Raven Lake Page 2

  “As soon as we find Mom.”

  “You won’t be the only kid in this family for long,” Laura said to Tommy at dinner that evening.

  “Laura!” I gave my daughter a warning look.

  “He’s going to notice sooner or later,” she shot back, looking down at her tummy. She turned to face Tommy. “I’m having a baby in December. Around Christmas.”

  “A baby.” Tommy seemed to weigh the words. Then he turned to me, his brown eyes wide with alarm. “Will the baby get my bedroom?”

  I reached across the table and placed a hand on his. “That’s your room, Tommy. Nobody will take it away from you.”

  We finished the meal in silence. When the table was cleared, I settled Tommy and Maxie in front of the TV screen and put on a Harry Potter DVD. Then I joined Laura in the kitchen where she was loading the dishwasher.

  “Tommy lost his mother six months ago,” I said. “He had to leave his home and live with strangers. Considering his loss, he’s settled in well with us. Now he’s worried that your baby will take his room.”

  Laura shrugged. “That’s his problem.”

  I saw red. My daughter would be a mother before the year was over and she was turning her back on a frightened child. “Do you plan to raise your son or daughter yourself?”

  She closed the dishwasher door and turned to face me. “If that’s your way of asking whether I’ll be putting my baby up for adoption—of course not. I don’t know whether Kyle and I will stay together, but we’ll both be involved in raising our child.”

  “Really. You think you can raise a child, yet you have no patience with Tommy and no sensitivity to his feelings. What you said at dinner was cruel.”

  “Tommy’s not my kid.”

  “As I recall, you wanted him to live with us.”

  “Well, yeah. But he’s a joint responsibility. You, Tracy and I look after him.”

  “What are your plans for September?” She had been accepted into the arts program at the University of Guelph, a ninety-minute drive from Toronto. Kyle had been accepted into commerce, and they’d been talking about sharing an apartment.

  “I’m not sure…with the baby coming in December.”

  I knew it wouldn’t be easy for her to start university when she was six months pregnant. And with Kyle pushing marriage, sharing an apartment didn’t seem like a good idea.

  She gave me a sidelong glance. “I could apply to the University of Toronto next year.”

  “And live with me?” I figured she expected me to raise her child.

  “It’s more than a year from now. Something may…happen.”

  “Sure. You might win a lottery.”

  She just stared at me.

  “You’ve seen a doctor?” I asked.

  “Dr. Gray.”

  Our family doctor knew she was pregnant before I did.

  “She said everything is fine.” Laura gave me a weak smile. “Says I’m built for motherhood.”

  “You should have put motherhood on hold for another ten years.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said. “It just…did.”

  “A miracle,” I muttered. “Virgin birth.”

  “No. It must have been the day Kyle forgot his condoms. I thought it was a safe time of the month.”

  I didn’t want to hear the details. Then I saw a tear slide down her cheek. I realized that under her tough attitude, my daughter was a scared little girl. I put an arm around her.

  With a rush of guilt, I thought that if I hadn’t been living in Braeloch for the past few months, Laura wouldn’t have been on her own in the city. Tracy, her older sister, didn’t get home until well past seven. Laura and Kyle had the house to themselves for hours after school.

  No! I told myself this was not my fault. Laura and Kyle were responsible for getting themselves into this mess.

  I withdrew my arm and stepped back. “Have you told Tracy?”

  “Two days ago. She and Jamie think I should terminate, but I refuse to consider that. This is my baby…and Kyle’s.”

  It had crossed my mind that Tracy and her partner, Jamie Collins, might want to have a child one day. Many lesbian couples raised families. But I figured they would wait until Tracy had launched her law career.

  “I’ll stay here for a few weeks, if that’s okay,” Laura said. “I need some distance from Kyle.”

  “Don’t the Harrisons expect you next Tuesday?” Laura had signed on to look after little Emily Harrison in July and August while her parents were at work.

  “They said it would be okay to start later in July. Emily can go to her aunt’s place.”

  She collapsed on a chair at the counter, the fight gone out of her.

  I went over to her and took her in my arms. “We’ll get through this, honey. One step at a time.”

  One step at a time for the next eighteen years until my grandchild went off to university. By then, Laura might be able to pay for the tuition.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I yawned all the way to work the next morning. I had tossed and turned in bed for most of the night, thinking about Laura and the baby. Its arrival would change our lives. My life.

  I felt a surge of anger. What was Laura thinking of? She had years of school ahead of her, she hadn’t even decided what career she wanted to pursue. She had no idea what it would cost to raise a child, or the change in lifestyle that motherhood would bring. And there was nothing I could do except stand by and support her financially and emotionally. Make sure that she got an education and that her child was cared for while she was in school.

  I turned on the car radio to distance myself from my thoughts.

  “The body of an elderly woman was found in an abandoned locker at Glencoe Self-Storage yesterday afternoon.” I recognized the voice of Mara Nowak, who filled in as a reporter on ELK Radio as well as hosting the evening news program on ELK TV.

  “The human remains were found rolled up in a carpet by Crystal King and Jock Deighton,” Mara went on. “King and Deighton run an antique shop in Newmarket, and they had just purchased the locker’s contents for nine hundred dollars. The party who’d rented the locker was several months behind in payments and the contents were put up for auction.”

  An image of Glencoe Self-Storage flashed through my mind. Its two buildings housing orange metal lockers stood out like a beacon at the intersection of Highways 36 and 123, halfway between Braeloch and Black Bear Lake.

  “Police have confiscated the locker’s contents and told us that an investigation is pending,” Mara went on. “They refused to say whether the deceased has been identified or if the cause of death is known.”

  I thought of Bruce’s visit the day before and wondered if the body in the locker was Vi’s. I dismissed that as impossible. Glencoe Self-Storage was miles away from Highland Ridge.

  The first thing I did when I arrived at the branch was inspect the office that Nate would occupy. I’d never liked the massive mahogany desk the previous branch manager had chosen. It put a huge barrier between advisor and clients, but it was up to Nate to decide how he wanted to furnish his office. Everything else appeared to be in order. The computer was up and running, and Norris Cassidy’s IT department in Toronto would set up Nate’s email account on Monday.

  But when Bruce dropped by the branch after lunch, one look at his face reminded me of what I’d heard on the newscast. I waited to hear what he had to say.

  He sat in the client’s chair and stared at my desktop for a few moments. “Mom…Mom’s dead.” His face was filled with grief, deep and awful.

  “Bruce, that’s terrible.”

  “They found her in a locker at Glencoe Self-Storage.”

  I rose from my chair. “Let’s go out for a coffee.”

  Soupy came into the hall when Bruce and I passed his office. He stood watching as we stopped at Ivy’s desk.

  “I’ll be at Joe’s if anyone needs me,” I told her.

  We walked to Joe’s Diner down the street, and took a booth
at the back. We ordered coffee from Sue Tomkins, Joe’s long-time waitress.

  “Our front-page story is about Mom,” Bruce said in a tight voice. “I wrote it last night. Hardest thing I ever did in my life.” His eyes glistened with tears.

  I waited for him to go on.

  “The police came by the newsroom around four yesterday. Not Bouchard,” he said, referring to Sergeant Roger Bouchard who ran the Ontario Provincial Police’s Braeloch detachment. “It was Foster, the cop from Orillia.”

  Detective Inspector Stewart Foster ran the homicide division at OPP headquarters. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

  “Foster said Mom was strangled.” Bruce’s voice broke on the last word.

  “My God! Who would—”

  He shook his head, looking miserable. “No idea. She never hurt anyone in her entire life.”

  That wasn’t quite true. Vi had been overcome with grief many years before when her infant son died of crib death. She had snatched Bruce from his baby carriage, and she and her husband Ted had raised him as their own child. Bruce had only learned who his real parents were a few months before. They had been heartbroken when their son was abducted, and had never really got over it.

  Bruce’s eyes told me he was thinking along the same lines. “That was her only slip, and it was more than forty years ago.”

  Sue set two mugs of coffee on the table. She must have known we wanted to be left alone because she didn’t stop to chat as she usually did.

  Bruce looked down at his mug. “Highland Ridge reported Mom missing on Wednesday. So when a body was found in the storage unit yesterday, the police called the nursing home. Someone on staff identified her.”

  I nodded.

  “Foster and his sidekick took me to the hospital morgue.” He closed his eyes. “Then we went over to the detachment. Didn’t get back till after eight. Thank God for Maria Dawson. She had the inside pages wrapped up, and I wrote the front-page story.”

  “What did the police—”

  “I seem to be a suspect. Foster told me not to leave the township without letting him know.”

  “You must be joking,” I said.

  “Apparently, I had a motive. Ted left everything to Mom and me when he died. Now that’s she’s gone, I inherit the whole thing.”

  The police hadn’t wasted any time in checking out Ted’s will. “Has Ted’s will been probated?” I asked.

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “Then the police would have a copy of it. Once a will is probated, it becomes a public court record.”

  Bruce stared into his coffee mug, apparently deep in thought. “I visited Mom at least once a week,” he finally said, “so the police said I would have known the layout of the building. I could easily have got Mom out, they said. I told them to check the sign-in register and they’d see that I hadn’t been there since last Sunday. They didn’t listen to that.”

  “They’re trying to rattle you. What were you doing when Vi got off the bus at Highland Ridge on Wednesday?”

  “That’s another problem,” he said. “I was alone in the newsroom on Wednesday afternoon. Nancy Warner, our receptionist, called in sick that morning. Maria Dawson had an interview at the conservation park. And Wilf Mathers was covering the highway accident near Donarvon.”

  He toyed with his coffee spoon. “There’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “I rented a locker at Glencoe Self-Storage. I’m going to sell Ted’s house, and I need a place to store his furniture until I decide what to do with it.”

  “Why remove the furniture? The best way to show a house is completely furnished.”

  “That’s what the police said.” He shrugged. “How was I supposed to know that? I’ve never sold a house before.”

  “There are such things as coincidences,” I said. “There’s only one storage place around here, and you happened to rent one of its lockers.”

  We sipped our coffee. Bruce looked lost in his thoughts again. “Like a piece of pie?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Well, I want another coffee.” I waved at Sue and pointed to our mugs. “I never met your mom. What was she like?”

  “She was a quiet woman, unassuming. Never quite adjusted to Toronto, and they lived there for years.”

  His voice broke, and he took a few moments to pull himself together. “I was kind of her world. She didn’t want me to go to boarding school, but Ted insisted. I started at Central Canada College in Grade Nine.”

  The private school was in a town north of Toronto. Bruce would have been away from his family all week.

  “After I left for school,” he said, “Mom got a job as a teller at a Bank of Toronto branch close to home. Ted wasn’t happy about her going out to work, but she’d been a teller here in Braeloch before they married, and she wanted to keep busy.”

  I smiled. Ted was an arrogant man, and a wife who worked as a bank teller wouldn’t fit the image he had of himself as editor of The Toronto World, Canada’s largest daily newspaper.

  “How long was she at the bank?” I asked.

  “Must have been twenty years. Until her memory started going.”

  A forgetful teller wouldn’t have lasted long on the job.

  “There was a problem of some kind,” he said, “and she was let go. I was never clear about what happened. I was out in Alberta then.”

  “When was this?”

  “Six years ago.” He pushed the coffee mug aside. “Pat, how should I handle the cops? How can I convince them that I didn’t kill Mom?”

  I sat up straight in my seat. “Talk to your lawyer, Bruce. Go over to his office right now.”

  I told Laura about Vi before we sat down for dinner.

  “In a storage locker?” Her eyes were wide with astonishment.

  “She was murdered.” I let her digest that for a few moments before I continued. “I’m worried about Bruce. He was devoted to Vi, and the police are treating him as a murder suspect.”

  “Aren’t family members always suspects?”

  “You’re probably right. It’s just that Bruce…” I sighed. “I hope this won’t trigger a breakdown.”

  “Can we help?” Laura asked.

  “I don’t know what we can do.”

  After we had eaten and Laura had stacked the dishwasher, she went upstairs to call her friends in the city. When I’d settled Tommy in front of the TV, I went over to the sliding doors that opened onto the deck. The wind had died down, and Black Bear Lake was a sheet of glass reflecting the various shades of green along its shores. The loon family was out, the parents swimming protectively around their two chicks in case a snapping turtle was on the prowl for dinner. A small boat moved slowly across the eastern part of the bay. I wanted to sit outside, but I knew I’d be a target for the blackflies. They love my fair Irish skin.

  I took a bottle of chardonnay out of the fridge to toast the end of my tenure at the helm of the Braeloch branch. On Monday, Nate would be running the show. I was about to uncork the bottle when Bruce’s desolate face flashed through my mind. What was he doing that evening?

  I didn’t think for a moment that he had killed Vi. He’d loved her with the simple devotion that a child has for its mother. He had pulled his life together in the past few months, but I doubted that he could take the heat the police would apply in a murder investigation. The stress he’d be under—while he was grieving—might bring on another breakdown.

  Upstairs, I found Laura on her bed, her eyes closed, iBuds in her ears. I touched her arm. She opened one eye and took the iBuds out of her ears.

  “I’m going into town to check on Bruce,” I said. “I want you to keep Tommy company. Listen to your music downstairs.”

  I spotted Bruce at a table at the back of the Dominion Hotel bar. He was slumped in a chair with two empty glasses in front of him. He held a third glass in his hand.

  He lifted it in a mock salute. “Rye and ginger doubles.” His eyes were glassy.

&nb
sp; I seated myself across from him. “Have you had any dinner?”

  “Too busy drowning my schlorrows.”

  “A terrible thing has happened but getting drunk won’t make it go away.” I knew I’d be belting back a few if I was in Bruce’s shoes, but I couldn’t let him fall into his old ways. He might never climb out again.

  “This is not how Vi would want to be mourned,” I said. “She would have been very proud of you these past months. Taking over the newspaper and looking for a home of your own. Let’s find out what happened to her.”

  I looked him in the eye. “Let’s do it, Bruce.”

  He stared at the glass in his hand.

  “Put it down,” I said. “You don’t need it.”

  He looked up at me. I held his gaze until he put the glass on the table.

  “We’ll get some food.” I stood up and pointed to the door to the lobby.

  The hotel dining room was still open, and a waitress led us to a table for two.

  I scanned the menu, and ordered a steak with mashed potatoes and vegetables. “For the gentleman,” I said, looking at Bruce who was slumped in the chair across from me. “With a large glass of tomato juice.”

  “And for you, ma’am?”

  I flipped to the back of the menu. “Chocolate ice cream and a pot of tea.”

  Bruce had a good appetite. When he’d cleaned his plate, I ordered a piece of blueberry pie and a glass of milk for him.

  When he’d finished his meal, he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. He looked a lot better with food inside him. “Will you really help me find my mother’s killer?”

  “I will. We’ll tell the police what we find.”

  He rolled his eyes. I remembered how Detective Inspector Foster had reacted when I first ran into him three months before. He’d objected to anyone “interfering” with his investigation.

  “And if the police don’t want our help, we’ll carry on ourselves.” I held out a hand. “Deal?”

  He took my hand and shook it.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked.