LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Hi, Trusty Rusty,” she called. The bitch grovelled on her back in the snow and presented her pink belly in submission. Ed hated what he considered her feminine obsequiousness, but had been unable to break the friendly little creature of the habit. It was her nature to show this instinctive deference, Belle thought. To strangers, however, Rusty could present quite a performance of teeth and barks. Outside in the small oak trees Hélène had planted, bird feeders hosted a convention of colourful grosbeaks and a few robber jays. Freya jumped unsuccessfully for the suet ball and got a dirty look, so she ambled in innocence to her pal’s food dish and tried a few snatches. At the kitchen window, Hélène, hearty as her own tourtières and running perpetually in first gear, hoisted a coffee in pantomime.

      Belle entered, careful to remove her boots to spare her friends’ new pride, a ceramic tile floor. Hélène was fiddling with a monstrous white apparatus that was humming and beeping. “Just taking this loaf out of the breadmaker. Bacon and cheese. Looks like it come fine.” She carved a chunk, slathered it with soft butter and presented it along with a mug of creamy coffee. “Shortbread if you want it, too.” Her hand tapped an industrial size pickle jar crammed with tiny pink, white and green trees decorated with silver balls and coloured sugar.

      “My mother used to make these,” Belle confided as she helped herself, noting with shame that she had to drop a few to suck her greedy hand from the jar. Melting under her tongue, they took her back thirty years and gave a sweet blessing to the coffee. “Are you two up for a run to Beaverdam Lodge?” she asked.

      “What for? Got a lead on Jim’s death?” Ed scratched his stomach thoughtfully, giving a self-conscious hitch to his pants.

      “Sort of. Remember how we talked about Dan Brooks’ business prospects once the park went through? Well, apparently those prospects are already materializing. Some pretty expensive new machines from God knows where. I want to look the place over. Check for renovations. Let’s take the dogs. It’s only five miles.”

      “We’re glad to go with you, Belle,” Hélène said. “I’m just sick about what happened to that boy.” She paused and glanced at the latest family Christmas picture magneted on the fridge. “Raising kids is a chancy business, a tragedy like this always so close. A car, a bike, even a fall from a swing.” Belle felt relief at her own single blessedness. Dogs were a heck of a lot smarter than kids, for the most part.

      The ice was hard-packed with the recent traffic, and with the unusual humidity, ethereal patches of fog enveloped the many tear-drop islands, a water colourist’s dreamland recalling the Li River landscape. Periodically the trio stopped to admire the scenery and let the panting beasts catch up.

      At Brooks’ island, a decrepit dock jutted out onto the lake, surrounded by a couple of pickups with knobby tires, four-wheelers for hauling supplies to the mainland a half-mile away via an ice road. Near the juncture of three popular trails, the lodge saw a lot of traffic, especially beer traffic, and more especially after hours. Official closing times were relative for Dan as were limits on the number of drinks sold. Even during the day, Belle had seen more than one driver fall off his sled passing her house. One machine had hit a pressure ridge at high speed, executed a barrel roll and tossed its lucky rider into a snowdrift before crashing upside down.

      They slid up the glazed boat ramps in front of the lodge. A satellite dish rose nearly thirty feet high on a steel pole bolstered by cables. Perhaps this was the landmark which the pilot pulling up to her dock had been seeking. Neatly lined up near a path which led to the cabins sat four Arctic Cats, their paint scuffed and chipped. “These aren’t what Derek mentioned. In those sheds, maybe?” she suggested, pointing her mitt toward the back of the lodge.

      Ed traced a fracture on one fibreglass hood. “Rentals are risky. I wouldn’t want some idjit handling my baby for any price. Not even Hélène. That’s why she has her own machine.” His wife aimed a less than gentle kick toward his leg, but he continued with a grin. “Like to throw a cylinder or wreck the track on bad ground.” He stepped aside as a large party of noisy snowmobilers walked past to the parking area.

      One man yanked repeatedly on his starter in frustration. “ ’Course it won’t start, you dumbass. You left the kill switch on!” his friend yelled while his buddies slapped the back of his head and guffawed.

      Give me the Burians’ little place any day, Belle thought. The Beaverdam was a circus. Old Pete Brooks had first built the lodge in the forties to cater to the fishing trade, but after the lakes suffered with acid rain, the trade had dropped off. Upon Pete’s death ten years ago, his son Dan had taken over. More friendly than ambitious, Dan hoisted a few too many with his customers and had let the place rot. One visit had been enough to turn Belle away. Now the situation had changed. The lakes were reviving, and so was the Beaverdam. This was no cheap facelift, but a regular overhaul, complete with Pella windows, insulated French double-doors, new siding and shingles.

      “You dogs behave now. No biting. Here’s some jerky,” Hélène ordered as the animals licked their lips and cocked their heads as if they understood. They were friendly and safe enough outside on their own. The idea of tying a dog in such a situation would make a Northerner laugh.

      The trio tucked their helmets under their arms and entered the lodge, stamping their boots perfunctorily on the broad oak boards. A cheery fire burned in the fieldstone fireplace, Pete’s pride, every rock lugged in his boat from the North River deposits. Stuffed pickerel and monster lake trout adorned the walls. Belle cast a glance at the additions which had tripled the size of the main room. Seating for an extra fifty at least. “Bucks” and “Does” were accommodated at the back, past a long, scarred bar stocking nothing fancier than Canadian Club. Most people drank beer anyway. Jars of pickled eggs and sausages sat by the cash along with chips and pretzels. It was quiet for late Saturday morning. The menu offered breakfast until eleven, so that was what they ordered. Very few places could screw up that simple meal.

      “I miss Pete. Those days were the best. Plenty of fish in the lake, haul out five-pounders to fill our freezer. And no talk of that natural mercury stuff the Ministry keeps harping about now,” Ed said, rolling his eyes. “Not that I worry. Tastes the same to me. Ozone layer blown up, chemicals in the food, radon in the basement, we’re all goners.”

      “I wonder if Brooks is still taking Americans bear baiting,” Hélène said, watching the waitress disappear into the kitchen. The common practice, disdained by purists, consisted of hanging rotten meat in a tree and bivouacking nearby, sipping a mickey of rye in a tree house until Bruno nosed out the gamey snack and went to heaven for his appetite.

      “Salting deer and moose ain’t legal, but baiting is. Laws don’t make no sense. Bow hunting’s another thing entirely, but this is fish in a barrel if you ask me. I knowed a guy used doughnuts. Red jelly kind did the trick,” Ed said.

      Hélène shook her head. “I hardly call that hunting. Murder more like. See any of that in our woods and I’ll tear it right down. ’Course, if the animals come knocking, it’s a different story.” A fine black bear skin hung on their wall from one spring afternoon when a young boar, just awake and foraging after its long nap, had smelled fish cooking. It had ripped out a window on its way into the kitchen. A handy shotgun was never far from the cottagers’ reach. The Ministry had fumed but admitted that 911 was of limited help against giant claws raking the cabin doors. Once in a while, for public relations, particularly if the offending bear were damaging property, officers from the Ministry of Natural Resources would trap one in a giant metal cylinder on wheels and relocate it a hundred miles north.

      “There’s been some money put in here,” Belle said as she scanned the room. “Those windows don’t come cheap. That jukebox is new, so are the two video games and that big screen TV.” She consulted a folded card on the table. “Karaoke Night? We are getting very fancy here, folks.”

      The waitress brought their eggs, bacon and thick homemade toast. Hélène’s eyes followed her as she moved around the booth, and Belle wondered at her interest, chalking it up to motherly concern. The girl’s skin was nearly transparent over her prominent cheekbones, her eyes ringed with dark shadow. Hélène touched her arm gently as she turned

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