Once

by Elisabeth Grace Foley et al.

  “It was you. All this time. You murdered my father.” I swallowed, unsure whether the heaving in my chest was poison or loathing. “Good night, Ava, I hoped I was mistaken. I thought you were my friend.”

  “I was never your friend.” Her eyes glittered with hatred. “Before you came I had that school wrapped around my finger. I was poor, but I had a future. I could sing. I could dance. People loved me. Until you came and took it away from me.”

  All this time, and I’d never suspected.

  “I came? What, you think I meant to be your rival? You think I did all the taking? What about Dad? You got him to marry you, didn’t you?” Then I realised. “He was payback.”

  Ava nodded. “You owed me something. And I saw my chance to take it. Your father’s attention. His love. His money. I swear I would have been content with that. But you never could leave well alone. You wanted Max too.”

  “I did not. That was Dad’s idea from first to last.”

  She didn’t seem to hear. “I was married to a man twice my age. I deserved some happiness! Besides, Max was my discovery. I convinced your father to sponsor him. I launched his career.” She shook her head. “Introducing him to your father was a mistake. He saw Max as a way to reopen dealings with the Irish by marrying him to you. No doubt you convinced him to keep it from me. I never knew until I opened the Mirror and saw the engagement listed in the society columns.

  “After that, I knew you had to be stopped.”

  In fairytales, witches seem good and beautiful till you catch them bathing in blood by the new moon. Maybe I had wandered into one of those old stories. Maybe I was dreaming with my eyes open.

  Maybe fairytales were more truthful than I’d ever believed.

  “So you had me kidnapped.”

  “Yes.” She tapped the ash from her cigarette. “And told Chang to cut out your heart, just to be sure. But he didn’t, did he? I wonder where he got the thing he sent me. Sheep? Deer?”

  Did she think the police couldn’t tell the difference between a human heart and a deer’s heart? Maybe she had her own naiveté. I didn’t want to think where Chang had found the heart. “All I know is that when the lorry stopped, the driver—he was masked, but it was Chang, wasn’t it?—the driver opened the door and told me to run if I wanted to live.”

  “Ahhh.” She exhaled a long thin stream of smoke. “So Chang betrayed me before he left. I should never have bought him that fare to Hong Kong. I handled it myself the second time.”

  I clenched my hands on the tabletop. “When you murdered my father.”

  I watched her face for any sign, any slightest sign of contrition. But she continued to smoke without a tremor. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “The job wasn’t done.”

  I understood. “Max wouldn’t go near you.”

  A shrug. “After you died, he and your father became close. I realised he wanted to be loyal to his friend.”

  “So you killed Dad.” My stomach cramped, and once more I didn’t know if it was the methanol or my own disgust. I did know that the disgust was more than half for myself. I’d told myself it was as much as my life was worth to show my face in Dunedin again. But I should have taken the risk. I should have gone back. I should have baited Ava out of hiding long ago, and perhaps he would still be alive.

  Far off, I heard the sound of launch motors. The police, thank God.

  Wheezingly, I began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You killed Xue Bai. I could have resurrected her years ago, but until tonight I chose to let her lie. Don’t you want to know why I sang Turandot?”

  Ava’s eyes narrowed.

  “Because I wanted you to recognise me. Because I wanted justice for Dad. Do you think you’re winning? It’s all part of the plan, Ava. Show myself and give you every bit of rope you need to hang yourself.” In truth, the plan had gone to blazes the moment I drank poisoned applejack. But I tried to put conviction into my voice. “Do you really think the police are coming for the still?”

  She had to believe they were coming for her. If she didn’t believe that, all was lost. For the space of two breaths, Ava stared at me, her lips parted, her cigarette forgotten. In the distance, the sound of motors died. The police were on the island.

  “You’re bluffing,” she said at last.

  “Try waiting for them and see what happens.”

  Footsteps tramped up to the cabaret from the north shore of the island. Startled, Ava swung around on her chair. I hoped for a friendly face. But it was only the bodyguard.

  Ava sighed. “Angus! Thank goodness you’re here. Where is he?”

  “Dropped him on the foreshore, ma’am.”

  “Is he awake? You didn’t hit him too hard?”

  “He’s pretty groggy, ma’am. I put him in his automobile.”

  “And the police?”

  “Just landing.”

  “I shall have to speak to them. I hope you didn’t strain yourself moving him, Angus.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “The silly boy. He could have got himself arrested, behaving like that.” She had become smooth tongued and calm again, and I realised with a shiver that it was because she thought she was winning.

  Between them, Angus and Ava helped me to my feet. It did not take much skill to pretend more weakness than I felt. I groaned and closed my eyes, hanging limp in their arms, till Ava slapped me.

  “Stand up. You might as well make it a good show.”

  Their footsteps crunched up the path in time with the beating in my head. Under the lamps, Ava lit another cigarette. Angus pulled my arm around his neck, grabbed me by the waist with an iron grip, and began to half drag me toward the north path.

  The beam of a torch picked us out. “Stay where you are! This is a raid!”

  Angus froze and I took my chance, twisting in his grip. “Help me!”

  In the commotion of wind and footsteps, the sound of my voice was lost. There must have been at least ten of them, plain-clothes detectives from out of town, and McGinnis, our local sergeant, looking sleepy.

  Trailing smoke like a banner in the air, Ava advanced upon their leader. “Good evening, Inspector.”

  “Mrs. Wu.” He whipped off his hat. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  A thin red smile. “I seem to be caught in a trap meant for someone else.”

  “We heard there was a still on the island.” His tone was apologetic.

  “I’m sure there is, but I couldn’t say where. You don’t need to detain us, do you? I’m worried about my young friend over there. She’s had a bad shock and she needs a doctor.”

  Again, the beam of light dazzled my eyes. “I don’t have time for this,” the inspector grumbled under his breath. But he came over, laid a hand across my forehead, and felt my pulse.

  “Help me.” My voice sounded slurred in my own ears. “I’ve been poisoned.”

  The bodyguard’s grip tightened in warning. The inspector turned back to his men. “She’s been drinking. Could have been something wrong with the moonshine.”

  “Best get her to a doctor at once,” said McGinnis. “I’ll take her.”

  For a wild moment I had hope.

  “No, you’ve got to help us find that still. Mrs. Wu, since you were going to take her—”

  “Of course.”

  Ava’s heels clacked across the floor toward us. I tried to call out, but once again my whimper of protest was swallowed up by the tromping of regulation boots across the wooden dancefloor. Angus dragged me down the north path. So much for the police.

  For a moment I must have blacked out, because the next thing I heard was the ripple of water on the beach as Angus dumped me in the stern of a boat.

  Ava stepped in after me, and the engine started.

  “I knew she was bluffing,” she said blithely.

  “Where to, ma’am?”

  “Shore, Angus, but take it easy and stay in deep water. We mustn’t rush things.”
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br />   A silver ribbon of water opened between us and the island. I watched it with fading hope.

  Ava drew on her cigarette and said, “Ah! what a glorious night. You can see every star. Do you know what the best of it is, my dear?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  “The best of it is that Liú sang the truth. Your death gives him to me. I must thank you for that, at least. You made a fool of Max in the Mirror with the whole world watching. He telegraphed me at once, guessing that if you came back to life, so would your killer. Then I revealed myself to him, and he did not despise me,” she said dreamily. “He and I, we had both seen your true nature.”

  We cut smoothly through the water. All around us stars rippled in the glassy depths. I kept my failing eyes on the south shore with its dark fringe of trees. On the hillside above them, the distant lights of Roy’s farm pricked out of the darkness. I had friends there, friends on the island, friends in the town. And I would die within sight of them.

  Closer. Closer. Perhaps there was still a chance.

  “You’re wrong about Max.”

  “That’s close enough, Angus,” snapped Ava. She felt inside a locker and turned the beam of an electric torch into my face. I winced; my head felt ready to burst.

  “There’s life in her yet. Turn it off, Angus, and let’s wait a moment. We don’t want her getting ashore too soon.”

  The motor died. Ava switched off the torch, plunging us suddenly into blind darkness.

  I don’t know where I found the strength. But I grabbed the gunwale and launched myself over the side into the water. For half a second, the icy depths shocked me into a heavenly ease of body and clarity of mind. Then the cold overwhelmed me. The air spasmed from my lungs, my limbs jerked uncontrollably, and a blinding pain, so sharp I could see light behind it, burned through my head.

  I clenched my teeth and forced myself not to gasp for air. I no longer had any idea where the shore lay, or even which way was up. It didn’t matter. I reached out and began to kick in what I hoped was the right direction.

  My lungs ached. I felt the pull of buoyancy now, dragging me toward the surface, but I fought it as long as I could. I must make it to shore.

  This was how my father had died. Slowly, painfully, perhaps while Ava preened and cooed and boasted of how she had done it.

  If I never made it to shore, she would never answer for what she had done to him.

  My head broke the surface and I gasped air. There was a roar in my ears, a dazzle of light in my eyes. They’d started the motor again and were sweeping in circles looking for me. Because of the boat’s roar, they hadn’t heard me break surface. They hadn’t heard my tortured gasp for air.

  I took my bearings. I’d come south from the boat, and the lights of Roy’s farm twinkled uphill to my right. I turned toward them and dove.

  Cold pressed in on me, numbing my bones. Behind all the pain in my head, there was no room for any thought beyond the desperate need to keep moving. If I could only make it ashore—

  I needed another breath, but I couldn’t find the surface. My lungs were bursting. My body was a scream of pain. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs.

  Something scraped my front. Pebbles. The lakebed. How deep had I drifted? Fear spurred me to one last effort and I shoved against the stones with ghostly limbs. Then I lost even the lakebed. I was drifting in endless water, wrapped in a glass chrysalis, chill and clear and unfathomably deep.

  I could no longer feel the cold. I could no longer fight.

  For half an instant, it felt like relief to let my lungs open.

  Even though I’ve been there, I don’t pretend to know for certain what lies on the threshold between life and death. Not for everyone. Some day, tomorrow or next year or forty years from now, when you succumb to the weakness of your mortal body, it may be that you go through that dark door without a backward look, either too entranced to look back, or perhaps too terrified by what lies beyond.

  Or perhaps you will stay, like I did, and linger, like I did, reliving the memory of the moment that brought you to death.

  My final night at the Lakeside Chalet. Moonlight pouring through the windows, while I stood in the common room doorway, afraid to go and afraid to stay.

  Max Moran facing me, cradling a butterfly comb in his hands like something unbearably precious.

  I remembered how my voice had sliced defensively through the night. “I don’t want to know. This has nothing to do with me.”

  Maybe I should have let the door swing shut between us. Maybe, one last time, I should have run away and hid myself.

  But something had held me there an instant too long, and in that instant Max had spoken.

  “I know.” His voice softened. “Look, I know I’ve put my foot in it—and badly. But please. I need you to listen.”

  “I can’t. I’m leaving.” But I stood motionless and waited for him to speak again.

  “It was Ava,” he said. “Ava was the killer.”

  Ava. It couldn’t be.

  “She killed James Wu. She killed Xue Bai. Wu and I were trying to figure it out, but we had nothing to go on. Not until your father was already on his deathbed. That’s when he remembered seeing the methanol in her possession. He told me with his last breath.” A long pause. “He made me swear to bring her to justice.”

  My lips felt numb. “No. No—you killed James Wu. They used your knife to cut out Xue Bai’s heart.”

  “It wasn’t my knife.”

  “Max. I read the transcripts.”

  He gave a soft snort. “Yes. Of course you did. All the same, the knife belonged to my brother Danny.” His laughter vanished, like the sun when it is covered by clouds on a winter’s day. “Ava must have planned to pin the murder on him, but Danny never liked me much, did he? So he told the coroner it was mine. And Dad backed him up.”

  It was so plausible it couldn’t possibly be true. “So you brought Ava here without telling me she was the killer.”

  He let out a gust of breath. “Yes. I did. I’m sorry. I got her to confess to me, but it was only by pretending to want you dead as badly as she did. It was the worst kind of mistake, but I did my best. I tried to get her to send me, tonight, instead of her trained gorilla. When she insisted, I got away from the table and ‘phoned Fisher to warn him.”

  “You should have told me it was Ava.”

  “I know. I thought… Please, forgive me, I thought…”

  He let his voice trail off. When he spoke again, it was with almost violent force. “I wanted you to be Xue Bai. I wanted it so badly that I thought—I thought you must be Xue Bai, and that you’d admit to it, just to know who killed you.”

  I put a dizzy hand to my head, but he went on.

  “Afterward, you said you weren’t interested in justice. Not for yourself, not for anyone. I thought the one thing I could do was spring you on Ava and watch to see what happened. Some good it did me! I have her confession but no record, and not even a witness to confirm it was Angus that attacked you tonight.”

  “But why?” I whispered. “Why do you pretend to care for her so much? For Xue Bai, I mean? You only ever met her once. It’s not as if you knew her.”

  “I know, but…” He cut off, and stared at me through the moonlight, his eyebrows a low bar that shadowed his eyes. “Yes. I only met her once. But I never told you that.”

  A mistake. I took a hectic breath. The whole world held still.

  Max’s eyes widened, and his hands tightened on the butterfly with the ruby eyes.

  “Xue Bai.”

  I started back, but he lunged forward and pulled me into the moonlight to study my face.

  “It’s really you.” He stared at me with huge eyes. “‘Death, be not proud.’ It’s true…”

  I trembled looking into his face, for fear I should see murder there. What I saw was something more like worship. Unbidden, that adoration reached inside me and pulled tears to my eyes.

  “But why?”

  For a moment,
he only looked at me. “For two years I have lived to find your killer, to fight your battle. I do not think any man can do that for a woman without coming to love her.”

  He spoke it like the naked truth it was, and it did not occur to me for a moment to doubt him.

  Max loved me. He wasn’t the killer, and he loved me. I pulled away from him and backed into the shadows with a sudden, shaken need to hide my face. Later, I would decide what to think of this. At the moment, only one thing mattered.

  “You say Ava killed Dad,” I said, when I could trust my voice again.

  “She confessed it to me tonight.”

  “This is my fault.” I swallowed. “I should have gone back. I was so frightened, Max, so frightened that if I ever went back, if I ever wrote, it would be the last thing I did. I should have risked it. I should have unmasked her before—before—”

  “It’s not too late to bring her to justice.”

  “No.” My fingernails bit into my palms. “I’m going to make her pay.”

  “Ruby.” Max’s voice was full of warning. “What are you thinking?”

  “You don’t have to know. This is personal.”

  I shifted toward the door, but he got in front of me. “Ruby, you’re not doing this.”

  “Why not?” I shoved his chest. “You’re the one who thinks people ought to be punished.”

  “And you’re the one who thinks they ought to be loved.” He flung the words right back at me. “Where’s Ava in your love for mankind?”

  Once I would have laughed at the idea of Max Moran teaching me anything about love. Now I only stood speechless. He folded his arms.

  “No matter what Ava’s done, we owe her a fair trial and a just defence.”

  “My father would have thrown her in the lake with iron shoes on.”

  Max snorted. “Your father had some faults of his own.” But he didn’t drop his gaze.

  For an endless heartbeat I looked into his eyes. His best argument was there, in the silence. I could not defy it long. I dropped my eyes, and when I spoke again my voice was softer than I’d heard it in a long time.