“Or Jason.”
“Right. Or Jason. Or Peter. Or even Arthur for that matter.” I remembered how Jason and Terry had fought on the bridge and then the tears — what had they been all about? Sally? Couldn’t be. He didn’t even know Sally. And Peter and his outburst. Where had that come from?
“Or anybody else she knew who we didn’t know she knew, and that maybe she didn’t know she knew.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Martha. We have to start some–where, so we pick the answer with the highest percentage of possibilities. That leaves the writing group.”
“And Jason.”
“And Peter.”
“And Arthur.”
And the entire rest of the ship, if I wanted to depress myself, which I didn’t.
After getting into work I spent an hour up with my animals, checking on the tape recording equipment I was using to record their song. I went back to my office and was sitting at my desk trying to do statistical analysis on some of my data. I heard footsteps in my outer office. I glanced up and there was Duncan, holding a large plastic pet cage and looking around with interest. He’d never been to my office before. I came out to greet him and got a big bear hug.
“Cordi, Cordi. Rescue me from this damn cat.”
The cage was bouncing around, but when I looked through the slats Paulie stopped moving and eyed me calmly. “Well that’s a good omen, Cordi! She usually hisses at anybody new.”
“Maybe it’s because Cordi and Paulie already know each other,” said Martha as she waltzed in the door and gave Duncan a big hug. “Paulie and Cordi spent a bit of time in the woods together before they found Jake Dia–mond’s body last summer, remember?”
Martha picked up the cage. “I’m going to take her up to the lab where she’ll be more comfortable until you can take her home.”
I nodded. Duncan waited until Martha’s footsteps were a distant thump. “You’ve got a real hellion on your hands. I had to stop off in Shawville and get some–thing from the vet to calm her down. She goes wild in the car.”
Shawville is a little town northwest of Ottawa, on the Quebec side. It has the best little café in the area, where you can get delicious and imaginative meals. I sort of suspected that that was the real reason Duncan had stopped in Shawville.
“I’ve come to take you out for lunch!”
I looked at the clock: 11:30. Guess I was wrong about Shawville.
“Oh, I know it’s early but I simply could not spend any more time with that cat. I know the perfect restaurant.”
I was flattered and suggested we invite Martha along as well, but he shook his head and said, “No, I think I want you all to myself.”
I tidied up a few loose ends and we left the building. I wondered what restaurant he had in mind so I was a little surprised when he walked me three blocks to an outdoor vending cart and said magnanimously, “Have anything you want; it’s on me. This guy makes the best damned sausages in the world.” Which meant I was duty bound to order a sausage.
Once we had our drinks, sausages, fries, and nap–kins I looked around for a place to sit. There wasn’t any–where. We were going to have to eat standing up, which would be a real juggling act. I must say I was surprised at Duncan’s choice. He paid for the food, then took my arm and steered me half a block down the street to a three-storey building where he opened the door for me. I was very curious by the time we took the elevator up and walked out into a very nicely appointed sports club, with tables of four and two lined up behind six glass-backed squash courts.
“You’ll have to excuse me, my dear, but I’m a real fan of squash and there’s a match today that I just can’t miss. He led me to a table near the first court and we sat down facing the empty court. We spread out our food and began to eat the incredibly messy but remarkably tasty sausages. I waited for Duncan to make the first con–versational salvo, wondering about what he might have to tell me. I should have known.
“Have you thought anymore about doing some forensic entomology for me?”
After Jake Diamond was discovered, Duncan had asked me to be a consultant forensic entomologist on any cases where he might need help from someone with a background in entomology. Someone like me. I’d never really answered him because I was torn.
“I wasn’t too thrilled with how I reacted to finding Jake Diamond’s body,” I said. I’d thrown up and felt like the mass of maggots on his body had somehow jumped to mine. It was a feeling I didn’t ever want to have again.
“You get used to it.”
“I don’t think so. And I’m not sure I want to.” I remembered the lifeless forms of Sally and Terry. But at least there had been no maggots. That was what really grossed me out — a dead body writhing with maggots.
I shivered.
“What’s the difference between setting out dead pigs and porcupines and raccoons for your students, and eye–balling human remains?”
“Imagination.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can’t imagine myself as a raccoon, but I can imag–ine myself being infested with maggots if they’re on a human body.”
“I’m not going to take this as a no.”
I marvelled at his optimism, but then, stranger things have happened. You never knew what my life might bring.
Duncan wiped his mouth with his napkin, then scrunched up his sausage wrapper and threw it at the garbage can. To both our surprise it went in.
“Have you phoned Dr. McKinnon yet?” he asked out of the blue.
I watched as two men entered the squash court and Duncan’s head swivelled to watch them too. But then he turned back and stared at me.
I was squirming in my chair and said nothing.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, and we sat in silence watching the two men bash the ball around the court. He tried another tact. “Martha told me about your house fire. I’m really sorry.”
I grunted.
“She says a pot of oil was left on the burner.”
I said nothing.
“She also said you never deep-fry anything.”
I sighed, waiting for him to say I was delusional.
Instead he said, “That’s one too many coincidences for me.”
“What happened to my being delusional?”
He sighed. “Martha thinks your attacker could be real and I believe that while you have a problem with depression, I may have jumped the gun on thinking you were delusional. It’s just that they are such fantastical stories — likely a series of unfortunate accidents — and knowing your history I thought it was possible you were in the manic phase of bipolar.”
“I’m not bipolar.”
“But you are something, Cordi. Maybe SAD.”
Such an apt acronym for a real mouthful — Seasonal Affective Disorder. The winter blues with a bite.
“I’m managing just fine with my life.” A defensive tone had snuck into my voice.
“But are you managing it? Martha says you’re pretty bad in the winter. There are medications that can help you, Cordi, turn the dark to light. Just call the doctor.
See what she has to say. For your own sake. It can’t hurt.”
One of the men in the squash court smashed into the back wall and made me jump. I felt trapped sitting there, trapped by Duncan, trapped by myself. I just wanted to get out. Duncan must have seen the panic slowly clos–ing over me because he leaned forward and abruptly changed the subject. “I hear you’re losing Martha.”
From the frying pan into the fire. He must have seen the confusion on my face because he covered his mouth with his hand. “Oh no. You don’t know.”
“I know she’s thinking of leaving, but so far she’s said nothing to me.” But she had confided in Duncan.
Were they that close? I thought about the ship and all the times I’d come across them together. I thought about how she never invited me back to her cabin. And the penny dropped.
“I’m so sorry, Cordi. I thought you knew.”
I ignored what he said and confronted him. “You and Martha are seeing each other.”
He broke into a broad grin. “We wondered when you’d cotton on.”
“And that’s why she confided in you about her job.”
He nodded. “But now I’ve mucked it up.” He looked at me questioningly.
“Don’t worry, Duncan. I’ll keep it to myself until she tells me.” I felt drained and wanted to get back to my office and drown myself in work. It was a good remedy for too many stray thoughts.
Back at the office I compiled a list of all the people who could have murdered Terry. I closed my eyes and plonked my finger down on one of them: Elizabeth. No. I didn’t want to call her first for some reason. Instead I picked up the phone and asked for directory assistance for Tracey Dunne. As I figured out what my story would be I lis–tened to the phone ringing, either in an empty house or someone was taking their own sweet time answering.
“Hello?” The voice was breathless, low, male.
“Could I speak to Tracey, please?” I heard the phone clattering on something that sounded like a marble surface.
“Hello?” The voice this time was high, tentative.
I reintroduced myself and was relieved that she remembered who I was. I let her talk about my lecture until it got too embarrassing. I interrupted her and asked if we could meet somewhere, I needed to talk to her about something.
She was immediately wary. When I told her it was about Sally she started making backing away noises and I thought I’d lost her.
“I’m just trying to piece things together for her sister, Sandy.” Silence. “She deserves that much.”
“Sandy’s her sister?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
Instead she lowered her voice and said, “You can’t come here. I’ll meet you at Canal Ritz. Do you know that restaurant?”
I said yes. The cute little restaurant right on the Rideau Canal.
“5:00?”
“Yes,” I said, and she hung up.
My comparative anatomy course ended early, so I got to the restaurant at ten to five so that I could get a table outside by the water. The inside is really nice, but it’s dark. Tracey arrived at 5:00 exactly, but she went directly inside and I debated about getting up to get her.
From where I sat I could see into the restaurant proper and I saw her talking to a waiter who pointed in my direction. We greeted each other and as she sat down a bullet-shaped speedboat came whizzing down the canal.
She looked up at it, her face rippling with emotion, and suddenly got up and took the other seat with her back to the canal.
“Don’t like speed boats?” I asked lightly.
“My sister died when she was hit by one,” she said, her face white and drawn.
Oops. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
She didn’t respond so I asked her what had hap–pened, but she wasn’t going there.
I waited until our orders had been taken before bringing up what was on my mind. “I was there when Terry was so ruthless about your writing.”
She turned away and I watched a swan paddling down the canal amongst a bunch of ducks.
“You must have been pretty angry.”
She looked up quickly. “I wouldn’t use the word angry. She humiliated me in a mean-spirited way, that’s all.”
“The police think Sally killed her, drowned her in the tub, threw her in the pool when someone chanced upon her, and then committed suicide.” I was watching a hot air balloon lazily drifting over the canal.
“And you don’t think that’s what happened?”
“I don’t think Sally killed her. I think someone else did.”
“You think because I was humiliated that I might have done it?” Tracey asked, without a trace of emotion.
I hazarded a guess. “I think someone in the creative writing group knows something and is hiding it.”
She brought her napkin up to her mouth and said, “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” but she wouldn’t meet my eye.
I didn’t get anything more out of her and I let her leave while I paid the bill. As the waiter came back with my credit card he was followed by a man who looked vaguely familiar.
He strode up to my table, planted his hands on the table cloth, and said, “What have you been telling my wife?”
George. The man with the temper. The man trying to control that temper and not doing a very good job.
I asked him to sit down but he preferred the advan–tage of looking down on me.
“I’m looking into Terry’s death.”
“The police have been all through it.”
I just stared at him and waited.
“Look,” he said, “Tracey had no involvement in those deaths.”
“But someone in the creative writing group may have.”
His right eye twitched and his hands pressed harder onto the table before he straightened up.
“Why did she keep going to class when Terry was so mean about the quality of her writing?”
“Her writing means everything to her.”
“And Terry had the right contacts?”
“Yes. My wife kept hoping. But the bitch undermined her, took away her self-confidence, and finally, on board the ship, refused to help her find an agent. Said her writ–ing stank.”
“She ridiculed your wife’s writing in front of all those people.”
“My wife’s a good writer.” George’s voice had become loud and defensive. “She’d do anything for her writing.”
“Including murder?”
George made a sudden move toward me, but just then the waiter appeared to take my credit card slip and George stayed his hand. He glared at me before striding through the restaurant and out the door.
When I got back to my office the next day there was no sign of Martha, but there were four boxes blocking my way with a note stuck to one of them.
I yanked it off and read it.
This is just for starters — do you want me to keep going?
Call me,
Derek.
I opened the boxes and discovered court transcripts and newspaper articles, lots of them. I pulled one out: “Sleepwalker Acquitted of Murder.”
“Accused Pleads Sleepwalking as Defence.” Terry’s face loomed out at me.
“Michael Grady Murdered in his Sleep.” Michael had been a very good-looking man.
I flicked through some more until I read “Juror #9 Injured.” There was a picture of a pretty young woman, presumably juror number nine, but it wasn’t the picture that caught my attention — not at first anyway. It was the name: LuEllen. I looked back at the picture and saw what she had lost.
I picked up the phone and got through to LuEllen, but she wasn’t very enthusiastic about speaking to me after I told her why. In fact, she had been as guarded as Tracey until I asked her if she really believed that Sally could kill Terry. That seemed to change her mind. We arranged to meet at her house in Chelsea, just outside of Ottawa on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, later that evening.
I put in four hours of work — I was wrestling with some of the sonograms that seemed to indicate that the birds allowed to interact vocally with a male learned twice as many songs as the isolated birds, corroborating other research. At one point Martha came in and inter–rupted me with my mail. I took it from her but she still said nothing, just looked around the office like a lost waif.
I couldn’t stand it any longer. Into the silence that felt like a ten ton weight I asked, “Are you going to take the job?”
She reacted as if I had bitten her and I realized with chagrin that she still didn’t know I knew. I had assumed Duncan had filled her in. Shit.
At that incredibly crucial moment the phone rang and we both stared at it. I had to get it. It was Rose. I watched as Martha left in what looked like a huff and I felt like a heel. But I was more angry at Dean, who should have told her he’d spoken to me instead of mak–ing it look like we were talking behind her bac
k.
“Cordi, he’s coming home today. He said you’re to come and stay with us, and if you’d prefer to be on your own you can use his studio.”
I started to protest. I was still worried about endan–gering my brother and his family, but she said, “We need you, Cordi. Ryan won’t be able to milk the ladies for awhile and Mac can’t do it alone. I can do some of it, but with the kids it’s difficult.”
I thought about our farmhand Mac and couldn’t believe I had not thought about my brother’s predica–ment sooner.
“Has Mac been doing it all?”
“Pretty much.”
I told her I’d be back that evening.
“For supper?”
“No.”
I hung up and went in search of Martha, but she was nowhere to be found. I called the police about my wreck of a house and they confirmed that it was a pot of oil on the stove. When I mentioned that I had not left a pot of oil on the stove the officer said, “Look, every–body can be forgetful sometimes. Or maybe a member of your family left it on the burner. That’s what the evidence tells us.”
“So that’s what you’ve sent to the insurance company?”
“Unless you can prove otherwise, yes.”
I then spoke to the insurance company but nobody seemed to be able to tell me anything. They were still waiting for the police report.
I pulled myself together and headed across the Ottawa River, through Hull, now Gatineau — one of those name changes that have stationary stores and let–terhead designers rubbing their hands in glee — and headed up the highway to Chelsea. It was a twenty min–ute drive, half the distance I drive to and from work, and it landed me right in the heart of the country with the Gatineau Hills rolling all over the place and the Gatin–eau River rushing down to meet the Ottawa. The tree studded hills afford remarkable privacy for the myriad houses that have been built in their valleys and dales. They come in all sizes, shapes, and expense accounts.
I zipped off Highway 5 and made my way along the old highway that skirts the Gatineau River to find
Rosemount Place, a grandiose name for an unpaved, pot–holed road that climbed up into one of the Gatineau Hills.
I drove past mansions and modest two bedroom homes, although the smaller houses were definitively older than the bigger, more ostentatious homes.
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