by Lou Allin
Belle drove home, frustrated at not learning more, but admitting to herself that Brooks was telling the truth. Pacing from room to room, unable to concentrate, she remembered the appointment with Ms. Bly. She called Miriam, who agreed to take the woman to Capreol, glad to get out of the office on a slow Friday. Even the coffee tasted bitter and metallic, and when she thought about lunch, she felt no hunger, just the slight nausea which came from too much caffeine.
Maybe she was suffering from cabin fever, SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder. A change of place might recharge the brain cells, a trip to Toronto, a cruise of the mall outlets. Sure, run away and shop yourself into oblivion, Belle. That wasn’t the problem anyway. She had failed Jim, failed Ben, Meg and Melanie. Buffaloed, outfoxed, decoyed with this conundrum, riddle, enigma shrouded in a . . . in a wallow of clichés. With a self-accusing sigh, she picked up her mother’s copy of The Diviners, thumbing through it absently, when a line from Catharine Parr Traill caught her attention, something irksomely didactic about getting up and doing when all seemed lost. An Englishwoman’s view of the wilds of Peterborough, well, wild enough in the nineteenth century.
The temperature stood at -10°, but spring days warmed up fast. In her father’s old-fashioned terminology, a “constitutional”, forerunner of power walking, might help charge the batteries. The last time she had gone into the bush on foot had been New Year’s Day. The dog seemed to read her mind, hyperventilating and nipping her elbow in an annoying dominance move. Belle wapped her toque at the dog’s ample rump. “Yes, I get the point, Freya. Just give me a minute. I wasn’t born with a fur coat.” As an afterthought, she tucked a plastic bag with Hélène’s jerky into her zippered forearm pocket. A snack would taste welcome in the cold. As she walked out onto the deck, the tall cedars, faithful monitors of wind, stood quiet. Good, then. She would march down the road for half an hour, and perhaps spot the gigantic redheaded Woody, insistent in his poundings, or hear the gentle thrummings of hairy and downy relatives.
Once on the road, Belle felt the wind chew at her back, an ominous sign. Maybe at the corner it would subside. Wind was worse than cold. Her eyelashes were icing, plastered to her face; her glasses had fogged, though she was careful to blow straight out. But Freya enjoyed collecting her P-mail, delivered since the plow’s last trip, and making her own deposits. “Not there, Freya! Of all places!” Belle yelled as the dog picked the one open driveway in half a mile; Richard Earhart must have spent a heavy two hours snowblowing with an underpowered city style machine. Back and forth eternally with that narrow twenty-four inch swath. He didn’t need this extra ignominy. Belle searched for a broken branch in order to perform her dip and flip manoeuvre, resolving to buy a cheap hockey stick next trip to Canadian Tire. Then ticking off the cottages in her mind as she passed, she was glad to see the unmarked, protective expanses of deep snow. It was unlikely anyone would haul off anything substantial, but absentee owners feared vandalism far more than the loss of an odd television or VCR. Insurance companies insisted someone check a vacant house regularly. A number of restaurant gift certificates had come Belle’s way in recompense. Caroline’s place looked safe and tight, only a fox track down the driveway. Her generous retired neighbour had pressed upon Belle the remains of her liquor supply, her satellite decoder and a stylish but impractical fox fur hat. The blessed woman was probably driving over that golden bridge across Tampa Bay in quest of a plate of crispy grouper!
A sudden rush, and Carlo sailed by in a roar with yet another Mustang, a ’65 original, grey primer paint, no bumpers, its rear windows tinted; he was leaning towards her and blowing kisses. Belle had to laugh at his cheek. At the top of the second hill, she spied snowshoe tracks rambling invitingly into the bush. Anni Jacobs’ web of paths. All four seasons the old widow led her dogs on daily forages, a boneheaded golden lab and a hyperactive beagle, who made Belle smug about the superiority of shepherds. Some paths had originated from logging roads fifty years earlier, an illegal horse-drawn operation of Ed’s Uncle Louis. Lazy, hazy days when an entrepreneur could rob the bush unhindered by laws.
After a hundred feet, another trail appeared, perhaps looping back onto the major route or leading to the top of the bluff. Freya was already energized by her neighbours’ traces. Belle tested the surface with her cumbersome boots and found the middle of the doublewide snowshoe path firm enough. The trail pointed up, twisting under thick spruce and between birches. Breaking twigs was not Anni’s ecological style. Breathing heavily, but warming as she went, Belle ducked under larger branches and bent stubborn alders, which snapped back in her face. Her heavy mitts were becoming oppressive, so she stuffed them into her pockets, welcoming the cooling evaporation on her hands.
The farther she climbed, the more her admiration for the old woman grew. Surely she must be pushing 70. How many hours and days and years had she devoted to these highways? They were so fresh and numerous that the old woman must come out every day, one foot rounding the other in the hip-swinging snowshoe dance. Belle’s heart was racing as she paused, and Freya dug her nose into a bush, sneezing at the powdery snow. Here the dogs had angled off to smell up a squirrel, to scare a few feathers off a fleet partridge, or to lay masculine claim to a familiar gummy pine.
An hour later, twining around the mountain, she emerged at the top, a balding outlook which presented the lake like a sparkling Christmas platter. Many miles out, a few toy figures on sleds scooted across, and a truck had heavy going pulling a large hut over the softening ice. The day had warmed at last. Taking large gulps of air into her lungs, which no longer pricked her nostrils or choked her, she gave a loud hallooo. Freya barked, and down at the lakeside, hidden by trees, Anni’s dogs answered, the deep lab duelling with the bugling beagle. Remembering the jerky, Belle fingered out a piece and presented it to Freya, tasting a chunk herself. Peppery and tender, it bore little relation to the prohibitively expensive store-bought cardboard. Then with an eye to this new kingdom, she noticed striations of moose antler marks on the smaller maples where the tormented creatures often rubbed the velvet to soothe their pain. In the summer, red froth pinked the papery white birches six feet up. Touching her stinging temple where an alder had switched her face, she wiped her own fresh blood and joined it to the birch. Name it, name it Moose Mountain, something told her.
Why not make some trails of her own? Belle knew every mushroom, lichen and birch gall on the paths nearest her house, the trails that Ed and his son-in-law tamped with their snow machines in winter and their quads in summer. With the clear vista through the woods and the security of a snowshoe track, she could link the trails by a key blaze or landmark, then follow before spring rains wakened the bugs and unfurled the concealing leaves. For the first time since the Great Freeze, she felt connected to the world, clicking on all cylinders. Best of all, she had forgotten for a moment that Jim Burian lay frozen in a quiet crypt waiting for a grave under blossoms he would never touch.
Fresh paths for the brain, she thought, breathing evenly and slowly. Explore the magic trinity of criminology unchanged since the death of Abel: motive, opportunity, means. Backward, work backward, oh time in thy flight. Means in the bush equalled a snowmobile, and if she guessed right, a second machine with reverse. It must have been very difficult and time-consuming to back up that far without a slip. Opportunity? Brooks, of course, originally the number one suspect, but no more. Cott Lake must have been a set-up. Why would Brooks lie about a particular lake after admitting the transfers? And speaking of opportunity, there was the nagging question of where Jim had eaten that fish and vegetables Monroe had found stuck in his teeth. If that had been his last meal at his cabin, there was no trace of it there, only the noodle packet. On his way home, he hadn’t eaten dinner in the middle of nowhere.
Finally, motive. There the problem stuck as it had from the beginning, fast-closed into the ice. Jim Burian had done no apparent wrong, had made no apparent enemies, but “apparent” was a word with deceptive nuances. As for that, pursue another tau
tology: greed, love and revenge. Greed for gold, the luminous drop, the scam that Tom had described. Another Lost Deutchman Mine? Old Bonanza?
Then love, the lingering romantic, a love so quiet it was never admitted. Eva had been at Shield at the same time as Jim. Was she the girl he’d discussed with the chaplain? What had happened between them to cause her breakdown? Jim was incapable of harming anyone.
Behind love, the invisible grumbler in the dark. Revenge. But how could revenge enter into this scenario? The puzzle had assumed the convolutions of a pile of pick-up sticks. There was one last place where she might find enlightenment.
Belle steamed home, challenging the dog to keep up, and gathered her snowmobile gear. It had been an unusual violation of bush courtesy for Franz not to have invited her to his camp that day at Cott, when they were practically on the doorstep. Yet he was always so polite and proper. What was it he hadn’t wanted her to see? Her microwave clock read eleven, and he had mentioned long lab periods on Wednesdays.
In spite of a minefield of wet spots and water channeling at the shore, Wapiti was safe enough. The ice was still a foot thick. The smaller lakes would be another story, especially as the sun warmed, so she would opt for the slower trail route to Cott instead of the fast trip through five lakes. Belle hauled two-by-eights from her scrap pile to bridge the crack at the shore and eased the Bravo onto the ice. A larger machine would have powered across without supports.
The ride across Wapiti took longer this time, since Belle detoured around several acres of slush fields at the half-way point. One machine, buried up to the seat, had given its owner a long walk home. At the top of the Dunes, she stopped and glanced over at the island. No Jimmy, just as she had hoped. As she drove, she planned every step. A quick turnaround after a search of the cabin and maybe a stop with the Burians at Mamaguchi. Her spirits sank as she passed the turn to see no smoke from the lodge and no fresh tracks. Just in case something went wrong, a friend at that relay point would have been a bonus.
On the slow and winding hills of the overland route, Belle saw very little outside her mind’s theatre, as she concentrated on the task ahead. Finally, she located the last turn to the camp. From the condition of the trail, it had been perhaps a week since Franz had visited. Belle made a tour around the outbuildings. Between a toolshed and a small sauna rose an oddly shaped mound of snow. Strange woodpile. She swept off the tarp and lifted a corner to reveal a pile of mottled rocks. After being washed off in the snow, the piece she chose was heavy with gold streaks.
Wasting no time, with a screwdriver from her tool kit, Belle forced the hasps which fixed the padlock to the cabin door, stopping in amazement. Franz’s camp was the polar opposite of Jim’s simple retreat. In the main room sat an expensive Swedish red enamel stove, more beautiful than practical with its stack of baby logs and pine splits. The decorative Nordic heater couldn’t handle larger pieces and would have to be stoked often. A pillowy calico couch and wicker chairs added comfort, Coleman lanterns hung from the ceiling and chests of drawers lined one wall. A curtained pantry and kitchen nook were stocked with the usual imperishable foodstuffs as well as a double-burnered propane cookstove. On the wall beside the curtain hung a magnificent hunting rifle with a precision Zeiss scope that could drill Bambi’s eyes at three hundred yards. The single bedroom contained a mate’s bed with down comforter, another lamp, shelves of books, and in a prominent spot, like an icon, a print of Degas’ ballerinas, double-matted with v-grooves and an ornate Victorian frame. From what Belle knew of local costs, it was pricey. An oddly feminine touch. Then she noticed that the dancer could well be Eva’s double, protected forever from the tumults of maturity.
In a workshop dusty with crushed ore and tools, Belle lifted another quartzite sample and traced the thick vein with her fingertips. A propane torch lay on a wooden workbench beside picks and chippers. Following a gleam on the floor, Belle knelt to gather a bit of molten metal that had worked into a knothole, small sister to Jim’s drop. A birchbark basket on a high shelf contained a chamois bag of the fabled buttons. Even at two or three ounces each, a slim reward for such painstaking work. Franz had been a busy and patient man to finance his sister’s hospital stay with this laborious process. How far was Bonanza from the cabin? The topo read two to three miles, yet where else would this heavy ore have come from in a place where snowmobiles or small quads were the only transportation? And how many well-timed and cautious trips had been made to run his cottage industry? She filled her hands with the buttons, warm, sensual, atavistic delights. Gadz, she was turning into Zasu Pitts, she laughed nervously. Soon she would be rolling in them on the bed. In her absorption, she didn’t hear the door open, or the footsteps enter.
TWENTY
In the frosty silence of the room, a gravelled throat cleared. “Belle. I didn’t want it to be you.” She wheeled and stumbled, letting the buttons roll on the wooden floor, the elation from her discovery giving way to a palpable fear. “No classes today, a bad cold and laryngitis. Mother had gone to town, and I couldn’t focus on my research, just sat looking out the window. You drove by my island so fast, so unlike you, this haste. A clear purpose in mind. Perhaps that drop told you its golden story. I trailed you, hoping that you might be heading to the Burians’ lodge or to Jim’s camp. I walked the last hundred yards. The cedars hold secrets well.” His red and rheumy eyes fell softly on the buttons. “Lovely, aren’t they?”
Belle would have felt more confident if she hadn’t seen the large pistol in his right hand. “Luger,” he said, a catch to his voice. “My father’s. Canada is not a land of handguns. A classic example of German design, form and function. And it never failed him in the war. I have always kept it oiled and clean out of the same reverence for workmanship.” He brushed its muzzle with his lips, then motioned her to a wicker chair in the main room.
“Why did you kill Jim?” Belle asked, dropping onto the hard cushion.
“Not even a guess? You have enough of the pieces concerning my sister. That receipt which disappeared from my office.”
“That was an accident. I picked it up with my books.”
He coughed as he waved off her confession. “Of no concern now. You traced the hospital, of course.”
“What happened to Eva?”
“Why do I have a feeling that you already know? Still, if you insist on playing the innocent. It’s an old story. She became pregnant and in the fourth month had a miscarriage. There is some question in my mind that it was not an accident, that she used my mother’s herbs. Tansy, for example, is a historical abortifacient. Even the common yew. Whatever the cause, it was traumatic. Eva is a gentle spirit, wished from childhood so much to please, but guilt overcame her small soul. After the pain was over . . .” He sat down heavily in the other chair. “It flows through in my nightmares in a red tide, all her precious blood. She became catatonic, you see. That beautiful, intelligent girl couldn’t even communicate her basic needs. All she did was sing one of Mother’s old lullabies and rock herself. When she wasn’t sleeping for most of the day.” His voice broke.
“Why didn’t you get her treated here? Or in Toronto? Why all the trouble and expense of going to the States?”
“Do you know the number of psychiatrists in the North? When she fell ill, Sudbury was down to three practices. She would have been lucky to be a faceless number in a weekly group therapy session with a dozen other needy souls. Do not be naïve about a two-tier medical system. It’s here already for those who can afford it. And I can. I bought the best doctors and the latest techniques. With our prayers she’ll be home soon.”
“Home to what, Franz? To find her brother a murderer? And are you implying that Jim was the father? That’s absurd!”
He forced an ironic laugh. “Perhaps an improvement on his more bitter fate. Let me explain. Eva was a delicate child, asthmatic, sheltered. She attended a convent school in Ville Marie for most of her education. Even when she came home for the summer, isolated as we are on the island, social activi
ties were few, not that she cared to make friends. Mother became concerned and sought to break into that solitude by enrolling her at Shield.”
“And Jim?” It occurred to her that Franz was moving all too circuitously, using his consummate logic to avoid the truth. Belle was piecing the story together herself, much too fast and much too late.
“Jim was the first friend she found, and she became instantly infatuated. He was scarcely her equal, for all his country knowledge. And that scarred face.” Belle narrowed her eyes and felt a dull rage rise in her heart as he continued without apparently noticing. “From spending most of her life immersed in novels, knowing nothing of the realities of life, Eva took matters of the heart seriously. She was an inveterate romantic like our sensitive young Werther. A first terrible love, an equally terrible rejection. Yes, she tried every sad ploy her old-fashioned books advised, poetry, flowers, invitations. I saw them and wept inside, tried to tell her the lessons we all learn, that there will always be another love. When he didn’t respond, even avoided her, she went into a serious depression. Why didn’t he see how fragile she was?”
“I’m not following you, Franz.”
He was shaking, crying without tears. “She was a sister, a child, all things to me. I tried to comfort her, one night when Mother was away . . .”
“And then?” Belle saw the danger of pressing him too far.
He shuddered, his face pale and clammy, drained by pain. “A scandal would have killed my mother. Eva was her little saint. You saw that shrine. My mother believes the father was Jim, and I have left it that way for all our sakes. It is a shame which will not happen again.”
“And the gold?”
He nodded and slumped his shoulders, letting the gun fall into his lap. “For twenty years, my father had been searching the Bonanza third shaft, hidden in the woods, protected so handily by poison ivy. After he retired, he became obsessed with locating the vein. He told me where he thought the gold might be, but before he found it, he died of a stroke. I continued his work in a desultory fashion, more as a pastime, always careful to brace the timbers and wear a mask in case of fumes from the rotting wood. And about three years ago, after that small earthquake in Quebec, a rock shift here revealed the vein like a timely miracle. I spend the winter refining what I have found in summer. No tracks that way. The vein is almost mined out, but the gold has saved my sister.”