Murder Sees the Light (5 page)

“It's the Rimmers!” Lloyd announced, turning off “Mah Lindy Lou.” “Former owners,” Lloyd said to me in a stage whisper, “with a place across the lake.” I put down my coffee as the voices grew closer and finally burst through the double doors.

“I'll be damned if I'll pay a nickel for that tire. I tell you that right now. I won't have any wedges or plugs or patches, I promise you that.”

“Dalt!”

“Peg, I'm telling you straight out I'm not spending good money to have a flat tire with less than two hundred miles on it. No, sir. Good evening everybody. Is Joan here? We've got some things from town,”

“Hello, Maggie,” said Peg, doing the rounds of the people she appeared to know. “Say, it must have rained bad up here. The culvert's flooded again. Joan should keep it clear.”

“Never mind about that now, we'll have that cement washed off the dock where I left it.” Dalt Rimmer didn't try to make sense. He knew what he meant and that was good enough for him. For a man of less than five feet four, he made a lot of noise. He strutted into the Annex like a little bantam rooster followed by his adoring hen.

“Dalt, it was covered with a tarp. You put it there yourself.”

“Tarp is it? We'll be lucky to see tarp or cement again. Did you not see the water in the parking lot, woman? They've had a dousing here, and we've had the same thing over the water. Where is Joan, Lloyd? We've got to be getting across.” He had a lined face that turned small worries into big ones. He pulled his nor'wester hat from his head and slapped it against his leg and then over the back of a chair, like it was still his own. At this moment, wearing her yellow boots and carrying a Coleman lantern, Joan came in with two men no taller than she was. The two men slipped along the wall and melted away into the shadows.

“I thought that was you, Dalt. Hi, Peg. Did you see our new lake?”

“We had a flat on Highway 37, Joan, and the tire was brand new.”

“You'll lose that bit of road if it's not attended to, girl.”

“I know. That's what I've been talking to Aeneas about. Damned beavers!”

“I've seen a twenty-foot section of good road washed away like that. And this is only sand and gravel. You'd better hop to it. You need that husband of yours up here at a time like this, doesn't she, Peg?”

“Joan does just fine, just fine. And don't scare her. Aeneas won't see her stranded.”

“She'll get more than a scare if it washes out, lass. We can always go home overland by our own road. I'm just talking for her own good.”

“You usually are, Dalt.” That was a voice from the card game—Mrs. McCord, without even looking up. The two men who'd come in with Joan were pouring themselves coffee silently.

“There's a new country heard from,” said Daft, and sniffed. “Let's get the things out of the car now so we can get on with loading the boat. It'll be late enough by the time we get to the point”

“You won't stop for tea, Dalt? Peg?”

“Well …”

“Lass, you know we'd best be about our business. Thanks all the same, Joan. Another time. Aeneas,” he called to the men at the coffee urn, “will you lend a hand?” Dalt Rimmer fitted his rain hat over his sparse nest of fading red hair. Peg followed him through the door with the dark man in faded jeans at her heels. The big car was parked on the soft grass margin in front of the Annex. When the doors opened, the Cadillac lit up like a Chinese lantern, and Dalt and Aeneas got busy shifting cardboard cartons around. They each carried one into Joan's cabin, squishing their way through the damp mud and gravel. Peg thanked Aeneas, and Dalt told him that the two of them could manage the rest of the work. He drove the car down to the dock, where Dalt stripped the tarp from the cruiser, while Peg began loading smaller, more compact boxes.

“Hell,” Joan said, looking at the ruts the Cadillac had left in her sodden lawn. I grinned and shrugged, and Joan introduced me to Aeneas, who tried to slip quietly back into the Annex.

“You are the steady fisherman,” Aeneas observed. “I've seen you in the tin fish near the senator's.” I didn't know what he meant, and I'd certainly not seen him, so I just nodded and asked him a fishing question. “The water is shallow between the islands. The lake trout stay in the shallow water with the island between them and the sun. You have found a good place to fish. But there are other places. Fish the shadows.”

Back inside, the card game continued. Maggie McCord had another stack of tricks in front of her and Cissy looked like she was breathing “Oh dear” to herself. I hovered nearby, partly watching the game, partly watching the fire and just about everything else in the room. Aeneas had gone back to sit out of the light with the fellow he'd come in with. I was about to go over and find out if they'd met the tenant of the Woodward place, when Joan grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the card players.

“I don't want to break up the party, but I don't think you have met our new guest, Mr. Cooperman. Benny, I think you know Cissy Pearcy. This is Maggie McCord and her son, George.” George was playing dummy and looked like the casting suited him. “Benny's becoming an enthusiastic fisherman, isn't he, David?” Kipp nodded good-humouredly. We'd talked bait on the dock.

“Unfortunately, it's easier to catch enthusiasm than lake trout,” I said after acknowledging the how-do-you-dos.

“You're from Toronto, Mr. Cooperman?” asked Mrs. McCord.

“Grantham. Please call me Benny.”

“That's across the lake, near the Falls, isn't it?”

“Yes, it's three exits off the Queen Elizabeth Way, exactly eleven miles from the Falls.”

“Well, I hope they teach you to play bridge in Grantham. We could use an infusion of new blood.”

“That's transfusion, isn't it?” asked Cissy.

“Whichever, I'll try to be a donor when needed.”

Sometimes I sound so phoney to myself I want to bring up. Next time I'll tell them it's a pity I didn't bring my polo pony. George was the only one who caught the hollowness of what I'd said, giving me a dismissing look and rubbing his fleshy nose with the inside of his thumb.

“Joan,” he said, “when are you going to start stocking some beer? I swear I'm dying of thirst, and I'm too lazy to walk the quarter-mile back to my place.”

“I can't sell it, George. You know that as well as I do. I haven't got a licence yet. We're working on it.”

“Haw! That didn't stop old Wayne Trask, did it, Ma?”

“You hush up, George, and watch your cards.” George curled his lip like Raymond Massey and picked his cards up slowly from the table. Joan moved away from the game, and I followed her.

“Joan, I think I've swallowed everybody's name now except for Aeneas's friend and the couple by the wall talking to the bearskin.” Joan tilted her head in Silverthorne's direction, caught my eye, then my nod.

“That's Des Westmorland and Delia Alexander. He's from Ottawa, she's from Hull. They're a nice quiet couple, just met by chance. I understand he recently lost his wife. Now, Benny, don't try to turn them into suspects. Can you see either of them blowing up the neighbours?” I wasn't buying surface appearances tonight or any other night. But Joan didn't have to see my shopping list. She kept talking. “… And over there talking to Aeneas is his brother, Hector. He's a teacher in Hatchway. They're a part of the history of this place. They were here first. Aeneas sort of came with the lodge. He worked for the Rimmers when they owned it and for Wayne Trask after that. Trask was a nasty piece of goods; fought with everybody when he was sober. Aeneas's ancestor is the Amable DuFond they named the river after. It's hard to get Aeneas talking, but he has so many wonderful stories about the old logging days.” We sailed over to the abandoned old-fashioned record player where Aeneas and Hector were standing with their hands wrapped around their coffee mugs like it was mid-winter. Joan introduced me to Hector and his brothers, then left us to share the awkward pause that followed by ourselves. We all watched her put more birch logs on the fire and then replace the wire screen.

“I thought that there weren't any private lodges inside Algonquin Park anymore.” Hector shared a smile with his brother, who hitched his gum to the other side of his mouth. This seemed as useful a way to get a conversation going as any, but for a moment it looked as though I'd made a blunder and they weren't going to let me in on it. Then Hector decided to include me.

“Here you'll find just about every sort of thing. There's campers like Aeneas and there's dispossessed former landowners like Lloyd and private places like Dalt Rimmer has on the point across the lake. We even have absentee landlords like all the best societies. I mean the Woodward place. Woodward hasn't been seen in the park since before the Vietnam War. He's an American senator.”

“But the place is rented?” I thought I wouldn't chase away unexpected leads.

“Yes, there are lots of rented places. There are two on the other side of the second island and an empty place up near where the lake curves into a little hook.”

“There is a man there,” said Aeneas. “I saw him today.”

“Well, there you are: the lake is full again this year.”

“But you haven't answered the question. I thought that the park was provincial land and that—”

“The park was created ninety years ago,” said Hector, trying hard not to look like he was giving his set speech on the subject. “In that time the policy has changed every few years. At one time you could build a cabin. Now you can't. They tried to get rid of the cabins that had been built. They wanted it, you know, a wilderness area. They want it all wilderness by the turn of the century. They keep getting reports made every dozen years, and the objectives change.

That's how Lloyd lost his place, but Dalt Rimmer didn't. Dalt's timing was better, I guess. He wasn't in with the lumber companies, and he isn't a big supporter of the powers that be.” Hector smiled, a little embarrassed at catching himself on a soapbox. “The history of the park makes fascinating reading. Every time the policy changes down in Toronto, there are big changes up here. Aeneas is lucky he's squatting for the summer. That counts as camping and the government can't really discourage that.” Aeneas hadn't said anything, but he nodded and watched the effect his brother's words had on me.

Then his eye was on George, stretching to accommodate an enormous yawn. He'd left his chair at the card table and had just returned from outside. I could detect the outline of a flat bottle of whiskey in his shirt. His face was red with it. When he was like this, I automatically began to measure his reach and to keep well outside it when I could. He grabbed Joan from behind, and I started to feel like a Boy Scout. Luckily she could handle his bear-hug without making him angry. She peeled his big hand off her shoulder and unwound the unwanted arm, handing it back to him like she'd found a mislaid item belonging to George on her porch.

“Ah, Joan, don't be cross with me. I was just being friendly. Hell, I ain't no trouble.”

“That's right, George, you're a dream. Where were you when I needed my firewood cut?”

“I forgot about the firewood, Joan, I just forgot. I'll help you with the beaver. I will.”

“All right, George, but Aeneas promised to do it in the morning. There's still the wood. You know lots of ways to be helpful.” At the mention of Aeneas's name, George began to turn about looking for him. He hitched up his trousers and headed in our direction. I decided that I needed more coffee and left just ahead of George's strong breath. When I looked back, Hector was talking to David Kipp and George was standing closer to Aeneas than necessary. He was looking for a fight, but I couldn't imagine him finding it talking to Aeneas, who held his ground and listened, with his head tilted gravely. Lloyd was still at the Victrola.

I'd lay right down and die …

Now Aeneas was talking and George's big paw was on Aeneas's arm. Hector was watching too, but before anything happened, Aeneas pulled away, saying just loudly enough for me to hear, “I do not like the man, but I will see him. What you do is wrong.”

“I'll get you if you do!” Aeneas had a good moment then. He looked at George, from his messy engineer's cap to the tangle of his shoelaces, and said:

“I don't think so, George. You will not hurt me.”

The card game had now completely broken up. David Kipp went to the coffee urn. Cissy rejoined her husband, and Maggie McCord lifted her ample body out of her chair and moved it to the piano bench.

Maggie McCord must have been a very handsome woman in her day, but that was a long time ago. She glided about with that slowness of movement which to younger people looks like stateliness, but which is probably a question of joints. She was wearing a flowing, gauzy dress that flattered her figure by not adhering to it too specifically. It reminded me of the failing fire with oranges, reds, and yellows mixed in with darker hues. As she sat at the piano, looking down at the keys, her cascade of chins shivered. She brought the room to attention with a loud two-handed chord. The first was followed by a second with each note answering some message in the first. She made the old piano boom like a church organ. It sounded like an old hymn tune. The other guests put down their magazines and books as though Maggie McCord's playing was itself a fearful summons. She played the verse through once, then started in again with everybody but me singing as if his life depended on it.

From Greenland's icy mountains …

It made me feel peculiar. This wasn't the north woods. This wasn't keeping an eye on Norbert Patten. In fact, it sounded like the competition. Maybe if we sang loudly enough we could shake him up at the Woodward place. Then something funny started to happen. They were well into the hymn, and somehow it was reaching me. All those years at Grantham Collegiate hadn't abandoned me. From some hidden depths inside, I could feel the words of the next verse bubbling up to the surface and coming out in an unsteady but loud baritone.