Murder Sees the Light (7 page)

From somewhere out of sight, probably one of the bays that marked the west shore, I heard a motor start after three pulls at the cord. It was a big motor, and it sounded out of place at that hour. Before I had really decided from behind which headland the boat would appear, I saw it coming fast around the nearest point and heading straight for me. It looked like a police launch in the movies scaled down a trifle. I kept my eye glued to the huge headlight or searchlight mounted in front and watched the bounce of a light craft skipping over the water being chased by a motor that was going faster than it was. It was George, all right. He was too big for the boat too—a massive chest mounted over a large belly, both visible through the water-spotted windshield as the boat cut its motor and came alongside.

“Good morning,” I shouted over the noise of the suddenly choppy water. “Nice day.”

“If it don't snow. You here again. What's so special about this part of the lake?” He pulled tobacco and papers from his breast pocket and made a cigarette mostly with one hand. When he lit the end, I was happy to see, it flared and reduced its length by half.

“Aeneas told me about this place. He said fish the shadows. At this time of day, that's the west of the first island. Since you ask,” I added to see if it got to him. It didn't.

“You should try the far shore in the morning. Unless you're out for splake.”

I still didn't know what splake was, but I could see that George didn't consider splake-fishing a grown man's sport. He spat loose tobacco into the water and gunned his motor loudly enough to scare all nearby lake trout out of Big Crummock Lake altogether. He only needed a short burst to land him at the Woodward dock, where he tied up and headed towards the house with a string of fish that looked like they were worth mounting and bronzing or whatever you do to fish you don't want to eat or throw back. He was out of sight for about five minutes, then he returned to the dock and his boat. Running by me, he made sure I got all the benefit of his wake. My little tin fish was nearly scuttled by the turbulence. George looked back and laughed. A simple sort was George, a man of uncomplicated pleasures. He raced his engine so that he disappeared from view in less than two minutes, the boat getting smaller and smaller until it was a dot heading up towards the top end of the lake.

I shipped my fishing rod, put the oars in the water, and rowed myself over to the island. With the boat pulled up on an elbow of sand, I hopped out (soaking my foot) and crawled through the bush to the other end of the island, where I could see the Woodward place from a new angle.

I couldn't see it as close as from the boat, but at least I could look at it steadily without being called out for staring.

There was some activity near the car. I'd brought binoculars from the boat and focused on the three-spoked wheel on the hood of the Mercedes. To the right of the car Lorca was talking with Wilf and Spence. The men were wearing shorts and T-shirts, Lorca had a navy blue man's shirt tied in a knot under her bust. Her long tanned legs were set off by white tennis shorts. For a few minutes it looked like some of them were going to drive to Hatchway leaving Lorca, but in the end they all got into the car, which turned around and headed down the lane that rose to meet the lumber trail. In five minutes they'd be driving through Petawawa Lodge. Patten was alone in the cabin. Time for a chess game, I thought.

First, I changed the tape on the machine in the plastic garbage bag, escaping the earwigs that now called it home, and had the first of my sandwiches. With nothing to drink, it went down like cardboard. I tried to sort out what I knew about Patten and, on the basis of that, guess what he was going to do next.

He wasn't up here to get a tan or to try out his fishing gear. With the future of the Ultimate Church in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court, he was waiting out the decision in the nearest neutral corner. If the eight old men and a woman found in his favour, that the church was all he said it was, then he would return to his mammoth rallies and his TV
Hours of Destiny
until Internal Revenue found another chink in his holy armour. If the decision went against him, that was the end of the line, in the States at least. There would be no sense in returning to face the music. There was no money to pay back so much. It would take him years of pulling himself from one courtroom to another. And in the end he'd have nothing to show for it except that his lawyers would be as angry with him as the tax people. He was smart to have left town before the verdict was announced. But it was unreasonable, in spite of the fact that he was born in these parts, to conclude that this was where he meant to spend his declining years. He was too accustomed to the European hot spots. He was in the park for two reasons. He needed a place to sweat out the decision, and he probably needed to get new papers. It was still possible to get a Canadian passport illegally, and that was probably what he was doing. Passports, like everything else that goes through the mail, take time. I could figure on him being at the Woodward place until the Supreme Court decision and after that, if it went against him, only long enough for the delivery of a passport made out to a brand-new name. Of course, all of this would be yesterday's paper if somebody on Big Crummock Lake got any better at assassination. The job he did on the motorboat needed just a little more luck to put Patten where he wanted him. But practice makes perfectionists.

While I was daydreaming, I saw the subject of my days and nights launch a red canoe from the short dock across the lake. He stowed a paddle and got in, sitting a little off centre and slightly towards the rear. He was coming in this direction.

I tidied away my equipment, throwing in the binoculars, and covered the garbage bag with the groundsheet and the leaves, twigs, and branches that I'd enlisted in the service, and when I could hardly find the place myself, I returned to my boat. My legs were cramped from spying—nature's way of telling me what a dirty business I was in. Once aboard and cast off from the island, I let myself drift while I rubbed away the stiffness.

“Hello there, fella!” His paddle wasn't breaking the water. Although I was expecting him, I didn't hear him.

“You should have a horn on that thing to warn people you're coming. I'm glad I don't have a weak heart.”

“It's a trick I learned from the Indians up here when I was a kid. You're not fishing.”

“I just pulled my line in to give it a rest. I've got enough fish back in my cabin to feed an army anyway.”

“I've been looking at that wreckage. The boat?”

“I know what you mean.”

“Well, I found a wire coming out of the motor and attached to the fuel leads.”

“I know. I saw that too. That's why I've been hanging around. There's somebody on this lake doesn't like you, Mr. Edgar. If you looked at the fuel lines you'd find that the crimping around the hose has been loosened. When you primed the motor you leaked fuel all along the fuel leads.”

“So when I pulled the motor cord …”

“You set off a spark outside the motor. That ignited the gas, and it's a miracle the whole tank didn't go up.”

“Not much fuel left in it. That's what saved me. That and you.”

“Somebody tried to lull you, Mr. Edgar, and they'll probably try it again. I hope you're planning not to stay around much longer.”

“I'm waiting for some news, fella, then I might finish my holiday someplace else. Ever been to Spain?”

“No, I've never been farther away than Miami. No, I went to Las Vegas once. Lost my shirt. No wonder I stay close to home.”

“I sometimes think I'd like to live on a yacht in the Mediterranean and call in at all the ports. Ports are where the action is in those places. You really
know
a city when you arrive by water. When you land at an airport, you don't know where the hell you are: those airport strips all look the same.” Patten had a wide, flat face above the beard. He had a way of saying something, then smiling to show his good will, when he wanted to. The smile reasked his questions for him. It was a generous toothpaste smile, and he used it a lot on me, especially when I was winning at chess. I didn't see him wasting samples on Lorca or Spence or the others.

“What line are you in, Mr. Edgar?” I thought I'd see how well worked-out his story was. It couldn't hurt. I'd told him I was in ladies' ready-to-wear. He looked at me, let me have a blast of the smile, then told me he was a writer on religious themes.

“Sort of journalist, right?”

“Yes and no. I've written several books on religion.”

“Well they should sell well. They're the only kind of books you see in some places—greeting cards and religion. But that's not quite my line of country,” I said.

“It's everybody's line of country. ‘As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.'” He really was a preacher. Funny, I had discounted that part, at least in private. I thought the TV image was just that— the TV image After all you don't expect comedians to always be cracking wise in private. I tried to nod deeply letting Patten's homily take hold.

“I guess I'm just one of those miserable sinners you write about.”

“Remember, sin destroys all hope of heaven. It's an abomination.”

“Sure it is, but the good Lord'd be out of work if we were all like you. Take me, for instance. I'm an ordinary guy, sort of average. Average height, average weight, average interests. If I'm average, how come I can be such a sinner? If I'm average in everything else, I must be average at sinning too. So maybe things won't be so hard on me in the next world.”

“Since God expelled the Evil One from heaven, He has a law that sin can never enter there. 'He that committeth sin is of the devil.'” He gave the address of the quotation in case I wanted to look it up the next time I was staying at a Holiday Inn.

“If that's right, where does Jesus figure in this thing? I thought He got a kick out of reforming sinners. Isn't the deathbed confession of a real bastard worth more than a life of kneeling and praying?” Patten shook his head, fished out a slightly bent cheroot and put it between his lips.

“You don't begin to understand.” He felt in each pocket in turn and, not finding anything, went around a second time. He finally cupped his hand over the match I struck on the aluminum gunwale. “This is complicated stuff, fella.”

“I can't say I've given it much thought.”

“Then, like the man says, you must be ready to take the consequences. Damnation, eternal damnation!”

“Wait a minute. I thought you believed that Christ died for sinners? Well, here I am. What's the catch? Either He did or He didn't. If He didn't, then nothing's changed. God's the eternal bookkeeper with a double-entry system telling who's heaven-bound and who's going to hell. If Christ is the Redeemer, as you say He is, then what's the last hour for being redeemed? A last-minute conversion would suit most people.”

“You're stone blind.”

“The way I see it is, like here we are, both of us puffing on a smoke and not making total war on anybody. I can't see how that can be wrong.”

“You have eyes but will not see.”

“I mean what's the trick in saving a teetotal church steward for heaven when you can get a mass murderer? If you're saying that God loves to forgive sinners, then I think that's just fine with us sinners. Where would we both be without the other?”

The conversation was restoring my circulation. My knees felt like mine again. The boats had drifted towards each other, and then Patten held his canoe fast to the rowboat with his paddle.

“With a name like Cooperman, I thought you'd be Jewish.” Patten smiled an apology in case his observation gave offence.

“That's right, I am. But in a small town like Grantham, where I come from, you grow up Calvinist no matter what you hyphen it to. In fact the synagogue is at the corner of Church and Calvin. You can't get more protestant than that.”

“Where'd you learn theology?”

“Hotel rooms. Where'd you learn yours?”

“Cooperman, you're a lost sinner. I weep for you and I'll pray for you.”

“Can't hurt, I guess.” I couldn't think of any rule against it. I felt my ancient heels dig into the bottom of my boat. Enough was enough. I was glad when he brought out a metal chessboard with magnetic pieces adhering to it.

“Now, Sinner, I'm going to beat your pants off.” He set up the men and he got to play white. But it didn't help him; after four moves he quit when he saw that his fifth move would involve either check or the loss of his Queen.

“You stay up all night practising that, Benny? Damn it, I resent your book-learned antics. Think you're better than the rest of us?” He went on in that vein. He always did when he lost. But he came out of it after he'd chewed his lip a bit.

We'd been drifting away from the island. We could see the Rimmers' point and a cleared camping spot on another promontory. “This is all second growth in here,” he said. “Time was this place was blue with white pine. In the old days half the masts in the British Navy were driven down the Petawawa. I used to listen to old Albert McCord tell his stories about life in the cambooses.”

“What?”

“Cambooses—bunkhouse shanties for lumberjacks. The men lived on saltpork, beans, and bread washed down with green tea. Can't say I'd care for it, fella, but there's a fascination it has for me.”

“I guess if you didn't get out when you did in twenty years you'd be sitting on the hotel porch in Hatchway with the other old-timers.”

“Benny, you've nailed it. That's the name of my nightmare.”

Patten continued to tell me things I didn't know about the park. He told me that behind the lakes the land was honeycombed with old lumber trails, some of them well over a hundred years old. He told me of another old-timer named Berners who had a shack on a lake connected to this who'd been a lumberman and a prospector.