by John Farrow
“Normally, no one bothers with the death of an old man. Not here. But because of the murder, a visiting medical examiner is handy.”
“What’s become of that?” Émile is forming an impression of his visitor. Her intelligence is apparent, and she probably keeps herself together and controlled. Something’s upset her, and he doubts that she’s accustomed to being in a state. He imagines that her life normally goes along swimmingly.
“Do you know who my father is?”
“Should I?”
“He owns this island. Or he did. Hell, I guess I do now.”
“Owns,” Cinq-Mars repeats, both a leading question and a criticism.
“Okay, an overstatement. I’m understating it if I say that not much on this island was bought or sold without my father raking in a cut.”
“I see. And he died of old age?”
“I thought so. I drove in from Boston because he assured me left, right, and sideways that he was on death’s door. Honestly, I didn’t want to come. We had that kind of relationship. Anyway, I was hoping against hope that he might say something. He insisted that he wanted me here. I came, hoping for a deathbed confession. Or apology. Or something.
“You drove through the storm.”
“I did, yeah.”
“As we did, actually.”
“Really?”
“On a different errand entirely. How did you find your father when you got here, Maddy?”
“I arrived too late. He was already dead.”
“Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Yes. Well. Nobody else is. Truth be told, it’s not much of a loss. You’ll find that out sooner or later if you take this case, so I might as well tell you now.”
Sandra and Émile exchange a questioning glance.
“Maddy, there may be a misunderstanding. I don’t know why you’re seeking me out.”
“Officer Methot—Réjean Methot—he suggested it. He said that you already said no to investigating the murder of Reverend Lescavage, but he also said that you might be my only hope. Things aren’t looking too good for me otherwise.”
Émile laments, “I’m still in the dark here.”
“Sorry. I’m rattled. Making no sense. Okay, I arrived home. My father was dead. I’ve been told that he was being looked after by his housemaid. She was relieved that night by Simon Lescavage. That’s what she told me anyway.”
Up to this moment, Émile is feeling that he might be in the company of a soft loony, someone who is bright and privileged from whom he might need to extricate himself early on and perhaps with difficulty. Now the parameters are beginning to interest him.
“The same clergyman who was killed.”
“That’s him. When I arrived home, he wasn’t there. My father was neatly tucked in his bed with two nickels on his eyelids. The bedcovers smoothed out. He seemed peaceful in death. As though he passed away quietly.”
Émile sips from his own drink. He wipes a bead of perspiration from his left temple. Now that he’s gotten over his concern that she might be a trifle daffy, he sees that she’s not only smart but credible. He doesn’t feel he’s dealing with someone who’s trying to put something over on him. Though if it’s true that a policeman directed her to him, he needs to have a word with that man.
“What was the agenda for this so-called interrogation? What did Officer Methot want to know, essentially?”
“Honestly, I think he wanted to know if I killed Simon Lescavage.”
“Really?” Émile is surprised. He recalls that the two officers on the island had not been given laudatory reviews. One was dismissed as being of lesser intelligence, the other a basket case. “Did he indicate why he might think that way?”
“I arrived here during the storm. By boat. With the power on the island off. That’s held against me as if I’m responsible for the rain and the power outage. I was home alone. That’s also held against me. Apparently, the whole point of my arriving in a storm was to do away with people when no one was around. They think I was the last person to see Reverend Lescavage alive, since he was in my house. He left before I arrived. How do I prove that? No witnesses were out on a night like that one.”
“The slimmest, barest of threads. Only natural they’d ask questions, given that you and the minister were in the same house on the night that he was killed, even if it was at different times. They don’t know that for certain. Are you sure that the officer is accusing you of anything? Not just asking the necessary questions?”
All three persons on the porch know that he’s coddling Maddy Orrock now, patronizing her, and both Émile and Sandra see that she does not take it well.
“It gets worse, sir.” Her voice is strident. “Much worse.”
“Go on.”
“The autopsy on my father has confirmed that he apparently did not die of natural causes, as everyone, including myself, had assumed. He died of suffocation. My father, apparently, was put to death. He was murdered. And, while an endless line of persons known and unknown would’ve liked nothing better than to do that to him, I am, apparently, considered to be in that line and also, quite probably, close to the front. Or first in line. So I’m a person of interest in the death of my father, and, since he was last seen in my house, of Reverend Lescavage, too.”
“Did you kill your father?” No longer humoring her.
“Please. Of course not. He was dead when I arrived. Would I have, if I had the chance? I’m not the type. Could I have? Yes, in the sense that I had the opportunity if—if—I arrived earlier, but I still don’t have it in me. Did I have motive? I’m inheriting a fortune that was coming my way anyway, so the most I can be accused of with respect to motive is impatience. The whole thing is preposterous, except that I know this island. Once the word gets out—and it will—that my dad was murdered, everybody, and I mean everybody, will believe it was me.”
A quiet lingers on the porch, then Sandra says, “That’s dreadful.”
“And how—” Émile begins a question, then checks himself to make sure he is not being impolite. “Not that you are not welcome, you are perfectly welcome, but how have you come to arrive on my doorstep?”
She understands his query. This is an out-of-the-blue visit for her, as well. Less than an hour ago she’d never heard his name.
“My father and I,” she explains, “did not have a good relationship. You’ve gathered that. Yes, an understatement. Still. He’s my father. So having him die, I haven’t known what to think or how to react or even what it is I feel. I have to concede that I’m feeling more than I expected. I’m being hit with a few things that go back a long way.”
Both Émile and Sandra can understand that, and encourage her with nods.
“This policeman arrives. He essentially accuses me of murder. Or suggests I did it. Holy shit. I mean, what? What? And I learn that my father was suffocated and that’s like, what? Why? You know? God, he was going to die anyway, why would anyone bother?”
“Good point,” Cinq-Mars murmurs.
“I’m not proud of this, sir, and it surprises me. I kind of came apart. You know, with the cop in my living room. Got all weepy and frantic and angry and, in the end, indignant. The Orrock in me came out. I questioned who these plebeians are to dare challenge anything I say. Not my best trait. I fell apart. I had the shakes. I still do. Fuck. Excuse me. I haven’t slept much. I think he felt sorry for me, this cop in my house accusing me of murder. I doubt if cops are supposed to be that sympathetic. Maybe he liked me or something.”
She digs out a Kleenex from the front pocket of her tight jeans, swipes away a few sniffles, then resorts to her drink to moisten her throat. They wait. They both know that when she says that the policeman may have liked her, she means that he was attracted.
“The thing is, and this is ironic, and so goddamn baffling in a way, I wanted my father…” This time, and for the first time, she chokes up on mentioning him. “I wanted my father to be here, because he’d know what to do. He would know how to dea
l with this mess and with this person and with the police and with everything. Even with his own funeral, and I don’t have a clue how to handle that.”
They see for themselves that the stresses of the last two days are resident inside her, suppressed and managed, but liable to burst out and seize control. She is a strong woman despite that, which they see as she effectively pulls herself together again.
“I was angry at myself, more than anything, for wanting my father alive again so he could take charge of the situation. Anyway. Tears and tantrums later, the officer told me about a retired detective who has declined, he said, to help out with the investigation of the murder of Reverend Lescavage. He suggested that I talk to you. He couldn’t help me out. He has a job to do. Throw me in jail, I guess, I understood the gist of his job to be. He said if I need help—which is obvious—then maybe I could ask you to investigate my father’s death. That’s why I’m here. To ask for your help. I can pay you, God knows. I imagine I’m wealthy now, so that’s not an issue.”
Cinq-Mars gives her speech some thought, nods, and mulls things through. He shares a glance with his wife but doesn’t want to hold that look for long. He starts out by saying, “Maddy, you have to understand that I’m taking a break—”
“Émile,” Sandra interrupts. This time he’s obliged to hold her gaze a longer time, give her take on the situation more weight. She can’t see a way around the circumstance that’s presented itself. If he thinks that she should devote her time to rescuing wildlife, if he figures that that’s in her DNA, then there’s no time like the present. As well, he is who he is, she knows it, and the situation is a call to action. “You can’t say no.”
He may be able to argue against her point of view, but decides without any fanfare that that will not be worth the effort. The young woman now appears quite hopeful when he faces her again.
“I cannot accept payment.”
“I know how this sounds, but money is nothing to me, sir. I’d feel better about imposing. You’re on holidays, like you said.”
“The thing is, I’m not a private detective. Or a detective for hire. The difference is this. If I investigate what’s going on, I’ll be interested only in the truth. That may save you from further difficulty, or the truth may reflect badly on you. Do you see? You may know your innocence in the affair, but I do not. If I am in your employ, charged with getting you off, I would be hired, essentially, to prove your innocence even if you’re guilty. I won’t do that. If the truth sets you free, if I help you out, when everything is over I’ll submit an invoice, enough to purchase a future trip for my wife and me. Perhaps enough to pay for this one. Such as it is. We’ll see. Should the truth put you behind bars, that is what I’ll deliver when the time comes, if I discover that that’s how things should go.”
She understands. “I’m not afraid of the truth. I’ll be so grateful if you take this on.”
“Mmm.” He’s not wholly committed as yet. “Let me ask you a few questions first. Direct questions, Maddy.”
“I’m a big girl. Shoot.”
“Why did you arrive in the middle of the night? In a storm?”
“I drove from Boston. The weather slowed me down. I called my dad. I told him I wouldn’t make the last ferry. He arranged for me to come by private boat. Today, I had that skipper load my car onto the ferry and I drove it off, then all this happened. Anyway. My dad didn’t want me to wait for the morning ferry because he didn’t think he’d live long enough to see me. That he wanted me to visit at all, you understand, was a first. Enough to make me curious enough to come, ASAP. I wanted to hear what he had to say.”
“About what?”
She reflects on the question a moment. His tone demands more than a simple answer, that she go to the grit of the matter.
“Not just about why he was such a bastard. I was secretly hoping he’d beg me. You know. For forgiveness. That was a fantasy. I warned myself to put no stock in it, but I’m human. Realistically, I wanted him to say something about my mother. He never told me much. Almost nothing. I always felt that there was something he’d held back from me. I wanted to know what.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was thrown off a cliff.”
“Really. When?”
“When I was a child. She was thrown off Seven Days Work onto the rocks below. The man who found Reverend Simon Lescavage’s body, his name is Aaron Roadcap, his father threw my mother off Seven Days Work.”
“Why?”
Maddy lifts her shoulders and shakes her head at the same time. She holds the pose, as though this is the mystery of her life. “That’s what I wanted to talk to my dad about.”
“What can you tell me about Mr. Roadcap, the younger? What does he do?”
“Do? He lives in a tar-paper hut over in Dark Harbour. He cuts dulse.”
“Dulse,” Cinq-Mars says, although he knows what it is.
“Yeah, the seaweed we harvest around here. The Bay of Fundy brings in nutrients from the sea with our huge tides and takes all the dirt back out to the Atlantic, day in, day out. That’s why the whales are here and the fish and that’s why the seaweed is so rich in nutrients. We cut and ship the dulse as chips. Also, my dad owned a small plant that pulverizes dulse. He shipped the powder to health-food nuts around the world, but mostly to California and Scandinavia. He’s pretty much cornered a monopoly on that. Anyway, Aaron Roadcap cuts dulse and lives in squalor, as near as I can tell.”
“Is there anything else you can say about him? Did he have a quarrel with Lescavage, for instance?”
“I wouldn’t know. Down through the years, we’ve met from time to time. Awkward. The thing about him is…” She stops a moment, as though to reconfigure this insight, then forges on. “A couple of things, really, apart from living in squalor, are strange.”
“What’s that?” Émile asks.
Maddy looks at him, then glances over at Sandra, almost as though to suggest that she is more likely to understand this part. “I hate to say it, but he’s as handsome as a god. Seriously. Literally. And the other thing is, he’s no dummy. He’s smart, and he talks well. He doesn’t talk like some dulse-cutting drug user.”
“Do dulse cutters use drugs?”
She shrugs. “The fishermen do. A lot of fishermen do, so why not those at the bottom of the totem pole? Only makes sense, really. Who wouldn’t, if what you do all day is walk in tidal pools and harvest seaweed? Pretty boring.”
“A simple enough life,” Émile remarks, which the three of them understand is not the same evaluation.
“The policeman,” Maddy notes, “implied that my arrest is a distinct possibility. Maybe imminent. I’m feeling a bit desperate. I have to bury my father, defend myself, and deal with the judicial system and with the fallout on this island. I hope you can help, sir. I really have no one else I can turn to. My dad is dead and my only friend here, really, was Simon Lescavage.”
Émile’s been noncommittal, but he’s forthcoming now. “You won’t be arrested. It might take one call, it might take two, but that’s not going to happen.” The evidence is circumstantial, at best, but a local cop might grasp a straw and run with it. Émile is connected to everyone up the ladder, and if the investigating officer doesn’t see that it’s in his best interest to tread slowly, superiors the cop has never met will educate him otherwise. Émile is confident of that. His connections will be powerful in this instance.
“You can do that?” Maddy asks, already impressed but, as a woman of the world, suitably skeptical.
“He can,” Sandra assures her. “He will. If you’re innocent, you can’t have a better person in your corner.”
What Maddy says next impresses them both, especially the wary detective.
“Innocence, as you must know, is in short supply on this planet. I’m not painting myself as lily-white or squeaky clean. But I did not kill my father, nor did I have the opportunity, nor would I have had the will even if I’d had the opportunity. Nor did I have the inclination
to do so—it never occurred to me! It occurred to someone, apparently. And cut up the one adult I ever admired? Do that to him? Me? I’m sorry, but that’s preposterous. That’s strictly maniacal. I might be screwed-up, I know that much about myself, but I am not a homicidal maniac. The problem is, I was home alone, which isn’t much of a defense.”
Impressed, Cinq-Mars sits back in his chair. He’s on the case. His wife doesn’t mind, has even insisted on it, so he’s in the clear on that account. The case is more complex and intriguing the more he learns. The day has been grand, but the days ahead show a different promise, and he’s rising to that challenge, and perhaps, to that pleasure.
“Émile will help you sort out what happened to your father and to the Reverend Lescavage,” Sandra promises. “I’ll help you with the funeral arrangements. I’ll be happy to have something to do while he’s occupied. I won’t say it’ll be fun, but we can keep each other company.”
Maddy Orrock seems to want to decline the offer, but she really can’t bring herself to do so, and nods both consent and thanks. Sandra wears a smile right through the censor of her husband’s glance. She guesses that he wants her to tread cautiously. On that, she doesn’t give a hoot.
“Our conversation has kept you from your drink, Maddy,” Émile points out, “and me from mine. Let’s drink up slowly—while we do, tell me about yourself. This will mark the beginning of my inquiry. I need to learn a lot quickly. I won’t grill you, but please say whatever comes to mind. What I need to acquire right now is what I do not have, and that’s local knowledge. Talk. Free-flowing. Never think that anything is too incidental. It’ll all help.”
That conversation is proceeding and their drinks are finished and renewed when they hear the dull buzz of a cell phone vibrating on a wood surface inside the cottage. Sandra hunts it down so that Émile can continue his fact-finding mission, and brings it out to him. She’s already answered and exchanged a few words, and the look on her face is one of apprehension. He reads the caller’s ID off the smartphone, excuses himself, and walks off the porch and across the back lawn. Where the tall grasses take over, he converses for some time before returning to the porch. He finds the women sharing a peek at Sandra’s book on numerology. She’s written down her guest’s birth date and full name, with which she intends to experiment with her new hobby. The two women look up as he arrives back, and each sees that his visage demonstrates some evident disquiet.