“Guard the fort, Eddie. I’ll be right back,” I said and ran up the street to the Town Hall steps.
“Hey guys,” I said. The kids immediately picked up their skateboards and looked for an escape route. “Oh, please,” I said, “do I look like a bylaw officer?”
“Nope,” one boy said, “you look like a marine.” I looked down at myself and realized that I did, indeed. I was wearing army fatigues, one of my favourite schlepping-around outfits. The kids giggled. My young friend was wearing a pair of pants that were a zillion sizes too big for him (the crotch was at his knees), an oversized T-shirt that said NO FEAR on it and a black baseball cap on backwards. Very trendy.
“And you,” I said, “look like someone who can help me.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said.
“Yeah. I’m trying to smuggle a top secret government alien into that store down the street, and I can’t do it alone. You guys want to give me a hand?” It was a hokey line, and they were way too old to believe me, but it was a Friday morning at the end of a long, boring summer.
“Yeah, sure,” he said and gave a little flick of his head to his companions, like the general that he was. They all hopped back on their skateboards and arrived down at the truck long before I did.
With six kids in charge of a tentacle apiece, Eddie at the top end and me at the bottom, we managed to get Audrey through the door without letting her touch the wet pavement. While we were struggling in the doorway, Calvin Grigsby showed up (always on the ball, that Calvin) and snapped a couple of photos, and I got the chance to ask him if he could do me a blow-up of the council meeting “attack photo” for the show.
“I’ll have to ask Hans if that’s okay,” he said. “He already took a whole lot of flack from the Kountry Pantree people about it.”
“Why? It was news, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. But the KP people are already big advertisers.”
“Of course. I get it,” I said. Calvin said he would see what he could do, though. I said I’d drop in on him later on in the afternoon. I promised him a photo credit and “Courtesy of the Laingford Gazette” written large, if Hans okayed it.
Everybody helped get Audrey set up in the middle of the room, where she dominated the space like the man-eater she was.
“That is so cool,” the kids said, after I explained what she was. I let the little general climb inside and work the mouth mechanism, which was almost too heavy for him, but it looked like it was worth it to him. Then I gave them each a ticket to the show (a buck admission, to be donated to the food bank) and thanked them for their time.
Eddie went off to do Eddie-things, and I was left with an hour to kill before my meeting with Serena, so I wandered down to the river, where they were setting up for the Bath Tub Bash.
The race course is set up for fun, more than as a test of speed and skill, as the fibreglass Bath Tub boats with their nine horsepower motors can’t go more than a couple of knots at most. There were buoys set up to mark the course, and according to a big billboard displayed near the spectator stands, the “tubbers” had to go around each buoy, pick up a hula hoop, throw it over top of one of the buoys, pick up a rubber ducky with a net and so on, all the while racing to get to the finish line. As I watched a group of people down at the dock taking the tubs out for test runs, I saw that it obviously took some considerable skill to keep the boats upright, never mind the rubber ducky and hula hoop nonsense.
Each tub, about four feet long and a couple of feet wide, was set up on pontoons. The motor at the back was run by twisting the handle, like the accelerator on a motorcycle. The problem was that the tubs were extremely lightweight, and an average human adult, once aboard, made it extremely top-heavy. The idea seemed to be to hunker down low in the boat, grab onto the front of the thing with one hand and the handle of the motor with the other and try to stay upright.
I went up to one young woman who was being towed back to shore by a Sea-Doo after dumping her tub.
“What happened?” I said. Her tub had the “Emma’s Posies are Bloomin’ Lovely” slogan on the side and was painted bright purple. I recognized her as one of Emma’s shop clerks.
“Oh, hi, Ms. Deacon,” she said. She was soaked and shivering in the cool breeze. If it didn’t clear up for Saturday, there were going to be plenty of people buying cold remedies at the Downtown Drug Store on Sunday.
“I was going okay there,” the flower shop girl said, “until I tried to go too fast. If you twist the handle, it, like, goes real fast, eh? That brings the front up like you’re doing a wheelie. Well, I did a wheelie right into the drink!” She laughed delightedly.
“It looks like fun,” I said, meaning to be sarcastic.
“Oh, it’s a riot. I’m glad I had this chance to practice, though. I really want to win the trophy for Emma. The winner gets a month of free advertising in the Gazette, you know.”
Whoop-de-doo, I thought to myself, and wondered if Eddie knew that the contestants were allowed to come down to the river and have a practice run.
Then my jaw dropped, because the next person to get into a tub for a practice run was David Kane himself, dressed in a wetsuit, looking very much like a politician staging a photo-op. Sure enough, Calvin Grigsby was right behind him, his camera flashing like a strobe light in a dance club. The Kountry Pantree tub was painted fluorescent orange, sleek and sort of streamlined, if a tub can be that way.
“Wow,” the flower shop girl said. “That’s Mr. Kane, isn’t it? He came to our school. He must be pretty fit to be doing the tub race, eh? I don’t know anyone who’s like, that old, who’s going in it.”
“I heard something about him coming to your school,” I said. “I guess you filled in an application, too, did you?”
Emma’s young employee gave me a very sharp look and muttered that she had to go and dry off. “See ya,” she said. Another one down, I said to myself. The predictions of the League of Social Justice seemed to be coming true at a most alarming rate.
David Kane certainly was fit, or at least he knew how to handle the treacherous little watercraft he was racing around in. He didn’t tip it once but flew around the course, tossing hoops and rubber duckies like a pro. I waited for him on the dock and accosted him after he shook a couple of hands and slapped Calvin Grigsby on the back.
“Er, David?”
“Polly! Great to see you. You going in this thing, too?”
“God, no. I’d sink like a stone. But I thought Eddie Schreier was racing in the cow suit for Kountry Pantree tomorrow.” Kane’s face changed in a flash from genial bonhomie to guy-who-holds-the-purse-strings. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to one side.
“Shhhh!” he said. “Nobody’s supposed to know that. I’ll kill that kid if he’s been blabbing it.”
“You hardly need to do that,” I said. “Eddie’s a friend of mine, and my aunt’s ward. I don’t think he’s told anybody but me. But why the big secret?”
Kane sneered and gave a laugh I didn’t quite like. “You think I’d race in that tub wearing a cow costume?” he said. “I’d risk a lot for this project, but I’m not crazy.”
“But you’d send a kid in there to take the risk for you,” I said.
“Hey, it’s not dangerous. I just mean, you know, reputation and so on,” he said, backtracking much too fast.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “And if Eddie wins the race? You collect the trophy, right?”
“Of course. Why’d you think I was down here getting my picture taken? Hell, Polly, you have to play the media, you know.”
“That sounds like a big fraud to me,” I said, shaking off his hand, which was still clutching my arm.
“You sound just like your aunt,” he said. “You’re taking this way too seriously for your own good.”
“That sounds like a threat, Mr. Kane,” I said.
“It sure does, doesn’t it?” he said. “So, here’s the deal, Ms. Deacon. I am paying young Eddie a lot of money to run this race for me, and if one word gets out about it, Ed
die’s gonna lose the down payment on his car, and I’ll tell him why. Got that? Think about it. Think how that’s going to make him feel.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “And you can tell your aunt that she better watch her step. I got lawyers that cost more than her whole pension plan.” He folded his neoprene encased body neatly into his sleek black Mercedes, gunned the engine and tore away in a dirty spray of water and mud.
Twenty-Eight
Forget to make a shopping list? Never mind. It happens to all of us. Pick up your free Kountry Pantree checklist and pencil at the courtesy counter to make your shopping experience a breeze!
—A sign over the grocery carts at the Kountry Pantree
Serena Elliot was waiting for me in the piano lounge of the Mooseview Resort, toying with what looked like a martini.
“Hello . . . dear. I’m so glad you called me. I’ve been hoping that someone would follow up on that little remark I made the other night, but nobody has.”
“I thought Detective Becker called you,” I said. Hadn’t Becker mentioned it to Morrison? It could be that he’d forgotten, or maybe he just didn’t think it was important.
“Believe me, I would remember if he had,” she said. “Still, I don’t suppose he’d normally pay much attention to an old broad like me. He’s obviously more interested in, er, the young outdoorsy type.” She had given my army fatigues a thorough appraisal as I approached. Seeing as they were Canadian Forces Made and not Linda Lundstrom, I guess the remark was reasonably accurate.
“You’re hardly an old broad, Serena. You look terrific,” I said. Smarm, smarm. Sometimes I sicken myself.
“Well, thank you. Not that I didn’t fish like a lunatic for that one, I might add.” A glint appeared in her eye, and I remembered her few, well-chosen comments the week before, at Duke Pitblado’s office. Serena Elliot was no fool and had a sense of humour to boot. I was inclined to like her, though she felt distinctly dangerous, as if she were a bundle of razor blades, wrapped in designer silk.
“You mentioned, er, the other night, that you were at the hospital on Saturday, the day Vic Watson died,” I said. We were interrupted by the bartender, whom I knew slightly, who came over and asked me what I would like. I almost ordered a beer, then remembered and asked for a brown cow instead. “One brown cow coming up, Polly,” he said, and went off to mix it.
“Polly! Polly!” Serena said. Was she making fun of my name? It was hard to tell.
“Yes?” I said.
“Well, Polly, Vic and I go way back, you know. He was my date for the high school prom.”
“Old friends,” I said.
“That’s right. So, although he disapproved of our little grocery store project, I couldn’t let that stand in the way of an established friendship, now could I? So I took him a big bunch of roses after I heard about his little accident.”
“Was that before or after our meeting at the real estate office?” I said. There was a pause, and she examined my face carefully before she replied.
“Before, I think,” she said. “Why?”
“Well, it’s just that I was there, you know, when he had his little accident, as you call it. That was in the early afternoon. And our meeting was at six. So the word must have got around pretty fast that he was in hospital, that’s all.”
“David Kane called me and told me, actually. He was there at the accident scene, too, you will remember.”
“Yes, I remember. So why did he call you?”
“Why, because he knew we were friends, of course. It was our little joke, that my old beau was the Kountry Pantree’s biggest enemy.”
“Except he wasn’t, was he?”
“Excuse me?”
“Vic Watson may have pretended he was against the project, but of course you and the rest of your ‘numbered corporation’ knew perfectly well that Vic was the one who sold you the land you’re building on.”
“What?” Serena Elliot was either an unbelievably good actress, or she was truly shocked by what I’d just said. You can act surprised, but you can’t force your pupils to dilate, and hers did.
“Surely you knew this,” I said.
“I certainly did not,” she snapped. “You mean all that bluster was faked? Hah! Just wait till I tell Winston. He’ll poop in his pants!” Then she went off into a peal of laughter that made the people at the other end of the bar look over to see what the joke was.
“None of you knew?”
Serena sobered up, fast. “Well, now. That’s a question. Duke brokered the deal, so he might have known. We certainly didn’t. We were just told that the land was being sold by a person who wished to remain anonymous, some distant relative of the original owner. When we signed the papers, well, I never read that stuff anyway, Winston takes care of it usually, there was just a number, just like ours, where it said ‘vendor’.”
“What about David Kane?”
“Well, he can’t have known, can he? David was the one who kept saying all those terrible things about Vic in the papers after Vic voted against the proposal in council. He certainly seemed to dislike the man, and it didn’t come across as faking to me. But now that . . . wait a sec.” Serena rooted in her purse and came up with a bar napkin, folded carefully in half. She handed it to me.
“I wrote down the names of the people that were waiting to see Vic after I came out. I wasn’t with him long, just a few minutes, and he truly did look awful. I wasn’t kidding about that, you know.” I unfolded the napkin and looked at Serena’s list.
“Archie Watson,” I read. “Well, you’d expect that, seeing as he’s his brother and all. And Arly Watson. That’s his niece. She was there at the falls that day, too.”
“Yes, so David said. She looked terribly upset. I saw her in the hallway, crying.”
“Where was Archie?”
“Just waiting outside the door. He went in as soon as I came out.”
“And your list says that Sophie Durette was there, too. That was his girlfriend, I think.”
“Yes. She was trying to console young Arly, but Arly was sort of shrugging her off, the way young girls do.”
“You’re very observant,” I said.
“It comes of being in the resort business,” Serena said. “It pays to keep an eye on things.”
“Serena, why is it you made a list? There are only three names on it.”
Serena avoided my eyes and took a large swallow of her martini. “Insurance,” she said.
“Insurance? Against what?”
“I may be observant, Polly, but I also have this little tiny problem with my memory. Nothing major. I just . . . sometimes forget things, or worse, I forget people’s names.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I forgot your name completely and had no clue what it was until the bartender called you by name just now,” she said. That explained the “Polly! Polly!” thing, I guess.
“Yikes,” I said. “Have you had this checked out?”
“You mean by a doctor, or a shrink?” she said and gave a laugh with no humour in it. “Both. It’s early-onset Alzheimer’s, dear, but I have my little ways of coping.” She finished her martini and signalled the bartender for another.
“Oh, Serena, I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Not half as sorry as I am,” Serena said. “Anyway, that’s the reason for the list. I probably would have remembered, but you never know. But there was something else I was going to tell you...” She screwed her eyes shut for a moment and clenched the tip of her tongue between her teeth. I held my breath in sympathy. “Damn! It’s gone,” she said after a moment.
“Well, if you remember it, can you call me? It may be important,” I said. “I have to go back into town, but you can leave a message at this number.” I scribbled down George’s number on another bar napkin and passed it over to her. “Can I keep this one?” I said, holding up her list.
“What? Can’t remember three little names?” she said. “Hey, it was a joke, Polly. Lighten up.” I tried to pay for my bro
wn cow, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the real thing tomorrow,” she said. “The Kountry Kow, I mean.”
I wondered if she knew about the cowardly switcheroo David Kane was planning and decided that she probably didn’t. I wasn’t about to tell her. She had enough to worry about.
“Let’s pray for no rain,” I said. “Or else the Kountry Kow will be more like drowned rat.”
“I never pray,” Serena said and reached for her fresh martini. I left her to it.
When I got back to the storefront, Yolanda and Dimmy were already there, busily unpacking and hanging their work. Arly Watson arrived shortly after I did, carrying a large, colourful sculpture in her arms. It was the found-object figure with the Christmas ornament naughty bits. Right behind her was Archie, carrying another human-shaped form, this one female, with full ashtrays for breasts. Weird stuff, for sure.
“Hi, everybody,” Arly said. “This is my Dad—well, I guess you know that. We’ve got the rest of my stuff in the van out front. Hey, thanks for letting me in on this. I am soooo excited!”
“Afternoon, Archie,” I said.
“Hello, Polly,” he said and smiled pleasantly. I guess, now that I was more or less publicly associated with the LSJ, I was in his good books. He looked very sweet when he smiled.
He grunted as he placed his burden on top of one of the display cases. “It’ll be good to get some of this stuff out of the garage. Maybe have room for the van again.”
“Dad!” Arly said, swatting him as she walked past.
“Actually, I’m so proud of her I could bust, but it wouldn’t be good to show her,” he said quietly to me as Arly went back outside.
Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle Page 72