got to find out who killed her. Is there something I can do? That’s the only repayment I can make.”
The sun was setting on their collection of bug bites when Belle and Zack said goodnight. Coaxing Freya from the basement, she went up to the master suite and poured a purifying soak, dripping liberal portions of kiwi bubble bath for aromatherapy. “Serenity,” the bottle read as if it might be consumed. Or maybe the AA prayer. The things we can and cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference. Nothing could return Anni to life, but nothing could stop Belle from finding out how, then why, then who. A tedious but logical order. Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder” drifted upstairs. “Songs for Dead Children” sounded so mellifluous in German.
FIVE
A few days later the phone rang at dawn as Belle was mounding hot salsa onto a cheddar omelette. Crammed with sourdough toast, she answered with oral gymnastics. “Hurrogh.”
“It’s Steve. Thought you might like to know what we’ve found so far, early bird. Say, are you chewing something?”
“I was. Don’t keep me in suspenders.”
“That old joke ages you twenty years.”
Belle cringed, vowing to bury Uncle Harold’s favourite chestnut. “OK. Three questions. How could she afford that van? Zack told me it was hers. How did she die? And cui bono, our tie-breaker?”
“Least to most interesting. As for the death, Graveline had it down straight. The oak stick had traces of her blood, minute particles of wood in the wound, but for prints, only hers were retrievable. Some smudging could have been made by gloves or a quick wipe. The blow caused a massive haematoma. To get technical, the upper occipital region, on the lambdoidal suture. She never regained consciousness and died where she fell. Sometime after dinner, going by the stomach contents.”
Belle coughed, reaching for the grapefruit juice. Suddenly her mouth felt dry. “Now I’m sorry I asked. A blurry memory of that scene suits me better. And the van?”
“No mystery there. Her name was on the registration in the glove box. Purchased it a couple of weeks ago at Crosstown. Turned in her vehicle for next to nothing. Price was thirty-five thousand and change. But guess what?”
“GM is desperate? One per cent financing and no payments for a year?” In a town known for a boom-bust economy and labour disputes, local stores often advertised generous plans to drum up business. “No payments until after the strike” was a familiar come-on.
“Our lady bountiful paid in cash.”
Belle released her breath slowly, her eyes bugging like a Peke’s. “Curiouser and curiouser. The third envelope, puh-lease.”
“Except for the mysterious source of money, and that’s a big except, we’re looking at the nephew first. Claims he was in Detroit for the weekend looking for used CDs.”
“So he told me. Makes sense. She mentioned his plans.” Belle’s fingers drummed a paradiddle as she thought about Zack’s immediate and long term needs. “Did you find the will?”
“Tucked in the desk neat as pie along with a property deed, bankbooks, income tax statements and utility bills. And you were right. Small pensions were her only income. Let’s see.” He paused and the sound of shuffling papers echoed over the line. “She banked at the Toronto Dominion in Garson. Few hundred in a chequing account. Three thousand in term deposits. RRSPs of around eighty thousand. Pin money, really. No action on any withdrawals. Her own life insurance ended with the husband’s death. C’est tout. People have been murdered for less, though.”
“But how did she pay? Could there be records someplace else? Maybe n bank in Manitoba or somewhere she used to live?”
“Not under the married name. And we checked Blixen, too. Computers make it easy to hunt cross-country. Wasn’t some old hoard mouldering under the mattress, either. The bills were nice crisp purple thousands, according to the salesman, some polyester sleaze. A neat stack barely half an inch. How often does someone count out cash like that?”
“Think she robbed a bank?”
“Not around here, and besides, she’d make an unlikely candidate with her age, not to mention her sex.” For a moment Belle conjured up the image of Ruth Gordon brandishing a yam in her babushka to shake down the tellers. “So our FOURTH question is, why the cash?” he asked before he rang off.
Exactly, Belle thought, finishing the eggs and washing up. Why not a safe, conventional cheque? Anni was not the high-rolling type. And a van? That was no old lady vehicle, more the choice of a young parent or someone running errands. For the Canadian Blood Services perhaps? Would someone there have any answers? One of these days she should donate.
Meanwhile, she had to take her father his lunch at the nursing home. It was “Tuesday, Tuesday,” the cadences of the sing-song game he had invented when she and Mama Cass had been babies. He was eighty-four years old. Not long ago he had been living in his own house in Florida, adjusting to her mother’s death, finding a stylishly-coiffured, much younger Italian girlfriend named Mary at a Life Goes On meeting. Then came cumulative TIA’s, tiny punches to the brain, lurking Alzheimer’s, plain old senility. Who cared about the official diagnosis? He grew too tottery and confused to stay by himself. With his zaftig girlfriend waving a tearful good-bye, Belle rushed him back to Canada before his diminishing abilities flashed a red light to Immigration, which frowned on incoming drains to the health care system.
For a fraction of the U.S. costs, he had a private room at Rainbow Country, a small competitor of the anonymous pretty-faced high rises where the upper middle class preferred to warehouse their parents. The facility was a bit tattered around the edges, but clean as a new penny, and with matchless personal care. The nurses and attendants chronicled every sneeze and sniffle, each bite of food, pill and missing sock.
After a blow-by at the office, she pulled into Granny’s Kitchen, the friendly family restaurant where they had enjoyed a weekly meal when he could still walk. “Hi, Maria. The usual. Shrimp, french fries and cole slaw. Hold the seafood sauce. And pie and ice cream. Cherry if possible. Cheeseburger and milk for me.” Belle passed a few words with one of the regulars, a man about thirty-five whose shambling manner made him appear drunk. The sad truth was that Fred had lingered in a coma for a year after a devastating industrial accident. Intensive physical therapy and a large injection of courage had restored enough coordination to get him on his feet and enrolled in a few marketing courses.
“Did you register for the summer sessions at Nickel City College, Fred?” Belle enjoyed hearing about his progress.
“A big runaround. Workman’s Comp won’t authorize the program. They say I’d have to drive to work in marketing up here, be mobile, you know? And I’m driving, for sure. But it’s like they don’t believe I have any right to.” His laboured speech was difficult to understand, so she watched his lips carefully. He looked as if he needed a shave, or perhaps he was giving up. With a fumbly bow, he presented her with his Sudbury Star as he left. “The old dog just might have another trick left.”
Belle opened the paper. It was hard to understand why he wasn’t bitter. Maybe he was merely glad to enjoy what pleasures remained, a good meal, restoring his Camaro. On the front page were details about another residential school lawsuit, this time in Fort Albany, an isolated Cree community on Hudson Bay. Leaving an ugly trail back to the Fifties, the priests, nuns and lay workers had been charged with fondling,
