Blood Banked, page 10
“Which they can also use on…” Mike turned the page and shook his head in disbelief. “…the nine-hole golf course.” Clearly, a large part of Mr. Gordon’s building plan involved bulldozers. And right after the bulldozers would come the cappuccino. He shuddered.
The next few pages were clipped together and turned out to be photocopies of newspaper articles covering the disappearance of the surveyor. She’d been working with her partner in the late evening, trying to finish up a particularly marshy bit of shore destined to be filled in and paved over for tennis courts, when, according to her partner, she’d stepped back into the mud, announced something had moved under her foot, lost her balance, fell, screamed, and disappeared. The OPP, aided by local volunteers, had set up an extensive search, but she hadn’t been found. Since the area was usually avoided because of the sink holes, sink holes a distraught Stuart Gordon swore he knew nothing about—“Probably distraught about having to move his tennis courts,” Mike muttered— the official verdict allowed that she’d probably stepped in one and been sucked under the mud.
The headline on the next page declared DEVELOPER ANGERS SPIRIT, and in slightly smaller type, Surveyor Pays the Price. The picture showed an elderly woman with long grey braids and a hawk-like profile staring enigmatically out over the water. Initial impression suggested a First Nations elder. In actually reading the text, however, Mike discovered that Mary Joseph had moved out to Dulvie from Toronto in 1995 and had become, in the years since, the self-proclaimed keeper of local myth. According to Ms. Joseph, although there had been many sightings over the years, there had been only two other occasions when the spirit of the lake had felt threatened enough to kill. “It protects the lake,” she was quoted as saying, “from those who would disturb its peace.”
“Two weeks ago,” Mike noted, checking the date. “Tragic, but hardly a reason for Stuart Gordon to go to the effort of convincing Vicki to leave the city.”
The final photocopy included a close-up of a car door that looked like it had been splashed with acid. SPIRIT ATTACKS DEVELOPER’s VEHICLE. During the night of May 13th, the protector of Lake Nepeakea had crawled up into the parking lot of the lodge and secreted something corrosive and distinctly fishy against Stuart Gordon’s brand-new Isuzu Trooper. A trail of dead bracken, a little over a foot wide and smelling strongly of rotting fish, led back to the lake. Mary Joseph seemed convinced it was a manifestation of the spirit, the local police were looking for anyone who might have information about the vandalism, and Stuart Gordon announced he was bringing in a special investigator from Toronto to settle it once and for all.
It was entirely probable that the surveyor had stepped into a mud hole and that local vandals were using the legends of the spirit against an unpopular developer. Entirely probable. But living with Vicki had forced Mike to deal with half a dozen improbable things every morning before breakfast, so, mug in hand, he headed outside to investigate the crime scene.
Because of the screen of evergreens—although, given their size, barricade was probably the more descriptive word—the parking lot couldn’t be seen from the lodge. Considering the impenetrable appearance of the overlapping branches, Mike was willing to bet that not even light would get through. The spirit could have done anything to Gordon’s car, up to and including changing the oil, in perfect secrecy.
Brushing one or two small insects away from his face, Mike found the path they’d used the night before and followed it. By the time he reached the van, the one or two insects had become twenty-nine or thirty and he felt the first bite on the back of his neck. When he slapped the spot, his fingers came away dotted with blood.
“Vicki’s not going to be happy about that,” he grinned, wiping it off on his jeans. By the second and third bites, he’d stopped grinning. By the fourth and fifth, he really didn’t give a damn what Vicki thought. By the time he’d stopped counting, he was running for the lake, hoping that the breeze he could see stirring its surface would be enough to blow the little bastards away.
The faint but unmistakable scent of rotting fish rose from the dead bracken crushed under his pounding feet, and he realized that he was using the path made by the manifestation. It was about two feet wide and lead down an uncomfortably steep slope from the parking lot to the lake. But not exactly all the way to the lake. The path ended about three feet above the water on a granite ledge.
Swearing, mostly at Vicki, Mike threw himself backwards, somehow managing to save both his coffee and himself from taking an unexpected swim. The following cloud of insects effortlessly matched the move. A quick glance through the bugs showed the ledge tapering off to the right. He bounded down it to the water’s edge and found himself standing on a small, man-made beach, staring at a floating dock that stretched out maybe fifteen feet into the lake. Proximity to the water had seemed to discourage the swarm, so he headed for the dock hoping that the breeze would be stronger fifteen feet out.
It was. After flicking a few bodies out of his coffee, Mike took a long grateful drink and turned to look back up at the lodge. Studying the path he’d taken, he was amazed he hadn’t broken an ankle and had to admit a certain appreciation for who or what had created it. A greying staircase made of split logs offered a more conventional way to the water and the tiny patch of gritty sand held in place by a stone wall. Stuart Gordon’s plans had included a much larger beach and had replaced the old wooden dock with three concrete piers.
“One for papa bear, one for mama bear, and one for baby bear,” Mike mused, shuffling around on the gently rocking platform until he faced the water. Not so far away, the far shore was an unbroken wall of trees. He didn’t know if there were bears in this part of the province, but there were certainly bathroom facilities for any number of them. Letting the breeze push his hair back off his face, he took another swallow of rapidly cooling coffee and listened to the silence. It was unnerving.
The sudden roar of a motor-boat came as a welcome relief. Watching it bounce its way up the lake, he considered how far the sound carried and made a mental note to close the window should Vicki spend any significant portion of the night with him.
The moment distance allowed, the boat’s driver waved over the edge of the cracked windshield and, in a great, banked turn that sprayed a huge fantail of water out behind him, headed toward the exact spot where Mike stood. Mike’s fingers tightened around the handle of the mug, but he held his ground. Still turning, the driver cut his engines and drifted the last few metres to the dock. As empty bleach bottles slowly crumpled under the gentle impact, he jumped out and tied off his bow line.
“Frank Patton,” he said, straightening from the cleat and holding out a callused hand. “You must be the guy that developer’s brought in from the city to capture the spirit of the lake.”
“Detective Sergeant Mike Celluci.” His own age or a little younger, Frank Patton had a working- man’s grip that was just a little too forceful. Mike returned pressure for pressure. “And I’m just spending a long weekend in the woods.”
Patton’s dark brows drew down. “But I thought…”
“You thought I was some weirdo psychic you could impress by crushing his fingers.” The other man looked down at their joined hands and had the grace to flush. As he released his hold, so did Mike. He’d played this game too often to lose at it. “I suggest, if you get the chance to meet the actual investigator, you don’t come on quite so strong. She’s liable to feed you your preconceptions.”
“She’s…”
“Asleep right now. We got in late, and she’s likely to be up….investigating tonight.”
“Yeah. Right.” Flexing his fingers, Patton stared down at the toes of his work-boots. “It’s just, you know, we heard that, well…” Sucking in a deep breath, he looked up and grinned. “Oh hell, talk about getting off on the wrong foot. Can I get you a beer, Detective?”
Mike glanced over at the Styrofoam cooler in the back of the boat and was tempted for a moment. As sweat rolled painfully into the bug bites on the back of his neck, he remembered just how good a cold beer could taste. “No, thanks,” he sighed with a disgusted glare into his mug. “I’ve, uh, still got coffee.”
To his surprise, Patton nodded and asked, “How long’ve you been dry? My brother-in-law gets that exact same look when some damn fool offers him a drink on a hot almost-summer afternoon,” he explained as Mike stared at him in astonishment. “Goes to AA meetings in Bigwood twice a week.”
Remembering all the bottles he’d climbed into during those long months Vicki had been gone, Mike shrugged. “About two years now—give or take.”
“I got generic cola…”
He dumped the dregs of cold, bug-infested coffee into the lake. The Ministry of Natural Resources could kiss his ass. “Love one,” he said.
*
“So essentially everyone in town and everyone who owns property around the lake and everyone in a hundred-kilometre radius has reason to want Stuart Gordon gone.”
“Essentially,” Mike agreed, tossing a gnawed chicken bone aside and pulling another piece out of the bucket. He’d waited to eat until Vicki got up, maintaining the illusion that it was a ritual they continued to share. “According to Frank Patton, he hasn’t endeared himself to his new neighbours. This place used to belong to an Anne Kellough who… What?”
Vicki frowned and leaned toward him. “You’re covered in bites.”
“Tell me about it.” The reminder brought his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. “You know what Nepeakea means? It’s an old Algonquin word that translates as ‘I’m fucking sick of being eaten alive by black flies; let’s get the hell out of here.’”
“The Algonquin can get a lot of mileage out of a word.”
Celluci snorted. “Tell me about it.”
“Anne Kellough?”
“What, not even one ‘poor sweet baby’?”
Stretching out her leg under the table, she ran her foot up the inseam of his jeans. “Poor sweet baby.”
“That’d be a lot more effective if you weren’t wearing hiking boots.” Her laugh was one of the things that hadn’t changed when she had. Her smile was too white and too sharp, and it made too many new promises, but her laugh remained fully human. He waited until she finished, chewing, swallowing, and congratulating himself for evoking it, then said, “Anne Kellough ran this place as sort of a therapy camp. Last summer, after ignoring her for thirteen years, the Ministry of Health people came down on her kitchen. Renovations cost more than she thought, the bank foreclosed, and Stuart Gordon bought it twenty minutes later. ”
“That explains why she wants him gone—what about everyone else?”
“Lifestyle.”
“They think he’s gay?”
“Not his. Their’s. The people who live out here, down in the village and around the lake—while not averse to taking the occasional tourist for everything they can get— like the quiet, they like the solitude, and, God help them, they even like the woods. The boys who run the hunting and fishing camp at the west end of the lake…”
“Boys?”
“I’m quoting here. The boys,” he repeated, with emphasis, “say Gordon’s development will kill the fish and scare off the game. He nearly got his ass kicked by one of them, Pete Wegler, down at the local gas station and then got tossed out on said ass by the owner when he called the place quaint.”
“In the sort of tone that adds, ‘and a Starbucks would be a big improvement’?” When Mike raised a brow, she shrugged. “I’ve spoken to him. It’s not that much of an extrapolation.”
“Yeah, exactly that sort of tone. Frank also told me that people with kids are concerned about the increase in traffic right through the centre of the village.”
“Afraid they’ll start losing children and pets under expensive SUVs?”
“That, and they’re worried about an increase in taxes to maintain the road with all the extra traffic.” Pushing away from the table, he started closing plastic containers and carrying them to the fridge. “Apparently, Stuart Gordon, ever so diplomatically, told one of the village women that this was no place to raise kids.”
“What happened?”
“Frank says they got them apart before it went much beyond name-calling.”
Wondering how far much beyond name-calling went, Vicki watched Mike clean up the remains of his meal. “Are you sure he’s pissed off more than just these few people? Even if this was already a resort and he didn’t have to rezone, local council must’ve agreed to his building permit.”
“Yeah, and local opinion would feed the local council to the spirit right along side Mr. Gordon. Rumour has it, they’ve been bought off.”
Tipping her chair back against the wall, she smiled up at him. “Can I assume from your busy day that you’ve come down on the mud-hole/vandals side of the argument?”
“It does seem the most likely.” He turned and scratched at the back of his neck again. When his fingertips came away damp, he heard her quick intake of breath. When he looked up, she was crossing the kitchen. Cool fingers wrapped around the side of his face.
“You didn’t shave.”
It took him a moment to find his voice. “I’m on vacation.”
Her breath lapped against him, then her tongue.
The lines between likely and unlikely blurred.
Then the sound of an approaching engine jerked him out of her embrace.
Vicki licked her lips and sighed. “SUV, six-cylinder, four-wheel drive, all the extras, black with gold trim.”
Mike tucked his shirt back in. “Stuart Gordon told you what he drives.”
“Unless you think I can tell all that from the sound of the engine.”
“Not likely.”
*
“A detective sergeant? I’m impressed.” Pale hands in the pockets of his tweed blazer, Stuart Gordon leaned conspiratorially in toward Mike, too many teeth showing in too broad a grin. “I don’t suppose you could fix a few parking tickets.”
“No.”
Thin lips pursed in exaggerated reaction to the blunt monosyllable. “Then what do you do, Detective Sergeant?”
“Violent crimes.”
Thinking that sounded a little too much like a suggestion, Vicki intervened. “Detective Celluci has agreed to assist me this weekend. Between us, we’ll be able to keep a twenty-four-hour watch.”
“Twenty-four hours?” The developer’s brows drew in. “I’m not paying more for that.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Good.” Stepping up onto the raised hearth as though it were a stage, he smiled with all the sincerity of a television infomercial. “Then I’m glad to have you aboard, Detective. Can I call you Mike?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “Call me Stuart. Together we’ll make this a safe place for the weary masses able to pay a premium price for a premium week in the woods.” A heartbeat later, his smile grew strained. “Don’t you two have detecting to do?”
*
“Call me Stuart?” Shaking his head, Mike followed Vicki’s dark-on-dark silhouette out to the parking lot. “Why is he here?”
“He’s bait.”
“Bait? The man’s a certified asshole, sure, but we’re not using him to attract an angry lake spirit.”
She turned and walked backward so she could study his face. Sometimes he forgot how well she could see in the dark and forgot to mask his expressions. “Mike, you don’t believe that call-me-Stuart has actually pissed off some kind of vengeful spirit protecting Lake Nepeakea?”
“You’re the one who said bait…”
“Because we’re not going to catch the person, or persons, who threw acid on his car unless we catch them in the act. He understands that.”
“Oh. Right.”
Feeling the bulk of the van behind her, she stopped. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He sighed and folded his arms, wishing he could see her as well as she could see him. “Vicki, in the last four years I have been attacked by demons, mummies, zombies, werewolves…”
“That wasn’t an attack, that was a misunderstanding.”
“He went for my throat, I count it as an attack. I’ve offered my blood to the bastard son of Henry VIII, and I’ve spent two years watching you hide from the day. There isn’t anything much I don’t believe in anymore.”
“But…”
“I believe in you,” he interrupted, “and from there, it’s not that big a step to just about anywhere. Are you going to speak with Mary Joseph tonight?”
His tone suggested the discussion was over. “No, I was going to check means and opportunity on that list of names you gave me.” She glanced down toward the lake, then up at him, not entirely certain what she was looking for in either instance. “Are you going to be all right out here on your own?”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason.” She kissed him, got into the van, and leaned out the open window to add, “Try and remember, Sigmund, that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
*
Mike watched Vicki drive away and then turned on his flashlight and played the beam over the side of Stuart’s car. Although it would have been more helpful to have seen the damage, he had to admit that the body shop had done a good job. And to give the man credit, however reluctantly, developing a wilderness property did provide more of an excuse than most of his kind had for the four-wheel drive.
Making his way over to an outcropping of rock where he could see both the parking lot and the lake but not be seen, Mike sat down and turned off his light. According to Frank Patton, the black flies only fed during the day and the water was still too cold for mosquitoes. He wasn’t entirely convinced, but since nothing had bitten him so far the information seemed accurate. “I wonder if Stuart knows his little paradise is crawling with blood suckers.” Right thumb stroking the puncture wound on his left wrist, he turned toward the lodge.
