by Lou Allin
She rose stiffly and stumbled out for more wood. Only a few clouds broke the dazzling sapphire sky. One resembled a crown roast of pork. Another, a monster lemon meringue pie. Belle turned back to the dead pine, snapping branches. Was it her imagination, or were her knees weakening? Surely, if the road was passable, she could trek five miles to Dorothy’s, but without food, what pitiful shape would she be in? Unfit for a wrestling match, she’d probably collapse at the door.
Cuddling inside with the burbling poodle, which hiccupped after its feast, she stroked its meaty thighs and summoned memories of Colonel Sanders. Then she closed her eyes, letting sleep fill her belly.
On a final forage, as the sun winked down from its low, elliptical path, she squinted at a telltale hole in the snow surrounded by stitchy tracks. Reacting with stealth, she slipped off her mitts and plunged her hands into the chilly drift. A flurry of feathers erupted, and she had a plump ruffed grouse by the feet. In a feral gesture, giving mercifully no thought to the process, she rung its jewelled neck as effortlessly as opening a bottle of cheap screw-top wine. Survival of the fittest. No more misplaced sentiment than Strudel had shown the shrew. Strudel. She was using its name. Staring at her bloodied hands smoking in the bitter cold, she felt only a keen sense of achievement and a ravenous appetite. Move over, fellow members of Nature Red in Tooth and Claw.
After stripping the bird DesRosiers style, twisting off the problematical head and feet and burying them in the snow along with the feathers and skin, she presented in fair exchange the compact organ bag to the interested dog. Then she skewered the sumptuous breasts on a green striped maple stick, favourite browse of moose. It was beginning to bud, the sign of spring. With a groan, she banished thoughts of her nascent bulbs, the parrot tulips, hosting daffodils, and redolent hyacinths waiting in a bed for their May call. Soon she was ripping at the savoury roast meat, swallowing large chunks like a raptor, her eyes tearing with pleasure. Far tastier than chicken. Free range and additive safe. She melted more water and warmed it as thermal insurance before drinking deeply. Was this gift a fluke, or was some forest presence sending aid? Jesse’s Oak Lord, the angry mask of the spirit that she had refused? If she ever saw home again, she would enshrine him on her wall and commune with his spirit each day.
Darkness fell swiftly, and Belle kept the fire burning, getting used to waking every hour to tend the glowing baby, like the mother she’d never been. Suppose the forecasts were wrong and the deadly cold continued? She wouldn’t be lucky enough to catch another birdie. If only she had some wire for rabbit snares. Then she chastized herself. Only one way out. Over the river and through the woods to Dorothy’s house we go. With rue, she realized that the electric sox had signed off. Drawing the space blanket around them on the soft bed, she sniffed in familiar affection at her partner. Frito feet, many dogs lovers claimed, a savoury corn chip scent. Freya had it, too.
Thirty
On a frozen, gale-swept lake in the third section of Cocytus, the ninth and deepest level of Dante’s Inferno, reserved for betrayers of friends and guests, Belle stumbled past the quarrelling heads of Dorothy and Melibee, buried face to face, their eyelids sealed by gelid tears. Beyond them, enthroned at the centre of Hell, sat a three-mouthed Satan chewing Cassius, Brutus and Judas, traitors to their lords and masters. The chorus of tormented wails deafening her, she awoke bathed in sweat, ear drums pounding in the silence. Through the chimney hole, a feeble light crept into the den like a shy suitor.
The maple logs smouldered, inches from the coals. Barely able to rescue the fire, she hastily added birch bark and twigs, puffing it back to life. Then she scooped out snow drifted at the entrance and melted more water, accepting as a source of Vitamin C, the flecks of peat tickling her throat. In the renewing flames, she thawed the portion of grouse she’d saved, tossing an even twelfth to the dog. “And try to find another shrew ASAP. I’m no supermarket.”
The fleece jacket had lost its magic current. She’d changed batteries in the early night, but in hibernation mode, without exertion to raise body temperature, the sensors had generated maximum heat and drained the spares. Though her cheeks and nose stung, frostbitten from forages for wood, and her hands were filthy and chapped, food and warmth revived her, steadying her resolve to begin her mission. Had the weather broken?
Heart thumping, she followed Strudel through the thick conifer branches and breathed deeply. No catch in the throat. Nasal passages clear. A Floridian minus ten Celsius. The gods had not only smiled but chortled. Then as she stretched her stiffened limbs, mirroring the bowing dog, a low dun sky greeted her, sign of a falling barometer and perhaps a fresh storm.
Though she clutched the space blanket around her shoulders, the taxing trudge up to the bridge through the compacted snow chilled her. Once on the road, she stamped her feet clean, brushed off her pants and blinked in amazement at the easy route. In quixotic fashion, snow had blown into drifts where it encountered an ancient barbed wire fence and left much of the way a hardpack. Overlooking the rushing stream, she stared fondly at the ice-laced skeleton of the van. “Good-bye, old pal. I hope there’s a Rainbow Bridge in heaven for vehicles,” she whispered, blowing a kiss.
She started with a steady march, the poodle racing ahead, gleeful at the new freedom. A constant twenty-minute mile was reasonable under these conditions. She was in no shape to jog with clunky Sorel boots. Barely first light, but already seven o’clock. Dorothy had said that she often woke at five. Was that also a fabrication? The devil-woman probably kept one evil eye open like a Cyclops.
An hour later, she was beginning to wonder if she’d make it. Sweat-warmed as she was, that grouse fix hadn’t satisfied. Carbos were missing. With growing alarm, she read the signs of low blood sugar. Shaky, an inability to concentrate. Her vision blurred. She shook her head and blinked. No improvement. Sleep deprivation? Then she pulled off her glasses, fogged from body heat. Pushing back the hat to free her brow, she waited for the lenses to clear, admonishing herself for allowing hypochondria to play director. Around the next corner, she stopped to kneel, pull the limping poodle onto her lap and thaw its paws. One foot was splayed frozen like a duck’s, and Christmas ornament agglomerations dangled from the cape’s armholes.
“That show coat has to go. Then we’ll get you Lycra long underwear and a snowsuit. Pockets on top for handwarmers, too.” The brief stab at humour relieved the tension, or had she started to babble, a sign of dehydration? She’d left the water cylinder behind, and her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. One mistake. No more.
Half an hour later, she was flagging again, pushing another plane of exhaustion, drawing from deep physical and mental resources untapped from birth. A surprisingly gentle south wind wicked perspiration from her brow, and pausing to rest her heaving lungs, she shivered at the returning cold.
Going back the long way hadn’t been an option. With the gate closed, no wandering rider would meet her. “Five miles,” Dorothy had said without hesitation. Knowing Belle was an historical realty blip, what had she to gain by lying about the distance? Then again, did the road really end at her house? Perhaps like a fox she had another escape route east towards Highway 11 on the other edge of Temagami. Counting to ten, Belle took Jesse’s advice, dashing the mind-spinning plates from their sticks. One step at a time, she would walk to her own salvation.
Sucking a mouthful of snow in a last carefree communion, she ducked at the whoosh-whoosh of large wings as a raven swooped overhead, warbling and working its yellow beak. Her eyes ached in the white glare, but had she glimpsed a flash of bright blue, a colour, incongruous in winter, which she used for taping trails? A rival bird duelled in the air, and in the scuffle, a rectangle of plastic floated down onto a nearby juniper bush. An empty Maple Leaf bacon package.
Garbage! The hallmark of civilization. Wiping grateful tears from her eyes, then blowing her nose farmer style, Belle doubled the pace. Minutes later, around a corner, she reached a cleared lot at the back of a house which faced
tiny, perfect Buckle Lake. 8:35. The stark red of the Cherokee stood against the snow like a blood clot, an orange umbilical cord connecting the block heater to an outlet on the house. Her brain jumped into overdrive, senses sharpened like a weasel’s at the whiff of fresh pine smoke from the brick chimney, a morning fire. No sign of footsteps in the skitter of snow on the walkway. Dorothy was up, but not out. Confident that she had ushered her gullible witness to a frozen grave?
Shoving the space blanket into a drift, Belle gave the property a quick scan, tallying not the gems of a realtor but the possibilities for a predator. Two-storey Quebec country house with a wrap-around porch, dormer windows, a double garage and a cement block building with a chainlink fence. The camp’s sensible steep metal roof had voided itself of snow, leaving massive piles obscuring the rear windows. What appeared to be a large garden had been put to bed, only a few bean poles marking its territory. Near the back door, its lid pried off, a plastic garbage can lay on its side amid scattered debris and raccoon tracks, the source of Raven the Trickster’s snack.
Dodging behind the banks, she noted from the chain patterns and munch marks on the perimeter, that the resourceful Dorothy had made judicious use of a blower. What else might be in the garage? Wary of attempting to raise the heavy metal doors, she saw with chagrin that the side entrance was blocked with snow. With a lump in her throat as the odds fell, she turned to the block structure. Perhaps Dorothy kept tools there, a sharp hoe, a pipe wrench. Bonded by danger, Strudel was Velcroed to her legs.
At one end of the building, a door opened into a mudroom, where two pairs of boots lined up on a rubber mat. Slipping a heavy canvas workcoat from a hook, Belle put it on. Haste made her stumble, and she bumped against the inner door. From inside came several quick barks of varying timbre, causing her to cup the poodle’s mouth. “Not a sound, understand?” So the place was a kennel.
A frosted window afforded a view of the rear porch. She waited, shoving her hands into the coat pockets, where she discovered to her delight several dog biscuits. Homemade with whole wheat and cheese, if the colour told true. She munched a few, then treated the poodle, who danced a gavotte like Jack had taught her. He must be desperate with worry. No doubt Dorothy had called her home to plant the idea that in the storm Belle had cancelled the appointment.
Moments later, wearing a chic black snowmobile suit with silver trim, Dorothy appeared on the rear porch and tapped a thermometer on a post, nodding approval. Striding toward the garage, she pointed a small object at the door, and up it rolled, revealing a quad big enough for two. Daisy daisy. A rifle with a scope was strapped to the frame next to a coil of yellow polypropylene rope. A full-face helmet dangled from a rear-view mirror.
Dorothy started the machine’s guttural engine and drove to the porch, leaving it running as she went back inside. Her mouth tight as a rock cleft, Belle slipped from the building, closing the door against Strudel, and crept forward, looking frantically for a weapon. Finally she noticed a shovel handle projecting from a snowbank. As she seized it, a banging started inside the house, juicing her blood pressure. The noise continued, and she dropped to her knees to scuttle behind a large snowpile. Charging in commando style would be risky, no room for swinging. The starting pistol was an illusion, but Dorothy wasn’t. What might she have at hand? A buck knife? Grandfather’s shotgun? The prey would have to come to the huntress, and she did, shoving open the door with her hips and lugging a twisting, hogtied body in a grey sweatsuit, eyes and mouth duct-taped. Though blind and mute, Miriam was not going gently into that good night. After bumping her burden down the steps, Dorothy gave a wicked boot clout to the familiar Brillo-pad head, and the body went limp.
How badly had Miriam been hurt? Belle bit back an urge to scream, but the timing was wrong. It was possible, too, that Dorothy had an accomplice inside. Getting the rifle would be critical. Then her stomach growled, and she rubbed her abdomen like a traitorous second self. She watched Dorothy, a marvel of brain-over-brawn physics, swivel and yank the body toward the quad. Huffing at the exertion, but wisely bending her knees, she boosted Miriam into a standing position against the rear tire, forcing her upward, slung like a body over a horse. Singing what sounded like “Sentimental Journey,” she stepped back to assess her work, then patted Miriam’s bum. She reached for the coiled rope, fumbling at a knot.
Her breath clogged in her throat like cotton wool, Belle secured her grip on the wooden handle of the old-fashioned shovel, heavy-gauge steel instead of aluminum or plastic. As Dorothy stood twenty feet away, she poised to spring forward, anticipating hand-to-hand combat, when a fierce commotion arose in the kennel, as if a cat had pranced into the Westminster Dog Show. “What the—” Dorothy yelled, turning her back to the house. She reached for the rifle. “That goddamn fox!”
With a run fuelled by the last adrenalin atom in her body, Belle smashed the shovel over Dorothy’s silvery head and pumped her arms in triumph as the woman fell to the ground, lifeless as a crumpled marionette. “Yesssssss.”
Thirty-One
After a call to 911, followed by long, hot showers, pampered by Caswell Massey soaps, shampoos and emollients, the staff of Palmer Realty relaxed in Dorothy’s matching chintz armchairs before a roaring maple fire. Rows of bookshelves with the latest fiction and the absence of a television testified to Dorothy’s intellectual habits. Empty mugs of hot chocolate and crumb-scattered plates covered the coffee table. “Quite a baker,” Belle said. “Pumpernickel bread. Scones. Perfect with the Cheshire cheese. Even home-canned icicle pickles. She must have been a wonderful wife.” On the wall, pictures of Dorothy with husband Rodney showed a happy, athletic couple. His PI license was framed in gold over the mantel. Evidently, it was after his death that she had turned to crime.
Miriam stretched and yawned, rubbing her wrists where the ropes had chaffed the skin. One temple bore a nasty purple bruise, and the duct tape removal had smarted, but she looked fit. She’d related how Dorothy had met her at the bus station entrance, saying that the doctor had cancelled appointments due to flu and offering to drive her to North Bay to see Rosanne. A few miles east on Route 17, she’d pulled into a deserted tourist plaza when a rear tire sounded “odd.” Dorothy had opened the trunk and returned to smother her with a cloth soaked in chloroform. Miriam woke nauseous with a pounding headache, tied in the back of the Cherokee, bumping along back roads to the camp.
“She had this fixation that I knew about Melibee’s secrets. So I fed her bits of classic film plots.”
Through a mouthful of marinated wild mushrooms, Belle mumbled, “Like Scheherazade.”
“Remember those tapes you brought to the San? Must have watched them at least ten times. The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Laura. I was pulling plots from Rebecca, casting Dorothy as Mrs. Danvers, when I think she twigged to the ploy. Your telling her about the Jackson paintings nearly wrote my epitaph.” She swigged from a bottle of cranberry juice. “I hated her at first, when I suspected that she’d killed Mel. But she treated me well enough until this morning.”
“That’s a major ‘until.’ ”
“Thank God Strudel sounded the alarm. I’m just glad to be alive.”
Belle sliced a crumbly piece of aged white cheddar. “I left the baggage tied up with those yappers.” She squinted at the nautical clock on the credenza. “About time for the police to arrive. The OPP has jurisdiction outside the city, and they’re contacting someone from the RSPCA, too.”
“We should take a look. Maybe it’s a crime to abuse a murderer in custody,” Miriam said, relocating Strudel from her lap to a cushion by the fire.
“Not for civilians. Let her munch kibble for all I care.”
As they entered the kennel, a racket erupted from the pens, settling down as Belle doled out Black Forest ham slices. Dorothy had a comfortable, heated room with swinging door runs for her four apricot mini-poodles, and they seemed friendly, well-groomed with short puppy cuts. Each cage had a routed wooden sign: “Ginger,�
�� “Cinnamon,” “Chile Pepper,” and “Rodney.”
“So that’s how big Strudel will get,” Miriam said, admiring the posturing male with his obvious accessories. “Her father, I suppose. And Mel said he drove all the way to Kingston.”
“Don’t hold your breath about her teeth. Every dog has an underbite. Very unethical to breed them.” Belle deadpanned a look concerning the relativity of Dorothy’s compounded sins.
In the last pen, jacket removed, Dorothy sat on a mat, legs roped together, hands bound with an endless series of square knots. A streak of dried blood above one ear, her eyes dead and cold, she leaned her head back in disdain. Belle blinked at the image of Dame Judith Anderson at her most malevolent.
“You can’t treat me like this. I’ll file an assault charge,” she hissed.
“Comfier than the bear den I requisitioned for the last two days,” Belle replied, patting her pocket. “Don’t forget to add battery—I’m wired for action.”
Miriam kicked the fencing near Dorothy’s arm, eliciting fresh howls from the poodles. “Killing Mel and pinning his death on me. Where the hell were you going to dump my body?”
Belle crossed her arms and leaned against the wall in a casual pose. “Might as well ’fess up, Dot. Good for the soul, not to mention the overloaded court system.”
“Leave me alone.” With a flash of teeth and a flare of nostrils, she turned her horsey mane to the wall.