The Travelling Detective: Boxed Set Read online

  “Yes, except I have no boyfriend and no prospects either.” Elizabeth had a pile of apple slices ready and she placed them onto the bottom crust.

  Peggy added sugar and sprinkled cinnamon over the apples then rolled out another crust. After placing it on top she fluted and trimmed the edge and poked holes in it with a fork. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “Younger twins,” Elizabeth said, starting on more apples. “Sherry and Terry.”

  “Are they identical twins?” Peggy began rolling the next crust.

  “No, unfortunately. And they are a boy and a girl.”

  “Why unfortunately?” Peggy looked at her curiously.

  “Because I wanted identical ones,” Elizabeth grinned. “When I heard Mom was expecting twins all I could think about was being able to dress them in the same outfits and curling their hair the same.”

  “What about nieces or nephews?”

  “Not yet.” And for some reason that made Elizabeth think of her mother. She wiped at her eyes.

  “Something wrong?” Peggy asked, her voice worried.

  Elizabeth wasn’t sure what made her do it, whether it was because Peggy seemed so motherly, or because of her close resemblance to her aunt, but she blurted out. “My mom died six months ago and I just realized that she will never see her grandchildren. And that’s all she talked about for years, was having a grandchild.”

  “I’m sorry,” Peggy said with compassion. “Do you want tell me about her?”

  While they finished the next two pies, Elizabeth told Peggy about her mother, how outgoing she’d been, how much fun they’d had as a family, and then about her disease. Peggy listened to the outpouring of grief without interrupting.

  Elizabeth ended her story just as Peggy finished rubbing milk on each crust and was lightly dusting them with sugar. She felt so much better, so much lighter. Maybe all she’d needed to do was talk it out of her system.

  “I really don’t know what to say,” Peggy said, as she slid the pies into the hot oven. “The words ‘I’m sorry’ just don’t seem appropriate.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Elizabeth answered. “I just had to tell someone. Thank you for listening.”

  They cleaned up and then Peggy got a cup of coffee while Elizabeth poured herself a glass of juice.

  “Not a very good day for exploring,” Peggy said, looking out the window.

  “No, but hopefully tomorrow will be better.”

  “How did you become a travel writer?” Peggy asked as they sat at the table.

  “Well, I’ve always wanted to travel and to write. I took a writing course a few years ago then found some travel magazines and read the stories in them to get a feel for how they were written and what they included. I began writing articles about Edmonton and places nearby and sending them out to the magazines. Writing is a tough business to get into and none of them sold. Then just when I was about to quit a small, local newspaper bought two of them. Mom encouraged me to continue so I decided to take the plunge and I planned a holiday around writing. I picked Drumheller as my subject and went there. When I returned, I wrote an article about the badlands and sent it to a magazine. They refused it, so I tried another. Finally, the fourth one bought it.”

  “Can you make a living at it?”

  “I can’t yet.” Elizabeth took a drink of her juice. “I’m a nursing attendant in my real life.”

  “What’s a nursing attendant, exactly? I have a vague idea, but …”

  “We look after people who need help with their daily routines, people with disabilities, or the elderly. We can work in residential homes, group homes, and continuing care or long term care facilities.”

  “And you are on holidays now.”

  “Yes. That’s why I’m a little frustrated with the weather. I’d planned on travelling and researching this week, then camping in the mountains for a few days and writing when I got home.”

  “How long have you been doing it this way?”

  “This is my third summer. Eventually, I’d like to travel and research all summer and only work in the winter.” Elizabeth smiled. “That almost makes it sound like writing isn’t work. It is in the sense that for the lucky ones it’s a job and the only way they make their living. For the remainder of us writers, it is usually considered a hobby.”

  “Being a travel writer strikes me as being an ideal occupation.”

  “It is,” Elizabeth agreed.

  “I’ve always wanted to travel, too,” Peggy said, a faraway look in her eye.

  “Why haven’t you? Depending on where you go, it isn’t necessarily expensive.”

  “Harry never wanted to, so we didn’t.”

  “Harry’s been gone for a long time,” Elizabeth said, gently. Maybe it was Peggy’s turn to open up and get it out of her system.

  “I know.” She was quiet for a while. “When he left, I had a lot of bills to pay. We’d lived in Fort Macleod for a few years when Harry said he wanted the country life. We took out a larger mortgage on the house in town to make a down payment on the acreage and we had enough in our savings to buy the mobile outright. We found renters for the house to help pay that mortgage. When I moved back there I rented out the acreage for a couple of years. I had too much trouble with the occupants not cleaning up their garbage and not paying their rent, so I quit and sold the mobile home. That paid up what was left of the acreage mortgage. I took on a full-time job in addition to my part-time one and eventually paid off the mortgage on the house in town.”

  “Why didn’t you sell the acreage?” That made more sense than working two jobs.

  “It was in Harry’s and my name and until he was declared legally dead, I couldn’t.”

  “But you sold the mobile. Wasn’t it in both your names?”

  “No, that was in my name, thank God.” Peggy said. “Harry said it made more sense tax-wise at the time we bought it.”

  “Are you still working?”

  “No, I retired last year with a pension I can live on and when I sold the land, I was planning to take a trip.” She paused. “That is, I’m taking a trip as soon as this mess is cleared up.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I was all ready to book an October cruise up the coast to Alaska with a friend, but then the skeleton was found.”

  “You should still be able to go.” October was two months away. This mystery should certainly be over before that.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve got to stay here until they prove the skeleton isn’t Harry’s. And once that’s done then there still is the question of who’s it is and who put it there.”

  “Did you know the previous owners very well?” Elizabeth had forgotten their names.

  “I’ve known Martha Davidson since grade school.”

  “Wow, that’s a long time to have a friend.”

  “Well, we haven’t been friends for years.”

  “Oh?” What else do you say?

  “When Martha married Warren they kept pretty close to home for the first year and I didn’t see her.”

  “Yes, marriage does put a strain on some friendships.” Elizabeth remembered a high school friend who married and moved away with her husband. They’d kept in touch for the first year but the phone calls slowly ended and now she didn’t even know where the woman lived.

  “Then suddenly they sold the land and moved into Lethbridge.” Peggy got up to check the pies. When she opened the oven door the smell of apples and cinnamon wafted through the kitchen. She tested them with a fork then closed the door again.

  “More juice?” she asked, as she poured herself another cup of coffee.

  “No thanks.” The juice was fine but what Elizabeth really wanted was one of the cans of pop up in her room.

  “Why did you put in a new septic tank when you bought the place?”

  “The old one was cracked and in bad shape.”

  “If the tank was there when you bought the
acreage, then the skeleton could have been put there while the Davidsons owned it,” Elizabeth said, when Peggy sat down again.

  “I’ve gone over that idea in my mind many times but I can’t remember anyone who went missing during that time.”

  “So, now you have to wait.”

  “And hope Harry doesn’t return.”

  “Why not? He’ll prove you had nothing to do with it.”

  “Yes, but if he hears about the sale, he’ll want half of everything.”

  “Can he do that once he’s been declared dead?”

  “I don’t know but he will certainly try.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments. Elizabeth wondered if Peggy had thought about getting a lawyer.

  Chapter 9

  Shirley and Al entered through the back door, Stormie on their heels. They took off their jackets and sniffed the air.

  “Smells good in here,” Al said. “Are they ready to eat?”

  “A few more minutes,” Peggy answered.

  “Hi, Chevy,” Stormie knelt down as usual beside him and gave him a hug.

  “He’s going to get spoiled with all the attention you give him,” Elizabeth said, smiling.

  Stormie lay her cheek on his head and grinned up at her. “I like him.”

  It was time to do something in the way of her article, Elizabeth decided. “I’m going into the library,” she said to Peggy. “Do you want me to go to your house and get you some clothes?”

  “Oh, that would be great.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Shirley asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “I promise I won’t say a word to anyone.” Elizabeth said quickly.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Shirley said, with a half smile. “So far, none of the reporters has found Mom out here and I’m afraid one might follow you back.”

  “They’re going to figure that out eventually,” Al put in.

  “And I do need some things,” Peggy said. “I don’t want to have to wash these clothes every night. Plus I need my own shampoo and stuff, and the nightgown you loaned me is a tad too small.”

  “Okay, okay,” Shirley grinned. “I get the picture.”

  “Make me a list and tell me where everything is and I’ll pick it up for you,” Elizabeth said.

  Shirley handed Peggy a piece of paper and a pen. Peggy wrote down what clothes she wanted and explained where everything was.

  “What should I bring them back in?”

  “My suitcase is in the spare room closet.”

  “What about a coat?”

  “Right. And boots.” She wrote them both down. “They’re at the back door. And aspirin.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Shirley said. “We have lots.”

  “I know but I’ve taken enough of yours.”

  “Can Chevy stay with me?” Stormie asked. She hadn’t moved from his side.

  Elizabeth looked at Shirley.

  “You can leave him,” Shirley said, laughing. “He’ll be good company for her.”

  Peggy gave Elizabeth the list, the keys, and directions to her house, which were relatively easy to follow. What wasn’t easy was driving along Peggy’s street and turning into her driveway. Apparently, since she was the previous owner of the acreage, or maybe because of the rumours about Harry, the gawkers were driving up and down her street, too. Elizabeth also saw two TV vans parked in front of the house next door.

  Before she had even stopped, men and women from those vans and from two other vehicles had jumped out and crossed the lawn, their microphones and cameras sheltered by umbrellas. She stepped out and smiled as they hesitated. She obviously wasn’t the gray haired, sixty-odd-year-old woman they’d been expecting. But their pause was only momentary and before she could reach the front steps, microphones were pressed in front of her face.

  “Are you a relation of Mrs. Wilson’s?”

  “No.” Elizabeth answered, pushing her way through.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “No.” A white lie in a good cause.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She climbed the steps, ignoring the barrage of questions as she unlocked the door and quickly stepped inside, closing the door on the clamour.

  The house was cold and damp. Peggy must have turned the temperature down during the hot spell and hadn’t been back to reset it. The furnace in the basement rumbled into action as Elizabeth turned the thermostat up a bit to get rid of the dampness before heading down the hallway to find the suitcase. She found Peggy’s room, opened the case on the bed and began folding clothes into it. When she went to the dresser, she noticed a framed black and white picture on top. A much younger Peggy had her arm around a young man and they were both smiling at the camera. Elizabeth wondered if this was the missing Harry. If it was, then maybe Peggy still had feelings for him.

  She slipped the toiletries into one of the zippered compartments, snapped the suitcase shut and was almost at the front door when she remembered the coat and boots. She opened the lid again, placed the coat on top of the other clothes and found a plastic bag in the cupboard under the kitchen sink for the boots.

  Through the living room window she saw the reporters lined up on the sidewalk watching the door. They had attracted a small crowd of neighbours who also stared at the house. Elizabeth took a deep breath and went outside. She managed to make it to her vehicle before she was overtaken.

  “Are you taking those to Mrs. Wilson?”

  “Is she staying with her daughter?”

  “Did she kill her husband?”

  Elizabeth opened the rear door and shoved the suitcase and bag inside then forced her way past the reporters and microphones into the front seat. She started the engine and backed up, waving at the neighbours who were trying to get a good look at her.

  With that errand done, she headed to the library. She’d looked up most of the places she would be visiting on the Internet before she left home, but she often found items of local flavour in libraries that never made it to any website. Laptop in hand, she walked to the history section and located a book on southern Alberta. She carried it to a table and read the Fort Macleod section, taking notes on her laptop.

  Elizabeth put the book back on its shelf and was about to leave when she remembered Peggy’s obscene phone call. She headed to the desk and asked for a few back issues of the Gazette. The woman went down a hallway and came back with a stack of papers.

  She returned to her seat and spread them out. One had a headline about the manure found on Peggy’s lawn and on Ed Bowman’s car, and she couldn’t help grinning at the half page picture of a hog pooping.

  The articles quoted various magazine, newspapers, and studies. According to the Winnipeg Vegetarian Association, there were as many as a hundred and fifty chemicals in hog manure. These chemicals caused nausea, headaches, upset stomachs, depression, loss of appetite and sleep disturbances in humans.

  Other articles maintained that the hogs were overfed so they’d grow fast and that created a lot of manure which was then mixed with water and stored in an open-air lagoon to ferment. The way to get rid of it was to spray it on fields every six months. The problem with that was only about half of the phosphorous from the spray was absorbed by the soil and the rest ran off into rivers and lakes, which killed fish and caused the overgrowth of algae.

  Hogs carried some of the same bacteria and parasites that afflict humans but hog manure didn’t have to go through sewage treatment plants like human waste did. Foreign countries had introduced tough regulations and environmental restrictions so, to avoid these regulations, their farmers were coming to Canada to set up farms. The point that made Elizabeth go “Yuck” was that if it were humans who were crapping everywhere, everyone would be yelling.

  Elizabeth could see why the people from CRAP had fought against the hog barn being built. But the sale was done so why were they still harassing Peggy? They should be appealing the decision to the courts.

  “Elizabeth? It is Elizabeth Olive
r, isn’t it?”

  It took a moment for Elizabeth to remember the woman Peggy had introduced her to at the information centre, the one who was definitely not a friend. “Hello, Mrs. Duncan,” she said. Usually, she was bad with names but this one just came to her.

  “Call me Corrine,” she said, sitting down beside Elizabeth.

  “Okay, Corrine.” She closed the newspaper.

  Corrine looked at it. “Doing some research for your article?”

  “Yes. Trying to learn some history.” No need to explain further.

  “Are you going to mention the Septic Stan murder in your article?”

  “Maybe not in that article.”

  “Another one, then?”

  “Well, I might write something about it if it really is a murder and if it’s solved before I leave.”

  “I’ve heard that the police are saying the person was beaten to death.” Corrine pulled her chair towards Elizabeth.

  “So they don’t think the people from CRAP put it there to stop the hog barn?” After reading the articles Elizabeth could understand if they had, though she had no idea where they would have gotten a skeleton.

  “That’s still a possibility they are considering, checking with cemeteries for disturbed graves, but their main focus is identifying the skeleton.”

  “That could take a while.”

  “Do you know who I think it is?” There was an intensity to her voice. Everyone wanted to tell their theory.

  “Who?”

  Corrine looked around then leaned closer to Elizabeth. “I think it’s Shirley’s old boyfriend,” she whispered.

  “The one Harry hit downtown?” Elizabeth gloated a little at the startled look on Corrine’s face.

  “How do you know about him?” Corrine sat back. “Did Shirley or Peggy tell you?”

  “No. Just a conversation I overheard. So why do you think it’s him?”

  “Because he disappeared shortly after Shirley went to visit her aunt in Vancouver.” She winked slyly.

  Elizabeth didn’t know what that had to do with anything so she just raised her eyebrows.

  “You know,” Corrine prompted. “Teenage girl goes to visit relatives for a few months then comes back home.”

  Elizabeth gave a puzzled shrug, still not quite sure what Corrine was getting at.