“She must have been a tough character. Know anything about her friends?”
Belle considered her words carefully, her mouth dry and sour. “I guess you’d call me her friend. In connection with our love for the woods. She didn’t seem to socialize out here. Did a lot of volunteer work at the Canadian Blood Services, though.” Her fidgeting hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They looked older, more wrinkled. She pressed them together as if in prayer, blinking the sting from her eyes. “I’ll miss her.”
Steve stood up. “This one’s going to be trouble if the nephew has an alibi. No sign of forced entry or any violence other than stick meeting head.” He paused as she gave him a disgusted look. “Sorry about that. Missed lunch and you know me. Anyway, we’ll be checking her records, financial statements, whatever might provide a lead. For one thing, I’d like to know who owns that van, if she doesn’t. And where’s her car?”
Outside, the smell of the roses had become cloying, funereal. Belle fought the urge to drive home at top speed and jump into a bath of purifying water, sloughing off every horrid detail, growing a new skin. Wordlessly, she passed Steve the strawberries she had retrieved. It would be a long time before she enjoyed them again. Their sun-drenched redolence would remind her of the sight of blood. Steve popped a handful into his mouth, tucked the rest into the white patrol car, then pointed down the road to a hollow where a small path began. “Before you leave, tell me something. Is that the trail that leads to the baiting site?”
“Yes, about half an hour in. But everything’s gone. Torn down and buried, remember?”
“These hunters sound like a wild card, but I might as well take a look now as later.” He thumped her back. “Sober enough to travel?”
Belle paused at the water tap at the side of the house and took a long drink. Then she filled her lungs with forest air, its piney coolness clearing her head. “I’ll be five hundred yards ahead of those black cop shoes, Mr. Spitshine.” She took off at a trot, glad to run off the sherry.
At the quick march, the half-hour dropped to twenty minutes. The sun had fallen below the hills, casting eerie shadows across the trail. Belle stepped lightly on the peaty turf, spongy and kind to the feet except for an occasional rock or root. Something fragrant was in the air, Labrador tea, perhaps.
But the wind shifted ominously, bringing a large order of carrion. As they passed the familiar carpet of trilliums now tinged with brown, Belle had a sinking feeling that Anni’s plan hadn’t worked after all. Nothing could have erased that aromatic picnic from the bruins’ primal memory bank. Bait was bait, the smellier the better. At the base of a striped maple lay a large black mound next to a small hump of fur. Steve covered his face with a handkerchief and waved Belle away. She sat glumly on a cedar stump, contemplating a parade of ants and gulping against returning nausea. “Let’s go,” he said a minute later, wiping his hands with distaste. “I’ve seen enough. That was a mother and this year’s cub. Half Freya’s size.”
“Mutilated?”
“Animals have been at them, maybe even other bears, but they’ve been cut open . . . and the paws are gone.” With a groan, he pocketed the handkerchief. “Hunting was part of life for my family on the Reserve. No fancy grocery stores in the back of beyond. Not even a town. We depended on wild game. But it was a partnership, a pact of respect. Leaving meat to rot would have been a crime.”
Belle coughed into her sleeve, breathing through her mouth. “It’s profit, Steve. Bear gallbladders are valuable. Why don’t you talk to the MNR about any similar reports. A car or truck might have been seen in another area.”
“This could fit the time if she caught them in the act, but we’ve been over that. Remember that she went home of her own accord,” he said as they walked, warm with sweat. “We still don’t know if she damaged a car or truck. Maybe they saw her near their vehicle or knew she walked the paths. Put two and two together and followed her.”
Belle shrugged. “A pitiful motive for murder. And why her stick? Wouldn’t they have had weapons? A shotgun or rifle?”
“Maybe they tried to scare her, and it got out of hand.” He brushed his ears and neck against the mosquitos swarming in the dusk. “Anyway, I’ll get the boys to hunt for tire tracks, although it’s probably useless with the dust and traffic. One other thing, Belle.”
Frustrated and ready for the soft womb of her waterbed, she couldn’t keep irritation from her answer. It was more like a whine. “I hate that. It’s so classic Columbo.”
“Where were you last night?” He touched her shoulder like a concerned brother. “Don’t take offense. I have to ask.”
She rubbed her eyes, then raised her hands in submission. “No alibi unless the dog will talk. I was home for dinner at six. Read a couple of magazines. In bed by ten. Am I going to hang?”
“Canada hasn’t hanged anyone since 1962. The end of capital punishment in fact, if not in law. And don’t worry. Only the guilty have air-tight alibis.”
“That’s a comfort.”
“Oh, and I need your prints for elimination.” He stepped back at her exasperated look. “No need to come downtown. I keep a kit in the car. Handiwipes, too.”
To save the dogs from the upset of a kennel, Belle persuaded Steve to let her take them until Zack was contacted. Later, cleaned and minimally fed, she sat on her deck in the darkness. A barred owl called from its perch to remind her that some predators earned an honest living.
FOUR
Captain and Sam weren’t the ideal boarders. The golden had shredded Belle’s red plush bedroom slippers and made Freya so nervous that she had scuttled to the basement laundry room. The hyperactive beagle yapped at the shudder of the ancient refrigerator, the electronic blips of the computer as Belle logged onto “Canoenews” and the occasional drone of a plane circling the airport for approach. They hadn’t stinted themselves at breakfast, though, declining the Purina and inhaling three cans of expensive beef stew saved for a rainy day. By 7:30 a.m., Belle was approaching meltdown and worrying the clock for Zack’s call.
Her mug splashed at the first ring, a muttered prayer for delivery proving that there was a God. “It’s Zack Meredith, Anni’s nephew. I hear you have the dogs at your place,” a subdued voice said.
“Yes, they’re fine. I’m so sorry about your aunt.” She swallowed and groped for a comforting phrase, but none arrived.
There was a long pause, what sounded like an embarrassed sniffle, then a throat clearing. “I can’t believe it. Out there where she felt so safe. Why didn’t she follow my advice and move into that seniors’ condo downtown after Uncle Cece died?”
Apologizing for the delay, he agreed to come that evening. “I rent a small house in the Valley, and of course Captain and Sam are welcome. They won’t get the same attention or freedom, but Aunt Anni would have wanted me to take them. We’re great pals.”
On the way to town later, Belle thought for a moment about the brief conversation. He’d sounded sincere enough, and certainly protective about his aunt. How protective, though? Enough to want to send her to Cece to spare her the humiliations of old age, leaving him with a tidy inheritance? Now that was a cynical thesis. She opened up the office, surprised not to hear the tick-tick of a keyboard. Usually Miriam arrived first, living in a nearby townhouse. After giving the coffee maker a token swipe, Belle brewed a pot and banished preoccupations with the murder to a mental broom closet. By the time her friend came in, she had sifted through paperwork like Schliemann uncovering the ruins of Troy.
“Watching too many late movies?” Belle asked. Often she passed Miriam tapes of her favourite classics. They agreed that Bette Davis had been well behind the door when Beauty called, climbing to the top on sheer acting ability and a dose of grit.
The older woman looked harried, her