LITMIR.BIZ

      I didn’t completely relax until we finally reached the security of the light surrounding my cottage. Holding Sergei’s food bowl inches from his nose, I managed to lure him away from his new friend and lock him inside the house. With a last glance at the building to ensure everything was secure, I headed towards my pickup.

      Knowing Hélène would have a very long and dark walk home through the woods, I offered her a ride as far as the turn- off to the Fishing Camp. She gratefully accepted and put her dog, now revealed to be a nice looking golden retriever, into the back of the truck and jumped into the cab beside me. She sat with her long, angular body folded into itself, staring out the windshield while I started up the truck. Under the overhead cab light, her face appeared strained and tired.

      “You must be working too hard?” I asked. Shifting the truck into gear, I headed down the drive.

      She sat as if she hadn’t heard me, then turned a bleak stare towards me and answered, “Just a few things hitting me right now, but nothing I can’t solve.”

      “Want to tell me about it?” I asked, not sure if I really wanted to delve into her personal life. I felt I had enough problems of my own to deal with at the moment.

      But she saved me from having to battle my conscience by answering “Ain’t much. Only bore you.” And continued staring at the beam of light bouncing in front of us.

      To lighten the mood, I said, “Nice retriever you got there.”

      She sat silent for a moment, then answered, “Not mine, Charlie’s.”

      “You mean Charlie Cardinal?” I asked in surprise. Somehow a rottweiler seemed more his type of dog.

      She grunted “Yup” and hunched further forward.

      Unsure of what else to say, I drove on in silence and quickly reached the end of the Three Deer Point road. I turned onto the main road towards Migiskan Village. Night surrounded us in an impenetrable blackness as we pursued the moving tunnel of light. Occasionally, a stray object would flash into life, then die as the headlight beam pushed forward. I felt as if my entire world was reduced to this barely lit cab of a broken-down truck with Hélène and me its sole inhabitants.

      “Too bad about Marie,” I said.

      Hélène sighed. I felt the back of the truck seat move as she leant against it. “Yeah, a real shame,” she replied. “But if a woman puts up with a man beating her up all the time, she’s gonna fight back, eh? Might even kill him.”

      I decided not to challenge her. Better to let the real story of Marie’s murder come from Eric or Police Chief Decontie. Instead, I made some benign comment about Marie’s funeral.

      Hélène continued talking as if she hadn’t heard. “I tell ya, I woulda left the bastard years ago. Any man lays a finger on me, wham, I hit him right back. Jeez, no way I take that guff.”

      I heard her zip up her jacket with one long forceful yank.

      “Now me and Charlie, we got an understanding,” she continued.

      “Are you saying you and Charlie Cardinal are more than just friends?”

      “Yeah, well him and me, we have a thing, see,” she replied, turning quickly in my direction and then back to the front of the truck. “I guess ya could say we connect. I’m good for him. He and that bitch of a wife don’t get along. In fact, he’s gonna leave her.”

      She turned her gaze back to me. “Nov, Meg, I’m telling ya this on the q.t. . . . I don’t want ya blabbing this around, eh?”

      “I won’t say a word. But you surprise me. I thought you kept pretty much to yourself.”

      “Yeah, that’s what I want people to think. Keeps them from sticking their nose in where it don’t belong. Ya know once the word gets out, it’ll be game over. Me and Charlie have been real secret like. We have a secret place we go to, eh?” She glanced at me. “Anyways, by the time they find out, we’ll be long gone.”

      “You’re leaving?” I asked, even more surprised by this additional news.

      “Yeah . . . sometime . . . Soon as Charlie gets his affairs in order. Then we’re outta here. Now don’t ya be telling nobody.”

      “But I thought you loved your job at the store?”

      “Yeah . . . I do. But I gotta get out of this hole. I ain’t never seen nothin’. Charlie’s gonna change all that. Him and me, we’re gonna see the world.” Her voice shook with defiance.

      “I suppose if you’ve never lived anywhere else, this place can get to you. Where do you plan to go?”

      “I don’t know. Somewhere with lots of lights and glitter. Toronto, New York, maybe even Paris, you know the big city in France, where all them painters hang out. I saw some of them pictures in a book once. They were real pretty, that’s for sure.”

      “Sounds exciting, but won’t this require a bit of money? Why not settle for Toronto? It’s cheaper and would have just as much action as the other two cities.”

      “Like I said. Me and Charlie got plans. And maybe, just maybe these plans include getting a few bucks. And then maybe they don’t.”

      I didn’t bother to ask where the money was coming from. I knew it was courtesy of CanacGold. And judging by Charlie’s fancy new Yukon, they were paying him a bundle. No wonder Charlie didn’t care about preserving the island. He wasn’t going to be around when the mine finally got going.

      Out of the darkness, a pinprick of light suddenly loomed into view. Worried it might be a reflection from the eyes of an animal, I slowed the truck down. As I got closer, the white dot was joined by a red one, and rather than remaining stationary the way a deer would when startled by oncoming headlights, the lights wove from side to side across the road.

      “Jeez, not another damn drunk,” Hélène muttered, voicing my own thoughts.

      I slowed my truck to a crawl and wondered how I was going to get around the car without getting hit. I blasted the driver with my horn, hoping to convince him to remain on one side while I attempted to pass on the other. No such luck. The car suddenly swerved across my path. I jammed my foot on the brakes. My truck slid over the loose gravel and came to a stop, inches from the car’s bumper.

      However, the car, one I recognized with unease, continued its slow aimless course, like a wind-up toy winding down. It bumped along the shallow ditch, lurched over a boulder protruding from the side of the road, narrowly missed a tree before wobbling back across the road. Finally, it came to rest against a hydro pole. For one long second everything froze, and then the horn began emitting one loud continuous blast.

      With anger overriding all caution, I jumped out of my truck, yelling, “Hey! What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” A dark shape slumped over the steering wheel. In the glare of headlights, I saw Tommy.

      THIRTY-SIX

      Like father, like son, I thought as I shook him. “Hey, Tommy! Wake up! This is no place to sleep it off!”

      Slowly, his body slipped from the steering wheel and slid through the open car door towards the ground. I grabbed for his arm,

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