Murder at Lost Dog Lake

Murder at Lost Dog Lake

VICKI DELANY

Copyright Vicki Delany 2011

Smashwords Edition Published 2011

Carrick
Publishing 2011

ISBN:
978-0-9868633-6-3

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

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“
It’s a crime not to read Delany”. London Free
Press.

Vicki
Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific crime writers. She writes
everything from standalone novels of psychological suspense such as
Scare the Light Away and Burden of Memory, to the Constable Molly
Smith books, a traditional village/police procedural series set in
the British Columbia Interior, including In the Shadow of the
Glacier and Among the Departed, to a light-hearted historical
series, Gold Digger and Gold Fever, set in the raucous heyday of
the Klondike Gold Rush.

In a
starred review of Winter of Secrets, Publisher’s Weekly said: She
uses a bare-bones style, without literary flash, to achieve
artistry as sturdy and restrained as a Shaker chair. And Library
Journal gave Among the Departed a starred review saying: “Her
exceptional ability to create characters, both realistic and
sometimes creepy, makes this another terrific addition to her
outstanding body of work.

Chapter 1

Day 8: Mid-day.

“
Someone’s missing.” With a curse Craig tossed a heavy pack
beside the first canoe and shouted at everyone to stand still. A
gust of storm-driven wind grabbed his words the second they were
out of his mouth and, full of malicious intent, whisked them
away.

He tried
again. This time making a cup of his hands, he held them up to his
mouth and screamed, “Stay where you are. Someone’s
missing.”

Wet,
miserable faces looked at each other, then back at Craig. One by
one everyone began to count. There should be eight of us, but only
seven were standing on the rocky, little beach, huddling together
as the storm raged all around. Rachel whimpered at every flash of
lightening and every crash of thunder.

The sky
lit up over the lake, illuminating the angry waves and rolling
white caps. So close you couldn’t take breath between the light and
the noise, a crash of thunder had us all cringing into our
shoulders, as if expecting a blow to fall from the heavens at any
second. Rachel screamed. I was getting excessively tired of Rachel
and considered giving her something to scream about, as my mother
used to say.

“
For God’s sake.” Craig’s voice sounded in my ear. “Who isn’t
here?”

Rachel
forgotten, I counted the small huddled group again, hoping that I
had been wrong the first time. Still only seven. I looked around
the mist-shrouded clearing, peering through the sheets of rain
running in torrents under my rain hood and into my eyes. I wiped my
forehead with the back of my hand. Didn’t do much good, one was as
wet as the other. And counted once again: only six, seven,
including myself.

Craig
climbed up onto the rocks behind the beach where we had dumped the
canoes and packs. He slipped on the wet ground and almost lost his
footing but his thick Teva sandals held and he nimbly made the
ledge.

“
Who’s not here?” he screamed into our wet and cold faces. We
all shrugged and peered at each other.

Although
it was early afternoon, the sky, covered with thick, rain-engorged
storm clouds, hung overhead as black as midnight. Rain fell cold
and hard, like a shower that has that minute run out of hot water.
I wanted to reach out and pull back the curtain, step out into
warm, moist bathroom air, wrap myself in a white terrycloth robe
and rub my hair dry with a fluffy, thirsty towel. Instead I peered
under my neighbor’s hood and tried to make out the features.
Dianne.

We all
were wearing nearly identical yellow raincoats. It caused much
laughter when we realized that we must have shopped at the same
sale. It didn’t seem funny now, as I counted once again and tried
to determine who was missing.

“
Stand still,” Craig said. “Who isn’t here?”

Dianne
looked about. “Richard, where is Richard?”

“
Richard,” Craig yelled into the storm and back down the
trail.

We all
started shouting at once, “Richard, Richard.” Two yellow-coated
shapes broke out of the circle and started back the way we had
come.

Craig
jumped down from the rocks, ran after them, and grabbed at their
sleeves, pulling them to a stop. “Don’t go running off half-cocked
like that,” he shouted. “We don’t want to lose anyone
else.”

Unsure
of what to do, the rest of us moved closer together. Only Rachel
stood apart, arms wrapped tightly around her chest, face buried
into her neck, still whimpering and emitting little shrieks at
every clap of thunder or flash of lightening.

“
Did anyone see Richard on the portage? Did anyone see him
leave the trail?” Craig bellowed the questions into our
faces.

“
Thought he was in back of me,” Barb shouted. Her face was
hidden in the folds of the rain hood, but the deep voice and strong
English accent were instantly recognizable. “He helped me load my
pack onto my back, and then he picked up one for himself. I assumed
he followed me.”

“
Anyone else?”

Shaking
my head, I glanced at the group. Did I look as blank as the rest of
them?

Craig
nodded to me. “Leanne, you come with me. We’ll go back and look for
him. The rest of you, tilt these canoes and store the packs under
them. Then try and find any bit of shelter you can, but right here.
No one is to leave the beach for any reason. Stay together. Do you
hear me? I don’t want to lose anyone else.” He looked at them all,
one at a time, forcing the miserable little group to acknowledge
the order.

A bolt
of lightning flashed into the dense woods behind us. Thunder
clapped an instant response and we heard the unmistakable crack of
old wood as a dead tree broke and crashed into the undergrowth.
Rachel screamed and waved her hands in the air, as if they were
beyond her control. “I want to go home. I want to go home. We’re
all going to be killed out here in this God-forsaken
place.”

“
Will you shut up, you stupid woman. I’ve had about enough of
you.” Craig’s composure broke at long last. Rachel closed her mouth
in mid-scream and stared at him in astonishment.

He
ignored her and glared at Joe instead. “Get the canoes overturned
and all the equipment stowed underneath them. And keep her from
running away. Though God knows we’d be better off if she
did.”

Craig
signaled me, and we took off at a light trot back down the trail.
“Damn fools,” he mumbled angrily. “Some people should stay in the
city where they belong.”

There
was nothing I could say to that, so I said nothing.

The
ground was wet and slippery, very, very slippery. I kept my head
down, focusing all my attention on maintaining my footing. I
watched Craig’s Tevas moving rhythmically up the path and the wet,
flapping blur of his purple raincoat and willed myself not to fall.
We were both shouting Richard’s name as we ran but it was doubtful
that that anyone not directly in our path could hear the
panic-tinged words.

I
skittered on a wet rock and pitched forward, throwing my hands out
in front to break the fall. A shooting pain lanced up my arm as my
right wrist took the force of the impact. Gasping with the shock
and pain, I sunk to the ground. Rainwater immediately found its way
into my khaki hiking shorts, but I wasn’t too concerned: nothing
could make them any wetter than they were already.

Craig
came back and held out a hand. I pulled myself up with my left
arm.

“
You all right?” He looked me up and down.

“
My dignity is hurt more than anything else.” I lied and tried
to keep the pain out of my face. He didn’t need anyone else to
worry about right now.

“
If he left the trail, we’ll never be able to find the way.
Can’t see more than a foot off the path. Damn fool.” Craig wiped
rain from his eyes. The strain had etched delicate lines around his
mouth.

“
I’m sure he’s sitting at the portage, perfectly happy waiting
for us to come back so he can complain about the weather.” I tried
to sound cheerful. I failed.

We
proceeded with a bit more care, watching our footing as well as the
sides of the path. We called out as we walked, but received no
response from anything other than the wind and the rain.

We
reached the starting point of the portage with no further incident
and no sign of Richard. All the canoes, packs and assorted odds and
ends were gone, carried on our heads and our backs to Lost Dog
Lake.

“
Maybe the jerk left the path for a whiz in the woods,” Craig
said. “Probably with the others by now. Christ, I hope they don’t
all come traipsing down the trail like bunnies on a picnic, looking
for us.” He pulled a bit of worn tissue out of his pocket and wiped
at the rainwater dripping off the end of his nose.

He
crumpled the useless piece of tissue into a ball and tossed it onto
the path. Only then did I understand the depth of his despair; like
all guides in the Park, Craig was religious in his respect for the
tender environment. Everything carried in was to be carried out
again. No exceptions.

“
Let’s go back a bit more slowly,” I suggested. “Perhaps he
took shelter under a tree off the path. And then with all the noise
out here, he didn’t hear us calling.”

We
turned and retraced our steps, back down the rough portage trail.
Even in the short time since we first walked the path, the storm
had done considerable damage. Broken branches and dead tree limbs
littered the trail. My raincoat was a good one, carefully chosen to
be fully waterproof, but below the coat my legs were getting a good
soaking, and my feet were slipping wildly inside their sport
sandals. A liberal coating of mud covered my toes and splattered up
the back of my legs. My hood had fallen off, probably in the fall,
and my hair, fortunately cropped short, dripped a steady stream of
cold rainwater into my eyes, off the tip of my nose, and down my
neck.

We were
almost back at Lost Dog, passing the point where I had fallen, I
recognized it by the quantity of churned up mud and the little
lakes already forming in the impressions my knees and hand made in
the soft earth.

“
He’d better be with the others,” Craig yelled to the woods,
“or I’ll have his balls for fish bait.”

The
track was a narrow path, hacked out of the wilderness on either
side. This wasn’t a well-traveled portage; in places the path was
virtually indistinguishable from the forest beyond.

A quick
flash of yellow caught the corner of one eye. I stepped to the
trail’s edge and peered through curtains of rainwater into the
woods beyond.