Fanatics (2 page)

T
HE RAIN SHOWER
that began as I left Orillia had faded to light drizzle by the time I delivered the chest with the repaired drawer to a house on Big Bay Point. When I pulled into a parking spot across the street from the bus station in Barrie, the afternoon sun was shouldering through the overcast, flooding the street and the whitecapped waves of Kempenfelt Bay with honey-coloured light.

After a while, the Toronto bus turned onto Maple Street, its engine roaring, its brakes hissing, and swung into the station. The doors flapped open and the driver hopped out and heaved up the cargo doors. He began to pass cases and bags to the knot of passengers who had quickly gathered behind him. Raphaella was the last to step off the bus, a tote bag slung over one shoulder.

I stayed in the van for a few minutes, watching her. She would be expecting to see our old white van and wouldn’t notice me right away. She looked around as commuters flowed past her, rushing to taxis, the parking lot, or the line of cars in the pickup lane by the curb. Although their bodies were here on Maple Street, their minds were already somewhere else—at home, most likely. Whoever said you couldn’t be two places at once was wrong.

Raphaella wasn’t like them. She stood under the eaves of the station, beautiful as always in a black leather coat with caramel trim at the collar and cuffs. Her coal black hair, gathered behind her neck, fell to the middle of her back. The afternoon light seemed to highlight the wine-coloured birthmark on her neck and right cheek.

Even from my vantage point across the road I could sense the stillness that she wore like a comfortable cloak, the calm that sheltered her without making her seem vulnerable. Raphaella was the only person I knew who seemed secure in who she was, rooted and at home in the present, totally unlike the frantic passengers schooling past her.

But I couldn’t sit and feast my eyes on her forever. I tapped the horn and got out of the van and threaded my way across the street, dodging cars as they scrambled away from the depot. Raphaella caught sight of me and her face lit up. We had been together for about a year, but whenever she smiled at me like that I felt a nerve at the back of my neck wake up and tingle.

She set down her bag, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me like we’d been apart for a year rather than a couple of days.

“I missed you,” she said after breaking the kiss.

“Me, too. How did everything go?”

“Perfectly—almost. They had everything we’ll need and the price is right, but the man I had to deal with is a leerer. With an aggressive comb-over.”

“Well … theatre people,” I remarked, earning a punch on the shoulder.

The Orillia Theatre Group was putting on a musical, and Raphaella was stage manager. This time it was
Merrie Olde Orillia
, written by a local author. She had turned Stephen Leacock’s
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
into a musical comedy. Naturally, I referred to the show as
MOO
. I hated musicals, but Raphaella loved them—the only defect in her otherwise perfect personality. She had spent the day in Toronto at the costume rental company.

“Let’s boogie,” I said.

She laughed. “You sound like your dad.”

We made our way across the street and climbed into the van.

“So you finally gave in and got a new vehicle,” she commented as we headed north. “Or rather, new-ish.”

My father had been forced to give up our white rattletrap when it shuddered and died in the driveway like an overworked draught horse. The “new” vehicle, brown this time, was ten years old.

“Yeah. No choice. Um, changing the subject, I may have a line on some rental space for a workshop.”

I told Raphaella about Marco’s possible connection.

“It may not work out, but it’s possible,” I said. “Anyway, you’re invited for supper at our place tonight.”

“Who’s cooking?”

“Me. I’m doing cold pasta salad with chopped olives and tuna, barbecued chicken on the side. Nothing complicated.”

“Oh, I
am
glad to be home,” she said.

W
ICKLOW
P
OINT
, north of town, was a peninsula that hooked into the lake and pointed back toward Couchiching Park. At the end of Wicklow Road and occupying the entire peninsula was an estate enclosed by a high stone wall with a wrought-iron gate set into granite pillars. The dense stand of trees beyond the wall was flagged every fifty metres or so with
NO TRESPASSING
posters, whose message was emphasized by a
PRIVATE: NO ENTRY
sign on the gate.

I had never been out there before but found it easily enough with the
GPS
mounted on the handlebar of my motorcycle, a vintage 650 Hawk
GT
. My dad the traditionalist gave me lots of grief for using the electronic gizmo so much. “Pretty soon you’ll need that contraption to find your bedroom,” he joked.

I coasted slowly up to the gate and pushed a button below a brass grille. A hollow, tinny voice responded after a few seconds.

“You rang?”

“It’s Garnet Havelock. I have an appointment.”

“You may enter,” said the grille.

There was a click, followed by the hum of an electric motor and the rattle of chains as the gates rolled aside. I heard them closing behind me as I guided the bike slowly up the gravel drive that curved through a grove of maples, birch, and a few conifers, and into a clearing where a big two-storey stone house brooded in the shadows.

It looked like something out of a history book—slate roof with three broad chimneys, flagstone porch, oak double doors adorned with black lion’s-head knockers, mullioned windows along the first floor and dagger-shaped windows, their tips glazed with crimson stained glass, on the second. To the right of the mansion, also built of quarried granite, was a three-car garage in a stand of birch, with a concrete apron in front and along the side. This must be the “coach house” Marco had mentioned.

“The phone number I said I’d get for you,” he had announced a few days earlier at the Half Moon, slapping a scrap of paper on the table beside my coffee. “You’ll be talking to a Mrs. Stoppini about the coach house. Good luck.”

It was the same Mrs. Stoppini, I assumed, who was now standing in the doorway at the back of the house, squinting in my direction. I shut off the bike, pulled it up onto the centre stand, and hung my helmet on the handlebar. Already pessimistic that I could afford to rent space in a setup like that, I approached the house.

“Hi,” I said.

If the house seemed forbidding, Mrs. Stoppini was worse.

She was tall and skeletal, with a long face, pale skin stretched
tight over flat cheekbones, intense, bulging eyes, and a wide mouth painted crimson. Her iron grey hair was cut short. Dressed entirely in black, her long-sleeved dress buttoned at the neck, she looked like something from a story told to scare children.

She scrutinized me as if she found my jeans and leather jacket below standard.

“How do you do?” she replied to my greeting. “You must be Mr. Havelock.”

“Call me Garnet,” I said.

“I am very pleased indeed to meet you, Mr. Havelock. I am Mrs. Stoppini. Do come in.”

I followed her into a spacious, well-lit kitchen with a view across the patio to the lake.

“You’ll take tea,” she informed me, turning to the countertop where a tray holding cups, a sugar bowl, and a jug had been prepared. “Any seat will do.”

Mrs. Stoppini’s enunciation was correct and formal, her English slightly accented, and she seemed to use her politeness as a shield. I did as I was told and sat at the table, trying to imagine the inside of the coach house. I could tell from the quick glance I got that it contained all the space I’d need. But why was she interested in renting it out in the first place? The stone wall, the gate, the sign—all demanded privacy. The house, the grounds, the silver tea service shouted money. Whatever the answer, the place wouldn’t come cheap. The rent would be a lot more than I could afford.

She placed the tea tray on the table, then added a plate of steaming biscuits and a bowl of pale yellow butter. She sat, her erect spine at least ten centimetres from the chair back.

“Are you enjoying this lovely weather?” she enquired woodenly.

I hated small talk. “Yes. Nice riding weather today. Motorcycle, that is—not horse.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I ride a motorcycle. A Honda Hawk 650.”

“Indeed.” Mrs. Stoppini poured the tea. “Milk? Sugar?”

I said no thanks to both and accepted the cup. Close up, her long face, with its wan complexion, was startling. She had unusually thin lips and had applied her lipstick beyond their borders to make her mouth appear fuller. The effect was both comical and eerie.

She seemed to sense that I wasn’t up for a lot of chit-chat and got right to the point. “Mr. Grenoble has informed me that you may wish to lease the coach house,” she began.

“I’m interested,” I said. “That’s the building to the right of the house as I came in?”

She nodded, took a sip of her tea, and whacked the cup back onto the saucer, rattling the spoon.

“But I’ll have to take a good look at it before I make up my mind,” I added.

“Let us assume for the moment that you find it suitable,” she countered.

“And you need to realize that a woodshop can be noisy now and again.”

“That will not be a problem.”

I didn’t have much experience at negotiations. My father was a championship haggler who enjoyed bargaining over antiques at the store. He handled all the sales. I stayed away from that part of the business as much as I could. But if I wanted my own shop, I’d have to learn how to be a
businessman. Sooner or later we’d have to talk money. Should I bring it up now? I wondered. I took a sip of tea to stall a little.

“With your permission, Mr. Havelock,” she put in, beating me to the punch, “I wish to put to you a proposition.”

I nodded, relieved that she’d taken the initiative. “Okay.”

“You may find it a trifle unusual.”

If it’s half as unusual as the person making it, I thought, it’s bound to be strange.

“And,” she went on, “I am obliged to inform you that I have made certain discreet enquiries.”

“Er, I don’t follow.”

“Concerning your family—and, of course, you. Please don’t be offended. What I am about to propose—and I would not have agreed to this meeting had I not received a glowing report on the Havelocks—requires that I place in you a considerable degree of trust.”

“You had me and my family
investigated
?” I blurted. “Who do you think—?”

“Do calm yourself, Mr. Havelock, I beg you,” she exclaimed, eyes bulging. “I merely enquired of my lawyer, who is well acquainted with the town, whereas I am not. The late professor and I have led an extremely reclusive life here. All it took was a phone call. I say again: please do not take offence. My precaution—you will agree, I am sure, once you hear my ideas—was quite necessary.”

I struggled to hold down my anger. Well, you horse-faced, dried-up old stick, I can push too.

“I’ll have to look over the coach house before we go any further,” I said, setting my cup and saucer on the table and getting to my feet.

Mrs. Stoppini’s thick dark brows dived toward the bridge of her nose. She was about to object, but she checked herself. She seemed used to getting her own way. Not this time.

“If you insist,” she said.

I
KEPT MY ENTHUSIASM
reined in as I looked the coach house over from the inside. There were three overhead garage doors at the front, with a standard entrance on the side facing the main house. Big windows on three walls provided lots of natural light to supplement the overhead fixtures. The concrete floor looked recently painted and was as clean as a dinner plate. The building was fully insulated, and there were electrical outlets spaced every two metres or so along the walls. The power supply—unusual for a garage—looked adequate for my needs.

When I returned to the kitchen Mrs. Stoppini was at the sink rinsing the tea cups.

“Will it suit, do you think?” she asked, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

“It’s perfect,” I was tempted to say. But I settled for “I think it might.”

“Very well. Shall we sit down again and discuss the details?”

Like an awkward kid assembling a difficult Lego figure, Mrs. Stoppini made what she probably thought was a smile.

“Mr. Havelock, I very much hope that you will permit me to describe my proposal in full before you respond,” she began, with her precise enunciation.

“Okay.”

“Splendid. The enquiries I made of my lawyer yielded certain information which I found very much to my satisfaction, and which allowed me to hope you could be of considerable assistance to me and to the late Professor Corbizzi.” She cleared her throat. “I am prepared to lease the coach house to you, exclusively, for a period of three years, for the sum of one dollar.”

“One d—”

She held up a bony hand, palm toward me. “If you please, Mr. Havelock. There is more.”

I recalled Marco Grenoble’s warning: with the Corbizzis there are always strings attached.

Mrs. Stoppini rolled on. “I must share certain information that I will rely upon you to treat with the utmost confidence.”

Meaning, don’t tell anybody. I nodded.

“Indeed, as the late Professor Corbizzi was, and I remain, an extremely private person,
everything
I am about to tell you must remain confidential. I have been his housekeeper and companion for the past twenty years, first in Italy and then, for a decade or more, here. Professor Corbizzi was a Renaissance scholar, specializing in Tuscan history. He published several books and many articles. He was always devoted to his studies, but toward the end he became more reclusive, even secretive, spending most of his day behind the closed doors of his library. He passed away suddenly—this is, of course, common knowledge. What is not well known is that there was … an incident
that immediately preceded his death. An accident. A small fire. These details are my affair, and mine alone.”