Murder Sees the Light by Howard Engel Page A

around in the muck to where she was standing at the edge of the submerged road. It was under about a foot of brown water. From the movement of the water near her, I could see that the culvert itself was very close to the bedspring. It had been used to try to keep the beast from building right against the mouth of the culvert.
    â€œThere are two other springs down there,” she said, “but they are loaded down with waterlogged wood and mud. If you can help me move them, Benny, we can set up the three of them again. That will slow the beavers down until the water subsides, I hope.”
    I moved farther off the shoulder of the road up to my knees and tried to feel underwater to get hold of the frame of the spring. I could feel the current pulling at me. I saw the way it pulled the dirty water I’d churned up down out of sight in a business-like way. I nearly lost my balance a few times and felt better when I had the spring in my grip so that it could make me a more substantial piece of flotsam. Together Joan and I were able to move it up to the road level. It came with beaver-chewed pointed branches and the usual muck smelling of decay and stagnation.
    â€œThe other one’s over here,” Joan said, her chin nearly at water level and the front of her T-shirt skimming the tide. Underwater, her hands were feeling for the remaining bedspring. I could see she had something and watched as her back straightened. What she brought up from the bottom wasn’t a bedspring. The thing that broke the surface had an elbow and fingers on it. It had been in the water for a short enough time that there was no doubting what it was. She looked down at the open fingers. It looked like a distorted picture of King Arthur collecting his sword from the Lady of the Lake. Only this arm belonged to no lady, and it wasn’t clad in white samite. Joan looked at it, looked for a moment as though she was going to shake hands with it—it was a right hand—and then she looked at me. The noise in the air, much more highly pitched than a cicada, was Joan Harbison’s scream.

SEVEN
    Corporal Harry Glover was a tall silent man who was, like most good police officers, better at listening than at talking. He’d taken over the Annex and had placed his regulation Ontario Provincial Police boots under an antique pine table. He’d left his hat in his cruiser, but his gun was on his belt and his notebook was in hand when I went to talk to him. Joan had just come out after a lengthy session and indicated without saying anything that it was my turn at bat.
    Glover looked up as I pulled up a kitchen chair. His face was long and streaked with lines, odd in someone who couldn’t be much more than thirty-three or so. It was as though all the lines were attached to strings which were all being pulled down at the same angle. His teeth were uneven and his grin was friendly but off balance, favouring the left side of his long, foxy nose. The collar of his shirt was open and the tie pulled to one side. His boots smelled of the scene of the crime, but that was nothing new, we all did.
    â€œWhat’s a private investigator doing at Petawawa Lodge, Mr. Cooperman?” He handed me back my wallet as he drawled out his question.
    â€œSame as David Kipp or Lloyd Pearcy. Catching fish. Not catching fish. Getting a suntan.”
    â€œI’ll remember that. Thank you for the information. Now back to my question. You haven’t been here before, Mr. Cooperman, the way Kipp and Pearcy have. No, this is your first year, your first week at the lodge, and look what’s happened.”
    â€œYou’re working on a pretty broad assumption, Corporal. You’ve no evidence to suggest that there’s anything sinister in my being here.”
    â€œThat’s right, but I like to see the way it rubs you. Right now I don’t care a pinch what brings you here, but I will later on, and when I do, I want answers not citified