“I have a perfect fieldstone farmhouse in the middle of a rolling field near Owen Sound. Trees along the drive, a classic four-storey barn, a drive shed, and the fresh smell of spring. Otherwise, there’s nothing to distract me for miles.”
“D’you own the farm, the whole thing?”
“I lease my fields to neighbours, mostly for grazing. When I bought the house, it was a shell. I’ve restored it over the last few years, from floor joists to roof. It’s a project, David, a labour of love. You must come and visit. Please do. Come up on the weekend. Tell me about your vacation. Give me a break from the drudgery. I’ll take you to dinner in Collingwood, the Elvis-impersonation capital of Canada, with some of the best restaurants north of Toronto.”
As she offered the invitation, she arched slightly, making her breasts rise against her pale blue sweater, and her legs stiffened, accentuating the firmness of her thighs through her slacks. She can’t help herself, he thought. Her eyes glistened disingenuously. A cheerfully blatant sexual predator — he had no intention of accepting her invitation.
“I just might,” he said.
“Here’s my number. I’m easy to find. Do come up, David. Live dangerously.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was late Saturday afternoon when Morgan got away. As Miranda’s vintage Jaguar coursed through the Caledon Hills, the long descents forced him to gear down and the car lagged with a gratifying rumble, then roared as he raced up the far sides of the valleys and broke into the clear evening light. It was easy to imagine the city left in darkness behind him. He rushed through the landscape like the sole spectator in a wraparound movie, with the machine an extension of will; an astonishing experience — he almost liked driving. By the time he reached the alluvial terrain sloping down to Georgian Bay, it was night.
Shelagh Hubbard had given him explicit instructions but he pulled over several times onto the shoulder to read the map in the violet glow of the dashboard instruments, not having fathomed the secret of the maplight. He anticipated confusion, even though there were only a few intersections to negotiate along the way and the turnoff from Highway 41 was clearly marked.
Miranda had been wary about lending him the car.
“You know,” she had told him, “while you were checking out the voluptuous Dr. Hubbard at the museum, I dug up an ominous bit in her academic files. It seems she once took a course sponsored by the University of London and the British Museum. Morgan, it was on adaptation of old-world building methods to conditions in the settler colonies, namely Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. So guess who taught the hands-on part of the course.”
“Alexander Pope.”
“The same. He laughed when I called him and said he’d taught dozens of courses over the years, with hundreds of students. We had a nice chat. He asked me to come out again sometime, said to bring you. He’s a wonderful source if you want to find more about Canadiana — ”
“What a dreadful word, Miranda.”
“You use it all the time. So what do you think about your Dr. Hubbard, now?”
“She invited me up to her farm.”
“You’re kidding! Whereabouts?”
“Near Georgian Bay. She’s going for a couple of weeks. We can’t just have the OPP pick her up on spec.”
“It’s their jurisdiction.”
“You can hardly arrest someone for taking a course.”
“Did she take it as a scholar, do you think, or a necromantic apprentice? Has she finally put her learning to practical use?”
“‘A little learning…’ That’s Alexander Pope, I believe; the real one.”
“Wait until Monday. We’ll drive up together.”
“Monday?”
“Rachel is taking Jill and me to the Metro Zoo tomorrow.”
“Then you won’t be needing the Jag.”
“You can’t resist a dangerous woman.”
“If you lend me your car, you’ll reap heaven’s reward: seventy-seven virginal youths.”
“How thoroughly repugnant. Men who dream of virgins make lousy lovers; virginal men are by definition lacking experience, inept.”
“So much for that.”
“You go, big boy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Just keep your head. On your shoulders. And stay out of closets. And don’t sleep with her, Morgan, for God’s sake. If she’s the killer, you’ll feel like an ass — if you survive the experience. And if she’s not, you’ll feel like an ass, anyway.”
“Anything else?”
“Call me if you get scared.’
The darkness had turned into a dismal gloom on the back roads, defined only by the merging cones of the Jag’s headlights penetrating the mist-laden air. Morgan was relieved when an old-fashioned mailbox appeared with the name Hubbard stencilled on the side. The metal flag was raised, which he knew intuitively meant there was mail, so he stopped and picked up an accumulation of letters and fliers, jockeying the car so he did not have to get out. Driving slowly down the long driveway flanked by the shadows of soaring spruce trees, he cringed as sodden clumps of grass scraped against the bottom of the Jag. He pulled up to the front of the house, parking on an angle so the high beams illuminated what turned out to be a splendid stone cottage, not built in the vernacular style of the Georgian Bay area, which tended to be multi-hued granite blocks set with geometric precision. Nor was it like the stone houses of eastern Ontario, he thought, masterfully built by freelancing Scottish masons after they finished work on the Rideau Canal, nor was it fieldstones artfully placed as were the houses of Mennonite farmers that Miranda had shown him in the country around Waterloo County. Much more cement showed. It was almost a rubble construction, and the effect was ominously seductive.
“Welcome to The Georgian Bay,” Shelagh Hubbard called from the door. “Park around the side. I’ll meet you.”
When he stepped into the summer kitchen that stretched across the back of the house, connecting it to a drive shed, she was just coming out, having, he noticed, tightened her hair in the interim. The bare overhead bulb illuminated her features, casting a pallor over her skin and accentuating her cheekbones and the sharply defined line of her jaw. She was dressed casually in slacks and a sweater, wearing makeup.
“My goodness,” said Morgan, “you have a beautiful place.”
“Thank you.”
“Do I get the tour?”
“But of course. We’re in the summer kitchen. The ceiling is sagging, but in no danger of immediate collapse. To your left are two doors. The choice is yours: the lady or the tiger. One leads to the shed and the other, the sauna, which is fired up in case we want to relax later on.”
There was no mistaking which door led to the sauna. It was made of double layers of heavy tongue-and- groove cedar, reinforced with iron flanges extending from the hinges across it entire breadth, and with a heavy bolt, securely padlocked.
She interpreted his gaze with an explanation. “I’m wary of kids getting in there; you’ve got to think about things like that when your house is empty a good part of the year. Imagine: if you were racing around back-country trails on a snowmobile in sub-zero weather, the sauna might be an irresistible temptation. They could burn the place down.”
“Why not just turn off the power?”
“A lovely idea, David, but it’s an old-fashioned wood-burning affair. The stove is underneath, stoked up from outside.”
