Murder at Lost Dog Lake (17 page)

All
anyone really wants is to be needed, to be appreciated. Make them
think they are indispensable and they’ll do most
anything.

Craig
didn’t even notice that I was taking over. I didn’t want him
falling apart, any more than I wanted to be responsible for this
miserable bunch. But this was a murder case and I was the only even
partially trained investigator within screaming distance. We would
do the rest of this my way, and I’d let Craig think he was in
charge for as long as it suited me.

Snatching up my daypack, I slipped back into the woods. As I
trotted up the trail, which was now more like a river, I could hear
them arguing almost pleasantly about the proper placement of the
tents and the cooking equipment.

I asked
myself to remember why I was here.

For rest
and relaxation, and to ‘get away from it all’.

A week
ago I didn’t know a single one of these people. Up until today I
had been having a great time. Surprising since I had almost turned
tail and bolted on the night of my arrival.

I wished
that I had.

Chapter 13

Day 8: Late Afternoon.

The body
lay where I had left it. Only the hat had moved, blown off by the
wind and caught by the branches of a knotted old oak a few yards
off. Richard’s sightless eyes stared up through puddles of muddy
rainwater at dense black clouds. Most of the blood was gone now,
neatly washed away by Mother Nature herself, as efficient and
orderly as ever. The level of water on the forest floor had risen
considerably in my absence. Richard resembled nothing so much as a
sex-changed Ophelia, almost floating in a pond of tiny branches,
sodden leaves and a few cheerful wildflowers.

I pulled
one of my disposable cameras out of the pack. Just an ordinary
backpack, it wasn’t waterproof but fortunately the camera and my
notebook were buried in the middle of the bag, comfortably
protected by my swimming towel. The towel was damp, but thankfully
the camera had remained dry.

I
snapped the scene, some distance shots of the body and its position
in the woods, more close-ups, mainly of the now-clean head wound. A
few of Richard’s hands and forearms. There were no sign of
defensive wounds.

I am a
lousy photographer, at best, and I could only hope that this little
holiday camera was up to the job. I wasn’t even sure if I should
have the flash on, it being daytime, but still so dark. Probably
better than not.

I
thought wistfully of Wayne, my partner in the P.I. agency, a true
aficionado of the art, and the proud owner of some of the best
surveillance and photographic equipment money can buy. Back at the
office, we had cameras that fit neatly into the frame of a pair of
eyeglasses, cameras so powerful that they could turn night into
day, video cameras imbedded in clock radios, even a camera that fit
behind a man’s tie or a woman’s brooch and broadcast to a tape
running in a car hundreds of yards distant. All of which sat in
neat steel cabinets, locked carefully away, while I struggled with
a little plastic disposable that I feared had already taken in too
much moisture to do much of a job.

My
notepad was damp around the edges, but not too wet considering the
circumstances. Alternately chewing on the end of a pen and
scribbling, I managed to write down my observations as I struggled
to remember all that had happened since the discovery of the
body.

Mud
slurped behind me as if some primitive beast was rising from the
ooze. Startled, I spun around as a flash of lightening lit up the
forest. The bright light outlined Craig. He looked primal indeed,
large and dark, bulky and hairy, lumbering awkwardly through the
storm-embattled woods. Another bolt of lightening flashed, the
shadows disappeared and a bright, although slightly strained, smile
full of modern dentistry and genuine pleasure at spotting me
softened the shadows of the face to chase my primitive
apprehensions into the netherworld.

“
Any sign of this storm letting up?” I asked as soon as he got
close.

“
Not a one. Though I have never known a storm to last at full
bore as long as this one has. It can rain for days on end, but the
lightening and thunder pass by pretty quickly and move on to
torment someone else. An hour, hour and a half at most. This is
weird, really weird.”

Oh, joy.
Just what I needed to hear. Out in the middle of nowhere, with a
dead body and a bunch of possible murderers, some of whom seemed to
have a tenuous hold on reality at the best of times. Plus a storm
that decided to hang around and watch the fun. “Let’s get Richard
tagged and bagged and back to the camp.”

Craig
looked at me sharply, but said nothing. I could read the censure at
what he thought was my frivolity in his deep gray eyes.

I
ignored it. “Bring that bag over here and open it up. We should be
able to lift him with one clean move and zip it all up nice and
tight. Then we’ll cart him back to camp and the privacy of his own
comfy little tent. He’ll probably appreciate not having to listen
to Dianne chatter all night.” I tried to force a touch of frost
into my voice. I had no choice but to stay in control; no one was
here to rush to the rescue and prop me up. If I allowed myself to
come over all-sentimental about poor, old Richard I wouldn’t make
it. And then neither would Craig nor any of the rest of
them.

“
Now are you going to stand there like my nanny or actually
give me a hand with this thing?”

He
hesitated.

“
Suit yourself. Time to separate the men, and the women, from
the boys.” I bent as if to lift the body all by myself.

Like I
could.

“
You’re a cold-hearted bitch.”

“
That I am, dear. That I am. And don’t you forget
it.”

Together
we managed to stuff Richard into his sleeping bag and zip it up
over his head. We struggled to get the weight into a fireman’s lift
onto Craig’s back, but with much grunting and groaning (that beer
belly weighed a ton), we managed. I took a couple more shots of the
ground under the body, once it had been removed, using up the last
of my film – couldn’t wait to show off my holiday pics - and we
stumbled back to camp.

Dianne
waited for us at the edge of our primitive enclosure, tall and
stately and not moving, her yellow eyes as heavy with grief as her
shoes were with rainwater.

I
touched her arm as we passed, Craig stumbling under his burden,
myself walking behind to steady him if he fell. We stopped for a
moment and I handed Dianne Richard’s hat. It was wet and muddy but
mercifully free of blood and brains.

“
Go back to the tent, Dianne. I’ll come and talk to you in a
moment.”

She
clutched the hat to her chest. “Is that him?”

“
Yes, it is. Craig will put him down in his tent and we’ll
leave him to rest a bit.”

“
How will we get him back to Toronto?”

I
understood what she was asking. “I won’t leave him here alone,
Dianne, I promise. We’ll get help and then we’ll take him
home.”

“
I want to see him.”

“
Okay, you go with Craig. He’s set a tent up all nicely so
Richard can have some privacy. You help Craig get him settled and
then come back and have something hot to drink, okay?”

“
I guess so.” She moved away to follow in Craig’s footsteps. I
was pleased to see that he had obeyed my instructions exactly. One
of the tents had been set up on a large slab of specked gray rock.
Almost, but not quite, beyond sight of our little campsite. It was
a good spot: the rock stood bare and primitive, no vegetation to
keep curious, wandering animals hidden from view.

Richard
wouldn’t mind sleeping on the formidable, unyielding rock of the
Canadian Shield.

I should
go with them, make sure Dianne was all right, but all of a sudden
fatigue washed over me, and all I wanted was a nice sleep. For most
of the past few hours (or was it minutes? maybe even days?
impossible to tell) I had been beyond cold and beyond shock, but
that wouldn’t last much longer. I rushed for my tent like a crab
when the safety of the sea suddenly abandons it, as the tide gives
in to the eternal pull of the full moon.

One tent
short, the sleeping accommodations were somewhat mixed up. I
scrambled through the remaining two tents, looking for my stuff. I
was met with nothing but blank looks from my fellow travelers and a
flurry of complaints from Jeremy about the status of the weather,
as if the rest of us had failed to notice it was a bit damp
outside. He had wisely decided to forget the recent
altercation.

Joe,
Barb and Dianne were in one tent; Jeremy, Rachel and Craig occupied
the other. Battle lines were drawn. I found my pack in Dianne’s
tent and gratefully pulled out a towel and sweatshirt.

“
Turn your back,” I ordered Joe, scrubbing at my hair and face
for all I was worth. I slipped out of my sodden T-shirt and bra and
gratefully pulled on a fresh tee and thick sweatshirt. I had packed
well, everything layered in protective green plastic garbage bags.
The clothes were as dry as ancient bones. I looked at my wet things
in disgust. Not much of a chance to dry them out. My hand, the one
I had fallen on in the frenzy of the search for Richard, ached
steadily. I tried to push it to the back of my mind.

My
daypack wasn’t here. After slinging my disposable camera over my
neck on my last trip to the clearing, I had left everything else
behind. I silently screamed my black rage to the uncaring tent
walls. All nice and dry and comfy, I refused to force myself out of
the tent, wade back up the trail, and pick it up. Instead I wrapped
my wet clothes into a soggy ball inside my only dry towel and
stuffed everything into the large pack. Angry as I was, I still
knew I would be the one to suffer if I got the tent floor
wet.

“
Is Richard really dead?” Barb asked, her deep voice breaking
on the last word.

“
I’m afraid so.”

“
Do you have any idea how it happened?” Joe turned abruptly,
trying, no doubt, to catch me in my dishabille. Fully clothed, I
smiled at him. “Not a clue.”

“
Aren’t you a police officer or something?” Barb
said.

“
Once I was. Not now. And all I did was dispatch, nothing
exciting.” I couldn’t remember what I had told them about my past,
probably not much, but I hoped stay a bit ‘undercover’, for as long
as I could.

How had
I, failed cop that I was, managed to become the
‘officer-in-charge’? Pretending to be undercover and such heroic
stuff?

Dammed
if I knew.

Chapter 14

Day 8: Early Evening.

Time
passed, as it always must, and the endless afternoon gradually
turned into night. Hard to imagine, but the sky got even darker,
offering the only clue as to the passage of time. My watch, which
had always been a good one, simply gave up the ghost after my last
expedition into the elements and permanently recorded the time as
3:47.

Craig,
bless his heart, managed to get the little propane stove going and
brewed up an extremely welcome pot of weak, watery hot chocolate.
Dinner was a sort of lentil stew, thin and gooey and almost
tasteless. We downed it in record time.

The
group had done a good job of setting up camp. I wouldn’t have
thought it possible but we really did all come together in the face
of adversity.

The two
tents faced each other into the circle with only a few feet
between. Tied to a tree at the corners, the tarp stretched across
the tent openings to create a bit of a passageway and then extended
above a circle of stones where the little propane stove struggled
valiantly to keep going. A weak fire sizzled and cracked through
sodden wood; Craig’s attempt to keep our spirits up more than to
provide any noticeable light or heat.

It
failed badly and I wished that someone would simply put the poor
thing out of its misery.

I was
scraping the last few lentils out of my bowl and preparing to wipe
the gravy stains off with a bit of bread saved for just that
purpose when the long mournful howl of a wolf echoed through the
twilight. The forest stood still before we heard it again, a touch
further to the right this time.

Cutlery
and bowls were placed methodically in the plastic washing up
container and everyone retreated deep into themselves. The wolf
sounded again, followed in a single heartbeat by
another.

Craig
chuckled, and he broke into a huge smile. “Boy, they sound close.
Listen.”

“
Will they come into the camp?” Barb’s voice shook.

Craig
laughed. “No, they’re no danger to us. Wolves stay well away from
people. They’ve learned. They’re pretty smart that way.”

A lone
wolf howled once more, a bit further away this time.

“
We’re lucky to hear them, you know. I’ve never heard a wolf
so close before. CBE puts on wolf-howl trips in the fall, if you’re
interested, although I’ve never been on one. I’m back at school by
then. They’re nearly always successful, I hear, in getting a pack
to respond.”