Murder Sees the Light

by Howard Engel

  “You can also go up the Durwent, or Tom River …”

  “That’s Mississippi on the map, right?” I asked.

  THIRTEEN

  It took me about three-quarters of an hour to boil a bunch of eggs until they were as hard as I like them and then make them into part of a cook-out supper wrapped in bread-plastic. I thought of taking the fish fillets on the trip but voted the idea down. One look at them in the refrigerator led me to believe they’d been multiplying while I was gone. Oh, for a little leftover turkey!

  Before I left Lloyd, he’d sketched a map of how to get into Little Crummock and where at least two people thought Dick Berners’s cabin might be.

  There was a new car in the parking lot between the Lamborghini and an OPP cruiser. From the lake I could hear more voices, but these were laughing and squealing with pleasure. Most of the lodge’s population was gathered on the dock: Cissy and the kids belonging to a new couple had just come in from swimming. Aline was working on her tan, and Westmorland and Delia were approaching the shore in a rowboat. They’d had all my cooking time to settle down. I saw no sign of George. Or David Kipp. A stranger with a comfortable paunch and a can of beer in his hand and Joan Harbison’s arm around his shoulders was sitting in a deck chair. He had a chubby face that still managed to look athletic, although I couldn’t see any sign of motion. He was wearing tan shorts and an inverted gob hat pulled low on his brow. Joan stayed close and was apparently telling him the news of the week. Roger Kipp stood to one side watching them. He didn’t know how to deal with the fickleness of women. His brother, Chris, was trying to interest him in taking pictures. I walked down to join the people. Joan made the introductions. Mike Harbison took off his sailor hat to reveal curly grey locks that looked like they had been arranged not by the artistry of nature but rather by the cunning of some Toronto hairdresser. He was wearing a Lacoste T-shirt with a little crocodile nibbling his left nipple.

  “I’ve just been catching up on the terrible news,” he said, shaking his ringlets. “It could do the lodge a lot of harm.”

  “I see the police have come back. Is it Glover or somebody else?”

  “There are five of them. They’ve got string wrapped around trees, sort of roping off the area around the culvert and the old Pearcy site. That’s where Aeneas had his tent. There’s a detective inspector and a sergeant. The others are trying to find Aeneas’s pick-up truck. Glover’s not been back, but I’m not surprised.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, simply put, Aeneas had a girl, but Harry Glover put a stop to it.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Aeneas was an Indian, and the girl, well, she wasn’t.”

  “And Glover of the OPP broke it up?” Mike nodded, and I could see he didn’t want me to press him any harder.

  Dripping kids were running the length of the dock, making Aline sit up quickly. Roger Kipp had taken his brother’s camera and was trying to get everybody bunched together for a picture. He waved his hands like a traffic cop, and we all said “cheese,” and he pushed a button to make us immortal. Westmorland and his girl, just coming up to the group, were also in the picture. The group expanded after the picture, like we’d all been holding our breath. Roger and Chris were talking to Des Westmorland. Delia stood by.

  “Come on, Roger,” he said. “You and your brother get in the picture.” Roger was pulling back and shaking his head. “Come on. Show some spirit. We’ll get one of you and your brother. Come along now. Nice big smiles, before the party breaks up.” Roger reluctantly turned the camera over to Des who began examining it from all sides. The two boys jammed into the group between the Pearcys and Harbisons. I could hear Chris muttering, “He’s got his stupid finger over the shutter.” I found my party smile where it was vacationing and paraded it out again. Meanwhile Des had discovered what all the mechanical outcroppings on the camera were for and was squinting seriously through the viewfinder.

  “Make sure it’s my good side, Mr. Westmorland,” said Joan.

  “What kind of cheese will it be this time?” asked Aline.

  “Push together more, please, you in front. Look pleasant, everybody.” With his eye still on the viewfinder, Westmorland began moving backward. Before anybody could say anything, he had backed off the edge of the dock, like a comic in a movie. The camera went back over his head as he suddenly found himself overbalanced and falling.

  “Look out!”

  “Mr. Westmorland! Look out!”

  “Desmond!” We all got a little wet with the splash. As soon as he picked himself up in the four feet of water, with his glasses dangling from one ear and we were sure that he was all right, we broke up laughing. Mike was first. It exploded in loud bursts. Roger and Chris forgot for the moment that it was their camera and split themselves at the sight of the man standing bewildered and surprised up to his belly in Big Crummock Lake.

  “Oh, dear,” he said. “I’ll never live this down.” He began to join in on the fun. Lloyd Pearcy went to the edge and offered him his hand, but Westmorland shook his head, and walked ashore first and joined us on the dock looking very red in the face.

  “Would you do that again, so we can get a picture of it?”

  “You’ve fed my best smile to the minnows,” said Aline. He took the ribbing as well as he could, but finally retreated to get changed. He took the boys with him, probably making his peace with the owner of the camera.

  “I don’t know what we can do to top that bit of excitement,” said Mike Harbison, taking a sip from the beer can and wiping his chin with the tanned flat of his hand. “I could invite everybody for hotdogs tonight around the barbecue. How’s that?” The new kids liked that, and began dancing up and down, then ran off to report the news to their parents. Joan rolled with the punches, I thought.

  “I do enjoy an old-fashioned hotdog roast,” confided Cissy, looking up at me for confirmation.

  “Yeah, they’re a lot of fun. We used to hold them at camp when I was younger. A little sing-song, a story, some marshmallows. Nothing like it. Unfortunately, I won’t be here this evening.”

  “Not be here?” She was blinking in disbelief, like I’d said that God was a toaster.

  “I’m just getting ready to head off on a fishing expedition. I want to get some big ones in Little Crummock Lake.”

  “Oh, I see. But it’s too late to start today. Why don’t you make an early start tomorrow? We’d so like to have you. Especially if there’s going to be singing.”

  “Thanks, but I think there’s light enough to see me most of the way. I’ve got a good map. Doesn’t look too difficult. Not for an old camper like me.”

  “I see. Well”—she was adjusting to a smaller universe—“you’ll be missed.” She was playing balletic games with her small red hands over the back of her chair. “Did you hear, Lloyd? Benny’s not going to be here for the roast. He’s going in to Little Crummock to camp out.”

  “Too late to start today, Benny. I’ll help you pack so you can get an early start in the morning.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “It’s rough going.”

  “I’ll only be gone overnight. Besides I’ve got your map.”

  “Well, I guess you know your own mind. The worst of the sun is over. Have you got a sleeping bag?”

  “I was just going to take a blanket roll.”

  “Don’t say another word. Joan has plenty of sleeping bags. Have you gassed up?”

  “I’ve got most of a tank. It’ll see me up and back.” Cissy passed the word to Joan, and soon everybody was planning my trip for me. For a minute I thought I was going to get a replay of the conversation with Dalt Rimmer and Lloyd. Joan left the dock to find me a pack sack. Cissy went to wrap a piece of cake. Mike Harbison was beginning to tell me how to make bannock over a fire, when I caught Lloyd off at the end of the dock scanning the clouds for signs of bad weather. I’d just about decided not to go when things started arriving back at the waterfront: a canteen of water, a firs
t-aid kit, a knapsack big enough for a marshal of France to set up a recruiting office in, and a heavy-duty sleeping bag wrapped in a ground sheet. There was no way out.

  I watched the way Joan packed. She was efficiently made and didn’t waste a gesture. Meanwhile, Cissy packed the way she talked, full of sudden pauses and second guesses. I didn’t lift a finger; I wasn’t allowed to.

  “Do you like sardines, Benny?” Joan slipped in two cans. Mike came back into the picture carrying a box from Switzer’s Delicatessen in Toronto. He took three frankfurters from it and wrapped them in foil. Franks from Switzer’s and I wouldn’t be there to help eat the rest of them. I wondered if there wasn’t a way out of this yet. I walked out to the end of the dock to talk weather with Lloyd.

  “You should be all right,” he said, taking his beady eyes off the horizon. His pointed beak of a nose was calling home all the subtle signs of the day to come.

  “Think so?”

  “Yeah, you’ll be all right.” Lloyd looked down at my feet. “You know where you’re standing?” I looked down to find a clue.

  “Nope.”

  “That’s where old Trask hit his miserable head. Right on the end of the board you’re standing on. Bashed it in after falling from a ladder where I am.”

  “You saw it happen?”

  “No, but everybody knows what happened. Probably didn’t even feel himself rolling into the lake.”

  I was standing on a very ordinary piece of dock made from two-by-six planks.

  “It’s the one that sticks out that did for him,” Lloyd added, as though knowing which plank made all the difference. It was like old people recounting their last meeting with a deceased dear one who’d “had a warning.” To be fair, the plank Lloyd’s toe pointed to did jut out from the others because it held a cleat for tying up boats to; it looked like a place where Trask could have put a bad dent in his skull.

  “He was working on the dock, somebody told me,” I said.

  “Yeah. That’s right. Dalt Rimmer finished it up before Joan and Mike took over. Old Wayne built her just two boards along from the one he hit. The rest’s Dalt’s. I can always tell Dalt’s work. He’ll never use three nails where one will do. Wayne, now, he never drove two nails the same way, always going around half-cut, if you know what I mean. If his right thumb wasn’t black it was his left. That was a man for accidents, all right.” Here Lloyd shook his head, as though Trask were standing in front of him swearing from a newly banged finger and reaching for a swallow of comfort.

  “Well, if I’m going, I’d better be going,” I said. I could feel Lloyd’s eyes on me as I made my way past those left at the shore end of the dock to the cabin for my lunch and supper. I added a few biscuits and oranges to the eggs and other things, then returned to the pile of supplies. A few minutes later they were all gathered on the end of the dock and I was returning their waves as I started to steer a course up the lake past the first and second islands to the river entrance. I heard Lloyd shouting and jumping around on the shore, so I turned to look back. He was holding my fishing rod and box of sinkers. I went back to collect them. I didn’t say anything. There were fewer wavers when I set out on my great adventure the second time.

  FOURTEEN

  I found the river mouth, and then the faded orange portage sign face down in the bushes, where it wasn’t much help to anybody. Dealing with nature directly, without names, eliminated a lot of confusion. I’ll recommend it to Dalt Rimmer when I see him again. I pulled the boat ashore in a bit of scrub that passed for a clearing and set the motor under it. The sun was still high enough so that I could hope to get to the smaller lake well before dark. I hefted the pack by leaning it against a tree. When I had it on, I wasn’t sure which of us was leading. The way ahead led through the bush on a path that had been well trodden at one time, but which was beginning to allow new growth through the packed earth. Off to the right from time to time I could hear the sound of falling water, occasionally glimpse it. If I hadn’t been loaded down with my pack and fishing things, I would have made a side trip to see what was what. I kept to the straight and narrow until I thought my knees would give up and quit. I remembered the map Lloyd had drawn for me, now riding near the top of the pack, but now out of reach: three and fiveeighths miles. That’s a long hike when measured in city blocks.

  Apart from the sound of the water from time to time, and the warning from some startled bird, the place was quiet. You could have heard a drunk hiccup at three hundred yards. Light filtered through the leaves like weak coffee. The way the underbrush came up to meet the lowhanging branches of the maples, birches, and other trees made the path into a shaggy tunnel. For the most part the way was dry, but there were spongy places that did in my shoes, which, like me, weren’t intended for this kind of life. Settling on a stump, I took a rest at what seemed the half-way point. After a welcome cigarette, I was on the march again, whittling down the distance. But there always were more hills and turnings ahead.

  At last I saw a clearing forming in the distance, and when I got there I could glimpse water spread out ahead through the trees. It was a twisting quarter of a mile downhill. I was wet with sweat and out of breath. I’d have thought that the downward trail would have been easy, but it wasn’t. The front of my shins were yelling at me every step to the lake. I had another smoke overlooking Little Crummock: another long narrow lake with what looked like a twist at the far end. I took Lloyd’s map out of my pack. There was a path along the south shore that was supposed to lead to Berners’s cabin.

  With my breath fairly caught, I hoisted my rig and set off down the south shore. This path was in the same poor shape the other one was in; I wandered away from it twice ending up in one of the better places in the world to discard old razor blades in. In fact this whole north country was good for that; some places were harder to find, that’s all. Then I thought about the stuff in the newspapers about pollution in the rivers and mercury in the fish, and I decided that old razor blades take different shapes in different settings. I heard Lloyd talking one night about the lumbering that is still going on in the park, and wasn’t that a shame. Then David Kipp told him that cutting helped maintain the place as a usable wilderness area. You don’t know who to believe on a thing like that. Anyway, I found my way back to the path and kept on it for another hour and a half. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for having managed to get so far without asking directions from a policeman. My feet had got the hang of avoiding roots and animals’ burrows. It was like they had taken over the matter of avoiding a twisted ankle in order to free my mind for more important things.

  The only more important thing I could think of was why was I going into Berners’s cabin in the first place. For all I knew, Patten could be dead or driving for the border right now. What did I expect to find at Dick’s place? Did I think it linked up to the murder? I asked myself these questions but got no satisfactory answers. So I kept walking. By now I was beginning to suspect that I was on a treadmill, and that the scenery drifting by on both sides was a loop that I’d seen before. When you come from the city, you can only take outdoors in small doses. If I saw another blank stare on the frozen face of another deer or another cute chipmunk perched on top of another bracket fungus, I’d throw up. There was the unmistakable hand of Walt Disney in all this. A game bird of some kind I’d seen in Bambi ran along the path for a few yards followed by an active brood of eight offspring. All it lacked was a musical score and a philosophical old owl.

  Then I saw it. Dick Berners’s cabin was sitting high on the uphill side of the path looking as silent and as natural as the rotted stumps I’d been walking over. It was a very cabin-like cabin, built of medium-sized logs, with a peaked roof, tin smokestack in the middle, and old sawblades nailed across the windows with their teeth pointed up, to discourage bears and other unwelcome visitors. The door was fastened with a rusty tongue and hasp and an old padlock that broke when I blew hard at it. Inside it was dark. I saw a woodstove with a rusty pipe slanting to the roof
, a plain table with curling oilcloth, a bed with a damp-looking mattress on top, with dark stains and holes from which a froth of fuzz overflowed. Along the wall were shelves with cans with darkened familiar labels indicating beans, vegetables, and soup. A broken bag of something white that the mice had discovered and dragged off leaned against a row of books, and there was a japanned canister that still smelled strongly of tea.

  Since I was planning to stay the night, I reconnoitred light fixtures and a greasy-topped jerrycan of coal oil. I could see where candles had been mounted in dead sardine cans, but the mice had eaten them. There were signs that Dick had tried to keep the wildlife at bay: pieces of tin were nailed over holes in the floor. The place smelled musty and sour, like it hid a nasty secret.

  I stashed my pack on the bed and smoked a cigarette in the single wooden chair. Not feeling up to dealing with the mysteries of Dick’s stove, I ate a cold feast out of my pack: hard-boiled eggs, sardines, a handful of bread, and an orange. I even sampled Cissy’s cake. While doing this, I had the leisure to cast my eye around the single room in more detail. It was roughly chinked with cement, decorated with a few crude oil paintings on slabs of wood, brothers to the ones I’d seen. There were other pictures too: a British bulldog standing firm on a Union Jack, torn from a Sunday colour supplement and going brown; a picture of four young men in uniform, two of them sprouting first moustaches. A washed-out cloth poppy was pinned to the frame, a leftover from some forgotten Remembrance Day. Above the door, stuck up with a yellowed Scotch tape, was the top of an American newspaper: The Evening Star, written in old Gothic type. He had a collection of cardboard beer mats from places like The Elephant Public House, St. Nicholas Street, Worthing and The Midland Hotel, Peter Street, Chichester. On one wall, between two pairs of deer antlers, a stringless guitar hung from a leather strap. On top of the table I was sitting at, I found a Spanish rope lighter, in the drawer a yellowed ivory-handled knife with rust spots on the blade along with matching single fork and spoon, all liberally sprinkled with mouse turds. In general, the cabin contained nothing of obvious value. I guess that was the saw-off in the north: you didn’t fill your place with burglar-tempting stuff and left it protected by a simple lock. Outsiders, except in emergencies, played the game and respected private property.