Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle. Lou Allin
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drinking had spelled an end to the relationship.
Belle seemed surprised. Perhaps Melanie’s judgement was not as sound as she had thought. “Did he ever hit you?” she asked.
“Ha! I’d never have stood for that. But the verbal threats were frightening enough.”
“What kind of threats?”
“It happened after I began seeing Jim. In the halls, in the cafeteria, Ian never missed an opportunity to make an evil comment. Once he made a pretty ugly scene and called Jim awful names. Even gave him a shove. You know that kind of male posturing. I was proud when Jim put him down with a few choice words.”
“And lately?”
“No sign of him. I hear he’s been hitting the books to raise his grade point average.”
“So he’s still in town. One last question, Mel, a significant one. We need ‘means’ here. Does Ian have a snowmobile?”
Melanie grabbed Belle’s arm in her excitement. “My God, yes. A new one every year. His uncle owns the biggest dealership in North Bay.”
“Too good to be true, and it probably isn’t, if you can follow that. I’ll see, though. Give me his address.”
Melanie seemed more optimistic when Belle left her. She obviously had a rare combination of common sense and imagination, just like Jim. What a couple they would have . . . Belle shook herself out of Shakespearean tragedy mode as she crunched on a last maple dip and ordered a box of Timbits for the road.
Early that afternoon, the Bravo took her to the Burians’ lodge. No welcoming smoke poured from the main chimney this time. Ben gave her a long hug at the door, the wool from his hand-knit sweater brushing her cheek. “Warmer outside than in today. Sorry we can’t offer you anything,” he said.
“Are you packing up?”
He touched the cold stove with a sad sigh. “Yes, that’s why no fire. Going back to town soon as Ma sorts the food. Don’t have the heart to stay. Might even sell, anybody’s foolish enough to try to run this dog-eared place. You can list it for us.”
Belle met the old man’s crinkled eyes and let him talk. “The viewing is this afternoon.” He snorted into a handkerchief and apologized. “Halverson’s. Will you be there?”
Belle felt as chilled as the dead stove. “Of course. And you probably know that Melanie called me. We had a long talk. I promised her I’d look around the camp.”
“Don’t know what you’ll find of help, but I guess we owe it to Jim to try. Ted and I gave it a once-over, but it was too much for us to handle right off. Broke me down, that picture of Melanie and all his keepsakes. She was almost like a . . .” His reedy voice broke. “Just met the girl last winter, but it seemed like we’d been a family forever. She was so good for him. Gave him confidence. ’Course he was always handsome to us, but Mel was the best medicine.” His voice trailed off.
Belle looked outside and left him with his thoughts. Then she resumed. “Listen, Ben, there’s something else. What did Jim say about suspicious plane landings?”
Searching his mind, he flicked a lighter on and off, as if he wanted more than anything to start that stove again. “Well, sure, when you’re up in the bush, quiet as it is, you notice everything, specially if it’s out of order, odd, if you understand me. Small planes at night. Landing, too, from the sounds and tracks he saw on Obabika. Told me he was gonna have a word with you about it, you knowin’ that policeman.”
“Where else?”
“On Stillwell and Marmot, too. Come and go in ten minutes. Risky stuff in the dark. Fellow here last winter flipped the plane when his wing touched down. Had to lift the whole damn mess off by ’copter. Wasn’t good for nothing but scrap.”
“When you were at the new hunt camp, was anything out of place?”
Ben looked out the window to a squirrel digging a pine cone from its store under a stump. “Built it all himself. Axe, hammer and chainsaw. No, nothing was out of place, not that I’d notice. Not much there, anyways, a bit of food, furniture, some of his school stuff. I wish to God he hadn’t tried to make it back that night in the storm. Stupid waste.” He went to a shelf and picked up a folded topo map.
“See, here’s the one. Not so far from that damn lake where he . . . Look, Belle.” He set his jaw and passed his hand over his brow. “How in hell did he get off the main trail when he could have found his way home blindfolded?”
“I see what you mean.” Belle ran her finger over the route. “It’s as if he headed home, then made a left turn miles before he should have. And then drove on and on, even though he was obviously going the wrong way, finally making another wrong turn. Mistakes that a panicky beginner would make, not a pro like Jim.” She checked her watch. “One thing more. How do I get in?”
“Sometimes he didn’t even lock the camp, but I’ll tell you where the key is anyway. Under the big splitting log.”
“Thanks, Ben.” As she searched his gray face, today so suddenly an old man, she forced herself to ask about the event she would have preferred to have avoided. “What time at Halverson’s?”
“Five o’clock. We made it later so’s Jim’s friends . . .” he wiped at his eyes, “could come after classes. Melanie put the word out around the university. Suggested that we start a scholarship fund in the Forestry Program. I would never have thought of that. And she’s been a help to Meg.” Outside, his wife stood wrapped in a heavy parka, still scanning the silent lake, sparkling silver between the granite hills. It was a postcard, but the wrong one for the moment. Did she still expect to hear a familiar roar come echoing down the paths, to see Jim race in, bringing her a handsome lake trout or a brace of partridge?
By the time Belle reached home, her engine had been coughing and jerking for ten minutes, and she had been chanting, “Please, please, please. I don’t want to have to walk. New plug’s on the way.” The motor gave a final lurch and expired half-way to the backyard. When she unwrapped the new plug, however, with hands stiffened in the windchill, she managed to drop it on the cylinder head and crack the ceramic base. Just one more addition to a wonderful day. Still, the old faithful had made it home. That’s what counted.
Later that afternoon, she stuffed herself into a black linen suit, a sop to civilization she had picked up at Eaton’s downtown just before the venerable Canadian institution went belly up. There was only one problem. In the supercold, the van should have been plugged in so that the block heater would keep the oil warm. You don’t want to go to the viewing and you did this deliberately, she chided herself, as the van door creaked in arthritic pain. She plopped heavily onto the seat, which greeted her with the hardness of the Cambrian Shield. Gingerly she fingered the ignition of the hybrid engine. It ground, ground and then flooded, eliciting curses to every Northern god. No good to wait it out. Fuel-injection did not operate like that.
Bruno’s Towing promised to come with the advisement that the jaunt to the boonies would cost an easy hundred. When a man arrived a hour later, she climbed grumpily into the truck and asked him to drop her at Halverson’s, before towing the van to Cambrian Ford. Cheaper than a cab, and she was already paying royally, she rationalized with an internal growl.
Halverson’s Funeral Home had been an institution since World War One. One of the first brick buildings, it had given permanence and charm to the downtown clapboard in the boom days of the mining city. Over the years it had inhaled competing businesses to gain a near monopoly except for the suburban burial societies. Everyone who was anyone ended his career at Halverson’s. It was an expected tradition.
Walking slowly to the door, Belle had to urge herself forward. Her family had hated these ceremonies, preferring simple cremation. Open caskets were the norm in Northern Ontario, maybe a European custom which arrived with the many Greek, Italian or Ukrainian immigrants. Inside the quiet, formal foyer, a middle-aged lady in tasteful shades of gray at a reception desk lifted her pince-nez delicately to consult her program: “The