LITMIR.BIZ

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nodded, pushing back her limp hair as if suddenly embarrassed at her appearance.

      “Are you still writing stories about those Puddingstone kids? You were on to something there,” Hélène said.

      The girl’s wan smile brightened her face. “Sometimes. Dad said I could take a course at the college next fall in between our seasons.”

      “Brenda!” An irritated voice yelled from the kitchen.

      “Nice seeing you.” She moved off, pausing to clear the next table quickly, the dishes clattering on the tray.

      “Brooks’ daughter?” Belle asked.

      “Slave,” Ed said. “He couldn’t run the place without her and the wife working like navvies.”

      “How did you meet her?”

      Hélène looked at her husband. “She went to school with our youngest son. Came to his graduation party must be three years ago and spent most of the time helping me in the kitchen, poor shy thing. Had a fancy to write a book about the Puddingstone kids, she called them. On St. Joseph Island where she used to visit her grandfather.”

      Belle tapped her knife on the placemat with a map of Ontario. “On the way to the Sault. Now I remember. That pretty rock. Kind of a pink with dots of green and red like a steamed pudding.”

      “It was a cute idea. It might have given her an escape from here and from her father. Doesn’t look like she’ll get the gumption to leave on her own. Best thing she can do is look for a husband.” She noticed Belle’s sniff and explained. “It’s quick and easy, and it often works. Sometimes a woman needs a knight.”

      Coffees finished and the tab paid, they strolled the yard like confident, overfed American tourists. “Let’s find the septic system,” Belle suggested. “That’s where big money has gone. I count ten cabins, and the lodge, of course.” Over a small hill near a barn lay an expanse of undisturbed snow. A humming motor inside an open shed nearby caught their attention.

      Ed rubbed his mitts together. “Big ’un all right. Listen to her purr. Sent all the way to Toronto, I’ll bet.” Behind hockey and fishing, septic systems were the third most popular topic on Edgewater Road. Requirements for a permit were stricter than the bar exam. People drank out of Wapiti, and no one wanted the water tainted by ancient cracked tubes to nowhere, well chambers made of rusted oil furnace drums and field beds flooded by bad drainage. The Boreal forest, with its thin veneer of peat over rock, made a good system costly. Building one required large excavations and tons of backfill. The tab for Belle’s house had run over eight thousand dollars. On the Beaverdam’s rocky island, the only option would be a so-called Cadillac installation where electrical power heated the effluent for more rapid breakdown and allowed a smaller bed.

      Belle looked around furtively. “I’m going to check the barn. You two keep an eye out.”

      She slipped into the weathered frame building while Hélène and Ed talked outside. In the back, under tarps as Derek had discovered, was a steroid brigade of powerful gleaming new sleds. Suddenly a whistle caught Belle’s ear and she slipped out a back door, just as a lean man in work clothes, a heavy red-checked shirt and insulated vest came towards them from the lodge. He was carrying an ice auger. “Help you folks with something? Need to rent a machine? Come in from one of the huts?” He motioned to the ice village off the point half a mile and lit a cigarette as the collies nipping at his heels exchanged canine courtesies with Freya and Rusty.

      He gazed with interest at Belle’s tracks alongside the barn. “You don’t want to be walking off the paths. There’s all sorts of machinery and old metal parts under the snow.”

      Belle answered with a sheepish smile, though she felt her pulse throb against her neck. “I was looking for that big yellow birch. Carved my name on it when my uncle brought me up here as a kid. You must be Dan. I’m Belle Palmer, and this is Ed and Hélène DesRosiers.” The men shook hands.

      “I couldn’t help admiring the job you’ve done with this place. Looks like a million,” Belle added.

      He drew slowly on his cigarette, then flipped it into the snow and grinned broadly, the proud proprietor. “Well, not really. Needed some fixing up for a long time. You folks from around here?”

      “We live down the lake. Out this morning to exercise the dogs. Saw you had some rentals and wanted to tell our friends in town. How do you like the Cats?” Ed asked, winking at Belle as Brooks turned away to cough.

      The lodge owner waved his hand in dismissal. “Oh, picked them up at auction down south. Nothing special. Good enough for the tourists, though, if you take my meaning. Don’t want to give them anything too new or fancy or it’ll be junk quick enough.”

      “What do you charge?” grinned Ed.

      He snorted. “Well, you know city folks. Sounds like a lot to them, seventy-five an hour. But five hunnert wouldn’t pay if they can’t handle ’em. How many times I’ve had to go carve those suckers outta the slush. Not supposed to go into the bush neither. Two Toronto fellas ridin’ double on the cheap broke down north of the lake last year. -25° that day. And they’s none of them had the sense ta carry even a match. Some old trapper saved their dumb hides. Make ’em take survival gear now, tarp, lighter, extra gas.”

      Ed gave a hearty laugh. “Have to show them how to use it!”

      Hélène had been checking her watch. She pulled on Ed’s jacket. “Come on. Someone has to get to town for groceries.” They left Brooks patting his dogs and casting an eye over his property.

      While they rested at the half-way point, Belle pushed up her visor. “Somehow I don’t think he bought the story about the yellow birch,” she said.

      “Maybe not, but you can bet he’ll get rid of those beauties you saw in the barn. Big business now. Star said yesterday there’s been over 230 stolen each of the last three years. Ship ’em off fast, though. Can’t ride a hot machine anywhere on the trail plan where there are wardens to check your permit. And a Mach Z’d stick out like a sore thumb,” Ed said, gunning his motor with his own digit.

      That afternoon Belle called Mike Minor, the health inspector for the region, who stamped approval on every new septic bed. “Mike, I need some information about aerobic systems, like at the Beaverdam,” she said.

      “Anaerobic, you mean,” he responded with a laugh. “What do you need to know?”

      “How big a system would Brooks need with all those cabins? What would it cost, including backfill?”

      “Pay attention now. I might ask questions later,” he replied. “I certified the whole shebang just before the winter. Must have struck it rich with the Super Seven lottery. Cost of the fill means nothing. Hauling it in by barge is the problem. ’Course, he has a Bobcat backhoe, so he does his own work. Still, you’re talking forty grand minimum with the ten cabins.”

      “Where do you think he came by that money these days? Cashed in some insurance?”

      “A lottery ticket’s his only insurance. I’ve had my eyes on violations ever since he took over from Pete and let the place go to hell. Nearly shut him down five times. Sharp-eyed boaters reported raw sewage was pouring into the lake one Labour Day weekend. An accident, of course. Nothing would surprise me about that fellow, but he’ll be as hard to catch as a century sturgeon. What are you getting at?”

      “Not sure yet, Mike, but we’ll have a smasher when I get in a supply of Wild Turkey for you.”

      Fresh with the information about Brooks, Belle tried calling Steve, but his answering machine took his place. She left a brief message, glad to avoid another lecture.

      Come to think of it, Belle recalled, the lodge owner did look like a sturgeon, lean and mean and shrewd and primitive. Likely to bite off innocent toes dangling from a dock.

      EIGHT

      Belle slept late,

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