Lost Girls

lived, hunted, and fished on. It took the arrival of the first civilized white settlers to the region at the end of the Eighteenth Century--mostly United Empire Loyalists, hearty farming and merchant stock from Great Britain seeking adventure and a better life--before the land was finally recognized not merely as barren bush but as a glorious opportunity. . . .

And God save the Queen. Pittle wasn't kidding when he described Dundurn's work as amateur. White Man came, White Man saw, White Man sold it all off cheap. The same story that could apply to virtually every Canadian town.

Scan down through the rest of the Economic Origins section and start again at Social Character.

. . . It has been argued by some that the true tenets of the Victorian Age were more fully embraced in the young Canadian nation than within even the United Kingdom itself. There is little question, however, that the whole of Ontario society at the turn of the century was caught in heated debate over the moral future of the province, and that the greater part of this debate was primarily concerned with the public sale and consumption of liquor. Through the 1890s prohibitionist organizations such as the Sons of Temperance, the Independent Order of Good Templars, and the Women's Christian Temperance Union had over 40,000 registered members! And in an 1894 Ontario-wideplebiscite 400,000 of the Age of Majority voted 65% in favor of prohibition. Within Murdoch Country that figure rose dramatically to eighty-nine percent.

Among other things this result clearly indicates the worthy foundations of Murdoch's moral history. Mostly devout Orangemen, Murdoch's fathers boasted one of the largest lodge memberships north of the County of York. Intent on preserving their Protestant ideals in the savage New Country, all of the men's organizations of the town --Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, the Orange Order, and the Masons--closed their membership to those explicitlyinvolved in the liquor business. However, it should be noted that drink was permitted for its use in formal toasts made during meetings. Because of the established traditionsunique to each of these orders, such toasts tended to be numerous. . . .

I skip ahead again to what Pittle must have wanted me to find in the first place: Appendix: Murdoch's Lady in the Lake. The whole section taking up only a page and a half, but more or less summarizing events as Mrs. Arthurs related them to me. Dundurn's tone is just as serious with this material, though, treating it with the same sober consideration as Murdoch's honored contributions to both World Wars, the suffering during the Depression, and the Queen Mum's ribbon-cutting visit at the new, ''state-of-the-art'' high school in the early sixties. At moments the writing even slides into obvious sentiment, an effort to capture the dramatic details with a flourish of language.

. . . A woman wearing nothing but the rags set upon her but a considerable beauty shining out from beneath her long, bedraggled hair . . . two transfixing daughters, each carrying something of their mother in the sometimes hardened, sometimes playful set of their faces. . . . Many took the view that she rarely spoke because she didn't understand the language, others that she simply chose not to speak at all . . . descending with a chilling scream . . . now said that her spirit can still be seen roaming the woods next to Lake St. Christopher, seeking to take the hand of others' children . . . the lonely cold of an unblessed, watery grave . . .

No mention of the daytime skinny-dips or the male visitors she may have entertained. Nothing about the state-sanctioned hysterectomy or the townsmen who flushed her out onto the ice. But there is a brief telling of her escape from Bishop's Hospital, the ''mysterious'' and ''accidental'' drowning, her voice calling out to any who might have heard on the shore, to her daughters, to ''the wicked, war-torn world.'' Then there's a double-spaced gap separating all of the preceding from a rather strange summation:

. . . They say there's a fraction of truth in every story. In this the Lady of Murdoch is likely no different. But how much truth there can be in a tale of a vengeful spirit returned from the dead to lay claim upon the living is a matter of faith more than fact. One way or the other Murdoch's history has been shaped as much by this one unnamed stranger as by influential merchants, the passing fortunes of industry, and the decisions of elected officials. We will never know who we are if we fail to remember what has come before--both the victories and the disgraces.All the public pride of glory and the private shame of ghosts.

It has been said that we only fear that which we do not know. Yet perhaps what we fear most is not the possibility of the unknown, but all of the horrors that we know to be true.

The chapter ends here, with this insertion of amateur metaphysics to go along with the amateur history. Still, there's something in this section of Dundurn's writing that feels different from the rest. The brief emergence of a voice. Intent, fervent. Something personal.

There's nothing to do but go to bed myself now. Empty my pockets out onto the flaky varnished surface of the dresser. The sound the coins make like an ancient machine clattering to its final stop.

I place Dundurn's book there on top of the change and spiraled tufts of lint, but something in the angle of the spine flips the back cover open a second after I pull my hand away. There, glued to the inside of the last page, a small yellow envelope holding the Due Date card.

Pull it out with my thumb and lay it flat, run my finger under the stamped dates and handwritten names. Last borrowed only six months ago. The signature the same as the one beside the X at the bottom of my Form of Retainer. My client. Thomas R. Tripp.

Iconfess it's something of a personal lawyer joke that my worst mark at law school was in Professional Ethics. Would never have taken it at all if it hadn't been mandatory, which could be said for most of my colleagues as well. But at least they went to the trouble of faking it, offering up the ''right'' answer for every hypothetical put to them by the forty-five-grand-a-year Justice Ministry schmuck hauled in to teach it. From what little I can recall, the entire course could be broken down into a handful of fundamental rules one had to repeat a dozen times out loud in order to pass:

Don't take all the money held in trust for someone else.

Take a good long look before accepting sex from clients in exchange for fees.

Try not to lie, but if you feel you must, try first to say nothing at all.

And this: If a young lawyer ever feels he's losing control of a case--however slightly--he should seek the advice of a senior member of the bar before things are allowed to go any farther.

That would be me.

So it is that the next morning I call Graham with the intention of talking to him one-on-one, but he's not in. And when he calls back I can tell immediately it's from the boardroom, over the speakerphone, and that Bert's there, too, the clicking of his lighter and bubbly throat clearings giving him away.

''So, Bartholomew, how goes it? Everything in order and geared up, I trust?'' Graham sings, using the same voice he uses on his most humorless clients.

''Pretty much. I mean, there's nothing in the disclosure materials that we didn't know already. And although the DNA results aren't back yet, no matter what they say I think we still look good.''

''Of course you look good. Always did, always will. Now, what about Sir Thomas Tripp of the Village of Murdoch. Is he being reasonably cooperative?''

''Cooperative wouldn't be quite the word, no. He's not entirely stable, actually, although he'd fall well short of insanity on a psychiatric assessment. But he does claim to hear voices.''

''What kind of voices?'' Bert joins in from what sounds like the farthest corner of the room.

''It's not clear. A woman, I think he said. Or a group of women, talking together all at once.''

''Sounds like the definition of hell to me.'' Bert coughs.

''Is he going to be all right?''

''I shouldn't have to call him to testify, if that's what you mean.''

''That's exactly what I mean. Very good. Any other preliminary matters?''

''I wouldn't call them matters, but, yes, there're some things I wanted to--some vaguely troubling things I thought I'd air out. Nothing to cause concern, but I felt that bringing them to light at this point might be a good idea.''

''Bartholomew, what are you on about? Have you fallen in love or something awful like that? If so, I know Bert and I can offer nothing but our strongest discouragements.''

''It's not love. It's little things. Coincidences. Funny stuff.''

''Intriguing,'' Graham says, sounding not at all intrigued. ''Do go on.''

''Well, for example, there's this stripper who was working in the bar downstairs who's been calling the hotel