Grave Concern, page 24
She was about to change the subject, when Link said, “She’s used to it. They all are. Nature of the job.”
Kate allowed a little silence, then changed the subject as planned. “Uh, Link, I know this might sound strange, but did you go up at all to the shenanigans at the Roadhouse Museum on July 1?”
“Nope. Down south that weekend. Why?”
Something told Kate it was better left unexplained, at least for now. “Just wondered. There were some fun little acts, not least of which a guy with boa constrictors and things.”
“I hate those guys,” Link spat.
Wow. Vehement. In shock, Kate asked, “How come?”
“Stuff like that gets the public crazy about exotic pets. They rush out and buy tarantulas or snakes or iguanas then crap out when it comes to actually looking after them. They drive out Wycliffe Road or somewhere and release them in the wild. Drains MNR resources rounding them up when people call in complaints, screws up the local ecosystem for a while, does a nasty number on the exotics themselves, being from the tropics and all. God, I hate those guys with a passion.”
“Yikes. So forget I said anything.”
“Done.”
“Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“Ask away.”
“How did you get into, you know, conservation and stuff? When we were in high school, you could care less.”
“Kathleen,” Nick said bluntly. He gave a little grunt or a laugh cut in two by embarrassment. “She picked me up off the floor. Literally. I was wasted at a party. Can’t remember whose. Kathleen hauled me up and stood me against the wall and told me to straighten up for good or get out of her life.”
“When was this? I never knew you were in her life.”
“Final year. The last coupla months. She asked me out to a movie instead of going to the Valentine’s Dance.”
“Which I’d turned down.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“You discussed me with her?”
“Maybe. Don’t remember.”
Kate pondered her younger self, and Kathleen’s. One of them, and it wasn’t Kate, had learned early to stand up for herself.
They drove along in thick silence, which Kate was desperate to break, if only for her own mental health.
“But your job. How — ”
“Her brother, Jack. Remember him? Couple years ahead of us. Went into forestry. Took me aside one time he was home, said environmental stuff was getting big. He was too far through his program to change, but if I had all my sciences, I’d be laughing. And I did.”
“Amazingly enough,” Kate couldn’t resist putting in.
“Yeah, yeah. Just ’cause you couldn’t hack chemistry. Didn’t you flunk out of Lawson’s class?”
“No. Never took it.”
“Ah, that’s it.”
“Hey, don’t knock avoidance.”
Nick looked at her strangely. “So anyway, Waterloo had a degree in environmental science, but I quit after a year. Too theoretical. No hands-on. Went to college and took a diploma. It all kinda grew on me. Kathleen was behind me, of course, a hundred percent.”
Kate felt vaguely chastised by the last statement, though she doubted that was Nick’s express intent.
“Speaking of which, Nick, whatever happened on the campout the other night? Or do I need to fill out an ‘Access to Information’ form?”
“Here’s exactly what happened. I got eaten alive — by mozzies. That was about it. By morning, a few crows had gathered. Making a hell of a racket. Woke me up in fact.”
Kate took a deep breath. “Any ravens?”
“No. Why?” Link’s face was innocent as a baby’s.
Well, well, wasn’t he the smooth one.
Nicholas suddenly reached around the seat behind him. “Oh yeah, here’s your stuff back.” He tossed her the bottle of OFF! “Once I actually put it on,” Nicholas grinned, “it did the trick. Thanks.”
The truck slowed a bit. Apparently, they were nearly at their destination, but not quite. Kate judged it a good time to bring up an old worry. “You know, Nick, a few months back, when I was supposed to be still home recovering from broken ribs, I surprised Chambers snooping around in my office. He’s the landlord, but still. It was pretty suspicious.”
Nicholas’s thick eyebrows shot up. He glanced at Kate with a look she could have sworn was worry. “You look worried,” Kate said.
“I don’t trust that guy.”
“Should I be worried, you think?”
“Well, I doubt he’s an axe murderer, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’d guess he’s looking for something concrete — maybe information?”
“But what?” Kate asked. “There’s nothing remotely useful to him in there. I can’t even read my own accounts half the time.”
“You pay your rent on time?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Maybe he’s got a higher-paying tenant and he’s looking for an excuse to throw you out.”
“Maybe.”
After a bit, Nicholas said, “Anything weird about your computer?”
“Anything not weird, you mean. I’m not the most tech savvy person around. But, as far as I can tell, everything’s the same.”
“Beats me then,” said Nicholas.
“Except,” said Kate.
“Except?”
“Nick, that’s it! Everything wasn’t the same. My bulletin board. The one above my desk, with everyone’s names. My clients’ names and important grave dates. Listen, a while back I forgot a very important client. A very important date. So I printed out a hard copy in a large font size — so I can’t miss it.”
“You ever heard of getting your computer to remind you? Just plug in all the info and it’ll ding you when the date comes up. It’s not hard, Kate.”
“Sounds hard to me. Besides, twenty minutes later I’d forget it dinged and be back at square one. See, I’ve cross-referenced dates with colour with my wall calendar, so I can’t possibly forget anyone ever again. Every day at work, first thing, I look it over and write my to-do list in that day’s colour on my hand.”
Nicholas laughed. “Complex and low-tech all at once. That’s our Kate!”
But Kate’s thoughts were elsewhere, ticking over at a furious pace, her words directed less to her companion than herself. “Yeah. No. But it wasn’t a regular workday, so I never noticed the list was gone. It was the time I’d cracked my ribs. I just dropped into the office for a quick boo. And I’d printed out another copy at home to use anyway.”
“You cracked your ribs?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. Long story. But that’s it, Nick! Chambers was after my list of clients! And I’ll swear on every dead body on that list, Chambers wasn’t doing it for himself. No, sir. Foxy’s got his fingers in this. And Greta’s got her fingers into Foxy. You must know she’s trying to muscle in on my business.”
“Why would I know that?”
The truck came to a lurching halt, ending all further speculation. Nicholas threw off his seatbelt and hopped nimbly out. Kate, whose back had lately begun to stiffen up after sitting, was slower off the mark. When her feet touched ground, it took a while to evolve from stooped Cro-Magnon to upright Homo Sapiens. Nicholas, meanwhile, was heading in long bush-strides straight into the undergrowth. Kate hurried after him with a sinking feeling.
Although she quickly lost sight of him in the trees, Kate was somewhat reassured by a faint, narrow trail underfoot. Soon, however, her confidence began to waver. The on-again, off-again path could not be mistaken for anything but an animal trail. And after all, there had been something on Link’s camera. Didn’t cats like to stalk their prey quietly, closing in from behind, choosing the right moment to pounce and open the jugular? Kate glanced back frequently as she went along. She recalled, during her tenure out west, the odd news item describing how a child or a lone, petite woman had fallen victim to cougar attack. The children often survived with the help of a nearby combative adult. But the lone, petite skiers or hikers generally weren’t so lucky. Well, there was one advantage to middle-aged spread, she thought. Of the many things Kate had been called in her life, “petite” was not one. (Not that she was Greta-plump. In a certain light in a good mirror, with a bit of squinting, Kate could almost call herself “trim.”) But now she remembered poor Ned Nickers and his bloodied withers, and, come to think of it, a perfectly normal-sized man on Vancouver Island who was attacked. The “petite” factor lost all of its comforting resonance.
So intent was Kate on her route-finding, alternating with rear surveillance, she ran straight into Link, who had halted. He held a finger to his lips. Kate stifled a scream of fright and held his arm in a death grip. Prying her fingers away, Link said nothing, but motioned her to follow.
Slowly, they tiptoed deeper into the bush, Kate desperate to know whatever Link knew, but intuiting it wiser not to ask. It wasn’t long, however, before she heard something. From an indistinct location up ahead came a mighty whoofing and grunting. Kate stood her ground and refused to go on. But Link paid no attention. He kept walking, and Kate, terrified at the prospect of being left alone, summarily dismissed her misgivings and hustled up to catch him.
Buck Miller sat against a tree, rocking back and forth in agony, holding his groin, which was bleeding profusely. As soon as Buck caught sight of Kate and Nicholas, he let out a torrent of language such as Kate hadn’t heard since the infamous final Chemistry Study Group, when Foxy’s mom and dad, Betty and Jack Raymond, had made their entrance a full twenty-four hours early. Nicholas threw off his daypack, rifled through it, and grabbed some kind of tarp. In that time Kate only managed to croak out, “Buck, what happened?” To which only Buck’s continuous blue streak served as response. The torrent of words gradually slowed to a trickle, and by the time the syllables became self-repeating, Nicholas had the tarp bound like a diaper around Buck’s private parts and 911 dialed up on his cell.
Nicholas scurried back to the road to meet the ambulance attendants. Kate, assigned to stay with Buck, sat listening as his words, one by one, were replaced with breathy heaves, then quiet sobs. Poor old Buck, thought Kate. First, he shoots himself in the foot and then does it again, only higher up.
The next day, Kate returned home from visiting Buck in hospital to a few emails, several of which looked like spam. She went to delete the whole lot when a rogue brainwave made her hold back. She double clicked on the second-last message. It was Leonard, writing from Vietnam!
Kate, did you wonder where I went? Hope so. We got word my aunt, my mom’s sister here, died suddenly, of what we gather was a brain aneurysm. She was quite a bit younger than my mom, only 63. My mom was pretty close to Auntie Hue when they grew up, so she’s devastated. Must be weird for her and Dad — the funeral, of course, and visiting family they haven’t seen since the 70s! They were glad to have me along. You know how it is on long flights. Or maybe you don’t. There’s much I don’t know about you — I realize that now. It all happened too fast to give you a call before I left. Emotions running high. We’ll be here about two weeks. Maybe you’ve seen the note at the store? Or maybe you’ve been too busy to notice! Looking forward to a good movie and some Carmenere (sp?) when I get home. Leonard
Kate hit “Reply”:
Leonard. So sorry to hear about your aunt. Please give my condolences (for what they’re worth — haven’t had the famous meeting yet!) to your mom and dad. Ongoing excitement of small town living overruled worries re your absence. Cougar has been possibly sighted (fuzzily, on tree-mounted camera). Buck (now known as Buckshot) Miller has been shot in the groin (as opposed to foot) by, it turns out, someone else. Likely culprit Bill (Lord High Chamberlain) Chambers, who’s now in deep doo-doo. Despite the doo-doo, the blackflies have settled down quite a bit. So, depending on how you cut it, you’ve either missed a lot or not much. Call when you get back. Kate
There was a kind of logic to it. She was already on the computer, her fingers were warmed up. Before she could change her mind, Kate punched “Extraordinary Wayne” into her search engine. On the screen, something flashed and disappeared so fast Kate didn’t have a chance to read it, let alone click the link. She poked “Enter” again. No tantalizing flash this time, just Extraordinary Love, a downloadable song by someone she’d never heard of.
“Down ya go!” Foxy commanded.
“Fuck off.”
“You’re skinnier. I could get stuck.”
“Fuck off. This was your idea.”
“Yeah, I’m the brains. You’re the brawn. Get in.”
Nicholas looked doubtfully at the black hole.
“Look, how far can it be?” said Foxy. “Six feet at most. Just turn around, put your hands on the ground like this and stick your feet in first. Lower down till your arms are straight. Then let go. Piece o’ piss. For sure you’ll land on your feet.”
“Did you even bring a flashlight?” Nicholas asked.
“Does it look like it, moron?”
“Got a lighter, at least?”
“Have you ever known me to smoke?”
“Not cigarettes.”
But Foxy fished around nonetheless and came up with a pack of matches. “Hey, you’re in luck.”
He tossed it in the air. Nicholas caught it and stuffed it in the pocket of his cutoffs. “Okay, here goes!”
By doing as Foxy had suggested, Nicholas found himself hanging by his hands from the lip of the coal chute in total darkness. The inner wall of the cellar was cold on his bare belly, exposed by his bunched-up shirt. He couldn’t last long hanging here, he knew. His feet felt around for purchase. Besides the wall, nothing.
“I’ll count to three,” said Foxy helpfully. “One, two — ”
“Fuck off,” said Nicholas. “I’ll go when I’m friggin’ well ready.”
“Yeah, well, don’t take all night!”
“Hey, I just had an idea,” said Nicholas. It was getting harder to breathe.
“What?” said Foxy, world-weariness in his voice.
“You go.” But just then, Link’s grip weakened. He had little choice but to let go. He landed heavily and fell back on his bum, bumping his head quite hard on a wall.
“Shit!” He sat with his head in his hands. For a minute he thought he might throw up. It felt like the time back in Peewee hockey when he got the concussion. Then, he’d had to lie in a dark room for a week, no TV or books or even stereo allowed. No school either, though — the only bright spot in an otherwise unpleasant week.
“What’s going on? You still alive?” shouted Foxy.
“Fuck off!” Nick shouted back. He stuck out his hand and felt around in the dark. Concrete, concrete, concrete. He was entombed in a concrete cell with no exit but the coal chute, straight up.
“What’s it like?” Foxy yelled down from the hatch.
“Dark.”
“Light a match, stupid!”
“Oh. Yeah.” Dazed, Nicholas reached into his pocket, pulled out the matchbook, tore one out and zipped it along the striker. The match flared, and Link began to laugh. The concrete “room” was indeed tiny, but the walls were only chest-high. Some kind of coal-holding arrangement.
“What’s so funny?” Foxy called down.
Nicholas ignored him. The match went out, and he lit another. Turned in a slow circle. Every inch of the coal pen’s walls was soot-black. But — what was this? A door-like gap big enough to walk through. Slowly, he got up and brushed himself off. He felt dizzy and nauseous, but shuffled forward nonetheless. The second match went out. His toe bumped against something hard. He brought his other foot forward, and it too hit some obstacle, forcing his knees to buckle. Recovering his balance, he lit another match — a four-inch concrete lip between the coal pen and cellar floor he could easily step over.
As he did so, a shaft of light and noise shot down from above. A flight of stairs took shape in the light of an opened door, and a disembodied voice boomed, “Hold it right there, honey, I’ll be back!” A stocky man, the source of the voice, was silhouetted at the top of the stairwell. Nicholas quickly shook his match out. He stood completely still as the man clumped down the stairs.
Though not thinking totally clearly, Nicholas was nevertheless moved to step back into the coal pen and hunch down. Sure enough, a switch was flicked, and the basement flooded with light. Some mutterings, clinking, heavy sighs and a couple of coughs — the barman getting more bottles to restock the bar. Nicholas had never been religious, but he prayed now. He prayed that stupid Foxy would not start yelling down the coal chute. After what seemed like ages, the light went out again, and the heavy man heaved and puffed up the dimly lit stairs. The door above closed, plunging Nicholas back into darkness.
Now what? With the aid of another match, Nicholas made his way over to where the man must have stood, an L-shaped jog in the room, lined with shelves. Bottles and bottles were indeed stored there. But how was he to get them out? Had Foxy, self-proclaimed head of this operation, thought of that? Nicholas walked back over to the coal pen and stage-whispered up the chute.
“Foxy!”
“Yeah!”
“There’s bottles here. How the fuck do I get them out?”
“Isn’t there some kind of back door?”
“Down here? No.”
“Upstairs, dimwit.”
“Oh yeah, and just how am I supposed to manage that?”
“You’re tall, you could be twenty-one.”
