“So I’m a Scot. Like Arnold Palmer. Is that rude? The Pope’s a Pole. Is that rude?”
“Well, I only . . .”
He stared her down, stubborn in his innocence. “And besides, I nearly married Eva Rosenblum. Except her parents lined her up with a rich doctor, a fancy one, a gyro . . . gyro . . .”
“Gynaecologist. Lucky Eva, or maybe not. Anyway, Jacobs was the married name. Anni was Danish.”
He beamed. “A Dane. See?”
Old dogs and new tricks. Maybe he had a point. As she left, he stabbed an index finger on his lap table. “Appearances can be deceiving, girl. Look underneath. Use your peepers.” He drifted off for a moment. “Remember what you said to that clown at the Christmas parade who asked where you got those eyes so blue?”
“Right, Father. ‘Out of the sky as I came through.’ Except that my eyes aren’t that blue anymore. And speaking of precocious brats . . .” She kissed him and returned to the van. Such observations might be the ravings of an old man seduced by films, but sometimes, like Mr. Dick in David Copperfield, he grasped an idea that sliced the fog. Would she have to play Edna May Oliver and chase the donkeys from the yard? “Peepers.” What was there to look at? Were any of the puzzles valuable? Had Anni been having work done at the house where calculating eyes might have tucked away information? Word got around in the casual labour market.
SIX
After asking Hélène and Ed DesRosiers for dinner that night, a feast starring her no-fail chicken casserole, Belle set out for her favourite real estate activity: reconnaissance, checking out a property. She chose twill pants and a turtleneck along with Reeboks designed for a hike in the bush. On a sunny morning, the drive fifty miles north to Onaping Lake was a pleasant diversion, despite the blackflies organizing a Jonestown massacre on the windshield. She passed time working on her country song, imagining Nashville fame through an instant hit. “Come on up to Mama’s table,” the refrain went, and as she flinched at the endless timber trucks roaring back from remote towns, the next verse wrote itself:
I’ve been on the road since Christmas Driving trucks across the land. I’ve raced across the Pecos And crossed the Rio Grande.
I’ve spent some long and lonely nights Looking at a motel wall, But down that endless highway I could hear my mama call.
At a small marina she rented a five-horse motorboat, ripping the cord to goose the old Evinrude into action. The lake was a good size with a reputation for excellent bass fishing. Luckily the wind was down, the silken surface reflecting pillowy clouds. She plastered on industrial strength bug dope loaded with Deet. The expensive aerosol used by tourists lasted about as long as a non-filter cigarette and had the same transitory effect on the pests.
The seller’s crude map guided her to the site, where she pulled up onto a long sandy beach, an attractive feature. The rest was rocky but level. With several acres backing into the hills of maple and poplar, a small woodlot might be maintained. Lots of privacy, too, only five or six other cottages in view. Using a fist-sized boulder and a couple of nails, she pounded a realty sign onto a prominent birch, then tramped the property to determine if a field bed could be located the requisite fifty feet from the lake. Building would cost more, but the land was a bargain for someone who prized seclusion and didn’t mind the limitations of water access.
She sat awhile on the shore, checking her watch with a reluctance to restart the roar of the motor. A clump of tiger lilies caught her attention, naturally prolific and tenacious, Dylan Thomas’s “force that through the green fuse”. Anni loved lilies. Now she was pushing them up. Belle felt frustration at the slow investigation. Perhaps Steve had searched the house thoroughly, but what about visiting the Canadian Blood Services? And that Geo. If only cars could talk. Yet perhaps it could whisper a few ideas . . . if it weren’t a recycled blob of metal by now.
An hour later, she drove by Crosstown Motors. Would Anni’s old vehicle still be in the yard? The wretched little soul had more likely been passed to one of the lower-end used car lots which sold affordable transportation to folk on minimum wage. A salesman oozed out the door and eyed her aging but serviceable vehicle, perfect for a trade. “Interested in another van?” he asked, lighting a stogie. “We have a great selection of new Ventures and Trans Sports set to wipe up the competition.”
“Just looking,” she said indifferently, measuring him from the corner of her eye to Steve’s description of Mr. Polyester. The scant hairs feathering his pink scalp were woven for maximum coverage, but the effect was more pathetic than artful.
“Most powerful standard engine, 3.4 litre V-6,” he said, stroking the driver’s seat of a handsome cobalt blue model the colour of Lake Wapiti before a thunderstorm. “Twenty-six storage compartments, hidden front wipers, three choices of seat styles. And priced to sell. You can cruise home, tax and all charges, for less than you’d dream, especially if our manager Mel is in a good mood. Free air this month, too.”
“CD player, of course.”
He waved his hand in an expansive gesture. “Whatever you want, Madame. Plus dual stereo systems. One up front and one in back for the kiddies. Relax with Sinatra while they blast their ears with head-banger music.”
Bristling about being pushed into his decade, Belle eased into the cushy quad chair and leafed through a brochure on the dash, the new car smell calling her like a lover. “Up to ten cup holders?”
She climbed out, accepting the card he presented with a hopeful smile. “A friend of mine bought one of these sweethearts recently. Traded in her old Geo. Poor thing was on its last legs,” she said.
Her girlish snicker didn’t earn a blink. He puffed and pondered, thumbing a monster ash from his cigar which narrowly missed her foot. “Gotcha, the rust bucket. I remember now. Muffler fell off in the lot. Gone for scrap to Rock City over on the Kingsway. Funny old gal, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, just as she left, I told her again what a plum she had chosen, selection reinforcement, you know. She muttered something under her breath, sounded like an ill wind bringing good.” He winked knowingly and fixed red oyster eyes on Belle. “Bible maybe. She looked a strict one. Preacher’s wife. Librarian.”
A cryptic observation for Anni, Belle thought. What could she have meant? She headed for Rock City, hoping that the car had been saved from the crusher.
As children, she and her friends had loved to sneak around junkyards, searching for fresh wrecks, broken glass a gory delight. “Blood! Ten points!” they screamed at any dark stain, the fate of the unlucky riders beyond the comprehension of chocolate-bar minds. The gawky attendant at the metallurgical cemetery turned a page in a Spiderman comic and sent her to the rear of the yard in search of a right front seat to match the one her bad little child had peed on.
Next to a pyramid of tires, the old Geo sat like an abandoned pet. Belle started with the trunk, then moved to the glove box and seats. Nothing, not a gum wrapper, parking ticket stub, or roll-up-the-rim-and-win coffee cup. Even the jack was cleaned and oiled. Anni had been too fastidious to have laid a trail to her murderer. Then folded up in the visor, the edge of an envelope caught her eye. No inscription, nothing inside, just a fine cream paper alien to a society which had traded ink and stationery for prosaic e-mail. Into her pocket it went as she headed for the gate, calling over her shoulder, “Wrong colour.”
Following the paper trail, she dropped into the nearby Staples, a megalith threatening to eliminate the smaller office supply stores. Such disloyalty it was to deal there, but the prices and selection were unbeatable. Every time she entered with the firm intention of buying a small box of computer disks, she exited with exotic coloured pens, plastic file organizers, and once, an ergonomic chair cancelling a week’s profits.
A slow learner, she cruised the aisles like a magnet out of control,