Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle. Lou Allin
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maybe you can tell me more about my aunt. The police asked about my trip to Detroit, but they didn’t say much about how she . . . how she . . .” The words seemed to come hard for him.
Belle brought out coffees, and they sat on the deck as the lake fanned out its majesty. On cue, a white triangle of sail cut the waves. “What a view,” he said, a longing in his eyes common to visitors. “It’s like a fairy tale. Aunt Anni’s place is so sheltered in the bay.”
Belle laughed at the urban perspective. “Yes, but being on a point puts me at the mercy of the wind. At ice-out it’s touch and go for the boathouse and satellite dish, even with the rock wall. Watching the floes shelf up, I pray like hell for a combination of hot sun and windless days. When he got back from Florida this year, my neighbour’s waterslide sat on his lawn, and his dock was a pile of pick-up sticks.”
Dressed in a University of Toronto sweatshirt and jeans, his dark brown hair fresh from a summer buzz, Zack sipped in silence for a moment, his mug gripped in both hands. He set it down shakily. Feeling sisterly or more likely motherly, Belle took the initiative. “You wanted to talk about Anni?”
He braced his shoulders and exhaled slowly in a effort to marshall his resources. “I’m glad I wasn’t the one to find her.”
“She didn’t suffer. It was sudden and . . . final.” Not going well, she thought. Stale words. Trite. Abrupt. Hardly comforting.
His voice grew bitter and self-accusing. “Yes, so final. No more chances. The last time I saw her, what was I doing? Telling her how much I loved her? I don’t ever remember saying those words.”
“Depends on how you’re raised. Some families aren’t very vocal or demonstrative with hugs and kisses. It’s actions that count. And you tried—”
He pounded a fist on his knee as if passing sentence on his failures. “Tried to borrow more money, you mean. But ‘borrow’ is a joke. When could I ever hope to pay her back?”
“No, I meant that you tried to help. With the house. With the yard. She loved you, Zack. She was going to leave you everything.” Belle blurted out the fact, nearly slapping her mouth.
If she had expected naked greed at this bombshell, she was mistaken. For a tremulous minute he looked as if he were going to cry. Then he massaged his temples, leaving white marks on the tanned skin. Belle switched gears. Grief counselling was not her forte. “I remember when we first met. I was shambling along the road like a whipped puppy. My uncle had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and he was handling it better than I was.” He nodded in sympathy as she continued. “Then a magical voice emerged from a birch grove. ‘I know where the wild clematis grows,’ it whispered as if confiding a precious secret.”
He sniffed and then pulled out a handkerchief, twisting it instead of blowing his nose. “Aunt Anni was a great one for wildflowers. I was going to give her a new Peterson’s guide for Christmas, hers got so ragged. It was her Bible.”
Her eyes closed, her heart remembering the drone of the forest that day. “This woman dressed in denim strolled out, holding a fragile pink flower like the holy grail. Took me back for tea and got my mind off myself by talking about her trails and their wonders. Later I found out that she’d lost Cece the year before, so she knew what I was feeling.” The roar of duelling jet-skis woke her from the reverie, and to her surprise, Zack had folded his hands in resignation, calm once again as he took comfort in the vitality of Anni’s life.
“She had that knack. When Mother died, she came to my apartment and packed my suitcase. Insisted I stay here for a few days. Know what we did together by the fire that night? Read Hans Christian Andersen. Just like when I was a kid. Aunt Anni was Danish, you know. Her maiden name was Blixen.”
Finally Belle told him about the baiting. “We’ll have to wait until the investigation moves along. My friend Steve is touching bases with the MNR. There’s a bizarre possibility that someone took offense to her actions, and it escalated.”
“Are you sure? She didn’t mention anything, even when I called her from Detroit.” He paused as an idea crossed his face. “We always played a game. I tried to disguise my voice. Like phone sales, something to throw her off. She was so sharp, though. Never missed a trick. Said her ears were better than her eyes.”
“Aunts don’t brief nephews about commando raids. Exactly when did you talk to her, anyway? It will help fix the time of death.”
“I left here at dawn to beat the traffic. Got there around two, so that’s when I called. Took all my spare change. Brutal trip in my tin can car. Wish I had borrowed the van.”
That sounded selfish to Belle, but he was like a kid to Anni, and kids did take advantage. How sound was his alibi? He had given no more specifics. “We’ve been wondering about the van.
He whistled, and a faint smile played on his lips as he swatted at a mosquito. “The Queen Mary, you mean. Rides like a living room sofa. We went to Science North the weekend she got it. Saw a bear movie at the IMAX, then over to the Farmer’s Market for fresh bread, smoked trout from Manitoulin. That vehicle must cost a mint. Air, CD, cruise control. She was so careful with money. Maybe she had a nest egg.” He stopped short at her expression. “I mean, why not? She deserved to go first class.”
Belle’s momentary good will was flagging. Was he genuinely moved by the death or merely acting? The comments about money seemed ungracious. Still, it was no time for recriminations. She waved her hand casually. “The police will make enquiries. She must have seen one of the local dealers.”
“They’ve got to find out who killed her. Is there something I can do? That’s the only repayment I can make.”
The sun was setting on their collection of bug bites when Belle and Zack said goodnight. Coaxing Freya from the basement, she went up to the master suite and poured a purifying soak, dripping liberal portions of kiwi bubble bath for aromatherapy. “Serenity,” the bottle read as if it might be consumed. Or maybe the AA prayer. The things we can and cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference. Nothing could return Anni to life, but nothing could stop Belle from finding out how, then why, then who. A tedious but logical order. Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder” drifted upstairs. “Songs for Dead Children” sounded so mellifluous in German.
FIVE
A few days later the phone rang at dawn as Belle was mounding hot salsa onto a cheddar omelette. Crammed with sourdough toast, she answered with oral gymnastics. “Hurrogh.”
“It’s Steve. Thought you might like to know what we’ve found so far, early bird. Say, are you chewing something?”
“I was. Don’t keep me in suspenders.”
“That old joke ages you twenty years.”
Belle cringed, vowing to bury Uncle Harold’s favourite chestnut. “OK. Three questions. How could she afford that van? Zack told me it was hers. How did she die? And cui bono, our tie-breaker?”
“Least to most interesting. As for the death, Graveline had it down straight. The oak stick had traces of her blood, minute particles of wood in the wound, but for prints, only hers were retrievable. Some smudging could have been made by gloves or a quick wipe. The blow caused a massive haematoma. To get technical, the upper occipital region, on the lambdoidal suture. She never regained consciousness and died where she fell. Sometime after dinner, going by the stomach contents.”
Belle coughed, reaching for the grapefruit juice. Suddenly her mouth felt dry. “Now I’m sorry I asked. A blurry memory of that scene suits me better. And the van?”
“No mystery there. Her name was on the registration in the glove box. Purchased it a couple of weeks ago at Crosstown. Turned in her vehicle for next to nothing. Price was thirty-five thousand and change. But guess what?”
“GM is desperate? One per cent financing and no payments for a year?” In a town known for a boom-bust economy and labour disputes, local stores often advertised