soon as they saw the modern kitchen, the expansive living room and dining room, his smiling wife clapped her deft brown hands, shiny chestnut eyes sparkling. Belle rolled with the flow, prepared to offer reasons against building anew, which might increase her commission since the home would retain its value. “Here’s the best of both worlds. A classic house with refits. But I must be honest.” She paused as Uncle Harold had advised her after using this phrase, an element of theatre in the realty business. They turned to her with wary looks. “The furnace should be replaced. Still, saving the cost of demolition would buy the best on the market. A natural gas line just came down the street, too.”
“Very tempting,” Dilshad said. “If the upstairs is as wonderful . . .” She gave Dan a sweet smile, her tiny wrenish face lit with excitement.
“Anything you want, my dear.” His brows contracted, and he shuffled his feet as he checked his watch. An appointment?
When they passed the mantel in the living room on their way to the winding stairs, Belle saw the cheque for the Doulton figurine. She had left Adrienne in the van. A little personal pocket money. All this and heaven, too, Monsieur Boyer?
The Nortons looked out the windows of each bedroom, pointing and gesturing, entranced by Micro’s retreat. Belle hoped that a train wouldn’t roar by across the road, though rail traffic was minimal with CN downsizing and their acquisition of U.S. routes.
Saving the best for last, she led them down the hall to the master suite. Dan cleared his throat, then asked, “Do you mind if I use the washroom?”
“Of course,” she said. “Over there. The tub is a top-of-the-line Jacuzzi.” He lingered for a moment as his wife pointed out the Superstack in the distance.
Belle chuckled to herself, admiring a thriving Persian violet on a bay window. That bathroom was the final selling point. Bea had said that they’d combed Toronto for the art-deco fittings, complete with bidet. When the sale went through, she’d take Miriam on a trip to Costa Rica as soon as the prices dropped after the peak season. There they’d be, basking in the cloud canopy instead of shovelling snow. What about mosquitos? In the movies, no one seemed to be bothered by insects, except in The African Queen. She could still see unshaven Bogie slogging along . . .
A yell came from somewhere. “Jesus Christ!”
FIVE
Belle rushed into the bathroom to discover Dan leaning over the triangular ice-blue tub. Bea lay naked on her back, a trickle of blood seeping from one ear, deep-purple bruises circling her neck. Her pendulous breasts, the size of melons, were capped with glistening, dark aureoles. Large sea-green eyes stared at the ceiling as if divining a way to heaven.
“Quite dead, poor woman,” Dan said, as he stood and studied his hand with a grimace as if despairing of where to wash it. Everyone who watched television was familiar with death-scene protocol. “No pulse at the carotid artery.”
Turning with protective gestures to block Dilshad from entering, he left the room. Though she could hear voices behind her, Belle remained rigid, her mental camera capturing in grim fascination an assortment of details: the lower body blurred by soap scum on the still surface, a pink bottle of bubble bath on the Italian ceramic tile rim, fruity shampoos, a fresh bar of peppermint-scented soap, an oval pumice stone. The shell colour of the tile echoed Bea’s buffed natural nails. She trailed a finger in the water. Cold. If the woman had drawn the bath herself, hours had passed. The other possibility was even more chilling.
A discreet cough fractured her thoughts. “Miss Palmer. I called 911 on my cell. We’re to go directly outside and wait.” He seemed cool and clinical, like many specialists.
On the sheltered porch, she and Dilshad found awkward seats in Muskoka chairs, silent as mannequins. Dan excused himself and disappeared behind a cedar hedge. “Weak bladder,” Dilshad explained with an eyeroll.
Within minutes came the sound of an ambulance, a squad car siren wailing close behind. Being near a hospital had clear merits. Belle remembered a competitor’s ad for a home on York Street: “St. Joe’s area. Good for newlyweds or retirees.” Pediatric or geriatric care in a thousand feet, cradle to the grave.
The officer, fresh out of Police College, popping mint gum with abandon, complimented them on preserving the crime scene after he’d asked a few questions and scribbled in a palm-sized notebook. “You got no idea what people do. Grab a brew from the fridge. Make a friggin’ sandwich. Even take a dump in the toilet.” Belle flashed him an evil look, and Dilshad gave a laboured sigh. On this Indian summer morning, fast warming up, they sat protected from wind, but Belle shivered more from the dissolution of an adrenal rush. Buffalo was ready to collect a trophy for consecutive barks.
A mere matter of course, the ambulance was dismissed, and everyone waited for a team of detectives to arrive.
“How long will we have to stay? I have appointments I can’t cancel,” Dan asked, mopping sweat from his freckled brow. His wife had taken out a PDA and seemed to be checking her email.
Belle shrugged and shook her head. In a perverse way, she felt responsible for this disaster, and the sale was certainly as dead as . . . the talented and sensitive woman who lay upstairs. A jolly baker en route to a cold tray at the morgue. Was this a third serial killing?
Disappointed that Steve hadn’t caught the case, but not surprised, since the department had over a dozen ranking operatives, she and the Nortons gave their statements to Detective Milt Burns. A bean pole with a shock of taffy hair, in his late thirties, thorough and professional, he seemed especially interested in the time frame. As they were leaving, a coppertone SUV pulled into the yard, and in her mirror she saw an athletic man jump out and sprint towards the house. Probably Dave Malanuk. What would it be like to return from a trip to find your wife dead from a violent attack, perhaps including a rape?
On the solemn procession back to the office, Dan’s chain-smoking led Belle to hit the climate-control feature. The lump in her throat didn’t prevent her from remembering her primary mission when they pulled into the lot. “Long Lake isn’t far from the Four Corners. I have a colonial listed on—” she began as they climbed into their Mercedes, but they shut their solid German doors decisively. Even with this fiasco, she hoped they hadn’t changed their minds about relocating. Thirty per cent of the population had no general practitioner, and specialists were rare as a January thaw.
When she entered the office, Miriam leaped up in congratulations, then did a double take at her stony face and drooping shoulders. “You’re a real sunshine pump. What happened? They seemed perfect.”
Belle sank into a chair as Freya came up for a pat, stretching and yawning. “I found Bea dead.” The details arrived with no holds barred. Miriam was a tough bird.
Her friend took off her bifocals and rubbed the bridge of her Roman nose. “How are you going to tell Hélène and Ed?”
No phone call could substitute for human contact when bad news was concerned. Perhaps Dave had already relayed the news. Even so, she owed her best friends an appearance. On the way home, Belle thought of everything but her sad duty. She passed through the small suburb of Garson, ordering a large coffee to go at the Tim’s drive-through, then casting an eye down a side street to the windows of Rainbow Country Nursing Home, where her father lived. The way the day had gone, she half-expected an ambulance to be pulling away, carrying him to his last game show. Tomorrow was Tuesday, their lunch date, and while she often made extra stops to deliver an ice cream sundae or walk him down the hall, this wasn’t the time.
As she drove towards Radar
