Hole in One (11 page)

I was still there, all right, but stunned. “And how in tunket,” I asked when I recovered, “did she come to know that?”

“His social insurance number.”

“Your SINs will find you out,” I said. She ignored me.

“When he first came to the newspaper a couple of years ago, he had been on a retraining program; that's how he got to be a compositor. The paper got a government grant for hiring him after his retraining, wouldn't you know, and she had to fill in a lot of poop about him. One of the forms called for his SIN, and when she sent it in to Ottawa, some bureaucrat shot back a letter saying she must have made a mistake. That SIN had already been issued to another name. So she went to Chuck Watson, a.k.a. Chuck Wilson, and he told her he had changed his name because he had always hated his father and had decided to repudiate him by changing his name.

“That's a crock, he was trying to—”

“Are you going to listen to this or drivel on?”

“I'm listening.”

“Anyway, she remembered thinking that it was pretty smart, if you were changing your name, to keep the same initials, so she remembered it. There. What's your news?”

“Well, the first part of it, I've already given you. The file on the Bosky Dell golf course is gone, but that's not the—”

“How very interesting, Mr. Throckmorton,” said Hanna. “Completely disappeared, you say?”

“Thelma says it will probably turn up again.”

“Well, but we mustn't count on that, Mr. Throckmorton, must we? These vanishing species sometimes never recur.”

“What's this Throckmorton crap? Oh, I get it. Tommy's hovering.”

“Yes, Mr. Throckmorton. I tell you what, Mr. Throckmorton, why don't I drop over there right now, and you can tell me about it? It might make a story for the paper.”

“You do that,” I said. “I'll show you my stamp collection.”

While I was waiting for Hanna to come and collect me—and sincerely hoping she had had time to call Emma and lay on a late lunch—I put in two more telephone calls. The first was to the Crime Stoppers line of the Ontario Provincial Police. I left a message, in what I trust was a thoroughly disguised voice, even though they promise never to check on the caller, telling the cops about the missing leather pouch, which was beginning, even in its absence, to look more and more like a bank pouch. “Haf a gut look at the site of Dr. Rose's researches, me in lieber,” I told them. I also told them to check into the backgrounds of Chuck Wilson, Cecil Charles Watson, and Charlie Tinkelpaugh re. the Far Lake bank robbery.

Then I phoned Amelia. Pure show-offery, this. She had asked me to check into Watson and, practically within the hour, I had the vital information.

“So his real name is Chuck Wilson, and he's a member of the Circle Lake Band,” I said.

“Shit!” squawked Amelia, forgetting, for the moment, to add the usual honey content to her tones. “I mean, how fascinating, Carlton, and how very clever of you to have found that out so quickly.”

“Oh, nothing to it,” I replied. “Just a matter of being a thoroughly trained investigator.”

“Well, honey,” she purred, “why don't you come out here and tell me all about it?”

“Actually, I am coming out this afternoon,” I said. “With Hanna. I'm waiting for her to pick me up, right now.”

“Honey, I think you're wasting your time with Hanna, but I guess I just have to wait for you to find that out for yourself? 'Bye now.”

I had just hung up the telephone when Hanna came whirling around the corner in the trusty Toyota and slammed to a stop. I jumped in. She pointed to my face. I pulled down the makeup mirror on the sun visor in her car and expunged Thelma's lipstick.

“All in the line of duty,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” She headed out County Road 32 again, towards Bosky Dell.

“Start with the deed. Tell me about it.”

I told her about it.

“There was a deed; now there isn't. That's not good.”

“Thelma says it will turn up.”

“Maybe. Maybe it will turn up about ten days after the bulldozers move in.”

“On the other hand, we know why Whitney could tell Robinson, with as straight a tongue as lawyers ever employ, that he wasn't acting for Mrs. Post. He was acting for Ontario Corporation whatever-the-heck, which, we presume, is owned by Mrs. Post. So, we're that much ahead of the game.”

“At great sacrifice,” Hanna put in, “to our lipsticked reporter.”

“Where are we going? To lunch, I hope.”

“And after lunch, over to The Eagle's Nest. We might as well come clean with Conrad Jowett; there isn't anything more we can do on this part of it.”

“Yes, there is.” I had just thought of it.

“There is? Carlton, you've got an idea?”

“I have.”

“What is it?”

“Forget lunch at Emma's. Let's go to my place, and I'll show you.”

“Oh, that idea. Carlton, I told you, that's out.”

“No, no, not that. I'll give you a hint. Corporations Act.”

“Corporations Act what? Corporations act greedy? What else is new?”

“Under the Ontario Corporations Act, the directors of a company have to be registered on the public record. It's the same under the federal act.”

“So?”

“So, all we have to do is to get onto my portable computer and call up the Info Globe data base. The corporate file will tell us the names of the directors. We'll know for sure about Mrs. Post.”

“Do you even remember the name of the Corporation?”

“Sure. Ontario Corporation Number 13248994.”

“I'm impressed. How did you do that?”

“Trick memory,” I explained. “I can remember almost anything for about a week, and then it's gone.”

“I'm still impressed. So, you will find out who is behind Corporation Number 132-and-etcetera, and it will turn out to be Mrs. Sylvia Post. Which we already knew.”

“Mrs. Post and who else? There have to be other directors.”

“I see. Still, it doesn't tell us about the trustees, does it?”

“We don't know what it tells us, young Klovack, until we try it.”

“By golly, Carlton,” she said, “you may have something there.” She reached over and patted me on the arm. You know you are doomed when a pat on the arm does as much for you as a croquet lesson.

We were now approaching the last concession road before you get to Bosky Dell, and, at that moment, a car shot out of the intersection on my side, headed right at our middle. Hanna, who has terrific reflexes—I had found this out the day I discovered that she was ticklish in a most unusual place—yanked the wheel and hit the gas. We jackrabbited across the road, skidded, spun around, and headed straight for the telephone pole on the other side.

“Well, dagnabbit,” I said, my habit when vexed. And after that, as they say, everything went black.

There was a kind of hiccoughing sound, mixed up with some fairly solid cursing, and someone was speaking my name. Then I was being tugged. I heard a car door hinge creak, my seat belt popped open, and I was out on the ground, being tugged again, by the arms. My head hurt, and I thought it might be better to sleep through this part. When I came to again, I realized it was raining, which seemed funny, because the last glimpse I had had of the sky, it was as bare as a politician's promise. No, it wasn't raining; the hiccoughing sound was Hanna, crying, and tears, genuine, fifty-cent-piece-sized tears were falling on the Withers face. I was lying partly on the ground, partly on the luscious lower limbs of the Klovack, with my head cradled in her arms. I had been lugged, I could see by sneaking a peek out of scarcely opened eyelids, about fifty feet from where Hanna's Toyota had tried, in vain, to remove one of Ma Bell's finest spruce poles. The car was quietly smoking to itself, and I guess Hanna had hauled me hither in case it decided to blow up. Had she hauled me far enough? That was the question. I mean, one did appreciate, didn't one, being rescued from the smouldering wreck, crooned over, cuddled, and wept upon, but the whole effort might be wasted, mightn't it, if the car went up now, while we were still within its orbit?

I didn't want to mention this, as it didn't seem to strike the right note; still, it might be wise to get the party moving again.

I groaned.

“Carlton?” The weeping stopped. “Carlton, darling, are you all right?”

She hugged me to her. I groaned again.

“Oh, Carlton,” she murmured. “You poor darling. Don't worry, we'll get you to the hospital right away.”

“No,” I gasped, “not hospital . . .”

“But you've been hurt. Your head must have hit the door frame and knocked you out. You need to be looked at by a doctor.”

“Not hospital,” I gasped again. “My place.”

“Well!” Bang, went my head, down on the greensward; up jumped Hanna, the tears turned off at the main. “Of all the sneaky, contemptible . . .”

She had retreated, when I sat up, to about ten feet away, and was standing and glaring at me over crossed arms.

“Too late, Klovack,” I told her. “I heard the murmurings, I felt the tears . . .”

“That's because I thought you were dead.”

“I thought I was, too.”

“When all the time you were faking it.”

“Not all the time. Just the last minute or two.”

I got up, swayed, and went down again. Hanna crossed the ten feet between us in about one-tenth of a second, and grabbed me just before I hit the ground.

“Boy, Carlton,” she said in a shaky voice, “you're such a phony, you don't even know when you're faking it.”

“Don't say anything,” I said. “Just hold on.”

We sat there on the grass, with our arms around each other, for about a minute, and I was thinking this would be a nice way to spend the rest of my life, when I heard a car drive up.

“It's Joe,” said Hanna, disentangling herself and jumping up.

Sure enough, Joe Herkimer's station wagon was pulling onto the shoulder, and Joe was out of it almost before it had come to a stop.

“What the hell happened?” he asked. “You all right, Carlton?”

I nodded my head, which turned out to be a big mistake. “Not bad,” I said, “for someone who has just been forced off the road, knocked against telephone poles, hauled around by the arms, banged into the greensward, and wept upon.”

He seized on the relevant part. “Forced off the road? You sure?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Hanna. “We're sure. A car came out of the concession road just as we got to the intersection and damn near rammed us amidships.”

“If it hadn't been for Hanna's driving,” I added, giving credit where due, “I'd have been turned into a hood ornament.”

“Did you get a good look at the car before it hit?”

“Sure, it was coming right at me.”

“What was it?”

“What do you mean ‘What was it?' It was a car.”

Hanna asked, “What kind of car, Carlton? I only got a quick glimpse. Could you recognize the make?”

“It was either blue or grey.”

“Blue or grey. Well, it shouldn't take the cops long to track it down, now we have a detailed description.”

“Sorry, that's all I can remember. No, wait . . .”

“You remember something else?”

“I thought I did. Something I saw just before the smash. No, it's gone.”

“Never mind, darling, it'll come.” Hanna leaned over and kissed me, which caused Joe to roll his eyes and grin. Me, too.

He said, “The important thing right now is to get you to the hospital for a checkup. Let the cops worry about who ran you off the road. I was just on my way out to your place, Carlton, for a little strategy session, but that can wait.”

We drove into the Bellingham County Hospital in Silver Falls, where a brisk and efficient nurse gave me a couple of clucks, a glass of water, two Aspirins, and about three minutes with an intern, who told me that I looked as if I'd live. They insisted on taking an x-ray, and wanted me to stay the night for observation, but I declined with thanks. Outside of a raging headache, I felt better than I had felt in a long time, since, in fact, the words “you creep” had first been launched upon the stricken air.

The cops were neither as efficient nor as sympathetic as the hospital staff. Avoiding the OPP, who did not seem friendly, we took our custom to the Silver Falls bunch, even though the crash was not, strictly, in their jurisdiction. Staff Sergeant Harry Burnett wrote down the particulars, at my insistence, but gave it as his view that Hanna had probably simply been driving too fast and lost control.

“Then why did the other car vamoose?”

“What other car?”

I sighed. “I told you, it was either blue or grey.”

“Uh-huh. Well, we'll let you know if we turn up anything,” said Harry.

Hanna chivvied him into a promise that an officer would go out to the scene of the accident, “some time before the turn of the century, Harry,” to fill out a report she could send to the insurance people, and then we would get the stricken car towed in for repairs.

That seemed to be about it.

When we came out of the cop-shop, Joe was waiting for us, and we all trooped off to the O.K. Café on Main Street for hamburgers. Neither Hanna nor I had had any lunch, and we piled into the food, even though it had been burned to a crisp by Belinda Huntingdon, the buxom waitress-cum-chef whose scorched-earth policy was apparently copied from the Russians in the time of Napoleon. But I didn't mind.

“Tastes a bit like smoked moccasin,” said Joe.

“Better is a dinner of smoked moccasin where love is,” I reminded him, “than stalled ox and hatred therewith.”

“What the heck are you talking about?” said Hanna.

“Proverbs 15,” replied Joe, “slightly edited. And speaking of hatred therewith, what has been going on that would make anybody try to turn you into a hood ornament?”

So we had our delayed strategy session; Hanna and I told him about the command performance in front of Conrad Jowett, and the visit, possibly wasted, to the Land Titles Office. I didn't say anything about the other connection, which might not be a connection, involving his band-mate, Chuck Wilson, and the Far Lake bank. This was a mistake, as it turned out, but at the time, it seemed the careful course to pursue. At this point, I didn't know how close Chuck and Joe might be.

“This is all just bits and pieces,” said Joe. “There's just got to be something we're missing that will link all this business up to the killings.”

“Why should the development be linked to the killings?” I asked.

“If it isn't, why did you get run off the road?”

“Maybe the accident was just an accident, and the other driver panicked when he saw what he had done, and took off.”

“What he or she had done.” Hanna is always a stickler for what she calls “inclusive pronouns.”

“Anyway, you two have done a terrific job of research,” said Joe, and we both beamed at him. “In the meantime, I've found out a couple of things. The tomahawk that was used on George Rose came from the Circle Lake Band council house.”

“Oh, oh, that's not so good. Could many people get at it?”

“Only hundreds. The council house is right behind the art gallery”—there is a combination art gallery and shop on the reserve, with some of the finest craftsmanship and some of the dumbest junk you will find anywhere for sale—“and it is band policy that it must be open at all times. Anyone, Indian, non-status Indian, perfect stranger, could walk in, if he knew it was there, and take it.”

“What else? You said there were a couple of things.”

“Yeah. According to the
Toronto
Star
, the autopsy on Dr. Rose shows he was hit on the back of the head before he was tomahawked.”