the temperatures dipped to minus twenty-five for a few days combined with a dead calm.
With memories of picking blueberries several feet below the snow, they sat companionably, sheltered behind a juniper spray. Atop the ridge, hardy red pines shot into the air, growing tenaciously from the thin, acidy Boreal soil, peat on rock.
“Think Melibee likes shepherds? Any dog lover . . .” Freya shook her head to dislodge flakes which had dropped from a branch into her velvety, erect ear. “Scratch that theory.” Belle’s barometer on human decency had suffered a few glitches. Maybe cats had more discrimination about character.
Back home, she tossed her closet for black corduroy pants and a thick emerald sweater, adding a silver chain as a token bauble. “A fashion queen I’ll never be,” she mumbled to the attentive dog, no doubt praying that her mistress would stay home for a game of bed hockey. “Too cold here and too expensive to follow the trends. Wait ten years and everything’s back. Why did I throw out those bell bottoms?”
As she left, Belle turned on the motion-sensor lights. Squinting through her pock-marked windshield, she made her way down the winding, snow-rutted road. With the warning reflections of headlights, it was safer at night, except when eleven feet of snow made a luge track, twisting and turning, impossible for two vehicles to pass.
Thirty minutes later, at Nickel City College, she parked in the lot. The Versailles Room lay at the end of several circuitous halls, past darkened classrooms where Belle had taught an occasional real estate course. The spacious restaurant boasted a curving seventy-foot-long glass wall overlooking a courtyard with interlocking, snow-filled fountains. After mentioning her reservation, Belle let herself be shown to a window table with a linen cloth and fresh carnation. The nervous young lady wore black pants, a burgundy cummerbund and white shirt.
Mindful of the drive home, Belle ordered a Blue Light and sat back to explore the menu, her tastebuds gearing up. Hungarian night. Sauerkraut soup to start, a julienned carrot salad, then goulash with dumplings, and cherry torte for dessert—$22.95 shrunken Canadian dollars. More than reasonable. The ingredients would be fresh and the students in top form, their grades depending on pleasing the customers.
Still thirsty from her hike, she finished the beer quickly, then glanced at her watch. She’d been early, but now it was nearly seven-fifteen. Had Miriam and Melibee been involved in a fender-bender on those slippery streets? She hailed the waitress for a refill and forced herself to think about business instead of wasting time. A couple from Ottawa wanted a place in Boreal Heights, a premier development. Hadn’t she seen something in the cross-listings? Never carrying a purse, she took a pad from her coat and scribbled a note.
Eight o’clock. Belle was tapping her foot, rearranging the salt and pepper. When did the restaurant close? Other diners were finishing their coffee and dessert, calling for the bill. With a sudden urge, realizing that she needed a bathroom, she avoided the questioning eyes of the waitress.
Minutes later, she emerged from the washroom momentarily relieved, only to see her server gesturing. “Belle Palmer? There’s an urgent phone call for you.”
In the shiny chrome and walnut-veneer bar area, a phone sat near the mint dish. When she answered, a shaky voice spoke in halting tones. “I’m at Mel’s. He’s gone, and I don’t know what to do.” Scarcely could Belle respond than the phone went dead. An outage, or had Miriam hung up?
After leaving twelve dollars on the table, she returned to the van, seething while she attacked the frosted windshield, breaking the cheap plastic scraper with her fury. Gusts whipped tiny tornados around the parking lot. What was wrong with Miriam? If the man had stood her up, why panic? Couldn’t she have come to enjoy the meal in spite of his rudeness? Perhaps he wasn’t the paragon he’d been painted. Belle felt her stomach rumble and buckled her seatbelt over the bloat of two beers without food.
Leaving New Sudbury and heading across town, she proceeded to Balmoral Drive on Lake Ramsey, where Melibee’s condo crowned a huge, pseudo-modern Italianate horror very near the spot where a tiny cabin had sheltered Franklin W. Dixon, aka Leslie McFarlane, creator of the Hardy Boys series. Had the town fathers thought about erecting a plaque for tourists? If she ever needed a second job, she had a few promotional ideas. She trudged through ankle-high drifts and skidded along the path to the lobby. With a chilled finger, she ran over the addresses, noting the penthouse. Then she rang the bell, turned as the bevelled glass door snicked open and headed for the elevator.
With her realtor’s eye and a thinly disguised sneer, she paused to assess the decor. Bauhaus whorehouse, black marbleized floors, red padded leather walls and baroque chandeliers in the lobby. Muzak warbled from the plush speakers in the elevator, but she couldn’t decipher it. 999 strings?
After a dizzying fifteen-storey lift, the doors opened to reveal an anteroom with dark Jacobean wainscotting, clay jugs with pampas grass from warmer places and striped Colonial style wallpaper. Using an imp’s head, she knocked at the double, brass-fitted doors. When no one answered, she pushed gently, ready to read Miriam the riot act.
Inside, all was still except for the ticking of a giant Seth Thomas grandfather clock. She shuffled her boots onto a rubber mat, testing the depths of the taupe carpet on her frozen toes. Ahead was an interminable shadowed passage. “Miriam,” she called. “Where are you?”
A spectral figure moved into the hall, then leaned with despair against the wall, where a dim plaster sconce cast a sickly light. Miriam wore a striking new dress, soft folds of apricot silk with golden threads and a cowl. Normally scorning makeup except for a dab of powder, she must have gone to a professional. Matching eye shadow, liner, shadows to minimize her Roman nose and perfectly lined lips. But her face was contorted in pain. “He’s gone, Belle.”
“So you said. But why stand me up?”
Miriam pulled away to stumble down the hall, punctuating her movements with choking sobs. Following her into a living room, Belle glanced over the turquoise suede sofas, the granite fireplace, the massive windows with lights from Lake Ramsey’s million-dollar mortgages sparkling in the distance. Patio doors led to a deck large enough to feast the Supreme Court. At her elbow was a gigantic Victorian sideboard redolent with lemon oil, a silver urn with an open bottle of Moët et Chandon swimming in water. Two glasses. Someone had been having a party. So where was Melibee? Off on a sudden business trip?
She felt a tug at her arm and looked down at a man’s body, his head bruising an exquisite Persian rug.
Three
Mel.” Miriam slumped into a cushioned chair so deep that her legs stuck out like a rag doll’s, shaking hands covering her face.
“Was it a heart attack? Have you tried . . .” Wondering if she recalled any CPR other than the dog variety where one blew into the nose, Belle leaned forward when she heard Miriam gasp. Her friend had risen to turn on a tole lamp. Blood trickled from the man’s ear, pooling into a grotesque halo. Instinctively, Belle knelt and reached for his throat, the skin slightly scratchy with a final five o’clock shadow. He seemed neither warm nor cold, but at ambient temperature.
“I see.” Or did she? Fell and hit his head? Curious as she was, from that angle it was hard to judge the overall impression of the man. He wore an indigo blue silk dressing gown and shiny black leather slippers. A tiny moustache marked one side of his slack face, the thinning, unnaturally dark brown hair mussed by the fall. At his throat, a small gold chain winked. One well-manicured hand with buffed nails held a fire iron. And unless she was wrong, he couldn’t have been more than five-foot-two. A little powerhouse with a Napoleon complex? While Miriam hyperventilated in hoarse breaths, Belle rose and walked around
