The Dead Letter (10 page)

27.

The Charlottetown Police had no current address on John Dawson. In fact, they had no knowledge of his release—at least that's what they claimed. The Parole Office was reluctant to release personal information, but they agreed to pass on any information to him if he should glide into their radar. Anne left her card.

The halfway house for Queens County was in Charlottetown. It had been a large residential home in the twenties. It was in good repair, large enough to accommodate at least half a dozen clients, most of them parolees with a lingering taste for alcohol, amphetamines, and popular drug cocktails. Three of them were sitting in wicker chairs in the shade of the front veranda when Anne pulled into an empty parking space. The veranda faced a busy street. A table had been set between them, and they passed the time by watching the stream of city cars, moving the pieces on their checkerboard, and blustering about grandiose plans for the future.

The bluster sank into a surprised silence as Anne strode up the pavement toward the steps to the halfway house. Parole officers, medical staff, counsellors, ministers, and relatives often dropped in. Of course, most of those who visited did so only out of professional necessity or some guilt-fuelled compassion. Even the pizza delivery man sported a strained grin when he balanced his blanketed trays at the front door. Those passing on the street avoided eye contact. For the average person, a visit to a halfway house would have been tantamount to visiting a lepers' colony. So the sight of an attractive young woman with no briefcase walking toward them with a bright smile on her face was not only unexpected and startling, it was also disarming.

“Hi, guys. Who's winning?” she asked, looking down at the checkerboard.

“I believe Tipper has the edge in this game,” said Pun'kin.

Pun'kin had an enormous head, and the unruly shocks of orange hair that covered it made it look even larger.
It looks like a pumpkin on a fencepost
, a boyhood friend had once said, and the nickname stuck. Anne had never met Pun'kin, but she recognized him from the streets of Charlottetown. He had been a drunk, a petty thief, and a brawler. Tipper, on the other hand, had run over his dealer half a dozen years ago because the pouch of drugs he had bought contained more filler than fun. It was an “accident,” Tipper had claimed, but he served time for vehicular manslaughter anyway.

Anne didn't recognize the third man. He moved a checker thoughtfully, but it was promptly taken by Tipper. Then Tipper took two more pieces. The third man just chuckled.

“Maybe you should get a student loan for checkers college?” Anne said.

He chuckled again.

“Barry's an accountant,” said Tipper.

“For real?” asked Anne. Barry nodded.

“Do you work here?”

Then Tipper and Barry laughed. Pun'kin bent over in his chair. Both hands supported his laughing convulsive head, and from Anne's perspective it looked as if he were gripping a bowling ball.

“I didn't think white-collar criminals did real jail time anymore. What was so special about you?” said Anne.

“I specialized in estate management for seniors and took care of the accounting for a big retirement villa. Gambling took hold of me—casino roulette, poker, online and off, sports lines, slots, pretty well anything and everything. I lost it all. It wasn't pretty.”

“Shoulda got your MBA instead. Look guys, I'm trying to get in touch with John Dawson. Maybe you know him? I hear that he's out, but those who know aren't too anxious for me and him to link up. Any ideas?”

“He's not here, if that's what you're askin',” said Pun'kin.

“Dorchester?” asked Tipper.

“Yeah.”

“I recall the name. Never met him, though. He'd been shipped to Nova Scotia. Some minimum security facility. That's all I know.”

“Thanks and good luck, guys.”

“Don't ya know some cop or politician that can help ya find him?” shouted Pun'kin.

Anne waved her thanks without looking back.

28.

J. Dawson lived off Mt. Edward Road in Charlottetown's north end. It
was a respectable neighbourhood. Houses were spacious and well-maintained, and mature hardwoods shaded adjacent streets and muffled the traffic from nearby thoroughfares. It had taken Ben less than a minute to peg the location of John Dawson and to send a copy of his release document to Anne's iPhone. She read it quickly. Then she picked up a copy of Dawson's mug shot from a folder on the front seat of her car.

The photo showed a scruffy character with hair matted in long, thick clumps. His mouth gaped through puffy lips. His eyes seemed vacant. If he had not been standing for the shot, Dawson's features could have been that of a corpse. Add shabby, stained clothes, impulsive behaviours, and the stench of a homeless drunk, and Anne could well understand why Davidia Christian, Carolyn's friend, and her co-workers might have been frightened by him. Anne shuddered.

Twenty-eight Joiner's Street was a small boarding house. Anne rang the doorbell. Irene MacLeod, the proprietor, opened the front door. Irene was an elderly woman with sagging jowls and a weathered face. She took one limping step toward Anne and peered closely at her through weak eyes.

“I'm looking for John Dawson,” said Anne. “Is he in?”

“No one here by that name,” said Irene. In spite of a vaguely polite smile, Anne read suspicion in her eyes. Anne pointed to the bank of mail slots in the foyer next to her.

“Says J. Dawson on the letterbox.”

“That belongs to Jacob Dawson.”

“Is he in, then?”

“He doesn't receive visitors.”

“He'll see me.”

“And who are you?”

“Billy Darby. I'm an investigator.”

“Do you have identification?”

Anne produced her license.

“You're a
private
investigator.” Irene sounded as if she had just smelled the stench in something vile. “No, I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave.”

Irene started to close the door, but Anne blocked it.

“Maybe we could come to an understanding. Tell him who I am, and tell him that I have some information which will very much pique his interest. If he's still not interested in speaking with me, then I won't bother him anymore. Just tell him that, please, if you will.”

Irene MacLeod said nothing. She left Anne waiting in the foyer and went up the stairs with a slow limping ascent. Anne heard knocking. Inaudible words were exchanged. Then Irene descended even more wobbly, a hand and forearm tightly gripping the banister, and motioned her toward a nearby reading room.

Anne waited five minutes, picked up a magazine, and was working her way through the vocabulary quiz on carnival slang when she sensed a presence. She looked up and gave a start. She had heard nothing, and suddenly he was beside her.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

“John Dawson?” she asked.

“Jacob, he replied. “John Jacob Dawson. I don't go by John anymore…for obvious reasons.”

“I'm Billy Darby. I'm a private investigator, and I'm working a case which dovetails with your arrest. I came to discuss it with you, but I didn't think I'd get past your executive assistant.”

“Irene is very protective. She got tapped by the cops in Ottawa back in the sixties. She had just got out of hospital and stopped to visit friends. Her friends were hosting other friends. They were smoking grass. She wasn't. As a matter of fact, she never did drugs. The cops busted in. Everyone was arrested. Her friends had parents with dough. She didn't. At the end of it, she spent a year in Kingston, and her friends skated.”

“Tough luck. But times have changed since then. You've changed, too. Your mug shots don't do you justice.”

The man who stood before Anne could have passed for a young professional. He was clean-shaven, fit, and displayed an alert and intelligent presence. Dawson wore jeans and an unbuttoned sports coat over a T-shirt. A small gold cross on a gold chain hung from his neck. He had brown hair, trimmed and loosely combed back. Only flecks of grey and a weathered face suggested the hard use of his past.

“Never saw them myself…and never wanted to…but I can imagine. I was a different person then.”

“How so?”

“First, what do you have for me? Irene mentioned some…information?”

Anne explained the letter that Carolyn Jollimore had sent. She told of its misdelivery, her recovery of it eleven years after its posting, and that Carolyn had died shortly after writing the note.

Dawson listened thoughtfully, then asked: “Did it suggest any more about the killer?”

“No, it didn't,” said Anne, “but Carolyn's death in a car accident and your conviction shortly after seem curious. My client asked me to follow up. That's why I'm here.”

“So you're not looking at my case per se.”

“No, but there seems a connection. I'd like to find out. So I'll get right to the point. Did you murder Simone Villier?”

Dawson seemed to wilt as he sat in the chair across from Anne. His eyes buried themselves in a corner of the past, and his mind followed.

“You've got nothing to lose by telling the truth now. You were convicted and did your time,” said Anne.

Anne waited patiently. Long moments elapsed before Dawson returned to the starkness of her question. He looked up, his mouth trembling faintly.

“I don't know,” he said. “I just don't know.”

“Then…why don't you start by telling me about your life at that time? Maybe we can pull some things together. Where are you from?”

“Down east. Georgetown.”

“Parents?”

“Dad was a trucker when he was sober, which wasn't often. He lost his driver's license, abandoned us, and headed for Winnipeg. He sent money a few times. Then that stopped…last we heard from him.”

“We?”

“My mom and my brother and sisters. Mom was a moody person…couldn't hold a steady job. Everyone thought she was a bit odd…and I suppose she was…but, when you're fourteen or sixteen, that can be pretty embarrassing. Welfare took us after Mom killed herself. Then they broke us up and sent us to foster homes.”

“That must have been difficult.”

“For a long time I felt bad about her suicide. I was the oldest of the kids. I always wondered that, maybe if I could have stepped up a bit more, she wouldn't have done it.” He disappeared again into his past for a few seconds. Then he continued on.

“The day I turned sixteen, I took off. I got tired of bein' the cheap labour on somebody's boat. So I headed for Charlottetown, got a few odd jobs, lived with friends, and started drinkin'…like father like son, eh? After that, everything spiralled out of control. The more I drank, the fewer friends I had, and the more I felt sorry for myself. So I drank even more and, when the kick from that didn't work, I started on cocaine.”

“Expensive habits,” said Anne.

“And there's no such thing as a free lunch,” he said. “So I panhandled, shoplifted, broke into stores and houses. I was so strung out on whatever was on the go that I can't remember a lot of what I did. Strangely enough, I never got busted for the drugs or burglaries. Police took me to detox a number of times, but that was usually the result of disturbing the peace, scuffles with other drunks, or urinating in public. Stuff like that.”

“Were you ever violent? Any fights?”

“Push and shove stuff…drunk on drunk…that's about it.”

“You were arrested at Stratford supermarket for theft, destruction of private property, assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest.”

“That's what they say. I don't remember.”

“Drunk? Stoned?”

“Probably. I had started having blackouts by then. My world turned strange. Sometimes I saw things. I was pretty out of it.”

“What do you remember about your arrest?”

“I remember the psych ward more than the arrest. I was there for a day or so. Then I was sent to detox. After that, it was jail, where they grilled me for hours and hours on end. They told me they had evidence that I murdered some girl. I said I couldn't remember doing anything like that, but they kept at me. Funny…as jammed up as I was, all I could think about was getting another bottle. Eventually, I was charged with murder. My lawyer, court-appointed, suggested that I elect a trial by judge alone. Apparently, the press had launched a hate campaign against me and the other street bums. Public sentiment was running high, and he worried about a jury trial. Later the charge was amended to manslaughter.”

“Why manslaughter? They had the murder weapon…they found her jewellery in your pocket.”

“They couldn't find my prints on the murder weapon or anywhere else in the office.”

“Then how did they connect you to the crime scene?”

“That office building is near the bridge I slept under. Sometimes I panhandled in front of it. That was no secret. So perhaps I was there that day.”

“Anything else?”

“As I said, the interrogation was relentless. Cops must have gone over the details of the murder a hundred times or more, so often that I could picture it happening and…”

Dawson stopped mid-sentence. It seemed as if the words were choking him. Then he burst out, “… I may have admitted that it was
possible
I hit her.”

29.

When the bell rang, doors burst open, seven hundred students spilled
out, and the roar of them filled the corridors like a thunderstorm floods gullies. Students jostled and streamed toward half a dozen exits, in spite of the admonitions of their teachers trying to negotiate safe passage to their lounge.

Only a fifteen-minute break separated the two afternoon classes. Locker doors banged and rattled. Books thudded as they were hurled inside. Locks clacked. Mobile phones lit up. Then, quickly as it had begun, the rush abated. The hallways began to thin out and the remaining students clustered in small pools of laughter and chatter. Some pumped change into vending machines. Others found their customary refuge outside the school and lit up. Jacqui grabbed a juice pack, jabbed a straw into it, and waited until she saw Rada.

“Guess what?” she asked, and not waiting for a response added, “I'm babysitting Saturday night. Madame Desjardins'. You want to keep me company?”

Rada brightened. “Of course…but I have to ask permission. What time?”

“Seven-thirty until twelve…twelve-thirty.”

A doubt clouded Rada's face and she asked, “Will Madame Desjardins allow me?”

“She won't mind. I'm sure of it. I could stop at your house, and we could walk over…and I could walk you home after, so your mother needn't worry. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“We'll talk later,” said Jacqui. “I have to meet someone in the library.”

Jacqui smiled to herself as she grasped the door to the library. She had a plan, she thought, a marvellous plan. The hardest part was in place. The second piece sat at a computer terminal and looked intently at the screen.

Bobby Fogarty was researching an essay on whether or not visualizing a sports performance was a valid method of practice. Actually, the idea for it had come from Jacqui. He had been grumbling about how poorly he had played in the soccer game against Souris. He was feeling sorry for himself. Jacqui chastised him at the time, saying “Do you think Pelé or Beckham wallow in some woe-is-me mood like you're doing? Of course not. They keep running perfect moves in their head until their bodies finally get the message.”

Jacqui's comment stuck in Bobby's head but, actually, Jacqui's idea had come from her mother. Anne had been an athlete, too, something Anne's own mother, Hazel Darby, had hoped would never, ever happen.

Anne had been a late addition to the family of Frederick and Hazel Darby. One miscarriage was followed by the birth of their son, Richard. He succumbed to crib death. Hazel's third pregnancy and second successful birth ten years later was a surprise. Hazel always referred to Anne as her “miracle child.” As a result of her tragedies, Hazel became an overprotective mother, something Anne struggled against for years.

Eventually Hazel began to mellow. She still forbade Anne's involvement in rugby or hockey, but she allowed Anne to try out for soccer, secretly believing that she was too small to make the team. However, Anne had speed, stamina, and determination. That impressed the coach and won her a spot on the team. Anne knew that her size was a handicap. As a result, she developed an ability to read the fluidity of the playing field.

“It's like being a quarterback on the football field,” Anne once told Jacqui. “If you don't want to get creamed, then learn to read the moves. Uncle Bill told me the same thing when he was a cop: every time someone approached him on the job, he'd anticipate every nasty little thing they might try, and he'd picture what he could do in response. If you practise reactions in your head enough times, you won't have to think when something happens. You'll act automatically.”

“Bobby!”

Fogarty jumped in his seat. His arm jerked as he turned. A notebook and pencil toppled to the floor.

“Geez, Jacqui…you scared hell out of me.”

“Jacqueline,” she corrected.

“Right… Jacqueline. What's up?”

“Happy birthday!”

“It's not until Saturday.”

“I know that…but I'm babysitting on Saturday. So I won't be able to swing by for that birthday cake your mother's making.”

“How do you know she's making a cake?”

“She made one last year. It was delicious. Vanilla. Homemade. And she cut up little chunks of fresh peaches and baked them inside. Creamy lemony icing! Yum!”

“You aren't coming over, then?”

“'Fraid not. And I won't be able to give you your present until Monday, I guess…”

“You got me a present?” Fogarty seemed disappointed and surprised.

“I did. It reminds me so much of you.”

“What is it?”

“Can't tell you before your birthday, can I? But, if you have no other plans, you could come over to Madame Desjardins' Saturday night, keep me company, and I could give it to you then.”

“I could do that,” said Fogarty. He seemed intrigued.

“Oh, by the way, is Sig coming to your get-together?”

“I think so.”

“Bring him along, too.” Bobby leaned back in his seat and looked at her suspiciously.

“Why him? Three's a crowd, isn't it?”

“Ordinarily, but it won't be in this case. Please…unless of course you're jealous of Sig…”

“I'm not jealous of him,” he said, squirmed in his chair, and reached down to pick up his notes and pencil.

“Remember. Special birthday present. Saturday only. Private viewing.”

Fogarty's eyes brightened.

“Yeah, okay. I'll see you there.”

“With Sig?”

“With Sig,” he said, but bewilderment swept over his face. The bell rang.