Scare the Light Away

by Vicki Delany

  Dad looked perfectly normal as he set about filling the coffee pot and pouring cereal. He’d washed, dressed, and shaved. Yesterday’s trauma forgotten.

  “You’re up early, Dad.”

  “Lots to do. My great-grandson’s coming this afternoon. My whole family coming for dinner. Your last day. An exciting day.”

  I got myself a bowl. Neither of us realized how prophetic his comment would prove to be.

  Chapter 45

  Sampson needed a walk; I needed to get some work done in preparation for the meetings that Jenny had scheduled for me all day Monday.

  We walked up the road to the big house. Last night I counted glassware, dishes, and cutlery, enough for thirteen. It wouldn’t matter that they were all wildly mismatched. But I needed to ask Aileen to bring some serving dishes. We took our time. Sampson sniffed under every log and peed on every bush. The sun had risen, a faint yellow blob against a blaze of pink and purple. But in the west the sky over the lake was heavily overcast. High overhead, angry, menacing clouds were moving fast.

  Sampson’s entire body shivered as she caught sight of a black squirrel, nosing about in winter debris piled under a crooked, half-dead red pine. She crouched low to the ground, ears pointing straight up, haunches twitching. Too spoiled to have the patience required by the hunt, she broke into a run accompanied by full-throated barking when still a full twenty yards from the tree. The squirrel disappeared into the spindly foliage. The canopy of the branches shook as the bushy-tailed animal leapt from one tree to the next.

  “It’s long gone, you stilly lug,” I said. “Good thing your dinner comes out of a can, eh? You wouldn’t last long out here.”

  Sampson’s response was cut off by an abrupt shift of her attention. A car was coming up the drive. A police car. Two police cars.

  My heart lightened and I set off at a trot, whistling for the dog to follow. Ever the optimist, I believed that this could only be good news. They’d come to tell Jimmy and Aileen that the murderer had been captured and that the watch on their house would come to an end. Life would get back to normal, and I could go home, my mind at rest. Great.

  Jimmy and Aileen stood on the porch watching as the officers got out of their cars. Two uniformed men, a man in plainclothes, and a woman dressed in a severe brown business suit mounted the steps. Bob Reynolds, two of his lackeys, and a woman I hadn’t seen before.

  Aileen’s face told the story. This was no goodwill visit. The woman in the brown suit was talking, her voice deep and low. She was exceptionally tall, not much short of six feet, and slightly built. I climbed the steps. Sampson sniffed at Constable LeBlanc’s leg. She recognized him; he’d been welcomed into our house. He was, therefore, a friend.

  The woman turned to face me. She was over forty, the delicate skin at the corner of her eyes was deeply wrinkled, but her heavy hair, tucked back into a businesslike bun, looked to be a natural ash blond only lightly dusted with gray. She wore an expensive, but most unattractive brown wool pantsuit matched with a plain white blouse, practical earth-colored shoes, and tiny gold earrings.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” she said, her icy blue eyes looking directly into mine. “But this is police business. If you could please excuse us?”

  “This is my sister, Rebecca McKenzie,” Jimmy said. “I’d like her to stay.”

  “Very well. But control your dog, please.”

  Said dog was encouraging Dave LeBlanc to play with her. A touch of color rose up his neck and into his cheeks as he tried to ignore all the unwelcome canine attention.

  The woman returned to the subject at hand. She looked at my brother. “If you will come with us please, sir.”

  “No,” Aileen yelled. “You’ve made a mistake. You can’t be serious. I won’t let you.”

  “Please, Aileen,” Reynolds said, “you’re not helping matters.”

  “I’m not trying to help,” she screeched, her eyes wild, primitive with fear. “I want you to stop this.”

  “Aileen.” Jimmy voice was strong, hard. “Stop it.”

  She quieted.

  “Go inside and call Mr. Singh. Or give the number to Rebecca and let her make the call. Tell him what’s happened and ask him to meet me at the police station. Do you understand?”

  She said nothing. The officers shifted.

  “Do you understand, Aileen?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll help.”

  Jimmy sighed heavily. “Thanks, Becky.”

  I took Aileen by the arm and led her toward the house. She stumbled after me, her legs hardly moving, without conscious thought, simply following my lead. Behind us, handcuffs snapped on my brother’s wrists. Fortunately the sound didn’t appear to register in Aileen’s fuddled brain. It was all so terribly civilized and peaceful that Sampson detected nothing amiss. She wagged her tail good-bye to the visitors and happily followed us into the house.

  Aileen collapsed onto the couch, and I found the brandy bottle.

  “Where’s the lawyer’s number?”

  She accepted the glass I offered her. “In the kitchen, on the board by the phone.”

  “You sit there. I’ll be right back.”

  They’d maintained the character of the old kitchen, but accented it with modern cabinetry, solid granite countertops, and ceramic floor tiles. The fireplace in the corner had been used recently—the ash was fluffy, the scent of wood smoke still lingered in the air. An eclectic mixture of fashion and political magazines covered the scarred wooden table. It was a room that I’d be happy to settle into any time, but not today. The scrap of paper with Alex Singh’s phone number scrawled in my handwriting was pinned to a corkboard covered with phone messages, postcards, photographs, and reminders.

  Fortunately Alex was in and his secretary put me straight through. In a few short words I told him that Jimmy’d been arrested and taken away a few minutes ago.

  “Do you know who the officers were who arrested him?”

  “Bob Reynolds, from North Ridge. But the woman with them seemed to be the one in charge. Middle aged, very tall, thin, blond hair, hideous suit.”

  “The formidable Inspector Eriksson. She’s tough, but fair. I’ll head down there right now. But before I go, can you tell me what grounds Eriksson gave for the arrest?”

  “Didn’t hear a word of it. I only got here as they were taking him away. But his wife is here, she was with him when they arrived.”

  He asked me to find out from Aileen what I could and gave me his cell phone number before hanging up.

  Aileen was curled up on the couch with her legs tucked under her bottom like a six-year-old girl straight out of the bath, watching TV before bed. Sampson had climbed up beside her and Aileen absent-mindedly scratched the dog’s head. She looked quite guilty, caught on forbidden furniture, and moved to jump off. I pressed her rump back down. She was needed right where she was.

  “Aileen, did the police tell Jimmy why they were arresting him?”

  She looked at me. “For murdering Jennifer Taylor. But he didn’t do it.”

  “I know that, dear. But why did they come for him now? Why not the other night when he was at the station?”

  She peered deeply into her glass for a few moments, looking to find secrets buried within the golden brandy. She discovered nothing and with an enormous sigh touched her lips to the rim.

  “Mr. Singh is on his way to the police station. He would like to know what they said to Jimmy. So he can think about it on the way.”

  “They found hair in his truck.”

  “Hair? Are you sure?”

  She shrugged. Her eyes drooped. She was shutting down. only her fingers moved in the dog’s long fur.

  “Are you sure that’s what they said, Aileen?”

  She nodded. “Jennifer’s hair, in the truck.”

  “So, Jimmy told us himself that she’s been in the truck plenty of times, which is completely natural as she worked with him. There’d be nothing unusual about finding some of her hair. Would there?”r />
  “A clump of hair, they said, with blood on it.”

  “Blood. The paper said that she was strangled, so there wouldn’t be any blood. Would there?”

  “She’d been beaten up, they said, her lip split open and one tooth knocked out and clumps of hair pulled right out of the scalp.”

  “Oh God.” These were things I didn’t want to know. I struggled to push the image out of my mind. That pretty girl, the perfect teeth knocked loose, the lovely long hair pulled out by its roots. Beaten and strangled and dumped in the swamp.

  “Jim cleaned the truck the other night. After she disappeared. But they said that he missed some, ’cause they found the hair under the seat, pushed under the mat.”

  A cold hand clutched my heart. “Aileen, what are you saying? Do you know why he cleaned the truck?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, he didn’t ‘miss’ anything. He cleaned his truck. People do it all the time. I’ve even been known to clean my own car once a year or so. Somehow that hair got into the truck after Jimmy cleaned it.”

  She put her glass down on the table.

  “I have to get back to Singh. Do you want anything?”

  “I’d like to have a little lie down, if you don’t mind?”

  “Of course I don’t mind. You go and have a nap; I’ll call Singh and then make some tea and bring it in to you. Why don’t you take Sampson with you?”

  “That would be nice,” she said, her voice dull, flat. As drained of emotion as her eyes.

  “Can I call your doctor?”

  “I’m not sick.”

  Taking a gentle hold of her elbow, I guided Aileen to her feet and down the hall, gesturing to Sampson to follow.

  Aileen settled into the king-sized bed under an exquisite blue and green handmade quilt. Sampson curled around her hip.

  After calling Alex Singh and telling him what I had learned, I dug through the contents of the phone table looking for an address book. I found one, chock-a-block with names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. I leafed through every page, reading every line, but nothing jumped out as offering information on the therapist that Jimmy told me Aileen saw occasionally. There was no entry for Dr. Smith—Aileen’s Psychiatrist. Presumably the shrink was listed by name only. Even if I did manage to locate the number, I wondered if it might be unethical for me to call without Aileen’s approval? Not that I much cared if it was. She could be as angry with me as she wanted, but first she needed help.

  But that was a moot point considering that I couldn’t find the number.

  I’d told Singh to contact me as soon as he had any news and made sure that he knew I was good for the bail money. He reminded me, gently, that there wouldn’t be any bail on a murder charge.

  Tea made, I carried it through to the bedroom. Aileen was sound asleep, snoring lightly, her arm wrapped around Sampson’s comforting bulk. Seeing me, the dog eased out from under the woman almost as if she knew not to wake her.

  We tiptoed away.

  Nothing would do but that I had to stay at least until Aileen woke up. I called the little house to tell Dad that I’d been invited to breakfast, then I searched through the cupboards for cereal, toast, and jam and put the coffee pot on.

  I sat at the cozy breakfast nook by the cold fireplace and flipped idly through the magazines. My fingers turned the stiff pages and my eyes noticed the delectable food and gorgeous gardens and a beach party that in my normal life I’d kill to attend. But my mind was traveling the road with Alex Singh and sitting in jail beside my only brother. Please, Aileen don’t fall apart now. Jimmy needs you. The magazine sailed across the room propelled by the blaze of my anger. Jimmy had worked hard, so hard, to crawl out from under the all-encompassing shadow of his bullying, misogynist, fascist grandfather. He’d thrown off his past to a degree that many people, me most of all, wouldn’t have believed possible.

  And now this? Wherever he was, the hateful old man would surely be laughing. You’re in more trouble now, boy, tied to your woman’s apron strings, than ever you were listening to your old man.

  But Jimmy had a great lawyer; the best that money could buy (up here in the back-of-beyond at any rate). And that great lawyer was on his way right now, a knight in shining BMW. I was confident of my brother’s innocence and confident of Singh’s abilities. But the names Morin, Marshall, Millgard tiptoed around and around the outskirts of my brain. Innocent Canadian men, all of them, convicted of murders they were later proved not to have committed. In David Millgard’s case, after he spent more than twenty years in prison.

  And how on earth would I ever tell Dad? This would kill him.

  True to the promise of the morning skies, a full-blown storm hit the house, the perfect accompaniment to my gloomy thoughts. Rain lashed against the windows and wind shook the trees outside. The old house moaned and quivered but stood fast on its foundations as it had for so many years and through storms much worse than this one.

  ***

  “Rebecca?” Aileen stood in the doorway, her face puffy with sleep, her long hair tumbling around her head like a living thing possessed of a mind all its own. But intelligence and unwilling awareness were back in her dark eyes. Where they belonged for better or for worse. “If you’re here then it wasn’t all a bad dream.”

  The coffee was finished, the toast long gone cold, most of the magazines glanced at, if not actually read. “Afraid not. Come sit down. I’ll put on another pot of coffee. Would you like some toast? This jam is amazing. Did you make it?”

  She shook her head and tried to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. With as much success as if she were pushing a wave back out to the lake. “No. I get it from a woman who lives in South River and sell it in the shop. It is wonderful, isn’t it?”

  I took that as acceptance of my offer and started another pot of coffee before popping rye bread into the toaster and laying a second place at the table.

  “Did you call that lawyer?”

  “Yes. Fortunately he was in the office and he headed to the police station right away.”

  “Have you heard anything?”

  “No.”

  “When do you think he’ll call?”

  “No idea. You look better than you did earlier. Are you going to be okay?”

  She smiled, not much of a smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Am I going to have a breakdown, you mean? Not yet. I’ll wait until Jim is released, then I’ll have a proper collapse. Thank you for staying, Rebecca, but I’ll be all right now. You’d better get back to Bob’s house. He’ll be wondering where his lunch is.”

  I glanced at the clock hanging beside the phone; a bare clock-face mounted on a white wooden panel with black numbers tumbling down the wall. Clever, but hard to read. It was approaching half-past noon.

  “I’ll pop down to the house, get Dad fed. You can have dinner with us and spend the night at Dad’s. I’ll make up some story for him.”

  She shook her head and spread strawberry jam generously over her toast. “No. I have to stay here in case the phone rings.”

  “I gave Singh my cell number. He’ll call me if there’s no answer here.”

  “I’d rather be in my home, Rebecca. They’ll release him as soon as they understand what a terrible mistake they’ve made and he might come straight home without calling.”

  If Jimmy arrived home and Aileen wasn’t here, he would simply turn back down the hill and go to the little house. But he wouldn’t be coming home any time soon. The OPP don’t make an arrest in a celebrated murder case on a whim. Aileen probably knew that as well as anyone. But if she wouldn’t think it, I wouldn’t say it.

  “If you want. But I’ll be up after dinner to check on you whether you want me or not.”

  Her smile held and even touched her eyes. “Thank you.”

  I hesitated. “You might want to be careful about answering the phone. News spreads fast, and some people might, well, they might not be calling with words of sympathy.”

  “Understood.�
��

  “Call me if you need me. I put my cell number up there on the board. Do you want Sampson to stay? She’s good company.”

  “That would be wonderful. If you’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “Not at all. But don’t forget to let her out occasionally. And if it keeps raining, you’d better have a good towel at hand when she comes in or your floors will be a mess. I’ll bring some dog food when I come back.”

  Aileen saw me to the door. I told Sampson to stay and walked down the hill with a heavy heart.

  A whirlwind greeted me when I opened the front door. “Hi, Aunt Rebecca. Where’s Sampson?”

  Jason. I’d forgotten all about Jason coming to spend the afternoon with Dad. And now that I was reminded of that, I also remembered that in a few hours my whole family would be arriving for dinner. Won’t that be a pleasant little gathering?

  “She’s up at your Aunt Aileen’s place. They were getting on so well, I told her she could stay.”

  “Can we go get her?”

  “Maybe after lunch. Where’s Great-Granddad?”

  “In the shed. I came in to use the bathroom. We’re making rocking horses. Granddad lets me cut the wood on the big saw.”

  “Are you careful?”

  He looked terribly serious at the question, his brow furrowed, his eyes intense. “First thing Grandpa taught me was all the safety rules. Besides, he always stands right there watching me.”

  “That’s good then. Go tell him I’m back and we’ll have lunch soon.”

  Jason disappeared in a burst of tousled curls, mud-encrusted jeans, and giant running shoes. He really was a dear. I’d missed out on a lot when I turned my back on this family.

  I checked that my cell phone was turned on and fully charged and that the house phone had a dial tone. All of which reminded me of when I was a teenager and would wait anxiously by the phone for some boy to call. (Whomever I might have been thinking of, he never did.)

  The last thing in the world I felt like doing was making lunch. And I didn’t know what I could possibly say to Dad. I’d have to say something. He’d hear the news sooner or later. Obviously it would be better coming from me than a phone call from one of his Legion buddies. Or someone less inclined to be friendly.