Innocent Murderer

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  “How are you?” I asked as I draped my arm across his chest.

  He grimaced. “I’m not about to hit any homeruns any time soon.”

  I giggled, tightened my grip, and plunked my head on his shoulder. We lay there for a while, listening to the birds and the distant mooing of the cows, until he gently shifted me off him and gingerly swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  I lay there, listening to the shower pinging against the plastic of my awful molded shower stall. I had always meant to tear it out and put something nice in, tiled, but I never seemed to get around to it. The shower went on forever and ever until I figured he’d drained my well. Finally I got up, and staggered. My legs were still at sea, my mind convincing them that the land was a swirling mass of waves. It calmed down, coming in spurts, and I got dressed and padded down to the kitchen to scare something up for breakfast. I was glad the trip had ended on a Saturday so that I had a full day to recover.

  Somebody had bought eggs, bread, bacon, and milk, and dumped them in the fridge, still in the bag. Couldn’t have been Rose, I thought, so it was Ryan or Patrick. I dragged the bag out of the fridge and began making break–fast. By the time I had the bacon sizzling, Patrick had appeared in the door and leaned up against the doorjamb to watch me. It was silly but I felt like a little kid having to give a presentation in class, and when he came over and took me in his arms my knees went another kind of wobbly.

  The bacon got burned, but that was okay because Patrick was back! I cracked the first and second egg and watched their little sunny eyes looking up at me, wrapped in a little cocoon of happiness, until Patrick raised the topic that neither of us wanted to talk about. “I’m going to London on Wednesday for the job interview.”

  All I really remember immediately after hearing that statement was how quiet it was and how loud my heart–beat sounded crashing against my chest. The third egg, which I had cracked as he told me, now lay on the floor between us like an accusatory finger. Wasn’t love sup–posed to be all-powerful? How can people truly be in love if one can choose to leave for the lifespan of a job? Love endures even that?

  Patrick went over to the kitchen sink, picked up the dishrag and came back. I didn’t meet his eyes. I just stared at the stupid egg as he began to mop it up.

  “I have to go, Cordi. It’s a big chance for me. Two years working with a great parasitologist.”

  I rallied then, mumbling some inane idiocies about our being able to survive two years. That’s all it would be. I mean what were two years in a lifetime? A lot, I thought. By my calculations two years might mean, if we were lucky, six visits a year — three each. Very lucky. I wasn’t even sure our budgets would stretch that high. Would we survive? My thoughts started travelling down a lane where I didn’t want to go.

  “Tell me about your trip. How did it go?” Patrick was way too eager to change the topic too.

  “Well, apart from the two dead bodies I found, the three attempts on my life, the twenty-four/seven seasick–ness, the rampaging polar bear, and a dysfunctional writ–ing class, it was great.”

  Patrick laughed. “Oh, Cordi, that’s why I love you so much. You have such a fantastic sense of humour.”

  Ooops. I stared at him with an expression that must have said “I hear you and are you ever wrong” because his laughter dissolved. “You’re kidding, right?”

  I slowly shook my head.

  “Two dead bodies?”

  I slowly nodded my head.

  “Two seagulls? Two polar bears?”

  I slowly shook my head. “Although, there was that one polar bear, but it was very much alive.”

  Patrick suddenly reached out his hand, grabbed the spatula, and expertly whipped the two solid white eggs off the burner onto our plates. Then he pointed the spat–ula at me, gun fashion. “Okay, O’Callaghan, spill it.”

  I laughed despite myself and began telling him about the bodies because that’s what he would want to hear first. That’s what anyone would want to hear first.

  When I had finished he said, “Okay. Let me get this straight. You and Martha find two bodies in the pool.

  One is a woman who was acquitted of murder and the other is a member of her writing course. Right?”

  I nodded as we moved over to the kitchen table and sat down.

  “What happened?”

  “We won’t know for sure until the autopsy results come back, and even then we might never know.”

  When I didn’t say anything more he raised his eye–brows at me.

  “The current theory is that the writer, Sally, decided to commit suicide and Terry attempted to rescue her and drowned too.”

  “How big is this pool?” I could see where he was going with this.

  “About ten feet by ten feet, and twenty feet deep, but Terry couldn’t swim. At least, I don’t think she could.”

  “Go on.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Oh c’mon, Cordi. I know you have a theory.”

  “I think Terry was murdered.”

  Patrick didn’t say anything for the longest time and then he put his fork carefully down on the table, as if he was afraid to dent it. “What makes you think that?”

  I told him about the necklace. He was noncommittal, but I could see his face wrestling with his thoughts.

  “Maybe she didn’t go to the sauna, just wanted a dip?”

  “It’s possible, but unlikely. The pool isn’t heated.”

  Patrick scraped back his chair and whisked my plate and his back to the kitchen.

  “There’s more,” I said to his back. He turned around and looked at me, then nodded for me to go on.

  I told him about Scruffy and the hawsehole without any interruption from him. He just stood there leaning against the kitchen sink, watching me.

  When I was finally done he said, “You’re lucky to be alive.” But he didn’t get up and hug me or anything, and when I didn’t say anything he continued, “Now let me get this part straight. You’re on board two or three days and you go and rescue a white dog from the pack ice, who’s gorging himself on garbage the cook’s assis–tant dumped overboard?”

  “Well, yeah. Presumably the assistant cook meant to hit water, but he hit the pack ice instead. The captain was furious when he found out.”

  “So the dog walks down a conveniently lowered gang–way to get at the food.”

  I was starting to get defensive. “The captain said it was accidentally left down.”

  “So you get insomnia, take a hike around the ship, and see the dog. You go down to rescue it and then the ship up and leaves?”

  “The pack ice was closing in. The captain said they had to leave or we’d have become stuck in the ice.”

  “So you see someone raising the gangway and call out, but the engine noise drowns out your voice. Jesus, Cordi, you could have been killed.”

  “I think I was meant to be,” I said quietly.

  Patrick was in mid bite when I dropped that bombshell.

  “Holy shit! Where did you get that idea?”

  “Because the person pulling up the ramp saw me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because they were looking my way.”

  “Maybe they didn’t see you. You could have blended in with the snow.”

  “In an orange jacket?”

  “Cordi, your eyesight isn’t the greatest. Maybe you thought they were looking at you but they were actually looking somewhere else, or maybe their eyesight was bad and they didn’t see you.”

  But he was wrong. I knew what I’d seen and I’d been wearing my contacts. The person had been staring down at me while the ramp was still moving and then had inexplicably disappeared as if they were a ghost — but they weren’t. Of that I was sure. Or pretty sure.

  “They were too far away for you to know for sure and besides, why would anyone want to kill you? This happened before the murders right?”

  I nodded. “And twice afterwards.”

  Patrick looked at
me incredulously. “You rescued the dog two more times?”

  “No,” I said, exasperated. “Someone tried to kill me two more times. I think.”

  He just looked at me and shook his head. I couldn’t tell whether the headshake meant he didn’t believe me or that he was still taking it all in. I decided it was the latter and began telling him about Balaclava.

  When I was done he said, “Did you actually see Bala–clava climbing on the gangway out of your porthole? Were they even small enough to fit through it?”

  I knew where he was headed and I didn’t like it one bit. “No.”

  “So the Balaclava on the bridge could have been someone else altogether?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “Could have been someone out for a stroll who hap–pened to follow you?”

  “That’s a hell of a coincidence. Two Balaclavas near the bridge so early in the morning.”

  “You said yourself that lots of people wore balacla–vas. And you have a broken trail where you didn’t see Balaclava the whole time. It could have been someone else innocently following you and you jumped into the pool because you jumped to conclusions.”

  “Even if that’s the case, Balaclava still broke into my room. I saw him.” And I had felt their hand on my leg. Definitely alive.

  I rubbed my face with my hands and wondered how I could explain to the man I loved that he was wrong and I was right, when a lot of the evidence was against me. After all, Martha and Duncan hadn’t exactly supported me.

  “Are you okay, Cordi?” he asked, his voice soft and warm. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

  I looked at him between my fingers and sighed.

  “Duncan and Martha think I’m crazy.”

  “Well, they are quite amazing stories.”

  I let my hands fall into my lap. “That’s what they say. They think I had a delusional episode on the ship that made me believe these things were real. Nobody else saw them.”

  “You mean they don’t believe any of these things actually happened to you?”

  “Well, not exactly. They’re reserving judgment. They believe I believe it.”

  “But why would they ever think you were delusional in the first place? Anybody else but Duncan, Martha, and I would have laughed. Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

  I hesitated. “I get periodic depressions, usually in the winter, and I’m sure Duncan thinks I’ve got some psychological problem like manic depression. I don’t, of course. I may have SAD but I’m not bipolar.”

  “Shit.” We sat there and let his word of wisdom sink in. “That’s why you were so down this past winter?

  Sometimes it seemed I could hardly reach you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, remembering how much I’d pushed him away.

  “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

  “Long enough.”

  “But surely your doctor has you on something?”

  I shifted uneasily in my seat as the silence lengthened and then blurted, “I don’t have a doctor.”

  He cocked his head at me. “Don’t you think you should?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  He looked at me, the concern written all over his face, but he didn’t pursue it. I could have hugged him when he said nothing at all.

  I felt trapped by my need to be in control, so it was disconcerting having people telling me I needed help. Patrick stared at me and I stared back. When things got bad, in the winter, I was sometimes too depressed to help myself. When things were good I convinced myself that I was perfectly normal, which I was most of the time. I was okay. I could handle it.

  “Tell me about the rampaging polar bear,” he said. And I did.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Monday morning on the drive into Ottawa, I mulled over the conversation Patrick and I had had. But the only thing that stuck was that he was going to the job interview tomorrow. I distracted myself by looking at the view of the Ottawa River and the Eardley Escarpment, as I skirted it on my way in to Aylmer, Quebec.

  The drive got nasty over the Champlain Bridge. Bumper to bumper and everybody a singleton so the only traffic using the carpool lane were the infrequent buses. It always felt wrong to get angry over that — environ–mentally wrong — but at least I had an excuse for being solo. I lived in the country where there was no mass tran–sit. I wondered how many of the other drivers had the same excuse. Boy, was I in a bad mood.

  By the time I got to the zoology building at Sus–sex University I felt like I needed a vacation. I avoided the elevator and walked up the five flights to my office, ever grateful that the profession I had chosen did not include dress suits and high heels. How can anybody walk up five flights of stairs in high heels? Which got me to thinking of all those movies with women in high heels being chased down laneways, up fire escapes, and just about everywhere else. I felt pretty sure that stunt–women were underpaid.

  We are an anomaly in the animal kingdom. I know of no other species whose males invent things for the females to wear. In fact, in the animal kingdom the male is usually the one “dressing up” to entice the female, who eschews the spotlight so that it doesn’t fall on her young.

  Amazing how the mind free flows, I thought, as I hauled open the stairwell door and headed down the cor–ridor. I could see an oblong of light staining the floor outside my door and knew that it was open and Martha was there. I share her with two other assistant professors, and uncharitable as it is, I am always happy when she’s in my office and not theirs.

  I poked my head through my door and stopped in amazement. Martha was sitting just inside the door perched on the little milking stool our hired hand had given her and giggling her head off. Ten feet away, sitting on top of the table next to the computer, was a television tuned to The Simpsons. Since we normally didn’t have a TV, and Martha had once told me she hated The Simp–sons, I was at a loss as to what was going on. Martha glanced at me and stood up, her little milking stool wag–gling behind her.

  “Sorry, Cordi. I have to watch this. I’ll tell you why when it’s over.”

  I squeezed by her and made my way into my inner office where a stack of work obscured my desk. I sat down, fished around for the phone, and listened to my messages. Lots of stuff about courses, students needing help, grants people wanting more information, and then one I hadn’t expected:

  “Hello, Cordi. This is the Dean. I need to talk to you about Martha. Please call me when you get back from your holiday.” The cold click sounded like a gun without a bullet. Why did he want to talk to me about Martha?

  I hung up and then dialed the Dean, getting his sec–retary, Cindy. “Oh hi, Cordi. Yeah, the Dean wanted to talk to you but he had to go on unexpected business to Vancouver. Won’t be back for awhile.”

  I tried to pump her for information, but she clammed up so I hung up. I’d have to wait for an explanation.

  Plenty of time to come up with a hundred bad reasons why he wanted to talk to me about Martha. I marvelled at how we all routinely put other people through the wringer without even knowing it.

  I dialed up the rest of my messages.

  “Cordi. This is Sandy from the ship.” She sounded harried and hurried. I could still picture her tear-streaked face in the bow of the ship after Sally died. “I need your help. Please call as soon as you can.” And she left a number.

  Out of curiosity I dialed, but there was no answer and no machine so I put it out of my mind and tackled my desk. I hadn’t got very far when the phone rang again. I picked it up and the past came tumbling down around me.

  “Cordi, this is Shannon Johnson.”

  The name brought dozens of images flashing through my mind, none of them particularly nice. Shannon had been Jake Diamond’s girlfriend, the man whose body I had stumbled across in the wilderness the previous summer, and whose secret had damn near killed me.

  “Hello, Shannon. It’s been a long time. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you remember Pau
lie?” No small talk here.

  Paulie. Diamond’s three-legged cat. It had hung around the body for four days and then disappeared and was never found.

  “She’s been found.”

  “That’s terrific, Shannon. I know how heartbroken you were.”

  “Not so terrific. My new partner hates cats and they hate him so I can’t take Paulie.”

  The ensuing silence was filled with her obvious intentions and I was trying to find some way to deflect her next question, but she was too quick off the mark.

  “I thought maybe you could take her. You live on a farm and she’d be happy there.”

  I groaned. As I said, I’m a real pushover when it comes to animals but I wasn’t sure I wanted a cat. Still, I backpedalled my way into saying yes.

  She gave me the name and number of a family in Dumoine who were looking after her, thanked me again, and hung up. I stared at the phone for a while, happy the cat was alive but not so sure I wanted a pet. Reluctantly, I picked up the phone and dialed the Andersons.

  “Mrs. Anderson. My name is Cordi….”

  “Thank god. I thought you’d never call. When can you come and pick up Paulie?”

  “Not until the weekend. I live a couple of hours away from you.”

  “We can’t wait that long. You have to come and get her.” The desperation in her voice was deafening and I felt a queer sense of unease as I asked her what was wrong.

  “The cats is a hellion. It’s terrorized all of us, includ–ing our pit bull.”

  Oh Jesus. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Too wild, that’s all. She’s no cat for us. I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old, both covered in scratches. Come and get her today or we’re taking her to the pound.”

  I told her I’d get back to her in an hour and hung up. Part of me thought the pound would be okay until I realized no family would ever adopt her. I could bring her home, make her an outdoor cat, and just make sure she got fed. I could do that. I picked up the phone and called Duncan.