Black Water

by Rosemary McCracken

  “I’ll heat up Jamie’s cassoulet,” I said when she got off the phone. “Vegetarian?” I assumed the environmentally correct Jamie wouldn’t eat meat.

  Tracy gave me a little smile. “Of course. Beans, carrots, tomatoes. It’s good.”

  First I’d heard that she liked vegetarian fare. But then I hadn’t done a very good job of keeping up with her life.

  She sat down at the kitchen table. “Look, I handled it badly. I shouldn’t have sprung Jamie on you at your office. I should have sat down with you and told you about us.”

  I turned on the microwave and joined her at the table.

  She reached over and took my hand. “For a long time, I was pretty confused. I didn’t even come out to myself until my first year at law school. But I’m long past that.” She smiled. “And now it’s wonderful having Jamie in my life.”

  She squeezed my hand. “The old Tracy was unhappy because she was keeping a secret from you.”

  And I’d thought we’d had no secrets. I don’t want my girls keeping things from me.

  I had to show Tracy that I was worthy of her trust. I decided that I’d get to know Jamie. If she was the one for Tracy, I would stand by her choice.

  “You’ve talked to Laura?” I asked.

  “She’s cool. She doesn’t understand why I’m not hot for guys, but it’s my life, she says.”

  I had to smile. Laura had been boy-crazy since she was twelve years old.

  Tracy touched my cheek. “Mom, I’m out. It’s official. It would do you good to talk to a friend?or two.”

  The doorbell rang and I went to answer it. Through the living room window I saw two men in overcoats standing on the porch. Both were tall with military bearings. A cold blast of air hit me when I opened the door. I pulled up the collar of my suit jacket. “Yes?”

  “Ontario Provincial Police.” The older of the two men spoke with a Scottish burr. He was in his late fifties, with a gray moustache and gray eyes sinking into the folds of the skin around them. He showed me his badge. “I’m Detective Inspector Stewart Foster and this is Detective Lew Anders. We’re looking for Tracy Tierney.”

  “I’m Tracy Tierney,” my daughter said behind me.

  “We have some questions to ask you. May we come in?”

  Tracy was the first to speak when we were seated in the sun room at the back of the house. “What’s this about?” she asked.

  Foster fixed his eyes on her. “Your car was found in Braeloch this morning.”

  I studied his face for a sign of what was coming, but he kept it neutral.

  “Can you account for your whereabouts around nine last night?” he asked.

  Tracy paused. “I got home at seven-thirty. I ate dinner, then I watched some television.”

  Anders, a big, fair-haired man with a ruddy complexion, wrote this down in his notebook.

  “You were home too?” Foster asked me.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “I wasn’t here,” Tracy told them. “This is my mother’s home. I was at my place downtown.”

  “Tracy moved in with a friend a few weeks ago,” I said. “They have a condo on The Esplanade.”

  He frowned. “The address on your car registration is here.”

  Tracy made a face. “I haven’t got around to changing it,” she mumbled.

  I flashed her a no-nonsense look. Tracy is a lawyer. She should have done the paperwork.

  “Was anyone with you last night?” he asked her.

  “No. I was alone all evening.”

  “A man died in a fire in his garage last night,” he said. “Outside the town of Braeloch in Glencoe Highlands Township. A car similar to yours was seen on his property earlier in the day. Can someone confirm that you were in Toronto last night?”

  Tracy furrowed her brow. “I was at the office until seven with a couple of lawyers. How long would it take me to get to Braeloch? Three hours? And I would have been caught in traffic leaving the city. I couldn’t have been there by nine.”

  “Then how did your car get to the municipal parking lot in Braeloch?” he asked. “That’s where we found it.”

  She just looked at him. The foolish girl was trying to cover up for Jamie.

  “You have no idea how your car found its way to Braeloch?” he asked.

  She looked down at her hands.

  I’d had enough. My daughter was being treated as a suspect in a murder investigation. “Tracy lent her car to a friend yesterday.”

  She looked daggers at me.

  Foster sat up straight on the sofa. “Who is this friend?” he wanted to know.

  She didn’t reply.

  “Ms. Tierney, we can charge you with obstructing a murder investigation. I will repeat my question. Who did you lend your car to yesterday?”

  “Jamie Collins,” she said.

  “And where can we reach Mr. Collins?”

  “Ms. Collins.” She looked at him defiantly. “Jamie’s the woman I live with. My partner.”

  “Is Ms. Collins at home right now?” he asked.

  “I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning.” Her voice broke in mid-sentence.

  Foster paused for a few moments. “Describe Ms. Collins.”

  “Jamie has red hair,” she said. “Burgundy, I guess you’d call it.”

  Foster nodded at Anders who scribbled in his notebook.

  “Tell them about the letter,” I said.

  If Tracy’s look could have killed, I would have been six feet under. Foster nodded at Anders again.

  “What about this letter, Ms. Tierney?”

  She didn’t answer for a few moments. “Jamie got a letter from Lyle Critchley,” she said slowly. “He wanted her help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “I don’t know. She’d put the letter through the shredder when I got in.”

  “What day did this letter arrive?” Foster asked.

  “Wednesday.”

  “And she drove up north in your car on Thursday?”

  “Jamie called me at work yesterday and asked if she could use my car. She didn’t say where she was going.”

  “You don’t know where she is?”

  “I told you I haven’t spoken to her since yesterday morning. But I’ll try the condo now.”

  She picked up the cordless phone on the end table and hit some buttons. “No one’s answering.”

  Anders took down the address of the condo, Tracy’s phone numbers, the names of the colleagues she was with on Thursday evening. He told her that forensics would check out her car, and she could pick it up at OPP headquarters in Orillia in a few days.

  “And we’ll need to take a look at Ms. Collins’ home computers,” Foster said.

  “Right now?” Tracy asked. “I was about to have dinner with my mother.”

  “The sooner the better,” Anders said. “This is a murder investigation.”

  Foster looked at his watch. “We’ll meet you in your condo lobby at nine.”

  At the door, he handed Tracy his card. “Don’t leave Toronto without letting us know.”

  When the door closed behind them, Tracy turned to me. Anger flashed in her eyes. “Now you’ve done it.”

  I opened my mouth to protest when she spat out, “You’ve had it in for Jamie since you met her. So you told them she took my car and you told them about Lyle’s letter.”

  “Tracy—”

  “They’ll charge her with murder.”

  She held her hands over her face. I tried to put my arms around her, but she pushed me away. “We should have got married, then I wouldn’t have to testify against her. We’ve been talking about it. We thought maybe this summer.”

  Marriage? That was news to me, but I’d been completely out of the loop. I gripped her elbow and led her back to the kitchen where I sat her down at the table. I pulled up a chair beside her.

  “We had to tell the officers who drove your car up there,” I said. “You know that. And it will all work out. I’m sure it was a coincidence tha
t Jamie went up there on the day Lyle was killed. She’ll turn up, and she’ll tell the police where she was and who she was with.”

  But my brave words belied my thoughts. I knew that anger and other strong emotions can provoke anyone into a violent act. Even someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  “I’m going to Braeloch,” Tracy said through her tears.

  “Tracy, the officers told you not to leave city without telling them.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “And even if they gave you the go-ahead, they’d follow your every move. They’d think you’d lead them to Jamie.”

  She brushed away her tears with the back of her hand. “But they wouldn’t follow you. Mom, will you go up and look for her? Tomorrow’s Saturday. You’d have the weekend to find out what’s going on. I’ll come over tomorrow morning and stay here with Tommy.”

  I was about to say that I had no idea what I could do to help Jamie—if I even found her. But Tracy’s eyes were pleading. I had to let her know that she could count on me. Any time. Like right now.

  I nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I gave Jamie’s cassoulet a few more minutes in the microwave. While the dish was spinning, Tracy phoned Jamie’s mother in Braeloch and told her that I would drop by her home late the next morning.

  Neither of us felt like eating when we sat down at the table. “Veronica said she hasn’t heard from Jamie in a week,” Tracy said.

  It sounded like she wouldn’t be much help.

  “Jamie went to see Lyle about something he told her in that letter,” Tracy said, her eyes wide with concern. “So whoever killed him would want Jamie out of the way too.”

  I’d been thinking along those lines, but I didn’t want to add to her worries. I told her the killer probably didn’t know about the letter. “And whatever Lyle told Jamie may have nothing to do with why he was killed.”

  She didn’t buy that. “She knows way too much.”

  “I imagine she’s dropped out of sight to check up on what Lyle told her.”

  “Maybe. And thanks to you, the police are looking for her.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “And when they find out about the feud between the Collins family and Lyle—”

  “Feud?”

  “There were a lot of bad feelings.”

  Of course there were. He killed the Collins girl.

  “When they do, they won’t look any farther for Lyle’s killer.”

  We were going around in circles. “They may have another suspect by now,” I said.

  I pushed my chair back from the table. “I’ll drive you over to the condo.”

  “What’s Veronica like?” I asked Tracy when we were in the car.

  “I’ve never met her. Tonight was the first time I spoke to her.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Tracy had just mentioned marriage but she’d never met Jamie’s family.

  “Jamie doesn’t go back to Braeloch very much. She says it brings back memories of her sister…and Lyle. She took Veronica to New York at Christmas.”

  “At some point, you’ll have to meet her.”

  “I guess. We’ll probably drive up there this summer.”

  On your honeymoon, I wanted to say.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Saturday was a beautiful day. The cold air mass had moved out overnight and the temperature in Toronto hovered just above freezing. That’s balmy weather for central Canada in the winter. The sun shone down from a true-blue sky and “Spring” from The Four Seasons poured out of the stereo speakers as I drove north out of the city on the Don Valley Parkway. Maybe it was the sunshine, maybe it was Vivaldi, but my spirits lifted as I left the city behind.

  Three hours later, I pulled into Braeloch. The little town on the shore of Serenity Lake was postcard-pretty that morning with a fresh dusting of snow sparkling in the sunlight. Its main street hugged the lake, which was frozen over and dotted with ice-fishing huts. A small public parking lot was tucked behind Main Street’s old brick buildings, and behind that a grid of residential streets climbed the hill behind the town. On top of the hill, two huge granite outcroppings embraced Braeloch like a pair of protective arms.

  I cruised down Main Street past a bakery, two banks, a library, Stedman’s Department Store, a couple of eateries, the Dominion Hotel and a police station. I saw that Norris Cassidy, the investment firm I worked for, had a branch in a handsome Victorian house on the corner of Main and Queen, and I recalled reading about that new venture in the company’s newsletter. Morrison’s Funeral Home was in an even grander old home across the street. I smiled, thinking that Braeloch’s main street was a one-stop-shopping mecca.

  I found Prince Avenue midway up the hill and pulled up in front of a tidy white-frame house with a veranda wrapped around it. Snow was piled on the front lawn, but I envisioned well-tended flowerbeds in the summer.

  A woman with frosted blond hair opened the door as I walked up the front steps. Veronica Collins looked like the late Princess Diana grown into middle age, but she wasn’t smiling.

  I held out a hand. “I’m Pat Tierney, Tracy’s mom.”

  “Do you know where my daughter is?”

  I shook my head. “Tracy hasn’t heard from Jamie since Thursday morning.”

  She moved back so I could enter the house. “I call her Jenny,” she said. “Short for Jennifer.”

  I felt tension emanating from her as she watched me take off my parka and boots. She put the parka on a bench by the door, and I followed her through the house.

  It was bigger than it looked from the outside. An addition had been built onto the back, and the entire place was decorated in shades of white. Even the rugs were white, I noted as I followed Veronica into the gleaming white kitchen.

  “Tea?” she asked.

  “Thanks.” I took a chair at the table. She set down two white cups and saucers, and smiled for the first time. “I haven’t met Tracy,” she said, “but she sounded like a nice girl on the phone.”

  I gave her a tight smile.

  “I see you’re not comfortable with it yet,” she said. “Jenny told me twelve years ago so I’ve had plenty of time to adjust. Jen’s thirty-two now, old enough to live her own life.”

  “Tracy only told me a few weeks ago.”

  She gave me a wry smile. “You’ll live with it.”

  I noticed then that she was perfectly put together, from her pale pink twin set down to the pearl polish on her fingernails. Perfectly put together, just like her home.

  She joined me at the table with a teapot and poured the tea. “The police came by last night. They found your daughter’s car in the public lot, and they said a woman with red hair was seen at Lyle’s place on Thursday afternoon. Several hours before the fire.”

  “Where is the house?”

  “About three miles east of town on Highway 123.” She examined her pearl fingernails. “It doesn’t look good for Jenny. Lyle…”

  “Tracy told me.”

  “Yes.” She paused for a few moments. “It was ten years ago last summer, Carly had just turned seventeen. She was driving home from her weekend job at the garden center. She was making the turn onto 123 when Lyle hit her. The police said she died instantly.” Her voice broke.

  I gave her a few moments to compose herself. “You just had the two girls?” I asked.

  “Just the two of them.” She tried to smile. “You see why I don’t care about Jenny’s lifestyle. What’s important is that I still have her.”

  “Yes.”

  “We lived out at the lake in those days. I sold the place five years ago after Herb died.” She looked around her. “Decided to make a fresh start here.”

  I sipped more tea and waited for her to continue.

  “Lyle had been drinking that night, but he was never charged.”

  “Never charged? But—”

  She took a deep breath. “He was hurt in the crash. Some cracked ribs and a concussion, and he was taken to hospital. In his condition, he couldn’t take a Breath
alyzer, and they never gave him a blood test. The upshot was they couldn’t prove his blood alcohol content was above .08%.” Her face crumpled.

  “Good God!”

  She nodded. “Only a fraction of impaired drivers who kill or injure people are ever charged, never mind convicted.”

  “Why didn’t they do a blood test?”

  She held out her hands, palms up. “Forgot? Didn’t get around to it in time? Or maybe because he was a prominent business owner in the area.”

  “There was no closure for you.”

  She toyed with her spoon. “For months, I just went through the motions. I made meals, I did laundry. I thought of Carly getting into her car, driving to the intersection…”

  After a few moments, she continued. “My Herb was one of those men who says little but feels things real deep. When Carly died, he held it all inside.”

  “And Jamie?”

  “She was always feisty. She fought back, tried to get Lyle charged. But, as I said, there was no legal evidence against him.”

  She gave me a weak smile. “When she got nowhere with that, she lashed out—not that I approve of what she did. She strung up signs with the word ‘Killer’ painted in red on Lyle’s front gate. She’s got plenty of spirit, my Jenny.”

  Two years earlier, a Jennifer Collins had led the legal team that secured a landmark judgment on behalf of an elderly widow. The court ordered a financial advisor at a prominent Bay Street securities firm to pay the woman more than a million dollars for shrinking her assets by putting them into high-risk investments.

  “Your daughter was the young lawyer who got money back for Betsy Cornell, wasn’t she?” I had been impressed. The thirty-five-day trial in Toronto Superior Court brought the issue of investment fraud, especially fraud against small investors, to widespread public attention. Unless their investment firms carry expensive liability insurance, fraud victims usually suffer in silence or settle out of court for pennies on the dollar, with the deals sealed by nondisclosure clauses. Cases of bargaining rather than justice.

  Veronica’s face lit up with a smile. “That was my Jenny. She’s got a passion for justice.”

  The more I learned about Jamie, the more I liked her.