by Lou Allin
“No worse than your attorney’s gum. Anyway, can you handle more information about Melibee?”
“Looks like I’ll have to sooner or later, so I’d better grow a rhino skin. Celeste has given me some tips about ruthless prosecutors.”
Belle swallowed a lump in her throat. “Reid saw a woman, a very young woman, at the condo. Some hanky panky in the elevator, too.”
Miriam didn’t answer for a moment, her gaze following a raven lifting off the pavement with an annoyed flap, leaving a porcupine pie and settling atop a telephone pole. “Could mean nothing. A relative.”
“No kissing cousin ever came forward. I know it’s humiliating, but put pride aside when your future’s involved.”
“Fine. Who is this . . . person?”
“We don’t have a name yet, but a blue crew cut and a lip piercing should narrow the field.” Belle slowed for the traffic light in Garson, as an enclosed mini-plow blew a path for a puffy-coated woman pushing a wheeled walker, plastic grocery bags dangling from both sides. “We intended to keep the mass private. But let’s post announcements like Father Mike suggested. Maybe she was only a fortune hunter. Maybe she loved him. Either way, it might smoke her out.”
“Love? What a deceptive word. No one that young could imagine my feelings for Mel. It would nauseate me to see her. But you’re right. We have to know.” She turned to Belle, her voice under tight control. “I’ve tried to keep a stiff upper everything, but I have my doubts about new evidence rescuing me from that court date. And even if I am found innocent, it’s still a stigma. How could I look anyone in the eye? Not to mention the bad publicity for us.”
“We’d probably sell more houses,” Belle said with a wry laugh. “So let’s follow every possible lead, no matter how unlikely. Is there anything else, any place you—”
Miriam turned toward her. “The apartment was cleaned out by the police, all papers given to the fraud investigators. But how about the small office he rented? I dropped him off there once. Could any clues be left?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Belle turned the heater down and mopped her forehead. “Wheew. I’m sweating like a beast in this down coat.”
Miriam looked over with a hurt expression. “Why haven’t you tried out my new jacket?”
That night Belle called Jack to tell him about the service. “Damn,” he said. “Do I have to go?”
She spoke sharply. “Is this the support you’re giving Miriam?” On second thought, he might feel awkward attending a service for her late lover.
“OK, boss. I’ll need a suit. Can’t look like a country bumpkin. But I’m getting strapped for cash.”
“Try the Jarrett Centre on Notre Dame. Antonia’s Tailoring in the mall if you need alterations.”
The hiss of an opening can filled the silence. Then he said, “I have the lowdown on Elmo. It’s kind of sad.”
“What do you mean?”
He muttered a few four-letter words. “Won’t see me donating again. Do you know the Salvation Army doesn’t promote homos to officers?”
Belle assessed the mindset of a blue-collar male. Couldn’t Jack graduate to “gay”? “Homo” was what Canadians read on milk cartons. “They are a quasi-religious organization. They don’t discriminate against those they help, but legally have a right to choose their staff, shameful though that policy is.”
A few slurps, then another hiss. But if she bearded him on this point, the cans might be Pepsis, and she’d sound like a nag. Still, who drank two sodas in a row . . . unless they’d been jogging?
“Right. So here’s Elmo one of their best. Street people loved the man. He did night runs with sandwiches and coffee, sleeping bags, too. Saved one guy’s life by pulling him out of a refrigerator crate at thirty-five below. He comes out of the closet—”
“And loses his kettle. It’s low all right. Their loss.”
Sending Freya out for a nightly ablution, Belle hauled a garbage bag up to the road. It was pitch black, not even a wisp of a moon. A few more weeks and from deep in the forest would come the familiar hoot, “Who cooks for you?” The totem on her routed sign, “The Parliament of Owls.” A heavy snowfall had left twenty centimetres, with ten more to come. Ed had cleared her plowline and made a preliminary exit path before darkness and an electrical short circuit had sent his truck home. Swiping off the top of the bearproof wooden coffin, she added a scotch bottle to the blue box of recyclables for tomorrow’s collection, wincing at her back, cursing herself for not bending at the knees. As she lowered the heavy lid, lights flashed from down the road. Cautious, she shifted behind a thick cedar. A white car similar to a patrol car passed slowly, then accelerated. Their routine weekly check? At ten at night? Or Brian in an unmarked vehicle on his own prowl? “Freya!” she called with renewed fear.
Nineteen
Early the next morning, Miriam drove Belle to Melibee’s office on Bristol Street in the older downtown area. Each piece of information added to the dossier on the dead man. With the police short-staffed, there was always the chance that they had overlooked something seemingly innocuous. After parking the coughing Neon in the Northern Breweries lot, Miriam led her around the corner and down a sidestreet with only enough room to wiggle one car through the six-foot snow piles, their tops eroded like dirty lace. “Not exactly trust-inspiring,” Belle said, tramping through the ruts. “No wonder he didn’t meet anyone here.”
“Probably a tax write-off. Very legal and sweet. You ought to let me give you some tips,” she said with a wink.
Belle kept quiet about her suspicions that he likely met unsavoury associates in this backwater, an ancient crenellated building which had survived World War I, all but one storefront business with newspapered windows. “Elphinstone Investments” one door read, but they could see through a crack that nothing remained other than scattered office furniture. “Let’s go,” Miriam said, shivering. “Too morbid. This place is as dead as poor Mel.”
Belle put her hands on her hips. “Since when were you shy? We need to get in.”
“I left my lock picks at home. What’s your suggestion?”
They headed for the only functioning business, a used furniture store-cum-junk shop. “Welcome” the sign said. Inside, a lady in a gingham dress behind the counter gave them a hopeful smile, her owlish eyes magnified by Coke bottle glasses. Belle felt guilty about wasting her time as she glanced at the sad collection too old to be fashionable yet too young to be antiques. A chrome dining set with three chairs. A ripped naugahyde couch. Cottage furniture, or a head start for a poor couple. Why disparage an honest effort to earn a living?
“May I help you?”
“Is the place next door available? We have an idea for a catering business, and the location is central.”
The woman smiled, putting down her feather duster. Despite the musty smell infused into the superstructure, the place was spotless, the narrow board floor shiny with wax. “It would be nice to have neighbours again. The owner lives in Barrie. He leaves me the keys, though.”
“Could we have a look? It won’t take long.”
“I’m Peggy Longwood. Call me Peg.” She extended a hand knobby from arthritis.
Belle let the woman govern the squeeze as she introduced herself and Miriam. “The former renter is gone, then?”
“My yes, but he never was around much. Saw him a few times when he used my bathroom. His toilet began to leak Christmas week, and plumbers were scarce.”
Minutes later, given the key, Belle and Miriam entered the tiny storefront, hardly more than a shell, patched walls with yellowed plaster. The cheap cardboard file cabinets were empty as the desk. They stooped to examine junk mail, brochures about Caribbean islands. A wall calendar had a red heart around the 14th of January. “Two weeks after he died,” Belle said, turning to her distressed friend. “Looks like he was planning a trip.”
The corners of Miriam’s mouth quivered. “It’s my birthday. A surprise. Oh, Mel. Why did it all go wrong?”
While Miria
m blew her nose, Belle stared at a cracked floor tile, embarrassed that she’d forgotten. Alone in the San on her birthday. In the confusion, likely no one had remembered, and her friend hadn’t mentioned it until this prompt. Somehow Belle would have to clear Miriam’s name if she had to knock on every door in town and turn over every rock.
The grimy storage area through a door to the rear had only a few boxes labelled “stationary.” Miriam pointed out the misspelling with a grimace. To one side, a dry toilet and rust-stained sink occupied a small nook. Only the sad note of Melibee’s business card on the shabby linoleum bore witness to his presence, stamped with the track of a muddy boot.
They returned the keys to Peggy, telling her the place wasn’t quite what they needed. Belle made idle conversation. “Did he have a moving company? We’ll be needing some strong backs when we set up.”
“I shouldn’t say anything, but you might have read that Mr. Elphinstone was murdered. The police cleaned out everything in the weeks that followed. But it’s odd.”
Miriam took a step forward. “What is?”
Peggy put a finger beside her pug nose. “I don’t see well. But my ears are sharper than weasel’s teeth. And I’m sure someone was in there the day after he was reported dead. I told the police that.”
Belle asked to use the washroom and was directed down a hall toward a small nook. Fallen behind the wastebasket, an envelope with Melibee’s name caught her eye. “If I find you near my sister again, you’ll be a sorry old man,” the letter read, computer typed. “Parasites like you have no right to live.” Didn’t people ever sign mail any more?
When shown the envelope, Peggy said that a young man had stopped in the shop and asked her to deliver the letter to Melibee since his office had no mail slot. The next time he’d been over to use the bathroom, she’d given it to him.
In the car, Belle turned to Miriam. “Do you think it’s the same person that sent you that hate note? It’s a different font.”
“And good grammar, not like the other. No mistaking the threat, though.”
“What sister? It can’t be Elmo,” Belle said, “unless he and Debby were lying, and she was still in touch with Melibee.”
Miriam wrapped one finger around an errant curl. “What about the blue-haired bimbo?”
The memorial mass was held on Sunday. Belle had selected a cream pantsuit with a dark brown cashmere turtleneck. Arriving with Jack, Miriam wore a black wool dress with a pearl brooch and a veiled hat which set a Fifties tone, perhaps her late mother’s. Jack looked spruce in a double-breasted charcoal suit with a burgundy silk tie, as if he were attending his own wedding. Then she focused on his face, one eye puffy and blackened, his lip scabbed. He raised one hand halfheartedly in greeting.
Had he popped open too many beer cans and taken his temper downstairs to a bar fight? Apparently any good behaviour had reached its best-before date. “What happened?” she asked sotto voce as they entered the foyer of St. Bernardine’s. Having ignored him since they’d left the car, Miriam headed for rows of candles glowing on a side table, dropping coins into the slot and lighting the largest votive offering.
He shrugged, dipping a finger into the holy water and crossing himself. “Little personal disagreement about a lady at the Ledo. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“You look like a thug. We don’t need this.”
“So whose idea was it that I come?” he answered, causing a woman to turn sharply at his tone. “This hasn’t been an assignment for a former altarboy. You couldn’t count the fights I walked away from.”
The church contained forty to fifty older people. Many nodded pleasantly at the trio and took accustomed places in the dozen rows, removing hats and gloves, but leaving their coats on. Belle empathized. A few degrees lower and she could have seen her breath.
Regrouping, the trio sat midway, as from afar a recorded ringing sounded. Seven plain windows on either side were divided by ceramic plaques depicting the stations of the cross. The vaulted ceiling, white with wooden beams, sheltered a large pale green area at the end of the nave, decorated with ficus plants and poinsettias. Single candelabra in six-foot holders flanked the simple altar. At one side of the pulpit, an earnest young organist played “The Lost Chord.”
Noting Belle’s quizzical look, Miriam sighed. “My first piano recital. Like my romance, a magic moment which will never come again.”
In the middle of winter, flowers were at a premium, but a spray of red gladioli brightened the scene. Simple octagonal light fixtures hung from the ceiling, augmented by winter’s feeble sunlight. When “Only God Could Love You More” began playing, Miriam’s eyes welled with tears, and she sniffed without reserve.
Father Mike spoke a few all-purpose words to commemorate the late Melibee Elphinstone and pitched his sermon to the story of Jesus among the moneylenders. Had he followed the story in the paper? Belle swallowed a grin, but Miriam seemed in another world, hunched on the padded kneeler, gloved hands folded in prayer. After the collection, half the congregation went in a quiet line to take communion, followed by Jack, head bowed and hands clasped behind him.
At the service end, they were filing out to the chords of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” when they noticed a small figure in shadow in the last pew. Belle elbowed Miriam, who was wadding tissue into her purse. “Did we snag someone?”
They hastened down the aisle, but they needn’t have hurried. The young girl in a Roots jacket, her blue crewcut head a splash of colour against the oak wainscotting, was sobbing quietly, oblivious to them. Father Mike came over, white skirts swishing. “Your flowers looked lovely, Mrs. MacDonald, if I may . . .” Then he noticed the girl, and his voice trailed off.
At their womanly gestures, he nodded and withdrew, as Belle and Miriam moved into position on either side of the girl. Wiping her eyes, she glanced from one to the other, then to Jack, leaning against a nearby pillar. Then she picked up a leather backpack, her expression confused at their attention.
“Is there a coffee hour or something? Thanks, but I’m going right back to town.”
“We’re friends of Melibee. Were you?” Belle asked as if assessing character for an exclusive club. Introducing herself, to avoid awkwardness for Miriam, she added, “And this is Barbie and K . . . Ben.”
“Crystal Wilson.” The girl stuck out a pouty lower lip, a tiny, heart-shaped gold stud piercing the middle. “I knew Melie all right. Better than a lot of people. Like much good that’ll do me now.”
The cryptic statement begged for explanation. “We’d like to share our thoughts with you in this solemn moment. I’m preparing some snacks if you’re hungry. My house isn’t far.”
With a shrug, Crystal followed them outside, shivering as a blast of wind rolled across the parking lot. “Brr,” she said. “It’s warmer in town. I heard the windshield factor was minus forty degrees this morning.”
“Pardon?” Belle said.
“You know, like in some scientific measurement of the air hitting your car?” Crystal replied as if she knew that Belle had flunked Grade Ten physics.
As they headed down Edgewater Road, the girl’s bonebreaking beater of indiscriminate pedigree couldn’t make the last icy hill and slid into the ditch. Everyone got out and pushed, creating a group spirit. “This is my brother’s car. He’d kill me if I wrecked it,” she said, her Doc Martens slipping on the ice.
On Belle’s deck, Crystal clapped her hands as Freya bounded out. “Hey, pup,” she said, kneeling to stroke the shepherd and present her face for licks. “I miss Knobby, my pit bull. Whatever happened at home, like, he was always my friend. Don’t let no one ever tell you that them dogs are bad. He slept on my bed and never chewed his teddy once.”
Over coffee in the living room, they learned that Crystal was a high school dropout of nineteen, working at a dry cleaner’s. She’d met Melibee when he’d picked up a favourite suit. Her skill in eliminating a wine stain had been rewarded with lunch, then dinner. Then . . . She blushed in a sudden, charmi
ng innocence. “Like he knew something about everything I didn’t. Art, antiques, books, movies. It was way cooler than school. He got me to start taking upgrading courses at the adult learning centre.”
She’d been living on her own in a rooming house since her parents had thrown her out. “Rotten kid, that’s me. Like I shoplifted an eyeliner at K-Mart. Never could live up to my brother Doug at Shield. He’s going to be an engineer. I couldn’t tell him where I was going today ’cause he didn’t approve of Melie.”
Confirming to herself the author of the note to Melibee, Belle brought out a plate with cheese and crackers. Then coffee for all and a Coke for Crystal. Touching his split lip from time to time as if reliving the fight, Jack leafed through an Outside magazine.
“Crystal, it’s obvious that you . . .” Belle shot a glance at Miriam, who was barely able to keep steam from her ears. “Cared for the man. Did you see the relationship going further than good friends?”
The girl slurped her drink, her tweezed brows contracting like duelling tildes. “Like, we were going to leave this hole. Melie had it set up. Lots and lots of money. A little treasure chest, he said. Waiting all these years.”
“Waiting?” Belle watched Miriam shift on the sofa and asked, “His investments?”
The girl snickered, her gold stud clicking against her teeth. “No way. He knew they were going bust. And he was getting out before the pyramid went down. I didn’t really understand that idea. Anyway, this was different. Easier than cash. Portable and absotively untraceable.”
“Abso . . . when were you going to go?” Belle asked. Miriam had grown deathly quiet, her fingers drumming silently on her knee in time with the overhead fan. Her eyes were fixed on the gold stud as if she’d like to rip it off and frame it on the wall.
The girl’s pert, round chin began to wobble, and she stared out the window at a swooping crow. “That’s what really burns me. Just before he was killed by that old bag, who by the way, he used as a cover, he said he had bought the plane tickets.”