LITMIR.BIZ

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reached the other side before a double slurry truck spewed a cocktail of salt and slush over a determined young man pushing a bicycle.

      Tim Hortons, ignoring the apostrophe to save a buck on signs, welcomed her in typical Canadian style. Nineteen hundred franchises and now challenging Krispy Kreme with one hundred and twenty stores in the U.S. A hockey icon, Tim had founded the chain in 1964 and skated to minor sainthood ten years later driving his Pantera. Noticing the orderly progress of the indistinct lines, Canucks careful not to blunder in, assuring by nods and waves that they really were “next,” she gave her order, adding two Hawaiian doughnuts with cheerful tropical sprinkles. A familiar voice made her turn.

      “Don’t rich realtors spend winter in Cancun?” Her good friend Steve Davis, a detective with the Sudbury Police, flashed dark brown eyes at her as he stretched his six-six frame across two seats in a booth. His raven hair had a new touch of grey at the temples.

      “Only if I score on the roll-up-the-rim-and-win cup. And look around you, lawman. Talk about stereotypes.” She pretended to assess his beltline, a telltale inch of poundage added to the muscle. “Are those chocolate chip ones low-fat?”

      He answered by finishing his muffin in one bite. She moved back to the counter to pay, then parked at his table for a moment, leaning on his comfy blue parka. “I thought crime rates dropped during the winter. Have you been reduced to trolling for litterers?”

      He laughed, accustomed to their usual banter, sometimes prickly but reflecting mutual concern. “Break and enters, sure. Tracks in the snow are better than fingerprints. Snowmobile thefts jump, especially the high end jobbies, not your bitty Bravo. And palladium’s been disappearing from INCO again. That stuff’s worth a grand an ounce.”

      “Any leads?”

      He shrugged in a “who knows” gesture. “I have sources, but nothing definite. An inside job, though.”

      “I heard on the radio that drugs account for eighty percent of the crimes.”

      He blew out a contemptuous breath. “Number-crunching junk science. Gangs are adding a new element to the mix, though. We’re way behind the big cities, but catching up fast.”

      “Enough about business. How’s the family?”

      A cloud passed over his face, and he glowered into his coffee. Belle guessed that his rocky marriage had hit another snag. “Heather?”

      His daughter, half-Cree, adopted from an abusive family in Sault Ste. Marie, had battled the odds and topped her class in junior kindergarten. Belle was charmed by the little girl and had worked wonders with her shyness by bringing Freya to babysit a few times.

      “It’s Janet. Thanks to her friends’ high opinions, she has our daughter in this private school. Travingale Academy on Bancroft Drive.”

      “Ouch. That must cost.”

      “Overtime’s no biggie with me, but I’m wondering if this lifestyle might be out of my league.”

      Belle gazed out the window to the drifts blasting down the avenue. In her hands the lunch package was cooling. “What do you mean?”

      “Tuition was set in September, but there are optional extras. Dance lessons, field trips. Then before Christmas they asked for another five hundred bucks from each family. Rising costs of heating, repairs to their activity van, you name it.”

      “It’s tough to run a private school in a core area of fewer than 100,000 people.” Belle rose to leave, hoisting her package. “I have to get this chili to Miriam before it resembles its name.”

      They prepared to close at an early two thirty that quiet afternoon, taking the Northerner’s winter privilege. “Reservations at seven. Meet you and your beloved at the college,” Belle said.

      Miriam stabbed at a star on her calendar, chuckling wickedly and patting her round stomach, twenty winter pounds that always saw August. “Dinner on the boss, a red letter day.” She picked up a post-it note. “That Brian Dumontelle called again to see if anything new had come up. You could be wasting your time. I don’t see him as a serious buyer.”

      Belle looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean? He’s with the police. Makes a good salary.”

      “How often have you taken him out looking? Seven? Eight? Nothing ever was exactly right.”

      “Worse than a picky woman.” She furrowed her brow in memory. “And always trying to take me to lunch.”

      Bundling up, like two bumper cars, they elbowed each other in joking fashion as they fought to get out the door. Half an hour later, Belle followed the salt truck up the airport hill, staying a cautious distance behind the whirling apparatus at the back. The old van was tacky enough without inviting a paint job. A shiny Audi pulled out to pass and hugged the left side of the road to avoid the Gerald McBoingBoing frost heaves that tossed the van like a hiccoughing mule.

      As she got out at home, she retrieved her travel cup from the dash and flung a coffee puck onto the snow. Freya greeted her with licks and was rewarded by a walk to the end of the road at the schoolbus turnaround, then up what Belle called the Bay Trail. She liked naming places, queen of all she surveyed. When interlopers despoiled it by baiting bear, poaching moose or tearing up her foot trails with quads or snowmobiles, her hackles rose.

      Slowly she picked her way up the steep hill, retamping a path with her snowshoes to ease the way for the animal. She passed Skunk Brook, blanketed with snow and bubbling secrets under its white mantle. Then past Froob Rock, where the dog liked to jump, crisp mahogany leaves hanging like forgotten socks from the oak saplings. Covered in summer with papery lichens, now it was a scarcely-defined form. At the end of the trail, they emerged onto a narrow bay, the wind whistling down the channel. Unlike the choppy lake, this thin, shallow arm was already frozen. Mid-January would stop Wapiti’s waves, provided that the temperatures dipped to minus twenty-five for a few days combined with a dead calm.

      With memories of picking blueberries several feet below the snow, they sat companionably, sheltered behind a juniper spray. Atop the ridge, hardy red pines shot into the air, growing tenaciously from the thin, acidy Boreal soil, peat on rock.

      “Think Melibee likes shepherds? Any dog lover . . .” Freya shook her head to dislodge flakes which had dropped from a branch into her velvety, erect ear. “Scratch that theory.” Belle’s barometer on human decency had suffered a few glitches. Maybe cats had more discrimination about character.

      Back home, she tossed her closet for black corduroy pants and a thick emerald sweater, adding a silver chain as a token bauble. “A fashion queen I’ll never be,” she mumbled to the attentive dog, no doubt praying that her mistress would stay home for a game of bed hockey. “Too cold here and too expensive to follow the trends. Wait ten years and everything’s back. Why did I throw out those bell bottoms?”

      As she left, Belle turned on the motion-sensor lights. Squinting through her pock-marked windshield, she made her way down the winding, snow-rutted road. With the warning reflections of headlights, it was safer at night, except when eleven feet of snow made a luge track, twisting and turning, impossible for two vehicles to pass.

      Thirty minutes later, at Nickel City College, she parked in the lot. The Versailles Room lay at the end of several circuitous halls, past darkened classrooms where Belle had taught an occasional real estate course. The spacious restaurant boasted a curving seventy-foot-long glass wall overlooking a courtyard with interlocking, snow-filled fountains. After mentioning her reservation, Belle let herself be shown to a window table with a linen cloth and fresh carnation. The nervous young lady wore black pants, a burgundy cummerbund and white shirt.

      Mindful of the drive home, Belle ordered a Blue Light and sat back to explore the menu, her tastebuds gearing up. Hungarian night. Sauerkraut soup to start, a julienned carrot salad, then goulash with dumplings, and cherry torte for dessert—$22.95 shrunken Canadian dollars. More than reasonable. The ingredients would be fresh and the students in top form, their grades depending on pleasing the customers.

      Still

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