Toronto?” Holicky said.
“Yup. Big bucks there,” Susan said. “Who else, Polly?”
“Well, this was just a focus group to come up with a mascot for the store. The others aren’t necessarily backers, you know.”
“A mascot?” Archie Watson said. “You mean like a logo or something?”
“No, a sort of mascot character, like the Zellers teddy bear.”
“Huh. A big fat pig would be appropriate,” Watson said. “A stinking, greedy . . .”
“Archie, let it go,” Susan said. “So who was in the focus group, Polly?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you,” I said, feeling that at least a token resistance was called for. I was working for them, after all, and while they hadn’t sworn me to secrecy or anything, I felt like I was ratting them out. It was obvious that the group was bent on taking some kind of action against them.
“You said yourself it’s not top secret information, dear,” Emma Tempest said, reading my mind.
“I know that. This just makes me uncomfortable,” I said.
“Told you she was working for the enemy,” Holicky said. “You watch. She’ll go right back to them and say who was here and what went on tonight, and they’ll get us back.”
“This is not international espionage, Peter,” Susan said. “There’s no need to be melodramatic.”
“This is how such things begin, though,” Olszewski the druggist said. “Secret meetings, strategy, informers. Before you know it, there’ll be a pogrom.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “If it means that much to you, the Elliots and Duke Pitblado were there too. Okay? Everybody happy now?”
“The Elliots. I might have known,” said the photo shop guy, Herman. “They come to this town and take over a century-old inn and turn it into Disneyland. Of course they’d be behind it.” Winston and Serena Elliot had bought the Mooseview Inn more than ten years ago. They’d upgraded the original building, built condos on the property and put in a golf course, but you could hardly call it Disneyland. If they hadn’t bought the old place, which had been falling apart, it would have collapsed into the Kuskawa River.
“I knew Duke Pitblado negotiated the land deal, but I’m surprised that he’s involved,” Emma said. Duke was a local real estate broker. He lived in a palatial home in the East End, overlooking Settlers’ Lake.
“I’d’a thought he was too busy making babies,” Holicky said. Duke had married a woman half his age, who had been in a perpetual state of pregnancy since her wedding. It was sort of a town joke—not a very nice one.
“Well, there’s local money behind it, just as I thought,” Susan said, satisfied. “With the Elliots and Pitblado on board, David Kane wouldn’t have had any trouble getting past any zoning restrictions at Town Hall.”
“But the land belonged to the town to begin with, didn’t it?” Florence Levine the video lady said.
“Yes, it did, but I think we’d better save that discussion for later,” Susan said, casting a significant glance in my direction.
“Oh, I see,” I said. “Pas devant les domestiques, is that it? Worried I might go scuttling off to the committee and tell them you’re planning to sue them for corrupt practices?”
“What did she say? I don’t speak Frog,” Holicky said.
“Pas devant les domestiques—not in front of the servants,” Susan said. “Polly, please don’t be offended. It’s just caution on our part, that’s all.”
“Well, you folks just carry on, then,” I said, getting up and putting my empty cup on the floor. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t clear away the dishes. It’s my night off, you know. I’ll just go back to my sharecropper’s shack and play the banjo for a while.”
I flounced out.
In the kitchen, Luggy had his paws up on the table and was carefully licking the icing off the cupcakes. He’d knocked one off the plate and onto the floor for Rosie, who held it between her paws and nibbled at it delicately, like a lady. When Lug-nut saw me, he got down immediately and stood wagging his tail, looking only vaguely guilty. I didn’t have the energy to scold him. The cupcakes were perfectly intact, except for being icing-free, and the League for Social Justice might not notice and eat them anyway, which gave me a curious sense of satisfaction.
“You’ll be bouncing off the walls with all that sugar in you,” I said. My eye caught the phone on the wall by the kitchen door, and I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to call Becker. Perfect timing, I thought. I’ll get on the phone, and Susan will come in and assume that I’m calling someone about their stupid meeting. I dialled Becker’s number, and a child answered.
“Becker residence.”
“Umm, is Mark there, please?” I said.
“Sure. May I tell him who’s calling?” the child asked, efficiently.
“It’s Polly Deacon,” I said.
“One moment and I’ll see if he’s free,” the child said. “Dad! A lady called Polly Deacon on line one!” he called. Becker picked up.
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You’ve hired an executive assistant from the child labour pool.”
Becker chuckled. “It’s my son,” he said. “He wants to be a business tycoon when he grows up. He’s staying with me for a while.”
Becker hadn’t talked about his son or his ex-wife much, only enough to tell me that the boy lived with his mother and spent the occasional weekend with his dad. He’d kept me out of that part of his life, and I hadn’t pushed it, not being terribly child-oriented. From what I gathered, his relationship with his ex was more or less amicable, and he never started a sentence with “my wife used to . . .” I had expected at some point to be introduced to the kid. I guessed that this was it.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he said.
“I have a meeting at about six, but apart from that, it’s just another lazy Saturday,” I said.
“Want to go hiking? I’d like you to meet Bryan, and he’s been asking about you.”
“He has?”
“Yeah. He says things like, ‘So, Dad. You seeing anybody? Got a girlfriend?’ Stuff like that. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Of course not.” Hooray, I thought. I’ve finally achieved girlfriend status.
“I was thinking we’d take the Oxblood Rapids trail—you know, the one with the falls? I’ll bring the food,” he said.
“You’ve actually got time off? How long?”
“A week.”
“In the middle of the summer?”
“I
