Cheat the Hangman

by Gloria Ferris

  “Think about it, Lyris. This is a chance to have an adventure. I’ve gone over the figures with an accountant and with John Brixton. This venture is a risk, sure, but a relatively safe one compared to other types of businesses. Take my word for it. There are lots of wealthy people who will jump at the chance to stay at Hammersleigh for a minimum of one week, to a maximum of four.”

  “How much are wealthy people going to pay for this privilege?”

  She named a figure that left me breathless. “Do you think we’ll make any money at it?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “I don’t know, Patsy, it seems we’ll be catering to those who have tons of money. Lots of people need this service, but can’t afford it. Isn’t this kind of a selfish, class-conscious venture?”

  “This is a business. Most businesses cater to those who can afford to buy the product. That’s the cornerstone of our civilization. Look at spas, luxury car dealerships, fitness clubs. Wealthy people need good postsurgical and medical care too.”

  “Now, about this care. Who’s going to change dressings and perform other distasteful jobs like that?”

  “I know several nurses from the hospital who want to work part-time. We can have a nurse in residence around the clock with three rotating shifts. We won’t be taking anyone in as a guest who needs anything more than three good meals a day, some gentle exercise, and perhaps a dressing changed or medication dispensed. This will not be a nursing home. We will require a doctor on call just in case, though, and I’ve already talked to Michael Grammett. He’s willing to sign on with us on a fee-for-service basis.”

  I sat chewing the pizza, trying to process all that Patsy had just thrown at me.

  “Sounds like you thought of everything, Patsy. How about insurance and liability?”

  She nodded. “I’ve factored it in.”

  “So that leaves one thing. Two, I mean. What do we do, you and me?”

  “Oh, sorry, I should have explained that right off. I’m the administrator. After all, it’s what I know best. And you’re in charge of the staff—all the staff, including coordination with the nurses and Michael.”

  “I don’t know, Patsy. I don’t think I’d be good…”

  “Nonsense. You’ve been a supervisor at the Hydro Commission for years, and you ran the reunion like a boot camp. The parents of those juveniles you enlisted for your security and medical teams are telling everybody what a great job you did keeping their kids out of trouble. According to them, this was the first reunion in thirty years without a major drinking or drug-related situation.”

  She was laying it on a bit thick, but I couldn’t help feeling flattered. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet. I especially haven’t agreed to quit my job, so you’ll have to give me time to think about it.”

  “Of course. But don’t take too long. Doesn’t the buyout offer at the Commission run out at the end of the month?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll have a decision for you before then. I’m still not comfortable with this whole idea—what makes you think we’ll get any customers?”

  “Are you kidding me? Don’t forget, I’ve been working at the hospital for years. I know there’s a need for this service. And we have our first guest lined up. I ran into an elderly gentleman at the outpatient clinic the other day. He needs to have a minor operation and has decided to wait until we get up and running so he can recuperate with us. You might remember him from the reunion. He knows you, calls you Missy. He’s so cute. I think his name is Herbert Pembrooke.

  “Gunner. I think you’re mistaken, Patsy. Gunner doesn’t have the kind of money to stay a week at this hypothetical resort of ours.”

  “Quit calling it hypothetical. And yes he does. He has bags of money. He wants to stay for the full four weeks.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  Then I stopped and thought about Gunner.

  “I don’t like that look on your face, Lyris.”

  “I hope you don’t think I’m going to work sixteen hours a day at this job. Because I will need quite a bit of spare time.”

  “What for? Oh, you mean Marc. Of course you have to spend a lot of time on your relationship, the same as I do with Nick.”

  “Well, that’s a given, but I was thinking of Gunner and all the other elderly people who will be staying at Hammersleigh. It would give me a perfect opportunity to gather material for my book.”

  “Oh, no. I mean, what book?”

  “My book about the experiences Blackshore residents had during World War II. Both in the military and here at home. They aren’t getting any younger, and if someone doesn’t write down their stories now, it will be too late in a few years.”

  “Most veterans don’t want to talk about their experiences.”

  “Then it will be my mission and my challenge to encourage them to do so.”

  “You can’t annoy our guests. They will be coming to us to recuperate, but they won’t stay if you harass them.”

  “You know how diplomatic I am. And stop whimpering. It isn’t becoming to someone your age.

  Both Patsy’s elbows were in the pizza. She picked up one of my half-eaten slices and started chewing, her eyes never leaving my face. Webs of cheese hung from her lips, and I reached over to take the pizza away from her. I figured I had tortured her long enough, but Begin As You Mean to Go On was my most favourite motto of all, and I didn’t want my long-term goal to come as a surprise to her.

  “Give me those papers and drive me home, Patsy. I’ll have an answer for you in three days, no sooner, no later.”

  CHAPTER 33

  When I walked into his private hospital room, Marc was propped up on several flat pillows, and he was using the remote to flip through the stations on the miniscule television suspended on a hinged arm beside his bed.

  Three days after his shooting and Scott’s death, Marc was making amazing progress. The day before, he wanted to go home, but the doctor insisted on another few days at least, so Marc was waiting out the time.

  He smiled at me as I sat in the visitor’s chair. The smile was as heart-stopping as ever, maybe more so. I had come so close to losing him, and I was angry at myself for almost being too late in telling him I loved him. Gunner was right. I was a ninny.

  Then I gave myself a mental slap. I was no ninny. Just an imperfect human being, a work in progress. I had made a promise over the last few days to be kinder to myself and more honest with those I loved. It was going to be difficult—while I usually didn’t curb what came out of my mouth, my feelings had always been under deep cover. I was determined to change that.

  “Look at this,” Marc said. “Have you ever watched this talk show? The guest is this psychic, Sylvia. She’s telling a woman in the audience that her dead father is still around her and looking out for her. And she told someone else he would remarry in six months to someone he hasn’t met yet.”

  He picked up my left hand and caressed the ring finger. The finger his ring would soon encircle. To my surprise, the thought didn’t make me want to yelp in terror and flee Bruce County on the first bus to Toronto.

  “I guess my near death experience is making me think of the afterlife. I never knew if I believed in it before, whether we go on to something else when we die. Even though I was raised a Catholic, I have never come to terms with my own mortality. What do you think, Lyris? Do you believe there’s something more after we exit these mortal bodies?”

  I eyed him, trying to make up my mind. If ever there was a cue to spill my guts about the Tommy mystery, and about Leander, this was it. A couple of days ago, I would have made a joke and changed the subject. Now, unfortunately for my comfort level, I had committed myself to honesty and truth. I sighed and waded in.

  “Marc, you probably don’t remember what I said the other day, about what happened to Tommy?”

  He shook his head and rubbed his thumb along my palm. It felt so good, but I pulled away and looked at him.

  “I’m serious. I know what happened.”


  Marc refused to be serious. “How could you know for certain? Almost everybody concerned is dead. Don’t tell me you have a pipeline to the afterlife?” At my look, he said, “Come on. I know you have something on your mind. Let’s just pretend we’re drunk and tell each other everything we were scared to say before. You start.”

  So I did. I repeated what I had shared with him when he was in a coma—pardon me, sedated—about Aunt Wisty, Uncle Thomas, Tommy, Aunt Clem, Uncle Patrick, Bruce Wingate and the whole damn thing. And when he asked me again how I knew all this, I related my dream vision on the widow’s walk the Friday night of the reunion.

  He looked a little uncertain at this last revelation, but nodded at me to go on. I knew he was trying his best to be supportive and open minded, but there had to be a limit to what his mind would accept—he might decide I was the Family Nut.

  “How do you know this Bruce Wingate and your Uncle Patrick buried Thomas in an unmarked grave in the cemetery?”

  I hesitated at that point, and was tempted to tell Marc I was just deducing. However, my newborn resolution of honesty won out and I confessed to my break and entry into the funeral home’s records.

  He winced and lay back dramatically on his pillows during this part of my narrative. “I hope I can hang onto my career long enough to lock in my pension. Are there any other crimes you want to confess to?”

  “None I want to confess to.” He groaned and I hastened to add, “Just kidding. That was the only crime I have committed.” That was the truth, as far as I was aware.

  “Tell me, how did you know the information on the unmarked grave would be in a metal box in a locked drawer of the desk?”

  The old Lyris would have lied and said I remembered the box from the summer I spent filing in that damp basement room. The new, improved Lyris girded her figurative loins and smiled seductively to soften the blow.

  It didn’t do any good. Marc wasn’t thrilled when I told him about Leander.

  “You mean this spirit guide of yours is going to be popping in and out any time he feels like it?”

  “No. Only when he has something to tell me, and sometimes when I call him, if I can figure out how. The rest of the time, you won’t know he’s around.”

  Marc didn’t look reassured. “Were you by any chance talking to Leander the other day in the garden? When you had that blank look on your face.”

  Blank? That did it. I was going to have to convince Leander not to drop in when I was outdoors, with other people, when I was in the bathroom…” Yes, but don’t worry, I promise he won’t interfere with our private life.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. I suppose we can trust this guy?”

  “Ha, now you’re making fun of me. At least you haven’t called the orderlies from the psych ward.”

  I leaned over to give him a light kiss on the lips, mostly to try and distract him. It was so nice I distracted myself and forgot all about Leander myself when I finally came up for air.

  “There’s one thing I haven’t been able to figure out, though. How did the figurine get up on the shelf behind the peacock?”

  “Why don’t you ask Leander?” Marc asked, glancing around the room as though that gentleman were going to appear in a flash of otherworldly light.

  “It doesn’t work that way. He’s sarcastic and cryptic, and half the time, I don’t know what he means. He seems to have a hard time answering a direct question. I’m sure the puzzle of how the figurine was hidden is far too prosaic for him to bother with anyway.”

  “Too bad. I thought he could help me with some of these robberies we’ve been having in the area, but I guess not.”

  “You can have your fun. I don’t mind. What do you think about the figurine? How did it get up there, and who did it?”

  We talked that over for a while without reaching any conclusion, although we came up with a couple of theories with nothing to back them up. Marc thought it might have been Percival V. McPherson, the police chief at the time. According to Marc, Percival, once he finally bought into the whole conspiracy―Marc’s word―would have been the likely one to think of diverting attention to a thief by pretending to steal the shepherdess. When I mentioned Percival could have smuggled the figurine out in his coat and disposed of it, not leaving it in the house to be found at any moment, Marc replied rather testily that if Percival had done that, it would have been actual theft. And what was my theory if I was so smart?

  “Percival was not the one who hid the figurine behind the peacock, because he was a middle-aged man. He couldn’t easily access that shelf, even with a ladder. It had to be someone younger. Not Uncle Patrick. He wouldn’t have left it there all these years, and I don’t think he hid Tommy’s body for the same reason. How could he, or anyone, live in a house with the body of a child, and a hidden figurine, which was the sole proof there was no intruder?”

  “So, Watson, who was it?”

  “Bruce Wingate. He was a spy about to be dropped behind enemy lines. He was used to thinking fast and taking chances. And he would be in good physical shape. He died in France shortly after, keeping the secret. All of them—Bruce, Uncle Patrick, Aunt Clem, Percival, Marcelle Lavette—covered up both deaths.”

  “Well, they all conspired to bury Thomas, and they took quite a chance involving the chief of police and the local undertaker. No matter how close friends they were.”

  “What choice did they have?” I responded. “They needed help with the burial. Afterwards, Aunt Wisty went directly to Lychwood. Aunt Clem, Uncle Patrick and Bruce Wingate went back to their war jobs. And except for Aunt Clem advising Uncle Patrick not to place a marker on Thomas’ grave, I doubt they ever spoke of the affair again. Percival and Marcelle kept the secret too. It was a different world back then.”

  Marc was tiring. His head dropped back on the pillow, and he closed his eyes. When I started to pull my hand from his so I could leave, he gripped tighter. “You’re right, Lyris. It was a different world, and we can’t judge those people by today’s standards. We owe them everything. And if I had been alive and the chief of police sixty-eight years ago, I might have acted as Percival did.”

  “I can’t blame any of them either. Even Thomas. The horrors of war defeated him physically and destroyed his reason. He thought he was saving his son by killing him. And his wife shot him to save him from the rope, even though she was convinced she sacrificed her soul by doing it.”

  That reminded me, I had neglected to tell Marc about the imprint of Thomas I had seen in the cemetery. After considering Marc’s pale skin and tired eyes, I decided to wait for another day to lay that little gem on him. And lay it on him I would, in the spirit of full disclosure.

  “Any questions we have will remain forever unanswered, I’m afraid,” Marc said. “We’ll never know any more than we do today.”

  Maybe not, but that didn’t mean we should forget. That saying was going through my mind—those who forget the past are destined to repeat it. Somebody had to make sure that Tommy’s story and so many others would never be forgotten, and that somebody seemed to be me.

  It was still raining when I got into my car, more of a shower than a downpour. Water was standing in pools in the parking lot, and my feet in light sandals squished as I pulled out onto King Street. All in all, I was feeling pretty good about things and looking forward to a cup of ginseng tea and a couple of ham sandwiches.

  I slammed on the brakes. A blue van behind me honked, and I avoided looking at the driver’s waving fingers, or finger to be entirely accurate.

  I pulled into an empty parking space and sat thinking.

  I was in front of the police station, and therefore, more or less in front of Dennis’s realty office. I got out of my car and walked inside. The receptionist and one or two realtors ignored me as I passed them.

  Dennis was reading some papers and didn’t look up until he heard the door close. When he saw me, his elbow jarred a Styrofoam cup on his desk. The coffee poured over the papers and he cursed as he jumped up and grabb
ed a roll of paper towel. He mopped up the mess while I watched.

  Still muttering, he sat back down. There was a wary look in his eyes. “Lyris. What brings you here? I hope the Chief is continuing to recover. I heard he’s out of danger.”

  “Marc will be fine, thank you. We’re getting married on Labour Day weekend.”

  “Well, that’s great. Are you here to invite me to the wedding?”

  “No. I’m here to ask you why you were creeping around my house, and why you threw me down the stairs Saturday night.”

  His face expressed shock, horror and guilt.

  “What are you saying, Lyris? That was Scott Fournier. Everybody knows that.”

  “Everybody doesn’t know what I know. And Scott is dead, so he can’t admit to anything or defend himself.”

  “I don’t know how you can accuse me of such a thing.”

  “Cut it out, Dennis. I haven’t informed Marc, and I won’t if you just explain to me why you did it. Did you mean to hurt me?”

  He spluttered for a while and protested that he didn’t, would never, do such a thing to me.

  “Do you want me to explain how I know it was you, Dennis? I didn’t figure it out until just now. I thought it was Scott, too, but my subconscious must have been working on it, and now I know.”

  “Know what?”

  “It was Scott who took those objects from the house, not to steal because I found them in the attic, but to try and discredit Caroline. He thought we would think Caroline was a thief and dismiss her, so she would have to go back to him. And he started the fire in the shed for the same reason. Pretty stupid of him, but he was desperate. I can almost understand him.”

  I was still leaning against the door with the knob clutched in my hand. Dennis had an unpredictable temper, and if he lunged at me, I wanted to be as close to the exit as possible.

  “It was you on Saturday night. Only you ever called me a bitch. I’ve been called other things by other people, but only you call me a bitch.”

  “Is that your so-called proof?” He was sweating now and the little vein in his forehead was pulsing erratically.