Innocent Murderer

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  “What?” I asked.

  “She just doesn’t seem like the type, that’s all. There’s something else there, Cordi.”

  “That’s totally subjective, Ryan. You saw her when she was recovering from an epileptic seizure. She’s bound to look vulnerable then. You don’t even know her.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, but I knew he didn’t really mean that.

  After eating dinner and helping Rose clean up I went back outside to check on the plane. It had ended up slightly to one side of the road and looked incongruous as a back–drop for our cattle. I opened the little passenger door and looked inside. I didn’t know what I was looking for but I figured it was worth a try. I sat myself down in the driv–er’s seat and scanned the controls. They looked as incom–prehensible as they had when we came in for a landing.

  There was a small storage compartment for manuals and what not, and I took them out and leafed through them. I was about to put them all back when one of the manuals flipped open and a card fell out. I opened it. Inside was a note that said:

  Flying on the wings of our love. May we

  never touch down.

  Love forever, M.

  I flipped it over but there was nothing on the other side. I looked more carefully at the card, which was dated eight years ago. About the time she said her hus–band had died.

  I carefully replaced the card and rummaged through the rest of the tiny cockpit. When I was finished I went over to my place to check on Paulie. I set out some more food for her then sat on the porch and waited. This time she came silently out of the night, nimbly jumping up onto the porch and heading straight for the food. I won–dered if she would be so hungry if her belly was full of barn mice. She ate her food without taking her eyes off me, but she ate it all and then sat back on her haunches looking at me.

  “Hey ya, Puss,” I said and held out my hand to her. But she just sat there and stared at me and I finally wea–ried of it and went back to Ryan’s and hit the sack.

  On the way in to work the next day I called Mar–tha and asked if she’d arrange meetings with Arthur and Jason for me. I’d been putting off talking to Arthur, figur–ing he wouldn’t want to talk about the woman he jilted.

  But maybe he’d like to not have her suicide hanging over his head if I could prove she didn’t kill herself.

  My office was empty when I got there and the latest copy of Animal Behaviour was on my desk. I picked it up and started flipping through it. When I heard Martha arriving five minutes later with an armload of birdfeed I called to her from my office. “Did you know that the Moray eel has a second set of jaws in its throat?”

  Martha grunted so I went on. “It grabs its prey with its first set of teeth and then the second jaw comes up out of the throat, nabs the victim, and pulls it down.”

  I thought Martha would be impressed but she didn’t say anything. I came out of the office to find out why.

  She was sitting at her desk staring into the computer as if there was a hidden room in it where she could hide.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She looked up at me and I could tell by her face what she was about to say next.

  “I’m taking the job, Cordi.” As simple as that.

  I took a big breath and congratulated her. She gave me my messages and some research papers my students had dropped off, then quietly left. I sat down at my desk feeling lonely and deserted. Sure, I’d still see her a lot, but it wouldn’t be the same. And suddenly I understood why we had both wanted me to leave her apartment. It was a distancing thing, a way to make it easier on both of us.

  I chased those thoughts out of my head and checked my messages. Martha had located Arthur and he could see me that evening at the Orynx Theatre, but it would have to be during rehearsal. Jason she’d booked to come to my office the next day.

  The day went by quickly and I almost didn’t leave myself enough time to get to the theatre. It was an old cinderblock that had been spruced up with a maroon marquee and awnings. I circled around looking for park–ing and finally had to park with half my car in a no park zone and half in a park zone. Was I legal or illegal? I trusted the green hornet would ask the same question and give me the benefit of the doubt. The front doors of the theatre were locked. I looked up at the marquee. The play was called Bullied but no one was billed as being in it. I walked around to the side of the building and saw a door propped ajar by a Pepsi can.

  I opened it and walked into darkness. I had to stop and let my eyes adjust. I could hear someone yelling some–where off to the right. I followed my ears and broke out into the auditorium, right at the stage. Most of the seats were empty so I walked down the aisle a few rows and slipped into a seat. There were four actors on stage, but none of them was Arthur. As I sat and watched them bitching about some poor co-worker who was socially challenged, Arthur came on and proceeded to act like a very convincing nerd. The four co-workers immediately stopped talking but one of them mimicked Arthur’s strange lopsided walk from behind his back. In perfect timing Arthur slowly turned, catching the mimic red-handed. The stage grew still, the discomfort of the four bullies palpable, until, from beneath his coat, Arthur suddenly drew out a gun and swung it past the heads of each of his tormentors in a graceful arc, saying, “You’re history, dudes.”

  “Jesus, Arthur. Where on earth did that line come from anyway?” yelled the voice of a man seated in the front row. “Stop trying to be a playwright and be an actor. It has to be subtle, Arthur, subtle. You want to feel the menace more than see it.

  “Okay, that’s enough for now. Take a break.”

  I saw Arthur come down off the stage and talk heat–edly to the director. I waited until he was finished and then stood up so that he would notice me. When I saw him peering into the seats the way a man would peer at the sun I walked down the aisle and he finally caught sight of me.

  “Cordi, is it?”

  “Hello, Arthur,” I said and we shook hands rather formally, as if we’d never met before. But I guess we really hadn’t. I’d never actually talked to him. Up close his white hair was spectacular, thick and as white as snow.

  “Your secretary said you wanted to talk to me about Sally.” His words were clipped. Martha would have been furious at being called a secretary.

  I waited, expecting him to say that Sally was none of my business. But instead he said nothing. He walked over to the stage and leaned against it. There were peo–ple on stage moving some of the set back and forth. It was quite distracting.

  “I wanted to know how long you and Sally had been together before you broke it off.” Sandy had already told me, but I figured it was a pretty benign question to start off with.

  He pulled on his earlobe and said, “The cops wanted to know that too.” He laughed, but there was no mirth there. “I guess at first everyone thought that I killed her — drove her to suicide by being a callous lover.”

  “Or she might have killed Terry because Terry had stolen you. And she couldn’t live without you or with what she’d done….”

  “That’s what the cops think now, as I am sure you are aware.” He spat out the words. “Sally could never, ever kill another human being.” The last word got caught in his throat and he turned his face away from me for a moment.

  I was confused. Or maybe he was just acting, pre–tending he still cared for the woman he’d dumped.

  “Look. She was a good woman. She didn’t deserve to die like that. So why are you asking me these questions?”

  “Sandy asked me to look into Terry’s death and find out who really killed her.”

  His face softened at that. “But why would you want to involve yourself?”

  I thought about the creature who was stalking me since almost the first time I stepped on the ship and I fig–ured it might not be wise to wave that around as a reason.

  “It’s a job,” I said. But that sounded callous. “I’ve helped in another murder investigation and I agree with Sandy that Sally is an unlikely murderer.”

>   “Unlikely? Don’t you mean impossible? She was the kindest, most caring, most lovable person I’ve ever met.”

  I found those words somewhat suspect coming from him, and before I could catch the words they slipped out. “Then why did you break up with her?”

  He yanked on his earlobe some more and looked at me as if he were weighing his options. “I didn’t.”

  I thought I hadn’t heard him correctly because of the racket on the stage, but then he said it again. I was speechless. He looked at me and laughed that mirthless laugh. “It was all an act. I tried to tell Sandy, but she was so furious she wouldn’t listen to me. Practically barred me from the funeral. Said I was a vulture.” He swung his arms out to include the theatre and then fell silent.

  “The breakup wasn’t …”

  “Real. It wasn’t real.” He raised his voice. “I loved her. I loved her so much I’d have done anything for her.

  And she loved me.”

  “So what I overheard on the plane — that was just part of the act.”

  He nodded.

  “And what you took from her bag?”

  He smiled at that. “You weren’t exactly unobtrusive about eavesdropping on us. I thought it would add a lit–tle spice to our scenario. I took her cell phone.”

  I pretended I hadn’t heard the dig, which I deserved, and said instead, “So you knew all along that she was acting a part?” Just as Sandy had said, which made sense of course, since he’d been going out with her for a year and she certainly hadn’t been acting the mouse for a year.

  He nodded again.

  “Why? Why was she doing it?”

  “I don’t know. She just asked me to go along with her being an introvert to her creative writing friends and everyone on board, and then she asked me to jilt her — to play it like any part. So I did, because I loved her and because it was fun acting the part in a real life situation outside the theatre.”

  “Without knowing why.”

  “No, not exactly. She said she had a recall audi–tion after the trip for a part she really wanted and she thought we could have a lot of fun with it aboard the ship. I thought at the time that it was rather good of them to wait for the audition until the trip was over, but I figured they really wanted her. She also said I wasn’t to tell anyone that the breakup wasn’t real. Not even Sandy.” He hesitated and I held my breath, afraid of scaring him off. “I don’t think the breakup was part of the recall script.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sally and I were having dinner just before the plane left and she asked me to jilt her. She said she was afraid it would be too difficult to play the depressed mouse with–out a jolt from her real life to carry her through.”

  “So she needed something real, to make her feel sad.”

  “Except it wasn’t real, but she could imagine how she would feel if I left her and her acting took it from there.”

  “She must have been very passionate about her work.” What an understatement.

  I waited, but Arthur just stared ahead at the stage.

  “What about Terry?” I said. “Were you pretending to be her lover?”

  “Yeah, but that was the most difficult part because she wanted none of that. But Sally thought it would be a hoot. The closest we ever got to looking like lovers was when I flung my arm around her shoulders. I could feel her stiffen under my touch, but at least she didn’t fling me off. But I got the message. Unfortunately, it gave the police a motive for me. I dump the old girlfriend, who won’t leave me alone, but the new girlfriend doesn’t want me and in a furious rage I kill both of them.”

  “But surely you’ve told them the real story?”

  “Yeah. They said they’d take it under consideration, but between you and me I think they thought I was just lying, making up a good story to save my skin. It is a crazy thing to do. But actors can do some crazy things.”

  “Like being a peeping Tom?”

  Arthur looked confused for a moment and then smiled ruefully. “I was worried about her.”

  “Sally?” I asked, remembering his piercing stare at Terry.

  “Yeah, Sally. I was pretty sure she was hiding some–thing from me, but I didn’t know what. I was checking up on her and pretending to be a besotted lover as far as Terry was concerned. I was just trying to get some answers, that’s all. There’s no harm in that.”

  “You didn’t like Terry, did you?”

  He hesitated and then made up his mind. “No, I didn’t. Sally had told me enough about her that I instinc–tively reacted against her.”

  “Well, it looks like you’re off the hook now anyway.

  The police aren’t interested in you anymore.”

  “Yeah,” said Arthur, but he didn’t look too relieved about it.

  “When you realized Sally was dead what did you think?”

  “Besides being devastated? I thought that she’d been playing the part of a suicidal person and that somebody had taken advantage of that to make it look like she killed Terry and then killed herself.” He paused. “She was just trying to save someone who was already dead.”

  “You mean someone framed Sally?”

  Arthur nodded. “They planted the suicide note to make it look as though Sally had killed herself after kill–ing Terry because of me.” He was about to say some–thing more when we were interrupted.

  “Alright, people,” the shrill voice cut through our conversation. “Time’s up. Break’s over.”

  Arthur turned and shook my hand. “If I can do any–thing else….” he said and then turned and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When I got to my office the next day I saw an unfa–miliar pair of legs stretching out from behind the door, which was hiding the rest of the body. Martha was nowhere in sight and I thought it awfully brazen of who–ever it was to waltz into my office and sit down like that. I walked in.

  He was out of uniform and the authority that went with it seemed to have vanished and been replaced by a carefree, slightly chaotic man. Captain Jason Poole. I’d forgotten that I’d asked Martha to set up a meet–ing. My mind was mush these days. He quickly rose to his feet and held out his hand. His other was gripping a familiar pink raincoat. Martha’s. She must have left it on the ship.

  He followed my eyes and laughed. “The girl at head office asked if I’d drop it off for Ms Bathgate, since I was heading this way anyway.”

  I nodded, both at what he was saying and at the chair he had commandeered, then sat down behind my desk. We did the usual inane bantering, talked about the weather and how The Farmer’s Almanac was predicting a mild winter, talked about the ship and how it would soon be on its way to its wintering grounds in South America and the Antarctic.

  Suddenly he said, “I heard you’re looking into Terry’s murder. I was just interested in what you had found, par–ticularly since the police say it was Sally.”

  Why would he be interested? I wondered. But I was grateful that he’d started this line of conversation.

  “Did you know Sally?” I asked.

  “No, never met her before.”

  “Then why are you interested?”

  “Because of Terry.”

  “Terry?” I asked, bewildered. “But you said you hated her.”

  “I never said I hated her.”

  “But the polar bear incident….”

  “Was stupid and I could have wrung her neck, but that doesn’t mean I hated her.”

  “What does it mean?” I asked, remembering him hunched over and crying on the bridge when he thought no one was there. He didn’t answer so I continued, “How well did you know her?”

  He leaned forward in his chair and said nothing.

  “You were crying over her, weren’t you?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because I saw you. Because it wasn’t Sally you were crying over and there were only two people who died.”

  He laughed then and I waited. “We do have outside communication
you know. Ship-to-shore. It could have been bad news. My mother could have fallen ill.”

  I took a chance. “It wasn’t that though, was it?”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “So why were you crying over someone you seemed to hate?”

  “Because I loved her once.” He looked out the win–dow. He seemed to see something there that interested him because he stared at it for a long time. I resisted the urge to turn around and get a better view.

  “I met her five years ago. She took my breath away.

  We lived together until six months ago, when I came home after a trip abroad to find all her things gone and a terse little note that simply said, ‘Bye Forever.’”

  “You both seemed to be very bitter about it,” I said, then added, “I mean, neither of you seemed to like each other on the ship. It was quite palpable.”

  “That often happens when relationships go sour.”

  “Sour enough to kill for?”

  He laughed. “I had no need to kill her. She wasn’t part of my life anymore — just a memory, that’s all.”

  Before I could say anything else he pointedly changed the subject and gestured at a picture of a cardinal on my wall. It was one that Ryan had taken but there were other, better, ones in two folders behind him. I debated on whether to point them out to him but in the end the pride I had for my brother won the day.

  “My brother’s a professional photographer,” I said.

  “The green file folder behind you? Take a look inside.

  Forget the red one. It’s older work.”

  I saw a strange look cross Jason’s face as he turned to retrieve the folder, his hand reaching out, hesitating, and then grabbing the red folder.

  I couldn’t help myself; I gasped.

  He jerked around to face me, the fear evident in his face. Dear god, a colour-blind captain.

  I was speechless and so was he. Could someone be so pas–sionate about their job that they’d endanger an entire ship?

  I pictured one of his ships in the shipping lanes on an inky black night. The only thing telling him whether a ship was coming at him or moving away from him was the red port light and the green starboard light. Radar would help him, but not instantaneously. How had he passed the eyesight tests?