Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle

by Lou Allin

  He rubbed his scarred fists and leaned his head back, muscles rippling in his strong neck. “I miss the little guy so much. You see, I couldn’t have kids of my own. I was married in university to a corporate lawyer who insisted on a vasectomy. How blind and trusting we are at that age.”

  Belle thought of her first real love, the class valedictorian at Scarborough Collegiate. He had asked her out on many double dates before they went to the semi-formal. After that, nothing. Was it normal to have to ask a boy to kiss her goodnight? Years later, she wondered if he’d been gay. “I know what you mean. Hindsight is twenty/twenty.” She polished her glasses on a serviette.

  Dave kept opening fresh pages in his soul. It was almost embarrassing, but she owed him a sympathetic ear. “Then after I divorced and found Bea all these years later, I would have had it reversed, but since she was over forty, I didn’t want to put her or a baby at risk. Micro and I had our challenges getting used to each other. That’s normal enough. We would have worked it out.”

  She switched back to action mode instead of dwelling on fears and regrets. “Have you heard from Len lately? Did they find the bone?” She told him about the run-in with Steve at the hospital.

  Dave blew out a contemptuous breath. “The cleaning staff sent it to a Dumpster, and it’s at the bottom of a landfill, for all that matters. Sounded like a hare-brained scheme from a television show. I think we’ll soon part company. His bills are mounting up with no results. What really ticked me off were his innuendos about Leonora. Leo was like a sister to Bea, for God’s sake. He’s such an owly guy that he probably still doesn’t believe me. Maybe his job calls for it, but I hope I never get that cynical.”

  Their professions were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Sipping her wine and wishing he’d brought a case, Belle kept quiet. Dinner had been calm and reflective, and she feared the bad feelings that would emerge from her spying on him at the apartment. Apparently Len hadn’t mentioned her tagging along. Merci, mon ami. “What about that man who drove the speedboat? If anyone had a grudge against your family, he did . . . in his self-serving mind, of course. Len said he had news, but I didn’t get the details.”

  “Jason Lewis? That smug bastard destroyed a family and left beer cans floating in his wake. Bea told me about her victim impact statement. When that woman got charged up, good night nurse.” He shook his head in admiration. “Everyone in the courtroom except for Lewis was in tears, including the judge and defense counsel.”

  Belle refilled their glasses. “Nothing can bring them back, but it must have brought . . . closure.” Until he was released and came calling? Sometimes the law forgot the dead and their grieving families.

  He gave an optimistic smile. “Detective Sumner told me that they’ve been in touch with the Vancouver police. Lewis has a cousin out there, and his truck was seen near Kamloops. They think he might be working up north in the lumber industry, in a place where they don’t ask many questions. He’ll be found eventually, and if he’s responsible for Bea’s murder, they’ll have to lock him up to keep me away from him.”

  Suddenly a dull ringing came from the yard. The dogs pricked up their ears. In slight confusion, Belle went to the edge of the deck. As she homed in, she laughed in embarrassment. “My cellphone. I left it in the van.”

  Dave scanned the high hills of yellow birch and maple on the ridge behind the house. “Can you get a signal out here?”

  “Normally not. But you’ve heard about Falco’s Nickel Rim South development around the airport.”

  “I saw the new roads when I drove in. Nearly four hundred million dollars over the next five years, they say. Plenty of jobs. It’s going to recharge the community.”

  “They put up a tower last week. Spinoff benefits. It will squeeze the bears and moose, though. Crown land’s no protection for them when mineral rights are leased. I just hope the water quality doesn’t suffer when they start crushing ore,” Belle said. “Pardon me. I’d better get it. Business calls.” She took the stairs two at a time and finally snagged the phone on the tenth ring. “Palmer Real—”

  A small voice froze her like a slap in the face. “It’s Micro. I can’t . . . long . . . He’s . . .” There was a garble of static and something about his head aching. Then a click. She realized that she had stopped breathing.

  TWENTY

  She whimpered, staring at the phone as if it were a lifeline severed by an axe. No bells and whistles on this toss-away model. No last call or call trace. Leaning on the deck railing, Dave looked at her in mild confusion, shading his eyes against the light from the setting sun rippling through the trees. Her legs weakened, and she slumped into the van seat. Sprinting, he came to her side, putting an arm around her, strong and comforting. How could she tell him how close Micro was, that his son lived in this toy of plastic and circuitry?

  “What’s wrong? Not your father, I hope. Hélène said he was in a nursing home.”

  Good and bad, she thought. Alive, but under someone’s control, their worst fear. Tears of joy spilled down her cheeks, and she wiped them on her sleeve as she explained the few precious words she had heard.

  “My God! At last!” He pumped his arm in a triumphant gesture. “How did he manage to call? He’s a smart one. But a man’s got him? ‘He,’ you said? What was that about his head?”

  Had she dreamed all this? Dave needed to slow down, so that she could remember every word of the call. “It was aching. But he didn’t explain. The connection was cut.”

  “Bea told me he used to have headaches as a kid. A sinus condition. Thought he’d outgrown it, but with this stress . . .” His voice trailed off as he eased the phone from her shaking hands. “I know the police numbers. Judy will be on this in a heartbeat.”

  “Judy?”

  “Detective Sumner. At first I was doubtful about a woman handling the case, but she’s been super.”

  After Dave left, spinning his wheels in the gravel drive and nearly clipping the garbage box, Belle called the DesRosiers with the news. Hélène could barely talk for crying. “They’re coming out to take my statement,” Belle said. “Paula was right.”

  Yet according to the bittersweet saying, it wasn’t despair that killed, but hope. As two ravens swooped mock battles in the air, Belle returned to the deck and considered the wine bottle. A glass or two left to toast her brave friend. Micro had survived two weeks. He could survive another day, or another, but how long? She only hoped that he’d been able to hide his call from his abductor. The thought of the boy punished for his brave attempt to escape turned her to ice, and she hugged herself as a wind rippled the waters. But why keep him without claiming the reward? Because his value wasn’t in dollars? The thought turned the wine to vinegar on her tongue.

  Detective Judy Sumner, a woman in her late thirties with curly brown hair, trim and muscular in a light wool suit and low-heeled shoes, arrived an hour later and sat on the deck, warming herself with fresh coffee as the temperature dropped. Belle had to respect the fact that the detective had come so far so fast after working hours, and so she had prepared a brief time line of events, turning on the deck lights before she sat down.

  “It’s strange that he called here first,” Judy said later with a quizzical look, entering notes into a pad. Her makeup was understated, a blush of peach on her full lips and a touch of mascara accenting almond eyes. Tiny rose quartz studs gleamed in her ears.

  “He and his stepfather don’t get along. Could be his aunt’s number was busy. Still, you’d think in a possible life-or-death situation, he’d have called 911. Kids know that.”

  “It’s clear that he trusted you more than an anonymous person. And this case has broken all the rules from the beginning. We know that he ran off on his own. Now apparently he’s in someone’s hands. It’s a parent’s living nightmare.” She stood, checking her slim gold watch. “Let’s hope he’ll call again. Will you have that phone nearby at all times?”

  Belle hugged the unit to her chest. “On my pillow. Charged and read
y to go.”

  Saturday, Belle took a walk down the road to where she knew she’d find the Sudbury Star in a neighbour’s drive. She shot a look up and down, cocked her ears for the sound of a vehicle, then knelt, slipped off the plastic wrapper and read the lead story. “Missing Child Calls: Mystery Deepens.” The article quoted the Police Commissioner as saying that she’d put her job on the line if Micro wasn’t found. Belle noticed that she omitted the word “alive.” Every available officer, the OPP, and a task force of Mounties were sweeping the province. The reward had sparked hundreds of calls, screened by a host of volunteers working out of the old Cambrian Foundation building downtown.

  After replacing the paper neatly, at a loss to pass the dragging hours, do something normal in a time when every day brought a fresh hell, Belle turned to yard chores. Drain and put away the hoses. Dig the last faithful carrots and beets. Mindless work. She couldn’t concentrate. Even two lucrative house sales fluffing her bank account hadn’t cheered her. She kept hearing that small, disembodied voice and struggled to analyze the few paralyzing seconds they had connected. He wasn’t crying, but he had a headache. Was he injured, sick, feverish? If he’d been wet and cold, pneumonia was a possibility, but she’d heard no cough. Still, he had remembered her number and appointed her his saviour. If only there’d been a minute more between them, even fifteen seconds. She patted her sweatshirt pouch, where the cellphone rode like a joey, and whispered, “Micro, you are always, always in my thoughts. Don’t give up.”

  Near the sauna, emptying cold stove ashes into the bush, she noticed Freya sniffing something, her tail up in abnormal interest. Rotten mushrooms and rabbit pellets were her favourite hors d’oeuvres. She walked over with a stern look, remembering the sharp and effective obedience-school phrase. “Leave it!” The dog dropped a small triangular piece of wood, which Belle inspected. A rough wedge with faint red smears and a slight smell of fish. Perhaps that’s why the dog had nosed it. Her eyes tracked from the red of the sauna to the piece of wood as her brain’s synapses snapped a path. “Good girl. Any more of these?”

  In fifteen minutes, Belle found three similar chunks in the tangled verge of the yard. An inspection of the sauna door showed marks at the edges, but along with Freya’s frantic scratches, hard to tell. She sat down with a shiver, recalling the slight movements of the building, which she’d taken for a mine blast. Had someone shut her in with these wedges? Though she’d declined to take high school physics, she reasoned that each push from inside had deeper set the triangles. Yanking the heavy wooden handle with a man’s muscles, Dave probably hadn’t noticed the small pieces in his panic. The effort had flung them away from the door, and perhaps the wind or small animals had moved them again. Yet why did they smell of fish? Or was there a carcass in the weeds on the shore?

  After striking out at the Police Department, she called Steve at home, breaking a personal rule. Janet answered, her Munchkin voice prim and unwelcoming. Why couldn’t she understand that Belle was not her competition? She suspected that Steve kept their occasional lunches from his insecure wife. “Hon, it’s . . . that woman.”

  She’d bet a pocketful of toonies that Janet hadn’t called him “hon” since Mulroney was PM. Some clatter later, Steve picked up the phone with a “Yo.”

  She eased into the subject. “Sorry to bother you at home. That call from Micro has me chewing my nails. Any news on the reward?”

  “The snakes are coming out of the woodpiles. A couple hundred already. We’re stretched to the max following them up.” Either his hot mood at the hospital had cooled, or he and Janet were sailing smooth waters for a change. His marriage was a barometer for his moods. “Call me a pessimist, but I would have bet the farm that he’d never be found alive. In ninety-five per cent of abductions by child molesters, the victim is dead within twenty-four hours. We need a credible tip to tell us where he’s being held, but even then, his captors could have him on the move. It’s possible that they’ve been waiting for the reward. We’ll know soon.”

  She sighed in desperation, filling him in on Paula’s vision, despite his implied dismissal. “Anywhere in Canada with lots of metal and a light green colour.”

  “Forget that hocus-pocus. I have a feeling he’s close, though. In a couple of cases, the children were tied in basements on the same damn block. If he has the guts you describe, maybe he can get away again.”

  “I never thanked you for the magazines and book. Sorry about the scene at the hospital.” She paused before disclosing her own discovery, struggling for the right words so that he wouldn’t think her a fool. “There’s something else.” She described what she had found near the sauna.

  His voice was skeptical, but at least he listened. “Don’t expect anyone out for a couple of days. If that’s all the evidence you have, this has the priority of a cat up a tree. But seriously, assuming it wasn’t an accident, what the hell are you doing that someone would want to hurt you, or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “Nothing, but . . .” She related the pot farm incident. “I need to find Diedre Collins. I can’t imagine that she’s behind this, but I’ve seen her tire tracks in my drive, like she’s monitoring me. And remember, out there somewhere is the angry owner of the pot farm she destroyed. I’m on that path several times a week. They might think I did it. People have been killed for less in Toronto. Twelve different grow-ops were raided in the same high-rise.”

  “It’s not rocket science. Stay off those trails for now. And you haven’t talked to her yet? I gave you that info a long time ago. Be careful what you say, and make sure a parent is present.”

  “I should have followed up, but other things are moving rather fast, Steve.”

  “Are you sure about what you found? Micro’s disappearance has your imagination on overdrive. Those pieces of wood could be scraps left from construction. You’re always dinging your mower on rocks or debris. I changed that blade for you last summer so that you wouldn’t hurt your little hands.”

  “Little . . . imagining. Why you—” She could hear a singsongy voice calling him to a meal.

  “Gotta go, but one last thing. About that PI guy, Len. Leave him alone. I had the buzz from Montreal that he travelled on the edges of biker gangs.”

  Belle smiled to imagine chubby Len on a motorcycle, but that picture in Israel portrayed a younger, more vital man. “Naturally, he worked undercover with the Sûreté.”

  “Every bad apple in Quebec tells his mamère that.”

  “He’s been busting his . . . bum for Dave, even working nights. You told me how you have to cross the line sometimes.” She felt her anger building, but reined it in.

  “Is your hearing failing at your advancing age? I said ‘draw the line.’ This isn’t a De Niro film. And what has he turned up? Dick-all. Malanuk will be well rid of him.”

  Monday’s long-overdue trip to the bush brought Belle a welcome change to recharge mental batteries as the brilliant foliage ran its final diorama before the leaves fell. She would be driving north towards Timmins for two hours, then east nearly the same distance to Bobber Lake, where she was meeting the owner to list his camp. In Northern Ontario, there was no direct route. A huge square comprising the Chinaguchi and Temagami area, including the magnificent Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Wilderness Park, sat in the middle. She could have travelled busier Routes 17 and 11, the other two boundaries, but quieter roads gave her more pleasure and relaxation.

  As always, preparations were critical. Dressing comfortably in soft corduroy pants, a denim shirt with Micro’s bear close in the breast pocket, and heavy Aran turtleneck sweater, she took her Gore-Tex coat, wavering, but at the last minute zipping in the fleece liner and popping a pair of gloves and a toque into the pocket. She drove in blue sneakers but packed hiking boots, remembering the times she “walked the line” with property owners who wanted to show off every bramble and puddle. Her car carried the typical emergency gear of matches, candles, chocolate and a blanket. Finally, she made sure her cellphone was charged. Technolo
gy had cut the risk of travelling remote areas, but often help was hours away, unless a rescue helicopter could land nearby. Considering the mute bundle of circuitry, she rubbed it like a genie’s lamp. “Micro. Call again. Find a way.”

  Ready to roll, she opened her desk to search for a topo map of the area, folding a selection into her jacket pocket. Driving bush roads, often no more than deteriorating logging and mining tracks, had taught her that knowing your location was crucial. Many citizens leased remote patches of Crown land, a cheap attraction. Anyone could afford to put up a shack for fishing, hunting or trapping and be Lord of the Blackflies.

  A call to the weather line brought no response. Was nobody home in government these days, in more ways than one? As she stepped onto the deck, she saw the thermometer reading only 6°C. Perilously close to frost, the first time in a month. The opposite shore was in fog, stitches of the dark low hills peeking through. Threads of vapour rose skyward, as if the lake were on fire instead of reluctantly yielding its stored warmth to the cooler air.

  Having “reserved” the night before, she dropped Freya off at Hélène’s in case she had to stay overnight, and was offered a mouth-watering breakfast of buckwheat pancakes, eggs and lean deer sausage. “Buckwheat’s good stuff for you,” Ed said, as he drowned his plate in maple syrup.

  Belle checked her watch as she finished the last morsel, blotting her mouth and getting drowsy from the carbo hit. She got up to pour another regular coffee Hélène had made for her. “I hate to leave town. I keep thinking that any minute we’ll hear—”

  Ed cleared his throat, and Hélène put a hand on her shoulder. “I know. Dave can’t be far from a breakdown. A human being can take only so much. I’ve lit a candle to St. Nicholas every day. He’s the patron saint for lost children.”

  “Call me in the late afternoon, whether you’re staying over or not. That route’s dangerous,” Hélène called as Belle pulled from the drive. Belle tooted, and her friend’s waving form grew smaller in the rear-view mirror.