All is Clam

by Hilary MacLeod

  And what about Buddy? Could it have been Buddy? Oh yes. By accident or intent.

  And Jared? The scumbag. Accident or murder, no, she thought not. He’d gotten stoned with Fitz and he’d left – before someone else had come along, and, by accident or design, finished Fitz off.

  Jared was a scumbag, but not a murderer.

  But she might be wrong. It wasn’t hard to imagine them, drunk and stoned, Fitz performing his flips, down the hill and toward the gully; Jared running, half-stumbling beside him.

  Hollering into the night. Spilling rum all over himself, laughing so hard he wet his pants. The moisture between his legs shocked him, and he thrust forward as Fitz executed a flip in front of him.

  Jared slammed into him, and Fitz went flying, up into the air, caught by his bicycle chain necklace on the branch of a tree, and, bug-eyed, implored Jared for help. He struggled, and, as he did, he twisted the chain tighter around his neck.

  Jared left. Jared went stumbling as fast as he could through the deep snow.

  Is that how it had happened? Had Jared MacPherson killed Fitz Fitzpatrick?

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Jared had asked himself the same question. In his own mind, he managed to convince himself he hadn’t been responsible, unless he got really drunk or really stoned, and then he knew. He had killed Fitz Fitzpatrick. Not in the way that Jamieson imagined, but, true to form, he had let Fitz die when he might have saved him. He had not been there, as Jamieson imagined, to watch the acrobatics. He had come after. After Buddy. After Buddy and Jamie had left, to find Fitz twisting by the neck. And he had done nothing. Nothing, except pull the dope out of Fitz’s pocket, which sent the dead man – or not quite dead man? – spinning even faster to his death.

  It had been as good as murder. And he got off, because other, better people were suspected.

  Among them – Buddy.

  Buddy is remembering.

  Though he lay dying, the thought was exciting to him. Remembering. It was his father trying to drown him. That remembering brought on the other. Lifting out of his body, he looked down upon himself, and remembered the man, hanging there.

  When he heard them, Buddy stopped in his tracks. He hunched down, and peered through the trees, the smell of spruce invading his nostrils.

  A hare froze in his line of sight. He made himself as still as the rabbit.

  He could hear their voices, but he couldn’t understand their words. He couldn’t understand words easily. Just tone. Tone of voice.

  The tone of voice he was hearing was ugly.

  Every time, it was ugly – at least from The Man. That’s how Buddy thought of Fitz. Every time it was ugly. That is, every time someone else came into the gully.

  There were a lot of them. The funny fat man. The Woman – that was Rose to Buddy. He was in love with her. He wanted to touch her soft blond hair. He wanted to thank her, in good, well-rounded words, for the kindnesses she had done for him. He never went into the house, but she brought out tea, and sometimes a biscuit. She gave him books for kindling. They never spoke, just the language of the eyes. He could only grunt and smile and drool.

  Buddy had stayed there for a long time, hunkered down in the woods, until he heard the shrill cry of the child. He’d jumped up, and he didn’t like what he saw. He went lumbering down the hill into the gully.

  Fitz held Jamie aloft, as if ready to toss him into the water. When he saw Buddy lumbering toward him, that’s exactly what he did. Threw him into the water. Then, scorn etched on his face, he began his acrobatic flips, escaping from Buddy’s slow and stupid steps.

  But something took hold of Buddy in that moment, and he began to move more fluidly than he ever had in his life. Forward, forward, reaching out toward Fitz, coming closer with every step that was like magic to him. His body had never responded before to his desire to move like other people.

  Fitz arched in the air, just as Buddy reached out and pushed. Shoved. Shoved him off the bridge and into the tree. The chain around Fitz’s neck appeared to leap out and fling itself at the branch, and the branch, co-operating, seemed to reach out and snag the chain.

  Buddy stared, confused, for a moment, and Fitz stared back, too, for a moment. A fatal moment. It was already too late when he reached up his hands to the chain and tried to yank it off. In fact, that’s what sealed his fate. He set off a spiralling motion that sent him spinning to his death. Around and around so that the chain got tighter and tighter and choked him of life.

  You might almost say that Fitz killed himself. But Buddy, in his new remembering, knew that he had done it. And Buddy, who carefully minded spiders in their webs around his shack, who shooed away flies and mosquitoes, who would deprive nothing of life, had just killed a man, and was happy that he had.

  Buddy didn’t wait around to watch the end. He went chasing down to the water to pull the child to safety.

  It wasn’t easy.

  It was his last thought. A well-formed thought, as he slipped out of his life of torment into peace. Everlasting peace. For someone who had never known peace in this life, death was the next best thing.

  Buddy would not remember anything anymore.

  In the end, Buddy wasn’t in the woods. They’d traveled all the trails, searched the clearings, where trees lay, cut to the ground, waiting to be hauled out in long lengths and then cut and split into woodstove-size pieces. Ian’s wood came from here. But he used only fallen trees. Ian didn’t want to be guilty of killing, especially not a tree.

  Jamieson was looking for a different kind of destruction. A hand, a foot, a trail of blood? Nothing.

  The snowmobile was growling them out of the woods, breaking the silence that was descending with the too-early Canadian winter night, when Ian saw him.

  The branches of the spruce trees were still heavy with snow, even on the edge of the woods behind Wild Rose Cottage. But the snow had fallen off the bottom branches of one tree, and that’s where Ian saw him.

  A hand. A foot. But no trail of blood.

  Buddy was lying under the shelter of a spruce, the tree that had beckoned him to lie down, called him to death, sheltered him as he gave up life.

  Jamieson stopped the vehicle. She and Ian both jumped off, and lifted the branches, to find Buddy lying in the snow, curled up in the fetal position, thumb in his mouth, eyes shut as if in sleep, a small smile of contentment on his blue face.

  Jamieson dismounted and leaned down close enough to try to feel his breath on her face. Nothing.

  He was maybe a hundred feet from Wild Rose Cottage.

  So near and yet so far. For the first time, Jamieson understood what that meant.

  So near and yet so far. The phrase was repeating itself in Jamieson’s mind as she looked down at the body. It was numbing the horror she felt. After all the death she’d seen, Jamieson was not immune to its effect. Not immune to the fact that she’d been unkind, thought unkind things about this man, who looked now like a large baby asleep on a white down comforter.

  But he might be a murderer. She hardened herself to that thought, even though he didn’t look it. She grasped his wrist in a futile attempt to find a pulse. No rigor mortis. He’d been dead more than twenty-four hours. That meant rigor mortis had set in and then left the body.

  Like Buddy. He’d left his body.

  Jamieson shook her head. What was she thinking? Like those nuts – Oliver and Lili.

  Ian dug deep into the emergency kit in his backpack. He held out a space blanket, crinkly, silver, shiny like tin foil, so thin it didn’t look like it could warm a finger.

  She screwed up her face.

  “Too late for that.” Too late to provide the warmth Buddy had needed. Just a hundred feet from the house. Had he known? Been afraid to approach? The questions would never be answered. Jamieson hated that. The not knowing.

  So near and yet so far. T
hat’s how she felt about her investigation.

  “For decency.” Ian unfolded the foil blanket and she took one end. They laid it over Buddy’s body.

  “And it may keep the coyotes away.”

  She looked up, startled. She hadn’t thought of that.

  Better get Murdo. Better get that sled.

  She pulled out her cell phone. The on-and-off reception was off again. She was so frustrated that she threw it in the snow. Ian quickly retrieved it and dried it off, as if it were something precious.

  It was, to him. Top of the line.

  “Well…” Jamieson’s hand thrust out to demand her phone. Ian came back to the present. He mounted the snowmobile behind Jamieson, again acutely aware of her body against his, even through their winter clothing. They took off to Ian’s to find a phone and Murdo.

  Still, Jamieson did not get through to Murdo. Her phone was on. But his was off. And he was on.

  On and off April Dewey’s plump little body.

  Finally.

  April in bed was everything April in the kitchen had promised. It was something men like Murdo knew about her instinctively. That smudge of flour on the cheek, a catechism of children hanging off her apron, her comforting plumpness held promises. Promises she had just fulfilled for Murdo.

  It had started when April’s sister came and took the kids for the afternoon. For the first time, Murdo and April were alone. She had a strand of hair caught in her mouth. He reached out to free the strand and stroked her cheek.

  He had put his arms around her. She hadn’t resisted.

  He let his hands slip down to paradise, the round cheeks of her buttocks. He began to knead them, and that’s when his thoughts turned to culinary terms.

  That’s when April led him to the bedroom and made him a happy man. A happy man now lying beside the sweetest treat a man could ask for.

  There was still flour on her cheek! And he’d thought he’d kissed it all off her. He’d kissed every inch of that delightful body. It had been a feast.

  My little crumpet. Sweet. Delicious. Murdo was playing a game, lying awake beside April, who was asleep, short messy curls on the pillow, breasts naked above the sheets.

  The most beautiful breasts. Round. Like apples. No, grapefruits. No, not smooth enough. Melons. Warm. Ripe. A mouthful.

  Murdo couldn’t resist anymore. He took that mouthful, and then another, and another…until April stirred in her sleep.

  Stirred.

  Another culinary term.

  The policewoman. Jamieson. Jamie-son. Interesting, but not relevant, Oliver decided, as he laid out the cards the way he remembered that they had come up.

  The police woman. He had read her in the cards. And there it was. He realized, as he lay it down in the last position – the final outcome was Justice.

  Justice. He rolled it around in his mind. Justice, yes, he thought, but not the justice of man, of the bureaucracy, of police stations and courtrooms. True justice. Making all right in the world.

  Oliver sat back, his hands propped on his belly, as if it were a shelf. He stared at the card and he memorized it, internalized it. Then when he knew it completely, he closed his eyes, and he walked into it. Right into the card, and the world around him disappeared. He was Justice. He could see her, be her. He stayed there some time, just to make sure he was correct, and then he began to walk back out of the card, slowly, carefully, not too hastily. This was a hard discipline because he was excited, excited by what he had found out.

  It would be all right, he knew, as he began to bring his spirit out of the card. He was still half in this world and half in the other when a door slammed and yanked him out of the card, out of the world of justice.

  Oliver was shaking at the abrupt return to this reality. He had not fully returned when that door banged. He hoped it wouldn’t do any damage. The windows shook. The cupboard door creaked.

  Settling down. The disturbance was settling down. White and Ginger were walking around in circles and meowing.

  And then all was calm. The card of Justice seemed to glow in the dimming light.

  It would be all right.

  Justice would be done.

  “The case is closed.” Jamieson had stopped at the Hall when she saw Hy’s car in the lot.

  “So who – ?”

  “It was an accident,” said Jamieson. If the guilty got away, so be it. And if the guilty were truly guilty? Let it lie.

  Hy sat down with a thump. She couldn’t believe what Jamieson was saying.

  “But…”

  “An accident.” Jamieson repeated. She had her face turned from Hy so that Hy couldn’t see it. “We don’t know how it happened. There was no eyewitness.” Hy knew it wouldn’t be the first time Red Island law enforcement had turned a blind eye to crime. But Jamieson? Jamieson? An accident? Accidental murder, maybe.

  “They should go,” said Hy, wishing them gone before Jamieson changed her mind.

  “Immediately. The three of them. Before I reconsider what happened.”

  Jamieson left the Hall, and Hy took off for Wild Rose cottage, as Jamieson knew she would do. Let her make the announcement.

  Hy could hardly believe what had just happened, but it had. Jamieson. Fully human. Better than fully human. Hy grinned. She didn’t care who’d done it either. The man had been an accident waiting to happen. An accident on earth. Quickening her pace, she came to a full stop at what she saw at the front door.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Oliver had seen something in the cards that had made him move with unusual swiftness up to Wild Rose Cottage. Of course. Of course. Why had he not seen it? He arrived there and saw immediately that he had read it right.

  It was the three of them standing there – mother, magician, and child – that had made Hy stop in her tracks. She inched towards them, dizzy with the sight in front of her that had so satisfied Oliver.

  Rose. Oliver. And Jamie.

  Jamie in a dress.

  Not the Shores Ella dress. A beautiful emerald green Christmas dress, with a lace collar and cuffs.

  “He’s a girl,” Rose blurted out.

  Hy inched a few steps closer, her mouth wide open.

  “But – ”

  “I’m a girl,” Jamie piped up, smiling.

  “A girl?” The words choked out of Hy’s mouth.

  “A girl,” said Rose, Jamie, and Oliver in unison.

  Jamie looked up. And she could see it. The rose-pink lips, the long eyelashes. The face like an angel, that at his – her? – age could belong to either gender.

  Oliver began to laugh, so hard the ripples of his flesh jiggled. Under his chin, his belly, his arms and thighs, all jiggling while tears ran down his eyes.

  He chucked Jamie under the chin.

  “The Sullivan legacy.” More laughter. “Of course. Of course.” He chucked Jamie under the chin again.

  “And what a little legacy you are.”

  The Sullivan legacy. It was Jamie. How?

  “Come in,” said Rose, looking better than Hy had ever seen her. If killing Fitz had done this to her, then it was worth it. She glanced at Jamie. But perhaps it had been her. She didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

  Inside, Rose handed her a book – the diary.

  “In a way, this is the Sullivan legacy. Members of the family have withheld it from one another for generations. Fought over it.”

  “Killed for it,” said Oliver, and all eyes were on him.

  “Oh, yes, the first two inheritors. Two young men. One sure the other had the diary. He, as eldest, had the house, but he wasn’t happy thinking his brother had the diary. He threatened to burn down his house – and he did. Killed him. But the book, all the time, was here. Someone knew – in each generation, but when the family left, the secret was lost, too. I was interested in the diary
itself, but I’ll admit the thought of a legacy was…uh…inspiring?

  “Now I’ve read it, and realize the Sullivan legacy is Jamie’s musical genius. Until now, the Sullivans had thought it was wealth of some kind. I feared it might be murder. But it turns out it’s music. Musical talent. It skips a couple of generations and then re-emerges. Well, we’re going to do something about that legacy, aren’t we, boy?”

  Jamie’s face brightened. It was his turn to laugh.

  “Girl.”

  Not his son. Now she understood. Jamie was Fitz’s daughter. Hy wanted to know more, a lot more, but there was no time. Not right now.

  “Jamieson’s ruled it an accident.”

  “I know,” said Oliver smugly, slipping an arm around Rose. “Didn’t I tell you so, my dear?”

  “I’d love to stay and chat,” Hy grinned broadly. “We certainly have a lot to talk about, but showtime’s in half-an-hour. I need your little legacy.”

  Oliver smiled Buddha-like.

  “We’ll get her there.”

  “And Santa?”

  Oliver bowed serenely. “As you insist on calling him, yes, he will be there.”

  He smiled over at Rose and she smiled back. The moment was almost – but not quite – ruined when a rat appeared, and ran right over Ginger’s back. Ginger stretched, turned, and curled into a new position.

  Rose and Oliver laughed.

  The cards had been right, he realized, when he’d thought they’d gone all wonky on him. There was love, at least companionship, in the cards. There was the legacy, and he knew now what that was. And there was himself as The Magician who would help bring magic into the lives of Rose and Jamie.

  But they should think of leaving soon. That police officer seemed oddly disinclined to pursue the case, and the cards had been favourable, but he’d misread them before, so it would be best if they all just left.

  After the show, they’d leave. He looked into Rose’s eyes. He could see she understood without his saying anything.