Murder Sees the Light

by Howard Engel

  I was too turned around to go back to sleep, so I pulled on some clean clothes, added a sweater because I felt a chill, and walked over towards the Annex. It was like the last time I was there, and the time before that. Lloyd Pearcy was at the old record player trying to get the words of “Lindy Lou” straight. Directly under one of the bearskins, Des Westmorland and Delia were sitting and not talking. David Kipp was sitting at the card table playing solitaire, but it didn’t look like he knew what cards he was holding. Maggie, of course, was not there. Her seat was about twice as empty as any other place in the room.

  All the faces were uniformly long. It was hard to understand that this was all for George. George, whom nobody had a good word for. George, the dim; George, the noisy; George, the nosy; Gloomy George; George, the dead, the late, the deceased, the dear departed of Maggie, the un-dear departed of the rest of us. Maybe the long looks were for Maggie. Maybe, not feeling the loss themselves, they were trying to come at it through the back door. They all liked Maggie. That sounded about right so I didn’t worry about it any more. I drew myself a cup of coffee, added milk and three teaspoonfuls of sugar. I usually have two but I was practically in mourning.

  David Kipp drifted up to me. “I hope you can tell me what this is all about. I can’t get anybody to open up. You were there; what happened?”

  “I got hit on the head. After a while I woke up. Somebody got to George while I was out. George isn’t going to wake up. Somewhere between me and George the attacker lost his amateur standing.”

  “This is turning out to be one lousy holiday. Cooped up here, kept in the dark. It’s like television.”

  “What do you hate most, the plot or the cast?”

  “Oh, what’s the use talking to you? You wouldn’t understand this, but I came up here to look at birds not sit around waiting for policemen to ask me idiotic questions.”

  “Such as where did you go when the lights went out on the night of Friday, July sixth?” Kipp’s lip actually quivered. Like he’d learned to do it from practising before a mirror. I suddenly felt like I’d hit him with a brick in a pillow fight. He backed away from me and bumped into the coffee urn. “Hey, be careful!”

  I grabbed the urn and pushed him out of the way. “This isn’t your night, is it?”

  “Goddamn you, Cooperman. Why don’t you bugger off?” Kipp’s last words were bitten off with a whispering rasp, which made him all the easier to dislike. He gave me one more dirty look then went back to his cards. I moved over to Lloyd Pearcy. He was twirling a small gizmo with emery-paper attached to a wheel.

  “I’m sharpening the needles,” he explained. “None of your Victor Red Seal needles. These are cut thorns from out back,” and he held the thing up for me to see, although I didn’t doubt him. “You ruffled David Kipp’s feathers,” he said with a tilt of his eyebrow. “And him so full of news about seeing both a great blue heron and a dead deer in the water all in one morning. Is that any way to treat a summer naturalist, Benny?” I smiled. He took the needle he’d been working on out, held it up to the light, and fitted it back into the tone arm. He didn’t look up when he said: I hear you’ve been knocked about.”

  “Not as bad as some.”

  “Cissy’s over with Maggie now. She’s been there ever since Harry Glover flew in here. Neither one of us much cared for George, you know. He was a mean-spirited man. Stunted. No joy or bounce in him. But, Maggie, now …” I bobbed my head to show that I understood when his words died on the vine. Joan came up to us wearing a proprietary, grim face. All these deaths wouldn’t do the lodge any good. If somebody wanted the Harbisons to fail, there are few better ways of doing it than killing off a guide and the next able-bodied man down the road. Joan slipped me a tight little smile with no lingering in it and turned to Lloyd.

  “Have you seen Cissy?”

  “Not since she went back after supper. Said she’d try to give her something to sleep. She said she’s never seen a body broke up like Maggie is. Seems a shame to waste it on George.” Joan raised a mocking, rather teacherly, eyebrow, and Lloyd pretended to bite his tongue for penance. Then she looked a question at me.

  “Harry Glover said he’d be back tomorrow, or as soon as a medical report comes in. But I think they’ll send bigger fish than Harry, don’t you? I mean, don’t they have to?” I shrugged, and that was as close to an opinion with weight as they were going to get until Glover himself got back.

  “I wish Mike was here,” Joan said. “The city’s a thousand miles away when something like this happens. He left just before you came back. Damn it all to hell.”

  “Nobody liked George,” I thought out loud. “Couldn’t he get along with anybody?” I glanced first at Joan and then back to Lloyd.

  “Joan, here, seemed to manage him without too much fuss.”

  “Oh, he had his good points, I guess. Most of the time he was like a half-tame bear. And not a bright bear at that. He was always lifting things …”

  “Yeah,” said Lloyd, “he was light fingered. Used to pocket things like my best lures when I wasn’t looking.”

  “He was always denouncing my friends to me, saying nasty things about the Rimmers. Dalt was at the top of George’s hate list. He didn’t like either Aeneas or Hector, although both of them were harmless.”

  “Aeneas once warned him to stop poaching or he’d report him.”

  “Oh, he was in trouble with everybody. He crowded the guests, like a store clerk who asks you what you want before you’ve closed the door behind you. I’ve always blamed some of the empty cabins on George. After today, I’ll be able to blame them all on him. And poor Aeneas.”

  “Did George ever bother the people staying over at the Woodward place?”

  “No more than he did anybody else. He didn’t get along with the senator. No, I guess George was a real democrat: he was terrible to everybody alike.”

  The new couple, whose name I never mastered, got up and said good night to everybody in a subdued way. As they went out, Cissy Pearcy came in, looking haggard and a little unsteady on her feet. She came over to where we were standing.

  “How’s Maggie?” Joan asked for all of us.

  “She’s sleeping now, I gave her some pills. I just held her like a baby, rocking her back and forth, until she fell asleep. Lloyd, do you still have that bottle of rye in the cabin? I think I could use a small drink. I think I’m going into shock.” Lloyd went out the door as though Cissy’d had the best idea advanced so far that evening. He was back in less than two minutes. It was a new bottle, still in its slim liquor-store bag. Joan found some plastic glasses and Lloyd poured a drink for the four of us. Nobody else seemed to mind.

  I sipped at my glass without swallowing anything but a burning sensation. I wasn’t very good with booze. Usually it just sent me to sleep. Lloyd sipped at his, too, but Cissy was pouring herself a second drink before any of us had finished the first.

  “She got morbid first, then maudlin. Sloppy sentimental, I mean. She was talking about her ruined life, how nobody ever understood her, how she’d thrown herself away, first for one man and then for one after another.” She banged the glass against the bottle when she poured out her third straight shot. “She told me about how her father was the only man who ever cared about her, about how George had always taken and taken and never said thank you. How he wouldn’t grow up.” I worked away at my drink, wishing I could dilute it with some water from the well. But drinking it neat was the unspoken fashion, so I sipped it between my teeth. It lit up a chilly spot under my liver and the glow spread and worked its way out to my fingers.

  “Then, she’s not just broken up about George?” I asked.

  “Go on with you,” she said, making a pass at my arm with her glass. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She always was one for the romantic posture.”

  “She loved that George of hers. Watched him like a hawk,” said Lloyd.

  “Duffwack!” said Cissy, at the bottle again.

  “That’s not cooking
sherry, Cissy. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “Lies, lies, lies.”

  “Maggie always did have a sense of the dramatic,” Joan said, looking at her glass. “She never gave George much chance to say anything in here.”

  “Stuff!” said Cissy.

  “Is this a private party or may anyone join?” That was Des Westmorland, as he chose to be called up there, with his girlfriend at his elbow. “If you’re running short, I have another bottle in my cabin.”

  “This isn’t a dead soldier yet,” said Cissy, pouring cold coffee from one half-empty cup into another. “Here’s one,” and she passed bottle and cup to Delia Alexander. Joan found another plastic glass for Des and we were all back in business.

  From the doorway, we must have looked peculiar. There was no reason for us to huddle so closely together. Des and Delia nodded thanks but offered no more than mute company for a few minutes.

  “Don’t give him any,” Cissy said, pointing over at David Kipp, who had just looked up from the couch. “I don’t like the low hang of his arms. I don’t like his hairy knuckles.”

  “Cissy!”

  “It’s the drink.”

  “My glass is empty! Lloyd, I saw you. I’m a grown woman. I don’t need to be coddled. Hold the bottle still!” Lloyd’s attempt to remove the contagion failed and Cissy was nose-deep in her glass again. A brand-new Cissy for me. “That George was a son of a bitch,” she said. “Whoever killed him did everybody a favour.”

  “Really?” said Des, showing bright teeth. “In what way?”

  “Well, you must know all about that,” she said, her face suddenly thrust close to his. “A man who ruins a child’s camera just to show off.” Des’s teeth disappeared under his moustache, and he worried his mouth to the shape of a drain before answering.

  “Mrs. Pearcy, I’m sorry about the camera, as though it’s any of your affair, and I paid the boy so he’ll be able to buy another.”

  “Desmond, let’s go for a walk,” Delia took Westmorland’s arm, but he shook her off.

  “And I wasn’t showing off.”

  “No, you just didn’t like having your picture taken with Miss Alexander, did you? Did you think the boy was going to send it to the papers?”

  “Please, Des. Let’s go.”

  “No, I want to hear this. I guess you think that fools and drunkards are licenced. Well, let me tell you—”

  “Bullshit!” said Cissy. After that, I took a real swallow of rye. Delia had Des’s arm again, and this time she was not to be shaken loose. Westmorland tried his smile again, but it didn’t fool anybody; his eyes were as cold as a leg of New Zealand lamb.

  “And why, pray, would the papers be interested in such photographs?”

  “Come on, Des!”

  “No. I want to hear more. You were saying, Mrs. Pearcy?”

  “Oh, belt up. Think nobody reads the weekend papers? I may live in Sudbury, but I do keep my eyes open.”

  She took another glance at Joan, then lifted her glass. It was more the need for a gesture than anything else. The glass was empty.

  “Well, people shouldn’t go around ruining the cameras of children. I could run for parliament on a slogan like that, couldn’t I, Joan?”

  Joan took in a welcome breath of relief and nodded. The scene was sliced through and each of us was left holding a scrap of the painted backdrop in our hands. When he was quite sure that he had nothing further to fear from Cissy, Des led Delia through a chorus of icy good nights out of the lodge and into the night.

  It was Cissy herself who broke the silence that had settled around us and seeped into all the cracks between the logs of the wall.

  “Damn it! He has the other bottle. When will I learn to keep my big fat mouth shut?”

  “You made him very cross,” said Joan.

  “Why shouldn’t I? If he wants to play games. He knows that I know. I just didn’t want to spoil things for Joan.”

  “Oh great!” said Joan. “Now’s the time to think of that.”

  “Cissy, I’m taking you home,” said Lloyd. Cissy looked at the empty bottle and nodded at the inevitable.

  “Me and my big mouth. I sometimes think I’m a little juvenile delinquent, you know that? If I were you I wouldn’t put up with me.”

  “Upsy-daisy,” said Lloyd. “There hasn’t been a night like this in Algonquin Park since the night the mill burned down.” We each grabbed an arm, while Joan began to clean up the signs of the party. Cissy moved her feet between Lloyd and me as though she were using them for walking as we went down the two steps and across to their cabin. When we got to the steps leading to their porch, I lifted her nearly dead weight and caught a worried look on Lloyd’s face as he reached for the screen door.

  “Up and over; up and over. That’s the way to do it,” said Cissy. Inside, we stretched her on her bed. She didn’t budge, but gave a sort of groan when I pulled away an arm that had been trapped under her back. Lloyd turned off the light and closed the door. He tilted his head in the direction of a chair in the kitchen, and I relaxed into it. Lloyd found two beers in the refrigerator.

  “Cissy,” Lloyd said, “hasn’t had a skinful for a couple of years now. I almost forgot what she was like. Sort of comes out of herself.”

  “Lloyd, how well do you remember that fire at the mill?”

  “Like I said, it was a night to remember. Fifteen years ago if it’s a day. Cissy and me were camped about half a mile away. As soon as we saw it, we came as fast as we could.”

  “It must have been going full tilt by then?”

  “Like a bat outa hell. There was no saving her. Not even if we’d had a hose and pump.”

  “Where was Trask when you got there?”

  “Sleeping it off over on the motel porch.”

  “And Maggie?”

  “Safe in the arms of Jesus!” came a voice from the bedroom.

  “Maggie was watching the fire. We passed George in his boat as we came up to the old dock and we watched it together,” said Lloyd.

  “What about the hotel guests?”

  “The place was empty by the time we got there. Wayne couldn’t keep guests, even in high summer. No sign of anybody when we got there anyway.”

  “Eyewash,” said Cissy.

  “Any sign of Dick Berners?” Lloyd’s face moved around the room, stopping on the blue coffee pot on the stove.

  “Old Dick? No. He didn’t show up for a couple of days. No, he and Wayne didn’t do much talking in those days. He wasn’t sociable.”

  “Wingdoodle!” from the bedroom.

  “Dick was all scarred on his face; burns he got in the war. He stayed by himself. He didn’t show his dirty face around here that night.”

  “Duffwack!” came a cry from the bedroom, followed by a loud snort. We listened for a moment, but there was nothing further to report. Soon a steady snore could be heard. I finished my beer, Lloyd walked me to the screen door, and I retreated to my own cabin to do some snoring of my own.

  TWENTY

  In the days I’d been at Petawawa Lodge. I’d only taken advantage of the swimming facilities a couple of times. First thing on Monday morning, first thing for me anyway—others had been up and about for hours—I rolled out of bed, played games with the china ewer and basin, the nearest thing to running water in my cabin, and changed from pajamas directly into my swimming trunks. The day was going to be another seamless day of blue cloudless skies and heat that hits you between the shoulder blades. I folded a towel on the end of the dock and dove into Big Crummock Lake. I came up half-way to the wooden raft tingling. From the raft, I inspected the mushy, mollusk-strewn bottom a few times then returned to the dock, where I spread out the towel and stretched out along the sun-warmed planks. I could feel the itch of water evaporating before I had fairly caught my breath. From where I was lying, I could see past the second island well up to the far end of the lake. The Rimmers’ point was glinting above the waterline, with the cruiser, looking smaller than a fingernail, anchored
at the end of its dock. The Woodward place was invisible behind a near headland.

  Nearer at hand were the things the lodge guests had left behind them. In the nearby deckchair, a pair of sunglasses and a paperback book lying face down waiting for Aline Barbour. Lloyd’s grey-blue fishing-tackle box was resting under the shade of a chair, with bright narrow stripes of light crossing it six times. Chris Kipp’s waterlogged camera sat at the corner of the arm of one chair, another kid’s sand-pail and shovel not far away.

  From where I was lying, sizzling, drinking up the sun, and to hell with Ray Thornton, I could see an ant’s-eye view of the scene of Wayne Trask's sudden departure from this life. I could reach out and drip water on the very corner of the board that had stunned him. The water darkened the wood and spread down and out along the wood grain, much like blood. The sun quickly dried up the evidence, so I dripped again, spreading out the stain with my fingers, moving pools of water to cover as wide an area as possible, and watching the sun working closely behind me, drying up any pool left too shallow. I was quickly dozing off. I hadn’t felt so relaxed in days.

  Under my chin, an ant, a real one, not the ant I was imagining a moment before, walked along the board in front of me. It tried to find a way to continue its progress by walking over the gap between boards, but each time was turned back because the gap was too great. Soon it discovered that the dock was built by resting and nailing these boards across heavy wooden rails. I couldn’t see the beams, but I could see where the nails went into them. The ant, once he found the rail to my left, made his way out to the end of the dock, walking from board to beam, then up to the next board again, and so on. Near my chin, the boards were nailed in with two nails into each beam. The work of the economical Dalt Rimmer, according to Lloyd Pearcy. Out at the end of the dock, far beyond where the ant had progressed so far, the nailing was erratic with some nails bent over and mangled, four or five nails being used in each spot. I turned the other cheek. On the right side, the same pattern was there—neat nailing by Rimmer, and beginning at the end of the dock, drunken nailing. Then I noticed something new. Between these two types, or styles, of carpentry was a third. Lloyd hadn’t mentioned that the dock had had three builders, only two. I got up on my hands and knees to look closer. Yes, between Trask’s work and Rimmer’s, three boards had been nailed to the beams with four neat nails at each point of contact. There were no crescent-shaped dints in the wood, such as those you could still see left over from Trask’s hammering.