LITMIR.BIZ

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onto Marion, the last lake. Three miles until the final portage to Wapiti. Her vision blurring from tears, the white and green and black of the scenery jerked along like a silent film. Half-way across she stopped to clear her faceshield and glanced around, confused by a profound silence. Franz was fewer than one hundred yards back, braced against his machine, taking careful aim with the rifle. Even if he missed her, he had the rest of the lake to catch up. And with his speed, he would close in, until even the pistol would suffice. Belle aimed for a wet spot, throwing spray up on both sides, her only protection from the powerful sight of the rifle. Then she heard a shot. But was it a shot? So muffled, thundering in all directions. And with the curious geographical acoustics, it echoed again and again as the hills replayed the ugly sound. Belle kept ducking in reflex, amazed to feel no pain, to see no fabric and blood and bone tear away. Then she charged up the trail, spurred by the line from Now, Voyager. “Don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.”

      The blessed sight of the Dunes set Belle cheering until she fogged the facemask and tossed it onto the ice. In one long heartbeat she sailed onto Wapiti, waving off the flying sand, huddling behind the windscreen to prevent frostbite on her exposed face. When she had ridden the remaining few miles to the familiar escarpment near her camp, she peered back cautiously. No one followed.

      Blasting through the door, she ran through the house to bury her face in Freya’s smelly ruff. “So you are still sulking and didn’t even give me a welcome. This time I don’t care.” With the dog following her around sniffing both Blondi and jerky, Belle grabbed her single-barrelled shotgun from the hall closet and loaded it for bear, or something more dangerous. Only then did she call for help.

      Her binoculars, trained on the lake while she waited, revealed no riders. Steve drove into the yard with Al Morantz, and soon after, an O.P.P. helicopter landed in the yard and took them to Marion Lake in minutes. With its wap-wap-wapping drowning her words, she struggled to describe what had happened. Far below a tiny figure stretched like a broken marionette, the ice sprinkled with pink. With an eye to safety, the nervous pilot set down on a level, sun-drenched blueberry field, the scraggy shrubs poking through the snow.

      They plowed behind Al through the slush at the edge of the lake to reach the body. Steve spoke quietly. “I never met the guy, but murder didn’t seem his style. I mean, a professor? And where were the connections? The accident was textbook, and the drugs angle had us running in other directions.”

      Morantz moved closer and stooped down; for a moment Belle wondered if he were going to turn Franz over. She hoped not. “That barrel you plugged really did a number on him. I’d say a piece of metal cut the main artery. Wonder that he has any blood left. Fast way to go. Couple of minutes, max,” he said, scribbling a few notes.

      “Stop. Please don’t go on.” Belle turned from the scene to study the puffy cumulus clouds moving across the sun, sending shadows onto the lake. Mel was right. Everyone could use a protective aura now and then. “What’s happened to our medical system when someone commits murder to assure his sister of treatment?”

      Steve looked at her in disbelief. “What kind of a crazy spin are you putting on this? It was more than that. He hated Jim, killed him for the feeblest of reasons. And let’s not start analyzing his relationship with his sister.”

      Belle flexed her wrist, shivering as she sipped a cup of coffee from his thermos. “You’re right. And I hate him for taking my friend. It was just so clear that he loved Eva with a passion that nobody could understand.”

      Steve shot her a sceptical look. “So much the better for that. Say, you don’t think the old woman helped, do you?”

      Who would tell Marta about her son, knock on the door of that fairy tale world on the magic island, illusion though it might have been? For such a short time, Belle had enjoyed it too. “One glance will tell you about her bad heart. Franz wouldn’t have risked using her . . . or telling her. He didn’t need to. Time and chance put him together with Jim the night of the storm.”

      Like Marley’s ghost dressed by Alec Tilley, Dr. Monroe arrived in the next helicopter with two stretcher bearers trotting at his heels. He seemed perturbed that he hadn’t brought boots and was soaking his Mephistos. “Of all people, Miss Palmer,” he announced as he set down his bag and touched a well-manicured finger to his lips. “How curious to find you involved in another death on the ice.”

      “I’m thinking of writing a book,” she said pleasantly. Then she touched Steve’s arm. “We have to get Blondi.”

      TWENTY-TWO

      To the relief of all shovellers and scrapers and frostbitten faces, May trailed forth its leafy lacework at last. Marta had sold the island to a rich Torontonian who owned a chain of video stores and wanted a rustic and private retreat; her plans were to live in an apartment in Kingston to be nearer to Eva until the girl could leave the hospital. News of Franz’s death had slowed her recovery. They might join an uncle with a small farm in the Annapolis Valley. Belle would always remember the grace and dignity in those lost, sweet moments over strudel and coffee.

      Relating these details, Steve lolled on the deck in a dusty lawn chair dragged from the boathouse-cum-garage. He had refused a beer and was nursing a coffee. “Call me a bad Canadian, but I can’t drink beer until July. Anyway, steam keeps the bugs away.” With a benign smile, he urged a blackfly out of his mug. “They pollinate the blueberries.” Belle scratched suspiciously at her arm while he continued. “The department flew me to New York to confirm Franz’s story. I’ve never seen a girl like Eva. Innocence headed for tragedy. Time has stood still for her. She seemed to understand what had happened, even asked questions about whether her brother had suffered, and of course, about Blondi.”

      “I don’t know how she can reconcile with her mother. They’re saint and sinner in each other’s eyes. Yet who else do they have? Franz was so gifted, so courtly. A prince in another time and place,” Belle mused sadly. “If Eva had been stronger, if the blizzard hadn’t delivered Jim to that cabin while Franz was away . . .”

      “A prince of darkness perhaps. Would you stop defending the man? Don’t act like he was forced to kill. Who knows what Jim made of the gold drop anyway? Probably nothing. That was all self-serving speculation. The good professor intended to dump you down a mine shaft!”

      “Yes, and I saw his beast, Steve, all our beasts. The banality of evil. More tired and desperate than cunning. Driven by doing what he thought best for his sister. And when that was threatened—”

      “Spoken by a woman saved by a hunk of dried meat.”

      She had to laugh. “If you taste it sometime, you’ll know why it worked. But give Blondi credit.” He nodded in approval, and she added, “Something told Blondi that Franz was wrong to order her against me. A good dog resists evil. And maybe she can help her owners find a new life.”

      They watched in companionable silence as two merganser ducks flapped across the waterfront in a mating ritual. “They nest somewhere along my shore, maybe in those heavy firs. I think it’s the same pair every year, but who knows? Anyway, speaking of nests, how’s your chick? Any improvement on the fathering scene?”

      With undisguised delight, Steve rummaged in his Sudbury Wolves jacket for a fat pack of pictures. “Got a few hours?” The snaps covered all the parental bases: daughter waving a piece of toast, bouncing a ball, even splashing in a bubble bath. “Know what? That stupid jerk at the photo store gave me a funny look about that last one. Kiddie porn. It’s getting ridiculous.” In a final picture he actually held Heather, her face a curious mixture of strangeness and resignation.

      “This the shot just before she burst out in tears?” Belle asked.

      “Not quite. But I did what you said with Janet, that PDA.”

      “Pardon me?”

      “What kind of a permissive high school did you go to? Public display of affection. Hand-holding, arm around her shoulders, little kiss now and then. Kid watched me like a baby hawk, but for sure she seems to trust me more. Pictures don’t lie.”

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