by Lou Allin
“If I adopted anyone, it would be to get help cutting the lawn, raking leaves and shovelling snow. Freya has refused.” She lifted her bowl and finished the rich broth with an “Ay, chihuahua,” tears streaming down her face. “What’s the buzz on that investigator Dave hired? He seems qualified.”
Steve’s raven eyes glinted across the table, her silhouette reflected in the darkening pupils. “No lunch would be complete without at least three arguments. It’s a waste of money.”
“Why? Maybe he’ll find some turn unstoned?” She grinned at him.
“Or bugger up the case for us. He’s new in town, but his name hasn’t set off any blinking lights, not that we’ve had any time to pursue the matter.”
“Your customary excuse.”
“Be gentle.” He reached into a pocket for a notebook. “I come bearing gifts. Here’s the Crime Stoppers info. A seventh grader in Skead spends her time combing the bush for pot farms. She’s found three over there already. Diedre Collins. Her brothers are the neighbourhood bad boys. They’re over at Cecil Facer for auto theft. She’s out to restore the family honour.”
“That sounds sad.” Skead was about fifteen kilometres from her house, a hilly ride, but easy for a youngster.
“The Collins bunch is a generational gene pool of losers, in and out of jail. Her father and uncle ran a snowmobile chop shop. Hot-wired them at Rocky’s and rode them across the lake to their shed. They collected insurance money on a minor house fire, then torched the garage in a propane ‘accident’ a year later. Seems like whenever a plume of smoke arises, it’s at 2006 Kevin Street.”
Belle shifted in her chair. That might explain the recent bicycle tracks. Diedre was keeping an eye on her. But suppose her efforts led the angry cannabis planter to Belle’s house? She needed to have a talk with that girl. Now that Belle had befriended Micro, another twelve-year-old, how hard could it be?
TEN
Belle met Hélène at ten that morning for a long-trumpeted tour of Costco. “You must be the last person in Sudbury who hasn’t joined, and yet you’re famous for squeezing a loonie until it shrieks,” Hélène said as they stopped at the desk to get Belle a guest pass. Their security was tighter than the Pentagon’s.
Belle gestured to the membership board prices. “Fifty bucks?”
Hélène gave a harumph as she shoved the King Kong buggy towards the entrance, and they flashed their ID’s. “I can’t tell you what I’ve banked on these bulk buys. And we live so far from town. Stocking up saves time and effort. Not to mention gas at over a dollar a litre.”
“I’ll borrow a roll of toilet paper from you. And think of it this way. What if everyone refused to pay the membership? They’d have to waive the fee.” Belle spread her hands, the soul of logic.
“That sounds quite radical, hardly Canadian.”
Belle gestured at the Disneyland of consumerism that welcomed them. “We’re too polite. Our national expression is ‘Excuse me.’ Behind all this, as in American ads, the words are ‘But wait, there’s more’.” She pronounced the last word as “mowa.”
Passing the rows of computers, plasma televisions, books, clothes, exercise equipment, music and even a suspended canoe, they cruised the food aisles. Hélène pushed the cart like a sucking cornucopia, leading her first to the meat, all AAA. Belle blinked at the display as her friend plucked a dozen ribeye steaks of prime Alberta beef. Trailing like a puppy in spite of herself, she drooled over the rounds of aged cheddar and garlands of smoked sausages. Then they crashed the frozen food aisles, a monument to instant meals. Fifteen selections of pizzas. Manicotti by the dozen in three sauces. A mountain of fries. Belle scrutinized a box of brie-and-mushroom appetizers in puff pastry and raised a suspicious eyebrow. “You told me at Christmas dinner that you made those yourself. So that’s why you ‘lost’ the recipe.”
Hélène gave a guilty giggle and excused herself to go to the nearby washroom. “Too much coffee.”
Following a musical trail, Belle drifted over to a display of stuffed animals. A shaggy sheepdog was singing “Only You”, howling at each refrain, paws waving and head moving up and down. She chuckled to imagine Freya’s reaction and nearly grabbed it, when she saw the price. $15.95. Expensive for a one-time gag.
Then someone moved up beside her, his voice deep and slightly melancholy. “Cute, aren’t they? I was wondering if Micro would like one. He must miss Buffalo.”
Dave wore a tweed sportcoat, white shirt and tie and slacks. His wingtip shoes were gleaming. Appearances would be important in his job. She hadn’t thought about his need to continue working through all this tragedy. “My mother loved that song,” she said. “But to be honest, the toy’s more for a younger child.” She didn’t know whether to pity his naïveté or applaud the gesture. Step-parents had a heavy load.
Hélène hailed them as she returned, embracing Dave in her usual warmth. “Micro’s doing well, Dave. He got an A on his English test.”
“How’s he adjusting to his new school? Is anyone bothering him? Something I should know about?”
Belle couldn’t decipher the cause of his concern. Bothering him? Then she recalled the bullying Ed had told her about.
“He mentioned a friend, Chris, I think. The boy moved to New Sudbury, but they keep in touch. And with this zero-tolerance policy at St. Francis, he seems much happier. You should come for dinner. I’ll bet you eat out every night.” She pointed at the luscious steaks as if to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. “Tuesday, okay?”
He nodded politely, looking into the distance as if burdened by a cape of sorrow. Creases around his eyes had deepened since Belle had last seen him, and his mouth sagged at the corners. “He has to return home sometime, Hélène. I wanted to let him take his time after . . . after what happened to Bea, and his staying with you worked well with my being out of town. But in another ten days, I’ll be back here with some local projects. Several women have answered my ad for a housekeeper, and to help the transition, I know a good child psychologist who works at the San. He’d see Micro once or twice on a casual basis. Just to get the lay of things.”
“It might be an idea,” Hélène said, biting her lower lip in thought. “He’s had to grow up mighty fast, but he has to face facts. You’re his dad, and you love him.” She pressed Dave’s hand. “It’ll make a difference when you’re together, two men on a team.”
“So are you going to join?” Hélène asked afterward at the cash, sounding like a religious proselytizer. She downloaded twenty frozen entrees, cases of soup and vegetables, and six-packs of Rolaids and Metamucil. No secrets on Edgewater Road.
Belle sighed, deciding never to face this circus again. “Then I’d have to buy a freezer. You know I’m still using the fridge that came with the cottage, circa 1960. Sure, egg rolls are great, but not fifty at once. What if I don’t like the recipe?”
Hélène smirked at her. “That’s why you should come more often. They give out samples. Free lunch. That should appeal to you.”
“I’m not cheap, just frugal. No one can fight a Scottish ancestry.”
Later that afternoon, Belle left the office on foot for some chores, noticing that the tall cottonwoods were beginning to blaze into yellow. She crossed the Toronto Dominion parking lot and jaywalked over to the chain pizza parlour at Cedar and Elgin. The tempting radio ads boasted exotic ingredients like eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese. Inside, the colourful picture menu on the wall reinforced the sumptuous choices. A large niçoise for tonight and a Sicilian for the freezer. Twenty-six dollars, but cheaper than eating out. Brekkie leftovers would be a bonus.
“I’d like them unbaked,” she said to the teenaged girl, bee-stung red lips and ruthlessly plucked eyebrows with dark follicles sprinkled between like coarse pepper.
Her pouted mouth twisted in thought, and her pigeon-egg eyes rolled. “Uh, we can’t do that.”
A succulent slice with black olives and tuna sat on the counter under warming lights, seducing Belle’s nose. Dam
n. She didn’t want to wolf the thing down. Though she’d been gone from the classroom for over twenty years, she shifted into grammar teacher mode. “ ‘Can’t.’ Does this mean physically or that you aren’t allowed to?”
“Unbaked?” The girl said the word like a disease and cast a glance back to a young man in the kitchen, shovelling pizzas with a long wooden paddle. “Rules. You could ask the manager, but he’s not here.”
Belle’s temper sizzled along with the mozzarella. “Let me get this straight. I’m willing to pay you nearly thirty dollars and use my own fuel to cook the pizza. And you refuse?”
Pushing out the door a nanosecond later, mentally dictating a letter to the Sudbury Star about lack of entrepreneurial spirit and independent thought, she collided on the street with a formidable barrier. It was Len Hewlitt, carrying a stack of Styrofoam boxes. His jowls shook with laughter at her description of the pizza fiasco.
“Come over to the office. Plenty here for two.”
Tucked behind the St. Andrew’s Church complex a few blocks away was Bank Alley, a dark enclave punctuated with Dumpsters. The financial namesake had been long gone since reconstruction in the Fifties. At their approach, a thin man with a cowboy hat turned and scuttled around the corner, followed by a small yellow Lab. A trash sifter, or looking for someone to mug? While in New York, or even Toronto, she might be captured on camera one hundred times in a twenty-minute stroll, Sudbury had few videocops. She felt far safer in the woods with the Deer Prince.
Instead of plate-glass windows, the narrow street had only doors to marginal businesses, Pat’s Stamps and Coins, Dragon’s Breath Tattoo Parlour, Divine Write Religious Bookstore, and Hewlitt’s Investigations. The sign read “Corporate intelligence, surveillance, electronic eavesdropping countermeasures, background checks, DNA.” Belle’s eyes saucered at the bafflegab, and she gave him a quizzical look.
“DNA?”
He opened the door with a key, frowning at the unblinking answering machine and putting the boxes on a battered metal desk. “Big demand for that these days. Paternity suits. It’s all done in Toronto. Takes three weeks and a shit . . . I mean a carload of cash.” One corner of his fleshy mouth rose as he tickled his memory. “Even had a dog case. Purebred Scottish deerhound got knocked up by a mutt next door.”
Belle huffed, recalling the time Freya was mounted in her own yard by a dog which could have captured all three prizes in an ugly contest and won a quick trip to the pound instead. Given the morning-after pill, the shepherd had developed an infection and had to be spayed at two. “I don’t blame the owner. There goes ten thousand dollars for five pups.”
An operatic yowl came from an open door to the rear, and a chocolate-point Siamese streaked out and leaped into Len’s waiting arms. When it rubbed its head on his double chin, Belle noticed a black satin patch over one eye.
“Moshe, as in Dayan,” he said. “A classy guy for an alley, but I found him with his head caught in a tin can. Poor little fellow didn’t weigh eight pounds when I got him to the vet. Worms, infections, the whole shebang. My daughter sewed the patch. She’s a whiz.”
Belle stroked the glossy fur, mesmerized by the clear blue eye, namesake of her favourite marble. Now she nosed a slight tint of ammonia in the air from an unseen litter box. Len put down the cat and pulled up a folding lawn chair for her. “Excuse me for a minute. Got to go to the back for some sardines and milk. Guy eats better than I do.”
While he was gone, Belle peered around. The office was a slice of real estate barely seven feet across, demanding organizational skills and the ability to suck in one’s stomach. One shabby file cabinet held a coffee maker, but the focal points were the many pictures on the freshly painted walls: Golda Meir, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., and oddly enough, Yasser Arafat. All signed to Len. A man for all political seasons, it seemed. The desk had a few file folders and a picture in a pewter frame, placed where he could see it as he worked. Curious, she started to angle for a peek when she heard him returning.
Len opened a desk drawer to retrieve a videotape, which he patted like a secret weapon. “Business will pick up soon once word gets out that I solved the gum machine case.”
She crossed her legs, trying to get comfortable on the webbing while he rocked in a creaky office model. “Gum machine?”
Folding his stubby hands, he explained. “You’ve seen those charity bubble jobbies in supermarkets and malls. Nickel City College had a few in the student union area raising money for guide dogs. Someone was breaking them open for the quarters.”
“The nerve. And you caught them? On a . . . stakeout?”
“Piece of honey cake like Mama used to make for Hanukkah. Set up a videocam. Filmed them at midnight. Two freshmen on a beer-money cruise. Pa-bloody-thetic.”
“The college is open all night?”
“Sure. Cleaning staff, plus some computer labs.” He opened a pack and offered her a cigarette. She hadn’t seen an unfiltered Camel since Uncle Harold had died at eighty, a pack-a-day man for sixty years.
“I’m no purist, but I smoke only in bed.” She left it at that, and one of Len’s unkempt eyebrows rose in polite interest. An old boyfriend once told her, to her youthful shame, that she had no mystique. What a pretentious snob he’d been, president of Mensa at the University of Toronto. Even so, how would she ever know if she’d achieved any? And who cared, anyway?
“Let’s eat.” Len opened the boxes with a flourish. “Nigari special and California rolls.”
Belle admired the artful arrangement of nestled rice morsels. “Sushi. Two decades to make it up from Toronto.”
He laughed, passing a hand over his Friar Tuck head. “Should have gone FedEx. Hope it’s still okay after all those years.”
She tried the barbecued eel, spicy and firm like chicken. The sweet rice was packed around crispy pieces of vegetable, complemented by wasabi and shaved pink ginger. Her eyes watered at the mild green paste that packed the punch of a Patriot missile.
“So how is the investigation going?” Used to dealing with laconic Steve, a man who needed a nut-pick operation to divulge the slightest detail of an ongoing case, she levelled her gaze at him. “Or can’t you tell me?”
He took off his thick glasses and rubbed his red, squiddish eyes. “I shouldn’t disclose anything, but Dave trusts you and the DesRosiers, so—”
Trusts her? She must have made a good impression, despite her skepticism about private investigators. Enjoying a moment of self-satisfaction, Belle leaned forward. “You have found something!”
He opened what looked like a recipe box and selected a handful of file cards. “First off, let’s look at the business. Did Bea get along with her employees? Nineteen out of twenty called her a saint. But . . .” He seemed to pause for effect, gauging her interest. “One guy wanted to start a union. Big-mouthed agitator. The Cesar Chavez of the North. Gimme a break.”
Belle nodded. If the mighty unions couldn’t crack Wal-Mart, what chance did they have at a small family business? “I can guess. He was fired.”
“Yowsa.” He snapped down another card, as if telling a fortune. Then he sucked his large, prominent teeth. “Sean Broughton.”
“Sounds like a sweet and innocent Irish tenor.”
“A real shit stirrer. He tried the same thing over at Weston and got canned there, too. Vandalized a few trucks at Bumble Bea, broke the front window, but they never proved it. I’ve been making the rounds to check his alibi that morning.”
Belle nibbled another piece of sushi, licking a grain of rice from her lip. “Alibis. Not worth the paper they’re written on. Friends, lovers, relatives. Everyone can lie.”
“You’re a bit cynical for a Northerner, dear lady.” He cocked his head.
“Born and raised in Toronto.”
He rocked back in the chair with a guffaw. “That explains it. We’re in the same metro mindset. Now that vandalism. Could be he paid an accomplice. Someone with no connection to the business. A fast and dirty hundred would buy ten
minutes from a drifter hanging out at the Coulson.”
Belle’s eyes widened with growing interest. The lumpen soldier of fortune had some savvy. She hadn’t dreamed of a disinterested second party. “I see.”
With a sigh, Len pulled a third card. “More people to check, but it’s gonna take me a coon’s age. I’m a one-man operation, and I can’t afford help. Dave’s stretched to the max, too, poor guy. His wife’s insurance only came to ten thousand dollars. She borrowed on it for renos a couple of years ago, and the funeral cost twice that. You know those Italians. When I go, it’s gonna be generic all the way. Maybe I’ll even get composted.”
Belle blinked, remembering the grandiose viewing at Johnson’s Boneyard. She’d been unable to attend the funeral at St. Jean de Brebeuf, Sudbury’s stateliest church, but it must have been nothing short of mayoral. Could she help? Micro would never reconcile with his stepfather unless this murder was solved. Placing a hand on the desk, she said, “As a realtor, I drive around town every day. It wouldn’t take me much time to—”
“Would you? What a doll.” Len leaped to his feet, slightly off balance with his bum leg. He grabbed her shoulder. “Now that you’re on board, I gotta good feeling about this one.”
As a start, he provided her with the name and particulars of the neighbour, Jean McBride, and they huddled like a football team while he mapped out strategy.
When she got home at six, still soaked from another downpour, a twenty-dollar parking ticket festering in her pocket, Belle found an urgent message from Hélène on her answering machine.
ELEVEN
The DesRosiers’ six-year-old grandson in Ottawa had developed a high fever, and doctors suspected meningitis. Hélène and Ed were driving there immediately, despite the poor weather conditions, and would be away until he had passed the crisis. Could Micro stay with her? He had turned pale and quiet when they suggested that he return to Dave. No problem with school. He’d be back by five on the bus and could let himself in.