Murder at Lost Dog Lake (8 page)

Dianne
went in search of the ‘treasure chest’, and I walked back down to
the beach. Some thoughtful soul had arranged a thick log in the
perfect position so as to make a beach chair. I settled down,
rested my back, and happily wiggled my bottom into the soft sand.
The three canoes remained a distant speck against the
horizon.

I idly
wondered if I had time to construct a barricade to repel boarders.
Maybe I could carve a sword out of a dead bough of jack pine and
whip off my T-shirt to tie into a bandanna over my head. I would
settle into this patch of warm sand and live here forever, stirring
now and again to hunt and cook my food. I could probably learn to
hunt (with what?) but I only had two paperback library books in my
pack. Woman does not live by bread alone, she does require reading
material. With a sigh I abandoned my fantasy and stood up to offer
a broad, welcoming smile to greet the others.

Craig
looked at me sternly, but I wasn’t a P.I. for nothing; he couldn’t
disguise the twinkle in his eye or his delight as he looked around
the beach and the early efforts we’d made at establishing a camp. I
winked at him and was rewarded with a ferocious blush, which he
tried to cover up by efficiently organizing the rest of the group
to pull their canoes out of the water and carry the packs up to the
clearing.

Everything was soon settled and I slipped into our tent to
dig my book out of my pack. Dianne was laid out in her sleeping bag
sound asleep.

I
returned to my primitive version of a beach chair and settled
comfortably back to bask in the delights of murder most vile in the
fog-shrouded streets of Victorian-era London.

Gaslight
and mist and mysterious cloaked figures distracted me only briefly
from delight in my surroundings. I picked up a tiny, broken twig
and carved patterns in the sand. With no conscious thought I drew a
big heart with my initials across the top, like we all did when we
were kids at the beach or in the sandlot on summer
vacation.

“
C.P.: Craig Patterson.” A voice boomed behind me, loud and
intrusive. Craig walked around my log and crouched in front of me
gesturing to my crudely drawn heart. “You could write C.P., right
there.”

Embarrassed at being caught daydreaming, I scribbled across
the little sketch with my broken stick. “That would be a bit
presumptuous, wouldn’t you agree?”

He
shrugged and sat in the sand beside me. “Nice spot this. You and
Dianne chose well.”

“
It’s lovely. Perfect.”

He
nodded at the paperback folded on my lap. “Do you like mystery
stories?” Craig stretched his long legs out in front of him, bent
the knees and wiggled his toes into the sand, as I had done
earlier.

We
talked for a while about books. We hadn’t read a single thing in
common, but we were both passionate about what we liked. Then we
moved on to movies, for which we both had considerably less ardor.
The sun moved across the sky and dipped toward the horizon. A
family of Common Mergansers, a type of duck with reddish brown
heads and gray bodies, sailed majestically past, Mom proudly
showing off her huge brood. Three of the more adventurous
youngsters waddled up onto the beach full of hope that the
intruders might have something worthwhile for them to eat. With a
series of loud squawks and much flapping of wings, their mother
herded them back into the water, and they took their
leave.

Craig
chuckled, “They always remind me of my nieces. Constantly looking
for a freebie while my sister tries without much success to pull
them back into line.”

I smiled
at the thought of my own boys.

Craig
read my thoughts. “Do you have children, Leanne?” he
asked.

“
Two boys, Brian and Thomas.” The sun slipped behind a cloud
and I shivered, whether from the drop in temperature or the
expectation of where this conversation would lead, I did not know.
I’m not at all keen for people to find out that I don’t have
custody of my children. They may not do it consciously, but almost
everyone automatically assumes that I must be a bad mother indeed.
Why else would I have lost my children?

“
How long have you been guiding up here?” I changed the
subject.

If Craig
noticed, he was much too polite to let it show. “Every summer for
six years.”

“
It must be great,” I said with feeling.

“
It is. I love it. But I don’t know how much longer I can keep
working at this. It sure doesn’t pay well.”

“
What do you do the rest of the year?”

“
I’m still in University,” he said. Then he laughed, a deep,
hearty chuckle. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m a bit old to
still be a student. But my mom and dad are both dead, and I don’t
have much money. I don’t want to graduate with a huge debt, so I
quit once in a while and work until I earn enough to go back to
school.” He gathered up a handful of sand and let it dribble
through a hole in the bottom of his fist. His hands were clenched
tightly and the muscles in his arm bulged with tension.

“
What are you taking?”

“
Environmental sciences.”

“
A great subject, I would imagine.”

Craig
gathered up more sand. “The most important subject in the world
right now. Not that it will give me many career
opportunities.”

“
Kind of like child care. The more important the job, the less
the reward, it seems to me sometimes.”

He
opened his hand and the grains of sand fell back where they
belonged. He looked directly at me. I was taken aback by the
intensity of his expression.

“
You got that right,” he said.

We
stopped talking to watch Rachel as she crept up to the edge of the
beach and dropped to her knees at the water line. She produced
something from a plastic bag at her side and bent over the
lake.

“
Stop that!” Craig leapt to his feet and ran down the beach to
the kneeling woman. He grabbed her arm and roughly jerked her back.
Her hands held her day’s shirt and a bar of soap.

“
You don’t wash in the lake. Never.” Craig was almost
yelling.

Rachel
burst into tears. “I have to wash my clothes,” she sobbed. “I have
to wash my clothes.”

“
Well too bad. You don’t wash in the lake.”

The
force of Craig’s anger took me so completely by surprise that it
was a moment before I gathered my wits, put down my book and joined
them. “It’s alright, Craig.” I touched him lightly on the arm. “No
harm done.”

I guided
Rachel to her feet. “Let me show you how to wash your shirt. We
don’t want soap in the lake, that’s all, it’s poisonous for the
environment.” Underneath my bright sympathetic smile, I was
cursing. The sun was fading, my beloved fictional London was
calling and I here I was trying to show this poor, lost woman how
to wash her T-shirt while camping, a skill that is actually rather
beyond me.

Craig’s
outburst disturbed me. If the guy couldn’t handle raw-newcomers to
the wilderness, he was definitely in the wrong business. They must
have clients far worse than pretty, harmless Rachel. People who
demand to be taken back, right now! Fighters, complainers, rowdy
drunks, fussy eaters, nature-disrespecters and
general-pain-in-the-asses. Craig had been guiding for years, he
must to have seen, and endured, them all. Something on this trip
was eating the guy, bad.

“
I don’t know why he has to get so mad at me,” Rachel sobbed.
“This is the most horrid week of my whole life.” I would never have
thought it possible to look pretty while crying, but Rachel pulled
it off. Her cheeks glowed a fresh pink and her eyes glistened. A
drop of dewy moisture clung to her thick, dark lashes.

“
Craig’s way out of line. It’s not your fault you haven’t been
on one of these trips before. It’s his job to tell you what to do,
not to yell at you for making a mistake.” I made soothing noises as
we walked back up the hill to the camp.

Joe
rushed over to gather the weeping Rachel up in his arms. He guided
her toward their tent, and I thanked the goddess of housekeeping
for sparing me from having to learn how to wash clothes in the
wilderness. I just wear them dirty and then wash everything once I
get home.

Craig
wandered up from the beach, hung-dog expression fixed firmly in
place, already regretting lashing out at mild, ineffectual
Rachel.

I smiled
at him ruefully and shrugged.

For
dinner that night Craig whipped up a wonderful dish of macaroni and
cheese. In my ‘real life’, I don’t normally get terribly excited
about good old mac and cheese, but after a day’s canoeing there is
nothing better in the entire universe than comfort food cooked over
an open fire. Craig stirred in thickly sliced onions and handfuls
of dried spices and so much rich cheddar cheese that it pooled into
soft yellow puddles on our plates as we ate.

After
dinner Barb put a pot of water onto the fire to heat for hot
chocolate, and we roasted marshmallows impaled on sticks, carefully
gathered from the surrounding forest, over the glowing embers. The
English couple didn’t quite know what to do with the gooey mess,
but Dianne lectured them on the proper preparation of the ultimate
Canadian campsite delight. Full of self-importance and desperately
serious about her responsibilities, she demonstrated to Barb and
Jeremy how to hold the stick just so, the distance required to keep
the marshmallow out the fire yet at the same time allow it to
toast, and how to turn it every few seconds to get a nice, even
brown coat.

Myself,
I like to watch the thing burst into flames, burn off about half of
the treat and then blow out the blaze and suck off the burnt bit.
My own little charcoaled piece of cloud nine.

The
universal glazed expression of good manners failing to conceal
total boredom spread over Barb’s face as Dianne launched into a
monologue of remembrances of toasted marshmallows and bonfires
past. The English girl held her stick out over the fire for a
moment too long and hungry fingers of bright blue flame instantly
consumed most of the white blob of marshmallow. Barb laughed in
delight and waved the stick in the air before her, drawing joyful,
wild and indecipherable words in the night air.

“
No, no. That’s not how it’s done,” Dianne admonished Barb
sternly. “Now it’s all burnt and will taste horrid.”

“
But Leanne cooked all of hers that way.”

I stared
at the dying embers as they devoured the last scraps of firewood.
Unwilling to go down without a fight, a cluster of twigs at the
side of the pit, which so far had remained unscathed, flashed up in
a miniature firestorm, only to expire in a final blaze of
glory.

Dianne
sniffed. She had the most amazing way of expressing herself without
a movement or an intelligible word. Lapsing into stereotypes, I
assumed that was the result of a rich, indulged childhood: raised
with the understanding that she would be surrounded by people who
were aware of her every need, and if on the occasional instance
they didn’t, then she would make sure they got in line mighty
fast.

“
Oh, for God’s sake, Dianne. Do you have to control
everything?” Richard threw his stick into the fire and rose to his
feet. Fingers of flame eagerly licked the sticky, sugarcoated end.
“These people can cook marshmallows without you criticizing them
every step of the way, you know.”

I
watched the flames. People stopped rustling and chatting. We all
stared into the fire, a group possessed, while Richard and Dianne
glared at each other across the dying flames. Deep in the forest an
owl hooted, the sound followed by a string of eerie
cackles.

“
A barred owl,” Craig said. “Its call is completely
unmistakable.”

We
nodded, glad of the natural history lesson.

“
It’s the only owl that is commonly found in this area,
although other species can be spotted on occasion.”

The
diversion had no effect.

“
Well pardon me. I was only trying to help.” Dianne got to her
feet. She faced Richard across the fire pit, hands on hips, and
feet placed firmly apart.

I
debated going for a midnight swim. The water would be lovely, but I
didn’t know if I could handle not seeing what I was swimming
through.

“
Give us all a break will you, Dianne,” Richard said. “You’re
not in charge here, you know. Although you seem to think you
are.”

Dianne
spluttered in indignation. “How dare you speak to me like
that!”

Craig
pulled himself up to his full, rather impressive height and loomed
over Richard. “No harm done here, pal.” His voice dripped with
contempt, which - for the second time on this trip - seemed way out
line. I was also finding Dianne more than a bit overwhelming, but
she wasn’t trying to be offensive; she genuinely thought she being
helpful.

“
I’m glad to have her help,” Craig said. “We all are. So why
don’t you go for a little walk and calm down.”

Without
another word Richard turned his back on the gathering and stomped
down to the beach. His shoulders were set and his fists clenched.
We all watched him go. What else was there to look at?