I
MRS. STOPPINI HAD BREAKFAST READY when I came downstairs. She had dark circles under her eyes. For my part, I had managed an hour of fitful half-sleep that hadn’t relieved my fatigue one bit. And my head ached.
“Good morning, Mr. Havelock.”
“Morning, Mrs. Stoppini.”
“I would customarily enquire as to how you slept, but I expect no one for miles around managed a restful sleep last night.”
“You can say that again.”
The music of robins and starlings trickled in from the yard, and outside the patio door a hummingbird darted and hovered over flowers sagging from the night’s onslaught of wind and rain. Mrs. Stoppini rose from her chair and stepped over to the espresso machine on the counter. She wore the same type of long-sleeved black dress that fell past her knees-only this one had a velvet collar-and woollen stockings with black lace-up leather shoes.
“Cappuccino or straight espresso?” she asked. “Or perhaps you’d prefer a caffe macchiato.”
“Er… a-”
“Espresso marked with a little milk foam,” she explained. “It was the late professor’s preferred morning drink.”
“Sounds good.”
There was a plate of small pastries in the centre of the table alongside a bowl of warm rolls. Mrs. Stoppini placed a small cup of deliciously aromatic coffee in front of me and indicated the food with a turn of her hand. “Please,” she invited.
As I layered butter on a roll she sat down. “The patio chairs and umbrella seem to have disappeared during the storm. The gardener doesn’t come until Wednesday. I wonder if you’d be so kind…”
I took a sip of the coffee. It tasted as good as it smelled-hot and strong.
“Sure,” I replied. “Be glad to.”
Mrs. Stoppini nodded.
“If you’ll make me another macchiato,” I said.
I FETCHED MY PUSH BROOM from the workshop and swept the leaves, sticks, and dirt from the patio before tracking down the four chairs the storm had tossed across the lawn. I found the umbrella knee-deep in the lake, up the shore a bit, where the sandy beach gives way to gravel and shale. I waded in and hauled it onto the bank and allowed the water to run out of the canopy, still furled around the pole, secured by a bungee cord.
Something glinted at the waterline. Glass. I bent to pick it up, thinking glass on a beach is a danger to bare feet. It was a hand-held GPS with a camo finish, a waterproof variety, the same brand as the GPS on my motorcycle. The display screen was cracked, allowing water and sand in. I pushed the Power button, but the screen didn’t light up. Ruined, but too valuable to throw away, I thought, jamming it into my pocket. I’d check it out later. Maybe the batteries were dead.
Back at the house I erected the sodden umbrella and opened it to dry in the sun.
II
AFTER SAYING A TEMPORARY goodbye to Mrs. Stoppini and thanking her for putting me up for the night, I mounted my motorcycle and headed back into town. It was cool in the shaded roads along the lakefront, and the air, washed by the storm, was fresh and fragrant, coaxing the aftermath of my nightmare from my mind. I rode slowly, 650 cc’s of power rumbling serenely between my knees, along Bay Street, around the park, and up the hill on Brant to our house. I parked in back by the garage.
Mom was at the kitchen table reading a manuscript, a pencil in her hand, her favourite dictionary close by. She liked to edit her work on hard copy rather than the computer.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “Dad at the store?”
She looked up and smiled. “He has a line on a nineteenth-century pine table. He’s trying to persuade Summerhill to sell it now rather than put it up for auction, but so far it’s no go. He’s as happy as a clam.”
“I’m going to change,” I said, heading for the stairs.
My room was on what Dad referred to as the third level and I called the attic. Accessed by a steep flight of narrow stairs, it was a good-sized, wainscotted room tucked up under the mansard roof, with two dormers looking out onto Brant Street-one a window and the other a glassed door to a small balcony. Another window overlooked Matchedash Street. It was the kind of place where, in a gothic novel, the family would lock up their mad auntie when company came over. In real life, a century or so ago, in the days when rich people owned the house, my room was where the servants had lived. I liked it. I had the balcony, lots of light, and if I craned my neck a little, a view of the lake.
I showered and changed into fresh jeans and shirt. I pulled a duffle bag out of my closet and tossed in a set of clothes, a flashlight, a novel, and the charger for my cell. I planned to leave the clothes at the shop in case I was ever soaked or stranded again.
In the kitchen I made some sandwiches and raided the fridge for a few cans of juice, making a mental note to find a small used fridge for my workshop, and put the food into my pack. Dropping into a chair, I sat back and keyed Raphaella’s number into my cell.
“Hello?” she answered.
“It’s your boyfriend.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The good-looking one.”
“That narrows the field to seven.”
“The one you love the best.”
“Oh. Hi, Steve.”
“Very funny,” I said. “Listen, can you make it out to the Corbizzi place today?”
I heard the muffled sound of Raphaella holding the phone against her body and telling her mother she’d be there in a minute. “I’m at the store,” she said to me. “I have to unpack and shelve a big shipment of Chinese herbs that came in this morning.”
Raphaella’s mother made up natural medicine prescriptions. Lately she’d been teaching Raphaella to prepare some of the simpler ones.
“Can you mix me up a batch of frogs’ teeth and spiders’ tails?”
“Not today. I’ve got to get going.”
“How long will you be?”
“Probably all day. Maybe I could come by your place for dinner.”
I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “Okay. Give me a call if you get the chance.”
“I promise. Gotta go.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye, Steve,” she said brightly.
III
BACK AT THE SHOP I cut pieces of dowel to make spindles for the decorative “fence” around the edge of the new mantel top. I fixed the first one between the spurs of the wood lathe, clamped the tool rest into position, and turned on the motor. Using one of the old urn-shaped spindles as a model, I meticulously shaped the wood until I had an accurate replica, finishing it with sandpaper. Then I turned off the motor.
The lathe had a feature that made the rest of the process easier, an electronic gizmo with a stainless-steel tip much like a ballpoint pen. I manoeuvred the tip to rest against the new spindle, turned on the device, and stood
