Grave Concern (20 page)

Kate's cold knuckles knocked painfully on something. Yow! She sucked the sore fingers a moment, probed gently in the pocket again. A bottle! She took hold and pulled it out. A mickey. She remembered the term from something her dad said once. She unscrewed the cap and sniffed.
Whew!
Revolting. Plugged her nose and took a swig. Yecchh. But a welcome liquid fire coursed down her esophagus and gushed warmth along her limbs.

Years ago, Kate watched her dad tinker with the furnace. Suddenly, he jimmied up a little metal window and pointed inside the monstrous machine to a hissing blue flame. “See that?” he said. “That's called a pilot. Our survival through winter, yours, your mother's and mine, depends on that little light. Without that, the furnace can't do its job keeping us warm.”

“Could it go out?” Kate had asked.

“Sure could,” her father said. “That's why we keep on top of it. We check to make sure everything's working the way it should. Keep the fire stoked.”

That's what the rum was doing now. Lighting the blue flame that had gone out. And Kate would have to keep on top of it. She raised the bottle again. And again.

Soon the warmth spreading through Kate seemed to originate in her belly. She felt better all over than she'd felt in some time. It occurred to her to check the other coat pocket. Not much there. Just … a packet of matches.
A packet of matches.
Kate screwed the lid tightly back on the bottle, so as not to lose a drop, and sat down on the floor to contemplate this new treasure. Placing the bottle carefully down, she opened the matchbook. She tore out a match and, feeling for the rough striking surface, struck it once, twice, three times without success. On the fourth try, the match flared, and Kate saw her cell for the first time.

The cabin interior was much as she'd imagined, nothing much but the plank floor, filthy with the dust of time and the dirt of previous illicit visitors like herself. There wasn't so much as a chair or table, but there was a large wooden bench, shoved against one wall. A bench. Of course! Her predecessors had gotten out somehow.

The match flame licked Kate's fingers, and she shook it out. Crazy with delight, Kate opened the rum again and considered the bench. A good dose would get it moved.

Kate bumped into Mary at the post office.

“I hear you've thrown me over for that young video dude,” Mary said. “Cougar's come out of the woods, I'd say. Can't say as I blame you, mind. I'm just about cross-eyed these days from lack of social life.”

“Oh, Mary, I'm so sorry. It's been kind of crazy lately. Let's go for coffee. What about now?”

Mary grinned and placed a hand on the door marked CROWCROW. She turned her head to talk to Kate. “Sorry. Work. Gotta run. Maybe Thursday?”

Through the door glass, Kate saw old Buck Miller limp towards them, his foot still heavily bandaged.

“Mary, watch — !” Too late.

With a preoccupied air, the burly Buck yanked wide the very door Mary was holding, and Mary flew halfway across the sidewalk before she half-rolled, half-skidded to a stop.

Kate rushed to pick up her friend. A fine layer of skin had been torn from one knee and shin. A few sharp pieces of gravel clung to the moist corner of her mouth.

“Uh, as I was saying,” Kate continued, “I think someone's trying to get in.”

Between wrangling Grave Concern's errant accounts into their proper Excel paddocks and doing her taxes (not necessarily in that order), Kate sat in her now-violated commercial space on her brown-and-chrome office-chic, trying to solve the Sphinxian riddle of the so-called “simple life” back here in Pine Rapids. Robust questions and limp, wobbly answers ran breathless laps around her mind, until Kate put a stop to the madness by pinning them down:

1. Some
thing is lurking around the graveyard. Many people have seen it — or them (more than one?). My own sighting con
sistent with others'. Can't be sure what I saw. Movement. Something quite large. Always in the corner of my eye.
What did meeting conclude? Are conclusions of any use or interest?

2. If said Thing is a cougar, as some suggest, would tail or other cat-like traits not be obvious? What about tracks in snow and/or mud? And colour? Still no consensus on whether it's animal, vegetable, or mineral. Or popular delusion.

3. Greta caught trying to muscle in on my business. At least it's out in the open now. But what about this thing J.P. supposedly told her about me? Was it just a bluff? What purpose would bluffing serve?

4. Bill Chambers caught in my office looking for something. What? And is he, for some reason (what?) in cahoots with others, i.e. Greta and/or Foxy?

5. Hille Hatter could be helpful with her knowledge of local history I missed out West. Knows of the Marcottes and J.P.'s life and death. Does she know any more than what she said the day we staked out the graveyard? If I open up, can I trust her not to spill? Of course, I have leverage in knowing of boob debts. (BTW, I never really helped with that. Can something be done on that front?)

6. Marcotte came to see me at roughly the same time I personally first saw the Thing. Is this coincidence? Or is it all a set-up of some kind? Moreover, did he already know where the grave was? (Doubtful on last: body language, look on face.)

7. And, further (this totally paranoid?), is there anything nefarious or calculated in Adele Niedmeyer's request for me to play chauffeur come spring/summer? Am I coming completely unglued ?????

Kate read over the list a few times, with a feeling something was missing. Okay, there was the Guy/John Marcotte mystery. Ancient history, and of doubtful relevance, but writing it down would, with any luck, release Kate from eternal mulling:

8. What was going on at the Marcottes back in the day? If it was Guy, and not John Marcotte, beating on J.P., as the niece, Sylvie, suggests, what difference did it make? What would inspire a brother to do parental dirty work?

Okay. That was it. All she wrote. Kate dearly hoped that, exhausted, itemized, and exposed, this intense curiosity would relax its stranglehold. A measure of peace would be hers at last.

When Kate walked into The Beanery as arranged on Thursday, Mary sat at their usual table with a Heath-Ledger-as-Joker gravel rash running up her cheek. Kate's green tea non-fat latte was ready and steaming at her favourite place, with a view out the window onto Main Street.

“Geez, Mary. How do I deserve this, after failing to warn you of Miller time?”

“Oh, you mean my flight departure moving up without warning?”

“That's it. We should all be so lucky. Early takeoff, free sidewalk sandwich.” Kate was happy to see Mary didn't blame her. “Seriously, though, what's the occasion? And by the way, how's the road rash?”

“Oh, fine. Just scratches, really. As for the occasion, I told you, dear. Social life's lacking. I figure you're better than nothing.”

But Mary had a strange glint in her eye. (Resemblance to Joker now uncanny, thought Kate.)

“Okay, Mary. Out with it. What's going on?”

“Kate. Kate, here's the thing. I've been dying to tell you, but the post office wasn't the place. Spies after crawling all over the place, ha! And moreover, your health care dollars have been stretched pretty thin.”

“Meaning?” Kate said.

“Meaning, my dear, things are completely out of control down at the old Rx factory and I really should be there, and not here. Took an extended coffee break someone will probably notice, but what the hell. Okay. Listen up. A couple of nights ago, there was a terrible racket outside the house. I turned out the light and looked out. But you know how dark it is up along my road, you can't see a bandy-legged beggar at three feet. So I ran out on the back step with a metal spoon and a pot and whanged the hell out of it, yelling my head off. I was worried about Ned Nickers.”

“And?”

“I was right, Kate. Damn that rotten fence, anyway. Something
was
there all right, and Ned was after putting up a hell of a holler. Whatever it was, I scared it off.”

“And?”

“Ned's got scratches way worse than these,” Mary pointed to her cheek. “Screaming great claw marks down his withers.”

Kate looked blank.

“
Shoulders
, dear. And Kate, there's a hole, not too deep, thank Jeezus, in the muscle, not far off the jugular. You know what
the jugular
is.”

Kate replied with a withering grin.

“I scared the bastard off before he got his incisors sunk in. But Jeezus, Kate. Just barely.”

Kate swallowed hard, having yet to sip her tea.

“Anyway,” Mary went on, “classic cat attack, eh? Stalk from behind, quick leap up and open the throat. That's my point.”

“Did you call anyone?”

“Are you kidding? I did what anyone with half a brain would do.”

“What's that?”

“Got Ned safely into his shed for the night, cleaned up the wounds, gave him a whacking great dose of antibiotic, came back into the house, and consulted our friend Herr Professor Google. Kate, it's amazing stuff I found.”

“I'm glad Ned Nickers is okay, poor thing. Must be in shock. Anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you, Mary, for telling me this. And for refraining from calling the OPP. They'd probably have come in with jeeps and floodlights and AK-47s and night vision goggles and blasted the hell out of the place. Or maybe sent in the MNR.”

“Oh, but that's just it, Kate. If anything, MNR is on our side.”

“Meaning? You're very cryptic today, Mary.”

“Apparently, there's history out there you and I know nothing about.”

“History?”

“Ooooh, yeah.”

Kate took the first sip of her latte. Aaahh. “Okay, so could you start at the beginning, and let me in on whatever you're talking about?”

“Right, dear. Hold on to your mack. So it turns out there's been a running disagreement for years between MNR and research types (mostly States-side, it turns out). Researchers say there's no cougars left in the east; they're gone, and that's that. If there's anything out there, it's a zoo escapee or some cunning migrant from out West — ha, kind of like you, dear! Anyway, so these ‘experts' basically think the local farmers and hunters with their stories are off their nut. MNR, on the other hand, along with quite a few regular folks, say, ‘Not so fast.' They say there's evidence of remnant cougars out there. But so far, they only have anecdotal evidence: remains of cows and horses, random sightings, fuzzy photographs — you know the drill, kind of like extraterrestrials. So then the
other guys
say, even if it
is
cat, could be bobcat or lynx. You need more proof for cougar: scat, deer kills, a good set of prints, stuff like that. Hence the ongoing dispute.

“On top of that, turns out farmers get government compensation for stock killed by coyotes and bears and such. But
not cougars
, which, remember, aren't supposed to exist here. And these farmers would be happier if they didn't. But environmentalists don't want them declared extinct, because then they'd lose their ‘endangered' status, which gives the cats protection should they in fact be around. Still with me?”