"I can guess the rest, but I have to ask, why me?"
"Cosmo Leach, serendipity I don't know. Maybe it's because Doctor Leach spent one whole lecture on you. I just happened to be reading your The Terror of Teacup at the same time he dumped that lecture on us. Knowing Cosmo, he probably never told you, but he's quite a fan of yours, too."
I ignored Brenda's assessment of Cosmo's opinion. I knew the old fart well enough to know that his opinion could change with nothing more than a little gas on the stomach. "Let's vault right into your conclusion. You discovered some pretty weird stuff in some dusty old books. How convinced are you that there is anything to all of this?"
"There's something to it, all right. I can feel it."
I took a sip of coffee and agreed with her. "You're right. There's something going on here, but I just don't know what yet. What I do have to ask you is, why share it? Why not track it down yourself?"
"Money," she said simply. "I'm broke. I can't even afford to pay attention."
"So you want me to follow up on this?"
"Precisely, but only if you think it's worth the time and effort."
I started to laugh. Brenda Cashman was a cagey one; she knew I was hooked. It was simply a case of reeling in the line, and I was all too aware that she had already started. Still I had to ask. "I'm missing something here. Suppose I do follow up on this, and it turns out to be one helluva story. What do you get out of it?"
The Cashman smile had gone from manufactured to genuine; I was talking her language. "Two things," she admitted. "You follow up, and if this leads where I think it leads, you've got yourself one spine-tingling, dark fantasy in the making. Then, while your publisher is doing his thing, I use the same data to write my obscure, albeit sensational thesis and complete the requirements for my doctorate."
"Intriguing bit of chicanery," I admitted. In truth, it's a little tough to negotiate nose to nose with someone who's broke and struggling to get their credentials. Only a prick would chip away at an offer like hers, and I wasn't feeling prickish on this particular morning. "So, let's see what it is that triggered your trip to Saint Francis."
She hauled out the bulky, oversized portfolio and reached into a side pocket, emerging with two pieces of paper. She unfolded them and slid them across the table.
The first was datelined Chambers Bay, Ontario. Just the location of the report triggered a couple of extra beats in my old pulse rate. Actually it was nothing more than a filler item, the kind the layout folks use to balance out the copy on a page of newsprint. The brief paragraph detailed how a local lad in the vicinity of Chambers Bay had discovered two of his prize sheep, mutilated and half-eaten, amidst a scene of extensive destruction in the woods adjacent to his father's farm. I reread the item twice and handed it back to her. It was a long way from being conclusive evidence in support of anything.
The second item had more substance to it. Only this time it was a horse and, according to the article, a big horse. The article indicated the big animal had been killed and eaten on the spot. Again there was the mention of extensive damage to the surrounding countryside, but there was a kicker in this report. Authorities reported finding unusual animal prints over the entire area. The prints were described as being quite large, almost 14 inches in span and yet quite similar to that of a human — except that there were three fingers and two thumbs.
Brenda was reading the article right along with me. "Ta da," she said musically when I came to the punch line. "Harken back ye skeptics to the Battle Harbor CBC report… 'two thumbs, three fingers with a rather large space between the two sets'."
It was my turn to slump back in the seat. From there I stared at her over the breakfast clutter. In my mind it was no longer a loose set of somewhat similar incidents. We suddenly had a tie-in. "What kind of animal has two thumbs and three fingers?" I muttered.
Brenda went back to her battered case and fished out a Xerox copy of an article from National Geographic; the subject was Australia, and it featured the koala bear. "They do," she said triumphantly.
"A koala bear? Come on, koalas are cuddly little things."
"I didn't say it was a koala bear. I simply said there is such an animal — one that has two thumbs and three fingers."
The E.G. Wages penchant for trivia was emerging. I was reaching back into one of those dark convolutions of my cluttered mind, trying to remember what I knew about koala bears. As I recalled, koalas aren't really bears. They're marsupials, and they have some sort of strange ability in their digestive systems to convert toxic substances to food value. Koalas. My mind was spinning.
"Well, Mr. Wages, have we got something here, or have we got something here?" There was a definite smirk on her face.
"It's two weeks till the fall semester starts. I suppose I could take a little jaunt up to Chambers Bay and poke around."
"When do we leave?"
"Whoa! Wait a minute! I don't recall…"
"No, you wait a minute, Elliott Grant Wages; it's my research, my idea, my theory. There's no way you can shut me out now."
"But I…"
Again she cut me off. "Go back to the beginning. I said I wanted two things. You get your book, and I get my thesis — that's one. Number two is — I go with you." With that she made one final swipe of her plate with the bottom half of her biscuit, jammed it in her mouth and gave me a contrived smile. "I'm ready when you are."
PART 2
There are two ways to get to Chambers Bay. You can fly into Thunder Bay and backtrack — or commit to 17 long hours behind the wheel over the Mackinac and take the southern leg of the Transcan. The population gets pretty sparse north of the Sault and thinner still after you put Wawa behind you. It's not exactly what you would call primitive country, but full-fledged city folks might well find it a tad intimidating.
Brenda, who admitted to a fair amount of cross-country wandering in her earlier days, seemed quite at ease with a landscape dotted by jewel-like lakes laced together by pine forests as far as the eye could see. At Turpin we turned south off of the main road and followed the lake shore road to a small motel that obviously catered to fishermen. The late August sun was just beginning to dip behind two craggy outcroppings off of Tacker Point when we finally stopped.
The young man behind the desk was tall and too slender, with long wavy red-brown hair parted down the middle. He had haunting, deep-set brown eyes that peered out from their hiding place under a prominent ridge that traversed the width of his forehead. He was the possessor of a full, sensuous mouth that seemed somehow to be curved into a permanent pout, and his unusual clothes hung straight down much like they would from a wire hanger. On balance, and I hate to use this word in describing a man, he was "beautiful." He eyed Brenda with a peculiar kind of envy.
"Any rooms left in the inn?" I chirped.
The young man nodded without uttering a word and pushed an old-fashioned desk ledger across the surface at me.
"I'll need two rooms," I announced, louder than necessary. I had no intention of giving anybody an excuse to call me a lecher. Actually, I've known a lot of couples with a greater age disparity than my traveling companion and yours truly — but that was their problem, not mine.
Our silent and sullen desk clerk produced two keys, laid them on the registration desk and promptly disappeared behind a draped doorway behind the desk. He had accomplished the whole sign-in process without speaking or, for that matter, without changing his expression.
Brenda, to my amazement, hadn't said anything either. Somehow, I had the feeling she was holding back.
I managed to get our luggage out of the crammed little Z and carry it down the row of dingy doors badly in need of a good coat of paint. The room numbers were designated by shiny little black plastic numerals, the kind that could be purchased in any dime store. I gave Brenda the key to number seven, and I took number eight. We were inside before I realized that the two rooms were connected, again by a draped doorway. The young woman must have detected a look of consternation. "Don't worry," she flipped, "I promise not to peek."