by Lou Allin
As she coiled up the hose, the phone rang. Charles sounded distressed. From the halting tones, she could imagine him unfolding an ironed handkerchief to wipe sweat beads from his noble brow, refolding it precisely. “Belle, you didn’t tell me about the dogs.”
She hesitated. Maybe it was unwise to befriend clients, like selling them used cars and then commuting together. “Next door? The Rogers’ mutts?”
“It’s a madhouse. There are a half-dozen over here. Peed on my porch, dug up the dahlias and deposited pyramids of all sizes. I nearly ruined a pair of shoes by stepping . . .” He mumbled something unintelligible.
“Did you call the family?”
“Immediately. There was this woman, the wife, I presume. Do you know what she said?”
“I couldn’t possibly guess.”
“Picture innocence. Picture vacuousness. Picture fractured logic: ‘Reeeaaally, Mr. Sullivan, why in the world do you think they would want to go over to your place?’ ” A Churchillian “harumph” caused Belle to stifle a giggle. “Can you imagine? As if blaming me. I rang off. You can’t have a discussion with that inanity.”
“Any ideas?”
“Plan A begins with moth balls around the garden and buildings, then a pest repellant I saw at Canadian Tire. Cayenne pepper or something harmless. Nothing too rash to start.”
“That’s not going to work. Tell you what. I have a large live trap left over from a battle royale with feral cats.”
Charles’ tone notched up several notes. “What would I do with a trapped dog? Call the Animal Control people?”
“You’re not in Ottawa now. Take Bowser straight to the SPCA shelter on Notre Dame. ‘Duh, I don’t know who it belongs to.’ Rogers will have to pay fifty bucks each. Money talks. They’ll get the message.”
He mulled over her suggestions, declining the “duh” part but cheering up at the systematic offensive. “Sounds fine. Let’s give it a try.”
Minutes later, as she rounded the turn for his drive, a pack of all persuasions and proportions lunged out of nowhere to snap at her tires. It wouldn’t even be a challenge to dispatch the poor idiots. But suppose someone were walking, or an oncoming car jumped the odds? A swerve and an embrace with an uncooperative birch tree might result. Braking for animals was safe in theory only.
“Here you go,” Belle said, hoisting the three-foot metal cage out of the van. “Now get me a pork chop. I can still smell them from your grill.” She baited the trap, which they positioned under a wilting forsythia bush. Then heaping plates of chops and potato scallop appeared, and the pair talked strategy like a couple of Yalta generals, gesturing with forks and pausing for gulps of Maudite, an excellent Quebecois overproof beer.
“Now we’ll see what happens. When do they usually arrive?”
The evening was hot and still, heavy with humidity from the predicted rain. Charles fanned himself with a rhubarb leaf the size of an elephant’s ear. “Around dawn and then after supper. Thank God they have other pastimes during the day.”
“Are they vicious? Getting bitten’s great leverage.”
“No luck there. Friendly as pups. It’s just unconscionable that their owners don’t seem to care.” He gestured toward the thick greenbelt between their properties. “My place is fenced in back. Suppose I could extend down the line, but that would make it look like a concentration camp.”
“You can’t fence into the lake. If animals want in, they’ll get in.” She rolled her eyes in sympathy. “Just another feud. Happens all the time out here.”
“My lord, what else can I expect?”
“Start with wind chimes that rattle your brains, someone aerial-spraying bug poison on their trees or removing your survey stakes to better locate their new garage. Teenagers and quads seem to be multiplying lately. Luckily you’re at the end of the road, not in their path.”
Charles had been listening attentively, but as his gaze returned to the yard, his face brightened. “While you’re here, I want to show you the sauna. Won’t claim that I did it all myself. A couple of workers laid the foundation and set the frame in no time flat.” The size of a small garage, the building boasted a change room with a shower, cedar panelling and rows of shiny brass clothes hooks. Inside the steam room were graduated benches for four people to sprawl in comfort. A bright red enamel stove with a container of lava rocks on top, the imported kind Belle didn’t even bother pricing, sat on a tile floor, wooden water bucket, loofah and soap nearby. The place smelled like a sprucy corner of Scandinavia. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed a sauna.
“I’m a bit reluctant to try it out alone,” he said.
“Why?” she asked. “It looks as if you’ve followed the code.”
Charles patted his chest as a small wrinkle worried the bridge of his nose. “Nothing to do with construction. Just my high blood pressure. Keep it under control with pills, but perhaps I need a stronger prescription. Sometimes I feel a bit faint.” He sounded embarrassed, so she nodded in mute understanding.
“Charles, even at my tender age, many of my friends have hypertension. Don’t worry about it. Ask your doctor.”
“Haven’t been able to get one yet,” he said, rummaging in his pocket. “Only a few take new patients, and choosing the right physician is very important. Anyway, I also wanted to give you a key to the house for safekeeping.”
“Sure,” she said, tucking it away, flattered by the confidence. “It’s a good idea in case you leave town and forget something. Half-way to Toronto, I thought I had left the woodstove door unlatched and drove back two hours to check.”
As they walked to her van, she saw a neat stack of greenish scrap behind the sauna. “You’re not burning that stuff, are you?”
“Why not? Just short pieces. I don’t want to waste it or haul it to the dump in my car.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Ed burned treated wood in a stove one year, nearly didn’t wake up. The fumes gave him one hell of a headache, but it could have been worse. Even outdoors it’s toxic.”
Poor Charles, she thought, zigzagging through the dog pack on the way home. He’d better master the rules of rural living before they killed him.
That night Belle’s nose was stuffed from a change in weather. As the rain arrived, charging the air with ions, she tapped an ash into a brown ceramic mitt holding a ball with a hole, another cottage curio. The glass top on her bedside table pressed an assortment of wildflowers: the tiny pink bells of the rose twisted-stalk, a blue-eyed grass and a yellow marsh marigold, spring’s announcement. She picked up the Peterson’s guide Zack had given her. What exotica had Anni found over the years? A rare red trillium? A delicate orchid? It was hard to discover new species in a limited ecosystem. She opened the book and raised an eyebrow at a check beside striped coralroot, a saprophytic plant, waxy, without chlorophyll, thriving on forest wastes. According to the scribble, her mage friend had found it beside her boathouse. As she leafed through, a piece of folded paper fell out.
“Dear Anni,” it read. “So many years. I was surprised to get your letter from Sudbury. So that’s where you went with that handsome engineer. How did you ever chase me down in Saskatchewan? Through dear old Verna? Can you believe Bell Canada wanted the earth to string a line through the bush? Life’s simpler without it. Sam sold the grocery and here we are out west. You ask about that place, and I remember your suspicions. Shortly after you left, I saw something disgusting that made me go to the police. The children were sent away and the school boarded up. The town was in shock. I only hope THAT ONE was locked up and the key thrown away.
“Edith” was the only signature, with June 20th the only date. Had it arrived the week of Anni’s death, or years earlier?
ELEVEN
The letter pointed toward the past, but Anni had other enemies in her present. The very hostile Patsy Sommers, for one, even though that pathetic stockpile of cereal would have tugged at the black heart of the coldest futures speculator. A client, Dottie O’Neill, worked at Children’s Aid.
She had appreciated help in getting a quick sale on the family home after her mother returned to Newfoundland to nurse an aunt with Parkinson’s. “I need a favour about a situation your office might have handled recently. And I promise not to compromise you,” Belle said.
Dottie laughed like an overloaded potato trucker arriving at an unmanned weigh station, her Newfie accent a hearty Irish transplant frozen for centuries. “Lard dine Jaysus,” she boomed, a signature expression from the redoubtable Rock. “I could use some compromising, but first get me some Viagra for the old man. What is it you need, my girl?”
When Patsy had reappeared after Christmas with yet another baby, its needs had pressed her abilities to cope. Belle had seen the woman make more than one fast trip to town without any sign of heads bobbing in children’s car seats. “Can you tell me if one family, who shall be nameless, on Edgewater Road was investigated recently?”
A cackle broke the silence, then a flutter of paper. “That’s a doozy. Don’t you live out that way?”
“Five years now. Finally tore the cottage down and built. You’ll have to come out for a dip.”
“And turn into a popsicle? Everyone knows how cold that bugger lake is. Anyway, that visit nearly led me to early retirement. It was a circus from first go. We were responding to an anonymous complaint about children left alone. A pair of black devil dogs charged the rickety fence, spitting and snarling. Looked like animals had been at the trash. Diapers dragged across the road, even baby bottles in the ditch. The mother denied everything. Was she mad! Repacking garbage cans, swearing like a Hell’s Angel. I wanted to check inside, but we didn’t have just cause. All I could do was warn her to clean up, or I’d notify the Health Unit. Haven’t heard anything since, so maybe the visit kept her on her toes.”
“She’s still driving alone now and then. And I’m sure there’s nobody minding the kids. Too bad we can’t charge her with cruelty to animals, but they’re just crazed by being penned and fat from no exercise.”
“Isn’t that just like you, my friend? Bet you’d have reported dog abuse fast enough. Children pay the price for community blindness. Look at that boy’s death in New Brunswick. Failure to thrive, doctors said. No wonder, chained in the closet all of his miserable life. Four years old and twenty pounds? Little legs like sticks and bruises all over his body. Parents should be licensed.”
The dart about dogs made Belle wince. “So lay it on with a moral trowel. And don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on her . . . for other reasons.”
“There is more. Tell all.”
Belle cut the details to the quick and dirty, wondering if her bias was showing.
“As I said, the call was anonymous. We had some temporary summer staff. No way I can check if it was even a woman. Since Mrs. Sommers wasn’t charged, sounds like more a nuisance than a motive for murder. Still, I wouldn’t want to face that banshee riding a PMS flare.”
Alone with her thoughts, Belle turned director. Patsy looked like a scrappy brawler. If Anni had confronted her about the kids, it would have been no secret who had called the authorities. Perhaps one night, she had gone to Anni’s to have it out. Would the old woman have let her in? Harped at her further in that self-righteous tone she could wield? Patsy wasn’t sharp with words. A few choice, acerbic shots could have turned the moment ugly in seconds. One blow from a mother defending her cubs, no matter how misguided.
And then there was still Nick, the man without a source of income. Before she left for town, she primed the bread maker with tomato-basil mix. On return, she’d have a tempting piece of bait to troll. It was time to see inside that little camp.
Later that day, at the Imperial Body Shop, a wizened Finnish gnome paced back and forth with his estimate book, checked the paint number and made a few calls. “Ship-shape tomorrow if you can leave overnight, Missus. Important to give her a bake, like a dry sauna.” His distinctive accent, another delicious ingredient in the Sudbury melting pot, sounded like “Rupperpoots,” a local newspaper column in syllabic dialect: “Vuns der vuss a liddle gurl . . .” Belle took a taxi home, appalled by the thirty-dollar charge. It might have been higher, except that the driver knew he could loop by the airport afterwards to wait for arriving planes.
A savoury breeze was drifting through the house when she opened the door. Mother’s little servant. She wrapped the loaf in a paper bag and hiked down the road, the dog sedate as an old maid. Anyone in the bush who needed to leash an animal shouldn’t own one, if “own” was the right word. An occasional dip and flip was necessary, though, since a perverse gene made Freya select the exact middle of a driveway with the precision of a surveyor’s transit. “Not there! Go further, I mean farther. Ooo. Too late,” she said, grabbing a thumb-thick branch sliced from the winter plowing and catapulting steamy piles into the brush. “To you it’s a registered letter, but humans don’t read with their noses.” The response was a gambol into a muddy ditch. Just like a kid.
Nick’s truck sat at the schoolbus turn just before Charles’ place. Short of a pencil, blending mnemonics with math, Belle memorized the license: 851 RTM. In (19)85 I (had a Mustang) R(egistered) T(o) M(e). That sporty red devil with its useless rear wheel drive and tendency to fishtail in winter hadn’t lasted long in the slippery North. She peered into the rusty box. Only a couple of sandbags for weight and two cans of oil. The doors were locked. The usual rubbish cluttered the dash, junk flyers for pizza and dry cleaning. She shielded her eyes against the glare of the window. A Royal Bank deposit slip for five hundred dollars, chump change even stacked into a miserly pile of loonies.
Along the trail, she paused to look for mushrooms. Every week brought a surprise: blewits, fly agarics and yellow boletes with spongy bottoms. Many old-timer Italians, Finns and Ukrainians prized the fragile fairy rings and the luscious velvet foot, the latter cultivated commercially as enotake, but why risk poisoning when the market was carrying portobellos and shiitakes even at ten bucks a pound? The CBC had reported that a couple in Bracebridge had gone to bed in philosophical resignation, leaving a note: “We ate mushrooms.” Something poking through leaf mould caught her eye. Speckled dark brown and cream, fresh-birthed from the rich peat like a reluctant egg. The rare panther, as transfixing and deadly as its namesake. Picking the beauty would break Anni’s unwritten rules, ruin the brief perfection. One of these days she would buy a decent camera.
She passed a favourite pair of wooden lovers, Ontario’s answer to the holly and the ivy. A tall golden birch, king of the forest in its girth, reached skyward, embraced by a smaller sinuous maple, the smooth gray skin contrasting with its silvery-amber companion. Stopping for a moment to drink in the quiet, Belle was surprised to notice the forest open far and away for a change, nearly to the bay. Usually the hardwood stand was dense with undergrowth. What had happened to the leaves? She examined a branch and swore at the sickly lace shred in her hand. Something hit her neck, and she swiped at it absently. Dropping onto the path were tent caterpillars, green with brown and black stripes, harbingers of another cyclical invasion. How long before they crawled across the road? Would the trees survive? She squashed a few underfoot, yanking down their cottony nests with singular malevolence.
Belle was so disgusted that she nearly missed the turn to Nick’s camp. Left to weather naturally, the boards on the trapping base shack had turned a delicate Cape Cod gray. Cheery impatiens decorated a flower bed constructed painstakingly with thin rock shards. Under the post-and-beam construction, a plastic waterline headed for the lake, likely run by a hand pump. By a shed, an axe and bow saw leaned against a pile of pine splits, Nick’s hard sweat instead of a quick chainsaw fix. Satisfied that the dog was amusing herself by crashing around with a stick, she knocked on the door.
A minute later the edge of a curtain moved, and she brandished the bag with a friendly smile. “Could you use some homebaked bread?”
Nick’s face was red from more than sunburn. “Let me get my pants on. Had to sew a rip.”
They were both laugh
ing by the time she entered. The single room was simple but comfortable, reminding her of sweet, uncomplicated days in the cottage. A tin woodstove for summer use, dresser, pine table and two side chairs, a Swedish style daybed with futon and pillows. Two kerosene lanterns provided evening light. The kitchen corner had a dry sink with a bucket, cupboards and a Coleman stove. For entertainment, a portable radio. On a small shelf near the water bucket, a pharmacy of prescription bottles lined up.
“It’s tomato-basil,” she said, placing it into his hands, the fingers strong and graceful, capable of hard work but perhaps something more intricate. On the window sill she spotted a cup of pencils.
“Smells wonderful after 1001 pasta recipes. How about a slice with some tea? I’ve got butter cooling down at the lake.”
One boiling pot later they munched and drank in quiet contemplation of a squirrel on the deck outside methodically dismantling a pine cone and stuffing it into its mouth like a woody artichoke. Since the camp perched twenty feet up on a rock face, the view was spectacular, nothing but the long lines of the unbroken wilderness. “So peaceful here without the boat traffic,” she added. “Do you know the bluff on Wapiti a couple of bays past the island? I call it Raven Cliff.”
Nodding brightly at a personal connection, he pulled a thick sketchbook from a drawer. “One of my paths leads to the big lake. Fishing’s perfect there on a cool morning before the bugs wake up.” He opened to a page and turned it toward her. “I have special names for places, too. Bear Inlet. Saw one checking the blueberry bushes yesterday. Big, lazy boar. Something odd about his nose.”
Nick had been reading the landscape with pens and pencils. Belle traced the image, the moment returning like a warm embrace. “What fine lines. Art’s not my forte. I can’t imagine the hours of patience. Even my stick men need crutches.”