Away with the Fishes

by Stephanie Siciarz

  Dagmore, though disappointed, was used to renouncing his desires, and the fact that he had ended up with a wife unable to conceive seemed par for the course. Verissa, on the other hand, was not accustomed to disappointment. In fact, she was rather used to getting her way, and if Dagmore wasn’t up to getting her pregnant, she would resolve the problem herself. “By whatever means necessary,” she told Mrs. Jaymes.

  Whatever Verissa did, it paid off. Eventually, she was with child. Dagmore marveled as her body grew and swelled. Her agreeably big top and bottom got bigger, while her nicely thin middle filled out. It was an awesome sight to witness, and it reminded him of his scientific research projects of many years before. But though the pregnancy itself amazed him, Dagmore felt no attachment to the baby in his wife’s belly. He couldn’t imagine holding it or looking into its eyes. When it finally came, nine months later, Dagmore didn’t know what to expect.

  The delivery of the baby took place in one of the villa’s guest rooms. It had been outfitted for the happy occasion, and the presence there of Dagmore was strictly forbidden (which was just as well, because Verissa had absolutely insisted that her midwife be Abigail Davies, known for her skill and discretion). After Verissa and the baby were both cleaned up, and the bed and bedroom tidied, Abigail sneaked away, and the Captain was called to see his wife and son. He took the infant in his hands and held it close. As he felt its warmth against his chest and saw its eyes peer into his, he knew he could never love anything more than this child in his arms. Was this what Captain Thomson had felt when he first peered into Quick’s orphan eyes? Dagmore wondered.

  Mrs. Jaymes watched the Captain and beamed proudly, feeling rather responsible for what her instincts told her was a happy ending at last. “Well?” she urged him. “Don’t just stand there. Give the boy a name!”

  Dagmore smiled at her. “Branson,” he said. “We’ll call him Branson Bowles.” What did it matter, Dagmore later confided to her, that the baby was Verissa’s not his?

  “What are you talking about?” Mrs. Jaymes barked, and Dagmore explained: nearly a year had passed since his wife had last crept into his bed.

  Verissa’s betrayal and Dagmore’s acceptance of it were not the only secrets that Raoul would discover at Mrs. Jaymes’s house that Sunday. Before he went to see her, Raoul had gathered up his circle of clues, his notebooks, his clippings, his dossier, and he carried them with him, that he might have another look at his variables in the harsher light of headquarters. So shaken was he—literally—when he learned about the Captain’s son Branson that he knocked his bag off of Mrs. Jaymes’s sofa and onto the floor. As the contents tumbled out, the folder that contained Raoul’s personal dossier emptied, its invoices and photocopies and whatnot scattering themselves all over the sitting-room rug. Amongst the whatnot that Raoul rushed to pick up was a photograph that caught Mrs. Jaymes’s eye.

  “What’s that?” she asked him, pointing to it. On her face was a strange look, one that Raoul had never seen her wear before.

  “This?” he said, picking it up and handing it to her. “It’s a photo. Of Rena Baker. The missing girl.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked him.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Raoul answered, his flies sensing that something significant was about to happen. “Why?”

  “It’s like seeing a ghost,” she said quietly, and she leaned back in her chair, studying Rena’s photo. Suddenly she felt very weak.

  Raoul rapped on the window and motioned for Hammer to come inside.

  “What’s wrong?” Hammer said, when he came in and saw his wife’s face. In reply she handed him the picture. Hammer didn’t say anything, but from the look on his face, it was clear that he was just as surprised as she.

  “What’s going on?” Raoul demanded to know. “Surely you’ve seen Rena Baker’s picture before.” Then Raoul realized—stupid Bruce!—that the Crier had never once published Rena’s photo. The entire island had taken Rena’s demise for granted and had focused on murder-suspect Madison instead of on the missing girl.

  “What is it?” he demanded again, about to faint from sheer curiosity. “Have you seen her? Do you know where she is?”

  “No,” Hammer said, handing the photo back to Raoul. “Nothing like that. It’s just that she’s the spitting image of Dagmore Bowles at that age.” Raoul took the picture back and looked at it, but didn’t know what to say. Hammer walked over to Mrs. Jaymes’s china cabinet, opened a drawer, and pulled out a photograph. He gave it to Raoul.

  “That’s Dagmore,” Hammer said. “A few years after he came to Oh.”

  The photograph was old and bent, but there was no denying it. Rena bore an uncanny resemblance to Dagmore. Was she a reincarnation of the dead man? A ghost come to life? These were not typically the kind of hypotheses Raoul posited, and only after the initial shock subsided, did he realize the more plausible explanation for Rena’s appearance.

  Dagmore Bowles was Rena Baker’s father.

  Raoul did some quick mathematics. Rena was younger than Branson by about ten years. Raoul’s research into her background had revealed her to be an orphan, raised in an orphanage run by Seventh-day Adventists.

  “How is this possible?” Mrs. Jaymes asked. “Dagmore has a daughter?”

  “You had no idea?” Raoul asked her, not sure he believed her ignorance. Mrs. Jaymes knew the Captain’s every private thought. How had he not told her about fathering a child?

  Unless.

  Mrs. Jaymes and Raoul together reached a single conclusion: “He didn’t know.”

  They stared at each other a moment, unsure what to think, then Raoul snapped into action. He hastily grabbed his things from the floor and stuffed them into his sack. His head was buzzing and humming. He would have run right out without a word, had Mrs. Jaymes not shouted after him to ask where he was off to.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jaymes,” he yelled over his shoulder as he stormed out the door. “I’ll be back.” Then, deciding she deserved more explanation than that, Raoul elaborated:

  “There’s a midwife I must see immediately.”

  47

  “Abigail!” Raoul spat the name as he stomped from Ladywood Road to the wooded lane where he knew Abigail resided. He hadn’t yet pieced together exactly how she fit into the riddle, but he was sure that she did. He was willing to bet Dagmore’s daughter was no secret to her! “Damn her mischievous midwifing!” Raoul cursed.

  As for Rena’s disappearance, he should have guessed it, shouldn’t he? That Abigail had had a hand in a girl running off. Hmph!

  Raoul was enraged and excited at once. Enraged because Abigail had yet again been brewing her special brand of magic (and splashing it all over Raoul); and excited, because this time he thought he had her caught. His rage and his excitement were such, that he forgot how much he hated the idea of confronting Abigail face-to-face. He marched right up to her door and pounded on it with his fists.

  “Abigail! Are you in there? Abigail!” he shouted.

  Abigail opened the door with a mocking grin that for a split second rattled Raoul’s resolve. “It took you long enough,” she said.

  Raoul opened his mouth to make a very loud point, then lost his train of thought as his brain processed Abigail’s words. “What do you mean by that?” he asked suspiciously.

  “You’re here about Rena Baker, aren’t you?”

  “So you do know where she is?” he accused her.

  “Of course I don’t!”

  “Then why am I here?” Raoul asked. (He meant: Why had Abigail been expecting him? But it came out wrong.)

  “How should I know why you’re here,” she said, laughing at him.

  Raoul’s fury faltered, but luckily his flies rallied, and he found it again: “I want you to tell me about Rena Baker. I know you know she’s the daughter of Dagmore Bowles.”

  “How do you know that?” Abigail asked, trying to gauge how much Raoul really did know—and how certain he was of his knowledge.

  “A ghost told
me,” he blurted out, before he could catch himself. Abigail raised her eyebrows.

  “I mean,” he corrected, “that I received information connecting you with Rena Baker and Dagmore Bowles. I know she’s his daughter and I know you must be the one who delivered her without ever telling him. Now, where is she?”

  Abigail’s face suddenly went dead serious and she grabbed Raoul by the front of the shirt. “Now you listen here,” she told him. “I have no idea where Rena Baker is, but I suggest you stop yelling at me, dig out your giant magnifying glass, and go find her, do you hear? Not that it’s any business of yours, but, yes, Dagmore Bowles is her father. And, yes, I delivered her. Now, why don’t you, before that innocent Fuller boy spends his life rotting in jail? Don’t you see that time is running out? The trial is almost over and you haven’t done a thing!”

  Abigail released her hold on Raoul. She gave him a stern—no, fierce—look straight in the eyes and slammed her door in his face.

  Raoul was in shock. He gradually regained his composure and his balance, and flattened out his shirt where Abigail had crushed it. Even his flies were stunned. They didn’t make a sound. How dare she treat him that way? If she thought she could manhandle a government official and get away with it, well…well, he didn’t know how to finish that sentence, but even so!

  Underneath Raoul’s bruised ego, however, some niggling gnats took flight. Had he misunderstood? Had Abigail truly been expecting him? Why was she so quick to admit that Rena was a Bowles? Secrets were her stock in trade. She built her business on them. And why was she so adamant that he find Rena? Why her concern for Madison Fuller? Truth and justice were not exactly what motivated a secret-keeping midwife. On the contrary: every female confession she protected implied a lie to some island male. Where was the justice in that? Was Abigail connected somehow to Madison, too? If she thought he was innocent, why wouldn’t she simply speak up? Heaven knows her voice carried far and wide on Oh.

  With so many questions and still no sign of Rena, there was little else for Raoul to do but go to his office and put in more calls to Killig. When he wrote to his colleagues there to ask for their help, he had included Rena’s picture—the same one that had jarred Mrs. Jaymes. Hadn’t any of them recognized her? Had she disguised herself somehow? Perhaps Raoul, in his first round of letters, had not made the gravity of the situation clear. Grave it was indeed, now, and he planned to make sure they all knew it. If he could convince them to put Rena’s picture on the front page of the Killig Gazette, maybe someone would remember seeing her there, before the jury on Oh reached a verdict. Raoul punched his fist into his palm, angry with himself for not having sent clearer instructions in the first place. He forgot that his initial inquiry had been informal at best and that the jurisdiction of Customs and Excise extended to pallets of pineapple and VAT. Missing girls were not his mandate. If the Chief of Police found out what he was up to, there would be hell for him to pay.

  Raoul, though, couldn’t worry about Lucas Davenport or about the authorities that resided on the Police Chief’s ceiling. Closing arguments were less than twenty-four hours away. Raoul dialed and debated like a man possessed, begging anyone on Killig who would listen to pass Rena’s picture around. He spent the rest of the day in his office and only stopped his phoning when it grew too late to expect an answer at the other end. He went home and fell into bed, utterly tuckered out.

  Despite his exhaustion, Raoul didn’t get much rest. His fitful sleep was troubled by two vying, last-ditch hopes: that someone, sooner or later, would come through from Killig; or that his niggling gnats, if left alone, would hatch into clues Raoul would be quick enough to catch.

  48

  “Order! Order!” Judge Samuels shouted before the trial had officially reconvened. Bicycle Trial Week Three was beginning, and the crowd was in a frenzy. It took more than a few smacks of the judge’s gavel to get the spectators in line. When at last they were, Monday walked pensively to the microphone and opened his closing arguments.

  “Your Honor, members of the jury, brothers and sisters of Oh, our journey together draws to a close. I told you when we first embarked on this trial together that it would be a testament to the investigative skills of the authorities of this great island nation and by God it has been so. Or almost so. Sisters and brothers, we have a troublemaker in our midst, a troublemaker no better than the Devil himself, and that is the editor of your island paper, Mr. Kandele.”

  Ooh, this Monday really was too much! Bruce thought to himself, squeezing his hands into fists.

  “What I mean, ladies and gentlemen, is that this man has sought fit to undermine the institutions of justice and truth by hiding beneath the cloak of the Morning Crier. When we asked Mr. Kandele the truth not two days ago, when we asked him to show us a classified ad that he would have us believe exonerates Mr. Fuller, he said he could not, because he is a journalist. I say he could not, because he is a liar, a liar who placed a phony ad hoping to steer the hearts of the jury. But righteousness has thwarted this lying devil, ladies and gentlemen—as righteousness always will—because with his silence, Mr. Kandele has spoken volumes. Do you know what he has said, my friends?”

  The crowd collectively shook its head.

  “I’m here to tell you,” he reassured them. “His silence has said that, in truth, he is not in possession of any evidence whatsoever to clear the criminal who sits before us.” (Monday pointed dramatically at Madison.)

  “Truths are what matter, fellow citizens,” he continued. “Truths, like a missing young lady, ripped from among us in her prime. Truths, like Mr. Fuller’s fishing boat, which was covered in blood not deemed to have come from a fish, as he claimed. These are the truths we must bear in mind, not those spouted—unsubstantiated—from the mouths of troublemaking newspapermen.”

  Having thus discredited Bruce and the second lonely hearts ad, Monday removed his eyeglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, a gesture the audience ate up. This Monday Jones was a serious man!

  For the rest of the day, he regaled the crowd with his continuing monologue, revisiting his exhibits, and incriminating Madison a dozen times (the accused was in possession of an umbrella, the crime committed on a rainy night; he was a depraved alcoholic, as witnessed by the beer tumbler found at his home; et cetera, et cetera). Monday reminded the jury that the corkboard was covered in evidence based on which they must find Madison Fuller guilty (though really it was covered in photos and nothing more).

  “Finally,” he reminded them, “when we began our journey into this ugliness, when we delved into the darkness that is Mr. Fuller’s evil heart, I beseeched you to treat him as an innocent man for the trial’s duration, for the law requires you to do so.”

  Monday stood in front of the jury. Slowly, he made eye contact with every juror, one by one. “Members of the jury,” he said at last, “I say to you now, the trial is done.”

  Monday Jones’s closing arguments were so thorough and so moving that when Glynray Justice took the floor the following day, investing his words with the same emotion and authority that the Prosecutor had, he came across as derivative and fake. When, like Monday, he revisited the exhibits, refuting the charges a dozen times (hundreds of people on Oh own umbrellas; who doesn’t drink a beer on a Saturday night, but still make it to church on Sunday?; et cetera, et cetera), they thought him tedious and an out-and-out copycat. Though Glynray’s speech, on paper, hit all the right points and raised all the right questions, it just didn’t do justice to Madison’s case.

  He talked about the blood, which was neither fish nor female and could not be used against Madison. He pointed out that the killer still likely walked the streets, since he had placed a second classified ad. Every time he said “ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” it sounded as if he were desperate and begging them for something he didn’t deserve. By the time he was finished, the Madison camp started to think that Monday Jones was right—the trial was done, and how!

  The jury was excused for the night and ask
ed to report to the courthouse the following morning to begin deliberations. The judge warned that as long as the jury was out, the outdoor court was to stand empty and was not to be commandeered for dances, rallies, meetings, or festivities of any sort.

  May was beside herself with grief. Branson had held her hand for the entirety of Glynray’s closing, but was afraid to speak to her when Glynray was done. It had gone so poorly, he thought for sure she would be furious at him. She wasn’t, and even sought his shoulder to cry on, literally. She was no longer upset that Branson hadn’t come forth and admitted to having placed the first ad, because she was certain (though they never discussed it) that it was he who had placed the second, in an attempt to save Madison’s life. Besides which, she now realized the Bicycle Trial was bigger than that. It had gotten away from them all, and the ad alone was no longer enough to exonerate her brother.

  Branson took her home and did his best to comfort her, but like Glynray’s closing, he felt that his words, if accurate and on point, lacked the conviction they needed. He didn’t say it out loud, at least not to May, but the best they could hope for now was a juror or two with an ounce of common sense, who hadn’t been bamboozled by Monday’s “brothers this” and “sisters that.” Branson made sure that May ate some dinner, then obtaining her promise to try and sleep, he left her and went to the bakery. There, he found Trevor and Randolph behind the counter in a somber state.

  “Good night,” Branson said quietly, not wishing to inject the silence with too much sound.

  “Hey,” Trevor replied. Randolph lifted his chin in a solemn greeting.