The Dead Letter

by Finley Martin

  “I’m heading over to Town Hall. Some personal business. Back in half an hour.”

  “Any more than an hour, and it’ll be time lost,” he warned. “Just so ya know.”

  “You’re a tough guy, Schaeffer. Keep it up, and some day you might make sergeant.”

  “And you’re a funny guy, MacFarlane. Keep that up, and you could replace that cop with the Village People.”

  Stratford Town Hall was a large structure that held not only municipal offices, but also a library, a sports centre, a rental space for public service groups, and administration offices for the local school board. Sixteen video surveillance cameras monitored the interior and exterior of the building. Security personnel watched the monitors only during special events. Otherwise, images were simply recorded automatically in digital memory and stored for thirty days.

  The monitors were located in a basement communications room. The door was locked, but the maintenance supervisor opened the room for MacFarlane, who said he needed to look at old footage that may have recorded some vandalism. The maintenance engineer showed him how to access a particular time and date. Then he left MacFarlane on his own.

  First, MacFarlane watched the live, real-time feed of camera seven. Camera seven panned back and forth across the large parking lot in front of the building. In doing so, it also captured part of the town beyond it—part of the supermarket, the bridge, and Hillsborough Bay. It also caught the back of the office building in which Simone had worked. Trees and houses blocked sight of the lower floors. Simone’s office was not visible, but a view of the third floor, where Carolyn’s company had offices, could be made out, though it was too distant to reveal details. MacFarlane pulled up a recent historical day recording of the same building, froze the pan, and enlarged that image until it disintegrated in grey pixels. That convinced him that no evidence of his presence at the time of the murder could exist.

  Then MacFarlane changed the time and date settings to the time of the murder—10:00 p.m. on Friday, 5 October. By that time, darkness had obscured the entire building. Not even its outline was visible, but a small point of light lit a third-floor room and shone clearly against the night skyline. He continued to review the recording. The light wasn’t turned off until midnight. Carolyn Jollimore had been working in her office at the very moment he was killing Simone, and she didn’t leave until her shift had finished.

  So far Carolyn had avoided calling the police. That in itself was a miracle, but why had she waited? Had she feared for her safety? Was it possible she didn’t want to get involved? Had the arrest of Dawson made her doubt her own judgment? Or was she too stunned by the truth to act? Like a deer caught in a car’s headlights.

  Perhaps nothing would come of it, but that didn’t matter. Jamie couldn’t take that chance. Whatever the deterrent that kept her from informing police, it could vanish in an instant. In the final analysis, she was a loose end. She needed fixing. And she needed fixing soon. Very soon.

  8.

  Eleven Years Later

  October 2012

  “Soon.”

  Anne Brown pinched the phone between her ear and her shoulder and continued to shuffle papers into a case file while talking with her daughter, Jacqui. The clock on the wall of her office showed four-thirty.

  “What does that mean?” asked Jacqui.

  “What do you mean, what does that mean?” Anne’s tone of voice didn’t change, except for a hint of crispness to her diction and a more deliberate pace to her delivery. She knew that another exasperating conversation with her daughter was about to begin, but she had become almost immune to such conversations.

  “Soon. What does ‘soon’ mean?”

  “What kind of question is that? Soon is a basic concept. That’s why they put it in a single syllable like ball, tree, or hat.”

  “…but are you coming right away or in x-number of minutes? Leaving immediately or stopping off somewhere first? You’re really not being clear, Mom. Besides that, we’ve already waited an hour.”

  “Hold on now. You called me not more than fifteen minutes ago, and who’s we?”

  “Rada…and me. She stayed after school for…some extra help. She needs a ride, too.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll explain later. We’re still waiting, Mom, and this dialectic doesn’t shorten the time.”

  In frustration, Anne made a growling noise over the phone.

  Where does “dialectic” come from, she wondered, and what kind of sixteen-year-old uses a word like that?

  “…and I love you too, Mom. Bye.”

  “Bye, Jacqui. See ya soon.”

  “Mom,” she protested, but it was too late. Her mother had already hung up.

  Anne Brown put the case file into the cabinet and closed the drawer with a brassy clank. She grabbed her jacket and headed out the door. Then she stopped and rushed back to the dictionary on her desk.

  Dialectic—another of those twenty-five-cent words she had learned at university and then parked in a lonesome corner of memory after she returned to the real world—the art or practice of examining opinions or ideas logically.

  It took ten minutes for Anne to drive from her downtown Victoria Row office to the west side suburb and Central High School where the girls were waiting.

  “That was quick,” said Jacqui. She got into the back seat with Rada.

  “As soon as I could,” said Anne. She looked into the rear-view mirror. The amusement in Jacqui’s eyes matched the twinkle in her own, and she smiled.

  Anne pulled away from the student pick-up lane and turned onto the main road. She looked back again through the rear-view mirror at the two girls laughing in the back seat. Jacqui is almost grown up now, she thought regretfully. Sixteen years old. Just starting high school. Jacqui was as tall as her mother, but that wasn’t saying much, and she was filling out. She had a heavier bone structure. She was strong and athletic, less delicate, more like her father. A natural colour reddened her cheeks, her eyes were mischievous, and a youthful self-confidence shone from her as if innocence somehow would gird her against the ways of a deceitful world.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  “Langley Court,” said Jacqui. “Mom, this is Radmila Kikovic. Everyone calls her Rada. She’s my friend,” she added with a giggle.

  “Radmila. What a pretty name. Where are you from, Rada?”

  “Croatia,” she said. Her voice was soft and mellow. “My parents immigrated twelve years ago. First to Italy, later to Canada…”

  Anne flinched. A ripple of silent uneasiness followed. A picture of her husband, a journalist, flashed into her mind. He had been killed in Croatia seventeen years before.

  “…just after the war,” the girl added.

  “Her father’s an engineer. They lived in Quebec and moved here last summer,” said Jacqui.

  Anne glanced into the rear-view mirror again. Both girls were attractive. Jacqui had boundless energy, green eyes, and light brown hair that brightened to copper when sunlight struck it. Rada had a quieter prettiness. Her skin was smooth and pearl-like. Her eyes were powerful, and her hair was long, black, and silky.

  As the car pulled into Langley Court, Rada pulled a long black scarf from her coat pocket and wrapped her head carefully in the hijab. Then she thanked Anne, clutched her books, and waved goodbye. Rada’s mother watched from a window.

  9.

  Anne’s feet padded along the Victoria Park boardwalk following the curve of Hillsborough Bay. No other sound broke the stillness. No breeze rustled the trees. No bird chirped songs. No squirrel chattered peckishly. It was dawn. It was a colourless and vapid dawn, and on this particular morning dawn had turned cheap and unseemly. Even the air was cloying, and it clung to Anne’s skin like a moist web. She shuddered.

  Ordinarily, Anne’s two-mile jogs through the park would be invigorating experiences, b
ut today’s run left her with an unsettled mind. She was glad when the run ended. All she really wanted now was to step into a shower and wash away that untoward feeling.

  Jacqui was up by the time Anne had towelled off and dressed. They had breakfast together. Anne offered to drive Jacqui to school on her way to the office, but Jacqui had already planned to walk with Rada.

  It took less than five minutes to drive from home to her office in the small downtown core of Charlottetown. The office was in a string of nineteenth-century brick buildings across from the Confederation Centre of the Arts and the provincial legislature. Anne’s office was in a second floor walk-up on Victoria Row, a restored cobblestone street, fitted with period lamp posts and refaced brick fronts to please a trendy crowd visiting the artsy shops, boutiques, and restaurants that had set up on the ground floor there.

  Anne unlocked her office door. The bold black letters that emblazoned the frosted glass panel read Darby Investigations and Security.

  Two rooms made up the business suite of her detective agency. The first contained a receptionist’s desk, an empty magazine rack, several straight chairs, and a wooden cabinet. The inner room was spacious and more comfortable. A large old mahogany desk stood near the windows. A sofa, two comfortable stuffed chairs, and a coffee machine nestled along one wall. The other side of the room held several metal filing cabinets and a bookcase and, next to them, nearer the desk, stood an enormous antique Wells Fargo safe. Bill Darby, Anne’s uncle, had stored his small arsenal of firearms in that safe, along with other useful pieces of equipment, ammunition, sensitive documents, and special files.

  Remembrances of Bill Darby hung along the walls. Among them were a framed commendation for bravery from when he pulled two teens from the Rideau Canal after they had lost control of their car; a picture of him receiving a decoration from the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario for a fire rescue; and a group photo of his police academy graduation class. Anne had packed away a few other treasures, but she couldn’t bring herself to remove any more. After all, it had been his detective agency, his retirement project, and it was his name on the door for ten years before she came down from Ottawa to join him.

  In the five years that followed her move, Anne worked as his receptionist, accountant, researcher, and sometime investigator. Just over a year had passed since a sudden, massive heart attack had killed her uncle. He had willed Anne his small estate. His detective agency was part of that bequest. It was worth nothing on paper but, having no other job prospects, she tried to make it work and, so far, she had been able to make a decent living for herself and her daughter Jacqui.

  Anne pulled back the blinds and looked out over the Confederation Centre of the Arts across the street. The sun was bright now; a warm morning breeze seemed to stir the city below, and the odd feeling she had experienced earlier in the day had faded into a memory.

  Anne returned to her desk and opened a case file that she had left there overnight. Her client was Mary Anne MacAdam. Mary Anne was a friend. She was also owner of The Blue Peter, a restaurant and lounge one door down the block. Mary Anne had noticed a recent drop in profits. She suspected that one of her serving staff was stealing from her, but she wasn’t sure. So she asked Anne to look into it. Anne had just completed her report on that job when she heard the click of the letter drop in her outer office.

  Anne scooped up the small pile of mail. She was hoping for a cheque from a previous job. Instead, she fingered through several direct mail advertisements, three bills, and a postcard invitation to a grand opening, and something else. It looked like a piece of litter, but it wasn’t. It was an envelope.

  The envelope was small. It had been made from good stock and intended for quality personal correspondence when it had been purchased but, somewhere in its journey, it had become mangled and crushed and grimy. The handwriting was barely legible, but, when she looked closely, she saw that it had been addressed to her dead uncle, Mr. Bill Darby, Darby Investigations and Security. Anne opened the envelope, unfolded the letter, and began to read:

  My dear Mr. Darby,

  I can scarcely put these words down because, as I do, I feel as though I am walking through a terrible dream, and putting ink to paper will make it all come true, something I truly dread. Nonetheless, I must do this.

  I was nearby when a murder took place. I believe I know who the killer is, and I believe that an innocent man will suffer for it if I do not speak out. I could not bear to let that happen.

  I can’t go to the police. Please, if you can help me, call 367-0051.

  Sincerely yours,

  Carolyn Jollimore

  The letter was dated October 18th, 2001. Anne stared at it in astonished disbelief.

  Oh my god, Anne thought. That was ten…no, eleven years ago.

  10.

  The apprehension that had troubled Anne that morning crept into her bones again. If she were superstitious, she might have attributed her unease to a forerunner, but Anne scoffed at such things as products of ignorance and dim thinking.

  Anyway, this restlessness was different. She knew what caused it, or part of it, anyway. It was the suppressed tone of desperation in Carolyn Jollimore’s letter, a letter that no one received and that no one had read until today.

  Anne tried to imagine how Carolyn must have felt, waiting hours, and days, and weeks, and not receiving a reply. She must have been frantic. Perhaps terrified. And what would she have done then? Given up? Gone to the police? Kept the secret locked away in her memory for years?

  And what did she imagine could have kept Bill Darby from contacting her? Did she believe he could be so callous as to ignore her? Did she think he dismissed her as some lunatic?

  And how did all this reflect on her uncle? Anne fretted about that, too. Bill Darby had been a man who took pride in his work, someone who worked for next to nothing if he believed in a client’s cause. Anne would have been appalled if anyone had thought him cavalier and insensitive when in truth he had been entirely unaware of Carolyn’s dilemma. Perhaps that letter had lain, chewed up, in the belly of a mail-sorting machine for the last decade. Or maybe some disgruntled postal worker had dumped it with other undelivered mail on the floor of his woodshed until somebody finally stumbled upon it.

  Anne tried, but she couldn’t let go of the ideas that churned in her head. They circled like the seamless parade of wooden ponies on a merry-go-round, and they repeated like the never-ending song of a carousel. Carolyn Jollimore’s letter had taken a firm hold on her. As a result, she was getting no work done, and she making no progress with her unanswered questions.

  Jogging or walking might put her mind at ease, she thought. It had helped in the past. So Anne tied up her running shoes, strode out of her office, and headed up the street along the edge of the business district. She passed a vagrant dozing on a park bench. His cardboard sign read “Will Work for Food.” She walked north and east through mixed-class residential and small business neighbourhoods with no special purpose in mind and followed her curiosity into quiet cul-de-sacs, narrow alleys, and dead-end streets. Eventually, she tired, her head cleared of its clutter, and she found herself standing in front of Malone Electronics.

  Malone Electronics was the brainchild of Dit Malone, a former local hockey star whose sports career ended after a diving accident had paralyzed him. In the years that followed, Dit displayed an extraordinary aptitude for computers and electronics. Eventually he built a company that developed specialty audio, visual, and thermal surveillance devices for law enforcement agencies across Canada, the States, and several foreign countries.

  Anne and Dit had been friends since she came to the Island, but just a year ago, in the course of helping Anne with her first case as a private investigator, Dit was injured and sent to a Nova Scotia hospital. An unexpected side effect of his injury was the occurrence of a slight sensation in his legs, something he had not experienced since his paralysis. Seve
ral procedures and months of physical therapy followed but, in the end, his condition improved enough so he could move about with crutches.

  Anne walked through the front door into the display room. No one was there, but a voice called out from behind the closed workshop door.

  “Come on through.” Dit held a button down, the door buzzed, and Anne shouldered it open.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “I know the face, but I can’t place the name. Pam? Tammy? Jan. That’s it. Jan.”

  “Is that what you learned in the big city? How to become a smart-ass.”

  Dit sat in his wheelchair, pulled up to a work bench. A circuit board tilted up on the bench, a large magnifying glass in front of it. Dit chuckled quietly.

  It suddenly struck Anne that she’d scarcely seen him in months. Over the last year he had spent long periods in Halifax hospitals. She had visited him several times, but her determination to keep the agency afloat and her teenage daughter from running wild consumed much of her time. As a result, her relationship with Dit, which had been growing, faded, almost without her noticing, and, as she looked at him now, he seemed, though not quite a stranger, not much more than a good friend. She felt awkward standing there. She suddenly realized how much she had missed him, and she regretted the change in their relationship but, for that, she had no one to blame but herself, her own preoccupations and personal distractions.

  “You still have the Batmobile?” she asked, pointing to his wheelchair.

  “I get pretty tired on the crutches, especially working here. I use them as much as I can, though. Good exercise. The doctors insist. The nurses, too.” He winked.

  “The nurses are just afraid you might catch up to them.”

  “No fear of that.”

  “You’re waiting for them to catch you?”

  “Now that’s a plan. Let me write that down. Still, I have to admit that I’m pretty slow on those things. Last night there was a film on one of the cable channels. I couldn’t sleep. So I stayed up and watched it. Zombies on the Isle of Skye.”