She sat down next to Ben with a creamy coffee and a large sugar cookie fresh from the counter. Her chair clanked and scraped on the tile floor; sweet granules on her cookie glittered in the reflected sunlight; and a wisp of steam rose from her cup, twisted, and curled in the air so beautifully that one would expect a genie to magically leap from the vapours. Anne’s mood and temperament had risen since the library visit. She was feeling almost lively again.
“What’s the news?” asked Anne. Ben hid behind his paper, absorbed with page two of the morning Guardian. Anne stared at him through the classifieds: “Dalmation, two years old, needs open spaces. Will sell or trade for house dog.”
“Peale’s dead,” said Ben, without looking up from his newspaper.
Ben’s two words squeezed the life out of any sparkle Anne had managed to resurrect that morning. The magic fled.
“How?”
“Went overboard on the ferry to Nova Scotia last night.”
“That’s tragic.”
“So it is.”
“And odd. Do we know what happened?”
“Nova Scotia police are guessing it was an accident. Sea was rough, weather nasty. They found his car abandoned on deck after the ferry docked. He was nowhere about. They drew conclusions, but they haven’t recovered a body.”
“Do you buy it?”
“It’s hard to swallow. He had a pile of cash and bonds in his overnight bag. Investigators found it in his car. They also turned up his passport. He wouldn’t need that for his supposed business trip to Cape Breton. Something else was afoot.”
“So you think he killed MacFarlane and was making a run for it?”
Ben shook his head doubtfully.
“Veronica, his wife, swore that he was home before midnight on Saturday…and he didn’t leave the house again until he got the call from Sergeant Schaeffer…and that couldn’t have been until after two. The coroner puts time of MacFarlane’s death between midnight and two o’clock and, putting that together with the Fire Marshal’s guesstimate of the progress of that type of fire, MacFarlane didn’t succumb until about one, one-thirty.”
“So why was Peale running? It doesn’t make sense.”
“He was afraid.”
Anne looked at him quizzically, and he explained: “Dit just phoned before you got here. He retrieved some text messages from Simone’s old cell phone. It looks like, at the time, Peale and Simone were secretly carrying on…behind MacFarlane’s back as well as Veronica’s. MacFarlane finds out, kills Simone, frames Dawson, and blackmails Peale. The text messages didn’t implicate Peale in Simone’s death, but it would have been scandalous enough to hurt his business dealings, marriage, and political aspirations. And that’s not all…,” said Ben. He leaned back in his chair, folded his hands over his paunch, and wrapped a self-satisfied grin across his face.
“What?” said Anne curtly and gave his foot a sharp kick.
“There were several flirtatious interchanges between Simone and Wendell Carmody, too.”
“That toad?”
Ben nodded. “Yep, I think she was bent on trading up and cast her net a bit wider than anyone had guessed.”
“But we’re still back to square one,” said Anne. “MacFarlane killed Simone. We know that now. But the suspects in MacFarlane’s death? Peale. He has an alibi from Veronica…and Dawson…he has an alibi for the time of death as well…his girlfriend and several other students. In the end, we’ve got nothin’. We’re not even sure whether MacFarlane’s death was an accident. Same with Peale’s. Everyone’s calling them accidents. Come to think of it…we haven’t even reached square one. All we really have is a handful of suspicions and a funny feeling in our gut. Did the coroner’s report come back?”
“The attending physician listed immediate cause of death as asphyxiation. Antecedent cause: smoke inhalation. He classified it as an accidental death.”
“Another dead-end,” said Anne glumly.
“I expected that. So I’ve asked the coroner to do a complete autopsy. See what, if anything, that brings to light.”
Ben took a long final slurp of his cooling coffee and looked closely at Anne. His brows furrowed and he leaned back in his chair like a physician dictating a diagnosis to a nursing assistant.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“I was feeling much better before I got your cheery news.”
“Why don’t you take a break, get some rest.”
“Maybe…got to meet someone first.”
82.
Jasmine’s Tea House had been carved out of the lower floor of a once-stately smaller home in Charlottetown, not far from City Hall. Jasmine, whose real name was Bonnie Lee, was a second-generation Vietnamese who spoke English with a thick Tignish PEI accent. Jasmine bustled about as if preparing for a banquet, but, in all reality, the tea market was limited to a small coterie of regulars and passengers off Holland America cruise ships searching for a genuine Island experience before their twelve-hour shore leave expired, and they sailed to their next exotic port.
For Anne it seemed the perfect place to meet Mrs. Kikovic, Rada’s mother. It would be a quiet and discreet setting, free from clashing cultural, religious, or political influences. Anne had no unrealistic expectations about the meeting. Her conversation with her the night before had been short and non-committal, but hopeful in that she had agreed to meet at all.
Anne played with her tea as she waited. She was tired and found it hard to concentrate. Anxiety about the meeting hadn’t distracted her. It was something else, something she couldn’t put her finger on. It was the same feeling she got when, sitting quietly, she hears a faint but odd speck of sound. Ears perk, the mind sharpens, and silence stretches out until a faint scratch in the wall tells a tale. In Anne’s mind, though, the tale still hung there, its meaning not yet revealed.
A bell on the door of the tea house jingled merrily as it opened. The sound broke Anne’s restless reverie, and her eyes followed the movement of the woman who entered. She was a tall, elegant woman, with a clear, smooth, unadorned complexion, and bright, intense eyes. Her hair and shoulders were covered by an orange and black print hijab. A black jilbab flowed to her shoes in a line broken only at the waist by a small loosely cinched belt. She carried a black leather bag over her shoulder. Their eyes briefly met.
Anne stood to greet her.
“Mrs. Kikovic, I’m Anne Brown. I’m so pleased to meet you.”
“A’idah, and thank you.”
They sat down together, but an awkward silence settled between them.
Finally, Anne spoke: “A’idah, over the last couple of months Jacqui and Rada have grown close and become good friends.” A’idah nodded, and Anne continued: “Jacqui is brokenhearted about what happened, and I’m hoping to find some way for the girls to mend their relationship.”
“Rada is unhappy too…very unhappy…but sadness and disappointment are part of growing up, are they not? They stimulate change…maturity. Your daughter and mine will grow from what they learn…as you undoubtedly did and I did, when we were children.”
“But is losing a friendship necessary? Is that a good thing?”
“Perhaps not a good thing, but sometimes a necessary thing.”
“In what way?”
“It is difficult for a Muslim child to live in a Western society. In a perfect world, she would grow up in a familiar country and thrive in traditions we value. But it is not a perfect world…and here we are…we must make do with what resources and resolve we have. Rada and I and Ahmed are not Western peoples. And Rada…she hears many voices now that are not ours…and too many of these voices teach self-interest, indulgence, disrespect, shamelessness…”
“Surely, Jacqui isn’t one of those voices.”
“I know Jacqui, and I like her, but Ahmed thinks, and I think so as well, that, although she may not speak those
voices, she does not reject them either. Our religion, our traditions…we cannot ignore them or dismiss them.”
“I understand, and I agree with you. Young people need good examples and guidance and limits. But does forbidding their friendship and association set a proper example? Can there not be a compromise of some sort?”
“Some things cannot be compromised.”
“And some things can. Perhaps we can find a way to accommodate both. Perhaps we can set a good example by trying to find some ground on which we can all stand.”
“The Qu’ran says, ‘Whoever pardons and seeks reconciliation will be rewarded by God.’ So I must accept that it is possible.”
“What would you suggest then?” said Anne with a timid optimism.
“There may be a way,” she said in a manner of reflection. Her bright eyes clouded with thought and reservation. “but my husband would have to agree. It would involve a mediator. An imam perhaps. Or some community leader whose opinion he respects.”
83.
As Anne left Jasmine’s Tea House, she felt a spring in her step that had failed to accompany her arrival there. She couldn’t claim that a plan was afoot, but, at least, progress now seemed possible, even if it had not yet reached the doorsteps of probability.
As well, progress suddenly seemed moot as Anne realized that she was backtracking. Once again Timothy’s Coffee Shop appeared ahead. The gardens of Province House lay just beyond it, and the Confederation Centre next to them. A young musician, guitar case open, sat on the concrete base of the war cenotaph and busked for money. On the memorial wall above him, a file of frozen bronze soldiers charged toward glory. The musician played Bob Dylan. His bilingual placard advertised “Tunes for Coins: No Tax.” Anne dropped a dollar coin into his case and hurried through the shortcut to her office. On her way, she passed a yellow-fingered, haggard old woman searching the ground for discarded cigarette butts. Two pencil-thin men in rancid, ill-fitting clothes shared a paper bag on a bench, idly watched the old woman, and kept a keen bleary watch for roaming police cars.
Anne grabbed the mail from her office and headed home. Each step now seemed laborious and painful, but, within half an hour, she had locked herself behind the door of her house and fallen asleep.
Anne sank into a very deep but agitated sleep. She swam between one dead-end interview and another, then back, around, up and down, again and again, like a goldfish in a bowl, seeing everything with clarity and seeing nothing at all. Details flitted like fallen leaves tossed about in gusts of wind. Facts ground underfoot like unsettled gravel. She struggled forward. Momentum faltered; balance quavered; headway blocked. And there was no way out, no satisfying answer, no relief, no rest.
When she finally awoke three hours later, her mouth was parched; her throat was scratchy; and her head felt like it had been ransacked and scrubbed with sand. Barefoot, she stumbled to the bathroom and drank two large glasses of water, the second washing down an aspirin.
Though she wasn’t hungry, the aroma of food drew her downstairs and into the kitchen where Jacqui was preparing supper. A kettle of pasta bubbled on the stovetop. Spaghetti sauce simmered in a pan, and a couple of dinner rolls heated in the oven. The table was set. Two tall candles burned between place settings, and icy water glimmered in a glass decanter.
“I didn’t hear you when I came in,” said Anne. Her voice sounded as if it came from someone else, someone feeble, old, and groggy.
“I wasn’t home,” said Jacqui.
“Oh?”
“I was at school.”
“How did it go?” Anne fought off her feeble, groggy disposition and managed a semi-animate and attentive tone.
“It went well.”
“And what changed your mind…about going?”
“You were right. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Why should I hide like I had?”
“And there was no backlash,” said Anne sensing a half-truth.
“A bit.”
“How did you handle it?”
“I role-played. I imagined myself as Jeanne d’Arc. She too was blameless, yet persecuted, and still maintained dignity.”
“And that worked?”
“It convinced me. ‘All the world’s a stage,’” she said with a dramatic flourish of her arm, “‘and all men and women merely players.’ And I think it convinced most of them,” she added with boastful, delicious pleasure.
“Bravo.”
Anne clapped joyfully and enthusiastically. Jacqui laughed at her own theatrics. Then they sat and ate and laughed some more.
“I have news, too,” said Anne.
84.
It didn’t have the grandeur of an epiphany, nor the wonder of a “eureka.” It came to Anne more like an apparition exiting a fog and drawing near with a slowly resolving clarity until Anne believed she knew the answer to the question she had been asking. She chastised herself for not seeing it before, but it was the only possible explanation. The details had been there all along, but she had been slow to put them together, and just one phone call had confirmed her supposition. They had been clever murders, very clever indeed, and, though it was now clear to her who committed them, questions remained regarding how and why.
Anne pulled up in front of the house. The neighbourhood was dark and quiet. She knocked on the door. A dog barked two doors away. A curtain moved slightly, and after too long an interval, the door opened.
“What is it?”
“Edna, I’ve come to speak with you.”
“This is not a good time, Anne. Try me at the office tomorrow.”
“It’s never a good time to talk about murder, is it, Edna?” Anne firmly pushed against the door and shouldered her way into the hallway.
“Are you mad, forcing your way into my home? Get out. You have no business here. You have no right to be here at all. Get out now. Get out before I call the police.” Fear, anger, and desperation coloured her objections, and Edna bolted for the telephone extension in the parlour. Anne followed as Edna picked up the receiver and began dialling.
“I mean it,” she said. “I’ll call them.”
“Thank you. That would be helpful, Edna. I’m eager to tell them about your connection with Jacob Dawson, someone you denied knowing.”
“I don’t know him. I’ve never met the man. I told you that.” The telephone receiver slipped away from her ear.
“You’re both recovering alcoholics. You’re his AA sponsor, his advisor, his supporter. You know his problems, his weaknesses, his hatreds. You know what buttons to press, and you were eager to press them.”
“That’s preposterous,” said Edna. She had gathered up a renewed confidence and coolness, a sneering haughtiness. She returned the telephone to its table-top cradle. Dead relatives stared back indifferently from photos on her mantel. Edna moved past the gleaming tea service on a mahogany side table. She stood beside a small antique desk and rested against it.
“I’ve checked. My contact with AA confirmed it,” said Anne.
“What else do you think you know?”
“You’re working together, you and Jacob. You killed MacFarlane for Dawson, and he killed Peale for you. A convenient arrangement, wasn’t it? Neither of you were suspected because neither of you had an obvious motive for killing the person you did…and you both had alibis for the death of the person you had motive to kill.”
“I admire your perseverance, Ms. Darby, and your vivid imagination, but you haven’t demonstrated the skills to think through such a task. You attack a problem with the creativity of a dreamer rather than the logic of a philosopher. Everything you’ve offered is utter conjecture, and all you’ve succeed in doing so far is making a fool of yourself.”
“You denied knowing Dawson. That’s not conjecture.”
“What happens at AA is confidential. I was only safeguarding his privacy and mine. What else ha
ve you got?”
“It’s odd how, when a theory becomes evident, new ways of looking at a case come to light…like consideration of the car.”
“What car?”
“The one that Dawson would have used to follow Peale to the ferry. He doesn’t own one. My guess is that he used yours…that white Civic in the driveway.”
“Guess?” Edna mocked. “Another conjecture! You’re replete with them, and I’ve had enough. Go. Now!”
“One more guess, if you don’t mind, Edna. It was the last ferry crossing of the night. Dawson would have to have had transportation back from Nova Scotia. A car was necessary, and his only route was across the Confederation Bridge, a two-and-a-half hour return drive to Charlottetown, and that triggers an unforeseen complication…bridge security. There’s continual CCTV coverage of bridge traffic. If your Civic turns up on their tape, as I’m sure it will, then Dawson is through and so are you, Edna.”
“You stupid girl…you stupid, stupid girl! You couldn’t leave it alone, could you? You couldn’t just take my cheque and be done with it, could you? I didn’t want you on the case anymore. Why wasn’t that enough?”
Surprise drew a wrinkled line across Anne’s brow. Then it softened into forbearance.
“I wasn’t doing it for you, Edna. I thought you knew that. I was doing it for your sister, Carolyn. I always was. It was her voice that cried out for justice, not your curiosity or craving for vengeance.”
Edna’s eyes flickered like a cornered squirrel. Then she whirled, drew a revolver from the top drawer of the desk, and swung it toward Anne. The inertia of the heavy pistol overshot the mark, but Edna corrected and steadied her aim at Anne.
The gun facing her was a Webley .455. Edna’s hand looked too small for so large a gun, and Anne looked too small to survive a slug from so intimidating a muzzle. Edna’s left hand clasped the hammer and levered it back with a solemn click. The barrel dipped momentarily. Edna struggled to hold the Webley. Her fingers nervously fidgeted in and out of the trigger guard, and her thumb struggled to find a comfortable position along the stock.
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