Something Suspicious in Sask Read online

  SOMETHING

  SUSPICIOUS IN

  SASKATCHEWAN

  SOMETHING

  SUSPICIOUS IN

  SASKATCHEWAN

  Dayle Campbell Gaetz

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2006 Dayle Campbell Gaetz

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Gaetz, Dayle, 1947-

  Something suspicious in Saskatchewan / Dayle Campbell Gaetz.

  ISBN 1-55143-565-9

  I. Title.

  PS8563.A25317S64 2006 jC813’.54 C2006-903480-X

  First published in the United States, 2006

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2006928998

  Summary: Rusty and Katie uncover a sinister plot to run their aunt off the family farm.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Doug McCaffry

  Cover illustration by Ljuba Levstek

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Stn. B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada

  09 08 07 06 • 5 4 3 2 1

  Other books in this mystery series by

  Dayle Campbell Gaetz

  Mystery from History

  Barkerville Gold

  Alberta Alibi

  For Kristin K.,

  a young and promising Saskatchewan writer.

  Acknowledgments

  To Harry, who owns a two thousand–acre farm in southern Saskatchewan, thanks for so patiently answering my many farm-related questions when we happened to sit next to you at Tim Hortons in Moose Jaw. And to Harry’s assistant, originally from Neepawa, thanks for your input as well, and for suggesting we visit Margaret Laurence House in your home-town in Manitoba.

  To “Gump” (Greg Gumpinger) at Moody’s Equipment Ltd. in Unity, Saskatchewan, thanks for not laughing at an ignorant West Coaster’s questions and for providing such excellent information about that amazing range of huge farm machinery.

  To Andrew Wooldridge, thanks once again for your always valuable editing advice.

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  1

  Katie pushed damp curls back from her forehead with hot sweaty fingers. She leaned sideways to peer past GJ’s right ear. That straight dirt road still shot out in front of the truck as bland and boring as ever.

  It stretched endlessly across this dreary land until, in the distance, its two edges grew so close they seemed to touch.

  On both sides of the road were fields. Rocky fields, bumpy fields, green fields, brown fields, they stretched in all directions to a flat and featureless horizon. In a place like this a truck might drive right off the edge of the earth and vanish forever. Worse than the flatness, though, was the heat. And dust. And mosquitoes.

  “I hate Saskatchewan!” Katie announced.

  Gram poked her head around the passenger seat.

  “We’re almost at Aunt Margaret’s farm.” Her voice sounded dry and creaky as if she just woke up. “We’ll all feel better when we get there.”

  “Not me. Not if Megan’s there.”

  Gram’s dark brown eyes fixed on Katie. “Katie, give Megan a break. The last time you saw your cousin she had just lost her father, so you can’t blame her for being unhappy. Try being nice to her.”

  “I tried. It didn’t work.”

  Two years ago, when Megan and Aunt Margaret had visited them in Victoria, nothing could please her older cousin. The girl complained about everything. Tall, swooping cedars in Katie’s backyard? Gloomy and depressing. Snow-capped mountains in the distance? Get in the way of the sky. Sandy beaches teeming with life? Ew—disgusting. It stinks worse than dead fish.

  “Why’d you come here if you hate everything so much?” Katie had shot back.

  Megan’s face had crumpled, and Katie felt bad.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “You’re such a spoiled little brat! Just stay out of my face, and we’ll get along fine.”

  “Besides,” Gram continued now, “Megan was only fifteen then and going through a lot. I’m sure she’s much more mature now that she’s almost seventeen.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Katie groaned. “I really hate that I have to share my birthday with her.”

  “And I hate the way she treats me,” Rusty added, “like I’m two years old.”

  “I’m sure you three cousins will have a wonderful time together,” Gram said lamely. She must have tired of the conversation then because she flicked the radio on.

  “Superweeds threaten to take over Saskatchewan,” a man’s voice announced.

  Superweeds? Katie glanced out the window, half expecting to see a row of tree-sized weeds waving their hairy green leaves over the road, bending down, waiting to grab any unsuspecting truck that came along.

  “Aren’t you exaggerating?” a woman suggested.

  “Not at all. These big biotech companies have unleashed a monster no one can control. They’ve genetically manipulated canola DNA and made new species that herbicides can’t touch. The pollen blows through the air and contaminates other fields. Every year weeds become resistant to stronger herbicides. How do we farmers ever get rid of a superweed like that?”

  “I guess that’s for scientists to figure out,” the woman said.

  The man chuckled sadly. “Seems like they should have figured it out before they started pushing the seed at us.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said. “We’ll take more calls after the break.”

  Katie glanced at Rusty. He looked up from his sketchbook, a puzzled frown on his face.

  “Here we are,” GJ announced.

  Beside the road was a marshy area filled with cattails. Then came a row of ordinary, leafy green trees—definitely not superweeds. Once past the trees Katie saw a white, two-story house set well back from the road. It had dark green trim and a steep green roof.

  GJ slowed the truck to make the turn. Dragging its dusty white travel trailer, the truck barreled up the long driveway toward Aunt Margaret’s house.

  “What stinks?” Rusty wrinkled his nose. “It smells like a campfire after you dump water on it.”

  “Oh no!” Gram said. “It looks as if there’s been a fire!”

  “That’s one way of killing weeds,” GJ remarked.

  “Revenge on the superweeds!” Rusty shouted.

  Katie leaned toward the window on Rusty’s side. A barbed wire fence ran alongside the driveway, and beyond it the wide lumpy field was black as soot. Scattered tendrils of gray smoke rose out of the charred ugliness and twisted into the still air. Fen
ce posts beside the driveway were nothing more than blackened charred sticks held in place by long strands of barbed wire.

  At the end of the driveway, across from the house, stood two white-planked sheds, about thirty feet apart. The remains of a third shed, closer to the field, may once have matched the other two. Now it was nothing more than a dirty cement foundation and a few charcoal-black posts pointing toward the endless blue sky.

  Katie covered her nose against the acrid smell of smoke and wet ashes. She turned to look out the other side of the truck. On a square of dry brown grass in front of the farmhouse was a partly finished rock wall. Not far away stood a small stack of dusty gray rocks. Someone had made a feeble attempt at a garden in the dirt behind the rock wall, but nothing remained now except a forlorn little cluster of brown flowers that hung their heads in shame.

  “Maybe the superweeds got them,” Katie said, and Rusty laughed.

  GJ blasted on the horn as they passed the burned-out shed. He honked again as he pulled to a stop across from the screened porch. Katie watched the back porch, waiting for the screen door to burst open. She pictured Aunt Margaret running down the three steps waving her arms, a huge smile lighting up her round face.

  But nothing moved. The door didn’t open; there was no sign of life.

  “Maybe the superweeds got them,” Rusty said. Katie and Rusty both chuckled, but Gram ignored them. “Poor Margaret, she works so hard since Al died. She’s likely out working in the fields.” Gram shook her head. “I can’t understand why she doesn’t sell this place and move to Victoria.”

  Gram had been saying the same thing for two years now, ever since Uncle Al suffered a massive heart attack and died alone in the middle of a canola field.

  “I wish they already had moved,” Katie said. “Then we wouldn’t have to be here.”

  Thin streaks of white cloud veiled the sunlight, but didn’t lessen the heat. The truck grew hotter by the second. Still, the back door didn’t open.

  Despite the heat, a blur of mosquitoes swarmed around the truck as if daring the occupants to open a door.

  “I hope they left the house unlocked,” GJ said.

  “We can’t stay here much longer or we’ll roast.”

  “Maybe we should just leave,” Katie suggested.

  GJ honked the horn again, two impatient blasts.

  The sound echoed back at them from somewhere on the driveway. Instinctively Katie swung around, only to be confronted by the blank, white front of her grandparents’ travel trailer.

  GJ looked in his side mirror. “There’s a truck coming up the driveway.”

  “It must be Margaret,” Gram’s voice bubbled with excitement.

  “Wait!” Katie cried. Too late. Both Gram and GJ flung their doors open and jumped out.

  A wall of dry air slammed into the cab like a blast from a fiery oven. With it came a swirl of whining mosquitoes. Katie opened her door and slid to the ground. Puffs of dust fluttered between her bare toes, and her feet sizzled like chicken strips in a stir-fry. She ran to the back of the trailer and stopped in its narrow triangle of shade.

  A black pickup truck had pulled to a stop behind the trailer, but it wasn’t Aunt Margaret who stepped from the driver’s side. It was a square-faced man, maybe thirty years old. He was shorter than GJ, at about five foot ten, and solidly built. He wore dusty jeans, a long-sleeved blue shirt and a gray baseball cap.

  Gram made her way toward the passenger side with a cloud of mosquitoes around her head and GJ at her heels. She pulled open the door. Someone was sitting in the seat. A teenage girl with long, stringy blond hair and an ugly scowl. It had to be Megan. Or was it?

  The girl stepped slowly out of the truck and turned to drag a bulging backpack from the seat.

  It bounced on the running board and thudded to the dirt beside her. She closed the door and turned to face Gram. Her lips parted and she showed her teeth. Katie wasn’t sure if she was growling or grinning.

  Gram looked the girl up and down and glanced back at GJ, her face crinkled with uncertainty.

  No, Katie decided, this girl might look a little like Megan but was definitely not her cousin. Megan was a pretty girl, with shining blond hair, healthy glowing skin and a trim athletic build. This girl was way thin, like a stick figure, or a skeleton. Her long, skinny arms hung down like old bones from her black tank top and her elbows were sharp knobs in the middle. Even in this stifling heat she wore long black jeans, black socks and black sneakers. So how come Gram put her arms around this stranger and gave her a hug?

  Katie moved closer to investigate.

  Before she got there the man strode around the truck and slipped a protective arm across the girl’s bony shoulders.

  “Megan,” he smiled at her, a wide friendly smile that made him look years younger. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your family?” His sky-blue eyes sparkled as he looked eagerly from Gram to GJ.

  “Uh, yeah, I guess…” Megan didn’t look at the man. She didn’t look at anyone, but her eyes rolled around the farmyard in a confused way as if she were searching for something but couldn’t remember what.

  Katie tried not to stare. This was her cousin? This was Megan? It didn’t seem possible. Katie realized she could have passed Megan on the street and not had a clue who she was. For one thing, Megan looked old. Like about twenty-four, or even older. And her eyes were so huge and so wide open they bugged out of her face like the eyes of a lizard.

  Megan’s cheekbones stuck out sharply above sunken cheeks. Her lips were dark purple like a bad bruise and, far from glowing, her pale skin resembled a bowl of oatmeal porridge. Dull.

  The purple lips parted. “Uh, yeah,” Megan repeated. “Cliff, this is my grandma and my grandpa Jerry from Victoria. Gram and GJ, Cliff.”

  “Welcome to Saskatchewan.” Cliff smiled and stepped forward to shake hands first with Gram and then with GJ. Then he glanced uncertainly toward Katie and Rusty. He turned to Megan.

  “Uh,” Megan said, “and these are my uh, niece and nephew—er, no, they’re my two little cousins, Kathryn and Russell.”

  Katie rolled her eyes at Rusty. His thin red eyebrows lifted and his blue eyes twinkled in his freckled face. With a wink at Katie, he grinned a wide cheesy grin and stepped forward.

  “Well, I guess you must be old Clifford,” he said. “Glad to meet you old man. Any friend of our ancient cousin Megan is a friend of ours.” Rusty shook a surprised Cliff’s hand. “You can call me Rusty if you like, everyone else does. And Megan’s other little cousin over there likes to be called Katie.”

  Megan scowled.

  “Where’s your mother?” Gram asked.

  Megan glanced at her watch. “Must be in the kitchen.”

  “We honked and no one came to the door,” GJ told her.

  Megan’s eyes flicked toward Cliff and away. Two creases appeared between her eyebrows. “Said she’d be back before four—wanted to be home when you arrived.” Megan started toward the house, dragging her backpack across the dusty driveway. She stopped on the small outside porch to kick off her shoes. Seconds later the screen door slammed behind her.

  “Margaret must have the radio on,” Cliff tried to reassure Gram. “She wouldn’t have heard you.”

  The door swung open again. “She’s not here!”

  Megan called. She slipped her bare feet into a pair of shiny pink flip-flops.

  Cliff ran toward the truck. “I told her not to finish haying that field by herself! The windrower keeps breaking down.”

  “If you’re going to look for her I’m coming too,”

  Gram scrambled into the passenger seat, and GJ squeezed in beside her.

  By the time Cliff started the engine Katie and Rusty had climbed over the tailgate into the truck box and settled with their backs against the cab. Megan remained near the porch, her long, thin arms crossed over her sunken chest. She watched them go, bouncing toward the nearest field. Suddenly the truck skidded to a stop and backed up in a swirl of dust.
r />   “Hop in!” Cliff called. “We might need you.”

  “Yeah? What for?” Megan stepped back.

  “Megan, please, just get in,” Cliff pleaded.

  Megan glanced from Cliff, to the house, to the truck box. Then her shoulders slumped and she climbed in obediently. She sat down, her arms behind her, draped awkwardly over the tailgate. Her wide, watery blue eyes stared straight at Katie.

  Katie squirmed uncomfortably. She tried to avoid Megan’s eyes. But when Megan continued to stare, Katie decided to stare right back. That’s when she realized her cousin wasn’t seeing her at all. Megan’s eyes were blank and empty, looking at absolutely nothing.

  Katie turned to Rusty, a question in her eyes. He shook his head sadly.

  2

  Aunt Margaret was not hard to find. How could anything be hard to find on this land where you can see forever? Katie twisted around and leaned over the truck’s side to see where they were going. Wind blew hot and dry in her face, and the wide truck tires stirred up clouds of dust. She squinted into the distance, her eyes streamed gritty tears.

  Beyond a bright green field and a sunshine yellow one, a tall red tractor perched high above a sea of golden grass. Cliff drove straight toward it. They rode alongside a slough filled with brown and broken stalks of cattails. Dozens of red-winged blackbirds perched on the stalks like tiny sentinels with scarlet patches on their shoulders. Standing in the murky water was a post that supported an object the size of a rural mailbox. Its thick cylindrical walls were made of tightly woven straw. The inside looked hollow.

  Katie wondered what it was. She turned to ask Megan, but one glance at her cousin’s blank stare and she changed her mind.

  The truck bumped to a stop near the tractor, and Katie clambered over the side. She landed in tall golden grass. Or maybe it was hay—yes, this must be the hay field Cliff mentioned.