Murder Sees the Light (8 page)

“He got his face burned in the air force during the war. Now he lives like a hermit. Like Job, he eats his morsel alone. I'd like to see him while I'm up here. Sort of a distant cousin of mine. He showed me how to survive in the bush if I have to.” He looked like he was getting lost in his past for a minute, staring up towards the end of the lake. Finally he slipped his paddle back into the water. “Drop around for a chess game later,” he said and I promised. Silently he moved away from the rowboat. He slipped around the far side of the island from his place. I watched him begin to paddle up towards the end of the lake, then bent my own shoulders to the oars. A fish popped out of the water about ten feet from my bow. Was it a lake trout or a splake? I couldn't say.

SIX

It was a funny feeling getting into the car and heading back towards the park gate. I'd grown accustomed to moving no faster than my arms could row, now I was moving at the amazing velocity of fifteen miles an hour over the ruts and bumps of the lumber trail. When I came around one bend, I ran straight into the flood that everybody'd been talking about. The water splashed over my hubcaps and I got the feeling very strongly that it would be a mistake to stop the car and have a look around. There was an old movie about moving nitroglycerine by truck over a road in South America. I felt I was behind the wheel of that truck. With some skidding, I managed to get clear of the water and the muck under it. From there on, it was a straight country run, more or less, to the Kingscote Lake Road and the park boundary. Technically it was supposed to be a two-lane road, but practically speaking only a fool would insist on his half of the road and ignore what was happening across in the other lane. Here ordinary cars took the measure of one another before they tried passing, and trucks stopped to let their drivers discuss the matter from all angles over a rolled cigarette in the shade by the side of the road.

The road past Elephant Lake ran along the shore for a mile. It was a biggish lake with cottages and boathouses dotting the shore and motorboats pulling waterskiers along the line of the farther side. The road was yellow with the fine sand of the area. On a raft about a hundred feet from a green boathouse with white trim, a skinny kid in a blue Speedo went off the high board. She came up a few seconds later hoisting herself back on the raft and tugging at her bathing suit.

When Benny Cooperman from Grantham, Ontario, tells you that the village of Hatchway is small, he means
small
: a handful of stores and a couple of gas stations. It's the sort of place you usually see going past you at fifty miles an hour. I stopped the car in front of the gas pumps at a garage and told the attendant who was trying to decide what to do with a strange-looking credit card to fill the tank and check the oil. Meanwhile, I put a call in to Ray Thornton in Grantham from a phone booth.

“Benny! You still in love with life north of the fortyfifth parallel?”

“It'll be fine when the ice melts and kills off the ice worms and black flies. Listen, Ray, about that party. I think he's waiting for a new passport to come from Ottawa in a false name.”

“Those loopholes were plugged years ago. What are you talking about?”

“I'll get you a passport in any name you like. You just have to need one bad enough to take the risks.”

“Okay. You'd better stay up there and keep an eye on him. If he leaves, stay with him and don't let him get out of the country without letting me know.”

“This is running into money.”

“The least of your worries. Just stay with him.”

“Okay. I just hope you're near your phone if he makes a dash for the airport.”

“Whatever happens, don't lose him. You got that?”

“Remember that when you get my invoice.”

“I'm keeping a record. Don't be so nervous, you lucky bastard. Here I am cooped up in the steaming cement jungle and you're up there up to your knees in cool, cool water. Wanna change places? Honest, Benny, the humidity on St. Andrew Street today … I'm thinking of calling ‘Early Closing.'”

“You're breaking my heart. But next time, I'll take the right clothes with me. I stand out up here like a stockbroker in a soup kitchen.”

“It's so hot right now, Benny, my glasses are steaming.”

“Okay. I'll stick it out for a few more days and keep in touch.”

“Don't get sunstroke.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“See if you can get close to Patten.”

“I just left him.” Ray drew a breath and let it out slowly along the wire.

“Sleep tight, Benny.”

“Yeah, it's the only way.”

When I came out of the phone booth, the garage attendant still hadn't done anything useful to my gas tank. It took another five minutes. He moved like he'd never seen a car before. While I was waiting, I inspected his stock of bumper stickers, pennants, and various patented bug killers. The place was wired for electricity, and two or three dirty bulbs were burning over the grease pit, but kerosene lanterns were hanging from beams nearby, just in case. For a while I looked at a collection of pieces of metal used to change tires. It looked like with luck he could rotate all my tires in about a week and a half. The principle of the lever was the newest technology in this neck of the woods.

The Hatchway general store had a big sign out front with the word “Onions” in large letters. When you got closer, the words “general merchandise” came into view. It was a large, rambling place with sections added at odd angles as though by whim. Since it sat on a large lot next to the wooden bridge with nothing leaning against it on three sides, it could afford to be eccentric. Inside, I took off my sunglasses and tried to locate myself. To the left it was hardware: sump pumps, wire fencing, paint, roofing supplies, hinges, hasps, bolts, stove pipes, all looking bigger and more serious than in the city. This gave way to kitchenware, with objects I thought had been discontinued in my grandmother's day. I'd walked through most of the store, with its heavy winter jackets standing out in dark reds, blues, and greens, past the meat counter, to the fresh vegetables. I picked up some limp carrots then went on to the canned vegetables. At the check-out counter the girl packed my beans, Campbell's soups, and sardines in a cardboard carton. I was going to buy some canned salmon too, but I remembered what was filling the refrigerator back at the cabin. Just leaving the store, I recognized the tanned legs of Lorca of the Body Beautiful walking past me with a shopping basket. Through the store window I followed her down the street to the Blue Moon Café. Neither the Mercedes nor the Buick were visible. I dumped the groceries in my car, then doubled back to the restaurant.

The Blue Moon was done up with red and white gingham curtains surrounding the windows on one side, and dark, stained gumwood booths down the other. Orders were taken by a girl in a matching gingham apron and negotiated through a hatchway in the wall at the back which connected with the kitchen. Lorca was sitting with her eyes on the front door, so she started her smile before I was more than half-way to her. “Are you alone?” I asked.

“Sure. Help yourself. The boys are off getting the heavy stuff. Have you got a cigarette?” I sat down and passed her my Player's. She fingered the cigarette deliberately like the next steps were the blindfold and the firing squad. She lit up, threw her head back, and blew a smoke ring at the slowly moving wooden ceiling fan.

“Thanks,” she said, “Norrie doesn't like it, so I have to watch myself. You won't give me away, will you?”

“For smoking? Don't be silly. Norrie frowns on drinking too, I hear.”

“Yeah. That's another of his little games. ‘Look not upon the wine when it is red …'”

“‘… for in the end it stingeth like an adder.' Something like that.”

“Are you some sort of preacher, too, Mr. Cooperman?”

“Nope. Call me Benny. I just happen to remember the quotation.”

“You're funny.” She'd ordered coffee, and it arrived at that moment. I ordered the same. She added a pill from a small round pillbox to the coffee and it foamed quietly.

“Lorca, who do you—Lorca,” I said, interrupting myself. “What kind of name is that?”

“He was a Spanish writer. My parents' idea. I've never even read anything by him. Mom and Dad were political and arty. I got as far away from that as I could. I grew up in a house where everybody sat on the floor, listened to Bach, and drank tea without milk or sugar. Dad didn't own more than one suit, the one he lectured in. My sister, Marin, says that they were hippies, but it must have been before the hippies came along. Hippies don't wear button-down collars. I never saw a real bed until I left home.

“Okay, sorry, Lorca. I didn't mean to pry into your life story. Have you any idea how long you'll be staying in the park?”

“The quicker we get out of here the better. The woodsy life, trees, you know; we weren't made for one another. I like nature and all that, but I like it better in a book, away from the bugs.” She looked across at me trying to improve her case with the intensity of her eyes on mine. “I love Norrie, you understand, but I also have these few weaknesses of the flesh that he doesn't adore. Like smoking. He lives for those cheroots of his, but that's 'cause he's special. All the rest of us have to quit, or pretend to, 'cause we're not Norrie. Back in the States it's easier to look after my weaknesses without Norrie finding out. He's not petty, you know. He just takes these little things seriously.”

“Doesn't it seem a little unfair?”

“Oh, you get used to it. That's just his way. He's not like anybody else. He's Norrie.”

My coffee had arrived. Now I took a sip. She watched me and I watched her back. She should have got the boys to take her for one of their joyrides. “Maybe you should get out a little. Do you see anybody at the cabin?”

“Get out more? Are you kidding? Norrie keeps us so bottled up I feel like mineral water. The only guest we've had is an Indian guide.”

“Aeneas DuFond?”

“Sure. He came to see Norrie the other day. Oh, it was a treat just to see another face. Now, he's my kind of Indian. He and Norrie go back a long way together. He …” She tightened up on the stream of information. I must have started sounding like I was asking questions. I took another tack.

“Do you like Europe?” I asked. That sounded general enough to get restarted on. “Spain, now! What a country!”

“You can have it. In spades you can have it.”

“But a port like Palma. The Mediterranean. That's a great little town.”

“I was stuck there on a boat for a month. He said I'd love it, and it turns out to be a fucking island. Jesus! I was that far from leaving him that time.” She didn't bother to gesture. She was so run down in her self-esteem she didn't think I was watching or listening. Or so I was thinking, when her head tilted. She'd seen somebody come into the café. She took another cigarette from my pack. “For later,” she said, getting up. I turned to see Spence at the door. The car was parked out front with the other eager faces looking through the café curtains.

“See you,” she said, gathering up her treasures.

“See you,” I said, following her with my eyes out the door.

The road back to the lodge went faster. I didn't turn right around; I went back to the general store to buy a hat and a few more things I'd forgotten about. I should have invested in boots. I could have used boots. All in all I was feeling good about the day so far. By the time I got to the raft in Elephant Lake, the sun had shifted and the girl in the blue bathing suit had abandoned it. I saw her on the dock spread out like a trapper's pelts working on her tan. Just like Aline Barbour.

Before I got to the culvert, I came across Joan's Honda with the hatch door open. I pulled up behind her and turned off the ignition. As I expected, there she was, out in the middle of the flood, her rubber boots awash, pulling at a half-submerged bedspring. I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my pants. I should have taken them off altogether, because they got completely soaked and muddy during the next couple of minutes. Wading out to help a lady in distress hadn't been ruled out by Ray Thornton, so I thought, why not? At least I would have a fine view of all traffic in and out of the lodge while I was there.

“You're going to ruin those trousers, Benny.”

“I'll be all right. Have you found the trouble?”

“Damned beavers, that's all. Just like I told you, they can build up their dam as fast as I can pull it apart.” Joan was wearing a faded grey T-shirt tucked into muckspotted white shorts. Her tanned legs were also muddy. This was my first beaver dam. I'd never even seen a beaver, except on the back of a nickel. I didn't know anything about them except that they built dams, represented industry around the world, and bit their balls off when they became frightened. I didn't have much to go on, but I hoped that my brawn would be of use to Joan.

Joan smelled. The hole she was digging up smelled. In a very few minutes I smelled like they did. Nobody ever mentions the stench of all this unspoiled nature in the travel books. I worked around in the muck to where she was standing at the edge of the submerged road. It was under about a foot of brown water. From the movement of the water near her, I could see that the culvert itself was very close to the bedspring. It had been used to try to keep the beast from building right against the mouth of the culvert.

“There are two other springs down there,” she said, “but they are loaded down with waterlogged wood and mud. If you can help me move them, Benny, we can set up the three of them again. That will slow the beavers down until the water subsides, I hope.”

I moved farther off the shoulder of the road up to my knees and tried to feel underwater to get hold of the frame of the spring. I could feel the current pulling at me. I saw the way it pulled the dirty water I'd churned up down out of sight in a business-like way. I nearly lost my balance a few times and felt better when I had the spring in my grip so that it could make me a more substantial piece of flotsam. Together Joan and I were able to move it up to the road level. It came with beaver-chewed pointed branches and the usual muck smelling of decay and stagnation.