Innocent Murderer

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  “Do you think Sally could have done that?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Duncan. “I would like to think Sally came along, saw Terry in the pool, and reacted instinctively. She jumped in fully clothed to try and save her, and her heavy clothes took her under. But the suicide note clearly kyboshes that.”

  “Could be fake.”

  “Not according to the police. It’s definitely her hand–writing scrawled on a little, ripped piece of paper.”

  I thought about that for awhile and was caught off guard when Duncan said, “I have a name for you, Cordi.” His voice came softly down the line, interrupting my chain of thought. “Dr. Geraldine McKinnon.”

  What the hell was he talking about, I wondered, and then froze. Duncan was nothing, if not persistent.

  “Just because you were right about the necklace, and about one of them being murdered, doesn’t mean you don’t need help.” He proceeded to rattle off the wom–an’s phone number, admonishing, “Just call her, Cordi.

  It can’t hurt you.”

  Then the line went dead and I stared at the mouth–piece for a long time. A very long time indeed. I hung the phone up and stared at it some more, willing the conver–sation I had just had to crawl back into the receiver and die. I didn’t want anything more to do with Sally and Terry. It wasn’t my problem. And I didn’t want anything to do with Dr. Geraldine McKinnon.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I spent the next bunch of days catching up on work, planning the courses I’d have to teach in the fall, and marking some lab assignments from my comparative anatomy course. I called Duncan to beg off the five hour round trip drive to get Paulie. He wasn’t too happy about it, but both of us were swamped and couldn’t take the time. I hadn’t seen Martha for a while and I wondered if the Dean had already snatched her, but then I realized that all her things were still here, and besides, Martha would never leave without saying goodbye. I was actually grateful when there was a heavy footfall outside my door.

  It was a policeman, wanting to take my statement about Terry’s death. I answered all of his questions, basi–cally outlining everything I remembered, but when I began to ask him questions about the fresh water in her lungs he politely begged off. It was, after all, an official investigation. Frustrated, I saw him to the door. Then the phone rang and I ran back to get it.

  “Cordi?” The voice was strong, almost angry, or was it something else?

  “Yes,” I said, warily.

  “It’s Sandy. From the ship.”

  Shit. I’d forgotten to ring her back, or at least there was no answer when I did. How many days now? Four?

  It couldn’t have been much of an emergency. There was a lot of commotion in the background — children’s voices.

  Must be a birthday party.

  “Sandy. How are you?”

  Instead of answering my question she said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t around if you tried to call.” She hesitated, letting the implication sink in and then quickly added, “I had a sick kid,” by way of her explanation.

  “That’s too bad. Everything okay now?” I asked.

  She bulldozed over my questions and got to the point. “I need to talk to you very badly.” When I didn’t respond she said, “It’s about Sally.”

  “What about her?”

  “Please, I need to talk to you in person. Can we meet today?”

  I sighed and rummaged around on my desk for my laptop and calendar, buried under a stack of research papers. “Why don’t you come here around 5:00?” I said, cursing myself for not just saying no. I’d just finished tell–ing myself I wanted nothing more to do with Terry and Sally and the lot. Tell that to the niggling little thought in the back of my head.

  There was a long pause at the end of the phone. I waited, listening to children’s voices laughing and gig–gling. I was wondering what it would be like to have chil–dren when Sally broke up my dog’s breakfast of thoughts. “I know this is asking a lot, but could you come here? I have the kids and no car….”

  I blew air into my cheeks so they popped out like a puffer fish and then let the air slowly stream out of my mouth. “Where’s here?” I heard myself asking the ques–tion that had just committed me.

  “Manotick” she said slowly, as if I might react badly.

  I did, but not to her. I hauled the receiver away from my ear and made nasty faces at it before bringing it back and politely saying, “Where in Manotick?”

  Manotick is in the countryside, fifteen kilometres south of Ottawa, but is officially part of the City of Ottawa — the rural part. It was going to take me about twenty-five minutes to get there if there wasn’t much traffic. When I’d realized I was going to have to go to her I changed the time to 6:30, dinner time, so I could get my work in. She hadn’t protested.

  Just as I was grabbing my keys and stuffing a note–book into my pocket, Martha walked into the outer office. At the same time the phone rang. I picked it up and got some guy at the grant office telling me I hadn’t sent in all the required information. As I sorted it out with him I watched Martha in the mirror in my office. She was just wandering around aimlessly, picking up specimens, holding up her milking stool and then put–ting it down, and even touching the pictures she’d taken of one of my indigo buntings as if she’d never seen them before.

  I caught my breath. She’d talked to the Dean. It was written all over her face — indecision, nervousness, excitement, nostalgia, and regret. I felt my heart sink.

  Had she said yes? If she had I’d have to let her tell me. I didn’t want her thinking I had talked about her behind her back, even if the Dean had initiated it.

  “Hi,” I said as I stepped out of my office. Martha was holding the little rubber ducky I’d given her as a joke at least four years ago. I hadn’t even known she still had it.

  Guiltily she dumped it in her drawer and shut it.

  “Hi, Cordi.”

  We were two solitudes, each with our own knowl–edge, but no bridge to communicate it. Why do friends do that to each other? I felt powerless to even begin to build a bridge. Of course, I could have swum across, but I didn’t.

  I gave her lots of time to say something, but she didn’t. Maybe that meant she hadn’t yet made up her mind. I couldn’t believe she’d stay with me and the other two guys she didn’t care about one way or the other. Put that way, I knew what her answer would be. It was a promotion after all — to work for a full professor with his added research funding, equipment, and experiments.

  “Gotta go,” I said and she smiled.

  “See ya.”

  I should not have turned around in the doorway. She was blowing her nose and looking out the window, the indecision usurping every line in her face.

  I practically ran to my car, shoving thoughts of Mar–tha out of my head as fast as they came in — and they were breaking the speed limit.

  The ride out to Manotick was actually nice, once the four lane highway of Riverside gave way to the two lane River Road, and the houses gave way to fields with plac–idly grazing cows. Developers were having a field day out here, giving their developments such names as “Honey Gables” and, across the river, “Heart’s Desire.” I never understood developers’ need to be so precious.

  As I drove over the bridge spanning one branch of the Rideau River I could see Watson’s Mill, now in shadow. It’s a huge stone monolith that rises out of the water, and has been part of the river for almost one hun–dred fifty years. Every time I look at a mill I marvel at the strength of the stone — that the river could not carry it away — and I secretly wonder if they ever leak.

  I drove down the town’s main street and followed the river out the other end, until I came to a dirt road where I stopped to peer at my scribbled page of direc–tions. When I finally found her house it was not what I had expected. The first indication was two monstrous brick gateposts with ornate wrought iron gates fastened to them. I had stopped the car and started getting out to open them, when they slowly
opened on their own accord. A camera? I drove down a windy road and broke out onto lawns that would have held ten tennis courts. The house was huge and immensely ugly. It looked as though it had been built of Styrofoam blocks by a couple of children having fun. There wasn’t a single straight wall. They angled or turned corners and slanted themselves in all directions. The door, however, was normal. I walked up to it and raised the leaden knocker that had been fash–ioned into a bolt of lightning.

  It was a long time before the heavy oak door slowly opened.

  “Hi,” said a little voice some three and a half feet off the floor. A little boy, about six years old, stood dressed in a Robin Hood outfit complete with plastic bow and arrows.

  “Are you Dr. O’Callaghan?” He stumbled over my name but smiled up at me as if he hadn’t noticed, which he probably hadn’t.

  “Yes, I am,” I said and smiled back.

  “Mummy says to bring you to the living room. She’s busy. Becky did a boo boo.”

  I followed the little boy into the house. The hallway was very dark, lined in grey slate, and the floor was dark grey slate too. I could see the light at the end of the short hall and when we broke out into the open I stood on the wide slate-grey stairs that led down into the house and gaped in astonishment.

  The room I had just entered was enormous — about the size of half a football field, its ceiling three stories high.

  It was all one post and beam room. I could see the kitchen, the dining room, the rec room, and the living rooms, all formed into little pods by the strategic placement of the furniture. Enormous picture windows brought light streaming in, and focused your eyes on the view of the Rideau River as it wound its way through tree-clad banks.

  Incongruously, hanging from the wall between two of the picture windows, was the enormous head of a moose.

  Someone had festooned its antlers with silver bangles. I idly wondered about the history of this quite magnificent beast, until my eyes lighted on the centrepiece of the living room: a large green bronze birdbath with a little bronze bluebird flicking water over its wings, and a huge eagle, life size, wings fully outstretched, talons forever open and reaching, ready to make the kill. Artistic license allowed lots of odd things to happen, I thought wryly.

  When I’d finally finished surveying the room I noticed my little friend had disappeared, or rather had gone to join a group of noisy children in the rec room. It suddenly occurred to me that Sandy must run a daycare here. I counted the kids, seven plus Becky. She must be right on the limit of what’s allowed.

  She must love kids, I thought. She certainly didn’t need the money.

  I stood there for a long while, wondering if I should just go and sit in the living room, but afraid Sandy wouldn’t notice me in this enormous place.

  “Daniel!” I turned in the direction of the adult voice and saw Sandy with a baby riding her hip, entering the kitchen. “I asked you to take Dr. O’Callaghan to the living room.”

  Daniel ignored his mother — he was too busy fitting an arrow to his bow.

  Sandy came up, made some apologies, and led me to a sofa in the living room where a tray full of good–ies and ice-cold lemonade were already ensconced. Becky kept trying to snafu some of the goodies, so Sandy put her down on the floor and pretty much ignored her. I watched Becky crawl her way through the living room toward the kitchen.

  “She’ll be okay,” said Sandy. “This place is kid proof.”

  I smiled. She turned and looked at me. Her eyes were red and swollen and her cheeks were puffy. Sally must have been quite a friend. I wondered how she ever found the privacy to cry — unless she cried in front of the kids, which seemed unlikely. That would just cause more problems.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  I nodded and waited.

  “The police have been questioning me” she said, her voice tightly under control.

  “That’s a normal thing. Everybody involved in the deaths in any way has been questioned since we got back from the cruise.”

  “Yes, but they say Sally committed suicide, which I told you is absolutely impossible.” She paused. “Sally was the most optimistic person I know.”

  I let my mind wander back to Sally and her tear streaked face and her needy, clingy personality. “Are you saying she wasn’t upset about splitting up with Arthur?”

  “Of course she was upset, but Sally was biologically incapable of being depressed for long.”

  Not the Sally I knew.

  “Now the police are insinuating that she killed Terry.

  That she drowned her in her bathtub, carried the body out, dumped it into the pool, and then killed herself.

  Sally! As if she could do such a thing!” She fidgeted with her lemonade. “Sally could no more have murdered Terry than a baby could.”

  I reached over and picked up a cookie from the tray, trying to find the right words. “Sandy, look. Your friend was very quiet and very secretive. It’s possible she didn’t tell you everything.”

  “Sally was an outgoing extrovert who loved people and liked to tell everybody her stories; and she had some great ones.”

  I choked on my cookie and stared at her. “Are we talking about the same Sally here?” I asked.

  Sandy put her lemonade carefully on the tray. “Sally was an actor.”

  I could hear a clock ticking somewhere in the enor–mous room. Two of the kids were fighting over a piece of Lego. I digested this piece of information. “Meaning what exactly?” I asked.

  “She was acting a part on board the ship,” Sandy said.

  I could feel my jaw dropping and made a conscious effort to catch it before it fell too far. I thought back to the sauna — “It’s hard to be Sally,” she’d said. “Hard to be the mouse.”

  “She told me it could make her career. She told me she had a recall audition for a part in a play. She was to be a mousy, shy, and timid woman with low self-esteem — the exact opposite of Sally. She wanted to try and be this woman, live and breathe her while among strang–ers, and had settled for an Arctic cruise. She asked me to come along with her. It was a lot of juggling, what with the kids and all, but I said yes. She wanted me to come so much that she offered to pay for my ticket.”

  “Why didn’t she just go alone? There’d be no dis–tractions.”“Aw, you don’t know Sally, not the real Sally. She can–not — could not — keep things to herself and she needed me to talk to at night so that she could play the mouse by day. She craved an audience, otherwise she would have blasted her secret to the rooftops. She was never very good at keeping secrets, but this meant so much to her.”

  Sandy put her lemonade glass down on the table and turned to look at me. “There was something more than just the acting happening.”

  I waited but she didn’t go on. “You mean something with Sally?”

  Sandy nodded. “She was a great actor, but every time she returned to our cabin where she could be herself she was on edge, almost fearful. When I asked her why, she was abrupt and clammed up.”

  “I’m sure it was just a case of actor fatigue. Imagine having to act a part eighteen hours a day? It would be enough to put anybody on edge.”

  When Sandy didn’t say anything I said, “Why have you called me?”

  “Because you were there, you found the bodies, and you’ve solved a murder before. Sally did not murder Terry.

  The police think she did. I want you to clear her name.”

  “Friends hide lots of things from each other,” I said gently. “How can you be so sure she isn’t a murderer?”

  Sandy smiled then and said, “Do you have any sib–lings?”What did that have to do with anything?

  I nodded.

  “How often have you been able to hide things from them?”

  “Not often,” I admitted. Especially if it was as impor–tant as a murder, I thought.

  “Now maybe you understand.”

  I looked at her curiously.

  “Sally was my sister.”

  Chapter
Fifteen

  I spent part of the drive home wondering why I was surprised that they were sisters. After all, why would they have thought it necessary to volunteer that infor–mation? Then I moved on to wonder about Sally’s act–ing role and finally about how I had failed to say no to Sandy’s request. I had told her that I was pretty busy with my job at the university, but she had refused to let me say no right then and there, which is what I wanted to do. I’m such a wimp. She had asked me to give it some thought before I made a decision. I had hesitated in the face of such determination, agreeing to think it over and get back to her. I had just delayed the inevitable and per–haps given her some false hope.

  It was way too late to go back to work, and rush hour was over, so the ride home was easy. I rolled into the barn to see if Ryan was around. It was quiet — not yet milking time. I strolled over to our Olympic milk producer, Ethel, and gave her a pat on the schnozz. I checked the pens where the cows are kept, in case Ryan was in there, but he wasn’t. I reached over one of the pens and let one of the little guys suck on my fingers. Being a steer is such a bummer. If your genes don’t single you out for stud service your life is short. But at least you’re well-fed.

  I left the barn and walked around to the entrance to Ryan’s studio. The red light outside the door was off — he wasn’t in the darkroom. I wondered when he would change over to digital. It was a lot easier and surely the quality was good enough now? But I knew Ryan liked the peace and the quiet of the darkroom and the eerie red glow of the safe light. Life seems so far away when you’re in there.

  I opened the door and walked in. Ryan was over by the big bay window, looking at a fistful of prints.

  “Hi, Cordi. What’s up?”

  I dawdled down his long table looking at the photos strewn all over it. He’s a good photographer, my brother, and more and more magazines were after his services. One day he wouldn’t have to be a farmer anymore, although I knew he would never give that up. It’s in his blood, same as me. I looked at him and smiled. The sum–mer sun had created so many freckles on his face that they had practically merged. His thick blond hair always makes me wonder how we ever came from the same par–ents. My hair is as black as it comes and not one single freckle can be found on my face. There are other differ–ences too, of course, and no stranger had ever cottoned on to the fact that we were brother and sister.