accidents. Jim knows how to handle himself in the bush. Maybe he had some problems with his research, Meg. Or worked extra hard for those exams,” Ben said as he lifted the cover from his largest machine, packed the rescue gear and, with an efficiency born of second nature, attached a fibreglass cargo toboggan.
Belle rubbed at her numb ears in the rising wind. “The O.P.P. said to wait until they arrived with the air ambulance. The plan is to leave the helicopter here where there’s plenty of space. That swamp lake is too dense with bush. I told them that we hadn’t touched anything at the site, not that there was anything to see.” Only one thing, she thought with a shudder.
While they warmed up on coffee, the drone of the rotors filled the still air; sound from above travelled far in winter with the dampening effect of the snow and the bare trees. A short man, whose confident bearing added a mental foot, climbed down and walked over, two constables on his heels. “I’m Al Morantz. I understand that a body was found. What can you tell me about the site?”
Belle made the introductions. “Ed and I found the lake following a trail not too far from here. Probably doesn’t even have a name, a little swamp like that. Track goes to the edge, and the rest is a refrozen hole.”
Morantz looked around. “We’re short on personnel, or I would have had our machines meet us here. I understand from what you said on the phone, Miss Palmer, that we can use the lodge’s.”
“Thought of that,” Ben said and gave the officers two sets of keys as he pointed toward the shed. One of them retrieved his diving gear from the helicopter.
Meg appeared in a patched-up snowmobile suit, carrying a thermos of coffee. “No arguments, Pop. I’m going with you.”
A barely perceptible frown from Belle with her lips framing a “no” got through to Ben. “Don’t think you should, Ma. You might be in these folks’ way.”
Arms folded, Meg got onto the two-up seat in stubborn silence, while Al and his men started the lodge’s other machines. Driving in cortège, unsmiling and heedless of the packs of laughing drivers on the trail, they reached the lake and cut their motors. Before anyone had time to react, Meg ran to the shore, her agonized voice breaking the sudden stillness. “My God. Oh, my God in heaven. That hand.” While the diver stripped to his wet suit, she inched forward on the dark surface of the new ice, her eyes exploring the shadowy grave until she slumped over in a sob, hugging her knees. “The little patch of red down there. That’s the scarf his grandmother knitted him for Christmas. I know it is,” she said, trembling as if she had aged a hundred years.
To the collective chill of the onlookers, the diver wielded an axe to break the surface. Tossing it back on to the shore, he disappeared with a stoic shake of his shoulders into the murky water, bubbles rising in his wake. His face around the mask was exposed, and the pain was evident on the second surfacing. “Can’t see too well. Could be ten feet to the bottom. One arm of the coat is hung up on a branch. Guess that pushed the mitt off.”
No one spoke. Finally, with the help of several officers, he hauled the body to the shore, bulky and sodden in the heavy suit and boots. Ben waved the men aside and unstrapped the helmet. It was Jim, or his pale double, a light slate cast to the features, sandy hair freezing brittle in the wind and jade eyes dulled by a final curtain. Ben knelt as if in prayer, his shoulders shaking, as he gently brushed the boy’s forehead. “What in the name of Christ were you doing out here?” he whispered.
Belle turned away, leaning against the solidity of a huge pine for support as Ben rocked the boy back and forth, and the rest of the group fell silent. “He’s cold. He’s so cold, Meg.”
His wife spoke slowly and deliberately, her voice struggling for control, wiping her tears away with the rough nylon of her suit. “No. No. No.” A litany of pain in a single syllable. “Jim never would have come to a place like this alone.”
Morantz waited a few moments before taking the Burians aside so that the rescue team could prepare the body for transport. The couple held each other, Ben shielding his wife’s face. With some firm and steady pressure on the stiffening limbs, the team arranged the body on the toboggan with dignity. Another man winched the small Ovation to shore, weeds and muck hanging from its handlebars. Attached neatly to the rear carrier with a shock cord was his duffel bag. Like a slate wiped clean, the lake began freezing again, guarding its secrets as tightly as the earth itself. Belle glanced around, any possible evidence trampled to mush by the footprints and machine tracks of the rescue effort.
“What happens now?” she asked Morantz.
Morantz tried to write a note on a small pad, then exchanged the pen for a no-fail pencil. “Just like an auto accident. First we’ll get him back to the hospital for an autopsy. Check for alcohol and drugs. Go through that gear on the sled. Get his medical records and rule out heart attack or seizures.” He paused. “But, Miss, I want to be clear about one point. You did say that his was the only track? No sign of another person?”
She gestured uselessly as if in violent denial of the facts. “One track straight to the lake. No sign of turning around, no other sled. But what in heaven was he doing here in the storm? Could he have been documenting an old trapper’s trail when it hit? Or taken a wrong turn trying to get home?” Belle asked, though experience told her otherwise.
“The storm was a bad one.” Morantz shrugged and closed his notebook. His conclusion was obvious; without other evidence, this tragedy was just another fatal human error, another statistic for the bean counters. The last frame in a shattered film script saw Meg tucking her scarf around Jim’s neck as if saying a loving goodnight, Ben standing stiffly aside, Jim’s helmet dangling from his hand. And then the convoy, a northern funeral procession, headed back to the lodge as a jay screamed through the diamond-chipped air.
Belle gestured to Ed, and they set off in silence. As they parted later in front of his house, he asked, “Come in for a drink? Maybe it might do you good to talk to Hélène. Her car’s back.”
“Talk? Talk about what, Ed? You were there, weren’t you? Jim’s dead. There’s no resurrection.” She saw his face sag, and instantly she regretted her brusqueness. “Sorry to be rude. I just lost a good friend and at my age, I can’t spare any. What just doesn’t make sense is what he was doing there.”
“Well, we took the trail to check it out. Why not him?”
“Maybe, but when? I suppose the time of death might give us a clue. God knows how rigor mortis works in those icy conditions. Anyway, take care of yourself. Hélène, too.” She slapped his arm with her glove and drove off.
Only as she opened her own front door and tripped over her briefcase did she remember that she had an appointment in town.
Evening work was a negative reality of her job, but that night the distraction was welcome. She had scheduled a preliminary visit to a newly divorced woman in Chelmsford who wanted to move home to her parents in Val D’Or.
Belle left the house in a charcoal wool pantsuit and white turtleneck under her parka. Pulled over her ears was an incongruous blue and red Norwegian soft felt hat, which used to prompt cries of “Smurf!” from rude children. Clutching her briefcase, a newspaper and a thermos of Bavarian Dutch Chocolate coffee, she tested the van doors. Frozen again! Third time this week. Belle swore softly and began the usual procedure with her de-icer spray. If that didn’t work, Plan Two involved her hair drier and a series of lively expletives.
She finally broke in, only to find the power antenna had seized. Nothing but static on the radio. Belle grabbed a tape of her favourite musicals and tucked it into her bra with an “eeeek”.
