Grave Deeds (9 page)

“But she's my cousin. You can't rent to a cousin.”

“Why not?”

“It's just not right. She's family.”

“You've never met her! What kind of family are you talking about, here?”

“Maybe we'll like each other,” I suggested. “She sounds like
a really nice person.”

“Yeah? And how often had she been to visit her own grandmother?”

“She said business kept her away.”

“Yeah.” He yawned. “Don't make any decisions about the land until you meet her, Rosie. We have to see the place first.”

“Get here early on Saturday, will you?”

“Early as I can.”

He was at my door by nine o'clock the next morning. I greeted him with my bag packed and a box of groceries ready to carry down to the car. We hugged for a long time.

“How did Sadie like going to stay with Karen?” I tried to pull away, but he held me close.

“She wasn't too happy about the cats, but she'll be all right. It's just a weekend, after all. She'll get lots of walks, lots of treats. I wish my mother wasn't so allergic to her. She'd have loved it up north.”

Our dog Sadie is a mixed breed, part Lab and part, as we joked, Irish wolfhound. Because she's so big, people who don't know her think she's dangerous. Will's mother for one. She hates the fact we gave the dog a human name and that we're quite unashamed to call her our child substitute. Sadie is a bit spoiled — she loves to jump on people to lick their faces. Especially after she's been in the bush and had a chance to roll in smelly wet mud. I wanted to make a good impression on my new cousin; I could guarantee that Sadie would have caused commotion. She was better off staying with my best friend as she's done before. I missed her, though.

Will had dressed up today for our meeting with Dr. Finch. He looked very professional in a striped cotton shirt and pale pleated pants. “Ice cream colours,” I said, stepping back to get a full view. He wouldn't let go. “You look good enough to eat.”

“I hope so.” One hand bunched up my shirt, searching for bare skin, bra hooks.

“We've got to leave,” I protested. “I told Marilyn we'd be there around lunchtime and it's at least a three-hour drive.”

“But I haven't seen you all week. I have certain pressing marital issues to discuss.”

When that kiss ended, I said, “We should write a book. How
to revive your marriage by living apart.”

“Not totally recommended. The house is pretty empty without you in it.”

My hands slid down his back, pulled him closer to me. “What will we tell Marilyn if she's prepared lunch for us and it's spoiled?”

“Traffic's heavy,” he murmured into my hair.

Two hours later, and we were ready to leave at last. When the phone rang, I almost didn't answer. “Let the machine take care of it.”

“You'd better see who it is,” Will objected. “It might be your cousin, wondering where we are.” It wasn't.

“This is Detective Gianelli,” said a deep male voice. “Do you remember me? We met at the Baker house.”

“Yes, Detective. Is there any problem?”

“Not exactly,” he paused. “Have you heard recently from Dr. Marilyn Finch, by any chance?”

“My cousin? As a matter of fact, yes. I'm about to go north to spend the weekend with her at the cottage.”

“That's the property the old lady willed to you?”

“Yes.”

“Where is that? Exactly?”

I told him how to find the cottage, and then asked, “Why do you want to know?”

“Curious. What about Roger Markham?” “What about him?”

“Seen him recently? Possibly with your cousin?”

“I saw him yesterday morning, but I haven't met my cousin yet. That's why I'm going north. What's this all about?”

“We're following up some information about the Baker case. There's a few questions we have, and we can't seem to get hold of Dr. Finch.”

“She's staying at the lake. There's no phone there.”

“When you see her, will you ask her to get in touch as soon as possible?”

“Why?”

“We have a few questions.”

“You're not going to tell me anything, are you?”

“Nothing to tell. Just following up.”

“Are you all right, by the way? Did you have to get forty rabies shots?”

“They don't do that any more. Besides, the cats had all had their rabies shots.”

“That's a relief, then.”

“Yeah. You ask your cousin to call, okay?”

“Okay.”

I'd barely hung up the phone when it rang again. This time it was Dufferin Ross.

“Are you going up north?” he asked.

“Yes. We're about to leave.”

“Have the police been in touch with you?”

“I just had a call from Detective Gianelli. He's looking for Dr. Finch and Roger Markham. Do you know why?”

Mr. Ross sighed. “I'm afraid Roger has been up to no good.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's been helping Dr. Finch to get power-of-attorney over Beatrice's estate.”

“What for?”

“She claims she wanted to spare Beatrice worry over paying bills and taxes. I don't believe her.” “Why not?”

“I shouldn't say. The case is under investigation.”

“What case?” I almost yelled. “You have to tell me. I'm on my way to see Dr. Finch now, and I hear that the police are looking for her, you imply that your nephew's involved. What's going on?”

“Dr. Finch is involved in a criminal procedure in the States. She needs money.”

“Someone's suing her?”

“It's a little more complicated than that.”

“Well? Come on, you can't just leave me hanging. I need to know who I'm dealing with.”

“She was charged, along with some others, with illegally excavating and looting an archaeological site on a farm down south. There's a big market for Indian artifacts in the States; there's also enormous fines, even prison sentences, if you're convicted. Marilyn got caught on a university-sponsored dig
early in the fall. Her case comes to court this summer.”

“Wow.” I twirled a strand of hair around my fingers, winding it tighter and tighter. “That's why she's no longer working at the university.”

“Yes. I never told Beatrice the truth of the matter. It would have upset her greatly.”

“Is that why Roger was helping her to get power-of-attorney? So they could sell off the property?”

“They had already had the land surveyed. Beatrice just found out about it; she was livid. When she told me, I suspected what was up.”

“When did Aunt Beatrice find out?” I said.

“The week before she died, she got a letter from a real estate company making enquiries about the subdivision of the land. I was coming to see her anyway, to meet you and discuss the situation.”

I thought about this for a moment. “You think Roger or Marilyn had already been there? You think one of them killed her?”

“I hate to think that.” He paused. “The police have told me they have a potential witness. One of the neighbours says he saw a light on upstairs in her house…”

“I thought the upstairs had been closed up.”

“It had, but she had George's papers up there. Someone has been through the desk recently.”

“I wonder why.”

“A copy of your birth certificate was there. And the announcement of your parents' wedding.”

“Oh.” I remembered Markham's insinuations about the validity of my claim to inherit the land.

“The neighbour said he saw a visitor leaving in the late afternoon, about the time she died. Couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, but whoever it was, was in a hurry. But you know old men.” Mr. Ross coughed out a laugh. “His eyesight's not too good. It could have been the grocery delivery. She had them come twice a week. Not that day, though.”

“The police just let him talk,” I said, remembering how Gianelli had described their “technique.”

“That's right.”

“So they think her death wasn't an accident?”

He didn't answer for a moment, then merely repeated his first request. “You ask Dr. Finch to call them. And if you see Roger, I wouldn't say a word to him. He's been up to some funny business, I'm afraid.”

“You think he'll be up north?”

The old man sighed. “I don't know. I don't seem to know anything these days. You just take care, you hear?”

It began to rain as soon as we left the city, along with everyone else who has a cottage, wants a cottage, or knows someone with a cottage they can visit. It always rains on holiday weekends; that's the first rule of cottage life.

North of Orillia, the farmscape gave way to shield country: we drove through a granite cut, walls of glistening black and orange rock rising on either side, a stream of run-off racing along the shoulder towards a small lake that lay flat and gray below us. Dotted among the uniform dark green blanket of spruce and cedar forest that undulated over the hills were brave white flags of birch trunks, new green leaves glistening on stands of maple, poplar and scrub oak.

Small dirt roads angled off the highway, marked by posts festooned with hand lettered arrows pointing to cottages on lakes we couldn't see. Yellow signs picturing leaping deer gave way to warnings of moose crossings. In some places, for miles it seemed, a wire fence bordered the ditch, and posters tacked to trees warned away trespassers. Beaver swamps interrupted the woods, brooks rushed away under concrete bridges.

Houses had been built in clearings hacked out of the bush. Some were bungalows, hastily constructed and covered with plain white vinyl siding, set in a square of tidy lawn with perhaps a concrete deer poised, one foot raised, at the tree line. Others, half-hidden in a grove of pruned young maples, were built of rough-hewn logs, square and squat, one high dormer window centred over a bright red door.

Most of the driveways were empty, though lights shone in one or two houses, in kitchens, I bet silently to myself. I imagined a young woman wearing a pale green tracksuit, her hair caught back in a neat ponytail. She eases herself down on a wooden rocker, a steaming cup cradled in her hands. The breakfast dishes are in the drainer, a yeasty smell fills the house
from the bread she's just put in the oven. She leans her head back, closes her eyes. A clock ticks. In another room, a baby murmurs in its sleep. Her eyes flick open, then slowly fall again. A cat pads into the room, considers her for a moment, jumps into her lap. The tea spills.

I shook myself free of the dream; the young woman, the blue and white kitchen, and the cat faded away. I stifled a yawn with a cough.

“You okay?” Will asked. He leaned forward over the wheel, peering through the half moons made by the windshield wipers at the tail-lights of the car in front.

“Just dozing.”

“Pretty heavy doze. You've been snoring for the last fifty miles.”

“I have not.”

“Heavy breathing then. Good dream?”

“No.” I rooted through my bag hoping that I'd had the sense to pack some fruit juice, perhaps an apple. I like to think I'm an organized sort of person. I had spent long enough packing for this trip at any rate, trying on clothes, trying to decide what would be appropriate wear for a weekend with my cousin.

But I hadn't packed anything to drink. “Could we stop, please? I'm dying of thirst.”

“There must be a gas station pretty soon. There's supposed to be one near the road to the cottage.”

The map Mr. Ross gave me had directions written in meticulous script and coloured pencil marks for water and trees. A little box represented the country store at the corner where we were to turn off the highway. A dotted line indicated the dirt road which wound for a couple of miles down from the highway to the shore where it passed over a bridge (two black parallel lines over a wavering blue streak) and ended at a large X. The cottage itself was on the river, separated from the lake by a stretch of dense marsh, my grandfather's bird sanctuary. Access to the beach — a long thin curve of brown between the blue of the bay and the thick green line of bush — was by canoe up the river and around a point of reeds. If this rain kept up all weekend, I doubted I would ever get that far.

“Dreaming again?”

“What?”

“There's a gas station up ahead, see the lights? Want to stop? We're almost there.”

“I really need something to drink. My mouth feels full of cotton batten.”

The car tires crunched on gravel and the engine protested as Will downshifted to a stop. A German shepherd appeared at the open bay of the empty double garage, spotlit in our car headlights. It sat just on the edge of shelter, facing us. In the sudden silence when Will turned off the motor, we listened to the rain drum on the roof and the steady swish of traffic passing by.

”Downtown Cook's Lake,”
Will read the letters painted in faded red script on the false front of the store. “I wonder where uptown is. Talk about hyperbole — or hope.”

“It's meant to be a joke.”

“The place sure doesn't look like much.”

The false front obscured the slope of the roof, but the building, though just one storey, obviously contained living quarters as well as the shop. Smoke curled from a metal chimney that snaked up a wall whose white vinyl siding was stained yellow and black from years of creosote build-up and ash. On the concrete stoop to one side of the screen door were a three-legged stool and a rusting oil drum used as a garbage pail; above it, a bulletin board sagged with layers of notices tacked over each other and around its frame. On the other side of the door was a pay telephone shielded in blue plastic.

I took a deep breath, pushed open the car door, slammed it behind me and ran for the ramp that led to the entrance. The screen opened into an interior so dark that I thought at first the place was empty. One fluorescent tube buzzed on the high ceiling. I could hear television applause, the high-pitched racing commentary of a game show host from somewhere in the darkness behind the counter.