The Dead Letter

by Finley Martin

  “Tea?” Bernadette asked. Anne nodded and thanked her again, and they sat. “Help yourself. They’re fresh,” she said, pointing toward the pastries and scones.

  It was evident to Anne that Bernadette wanted company. She was a working widow, childless, living alone with few relatives or friends to pass the time. So Anne hadn’t the heart to rush her through the formalities of a tea and, for the next half-hour, Anne and Bernadette chatted about the fall weather, speculated on the severity of winter, and found a common thread in acquaintances they both knew slightly. Anne had felt the urge to brag about her daughter, Jacqui, but caught herself on two occasions. Instead, they ate sweets and lamented the doings of several local legislators and, at what seemed an appropriate lull, Anne shifted topic to more serious business.

  “You were right earlier, Bernadette. My business is urgent, and I am desperate. In the last four or five days, several people have threatened me, my office has been ransacked, my business has been shut down…and yesterday someone tried to kill me…and anyone near me.”

  “Oh my!” said Bernadette. The shift in topic from the mundane to attempted murder stunned her. She looked genuinely horrified.

  “What made it even worse was that my daughter and her girlfriend almost lost their lives as well. All of this followed my investigating the connection between your daughter Simone’s death and Carolyn Jollimore. Someone wants to stop me one way or the other, but now I’m running out of options. That’s why I’ve come here today. I have to ask you to do something…something that will be extremely painful for you.”

  59.

  “Back in about an hour, hour and a half. I have an appointment,” said MacFarlane. The office administrator nodded and kept writing on a notepad as the Chief walked by and out to his car parked outside the Stratford police station.

  MacFarlane drove home, changed out of his uniform, and crossed the bridge to Charlottetown. He pulled into a strip mall, stopped at a pay phone, and dialled a number.

  The voice at the other end was more of a bark than a greeting, but MacFarlane recognized it.

  “Don’t say anything,” said MacFarlane. “Just listen.”

  MacFarlane heard the crack of cue balls breaking up on one of the pool tables in Cutter’s club, The Hole in the Wall. He heard a roar as more than one ball found a pocket.

  “Pipe down,” roared Cutter. “I’m trying to talk here, godammit.”

  “Yeah,” he said as he returned to the phone.

  “You’re going to be arrested in ten or twenty minutes. You’re being set up. My ears tell me that one of your boys planted evidence. It points to you. He plans to take over while you’re away. Three people are dead in the commission of a felony. That’s murder, and no bail with your record. I can tuck you away in a safe place for a few days…or you can tough it out on your own. But I won’t be able to help. RCMP Major Crimes is involved.”

  A tense silence followed as Cutter processed the news that MacFarlane had thrown at him. Then he said, “Okay, how do you want to do it?”

  “Say nothing to anyone. Leave now. Act casual. Drive to our meeting place. I’ll wait ten more minutes.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “The continuation of a mutually profitable relationship. I like stability…and, more than that, I want a bigger slice of the pie when the dust settles. Ten minutes.”

  The phone went dead. Cutter stood straight and carefully examined each of the men bent over the pool table and those huddled at the bar. Rage churned inside him. He felt like his head would burst. He wanted to kill one of them. He wanted to kill someone, anyone, just to demonstrate the lengths he’d go to maintain discipline, and he wondered which of them found the balls to try and take him out.

  Whoever they are, they’re dead, thought Cutter. Even if I do go to prison, I’ll find out who’s behind it and make sure they’re fucking dead.

  They’re fucking dead men, he screamed, but that sound could only be heard inside his own head.

  Bernadette Villier leaned forward rather timidly and anxiously after hearing Anne’s worrying remark. Her slender fingers froze on the handle of her tea cup.

  “I don’t believe that John Dawson had any part to play in Simone’s death,” said Anne. “I can’t say the same for Jamie, however. No hard evidence links him, but there are numerous inconsistencies and several lies that cast suspicion his way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When police interviewed him at the time, he disclosed that Simone had been pregnant and that he and she were very much looking forward to having a child together. But I interviewed the woman he later married, and she told me that Jamie was infertile. His sperm count was too low, the result of a childhood illness. He couldn’t have children. If that’s true, then someone else was romantically involved with Simone. You suspected so yourself. As far as the investigation is concerned, that ‘someone else’ may have killed her.”

  “But what reason would he or anyone else have to do such a terrible thing?”

  “He may have been married…not wanted a child to support. Or… Jamie could have killed her in a jealous rage, knowing that the child couldn’t have been his. It’s also possible, a long shot though, that the baby was Jamie’s, beating the odds against his ability to father a kid. In that case, he could have killed her because he wrongly thought she was having an affair.”

  “I see,” said Bernadette. She was still leaning attentively forward. Anne wasn’t sure whether fear or astonishment was staring back from Bernadette’s face. “I still don’t know what you expect of me,” she added.

  Anne took a paper from her purse and handed it across the table to Bernadette.

  “I need you to sign this document. It allows authorities to exhume Simone’s body and test the DNA of her fetus. It will go a long way toward learning the truth.”

  Bernadette held the paper at a distance as if it were tainted and stared disdainfully at Anne.

  “How can I permit this to happen? Disrupting her grave after all these years. No, no. I can’t do that. Let the poor girl rest in peace. She had so little of it when she was alive. Let her rest.”

  “Do you really think she rests in peace, Bernadette, knowing what you know now? Do you? And what would Simone have wanted more? Rest or justice? And what would the child she carried have wanted? Your grandchild.”

  The disdain in Bernadette’s eyes shifted slowly from the document in her hand and fixed itself on Anne. Bernadette’s lips tightened unpleasantly, and Anne braced herself for a burst of anger.

  But then it all unravelled. Bernadette’s lips quivered and trembled. Her eyes filled with tears. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed without restraint.

  Anne reached across the table and placed her hand over Bernadette’s.

  “There’s nothing shameful in doing what you think is right…whatever that may be, Bernadette.”

  Anne’s touch returned Bernadette to the immediacy of the moment. She reached for her napkin. She dabbed her eye. Then she looked at Anne once again. Bernadette’s countenance had changed. She reached out for the document. Then she reached for the pen.

  60.

  Anne couldn’t risk Bernadette having second thoughts about exhuming Simone’s remains. So after she left Bernadette’s Stratford home, she headed straight for the Coroner’s Office in Charlottetown. It would probably be several days before the papers were processed and arrangements were made for the digging and examination. Anne didn’t know how she would pay for it. The government wouldn’t, the police wouldn’t, Bernadette wouldn’t, and she had no client to bill for it either. But it had to be done, she reasoned. After all, she had always believed that Carolyn Jollimore was her real client, not Edna. It was Carolyn to whom in a strange way she was emotionally connected, and it was her Uncle Bill Darby to whom she felt indebted and owed satisfactory closure to this bizarre case.

/>   Anne had just left the Coroner’s Office in the Sullivan Building when her phone buzzed.

  “Ben, you’re back.”

  “Staying out of trouble?” he asked. Anne sensed his humour in the question.

  “Not a chance.”

  “Well, we need to talk, and I have an appointment. Want to come along?”

  “Sounds fascinating. Are you gonna tell me what and where, or is this meant to be a surprise?”

  “Meet me at University and Richmond. The Island Business Development Association. Dale Quinn’s office.”

  “Who’s she?”

  Anne heard Ben’s phone click off before he heard her question, but she was only a few blocks from that location.

  MacFarlane left the main road fifteen minutes after he picked up Cutter. Cutter wasn’t happy when MacFarlane popped the trunk of his car and told him to get in. He balked at first. MacFarlane told him that he couldn’t be seen riding around with a known felon and that, if he didn’t like it, he could find his own way out of his troubles. Cutter swore viciously but crawled in, and MacFarlane slammed the trunk shut.

  The gravel turn-off was bumpy. MacFarlane could hear Cutter swearing at every pothole and rock the car struck. MacFarlane made another turn, this time onto a narrow path through a wooded area and a fallow field. His car moved slowly toward its destination, but occasionally it skidded on the wet grass, and it pitched and rolled violently in and out of old ruts. Strangely, Cutter’s epithets became quieter, if no less offensive and threatening. Finally, the car came to a rest.

  “We’re here,” Jamie shouted. Cutter gave no reply.

  Jamie popped the latch on the trunk, left the car, and went around to the rear. The lid was half up, Cutter struggling to get up and out.

  “Where the hell are we?” Cutter sounded groggy and disoriented and was unsteady on his feet.

  “An old cabin.”

  “Where?”

  “Almost two miles in any direction from anywhere. Nobody will find this place.”

  Cutter looked around. He could see nothing but trees. More importantly he could hear nothing. No cars, no boat engines, no tractors. Nothing. Still he sensed a vague familiarity about the place.

  “Let’s go inside. It’s not fancy, but comfortable enough.”

  It was nearly five o’clock when Anne arrived at the Island Business Development Association offices to meet Ben. Three or four of the office staff, including the receptionist, already had their coats on and were rushing to leave. Ben stopped one of them.

  “Dale Quinn’s office?”

  “Down the hall,” she pointed. “Second door on your left. She’s expecting you.”

  The lettering on her door read Deputy Director. The door was partly open. Ben knocked and entered. Anne followed.

  Dale Quinn was a handsome woman in her late forties. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a rather severe manner that gave her a no-nonsense appearance. She wore a navy skirt and a pink floral blouse. A matching navy jacket had been slung over the back of her chair.

  “You must be Ben,” she said warmly and shook his hand. “And you…”

  “Billy Darby.”

  “Please, take a seat,” she said. “Ben, you said you worked with the Ministry of Justice?”

  “Yes, I’m the chief provincial investigator and law enforcement coordinator.” Ben leaned forward, his identification in hand. Dale Quinn examined it closely and smiled.

  “How can I help?”

  “I’ve reopened an investigation into the murder of Simone Villier, and I’m looking for background information on her and the Tidewater Group. The case file was a bit sparse in that regard. I believe you were office manager at the time of the murder?”

  Dale’s smile slipped away, and she tilted back in her chair.

  “Yes.”

  “What can you tell me about the Tidewater Group?”

  “A group of Island businessmen who had planned to develop Stratford.”

  “What kind of development?”

  “Waterfront mostly. Quite a grand scheme actually. Dredge out the shallows on the south side of the channel, build piers for passenger liners, hotel, a new marina, boardwalk, tourist shops.”

  “Big money was involved?”

  Dale nodded.

  “Privately funded?” asked Ben.

  “The directors all had money…or political connections…or properties on that side of the bay…but they didn’t part with money if they could avoid it. In the beginning, the project was visualized as a joint capital venture. The directors would put up a third of the capital. The rest would come from a provincial and federal split.”

  “But it didn’t work out.”

  “No. Federal and provincial money had begun to trickle in first, but for their part the directors invested more energy than cash.”

  “How much was the total proposed capital expenditure?

  “A hundred and fifty million.”

  “Were they on the payroll at the time?”

  Dale nodded.

  “Expense accounts?”

  She nodded again.

  “From what I see on that side of the river, not much was developed. Didn’t that raise eyebrows?”

  “Oh yes, but don’t get me wrong. Nothing illegal transpired. The press got antsy, the public grumbled, but the negative publicity just wore itself out.”

  “Politically?”

  “There was smell enough on both sides of the aisle to keep the peace.”

  “What happened to close it down?”

  “Environmental concerns and Aboriginal objections. Shellfishers said the silt from dredging would destroy their fishery. The Mi’kmaq on the reserve by the Narrows weren’t consulted about the project. So they dug their heels in and joined with the fishers in a lawsuit. That dragged on for a couple of years. An injunction blocked construction. Then the courts found that the project would violate Federal regulations. So the project was shelved.”

  “And after?”

  “After that, everyone was happy, except maybe the Feds. Their purse strings had opened first. On the local side, the directors made money: land acquisitions, start-up money, related business ventures, consultation fees, lawyers. Fishers continued to harvest their clams and oysters, and the Mi’kmaq rejoiced at having been recognized by Ottawa.”

  “You did well yourself, too, I see.”

  “I was a highly efficient office manager, and I took good notes,” she said and smiled.

  “What can your notes tell us about Simone?” asked Anne.

  “Simone? Not much to say really. She was young and pretty and coquettish, and all the men flirted and joked with her.”

  “By ‘all the men’ you mean the directors?”

  “Usually them. They were in and out frequently, but there were other visitors to the office, too.”

  “Anyone particularly interested?”

  “Not that I recall. Most of them were married, you see, and, if tempted, they’d be rather guarded about indiscretions, if you know what I mean.”

  “Were any Tidewater directors contacted or interviewed during the investigation?” asked Anne.

  “Not that I heard, and I can’t imagine that they would have been.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Would you interrogate your boss if you were a local cop?”

  “Do you have a list of directors handy?”

  “I’m sure I do somewhere,” said Dale. She stood and headed for a filing cabinet. She bent over a bottom drawer, shuffled through several folders, pulled out a sheet of paper, and handed it to Anne.

  Ben looked over her shoulder. The pained expression on his face reflected his surprise and discomfort.

  “Impressive,” he said, “…and what were your activities on the day Simone was murdered?”

&nb
sp; “I had no office appointments booked that day. I didn’t go in. I had several meetings to attend in Charlottetown and didn’t return to the office that day. In fact, I didn’t return until after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Simone was there mostly to mind the phone and finish up some correspondence. It was a light day.”

  “Thank you for your time,” said Ben, standing up to leave.

  “One other thing,” asked Anne. “Why would she have been in the office that evening?”

  “No reason, unless she came back,” said Dale with a shrug. “Maybe she forgot something.”

  61.

  “Or maybe she was meeting someone, someone she couldn’t be seen with in public,” said Anne as she and Ben walked toward their cars.

  “Maybe,” said Ben. “The names on that list read like they were taken from Who’s Who on Prince Edward Island.”

  “Do you think the investigators would have been too intimidated to interview them in a murder case?”

  “Not the RCMP, but the Stratford Police? Hard to say. One thing I know for sure. They’d be walking on eggshells to avoid losing their jobs. Half those directors are current or former top bureaucrats or ministers. The rest are high rollers in business. I’d say the absence of any documents in the case file is telling. A lot that may have been said could have been off the record, but that doesn’t do us much good.”

  “Eat yet?” asked Anne.

  “Nope.”

  “Is Sarah making dinner?”

  “She’s at some club meeting. She didn’t expect me home so early. I’m on my own tonight. The Crown and Anchor or The Blue Peter?”

  “Definitely The Blue Peter. After yesterday and today, I just feel like curling up in the corner of my comfort zone.”

  “Sounds good.”

  As soon as they walked through the doors of The Blue Peter, they felt a warmth radiate from the chatter of six o’clock diners that half-filled the place. House lights glowed with intimacy and geniality in spite of the early autumn darkness. Ben and Anne headed toward the high-backed round table where they were accustomed to sit but were surprised to see several others already seated there. As they got closer, they saw Gwen Fowler. Next to her sat Jacqui and Mary Anne, rapt in some hilarious story of Gwen’s. Ben brightened, but Anne felt a sudden twinge of discomfort.