Murder at Lost Dog Lake (18 page)

At that
moment, not a single one of us was terribly interested in coming
back any time soon. Craig seemed to have forgotten all about the
storm, the dwindling food supplies, the mutinous company, and the
dead body on our hands. He walked to the edge of the clearing, and
stood still for a long time, just listening. But the visitors had
fallen silent.

An image
of Richard, lying cold and still, all alone in his tent, flashed
through my mind. Wolves are no danger to humans, normally. But I
didn’t know if a dead body lying outside our camp counted as normal
conditions. Would the wolves be interested in dead flesh? And if
they were, would they be brave enough to venture near the circle of
feeble, frightened humans to get into the tent? Wolves were more
mature dogs, weren’t they? And it was said that a dog could smell
fear.

Fear was
something we had in abundance.

A quick
look at the frightened faces around the fire gave me plenty of
warning not to put my questions into words. Craig might be
enchanted by the animals, but it was certain that no one else
was.

“
Anyone for a game of cards?” Jeremy, up to now not the most
sociable of my companions, broke the silence. His note of false
cheer sounded hollow against the dark silence of the forest, but it
was welcomed, nonetheless.

“
What a great idea. Who’s in? What shall we play? Hearts?
That’s always a great game.” I had turned into a babbling fool, but
was helpless to stop myself. I cleared the last of the dishes and
laid out a towel on a log to act as a table. Jeremy produced the
cards and sat cross-legged, smiling stiffly, shuffling the deck in
his hands. I beamed and patted the ground in front of me. “Who
wants to play? Everyone?”

Only
Dianne shook her head and walked heavily back across the few steps
to her tent.

The
light from our assembled flashlights was so feeble that I could
scarcely make out one suit from the other, but we played on well
into the night. As a buttress against the storm, against the
distant wolves and against the cold, dark night and the terror of
sudden, unexplained death, the little deck of fifty-two familiar
cards was amazingly effective.

Unfortunately, the spell couldn’t last forever.

“
I have to go to the bathroom,” Rachel exclaimed, just as I
was sorting my spades: Queen, King and Ace, into place beside a
bundle of hearts.

“
So, go,” Joe said.

“
But, it’s dark out.”

“
Oh, golly gee, so it is. I guess you’d better piss right here
then. See if you can hit the Queen of Spades while you’re at
it.”

She
gasped and jerked back with as much force as if she had been
struck. “There’s no need to be crude.”

“
I can’t think of anything more appropriate,” Joe replied.
“You can piss on the blanket, you can join Richard in his solitude
or you can join the wolves out there beyond the firelight. But
really, to coin a phrase, ‘I don’t give a damn’”.

Rachel
stared at him, open-mouthed, genuinely lost for words.

She
wasn’t the only one. The rest of us were equally shocked by Joe’s
sudden change of attitude towards Rachel. Up until now he was
prepared, in public at least, to happily put up with her
helplessness and complaints. Made him feel all macho and
manly-like, I had guessed. What brought on this change? Was
Richard’s death that much of a shock to Joe? Made him realize that
we’re all mortal and ultimately we have to take responsibility for
ourselves, even Rachel? I rejected that thought. No one changes a
view of life quite that quickly.

Perhaps
it was all a game for Joe, but now that push came to shove, the
trophy wife turned out to be not so much fun after all.

With a
wince of regret for my hand, absolutely perfect for ‘going for
control’, I scrambled to my feet. “I need a potty break as well.
Why don’t I go with you?”

“
Me too.” Barb joined us and we stumbled out into the
night.

“
Christ.” We heard a low growl behind us as we scampered
through the undergrowth. “Why do women always have to go to the
bathroom in sets?”

“
Maybe they’re up to something in there,” Joe chuckled.
“Plotting to take over the world or some such.”

I
considered tossing back a reply, but dismissed the idea as
juvenile. Rachel was close to tears, again, and there was no need
to rattle her any more.

The rain
hadn’t let up one iota. It still fell in a steady stream, dripping
down our jackets, for those of us fortunate enough to still have
jackets. My nice dry clothes soaked up the rainwater in no time and
I was back to shivering and cuddling my arms. At least the
lightening storm had stopped and the skies were quiet. From a vast
distance one loon called to another, was answered, and I was
reminded of why I loved this country.

With all
the subtlety of a herd of wild buffalo we stumbled up the trail to
the treasure chest. In turn, two of us chattered brightly together
as the third tried oh so casually to do her business.

We
arrived back at the camp and Barb was ducking down to slip under
the tarp, when Rachel grabbed my arm in a grip like a
vice.

“
What really happened up there, Leanne?” she whispered, her
voice low and serious but fully in control. “Did Richard honestly
fall and drown?”

“
Why do you ask?”

“
I find that a bit hard to believe. This isn’t deepest,
darkest Africa, you know. It’s nice, civilized, comfortable, old
Ontario. Believe it or not, even I know the difference.” Her green
eyes stared at me, deep and intent. I wondered why this intelligent
woman pretended to be such a dummy.

“
People die in Ontario, as well as they do anyplace
else.”

“
True enough. But not many like this.” And with that she
ducked and disappeared into her tent.

The card
game broke up shortly after our return and everyone headed to his
or her tent.

“
Leanne, can I talk to you for a sec?” Craig said, as we all
scuttled for our beds.

“
Sure.”

He
tossed me a huge smile. His hair was wet, his face smudged with mud
and smoke and his clothes tattered and filthy, but he was still an
amazingly attractive man. Charmed, I smiled back.

“
I guess we’ll have to delay our date a bit. With so much
going on around here, I hope you haven’t forgotten about
it.”

“
I remember.”

“
Good. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe I can come down to
Toronto and we can go out for dinner. You think of someplace really
nice. I want it to be special.”

“
Sure,” I said, uncomfortable at the suggestion. I hadn’t
forgotten that he had asked me out, but it seemed a bit out of
place for him to mention it right now. With the remains of Richard
resting on the rocks and the shocked widow weeping softly
nearby.

“
Good night, then.”

“
Good night, Craig.”

Much
mild grumbling continued for a long time as everyone adjusted to
new positions in the tents, but eventually we settled. All but one,
that is.

For a
long time I could hear Craig moving about outside, checking on the
lone tent on the rocks, putting out the propane stove and the fire.
Finally all was quiet. I hadn’t heard Craig crawling into his tent,
so it was likely he sat and thought long into the dismal, rainy
night.

We had
done our best to set up the sleeping accommodations but this was
not a cultivated, groomed campsite. It was nothing but a refuge in
the storm. I shared a tent with Joe, Barb and Dianne, which made
things somewhat crowded. It was called a four-person tent - more
like four-tiny-toddlers in my opinion. I had stripped off my wet
clothes and crawled, clad only in a pair of underpants, into my
sleeping bag. If I had to run for my life in the middle of the
night, too bad.

I lay
awake for a long, long time. Eventually Craig stumbled into the
other tent and everyone’s breathing settled into place, slow and
rhythmic. I even smiled as Barb set up a rousing chorus of snores.
How normal it all seemed.

But
outside our little enclosure, a man lay, cut down by the hand of
another human being and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get that
thought out of my mind. Animals kill because it’s what they do, no
more and no less, and nature simply doesn’t care. If a rogue bolt
of lightening had struck Richard down, or a storm-tossed wave had
overturned his canoe, we would all mourn and his loved ones would
suffer no less, but there would be some acceptance of the natural
order of things. But this was hard, too hard to accept.

I lay on
my back and stared up into nothing, listening to the steady
drumming of the rain hitting the roof of the tent. The inside of
the tent was absolutely black, I opened my eyes wide but there was
not a glimmer of light for them to become accustomed to, so all
remained pitch dark. I concentrated on the steady drumming of the
rain only inches from my face.

The rain
continued long into the night, eventually slowing to a dull pattern
sounding much like a mischievous child throwing handfuls of gravel
against the tent walls.

But
still sleep wouldn’t come. When I could hear the gentle
pitter-patter no more, I pulled the sheet out of my sleeping bag,
wrapped it around myself like a character in a low-grade TV show,
and, gripping my flashlight, slipped out of the tent.

A heavy
blanket of clouds obscured any trace of moon and stars. I could
hardly make out the ground at my feet and flicked my little
flashlight on for some company. It had stopped raining but
everything was sodden right through. I found a miniscule patch of
dry log under the middle of the tarp, close to the remains of the
fire and sat down gingerly. Pulling my sheet tightly around me, I
huddled into myself. It was not a pleasant sensation.

From the
two tents nearest to me I could hear heavy breathing and light
snoring, accompanied by the odd groan and snuffle and occasionally
the thud of a heavy body shifting. The single tent that stood alone
on bare rock offered nothing, for which I was profoundly
grateful.

With
everything so wet there was no hope of an incompetent like me being
able to light a fire, so I sat alone in my misery, wondering what I
was doing here. Hard to believe that in one single day things could
have changed so much - from a sparkling adventure in the panoramic
wilderness to a terrifying adventure in the goddamned
wilderness.

It
seemed unfair that the others were able to sleep. Even Dianne, the
grieving widow and Craig, the failed guide, were sawing logs, but
here I sat on a rotting old stump that was happily spewing
splinters into my barely protected butt, contemplating the
mysteries of the universe.

Someone
killed Richard. In more inhabited surroundings, it could
conceivably have been a thrill killing, or a case of mistaken
identity, but we hadn’t seen another soul or canoe since long
before we landed at the portage to Lost Dog Lake and the storm
broke over our heads. Unless we escaped to the realm of spy-fiction
or fantasy, which would give me a nice outlet of either aging Nazi
agents determined to see the rise of the Fourth Reich or a
warrior-maiden with some sort of vengeance oath against us, the
killer was one of the little band of people sleeping so peacefully
as I kept watch. And if someone was only pretending to sleep but
was actually lying awake torn by guilt and the fear of retribution,
I heartily wished that someone would show him (or her) self to me
and we could be done with it.

On that
cheery note, I felt the probing fingers of sleep reaching through
to my subconscious at last, and I took myself back to my tent and
my now-welcoming sleeping bag.

Unexpectedly, I slept well. Wrapped in a gentle cocoon of
exhaustion I was only dimly aware of the winds dying down and the
rain starting up again. They had trained me well at Police College:
while my body slept my mind was hard at work, attempting to make
some sense of the last few days.

Chapter 15

Day 9: Early Morning.

When I
became aware of my surroundings once again, the rain had stopped,
although the force of the wind was enough to have trees bending and
creaking in submission and waves breaking over the shoreline. It
was still dark, threateningly hostile, an all-encompassing
blackness. Earlier on the trip I’d enjoyed the peace of the soft
night, now it was just plain mean.

My
subconscious had done a good job of sorting things out while I
slept. Speculation and ideas were fighting their way through my
brain, trying to catch my attention.

I didn’t
know much about these people, almost nothing really. It would be
difficult to come up with a motive for murder with so few facts. As
The Greatest Detective himself had said: ”It is a capital mistake
to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist
facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit
facts”.

Easier
said than done.

In mind
only I hovered over the wretched, rain-soaked tents and studied the
occupants. Who would have wanted Richard dead?