LITMIR.BIZ

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secretary, bodyguard against students, friend, and jack-of-all-trades, who happened to remind me of a tennis ball, round and bouncy. Her black curly shoulder-length hair sprang like a wire mop from her head — cut page-boy fashion it made her face even rounder. Her features were tiny and, although almost eclipsed by the excess weight, they were beautiful, as though designed for fat and not for lean, and her age seemed to have hovered around forty-five for years. In fact, no one even knew her real age. Everything else about her was round as well: round pudgy hands, round belly and legs, short and squat, and now her mouth pursed into a round O. She made me think of the snowmen Ryan and I used to make: three round balls for the body, round raisins for the mouth, and small bright black eyes set against a white face.

      “I’m right though? About the pieces? But where in the name of God is Dumoine? That’s where you found him, isn’t it? I’ve missed all the news reports, except yesterday’s. Fill me in. There was no Canadian news in Bermuda.” It was a demand. Martha was the only person I had ever met who knew everything about everyone before they did, without being resented for it. I didn’t even try to keep the smile out of my voice. Gossip was Martha’s lifeblood, but at least she went to great pains to get it right.

      “Dumoine. It’s up the Ottawa River about two and a half hours from here on the Quebec side. It’s a medium-sized town, and the local police were supremely suspicious of the whole mess. Apparently dead bodies just don’t pop up routinely there, the implication being that they pop up routinely everywhere else. They asked me if I was sure it was a human body, if ‘perchance’ it might not be a dead moose or deer.”

      “As if you couldn’t tell the difference!” huffed Martha indignantly. She was nothing if not loyal.

      “To be fair, they’ve had some woman calling in all kinds of false alarms over the years, dead gophers that look like dead babies, the ribs of a cat mistaken for human remains. How can you mistake a dead gopher for a baby? Anyway, they had no end of stories from her. They thought I was her. It seems our voices sound alike.” I spread out my hands in mock self-defence. “When I finally chiselled a word into the conversation and told them that this body was wearing a man’s size-ten boots, they advised me that they’d be along. We waited hours it seems — since the body was dead and in a remote area there was no huge hurry. Someone else had said the same thing earlier. Rather crass, I thought. In the end, they didn’t need us, to our great relief. The two biologists waiting with us knew by our description exactly where the body was and they made an ID of sorts.”

      “Two biologists? Anyone we know?”

      “I’d heard of them, because some profs from here have collaborated with some of the profs at their university, Pontiac it’s called, but I hadn’t met them before. A lot of their study sites are up near Dumoine. They have a biology station up there.”

      I should have known a short answer like that would not satisfy Martha. She put her hands on her hips and waited with eyebrows raised, until I was forced to continue.

      “They were a rum pair, two mammalogists — Leslie Mitchell and Don Allenby. They didn’t do much talking while we waited for the cops, but then I suppose they were worried it was their colleague lying up there in the bush. Rightly so, it now seems. The cops took down our names and addresses and thanked us and then turfed us out. Allenby escorted them up to the campsite.”

      “That’s it then? No inquest, nothing? You don’t have to get up there and tell your grisly story and get mis-quoted in the papers and bring the top university brass down on you?”

      Martha had a running battle with the newspapers. She was convinced they all lied through their pens and hid behind their editors when the accusations started to fly.

      “They did the autopsy at the little university in Dumoine. The cops called and said there would be no inquest as it was pretty straightforward. Autopsy results concluded it was death by bear. A blow to the back of the head and neck eventually killed him. It was not a quick death, though. The rest of the mess was mauling. Case closed.”

      “Nasty way to go. Being mauled by a bear, and no one to hear your calls.” Martha shivered and then added, “It must have been one of these rogue bears that come sneaking up on decent folk and, without so much as a by-your-leave, swat them like pestering flies.”

      “That’s what the conservation guy thinks. Apparently a team of wildlife enforcers went up there to shoot the poor devil. They’re not going to trap this one and move him somewhere else, not after he’s killed a man.”

      “Damn right,” said Martha with an indignant look spreading over her face.

      “C’mon, Martha. Most black bears are more afraid of us than we are of them, but a rogue bear, one that attacks without provocation, is different. Too bad they give all black bears a bad name.”

      “Yeah, well, no one in their right mind would want a rogue bear in their backyard, and with so many crazy canoeists like you gallivanting through those woods, there’s no safe place for a rogue bear anymore. Too dangerous. Once a man-killer always a man-killer, I say.”

      I didn’t say anything. I had had a sudden unpleasant jolting in my stomach as I thought back to the open tins, the food in the campsite, the pack up the tree. I was thinking of the way the sun had fallen across the body, its rays peaceful and warm, quiet and soft, beauty in such horror. The unease was back, and I suddenly realized why. I hadn’t seen any sign of any bears in that area. I thought about the chocolate bar still in the tent and the full cans of food and drink unmarked by any teeth or claws. There should have been signs that a bear had been there. There hadn’t been: no claw marks, no garbage dragged from the campsite, no droppings, no drag marks, no signs at the mess tent or near the food pack, nothing to indicate a bear had been there except for the horror of the body. But if it had never been there, then how or where had Diamond been killed by a bear?

      I brushed the thoughts from my mind. I didn’t have time for them, and besides, it didn’t concern me, curious as it was. I glanced out the window. Students of all descriptions were flinging a Frisbee about the grassed lawn across the street. I could see the library to the west and beyond it the Ottawa River framed by a stunning electric blue sky. The city sprawled off to the right and Gatineau, Québec, lay across the river. I liked to pretend that I could make out the Eardley Escarpment where my little log cabin lay snuggled in the most beautiful of valleys within the Outaouais. Wishful thinking though. I didn’t live that close.

      “So who was this poor guy?” Martha brought me back to the present.

      “We didn’t learn anything at all up in the bush. But when we came back and the police phoned to tell me who it was and ask more questions, I did a literature search on him.”

      “You mean you actually got that old computer to work for you?” I ignored her. Martha could make the computer turn somersaults for her but I seemed to paralyze it and funny things happened. I wasn’t about to admit to Martha that I had had to ask the computer guy to help me.

      “He was a mammalogy professor at Pontiac University — a well-known and it seems well-liked mammalogist. He’s a cat man. He’s studied all the North American cats and been to Africa studying cheetahs and helped with breeding of endangered species. He was studying the Canada lynx. I ran his name through my database and it lit up like a neon light. The guy’s written dozens of papers on various mammals. Quite a wonder boy. Lectured all over the world and has written several well-reviewed books about the cats of Canada. His name crops up at least twice a month in all the major newspapers.”

      “Was he also a columnist or something?” asked Martha.

      “Actually, no. He’s at the other end of the media stick. He gets written about. He’s a real wilderness warrior. Couldn’t abide any destruction of anything natural and wild. A real hard-line environmentalist. He’s leading the fight to have logging banned up in the area around Dumoine.”

      Martha said excitedly, “You mean the guy with the black curly hair and deep sexy voice that was on all the newscasts a month or so ago?”

      I looked at the news clippings piled on top of my desk, rifled through

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