by Lou Allin
“I have the money from Jack MacDonald,” Belle gulped. Big Syl. Sylvester? Sylvano? Whatever the last name was, she didn’t want to know.
He hopped out and opened the main doors with a flourish, motioning her inside. A trap? White slavers looking for choice goods to send to the Northwest Territories? How many Godfather movies did it take to teach someone not to trust the goodfellas? Shrugging off doubts, since she was past her prime,and knowing the police station was a few blocks away, she bent her head and stepped into a leather and chrome dreamscape. Comfortable pale plum padded seats, a bar, mini-fridge, television, and on a cut-down lazy boy recliner, a woman in a black silk suit revealing shapely calves, a silver scarf, and patent leather stiletto heels which had never seen a sidewalk. A set of half-lens reading glasses dangled on a cord from her neck. Hard to judge from a sitting position, but she couldn’t have been more than four feet tall. Belle tried to decipher the title of the paperback on her lap.
“Sylvia diFlorio,” she said, her warm liquid voice a natural for bedtime stories, Brothers Grimm preferred. “I came in person because of what happened to Mr. MacDonald.”
“How did you find—”
“We have sources.” Her lustrous ebony hair pulled into a chignon around deep almond eyes and a flawless skin, Sylvia steepled her slender hands, one massive emerald sparkling on her right ring finger.
Belle gritted her teeth. Why the pretense? Was the woman mocking her? “You could have killed both of us.”
One lip-lined corner of Sylvia’s peach-coloured mouth rose almost imperceptively, and she angled her head slightly, a cat observing its prey. In an even voice, she said: “Please believe that we had nothing to do with the shooting. That is not our way.”
Belle gave an ironic laugh. “Just a quiet pummel here and there, I suppose.”
Covering her mouth to give a discreet cough, Sylvia excused herself, puffing briefly from an inhaler. How old was she? Forty? Sixty? The doll-like expressionless face was an advertisement for Botox injections. “We are not a charity. Reminders can be necessary. Rough business for rough customers.” She reached for an unlabelled green bottle and two tapered glasses, setting them on a hinged table at her elbow. “I forget my manners. Would you sample my family’s wine to seal the bargain? Our Riserva.”
Hypnotized at her tones, refusing to look gauche by checking her watch to see if the sun was over the yardarm, Belle nodded. She sipped the dark red wine, liquid jewels lingering in her mouth, caressing her palate. A shame to swallow, but she closed her eyes to savour touches of raspberry and fine old oak casks. On the thin crystal, a pink tinge remained like the kiss of a young girl.
“Full-bodied. Like a Barolo. An Amarone. Not Canadian grapes.”
Big Syl blew out a contemptuous breath. “Certainly not. Nebbiolo, a variety grown in Alba, Northern Italy. My cousin’s winery is over three-hundred-years old.”
“Where can I buy some?”
With a Bic pen, Sylvia scribbled an address on a piece of paper, handing it to her. “Knock three times. Mention my name.”
Belle passed her the cheque, receiving a receipt on stationery marked Montbatten Corporation. With a soft purr, Sylvia said, “Frankly, my dear, a paltry amount like this we often write off. It isn’t worth the negative publicity.”
As she prepared to leave, slipping a business card from her wallet and placing it on the table, Belle added, “For your realty needs. And if you like Royal Doulton, forty percent discount from list.”
Big Syl picked up her book and adjusted the glasses, peering over them like Belle’s Latin teacher. “Give Mr. MacDonald my best hopes for a speedy recovery . . . and a quick return to Timmins, where his carelessness about money may not cost him so much.”
Belle climbed the stairs to the office, pausing to reflect on the title of the paperback. Fifth Business was a curious choice. Or was it? Robertson Davies’ finest work, and perhaps Canada’s best novel. The title referred to the opera personage who lurks behind the scenes, yet drives the machinations of the plot.
“And you believed her?” Jack said moments later, his paws shovelling chocolate rounds from a family size box of Timbits.
“Why would she bother coming in person? It seemed like a genuine gesture. If you think about it, she had everything to gain by letting it be assumed that the attack was commissioned and committed with impunity. Fewer loan defaults. Now I’m convinced that Dumontelle did the shooting.”
“OK, but what now?”
“After our interviews, we’d look like fools to go to the police. Credibility’s down the drain. If only I had some solid proof.” Then she grew quiet, her hand hovering over the box in distraction.
“Try the sour cream.”
“Where did that shot come from?”
Late that afternoon, pushing the envelope with dusk an hour away, she walked with Freya back to Chimbly Hill, positioning herself and an invisible Jack in that moment when their lives hung in fragile balance. Only a flurry of snow had fallen over a pink blur where he had lain. Shielding her eyes from the sun’s glare, she looked across to nearby hills, anywhere a clear shot could have been taken. Suddenly she fixed upon a high point to the east, toward where Freya had looked. How the dog hated gunshots. Anni Jacobs, who had introduced Belle to the wonders of the bush years ago, had trails in that area.
Returning to the house, she drove the van a mile down the road, parking at a wide spot. From the oil leaks and chunks of dirty snow fallen from wheelwells, many neighbours had been enjoying Anni’s legacy of paths. Unfortunately, a snowmobile had wiped out other tracks, so sharply defined it had to have been laid only a few hours ago. She doubted the shooter had used one. Too noisy and too colourful against nature’s winter dressing. She would have seen it as she searched for the source of the sound.
Not sure into what territory she might be heading, she tossed her snowshoes over her shoulder and began the hike, an excuse for an extra-sumptuous dinner. As she knew from summer rambles, the path began on an ancient logging road and spread out into a web of options, a heronry, a beaver dam, several tiny, unmapped lakes. Ten minutes later she passed the burned shell of a cabin, a glimpse of bedsprings and a rusty stove as witness. Skeletons of outbuildings showed where horses had been stabled. Scars of blazes on the birches, each face unique, marked succeeding generations who had roamed these woods. Winding around a grove of black spruce, their branches trailing like upturned skirts, the snowmobile track laced across a small swamp, headed for linkups to Blue Lake, a renewed mine site. Minutes later, at a huge, fire-hollowed cedar sarcophagus, she came to a junction. Veering left toward the overlook hill, herringbone ski marks going up were overlaid with narrow cross country ski grooves coming down. Belting on her snowshoes for traction, she began climbing, obscuring the two patterns with her own ovals.
Out of breath, at last she plodded to the top, her face crimson with effort and sweat tickling her neck. The skier had tramped a firm staging place behind a clump of white-pillowed cedars, an easy place to hide. She could see the dark, bare top of Chimbly with ease, and though she had received a B minus in riflery in university phys ed, with a powerful scope she might have done some damage. As for the timing, a talented skier could return down the hill in minutes. Someone had been doing reconnaissance, marking her daily walks in the woods now that evenings grew longer. The stalker might have come many times, waiting for the perfect opportunity. She scanned the snow for a shell casing, cigarette butts, pop cans, a phone bill, DNA, knowing that finding evidence was as impossible as tracing the bullet that had mangled Jack’s leg. Only a few microscopic sand fleas hopped about, reminding her of the persistency of life. With twelve feet of snow packing a parallel universe and winds redesigning the surface with each storm, it was worse than the needle in the haystack. Taken back to the lake, the rifle might have been shoved down any of fifty ice fishing holes. Three hundred feet past the fishes to the frigid bottom of a meteor crater, joining the bones of legendary drowning victims whose bodies had never surfa
ced.
Twenty-Four
The next day, Belle was working alone, the can of pepper spray on a file cabinet behind her next to the vanilla air freshener. A nice Glock would have been more reassuring. The papers suggested that despite Canada’s safe image, those pistols were available in Toronto at up to fifteen hundred dollars on the black market. Rummaging in her desk drawer, she noticed Miriam’s poison pen letter. Uneasy about giving it to the police, she had subconsciously forgotten the ugly time bomb. Reading it again, she paused at a new idea.
“Brrr. Anybody home?” Dorothy breezed in, wiping her boots, and took a chair, admiring Belle’s favourite picture of Freya, her handsome sable face framed by green ferns. “Beautiful dog. My father-in-law owned a black-and-tan.”
“She’s quite a poser.” Belle preened under the compliment to her genius child. “Miriam should be back any minute. More news already? I should be paying you.”
“Heavens, that was a lucky strike. Apparently both of my university contacts have moved to greener pastures in Victoria. I came to discuss selling the camp. We had such a chat the other day and never got around to it. This tough winter has strengthened my resolve. Not as young as I, etcetera, etcetera, my bursitis reminds me.” She shifted her hips with a wince.
Wishing it were Melibee’s penthouse instead of a cottage, Belle took the particulars. Three bedrooms. Built in the 1930s, but refitted five years ago with a new roof and porch. Sauna and boathouse. Twelve-foot boat with a new 9.9. “On a private lake with a good access road? Great selling points.”
“Buckle Lake. Named after my grandfather, Joe Buckle. One of the last old-fashioned prospectors with no fancy science. Just a nose for gold and silver.” She chuckled as she pulled out a tissue to blow her own aquiline family heirloom.
“It’s a hard living. Now they’re hopeful about finding diamonds in the kimberlite pipes in the region. So do you have hydro, or do you use a generator?” Somehow she imagined that the regal woman would prefer Coleman lanterns over maintaining a gas-guzzling, noisy machine.
“A small mining venture began a few miles away in the Fifties. Brought in a phone and power line. Otherwise I couldn’t have afforded it. Now they’re belly up, and I reap the benefits.”
“Every cloud, as they say.”
Dorothy looked around with apparent disappointment. “Miriam gone again? How’s our case? Any developments?”
“I have one more angle, something I’d forgotten,” Belle said, checking her watch against her friend’s return. She didn’t want to upset her by flashing the letter. “I should have given this to the police.” She explained the circumstances of its discovery and Miriam’s denial.
Dorothy read it with interest. “I was a speech therapist, not a teacher, but I’m appalled at the grammar and spelling mistakes. Do you suppose it was written by an American?”
“As a former English teacher, though only briefly, I’m sorry to tell you that illiteracy is a free trade item.” Adjusting her reading glasses, Belle pointed at a line. “Look at this odd inconsistency. ‘Mont’ and ‘no’ are spelled wrong. Normal enough, but such a dolt would have written ‘a lot’ as one word, and certainly ‘past’ would be ‘passed.’ The writer was trying to disguise an education.”
Dorothy’s large, intelligent eyes widened. “I see! My husband had that kind of insight, along with a healthy dose of suspicion. ‘Never trust anyone, Dottie, even your funeral director,’ he said, wisdom which has stood me in good stead.” Her long face, which Belle now associated with Edna May Oliver’s, 1930s old maid sleuth in the Penguin Pool Murders, creased in thought. “You will have to turn it in. There are penalties for withholding evidence.”
“Yes,” Belle said, as she refolded the sheet and stuffed it into the envelope. “I’ve been praying to all the gods that a miracle would arise.”
Dorothy leaned forward with a finger of caution. “But you are handling it rather casually. The police will be checking for prints.”
Belle peered at her hands as if they had betrayed her. “I didn’t think of that.”
The clock ticked one as Miriam came through the door. “Dorothy. Your timing was perfect. Lunch time, and Belle’s on duty.” As she put down the supplies from Muirhead’s, the phone rang. “Sacrifice. Just a minute.”
Belle smiled at her intrepid cohort, then watched Miriam place a trembling hand on her chest and take a deep breath. “My God. What hospital?”
Exchanging glances of concern with Dorothy, Belle approached Miriam, who was looking at her watch as she spoke, her face fearful but resolute. “I’ll be on the next bus to North Bay. My car’s down for repairs,” she said, then hung up.
“Rosanne?” Belle asked.
Miriam leafed through the phone book. “I knew she was working too hard. Those exams. Her immune system conks out with the least stress. It’s pneumonia.”
“For a minute I thought you were talking about an accident. These awful roads,” Dorothy said. “And now you’re going all that way? Oh dear, I wish I could drive you, but I have an appointment with a rheumatologist, and you know how—”
Making a gesture for quiet, Miriam punched in more numbers, jotting scheduling information. “The next bus leaves in an hour. I’ll pick up a few things at the apartment.”
Belle said, “I can take you, then over to the depot.”
“A cab’s fine. Who’d mind the store?” She snatched a card from the bulletin board, dialled, and gave the address.
“Did her roommate call?” Belle asked.
“Psychology teacher. Apparently she collapsed in the middle of an exam. It was kind of the woman.”
Belle muttered the customary reassuring words. Pneumonia was one problem, the increased risk of further infection in the hospital another. “Can Jack handle the dog? Maybe he should—”
Slinging her purse over the shoulder like a bandolier, Miriam said, “A neighbour boy downstairs has been walking Strudel.”
“The poor woman,” Dorothy said when the door closed. “With all she’s been through.”
Alone later in the wake of the latest disaster, Belle recalled that this crisis could have improved with a decent cash flow. Miriam’s pathetic car. Her own crochety van. Maybe that leasing idea had merit. And maybe she’d get the listing on a million-dollar house on Lake Nepawhin carrying a sixty-thousand-dollar commission. The slippery slope of speculation. What had the Prime Minister said? “If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a bus”?
She stopped at Rainbow Country to get her father’s signature on his tax return, another annoyance. How she hated the routine of collecting all the nursing home costs, the pension slips, and the mutual fund reports, not to mention paying the huge accounting bill. He asked about the case, and she told him the baroque but unhelpful developments, begrudging him the extra moments keeping her from getting home.
George Palmer adjusted a twisted suspender, then made a curvaceous gesture with his large hands. “Now those paintings of nude women in his apartment make sense with his eye for that young tomato. Do you remember The Picture of Dorian Gray?”
“Yes, and the wonderful actor, Hurd Hatfield. What’s that got to do with anything? Melibee might have preferred an aging portrait in the attic, but he was surviving without cosmetic surgery.” She saw that she’d hurt his feelings with this dismissal. More than once, his cryptic comments had made her think out of the box and solve a problem.
As soon as he’d signed the papers, a ripple of panic washed over his broad face. “Gotta hit the john.”
She ran to the hall. No aides in sight. “I’ll go to the nursing station and get—”
He began to bounce, rattling the lap table and yelling, “When you gotta go, you gotta go!”
Because if you don’t go when you gotta go . . . “All right!” It wouldn’t be the first time she had assisted him to the bathroom, but each effort grew more dangerous. That’s why the staff used a mechanical Hoyer lift resembling a mantis. Thanks to the tasty meals, he still weighed nearly a hundred
and seventy. Without regular exercise, impossible without cooperation, because he’d take direction only from her, his muscular legs grew weaker, shrinking from disuse. She fumbled at the catches, then moved beside him, arm across his bony shoulders.
“Up now.” With a grunt, he rose, one shaky hand on the wall. Slowly they trundled towards the narrow bathroom containing only a toilet and sink. She helped him with his pants, nearly home safe, and then as he backed against the pot, to brace him, she bent an odd way, taking his full weight against her twisted spine. With a contented sigh, he landed softly and motioned her out, pushing the door shut.
Belle eased away, frozen in fear at the muscular tear she’d felt. As in banging a knee, there was a brief, ominous pause between the injury, the dawning of the brain, and the flame of pain. When she tried to straighten, she nearly screamed. Touching her lower back, she felt the mother of all wrenches. Now, of all times. Why hadn’t she gone down the hall for help? To save her father’s pride? “False alarm” came a muffled call. If she hadn’t been near crying, Belle would have laughed.
The gentle giant who shaved her father with a feather’s touch pushed a cart of snacks and drinks into the room. “Eric,” she said in a mewling voice, taking small, quick breaths. “Can you help Father out of the bathroom?”
As he turned with a smile, Belle bent over, hands on her knees to relieve the pressure. “Geez, did you move him yourself, Miss Palmer? You must have killed your back. Occupational hazard around here. I know a good masseuse.”
“At this point, bed’s the best bet,” she said. “Thank God it’s Friday in all ways.” She made a slow, careful exit, hiding her injuries from her father, already busy with Eric’s milk and cookies.