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 eyes puffy and bleary. “This awful film, well, I mean it was powerful, that was the problem. I couldn’t keep my mind on my quilting. Had to rip out a whole section. Then I stayed awake in a rage for hours.”
Miriam could sew in her sleep, any pattern, any size. She’d won first prize at the Quilts on the Rocks competition last year. “What was it?”
“The Boys of St. Vincent’s, that child abuse exposé at a so-called training school. What frosts me is that these men were trusted. They had such absolute power. Either the kids clammed up out of fear or no one believed their stories.” She snorted in disgust.
“Power corrupts, and there’s nothing more absolute than organized religion. Public schools aren’t immune. That teacher in the Sault who got away with abusing girls for over twenty years.” Belle drummed a pencil on the table. “Still, they say that most molesting is done by relatives.”
“And those excuses. ‘Willing participants.’ The right to have sex with children. ‘Intergenerational’ love. Now they’re prowling the Internet, popping Disney names into their sites to attract youngsters.” Miriam’s face paled under her Brillo pad hair, and she turned away for a moment. Then she grabbed a paper and scribbled a few notes. When the lead broke, she stuffed the pencil into a sharpener and began grinding with a passion. “Hostie. Neuter every one of the bastards.”
More Frenglish curses were a grim way to start the morning, and her own sad news hadn’t been delivered. “Say, I didn’t have the calmest night myself.”
Miriam slipped off her shoes, engaged the wooden foot roller under her desk, and passed Belle the “Are We Having Fun Yet?” mug, wiggling it in sign language. “What could happen in the quiet life of a realtor? No sugar. I’m hyped enough.”
“Try a murder. My neighbour, a retired lady on that nice little picturesque lakefront road where everyone wants to live.” She followed up with the details as she poured her friend a coffee.
Ears pricked like a terrier’s, Miriam was herself again, quizzing in expert fashion. She was devoted to murder mysteries, wished she had been born into genteel poverty in England like Miss Silver and had been combing antique shops for a bog oak brooch for years. Once Belle had found her zooming in on an Agatha Christie tribute page on the Internet. “The dogs. Why didn’t the dogs bark? Wasn’t that one of Holmes' arguments?”
“They’re wimps. Even if they had barked, no one lives close enough to take much note. Sometimes you can’t hear anything but wind and waves. She was killed inside the house. Everything nice and neat. Guess she let the murderer in.”
“Sounds funny to me. You said she was a sharp old woman. Suspicious as hell. Why ever would she open her door to a stranger? Anyway, don’t you have any good news?”
Belle clapped her on the back and blew her a quick kiss. “After that Sullivan sale, now that the bills are paid, I’m declaring a bonus for you. Sun yourself in Cuba next December. Take your daughter.”
“She’s in North Bay taking summer courses for her teaching certificate. That apartment is costing me plenty.” Miriam turned to the night’s faxes, then chuckled like a parrot with a hunk of papaya. “This sounds promising. A Toronto couple transferred here to the Taxation Centre wants a house on the water.”
“Plump government salaries. The very sound tickles my ears. What are they looking for?”
Miriam’s head tipped up to adjust the bifocals. “I hate these glasses, can’t wait until you’re tortured with them, too. Something fairly new. Three or four bedrooms. Two baths. Maintenance free. Garage. Half-hour drive from town. Jostle any brain cells?”
Belle rubbed the bridge of her nose in concentration. “What about the distress sale on Kalmo Lake? That’s a bargain. 40K below value.”
“I wondered about that. Somebody die?”
“What a grisly attitude. It was a case, in my cautious new neighbour’s words, of overextension. The Marches bought a large wooded property. Too large. The access road broke them. All that backfilling over boulders sucked up pit-run gravel like quicksand. In a week they blew twenty thousand. Then his salary was frozen at the hospital. To top it off, the wife got pregnant.”
“Perfect for Mr. and Mrs. T-O. Silver lining to every cloud, isn’t there?”
Even where murder was concerned, Belle wondered? What was Zack’s alibi?
As she passed the airport on the way home, she glanced at the kettle lakes, one of many geological curiosities which brought international scientists to Sudbury. Over a sandy delta deposited in Pleistocene times, a glacial re-advance had scoured the area and left blocks of grounded ice to melt, forming conical potholes later filled by cool springs favoured by brook trout. The largest she had named “Philosopher’s Pond,” where she had spent afternoons floating on a makeshift raft and dangling an optimistic hook over hundreds of pairs of globular eyes. Well-fed by minnows, the fish had been a wary challenge for anglers since the turn of the century, if an art deco brown medicine bottle she had found were any proof. Charles didn’t have a boat yet. Would he like to try his luck here?
Later that evening, after turning up their noses again at dry chow, Captain and Sam barked at a noise outside. “Quiet!” Belle scolded with a maddening lack of effect. A yellow Firefly pulled into the yard as she opened the door. “Come on up, Zack. Your babies are waiting.”
He took the steps two at a time like a prom date, bearing a bunch of carnations