Innocent Murderer

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  “Hey, Duncan. How are you doing?”

  “I should ask that of you, Cordi. You were the one who got seasick, among other things. Got your legs back?”

  “Finally. It took a few days though. My semi-circu–lars kept thinking I was still on the ship.” I paused. “You live in Dumoine …”

  “Last time I checked, yes,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Paulie has been found up in your area.”

  “The little cat?”

  “Yeah, but no one seems to want her except me.”

  “And what has this to do with me?”

  “I need you to go and pick her up and look after her until I can come and get her.”

  I could hear Duncan thinking it over.

  “Why not?” he finally said and I thanked him a little too much because he got suspicious and asked, “What am I getting myself into?”

  “Nothing much. She’s just a tad frisky, that’s all.”

  I hung up quickly, before he could change his mind, and went upstairs to check on my birds and insects. Leah had left a detailed report on their health and had metic–ulously recorded all the relevant data for two separate experiments, one on bird song and the other on cricket song. When I got back ten minutes later the cartoon voices were gone and Martha was hard at work.

  She looked up when I came in. “Sorry. I promised my niece I’d help her write a critique of the show.”

  I tilted my head to one side and she interrupted what I was about to say.

  “I know, I know. I should have taped it, but my VCR is on the fritz.”

  “And your niece is too?”

  “What?” asked Martha.

  “It’s a school day and she’s …”

  “Home sick,” finished Martha. “Look, if you need me I’ll be in the labs upstairs. I need to clean the cages.” She turned to leave. “Leah says there were no problems.”

  I nodded as she left and thought about all the things that can go wrong when you have a research experiment with live animals. I was trying some new stuff on how young birds develop song. I allowed some young birds to interact vocally with an adult male and another group where the young birds only overheard a male bird sing–ing. Part of the reasoning was to find out how different the songs were when both groups of birds grew up.

  I heard Martha rustling around in the outer office.

  She reappeared, brandishing a book that she dropped in front of me, and then left me to the mess in my office.

  Curious, I picked up the book and saw that it was Ter–ry’s. I turned it over to the back cover and read the description. It was about the murder, and her trial and subsequent release. Better late than never, I thought, as the phone rang and drew me away for the rest of the day. I stayed late, partly to catch up and partly to miss the traffic on the Champlain Bridge. It made it an easy ride across the bridge, through Aylmer, and northwest up Highway 148 toward Luskville. I stopped in at the barn to see if Rose or Ryan were there, but the cows had already been milked and they were probably soon for bed so I didn’t go in. I threw dinner together, fished out Terry’s book, and began to read.

  She’d started with the night terror and then the murder itself, or rather the accidental killing — presumably taking artistic license at the parts she couldn’t remember. How much was that? I wondered. Do sleepwalkers remember anything? Whatever. This is what she had written:

  The wind crashed into her face and eddied by on either side, her hair stream–ing back. She was standing above the windshield, head flung back at the night. They were going so fast, skimming across the inky black waters, stirring up the stars with their wake. They were running without lights, running wild, running free, running full speed ahead, right into the sickening sound of rend–ing metal and the ripping of fiberglass. It drowned the noise of the engines, and the grisly sound of people screaming drowned out everything else.

  The boat jackknifed as they were hit by a much bigger powerboat. They exploded out of the water like a breach–ing whale and she was caught as the boat folded in on her. She could hear people moaning, even see them in the water, crying, but it was all so surreal, like watching paper cutouts of people rehearsing the motions of disaster. She felt invincible. She had survived!

  As she struggled to free herself from the splintered boat she became aware that her right foot was caught, trapped by some unseen piece of the disintegrat–ing hull. She tried to jerk her leg free. Nothing happened. The water sloshed all around her as she reached beneath the surface, grabbed her leg with both hands and pulled, but there was no give at all, just a deep throbbing pain. There was more water now, gallons of it, pour–ing in all around her. Suddenly every–thing lost its surreal quality, like a mask quickly withdrawn from a hideous face; she threw back her head and screamed.

  In the darkness she felt someone grip her under the shoulders and pull. He was strong; it would work. Three times he braced himself against some unseen part of the boat and pulled, and three times he failed to release her. What the hell was the matter with him? Suddenly he let go and the void of fear that rushed in made her scream out in terror. But he hadn’t left her. She could feel his hands now, moving down her leg, gripping it in his hands. The water was rising. It was almost up to her face now. Why was he taking so long? She heard the man take a deep breath, felt him go under, pull–ing on her leg again and again until she thought it would break. He pulled harder and harder and the pain scorched her brain as she realized how desperate his movements had become.

  And then, suddenly, he stopped. Just like that. It was an odd sensation until she realized with mind numbing horror that he had given up. Dear god, he had given up. The water was up to her chin now. She struggled to breathe. He sur–faced beside her and the water poured over her face. She felt his hand gripping hers and saw his face floating in front of her, full of concern, full of fear. She lashed out then in panic, in uncontrol–lable anger, with her arms, with her free leg, with her whole body, until the man gripping her hand suddenly let it go.

  “How could the bastard let go?” she thought, before the water slowly stole her last breath away.

  She reared up in bed, her face sweaty, her legs tangled up in her sheets, her eyes glazed, her face expressionless. Her heart was beating too fast. Slowly she untan–gled her legs and swung them over the edge of the cot. The moon pushed its way through the wide doorway of the large canvas tent, lighting up three other blan–keted figures — all asleep. She slowly put on her belted jeans, a jacket, and her run–ners and — without looking at anything in the tent — walked out into the moon–light. Her tent was pitched between two tall pine trees; many more lay just beyond, swaying in the wind and flinging shadows that danced on the ground like maniacs. But she didn’t notice them. She had only one thing on her mind.

  She weaved her way through the trees to a clearing. The moonlight touched the tops of three large tents, making them seem only half there, their bottom halves blending in with the darkness of the forest floor. Without hesitating she headed toward the tent that was farthest away, picking her way through the bleak remains of the campfire and the para–phernalia of a camping expedition. She looked neither to the right nor to the left. When she reached the tent she slowly unzipped the door and walked inside. Only one of the two cots was occupied, and she stood over it and stared for a very long time. Suddenly she reached for her belt, grabbing a hunting knife in her right hand and withdrawing it from its sheath.

  Carefully, she raised the knife with both hands, and then stopped as if para–lyzed, the light from the moon spraying the grotesqueness of her shadow across the canvas. Then a force seemed to grip her hands and the blade came down hard. It juddered as it plunged into the man’s chest and she let go. He sat up vio–lently, wordlessly, his face childlike in its surprise, before falling back lifeless onto his cot.

  An hour later I put down the book and whistled. No wonder Martha hadn’t told me all the details. I probably wouldn’t have gone on the cruise if she had.

  Tue
sday night came before I knew it. Patrick and I spent our last evening together getting caught in a giant traf–fic jam en route to a nice restaurant. We got there too late and had to settle for fish and chips at a greasy spoon. Then the car broke down and it was 2:00 a.m. before we got to Patrick’s and he hadn’t even started to pack. His flight out was a charter that left at dawn, so we didn’t have much time to discuss anything or do anything either — which was probably just as well. One wrenching kiss and he was gone. I moped around his apartment after he’d left, but it just depressed me, so I locked up and went home for a couple of hours.

  At the university I immersed myself in work, even doing some of the statistics I hate doing with the sono–grams of my song sparrows. Several days after Patrick left Martha waltzed into my office and plopped herself down in my guest chair.

  “Have you read the book?”

  “What book?” I asked absently.

  “Cordi! Terry’s book!”

  “Oh yeah. What a weird scenario. She has a night ter–ror where she believes a boat is drowning her. She ‘wakes’ from that dream and in a glazed, dazed torpor leaves her tent, crosses a clearing, enters another tent, and murders this guy Michael with a knife.” I straightened out some papers in a huge pile teetering on my desk.

  “Pretty hard to believe she got acquitted.”

  “Cordi, where do you hide yourself? There was another case in Ottawa. This guy slept walked his way out of his house, into his car, drove I don’t know how far, got out of the car, entered the house of his in-laws, killed her with a tire iron and almost choked him to death.”

  “Yeah, I vaguely remember that one.”

  “Then he called 911 — still asleep.”

  “Terry didn’t do that, did she?”

  “Cordi! Didn’t you read it all? She was in the bush!”

  “I skimmed through it.”

  Martha rolled her eyes at me. “Well, Terry appar–ently left the tent and went and woke up somebody else and said ‘I’ve just killed Michael.’ After which she woke up and freaked out about the blood all over her. She couldn’t remember a thing. Apparently that’s normal for sleepwalkers.”

  “I didn’t know you could use sleepwalking as a defence,” I said.

  “Neither did I. She had two experts testify that she had a long history of sleepwalking since her childhood.”

  “Yes, but killing somebody so ruthlessly? In her sleep?

  Does that mean we are all capable of doing something like that? I mean, where does that come from? Decent when you’re awake, deadly when you’re asleep. It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

  Martha was looking at me dubiously. “Are you say–ing she is guilty?”

  “Well, obviously not. Not when a jury found her innocent and the judge freed her on the proviso that she take some kind of drug to help stop her sleepwalking.

  That was about eight years ago, right?” I fiddled with the papers on my desk.

  “I wonder what that experience did to her though,” I continued. “I mean, think about it: You’re a good person.

  You savagely kill someone and can’t remember it, then you’re charged with murder.”

  “Now you’re saying she’s innocent.”

  “It’s a tough one. It’s really hard to believe that some–one technically asleep could kill somebody and not be found responsible.”

  “Guilty, you mean,” Martha said.

  “Well — it’s the perfect murder isn’t it? If you’re a good actor why wouldn’t it work?” Why indeed. But thinking about this was really just academic. Nobody had tried to kill me since I got home and Terry wasn’t my problem anymore. Martha got up to leave and I cleared my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me about all this before the trip?”

  Martha shook her head. “If I’d told you, you would have jumped to conclusions. You would have said she was guilty. And you wouldn’t have come on the trip.”

  I had my feet up on my desk, and was leaning back in my chair eating a very sloppy tomato sandwich, when I heard footsteps in my outer office. Too long a stride for Martha. I nearly choked on my sandwich when I heard a man’s voice call out and in strode the Dean; earlier than expected, I noted.

  He doesn’t look like a Dean, either in profession or name. By some quirk of fate whereby Dr. Fish becomes an ichthyologist and Dr. Hart a cardiologist, Dean Anderson had followed his name into his profession and become Dean Dean Anderson, or Dean Squared for short. He’s long, lean, ageless, and totally bald, having come in to work one day with his little circlet of hair gone. He was obviously bashed around at birth because his head is sort of misshapen, though he doesn’t seem to notice. I wondered how often he had to shave his head to keep it so smooth.

  With as much dignity as I could muster I got my feet down onto hard ground, deposited my sandwich on my desk, and wiped my mouth with a scrap of napkin. As I started to get up he waved me down, unloaded some files onto the desk from my sole chair, and sat.

  I smiled at him uncertainly. I had visited Dean many times and he had been in my labs just as often, but he had never visited me in my office before. I felt a premoni–tion that I did not like. What did he want with Martha?

  “Good trip?”

  “Yeah,” I said, lying through my teeth, figuring he didn’t know how bad it had been. Besides, I didn’t really want to talk about it.

  “I heard two people died. That doesn’t sound so good.”

  “Yeah, well, if you must know, the whole trip was a disaster.”

  “So, I’ve heard.” I looked at him in surprise, wonder–ing if I had missed coverage in the papers.

  “Martha told me. She’s been helping me out on and off for the last four weeks because my tech has been ill.”

  Martha, I thought, with a sinking feeling. Why hadn’t she told me that? No wonder I hadn’t seen as much of her. Why didn’t he just get to the point, whatever it was?

  “Speaking of Martha, I wanted to talk to you about her.”

  My mind was racing thinking of all the reasons he might want to talk to me about her: I’d asked her to do something she wasn’t supposed to do; they were going to fire her; she was being let go because her other two bosses had complained; she was retiring and was afraid to tell me; she was ill and was afraid to tell me; three bosses were too many and she wanted out. I could have gone on but he was looking at me, waiting for me to acknowledge what he had said. I nodded and he continued.

  “I’m going to offer Martha a job with me. It’ll mean a promotion for her. She is the most efficient tech we have in this department. I wanted to give you the courtesy of hearing it from me first.”

  I tried to neutralize my face so that he wouldn’t know what I was thinking. “What about your own tech?” I asked.

  “She’s on sick leave and has told me she is not com–ing back. I’ve already talked to your colleagues and they are okay with it.”

  I was speechless. And terribly conflicted. On the one hand I wanted the best for Martha. On the other hand what would I do without her?

  “I thought it courteous to let you know. I’m speaking to Martha this afternoon.”

  After he’d gone I looked at the soggy mess of my sandwich and suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore. But I didn’t have much time to think about losing Martha because the phone rang. Why couldn’t they design a bell tone that started softly and grew in volume as your ears adjusted? That would be a good feature on alarm clocks too. I wondered how many people had died of a heart attack after their alarm clocks woke them up. Wake ’em up to make ’em die. God, how macabre.

  I picked up the phone. “Cordi, it’s Duncan. Please come and get your cat.” There was a lot of meaning pent up in those last six words.

  “It’s that bad?”

  “No, not if you find constant whining, meowing, fidgeting, scratching, and hissing acceptable.”

  “She’s just disoriented. She’ll come around.”

  “I don’t want her to come around, I want you to come around and get her.” />
  “I can come up tomorrow, if you can wait that long?”

  He grumbled some response I couldn’t hear — prob–ably wasn’t meant to — and then changed the subject.

  “I’ve got the autopsy results back.”

  “You have?”

  “Yup.”

  “But you’re not officially on the case. The autopsy was done in Ottawa.”

  “Right. And the guy who did it is an old student of mine.” Trust Duncan.

  I laughed. “Anything of interest?” I asked, expecting nothing.

  “Well, actually, yes there is.”

  I waited.

  “With apologies to you, Terry didn’t die in the swim–ming pool.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it, as if it could make everything comprehensible. “She what?”

  “The autopsy says that she drowned.”

  “We know that.”

  “But she drowned in fresh water.”

  I wasn’t getting this.

  “Cordi, the swimming pool. It’s salt water.

  The possibilities of what this meant swarmed my mind like a hive of angry bees. I was speechless. I remem–bered the prickly feeling on my skin after going in the pool and having to take a shower to get the salt off. And I remembered the necklace. I’d been right.

  “You there?”

  “So where did she drown?” But I knew already. I could see her bathroom clear as day, with the only bath–tub on the ship aside from the captain’s. I could see the wet carpet.

  “The police theory is she was somehow drowned in her own bathtub and then carried outside with the inten–tion of throwing her overboard. They must have been interrupted and instead had to throw her in the pool.”

  “And Sally?”

  “The police think Sally drowned Terry and then com–mitted suicide. Sally drowned in salt water.” He paused. “Sally was a big woman, strong enough to carry Terry to the pool.”

  That was certainly convenient for the police; no murderer to find and no one to try. Sally writes a sui–cide note, stalks Terry, kills her, and then kills herself. I thought back to Sally, who was indeed a big woman, physically capable of such a deed, but emotionally? I doubted it. I doubted it very much. She’d been pretty much a basket case.