Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper Read Free Book Online

thousand satellite channels to watch for that particular half-hour—two hundred miles from the world lies the north. And I don’t belong.
    The only indications that forest might soon be giving way to an outpost of civilization are the two or three roadside stands that begin to appear, clapboard rectangles wedged into the trees: one for blueberries, one firewood, one earthworms, all closed. The area had long ago been touted as a future destination for wealthy Torontonians once the four-lane highway was extended north as promised by a provincial government ousted four or five elections ago. However, after some bean-counter pointed out the cost of the project and its unlikely benefits, the extension was never undertaken. Those wealthy Torontonians not already in possession of family summer places either stayed put or ponied up the dough to get their foot in the Establishment door in Muskoka, having wisely decided that five hours was too long a drive just to smell pine sap six weekends a year.
    Still, there must have been a few who took the bait, for there, stencilled onto a slab of wood resting against the town sign that tells me where I am (MURDOCH—pop. 4400—GATEWAY TO THE MID-NORTH) and the local service clubs(Optimists and Rotary only) is the now-belated greeting, WELCOME BACK, SUMMER PEOPLE!
    “I am not a summer person,” I say out loud as I pass at a speed that most would consider improper for a town populated by young pedestrians, seniors and pets. “I am a man for all seasons.”
    I search for lodgings. The first candidate is the Sunshine Motor Inn on the edge of town. Comfortable enough looking in a homely, anonymous way, but currently suffering from “renovations” which consist of a pickup truck of yokels knocking down a wall in the reception area and hammering a bar in place on the other side to make way for what the owner winkingly promises will be the town’s new “meeting place.” It’s immediately clear that the future of the Sunshine lies in providing shelter to adulterous middle-agers for the half-hour they require to complete their blub-bery poundings. While this type of market repositioning doesn’t trouble me, the shriek of circular saws and the grunted profanities of workmen does. On the way back to my car I seek the advice of one of the hammer-holders who appears to be acting as foreman (sporting a shirt and the fewest tattoos) as to alternative accommodation.
    “You stayin’ in town?”
    “Or as near to it as possible.”
    “Well, the only other hotel round here is The Empire. But nobody stays there but the peelers.”
    “The owner’s family?”
    “They’re no family. Peelers are strippers, man.”
    “Ah! How do I get there?”
    “Downtown. Across from the old Bank of Commerce.”
    “I’m not familiar with it, but I’m sure The Empire’s marquee will be a sufficient beacon.”
    This brings a smile to the foreman’s lips, or what may be a smile. A brief exposure of blackened gums before he returns to his work.
    The Empire Hotel. I like the sound of it, its suggestions of local history and color. The former jewel of the county with a once distinguished tavern on the main floor and high-ceilinged rooms above, one likely containing a bed that was once given the business by some duchess or prince visiting the colonies as part of their regrettable royal obligations. Every Ontario town has such a place, and most have either gone pay-by-the-week or been gutted and drywalled into bingo halls. But with a name that Protestant, that splendidly Victorian, that naively overreaching— The Empire Hotel —how far could it have declined during the region’s intervening decades of brief boom and prolonged bust?
    The Empire Hotel sits at one end of Murdoch’s main thoroughfare, Ontario Street, and the County Court House at the other. Between them there’s a coffee shop with floral curtains halfway up its grease-coated windows, a used bookstore, used children’s clothing store, as well as a