Balsam Sirens Read online

  And there was the problem.

  I had got myself stuck almost completely in the mechanics of my working life. And this wasn’t good because there were other things that should have been taking up a good deal of my time. Those things all centred on Andrea and me.

  That evening, Andrea and I had a long heart-to-heart. I could see the concern and anxiety I had been causing her, and that hurt. But then I guess that’s the idea.

  In the end, we decided that time away together would be the right course. And that’s what led us to be on the point of spending two weeks in Largs. Beautiful Largs, my home village.

  Perhaps as early preparation for those two weeks, we spent quite a few hours revisiting images from our six years of marriage. I recalled how surprised and delighted I had been that Andrea’s mother had wanted a small and intimate wedding. Andrea smiled once more over the thought that she would be married to a landowner, a baron of sorts. Of course, that referred to my inheritance of properties in Largs, and while that didn’t leave me struggling to keep up appearances while in genteel poverty, I was far from being an aristocrat afloat on cash and facing the perennial decision of which stately home to live in.

  A long chunk of the past flickered through my mind. It was a pastiche of episodes drawn from early in our marriage. I had replayed several versions of this to myself.

  “I still remember you telling me about Largs not long after we met”, Andrea reminded me through a smile. “Frankly, I didn’t believe a word of it.”

  “But then we went there. Just for a look”, I said. “I’ll never forget the expression on your face. And I do remember rubbing it in.” I grinned smugly.

  “And then”, she continued, “during our first holiday in London, you insisted on a side trip to Glasgow, but all we did there was pick up a rental car. Then we drove to Largs, the original Largs, just west of Glasgow. We walked through the town, a beautiful place, and you told me about William Thompson and his mansion, Netherhall, the grandest building in Largs, and when I asked about how old the place was you just said something about a mist-shrouded past and hairy, smelly Caledonians swinging nasty instruments at one another.”

  I had smiled at Andrea, remembering it all clearly.

  “I was delighted at how strongly you responded to the cottages in Largs, I mean in Balsam Lake Largs”, I said. “I remember you wanting to look inside every one of them.”

  “Yes, well, it was magical. It is magical.”

  “And then”, I continued provocatively, “we spent a couple of weekends there. In sin. That loosened a few tongues.”

  “Oh, come on, Mark! You don’t know that! You keep saying that just for effect!”

  “Not at all! Largs is deep in Protestant country! Anyway, I walked you through the history of the place, as I know it.”

  And I did tell Andrea about Rory McCleod, who emigrated to Upper Canada in 1836 as a young Scot, and how he parlayed his skills as an instrument maker, apprentice engineer, and general organizer. He was soon the owner of a transport and trading company that had ships operating all along the north shore of Lake Ontario and links to the early rail network.

  She had seemed fascinated that someone could accomplish all that he did, starting with the village itself. I recall during her first visit to Largs, walking through the village, looking at the big house and the cottages I owned, running a hand over the deeply weathered stone, sensing the solidity of the place.

  “He was imaginative, and very much a driven man. But in those days, you just got off your duff and did things. There was little or nothing apart from nature and physics to stop you, and nobody would do it for you.”

  “But the stone for all these buildings!” she said, looking around. “There are tons of stone here!”

  And I explained about the stone being quarried near Coboconk from a limestone cliff close to the eastern shore of the Gull River, then rafted downriver to the site McCleod had chosen for Largs. We went to visit the old quarry, now heavily overgrown and hard to find, but the amount of work that had been done was evident.

  It was during one of those first weekends we spent at Largs that Andrea asked about my family. I related the story of my mother, old McCleod’s great-granddaughter, her marriage to Howard Whelan, a union that held together just about long enough for me to come along, my mother’s sad death by drowning in 1983 when I was just two, and how one of my mother’s friends in Largs, Mrs. Hastings, successfully made a case to the courts to take me in and raise me.

  “Was it an accident? I mean, your mother’s death. Do you know?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t know. Probably it was. But she might have been depressed … I just don’t know.”

  “What? Suicide?”

  “It’s possible”, I said.

  Family histories can be interesting, but mine seemed to fascinate Andrea. I showed her the two large photo albums and the scant twenty-six-page written family history my mother had put together. This included the sad tale of my great-grandfather and grandfather, both of whom seemed to be lazy and dissolute. They would have been quite happy to allow Largs to degrade and decline, but my great-great-grandfather, old McCleod himself, had taken measures to safeguard what he had built up.

  “You mean he knew that his son was no good?” Andrea asked.

  “It certainly looks that way.”

  She looked through the albums, lost in thought, the way people do when faced by history just beyond the limit of living memory.

  “Why did he choose this spot? I mean, why did he build Largs just here?”

  “Good question. The only answer I can come up with is that he just fell in love with Balsam Lake and this spot. Can’t think of any other reason why someone would pour as many resources as he did into a place that has no geographic or economic reason to be here.”

  “Who looked after the place after your mother died?” Andrea knew by then that I had no siblings.

  “A trustee. A man named Gary Aldred. It was all laid out in my mother’s will. She had been the sole surviving member of the McCleod line, so she bequeathed everything to me. There was a clause in her will saying that if she died before I reached the age of eighteen, the estate was to be managed by a trustee.”

  “A far-seeing woman.”

  “Yes”, I agreed. “And I’ve regretted more than once never being able to get to know her. Almost everything I know about her has been through Mrs. Hastings.”

  We looked at the two extant pictures of my mother, neither of them particularly flattering.

  Andrea asked me how McCleod had paid for all this, meaning Largs, and I told her about his very successful business.

  “He was a wealthy man”, I said. “He had more than enough money to fund all this. But he was also very practical, and he soon used Largs as a base for his steamboats on the lake.”

  “Steamboats?”

  “Yes. He had all the metal parts fabricated in Toronto, had them shipped north, and his boats were assembled in Fenelon Falls. He used those boats for freight and passenger traffic to all the villages he could reach and to supply lumber camps around the lakes.”

  It took very little time for Andrea to buy into Largs in a big way, and as our initial attraction to each other quickly deepened to love, she learned all the details of my boyhood and youth, what I regarded as my idyllic early life in Largs, and my attachment to Balsam Lake. Andrea was the first adult I had ever explained all this to, and hearing the words come from my own mouth left me feeling mildly embarrassed.

  Andrea soon learned about the complex relationship I had with Balsam Lake, how I had learned to swim early, and soon was almost amphibian, and how the lake became my exploration zone, classroom, playground, companion, and friend. I knew the fish in it, and I knew its moods, from all the time I had spent on it in my canoe, day and night.

  She often ribbed me about it, in a good-natured way. But after we had been married long enough for her to spend time at Largs, she too came to know the lake in the flush of m
ornings and in the languor of evenings. She could thrill at the roaring and booming of the ice in winter, and she was fascinated by thunderheads that built up out over the water on hot summer afternoons and by the electrical storms that followed.

  Closing out that long reverie once more, I reflected on how Andrea had come to recognize what Balsam Lake means. It has always been an exotic place for me. It’s large but shallow, so when strong squalls hit, it can be dangerous. Grand Island changes with the mood of the lake, now hard and stark in the clear bright air, now diaphanous and floating at an indeterminate distance. The lake is serene in the purple haze of evening, beguiling in the pink mist of morning, and masterful, untamed, when churned to vigorous life by the wind. It forms an echo chamber for the ineffable call of the loon. And the whole integrated and apparently timeless backdrop of water, trees, and islands reminds one that a tall, handsome race of people once lived here …

  It was in Largs that I also learned about boating accidents, having seen a number of them up close over the years. That’s how I knew there was something seriously wrong with calling Harold Barbour’s fatal injuries “accidental”.

  Three

  Cromarty heard me out, but he wasn’t going to agree.

  “Just like that? You say it wasn’t an accident, based on your own experience, and you expect me to throw away what I’ve got and start over?”

  “No”, I said. “It’s your case. I know that. You’ll deal with it as you see fit. I’m just adding my own observations.”

  “Well, thanks, but I think I’ll just record your views and move on.”

  “Suits me”, I said, and got up to leave.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked, a hint of challenge in his voice.

  “I’m going back to work. Unlike some people, I don’t get paid unless I’m doing something.” It was a pointless dig, but it made me feel better.

  “What about the case?”

  “What case?” I demanded, really letting my annoyance show. “Look, Bent. You can’t have it both ways. You’ve said you want to run the case your way. Fine. Go ahead. But I’m not going to stand here flapping my lips and watching the clock go ’round. If you ask for my input, I expect you to take it seriously. You haven’t, so we’re done.”

  And I walked out, signalling that our non-meeting really had wrapped up.

  Back at home, there was a rambling telephone message from George Barbour. I called him.

  “George. Meet me in the Stonecutter’s Arms in half an hour.”

  “Yes, well, but, okay. But I don’t, you know …”

  “You can drink ginger ale, George. Half an hour”, and I hung up before he could field another whine.

  I got there in fifteen minutes, figuring that being a pint ahead when he arrived was the best means of steadying myself against what was likely to be a frustrating hour and a half. Twenty minutes after I had sat down and was a third of the way through my second pint, George pushed his way past the door as though apologizing to it. He looked just about as much at home as a tadpole in the Kalahari.

  An inner voice said suddenly, Park it, Whelan. Don’t be an asshole. He’s your client.

  The voice was right. I stood, flashed a big smile, and waved him over. I was only about twenty feet from the door, but it took several minutes before he was settled at my table.

  “What can I get you, George? Would a Sprite be okay?” He nodded, and rather than wait for either the server or a change of mind, I went over and placed the order.

  Despite the fact that I knew small talk was a dead end for George, I threw in a few of those utterly meaningless but universally acknowledged dollops of conversational grease. George’s standard reply to all of them was “Okay. I guess.” But he seemed to be a little more chipper, the image from the morgue probably having faded slowly during the day.

  George’s Sprite was delivered, I raised my pint, and our glasses clinked solidly, my judgment being that a loudish clink was needed to ward off the horde of shades that seemed to be hovering about us.

  “Tell me about your brother, George.” I knew this was next to pointless, of course, but one needs to start somewhere, and I had to find out what George knew and get some background. George began speaking, but he wandered like a broken gyroscope. I intervened at one of those painful dead-air pauses that often seemed to characterize George’s utterances.

  “What was he doing on Balsam Lake?”

  “I really … I can’t … I really don’t know. He …”

  “When did he leave to go there?”

  “He said he was going to take … I think … three weeks’ holidays.”

  “When was that? Do you remember?”

  In a sudden access of clarity, George said that it had been about ten days ago.

  “So”, I said, constructing a timeline in my head. “Today is June 9. The best guess is that the accident happened three days ago, on June 6. And we can suppose that Harold decided on his holiday about May 29 or 30. Does that sound about right to you, George?”

  “I guess … yes … I suppose so …”

  There was a long pause here.

  “So … I suppose … that’s it, I guess … or –”

  “No, George”, I said firmly. “That’s not it. I want to know more. I need to look into this business more closely.”

  George fiddled with his napkin.

  “But I, you know … I don’t … I can’t pay you much …”

  “Don’t worry about all that, George. We’ll take it one step at a time. You won’t get any financial surprises.”

  We sat there in companionable silence for a few minutes, then I began to chatter in a way that I hoped would fill some time, make George feel more comfortable, and perhaps – against all reasonable expectations – find some topic that would animate my client. He nodded from time to time to show he was listening, but he took advantage of my undemanding conversational stream and just sipped his Sprite. As he began to relax, I took some time to study him.

  He was quite a nice-looking man, and he could have been moderately handsome if his swirl of internal uncertainty hadn’t shown itself in his expression, his eye movements, and his hand fidgeting. His hair was mildly flecked in grey and clung naturally to his head in a way that hairdressers and barbers yearn to copy. His grey eyes would have been arresting if he could have stopped them flicking about. He had a strong jaw, masculine angular temples, good teeth, and lips of just the right fullness.

  “Did the police tell you anything about the accident, George?”

  “They … I don’t … No, they didn’t.”

  “Did you talk to Sergeant Cromarty?” Pause. “Tall man, auburn hair. Looks like an athlete”, I added, when George’s expression made it evident that he was having trouble placing Cromarty.

  I got back a mumble.

  “Did you speak to anyone from the police about it?”

  Another, somewhat longer mumble.

  So. Nobody had spoken to him about the accident itself. They probably had just asked questions about his brother’s movements. It looked as though the case, such as it was, would turn into a waiting game. But it was clear to me what was likely to happen. They had a body. They had a number of facts. By now, they would have determined how Harold got there, found his car, and whether and where he had rented a place to stay. They had no leads. There were no witnesses. The case was dead. All they needed to do was wait a decent length of time, then declare it closed. Accident under unknown circumstances. Move on.

  “Do you have any other brothers or sisters, George?”

  The sudden change had caught him off balance. He blinked a couple of times and looked around, perhaps expecting the answer to be written somewhere on a wall.

  “No … no, I … no, no brothers, no sisters.”

  “Parents both dead? Aunts? Uncles?”

  No living relatives, apparently.

  Pondering all this, I took a different tack.

  “Harold lived here in Toronto, didn’t he, George?�
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  “He … yes. Yes, he lived here.”

  To my question of where, I eventually got an address on Cosburn Avenue.

  “What did he do, George? Where did he work?”

  A long broken mumble, but there was something about a depot.

  A bit more prodding fleshed this out to a UPS depot, where Harold assembled shipments of packages to be delivered by the couriers, and he had worked there for about five years. There were several other obvious questions, and there were things I would have to get George’s help on checking out, but that was enough for one session. George was beginning to resemble someone just subjected to an eight-hour security vetting complete with polygraph and cavity search.

  I nodded, took another swig of beer, and looked at George in what I hoped was a friendly way.

  “There will be things to do, George. I’ll help you, if you want. How be I make a list and then contact you tomorrow so we can go through it?”

  George looked up and gave the first hint of what might have been a smile.

  “Yes. Thanks … I … thanks …”

  We finished our drinks, I paid, and we rose and made for the door. Outside, we both squinted in the bright sunshine. I pulled out my sunglasses, while George just shaded his eyes with one hand.

  “I’ll walk home with you, George. It’s not far.”

  He nodded and made no objection, and as we began strolling along the street I had the feeling that I was gaining George’s confidence.

  Four

  Andrea and I were lying together in bed, in contact from shoulder to ankle, just a single sheet over us to allow the heat from recent exertion to dissipate. There was a good feeling between us for other reasons as well. We had discussed, earlier that evening, the details of our upcoming two weeks in Largs, starting the day after tomorrow. I was looking forward to it, and my impression was that my interior-designer wife, despite being something of an overachiever at work, was looking forward to it as well. But before we went any further, I needed to navigate us into another area of discussion.

  “There’s a lot to be done there”, I said, in reference to our properties at Largs, at the end of a long and pleasant silence, expecting to shunt the discussion adroitly from principles to practicalities.