Orillia was squeezed between the eight-lane highway and the south and west shores of Lake Couchiching. Part of the town spilled south of the lake, filling the gap between it and Lake Simcoe, which hooked up with the smaller lake at The Narrows. Like the great city of Rome, Orillia seemed to be built on seven hills as well, with streets climbing away from you towards the highway or sloping away from you towards the docks of the port. A large information booth that was set up here for tourists was having a busy day. Men and women in shorts or cutoff jeans were filing in and out carrying maps and brochures back to their cars as though they spelled the way to ease from earthly pain. I spotted a restaurant between two stone buildings that must have gone back to the early years of the community.
The meal at the Town and Country wasn’t exactly gourmet fare, but while I scanned the menu, I was watching a living diorama of busy Orillians taking their ease.
“I’ve had that car on blocks for two years, Lyal, and I don’t dare fill them tires without a damned good reason.” Lyal was wearing a grey T-shirt, blue pants, a heavy brass bracelet and yellow work boots. His pal wore a peaked blue cap, a light-blue shirt and running shoes. He’d hung a blue-on-blue windbreaker on the back of his chair.
“You got no call to talk like that, Bert. I only asked if she ran, is all.”
“You know as much about cars as you do about livestock.”
“The hell I do!”
“You couldn’t breed rabbits, Lyal. You know that!” said Bert with finality.
The restaurant was furnished in reproduced captain’s chairs, with captain’s stools next to the bar, where a Molson’s Export sign winked at the thirsty. A big Coke cooler filled the part of one wall that wasn’t occupied by the kitchen hatchway.
“What can I get youse?” This last was a red-headed waitress with a blue butterfly tattooed on her bare arm. She wasn’t chewing gum nor was there a pencil stuck in her hair, but her apron and salmon-pink uniform were starched and pressed as though they came from a roller mill.
“What’s the soup today?”
“Too hot for soup,” she announced flatly. I moved my finger further down the menu. I placed my order and tried to move my ears away from the discussion.
At another table, what looked like a small-town lawyer was eating a piece of apple pie, his chin nearly touching the plate. He was wearing a worn brown tweed jacket. Pens and pencils filled his shirt pocket beside a greasy necktie. Next to him, his briefcase threatened to explode, sending tattered pieces of writs and processes around the room. When my chopped-egg sandwich on white bread came, I tried to think of what awaited me in Toronto when I got back. Vanessa was probably still in L.A. and might be there for another day or so. That would leave me free to continue my digging. I would mend my fences with Sykes and Boyd by giving them the shotgun and shells. If that didn’t work, I’d try something else. I didn’t know what that might be, but I knew that I always thought of something.
Back on the street, I found a second-hand bookstore, where I saw a clutch of Perry Masons. For five dollars, the clerk agreed to send them on for me. Before I’d quite got back to the street, I returned to change the instructions I’d given: I’d written Ed Patel’s address as “care of Croft’s Funeral Home.”
Next, I headed for the newspaper office on Colborne Street and found it in the block between Peter and West. This was a busy block, containing the fire hall, the police station and a Tim Hortons restaurant.
The office of the Orillia Packet amp; Times was busy that noon hour. A man in an old-fashioned straw hat, carrying a tuba in a case, was filling in a subscription form. A woman in pink shorts and a sweatshirt reading “It’s not ale if it isn’t Charles Wells” was waiting for him to finish. Was Charles Wells beer and ale taking over the Canadian market, I wondered, or were two sightings of advertisements on clothing just a coincidence? I’d have to be on the lookout for another appearance.
The capable woman behind the counter had sculptured jet-black hair with a shock of white at the front. She was trying not to nibble the temple of the glasses she was holding near her mouth. She was short and buxom and was grinning at something interesting going on inside her head that had nothing to do with the Orillia Packet amp; Times. A photograph of what I guessed were her grandchildren stood on the desk to which she returned from time to time. When I came to her notice, I explained that I wanted to see copies of the paper going back several weeks, to May, in fact. I was looking for the write-up of a talk given on the evening of the fifteenth of May.
“Aren’t you on-line?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?” I looked around to see if there was anyone in line who might claim to be ahead of me.
“The information is obtainable on the Internet.” She said this as though explaining quantum theory to a six-year-old.
“Oh!” I stuttered. “I don’t have my laptop in the car.”
“You’d better come around and let me set you up. Clarence won’t be back until after lunch. If I hadn’t packed a lunch this morning, I’d close up this place for an hour. And just let anybody complain.” She lifted a flap in the countertop and showed me into an office that sported a framed poster of an old-fashioned reporter hollering into a telephone: “Make it snappy, sweetheart, and get me Rewrite!” I thought of Vanessa’s description of Ken Trebitsch, the hot-shot head of News at NTC.
I was sorry not to meet Clarence, but I did find the story I was looking for as I flipped from screen to screen.The Junior Chamber of Commerce, meeting jointly with the Orillia Bar Association, was treated last night to the keen wit and interesting comments of Barry Bosco, a lawyer with the Toronto firm of Devlin and Devlin. Meeting in the library of the Leacock Museum on Brewery Bay, and introduced by Cam Millar, the curator of the museum, Mr. Bosco thanked the audience for coming out on a rainy evening. Reading from a prepared text, but illustrating his points with anecdotes, he kept the room with its 24 listeners enthralled for almost an hour. He talked about five of his interesting cases, which had caused a stir in legal quarters in the Ontario capital. Most interesting was his account of the baby deaths at Rose of Sharon Hospital. In thanking him afterwards, and in the act of presenting him with a T-shirt commemorating the incorporation of the town of Orillia as a city, Ernie Moffatt expressed the sentiments of most of those in attendance when he said, “Hopefully, we hope that you’ll come back and see us again before too long.” The deputy mayor, Harry J. Torgov, seconded the motion to adjourn to the next stage of the evening’s entertainment. Tea and cookies were served, with special thanks to Mrs. Halpern and her committee. The speaker informally chatted with his audience afterwards.
When I pulled myself away from the back issues of the Orillia Packet amp; Times, I saw the woman with the shock of white in her black hair explaining to a newcomer that she couldn’t guarantee anyone the size of a photograph that would mark the winning of Sunday’s regatta. “It’s expensive to run a picture more than two or three columns, Carla. Besides, pictures is another department. Talk to Clarence when he’s finished drinking his lunch over at the Rendezvous.” Carla went out in a hurry. My friend behind the counter knew how to get Clarence back to work when she wanted him. Before I left, I asked her if any pictures were taken at the time of the Junior Chamber and Orillia Bar meeting at the museum. She opened a drawer on her side of the counter and came up with a grey manila envelope.