Mind Over Mussels

by Hilary MacLeod

  Alyssa was at the centre of this. The ring would unlock more information. If Alyssa were the killer, what better way to find out than to confront her in a Hall full of people? Would she show her face to publicly display her innocence? Hy looked down at Ben and Annabelle’s house. All the blinds and curtains were closed. There was a thin crack of light from the parlour window and the outside light was on. Was Alyssa inside – or had she gone to the Hall?

  The Hall was lit up, the parking lot jammed with cars, more cars parked along both sides of the road. Inside, Jamieson was finding it impossible to interview the people she was introduced to. They were all polite, smiling, pumping her hand, and then calling out to friends and charging across the room. She was studying Leone and Suki from her position by the door. Two, thought Jamieson. Now, if only Ed Bullock and…

  The door opened. Hy came in, nodded to Jamieson, removed her jacket, hung it up, and bent down to take off her rubber boots, one hand holding on to the coat rack to steady herself. Every time someone opened the door, a gust of wind blew in, but now it was a steady stream of cold air, long enough for two or three people to enter, and Hy turned to see why.

  Alyssa floated in, the wind wrapping her cape around her tiny body.

  Three, thought Jamieson.

  Bingo, thought Hy, pulling on her shoes. She felt a soft touch on her hand, on the finger that wore the ring. She looked up and saw a gleam in Alyssa’s eyes.

  “You found it.” Alyssa’s voice was so soft Jamieson couldn’t hear what she was saying, and before any more was said, Ben and Annabelle came through the door. Ben was carrying a container of homemade ice cream. The cream came from his two pet cows, Liza and Rita.

  “Clear the road,” he called out, the great size of him forcing people to make a pathway.

  In the commotion, Hy had grabbed on to Alyssa and disappeared with her to the back of the Hall.

  “Yes, I found it.” Hy made a motion to take the ring off her finger. “Do you know where I found it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You don’t?”

  “It’s not mine,” said Alyssa.

  “But – ”

  “Well, it was mine. It was my engagement ring, but it’s not anymore.”

  “Ever since you lost it on the shore?”

  A look of surprise on Alyssa’s face. Genuine?

  “On the shore?”

  “I found it beside Lord’s body.”

  Alyssa’s hand came up to her mouth. She still had the wedding ring on.

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes. When I found his body…I found this. Do you know why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Isn’t it your ring?”

  “I told you, it was. It was my engagement ring.” She took hold of Hy’s hand and looked down at it. Her lips curled in contempt. “Small and ugly. I never liked it. I threw it away.”

  “When?”

  “A long time ago. I wanted Lance to buy me a new one.”

  “And so how did it come to be on the shore?”

  “You’d have to ask Leone that.”

  “Leone?”

  “Yes. It’s his ring. When I threw it away, he picked it up and kept it.”

  “Why?”

  “You’d have to ask Leone that, too.”

  She turned away, leaving Hy with the ring. Alyssa weaved gracefully through the dancers over to the food table, where Leone was. They appeared to be ignoring each other, but Hy could see that they were talking as they filled their plates. They just weren’t looking at each other.

  Damn, thought Hy. I wanted to talk to him before she did. She played with the ring, circling it around her finger. She’d have to get to Leone next. Somehow. Or might he now come to her?

  Everyone was talking about and staring at Moira and Suki. Suki, for her outrageous clothing and behaviour. Moira, for her new look. The makeup and more relaxed hairdo didn’t make her look pretty, but certainly better, much better. Ron Dewey kept looking at her. Once, he winked. Perhaps there would be a way, he was thinking, an enjoyable way, to keep her silent about what she’d seen down at the shore in May. He sidled over to her and asked for a dance. She flushed with pleasure. She didn’t like Ron, he disgusted her, but no one had ever asked her to dance before, not even Ian. She’d always asked him.

  No one had ever touched Moira’s breast before either, and she went hot with shame, and something else she couldn’t identify, when Dewey, hand clasped over hers, brushed it up against her breast, his intent unmistakable. She was about to break free, when she saw Ian’s eyes on them. Dewey was pressing her close. Let Ian see another man desired her.

  He didn’t see what Moira thought he was seeing. He was looking past her to Suki, dressed like no one had ever been dressed in the Hall before, not even the glamorous Annabelle. Suki’s hair, newly dyed, glowed an unnatural blonde, tumbling down in abandon, looking as if she’d just gotten out of bed. Tons of cleavage. The front of the dress plunged below her breasts, revealing a tanned midsection and the slim white line of a bikini strap. The silky dress clung to her body, concealing none of her considerable charms. Her tanned legs looked magnificent on four-inch heels. Ian wasn’t the only one looking at her. Dewey had circled Moira around, greedy eyes feasting on Suki, while his fist ground into Moira’s breast, wishing it more ample, so that his fantasy that he was touching Suki would seem real.

  In spite of her disgust, Moira felt a rush of warmth where she had never felt it before. She would have to consult Cosmo.

  Even Harold MacLean, who was more inclined to cast loving glances at a piece of wood than a woman, was staring at Suki, his mouth agape. Many of the other husbands in the room were stealing quick glances – and getting sharp looks from their wives. Ian, dancing with Hy, was looking at Suki, too, and wondering what he’d ever seen in her and how he was going to get rid of her.

  Annabelle and Gus watched Ian circle Hy around the floor. When the jig ended and a waltz began, Hy dropped her head on his shoulder, and he shifted so their bodies were touching from shoulder to knee. She melted into the dance and their movement together. He drew her closer. It was like last Christmas. They’d arrived at the Hall a bit tipsy, and had a long, slow dance that ended in a kiss – a real one, under the mistletoe. Something had started then, but it had subsided. It sank into the day-to-day, and their mutual desire not to ruin a friendship. They were both thinking about it now and about Suki. Hy – wondering why fight a lifelong dream. Ian – that his arms around Hy felt warmer, more comfortable than around Suki.

  A tap on his shoulder. The moment was broken.

  “May I cut in?”

  Ian had no choice. He let Hy out of his arms, noticing the high colour on her cheeks, flushed with the warmth of the room and the pleasure of the dance.

  She went into Leone’s arms, and the warm feeling was thrust aside by the disturbing electric charge when he touched her. She didn’t know what she would do if he tried anything. But that was not what Leone was after. While Hy was dancing with Ian, eyes closed, head burrowed into his shoulder, breathing in the comforting male scent of him, while Ian had been looking at Suki and thinking about the stupid choices he’d made, Leone had been riveted on Hy’s hand. On the one small finger. On the ring. His ring.

  Now he clutched her hand, crushing the ring into her flesh so that she winced.

  He muttered into her ear.

  “The ring. Where did you get the ring?”

  Excitement shot through her. Alyssa had told the truth.

  “I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because the ring is mine.” He squeezed her hand even harder. Ian, having been rebuffed by Jamieson – she didn’t dance on duty – was now dancing quite happily with Annabelle, when he saw Hy wince and wondered what was going on.

  �
�Mine,” Leone repeated, and his fingers began to work the ring off her. She tried to pull away, but he gripped her. Mind over muscle, she thought. Use it. Mind over bloody muscle, as she tried to wrench free. Leone had worked the ring up to her knuckle, where it was biting in, too small to go over. She stomped on his foot. He let out a yell and released her, bending down in pain.

  She fled across the room. Ian abandoned Annabelle as Hy sped by, grabbed her, and pulled her to him.

  “What’s going on?”

  Jamieson was looking at them.

  Through gritted teeth, Hy said, “Not now.”

  “When?” he said, holding on to her wrist as she tried to pull away.

  “Later,” she said. “Jamieson’s watching.”

  “Okay, later. My house?”

  “What about Suki?”

  Ian looked across the room where Suki was entwined with Junior Johnson, a strapping young farmer with an eye for older women from town. Any town. He liked their slick glamour, their sophistication, their easygoing virtue. He’d never dated a girl from the village. The choice was limited, and none of the village girls would have been doing to him what Suki was now, moving with him, not to the music but to their own rhythm. A heated one. He whispered something in her ear and she smiled agreement at him. They’d be leaving soon.

  “Somehow I don’t think she’ll be coming…,” Ian almost said home “…back to my place tonight. So come. Okay?”

  Hy nodded, and he let go of her.

  Leone’s baleful eyes followed her up the stairs, until she disappeared into the kitchen and the safety of the ladies bustling about, making tea.

  Ian’s eyes were on her, too. He wanted to know what had happened between her and Leone. Wanted to know very much. But even more, he wanted her in his arms again.

  There was no one in Billy’s arms. Tiny Madeline Toombs was staring at him from a corner of the room, too afraid to approach him, even when it was ladies’ choice. Billy didn’t even see Madeline, she was so small and hidden away in that dark corner. There was almost no one else of his age in the room. The young women of The Shores, those few who hadn’t escaped to Charlottetown, Halifax, or Toronto, wouldn’t deign to attend a ceilidh. They spent the evening instead at home, surfing satellite television, cell phones pasted to their ears or texting each other in their separate houses just across the road or down the lane.

  Maybe he should go outside and have a smoke. He patted his shirt pocket, where he had two spliffs rolled up. Two spliffs, and, he remembered, the box in his pocket. Jamieson should have it, but he wasn’t going to be the one to give it to her. He searched for Murdo and spied him at the food table, April popping a piece of cake in his mouth.

  The band had switched to some sixties music. Billy crossed the floor, past eighty-year-old Elmer Gaudreau doing the Twist, Chester Gallant doing the Monkey and staring pointedly at Leone, and Moira and Ron Dewey glued together and hardly moving.

  Jamieson had seen the struggle on the dance floor between Leone and Hy, but she’d been distracted by the exhibition Suki was putting on with Junior Johnson. Perhaps this evening wasn’t a complete waste. The loud music banged in her head, threatening a migraine. She was staring at Suki, and thinking…thinking it through.

  Suki read the will as angry voices shouted outside. Her eyes narrowed into two slits of pure hate.

  Alyssa. He had left it all to Alyssa.

  She shuffled quickly through the papers.

  Then sliding them off the table, stuffed them in the wood stove, and set them alight.

  The merry widow, thought Jamieson, as Suki and Junior pawed each other and sidled toward the door. She needed to know what, if anything, Suki could gain from Lord’s death, what any of them could – Alyssa, Leone, and, quite possibly, Big Ed. She sat for a minute, and then climbed the three stairs unsteadily on her crutches to collar Hy in the kitchen.

  “What was that all about?”

  “What?”

  “You know what. With O’Reyley.”

  Hy said nothing. Jamieson stared at her. There was silence. It worked.

  “It was about this.” Hy held up her finger.

  Jamieson flipped through her mental files. The appraisal photo. This was the ring in Alyssa’s photo.

  “The stolen ring.”

  Hy flushed. “Stolen?”

  “Well, missing. Alyssa reported it missing.”

  “She said she threw it away long ago. Why would she say it was stolen?”

  Jamieson looked around. “If these ladies would excuse us.” Olive MacLean and Annabelle quickly abandoned their food preparations and left the kitchen, looking behind them as they went. When they were out of range, Jamieson continued.

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “How did you know this ring was hers?”

  “I’m asking the questions. I saw the appraisal photo.”

  “So did I. In her jewellery box.”

  Hy had to explain how she knew about that. About it being thrown on the floor, its contents strewn around the room.

  “But this ring? Why did you keep this ring? You’re not a thief.”

  “I’m not. I found it.”

  “I don’t think what you did counts as finding. More like taking.”

  “No. It wasn’t in the room.”

  “Where was it?”

  A long pause.

  “On the beach.”

  “The beach? Where? When?” Jamieson ignored the sharp pain in her head that came with her excitement of at last having a clue.

  “Yesterday morning. Beside Lance Lord’s body.”

  Hy expected Jamieson to go ballistic on her, but it was worse. Restrained anger, tight and contained. The porcelain white skin blanched, the jaw stiffened, Jamieson’s hands curled up in two fists, as if she were going to strike Hy. Her nails were digging into her palms to make her contain her fury. When she spoke, the words came out one by one.

  “You…withheld…evidence?”

  “Well, no. I only found it today, in my beach bag.”

  “I thought you said there was nothing in there.”

  “I didn’t think there was. I collected the stuff elsewhere, but spilled it when I tripped over Lord. I must have scooped it up by accident.”

  “Why were you wearing it?”

  “I thought I might find something out.”

  “And did you?”

  “Leone says the ring is his. Alyssa says it’s his, too.”

  “Then why did she report it missing?”

  “Well, that’s police business, isn’t it? How could I be expected to know?” Hy took off the ring, set it on the table, and went back into the Hall, hoping that Jamieson would not lay charges against her. She didn’t think she would. And Hy knew she couldn’t stay out of police business.

  In fact, she had every intention of finding out from Alyssa why she’d reported the ring missing. But when she got back to the dancers, Alyssa was gone. So was Leone.

  Billy tapped Murdo on the shoulder. He held up the tiny box. Murdo, with the scent of April’s butter icing in his nostrils, reeled from the smell.

  “What in God’s name is that?” he yelled above the music. Several faces turned to look at him. April flushed at the blasphemy.

  Billy whispered in Murdo’s ear. April studied Murdo’s face. It was something important, she could tell, because Murdo stopped chewing the cake she had just slipped into his mouth.

  “Jesus, man,” he said. It sounded like “cheese ’n’ ham” to April who, being used to people talking to her with their mouths full, started checking the sandwich plates.

  “You should have – oh, never mind. Give it to me.”

  Murdo took the box from Billy’s hand. He supposed he should tell Jamieson, but he dreaded the thought. Anyway, he couldn’t see her anywhere. He’d wait until later, until
the Hall had cleared. He slipped the box in his pocket, and forgot about it when April handed him a cheese and ham sandwich.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gladys Fraser was sobbing hysterically. She was drunk. Everyone was so shocked to see her in such a state, and so blasted themselves, that nobody went to console her. Convulsions wracked her squat, square body.

  Her husband Wally wondered what it was about. He’d been eyeing Suki all night, but she shouldn’t care about that. They didn’t share a bed anymore. Rather than go to help her, he went to help himself to more juice. He filled his cup to overflowing, brought it to his lips, spilled some down his chin, rubbed it off, and took another long haul on the drink.

  The juice was better than usual. Much better.

  Suki had spiked it.

  Everyone had been drinking it. Some of them had never had a drink in their lives. Moira was one of them. She was so pickled she let Ron Dewey touch her breast properly, when he pressed her against the wall in the back of the Hall. So that’s what it felt like. Disgusting. She leaned into him a little closer, and he slipped an arm around her waist.

  Some had only ever had a drink for “medicinal” purposes, like Olive MacLean and Estelle Joudry. They were now having a great old laugh, slapping their thighs and cackling at…at…well, something. They couldn’t remember later, only it had seemed funny at the time.

  Gus had the odd glass of wine at family get-togethers, but nothing like she’d consumed tonight. She’d been parched. The juice hadn’t helped. She was sure someone had turned the furnace on. Gus had given up hot flashes decades ago, but she felt as if she were having one now, and she stumbled across the room toward the basement door. The thermostat was at the top of the stairs. It was turned off. She’d swear it was on. She fiddled with it. It seemed to get worse – a blast of hot air and a sweet smell came from the floor vent. The furnace must be broken. Abel would fix it. Now where had he got to? She went looking for him, weaving unsteadily through the dancers, asking after him, but no one had seen him.