by Lou Allin
Steve took a sip of coffee, placed the mug on a copy of Blue Line magazine, and said, “If you’re here about Gary, sorry to report that we’ve pretty much closed the book. It’s true that Ramleau liked the boyfr—”
Seeing her eyes sharpen, he added, “I mean partner, but the time frame was too close.”
“I heard that the questioning was offensive.” Belle drummed her fingers on the chair arm. “And how ridiculous. Mutt loved him. Seven years is a long time to be together.”
He shrugged. “Take it from an old pro. Passions can run high in any relationship. I’ve had a few murderous thoughts about Janet, and she’d say the same.”
“Oh, come on. Divorce is easy enough. No-fault.” Suddenly she felt presumptuous, pontificating on the subject, not to mention teasing the raw wound that was his union. Then again, she couldn’t recall any wedding she’d attended where the couple hadn’t split. All those toasters and blenders jousting in the marital settlement. Twenty thousand dollars would have fared better in mutual funds instead of bankrolling a wedding album headed for a landfill.
“You know that spouses are always the first suspects.”
“And the leading cause of death for pregnant women is murder.” Belle leaned forward. “But the time frame cleared him?”
He opened a file folder, leafed through a few photocopies, and tapped a pencil at one entry. “June 5th. Malloy used his Visa in St. Catharines at eleven that morning gassing up. Got cash at the TD bank next. Nice camera shots. He’s one handsome boy. The Medivac helicopter that saw Gary’s body called in the report at two o’clock. Given the time to navigate around Toronto at high noon, up the 400, onto 69, and then over to Burwash, walk to the lake, kill Gary, then get to Sudbury and out to your road at . . . when did he call you?”
“Kill Gary.” Frank enough, since Steve’s job demanded cool objectivity and time-slicing syntax. Friend to friend, bluntness was laced with tact as thin as the two per cent milk he’d added to his coffee. At least he wasn’t always talking about “perps”. Taking off her glasses, she massaged the bridge of her nose. “Points North was on the radio. Just after four.”
“There you are, then. Couldn’t do it unless you were flying. And cottage traffic is thick in the summer. Wasn’t that a Friday, too?” He spread his hands in a fait-non-accompli gesture.
Belle nodded, glad that Mutt would get no further aggravation. “Case closed, then. Thank God. An accident was bad enough. I came to see you about something else, Steve. My van was sabotaged yesterday.”
“Broken windshield? Flat tire? Vandalism always rises when school’s out. Sorry about your new baby, though.” He’d taken her to a special roast and lunch at the Apollo when she’d signed the papers.
She took a deep breath and told him about the severed brake lines. “I’m sure this all started when I called in a report to CrimeStoppers about someone who left garbage in the bush, and I don’t mean a cigarette butt.” Describing the mess, she paused, afraid to proceed. Steve was furious when she put herself in danger. But he had to know how she’d found a name. “Then someone gave me a tip.”
“Really.” A muscle in his cheek twitched as he stared at her, and his voice was flat. “That restores my faith in humanity.”
She dealt out the details, reddening at the humiliation of sneaking around passing out twenties, playing private eye at the airport. “It made me so mad. How would you like it if someone trashed your backyard? That’s the way I feel about the bush. I walk those roads during bug season, and now I never want to go there again. You know the municipal government. No one’s going to clean it up. And those tires are good for a hundred years.”
“So you put up a notice that said, ‘Come get me, sucker’.”
“But I only gave my cell—”
Steve raised his large hand in an “enough” gesture. “We have to talk this out before it escalates. Listen up. The fact that he came to your place raises big red flags. Think anyone might have seen him?”
Her neighbours, the McNairs, had opened their cottage that week and stayed for several days. Now that the leaves were out in the brushy area between their properties, her parking area was half-shielded. A greenbelt formed the eastern side. But people drove by all the time, and they loved keeping an eye out for activity. A leaning tree cut. A new vehicle. Roof repair. But what if he had come at night? “I’ll make a few calls. What about dusting the van for prints?”
He shook his head. “Finding forensic evidence would be a joke, given that a hoard of mechanics worked on your van. We’re in luck if he has a record or, better yet, is on probation. Then I can yank his strings.”
She sat back, feeling like she’d had that cup of coffee after all, its rich aroma turning to acid in her churning stomach. An adult’s version of the principal’s office. Steve was riding to her rescue yet another time. The big brother she’d never had. “Thanks. I owe you . . . as usual.” She felt like buying him a decent watch to replace his plastic Timex Sport, but wouldn’t Janet love that?
The phone began ringing, and she rose to leave out of courtesy. He clapped her on the shoulder, giving it a squeeze that warmed her heart. “Just for now, even though it’s inconvenient, leave your van with the DesRosiers and lock your doors. If Joey’s behind this, he might be tempted to make a return visit.”
“Should I keep my shotgun handy?” she said with a half-smile on her face, knowing that he suspected that it was unregistered. Belle found the cash-cow gun laws hard to swallow, even outside of Alberta.
Shortly after five, Belle exchanged vehicles, then drove home and left her van at the DesRosiers’ for safekeeping. After dinner, she dialled the neighbours who lived farther down the road and might have passed her yard. Some were at their camps, some in town. No one had seen anything. A widow who didn’t like staying at the lake unless her family was there, Jeannie McNair spent only a few summer weeks at the lovely home next door. When she heard about Belle’s van, she tsked and said, “I was out working in the garden all afternoon. Rodney and I left after dinner and took the garbage with us. Those bears get into everything. Did you see the mess at Toivola’s?”
“There have been a few robberies, too. Missing anything, as far as you know?”
“We just opened up and got the water running again. The girls have too many dance activities to come out. Thank God they’re not into boys yet.” She paused as if in thought. “Rodney’s been looking for his chainsaw to cut a dead branch by the playhouse. Can’t find it anywhere. Of course, I told him he may have loaned it to someone last year and forgotten.”
Belle hung up, digesting the latest news. Prowling for property and cutting brake lines were two different animals. Still, she began sweating despite the chill in the room. Was a cruel June frost just around the corner?
TEN
Belle had spent the evening devouring Mutt’s book. Her family had lived in Toronto since her grandfather had come from the Bowmanville area to set up a greenhouse on Runnymede Road in Lucy’s days. She pictured the massive, buttressed churches still anchoring the downtown, St. James and Trinity. The St. Lawrence Market. Allan Gardens. Union Station. The dowager hotels like the Royal York and its counterpart, the King Edward. The majestic Romanesque red stone structures of Queen’s Park. Historic villages like Rosedale and the Annex, layered over time. And finally, the brick, Gothic-style apartment still standing at Wellesley and Church where her parents had conceived her, the floors so uneven from settling that a marble could roll down the hall. So many landmarks had vanished since Lucy had seen the last milk-wagon horses clump down the streets. Belle smiled at the mention of Gish’s Orphans of the Storm, a silent classic Lucy had seen with her detective “beau” Wilfred Pearson at the ornate Uptown, one of Toronto’s since vanished regal theatres.
Over coffee at six, having left the last pages until morning, she finally said farewell to plucky Lucy. Mutt had played fair with the reader and spun a tidy puzzle. She should have guessed that the friendly neighbour had connections with the rum-run
ners. Why not stop by on her way to work to tell him how much she had enjoyed it? After breakfast, she went outside and stared, trying to understand what was wrong with the picture. She slapped her head. No van.
Hoisting her attaché case, she walked up the long drive and turned right as a mini-schoolbus chugged by. With a cool north wind forestalling the usual cloud of bugs, she inspected the ditches for the latest plant arrivals. The bracken was unfolding its tiny green fists alongside the leafy nautilus of the fiddlehead ferns.
Half a mile later, she arrived at the DesRosiers’. Last night, when she’d told them about the damage, Hélène had urged her to stay over, but she treasured her independence. More precautions made sense. Little help the clumsy shotgun was, wrapped in a garbage bag in the basement rafters. Willie Mann, a snowbird neighbour, had hinted that he had a .22 Saturday Night Special for dispatching skunks and coons. Should she borrow it until this mess was settled?
At the kitchen window, Hélène waved her in, but Belle shook her head and pointed to her watch. Coming outside with a plate, her friend handed Belle a bran muffin, steaming in the cool air. “Were you okay last night? I’m worried about you, not your van.”
Belle suspected that the muffin was made with Sugar Twin and slathered with Becel, but she took a large bite, wiping the yellow product from her chin. Another triumph for Hélène, though Ed needed the diet, not his wife, slim in her purple velour robe. Savouring the plump raisins, Belle mmmm’d approval. “I was fine. Not a sound out of anyone, even my resident bear.”
“We’re used to that. Human beasts worry me more.” Hélène’s pleasant face amid greying curls reflected concern. “Why not stay here for awhile? Freya’s welcome, and the guest bedroom is yours. Remember our gin rummy games?” She gave Belle a quick hug, passing a scent of lilac talcum.
“This is very temporary. Steve’s working on it. I expect to hear from him any minute.” Not true. Steve had a job to do, and putting out her fires shouldn’t be a priority. The DesRosiers were guardian angels, but their guest bed left a spine begging for chiropractic adjustment. She’d probably gain ten pounds from the meals as well.
“Did you get your garden in yet?” Near the small oak tree decorated with juice-bottle bird feeders, Hélène pointed to her neat vegetable and herb patch, finely tilled and planted with stakes bearing seed packages. “Last night it was only three degrees. Too close for comfort. I had a couple of old sheets ready.”
“I was frosted twice last June. This weekend, maybe.” Too many diversions. If she didn’t get underway now, forget all those luscious zucchinis, beans and tomatoes. She felt like the laziest girl in town next to her neighbours, but retirement afforded far more than forty extra hours a week, what with the travelling time.
Accepting a refill for her car mug, Belle drove off. A few minutes later, she pulled into Mutt’s yard. He said he rose early to write, leaving the afternoon free for plotting. Where did he get his ideas? She couldn’t imagine sponging up life’s experiences. Eventually, he had to fabricate something. Perhaps that was the genius of a successful writer, weaving facts with fiction. Yet even this little road had a plethora of characters in search of an author. Two convicted child molesters, one for each sex, a suicide, a husband returning like Ulysses after thirty years, one motorcycle death, suspected incest, countless cases of adultery. And that was only the public total.
From the passenger seat, she picked up the trade paperback with a cover picture of Edwardian row houses, admiring the studio photo on the back, the confident pose, the casual tailored clothes. Mutt must fend off advances from both sexes and anyone in between. The dedication read, “To Gary. It’s about time.” Brief and heartfelt. What an irony, considering that it had run out for him so soon.
With no boathouse, the red canoe was overturned down on the beach, paddles on top. Since Mutt was staying for awhile, it might be fun to take a run down the lake, visit Flowergull Island, Bear Inlet, check the progress of the blueberries on the sunny banks of the shore. A picnic could be arranged, and her 1.2 horsepower motor would save their sweat. Then, out of a corner of her eye, she spied movement in the burning bush bed, one of Maureen’s hard-won prizes, zone five, closer to Barrie. Dirt was flying in all directions. She hustled down a wood-chip path and caught Buddy in the act. “Hey, you! Go bury your bones next door!” she yelled.
She waited until he had skulked back to Strang’s property and made a mental note to give old Bill a call. Mutt was too polite to lay down the law. Stepping onto the covered porch, she peered in through the handsome blue door, its top half-stained glass. Only darkness. Maureen had no bell, so she knocked loudly. No answer, even when she repeated the gesture. Puzzled, she checked around the side of the house, where the car and truck were parked. Was he in the shower? How embarrassing if she let herself in and he strolled out in a towel . . . or less. Had he gone on a walk on the paths across the road? She noticed two wine bottles in the recycling box. Getting into the sauce to lubricate the wounds of such a devastating loss, or merely making up for a restless night? Looking in impatience at her watch, her foot tapping, she considered the choices. Should she come back after work, or leave the book? The skies were massing with overstuffed clouds edged with silver, a predictor of thunderboomers. The porch might get wet. Too intrusive to open a friend’s door and slip it in? Time was ticking by.
She tried the door and found it unlocked. Mutt was adopting country ways, but in view of the break-in, a bad idea. As she entered and shut it behind her, the air seemed heavy and burdensome. She took a few tentative steps. An invisible hand clutched at her chest, and her eyes began to sting. Though the air was clear of smoke, she surveyed the fireplace. Swept clean. What was the heating system? Belle shook her head to clear her memory, recalling that Maureen also had a propane furnace. In the confusion of sorting information, feeling her knees weaken, suddenly she knew something was terribly wrong. Propane was essentially odourless, so producers added a disgusting smell for safety. She detected nothing but thought of that Falconbridge Road billboard with the cartoon character. Carbon monoxide fumes. The Silent Killer. She prayed that he wasn’t inside, but the odds weren’t favourable. “Mutt! Mutt!” she screamed at the top of her lungs as her hands grabbed the back of a kitchen chair for support. All was ominous silence. Fear charged down her spine like an electric rod, and she knew that if she didn’t get out now, she’d drop where she stood.
She wheeled for the porch, leaving the door open and taking great gulps of air, bending over, arms braced on her knees. Her temples pounded as she forced herself to think, shoving the instinct to panic to a remote corner of her brain. Don’t waste time calling an ambulance. By the time it arrived, Mutt would be dead, if he was still inside. She had to get him out. Yet it was suicidal to charge up the stairs to the master bedroom, only to asphyxiate herself. She’d take it in logical steps. Open the windows. Flip on the overhead Casablanca fans. Come back out. Breathe. Return. Open the back door and more windows. Turn the furnace off at the control by the fridge. She knew the layout by heart, had seen the blueprints and remembered each stage as the classic log home had been an entertaining creation on the road.
Breathing through a wet towel might allow her to reach the upper floor, she thought as she came out the third time. She couldn’t hold her breath all that way, much less haul back a body. A body. A shiver prickled her neck. Had he already joined Gary?
Windows open, a dishtowel soaked at the sink, Belle had completed her work downstairs. Already the air seemed lighter, a cool north wind blowing through the cross-ventilated windows, their chintz curtains pulled aside. She tied the wet towel around her mouth and nose like a bandit. Then she charged up the stairs, bruising her leg as she slipped on the slick, varnished wood. The thick banister was a solid round of pine, impossible to grasp. Reaching the landing, she raised the window, pressed her nose to the screen and gulped in fresh air. After re-situating her mask, she turned. Six more stairs, two at a time. To the left was the master suite, complete with jacuzz
i. Her eyes wild with terror, she rushed in.
Like Henry Wallis’s Chatterton on the daybed, alabaster skin shining, Mutt lay on his back, one arm draped over the side of the king-sized memory-foam mattress. Soft beige flannel sheets and a patchwork quilt covered him from the waist down. With a fierce cry, she flung open the windows and switched on the overhead fan. Had she been wrong not to call the ambulance, or was it already too late?
She tossed back the covers and reached forward, shaking him, momentarily heartened at the warmth of his shoulder. Instead of the red she’d expected, his impassive face was oatmeal pale, and he didn’t respond. If alcohol had compounded the poisoning, he might never come around. She had to move him, and fast. What did he weigh? One fifty? He was only a few inches taller than she but muscular in his navy silk boxer shorts, his well-defined chest smooth as a girl’s, the vaunted six-pack testimony of workouts. A lion’s head tattoo fit perfectly on his right pectoral, where perhaps a lover would admire it. The air was no longer pressing on her chest, so she moved quickly and with less panic. Tightening her towel again, she went to the large bathroom for a glass of water, returning to splash it onto his face, fashioning Byronic curls in his dark hair. No way could she haul a dead weight out of the room, down the stairs, and outside. Maybe she should have canvassed the nearby houses until she found someone home. Tears of doubt stung her eyes. Finally, she got a moan in response, then a cough.
“Wake up, Mutt. There’s a gas leak.” He was alive, but with every passing minute, chances for permanent damage increased.