LITMIR.BIZ

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often happened in winter, she added her phone and FAX numbers.

      Belle hopped into bed and tuned her radio to the last innings of the Jays against Oakland. Mr. Five Million had pitched flawlessly, retired twelve in a row, then pulled a groin muscle. Mr. Four Million had fanned four times and tossed his bat into the stands. So much for their top guns. Management would have to curry the Syracuse farm team with a fine tooth comb. The radio crackled in and out as usual, reception fading as far-off stations smeared the signal at critical “three and two” calls.

      Then an infernal shriek drilled into her ears like the squeal of chalk on a blackboard. The mandatory smoke detector, only this time as often before, smoke was not the problem. Gnats, little spiders, dust, anything could give the fussy monster a tantrum. Belle climbed onto a chair and wiggled the box in quasi-scientific fashion, muttering and coaxing to some success. Then only minutes later, as the Jays scored twice, the screech sounded again. “You son of a . . . you’re not keeping me up all night,” Belle said as she located a screwdriver and disconnected the detector. In the morning she would give the rascal a thorough shaking or better yet, buy another.

      SIXTEEN

      A message from a Geoff Garson, aka the Saint, flashed on the screen when Belle selected “new mail” the next day. A retired librarian from Notre Dame in Indiana, he was delighted, even flattered to accept the “Mission: Impossible.” Choose a librarian, she thought, for patient, meticulous work; they thrived on rooting up uncommon facts, the more obscure and useless the better. His information later that week showed that he was indeed an ace researcher, but it also brought some troublesome questions. Belle’s fax machine slowly churned out a picture and fact sheet. “Forest Glen Wellness Center, formerly Forest Glen Sanatorium. Founded in 1878 as a TB facility. During the 1950s converted by Dr. Brian Whitewell to a premier psychiatric hospital. Fees $75,000 U.S. yearly, excluding special treatment plans. Patients approximately 30. Single suites only. Two hundred wooded acres in the Adirondacks. A small stable of horses, tennis courts, jogging track, exercise rooms, indoor and outdoor pools. Specializes in schizophrenia, false memory, personality disorders, emotional trauma recovery. World reputation brings clientele from Europe, South America and the Far East.” Belle inspected the building with a magnifying glass. Stately Georgian brick, tastefully modernized through several eras. Two wings flanked an impressive portico over a stretch limo. She polished the lens and looked again. Manicured cedar hedges, classical topiary (a brontosaurus?), layered flower beds and lawns to kingdom come, probably rolled to within an inch of their lives by a gardener imported from King’s College, Cambridge.

      In an impulsive mood, buoyed by her sudden success, Belle got the phone number from the operator, surprised that it was listed. “Forest Glen,” answered a plummy voice bearing the cachet of the Received Standard English pronunciation as only Miss Moneypenny could deliver. “How may I help you?”

      Belle gulped and modulated her tone to quiet confidence. “I’d like to speak to Miss Schilling.”

      The voice turned chilly and tense. “You don’t sound familiar, Madam. I’m afraid Miss Schilling has a specific list of callers.”

      “Sorry,” said Belle and hung up. A foolish trick. Would the woman inform the family? So Eva was there. But how could Franz afford the fees on his university salary? And as an overtaxed, under-serviced Ontarian, she knew damn well OHIP wouldn’t foot the bill. A private medical plan? Doubtful. Few Canadians had that animal. More to the point, why was she there and what was the prognosis? She typed another message to Geoff: “Excellent work, Saint. Loved the picture, too. Any prayer of more personal data on a patient, Eva Schilling? Do you have contacts who work there or know someone who does?”

      Belle spent the afternoon taking a very demanding primary school teacher (was there any other kind?) on a tour of Valley East bungalows under $120,000. Ms. Bly, a cod-faced woman of fifty, who might have been Don Knotts in drag, had precise objections to all six places. One was too near the fire station, too noisy. Another had the old siding, sashless windows, too drafty. One used oil heat, too smelly. Another had a barking husky next door. One had poplar trees, “common and filthy pests”. And the last, an older custom-built home with quality touches which Belle hoped her client would appreciate, got the loudest sniff.

      “What fool wants hardwood floors? My mother used to spend all Saturday on her hands and knees rubbing that sticky beeswax around. Polishing, always polishing. She was a regular slave to it,” the woman said, writing in a small notebook. “I don’t fancy ceramic tile either. Much too cold on the feet.”

      Belle hummed an evil internal melody and nodded with a slight sincerity since she agreed about the floors. Northern Ontario wasn’t Santa Fe, and it wasn’t Back Bay. Having a dog had put the last nail in the notion of oak parquet when she had built her house. Claws on floors reminded her of the odd cringe she felt whenever she ate raisins.

      After arranging another tour the following week by planting in the woman’s head the concept of living a wee bit farther north in Capreol (“So many wonderful bargains since the sad closing of the Canadian National Railroad facility”), Belle stopped for gas at the last station before home. As she waited for her charge slip, she glanced at a four-by-four Chev pickup with supercab and eight-foot box across from her. What a boat. Probably mortgaging his soul to feed those twin tanks, Belle thought, smirking at the $90.00 on his meter. Then again, if you can afford a giant in the first place, you don’t worry about the cost of his keep. The license plate read 1BIGMF. How did he slip that past the Ontario censors? Suddenly she did a double-take. With Brooks at the wheel, Nick rode in the passenger seat, flashing her a toothy smile and showing no hard feelings. The lodge owner glared her way, whispered to Nick, and arced his cigarette onto the asphalt as they drove off. Belle braced for an explosion, but it snuffed out in the slush. Nothing like upping the ante. Now Brooks would know that she was pursuing the drug connection. Steve would have her head if anything sabotaged the raid.

      After another fill-up at the liquor store, she reached home in time to throw the ball for Freya and use the leftover taco mix for a tomato soup and macaroni casserole. A can of precious hominy bought in Buffalo added a southern touch. To her surprise and delight, Melanie called to report that she was dropping her roommate off at the airport around noon the next day and wondered if she could visit.

      “It’d be great to see you. Bring a Toronto Star. We don’t get delivery out here” was Belle’s answer.

      What was on the Nostalgia channel, she wondered, spooning into the food? W. C. Fields in The Dentist. A Slim Jim in this early talkie, with his bulbous nose in training, he grabbed the giant block of ice from the delivery boy and set it absentmindedly on . . . the stove! When he returned, it was an ice cube, which he shrugged off as perfectly natural, scissoring it up with the tongs, and depositing the tiny piece back in the ice box. Of course, the film was a minefield of ethical blunders. He treated his daughter like a slave, locked her in her room, threw tantrums on the golf course, thrashed caddies and gyrated ham-handedly over helpless women in his dental chair while he pumped the pedals with abandon.

      Still chuckling, Belle cranked open her bedroom window, amused to find another ladybug. Warm weather in September had sent hundreds clustering around her patio doors in an unusual infestation less bothersome than mosquitos or biting flies. She inspected the creature to see whether it had two spots, nine or none, then dropped the bright little memory of summer onto the thick branches of an aloe plant on the sill. “Flying home is out of the question, ladybug. You’ll have to stick it out until spring. Now find an aphid and behave.” The oblique reference to fire led her downstairs to check on the woodstove. It never hurt to be too careful. She assured herself that the damper was up, stood in front of the stove, gripping the wood-tipped handles, and said, “Check, double check, triple check” chanting as far as “octupal” in an effort to make sure that the round spinning “keys” were adjusted properly. Obsessive-compulsive, or just plain cautious? Just the other day a family in Chelmsford had gone to town while the stove roared, worked itself into a chimney fire and turned the house into ashes. She recalled her father balancing back and forth in front of the gas range when she was a child, looking, leaving, looking, leaving, never trusting his eyes. But then again, his aunt had died in a gas leak.

      Finally

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