to the real estate supplement to check her ads, make sure that “doll house” didn’t turn out “dull house” or that “three batrooms” didn’t appear, when suddenly she locked onto the bottom of the front page. “Teen Held on Lakeside Murder.” An unnamed young offender in Skead had confessed to the brutal killing of Anni Jacobs on Lake Wapiti. There were few details to this late-breaking nugget, just the note that he had a history of petty theft, including a robbery at the Skead Seniors’ Centre, and had spent time recently at Cecil Facer, a youth detention facility. Her face flamed as she crumpled up the paper and tossed it into a waste can. Why hadn’t Steve told her? What was she, chopped moose meat? Quick police work, though. Maybe he was at his desk dunking doughnuts and licking powdered sugar from his fingers.
The DesRosiers were sitting on her front steps when she arrived home, Ed drawing designs in the gravel with his cane while Rusty, their chocolatey-red mutt, slurped water on the beach. “I told him you said six, but he didn’t believe me. Thinks the world eats on the dot of five like we do. Anyway, here’s some of my jerky. Cajun flavour.” Hélène said, placing a plump plastic bag in Belle’s hands.
“Sorry, guys. I guess I cut it short. Why didn’t you go right in? You know where the liquor is. But everything’s made. Call me a miracle of time management.” She sniffed the present with delight while Rusty skidded up, exposing a pink belly with a pattern of bug bites. “I’ll have to fight Freya for this.”
Scotch was poured around, and Belle shoved the combination of chicken, mushroom soup, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, onions and red peppers mixed with rotini into the oven for a complementary gratin in the final browning. Placing the last of Charles’ cheese assortment onto the coffee table with a box of crackers, she flopped onto the couch and looked warmly at her best friends. Ed, a retired plumber, had just hit sixty-five. Chained lovingly to an excellent cook, Ed battled an extra forty pounds which pushed his stomach over his belt. His svelte wife, younger by a few years, was immune to the results of her delicious efforts.
“I seen in the paper where Anni’s killer confessed,” he said, shifting his sore hip and biffing crackers to the dogs. “Always knew it’d be some dope-crazed kid.”
“Didn’t say he was on drugs, Ed,” Hélène broke in. “Plain old robbery attempt, most like.”
Belle scowled into her glass, letting the smoky Highland ether braise her throat. She was glad to have splurged on J&B. “I read about it. And Steve’s going to have to answer. Left me in the dark after all I’d been through. I can still see her body. So small, like a broken toy.”
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