“I guess.”
“Was there anything else you could have done?”
“There must have been.”
“If there must have been, then you would know what it was…and you would have done it. The Jacqueline Brown I know would have. And Madame Desjardins. What makes you think she hates you?”
“She hardly spoke to me when she found out.”
“Did you tell her what happened?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Did you apologize?”
Jacqui nodded.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing, really. Nothing at all.”
“I’m sure she was quite upset, but that doesn’t mean she was angry with you.”
“Did you explain about Rada and Bobby?”
“I had told her that Rada might be coming over to help me and that Bobby was dropping by to get the birthday present I made for him. That got broken, too, by the way,” she said and sighed.
“And Rada’s in trouble because she came over?”
Jacqui bobbed her head in two, quick, almost convulsive jerks.
“Had you encouraged her to sneak out of the house?”
“I didn’t know she’d been grounded, but if I’d been a better friend I would have seen it coming.”
“I don’t recall reading minds as being a characteristic of the Browns…or the Darbys…on either side of the family…and frankly I don’t see any suggestion that you should shoulder the blame…for any of it. However, you might eventually dig a few life lessons out of it for future reference.”
After that, a bit of quiet time passed between the two of them. Jacqui propped herself up and leaned back against a pillowed headboard. Her knees cocked up, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes focused onto the corners of her semi-darkened room, her mind reflective.
“Feeling any better?” asked Anne.
“Not really.”
“Hot chocolate?”
Jacqui gave up a small concessional smile, then added, “By the way, I’m thinking ‘Jacqueline’ is a bit too pretentious. What do you think?”
“Up to you, dear.”
Anne put a kettle on in the kitchen. She took two heavy mugs from the cabinet and poured a tablespoon of cocoa into each. She returned fifteen minutes later with a tray of hot drinks and a small plate of sugar cookies, but Jacqui had already fallen sound asleep. A spare blanket lay at the foot of her bed. Anne spread it over her, turned out the lights, and returned to the kitchen.
Anne sipped her own mug of cocoa in the living room and paged through the phone directory. She looked anxiously toward a clock on the wall. It was nine-fifteen. Not too too late, she decided, and dialled a number.
“This is Anne Brown. I was hoping we could talk.”
79.
Dawson emerged from the engine room as stunned as a prisoner stepping from stone dark solitary into an abhorrence of blinding light. He looked dishevelled; his ears rang; he felt disoriented; and he faltered like a drunk stumbling through a carnival fun house, where all is illusion and instincts are false.
Dawson had no idea where Peale was lurking, and, for his first few moments in the brisk salt air, he didn’t care. He slunk down on the cold, wet vehicle deck, leaned up against the fuel tank of a refrigeration truck, and tried to make sense of himself and his situation.
Slowly the half-blindness of his mind began to clear and, in spite of the ringing in his ears, he felt stronger and more aware, and he stood up for a better look around. Priorities re-formed, and stopping Peale again became his foremost thought.
Dawson scarcely heard the blast of Peale’s gun. To him it sounded like the pop of a child’s toy cap pistol, but the bullet went high, struck the left side-mirror of the truck, and showered fragments of reflective glass on Dawson’s head. He fell to his knees, crawled under the truck, and wriggled his way toward the next row of vehicles. As he did, he heard Peale cry out: “Dawson, go away. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”
I need a weapon, thought Dawson. The tire iron he had used earlier came to mind, but it had disappeared. Then another idea struck him—the axe in the fire box on the bulkhead—but maybe not. Getting to it would leave him too exposed to another shot. Dawson had been lucky so far. Three shots taken and no hits. So now maybe it was Peale’s turn to get lucky, he thought.
Then another idea, less risky, came to his mind. Dawson worked his way along another row and tried three other trucks before coming upon an unlocked cab. Once inside, he seized a portable fire extinguisher. Finding one turned out to be a blessing. Doubly so, in that it led to spotting Peale.
From the lofty cab of the truck Dawson observed Peale stalking him. Peale crouched low and moved cautiously, gun in hand, but his eyes never lifted above ground or car level. He never looked upward enough to see him, but Dawson was able to determine the search pattern he was following. It was a reversal of the pattern he had used to track him to the engine room, except that this time he had become bolder and more thorough—stalking him between the rows of vehicles, first from in-board rows and then moving toward the ones nearer the rail.
Dawson predicted where Peale would end up, and Dawson was determined to be there waiting for him. If he could surprise Peale—and there was no doubt in Dawson’s mind that he could—he’d finish the job he’d started and be done with it or die trying.
Dawson left the truck, slunk away, and hid himself very near the same spot he had confronted Peale the first time. A steel partition by the winch gave him cover. The starboard rail stood behind him. He glanced back. The Caribou lighthouse blinked its cautionary signal into the night. At this point, the ferry was making its approaches. He had maybe ten minutes before docking in Nova Scotia and debarkation. This was his final chance to put an end to a long and complicated misery.
Dawson readied himself. He pulled the retaining pin from the trigger of the fire extinguisher, pressed his back against the cold steel frame, positioned the nozzle at the estimated height and direction at which Peale’s face would appear, and listened to the agitated thumpa-da-thump of his heart and the tremulous wheezing of his own panting breath.
At the first glimpse of Peale’s gun, Dawson thought his heart would stop. Peale edged within eight feet of Dawson’s hiding place. It was farther away than Dawson had anticipated, but going back now was an impossibility. As Dawson stepped forward, Peale’s face was averted, his concentration fixed on the last few cars in the line ahead of him.
Dawson squeezed the trigger on the extinguisher. Peale heard the scuff of Dawson’s shoes and turned. The extinguisher failed to discharge. Peale stepped back reflexively, the gun wobbling in front of him. He stumbled, but his back steadied against the door of a car. Dawson squeezed the extinguisher’s trigger again, and, when nothing happened, he hurled the heavy metal cylinder toward Peale’s head and lunged forward.
As Peale emitted a small cry of fear and surprise, Dawson leapt ahead, his hands reaching out desperately for the gun, but the deck, wet from sea spray, was slippery, too slick for Dawson’s shoes.
Dawson fell forward, flat, headlong on the deck, his arms outstretched, still three feet short of his mark, and, when he recovered and looked up, he faced the enormous blue-black barrel of Fenton Peale’s Webley.
Peale’s hands clasped his weapon firmly. His arms were locked. He waved the gun in a motion that Dawson understood to mean that he should move back toward the partition and the rail.
Peale’s face was set, and his eyes were wide and fierce. A trickle of frothy spittle stained the corner of his mouth. Dawson saw desperation in Peale’s look, and in that expression, Dawson read his own doom.
Dawson slowly rose and moved toward the starboard railing. He looked out. Almost nothing was visible but the Caribou lighthouse, now falling astern, and still blinking a silent admonition.
80.
After two large glasses of cold water, one fresh-brewed coffee, and an extra-strength Tylenol, Anne still felt like a sodden mat of leaves in a storm drain. Her sleep had been weird and dream-restless. Her bones ached, her muscles knotted, and, as she dressed, she felt a twinge in the ankle she’d twisted two nights before. All in all, not propitious omens for the work ahead. Anne muttered something sarcastic to herself, grabbed her purse, and rushed out the door to the car.
There would be no morning jog along the boardwalk today. It was alibi day, and, if it turned out as she hoped, it would be a day of reckoning for someone. She only wished she knew who it was. She was also confused that the likely suspects were disappearing like moths near a bat roost.
Anne pulled into a metered parking space at the entrance to the university campus. She weighed whether or not she could get her business done before some campus cop planted a ticket on her windshield, but she dug into a pocket, pulled out a coin, and dropped it into the slot. She had an hour.
The Registrar’s Office was still closed. It was not yet nine o’clock. So she walked past that building and headed for the main door of the Vet College. A security guard at the desk gave directions for Edna Hibley’s office and pointed her down a corridor to a linked building that housed offices for staff.
Edna’s office was on the second floor. Anne strode along the rows of cubicles, each identical to the other and offering little privacy. Professors at work were in plain view to anyone who passed by. Every office had a glass front and a glass-panelled door. It reminded Anne of a zoo she once visited where animals had been exhibited behind a similar glass enclosure.
As she walked down the corridor, Anne mused whether Edna would have been labelled carnivore or herbivore, but, when she reached her office, she felt a wave of disappointment. Edna’s cage was empty. Perhaps she was teaching class or supervising a lab or prepping for some lecture or other. Or perhaps she was still at home. Anne had had reservations about going straight to the Registrar’s Office for information on Dawson. Likely they would balk at releasing info on student schedules without an official police request or a nod from someone like Edna who could grease the information slipway for her. Anne’s disappointment changed to indecision, and she gazed blankly into the empty office.
Something about Edna’s habitat held Anne’s attention. Naturally, it revealed her public and professional face, but it also disclosed skills and accomplishments and even a few personal qualities, one of which was pristine orderliness. Anne prided herself on personal neatness and simplicity, clearing away distractions and clutter and all, but Edna had achieved a level of meticulousness that was quite superior. She preserved not only remarkable order, but applied an almost military precision to it. A notebook and a journal of some sort lay on her desk, one on top of the other, both squared and centred. A packet of new pencils stood erect as soldiers in a sparkling glass cylinder, their carbon cores sharpened to fine points. Stainless steel in/out trays fitted crisply at the outside corner of the desk, and it was quite evident that she had processed or disbursed the previous day’s incoming mail and memos before she had left for the day. Even Edna’s chair had been dutifully pushed in; cabinet drawers and cupboards were properly closed; and the lock on the filing cabinet had been engaged. Her books were regimented as well. The spine of each volume, binder, portfolio, and text had been marshalled exactly to the leading edge of every shelf.
Edna’s precision impressed Anne but did not entirely surprise her. She had seen similar meticulousness in some teachers, scientists, and even a few cops she had known. A few uncommon criminals fit that profile as well.
Eventually, Anne’s eyes drifted to the personal items in the office. One was a framed photograph of a young smiling Edna, an older woman, and her twin sister Carolyn. The girls looked to be about twenty. A second photograph with faded colour showed her mother and father together. Several large university degrees adorned the walls above the bookshelves. Simple black plastic borders framed them, but they stood in stark contrast to two other framed pieces, both showcased in warm wood frames. They were needlepoint pictures, handmade colourful representations of bluebells and peonies and roses and words of inspiration: “All power comes from Him” and “Reflect Repent Repair.” They were expertly crafted, and Anne admitted an admiration for the dexterity that had crafted them. Several other small framed pieces acknowledged her work with UPEI Student Services, the Companion Animal Recovery Project, the John Howard Society, and Alzheimer’s Society, and they filled the remaining wall space between cabinets.
Anne glanced at her watch anxiously. She was wasting time now and hurried off. The morning had brightened considerably since she had arrived. She headed toward the Registrar’s Office but, on a whim, turned instead toward the library.
The librarian smiled. Anne had a feeling that the woman actually meant to be friendly, not an unusual expectation on PEI, but Anne, in the achy, sleep-deprived, frazzled state of her morning, found it too unlikely a prospect. Nevertheless Anne forced back the best pleasant expression she could muster.
“I’m looking for some information,” said Anne.
“They say a library’s the best place for that,” she quipped.
“It’s personal information.”
“Try me.”
“I need to locate two students, but I don’t know their schedules.”
“Names?”
“Jacob Dawson and Sami Smith.”
The librarian’s pleasant, staid expression sank beneath a choked smirk, only to return moments later. Then she said: “Room 206. A group study conference room. Up the stairs and turn right.”
Anne suddenly felt like a rabbit caught with a mouth full of lettuce in her mother’s garden. When she found words, she said, “So it’s true what they say. Librarians are the gatekeepers to everything.”
The librarian said nothing, but tossed back a cavalier look that exuded contentedness, omniscience, and a ripple of merriment.
On her way upstairs, Anne’s cell phone beeped. She glanced at it. A text message from Ben read: “Meet me at Timothy’s in an hour.”
The conference room on the second floor had a fishbowl element as well. Behind the glass Anne saw Jacob, Sami, and three other students sitting around a table, notebooks out, papers shuffling, and students prepping for something. Anne knocked lightly. Jacob came to the door; a confused twist furrowed his brow. He shut the door behind him so no one could hear their conversation. He looked edgy.
“Jacob, you look almost as bad as I do this morning. Busy night?”
Dawson folded his arms in front of himself and glanced back uneasily toward the members of the study group who were watching, especially Sami, who gave Anne a look of either annoyance at the interruption or jealousy at the intrusion.
“Studying,” said Dawson. A group project is due. A presentation.”
“Where did you study?”
“I was at Sami’s. Why are you asking?” Jacob’s foot moved a guarded half-step back and his eyes darted elsewhere.
“Just curious. MacFarlane’s dead.”
“I know. I heard on the radio this morning. An accident or fire or something. Right? But what’s that got to do with me?”
“So where were you Saturday night?” Anne’s phrasing was blunt.
“I don’t have to answer questions like that,” he said. Jacob turned and his hand grasped the door to go back in.“Listen to me. MacFarlane’s death is suspicious. You can answer my questions now, or the police will be tapping on your door later. Which will be less embarrassing?”
“All right, all right. I was at the library until closing. Then I had the study group,” he said, pointing back to the others in the room. “We met at Sami’s. I was there most of the night.”
“Most of the night?”
“Okay. All night.”
“Will anyone back you up on that?”
“They all will.
” Dawson’s arm swung back toward the students behind the glass.
“Good. Thanks. Now you can go. Send her out,” Anne said.
Sami put on a fresh scowl and resumed her insolent demeanour, all of which confirmed Anne’s speculation that Sami was wrestling with jealousy. Anne also quickly deduced that Sami knew about Jacob’s history and, like many girls her age, some compulsion drew her to pursue men on the fringe, men like Jacob, but, in spite of her capricious feelings and motivations, Sami produced a solid alibi for Jacob. She claimed that Saturday’s study session began in her dorm room after the library closed at ten. Jacob grabbed a snack and arrived at her place shortly after eleven. Five of them were there until about two-thirty, and Jacob spent the rest of the night with her.
Sami wrote down the names and phone numbers of the others in her study group. She jabbed the list at Anne, shot her a final, scornful, menacing look, and returned to the study group.
81.
Timothy’s was a coffee shop in the heart of Charlottetown, two blocks from Anne’s office if she cut through the flower beds and lawns of Province House. The shop had an old-time feel to it. It was long and narrow, like a dining car on the CNR. The floor was tile, the ceiling high and panelled in sheets of embossed tin, like ones still found in the kitchens of older rural homes.
Cabinets filled with pastries and sandwiches, cookies and breads, stretched along one wall of the shop. The service counter and food-prep station also shared that space. A string of eight or ten small tables lined the other wall and further along was a waist-high polished wood counter for a stand-up crowd on busy days.
It was not so busy when Anne arrived. The breakfast crowd had got their coffee and Danish and gone to work, and the mid-morning coffee break crowd had yet to descend. Ben sat at a table halfway down the aisle. One bright ray of sunlight illuminated the dust on his shoe. Three other customers sat at a window table. One bald-headed and two white-haired retirees chuckled amongst themselves, drank in the warm morning light, chewed the details out of city politics, and devoured old stories each had already heard but had forgotten since their first telling.
The Dead Letter Page 30