Murder at Lost Dog Lake (24 page)

Hallelujah!

As I lay
still and relished the welcome peace of no-storm, I picked up
another noise, soft, cautious, and intrusive. But at the same time
sounding exactly as if it belonged.

Wet
leaves sucked up mud and a branch snapped as if a great weight
pushed against it. Steady snuffling and the occasional heave of
deep breath.

I
crawled cautiously to the tent flap and peered out. Nothing. The
noise was coming from behind me.

I
stopped breathing and listened.

Still
nothing.

I had
almost convinced myself that I was imagining things and was about
to crawl back into my unwelcoming sleeping bag when the clang and
clatter of a stack of metal pots and pans rolling down the hill,
hitting every rock in their path, had us scrambling out of the
tents.

Rachel
was first and her shriek alone should have scared off the
intruder.

A
gigantic black bear stood beside the remains of the kitchen pack.
At least he looked gigantic to me, stretched all the way up to his
full, truly impressive height. He turned to face us, displaying a
handsome mouthful of teeth and fangs, and for good measure made
sure that we noticed the well sharpened claws, each one easily six
inches long.

The
creature roared a warning. I have never before been so totally
frozen into inaction. I simply stood and stared,
open-mouthed.

Do bears
climb trees or were we supposed to climb trees to get away from
them? Couldn’t remember.

None of
my companions moved. I heard a gentle whimper from off to one side,
but not another sound. They were as gobsmacked as I.

Out of
the corner of one eye, I could see Craig edge slowly towards the
fire pit. The bear noticed the movement as well and followed with
his eyes. He roared his objections once again, but made no further
move.

Craig
grabbed a cooking pot and lid, left on a log overnight, and brought
them together with a rousing clang. He banged pot and lid like a
drum in a totally demented high-school marching band, shouting all
the while at the top of his voice.

The bear
eyed our campsite once more, dropped to his forelegs, turned on his
heels and in one soundless movement disappeared into the
forest.

Craig
continued beating his drum, the rest of us still standing as if we
were playing a game of statues, until we simultaneously decided the
danger was gone.

A babble
of voices erupted, all at once. Everyone alternately shouting and
crying as we reassured each other that it was now all
right.

It took
a long while for our over-stretched nerves to settle back down. But
they did.

“
Hey,” Barb cried. “It’s stopped raining.”

And it
really had.

We
cheered and shouted and yelled some more.

Joe and
Jeremy were all for hightailing it out right that minute, but saner
heads prevailed. There wasn’t a lot we could accomplish in the
dark, except get thoroughly lost. As much as we would all like to
pack up the canoes, turn tail and run, we agreed that we would have
to wait for daybreak.

We
returned to our tents and the remainder of the sleepless night that
lay before us.

I lay
awake for most of what remained of the night, restless, eyes open
wide, mind working overtime. I shifted through the events of the
past week and sorted out a sea of emotions, terrors, fears, loves
and hates. Images of anger and serenity, rebellion and
acceptance.

I dozed
for a bit, and when I woke up I knew what I did not want to
know.

No one
else had slept any better than I. The camp stirred at the first
thin rays of light.

The sky
was perfectly clear, and the few lingering morning stars were
welcome indeed. Rachel and Barb danced a little jig around the dead
campfire, crying out their joy.

Before I
even had the sleep wiped out of my eyes, I pulled two people out of
their tents and whispered to them, urgent and pleading, trying
desperately to sound full of confidence and in control.

Reluctantly they agreed to follow my orders, as gradually
anger replaced the suspicion etched into their faces.

Watching
them go, I closed my arms around me and hugged my chest. Wet and
cold and hungry as I was, the chills now came from deep
inside.

Chapter 21

Day 11: Morning.

With a
sinking heart I watched the killer prepare to break camp and then
take a short break to sit alone on the rocks overlooking the
lake.

I
searched through the events of the past few days, hoping to find
something else, some clue that would take me in another direction,
some mitigating circumstance that would allow me to forget all that
I had seen. It’s not your job any more, I reminded myself. The rain
has finally stopped and we can now get out of here and forget that
this ever happened. But I thought of Dianne’s eyes, so dark and so
full of grief that I couldn’t allow her to wonder forever. And,
most strangely of all, I felt the tug of duty, of responsibility.
Not only to the police force that I had left but to the society in
which I lived and in which I still believed.

I tossed
my daypack down on the rock and settled beside him. Together we
watched the sun come up over the lake. It was the first natural
light we had seen for three days and the forest welcomed it as much
as we did. All around us birds harmonized in a chorus of delight.
Rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks scampered about to greet the light
as it cast welcome beams across the water, and then rose higher in
the sky to reach warm tendrils into the dark depths of the
forest.

“
Time to go,” he said. “We’ll ask Jeremy and Joe to stay with
the body. The authorities will send someone to get it and then it
will all be over. I hope this hasn’t put you off adventure
camping.”

“
No, Craig. Nothing could do that. But I thought I had left my
job behind and it’s a bit of a shock to realize that I can’t do
that.”

He
pretended to misunderstand me. “None of us can really leave the
city. Our lives follow us wherever we go, don’t they?”

A fox
sniffed its way out of the safely of the trees and approached us,
nose wiggling and body trembling. He was plump and shiny, his coat
glistening with the last drops of rainwater. Laughing, despite my
gloom, I pulled the leftovers of an earlier night’s granola bar
dessert out of my sweatshirt pocket and tossed bits his way. I was
careful to avoid giving him the chocolate chips and popped them
into my mouth instead.

I broke
a hunk off the bar and offered it to Craig. He accepted with a nod
and tossed the food into his mouth. More gray hairs had appeared in
his beard, and a few salted his sideburns and the lock of hair that
fell over his forehead. The delicate skin under his eyes and at the
corners of his mouth were lined with marks that would never be
erased.

“
What type of mushrooms did you feed to Scott?” I asked. I
struggled to keep my voice calm although my heart was beating so
hard in my chest I thought it would burst through skin and
bone.

His gray
eyes flashed momentarily and then the blank look settled over them,
again trying to misunderstand the question.

“
You did a great job of rounding up all those mushrooms for
supper the other night. Knowing what to pick and what to discard.
Made me think of how much we trusted you and all. Made me think
also of Scott who was supposed to take this trip, and came down so
sick, right out of nowhere, the night before we left.”

Craig
laughed. It was sharp, strained sound. A red squirrel chattered to
us from high up in a jack pine, warning us to keep our useless
human cacophony to ourselves. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do
that.

“
Made me wonder,” I continued, “what could put a man into such
a rage that he would strike out with a canoe paddle. Not a reliable
weapon, I would have thought.”

“
I don’t see where you get your ideas, Leanne. Scott gets
sick, a bit of a stretch to leap to the conclusion that it was
mushroom poisoning and even if it was, that I poisoned him on
purpose. And as for the canoe paddle, well anyone in this group of
fools could have swung that.”

“
True enough. But not many people could walk away and leave
Richard to bleed to death in a muddy puddle.”

“
What are you saying, Leanne?” He looked at me. The gray eyes
bored into mine and I thought how young he was. I was aware of how
alone we were, out on this patch of rocks overlooking the lake. The
sounds of the camp and preparations for the frantic flight back to
civilization were almost swallowed up by the dense
woods.

“
I am saying, Craig, that you killed Richard.”

He said
not a word. I swallowed and kept talking. “For some reason he
bothered you from the beginning, that was obvious. Sometimes people
just don’t get along, so I didn’t much care what the problem was
between you two.” I fingered a piece of pale green moss growing
between the rocks on which I sat. Soft as velvet, springy as a
mattress, it rose up into my fingers with delight like a living
being. I stroked rhythmically while my thoughts churned and my
heart beat.

In one
quick motion Craig drew himself to his full height. He loomed over
me and I gripped my patch of moss.

“
You’re too damned clever for your own good, you cop bitch.”
No longer young, no longer handsome, he glared at me from his
impressive height, his eyes full of fear and of hate.

I
flicked my fingers casually through my hair and returned his stare.
“Why did you do it, Craig? What happened between you and Richard?”
I kept my voice calm and in control although my heart pounded and I
wanted to wipe my sweat-soaked hands on my shorts.

“
God damned bastard. He killed my father, that’s what he did.”
Craig began to pace. Threat over, at least for now, my heart
settled back into my chest.

I
wondered how long it would take Dianne and Joe to reach help. Hours
if they encountered a ranger, days if they got lost. Too long, much
too long, to do me any good. I pictured them in my mind’s eye. Joe
was the strongest of the remaining group, and Dianne knew the woods
the best. What other choice did I have?

“
Oh sure, my father killed himself.” Craig’s voice rose to a
fevered pitch. “He was such a fucking loser.” I’m no psychologist
but I figured that this was a bad sign; first Craig was blaming
Richard, now his father.

He
gathered a bunch of small, flat rocks in one massive paw and threw
them out into the lake. Each one skipped merrily across the
sun-streaked water. Three, four, even five or six times. Growing up
on the shores of Lake Ontario, it was my life’s ambition to make
three skips. I was perversely angry that this man could make so
many, so thoughtlessly, where I had failed so often.

“
My dad went into a business partnership with Richard. I was
just a kid but I knew it wasn’t a good idea right from the start.
It was always difficult; I could hear my mom and dad arguing late
into the night when they thought I was asleep. Dad actually
mortgaged the house that they had bought with Mom’s inheritance
when her grandparents died. He put the funds into the business and
Mom was so angry with him. But then the money started flowing in
and she was okay with it. All of a sudden we had lots of money, a
trip to Disney World, a big new TV, a great stereo for my room.
Even an in-ground swimming pool in the back yard. I was the most
popular kid on the block, that year.

“
Then one day he came home and shut himself up in the study.
The strain of work, Mom told me. But I could tell that she was
worried. He didn’t leave that study for two whole days. She packed
me off to school, trying to smile, trying to be brave. But I knew
something was wrong. Christ, how couldn’t I?”

He
kicked at a stone. I winced at the crack of bone and flesh against
solid rock, but Craig didn’t even notice.

“
On the third day he went to work. Oh, yea he was still angry
and talked mean to Mom. He yelled at my sister because her skirt
was too short. An old skirt, one she’d worn all year. She started
to cry, and Mom got upset, but we were still glad because he had
come out of that room and was going back to work.

“
He came home later, after I got back from school. Didn’t say
a word to us, but slammed the front door and went into the study.
My sister was still out and Mom offered me cookies and milk in the
kitchen. If I didn’t already know something was wrong, that would
have done it. She never baked. I was eating my cookies, raisin and
oatmeal…”

He shook
his head, full of remembered sorrow and never lost pain. “I have
never eaten a raisin again, would you believe it.” He choked on the
words, took a deep breath, and continued.

“
I was finishing my last raisin and oatmeal cookie when we
heard this noise, this incredible, loud noise, coming from the
study.”

He wiped
a tear off his cheek, a rough swipe full of anger as if he was
ashamed to be caught crying while talking about his father’s death.
The fox came noising around again. Braver this time, it almost
reached out to touch my hand. Impatient, afraid that any little
thing would disrupt Craig’s narrative, I waved frantically at it.
The fox took the hint and slipped back into the trees.