Something Fishy

by Hilary MacLeod

  Before she did, Hy had to get rid of the journal. She could tell Jamieson what was in it – she’d copied out bits of it – but she had to allow her Mountie friend to access the information legally, so the evidence could be used. It couldn’t come from her. It had to come from Anton.

  She had waited until the right moment. It seemed that Anton never left the house. When finally he did, she propped the book against the back door and scurried away.

  When Anton came home and saw it, he realized it hadn’t reached Jamieson, as he’d hoped. It would have to, to give her the evidence she’d need to charge Newton Fanshaw with murdering two women.

  The journal had one more journey to make.

  John Constable was bored.

  He sat at his big new desk in his big new office in Charlottetown and studied the ceiling, looking for imperfections in the drywall and crown moulding. He found a few, but nothing too irritating, although now that he’d spotted them, his eyes kept returning to them.

  He had no idea that he’d been put out to pasture because no one wanted to work with him.

  It was said in the force that he’d been promoted from constable, only because his colleagues hated to refer to him as Constable Constable. It sounded so ridiculous.

  It didn’t get any better as he rose through the ranks to become Superintendent Constable. That not only sounded ridiculous, it was confusing.

  He sighed.

  There was nothing for him to do. Nothing much for any of them to do here. Seemed a waste of RCMP expertise and training to have a detachment at all, dealing with drunks and petty thieves. Until recently, there had only been one murder on Red Island in decades. Until recently. At The Shores. So cut off it might be a different island. So many murders it might be New York City.

  Constable leafed through the files on his desk, and found them. They’d been there, gathering dust, before he arrived. But now he remembered them. Sheaves of paper reports from The Shores. He’d been there for a dangerous dinner. He sat up and began to read.

  He was poring over them when his secretary brought him his mid-morning coffee, still hard at it when she came in to ask him if there was anything he wanted before she went to lunch. He waved her away.

  He was very fond of his lunch, but he wasn’t hungry today. He didn’t even glance up when his secretary brought him his afternoon coffee, and, at the end of the day, he gathered up the papers, shoved them in this briefcase and took them home.

  That raised eyebrows. Superintendent Constable taking work home?

  Hardly. The pages were mostly blank. That’s what he’d been staring at most of the day. He was astounded.

  At that, at the insubordinate entries – and at the fact that there had been two more deaths at The Shores, possibly murders. And no one had paid any attention.

  He’d found something to do.

  Hy arrived at the hospital, just as Ed and Jamieson were leaving Newton’s room. Newton’s eyes said he wasn’t happy about them leaving, to reveal his secrets to each other, but there was no way he could stop it.

  Ed was leading Jamieson to a Quiet Room. When she saw Hy tripping down the corridor, Jamieson tried to wave her away. Hy had a fistful of papers she was waving at Jamieson, and barreled her way into the room behind them. Maybe when Jamieson saw this, she wouldn’t be so hard-assed when she found out what Hy had done with the diary. Or that there was a diary.

  “McAllister, this is a police investigation. You have no right to be here in this room with someone who may turn out to be a witness with evidence.”

  “But I’ve got evidence. Besides, Ed knows me.”

  “I do, indeed,” said Ed, beaming. “This lady pulled her friend from the jaws of death some years back. Yup. Jaws of death, she did. I’d trust her anywhere with any piece of information.”

  That gave Jamieson pause. Hy had also pulled her from the jaws of death a couple of years back. She softened just long enough for Hy to get in the wedge.

  “Read this.” Hy shoved the sheaf of papers into Jamieson’s hand. After the first paragraph, Jamieson had to sit down.

  “Bizarre.” She lifted her head. “No. This is beyond bizarre.”

  Jamieson held up the papers Hy had given her.

  Ed grabbed them, taking her by surprise. She hadn’t meant for him to have them. Oh well, it was a matter of public record. Hy had Googled it, for God’s sake. Jamieson expected to see Ed’s eyebrows rise, or some other sign of surprise.

  “Oh yeah, I know all this.”

  It was Jamieson who was surprised.

  “When we were taking that course together in Halifax – well, he was in fragile emotional shape. We were neighbours in the university residence. He began confiding in me, late at night.

  “His marriage had fallen apart. He tried to kill himself – right after he’d told me his life story – his AI conception, the divorce case. He left a suicide note, with his wedding ring scotch-taped to it, outside my door. I only found it because I went to have a midnight snack. He had barricaded himself in his room. I called the police and said I was going to break in, but they said, no, do nothing. Sit quiet until we get there.

  “How could I do nothing? I sat outside his door, talking him down, listening to his story all over again. The police surrounded our dormitory for twelve hours, until he finally surrendered and they found a gun in the bathroom.”

  “Loaded?”

  “Loaded, but he wasn’t going to use it. It was one long cry for help.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I went to visit him after on the psychiatric ward. He gave me a list of things he needed from his room. I found clothes, socks, his wallet, neatly laid out on his bed – all the things he would need in the hospital and to return home.

  “He was in the psychiatric unit for a few days, then let out. He told his story to the local tabloid. The story of his conception. He said his mother’s name was Mary, and his father Joseph.”

  “Were they?”

  “No.” His voice was flat. He was thinking back. “He said they were Mary and Joseph Christian. They weren’t. He also said his wife’s name was Mary Christian, but it wasn’t.”

  “Their real names?” Jamieson was writing furiously.

  “I forget, but he was obviously operating under some kind of delusion. He always went by Fanshaw.”

  “Birth name?”

  “I think so. There was something odd about the name. He told me his mother married his father for his name, but she was the one with the money. He said she kept the name when she ditched the husband.”

  “So she’s Fanshaw, too.”

  “Yes.”

  But Viola was his mother. Hy wanted to scream it out. She couldn’t explain the name either, but she was sure that Newton was “the parasite” in the journal, that he had read it and killed her because she had rejected him. Jamieson didn’t know about the journal. How to tell her?

  “Are you sure it was his mother’s name?” Hy looked at Ed, watching Jamieson from her peripheral vision.

  “There was something peculiar about it. The spelling.”

  “When was this?” Jamieson’s mind was in a race with her hand as she consumed page after page in her notebook.

  “Let’s see. Five years ago?”

  “Would it matter?” Hy risked making Jamieson aware of her presence.

  “I don’t know. It might.”

  “Mid-life crisis?” Hy offered. She coaxed a slight smile out of Jamieson.

  “Whole life crisis, I’d say.” Jamieson looked down at the plain brown envelope. Should she? Hy was nothing if not helpful. It was good to be able to talk these things out rather than in isolation, where she’d been since Murdo had abandoned her.

  She handed Hy the envelope.

  “You’ll see what I mean.”

  Hy leafed through the ultrasound photos, paus
ing at the compelling ones, like the full face of a baby staring directly out of the womb and straight at her. It was eerie.

  “What do you make of it?”

  Jamieson shrugged.

  “He said he remembered it.” Ed pointed at the batch of photos.

  “Remembered what?” Jamieson

  “Remembered being in the womb. The warm place, he called it. He says he remembers the spark of life when it lit.”

  “There are people who say they can remember life in the womb,” said Hy. “Mostly nutters. But there have been scientific tests exposing unborn babies to music and finding they respond to that music when they’re born.”

  “I think if he could’ve, he would’ve crawled back in that womb,” said Ed. “I guess that’s what he did when they tried to take him out.”

  “Tried to take him out?”

  “They got his twin. Guess they didn’t know there were two of them until a month or so later. Too late, back then, to do anything about it.”

  “A botched abortion?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Wanted. Not wanted by the biological mother. Raised by the non-biological father and non-biological mother.”

  “How could that not affect a person?” Hy jumped in. “And the fact that he told it in relation to his suicide means it had a profound effect on him.”

  “I guess so. But plenty of people are adopted.”

  Hy herself had never known her parents, had been brought up by her grandmother, who was brittle and resentful at the duty thrust upon her by the deaths of her husband, daughter, and son-in-law. She’d shed no tears for them, but many for herself, although Hy was an easy child to bring up, except for her boundless curiosity.

  “Adopted, sure, but not by Mary and Joseph.”

  “It doesn’t get us any closer to solving two deaths – or murders.” Jamieson looked with a blank expression at the photos. Bizarre, yes. The guy was nuts, no doubt. That wasn’t a crime.

  “There’s a journal.”

  Jamieson whipped her head around. Her eyes pierced the distance between them.

  “What?”

  “A journal. I, uh, I, uh…found it. It was her journal – Viola’s.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Anton has it.”

  Hy hoped Jamieson wouldn’t probe too deeply into how she’d found the journal.

  “Withholding evidence.”

  “There hasn’t been a charge. There hasn’t been a crime.”

  “Except maybe the one you’ve committed. McAllister, this time I really am going to charge you. I really am.” Even Jamieson knew her words were empty. She’d said them too often.

  Harold MacLean was the local carpenter and The Shores’ self-appointed weather prognosticator. He was usually wrong, which was expected. Ever since the wind turbine had arrived in the village, he’d been telling anyone who’d listen what he knew about wind. Fortunately, that wasn’t much. He was popular with the tourists, who thought he meant what he said.

  When the wind blew, he’d gauge its force.

  “If it blows a chain out at right angles, then you’ve got a breeze. If it blows straight up, perpendicular to the ground, then you’ve got a gust.”

  Harold’s weather knowledge did not encompass what happened that night. Even forecasters in Charlottetown were unfamiliar with the phenomenon. Besides, no one knew it had happened – they were all soundly asleep in their beds. All except Gus. She was terrified of thunderstorms, and spent the night, fully dressed, purse in her lap, clutching her newly finished fish crib quilt and her baby booties and leggings, ready to exit the house as soon as lightning struck. She had forced Abel up and out of bed, too, but didn’t know where he was now.

  She heard the tremendous sound of the wind as it gathered strength and lashed out at the cape, but it seemed no more unusual than the sound of any thunderstorm. They were all equally terrifying to her.

  The only other one keeping a lonely vigil in the gathering storm was the turbine, shuddering under the blast of wind Harold MacLean would have found impossible to describe. The blades were whipping around at a tremendous speed, when a funnel of air came channeling down into the thunderstorm. The rain evaporated in the dry air. The air cooled and descended in a rush, causing a downdraft that slammed into the foundation of the wind turbine at sixty kilometers per hour. For the tower, it was like getting socked in the stomach, only farther down.

  The microburst, a rare and devastating weather phenomenon, had just inflicted severe damage to the base of the tower. It absorbed the blow deep into its foundation.

  The damage didn’t show.

  Lili would have said it was biding its time.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I feel as if I am carrying a parasite inside my body. Sucking the life out of me. Claiming my blood for his own. I see now I was not meant to be a mother, but is there no way out?

  Hy had copied the key passages from Viola’s journal. Passages that, if Newton had read them, would have filled him with hate for his mother and could have caused him to kill her.

  The baby kicked today, for the first time. Am I to put up with this for another four months? It makes me sick, sick to the bone. I want it out, out, out.

  Jamieson was reading Hy’s notes. When she’d finished, she looked up.

  “You believe she was his mother.”

  Hy nodded.

  “That should be easy to find out. If she is, and if he knew about this journal, then he may have killed her.”

  Hy smiled. Her own conclusion. Then frowned. “I can’t believe we haven’t Googled her.” Hy was stabbing at her cell phone, calling Ian.

  “You can’t use that in a hospital.” Jamieson was shocked.

  “You can in Quiet Rooms.” Ed was no longer there to gainsay her.

  Hy didn’t even say hello. Ian was used to that.

  “Feather-stone-huff. Don’t know how it’s pronounced, but it’s spelled F…e…a…t…h…e…r…s…t…o…n…e…h…a…u…g…h. Google it. There can’t be too many in there.”

  “No person attached to it, but it says it’s the longest surname in the English language.”

  “Does it say how it’s pronounced?”

  “F…a…n…s…h…a…w.”

  “Fanshaw.” She looked at Jamieson.

  Ian activated the vocal pronunciation. Hy held the phone up so Jamieson could hear.

  “Fanshaw.”

  “Fanshaw?” Hy repeated. Jamieson jumped up.

  “Yup.”

  “Thanks, Ian. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  The wheels were already spinning in Ian’s head, and he was coming to the same conclusions as Hy and Jamieson. Newton’s father had chosen the simpler version of his name; Viola had kept the name, but stuck with the more pretentious spelling. It was partly why she’d married him – to get that name.

  Jamieson rushed to Newton’s room, but wouldn’t allow Hy in with her; Ed watched, from a trolley of pill cups – he was reluctantly back on duty delivering medications on his evening rounds.

  “Fanshaw. Your mother’s name?”

  One blink. Yes.

  “Viola Fanshaw.” Jamieson consulted her notebook. F…e…a…t…h…e…r…s…t…o…n…e…h…a…u…g…h…was your mother.”

  One blink. Yes.

  “Did you hate her?”

  One blink. Yes.

  “Did you kill her?”

  One blink. Yes?

  Would there be another blink. No?

  Jamieson waited. Then went for confirmation.

  “You killed your mother.”

  One blink. Yes.

  She waited again.

  A flutter. Was that a blink? Was he trying to blink again – to say no? Then he began to twitch. An obviously involuntary movement, but it seemed
to be affecting his ability to blink at will.

  There was nothing more from Newton, eyes staring wide. Only the twitching. Was it fair to assume he was saying he had killed his mother? He couldn’t talk, and now it seemed he couldn’t blink.

  Newton was quickly losing awareness, but he did know that he could no longer communicate. He couldn’t tell Jamieson what was going through his mind. He wanted to. He wanted to be understood, but it took more than a yes and a no. More than a blink or two, and he couldn’t control those anymore. What he felt for his mother was twisted and complex. Love and hate, both. The love for the warmth and comfort of the womb, especially now. He was like a victim of pufferfish poisoning. The living dead. Wasn’t that what his life had always been? A living death.

  Jamieson asked the question he couldn’t answer.

  “Why?”

  He stared blankly back at her.

  “Why?” She was frustrated. This could be all wrapped up, was all wrapped up, but she needed to know why.

  Newton was in another world. The hard cast around his body had been driving him crazy, and so he took his thoughts elsewhere. He took them to the time they’d cleared his blocked artery, infusing it with liquid that made him feel warm for the first and only time. It was the most wonderful physical sensation he’d ever had – of any kind. He had been floating on the inside and outside, suffused by a rush of well-being. He imagined it was happening.

  “Why?” Jamieson was angry, frustrated that someone who might be willing to talk wasn’t able.

  Why was not a question that could be answered by a simple yes or no. Certainly in this case, the answer would have been very complex.

  He still held a thin thread of life, but his ability to move any part of his body had shut down as the full force of his brain and spinal injury kicked in.

  Dr. Diamante, when he was called on, confirmed that Newton Featherstonehaugh was alive, but as good as dead. He trotted out his usual pronouncement for such occasions: “It’s time to call the family.” Not knowing that Newton may have killed whatever family he’d had.

  His “confession” was in question. The one blink. Yes. Might there have been another?

  Newton didn’t care about any of it anymore. He was free, floating in the water of life, inside his carapace, no longer imprisoned by his broken body, but swimming fish-like in the fetal state, lulled in his mother’s womb. If this were death –