Prisoners of Hope

by Barbara Fradkin

  Keep busy, she told herself, focussing on the terrain near the body. Everywhere were signs of disturbance — branches broken off, small shrubs uprooted, and moss ripped up — damage likely caused by their efforts to bury him. It was impossible to tell whether a deadly fight had happened here too.

  Standing on the trail, she tried to put herself into their shoes. The small bay where the police boat was going to land was only a short distance due east. If Ronny and Danielle had been crossing the island to get to the mainland side, as she and Chris surmised, they would likely have been heading along the trail to the same bay, which Ronny would have known well. But the trail ran along the top of the ridge as it skirted the lake rather than coming down into the dense brush where the body lay.

  Perhaps up here, somewhere along the top of the ridge, was where Ronny had died.

  She put Kaylee on her leash, retrieved her walking stick, and picked her way along the edge of the rocky trail. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for — a blunt weapon, a loose slide of rock, gouges in the slope — but she kept a close eye on Kaylee as she went. The dog, with her infinitely better sense of smell, might detect something Amanda couldn’t, like traces of blood or residue of human contact.

  Amanda didn’t plan to go far. She reasoned that the fight or attack would have been close to the burial site, because it would have been extremely difficult to move the body any distance through the densely wooded terrain.

  She had made it only a few yards when a scrap of red caught her eye, snagged on a jagged spur of rock at the edge of the trail. She bent for a closer look. Red cloth. The same red as the shirt Ronny had been wearing. Her heart hammered as she backed away and scanned the ground for more signs. Now, with her newly tuned eye, she spotted small scuffs, overturned stones, and broken branches at the edge of the trail.

  Had Ronny been dragged along here? The path had probably been disturbed by numerous feet since the killing; she and Chris had been along it, as had George and the police. Nonetheless, in order to minimize disturbance, she continued on tiptoe along the edge. Kaylee snuffled the ground intently, pausing to bury her nose in an interesting scent. Amanda pulled her away. If the dog detected traces of blood, the forensics cops would not appreciate her nose print in the middle of sensitive evidence.

  A few yards farther on, Kaylee swerved abruptly off the trail. The low-lying shrubs and forest mulch looked untouched, but Kaylee plunged her nose into the middle of a bush.

  “Wait!” Amanda yanked her back in case the murder weapon or some piece of key evidence had been tossed into the bushes. Or a snake lurked there.

  Carefully, she parted the shrub with her walking stick and peered down. There, nestled in the deep leaves, was a small, rectangular shape. She knew she should leave it for the cops, but curiosity got the better of her. Just a quick peek.

  Covering her hand with her sleeve, she used two fingers to fish out the object. A cellphone. She recognized the clear, waterproof case. Ronny’s cellphone.

  Chris is going to kill me, she thought. But what if Ronny left any last-minute clues that could explain what happened to him? Any texts, messages, or phone calls? If she was really careful, she could check without contaminating evidence.

  She knew she didn’t have much time. The police would be arriving any moment, and she would have to turn the phone over to them.

  To prevent fingerprints, she laid the phone on the ground and turned it on, relieved to see the screen light up. Four days in the bush, a torrential rainstorm, and the battery still functioned. Even better, Ronny hadn’t bothered to activate the password lock function.

  She bent over it to check his text messages. Nothing but a series of incoming texts from his father, demanding to know where he was. She tapped his browser and was surprised when it opened to a Flickr page of photos by H.B. Humphries labelled “Springtime on the Bay.” Odd that the last thing Ronny had searched on the internet was an album of photos taken by a dead man.

  Why?

  Quickly, she typed the link on her own phone — Chris was absolutely going to kill her — before moving on to his phone calls. Ronny had received a phone call from someone that first night of their camping trip. Who?

  When she accessed the list of recent phone calls, she was astonished to see he had made two calls on May 22. That was the day he’d died! The last was at 2:16 p.m., which, if her and Chris’s calculations were correct, was only a short time before.

  She copied the two numbers into her phone. She would check them out as soon as she had more time. The next number was an incoming call the previous night at 12:31 a.m. That would have been the mystery call he hadn’t wanted her to overhear. She entered that number in her contacts list as well. Scrolling back through the phone calls, she saw this same number repeated five more times over the past two weeks, but not earlier. The number had no name attached, so she would have to do more sleuthing to uncover who the caller was. But she had a strong suspicion: Danielle Torres.

  Danielle would have probably arrived at the summer home within the past two weeks, and Amanda knew she’d connected with Ronny at least once to set up the lawyer visit in Pointe au Baril. The first call had originated two weeks ago, followed by four calls during the week before Benson died.

  Plenty of time for them to have set something up, but what? Her escape or Benson’s murder?

  Gingerly, she parted the shrubs and set the phone back into the nest of leaves exactly where she’d found it before stepping back to study the surrounding brush. Several branches were broken, and one small shrub was flattened. Something violent had occurred here. A fight? An assault? Had the phone slipped out of Ronny’s pocket, unnoticed by his assailant, or had he tossed it into the bushes in a last-ditch effort to send a message?

  The path was full of jagged rocks that he could have fallen on, but the ferocious rain had washed away all visible traces of blood. Only Kaylee’s keen interest in the ground suggested there might be traces of human residue.

  She retreated along the trail toward the lake, peeking under bushes and ground cover in the hopes of finding more clues. About fifteen feet farther, Kaylee lifted her head sharply and stared over a steep drop at the edge of the trail. The cliff was almost vertical, falling away to thick brush about ten feet below. Kaylee’s nose twitched. It could be anything — a chipmunk, a vole, even a rattlesnake — but Amanda had learned to trust her dog’s senses. Keeping a tight rein on the dog and a close eye out for snakes, she circled farther over to avoid disturbing the scene, and worked her way back toward the base of the cliff.

  Thick shrubs and grasses grew in the loamy soil. Even with the insect repellent, mosquitoes and blackflies swarmed around her in delight. Flailing at them with one hand, she used the other to part the leafy canopy with her stick as she walked. Was this a fool’s errand? Had the dog found some dead animal or other treasure?

  Up ahead, in the shadow of the granite cliff face, she spotted broken branches and flattened grass. In the centre, a lichen-crusted rock protruded through the grass. Sunlight dappled the lichen, and flecks of iridescence glinted in the cracks. What was it? Dew? She peered closer. Her pulse spiked. No, not dew. Not clear.

  Rust red.

  The drone of an engine penetrated her focus. The police were nearly there. She scrambled back toward the trail. She had mere minutes to get back to the body, but before she did that, she wanted to phone the last number Ronny had called just before he died. Once word got out that he was dead, she would lose the element of surprise.

  The engine stopped, and shreds of male voices drifted on the breeze. Fending off the bugs, she pulled out her phone.

  It rang a long time, and Amanda was just beginning to wonder whether the owner was screening unknown numbers when the call was picked up. After a few seconds of ragged breathing, a harried woman’s voice came over the line.

  “Who is this?”

  Amanda analyzed the voice. Familiar. Where had she heard it? “Hello, it’s Amanda Doucette.”

  “Who?” />
  The voice was sharper now. More impatient. More imperious. Janine! “Amanda Doucette, Janine. I was at the cottage yesterday with your sister.”

  “What the hell? Why are you calling me? Candy’s not with me!”

  Amanda scrambled for a credible cover story. “I’m calling about Ronny. We’re very worried about him. He’s disappeared, and we can’t find him anywhere.”

  “Ronny’s a big boy.” Her voice chilled, and Amanda noticed she hadn’t even asked who Ronny was.

  “He hasn’t even called his father. But I know he called you a few days ago. I’m hoping he told you where he was going.” She held her breath. If Janine asked her how she knew about the phone call, she’d have no plausible explanation.

  Fortunately, Janine was not functioning on all cylinders. Lack of sleep, sedatives, or simple grief? After a long pause she came back on the line, her voice low and sad. “He just called to say he was sorry about Benson. He didn’t say where he was.”

  “But how did he find out? Your husband’s name hadn’t been released back then.”

  “Well, I imagine straight from the horse’s mouth — that nanny he’s run off with. And if I had any clue where the two of them are, trust me, the cops would be the first to know.”

  The line went dead. Janine had hung up. Her bitterness had sounded sufficiently raw that Amanda suspected she was telling the truth about Ronny’s disappearance. Unless she was an Oscar-calibre actress, Janine did not know that Ronny was dead. But Amanda was less sure about her claim that Ronny had phoned to offer condolences. She replayed the fateful afternoon’s scenario. Ronny and Danielle were hiking across the island, presumably en route to a rendezvous with Danielle’s husband and child. Why would Ronny stop in the middle of that hike to make a simple condolence call? That made no sense.

  When she and Ronny had rescued Danielle from the lake, she had been nearly incoherent, but she’d made no mention of Benson’s death. It’s possible that she told Ronny during their hike across Franklin Island, but that was still hardly the time for a condolence call. What made much more sense, Amanda thought as she spotted Chris and the police contingent striding over the rise, was that Ronny was puzzled by Danielle’s panic and her refusal to involve police, and he’d called Janine to find out what had happened at the mansion. After all, Janine and he were long-time, albeit estranged friends.

  But that raised more questions. Had Janine told him about Benson? About the nanny’s involvement in his death? If so, was that the reason he’d had to die?

  Amanda pulled the blanket tighter and snuggled more deeply into the crook of Chris’s arm. “I have a confession to make,” she murmured.

  “Mmmm?” He kissed the top of her head, but his voice had a wary edge.

  They were curled up on the sofa in their rental cabin, wrapped in blankets against the evening chill off the bay. Two tumblers of the finest single malt the Parry Sound LCBO had to offer sat on the coffee table, and a fire roared in the wood stove.

  It had been a long day with the police while they waited to be questioned and Amanda showed them the phone and the possible bloodstain she had found. Once the police had finally let them go, they had to retrieve their kayaks and paddle back to the mainland. The effort had demanded every last ounce of her energy. Back in their cabin, it had taken her more than an hour and two shots of Scotch to finally stop shivering.

  “Ronny’s phone …” she began.

  He waited.

  “I looked at it before I put it back.”

  Still he waited.

  “But I put it back exactly as I found it.”

  Silence, but she felt him draw away ever so slightly.

  “I was looking for clues.”

  “Spit it out,” he said finally. She told him about the phone call she had made to Janine and Janine’s implausible explanation.

  “The police are going to find out you handled his phone and called an important witness, and they’re going to be pissed.”

  “Not necessarily. Since Janine lied to me, she may not want the conversation revealed.”

  “The cops will find out. They’ll be looking at phone records.”

  She felt his suppressed anger, but she steeled herself to continue. She needed him to know what she had discovered. “I know you’re mad, but this is important. Ronny was looking at photos taken by H.B. Humphries on Flickr. I assume the B is Benson. I didn’t look at them, but I copied the link, just in case.”

  She could see that despite his disapproval, she had piqued his curiosity. The wary frown eased as he leaned toward her. “Photos. That’s strange.”

  “Shall we check them out?”

  She set her laptop on her lap and accessed the collection labelled “Springtime on the Bay.” The collection had been created only a week before his death but already contained over a hundred photos.

  Chris tilted his head to see more clearly and ran his finger along the sidebar. “It looks like he’s got a whole bunch of collections, dating back four years and mostly of Georgian Bay. So it’s possible Ronny’s just been following his photos for years.”

  She shot him a skeptical look. “Uh-huh. And just happened to look at them as he was rushing across the island.” She clicked on the latest collection and watched rows of thumbnails fill the screen. She scrolled through them, entranced. Close-ups of dewdrops shimmering on leaf buds, a chickadee at the feeder, a lone kayak heading out into the bay. Sweeps of granite shore, silhouettes of ragged pines, reflections of cloud on a glass lake.

  The photos captured the many moods of the bay, from dark, sulky clouds, swollen creeks, and angry whitecaps to the serene reflections of sky and fresh-leafed shore. “What an artist’s eye!” she exclaimed.

  “He wasn’t big on people,” Chris observed.

  “This was his relaxation. Maybe he got enough human drama at the hospital.”

  As if to defy them, a series of candid family shots came onto the screen. Danielle playing hide-and-seek with the twins and picking up pebbles on the beach with the baby, Janine on the deck painting her toenails. Photos of workers balanced on ladders, raking the gardens, and trimming deadwood.

  “Did you see any of these guys?” Chris asked.

  She nodded. “Ronny and I saw them when we went by in the boat, but they were all gone when Candace brought me to the island.”

  Chris nodded. “The cops would have shut down all work, taken statements, and sent everyone home.”

  “Janine and Benson were having a cottage opening party, so they brought in staff from Toronto.” She cocked her head. “Ronny wasn’t pleased. There are lots of local people needing work.”

  The next photo was of Danielle standing at the bottom of a ladder, steadying it and looking up at a young man removing an old bird’s nest from the eaves. “Looks like they had their nanny doing double duty on yard clean-up,” Chris said.

  Amanda studied Danielle’s face, which was tilted up into the sun. She looked amused rather than angry. The next photo was a close-up of the two of them standing in the shelter of the cottage wall, their heads bent toward each other as if in intent conversation. In this photo Danielle did look angry and the young worker thoughtful. One of his hands rested lightly on her shoulder.

  Amanda sucked in her breath. “Omigod! Do you suppose Danielle had an accomplice?”

  “This photo was taken with a telephoto lens,” Chris said. “Not unusual for a nature photographer, but it makes you wonder if he was deliberately spying.” He enlarged the photo with his fingers. “Did you see this man at all?”

  She studied the close-up. The man was wearing a Blue Jays baseball cap and sunglasses. He looked small, compact, and dark-haired, but much of his face was in shadow. “Certainly not her husband. I think he was the guy working on the dock.”

  “What was she up to? And I wonder when this photo was taken.”

  “Probably shortly before his death. We know they had only been at the cottage for two weeks.” She tapped the photo. “We have to find out who this guy is
.”

  “The police will be on it, Amanda. They’ll be checking out all the workers.”

  “But they might not know there was a secret relationship between him and Danielle. Maybe no one knew.”

  “Except the dead man.”

  A knock on the door startled them both. Chris opened it to find George standing on the doorstep, ragged and limp. He managed to utter one word, “Fuck,” before Chris grabbed his arm and drew him inside.

  “You need a strong drink, my man.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Three drinks later, slumped on the sofa, George began to talk. “There’s only ever been the two of us for near thirty years. His mother died when he was a baby — a snowmobile accident — and I … well, I wanted to keep things simple after that. Maybe a mistake, since Ronny chased everything in a skirt. Might have been what got him killed.”

  “For what it’s worth, George,” Amanda said, “I think Ronny was killed because he was trying to help. Maybe he trusted someone a bit too much, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, well, that was Ronny. Never saw the bad in people. Got himself used more times than I can count.” George shook his head as he took a sip of Scotch, spilling some down his shirt without seeming to notice. Or care. “Not by the local people. Growing up, every woman around took a turn at mothering him, and I was happy to let them do it. Maybe that’s why he grew up without the sense to say no to them.”

  Amanda laid a hand on George’s arm. She felt him flinch as if the tenderness hurt. “You can never love a child too much.”

  He stared into his drink. “I never strapped him, you know? Not even in his wild years with the band, the parties and drugs, the fast cars. The girls. People thought I didn’t care about those things, but I did. His mother died driving her snowmobile too fast. I lectured her till I was blue in the face, and all it did was make her go faster. Maybe if I’d …” He took another sip. “People do what they’re going to do, right?”