by Lou Allin
“They don’t miss much.” Bea’s chuckle spread over her face, an invitation to mirth. “Every year is a whole new world with kids. Thirteen’s coming up, and my friends tell me to fasten my seatbelt.”
The master suite was immense, with walk-in closets and a Jacuzzi in the custom-tiled bathroom. The Mexicana furnishings, warm, weathered pine with copper fittings, were a surprise, a king-sized bed, drawer chests and nightstands, a splendid armoire, and in the corner, a box table. As always, in the more intimate parts of a house, she felt strangely voyeuristic. In the corner was a cherrywood antique prie-dieu.
Bea ran loving fingers over the fine petit point on the kneeler. “Great-Great-Aunt Mafalda’s. For show rather than usage now. It’s a bit creaky with age.”
“I know the feeling.”
While Bea fixed tea downstairs, Belle relaxed in a sunny breakfast nook, enjoying the antics of chickadees around the feeders. She looked past the deck to the choppy diamond waves of Lake Ramsey, where Bea’s husband and daughter had died. From her Canlit class, she recalled a sinister poem by Margaret Atwood: “This is a Photograph of Me.” The speaker addressed the reader like a friend deciphering a blurred black and white picture, so casual, lulling him into a reverie with “a gentle slope,” “a small house,” “some low hills,” then adding, “The photograph was taken/ the day after I drowned./ I am in the lake. . . . if you look long enough,/ eventually/ you will be able to see me.” What a mistress of understatement Canada’s icon was.
Bea’s pastries proved that her talents ran in the genes. Rum-butter squares. Apricot clusters with pecans. “My grandfather bought Cayuga House in a distress sale during the Depression. The owner had invested heavily in Cobalt silver mines and lost everything. When you’re an only child, it’s hard to sell your family home, but it’s simply too big.” She gave a small sigh. “Has been for years.”
Belle nibbled at a coconut square, piquant with lemon rind, its sweetness opposed to the bitter personal loss left unspoken. “As a realtor, I wear two hats, Bea, one for the buyer and one for the owner. I had imagined that Cayuga House might be demolished. People want modern homes.” She tried to couch the observations in language that wouldn’t insult the woman.
“I suppose so.” Bea’s large mouth sagged at the corners.
As the winey taste of Earl Grey cleared her palate, Belle added, “Now that I’ve seen everything, I’m not at all sure that will happen.”
“The heating bills are plain murder, even though I love the old hot-water system.” She put down her cup and patted a radiator near her shoulder. “A convenient place to dry mittens and toques.”
“It’s a stellar property. I’ll get a lockbox set up for the front door tomorrow and take out a large ad in the paper for the weekend. MLS will reach outside the city. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.” She gave Bea a reassuring smile and opened the attaché case for the paperwork. “Hélène said that you liked the Kingsmount area. ‘Historical’ is the latest catchword for that part of town. I have a classic little place on Roxborough Drive. Mullioned windows. Fretwork. Steep gables. Private gardens out back.” She paused for effect. “And a spanking new gas furnace.”
On a tour of the property, Belle noticed a cozy doghouse in the backyard. A large grey and white sheepdog ambled out and shook itself. “Buffalo. Dave said a kid should always have a dog.”
“I agree,” Belle said, kneeling to embrace the massive shaggy head. “Mine’s a German shepherd. Not as laid-back as this guy.” She noticed that the left incisor was broken. Probably a stone chaser like Freya.
Bea pointed to a caragana hedge at the rear, beyond it a tiny cottage barely visible through the maples. “He can be a noisy one. Kids running through on their way home from school get him barking. Jean McBride over there calls me every now and then when he bites his rope and gets into her yard. Buffy’s only outside a few hours a day in good weather. He sleeps on Micro’s bed.”
They strolled for a few minutes, remnants of the old estate adding charming touches. Bea’s “secret garden” had a verdigrised sundial, a gazebo, and rock terraces to hold the soil against erosion on the steep slope. In the distance, a cigarette boat streaked across Lake Ramsey, two minutes across, then a turnabout, throwing up spray as its engines roared like 747s. A kayak struggled to position itself against swamping waves.
“You don’t want to know my opinion of jet skis. And the snowmobiles are even worse,” said Bea. “Here we are in the middle of town and have to put up with this.”
“Perils of lakefront, I guess. But it adds one heck of a punch to the property values.”
As Belle prepared to leave, Bea stood under a huge sugar maple by the front steps. One hand touched the rugged grey bark. Leading upward was a trail of nailed boards. In a spreading crotch twenty feet up, Belle glimpsed a structure. Bea’s grin lit up her face. “My treehouse. Mother nearly had a heart attack passing up the heavy boards. Micro loves to camp out up there. And don’t I provide the catering.”
THREE
After breakfast, Belle ripped a page from her Tough Dames calendar, with its daily quote. “You gotta get up early in the morning to catch a fox and stay up late at night to get a mink.” Mae West wore the minks, but Belle was determined to save their relatives.
Rousing a snoring Freya from her overstuffed easy chair in the computer room, she set off behind her house, taking a secret cut to the Bay Trail. She headed for the area where the trapper had verged into the bush. The dog lagged behind, flaring her nostrils at a mustard-yellow mound of grouse poupon under a branch.
“Leave it, girl. We’re on dawn patrol.”
Brushing aside drooping alders, she marched up the peaty path, narrowing her eyes and scowling at black tips of delicate earth-tongue fungi and a brilliant fly agaric dislodged by the quad. She imagined serving him the poisonous reddish mushroom on a silver platter. Rounding a turn at the Paper Tree, a birch divesting itself of bark like the dance of the seven veils, she spied his tracks trampling a lovely grove of interrupted fern as the quad verged from the trail. The four-foot plant boasted fragile brown seed pods dripping like caviar from its fronds. Freya started going wild with scent, plowing into the bushes, raising her ruff. “Come here!” Belle commanded, but the dog ignored her. Something reeked. All she needed was for the dog to start rubbing herself over a carcass or even eating it.
As she ran, she pulled the leash from around her neck. Rarely did Freya disobey, but this temptation even her excellent Schutzhund lineage couldn’t ignore. Belle’s yells distracted the dog and slowed her pace as she neared a low mound buzzing with flies. Leaping over a cedar stump, Belle lunged for the chain collar. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked in a firm, low voice. Never yell into a dog’s face. They had a clear sense of rudeness.
She looped the leash around a small oak, then clipped it to Freya’s collar, giving her hand signals to reinforce the verbal commands. Sobered by the rare physical message of a leash, Freya sat and began a small whine, swivelling her plumed tail in agitation. With caution, Belle approached the shapeless mass. It was the flayed carcass of a beaver, gnawed by a series of flesh eaters in the usual food chain. Foxes had been on the scene, judging from the appearance of the entrails. She looked around with concern, aware that a wolf pack had territory less than a mile away. One December she’d seen their tracks on the ice of Surprise Lake and noticed a young moose drinking in the broken shallows below the beaver dam, a deep gash raking its flank. With this wholesale baiting, the trapper could be inviting guests very unwelcome to hikers, perhaps even an opportunistic, omnivorous bear. Feast on, fellow carnivores red in tooth and claw. The late Mr. Castor would be bones before a few more sundowns. Until then, she’d stay off the trail.
Scrabbling through the underbrush toward the fir grove, she located several marten traps, all nailed a good six feet up the trunks. At least he was keeping his promise about placement. Grabbing a sturdy grey stick, she broke off the side branches, squinted up into one trap and began to pok
e. Snap! The cruel spring gave way. A wad of ground beef, greasy and grey, splatted onto the leaf mould. Snickering, she followed suit with the rest. It wasn’t as if the man was making a living from the sales, but so many people used the bush as a supermarket or woodlot.
Finally she released Freya, giving her a warning wave, and they headed back down the trail. A few minutes later, she relaxed at a job well done, checking a rare patch of Indian cucumber root in a shaded maple grove. A single purple berry rose from leaf whorls blood-streaked in the centre. Suddenly she was aware that the dog was absent. “Not again!”
Seconds passed, and a brown form came barrelling through the undergrowth. Belle looked down in horror to see quills protruding from the dog’s muzzle. “Jesus. You’re a handful today.” Making her sit under the wrath of Mom, she yanked each one quickly, and the dog made no moan. She ran her eyes over the rest of the body, satisfying herself that Freya had been either smart or lucky. Some dogs ran wild with pain, driving quills into their pads and even blinding themselves.
After a long day at the office, she arrived home at six and opted to go vegetarian, making a potato curry with a can of Madras sauce. Diced zucchini, green onions and a sprinkle of mustard seeds completed the medley. Soon, nutty aromas of basmati rice floated from the microwave. For some reason the dog wasn’t eating her chow, but slopping her chops as if something was bothering her. Belle tipped Freya’s head back, parted the giant jaws, and nearly cancelled dinner. A porcupine quill was lodged deep in the ribbed roof of the animal’s mouth. She closed her eyes, unable to imagine the discomfort. Then shaking herself into action, she took pliers from the utility drawer and pulled it free. Without delay, Freya began steamshovelling her kibble.
After assembling her meal, Belle relaxed on one of the pasha chairs with ottomans in the television room and beamed up to TCM. The Television Police, aka the CRTC, limited Canadians to Bell Express Vu and Star Choice. Neither offered Ted Turner’s Classic Movies Network. Many neighbours had pirated systems, but she dutifully paid her fifteen dollar yearly subscription to a grey-market address in Southern Ontario. She sipped a mild New Zealand beer, an antidote for the flaming curry, and tuned in.
Silent films night. Marie Dressler in Tillie’s Punctured Romance. The Cobourg, Ontario, native had left a music-hall and stage career which climaxed with her smash hit as Tillie Blobbs singing, “Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl.” The Rosie O’Donnell of her day, she’d broken into pictures in 1914 with Charlie Chaplin. As the movie unfolded, Belle noticed why Bea had looked strangely familiar. Belle was used to Marie at nearly sixty in Garbo’s Anna Christie, which had rejuvenated her flagging career. And yet there she was at Bea’s age, flaunting comic talents as big as her size, a huge, hatchet-faced woman in love. Belle found herself laughing as hapless Charlie manouevered the woman on a dance floor like steering an elephant dressed in tulle, Marie’s wild hair flying loose, except for a curl pasted around each ear. One leg bent back as Chaplin moved forward.
Later, upstairs in the master suite in her snug waterbed, she tamped a cigarette into Adolphe Menjou’s jewelled holder, which her father had bought her at Universal Studios in Florida on their last visit before his collapse. In typical Canadian fashion, the pack of Number 7s, a cheaper brand, bore a warning: “Each year, the equivalent of a small city dies from tobacco use.” A horizontal bar chart tagged car accidents at 2900 and tobacco-related deaths at a whopping 45,000. Homicides were the smallest category. Only 510, probably the same as Detroit. Belle hoped that the two latest deaths would be the last, an early Christmas present, but logic implied what the police hesitated to mention, that often another killing had to occur if only to provide the vital clue. A few tots of bargain-basement scotch smoothed her evening as she savoured Nevada Barr’s Blind Descent. What a coup the former park ranger had achieved by making the landscape hundreds of feet below in Carlsbad Caverns as vibrant and alive as the desert surface.
What would the trapper do when he found all four snares sprung? The Fur Managers’ website said that the traps had to be checked daily. Who monitored that? Getting up to gaze through the patio doors over the tiny balcony, she watched the moon gleam through the scudding pewter clouds, the waves pounding her rockwall. The lake was perilously high for September. The elusive and all-powerful Hydro One Keeper of the Keys hadn’t opened the dam at Outlet Bay yet, leaving the levels for better boat access, especially at Rocky’s, the restaurant and marina at the Wapiti First Nations Reserve.
The next morning she let Freya out, and busy getting ready for work, didn’t notice that the animal was AWOL again. Rarely did she go to the road, unless a passing dog challenged her. After that porkie attack, what next? A skunk? No tomato juice in the cupboard, nor enough toothpaste, an apparent miracle worker when diluted.
Belle went to the side deck, scanning the yard. The wretch stood at the corner of the septic bed grass, her muzzle working at something which had to be food. “You sneak!”
She ran down the stairs to the parking lot, motoring towards the dog, who ducked her head in shame and backed away from a familiar green plastic LCBO bag. Out of the container spilled the remains of pale ground meat. Freya was still licking her black lips as Belle’s heart did cartwheels in shock. “What have you done now?”
FOUR
Frozen in time as the horror sank in, Belle looked at the road, only twenty feet away up a grassy bank. Someone had tossed this bag down, knowing curious dog behaviour. A poisoner was the lowest life form. Now she regretted bearding the trapper in his den. This kind of payback, likely done in the dark from typical cowardice, would be impossible to prove. A police department mired in unsolved murders would be ill-inclined to be testing for prints and summoning Mr. AW HECK to the station.
The dog wasn’t frothing at the mouth or trembling, but who knew what she had ingested? The average medicine cabinet or cleaning supply shelf had enough toxic chemicals to fell a moose. Hauling Freya to the van and shoving her in, Belle dialled the vet on her cellphone. A familiar perky young assistant listened while she related the emergency. “Shana’s away on a conference, but Dr. Uyi is acting as standby. I’ll slot you in, no problem.”
As she drove, Belle glared in the mirror at the reclining dog, one paw over the other, probably expecting a leisurely walk on the trails behind Skead. Was today a holiday? “I’d gag you myself, but I’m not into slobber,” she said with a vengeance.
She made record time to Petville, rushing in with Freya on leash. A bow-backed man with a yippy Pomeranian backed away instinctively at the large shepherd, its vicious reputation as undeserved as the doberman’s. The vet tech ushered them into an examination room, and just as swiftly, Dr. Uyi came through the door. He was a handsome Polynesian with a boyish face and smooth coffee skin, laugh lines at his eyes revealing two more decades.
“I was told that she ate something. Do you have a sample?”
Belle handed him the LCBO bag containing a few ounces of meat. “Ground beef, seems fresh or just-thawed. Someone tossed it into my yard.”
Slipping on latex gloves, Uyi moved to a sink and began inspecting the contents. “Doesn’t seem like anything’s been added,” he said.
Belle shuddered, observing Freya for imminent convulsions, bloody vomit, paralysis. Five dogs had been poisoned in a Toronto park that week. “What were you looking for?”
He bent to examine the animal’s mouth and gums. “Antifreeze is green. Or ground glass. Both are quite fatal, and the end isn’t pretty.”
Belle felt her legs turn to linguine and sat down on the wooden bench. “My God!”
His tone was reassuring as he ran slender fingers over Freya’s body, probing her stomach area. “It’s a ninety-nine per cent bet that she’s fine.”
“Not good enough. What would you suggest? An emetic?”
“Err on the side of caution, then. To treat her at home, a few ounces of hydrogen peroxide would do the job.” He rose and reached under the sink for a plastic pail, then opened a drawer and took out a
small paper packet, ripping it open. “Don’t fancy swallowing that stuff myself. This is a bit gentler. Apomorphine disc. Goes in the corner of the eye. Within a few minutes . . . stand back.”
An hour later at the office, Miriam checked the wall clock and said, “I was afraid you’d miss your showing at Bea’s.”
Nose in the air, Freya trotted over for a piece of bagel with cream cheese. “Hi, sweetie. Come to keep me company? By the way, Strudel didn’t take kindly to that Far Side book you gave me. Poodles, the Other White Meat.” Miriam’s fierce little dog had once made Freya’s life sheer hell by ravaging her tail on an hourly basis.
Belle put her hand over her mouth as the dog disappeared into the back room, where they had a small lounge for lunch and an occasional nap. “Don’t mention food.” She explained what had happened.
Miriam gave a low growl. “Sometimes ex-husbands come in handy. Jack would have pummelled that scumbag. But she seems fine. It sounds like you acted quickly.”
Belle checked her watch and headed for the Mr. Coffee, transfusion for all seasons. “Soldier’s breakfast minus cigarette for me. The Nortons will be here in ten minutes.”
She saw a car pull into the lot. “Minus coffee, too,” she added with a mock sniff, rebuttoning her coat on the way out.
A couple in their early forties, the Nortons had relocated from Ottawa to open a joint practice: urology and dermatology. They were renting a luxury apartment at 2200 Regent but wanted to settle into the community and entertain on a larger scale.
“It sounds perfect. So close to our office at the Four Corners,” Dan said, wearing an aubergine overcoat matching his wife’s. His razored blond hair gave him the appearance of an albino porcupine. They were seated in the spacious rear of Belle’s van, where he baptized the ashtray with a flick from his gold lighter. “Location is the most important thing. If this older house doesn’t suit, we’ll have all winter to finalize building plans. Do you know a good man?”