Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle

by H. Mel Malton

  “That’s what Susan’s trying to do,” I said.

  “Good luck to her,” Morrison said. He was already halfway through his second beer.

  A phone rang, a muffled sound, and Morrison dug through the papers on the table to get to it.

  “Yeah?” he said, picking it up. He waited, his face impassive. “You have gotta be kidding,” he said. When someone takes a private phone call, it is only polite to move out of earshot, which I would have done if there had been room to move, but I was kind of limited. Instead, I snapped my fingers at Alice, who was snuffling around on the floor, and she obligingly jumped into my lap. She was very soft, with bright, intelligent eyes and a fetching little goatee.

  “You’re asking one hell of a lot, considering everything,” Morrison said. “Yeah, I know. I like him, too.” There was another long pause as he listened to his caller. I risked a quick look at his face and looked away again. He was getting red.

  “When will you be back?” Morrison said. Pause. “You better be. And he knows I’m coming, eh? You cleared it with the administration?” After a few more belligerent grunts, Morrison put the phone down.

  “I don’t freakin’ believe it,” he said.

  “What?” I said.

  “That was my ex-partner, Becker,” he said. “He said Bryan’s miserable at camp and is threatening to run away unless somebody comes to get him. Becker’s got to go to Toronto tonight, so he wants me to go spring the kid and have him over here for a sleepover.”

  “Wow.”

  “Bryan’s been out here before, eh, but Becker should’a asked somebody else.”

  “I guess he could have asked me,” I said.

  “He said he tried calling you, but couldn’t get you. You don’t have a phone, Polly. He left messages at the farm for you to call him, but he needed someone right away.”

  “I’ve been calling him all day.”

  “Well, it looks like I get to be the babysitter this time,” Morrison said. “So you’re off the hook.”

  “You could have said no,” I said. Morrison glared at me.

  “And leave the kid high and dry? He’s a great kid, Polly,” he said.

  “I know he is, but what if you hadn’t been here? What if you were going out tonight or something?”

  “I never go out,” Morrison said. “Anyway, it’s just overnight. Becker said he’d pick him up first thing in the morning.” He looked sadly at the remains of his beer then set it aside.

  “What’s he going to Toronto for? Something to do with the case?”

  “He didn’t say. Just said he and Lefevbre had an errand in the city is all.”

  “He’s spending the night in Toronto with her? Was he planning to let me know?” I had turned into a green-eyed gorgon in less than a second, and this remark may have been delivered a trifle shrilly. Morrison patted the air in a calming motion.

  “Hey, relax, Polly Deacon. You can’t expect him to live like a monk. He has to work. He has to spend time with other members of the female species occasionally. Jeez. You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m scaring myself,” I said. “You know he asked me to marry him?” It just blurted out by itself. I wasn’t planning on it. Morrison flinched, as if I’d smacked him, then his face smoothed out so it was almost completely blank. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “Did he now?” he said.

  “I haven’t given him an answer, yet,” I said.

  “Well, congratulations.”

  “Congratulations are hardly in order at this point,” I said.

  “No, congratulations for getting under his skin enough to have him ask you. That’s something.”

  “You think I should say yes?”

  “Oh, for Chrissake, Polly, don’t ask me. I’m not exactly the person to give you an unbiased opinion, you know.” Of course he wasn’t. He and Becker had a complicated relationship, that was obvious. He could be mad as hell at his partner (well, ex-partner as it was) and still agree to look after the man’s son at next-to-no notice. He was Becker’s friend, in spite of the fact that they quarreled like teenage brothers. And he was my friend, too. Asking him if he thought I should marry Becker was unfair, and I should have kept my mouth shut.

  “Sorry,” I said. “You’re right. Dumb question.”

  “Look, Polly. I have to get going and pick up Bryan before he does a jail break. You want to come?”

  “I don’t think I’d better,” I said. “I think I need to go away and think some more. Bryan’s kind of tiring to be around.”

  “Kids are.”

  “Of course, their parents can be a bit of a trial sometimes, too. Thanks for the talk, Earlie. I guess there’s no point passing on this stuff about Vic Watson probably being the guy who sold the property to David Kane, eh?”

  “Oh, you never know. I’ll tell Becker tomorrow if you want.”

  “That would be good. I’ll call him when I get back, just in case he hasn’t left yet, but it won’t hurt if we both mention it.”

  “Safe drive home. No looking for deer, okay?”

  “I promise, officer. Eyes on the road the whole way.” He stood in the doorway of the trailer, Alice tucked under one arm like a pillow, and waved as I headed out. I felt like a slacker for begging off the Bryan-thing. Morrison probably would have appreciated me being there, for a little while at least, and it might even have been fun. Morrison’s place would be heaven for an eight-year-old, with the pond, the boat, the meadow and the dog. But I was in the clutches of what I figured must be PMS—my moods swinging wildly, my temper on a hair-trigger, and it hardly seemed fair to subject either Morrison or Bryan to its dangers. At least, that was the excuse I gave myself. Besides, Eddie was supposed to be coming over in the early evening to model Kountry Kow for me, and I still had a few adjustments to make.

  As I drove, I tried to get my mind back on track, back on the work at hand, but it was skittering all over the place like a squirrel on ice. Whether or not anybody ever found out if Mayor Lunenburg was involved in easing the way for the Kountry Pantree development, wasn’t there something they had talked about in the closed meeting, something about votes that they were trying to cover up? I needed to know about that, even if there was diddly squat I could do about it. I also had to decide how much to tell Susan. I hadn’t had the chance to talk to her on Tuesday after the meeting, and on Wednesday morning, she had gone off to Queen’s Park in Toronto to talk to our Provincial Member of Parliament, the mayor’s brother, Ken Rivers. Maybe that’s where Becker was headed, too. I gripped the steering wheel of the truck a little bit harder and eased up on the accelerator. I was going too fast, transferring my tension to the road. Bad idea.

  Becker. I needed to clear my mind around him, too. Why was I so freaked out about his being partnered with Constable Marie Lefevbre? I had said some awful things about her, and I hardly knew her. Why had I turned into such a jealous idiot? Why, oh why, didn’t I seem to trust Mark Becker?

  And another thing. Even though I’d suggested to Morrison that maybe Vic’s death was totally natural, and all this was a tempest in a teacup, I didn’t really believe it, did I? No freakin’ way, as Morrison would say. I was frustrated that I didn’t know more. The last time I’d been peripherally involved in one of these messes, I’d gone to a lot of trouble to snoop around and get the story myself. I prided myself, in fact, on having been instrumental, both times, in finding out the missing link that solved the case. What Becker and Morrison both called my “Nancy Drew stuff”. I felt I was deliberately being shut out of this one. Morrison, after all, hadn’t told me a thing I didn’t already know, although I had spilled all my beans.

  I wanted to know who had visited Vic the night he died, for one thing. And I knew just how to get that information. I resolved to call Serena Elliot as soon as possible.

  These thoughts kept me occupied all the way back to Cedar Falls, and by the time I parked the truck in George’s driveway, I was feeling more normal. The engine pinged and clunked a little as it
cooled off—I’d been driving the poor old thing rather harder than it was used to, and I felt my brain sort of pinging and fizzing, too. Everything on the farm was serene. There were no vehicles parked outside the farmhouse, which meant Susan wasn’t back from the city yet. I saw George’s figure off in the distance, heading for the barn with the milking pails, my dogs trotting by his side. They were too far off to hear the truck arrive, I guess, unless the prospect of a squirt or two of goat’s milk was more interesting than I was. It was the perfect opportunity to slip inside and call Serena.

  Next to the phone, there were a couple of messages for me, written in George’s careful script.

  “Mark Becker called at 2 p.m.,” one said and gave Becker’s cell phone number. “Mark called again at 3:30 p.m.—Urgent!” another said. The time was five o’clock, and it had taken me about an hour to get back from Morrison’s place, so I guessed that Becker must have called Morrison soon after leaving the last message. If I had gone straight home after the library instead of trying to find Becker at the police station, I would have received his message, and I’d be gearing up for a sleepover party with Bryan. I didn’t feel guilty that I wasn’t, though. I was sure Morrison would manage better than I would have. All I felt was relief. Prime stepmother material, that’s me.

  There was a message for Susan, too. I read it because I am a bad person.

  “Susan—Brent Miller will be at Rico Amato’s at 5 p.m., and he has something to tell you.” Brent Miller. The clerk who was in hot water over something at Town Hall. This would be good. I looked out the window and checked the driveway. No sign of Susan’s car. Had she come back already and was at Rico’s, or would she return from the city too late to meet Brent?

  I heard thumping on the stairs and turned around, my heart sinking. She was back, after all, and there was no way she’d let me come with her. She’d tell me it was in my best interests to stay out of it. Just like everybody always said. But it wasn’t Susan, it was Eddie, dressed in his barn overalls. “Hi, Polly,” he said. “I didn’t hear you come in. We still on for tonight?”

  “You bet,” I said. “It may be a bit later than I said, though. I have to go out again for a while. Is Susan back yet?”

  “No. She called a few minutes ago from a gas station in Orillia. She had a flat tire, so it slowed her down some. She said she’d be home by six-thirty. Are you staying for dinner?”

  “Nobody asked me, but I’d love to. I have a lot to tell Susan.”

  “She’ll have a lot to tell us, too, judging from what she said on the phone. She was pretty excited.”

  “Good. You off to help with the milking?”

  “Yep. Coming down?”

  “I can’t, Eddie. I have to go somewhere. Could you tell George I was here, got the messages, and I’ll be back for dinner?”

  “Sure. I’ll feed Luggy and Rosie.” There was a big bag of kibble in the porch of the farm house for “guest dinners”. Actually, my dogs had spent more time with George, Eddie and Susan than they had with me, lately. I suddenly had a little pang of sympathy for Becker. A reliable babysitter was a beautiful thing. And when you took advantage of it, you felt as guilty as hell. I thanked Eddie profusely, which seemed to surprise him, and ran back out to the truck. Brent Miller wasn’t going to get Susan Kennedy, president of the League of Social Justice. He was going to get me, which was almost as good.

  Twenty-Five

  Got something to sell? A place to rent? An announcement to make? The Kountry Pantree community notice board in the front entrance of our store is the place to post it! With a donation to our local food bank, you can let everybody in the area know! See our front service counter for details.

  —Another ad in the Laingford Gazette, right next to the classifieds

  Rico Amato’s Antique shop, called “The Tiquery”, was tucked into a little strip mall by the highway leading into Cedar Falls. He did a brisk trade in Canadian pine furniture and bric-a-brac, haunting the flea markets and estate auctions in the area and occasionally (I happen to know this) buying pre-owned-and-sadly-missed goods without asking too many questions. If Morrison was investigating a bunch of break-ins in the Black Lake area, he might perhaps have been wise to drop in to Rico’s place, where a gorgeous Georgian oak tea table I hadn’t seen before sported a price tag of $165.

  “Rico . . .” I said, spotting the table at once.

  “What? A nice boy from Sikwan brought it in yesterday. He let me have it really cheap, and just look at the finish.”

  “French polish,” I said. “Very nice. A hundred and sixty-five bucks?”

  “You have to move your stock, you know.”

  “This is worth three times that, Rico. You get the kid’s name?”

  “He was wearing a very big hat. And he had a cold . . .”

  “So he was wearing a scarf or something, right?”

  “I thought he was sweet being so careful not to spread germs.”

  I sighed. The Black Lake district was full of monster cottages owned by city folk with a lot of disposable income. They stuffed their usually vacant summer palaces full of antiques, top-end stereo equipment and booze and then squealed like stuck pigs when their cottages got stripped like clockwork every summer.

  “You better move this one fast, Rico, honey—Morrison’s on the case,” I said.

  “Morrison? Oh, hell. I like Morrison. And he knows his stuff.”

  “I know he does. You don’t want to get fined again, do you?”

  “Well, what could I do? The boy would just have gone over to that wretched Peter Teal in Sikwan, and I’d be the loser. How come the police never check out his stock?”

  “The meek shall inherit the earth, Rico,” I said.

  “Goodness. Where did that come from?” he said, his eyes wide.

  “Dunno. Let’s go upstairs. Susan can’t come. Delayed by a flat tire. I’m her deputy.”

  “Brent’s taking a bath. He’s awfully upset.” I followed him up the narrow staircase to the apartment above the shop.

  Rico’s cat, Oscar, greeted us at the door, purring and winding himself around my legs. He wasn’t the smartest of cats, as T.S. Eliot would put it, but he made up in size for what he lacked in grey matter. He was as big as Morrison’s poodle.

  “Oh, stop, Oscar,” Rico said, shooing him away. “You’ve been fed twice already. Brent? You pruney yet?”

  A sloshing noise emanated from the bathroom. “Almost,” Brent said. “Is that Susan?” Rico went to the bathroom door and talked through it. I could smell a lovely perfume, jasmine, I think, and the air was comfortably moist, as if Brent had been bathing with the door open.

  “Susan is stuck on the highway,” Rico said. “Polly’s here instead. Susan’s niece. She’s okay. You can talk to her.”

  There came that big sploosh that’s made when someone who has been lying in very deep bath water stands up. “I’ll be right out,” Brent said.

  Rico rapidly put together some tea things and set them out on a low coffee table in the middle of the room. There were china cups (Royal Doulton, I checked), a silver tea service and nice little cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches, cut in triangles.

  “We all need a little civilization these days,” Rico said. “Lemon or milk?” Brent emerged in a cloud of vapour, wearing a plaid bathrobe. “I won’t be a minute,” he said and disappeared into the bedroom.

  I leaned back in the soft, overstuffed sofa, sipped my cup of sweet, milky tea, and allowed Oscar to give me a massage on my left thigh.

  “Jeez, Rico. You should rent your cat out. He’s phenomenal,” I said.

  “He is, isn’t he? Although he hogs the bed something awful,” Rico said. “Now, quick, before Brent comes back, let me fill you in on the details.”

  “You and Brent are seeing each other, I take it,” I said.

  “Well, duh,” Rico said, smiling in a pleased kind of way. “We met just after that nasty little episode at that theatre you were working for in the spring. He works in the town office
, or he worked there, I should say. He was canned after the council meeting.”

  “I have some inside information about that,” I said. “Susan doesn’t even know it yet.”

  “Well, Brent has inside information too, of course. And he’s pissed off enough to want to go public with it, at least as far as talking to the League of Social Justice is concerned.” He paused and looked sharply at me out of the corner of his eye. “You are a member, are you?”

  “Well, not as such,” I said, “but I’m interested in this landdeal thing, Rico, and I promise on my honour that I won’t tell anyone other than Susan whatever Brent has to say.”

  “No pillow talk?”

  “Becker will not hear it from me,” I said. Which was a safe statement, as the police didn’t seem to be interested in the Kountry Pantree land deal anyway. If Brent’s information had any bearing on Vic Watson’s death, I could ask Susan to tell Morrison or Becker, and thereby stay pure as the driven . . . er, soot.

  Brent emerged finally, with his hair slicked back, wearing a shirt I’d given Rico for Christmas the year before. I stood to shake hands, which annoyed Oscar, who was just starting in on the muscles around my knees.

  “Brent, Polly. Polly, Brent,” Rico said.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Brent said. He was in his late twenties, with dark, close-cropped hair and a lanky build. He had slightly protruding teeth and his cheekbones were dusted with freckles. Cute. Very.

  “If you’re in on this, you probably know that I was the one who passed along those documents Susan Kennedy referred to in the meeting on Tuesday,” Brent said. I nodded, having figured as much.

  “They fired me on Wednesday morning. I was expecting it, of course. After all, we all have to sign a confidentiality agreement when we start working for the Town, and, well, I suppose I blew that one sky high.”

  “Well, if you were aware of wrongdoing, you could hardly keep quiet about it,” I said.

  “That’s what I told him,” Rico said.

  “But still, the interesting thing is, they weren’t concerned so much with the memos from the ministry as they were about the voting record, which didn’t even come up.”