by Lou Allin
“Good for you. Some pigs left a bunch of clothes by the mailboxes last year. Me and my bro cleaned it up.” Dressed in a leather vest over a T-shirt that read “Will Work for Shoes” and pyjama-style shorts, ZZ put her hands on her hips and twisted her head to better investigate Joey. “What are you going to do with him? He looks stupid but dangerous. Does he belong to a motorcycle gang?”
No telling how long Joey would be in slumberland. Minutes perhaps, then what? “He’s not organized enough for that. I’m going to the boathouse for some rope. Tell the dog to ‘get’ him if he wakes up.”
“No problem. I’m a black belt in karate. When you’re short like I am, it helps. And I love dogs. Here, girl.” ZZ knelt and cuddled Freya’s head, scratching her ears to deliver pure bliss.
Puffing from haste, Belle returned with a large coil of polypropylene rope and tied Joey as uncomfortably as possible. Then she speed-dialled Steve at home. His wife Janet answered.
“It’s Belle. I need to speak with Steve. Police business.”
A telling moment of icy silence. Belle looked at the receiver, wondering if they’d been cut off. Then Janet’s childlike voice assumed a studied innocence with a heaping tablespoon of umbrage. “I’ll just bet. He has an office and regular hours. Why do you insist on—”
“I’ll apologize to him, if you don’t mind.”
“Hon-bun, it’s that woman,” Janet called over the noise of a television and Heather’s musical laughter in the background. The receiver landed on a hard surface with a decisive crack, but the connection wasn’t broken. Anyone would think they were having an affair. Janet probably did. Belle doubted that he reported their occasional lunch dates, since he always paid in cash.
She explained about Joey’s visit, squirming at first but proud at the results.
“You what? I don’t believe it.” She imagined him passing a hand through his thick hair, thunderclouds gathering on his broad brow. Silver patches at his temples were spreading, thanks in part to her.
“Take it easy. I’ve already heard lecture 322. All I was trying to do was clean up the bush. How did I know I was going to unearth a psychopath? And you told me he was gone from the area.”
“That’s not what I said, and you know it. Ten points for not turning him into meatloaf with your twelve-gauge.”
“I hate to ask, but can you handle this yourself? You’ve been checking his records and know the situation.” She felt like patting herself on the back for her citizen’s arrest.
“You’re lucky I finished dinner. What a pot roast!” His dramatic tones conveyed the idea that someone was listening. Steve took guff from no one but his wife, and that he did for Heather. “I’ll clear it at headquarters, get another officer to assist, and be there in an hour. You said he’s tied up? Nice and tight?”
“Granny knots by the pound. And I have a star witness to the assault.” She shot a glance at ZZ, laughing as she tossed stones for Freya. The dog always suckered visitors into doing her will.
Flipping on the deck and yard lights after disconnecting, Belle went inside to make cocoa, a teen choice, and set the bouquet in water in a crystal vase. Huge red roses with ferns and babies’ breath, they must have cost.
“I think he’s coming to,” ZZ said later, dipping into the Peek Freans as they sipped from warm mugs on the deck stairs. Rolling over, Joey shook his head like a wet dog and began exercising his lowlife vocabulary, spitting at them just out of range.
“I’m sure you’ve heard worse, but it’s so ordinary,” Belle said. “Shakespeare made swearing a fine art. Away, you cut-purse rascal. You mouldy rogue. You filthy bung.” She shook her fist at Joey, who scowled and squinted at a foreign language.
Laughing in a musical cadenza, ZZ launched her long hair over her shoulders like a cape. “That’s way better than Julius Caesar. It sucks big time. We had to memorize fifty lines. ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen. Lend me your ears’? Give me a break.”
Her perspective was refreshing for Belle, but she supposed it might pall when Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton entered the discussion. She sipped the chocolate, made from melted semisweet blocks.
“Is he, like, going to jail? Cool.”
“He’ll be, like, cooling for a long time.”
Grunting like a warthog, Joey twisted himself into a sitting position. “I got friends,” he said.
“In high places, no doubt. Gets his ideas from country music.” Belle tapped ZZ’s arm. “We’ll add uttering threats to the report.”
An hour later, true to his word, Steve arrived in the passenger seat of a squad car, a beacon light in the coal-black night. He and Officer Kelly Size, a short-haired blonde woman in her thirties, gave Joey the once-over. Kelly stifled laughter despite her no-nonsense attitude.
“Don’t expect bail, Joey. That warrant shows that you’ll run,” Steve said. “And as for two-years-less-a-day, you’re into the big time now. Got any buddies at Millhaven?”
Joey gave a theatrical moan. “I need to go to the hospital. Think I got a concussion. The bitch nailed me with a shovel.”
Steve craned his head around as he winked at Belle. “What shovel? You must be hallucinating. Sampling too many of your own wares?”
Kelly knelt to inspect the maze of knots, tipping back her cap. “We need to cut this mess, or we’ll be here all night.” Steve wore civvies, and her belt was shy of cutlery.
Belle reached onto the top of a beam underneath the deck where she kept hand tools for the garden and pulled out a paring knife. Kelly cut the Gordian knot, then with an efficiency of purpose, slipped Joey into a set of plastic cuffs and leaned him against the stairs for a body search, turning up a tiny .25 calibre in an ankle holster.
“A gun, too? Very bad idea,” Steve said. “I suppose it’s registered? In Texas?”
After Joey was safely in the back seat of the cruiser, Steve took them inside for a preliminary statement. “You spell it how?” he asked, scratching his head.
After the cruiser left and ZZ promised to return some weekend to teach her a few defence moves, Belle was finally alone, trying to wind down. At least Bartko was in custody. Turner Classics was showing Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean and Sal Mineo, two young men whose sexuality burned like comets. Nubile Natalie Wood aside, a superfluous character, director Nicholas Ray had made subtle use of the chemistry between the men. On that fatal night, as if studying his future, Sal as Plato looked with puppy eyes at Jim Stark, played by Dean. Their careers had guttered quickly, an early death by Porsche for Jimmy and a fast knife in an underground parking lot for Sal.
Then the phone rang. “It’s . . . Mutt. Sorry to call so . . . late, but—”
FOURTEEN
Belle let out a war whoop that echoed through the house. Freya picked up on the mood and joined the pack howl, her silken head thrown back in abandon. Apparently Mutt had awakened late that afternoon. Cognitive and physical tests had kept him busy, along with eating everything in sight. Two young nurses had even fetched submarine sandwiches.
“What have you got there, a bunch of wolves?” His voice was slow and deliberate, but stronger than she’d imagined.
Belle laughed. “Freya, that’s enough. And you’re fine now?” she asked, hoping that a positive question would win a positive answer.
A few seconds passed before he answered, hardly the eager conversationalist she recalled. “Those hyper . . . whazzit chamber sessions did a number on my claustrophobia. When I came to, I thought I was in a horror movie buried six feet under. Screamed like a girl. They had to give me a shot of Valium before I calmed down. Then I conked out for awhile.”
Briefly, she told him about the furnace. “But it’s all fixed. Safety measures in place.”
“That is weird. Sure, I’ve seen the occasional mouse under the bird feeders, but I never gave it a thought. You didn’t put any poison around, did you? A couple of cats—”
“Never. A poisoner is the lowest life form.” The notebooks sat in a pile on the table. Would Mutt
be offended to learn that she’d been rummaging through the desk, if only to get a contact number for his sister? “When I looked for the address book, I saw Gary’s notebooks and planned to bring them to you at the hospital. You circled a couple of terms and made notes. ‘Benthic’. When the nurse said you mentioned a Ben, at first I thought—”
She heard a long and frustrated groan. “God, that seems so long ago. It’s like my mind has been journeying from one end of the galaxy to the other.”
Belle chuckled at the Mutt she remembered. “You sound sharp enough.”
“In the present, sure, but I don’t remember much from the last couple of weeks. The doctors say that it’s going to take awhile for my memory to return. Isn’t that great news for a novelist?”
Her heart plunged at the thought. In a series, continuity was everything. Would Lucy Doyle become a footnote in Canadian crime writing? “You just woke up. Don’t rush it. Take life a day at a time.” Now she was doling out canned advice like a pop psychologist.
“I wanted to pull his research together, but honestly, don’t ask me to add four and four. Maybe you can make sense of the notebooks. As for my novel, I’ll never make the October deadline if this keeps up, and my publisher will have a fit. It’s like juggling six tennis balls.” His voice trailed off.
The conversation was growing grim. She needed to ask him about that white Buick, but if he couldn’t remember that night at all, it might depress him further. Then she remembered Megs. “Has your sister been by?”
“An hour ago. She managed to offend everyone within a hundred yards, especially the doctors. But I owe you for getting in touch with her. She told me about your dinner, too.”
“Hey, you don’t get to pick your family. And she did come to see you.” Not to mention telling me intimate details about your life. Had he and Gary really gotten into physical fights? “I hope you still intend to stay for awhile. Do you need a lift back to the house?”
“Those were my original plans, and this development has cinched it. Maybe lying on the dock catching a few rays will help. As for the ride, Megs is coming tomorrow morning. Double-decker broomstick.” He gave a half-hearted laugh, then started to cough. Had his breathing been affected, too?
He gave a long sigh. She could feel the weariness. “Listen, Mutt. You’d better rest—”
“Dad’s in tough shape. I need to go to Hamilton as soon as I get back on my feet. He’s not such a bad guy. Maybe this will give him second thoughts. Megs said that Mom’s coming around, too.”
After hanging up, Belle bit her lip. With Mutt hors de combat, any progress with that elk research was up to her, no matter her limitations. The Internet had been too generous about “benthic”, giving her ten thousand hits and hundreds of pdf pages. Maybe she could nail two chores at the Ministry by checking to see if more of Gary’s material had turned up.
The next day at Canadian Tire on Barrydowne, where seasons alternated between garden tractors or snowblowers lined up at the door, folks were muscling out boxed air conditioners. Belle picked up more water filters. She should start drinking only bottled, but it was so expensive, as were decent reverse osmosis systems. Her line emerged a hundred feet out into the lake, where the water was deep and cool, and sat on a tripod to keep it from sucking muddy sediment. Even so, creatures unseen to the human eye might lurk in the warming water.
At the Ministry, the same pleasant older woman greeted her at the reception desk. “Hello, again. Is that handsome Mr. Malloy with you?” She peered past Belle, searching with some disappointment, and why not? He was a treat for the eyes, no matter your preference.
“No, he’s—”
“He came back to check the office again. Friday last, I’m sure. My, didn’t he get into a row with Dave. And then . . .” A crease appeared between Marj’s calf-brown eyes, and she clucked in disapproval.
Belle took a moment to digest that news. So Mutt had forgotten that he’d been to the Ministry. Had he found anything of value? If so, where was it? “We’re still trying to track down missing parts of Gary’s research,” she said.
Marj teased a tendril of hair out of her face, a faint aroma of vanilla in the air. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but Dave’s gone,” she said with an effort to keep her voice low as a trim man in his thirties dressed in a khaki uniform with Ministry patches came down the hall.
“Jeff, did you get one of my cookies?” She reached onto a shelf and passed him the plate.
Jeff slipped a few into his pocket. “Another bad day for Bullwinkle. Blood and gore all over Route 144 near Cartier. No human fatalities. Used to be that the soup kitchens could take the meat. Now it’ll be wasted. Go figure.”
“Possible lawsuits, I guess. Times aren’t as simple now,” Marj observed.
Belle accepted a cookie as well. Oatmeal and chocolate chip. “So Dave’s gone? Did he finish his project?” she asked between bites.
Marj put a finger to her full cranberry-red lips and ushered Belle down the hall to the office, bare from wall to wall. “Turns out Dave wasn’t doing very well at the university. One day last week he didn’t turn up. Seems like he left town. Took our new Nikon D100 with him, along with a seven thousand dollar long-distance lens. Rosaline was beside herself.”
“Quite a haul. I can well understand why she was upset.” If any records remained in files or as copies, enlisting Marj’s aid would be critical. Belle flashed a pleading smile. Time to tweak the maternal instincts, or something hotter. “I’m here alone because Mutt’s had an accident.”
Marj gave a small gasp, but Belle held up a reassuring hand. “He’s going to be fine. I’m taking over for now. Obviously everything’s gone from the office, but I’m sure you have a finger on the pulse of this place. My office assistant knows more about my business than I do.” Did she really say that? Shameless flattery.
The woman’s eyes crinkled, and she smiled, so Belle added, “Is there anything else you can tell me about Gary’s routines? Something that doesn’t make sense?”
Steepling her slender fingers in thought, Marj gave her memory a scan. Her lips pursed at a sudden thought. With military swiftness, she unclipped a PDA from her belt and plugged in a few numbers, nodding to herself. “There is the water.” As Belle pricked up her ears, she explained that Gary had sent test tubes to their lab on a regular basis, never missing a week.
“That surprises me. He was a zoologist. Why this great interest in water?” She was absorbing information like a three-year-old at a Baby Einstein unit.
Marj chuckled and patted her arm. “All life is about habitat. Food, water, shelter and predators. We’re all dependent on our environment. That’s why our work here is so important, dear. Do you watch David Suzuki’s show?”
“Wish I could, but I have only one channel. As for habitat . . .” Belle wondered at the “dear.” Good thing Marj was older. When a younger person called her that, she’d get in line for a room at Rainbow Country. She tapped her temple in a “duh” gesture and grinned. “Right. As a realtor I should understand—location, location, location.”
“We’ll see what we can find. I have a few ideas. Follow me.” Back at her desk, Marj consulted a sheaf of papers in a tiered tray and looked up with a puzzled expression. She disappeared around a corner and came back minutes later with a shrug. “How odd. There’s no record of the results of his last tests the Friday before his accident, and I checked the duplicates. I wonder what could have happened to them.”
Belle folded her arms. “Sabotage from Dave, maybe. With his dislike of Gary—”
“Dislike? My goodness, I’m sure I never mentioned . . . Did Rosaline—”
Down the hall came the sleek, teal-suited form of the director, Rosaline Silliker. Her low, white slingbacks were stylish yet comfortable. Belle wouldn’t have minded adding an inch or two to her own frame, but the need to tramp cottage properties put strict conditions on footwear. “Did I hear my name? Speak of the devil and all that.” She regarded Belle with a broad smile and shook hand
s. Her buffed nails were short and practical. Perhaps she still did field work.
“Ms Palmer, was it? You left one of your cards.”
Belle looked from one woman to the other, sensing that she might be making a pest of herself. This development was interesting, and she wanted to follow it up. “Sorry to bother you kind people again.” She repeated her intentions about the project.
The phone rang. Rosaline gave Marj a boss’s eyebrow and checked her slim gold watch, making Belle feel distinctly in the way. “We’re expecting a delegation from Michigan today. All about new strategies for those tent caterpillar invasions that don’t respect borders.”
“Unleash the government flies.” Marj’s eyes assumed a pixie look as she picked up the receiver.
Rosaline gave a gentle laugh at Belle’s confused face. “One of our jokes. Nature sends those flies to attack the egg cases of the caterpillars, but everyone gives us credit.”
Belle said, “Even my neighbours believe that urban legend.” Friendly flies, some called them. Or lazy flies, fat and easy to swot. They left their little poop markers wherever they landed and had her roaming with a bottle of spray cleaner and a disgusted snarl.
“Come to my office, where we’ll be more comfortable. I might be able to send some business your way, too. I was going to call you.”
Perking up, Belle followed her like a puppy scenting bacon on the fry. Some people thought her pushy, passing all those cards around, curbside-car-dealer style. It was merely good business. She griped about buying nickel-and-dime ads while Cynthia Cryderman, the largest realtor in town, with a pink limo, hair to match and an advertising budget to rival Molson’s, drummed her phone number into local brains with an annoying but effective radio ad.
“Water? Sorry there’s no coffee. I’m trying to cut back. High blood pressure and heart problems run in my family. And a little elegance helps the illusion.” From a tray with a white cloth, she picked up a delicate goblet and filled it at a large cooler.