Mind Over Mussels

by Hilary MacLeod

  “A few. But nothing…you don’t think…?”

  “I always think. They pay me to think.”

  “…that I’m a suspect…”

  “Everyone’s a suspect,” Jamieson said. It wasn’t really true of Hy. But Jamieson liked to keep people offbalance.

  A chill ran up Hy’s back. If the last person to see a victim alive was the key suspect in a murder, the first person to see them dead was suspect number two. Surely Jamieson didn’t think…?

  Jamieson waited it out. Silence, she often found, brought out answers, sometimes answers to questions she hadn’t even asked.

  “Confrontations? Well, in a way, you could say.”

  “What way?”

  “I never used to come to the shore by Lord’s place before he started the nonsense with the signs. I came by Wild Rose Lane. I started coming this way when he began putting up those damn signs.”

  “Your reason?”

  “Someone had to stand up to him. Some of the villagers thought he might have a right to close off the shore. I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.”

  Hy was torn between her fascination with the police proceedings and the desire to be sipping a tea with Gus and telling her the story, or up at Ian’s, with the freshest most astonishing piece of news in the village – ever. She’d tried to phone earlier, but Gus’s line was busy, as the village buzzed with speculation about what the police siren had meant. She hadn’t dared call Annabelle. Annabelle would kill her if she called this early.

  Kill her. It meant something different now.

  “Who’s in there?” There was an edge to Jamieson’s voice. Hy hadn’t been listening. Jamieson had asked the question twice.

  “Where?”

  Jamieson was pointing up the cape.

  “I told you. Jim MacAdam.”

  “No. In that…that…dome.”

  “Oh, Ed Bullock.”

  Jamieson raised her eyebrows.

  “The Ed Bullock?”

  “Yup.”

  Interesting, thought Jamieson. Bullock. Order of Canada, just this year. For establishing fitness centres for crippled children across the country. Unlikely suspect, but he would still have to be questioned.

  Jamieson’s eyes turned from the dome back to the water. She’d been looking at the ocean most of the time she’d been talking to Hy, searching, searching for a body that wasn’t there.

  “He shouldn’t be hard to spot,” said Hy, adding, with a smile: “In those colourful clothes.”

  Jamieson looked at her notes. A colourful corpse. A colourful, absent corpse. She had to wonder, were they all nuts at The Shores? She turned back toward the cape. Ed Bullock. What had brought him here?

  “Look!” Hy was pointing at the water.

  Jamieson whirled round, her heart thumping. The body?

  A wave washed it in, and dumped it at her feet.

  A sign. “No trespassing,” it said.

  “Lord’s sign,” said Hy.

  It was a sign all right, Jamieson thought as she scooped it up, of how things were going. Not well. She didn’t need a sign to confirm that Lord’s body was at sea. Like this case.

  The rain began again. They went up to the cottage with the wind, mercifully, at their backs.

  Chapter Seven

  Hy was just leaving Lord’s cottage, after Jamieson finished questioning her. She turned around at the door when she realized she’d almost forgotten her beach bag again. She scurried over to the kitchen counter and grabbed it.

  “Just a minute,” Jamieson put a hand on her arm. “What’s that?”

  Hy held it up. “Just my beachcombing. I left it here before.”

  Jamieson’s eyes narrowed to a slit.

  “Is that all?”

  Hy looked scornful.

  “Yes. Nothing of interest to police.”

  “Anything in there from around the body?”

  “No. Absolutely not.” They weren’t, thought Hy. They’d spilled near him, but…well, this was ridiculous.

  Jamieson held out a hand, and Hy gave her the bag. She examined the contents briefly. No, certainly not interesting. She couldn’t understand picking up rocks and shells, bringing the messy outdoors in, to collect dust and make more mess. Jamieson tossed the bag back.

  She let Hy go with a warning to be available for further questioning.

  Hy braced herself against the filthy weather and opened the door. A gust of wind blew in and she had to force herself forward against it. Murdo had left just before, and was starting up the cruiser. He sprayed wet clay on her as he set off for Jim MacAdam’s. Hy hauled her truck door open and slid in, just as Billy came out of the cottage, in tears. It seemed Jamieson had, as Nathan liked to say, ”Walked up one side of him and down the other – then did it again, she liked it so much.” It was one of the reasons Nathan admired Jamieson. She’d done it to him once.

  Hy rolled down her window.

  “Need a lift?”

  Billy shook his head.

  “Got to go knocking on doors. Tell people to stay put.”

  It seemed inhuman in this weather.

  “Climb in anyway. I’ll take you up the road.”

  Billy got in and they passed MacAdam’s lane just as Murdo was getting out of the cruiser. The outside light above the door was on. That was unusual. Jim never left it on overnight.

  Hy knew MacAdam was Jamieson’s prime suspect, but she couldn’t believe he could be guilty of murder. She couldn’t believe anyone in the village would be – not even the local thug, Jared MacPherson, and, anyway, he was in jail again. Out of trouble.

  “I’ll drop you off at the dome. You can start from there. Two fellas living there. Ed Bullock…”

  Billy’s eyes popped open.

  Hy grinned. “Yes. The Ed Bullock, himself. And a fellow who works for him. Small, dark, suspicious-looking.” Suspicious took on a whole new meaning now. But this fellow was always skulking around the dome. They were never seen in the village, either of them, and they’d been here all summer.

  Billy was taking down notes only he could understand. The one word spelled correctly was “Ed.”

  “We don’t see much of any of them, the tourists. Those two and the woman living at Ben and Annabelle’s.”

  They were passing that house now, a big Victorian farmhouse, with double front doors and tall windows, the blinds down and curtains drawn as they had been ever since the woman had arrived. Another one rarely seen.

  Hy let Billy out at the dome. She sat and watched him struggle against the wind to the door. There was a light shining out of one of the porthole windows. She remembered Big Ed pacing the front of his property earlier in the morning. She’d seen him do it plenty of times. So had other villagers who woke early. But that was all they’d seen of him.

  Moira didn’t stay long. When she left, Ian made coffee.

  Suki was lying prone on the couch, robe undone. Her eyes were red, traces of tears still on her cheeks. He put her coffee down on the table and took her hand in his. She guided it to her breast.

  “Suki…not now.” There was shock in his voice.

  “Especially now,” she said. “Comfort me, Ian. Comfort me.”

  He was doing just that when Hy came in the door.

  A long, low female moan. Just like on the phone.

  A male groan.

  Too late. Hy had spotted them on the couch.

  “Jeeee-sus.” She squeezed her eyes shut, clapped her hands over them. Again. “Jee-sus.”

  The pair on the couch flew apart. Hy opened her eyes. Suki yanked the robe back on. Ian, thank God, was still in his boxers.

  “I’m…uh…sorry. I…” Hy began to back out of the room. She and Ian had always been in and out of each other’s houses. It had never been a problem. Two single people, they’d each ha
d affairs and dry spells. Throughout, they’d maintained a friendship. A good friendship…though there had been that kiss at the Christmas ceilidh…

  Suki shook her hair and the thick mane fell perfectly into place, just a bit tousled in a sexy sort of way. She pulled the robe closed and stood up, advancing towards Hy with hand outstretched.

  “Suki Smythe,” she said.

  “The famous Suki Smythe.” It was out of Hy’s mouth before she could stop it.

  Hy shook Suki’s hand. It was soft, moist. Suki smiled at Ian.

  “I guess he’s told you about me? How sweet. Just an old flame.”

  Apparently still burning, thought Hy. One late night, drinking brandy in front of the woodstove, Ian had told Hy all about Suki and his youthful passion. Hy stared dumbly at the woman. This was his long-lost love? This creature?

  “Hyacinth McAllister,” said Hy, finally. “Pal of Ian’s.”

  Suki looked from one to the other and slumped back down on the couch.

  “I’m not getting in the middle of anything, am I?”

  Hy stiffened. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Ian, but she didn’t want this woman to have him. That honey-blonde hair. Those big brown eyes. Elegant hands with perfectly manicured nails.

  “Of course not.” Hy and Ian spoke at the same time and Suki giggled.

  Sitting on the couch in his boxers, Ian felt even more ridiculous now than when Moira had come in. Moira he didn’t care about. He would have been surprised to know she kept articles clipped from Cosmopolitan magazine under her bed in her spartan bedroom, articles of advice on how to catch a man. Him.

  Hy, he did care about. Just how much, and in what way, he wasn’t sure. But he didn’t want her catching him with another woman wrapped around him.

  He said the only thing he could think of.

  “Coffee anyone?”

  Warming to her task, Jamieson had forgotten how chilled she was. She looked with distaste at the leather couch, the bearskin rug, the trappings of a bachelor pad by the sea. She’d been trained to know that you could often tell more about a person from ten minutes in their environment than from being acquainted with them for years. Lance Lord’s personality was screaming at her: Lothario. Screaming too loudly. She thought about the Viagra in her pocket. She suspected he wasn’t as manly as his environment suggested. Did that have anything to do with his death? No possibility could be ignored, and she made a note of it.

  Like Hy, Jamieson was surprised when she saw the bedroom – the romantic four-poster, the feminine sheets. There had been someone in the bed. Next to the bed was the tube of KY jelly. Seal intact. What did that mean? She added it to the evidence bag.

  She leaned over the bed and sniffed. A strong scent. She sniffed again, gagging on it. She knew it, she hated it, but she couldn’t remember the name. Toxic? Something like that. Invasive. Cloying. One more time she sniffed, inhaling the scent into her mind, storing it for later, and thinking about a woman she didn’t know, who might have lain there, doused in perfume, waiting. Sulky and unsatisfied. A reason for murder? People had killed for less.

  Jamieson had an analytical mind, but she was also intuitive, and her imagination would probe the evidence, fantasizing scenarios that often brought her very close to the truth. She found it a bit disconcerting and tried to keep it in check, but here she was, almost able to hear the high whine of an electric guitar slicing through the cottage. It would be the wind, of course.

  She straightened up and went into the living room, down onto the bearskin rug. She picked a CD, put it in the player, and the high-pitched guitar sound was no longer just a thought in her mind, but was screeching through it. She slammed it off.

  A reason to kill? Oh, yes.

  She almost neglected the woodstove. The glass was streaked with black. Something recently burned? She opened the door and found a sheaf of papers, burned off at one corner before the flame extinguished. She pulled it out, dusted it off.

  Lance Lord’s Last Will and Testament. She leafed through it. Her eyes opened with interest. Not valid. But interesting, nonetheless. Now she was getting somewhere. She folded the papers and stuck them in her jacket pocket, a woman’s shrill voice ringing in her imagination.

  “You fool! You have to name me.”

  He had. He had inserted a name. A date. Yesterday. Jamieson would be looking for that woman. Did she have a shrill voice? Was she the same one in the bed? Or was that, maybe, a different one? Two women, a man, and a will?

  A reason for murder?

  That remained to be seen.

  “I think I’ll pass on the coffee.”

  Hy didn’t want to sit down with the lovebirds. She told herself she didn’t care what Ian did. This was his long-lost love. Well, good for him. But she was disappointed that he couldn’t hang around with her as usual, and go down to the shore and see what the police were up to.

  “I should bring Jamieson some clothes. She may refuse them again, but – ” Anything to get out of here. “And, oh – ” She buried her face in her hands. “I almost forgot. It’s Institute day.”

  “Don’t leave,” said Ian. There was pleading in his tone. It surprised him. Surprised Suki, too. And Hy.

  “We should go as well.” Ian was trying to disentangle himself from Suki. She had an arm clutching his neck and her legs lay heavy on his lap. “Identify the body.”

  “Identify the body?”

  “Suki’s his wife.”

  “His wife?” Hy’s eyebrows shot up. “Wife?” she repeated. She looked at Suki. At Ian. What on earth did he think he was up to?

  Ian looked embarrassed.

  “It’s a bit of a story,” he said.

  “I bet,” said Hy. “Anyway, you can’t identify the body.”

  “Why not?” Confusion in Suki’s mascara-streaked eyes.

  “No one can.”

  Suki and Ian looked puzzled.

  “It’s gone.”

  “Gone?” they chorused.

  “Washed away.”

  Suki’s face crumpled. She wailed in distress. Ian patted her shoulder.

  For the second time that day, Hy wanted to vomit.

  Chapter Eight

  It wasn’t the best day to try to bring meditation to the women of The Shores, but neither rain, nor hurricane – nor murder, it seemed – would cancel the monthly meeting of the Women’s Institute. For one thing, the speaker had already arrived. Everyone knew that, because Nathan had phoned his mother to tell her. She’d phoned Gus. Gus had phoned Estelle Joudry, glad to know something her neighbour didn’t know. Once Estelle knew, everyone did.

  Still, none of them knew what Hy knew.

  If she hadn’t booked the program, she wouldn’t have gone, not this morning, with the image of Lord’s corpse still in her head. Even though she’d showered earlier, she was so wet and chilled that she had a long, hot bath as soon as she got home, a bath that, when drained, left streaks of red sand in the bottom of the tub. She didn’t wash it out. There was no time. No time either to take Jamieson fresh clothes, as she had told Ian she would. Hy was always running behind time. “Can’t catch up with herself,” Gus would say. As the one responsible for today’s program, Hy had to get to The Hall before their speaker came, to greet her and introduce her.

  She picked up the phone, tucking it between her shoulder and cheek as she alternately dressed and dialed, hopping around as she tugged on sweatpants for the meditation session. She was trying to reach Annabelle or Gus. She needed to tell someone about Lord. When she called Gus, she got a busy signal. There was no answer from Annabelle, and her voicemail was full.

  Hy could hear the storm – the thunder of the wind, the rapping of the rain on the window panes, the house creaking, the garbage and compost bins rattling against the oil tank, the eavestrough squeaking – and the shriek of the clothesline when the wind pulled it, so it sounded
like a giant, and very angry, blue jay.

  She put down the phone and looked out the window. The trees were bent over, the shrubs and bushes looking as if they were getting a blow-dry at top speed. Then the rain stopped. Hy flicked on the radio. CBC was still broadcasting wall-to-wall weather.

  “The rain will fall heavily at times, dumping a total of 100 millimeters or more, in short, intense periods of rain on and off throughout the day. It’s the particular characteristic of Hurricane Angus. Meteorologists are calling them rain bands. You can expect them throughout the day.”

  For what it’s worth, Hy thought, as she punched off the radio. The weather reports came from Halifax and weren’t always correct about Red Island conditions. And the weather at The Shores was often different from the rest of the island, its environment sometimes out of sync, like its geology and way of life. She just hoped the next rain band would hold off until the women were in the Hall.

  She was sure the ladies would be there, in spite of the weather. Duty would bring them, but more so curiosity. Hy knew they’d all be wondering why she’d been driving the police cruiser through the village that morning, but she wasn’t planning to tell them, not before the meeting, and not before she’d told Gus and Annabelle everything.

  Nathan had taken Lili home to clean up and dry off. He’d started to make coffee, but she’d produced organic tea. He didn’t care what he was drinking. They had sat in a comfortable silence, sipping the tea, their eyes locked.

  Eventually they did talk.

  “Lili.” The first word she spoke to him.

  “Nathan.” His response.

  They knew then, just from hearing the other’s voice. Knew it.

  Another sip. Another word or two. They were the same age, twenty-something. She was the yoga instructor who’d become popular in Charlottetown for her life-altering meditation sessions. He was an entrepreneur three or four times over. In addition to the canteen and souvenir stand at the ferry, Nathan ran The Shores’ only lawn-cutting and snow-plowing operation. He’d established them all before he was twenty and even had a couple of uncles working for him. He was a trained paramedic but he didn’t want to leave the village for work, so he volunteered his services in a rigged-up old camper van he’d made into a makeshift ambulance, complete with a dented defibrilator.