Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle

by Lou Allin

  “So soon? For a newborn?”

  “You must be joking. We gave up on that a long time ago. Our best bet is a three or four-year-old, possibly mixed race. Janet seems calmer now that we’ve made the decision, and it couldn’t have come soon enough for me. This old man is forty this year. And no, don’t put one of those ‘Lordy, Lordy, look who’s forty’ ads in the paper.”

  When the bill came, Belle handed her Visa to the waitress. Steve could use a treat with the toys and clothes and godknows-what kiddie stuff in his future. “My part of the bargain. Least I can do for faithful, underpaid government servants.”

  He shook her hand with an over-under-over seventies move she had taught him. “No contest. What about that Clint Black concert next month? Would you like tickets? I’ll get extras for my security duty at the Arena.”

  “Why not? Poor Clint coming up here to the back of beyond! Sudbury simply must show the colours.” Belle laughed. After coffee, they returned to the blasts outside, temporarily warmed by chilies never intended to grow north of Chihuahua.

  On the pretext of needing parts for her Bravo, Belle visited the local Yamaha shop, Snopac. Derek Santanen was wiping grease from his meatloaf-size hands as he smiled at her across the parts counter. A mammoth bag of Cheetos Paws lay nearby, spilling its goodies in a little golden avalanche. He seemed good at his job, but Belle had known that his snowmobile mechanics were sounder than his eating habits when she had promised his parents that she would speak up for him in court.

  Sweating even at twenty below, Derek seemed to put on rather than get into the rusty VW bug that he bumped along their road. No wonder he told her that he had gone through seven sets of tires. Still, he had pushed her up the worst hill during an ice storm, splitting his pants in the process.

  “Derek, I need a set of sliders and a couple of plugs for my Bravo,” she said. “And maybe a bit of information.”

  His mouth opened and closed like a hyperventilating ox as a drift of ancient Old Spice aftershave mixed with sweat wafted across the counter. “I don’t know nothing, Miss Belle. Been minding my own business.” He rummaged for a handful of Paws and crunched them noisily.

  “Don’t Miss Belle me, Derek. Stop tugging your forelock. Anyway, you couldn’t tell the truth unless you thought you were lying.”

  He gave a tentative laugh and passed her the bag, which she summoned heroic willpower to refuse. Paws had just the cheesy flavour and toothsome resistance which had contributed generously to her ten pound Christmas bulge. “I been clean as these here sliders I’m getting for you,” he insisted as he plucked a box from the shelves. His huge Barenaked Ladies shirt rode up his back, revealing overlapping folds of fat, pockmarked chicken skin and coarse black hair. Poor guy.

  “You may be clean now, and I say may . . .” she said as he gnawed his chapped lips, “but I won’t beat around the bush.” Bad Cop was a difficult role; she nipped a smile as it headed for her mouth. “You had the contacts. Tell me about the drug landings north of the lake.”

  “Hey, I’m no pilot. You really wanna know, I made my buys at the Bearden or at Yukon Jack’s. If I’d spent more time at my camp and less in the bars . . .” He paused and chewed thoughtfully. “Lake drops? Maybe. Couple summers ago when we had those big winds for over a week, supplies got short. Bomber, that was my main man, said something about conditions being bad for delivery. I didn’t think much about it. Come to think of it, I didn’t think much period.” He seemed pleased with the symmetry of his explanation and smoothed his greasy hair with a pudgy hand. Brilliantine or graphite, Belle wondered?

  “Well, you haven’t been much help, Derek, but maybe that’s a good sign.”

  She paid her $45.00 tab with a roll of her eyes. “Are you sure you don’t need me to put them on?” Derek asked helpfully. “Kinda hard in the cold. I mean . . .”

  “Never mind, Derek. I think Ed will let me use his garage. And one more thing. You know people who ride the trail system. Anything unusual around the lake?”

  He pondered, searched his elephantine brain until she expected a tortured grinding of gears. “Well, I’m probably screwing up my interests, so don’t say nothing about this. Dan Brooks at the Beaverdam had me doing repairs there. Some old Arctic Cats. But guess what! I got curious about four funny shapes under tarps in the corner and took me a look. Wowee. Two new Mach Z’s. First time I saw one up here. They’s the 796cc liquid-cooled Rotax triple, R.A.V.E. and flat-slide TM-38 carbs. Big-o-mundo power revs with those ponies. Like to knock your socks off, especially on lakes. They say it’s whip, blend and liquefy goin’ through them gears.” His eyes were glazing over like small, round hams; powerful machines came a close second behind his passion for food.

  “You’re a natural poet, Derek. Is that it?”

  “No, ma’am. A Polaris XLT and a Ski-Doo Formula Z. You can run with the big dogs with those beasts. When Dan saw me, he blew up. Then he calmed down, talked about cashing in an old life insurance policy. Said he’d got to be ready to roll when that park opens. Figures he’ll need at least ten to hire out. But that’s nuts. Too good for rentals. ’Course he could be fencing them in a chop shop.”

  Belle tossed her sliders into the van and stopped at Poulton’s for hot wings night. She packed up a few pounds, along with a container of potato salad, coleslaw and rolls. The Canada Food Guide had a special provision for Northern Ontarians: total grams of fat per day had to be double a person’s age. If she were going to hell in a handbasket, let it be well-provisioned. The little liquor store in Garson sported a bottle of Wolf Blass cabernet, which cheered her, since usually Gallo tankcar #3333 was its sole concession to foreign wines.

  When she got home and had reduced the wings to bones, American Movie Classics was featuring Mutiny on the Bounty. Laughton had been abandoned with his officers, promising to row thousands of miles in order to see justice done (and he did). In a more pleasant fate, Clark Gable leaned his handsome profile toward Morita’s, and the crew of the Bounty was safe on Pitcairn Island, to interbreed and become tour guides by the nineties.

  Belle flopped into her waterbed, reminding herself that she had not changed the sheets in about two weeks. Muscling the cumbersome rolling beast was a miasma. Though the process took only six minutes, she hated the chore so passionately that she spent a week on one side and a week on the other. As she drifted off to sleep, she heard the ice making prophetic groans, flexing its great shelf. While the cold still held, it would be interesting to visit the Beave.

  SEVEN

  Six eyes beat two, so after Belle changed the plug, she drove down to Ed’s place, a winterized cottage which the DesRosiers had expanded and modernized after selling their bungalow in town. Rusty, their chocolate-red mutt, chased out to meet her, a deflated soccer ball in her jaws, running crazed circles around Freya, who treated her as an undisciplined but harmless juvenile. The short trip to the lodge would help the dogs burn off some fat; regular walks were rare in winter, and like humans, dogs compensated by overeating or begging scraps.

  “Hi, Trusty Rusty,” she called. The bitch grovelled on her back in the snow and presented her pink belly in submission. Ed hated what he considered her feminine obsequiousness, but had been unable to break the friendly little creature of the habit. It was her nature to show this instinctive deference, Belle thought. To strangers, however, Rusty could present quite a performance of teeth and barks. Outside in the small oak trees Hélène had planted, bird feeders hosted a convention of colourful grosbeaks and a few robber jays. Freya jumped unsuccessfully for the suet ball and got a dirty look, so she ambled in innocence to her pal’s food dish and tried a few snatches. At the kitchen window, Hélène, hearty as her own tourtières and running perpetually in first gear, hoisted a coffee in pantomime.

  Belle entered, careful to remove her boots to spare her friends’ new pride, a ceramic tile floor. Hélène was fiddling with a monstrous white apparatus that was humming and beeping. “Just taking this loaf out of the breadmaker. Bacon and cheese. Looks
like it come fine.” She carved a chunk, slathered it with soft butter and presented it along with a mug of creamy coffee. “Shortbread if you want it, too.” Her hand tapped an industrial size pickle jar crammed with tiny pink, white and green trees decorated with silver balls and coloured sugar.

  “My mother used to make these,” Belle confided as she helped herself, noting with shame that she had to drop a few to suck her greedy hand from the jar. Melting under her tongue, they took her back thirty years and gave a sweet blessing to the coffee. “Are you two up for a run to Beaverdam Lodge?” she asked.

  “What for? Got a lead on Jim’s death?” Ed scratched his stomach thoughtfully, giving a self-conscious hitch to his pants.

  “Sort of. Remember how we talked about Dan Brooks’ business prospects once the park went through? Well, apparently those prospects are already materializing. Some pretty expensive new machines from God knows where. I want to look the place over. Check for renovations. Let’s take the dogs. It’s only five miles.”

  “We’re glad to go with you, Belle,” Hélène said. “I’m just sick about what happened to that boy.” She paused and glanced at the latest family Christmas picture magneted on the fridge. “Raising kids is a chancy business, a tragedy like this always so close. A car, a bike, even a fall from a swing.” Belle felt relief at her own single blessedness. Dogs were a heck of a lot smarter than kids, for the most part.

  The ice was hard-packed with the recent traffic, and with the unusual humidity, ethereal patches of fog enveloped the many tear-drop islands, a water colourist’s dreamland recalling the Li River landscape. Periodically the trio stopped to admire the scenery and let the panting beasts catch up.

  At Brooks’ island, a decrepit dock jutted out onto the lake, surrounded by a couple of pickups with knobby tires, four-wheelers for hauling supplies to the mainland a half-mile away via an ice road. Near the juncture of three popular trails, the lodge saw a lot of traffic, especially beer traffic, and more especially after hours. Official closing times were relative for Dan as were limits on the number of drinks sold. Even during the day, Belle had seen more than one driver fall off his sled passing her house. One machine had hit a pressure ridge at high speed, executed a barrel roll and tossed its lucky rider into a snowdrift before crashing upside down.

  They slid up the glazed boat ramps in front of the lodge. A satellite dish rose nearly thirty feet high on a steel pole bolstered by cables. Perhaps this was the landmark which the pilot pulling up to her dock had been seeking. Neatly lined up near a path which led to the cabins sat four Arctic Cats, their paint scuffed and chipped. “These aren’t what Derek mentioned. In those sheds, maybe?” she suggested, pointing her mitt toward the back of the lodge.

  Ed traced a fracture on one fibreglass hood. “Rentals are risky. I wouldn’t want some idjit handling my baby for any price. Not even Hélène. That’s why she has her own machine.” His wife aimed a less than gentle kick toward his leg, but he continued with a grin. “Like to throw a cylinder or wreck the track on bad ground.” He stepped aside as a large party of noisy snowmobilers walked past to the parking area.

  One man yanked repeatedly on his starter in frustration. “ ’Course it won’t start, you dumbass. You left the kill switch on!” his friend yelled while his buddies slapped the back of his head and guffawed.

  Give me the Burians’ little place any day, Belle thought. The Beaverdam was a circus. Old Pete Brooks had first built the lodge in the forties to cater to the fishing trade, but after the lakes suffered with acid rain, the trade had dropped off. Upon Pete’s death ten years ago, his son Dan had taken over. More friendly than ambitious, Dan hoisted a few too many with his customers and had let the place rot. One visit had been enough to turn Belle away. Now the situation had changed. The lakes were reviving, and so was the Beaverdam. This was no cheap facelift, but a regular overhaul, complete with Pella windows, insulated French double-doors, new siding and shingles.

  “You dogs behave now. No biting. Here’s some jerky,” Hélène ordered as the animals licked their lips and cocked their heads as if they understood. They were friendly and safe enough outside on their own. The idea of tying a dog in such a situation would make a Northerner laugh.

  The trio tucked their helmets under their arms and entered the lodge, stamping their boots perfunctorily on the broad oak boards. A cheery fire burned in the fieldstone fireplace, Pete’s pride, every rock lugged in his boat from the North River deposits. Stuffed pickerel and monster lake trout adorned the walls. Belle cast a glance at the additions which had tripled the size of the main room. Seating for an extra fifty at least. “Bucks” and “Does” were accommodated at the back, past a long, scarred bar stocking nothing fancier than Canadian Club. Most people drank beer anyway. Jars of pickled eggs and sausages sat by the cash along with chips and pretzels. It was quiet for late Saturday morning. The menu offered breakfast until eleven, so that was what they ordered. Very few places could screw up that simple meal.

  “I miss Pete. Those days were the best. Plenty of fish in the lake, haul out five-pounders to fill our freezer. And no talk of that natural mercury stuff the Ministry keeps harping about now,” Ed said, rolling his eyes. “Not that I worry. Tastes the same to me. Ozone layer blown up, chemicals in the food, radon in the basement, we’re all goners.”

  “I wonder if Brooks is still taking Americans bear baiting,” Hélène said, watching the waitress disappear into the kitchen. The common practice, disdained by purists, consisted of hanging rotten meat in a tree and bivouacking nearby, sipping a mickey of rye in a tree house until Bruno nosed out the gamey snack and went to heaven for his appetite.

  “Salting deer and moose ain’t legal, but baiting is. Laws don’t make no sense. Bow hunting’s another thing entirely, but this is fish in a barrel if you ask me. I knowed a guy used doughnuts. Red jelly kind did the trick,” Ed said.

  Hélène shook her head. “I hardly call that hunting. Murder more like. See any of that in our woods and I’ll tear it right down. ’Course, if the animals come knocking, it’s a different story.” A fine black bear skin hung on their wall from one spring afternoon when a young boar, just awake and foraging after its long nap, had smelled fish cooking. It had ripped out a window on its way into the kitchen. A handy shotgun was never far from the cottagers’ reach. The Ministry had fumed but admitted that 911 was of limited help against giant claws raking the cabin doors. Once in a while, for public relations, particularly if the offending bear were damaging property, officers from the Ministry of Natural Resources would trap one in a giant metal cylinder on wheels and relocate it a hundred miles north.

  “There’s been some money put in here,” Belle said as she scanned the room. “Those windows don’t come cheap. That jukebox is new, so are the two video games and that big screen TV.” She consulted a folded card on the table. “Karaoke Night? We are getting very fancy here, folks.”

  The waitress brought their eggs, bacon and thick homemade toast. Hélène’s eyes followed her as she moved around the booth, and Belle wondered at her interest, chalking it up to motherly concern. The girl’s skin was nearly transparent over her prominent cheekbones, her eyes ringed with dark shadow. Hélène touched her arm gently as she turned to leave. “Brenda?”

  The girl’s face brightened. “Mrs. DesRosiers. I didn’t see you.”

  “Working for your dad this winter?”

  She nodded, pushing back her limp hair as if suddenly embarrassed at her appearance.

  “Are you still writing stories about those Puddingstone kids? You were on to something there,” Hélène said.

  The girl’s wan smile brightened her face. “Sometimes. Dad said I could take a course at the college next fall in between our seasons.”

  “Brenda!” An irritated voice yelled from the kitchen.

  “Nice seeing you.” She moved off, pausing to clear the next table quickly, the dishes clattering on the tray.

  “Brooks’ daughter?” Belle asked.

  “Sl
ave,” Ed said. “He couldn’t run the place without her and the wife working like navvies.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  Hélène looked at her husband. “She went to school with our youngest son. Came to his graduation party must be three years ago and spent most of the time helping me in the kitchen, poor shy thing. Had a fancy to write a book about the Puddingstone kids, she called them. On St. Joseph Island where she used to visit her grandfather.”

  Belle tapped her knife on the placemat with a map of Ontario. “On the way to the Sault. Now I remember. That pretty rock. Kind of a pink with dots of green and red like a steamed pudding.”

  “It was a cute idea. It might have given her an escape from here and from her father. Doesn’t look like she’ll get the gumption to leave on her own. Best thing she can do is look for a husband.” She noticed Belle’s sniff and explained. “It’s quick and easy, and it often works. Sometimes a woman needs a knight.”

  Coffees finished and the tab paid, they strolled the yard like confident, overfed American tourists. “Let’s find the septic system,” Belle suggested. “That’s where big money has gone. I count ten cabins, and the lodge, of course.” Over a small hill near a barn lay an expanse of undisturbed snow. A humming motor inside an open shed nearby caught their attention.

  Ed rubbed his mitts together. “Big ’un all right. Listen to her purr. Sent all the way to Toronto, I’ll bet.” Behind hockey and fishing, septic systems were the third most popular topic on Edgewater Road. Requirements for a permit were stricter than the bar exam. People drank out of Wapiti, and no one wanted the water tainted by ancient cracked tubes to nowhere, well chambers made of rusted oil furnace drums and field beds flooded by bad drainage. The Boreal forest, with its thin veneer of peat over rock, made a good system costly. Building one required large excavations and tons of backfill. The tab for Belle’s house had run over eight thousand dollars. On the Beaverdam’s rocky island, the only option would be a so-called Cadillac installation where electrical power heated the effluent for more rapid breakdown and allowed a smaller bed.