The Liars

by Ida Linehan Young

“I can’t really say. Could very well be.”

  “So, Mrs. MacDonald, Alice, is Nancy Martin?” Caddy could barely contain herself.

  “I’m not saying that, Caddy. I’ll deny saying anything if this gets out,” Mrs. Millmore said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have left the woman to her privacy.”

  “I won’t say. I promise.”

  The bell over the door jingled, and Mrs. Carroll walked in. “Why, Mary, strange to see you around today.”

  “Caddy was showing me glasses the other night, and I decided to come back and get them.” Mrs. Millmore squeezed Caddy’s arm and followed Mrs. Carroll to the glasses.

  “I’ll ring her in, Caddy,” Mrs. Carroll said. “You go get the mail.”

  “No mail today,” Caddy replied.

  “That’s right. I should have known when there was no one around.”

  Mrs. Carroll helped Mrs. Millmore and told Caddy to put the glasses on her bill, and the two women left the store together.

  “I’ll be back around suppertime so you can go home,” Mrs. Carroll called over her shoulder.

  “See you then,” Caddy said.

  Caddy grinned to herself. She had done it! She’d solved the mystery. Now she had to figure out how she could talk to Mrs. MacDonald. Did her husband know? Why did she change her name? Why was she here? All the questions jammed in her brain at the same time. How would she get through the rest of the day without bursting? Would she have time to go to the MacDonalds? What would she say about the letter?

  Then she began to second-guess herself. What kind of wasp’s nest might she be poking? Would Alice welcome being found out? Maybe Mrs. Millmore was right and she should mind her own business, too. With so many thoughts going through her head, she was going to drive herself out of her mind.

  She contemplated what she would do. Most afternoons were quiet. When it wasn’t mail day, it was worse. Mrs. Carroll was saying she should close the store till after supper on these kinds of days. Nevertheless, she was working and had to stay. Caddy boiled water on the little pot-bellied stove in the corner. It was a good day to wipe down the shelves to keep herself busy. She was kneeling by the canned food when she heard the bell tinkle again. She grabbed the rack for balance and stood, straightening her apron before looking up.

  A tall, dark-haired man entered the store. He seemed to fill the whole room. He looked like he hadn’t seen a razor’s edge in quite some time, and his clothes were ragged and dirty.

  Caddy’s knees started to knock. She walked behind the counter, wanting to put something between them. “Can I help you, sir?” She hoped he hadn’t heard the slight quiver in her voice.

  For a big man, he was very light on his feet. He put his two hands on the edge of the counter. “I’m looking for Nancy Martin.”

  Caddy’s mouth dropped open. She stared at him, wide-eyed. Her legs trembled, and heat rushed to her cheeks.

  “Nan-an-cy Mar-ar-tin?” she stammered. She pushed her chin slightly forward. “I don’t know a Nancy Martin.” False courage helped her finish the sentence. She straightened her back and took a step away from the counter to be farther from him.

  “You lie!” he roared. Before she could move, he sprung over the counter and struck her across the face.

  20

  “Caddy,” Mrs. Carroll said. “Caddy, where did you go?” Mrs. Carroll felt the chill in the air. “You let the fire go out.” She pulled the damper off the stove and poked the few embers in the ashes at the base. She tut-tutted loudly at the inconvenience. “I’ll have to get Val to come over and light that in again. Caddy, where are you?”

  Mrs. Carroll threw a few small dry sticks in the stove and laid the damper just shy of the hole to give the flame some draft. “Caddy, you better answer me,” she said as she walked toward the counter. “I don’t suppose she’s gone home and never locked the store,” she mumbled to herself. “Caddy? Caddy! I don’t know what’s gotten into that child lately.”

  She noticed the pan of water by the shelf and picked it up. The water was barely warm. She brought it to the counter, muttering under her breath about the young ones having no cares for other people’s property.

  “Caddy,” Mrs. Carroll called out once more.

  “I’ll have to go across the road and see where she has gone, I suppose,” she said under her breath. The bell tinkled as she stepped out into the evening air. “Wish I’d brought my shawl.”

  As she crossed the gravelled laneway between the store and Caddy’s house, Mrs. Healey came to the door before she made it inside the gate.

  “Caddy’s not coming home?” Mrs. Healey asked.

  “I thought she was here, Madge,” Mrs. Carroll said. “She’s not in the store, and the fire’s gone out.”

  Mrs. Healey pulled back inside the door and shouted for Penny to see if Caddy was in her room. Her frown and shake of her head sent Mrs. Carroll back to the store.

  “Caddy! Caddy!” she shouted. “Where are you?”

  The bell jingled, and Mrs. Healey came in with Penny right behind her. “Penny, be a dear and go fetch Mr. Carroll for me,” Mrs. Carroll said. Penny glanced from side to side and then to her mother. Her mother nodded, and Penny took off as fast as her legs could carry her.

  “I haven’t seen her all day,” Caddy’s mother said.

  “I was here earlier when Mary Millmore was here. I told her I’d be back so she could go to supper.”

  “I was expecting her.” The two women gathered near the counter. The door opened, and Mr. Carroll and Penny rushed in.

  “What’s happened?” Mr. Carroll asked.

  “I don’t know. Caddy wasn’t here when I got here, and she’s not home.”

  “She can’t be gone far. Did you check around? Maybe she fell asleep out back.” He pushed open the door to the storeroom, peered around, and then shook his head. “She could have fallen and hit her head or something,” Mr. Carroll said.

  “Really, Val?”

  “Well, it could have happened,” Mr. Carroll said, shrugging.

  Penny skirted up and down the aisles and behind the mail counter. She shrugged her shoulders and made a motion that she couldn’t find her.

  “Where could she be?” Mrs. Carroll mused. Then she moved behind the counter. “Strange, the cash is open.” The woman reached to push in the cash drawer but noticed there was no money in there. She moved in to investigate further, and as she did, her shoe slid on something sticky. She lightly kicked something soft. Holding the counter to keep from falling, she glanced down. She screamed, then covered her mouth and looked to Caddy’s mother.

  Penny tried to come around, but Mrs. Carroll stopped her. She looked at Mrs. Healey and shook her head. Caddy’s mother grabbed Penny’s shoulders to keep her back.

  Val Carroll grabbed his wife about the waist and moved her out of the way. The sight before him was gruesome and bloody. “Get the child to go for the doctor,” he said to Caddy’s mother.

  Penny latched onto her. Mrs. Healey stooped before her and wiped the hair from her face. “Do this for Caddy,” she said, her voice trembling. Penny nodded, and her mother kissed the top of her head before she bolted through the door.

  “Don’t come over here,” Mrs. Carroll warned the woman.

  “I have to. She’s my first-born.” Caddy’s mother walked toward them as Mr. Carroll picked up the limp and bloodied body of her daughter. He laid her on the counter after Mrs. Carroll pushed books and ledgers out of the way.

  “Is she . . . ?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mr. Carroll. “She’s awful cold.”

  Caddy’s mother turned toward the door. “I’ll get her a blanket,” she said calmly. She turned and left.

  Moments later, she came back with two patchwork quilts and handed them to Mr. Carroll. “Keep her warm.” He took them and
nodded at her. He tenderly wrapped Caddy while they waited for the doctor.

  “Val, see to the fire,” Mrs. Carroll said. He nodded and left while she stayed by the counter.

  Val fiddled with the fire and the wood before he got a flame going. “A blast of heat will do us all good,” he said. He went into the back room and brought two chairs for the women before relieving his wife at Caddy’s side.

  Mrs. Healey pulled a set of white beads from her pocket and began the decades of the rosary while she rocked back and forth in the chair. Mrs. Carroll sat silently beside her and reached for her hand to give some sort of comfort. She didn’t look up when the horse and cart came barrelling toward the store and the doctor and Penny jumped out. Penny ran to her mother, knelt at her feet, rested her head on her lap, and watched the doctor tend to Caddy.

  The doctor whispered something to Val Carroll, and he nodded toward the back room. He gently picked up Caddy, and they crossed to the door. The sound of its closing was deafening. There was scraping of wood on wood in the other room before things got quiet. Penny started to cry.

  People began to gather at the store. Mrs. Carroll whispered that something had happened. Women came and milled around Caddy’s mother while the men lingered outside. Somebody called on the two constables who were staying at Veitch’s. When they arrived, Mrs. Carroll tilted her head toward the back room. They knocked on the door and went inside.

  Penny cried when Mrs. Millmore brought her home with the other children. “I’ll go with them, Madge. You stay here as long as you want,” she had said. Mrs. Healey didn’t raise her head. She continued to pray the rosary quietly.

  Val Carroll stuck his head out and asked for water and cloths. Two women went to work at the old iron stove and brought hot water and cloths to the door for the doctor. They removed the bloodied rags inside a porcelain pail so that Caddy’s mother wouldn’t see.

  Men brought in chairs from nearby homes. Several women sat in a circle around Mrs. Healey and began reciting the rosary, heads bowed as they prayed.

  The doctor, a short, small man with thinning grey hair, came from the room, followed by the constables. Mrs. Carroll went in with her husband to stay by Caddy.

  The silence was only broken by the scrape of the chairs on the old wooden floor as Dr. Lane made his way toward Mrs. Healey. She looked up as he approached.

  “I won’t lie to you, Madge. It doesn’t look good,” he said solemnly. His clothes were covered in Caddy’s blood.

  “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” Mrs. Healey said defiantly.

  “I know, Madge. I’m so sorry.”

  She lowered her head. The crowd waited as she slowly put the rosary beads back in her pocket. “I want her brought home. If she’s to die, it will be where my James died,” she said. “Can we bring her home to the daybed in the kitchen?”

  “Yes, of course.” The doctor made a motion for the constables and the menfolk to grant her request. Mrs. Healey gasped aloud when they brought Caddy’s still form from the room on a small, narrow bench. She was partially covered by a bloodied quilt. Her face was swollen, battered, and broken beyond recognition.

  “Are you sure ’tis Caddy?” Madge asked. Mrs. Carroll came from the room with Caddy’s shoes and some red-stained clothing. She nodded, and Mrs. Healey let out a wail. She laid her hand on Caddy’s foot before they moved on. With great care, the men navigated the front step, and a parade of people followed them across the road to Mrs. Healey’s.

  Two of the women fussed over the cushions and quilts—fetched by Penny and Mrs. Millmore—to make a comfortable spot for her on the daybed before the doctor guided the transfer.

  Caddy didn’t move. Her still form was reminiscent of death. Penny started to scream, and Mrs. Millmore tucked her into her embrace for comfort and to quieten her. The townsfolk went to work to relieve the pressures of living. Somebody brought wood, others carried water, someone tended to a pot on the stove, and another made tea—everything a ritual of caring for the suffering that existed for as long as the town came into being.

  Mrs. Healey took a chair by Caddy’s head, and Mary Millmore put a cup of tea in her hand. “Caddy belongs home here with me,” she said. “If James were alive, she’d be home.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for this, Madge. She loved working in the store,” Mary said. Everyone there nodded in agreement.

  “She was good as a concert, reading out the newspaper to us,” a neighbour mentioned.

  “Yes, she’d read my mail for me whenever I asked,” a fellow said.

  “She loved the mail,” Mrs. Healey said. “Even tried to find some Mary what-do-you-call-her.”

  “You mean Nancy Martin,” Mary Millmore said.

  “Yes, that’s right. She even asked me if I knew her,” Betsy Fewer said.

  “Me too,” said Mary.

  “Who did you say?” one of the constables asked. “I’m Constable Jeffries, by the way.” He held out his hand to Mary Millmore.

  “Nancy Martin.”

  “Yes, Nancy Martin,” Mrs. Healey said. “I kept getting it mixed up. Poor Caddy was always puzzling over something.”

  “What about this Nancy Martin?” Constable Jeffries asked.

  “I’m not quite sure,” Mary said. “She said she had a letter for her. Mrs. Carroll might know more.”

  “Ah, yes. Nancy Martin,” Mrs. Carroll said. She went on to explain the letters.

  “You’re sure it was Nancy Martin,” Jeffries said.

  “Positive. I even stamped the last one to be returned myself.”

  “Yes, that was the one Caddy was puzzling over. She said it was marked ‘Urgent,’ and we all know Caddy and her imagination,” Mrs. Healey said. Then she wailed loudly and gently laid her hand on Caddy’s hair. “My poor girl.”

  “Why?” Mrs. Carroll asked. “Is that important?”

  “Very important,” Jeffries said.

  “Why?” asked Mrs. Millmore.

  “The man who escaped, Ezra Shawe, was looking for Nancy Martin. He left her sister in a bad way on the Labrador. Don’t know if she’ll recover.”

  “He knew Nancy Martin?” Mrs. Millmore asked.

  “She was the reason he was in jail. He murdered her husband and her mother-in-law. He is said to have killed his first wife as well.” A collective gasp went through the room.

  “That still doesn’t help you,” Mrs. Carroll said. “We returned all those letters. There is no Nancy Martin here.”

  “Well . . .” said Mary. She went on to explain the conversation she’d had with Caddy about Alice MacDonald.

  “Assuming Ezra Shawe got that information out of Caddy, Alice MacDonald is in a whole heap of danger,” said Constable Jeffries. “Where does she live?”

  One of the men stepped forward. “I can show you. We’ll go with you.” He made a motion to the dozen or so men who were around the kitchen area.

  “But they’re gone,” Penny said from the bottom of the stairs. With everyone preparing to leave, only Mrs. Millmore heard her. She crossed the room to Penny.

  “What did you say?”

  “They’re gone.”

  “Hold on, everyone,” Mrs. Millmore cried out.

  Constable Jeffries had been about to step outside. “What is it?”

  “Penny says they’re gone.” They urged Penny to come forth into the room and explain what she knew.

  “Did Caddy know this?” Jeffries asked.

  Penny nodded. “I told her a few days ago. They went to meet the man who speaks funny and go to North Harbour.”

  Constable Jeffries looked around the room to see if anyone knew who this was. “North Harbour, you say. The man who speaks funny, does he suffer some ailment?”

  “No,” said Penny. “He’s not from here. He came from somewhere far away from here, w
here there are lots of people.”

  “Like St. John’s? That has lots of people,” Jeffries said.

  “No. Beatrice said it was bigger than that. I don’t know how she’d know because she had never been to St. John’s, but she said the man with the funny voice told her. He bought her a nice dress last year.”

  “She must mean the Cooper man,” Mrs. Carroll said. “He was a friend of the MacDonalds. Had an odd first name. He bought supplies at the store for them. Although he has only been here a couple of times.”

  “Cooper. Must be Danol Cooper. I know of him. Had some dealings with him,” Jeffries said.

  “A criminal?” Mrs. Carroll asked.

  “No, the opposite,” Jeffries said. “We’ve tried to recruit him several times. Used to be a policeman in Boston.”

  “That’s the faraway land!” Penny said at once. “Boston! Me and Beatrice used to make up stories about it.”

  “I’ll need to telegraph St. John’s and call the constables back. It looks like our criminal might be headed to North Harbour.” Jeffries strode across the room to Mrs. Healey. He took both her hands in his. “We’ll get the man who did this to your daughter.”

  With that, he marched out and took several men with him. They were making plans together as they left the yard, heading for the telegraph office.

  It would prove to be a long night.

  21

  St. John’s

  Erith truly felt that her encounter with Beatrice was as two people. The inside person whose tingling limbs and churning stomach had her shifting, almost imperceptibly, from foot to foot to hold herself back as she bore the crushing weight of an unfulfilled brokenness. That one was unable to breathe.

  Then there was the outside person, whose voice didn’t quiver, who said the appropriate things—hopefully, anyway—and who smiled at the right time. The same one who bent and grinned at the beautiful child staring up at her. The one who reached out with steady hand and tenderly cupped the face of her first-born and smoothed her hair while the girl beamed back at her, unknowing.

  Both at odds. The inner one, who wanted to grab the girl and hold her tight and cry tears that would shed her soul of anguish without care for what anyone thought of it. The outside one, who was trying to do what she thought was best for them while scouring away the suffocating inner self.