Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle

by Lou Allin

  After they’d dropped Chris off, Micro got into the front and described his favourite “FX,” mainly a car chase, which he orchestrated in detail. Instead of listening, Belle was fixated on the road. They swept through foot-deep puddles in Garson as the sewers jammed, sending wings of gritty spray onto the empty sidewalks. After the van hydroplaned as she navigated Radar Road, a cross-draft sent them over the centre line on the high hill of the airport approach, narrowly missing a taxi. Rain spattered the windshield and greased the asphalt. Her wipers were set to max, frantically clearing the water. She glanced over with relief to see that Micro wore his belt. Some mother. She hadn’t even reminded him. How many second chances did she deserve?

  At the mailboxes at her turn, the deluge was so paralyzing that she paused for ten minutes to let the worst of the storm pass. Micro’s eyes were wide as platters. “Is this a hurricane?”

  “Near enough. Keep an eye out ahead for me.”

  As they finally proceeded along Edgewater Road, plastic trash cans from garbage collection day rolled like bowling balls. She bashed one, sending it spinning into the bush. “Should we get out to—” Micro asked.

  “Let the drivers beware. We need to get home. I’ve been watching a leaning cedar for some time. This could be its final hour.”

  They pulled into the yard as gale-force blasts from the treacherous northwest lashed the bloated lake against her rock wall. Silvery spume flew thirty feet in the air. Micro stepped from the van with his mouth open, wiping his eyes.

  “Let Freya out.” She walked toward the fatal tree near the property line with the McNairs. Now cracked vertically at the base, it leaned against a smaller cedar, the sole barrier shielding it from the hydro and phone lines which led across the parking lot, over the deck and into the house. Her eyes teared from the buffeting wind as Micro returned with Freya. Even the dog’s wise old black brows circumflexed in fear. Always cool in a crisis, she’d ridden out many a storm by hunkering down in a tent with her mistress. Many dogs would have blasted through the sides of the flimsy shelter when a lightning bolt hit nearby.

  Belle pointed to the tree. “I’ve got to call someone to come out and cut this son of a . . . gun. Take the dog in when she’s finished. And we should check your house, too.” An odd statement. His house. As if he had always lived down the road. In a short time, she’d grown used to having him around, like a brother or, she realized, a son.

  Inside, sifting the white pages, she punched in the emergency number, rolling through ridiculous menus, chewing her lip as the time passed. The wind roared like a banshee, sucking drafts up the stovepipe and rattling the windows. She heard the door open and close as Micro and Freya returned, the dog’s chain collar clinking as she shook herself dry. “Hey, I’m already wet enough, girl,” he said with a laugh.

  Finally, a human voice answered. “Your number shows that you are in the Sudbury region.”

  Was this call outsourced to Bangladesh? Furious, she managed even tones. No use letting them think a hysterical woman was exaggerating a harmless predicament. “Yes. Edgewater Road. A fallen tree is threatening my power line. I need a crew out here. Pronto.”

  The robotic voice seemed to select sentences from a training manual. “Is the tree in question in contact with your lines?”

  “Tree in . . . no, but we’re having a terrible storm, and it—”

  “Sorry, but you will have to call a tree service. Unless the . . . not responsible for . . .” The woman had perfected the art of governmentese.

  “But I—”

  “Hydro One has over 122,000 kilometres of power lines. Our priorities dictate that—”

  Belle hung up with a growl and charged out onto the deck, feeling like the beleaguered captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The master-suite balcony above her gave feeble shelter in the ferocious gusts. The sweet little fir that she’d saved from the axe when she built loomed up in front of the deck, its branches heaving like a beast. Her poplar grove beside the boathouse thrashed in riotous disarray. To the right, a greenbelt, she wasn’t worried. Those trees would fall away from her property. She stared in mute amazement at the valiant rockwall, bracing against waves advancing in huge swells like a relentless army, every seventh whitecap a monstrous blow. Her neighbours had lost their dock and front grass last year. Anyone who thought living on waterfront property was paradise should witness this. Or maybe not. If they did, she’d never sell another cottage.

  In a realtime FX, she saw her twenty-foot dock system, from the boathouse to the crib carrying the satellite dish, lifting off as neatly as sliced layer cake. The massive structure was floating free, tethered only by the dollar-a-foot umbilical cord of coaxial cable. Back and forth it rolled as she watched in helpless horror. Into the bay, then toward the boathouse, a lifeless thing powered by the force of ten locomotives. In minutes it would smash the building to pieces. Her insurance company would never pay. God’s will. Hydro’s will. The mysterious keeper of the dam was probably watching CTV as he enjoyed his dinner.

  Micro came to her side, wiping rain from his face. She placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to keep panic from her voice, fighting back tears as she watched her world explode. “What happened?” he asked.

  “The dock’s old. It came apart. I have to cut that cable and send it away from the boathouse. Go back inside before you get drenched.”

  She ran down the stairs, soaked in seconds by the downpour, grabbing an axe propped beside the woodpile. Then she stood stupidly, assessing the logistics. Can’t chop through water. Entering the boathouse, she rummaged in her toolboxes for the sheet-metal shears.

  Standing on the breakfront which overlooked her beach, she shook her head at the bitter realities, taking off her useless glasses and pocketing them. What seemed possible from the deck looked suicidal up-close. She’d have to wade into freezing water, avoiding at her peril the lurching dock, which could pin her against the rock base and squeeze her like a slug. As the wooden whale returned, moving its bulk in surprising ease, it knocked against one of the huge creosoted beams which anchored the building. The boathouse shuddered like a wounded mammoth. Belle gasped. Another assault would leave a pile of pick-up sticks. For once she wished for the muscles of a man and a warm dive suit. The dock was toast, but the boathouse still stood, the greater investment. She’d call Johnny Salvalaggio, her handyman. Perhaps he could also cut the tree, though without a cherry picker, a dangerous chore in the wind.

  Throwing down the shears with a “hostie,” she went inside and dialled, finding his line busy. Too much to hope that Charlton Heston’s magical Moses hand would gesture across Wapiti and still the waters. Then through the windows she imagined she saw movement on the retaining wall. She blinked and took another look. A small form jumped onto the beach and waded into the bay.

  Belle left the house on a run, down the stairs, waving her hands, slipping on the bottom platform and sprawling across the lawn. “Micro! Come back!”

  The howling wind tossed her words into her face. The boy’s clothes nearly pulled him under as he urged himself toward the cable, the wooden platform shifting to the right. Another barrage of water hit the wall, hiding him for a moment as it crashed down. She jumped onto the sand, wading in, stumbling to her knees on the mossy stones, reaching out her hand. Then she saw the snips flash and flash again. Now detached, the dock floated off, lodging in a rocky shallows, harmless at last.

  They walked down the beach and climbed to the grass, huddling like soaked rats. He handed her the snips as she looked at him with a mixture of fury and admiration, searching his face for bruises. The green eyes were cool and clear. “You could have killed yourself . . . and Hélène would have murdered me.” And Dave? His stepson had been parked with a lunatic. This was one story that would never be told, except in a sanitized version. Already she began drafting a conspiracy of silence for their partnership.

  He was making a valiant effort not to shiver, losing the battle as his soft lips quivered. She hugged his small frame, and the
y made their way up the patio-stone path to the basement, where Freya paced nervously behind the glass doors. “I want you up to your neck in a hot bath while I make some cocoa.”

  His chattering teeth made no reply as they climbed to the main floor. Belle knew how icy that water was. Only in a two-week window at the end of July did she dare swim in her bay. Micro might have suffered respiratory failure from shock the minute the water reached his waist. If she hadn’t been in triage mode, she might have pulled a scene-stealing swoon.

  The woodstove could wait, damn the cost of propane. She switched on the furnace, heard its ignition and felt the warm rush of air. She dried off and changed into jeans and a sweater. Meanwhile she heard him splashing in the tub, while she hauled blankets and a heating pad to the TV room, making a nest. Tomorrow when she got Johnny for the tree, she’d tell him to arrange for a backhoe to relocate the dock to a burn pile at the water’s edge. She should have replaced the monster long ago, but built by a mine foreman with access to “free” supplies, it was full of ten-inch spikes and built with timbers from grandfather pines. It was forty-six years old, a kindred spirit. Still, this was going to cost. Repairs were impossible until spring, when the lake was frozen and the bay dry for a few crucial days.

  Micro emerged in his pyjamas, a sheepish look on his mild brown face. Was that café au lait a bit heavy on the lait? “No TV. The dish is defunct.” She settled him into the pasha chair with the Frankenstein book and a mug of cocoa. In the kitchen, she whipped up comfort food for soaked vegetarians: tomato soup and grilled cheese.

  He adapted easily to her habit of dinner Roman style on lounges. They ate ravenously. After she’d taken out the plates and loaded the dishwasher, she returned to shuffle through a pile of videotapes. Hitler’s Children might give him a window on teen life in a fascist society where young minds were poisoned early. The timely film of 1942, which beat out RKO’s King Kong for top grosser, was shameless propaganda. Tim Holt played a young storm trooper struggling with his love for Bonita Granville, his childhood sweetheart. The grim climax pulled no punches and included a flogging in a concentration camp. Swastikas filled the screen, jackboots marched, and children turned in their parents. Too violent? A cakewalk next to the Rings films. Halfway through, she glanced over, surprised to see a tear on his face.

  “Want to cut out of this? How about John Wayne in Rio Bravo? It’s a western,” she added, mindful of the age gap. He’d probably never heard of the Duke.

  He shook his head, eyes downcast. “I did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Painted those swastikas at the old people’s home.”

  Belle’s spine stiffened as she remembered what Steve had said about the vandalism at the Ukrainian Seniors’ Centre. “Do you understand what that symbol meant? Do you take world history?”

  “Not until high school.” He sighed. “It was Tom Beerchuk’s idea. He bought the spray cans. Called me a chicken. I went along, and painted one, but it didn’t feel right. He was a . . . a . . . jerk.”

  Belle felt herself at an unusual loss for words. She tried to put herself in the place of someone for whom wars were a media event, like the charge of tanks across the Iraqi desert. George Bush, with modern psychological noise tactics, could have blasted Celine Dion’s version of “I Drove All Night” as the troops moved toward Baghdad while Wolf Blitzer narrated.

  She watched him sink into the pile of blankets. Despite his heroics and intelligence, he was a boy new to the complexities of emotional maturity. To him Hitler was a cartoon figure knocking down bodies that popped up again like Wiley E. Coyote. “A swastika meant death to millions and still traumatizes those who starved or lost their families in the concentration camps,” she finally said.

  Maybe she should introduce him to Jesse, her Jewish friend, who’d escaped Germany as a girl. She leaned back and tried to remember life at twelve. One image came to mind, and she flushed with guilt as childish laughter on dark streets and the feel of a cake of soap returned in fractured images. “I can’t be too hard on you, Micro. In seventh grade . . .” One Hallowe’en, long past the costume stage, she and a thrill-seeking friend had drawn swastikas on car windows. She shivered as the wind battered on. “I’d heard about the Nazis in silly songs. I didn’t know the facts.” Her weapon was soap, easy to remove, but the result was as cruel.

  “Am I going to go to jail?” His voice quavered, and he nuzzled his sleeve.

  This was a secret which couldn’t be kept. The difference was clear. She went to the bathroom and returned with a mound of tissues. “It’s a first step to accept the responsibility like a man. You’ll have to pay for the cost of removing the paint, and maybe do some community service at the Ukrainian home. Like raking leaves or cleaning up. But I hope you’ll talk to the elders. I can make the arrangements, pave the way.”

  He pooched out his bottom lip. “They’ll hate me.”

  “Nothing is more lovable than a reformed sinner, Micro.” She paused. She was to blame tonight for not keeping an eye on him. “And about the dock. Best not say anything, or I’ll get into plenty of trouble, my friend.”

  He smiled and nodded, pulling up the blankets as his eyes started to close. An early bed was the best idea, she thought. That cold would have sapped an adult with ample body fat. As she got up to turn off the TV, an ear-splitting crack made them jump, and the room went black. Though she feared the worst, Belle put a hand on his arm. “I’ll get the flashlights. Power outages happen several times a year here. At least it’s not -35°C. And we’re not shampooing our hair. And there’s plenty of Kraft Dinner.”

  She felt along the hall to the closet by the entrance where she kept her emergency gear: Coleman lanterns, stove and propane canisters. Flicking on a flashlight, with caution and apprehension she opened the door to the deck, closing it quickly in reflex action, her mind assessing immediate danger. The damn cedar had fallen across the lines and into the yard. Live wires snapped and sizzled red sparks across the deck like a diabolic whip. If she’d been touching the metal screen door, she might have been electrocuted.

  Grabbing her coat and keys, Belle fumbled her way to the TV room, the beam playing on Micro’s questioning face as she handed him another flashlight. “Get dressed and get your school things. The hydro’s down across the deck, and we have to leave by the basement door. We’ll head around the far side of the house, and if the van’s clear, go down to your place.”

  Minutes later, holding Freya’s collar, she led Micro to the van, a safe distance from the wires. Soon they were at the DesRosiers’, and she was on the phone punching menus. Groundhog Day. The same woman answered.

  “Me again. Hate to be a nag, but that tree has taken the wires. Your refusal to come out earlier nearly fried three of us, including a child.” She gave both addresses and numbers. Crews all over Northern Ontario were in the field. Help wouldn’t arrive until morning, if they were lucky.

  THIRTEEN

  Belle’s eyes snapped open at 5:55 a.m. in the strange bed, an innerspring horror, sagging like a swayback horse. The DesRosiers’ marriage must be ironclad. She’d been crawling up the sides all night. The bird clock in the kitchen, a different trill, peep or hoot every hour, had kept her awake. Using the number Hélène had given her, she learned that Ottawa had received the tail end of the storm. Belle downplayed their situation.

  “Those scoundrels at Hydro One,” Hélène said. “We have to pay off the debt they accumulated, giving mismanagement a golden parachute, and they leave us freezing in the dark. I hope you slept well in our bed. There were extra blankets in the linen closet. Isn’t that bird clock a scream?”

  “You bet.” Belle passed over the phone, nodded, and Micro delivered a perfect scenario, excitement without danger, and certainly no boys in icy bays.

  The DesRosiers were returning tomorrow, now that the crisis with their grandson had passed. A bladder infection had led to the same blood poisoning that had killed Muppeteer Jim Hanson. Massive antibiotics had stabilized the youngst
er, and he was eating for two.

  After a breakfast of corn flakes, Belle watched Micro shoulder his backpack, his quick stride marching off to conquer the day with the optimism of youth. She’d miss his natural curiosity and winsome presence. “This weekend we can check out a heronry. The birds are gone now, but the nests are still there. Big guys.” She spread her arms to demonstrate the wingspan.

  “Uncle Ed has binoculars. I’ll bring them.”

  “To get there, we go through an old maple syrup tapping area. You can see the rusted pots and pans.”

  He nodded in enthusiasm. So many places to take him, things to teach him. Leaves of three, let them be. White pines have five needles, five letters. Solomon’s seal, false vs. real. Now she realized, despite Freya’s companionship, the delights of being the mentor of an appreciative pupil. One impulse in a vernal wood. “It’s a date, then.”

  She paused about the day’s logistics, wondering what mothers of six did. “Here’s my cellphone number. I’ll stay until help comes, but later I could be out of the office. If you don’t see the van at my place, come back here. The repair crew might be on Manitoulin time,” she said, referring to the sleepy island community west of Sudbury as she passed him a slip of paper.

  A man from Hydro One called around nine to tell her that with luck, they’d be finished by two. “Lucky the pole didn’t snap, lady. That would be a hell of a job, digging around in this rock.”

  When she arrived at work, Miriam was starting a second pot of coffee. “What a storm. Branches are down all over town. A monster in my parking lot just missed the Jetta.”

  Belle related their terrors of the day before. “You could have been electrocuted,” her cohort said, her face paling and her hand on her ample chest.