homes from the twenties and thirties, the lake was now home to doctors, lawyers, politicians, academic upper management and business magnates. Happy pensioners whose tiny cottages had sat there for decades traded their lots at $100,000 or more as the newcomers cantilevered their modern stone and cedar structures over the water. The futuristic complexes of nearby Science North, the Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Treatment Centre and the new Superhospital complemented the lake on postcards, along with the ever present stack in the far background, reminding the city of its roots.
In the companionable silence of the tower, Belle recalled the first time she had driven up from Toronto with Uncle Harold at the wheel of his Packard, chrome-heavy and as comfortable as a galleon. She had yawned at the farm fields reaching toward Barrie, then perked up as they crossed the Severn River. “Entering the Grenville Province now, girl,” he had said. “You’re going to see the rocks at the very centre of the world.” And she did, massive outcrops for the next 150 miles which explained why people shuddered at the reports of a driver “hitting a rock cut”. Three hours of bush later and Sudbury had appeared to her like the city of Oz. Returning to smoggy Toronto at the end of every summer always depressed her, especially as those cliffs and boulders flattened into the boring plains of Southern Ontario.
To kill an hour before the rally, Belle paged through bound volumes of century-old Canadian Mercury magazines and browsed in the excellent fiction collection. Then she hit the periodical rack for current computer information, copying pages of printer reviews and scanners so that she and Miriam could upgrade their system before tax time.
Belle yawned, checked her watch and hunted down a restorative coffee in the little refectory in the basement. One rock wall remained, a common basement decor in older homes built when blasting had been prohibitively expensive. The effect was medieval, short a few sets of iron handcuffs as a backdrop for the Prisoner of Zenda. Too bad about the melamine, though, Belle thought as she looked at the modern tables. In the corner, Melanie sat buried in a ponderous textbook. Her sweatshirt featured a bleak clearcut with the slogan, “Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth.”
“Perfect verse for a nurse,” Belle said as she put down her coffee. “Do you have room for one more at the rally?”
The girl smoothed her shirt and gave an A-OK gesture. “We need all the help we can get. Maybe I should comb through the wards on the way and pick up the ambulatory patients.”
“The premier’s closing beds as fast as he can anyway,” Belle said. A restructuring due to massive provincial cutbacks had left only one hospital out of three. “So what are you studying? Did you did pay by the pound?”
Mel hefted the book like a weightlifter. “You bet. More than for filet mignon. Medical texts are ridiculous. But this $150.00 model gives valuable pointers on geriatric care. I’m in my last year and hope to specialize in that field.”
“You’re in the right place. It’s becoming the denture capital of the world.”
Melanie piled her books neatly. “You look calm enough, so can I conclude that you didn’t get to see Ian yet?”
With a shake of her head, Belle described her maniacal rendezvous. “You are well out of that relationship. Amusing though he might have been in a warped way.”
“Well, I’m sorry that the leg ruled him out. He would have made a great villain, a regular sociopath. We’ll just have to keep on looking.” As she shrugged philosophically, a distant chime rang the half-hour, and they both watched students heading for the door, talking and waving.
“I guess it’s nearly post time. How is Franz arranging the rally?” Belle asked.
“He told me to meet him in his office. I’ll show you where it is.” She hesitated, a slight frown crossing her face. “I guess you didn’t get to the camp yet, Belle. You haven’t mentioned it.”
Belle gave her a friendly but firm smile. “I’m not a PI, Mel. My job and an old man called my father make demands on me. I had planned to go the other day, but then I got home in that storm to find my dog attacked.”
“Belle, no! What happened? Is your dog all right?”
“Just a slight concussion. I think she stopped a break-in. Anyway, to keep it short, I got off the road in that blizzard, and Franz rescued us, drove us right to the vet. He saved the day.”
“That was lucky!”
Belle sipped from her cup and rolled her eyes at the taste. “Yuck. I wish his mother made the coffee here. I went out to the island to thank him and was fortunate enough to meet her. Quite the lady. And what a house. How long have they lived here?”
“Came here in the fifties, he said once, like a lot of Europeans—‘DPs,’ my parents called them.” She frowned in embarrassment. “Not too politically correct today. There was plenty of work in the mines in that boom time. I suppose the island came cheap. But it must be so inconvenient to live out there and commute.”
“Did you ever meet his sister?”
Melanie turned her head in surprise. “His sister? How did you find out about her? That seems to be a forbidden topic for Franz, and of course, you have to respect people’s privacy.”
Belle felt a tiny twinge of guilt, but pressed gaucherie-override and pried further. “I saw a picture of her at the cabin. What is she like?”
“There’s not much I can tell you about the mystery girl. We weren’t friends. I might have seen her once or twice. Eva was studying history, and nursing is a fierce little world of its own; we stick together because of the heavy hours and clinicals. The school paper carried a story about her scholarship. Then she dropped out suddenly in her sophomore year, just disappeared.”
“Grade problems?”
“Hardly. Eva was a top student. She had a couple of publications in a history journal. Could have been a breakdown. You’ve read that book about passages. Twenty, thirty, forty, as our psych prof says, the beginning of a decade can be stressful. And perfectionists crack. We’ve lost about 30 percent of our initial class.” She shrugged philosophically, tapping her temple in the traditional gesture. “And sometimes I worry about myself.”
A few minutes later, they headed toward a cubbyhole at the end of a corridor. Franz was on the phone, talking excitedly and waving his free hand. When Mel touched his arm, he looked up with a broad smile.
“See you outside. I’ll just round up another supporter,” she explained, disappearing with a wave.
Franz’s handshake was firm and his smile welcoming. “Belle, glad you could make it. Pull up something and relax. The rally’s not for another half hour. I’ve just been calling the marshalls. No parade permit from the city, probably afraid to step on toes, so we’ll be marching down the sidewalks, stopping at lights. Kind of a hitch, but we’ll improvise. Have you picked Freya up yet?”
“Later today, thanks to you.”
“Any clues on the attack? Tracks, perhaps?”
“Not a chance in the snow. Just a fumbled burglary. We’ve had enough of them on the road. Or . . .” She drew out the last word like a long pull of toffee.
“Well?”
“Or maybe I’ve been asking too many bothersome questions about the drug traffic. I did go out to Brooks’
