by Vicki Delany
“Then I’ll go.”
“I should have done this many years ago. I suppose I simply wanted to pretend that there was nothing there. That nothing had ever happened.”
When Elaine arrived at the clearing in the woods, two men were digging as several others stood by in silence, watching. Alan’s face was drawn and tense. He tried to smile at Elaine but the smile failed. The day was cold, it was almost winter after all, but D’Mosca had taken off his jacket and sweated profusely into his uniform shirt.
The men stopped digging. They looked at Alan and shrugged. They watched the dog scratching through the piles of newly decaying leaves and long-resting soil.
Elaine dropped to the ground and snuggled up against the old building, digging her butt into a patch of soft green moss. She felt nothing threatening, and her back needed the support. A hint of cologne lingered on the air, but it wasn’t fresh, not overwhelming. Rather like a distant memory, the way a room would hold the scent of a woman’s perfume or a man’s cigar long after the party was over, and everyone had gone up to bed.
“Not there.” She pointed. “Over there. Alan, the dog is in the wrong spot. Under that jack pine, the big one. Tell them to dig there.”
He directed the skeptical men and crouched down in front of her, taking her face between his hands. “What do you know, Elaine?”
“Nothing. But they’re in the wrong place. I don’t want them wasting their time.”
They had dug down about a foot when every hair along the cadaver dog’s back shot upright. He ran to the excavation, dodging between the shovels, and scratched at the dirt.
“This is it. I think we have something here.” The men bent their backs into the effort.
Minutes passed. The dog alternately dug and paced, caught up in the excitement. Locked in the house, Hamlet and Ophelia howled their frustration. Alan glanced over his shoulder at Elaine. She nodded and he grabbed a spare shovel.
She never saw what they found. But the digging stopped as if by a signal and the men stepped back. Those who had been standing silent, watching, stepped forward. They carried a heavy bag. A body bag. Elaine had heard that horrible expression during a news commentary on the First Gulf War, many years ago.
Alan stood in front of her, blocking her view. “Can I take you back to the house, Elaine?”
She raised one hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. “Yes, please. I think we should tell Moira, don’t you?”
Alan touched Elaine’s forehead with his. “Yes, we should.”
***
Moira Madison looked out the study window at the view she loved most in all the world, but for once she scarcely noticed it. She’d never sensed anything unusual near the old servants’ cabin, but she knew that some did. On the day after the family received the news of Ralph’s death, the day her husband, Augustus, died, Moira’s grandmother, Elizabeth, had issued firm orders that the cabin was to be permanently sealed and the building and grounds left unattended. Rumor and superstition grew in the family, as they were sure to, and almost sixty years after Elizabeth’s death, her instructions remained enforced.
Until today. When the men had finished their work, Moira would have the old building torn down and the woods cleared. And in the spring they’d build a new cabin on the spot, something welcoming and cheerful, with wide windows and a wraparound porch and a nice woodland garden. A guest house for the next generation of Madisons. Or maybe a summer place for Alan and Elaine.
Moira thought about her grandmother, and wondered what the old woman knew. Or what perhaps she merely suspected in the dark recesses of her mind.
For Moira was sure that Augustus Madison had killed Amy Murphy, and used the guilt-stricken Ralph to help him cover up the crime. Before the war, when they all learned far too much about death and dying, Ralph would have been unlikely to be aware that when the heart isn’t pumping blood, a body doesn’t bleed very much. Whether Augustus knew anything about medicine or not, he would never have trusted his fate and his reputation to a country coroner or village family doctor.
Moira’s grandfather was a tough old man, none tougher. Ralph’s death would have been a blow, but how much of a shock could it have been: all over Canada, all over the world, for many long years families were constantly braced for tragic news. Moira wondered why Augustus’ heart, as unbending as the rest of him, had given way so quickly.
When he was walking in the woods.
Alone.
Perhaps Amy Murphy wrote the end of Augustus Madison’s story after all.
From the hallway she heard Alan’s voice, followed by Elaine’s light murmur. They had come to tell her what the men had found.
Moira bent her head over her book and prepared to look surprised.
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