Innocent Murderer

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  “And Kathy Reichs?”

  “She’s no match for you.”

  Yeah right, I thought.

  Chapter Two

  Our flight left three days later from the Ottawa air–port. In that time I had managed to get the graduate student who helped me with the comparative anatomy course to stand in for me while I was gone. Martha, at least, had already lined up a lab technician to take her place and look after my animals. It was fortunate that none of my experiments needed me at the moment and Martha’s replacement knew the ropes — she’d helped me out before so I trusted her.

  To make the early morning flight I’d had to get up as the sun was rising with the mist to drive in from my place in the country. I’d also tried to get hold of Patrick a dozen times but he wasn’t picking up and the hotel phone was no better, so I had to leave a message that I’d see him in a week. Definitely not very satisfying, espe–cially in an age when we’re all supposed to be reachable in multiple ways.

  The airport was deserted except for a knot of people down near First Air. I spotted Martha right away. She was wearing a lime green jogging suit and scarlet shirt. She was bending over a huge stack of luggage, rifling through it in a barely controlled panic while a very famil–iar figure stood beside her, patiently holding her enor–mous oversized purse.

  “Duncan! What are you doing here?” I called out.

  I may be nearsighted but there is no mistaking Dun–can. Even without his imposing stature he’s impossible to miss because you can’t miss his face, and you can’t miss his face because you can’t miss the nose on it. It overpowers everything else, even his clear blue eyes and soft smile. Duncan is a pathologist who lives a couple of hours northwest of Ottawa. He works at the university in Dumoine and is the local coroner. We’d met the summer before when I’d stumbled across a body in the wilderness.

  “Cordi! Cordi! Lovely to see you. How are you my dear?” He engulfed me in a massive bear hug. The tweed of his heavy jacket tickled my nose and mouth, and I could smell the mothballs that it had been stored in.

  “Are you coming to Iqaluit?” I shouted into his chest, my words muffled and deadened by his tweed.

  He suddenly eased up on his bear hug and held me at arm’s length, “What did you say, Cordi? God, you look good.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Duncan glanced down at Martha, who was still wildly rummaging through her luggage, and said, “Didn’t Martha tell you? I’m a member of the writing group, so I guess that means I’m coming along too.”

  “You?” I asked incredulous. “When did you take up writing?”

  “When Martha did,” he said and winked as he looked down at Martha and his smile broadened into a grin that almost eclipsed his nose. Almost. I wondered how many of his writing mates were using that incredible nose in their stories. What a gift! Duncan certainly saw it that way. It had taught him how to be blunt and open about things. What else could he do, with a nose like that?

  Martha finally emerged from her bag, trium–phant over her recovery of something. “Got it!” She waved her airline ticket at me. For a moment her own anxiety infected me and I found myself reaching for my bag to reassure myself that I had all my travel documents, even though I knew I did.

  “He’s good, you know,” said Martha as she began repacking her boots and winter coat, which had spro–inged all over the airport floor.

  “Who’s good?” I asked.

  “Duncan. He’s a good writer.”

  I looked at Duncan in frank astonishment. I’d read some of his coroner reports and even without the hor–rific handwriting his prose had been lean and mean, no flowers, no padding, just the facts and nothing more. He raised his eyebrows at me and shrugged.

  Martha caught sight of him and gave him a friendly swipe of her hand. “He just doesn’t know he’s good.

  But he’s done a nice little mystery piece on street kids and squeegees.”

  “Enough already, Martha,” said Duncan. “You’re giving away my trade secrets. Now, where’s the lineup for the baggage check in?” he asked, even though he was looking right at it.

  “Back over there,” said Martha. “Oooo look, there’s Tracey and George. And there’s Elizabeth.” Martha took off like a battleship with Duncan in tow.

  I hung back, not quite wanting to immerse myself in these people’s lives yet. For now I just wanted to observe. I guess I was afraid of being beside someone from the writing group who would talk my ear off for the entire flight. At least on the boat I could escape. I checked my luggage and then walked back down the hall to the donut shop where I bought a donut and O.J. Then I browsed for a book in the airport bookstore before making my way to the gate.

  On the plane I had managed to get a window seat, affording me some degree of privacy and comfort, as long as I didn’t have to use the washroom. But the seat in front of me was full, so I would have a meal tray in my teeth. I watched with interest as Terry Spencer struggled down the aisle, carrying a very large carry-on and a brief–case. When she got to my row she stopped, consulted her ticket, and then glanced at me. I nodded but she looked away and started trying to manhandle her carry-on bag into the overhead bin. A man in the next row finally got up and helped her.

  As she dumped the briefcase in the aisle seat she said to no one in particular, but everyone who was listening, “Why do airplanes always come with such tiny luggage compartments?”

  I refrained from saying it was probably because they figured most people would not take all of their worldly possessions on board. She clicked open the catches on the briefcase and hauled out a huge sheaf of papers, dumping them on the middle seat. As she did so a small object in the shape of an elephant flew onto the floor at her feet. I reached to retrieve it for her, but before I could she snatched it up and shoved it in her briefcase without even looking at me. I caught the eye of a dark haired woman across the aisle, who looked at me and hastily glanced away. Her face was so pale I wondered why she didn’t help it along with some makeup. Terry refastened her case, hoisted it above her head, and plopped down into her aisle seat, swooping up the papers as she went.

  “Glad you could make it” she said, without looking up from her papers or sounding genuine.

  I thought that was a little rude but maybe she was still planning her course and was nervous about not being ready — I know I felt that way. I went back to scrawling out some possible notes for my lectures, until a voice cut through my concentration.

  “George wants a word with you.”

  The odd, resigned but angry tone of voice made me look up. He was standing in the aisle fidgeting with his hands. He was of medium height and build, about forty-five years old with a full head of straight jet-black hair, too dark for his age, so dyed. He had bushy, too dark eyebrows, and telltale grey stubble on a face that must have needed shaving twice a day. His face was pitted by old acne scars and his nose was the red of a man who liked to drink. His chin dropped off like a landslide from his mouth into his neck. The only part of him that didn’t match his age was his body, which looked as finely tuned as a twenty-year-old’s.

  “They’re sitting across from me so why don’t we just switch.”

  Terry looked up and grimaced. “Can’t you handle it, Owen?” The way she said it sounded more like, “What kind of a fool are you?”

  “No. He wants to talk to you about his wife’s writing. She’s pretty upset about what you said.”

  “Christ, what a baby.” Terry quickly glanced up at him and then looked at me and began extricating herself form her paperwork. “All I said was that it needs work,” she scowled. “I could have said much worse.”

  As she finally stood up she looked back at me. “You two haven’t met yet, have you?” she asked, as if it were the most boring thing in the world.

  “Owen this is Cordi O’Callaghan. Cordi — Owen Ballantyne, my right-hand man.”

  I reached over and gripped his hand, then wished I hadn’t. It was like getting flattened by a rolling mac
hine, my rings mashed into my skin. He smiled at me and what should have been his chin bunched up into seven folds of skin, his smile sliding into them.

  Terry stuffed her sheaf of unruly handwritten papers into Owen’s hand, and in a soft, barely audible voice said “Put them in your briefcase.” Then she moved forward and took Owen’s seat. Owen disappeared down the aisle and returned with his briefcase. He tidied the papers but didn’t put them away.

  As the plane took off and reached cruising altitude I kept to myself, reading a magazine about woodworking.

  But it was hard to concentrate because there was a fair amount of whispering going on in the row ahead of me.

  Suddenly, the seat in front of me bucked and a woman with the most amazing curly red hair stood up, forcing her seatmate to get up to let her out. He was a heavyset man in his early forties with a tremen–dous shock of pure white hair. I didn’t catch what he looked like because he sat down immediately. I pre–tended to tie my shoes and peered through the crack and watched as he took the woman’s purse, a red suede eye catcher, and opened it. He looked around furtively and I backed off, but my curiosity was too much for me. I stood up and as I did so I saw him take something from the bag and slip it in his pocket. He looked up and our eyes glanced off each other as I stepped past Owen and went to the washroom. I could feel his eyes on me all the way down the aisle.

  There was a lineup, of course, and I lounged against the side of one of the aisle seats. There was a man sitting in it who seemed to be nothing but a mass of hair. He was reading a paper that was about the illegal trade of wild animals. I wondered if he was a fellow lecturer. His seat–mate, a diminutive blond, was reading a comic book. I had scanned back to the paper the man was reading when suddenly he looked up at me. I quickly looked away, but not before I saw the annoyance in his face. Who could blame him? All these people hovering over him as they waited impatiently in line.

  When I came back the shock of white hair was gone and both seats sat empty.

  I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew was hearing Terry’s voice cutting through the plane “It’s just a piece of writing for god’s sake.”

  And then a male voice saying, “Lady, you have no right….”

  I couldn’t hear what happened next, just a lot of muffled voices, but it was enough to catapult Owen out of his chair. He dumped the papers he’d been reading on the seat with the briefcase and they spilled onto the floor along with the case. Two of the sheets fluttered after him as he disappeared down the aisle. I picked up a manual on hot air balloons and then had to get out of my seat to retrieve all of the stuff that had fallen out of the briefcase, as well as the briefcase itself. I picked up the two sheets and put them back with the rest. They were in no partic–ular order and as I straightened them out a handwritten phrase caught my eye; the scrawl tight and legible.

  “Drenched in oil and blinded by blood she held her breath and jumped.” It was about a woman fleeing a black market organ attempt, or at least I thought it was, but I didn’t get to read any more because someone above me cleared their throat in a way that demanded attention. I looked up and found Owen staring at me, his face so blank that there was nothing at all I could read from it.

  “I’m sorry. They fell when you left …” I stumbled along into silence. He still stood in the aisle staring at me. I felt myself start to get hot.

  “Do you always read people’s private papers?”

  “I didn’t really read them, just glanced at them.”

  He reached out his hand and I gave him the papers. He sat down and replaced them in the briefcase.

  “Some of the students’ work,” he said. “They wouldn’t be keen to know some stranger was rifling through it.” I couldn’t tell by the closed look on his face whether he was angry or indifferent.

  “Your briefcase fell.”

  “Nothing we can do about it. But thank you.” His face was inscrutable and then he smiled this weird, tight little smile and took out his earphones.

  After that little rap on the knuckles I made him get up to let me out again. Most people were watching the movie and the legs of the men in the outer seats were encroaching on the aisle as they tried to get comfort–able while jammed into seats meant for their children. I manoeuvred around them and caught sight of Duncan and Martha, but they were engrossed in the movie.

  When I got back to my seat Owen was gone and Terry was back, poring over her work with an air that unmistakably said, “Don’t you dare interrupt me.” But I had to, of course, and she grumbled about people who can’t sit still but she left me alone.

  I felt really fidgety and shuffled around for some papers until Terry gave me the evil eye. I was about to check out the movie when I noticed a strikingly tall woman coming down the aisle towards us, her face dwarfed by the mass of curly red hair that scattered its way all across it — the woman from the seat in front of me. She wasn’t just tall, she had muscle to go along with the height. And apparently she’d been crying, because her eyes matched the colour of her hair. She stopped at her row and cleared her throat. I wondered why she didn’t sit down. Her white haired seatmate had moved to the window seat. She just stood there looking forlorn until I heard a hissing voice practically throttle her with its venomous intent. “For god’s sake Sally, sit down or get out of everybody’s way.” And she sat down beside him.

  I watched the movie for a while but it didn’t really grab me and the earphones weren’t working very well; I had to keep hitting them to get them to work, which did not sit well with Terry. It was one of those movies strung together with very little substance and lots of gratuitous violence. The four-letter words were beeped out for the kids.

  I took out my earphones and stashed them in the pocket of the seat in front of me. Then I rifled though it looking for a magazine. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Terry was watching the movie, so I was able to wrestle some papers out of my briefcase and started thinking about my upcoming lectures. It was quiet on the plane. That charged, ethereal kind of quiet that comes with being in excess of twenty thousand feet above ground and defying gravity. That is, it was quiet until I gradually became aware of people whispering.

  “No, please Arthur.” The voice seemed deflated, stripped of any resolve, totally needy and therefore totally desperate.

  A male voice, bitter and sarcastic replied, “I’ve had enough. I don’t want you Sally.” He strung out the words as if she couldn’t speak English very well. “What part of that do you not understand? It’s over.”

  The seat in front of me suddenly bucked and the white haired, heavyset man stood up and barged his way past Sally. Without looking back he strode to the front of the plane.

  I heard Sally calling out, “Arthur!” and then I leaned forward and glanced through the crack between the seats.

  She had grabbed her hair and was rocking back and forth.

  I looked over at Terry, who had taken out her ear–phones. Sally had started to cry, low, gentle sobs under tight control. I wondered if I should do something, but then Terry got up and barged her way in. She didn’t even hesitate. She told Sally to stop crying in a tone that sounded like a schoolteacher reaming out a student. Sal–ly’s sobs stopped, whether due to the suddenness of Ter–ry’s appearance, the sharpness of the tone, or something else altogether, I don’t know. But it didn’t last long. I sat there, prisoner to the conversation in front of me. After all, it’s pretty hard not to overhear people talking, even in a whisper, when you’re just three feet away.

  “He’s leaving me. He’s leaving me.”

  “For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together,” said Terry.

  “You’re just a jilted woman not a mourning widow.”

  That made the sobs grow louder. “I need to tell my friend,” she gurgled. There was a long silence.

  Terry’s voice dropped to a low whisper, but I could still make it out. “Don’t go blabbing it around.”

  Sally’s sobs turned staccato, as if she was trying to ho
ld them in but was not succeeding — she already was blabbing it around. There was a long pause and then Terry finished, “Or I won’t help you.”

  Chapter Three

  “I never should have listened to you in the first place,” I yelled at Martha over the crash of the rubber Zodiac bucking over a wave and skittering down into another endless trough of icy cold Arctic water. I could feel my stomach start to slither around like a drunken snake and I prayed we’d make it to the ship before it decided to embarrass me.

  Right after we’d landed in Iqaluit we had been given a tour of the town. Coming from a land of trees and bushes that bring softness to the harshness of manmade things, I was struck by the lack of even a little bush. I remembered hearing about an Inuit who came to south–ern Ontario and felt so claustrophobic he had to go back to the land of Inukshuks, those eerie stone sentinels of the north that point the way for those who are lost.

  After visiting the Art Centre and watching Inuit carv–ing stone into works of art full of motion and whimsy, we went to the community centre where we waited for hours without being told why. I should have suspected something when I went into the washroom. A group of women who had just come off the ship were gathered around the hand dryers, trying to get their clothes dry. One woman was wearing nothing but her underwear as she shook her clothes in front of the dryer. At the time I didn’t really register what that meant.

  I was trussed up like a cocoon, at least from the waist up. The hood of my orange rain jacket was pulled tight around my face, practically obscuring it, but my legs were drenched because I had forgotten my rain pants.

  I concentrated on gluing my eyes to the horizon while everyone else stared at the rolling ship that was looming up on the starboard side. I was sitting right at the rear, beside the guy manning the boat, the illegal trade paper guy. So I’d been right — he was part of the crew, which probably meant he was also a lecturer.