The Corpse With the Golden Nose

by Cathy Ace

  Damn and blast! What am I going to do now? I’ve got to get out of here.

  “Hello—can anybody hear me?” I shouted as loudly as I could. My voice rang around the canyon, and echoed back to me. It was a very lonely sound.

  Apple Juice

  MY STOMACH TIGHTENED, MY BREATHING became shallow and rapid. Don’t panic, Cait. Calm down!

  I shouted louder. “Helloooooo! Anyone there?” Once again my voice echoed back at me.

  “I’m here,” came a small voice. I jumped.

  “Hello—who is it? I’m in here—in the apple store!” I shouted.

  “Yes, I know,” said Colin MacMillan calmly, and quite close by. “You’ve been in there for some time. How did you get in?” he asked as he appeared from the deepening shadows beyond the gate. It seemed to be a very odd question, under the circumstances.

  I was a bit nonplussed, but I regained my focus quickly. “Colin. Hello. What are you doing here?”

  “I was just hanging out, down below, and I heard you shouting,” he replied innocently.

  I could tell he was lying. “No you weren’t. You’ve been following me, haven’t you? That’s why you seem to be everywhere I am. Colin, it’s not healthy, you know . . .” I stopped myself. It didn’t matter how unhealthy his obsession with me might be, the important thing was that he was there, and he could help.

  “Look, Colin,”—I adopted my “firm but fair professor” voice—“this gate has somehow shut itself and I can’t open it. Can you open it for me from there? It’s very important that I get out of here.”

  “It’s locked,” he said. “There’s a padlock locked onto a bolt. I’d need a key.”

  Of course! “That’s okay—I’ve got the key here,” I said, plucking it from the pile on the floor. I pushed the shaft through the iron bars, but the round knob on the end of the key, which I’d thought charming, if not quirky, now made the object too wide to fit between them. Damn and blast!

  “It won’t fit,” Colin observed.

  “No kidding!”

  “What shall we do now?” he asked. “I don’t think there’s much chance of me being able to break it off with a rock or anything. I’m not really that strong. Wiry, you know, but not strong.” He sounded deflated. “If I were The Doctor on Doctor Who I could use my sonic screwdriver,” he said, smiling hopefully.

  “Well, you’re not The Doctor, and neither of us has a sonic screwdriver, because they don’t exist!” I shouted back. “Fantasy is all well and good, in its place, but sometimes you just have to face up to reality and deal with it, Colin. The reality is that I need to be somewhere that isn’t here. Now!”

  I wasn’t as angry with Colin as I was with myself, but that wasn’t what he was getting out of this conversation, and he didn’t deserve it. I took a deep breath.

  “Colin, I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at me. Just give me a minute to think.” I did. Well, I took ten seconds because I’m bright and I can think very quickly. “Have you got a cell phone with you?”

  “Of course,” he replied, sounding hurt, “but there’s no signal here.”

  “Let me see,” I said, then added hastily, “I’m sure you’re right . . .”

  He was. No reception. So no phone call to Bud.

  “Would you be able to run up to Anen House and get Bud?” I asked. I knew he’d be there, and probably still be asleep.

  “Sure, but how will he open the lock?” he asked plaintively. I thought it might hurt the boy even more if I pointed out that Bud had a good deal more strength than he, and might well be able to smash the lock, so I didn’t say it. “He’s quite old. Like my Dad, or older even,” Colin added, rather unkindly, just as I was having charitable thoughts about him.

  “That’s a little unfair, don’t you think? Older can mean wiser, and can mean more able, not less able. I think I’m getting better the older I get. There’s a psychological proposition that many . . . of we marketers . . . agree upon that . . .” I stopped, hoping I hadn’t blown my cover story.

  “You don’t have to lie, I looked you up,” sighed Colin. “You know, you can’t really pretend to be someone else and hope to get away with it when you use your real name and you’re all over the internet, Doctor Morgan.” He shook his head.

  It was my turn to sigh. “Okay. Busted. It was my way of trying to get people to open up about Annette’s death without knowing they were talking to a criminal psychologist. I’m sorry, I apologize for lying. Now, can we please get me out of here?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “How?”

  I thought about it again. “Colin, can you take a photo of the lock out there with your phone?”

  “Sure,” he sulked. The flash snapped in the gathering gloom.

  “Okay, now hand it through to me.” He passed the phone through the bars, and I could see the whole lock and bolt arrangement. It was exactly as I remembered it. “Great photo. If you take that up to Bud, he’ll see that there are screws in the wooden panel that’s holding the bolt. If he can bring a flat-head screwdriver, and maybe some of that stuff that helps with releasing rusty screws, we could be in business. We won’t open the lock, we’ll just remove the whole panel. It’s not a sonic screwdriver, but it was you who gave me the idea, Colin,” I added, hoping it would cheer him up.

  He brightened a little. “Okay. How about I just ask the Corrigans if they have a spare key?”

  I laughed. “Yes, you’re quite right, Colin. But I’m pretty sure they don’t have one. In the key cupboard there were ten hooks in two rows, four had bunches of keys on them, no one key of which was big enough for this padlock, and on two of the other hooks were this key and one other, single key, that was much smaller. Of course, they might have one elsewhere, so, why not ask—let’s adopt a belt and braces approach, and do both, okay?”

  “Eidetic memory, eh?” asked Colin.

  I sighed and nodded.

  Colin shrugged. “Several of The Doctor’s incarnations have worn both a belt and braces, thereby ensuring a reduced risk of losing their trousers.” He giggled. I hoped his levity meant that I’d regained some favor in his eyes.

  “Colin—go, please! It’s important. Quick as you can, right?”

  “Sure thing,” he said, and off he went. Ten minutes up, ten minutes waking Bud and finding the bits and pieces, quicker if there’s a spare key, and ten minutes back down. I looked at my watch and then switched on all the bulbs. I decided I’d do something useful with the next half hour—root around in Annette’s belongings and hope to find something, anything, that would help me understand what was going on.

  It was clear that someone had locked me into the apple store, probably when I was floating away on a cloud of Beethoveny loveliness.

  Who even knew I was there? Only Lauren Corrigan, and she couldn’t have killed Annette because she was in Ireland at the time. I guessed she might have mentioned it to her husband, who was also not in the frame for the same reason as his wife, so what on earth was going on? Maybe the lurking Colin had seen something. I’d have to ask him when he returned. If he returned.

  I spotted a plastic storage bin marked ANNETTE—BOOKS #1. That might be interesting. To get to it I could see I’d have to move two from above it, both of which were marked ANNETTE—KITCHEN CUPBOARD #2. I reached up and shifted the top one. Whoa—heavy! Plopping it onto the floor, the lid loosened and I could see that the contents were spices, herbs, packets of seasonings, and a slew of tetra packs of apple juice. Why would Ellen keep all that?

  I pulled out a couple of the little packages of juice and stuck into one tiny straw that I’d peeled off its side. I sucked. It was pleasantly cool. The taste of apples revitalized my awareness of the smell of the place. It was very pleasant.

  Back to business!

  What about Colin? He obviously knew I was in the store. He’d been following me everywhere. He knew who I was, and that I was looking into Annette’s death. He could have locked me in. He’d admitted seeing Annette on the day of her death. And
no one else had verified his story, so he could have been making up the whole thing. Only Colin had suggested that Annette had been having an argument with someone. Only Colin had mentioned the snuff box. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more the pieces fell into place. Colin liked Annette—he “hung out” with her. Bonnie had said Colin always used to appear around the Mt Dewdney winery during Annette’s time there. Clearly, Colin had been following Annette the same way he was following me about the place. He’d probably been even more obsessed with her. Annette had given him gifts, he’d been a visitor at her house . . . on and on—so many links between a fragile, sensitive, unloved teen and an older woman who might not have known that he was infatuated with her.

  I pushed a rickety chair against the wall, to give it a bit of help with holding my weight. If I sat down and used my skills, I could do this. I could join the dots.

  I took a deep breath, and began.

  I hummed, closed my eyes, and took myself to the place where I can allow thoughts to free-form. I began to undertake the “wakeful dreaming” that I’d mentioned to Lizzie Jackson. All I had to do was think of each person in turn, and allow them to gather about themselves those things which were “theirs,” without my overlaying any sort of judgment upon the process.

  Annette’s face, the face I only know from a photograph, comes to me first: she’s holding a tiny little wooden box in one hand, and a giant garbage bag in the other. She’s laughing. She’s dressed in rags. Now she’s running toward the truck in which she died and floating into the cab.

  Ellen? Ellen’s scowling, she’s crying, she’s trying to stuff something large into a storage box, but it won’t fit. What is it, Ellen? Ah, it’s Annette. Of course. Annette won’t fit into the box because it’s too full of empty bottles of wine, snuff boxes, wine labels, and a giant scroll, which is obviously Annette’s will. Pages and pages of notes about “suspects” are floating in the air around her, fluttering at her feet.

  Raj Pinder floats toward me next: he’s holding a giant wine bottle and crying. “It’s perfect,” he says, then he’s fighting off Suzie Soul, who’s just appeared as a snake with a cat’s face (oh dear, that says more about me than her!). She’s coiling herself around Raj’s legs. He can’t escape. She eats him.

  Sammy Soul appears with a giant reefer between his lips, puffing away and chewing marijuana leaves at the same time. Serendipity is shouting at him—“Don’t eat the leaves!” She’s dressed like a picture-book angel, wings and all, and she’s flying up to the sky with her father running along the ground trying to catch her. She’s scattering a trail of what I know are snail eggs, but they look like tiny little snails, each with Raj Pinder’s face.

  I conjure up the Jacksons next: Lizzie is wearing a huge, faceted rock around her neck, it’s weighing her down, but she’s repeating a mantra—“Look into my eyes, my eyes, my eyes”—and smiling. Grant is tiny, like a little scuttling insect, but in almost human form. He’s running around on the ground beside Lizzie shouting loudly, but she can’t hear him, only I can: “Face It. Face It. You know, you know it. Face it.”

  Now Grant is chasing Sammy Soul, who hasn’t got a reefer any more, but he’s scattering cigarettes as he runs, still trying to catch the diaphanous gown of his daughter.

  “Don’t light it. Don’t light it,” calls Lizzie to Grant as he picks up one of the now-tiny cigarettes.

  Colin, Sheri, and Rob MacMillan appear in a puff of smoke. “Time travel is great,” says Colin to his parents, who start screaming at him that they want to go home. He’s crying now. His father is wearing boxing gloves and starts to punch himself in the head. His mother is crying too, she’s stroking Colin, petting him like she would a cat. Colin’s hair grows very long, and he starts to trot toward me. He’s panting like a puppy, but the sounds coming out of his mouth are the sounds of Doctor Who’s TARDIS as it lands.

  “I have to have it.” Annette has broken out of the storage box that Ellen is trying to stuff her into. “I have to have it!” She’s wearing a gas-mask, and she’s running toward Grant who is trying to hide from her giant feet. He grows to her size, and there he is, holding a large candlestick in one hand, a coffee roaster in the other. Annette grabs the candlestick from him and proceeds to bash away at the stacks of plastic bins that are suddenly surrounding her. They start to topple. Everyone is being hit by giant storage bins . . .

  I stopped. I pulled myself together. It was a start. What had I learned? Anything? What had I felt? Immediately I could sense obsession. Why? I gave it some thought.

  Everyone had an obsession: Annette and her snuff boxes; Colin and The Doctor, and probably Annette, and me; Raj and the perfect wine; Serendipity and the perfect food; Sammy Soul and his wife; Suzie Soul and her lovers; Grant and Lizzie Jackson, and their Faceting; Sheri MacMillan and her son; Rob MacMillan and his escape; Gordy Wiser and his orchards; Lauren Corrigan and her knitting; Pat Corrigan and his sausages. Marlene Wiser, poor Marlene, seemed to be the only one who hadn’t been caught up with something that was their distraction, or their focus—or maybe adopting six children was obsessive?

  I allowed my mind to wander back to Colin MacMillan. His sad home life; his other, fantasy world; the kindnesses Annette had shown him; their connection; his obsession. He knew about science; he had access to Annette’s home. She’d been acting strangely—had she offended him? Would she have known if she had? How would Colin react?

  I was questioning, judging. Was I now taking a step too far? Being too judgmental? Maybe I was nervous that I’d just sent Colin away, and he might never come back.

  Damn, I want a cigarette! Maybe that’s why I pictured all those cigarettes?

  I got up from the chair and walked over to the contents of my purse, still on the floor in a heap. I gleefully saw that the pile contained a squashed cigarette box, with two smokes in it and a limp book of matches. I gathered up the other bits and bobs and put back them where they belonged. I looked around. I couldn’t really see any harm in having a smoke. The door was wide open, even if the gate was locked. I lit up, and sucked in hard.

  The relief was tremendous. Okay, the rush was tremendous. I’m an addict. I admit it.

  Hobbies, obsessions, addictions. A continuum?

  I looked at my watch. Thirty minutes had passed. Bud should be arriving at any moment. If Colin had actually gone to get him, that was.

  I walked back toward the box of books I’d been intending to get to when I’d sidetracked myself. I pulled down the other kitchen box that was on top of it, and finally achieved my goal. Opening the box was a bit of a disappointment. I didn’t know what I’d expected to find, but what I saw was a pretty comprehensive collection of books about silver antiques. I picked out one or two, and wandered back to the spot near the gramophone, under a lightbulb. Inside the front cover of one of the books was an inscription: “To one of my best customers, G.”

  Of course! Grant Jackson! Why hadn’t I thought of that before! The candlesticks!

  Just then I heard a crunching noise beyond the gate.

  “Hello?” It was Colin’s voice.

  Quick as a flash I was back at the gate. “You’re back!” I was relieved.

  “Yep,” he said.

  “Where’s Bud?” I asked impatiently.

  “He wasn’t there,” he replied, “but I brought a screwdriver and some WD-40 ,” he added proudly.

  “Where on earth is Bud?” I might have sounded a little terse.

  “It’s a long story, so I’ll tell you while I try to undo this, okay?” replied Colin, as though speaking to a child. I wasn’t really in any position to argue.

  I sighed. “Yes, right, okay. I’m sorry. I’m just a bit . . . you know . . . tense.”

  “I might be only seventeen, but I am possessed of a modicum of perception,” said Colin loftily.

  That’s me put in my place! “What’s happened to Bud?”

  I peered as far as I could out of the gate, but all I could see was Colin’s left side. His tongue p
oked out and he was clearly struggling with the screws. I could smell the oily chemicals of the WD-40 wafting on the cool evening air.

  Putting his tongue back where it belonged, Colin spoke calmly. “Ellen came back to Anen House with Pat in his car. She asked Bud to drive her to the winery in his truck to collect some ice wine that she’d promised to take to SoulVine Wines for the dinner tonight, ’cos they don’t make it. They’d left before I got there, because she had to get to Serendipity’s restaurant before the other guests showed up. Lauren told Bud you weren’t due back at the B&B until seven, so he called your cellphone and left you a message. Pat’s a bit tied up right now, but he said he’d drive you over to West Kelowna when you’re out of here. He offered to help, but I said I could manage.”

  I took it all in. Ellen was pretty good at getting people, especially Bud, to help her out. But that’s what Bud’s like. Damsel in distress and all that.

  Well, I was a damsel in distress right now, and I could have done with his help. More than Ellen. But Bud hadn’t known that, of course.

  “Are you talking to me, or yourself?” asked Colin.

  I hadn’t been aware I was saying anything aloud. “Myself,” I replied.

  “Good,” he sniped back.

  “How’s it coming along out there?” I asked.

  “Just two more.” I could hear the effort in his voice.

  I stood as calmly as I could. I hate waiting. And it’s especially annoying when I’m not in control of the situation, where putting pressure on someone else does anything but help.

  I sighed. “What about you and Poppy du Bois then, Colin? I reckon you’d be spending your time much more wisely with her than following the likes of me about the place.”

  The sounds of Colin’s exertion stopped.

  “What do you mean Poppy? And what do you mean follow you?” He sounded quite put out.

  “Oh, come on, Colin, you’ve been following me about. Did you see who locked this gate, when you were skulking around out there?”

  “I wasn’t skulking and I didn’t see anyone. And what about Poppy?”