Murder at Lost Dog Lake (5 page)

We had
three tents with us. Other than Craig, only Dianne, Joe and I
seemed to have any idea of how to put them up. Jeremy, Barb and
Richard at least tried, fumbling about with much noise and
argument.

While we
worked, Craig unpacked the cooking equipment and set up a little
kitchen by the fire pit. Rachel sat on a log, admiring her
nails.

It
wasn’t long before Barb, she of the amazing blonde hair and the
equally amazing snore, abandoned us tent-architects and bustled
over to help Craig with the cooking things.

Finally
we were done, with much rushing about by Dianne to check that all
the pegs were hammered in completely and the lines were all snug
and tight.

Barb
wandered over to have a good look at our handiwork and gasped in
dismay. “But, it’s so small. Isn’t there another tent? It’s too
small for…” she did the arithmetic in her head, “…three
people.”

“
No,” Dianne assured her. “It’s actually a four person tent.
So we’ll all have lots of room. I’ve slept with five people in a
tent that size, no problem.”

“
So who goes where?” Barb asked, the big blue eyes shining at
Craig.

“
Well, I’m certainly not sleeping with any of you.” Rachel
rose from her rock and brushed off the seat of her shorts. “Joe and
I will have that one.” She pointed to the tent farthest from the
others, and closest to the outhouse, although she probably didn’t
realize that yet. She picked up her daypack and marched into her
new home. Clearly, there would be no discussion on the
matter.

A
sheepish Joe followed.

The rest
of us eyed each other. As long as I wasn’t in with Barb, the
snorer, I didn’t mind where I went. All I planned on doing in my
tent was sleeping.

“
Leanne can come in with us,” Dianne announced. “No point in
having a girl’s tent and a boy’s tent.”

Barb
smiled brightly at Craig. “I suppose that leaves us,” she
said.

He
returned the smile tightly. “Sure. Jeremy can go in the middle. Is
that okay with you, Jeremy?”

“
Yes. It certainly is.” He tossed a smile full of tiny teeth
and red gums at Barb. She didn’t return it.

I shooed
Richard out of our tent and changed into my bathing suit. Full of
anticipation, I danced through the campsite and slipped gratefully
into the clear, fresh water. A few delicate steps over the rocks
and I launched myself onto my belly and started swimming. It had
been a remarkably hot summer - the water was warm and seductively
inviting. The only swimming I really do is in a lake. My mother has
a fabulous pool in her condo and she is always inviting me to come
over, but I hate swimming in a pool. What’s the point? Up and down,
up and down in the same little patch of chlorinated water. No
thanks.

I
haven’t swum in the ocean much, there not being anything in the
line of a sea close to Toronto. I’ve vacationed in seaside resorts,
but I didn’t swim much. I’m too afraid of finding creepy little
things in the water, or, even worse, creepy big things like sharks.
Although everyone assures me that the water is perfectly safe, I
find that I spend the whole time carefully placing one shaking foot
in front of the other and swimming in tiny circles so as not to
churn up the ocean bottom.

There
are some things that we grew up with and will accept no substitute
for. And for me it is the lakes and rivers of Northern
Ontario.

I fell
into a steady crawl, and as I felt the smooth water moving under my
arms and legs, all the strains of the last year leached out of my
body to drift away on the gentle waves. After several hundred yards
of steady swimming, I flipped onto my back and floated lazily in
the soft, warm water. The sky overhead was a perfect, clear blue,
with not a cloud to be seen. The sun moved lower in the west and,
as I watched, a tiny speck of an airplane flew soundlessly
overhead, drawing a long white line against the blue sky to mark
its passing, like a child sneaking a chance to make her mark on the
classroom blackboard. I imagined the people in the plane, looking
down at the green darkness of the forest and the bright blue
patches of water, and I felt sorry for them. Hurrying from one busy
airport to another, crammed into their seats like sardines in the
tin.

I felt
the delicious coolness of the water through my fingers and toes.
Only one thing could make this moment any better, if my children
were with me. But they were a bit young still. I hoped I would be
able to bring them here someday, maybe next year.

All good
things must come to an end, and I swam languorously back to the
campsite. Jeremy and Barb were playing in the water, laughing and
splashing each other. Barb called to Craig to join them, but he
shook his head and held up a kitchen knife to indicate that he was
preparing dinner.

Joe
passed me on his way to the middle of the lake, doing a pretty fair
breaststroke. Rachel sat on a log, her feet dangling in the water,
dressed in an eye-catching red bikini, red baseball cap and heavy
sunglasses.

I
climbed over the rocks and up out of the water to pause in front of
Rachel. “Going for a swim?”

“
No.” She almost shivered. “That water doesn’t look very
clean.”

“
Cleaner water than most,” I told her, shaking some of the
stuff out of my ear and toweling myself down. “No sewage systems,
no motorboats, no shipping lanes.”

“
I’d rather not.” She smiled up at me hesitantly. “But thanks
anyway.”

I was
stretched out on a rock, drying off and reading, when Joe returned
from his swim. Rachel got up to greet him and kissed and hugged him
enthusiastically, seemingly forgetting how wet he was.

“
Where are the washrooms?” she whispered, breaking off the
embrace.

He
colored and looked down at his bare feet. I buried my nose deeper
into my book and tried to pretend I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t
believe he hadn’t told her that there were no
‘washrooms’.

“
Take the path past our tent,” he said. “Craig hung a silver
bag on a tree, that’s the solar shower. The toilet paper is on a
rock by the tree, unless someone is using it. Then keep on up the
path to the, uh, outhouse.”

She
stared at him. Unexpectedly, my heart ached for her. Talk about a
fish out of water.

Without
a word she turned and walked away. I collected my towel and book
and followed her into the camp. The sun lay low in the sky and soon
it would be too cool to sit around in a damp bathing
suit.

I
surveyed the dinner preparations, hoping for a hint of what was to
come, when a single high-pitched scream echoed through the camp.
Rachel rushed down the path in a red flurry.

“
You don’t expect me to use that!” I couldn’t tell if she was
sobbing or gasping for breath in her rage. “There’s no sink,
there’s no shower, there’s just that horrible little…
hole.”

Joe
rushed forward and tried to catch her in his arms. “It’s okay,
honey. That’s why it’s called a wilderness adventure. We’re going
to do without all the amenities of civilization. You know, get back
to nature.” He was babbling. It was hideously embarrassing, but we
all stopped whatever we were doing to watch.

Rachel
swiped feebly at Joe’s chest. “Well I don’t want to get back to
nature. There must be someplace where I can have a shower and some
privacy. Take me there.”

“
Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Richard bellowed. “That’s enough.” In
two large strides he crossed camp. Red faced, fists clenched, he
towered over the smaller Joe. “Can’t you shut her up? What kind of
a man are you? She’s done nothing but complain the whole trip and
we’ve only been out one day. And all you do is carry her bags and
whine, ‘Yes, dear. No dear.’ If you can’t manage your woman, I
wonder if you can manage my company.”

Craig
came between them in an instant. Putting both arms out he separated
the two men. “Hold on now. I don’t think there’s any cause to get
personal.” He glared down at Richard from his impressive height.
“Is there, now?”

Richard
threw a venomous look at Joe and Craig shoved him backwards.
Richard’s head jerked and the silly ranger hat he always wore fell
off. A vein throbbed in Craig’s forehead, and his face was set into
angry lines.

“
Back off, Richard,” Craig said. “Don’t be throwing your
weight around. I’m in charge here and don’t you forget
it.”

Richard
stepped back, scooped up his hat, and without another word he
disappeared into the woods. Dianne followed him. The rest of us
exhaled in relief.

Craig
turned to me. “Leanne, why don’t you take Rachel and show her how
to use the solar shower and explain the importance of not washing
near the lake?”

I rushed
to comply and took her by the arm.

“
I don’t mean to cause trouble,” she whispered to me, her
voice shaking.

“
I’m sure you don’t.” I slipped into my
mother-of-a-toddler-voice. ”Most of us have been on one of these
trips before, or at least read up on it, and we know what to
expect. All you remember that everything we do here is trying to
protect the environment.”

I’ve
never before had the misfortune to be in the company of such a
bunch of short-tempered people. And this was supposed to be a nice,
relaxing vacation. I didn’t want to be around to find out what they
acted like in their ‘real’ lives.

As I led
Rachel towards the path, I could hear Barb’s deep voice as she
smiled up at Craig. “I was really scared that they were going to
fight. You handled that so well. You were so brave.”

Chapter 5

Day 3: Morning.

It
rained in the night, but not much, only enough to make the thirsty
plants beg for more. I slept at the east end of our tent and awoke
as the first soft rays of dawn poked playfully through the fabric
onto my eyelids. I slipped my shoes on and crept out of the tent.
The campsite was still asleep. Barb snored heartily and Richard
grunted, but all else was quiet. I walked softly down to the
water’s edge and sat on a rock to greet the day. It should be a
beautiful sunrise.

I was
not disappointed. The sky was as clear as it had been last night
and there was nothing to impede the welcome orange ball as it rose
higher and higher over the trees on the far side of the lake. This
is indeed the way we should start every morning. Gentle communion
with the new sun and pleasure in the solitude of nature. I laughed
at my fantasy. My usual morning was more like 20 minutes to shower,
dress, dry hair, slap on a touch of powder and blush and dash out
the door, grab breakfast from the Tim Horton’s drive-through on the
way to the usual traffic tie-ups on the main road. Oh, well, I
could dream, couldn’t I?

Smiling
and content, I gathered kindling and logs for the fire and tried to
make myself useful.

Dianne
got up next. She immediately pronounced my wood-gathering efforts
to be “inadequate” and marched off into the forest for more. Soon
she had an enormous blaze going and water on to boil for coffee. I
was unsure whether to be happy that she took on more than her share
of the work, or annoyed at her take-charge attitude.

Aroused
by the steady chopping of Dianne’s axe, the crackle of the fire and
most of all by the scent of coffee, one by one my fellow campers
struggled out of their tents. Except for Rachel, we were all
wearing the same clothes as yesterday. You can’t get much in the
way of a regular change of apparel into one stuff sack. Barb had
tied her T-shirt in a knot in the front, and arranged it to display
her fetching little belly button. Rachel looked worn and tired,
despite her best attempts to style her hair and apply a good layer
of make-up. I suspected that she didn’t get a lot of sleep on the
hard forest floor. The little sleeping mats Canadian Backcountry
Expeditions supplied didn’t provide much in the way of comfort. But
she accepted a mug of coffee from me with a wan smile. Her nails
remained perfect. I’d lost my bet.

Breakfast consisted of a fabulous bowl of oatmeal, mixed with
dried fruit, drenched in maple syrup and liberally sprinkled with
brown sugar. I normally can’t abide oatmeal, but as they say, there
is something about food cooked over a campfire.

We all
dug in with great gusto, and even Rachel managed a few bites before
passing her bowl to Joe. We’d decided the night before that each
person would take one day to be responsible for the washing up.
Dianne had been the first to volunteer; she heated water and
stacked plates while the rest of us packed up our bags and took
down the tents.

I was
making my way up the hill to the “facilities”, roll of toilet paper
in hand, when whispered voices from Joe and Rachel’s tent caused me
to slow down. Okay, maybe I stopped and leaned a bit to the left to
get my ear a mite closer. I’m a snoop by nature. Five years on a
big city police force followed by one year on my own as a P.I. and
my natural inclination to spy has been sharpened and refined to a
glistening point.

“
I really need you to do this for me, babe.” Joe’s voice was
soft and pleading.