Belle Palmer Mysteries 5-Book Bundle. Lou Allin
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rebuke. “Forget that last part. Guilt is not what you need. Think about this. Suppose you hadn’t come along, suppose more fresh snow had hidden the accident. The boy might never have been found. That’s a parent’s worst nightmare.”
“It was pretty remote. What with the occasional wolf and fox in the area, the body wouldn’t have lasted long if it had washed ashore in the spring. Still, it’s small consolation for the family.”
“So what does this girl want?”
“Lord, I have no idea. Perhaps a friend of Jim’s to talk to.” Her eyes closed for a moment. “The last time I saw him alive, he was writing a poem to her on his own heart. I do and I don’t want to meet her. What might have been, and all that Victorian sentimentalism. And I hate funerals and viewings. Probably be an open coffin.”
“The theatre of death. Morbid, if you ask me.” Miriam rummaged under her desk. “Maybe this will help take your mind from the situation . . . and don’t you dare offer to pay me after giving me every book in Sue Grafton’s alphabet.”
Belle opened the small parcel with a child’s wonderment. “Wild Orchids! Do I dream? Where on earth did you ever find this? Surely not in town.”
“No such luck. Got it in Toronto at Sam’s. They sell classic videos there now. Rows and rows, just like a bookstore.”
“You know I have none of the silents, Miriam. Thanks for thinking of me.” Belle handled the video with reverence as she studied the cover notes. 1929. Sudbury had passed the bushcamp stage and was manfully trying to grow into a city, entering the Great Depression on its magic carpet of silvery nickel. The Sudbury Wolves played in the NOHA, and 110 acres of parkland on Lake Ramsey had been donated by W.J. Bell. A World War One cenotaph had been unveiled, and Rudyard Kipling himself invited to pen an inscription. The Grand Theatre, formerly the Grand Opera House, had installed equipment for its first talkie. Maybe this delicate piece of celluloid had been the last silent shown to those lucky miners escaping the night shift, freshly scrubbed with carbolic soap and happy for relief from the dark tunnels beneath the city. She bent over and gave her friend a squeeze.
“Oh, hush up. Just let Rosanne use your computer for her term paper next time she’s home. I’d get her one except that Scrooge doesn’t pay me enough.” Miriam stuck out her tongue and winked.
“No problem. You know she’s welcome.” Belle paged through her notebook. “Hey, what about that Nelson place you went to last week. Are the Toronto people ready to bite?”
“Funny story, but we lucked out. Nelson had told me that the septic system had, in his clever little words, ‘been approved.’ When I visited for pictures, all I saw was a pipe sticking out of a partially buried holding tank behind the house. No field bed at all. Wet as a mad hen, I was. Of course those Toronto folks hadn’t even noticed. They think everything’s hooked up to sewers like in cities, but I saved us some embarrassment. Can you imagine the first flushes? Straight out the back and shut down by the health department.” She made a rude but descriptive noise.
Belle agreed. “And woe to us if the sale had gone through. Those weasel words might have held up in court. ‘Approved’ could have meant ‘approved for construction.’ ”
Satisfied that her paperwork was beaten into submission, Belle made her daily phone call to Rainbow Country Nursing Home. At 83, her father had become confused and tottery in his apartment in Florida. Since he had given up his Canadian citizenship, sliding him over the border at the crucial juncture when he could still walk and talk had been a miracle for which she still gave thanks. “Nursing station? It’s Belle Palmer. How’s the old man today?”
Apparently he was as cantankerous as ever, with his loud demands, and expecting his usual Tuesday shrimp lunch. She visited him once or twice a week, but their conversation seemed limited to the expected meal, the weather and television. It hurt her to see him diminished, to watch the pieces of identity and independence vanish one by one, his expectations dropping with his capacities. Still, if his world had shrunk to food and media, he was in the same boat as 90 percent of North America. And the spunk that had banished him from the dining room made her applaud; when he lost the spark to roar out demands, his life would fade to a guttering candle.
He might not have been the intellectual giant her mother had wanted in a husband, but he had been a loving, kind and indulgent father, had rolled out a motorbike with a red ribbon on the handlebars when Belle entered university, and had slipped her money to travel to England. And as a booker, he had passed on his love of films. How many other ten-year-olds had white mice named Errol and Bette, or a pet squirrel named Clara Bow? As soon as she could walk, he had taken her twice weekly to the private screening room at his office to watch new releases, “every film ever made,” he told everyone later at Rainbow. Once the warm weather came, Belle hoped to take him out, wheelchair and all, to one of the blockbuster movies, or maybe even the impressive new IMAX theatre.
On the drive home, listening to CBC radio relate the eternal scuffles of the world, Belle dithered over dinner options. An ice storm had hit the area that afternoon, so she was pleased to see the sander in front of her until a sudden dirty spurt hit her car. “Whoa, all right! I’m backing off,” she said, remembering the price of her last paint job.
When she pulled into her yard and shut off the engine, she heard throughout the woods, a delicate symphony, the clear glaze on the tree branches tinkling onto the ground like broken chandelier crystals as the rising evening winds shifted course. Belle paused for a moment and tuned her ears to the delicate orchestration, a rare combination of sound, sight and texture. She reached toward a drooping willow twig, its soft gray pussies wrapped in a coat of ice melting under her hand as fast as it had formed. Back to reality, she sighed, knowing that she’d never get out of the driveway until she laced it liberally with stove ashes and sand.
Happy to be free, Freya chased a tennis ball around the parking area, dropping it into the snowbank at intervals and pawing it out in self-amusement. Meanwhile, her shoulders to the wind, Belle flung handfuls of grit from her bucket onto the icy drive.
A Thai dinner went into the microwave. Not bad for four dollars, but lemongrass mated evilly with chilies, reminiscent of bath powder. The oaky tang of Australian semillon helped cut the edge. Until just a few years ago, steak, pasta or Chinese had dominated the local culinary scene, but recently gourmet coffee, goat cheese and radicchio had made an appearance, and the largest supermarket, a giant which provided maps and carts the size of Alberta, had even installed an olive bar with eight varieties plus artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes.
Freya got four cups of “Mature Dog” Purina, high in fibre. “I must be cruel, only to be kind,” Belle whispered as the last cup dinged into the bowl. “You know you lard it on over the winter, and I don’t want to be responsible for hip dysplasia.” The dog seemed to be counting, patiently expecting the usual five. Only when Belle turned did she grudgingly bury her nose in the bowl.
Belle took her decaf to the computer room. On the classic film forum, Dietrich’s daughter’s biography was raising hackles, her graphic descriptions of the old woman’s final deterioration condemned as “ghoulish.” Someone else wondered what had ever happened to Zasu Pitts and was surprised to find that the silent star had enjoyed a television career in My Little Margie, her zany lopsided grin ever marketable. One of these days I really should stop lurking, Belle said to herself, and get involved in this so-called information highway.
Mutual funds had the next round of home pages. As a recent ruthless capitalist in charge of her father’s mutual funds, Belle combed the financial quotations, urging the TSE to retake its position above the DOW. “Try our International Money Market Fund,” a local funds manager in a wheelchair, the very soul of trustworthiness, had advised, shoving a colourful brochure across the desk.
“At 3 percent this year? Sounds like a loser. Why should I invest in this?”
He had beamed and puffed on an imaginary cigar like a tycoon. “As a hedge, what else? Diversify. The Danish krone has appreciated by 29 percent this year.” Was he really licking his lips? “You see, if the dollar drops big-time, you’ll make plenty! An ill