LITMIR.BIZ

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in the television room and beamed up to TCM. The Television Police, aka the CRTC, limited Canadians to Bell Express Vu and Star Choice. Neither offered Ted Turner’s Classic Movies Network. Many neighbours had pirated systems, but she dutifully paid her fifteen dollar yearly subscription to a grey-market address in Southern Ontario. She sipped a mild New Zealand beer, an antidote for the flaming curry, and tuned in.

      Silent films night. Marie Dressler in Tillie’s Punctured Romance. The Cobourg, Ontario, native had left a music-hall and stage career which climaxed with her smash hit as Tillie Blobbs singing, “Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl.” The Rosie O’Donnell of her day, she’d broken into pictures in 1914 with Charlie Chaplin. As the movie unfolded, Belle noticed why Bea had looked strangely familiar. Belle was used to Marie at nearly sixty in Garbo’s Anna Christie, which had rejuvenated her flagging career. And yet there she was at Bea’s age, flaunting comic talents as big as her size, a huge, hatchet-faced woman in love. Belle found herself laughing as hapless Charlie manouevered the woman on a dance floor like steering an elephant dressed in tulle, Marie’s wild hair flying loose, except for a curl pasted around each ear. One leg bent back as Chaplin moved forward.

      Later, upstairs in the master suite in her snug waterbed, she tamped a cigarette into Adolphe Menjou’s jewelled holder, which her father had bought her at Universal Studios in Florida on their last visit before his collapse. In typical Canadian fashion, the pack of Number 7s, a cheaper brand, bore a warning: “Each year, the equivalent of a small city dies from tobacco use.” A horizontal bar chart tagged car accidents at 2900 and tobacco-related deaths at a whopping 45,000. Homicides were the smallest category. Only 510, probably the same as Detroit. Belle hoped that the two latest deaths would be the last, an early Christmas present, but logic implied what the police hesitated to mention, that often another killing had to occur if only to provide the vital clue. A few tots of bargain-basement scotch smoothed her evening as she savoured Nevada Barr’s Blind Descent. What a coup the former park ranger had achieved by making the landscape hundreds of feet below in Carlsbad Caverns as vibrant and alive as the desert surface.

      What would the trapper do when he found all four snares sprung? The Fur Managers’ website said that the traps had to be checked daily. Who monitored that? Getting up to gaze through the patio doors over the tiny balcony, she watched the moon gleam through the scudding pewter clouds, the waves pounding her rockwall. The lake was perilously high for September. The elusive and all-powerful Hydro One Keeper of the Keys hadn’t opened the dam at Outlet Bay yet, leaving the levels for better boat access, especially at Rocky’s, the restaurant and marina at the Wapiti First Nations Reserve.

      The next morning she let Freya out, and busy getting ready for work, didn’t notice that the animal was AWOL again. Rarely did she go to the road, unless a passing dog challenged her. After that porkie attack, what next? A skunk? No tomato juice in the cupboard, nor enough toothpaste, an apparent miracle worker when diluted.

      Belle went to the side deck, scanning the yard. The wretch stood at the corner of the septic bed grass, her muzzle working at something which had to be food. “You sneak!”

      She ran down the stairs to the parking lot, motoring towards the dog, who ducked her head in shame and backed away from a familiar green plastic LCBO bag. Out of the container spilled the remains of pale ground meat. Freya was still licking her black lips as Belle’s heart did cartwheels in shock. “What have you done now?”

      FOUR

      Frozen in time as the horror sank in, Belle looked at the road, only twenty feet away up a grassy bank. Someone had tossed this bag down, knowing curious dog behaviour. A poisoner was the lowest life form. Now she regretted bearding the trapper in his den. This kind of payback, likely done in the dark from typical cowardice, would be impossible to prove. A police department mired in unsolved murders would be ill-inclined to be testing for prints and summoning Mr. AW HECK to the station.

      The dog wasn’t frothing at the mouth or trembling, but who knew what she had ingested? The average medicine cabinet or cleaning supply shelf had enough toxic chemicals to fell a moose. Hauling Freya to the van and shoving her in, Belle dialled the vet on her cellphone. A familiar perky young assistant listened while she related the emergency. “Shana’s away on a conference, but Dr. Uyi is acting as standby. I’ll slot you in, no problem.”

      As she drove, Belle glared in the mirror at the reclining dog, one paw over the other, probably expecting a leisurely walk on the trails behind Skead. Was today a holiday? “I’d gag you myself, but I’m not into slobber,” she said with a vengeance.

      She made record time to Petville, rushing in with Freya on leash. A bow-backed man with a yippy Pomeranian backed away instinctively at the large shepherd, its vicious reputation as undeserved as the doberman’s. The vet tech ushered them into an examination room, and just as swiftly, Dr. Uyi came through the door. He was a handsome Polynesian with a boyish face and smooth coffee skin, laugh lines at his eyes revealing two more decades.

      “I was told that she ate something. Do you have a sample?”

      Belle handed him the LCBO bag containing a few ounces of meat. “Ground beef, seems fresh or just-thawed. Someone tossed it into my yard.”

      Slipping on latex gloves, Uyi moved to a sink and began inspecting the contents. “Doesn’t seem like anything’s been added,” he said.

      Belle shuddered, observing Freya for imminent convulsions, bloody vomit, paralysis. Five dogs had been poisoned in a Toronto park that week. “What were you looking for?”

      He bent to examine the animal’s mouth and gums. “Antifreeze is green. Or ground glass. Both are quite fatal, and the end isn’t pretty.”

      Belle felt her legs turn to linguine and sat down on the wooden bench. “My God!”

      His tone was reassuring as he ran slender fingers over Freya’s body, probing her stomach area. “It’s a ninety-nine per cent bet that she’s fine.”

      “Not good enough. What would you suggest? An emetic?”

      “Err on the side of caution, then. To treat her at home, a few ounces of hydrogen peroxide would do the job.” He rose and reached under the sink for a plastic pail, then opened a drawer and took out a small paper packet, ripping it open. “Don’t fancy swallowing that stuff myself. This is a bit gentler. Apomorphine disc. Goes in the corner of the eye. Within a few minutes . . . stand back.”

      An hour later at the office, Miriam checked the wall clock and said, “I was afraid you’d miss your showing at Bea’s.”

      Nose in the air, Freya trotted over for a piece of bagel with cream cheese. “Hi, sweetie. Come to keep me company? By the way, Strudel didn’t take kindly to that Far Side book you gave me. Poodles, the Other White Meat.” Miriam’s fierce little dog had once made Freya’s life sheer hell by ravaging her tail on an hourly basis.

      Belle put her hand over her mouth as the dog disappeared into the back room, where they had a small lounge for lunch and an occasional nap. “Don’t mention food.” She explained what had happened.

      Miriam gave a low growl. “Sometimes ex-husbands come in handy. Jack would have pummelled that scumbag. But she seems fine. It sounds like you acted quickly.”

      Belle checked her watch and headed for the Mr. Coffee, transfusion for all seasons. “Soldier’s breakfast minus cigarette for me. The Nortons will be here in ten minutes.”

      She saw a car pull into the lot. “Minus coffee, too,” she added with a mock sniff, rebuttoning her coat on the way out.

      A couple in their early forties, the Nortons had relocated from Ottawa to open a joint practice: urology and dermatology. They were renting a luxury apartment at 2200 Regent but wanted to settle into the community and entertain on a larger scale.

      “It sounds perfect. So close to our office at the Four Corners,” Dan said, wearing an aubergine overcoat matching his wife’s. His razored blond hair gave him the appearance of an albino porcupine. They were seated in the spacious rear of Belle’s van, where he baptized

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