Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle

by Lou Allin

  “She’s an adult, Jack. It’s unfair to treat her like a child. Perhaps she’d surprise you.” She reached for the sauerkraut and mustard, noting that Jack had toasted and buttered the oversized bun.

  “You’re right. I’ll give it until Monday. Think up a way to put the best face on the situation.”

  Later, she explained her pending trip as he groomed the little dog with a wire brush. After centuries of breeding, the high-strung poodle relaxed under pampering or dressing, the perfect diva. “I don’t like your going way to hell out there without me along,” he said. Under his gentle hand, the dog’s ears blossomed to the size of pears, and the top knot rose three inches.

  The hairs on Belle’s itchy neck prickled in irritation against this paternalism, but she held her temper. Lately Jack was giving more than he was taking. “Dumontelle’s in custody. Besides, I’ll still have the pup after her shots. She’ll yelp the brains out of anyone who tries to lay a felonious finger on me. For anything serious, I carry a can of pepper spray, our Prime Minister’s favourite condiment.”

  After fluffing the leg pompons and the tip of her tail, he placed the dog on the ground to admire his work. Belle watched with amazement. “You do have patience. In her cape, she could be Anna Karenina.”

  “Yah, that Russian tennis player. I’d like to go doubles with her.” He traced the little thigh with one thick, work-scarred finger. “She’s ripped. Not an ounce of fat on her. Mimsy did this every night, especially when she came back with some mats.”

  He said “came back” without accusation, but Belle shifted, recalling her torturous babysitting. Though they shed like a haystack, shepherds didn’t get mats. When would she be free of this little monster?

  Twenty-Eight

  The day was clear, the white pancake lake shimmering diamond dust as dawn scratched its frozen shoulders, revealing a familiar mile-long pressure ridge to the northwest. At first a peach-streaked glow, the sun rose like a bloody egg blossoming from the low, rambling hills. Red sky in the morning could serve as warning, but exceptions often proved the rule. As light filled the sky, miles across at the North River, the birch stands turned upside down, a reverse mirage that made Belle feel like a nineteenth-century photographer under a black cloth hood. A raucous jay wrested the swinging feeder from the attentions of a group of chickadees, foreshadowing snowbird neighbours, due in April fresh from Fort Lauderdale and a troublesome winter of deciding where to golf. She said to Jack, clearing the table of plates: “I should be back by four. How does homemade pizza sound?”

  “Did you get a weather update? That old van’s no prize in a storm.” Frowning pointedly, he tapped the barometer by the patio door, adjusting the brass hand. “Down. Looks bad.”

  She gave an exasperated groan. “That’s its nature, always going up or down. Nothing major until late tonight. Would you relax?”

  “Last thing we need is your cracking up on some lonesome road. And check that useless little fleece jacket,” he said, filling a thermos with coffee.

  Along with lined jeans, finally she was testing Miriam’s electronic wonder gifts. The wired socks were bulky in her boots, better for parking in an ice hut with Ed and Hélène, jerking for a fat trout. No time for that this year. As they went outside, she sighed and slid open the side door of the van. “There’s my down coat. And see that emergency kit in a tube? I have the cellphone, too.”

  His hurrumph masked a genuine concern. Jack was turning into a mother hen. She hopped the poodle, dressed in its warm cape, into the back and left shortly after eight. At the vet’s, the shots took only minutes, and then she was heading east on Route 17. Scattered grey clouds were massing as she chose a short cut to Field, then a secondary road north.

  An hour later, she reached a fork at a lonely gas station and passed the sign to River Valley on the boundaries of the Temagami area, perhaps a fruitful preserve to explore for clients in the summer as cottage country expanded.

  The road was snowpacked but scraped, and she relaxed as always in the quiet countryside, admiring the hills of tall pines and granite outcrops, punctuated by the occasional stark swamp ringed by thirsty tamaracks. The poodle made no sounds. A reaction to the shots, or had it taken a bored dog’s initiative and gone to sleep? She pulled over and craned her neck to spot it curled up on her comfy coat. Poodles didn’t shed, but she didn’t appreciate the drool from its mouth. “Up and out,” she said. “Pee time for bonzos.”

  With an ear tuned for cars, Belle squatted along with the dog, two females with the same inconvenient anatomy. Zipping her jeans, for a moment she lost sight of her charge, and when she spotted it, the jaws were munching familiar light brown orbs. “No rabbit pellets! No rabbit pellets!” she yelled, scrubbing the tiny mouth with her finger, reprising Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest screaming at her adopted kids at midnight about wire hangers. “And if you kack on the upholstery . . .” This creature will be the death of me, she thought.

  Back on the road after a cup of coffee, she flexed her arms in the light jacket, pondering the best opportunity to turn it on. The van was too steamy. Maybe at Dorothy’s, as they toured the property. How far to Buckle Lake? On her Ontario map, the tertiary routes weren’t visible. From the jotted directions, the private road should appear after the next landmark, an abandoned cabin.

  After giving the latest weather report, the radio faded at the edge of the underfunded CBC limits, so she shoved a John Denver tape into the slot. First he was rhapsodizing about an anticipated old age, having had a “good life after all.” Then came a satire about wanting to be buried at Forest Lawn in a silver casket, ending in a reverent, then sarcastic rendition of “Little Brown Church in the Vale.” He scarcely realized that he had scripted his own musical obituary, God’s custard pie the solo crash of a test model airplane on the California coast at fifty-seven. She’d harboured suspicions about this quasi-ecologist who at the height of an energy crisis had been discovered installing huge gasoline storage tanks on his wilderness property. The eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not be a hypocrite.

  The sky tarnished into pewter, and a light snow began to fall. She was beginning to wonder if she’d taken a wrong turn, when an ear-splitting roar caused her to brake. A snowmobiler was driving alongside, weaving like an idiot, and when she stopped, he gunned his motor and gave the hand signal to indicate drivers following. Ice chunks spitting from his tracks, he took a quick exit at a groomed trail heading into the conifers.

  An official sign marked directions to part of a two-thousand-kilometre network of towns, lodges, and gas stops across the province. Belle waited as six machines passed, spewing out fumes. When she’d first bought the Bravo, the sledding population was a tenth its current size. Except to cross, snowmobiles weren’t allowed on highways or streets, but youths roared up and down Edgewater Road like maniacs, especially before the lake froze.

  Suddenly the cellphone rang. “It’s Steve. Jack said you were on business in the Temagami area. Bad news. Dumontelle’s broken out.”

  “You can’t be serious. How could that happen?”

  Steve released some rare but choice epithets. “He was taking a supervised shower and pummelled his rookie guard into unconsciousness. Grabbed his gun and disappeared wearing only a towel. Someone must have met him with a car. The department’s in an uproar. Heads are gonna roll.”

  She tried to sound confident, but Belle shivered as she remembered the wolfen snarl, the bold knee parting her thighs. “Thanks for worrying, but I’m in the middle of nowhere. Jack’s staying at the house, so we should be OK.”

  “Chances are he’ll head for Toronto, where he knows the territory, but watch your back. He’s as unpredictable as a gut-shot bear.”

  Belle swallowed as she checked the lonely road. How could he know where she’d gone, and why would he bother in the middle of a manhunt? She continued up and down slippery hills and around narrow corners, marvelling at the increasing size of the pines. Four, five, nearly six feet in diameter. No wonder the mighty whites h
ad proudly carried English sails to maritime domination since Drake’s time. Finally she crossed a bridge and saw a cabin slouching into the snow, its roof collapsed. Trapper style, smaller the better for heating purposes, it was barely ten feet square, enough for a bed, stove and supplies. With four surviving sons, her great-great-grandfather had sailed from England in 1845 to farm in Hampton near Lake Ontario and probably built a larger model. No daughters. How had his wife managed?

  She followed a mile of pioneer split rail cedar fence, ending at an open gate near a mailbox with only a number. Private Road, a sign said. Remembering to shut the gate behind her, she continued another ten miles into the bush, making rough calculations from the kilometres on her odometer, growing more nervous by the minute. Was that a snow zephyr behind her or a car? For security, she picked up the phone and dialled as a frosting covered the windshield.

  “I’m glad you checked in,” Dorothy said. “There are tricky turns, very bad banking. Soft shoulders, too. My new plowman needs lessons. I almost skidded off getting the mail.”

  “The snow isn’t letting up. I’m wondering if—”

  “But my dear, you’re nearly here. Best meet you at the old bridge, a lovely scenic spot. I should have told you to bring a camera. You should arrive in less than half an hour. Then it’s only five miles to my place. And guess what? I found my other trekking pole. A gift to compensate you for this trouble.”

  Her wipers sweeping a blur, Belle drove on and arrived alone at the decrepit bridge, the guard rails rotten with age. Maybe she could wrap up things quickly at the camp and do a fast turnaround. Getting out to study the water twenty feet below, she watched the bluish ice form and reform, patterning itself into natural diamonds. March was around the corner, and winter was slumping on the ropes. Then she admonished herself for committing an unpardonable sin for a Northerner: Never mock the weather. As ill-fated as putting away boots before blackflies swarmed.

  Looking downriver past scooped game trails, she spied tiny tracks of an otter, or an ermine like Herman, who lived under her boathouse. Fifty feet from the bank, up a hill, nestled among large cedars, a large mound with a hole appeared, like the opening to a cave or a bear den. With the road so close, it might be ancient. Bruins preferred solitude. The scene begged to be photographed or painted. Again she thought of A.Y Jackson, perturbed that Dorothy had made the link. If the theory held, where was the artwork? In a storage locker? Were they heated? Museums monitored temperature and humidity to protect their treasures. Shocked by Brian’s escape, she’d neglected to tell Steve about the latest development.

  Her cheeks stinging at the rising wind, she returned to the van, tapping her foot at the delay. Hauling out her planner to kill some time, tucked in a pocket she found her notes on the Bagshaw appraisal, long overdue. Unlike her to have forgotten to finish a money-making project. So much for stress. While she waited, she reviewed the size of the property, the outbuildings, the need for repairs. Inside the lodge, she revisited each room, ending with that curiously warm storage nook in the basement. Heino had said that Barbara had died there. At ninety-five, she wouldn’t have been doing odd jobs.

  Suddenly Belle sat up abruptly. Melibee had gone over every nook and cranny, returning just before his death under the most extreme road conditions. And the fight with the old woman, as if she’d had something he’d wanted and was being stubborn, despite her desperate need for cash. Flashes of bright colours on wood, stiffened rolls of canvas. A. Y. and the Group of Seven used an impressionistic style. With only her cursory glance under flickering light, no wonder the work had seemed mere daubs. In a scrap room, a person saw what was expected. No attic of Dorian Gray’s like her father mentioned, but a perfect hideaway. Wait until Dorothy learned that Belle had trumped her ace.

  She looked up to see a red smear barrel down the icy road faster than she would have driven, but the Cherokee had large lug tires. Dorothy got out, dressed in a warm green parka, and came to the van, her breath puffing in the air, cheeks ruddy with a glow no make-up could simulate.

  “Well met,” Belle said, rolling down the window. “People think my home’s in the bush, but you’re brave to stay out here on your own.” She took it for granted that Dorothy lived alone, but perhaps she had a boyfriend.

  Eying the pile of papers next to Belle, Dorothy suggested that they talk for a moment in the Cherokee. Once inside, pushing back the leather seat to stretch her long legs, she said, “Grandfather and I spent wonderful times at the camp. He taught me to be very self-sufficient, hunting, trapping, fishing, the whole shebang.” She turned her head at a yapping from the van. “That doesn’t sound like the shepherd you mentioned.”

  Still surveying the bells and whistles of the sumptuous dash, Belle tsked in embarrassment. “It’s Miriam’s damned poodle. A spoiled brat.”

  Dorothy pursed her lips, in no apparent hurry to proceed to the camp. “That A. Y. Jackson theory. I think we’re onto something at last.”

  “Precisely, Dr. Watson.” Belle smiled smugly as she began describing the storage room at the Bagshaw place.

  The woman’s eyes widened, and she thumped the dash in delight. “The Royal Regiment Lodge. Grandfather mentioned it. Many artists came north for inspiration in those days.”

  Her voice sparkling with excitement, Belle continued, waving her hands, adding details about the man’s picture in Barbara’s lonely room, the tragic obsession that had made her a recluse. Had there really been an affair? Or had the painter left his work in lieu of payment for his stay? If the older Bagshaws had bought it, why wasn’t it on the walls? Too modern for their tastes, or Barbara’s little secret? “At the McMichael Collection in Kleinburg, I saw paintings Tom Thomson did on boards when he was too poor to afford materials. As for the rolled canvas, only an expert should touch it.”

  “Of course. You’ve thought it all out very logically.” Suddenly Dorothy turned away and pulled something silver from under the seat. It had a snout longer than hers and winked one shiny nostril.

  Belle reached for the door handle but found the muzzle pressed against her temple. “Not so fast,” barked Dorothy. “You’re going somewhere, but you’re not leaving. Quite a paradox.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sudden fear bit at her bowels. Paralyzed by danger, her back had never felt better.

  Dorothy consulted her watch. Thick snow covered the windshield, and the gusting wind shook the car. The storm was getting a head start. “It’s all fallen quite nicely into line. Providence, opportunism, call it what you will. Miriam said she knew nothing about Elfie’s plans, but I had to make sure. And her permanent disappearance will convince the police that she did murder him.”

  “Miriam? Elfie?” The scenario was writing itself. Her friend hadn’t fled. But who had made the call about Rosanne? In a film, Dorothy might sip Courvoisier before a flickering fire and explain her master plot, but not in a blizzard. “Where is she? Not—”

  “That Finnish man sounds like a dear. Collecting the art shouldn’t be a problem for a resourceful woman. The place is up for sale, open to the public. And money talks.” She batted her eyes in a grotesque gesture. “As for our mutual friend, soon riding in the belly of the beast, now that I have my information.”

  Belle read the evil poetic statement as a death sentence for Miriam. Animals died in the wilderness to pass flesh and spirit to their predators. Even in summer, Miriam might find only a short-term home in a shallow grave where the peat and rock of the Cambrian shield resisted incursion. Bear, wolf, fox, all were primed for an easy meal. In another century, her whitened skull might be discovered at an excavation for a Wal-Mart. “Why did you involve me?”

  Dorothy’s mouth formed a sneer, her sophisticated appearance morphing into her true identity. “I’ve been trying to gain Miriam’s confidence from the beginning. With you and that Jack out of the way, she might have told me everything. And then you invited me to the party, remember? And made it evident that you were worth more alive. Those comments about ‘Eh, Why.�
�� I knew Elfie had a private pot of gold, the old devil. And with your interest on Miriam’s behalf, only a matter of time before you figured it out. Now you’ve come through quite nicely. Congratulations.”

  Belle bit her lip, her eyes crossing on the barrel. “So there’s no one at your house except Miriam?”

  “Accessorized in the latest duct tape in a warm, well-lighted place. If I hadn’t heard your helpful solution, we would have enjoyed a cup of my mint tea before you left. I am the perfect hostess.” She motioned with the gun. “And now get out. And don’t try to run, or I’ll simply drive you down. Very painful, and hell on the paint.”

  Outside, looking frantically around as Dorothy picked up something from the Cherokee’s back seat, Belle rushed forward and made a feint with her arm. Dorothy fired into the air, driving her back. Tucking the trekking pole under her arm, she went to the van and opened the door. Out jumped the poodle, sniffing the air with its black button nose, silly puffed tail pinwheeling a circus clown heritage. Instead of making strange, it ran to Dorothy, leaping against her legs. “Strudel, down!” she said. “Have you been raised like a common roughneck?”

  Surprised that Dorothy knew the dog’s name, Belle recalled that Miriam had mentioned it in the office as she left for North Bay. She watched in scientific fascination as Dorothy maneuvered the van perpendicular to the wooden bridge, then backed up ten feet. “So you were Melibee’s silent partner, the one who took the silver to New York. Alias Susanna Moodie? How trite,” she called over the rage of the cataract, hoping to distract the woman, wondering if she could pack a snowball. But in high school softball, batting had been her forte. Her wild tosses had cost many a run.

  Dorothy didn’t answer, giving a quick once-over to the inside of the van, snatching the cellphone and tossing it into the river. Then she pressed the gas pedal with the pole so that it plowed through the crumbling guard rails, landing on its hood in the shallows with a heartbreaking crunch, springing the doors open. Gas fumes flooded the air, and rainbow swirls spread across the waters. Dorothy peered over the bridge. “Needs a little encouragement.” Returning to her vehicle, she pulled out a newspaper, rolled it, and lit an impromptu torch with a Bic, letting it float down like a deadly butterfly. Suddenly, the van ignited with a whoomp, sending a cloud of debris into the air.