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As we turned away, the one cougar stood and stretched, sniffing the air.
"You'll get fed soon enough, Mex," Roberta said. "Don't start your complaining now."
Roberta escorted us to the gate and held it open. As we exchanged good-byes, an unearthly scream ripped through the morning quiet.
Roberta laughed when I jumped. "That's just Mex, bitching for her food."
"It sounded like - "
"A woman screaming, I know. That's what everyone says. When I lived out West, tourists used to call the cops all the time, saying some poor woman was screaming in the forest."
Now I knew what those city kids had heard out near the Potter place. And it hadn't been a cougar.
Chapter Ten
At the lodge, I settled details for Jack's stay with Emma while she rolled dough for apple strudel.
"So make sure he's comfortable, show him around," I said as I snatched a sugarcoated apple slice from the bowl. "You probably won't see much of him anyway. He keeps to himself. I need to zip into town - "
"Still looking for Sammi?"
I stopped chewing.
"Did you think I wouldn't figure it out? You've been gone more in the last week than you have in months. You're worried about her. At least someone is." She peeled the rolled dough from the board and laid out another ball. "I asked around myself when I went shopping this morning. Everyone thinks she just ran off."
"Which she probably did."
"But something's telling you otherwise, so you keep looking. Did you get anything from Janie?"
"Do insults count?"
"You want me to take a run at her?"
I indulged in the fantasy for a moment. A killer ex-cop might not faze Janie, but Emma was a different story. Last month, in town, when Janie had tried to hit me up for an advance on her daughter's pay, Emma had come around the corner, eyes blazing as fiercely as her red-dyed hair, and Janie had skittered off so fast you'd think she'd spotted an unopened rye bottle in the ditch.
"Not yet," I said. "Let me check around a bit more on my own."
"Should I expect you for lunch?"
"I have to stop at the diner. I'll grab something there."
I parked in town and went to Canadian Tire for supplies. Better to walk into the diner carrying a shopping bag, to prove that I'd come to town for a reason. If Riley got wind of my snooping, he'd slap an interference charge on my ass so fast he'd be winded for days. Then, having accused me of buggering up his investigation, he'd actually need to start one, and probably balls it up to spite me.
Pretty much every town up here has a Canadian Tire, which carries everything from spark plugs to coffee-makers to paper towels. I suppose they carry tires, too, if you can find them. In White Rock, the Canadian Tire has everything from
building supplies to inflatable rafts shoved into a store hardly big enough for fishing lures (aisle two, top shelf, behind the china mugs). Shopping there is great, if you like scavenger hunts. I'd developed a near-perfect system. Find an item that has absolutely nothing in common with the item you want, move it aside, and, bingo, there's what you came for.
After twenty minutes, I had everything I needed: a monster-sized ball of string, a box of disposable plastic gloves, and a pocket-sized Maglite with extra batteries. Then I grabbed a handful of other items the lodge could always use, like ant traps, dish towels, and a copy of Chatelaine for Emma. At the checkout, I stifled the itch to ask for news of Sammi. If there was any, I'd hear it soon enough.
Outside Larry's Diner I grabbed a copy of the local weekly paper. Then I went inside and ordered a coffee. My stomach wouldn't consider lunch.
Reading the newspaper front to back took ten minutes, and I'm no speed reader. As I'd hoped, there was an article on the cougar, one that confirmed my fear - the "scream" had indeed been heard Sunday night, between eight and nine, soon after Sammi was last seen walking in the same area.
According to Liz Bowles - the owner, editor, and sole reporter of the White Rock Times - the "cougar story" was nothing more than further proof that city living destroys brain cells. How many times, she ranted, did cottagers from southern Ontario mistake boulders for bears, garter snakes for Massasauga rattlers, local dogs for wolves? Americans were even worse, wandering around looking for reindeer and polar bears. Those kids probably heard a tomcat yowl, then expected the police to investigate, wasting our tax dollars with their ignorance.
Liz was pleased to report that our local OPP detachment, as efficient as ever, had cleared the matter up with a phone call, confirming that Bob's Wild Kingdom was not, in fact, missing a cougar. Did I mention that Liz's maiden name was Riley? As in sister to Don Riley, head of our efficient OPP detachment?
"So they cleared up that cougar thing," I said as Larry refilled my coffee.
