Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle

by Lou Allin

  “Well?” Celeste folded her arms and waited, planting her narrow butt on the desk. She craned her angular head towards the single coat in the closet. “What’s going on? Is she sick?”

  “Sick. I wish. She’s missing. I was about to call the police.” She filled Celeste in on the last three days.

  The woman’s eyes spelled outrage or fear, hard to tell which. “She’s run out on her surety? You should have called me Friday night. Do you know what that means?”

  Belle leaned forward, gripping her ankles, trying to put space between those screaming vertebrae. Her back was throbbing again, even though she was flying on a fresh dose of 222’s with codeine. Her patience was stretched thinner than a strand of spider web. “I haven’t the foggiest. Do you suppose they’ll try her in absentia?” She cackled, grabbed the pill bottle and shook out two, gulping from her mug, the liquid spilling down her chin.

  “Is that plain coffee, or are you mixing? Wait until I tell Jesse that her darling is a substance abuser.” Celeste repacked her briefcase and arranged a lurid silk paisley scarf around the neck of her trench coat. “Were you out of your mind waiting that long, or just ignorant? She isn’t a missing person, she’s a felon. I’m going to the police station now to try to explain your lunacy. They’ll initiate a search, especially if she’s tried to leave the country. As for your house, don’t bother renovating. You’ll be in Estreatment Court.”

  “S Street?” It sounded like a Washington D.C. address.

  “Another word for forfeit, you idiot.” Spitting spearmint saliva, she slammed the door.

  Belle sat stunned, a numbness clutching her brain. Lose her house? Could they really do that? Images of the RCMP on horseback driving her from her property in a musical ride formation while a brass band played from the deck made her giddy. She laughed until her tear ducts surrendered, then blew her nose. Insanity was the only response to a crazy situation.

  After hearing Belle’s message on her machine, Jesse was back to work early that afternoon, putting away the foot roller and reinstalling her SAD lamp. “This isn’t like Miriam. I can’t imagine how . . . but of course if she had another breakdown . . .”

  “Where could she have gone? No car. No ready money. Pawned her coat to give Celeste expenses.”

  On Wednesday, the lawyer called collect from Ottawa. “The police have picked up some leads.”

  Maybe Jesse was right, and Miriam had snapped, gone to ground somewhere, a cheap rooming house, a shelter. “Thank God. Any reports of muggings? Have they checked the hospitals?” Why didn’t I do that, she wondered?

  “This has escalated. You might be interested to know that Miriam took a six o’clock WestJet connection to Detroit the selfsame day you claimed she received the call about her daughter.”

  Belle rose in fury, then eased back on the chair, clutching a pencil which reminded her of Celeste’s selfsame neck. “Stop insinuating that I’m lying. A client witnessed the conversation.”

  A long silence wormed into Belle’s ear like a black hole. “You naïve country bumpkin. How do you know what Miriam heard on the other end?”

  “We don’t have a speakerphone. What are you implying?”

  “A wrong number. A computerized phone solicitation. The perfect stage for an escape. Gives her a few days’ headstart.”

  “Try writing science fiction screenplays. Let’s get back to the plane. Did she pay with a credit card?”

  Celeste related that a round trip ticket had been purchased with cash. The attendants recalled a woman of medium height with grey hair, muffled up in a heavy coat and scarf. She had spoken her name several times, insisting on the spelling. “And don’t give me any baloney about the round trip meaning that she’s heading back soon. With a one-way ticket, she’d be turned away at the border.”

  “But cash. Impossible. Miriam was broke,” Belle thought as Celeste rang off. Once more she tried to create a scenario to prove her friend’s innocence. Robbed, knocked out, lost her memory and wandering unfamiliar streets. A purse snatcher would use her cards as fast and discreetly as possible, which argued against so much insistence on giving a name. And to cross the border legally in post 9/11 days of increased caution, most people now carried a passport or birth certificate. As part of her surety, Miriam had surrendered those documents. That dead end returned Belle to the beginning of her Mobius script. Where was her friend? At least in the San, she’d been under expert care.

  She sat at her desk, hands shaking, trying to remember how happy she’d been only a short time ago when the world was in order. No more worries about Millennium 1 or Millennium 2. But Annus Horribilus had been waiting around the corner. Not that she cared much that Melibee was dead, but life was on hold until Miriam’s return. To make matters worse, instead of working with Steve, she was receiving information filtered through the devious brain of Celeste. For a moment she pondered dismissing the woman and hiring another counsel, but only Miriam could do that.

  And until her back was a hundred percent, even a brief stroll in the woods was impossible; she welcomed that flight from the present to vacuum cobwebs from her teeming brain. She scratched her itchy hand, peering at a scaly, round red patch. Without opening her well-thumbed medical encyclopedia, she knew the diagnosis. The little time bomb called genetics was unfolding another chapter. Her father was prone to bouts of eczema, especially under pressure. She was puffing steam like her mother’s old cooker with the screw-down lid. Where else would the plaguing misery crop up? Frotter les mains, rubbing hands together in worry had a new meaning. Even her neck felt prickly.

  She eased onto the floor for more stretching exercises, kneeling and reaching forward in a great salaam. How naïve she’d been in her youth, with her family sheltered from medical problems, imagining that no one ever had two at once. Cancer ruled out heart attacks. MS cancelled diabetes. With her bank account on life support, too proud to use her father’s funds, she was within a hairbreadth of listing her business, then calling ReMax to sign on, when she paused, imagining their horror at a limping, scrofulous job applicant who could barely juggle a cup of coffee. Surrendering to self-pity, the wind battering the windows like a ravenous wolf, she buried her face in her arms and sobbed. Tears soaked the carpet, and after a few minutes, her choking cries ceased.

  As she stood up to reach for a man-sized tissue, the door opened, and God in a blue parka walked in.

  Twenty-Seven

  Steve took off his hat, folded his arms and gave her the once-over. “Whoever he is, he’s not worth it. Marriage at your age would be a bad idea.”

  That made her laugh, then slow anger bubbled up as she walked slowly to her desk. “What in God’s name has been going on?”

  “Suppose you start first.”

  Settling down with a coffee, he listened to Belle’s quicktime rendition of events, pausing to enter details into his notebook. Half an hour brought him up to speed, while he quizzed her on particulars and read the letter to Miriam, handling it with tweezers. She made no pretensions about her investigation. “What else could I do without you on the job?” she said with a pout. “And by the way, now that I’ve shown you mine, show me yours. Where have you been?”

  Steve shrugged his huge shoulders, a dark shadow passing over his forehead. “I wish I’d been able to let you know I was OK. Janet should have, but you know her.” He explained that Dumontelle had been suspected of drug involvement ever since several suburban pot farmers had cleared out immediately before a raid, leaving basements full of hydroponic equipment and giant electric bills. He’d also been involved with fudging figures about the incineration of banned substances. In an effort to shift attention, he had set Steve up by planting the evidence the paper had reported. The Special Investigations Unit authorized the charade, detaining Steve in a monitored apartment while they shadowed Brian.

  “Wasn’t that cruel to your wife?” Belle said, barely believing that she was siding with Janet. “She was going off the deep end when she came to see me.”

 
; He levelled his weary eyes at her, caught in two roles, faithful husband and ashamed friend. With tightened lips, he blew out a breath. “I told her not to worry, that everything would work out, no matter what it looked like. They came to get me at home. I picked a night when Heather was at a sleepover. And to be convincing, it had to be rough. Brian’s departmental spies funnel information to him. So far, three others are involved, an officer and two clerks with new vehicles too rich for their salaries. And by nine Janet knew everything.”

  “Nine,” Belle said, a seething anger pinking her cheeks. “Not long after she left here. What a bitch.”

  He nodded, one thick ebony eyebrow raised in a “what can you do?” expression. One sad, brave day, Steve might admit that the marriage was over, but so far they were yoked from endurance alone. And there was Heather, one mutual triumph.

  Steve pounded a rough fist into his palm. “Dumontelle faces charges that will send him to Kingston until the Progressive Conservatives take office. Put a big blue ribbon on it.”

  “And the shooting? I’m sure he wasn’t aiming at Jack.”

  “Lucky you ducked,” he said. “Brian’s one of the best marksmen in the province. He could give a rabbit a Mohawk at two hundred yards.”

  “No one on the road saw him,” she said, shaking her head. “He must be one fast skier. Maybe he even wore white camouflage.”

  “Competes for the police team at the loppets. He holds several thirty-kilometre records.” Steve finished his coffee. “Now let’s move back to Miriam. I’ve given the files a onceover, and I admit things didn’t look good, but why in the hell did she run?”

  Belle fingered her neck, then pulled her hand away self-consciously. “Jesse mentioned another breakdown, but Miriam was in full control when she left for North Bay.”

  “People hide their fears. And remember what a basket case she was not long ago?”

  Belle glowered at his choice of words. “Now that’s the Mr. Tact I’ve come to love.”

  He ceded her point with a raised palm. “Fair enough. I know it’s been rough without me, but is there anything else? No secrets now.”

  She rose with a wince, pointing to her spine. “Lately, I’m relegated to hunchback status. There is one loose end. Doug Wilson, a student at Shield. He’s an overprotective brother of Melibee’s babe girlfriend. I phoned in an anonymous tip about him.” She told him about the note found at Peggy’s junk shop, realizing that it had vanished in the latest round of confusion.

  “Jesus, Belle. You lost an important piece of evidence.” He gave her a hard stare, then released her with a sigh of mercy as he stood. “I know you’re worried about Miriam. The sooner I get back into action, the better.”

  Jesse bumped into Steve at the door, giving him a whoop and a hearty hug. “Are we glad to see you, parshoin. He-man.”

  After he left, Belle summarized his narrative. “So I’m going to follow your plan and concentrate on work. Labor vincit omnia. I’m unfit for anything else.”

  “Good point. Crises happen, and people take them two ways. They simply become overwhelmed and crack, or they realize what they can and cannot do and move on. Before they were taken to Belsen to die, my parents sewed their savings into my coat and sent me to an aunt in Wales.”

  Belle had heard the courageous saga of how Jesse had made her way to Canada. She nodded, blew her nose, then started sorting the mail, smiling at a letter postmarked Nashville. With a flush of anticipation, she opened it. “Dear Songwriter,” it said. “Your lyrics have much potential. On our staff are a number of fine musicians who can set your inspiring words to music.” Her heart leapt at the possibilities. She could pursue this sideline, top up ye olde retirement funds, and “Hello, New Mexico” six months a year. Then she hit paragraph two. “In order to initiate this process, we require an advance payment to defray our costs as an agent. Please send $200.00 (US) as soon as possible to begin your new career. VISA welcome.”

  Belle biffed the form letter into the wastebasket. Was one half of the world out to bilk the other half? To drown herself in distractions, she worked until after six.

  Wearing a spotty tea towel over his chinos, Jack wasn’t happy at her late arrival. “You could have called,” he said, pouring her a glass of the last wine in the house.

  When she told him about Steve, he reacted with guarded cheer. “Sounds like a decent guy. Since he knows Mimsy, he’ll pull out all the stops. That idea about the States has been bothering me. Once she mentioned an old school friend who moved to Detroit. I could check her address book at the apartment. But I still gotta pray that . . .” The corner of his eye moistened, and he looked away.

  Belle put a hand on his shoulder. “If she were wandering around the city, she would have been found by now. Let’s hope that she left the country, for whatever reason. As for the address book, no doubt the police got a search warrant as soon as Celeste called them.”

  As they forked into the golden potato topping of shepherd’s pie, one of his camp specialties, rich with meat broth, vegetables and ground beef, he remarked, “Hate to add more problems, but the dog needs shots. Mimsy said they were overdue.”

  Belle stretched her back, near normal again, no pills for two days. “I’ll run her in on Saturday. The vet has morning hours. Shots don’t take long.” But they cost money, she thought, swirling the Wolf Blas merlot. Soon she’d be rationing liquor, or making it herself. Did the U-Brew do scotch?

  From the nearby cage came a tink-tink crash. Freya headed for the overstuffed chair in the computer room, and Jack cleared his throat like the father of a bad child might. “Doesn’t like plain chow. Mimsy cooked her a hot meal every night. Mashed carrots and rutabaga with the dry kibble.”

  Belle tossed down her serviette, peering at the dog through the wire door. “Woolly Bully is trashing its towel bed. If you haven’t noticed, we’ve had precious few hot meals ourselves with the outages. And if I see Freya’s hair in that poodle’s mouth one more time—”

  Jack pointed at his chest. “Hey, this guy’s on your side. But dogs go through stages like kids. She’ll come around.”

  Friday morning at the office, the phone rang. “It’s Dorothy. Could you use some good news?”

  “Desperately. We’re in disaster mode. Miriam’s missing.” As Dorothy reacted with horror, she described the last week. “But now that my friend is back on the force, he’ll find her. I gave him that hate letter for prints. He’s also interested in Crystal’s “eh, why” comment. It’s the only clue to this supposed fortune.”

  For a moment, she thought they had been cut off. Then came a gasp. “Belle! Last night the CBC had a program on the Group of Seven. Wasn’t that awful man interested in antiques? Why not art, too? Could “Eh, why” stand for A.Y. Jackson?”

  Belle drew initials on scrap paper, circling them wildly. “Not questions but initials. You’re a genius. It was right in front of me.”

  “But surely the police would have itemized everything.”

  “Of course, but his paintings were copies. And the office was cleaned out.” Recalling the storage locker Brian had rented in his smear efforts, she made a note to ask Steve to make the rounds.

  “They could be valuable, couldn’t they? Why, I read that a Franklin Carmichael painting of Frood Lake went for over $800,000 at auction not long ago.”

  Belle laughed at the prospect of such a bonanza. “Too bad we’re not talking about Paul Kane. 2.2 million for one of his chieftain portraits from the mid-nineteenth century.”

  “This is so exciting I almost forgot why I called.” She was having a few friends stay for the weekend, and two were interested in listing their homes. Maki Avenue was mentioned, along with Eden Point Road, areas which carried commissions that could lift Belle out of the red faster than the elevators at the CN Tower. “And they’re both after smaller places, too, a double benefit for you.”

  “I do need to see your camp,” Belle said, casting a glance at the regional map on the wall. “On Buckle Lake, as I recall?”


  “The only property on a thirty-mile private road,” Dorothy said, unadjusted to metric as most people in her age bracket. “But it’s all plowed, and the girls didn’t have any problems driving out today, did you, ladies?” Belle heard indiscriminate noises in the background. “Can you come by tomorrow? If you have one of those portable phones, we can keep in touch if you take a wrong turn. I’m a Luddite, myself.”

  “Sure, but . . .” Recalling the last weather report, Belle penned the directions with reservation and exchanged numbers. “There is a storm expected.”

  A whinny responded. “Storm watch, not warning. Not until late that night, even if accurate. Frankly, I’d rather consult a hanging weather rock. I’m off to North Carolina next week, so we’d best strike while the proverbial iron is hot. One last thing. Do shut the gate. Those rude snowmobilers don’t care where they drive.”

  Belle looked out the window at the clear, blue sky. “Sounds good. I should be there before noon.” She hung up and turned to Jesse with a V for victory sign. “Break out the Mumm’s champagne. No Canadian swill. We could be rolling again.”

  Jesse peered over the top of her trifocals. “Rolling is better than stasis, but make sure you’re not heading for a cliff.”

  “Chasing after money as usual. But with Miriam forfeiting her bond, my house is ready to drift off on an ice floe. Can you handle two boarders, one quite hairy . . . for the next century?”

  Jesse blinked under the beneficial glow of the light apparatus, then made a polishing motion. “If you do windows, it’s a deal.”

  Jack had prepared bratwurst on the grill by the time she arrived home. Useful to have a man around the house, but she knew he was restless watching Turner Classic Movies, her only grey market satellite subscription. “I called Rosanne,” he said, pointing to a post-dated cheque for five dollars on the table. “It’s getting hard to fend her off. Maybe I made a big mistake by covering up about Miriam.”