Bodies and Sole (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

To whoever is looking at this, I hope you don't misjudge me.
Mebbe I shouldn't even be writing it, but the truth should be set down somewhere, and if someone is reading this, then I guess they are meant to be reading this.

I killed Roger Murray…

“A confession!” Hy's eyes lit up.

“Keep reading.”

Finn had encouraged her to keep looking when they got home to the pile of papers on the table. Hy began to go through them again as Finn made tea. He brought the pot and some mugs to the table. Whacky was purring, asleep in the bottom of the box. Hy had begun to toss the papers back in after giving each a second look, back and front, not bothering about the cat, knowing she would jump out as soon as she felt inconvenienced.

Instead, Whacky rose up out of the box on her hind legs and began batting the papers back at Hy. It became quite a game. Hy tired of it sooner than the cat.

“Okay, Whacky.” She grabbed the cat around the chest to pull her out.

Whacky stuck her hind legs stubbornly up against the box and dug her claws in. Hy stood up, holding a cat and a box. She shook the cat, but Whacky hung on. Finally, Hy gave up, and put them both down on the table.

Finn reached forward and stroked the cat's whiskers. Whacky started to purr, and jumped out of the box to nuzzle Finn.

“Maybe she's trying to tell you something. Let's check the box again.”

While Whacky snaked her way, purring loudly, around Finn's neck, he removed the few papers in the box. And saw it. The tiny corner of a piece of paper stuck in the bottom folds. He pulled it out. Gave it to her. That's what she was reading.

I killed Roger Murray…

I had to. I had no choice. He forced me to do it.

Hy was reading aloud. She looked up at Finn. He raised an eyebrow.

“Forced?”

“That's what it says.”

Frank led Moira to the wigwam with the best view of the shore. The one where he had prepared a comfortable bed for them.

“You did this for me?” There was something inexpressible in Moira's face. Frank couldn't tell if she was happy or sad. She remained silent as she absorbed every loving detail.

The beautiful white sheets.

The fat goose down duvet.

The dozens of candle lanterns glowing.

No one had ever done anything like this for her.

Moira melted. She melted into Frank's arms as he had hoped she would. She began to shiver as the cold left her. The cold that had been inside her always. It came out in waves, in shudders. It scared Frank. But slowly it ebbed and Moira slipped down onto the bed. Frank sat down beside her. The cold was gone, and she was ready to let the warmth in.

By morning, Moira would be glowing like the bride she was.

And Frank would be resolved to stop fooling around with his customers, no matter how willing.

He had Moira now. Finally.

And Moira well and truly had Frank. And The Wigwam Village Bed and Breakfast, destined to become the most popular tourist home in The Shores – and one of the top ten on Red Island.

Run by a lovely couple. That's what their guests said.

A lovely couple.

We was out in the boat. The waves was high. I wanted to turn back, but he said we hadn't done what he brought me out for. I thought mebbe it was some kind of peacemaking – or to kill me. Nothing in between if it were Roger. He pulled out his gun. Had it tucked away in his pants. Instead of aiming it at me, as I expected, he turned it on hisself.

Again Hy looked up. Again Finn raised an eyebrow.

He said he was full of cancer. That's how the doctor had put it. He was full of cancer. It made me shiver. I could see the cancer eatin' up his bones, swellin' his organs and heart. His black heart.

“Not, strictly speaking, anatomically correct.” There was a grim smile on Finn's face. “Any of that.”

“He's not a doctor, Jim, he's a murderer.”

“We'll see. Read on.”

I come out here to kill myself, he says, and pin you with the murder. He had the gun pointed at his mouth. I leaped up and grabbed for it, and when I did, it went off, cause he had his finger on the trigger.

“Accidental death? Manslaughter?”

“Don't jump to conclusions until we've heard the whole story. There's a lot more writing there.”

It tore into his head, but I never saw it come out the other side. Didn't see much blood, neither.

“The tooth lodged in the skull,” said Finn. “The shot didn't kill him.”

“Then what did?”

Finn smiled. So did Hy. “Read on.”

Then he was groaning and thrashing about. Blood spurted out of his mouth. He was my enemy, but I couldn't let him die like that, a slow awful death. You wouldn't do it to an animal. The gun had fallen to the bottom of the boat. I picked it up, aimed it at his temple and shot him through the head.

Hy reeled back as if she'd been shot. Or had seen it happen, so vivid was the image the words conveyed.

“Murder? Manslaughter?”

“Maybe murder,” said Finn. “Would depend on the criminal justice system – and your lawyer.”

I knew I was in trouble. No one would believe I hadn't kilt him apurpose. So I threw him over the side. Well, I didn't eggsackly throw him. He was heavy, in spite of being all eat up by that cancer. Got him over the side, then sent the gun after him.

“But the gun – ”“Read on.”

Was almost two of us dead that dirty day. The waves comin' up high over the gunwales. I couldn't bucket and row at the same time. Thought I would sink, but I couldn't abandon ship cause I couldn't swim.

“What, a fisherman, and he couldn't swim?”

“Most of them can't.”

“That's just nuts.”

“Most of them will tell you there's no point in knowing how to swim – the cold water will kill you anyway.”

Near didn't make it to shore. I kept looking back out to sea, expecting him to be chasing me. I thought I saw him floating out there, coming after me. I finally got to shore and pulled the dory up with the last of my strength. I collapsed right there in the sand at the edge of the water. Conked out in the pouring rain.

When I came to, the boat was gone – slipped out into the water. Looking for Roger, mebbe.

The boat was gone, but the gun was there, in hand's reach. It had washed ashore right alongside me. What a fright that gave me. I grabbed it and concealed it in my jacket. Just in time. Someone had spotted me on the shore. That turned out lucky. Everyone assumed Roger had gone down with the boat and I'd been swept to shore. I didn't tell them any different.

I sneaked into Roger's that night and put the gun with his others, so it wouldn't be missed. And I prayed every day that his body wouldn't wash up on shore.

“I bet it got stuck in Six Fathom Hole or Nine Fathom Hole or Mack's Hole,” said Hy. They were names of deep holes in the ocean floor just off shore.

“And just got unstuck recently.”

Hy and Finn looked up, startled, to see Jamieson standing in the kitchen. She'd somehow managed to come in the screen door without it squeaking. She'd listened, silently, to most of the tale of Orwell's journey back to shore.

Jamieson held out her hand to retrieve the paper.

“Something I missed,” she said. “I guess I have to thank you for this, but you know – ”

“You should charge me for this.”

Jamieson's refrain.

Strictly speaking, Hy had permission from Wally, but not from Jamieson.

Jamieson smiled.

“You'd need to verify the handwriting for that to be useful evidence.” Finn had his hands folded on top of a few scraps of paper.

“There are other samples in there.” Jamieson gestured impatiently at the pile beside the empty box.

Finn lifted his hands.

“The samples are here. Precious few. A word here. A phrase there. Just notes quickly scribbled. Not really enough to go on. Nothing definitive.”

Jamieson frowned. She'd always found these forensic types a pain in the ass. Even if you had a confession in your hands, they could put a hole in it. As big and effective as the one in Roger Murray's skull.

“We can't say he wrote this without a doubt, especially as they taught handwriting so rigorously fifty years ago. Everyone was supposed to write the same. The same loops and curves they had to practice over and over again. It was like a brand. You might plant a footmark in the clay of a well-known brand of shoe, and the criminal might have that kind of shoe, but there would have to be specific marks – of wear, of a flaw or damage – something peculiar to that shoe alone, to say it was his shoe. Same with the handwriting.”

“But we could surmise – ”

“Surmise all you want, but I bet two different handwriting experts could come up with two different answers on this. And, even if they agreed, defence could argue he wrote it under duress. Who's to prove or disprove that?”

“You'd need other evidence to even suggest there was coercion.”

“You would, but you would also need more evidence than you're willing to go on to prove your theory.”

“You don't know my theory. I don't know my theory.”

“True.”

“Give me a minute.” Jamieson sat down, clutching the paper. She scanned Orwell's confession. She looked up, straight at Finn.

“And my theory is?”

“That Orwell Crane murdered Roger Murray, and confessed to the crime.”

“Possibly manslaughter.”

“Possibly manslaughter.”

“But it was fifty years ago.” Hy got up to refresh the teapot. “Are you really going to open it up?”

“Yes,” said Jamieson. “And close it.”

As it happened, that occurred only in her mind. Budgetary restraints being what they were, detachment wasn't interested in a fifty-year-old case that had never been on the books. No one had reported Roger missing or dead. They hadn't thought to do it. The Shores was cut off from the main island now, and it most certainly was fifty years before, when transportation in winter was by horse and sled. The village had had to be self-sufficient, and the villagers took care of their business on their own.

“Drownded or kilt by Orwell Crane, both men were dead, so what good did it do bringing in the po-lees from away?” Gus spoke for the entire village on that point.

In fact, Roger Murray's entire existence was a question mark, detachment had pointed out. There was no certificate of birth. His parents – non-believers – had never had him baptized or entered in the parish records.

Even the confession didn't impress. Scratches on paper by an author unknown. No witness to the document.

Jamieson found herself having to deal with Superintendent Constable, who'd made The Shores his special beat since he'd first got involved in a case there the year before.

The Superintendent's last name had always been a problem and may have been responsible for his rise through the ranks because it was silly referring to Constable Constable. He had always been incompetent. Now that he was a superintendent he'd been put out to pasture with this assignment on Red Island.

Put out to golf, more like, thought Jamieson.

The Superintendent was more often found on the links than in his office, and he'd picked The Shores as his special turf because, well, such a small village, how busy could it be?

He had very little interest in current crime. He certainly had none in a case over fifty years old. Not even murder.

“Not going to open it up. It's closed to begin with,” he told Jamieson.

“But I have a confession.”

“Murderer alive today?”

“No. Dead but…”

“The victim?”

“The victim?”
What was he asking?

“Still alive?”

“Dead, obviously.”

“This confession…”

“A written confession.”

The superintendent glanced impatiently at his watch. He was going to be late for tee off.

“Not worth the paper it's written on. It is written on paper?”

“Yes.”

“You have a skull?”

“Yes.”

“A gun?”

“Yes.”

“Well…”

A long pause suggested the superintendent was thinking. Hope rose in Jamieson.

“A confession. A skull, with bullet holes. A gun.”

“Yes. Yes. And yes.”

Again a long silence.

“Not enough. Sorry, my dear. Simply not enough. It all goes back to the victim. No proof he ever existed. If we tried to make a case of it, we'd be a laughingstock.”

Jamieson was furious. But he was her superior officer. What could she say? Do? Other than return the evidence and close the case.

A case she'd never opened.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jamieson soon had other more important and more immediate
matters to occupy her. Unknown to her, they were sitting in Hy's mailbox when she passed by on her morning rounds.

Hy didn't go down to the mailbox until later and excitement surged through her when she saw the Massachusetts postmark. Finn's friend in Boston. In spite of eagerness that made her hands shake, she didn't open it. Finn deserved the honour.

She hopped on her bicycle, and, with envelope clutched in one hand, sped down to The Shore Lane.

Finn had more or less moved into Gus's house. Gus didn't mind. There was plenty of room. But she did stipulate separate bedrooms. She had no idea if Finn and Dot obeyed. Gus didn't go upstairs anymore. The bedroom she shared with Abel was downstairs.

Hy stumbled over her feet in her rush to get up the stairs. She scraped a shin and twisted an ankle. Still, she had a big grin when she burst into the house. It was eleven o'clock. They were eating lunch. Or dinner. Or whatever. Gus, Dot and Finn were seated at the dining room table. Dottie was in her high chair.

Hy charged in, shoved the envelope at Finn and grabbed a seat, her eyes shining with expectation.

He picked up a knife, slit the envelope open neatly, and spent far too long, in Hy's view, scanning the contents.

“Well?” she said impatiently.

“Well,” he said. “Pretty conclusive.” He paused, on purpose, teasing them all.

“Arsenic. Lots of it.”

“Is that what it says?”

“That's what it means.” He flashed the paper, with its columns and numbers and scientific terms.

“Arsenic where?”

“In the hair, in the water. Not in the Jello crystals.”

“Just what we thought.” Hy jumped up. “If I show this to Jamieson, will she understand it?”

“She will, if I go with you.”

Marlene and Gladys Fraser had joined forces to object to Frank's building of the Wigwam Village. Heritage, in Marlene's mind, was European, the only kind to which the province should be giving its stamp of approval.

Marlene insisted that the department of tourism would not countenance these temporary structures as part of the heritage landscape.

“Heritage landscape,” growled Frank when Marlene tried to make her point to him one morning. He dumped the plate of poached eggs and toast on the table in front of her.

“Heritage landscape,” he growled again, scanning his creation through the window. The light fabric was billowing on the sea breeze and the wigwams appeared to be dancing. His face softened. “And maybe it is,” he said. “Fitting. Very fitting.” He slipped out of the room and headed for the computer.

The next day, Marlene's “anti tipi” campaign began. She'd enlisted the aid of W.I. president Gladys Fraser. Gladys had agreed to throw her weight around to force Frank and Moira to dismantle the village.

The two women mounted a door-to-door campaign to protest and gather support. In spite of the set-to with Frank, they started at Moira's own door. Frank had said one thing, but Moira might say something else entirely.

They could have taken a clue from the wedding necklace Moira was wearing.

She wore it everywhere, with everything, even with her apron, although it looked ridiculous, the fabulous creation with her plain brown housedress. She listened with a grim frown as the two women raised their objections to the First Nations Village, as she liked to think of it. More dignified than Wigwam.

“It's Frank's heritage project. Right at the heart of the celebrations.”

“But it has nothing to do with The Shores. It's The Shores celebration, not some indigenous affair.”

Moira didn't know what indigenous meant, but Frank rescued her. He came to the door and put his arm around his wife. He had done his homework.

“It has everything to do with The Shores. This was a summer camp for the Mi'kmaq. They travelled here with their wigwams and fished from the shore and the pond, until they moved in the fall and winter to get away from the fierce north shore winds. There would have been wigwams dotting the landscape here long before there were any fields.”

Marlene just stood there with her mouth open, unable to think of a comeback. Gladys frowned. Gladys always frowned.

“Can we offer you some tea?” Moira asked brightly.

“No,” said the women in unison, and Marlene, forgetting she was staying there, marched off with Gladys. They soon tired of their mission and gave it up.

Jamieson stared at the paper Hy had thrust into her hands. It didn't make a lot of sense to her, but she was willing to believe what Finn told her. She wasn't so willing to accept how the evidence had been gathered.

Under dark of night. From the well, without the owner's permission. Could you steal well water? Certainly you could trespass on someone's property. But no one had made an accusation.

It wasn't the first time Jamieson had been forced to turn a blind eye to Hy's activities.

She sighed. Worse than the water was the hair. True, she'd told Jamieson that she'd been in the house, but now she was asking her to accept as evidence something that had been gained illegally, and by illegal entry.

“I can't use this,” Jamieson said, poking at the reference to the arsenic content in the hair.

“But it's proof. Proof she murdered him…them. Probably.”

“No,” said Jamieson. “It's only proof that he ingested arsenic.” Jamieson had been hit by the forensic bug, thought Hy. What good were forensics if they didn't confirm for you what common sense said was so?

Hy appealed to Finn. Before she could say a word, he was shaking his head. “She's right, Hy. We know there was arsenic in his system, but we have no idea, no proof, only speculation, of how it got in there.”

“Then there's Moira and Cyril. Both ill from eating Jello made with that water. Aren't they our proof? The well water. Loaded with arsenic.”

Finn smiled. “Not quite loaded.”

“But enough to kill someone?”

“Over time, yes.”

It was a line of investigation Jamieson preferred to pursue.

“I could get a legal sample of the water,” she said. “But first I'm going to check with the provincial testing people to see what their records show.”

“Right.” Hy brightened. “Vera must have had the water tested to purchase the house, and the department's records would show what was in it.”

“It might be arsenic, in which case, why did she use the well, or it might be clean…”

“In which case it could mean she put it there.”

“We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime…” Jamieson gestured at Finn. “I'll keep these if you don't mind. And let's keep quiet about this.”

“You better move fast. There's a man at risk.”

“Cyril?”

“Yes.”

“I'm on it.”

Jamieson didn't like to be told what to do, but she knew Hy could be right. It would have been better, perhaps, if she'd listened to her before now.

No sooner was Jamieson's door shut behind them than Hy was jumping up and down.

“She killed them. She killed them all.” Then her glee abated.

“She's killing him. Cyril. I hope Jamieson moves her ass.”

Jamieson was already on the phone to the provincial water-testing unit.

It wasn't long before, extension by extension, she reached the man who was able to divulge to her the contents of the analysis of the well at the Sullivan house, and the letter that had been sent to the new proprietor about dangerous arsenic levels caused likely by years of pesticide use in the neighbouring fields.

So she knew.

Vera knew there was arsenic in her water. If they only knew, it had clinched the deal on the house.

Moira and Hy knew there was a lot of bottled water in her fridge.

Never used to make Jello.

Hy's FB Status: You can turn your late love into a pencil. Correction… 240 pencils. A body makes a box. If the box has a sharpener built in, you can write with his remains.
Likes: 3
Comments: Who uses pencils anymore?
And you can erase 'er. LOL.

With the exception of Marlene and Gladys, everyone liked the Wigwam Village. Island videographer Lester Joudry came out to document it and the rest of the media soon followed.

Marlene was in PR heaven, taking the credit with the tourism department, for the “buzz” she claimed to have created.

Time Was
hit the stands and sold out on the island in twenty-four hours. Fortunately, several boxes had been reserved for the village. Each villager, right down to Dottie, got a free copy.

Hy had guided editing of the book all the way, refusing any corrections in spelling and grammar or changes to content, written and photographic. She insisted it be published just as Gus had made it, including the story of the man who grew a bean sprout out of his forehead after a fall in a field in the spring. It was illustrated by Dot at age six.

It wasn't a lot different than many of the type of book that communities on the island had self-published over the years, but Gus's profound knowledge and wit took it over the top, all carefully recorded and transcribed by her daughter Dot. Gus's YouTube presence, achieved with a few pointers from Lester Joudry, had the media flocking to her door. She was the hottest media favourite on Red Island and beyond – and the grandmother everyone wished they'd had.

She did play hard to get, though.

“Well, they'll have to come here. I don't go all the way into Charlottetown except to the doctor and to the Exhibition if I've got a quilt in.” There was a gleam in Gus's eye.

“They've made me a senior now, you know. That means there's less competition. Most of them my age aren't living anymore.”

And so the media came to Gus Mack, and she presided on her throne – the purple rocker recliner now showing signs of wear on the arms. CBC radio and TV combined to do their interview, so as not to tire the old lady. Hy and Dot were there. To support her? No, to watch the show.

“Bin lookin' out this window more than sixty years,” she said when asked where her knowledge of the community came from.

And the thing that surprised her most in all those years? The interviewer's eyes were slightly glazed, prepared to be bored by the stories of this old lady.

“My husband Abel flying out of the General Store when a propane tank exploded. Landed not too far from here. Abel. Not the tank. On his feet. Not a hair on his head harmed. Just in time for lunch.”

The reporters knew then that they had a live one, and she didn't disappoint. Told stories that made them laugh. One that made the hardened interviewer tearful.

“…died for love, Albert did. Hanged himself, he did, in the barn. Abel found him and cut him down. Shouldna, I guess, but he couldn't stand to see him up there one more moment. Kilt himself for love, Albert did. Forty years he waited for that woman to come back from the Boston States. She never did. Guess he just couldn't wait any more.”

“She wowed them,” Hy told Ian later. “She was really on form. Top form.”

The entire village huddled in front of the TV that night to watch Gus on CBC Compass.

The opening shot showed Gus holding Dottie, with superimposed script reading “Great-Grandmother Gives Birth.”

The shot dissolved into Gus, in exactly the same position, but now holding
Time Was: 200 Years at The Shores.

Gus was shocked by the headline. “So help me Hannah. I'm just a grandma.” But she was tickled to see the cover of
Time Was
, designed like a crazy quilt.

“Not an artist, mind.” She rocked the chair back and forth. “No, never was an artist, but I'd say that was pretty good.”

The media attention caught public attention. Soon Gus and her book were all over the Internet. The CBC TV clip about Abel with vintage photos of the old store went viral, the first edition of
Time Was
sold out across the country, and the publisher rushed a second edition into print.

A while later, Gus showed Hy a letter she'd received from the publisher.

“Wants to know how to disburse the funds.”

“They're yours.”

“Not rightly. Those aren't my stories. They belong to The Shores.”

“Then give the money to the hall. The Women's Institute will never have to worry about its upkeep again.”

Gus nodded and rocked.

“Yes. I like that. We'll set a bit aside for Dottie, mind, being as she doesn't have a father.”

“I'm sure there will be plenty to go around.”

There was. The book was a steady seller at the hall and tourists weren't shy to come knocking at Gus's door to get an autograph. She sold quite a few from the comfort of her rocking chair. Especially when she hinted at her family connection to the island's iconic authoress, Lucy Maud Montgomery. The Campbells of Cavendish? No, it would have been on the mother's side, the armchair genealogists speculated.