plastic camera mounted on its roof.
As soon as I arrived, I realized I’d neglected one of the first rules of etiquette which govern rural meetings at somebody’s home. You’re supposed to bring food. I came in the back door leading into the kitchen, to find Susan bustling around making coffee, surrounded by plastic-wrapped plates of goodies. There was a platter of small cakes, a mound of little triangular sandwiches, some miniature pizzas and a box of After Eight mints with a gift bow on the top.
“Somebody having a birthday party?” I said to hide my embarrassment. I should have whipped up a batch of granola bars or something, I thought to myself, except for the fact that it was too warm for me to have the woodstove going, which would have been the only way to bake them. Luggy, smelling food, threw himself to the floor and grovelled at Susan’s feet. Rosie, who generally copied everything he did, followed suit.
Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle Page 52