Seven Days Dead

by John Farrow

“This changes things, Aaron. Don’t it, you think?”

  “What does?” Roadcap asks.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “The preacher being dead? What does that change?”

  “Not Lescavage,” Kai says, and Roadcap understands him now.

  “Orrock.”

  “Don’t it change the way the wheels turn? Hell, don’t it change the dirt we walk on? The rain that falls? I swear to God, I hear the fucking whales talk about it when they come up for air. The tide might not come back tomorrow, they say. We had a day to get used to the idea, but I can’t. You?”

  Perhaps the girl’s sleepiness influences him, but Roadcap stifles a yawn.

  “I suppose it changes things somewhat,” he says.

  Kai leans farther in. “Any suspicion on you, get out from under that, Aaron. Get me? You don’t need shit like that. It can muck things up. Now’s the time for action. Right? Am I right?”

  Rather than answer, Roadcap asks, “Who made you my adviser in chief?”

  Straightening in his chair, Kai prepares to stand and move away again. But he has more to say. “Just remember who your father’s best friend was, Aaron. Remember that before you go forgetting who your own friends are. You always think you don’t have none. That’s not the only thing you’re wrong about. Some of us, we have your back.”

  The two men stare each other down, then Roadcap makes an infinitesimal gesture with his chin and Kai understands to lean back in again, this time to listen. Roadcap leans in also, so that they’re close together, with the girl between them.

  “Any time you’re with me, out on the flats or wherever, don’t be at my back, Kai. Just don’t guard my back ever. Don’t stand behind me. Stay out in front of me where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “Aaron, don’t talk like this.”

  “Stand where I can see you at all times, Kai. Take this as a solemn warning. And yeah, you’re right. You couldn’t be more right. What happened today. Orrock’s death. That changes everything. Just so you know.”

  “I think we understand each other,” Kai says, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  “I’m not sure that we do.” Roadcap gestures for the man to lean in close again. He whispers directly into his ear, so that even the girl sitting on his lap can’t hear. “Don’t strike a match in my vicinity, Kai. Nowhere near my property. If anything of mine burns, I’m going to assume it was you who did it, even if it wasn’t, and you get to pay the consequences, whether you deserve it or not.”

  “That’s not fair,” Kai objects.

  “I’m not selling fair. I’m giving away a free warning. Don’t strike a match. Make sure nobody else does, either.”

  The man backs away from their close contact.

  “I was a friend to your father,” Kai attests. “You should remember that.”

  “That was then. This is now.” He gestures for him to lean in again, and reluctantly Kai does so, but only partway. “Have you never asked yourself why you’re still alive? That’s why. But that ticket’s been punched. Its final destination is coming up soon. Get off that train, Kai. Get out of the caboose. I don’t want to hear about your old friendship again. You said things have changed? Right. From now on, only what’s happening in the present counts. That’s what’s changed.”

  Kai can tell there’s no beating down the other man’s animosity. He stands and starts to return his chair to its old spot, but instead puts it down and walks off the porch. He disappears along the descending trail. Roadcap doesn’t bother to watch him go, and rocks Della Rae lightly on his thigh. It’s dark out. He sips his beer, and she closes her eyes in the gloom and curls more tightly into him.

  Everybody heard a good chunk of what he said.

  They are free to imagine the rest.

  Angela says, both emphatically and gently, “Anytime you speak to somebody like that again at my house, kindly take my daughter off your kneecap first. Before any fist gets swung.”

  The girl seems ready for a deep sleep, and closes her eyes against him.

  “So, Aaron,” Hollister asks, “is there a war on? Like a war on of some kind?”

  Roadcap adjusts the girl’s weight across his lap and lets her lean more fully into him. He seems to be contemplating the question. “Let’s put it this way,” he suggests. “You know what we say when we’re out cutting dulse on a good day?”

  The query receives no reply.

  “Come on, what do we always say?”

  Frank takes a stab at it. “I guess that would be, keep your knives sharp.”

  “Keep your knives sharp,” Roadcap warns them.

  Hollister utters a little surprised cough, then says, “I hear that.”

  Nobody dares utter another word as they stare out into the night. At their backs, the moon’s rising. Although they can’t see it yet, they do see its reflection on the dark surface of the sea.

  FOURTEEN

  Madeleine Orrock is not accustomed to being disorganized. She is also not accustomed to housework, and doubts that she ever did any in this home while growing up, other than to keep her own room tidy to blunt her father’s commentary. He entered her bedroom only when it got really messy, so that was sufficient motivation to clean up.

  Yet her second morning on the island finds her both disorganized and doing housework. She knows that other matters ought to take precedence, in particular the funeral arrangements, which have been thrown to the wind with the demise of her local minister. Now she’s not sure which way to turn and is intimidated about going back on the street to ask anyone. She needs to get over that, and overcome an internal lassitude that’s settling unnaturally upon her, so she undertakes the vacuuming, hoping that a dose of physical activity will jump-start her synapses and firm up her resolve to broach what is necessary.

  She’s just put the machine away and is staring out the front window when her father’s housekeeper comes up the walk. She recalls that her name is Ora, with an O, as the young woman is proud to say. At times in her life she’s introduced herself as “Maddy” and thought to interject, “But I’m not mad.” She was never wholly confident that she was justified to utter the line, as it might be untrue. Ora, on the other hand, breezes through life correcting the mental spelling of everyone she meets, first thing, wanting the world to know that she’s nobody’s aura.

  Maddy has the door open before she’s halfway up the steps.

  “I’ve got cookies!” the housekeeper exclaims. She has a way of mounting stairs that seems cumbersome, even oafish, although on a level footing she’s not that way. Her grin is wide and bright and perhaps that’s what has Maddy glad to see her. Either that or she’s finally in the mood for company. “Lo and behold, hang on to your silverware, I’ve got muffins, too!”

  Unlike yesterday, this time Maddy lets her in.

  Nervously, they wander into the living room together and Ora Matheson agrees to sit, although that feels odd to her and she makes a point of saying so. “I never thought these chairs were built for a bum like mine. I mean, a poor girl’s.” She finds that her anatomy fits quite well, and squiggles around some. “Of course, I thought if I sat in one during working hours and your father caught me, this is before he got sick, he’d swat me with a broom. Maybe the stick end. Now I’m scared he still might!”

  Maddy offers coffee.

  Ora accepts tea. “We can have a muffin! I made them myself.”

  “With butter?”

  “Loads!”

  Maddy figures she might as well have tea, too, and allows a pot to steep in the kitchen, bringing out just the cups and saucers first, then the milk and sugar.

  “My goodness,” Ora says.

  “What?”

  “Usually, that’s me doing the serving. If my mom could see me now, she’d be screaming. She’d want me begging your forgiveness for my unbridled—that’s what she’d call it, most likely—my unbridled temerity! My mom loves big words. All strung together. You should hear her talk sometimes, though she’s been quiet lat
ely. I think because she smashed up the truck. Ran it into a ditch. I told her, ‘Mom, no biggie, it was already smashed, often,’ but I think her pride hurts the most, though her face took some knock. Ugh. Black and blue. I’d say more blacker than bluer.”

  “I see,” Maddy says.

  “But you don’t want to hear about that,” Ora says, and Maddy excuses herself to fetch the teapot.

  When she returns they each remark on the beauty of the day and agree that a run of good weather would be nice. They are awkwardly quiet awhile until Ora conveys that she’s not sure if she is expected to pour the tea or if Maddy will. “I don’t know myself what’s right,” she says.

  “Not a problem, Ora. I’ll pour.” Still, she lets it steep another moment or two, which is when she realizes that she has her father’s knack to make the other person uneasy. She probably takes a measure of her father’s enjoyment in observing others grow frustrated with their own unease. She pours, smiles, and simultaneously they take a sip before biting into the muffins. Maddy compliments the chef. “I’m usually not into these things, but these are pretty good.”

  “Thanks. The cookies—I shouldn’t say so, but. The cookies are to die for.”

  “I’m not into cookies, either, but based on the muffins, I believe you.”

  They sip and munch and release little smiles.

  Then Ora says, “It’s been my best-paying job, working for your old man, so a bit of hit in the pocketbook, if you know what I mean, him dying and all, so I was wondering, you know, if you had a chance, as they say, to reconsider.”

  “Reconsider?”

  “My employment. I’m good at doing the cleaning, the washing up, making the beds and all that. I can look after the place for you, while you’re here and after you’re gone away again, if you go away again. Are you going to sell?”

  “Do you think I’d find a buyer?”

  “Beats me. Out of my price range. In your range, I have no clue. Somebody from off-island, I suppose, with the big bucks. You never know.”

  “Hmm,” Maddy ponders.

  “Like another professor, like all those professors up the hill.”

  “Yes,” Maddy says, as she knows about them, “the Harvard gang. I teach there myself although I’m not part of their club. They’re well-heeled—this house, though, is too rich for their blood. The thing is, Ora, I’ve already done the cleaning, and there’s no washing up to speak of. Right now, I feel the need to do my own housework.”

  “That’s not how rich people behave,” Ora scoffs.

  “Isn’t it? How many rich people do you know?”

  Ora thinks about it, then with a sheepish grin sticks up one finger.

  “And he’s dead now, right?”

  Ora agrees. Maddy cocks an eyebrow to claim victory for her point.

  “What about the businesses?” the younger woman asks. “Are you selling them, too? I guess you have to, hey? What do you know about salmon or dulse or the fish plant? Too bad your daddy had no sons. Ha-ha, for more reasons than one.”

  Putting her cup down on a side table, Maddy knows she’s about to be mean. The impulse surprises her, as it comes upon her so naturally. At least in this house it does. “Actually, Ora, I know everything there is to know about dulse, salmon farming, the fishery and the fish plant. I was born and raised on this island, don’t forget, my father’s daughter. You obviously don’t know this—he had me working at his side and at sea, hard at work, since I was a toddler.”

  “Really? I didn’t know. I didn’t think rich girls—Of course, I’m younger than you, so I never saw you at it, I was too young to be looking, if you know what I mean. So, since you know all about the businesses, are you selling them off?”

  As she turns away, Maddy smiles, and in a way she is finding her own reactions more humorous than anything else. Still, she asks Ora, “Are you asking for yourself, or for the whole island?”

  The young woman bursts out laughing. She needs a moment to control herself. “You’re right,” she says. “You’re right! There’s really no difference. Tell me, you tell the world! My mom will agree with you on that. Of course, if you tell her something, you might as well send a radio signal throughout the entire universe.”

  Then Ora gazes at her, as though confident that Maddy will answer.

  She’s almost forgotten the question. “Oh,” Maddy says, “most likely. I’ll see. I will not be living here, that’s for sure.”

  “You’ll go back to your professoring work. Do you think anybody is buying businesses like ours? On this island, like they say, who’s got the money, honey?”

  “Maybe I’ll sell to the Irving family. They own ninety percent or whatever of New Brunswick already. Maybe they’d like a little more.”

  “They’re so rich, they won’t live here though. If they need a housekeeper, they already have one, I bet. Or two. Or ten!”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Maddy’s glad that her tea is about done and the muffin consumed. She was happy for a spot of company, now she’s ready for peace and quiet again.

  “So you don’t know the professors who live up the hill?”

  “Not personally, no.”

  “What does that mean, not personally?”

  “It means I know of them, one or two I’ve met, but I don’t know them.”

  “Oh. Well. Maybe if you meet any while you’re here—I mean, they’ll talk to you before they talk to the likes of me. Only natural. Unless by accident maybe, an excuse me if they bump into me at the farmers’ market and nearly knock me down. So if that’s the case you could ask them for me, you know, as a favor for looking after your dad, and I think I did a good job with that, to be honest.”

  If she’s finished her pitch, it doesn’t matter, as Maddy’s lost the thread. “I’m sorry, Ora, ask them what?”

  “Oh! If I can be their housekeeper. Do you mind? I’m looking for jobs, see?”

  Maddy confirms that if she bumps into one or two she’ll be happy to ask the question. She knows that neither situation is likely, bumping into anyone in that group or, if she does, addressing the ambitions of a housekeeper. She keeps that to herself and lets Ora think otherwise.

  “Okay, then,” Ora says, and Maddy assumes that she’s on her way out the door. She’s miscalculated. “So, did you learn anything? After what I let you in on yesterday, have you figured anything out at all?”

  “What did you let me in on?” She really has no clue.

  “Don’t you remember? I told you that our job is to find stuff out, about like what the Mounties are up to. So did you? Find stuff out?”

  Taken aback by this turn, Maddy recognizes that she’s being included in the local gossip circle, as a possible source for more. “I think what I know about the whole thing, everybody knows.”

  “Yeah. I figured. The Mounties talked to me. I didn’t like the old one from the mainland much. Not because he’s from away, although that, too, but because he’s such a dunderhead, don’t you think? Anyway, he’s left. He’s off the island. Like in that TV show.”

  “He’ll be back, I’m sure,” Maddy says.

  “Do you think? Ugh. Shit me.”

  This time she’s genuinely curious, and not being merely polite when she asks, “Why? What’s the problem?”

  “I’m more worried about you than me, of course. Did you like the muffins?”

  “They’re fabulous. Why worry about me?”

  “Oh, you know, I got an alibi. So I’m okay. But you don’t, not really, right?”

  “Why would I need an alibi?”

  Ora is surprised by the question, as though perhaps she hasn’t thought of something and that’s why it’s not obvious to her. “You know. Reverend Lescavage was here. Then the next thing, he’s dead. In between, you came here.”

  Maddy stares back at her. She realizes that she’s learning something that hadn’t occurred to her before. “Of course, you were here, too, Ora, and so was Reverend Lescavage, then the next thing is, he’s dead.”

  �
�It’s that old one, from the mainland, that’s the cop I don’t like.”

  “What’s your alibi, then?” Maddy feels her heart rate tick up a notch. Her palms perspire. She doesn’t need more trouble, and understands that she has no precious alibi to prove her whereabouts. She arrived in a storm, in the dark, while the electricity was out. Anybody seeing her out a window at that hour wouldn’t know who she was. Though she figures, and thinks this through at lightning speed, nobody can accuse her of anything, either, a fresh arrival on the island, whereas this somewhat dippy girl, who really knows what she is up to or what’s going on with her? She definitely had contact with the deceased before they died.

  “Oh, a good one, my alibi. I went over to my boyfriend’s house. He’ll vouch for me for sure. I told them I didn’t think you did it.”

  Maddy looks off toward the edge of the carpet, then looks back at her. Her voice is quite low now. “Excuse me?” she says.

  “I vouched for you. Sure I did. I said, just because you hated your father and never came to see him the whole time he was sick, that doesn’t mean you had anything to do with it. I told him your father knew he was going to die.”

  “Wait. Wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘do with it’? Do with what?”

  “Your father. That policeman, the old one, he said it. He said it was a curious thing that a man dies in one house and the only person reported to be with him then gets murdered himself. So he asked about me.”

  “About you.”

  “Yeah, because I was there, too. Here, I mean, in this house. Like you said. So I gave him my alibi. I was with Petey. Do you know Petey? Petey Briscoe. He remembers you, he says, but maybe he was too young back then for you to remember him. Anyway, he has his own boat now, Petey does. He fishes. So Petey vouches for me and then the dunderhead starts asking what he really wants to ask. I could tell. That bit about me needing an alibi, that was all for show, I think. He really wanted to ask about you.”

  “Me,” Maddy says. She feels her blood pooling in her heels.

  “Yeah. But don’t sweat it, I vouched for you. I told him it had to be a coincidence. He’s a stubborn old mule, though. He keeps asking his old mule questions. I told him what your father knew and that seemed to satisfy him somehow, get him out of my face anyway.”