MEMORIES
ARE
MURDER
A Belle Palmer Mystery
by Lou Allin
Text © 2007 by Lou Allin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, digital, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
Cover art: Chris Chuckry
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.
RendezVous Crime
An imprint of Napoleon & Company
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
11 10 09 08 07 5 4 3 2 1
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Allin, Lou, date-
Memories are murder / Lou Allin.
(A Belle Palmer mystery)
ISBN 978-1-894917-33-9
I. Title. II. Series: Allin, Lou, date- Belle Palmer mystery.
| PS8551.L5564M44 2007 | C813’.6 | C2007-903842-5 |
To Jan, always answering the call
Acknowledgments
Thanks to all of you who have contributed to this last Belle Palmer adventure and those which came before. S.P. Hozy with an eagle eye for errors. Cousin Judy Ross, Sheila Ethier, and Dr. Evelyn Easton. The FEDS (Former English Department): soul sisters Nancy Jinot and Athena Christakos as well as Mary Ryan, new Queen of Speech. The hard-working library crew, Chris, Lucy, and Barbara. Vicky, who keeps the college working. My publisher and editor Sylvia McConnell, Godmother of the best mysteries in Canada. Dear Freya and Nikon, always looking for bears. The bush poodle, always looking for trouble. And the city of Sudbury and Cambrian College, who issued an invitation to join their community and gave me a home and a career along with unparalleled support. It’s been a very fast thirty years.
PROLOGUE
The all-seeing lens of the sun was scorching and the blue sky so merciless that it made him dizzy. As he wiped sweat from his reddening brow, the warble of a swooping raven brought a smile to his face, and scarcely had he turned to follow the graceful wings than a stunning blow sent the world into such clarity that he gasped. There was no pain. Everything sped by like a silent film gone mad. A dizzying fall into the still mirror of the lake, the rush of the water meeting him like a merging twin. Bubbles blossomed from his mouth as he began to sink, his arms broken wings. The last thing he remembered was a tune from his youth. “I saw a man with his head bowed low./ His heart had no place to go./ I looked and I thought to myself with a sigh:/ There but for you . . .” As the words died in his mind, he blinked through the shadows to the light. And the raven flew on.
ONE
Over, under, under, under, over.” Miriam MacDonald ran an inquiring finger down a newspaper page.
“Are you doing mental knitting or Sudoku?” asked Belle Palmer, as she entered the office and hung her navy trench coat in the closet after shaking off the moisture. Blessed rain—no need to shovel it.
A frizzy eyebrow rose, matching the Brillo-pad hair on her associate’s greying head. Miriam engaged the wooden foot roller under her desk and gave a satisfied sigh as her baba’s bunion legacy eased. “Remember those stats that called Sudbury the most dangerous place in Canada? How we live three years less than in cities like Vancouver where eighty is the norm? I’m clocking everyone in today’s obits. So far we’re only one down. Old Finns and Italians are tough birds.”
“What was that marketing ploy you emailed the mayor during his last brainstorming drive to attract business? ‘Move to Sudbury and get to heaven faster?’ ” Belle gave a quick genuflect, and they both laughed in the face of death.
As they settled in at their desks, Miriam’s phone rang. She shoved aside a box of Timbits to pick it up, angling it between her ear and shoulder. “Palmer Realty. How may I help you?” A pause. “Yes, this is . . .”
Abruptly she stood, then braced herself against the desk, left hand on her ample chest as her cheeks went bone white. “In the hospital? How badly hurt? Don’t tell me that Jack might . . .” Her rapid breathing punctuated the stuttered sentences.
Belle put down a pile of messages and came to her side. “Jack’s injured? What happened?”
Miriam waved her off and listened, jotting notes on a pad, nodding and shaking her head. At last she hung up, by now only a slight hand tremor revealing her anxiety. Colour returned to her pleasant, round face, but a crease formed on her forehead, joined by another. Belle’s elder by ten years, Miriam was like a no-nonsense sister who reminds you that your boyfriend eats with his mouth open even though he owns a BMW and has shares in Microsoft. “An accident in the shaft. He was pinned by machinery.” Jack was a heavy-equipment operator at Kidd Creek Mines in Timmins, about two hundred kilometres north. The job was lucrative but dangerous. If not for helping to pay for their daughter Rosanne’s teaching degree, he could have taken early retirement.
Belle put her hand to her mouth, had felt her heart dance in arrhythmia. “How serious is it?” Jack was a strong and vital man, nearer her age than Miriam’s, quick with a joke and a bottle but quicker to help a friend. Thoughts of paralysis or brain damage trickled icicles down her spine.
“Just a fractured hip. He got off lucky. But he’ll be out of commission for a few weeks once he leaves the hospital. Tabernac.”
“That’s a relief.” In a nickel-mining community like Sudbury, Ontario, everyone knew someone who had been injured on the job, the fortunate ones with only a truncated thumb or aching back.
Spitting out more Frenglish curses, Miriam considered the inbox on her desk, the growing list of calls. Her small fist clenched in decision. “I have to go and help him, Belle. He doesn’t have anyone else.” As the penetrating grey eyes narrowed, quicksilver glittered in the iris. “He’d better not be collecting girlfriends, or the hospital will be his last home when I finish with him.”
“I’ll bet.” Jack flirted with everything lacking an Adam’s apple but meant no harm—Belle hoped. She still recalled an impulsive kiss aborted by a rifle shot.
Now that the crisis had eased, panic about the realities of Miriam’s absence took over. Summer was nearly underway, the Victoria Day lilacs ushering in the blackflies along with her clients. Palmer Realty specialized in cottage properties, and no one wanted to buy a camp in the winter, which took up half of Northern Ontario’s year. “What about a retirement home, where he can get meals and some attention short of actual nursing? Timmins is practically a ghost town. Health care is keeping the place afloat.” At Miriam’s shocked expression, she threw up her hands in surrender. “Sorry. Bad idea. He’d go bananas.”
Miriam and Jack had been divorced for years but recently had been enjoying a renewed romance heated up by long distance. Nagging in the back of Belle’s mind was the possibility that Miriam might move away to join him, an alarming prospect in a two-person business. Jack’s connections might even land his ex-bookkeeper wife a job at Kidd Creek at top salary, not the “unshelled peanuts” Belle paid.
With the deliberation of a numbers person, Miriam riffled