Phantom of Fire

by Peacock, Shane;

The desk clerk seemed to want to move on from us as soon as possible and immediately summoned Constable Leblanc. A lady I assumed was the officer in question soon appeared.

  “Hi Antonine!” she said in a pleasant voice. “How is your mom?”

  “She’s good, thank you.”

  Constable Leblanc smiled at her, obviously a fan of Antonine and her mother. She was a slender young woman with long black hair and black eyes, in jeans and a sweater and a short leather jacket rather than a uniform, who only had to hear that we’d found a body to immediately direct us into her office.

  There, she began to write down every bit of information we could give her. There were blow-ups of fingerprints and photographs of suspects and gruesome victim images on her walls. Pretty cool. Constable Leblanc got everything out of us, and I mean everything. Antonine tentatively told her in detail about that day long ago when she and her dad saw the ghost ship, and I explained about the half-burned board in Jackson’s shed and how that wood matched the material on Jim Fiat’s house, a building that he had been some sort of supervisor on when he was young.

  The constable looked more than a little doubtful at the phantom part but we had expected that, and when she heard the last part, about Fiat, it gave her a bit of a pause. She stopped writing and I could see that she was turning something over in her mind.

  “When did you and your father encounter the ship…or think you saw it? The exact day.”

  Antonine didn’t know exactly when, but then Gabrielle “Sherlock” Leblanc went to work. She started asking Antonine questions about what time of the year it could have been, when the sun might have been setting, how hot it was, how many people were on the beach, what she remembered doing at about that time, what grade she might have been in, and exactly where her mother was at the time. Slowly, she whittled the mystery down until we had almost an exact date; at least certain of the exact month.

  “Just a moment,” said Gabrielle, and she turned to her computer. After a while, she looked at us. “I’ve brought up the information about the Fiat home, when the building permit was issued, when it was actually constructed.” She paused for a second. “It was being built the very month you say you saw the ghost ship.”

  There was silence in the room for a moment.

  “So,” I finally said, “we have a piece of wood that very likely came from the Fiat home, a home Jim Fiat was involved in building. He may have had some control over the materials and could have covered up for a fair bit of it going missing. We know that those materials were used to make a vessel, which was out on the water during a month when the house was being built. We know that vessel was on fire and we know the piece Mr. Clay acquired was half-burned. We also have witnesses saying there was a young woman on that vessel and that she leapt from it, engulfed in flames and in mortal danger, and tried to swim to the island. We know, too, that the remains of someone, likely a human being, likely young, possibly female, is buried in a shallow grave there.”

  When I finished, I could feel the goosebumps coming out on my arms and legs. Then Constable Leblanc frowned.

  “That is all very compelling, in some ways,” she sighed, “but I cannot, in all seriousness, even interview Mr. Fiat about any of this, let alone contemplate arresting him. The evidence against him is circumstantial. We really have no idea what role he played in these events, if any. We will go to the island, exhume the remains immediately and run some tests, but as far as Mr. Fiat’s culpability goes…we would need much more than this. Not to mention that he is also one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in our community, in the midst of an election. I simply cannot—”

  “Just as we suspected,” said Antonine with a smile. “That’s perfect.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You don’t need to speak to him,” I said. “He wouldn’t tell you anything anyway. Why would he? But we have a plan,”

  I could feel the nervousness in my voice. We had no idea whether or not Constable Leblanc would go along with this. It wasn’t right, really. Thank God she was an admirer of the Clays.

  Antonine laid out our plan, and when she was done there was silence in the room.

  “Well,” said Constable Leblanc, “I know I shouldn’t do this. And if this does not transpire as you hope, you will be in some trouble and there may be nothing I can do for you. I will disavow that I agreed to let you do it, too.”

  “Yes,” we both said to her.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” we added.

  An hour later, after a secret trip to the shed in the Clays’ quiet backyard (Eve must have fallen asleep waiting for us) and a sneaky visit through my back entrance into Bill and Bonnie’s place, and then into Mom and Dad’s room (they were fast asleep too), Antonine and I got out of a car about ten houses down Youghall Beach from Jim Fiat’s house on Queen Elizabeth Drive. Two houses before we reached his, we cut through a walkway and headed toward the beach.

  The night was cool now, the waves gently hitting the shore, and a big moon sent a glow over the bay. We walked along the sand in the direction of the huge house. All the lights were out. When got close, closer to it than we had ever been before, we realized that the fence was about seven feet high, more than a foot taller than we were. We saw the security cameras pointing toward us, rotating.

  “Let’s do this,” said Antonine.

  We threw the board over first and then began to climb the fence. By the time both of us were on the other side, the alarm was screaming.

  18

  Man of the People

  We climbed the wide wood steps that went up to the elevated deck, the alarm still making a terrible racket. We had been able to see the way the chairs and sofas were arranged on the deck from the beach, so we sat on the ones we had planned to occupy, facing the big picture window. It indeed seemed that Fiat’s whole wall facing the beach was window, and you could tell when you got close that it could be unlatched and slid across, so that whole part of the house could be open to the elements. It was spectacular. So was the way we had placed the burned piece of timber on our knees and what we could now see approaching us from the interior of the house.

  It was a man, heavy-set, blond, dishevelled hair, wearing a shining gold housecoat, which he had obviously hastily thrown onto himself since it was wide open in the front, displaying a remarkable pair of pajamas with a Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck pattern, the top buttoned right up to the neck.

  What wasn’t so spectacular was what he had in his hands. It was a gun, a rifle of some sort, and it didn’t look like it was for shooting squirrels. Jim Fiat likely had a weak gun-control policy, and this proved it.

  He looked our way anxiously from the other side of the window, then focused on us, and seemed to relax a little. He slid the door back carefully and pointed his weapon right at us.

  “It’s all right, honey!” he called back over his shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. Just a couple of kids. The security people should be here any minute.”

  Then he turned back to us and stepped out onto the deck.

  “Hello,” he snarled.

  “Hello, Mr. Fiat,” I said pleasantly, “nice jammies.”

  I heard Antonine laugh.

  “Hey, don’t I know you?”

  “Yes, you looked me right in the face earlier today.”

  “Really?” He glanced over at Antonine. “And where are you from?”

  “I’m from here, Jimmy,” she said.

  “That’s no way to speak to your elders.”

  “You need to respect them first.”

  “You can be as smart aleck as you want, but you two are deep trouble. I’ve unlocked the front door. The security people will be here in five minutes, and I will bring the full force of the law down upon you, believe me. I’m a law and order guy.” He looked at me again. “Yes, now I remember. You said you were from Toronto, didn’t you? Figures. A
nd bringing her along to do your dirty deed, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Actually,” said Antonine, “I brought him along, not the other way around. My family has lived here for twice as long as yours. No, that’s not right, ten times as long...maybe more. Do you recognize this?” She looked down at the burned piece of wood on our knees.

  Fiat had taken a few steps forward and was looming over us, his gun still pointed our way, ratcheting up the intimidation factor as high as he figured it could go. Over his shoulder, deep in his house, we could see someone coming into the living room and approaching the window.

  “I don’t see what a piece of—”

  “It comes from your house.”

  He looked down at it. “Where did you get that?”

  “My father found it in the water out on the bay thirteen years ago during one of the most incredible sightings of the ghost ship ever experienced in these parts.”

  The figure in the house sat down on a chair right near the section of the window Fiat had opened.

  We could both see the “man of the people” swallow.

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “We thought you might like to tell us yourself,” I said. “By the way, we went for a little spin out on the bay earlier today, just as the sun was setting. We explored that little island—” I turned around on the sofa and pointed out toward it. “Right there.”

  Even from where we were, we could all see a little light on the island, the headlight of a motorboat, which was just beginning to make its way back from a visit out there.

  “Oh,” said Antonine, “that must be Constable Leblanc. You know, Forensic Identification Section of the Bathurst Police Department?”

  “Gabby? Why would she be out there?” asked Fiat. He looked worried and stared out over the water. Then his face relaxed. “I’m pretty sure her parents have one of our lawn signs.”

  “We found the remains of a body on that island, Jim,” I said, “in a shallow grave. Do you know anything about that?”

  He appeared not to know what to say.

  “My father saw her thrashing around in the water in the vicinity, thirteen years ago, just before he fished out this piece of wood. I saw her, too. She was on fire!”

  Jim Fiat looked back and forth from Antonine to me, as if gauging what we knew. Then his face grew red.

  “You two think you’re really smart, don’t you? Coming here and trying to frame me for the death of some immigrant girl. Is someone paying you to do this?”

  “Immigrant girl?” asked Antonine.

  “Gabrielle Leblanc is a friend of mine, and so is Gaetan Boudreau, the police chief. Gates understands who I am and who I’m about to be. He wouldn’t ever consider connecting anything like this to me. He knows how things work.”

  I could see the figure sitting on the chair in the living room, just on the other side of the window, shuffle uneasily.

  “Constable Leblanc has seen the remains by now, Jimmy,” said Antonine. “What did you mean by ‘immigrant girl?’”

  “I don’t care whether she’s seen the remains or not!” shouted Fiat. “What does that have to do with me?” His last word echoed out over the bay. “A corpse from long ago, some person of no consequence, likely not even identifiable. What does that have to do with me? How does that connect to ME?”

  “We have this piece of—” I began.

  “So what? Do you think that is the only piece of this sort of wood in the world? And even if it does come from my house, that doesn’t mean I had anything to do with it!”

  “To do with what?” I said.

  “This!” He motioned the gun with a jerk toward the island. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck jumped up and down.

  “Did you?” asked Antonine.

  We saw a gleam in his eye.

  “Do you know how far I’ve come to get where I am today? Do you know how other kids made me feel in school around here, just because I was the son of one of the richest people on the beach? The son of the real estate tycoon of the entire region? Do you know what it was like to be nearly failing at school that last year?” He stopped suddenly, as if he had said too much.

  “Thirteen years ago?” I asked. We needed him to say more.

  He paused. “I wasn’t accepted by a single university, not a single one. And Dad, Mr. Christopher Fiat, to whom I was supposed to be a scion, his successor, had planned for me to go to the University of Toronto, or McGill or UBC, some place like that, ride onto one of those campuses on a white horse with a huge scholarship in my hand!” For a second, he almost looked like he was going to tear up.

  “I’m an only child, too,” I said.

  “So am I,” said Antonine.

  “Yeah, but it was different for you. My father was up for re-election that year. He was looking at three consecutive terms! He hadn’t been given a cabinet appointment, nothing, the elites in Ottawa had passed him over time and time again.”

  “Maybe he didn’t deserve it,” I suggested.

  Fiat glared at me. “How would you know? They were sabotaging him from above! That’s why the campaign wasn’t going well. It looked like he was going to lose. Right when he was building this bloody mansion too, to live here forever like a god of Chaleur Bay. He was in a foul mood just as my rejection notices were coming back from the universities. My failures made him even angrier because he had given me some responsibilities in connection with building the house. He felt like I had let him down.” Fiat paused again. “My father hated me…for that. He thought I was useless. He figured I would never make anything of myself.”

  “What did you do?” asked Antonine. “You did something about it, didn’t you?”

  “Shut up!” said Jim Fiat. “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. The security people will be here in another minute or two. In fact, I would have thought they would be here by now. They are likely local people. They won’t believe a word you say, burned plank or not. They wouldn’t believe I was ever desperate either. Neither would Gabrielle Leblanc and Gates Boudreau. You two are deep trouble. Let’s see, once I’m done with you, if you even get to go back to Toronto. I’m sure there’s a juvenile hall not far from here just perfect for you.”

  “Um…” said Antonine, “I’m from here. I’ve told you that.”

  Fiat ignored her. “You two think you are better than me, don’t you?”

  “No,” I said.

  He paused again. Then he smiled. “Here’s what I’m going to do.” He looked down, thinking, then back up at us. “I’m going to tell you exactly what happened. I’ve let some things out of the bag anyway.” He leaned toward us. “Once I’ve told you my secret, then you will have to live with the fact that you know all this and can do nothing about it. Nothing! No one will accept your story over mine. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.” He smiled again, though this time with a crazy sort of grin. “I have to get this off my chest anyway,” he said quietly, as if to himself.

  He stepped back a stride or two and set the gun down so it was resting against his thigh. The shadowy figure in the living room leaned forward.

  “It’s all understandable, really. I had failed. I had no way of proving myself to my father. The job on the house was a nothing job, something he had given me, and no one could have screwed it up. I was at my wits’ end. I didn’t have marks in school or Dad’s ability in the real estate business or an articulate way of speaking or any real popularity at school. I didn’t even have a girlfriend.” He glanced toward the house for a second. Then he looked back at us. “I had to do something spectacular!”

  “What?” I said. It was almost the id thing. It just came out of me.

  “I thought of the ghost ship.”

  I could hear Antonine gasp.

  “I decided to recreate it.” Fiat looked over our heads and out across the water as if he were in a trance. �
�I fudged some purchase invoices and stole some timber from the contractor here and put together a crude raft with a few poles and canvases sticking up so that it might look like a ship from a distance. Then…I needed a girl.”

  I could feel an actual shiver go down my spine, and the sofa shook a little right beside me.

  “I knew many legends about the ship involved a girl,” continued Fiat, “wronged somehow, who was at the bow of the vessel, engulfed in flames like the rest of it, haunting the waters of Chaleur Bay.” Fiat’s eyes looked glazed over. “I told you I didn’t have a girlfriend, but it was more than that. I didn’t really know any girls or feel comfortable around them, and any girl in her right mind wouldn’t want to be part of this sort of thing, anyway, so I was stuck. That was when I encountered her.”

  “Her?” asked Antonine.

  “The girl.”

  “You don’t remember her name?”

  “It started with an M. It was short. I think it had two syllables.”

  “You’re a monster,” said Antonine quietly.

  “Do you want to hear this or not?” asked Fiat.

  “Go on,” I said, taking Antonine’s hand, since she had seemed like she wanted to get up and leave. “Not yet,” I whispered to her.

  Fiat wasn’t listening, his mind cast back in time again, thirteen years ago.

  “I met her downtown at the unemployment office…a place I’d been trying to avoid for a number of weeks, where my father said I had to go to look at job postings for the area. There she was: an immigrant, desperate for a job, looking for menial work, just like Christopher Fiat’s son.”

  I could feel my phone vibrate in my pocket…the phone I’d poached out of Mom and Dad’s room while they were sleeping. I pulled it out and slid my thumb across the screen. “MAYA KHAN, AGE 17, LOOKS YOUNGER, DISAPPEARED BATHURST AREA, SEPTEMBER 13 THAT YEAR.” I peered over Fiat’s shoulder at the figure in the living room.

  “Are you looking at your phone?” said Fiat. He shook his head. “Bloody millennial.”

  “I may not actually qualify as—”