Anne had never seen Dit surprised and befuddled at the same time. He looked disarmingly boyish, guilty, and comical. An enormous quiet filled the room. Then Dit asked, “Brandy? I think I’ll have one.”
Anne set her wine glass down. “Seems appropriate, given the circumstances.”
Dit puttered with the drinks, dropped an ice cube into Anne’s glass, handed it to her, and sat down.
“I don’t know what got into her. She’s usually so self-assured and predictable.”
Men are always last to know, thought Anne. She took a swallow of brandy, wrinkled her nose at the bite, and almost immediately felt a warm tingle steal through her limbs.
“She thinks I’m in love with you,” said Anne. The words popped out of her mouth. She couldn’t decide if they were deliberate or a spontaneous subtext to her thoughts and feelings and confusions. “At least she’s not sure one way or the other,” she added.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Dit. He moved to the front of his desk, leaned against it, and parked his crutches to one side. He stared at Anne incredulously. “Isn’t it?”
A queer, crinkled smile hung onto his face, and faded into the long oncoming silence between them.
“How do you know all this?” he asked with a clouding seriousness.
“She asked me…in my office…a couple weeks ago.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her the truth. I said I didn’t know.”
Dit grabbed his crutches and paced up the room as if he had lost a measure of clarity in some corner of it.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, this is the time you could say, ‘Anne, you’re cute, but I’m in love with Gwen,’ or ‘Now that you’ve brought the subject up, why don’t we run away together,’ or even something lame like ‘Those sports concussions in my youth have left me unable to focus.’”
Dit stared reflectively, this time directly into Anne’s eyes. Anne felt a resurgence of embarrassment and humiliation.
“Why did you say ‘you didn’t know’?”
“Because I didn’t know,” said Anne defensively and with a bit more rancour than she had intended. She took another swallow of brandy, leaned back in her chair, and folded her arms across her chest.
“So what does Gwen want resolved here? I don’t understand.”
“Duh,” she said mockingly. “On the verge of an imminent engagement announcement, she doesn’t want to have to prepare for an end run around me or somebody like me. She wants a clear field. Get it?”
“So that’s why we’re here.” Dit looked relieved but a trace of awkwardness remained. “Do you still have feelings for me?” It seemed almost an afterthought. Still the words struggled to voice themselves.
“Of course I do. And you?”
Dit nodded hesitantly.
“But it’s not the same as with Gwen, is it?” said Anne. Dit slowly shook his head.
Now it seemed that it was Anne’s turn to stand and pace through Dit’s study. She took a few uncertain steps. Then she made for his desk, grabbed his brandy, and added a splash to her tumbler.
“We haven’t had a real heart-to-heart since the last time we were here,” she said.
“That was more tooth-and-fang, as I recall.”
Anne grinned sheepishly.
“Yeah, tooth and fang,” she said. “And I regretted that ever since. I was stressed out, impulsive. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m sorry.”
“Did you mean what you said then?”
“At the time I did. Later…later I got to know Gwen. I came to realize that I was wrong. She loves you, and she has your best interests at heart. I know that now. I have a lot of respect for her, but I was afraid that I was going to lose you…that you would slip out of my life. We’ve been through so much together the last few years. You’re my friend. You’re my best friend, and I didn’t want that to disappear, but that’s all I could see ahead of me. And I’m sorry… I really am.”
Anne’s lip quivered as she spoke. Tears welled in her eyes. Her voice rose little above a hush as she stood in front of him.
Dit looked down at her, reached out, pulled her toward him. They held each other for a long time. Anne felt the warmth of his chest soothe her like a tonic. Tears streamed down her face. A few quiet, convulsive sobs shook her body.
“We’ll always be best friends, Anne. I know that, you know that…and Gwen knows that, too. That’s why she locked us up in here.”
Anne looked up, smiled, forced back a sniffle, reached around to his desk, and pulled a tissue from a carton.
“Is it time to text the warden?” she asked.
Dit grinned mischievously and pulled out his cell phone.
87.
Ben had circled the crowd several times but failed to find Anne. The party room had grown warm. Ben, having worn a suit, was warmer than the other more casually dressed guests. Perspiration clung to the shirt under his jacket, and sweat beaded his forehead. So he grabbed a fresh bottle of beer from a pail of ice, opened the patio door a crack, and slipped into the refreshing October air.
Ben’s eyes adjusted to the darkness enough so that he could make out the swimming pool in front of him and the chairs and recliners encircling the perimeter. He took a seat on a chair that faced the Charlottetown skyline. The twin spires of St. Dunstan’s Basilica rose majestic and dark out of the bath of city lights. The edge of the city faded into the black watery sheet of West River to his left and narrowed into the glimmering necklace of Hillsborough Bridge on his right.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?”
Ben jumped at the words from an unseen figure sunk into a plush recliner so close by. He lurched forward in his chair, the up-tipped bottle dribbling onto his only clean tie.
“Jeez!” he said, sputtering and frantically brushing away the sudsy spill.
“You should try yoga or tai chi or something to settle your nerves, Ben.” Anne sat up. Her face caught the light from the terrace door. She looked greatly amused.
“I’ve got my medicine, right here,” he said lifting his bottle.
“Yeah…and how’s that working for ya?”
“It takes the edge off.”
“I can see that.”
Ben grunted something indecipherable in reply.
“You going to the funeral?” Anne asked.
“MacFarlane’s? There will be a police presence there…out of duty…professional courtesy…even though a smell of corruption hangs over him. Me… I plan to have food poisoning that day.”
“Any talk of exposing his crimes?”
“Not much in the way of proof exists anymore. No witnesses alive. No admissible evidence. And no political will to tar and feather a dead man. Especially since he gave a helping hand to so many politicians over the years…the good ones and the bad. In the end everyone gets smeared with the same brush. On the other hand, pundits may stir the waters as time goes on, and political memory is pretty short.”
“And Peale’s?”
“I believe I can drag myself to that one…if they ever recover the body, but the Northumberland Strait can hide a lot of secrets for a long time.” Ben cocked his head toward Anne and looked expectantly. “Anything you want to share?”
“Dawson spoke to me before he died. I think he wanted to clear his conscience.”
They stared across the water and the glittering skyline. The light illuminated a plume of smoke from a stack at an industrial site. The billows swelled and thinned, twisted and undulated in the light sea breeze.
“He said Peale could have killed him but, at the last moment, Peale raised the gun to his own head…to kill himself. Jacob wrestled the gun from him, but Peale pulled away and vaulted over the rail.”
“Did he say anything?”
“‘I’m sorry.’ That’s all.”
/> “So Dawson never killed him…never killed anybody?”
Anne shook her head in the twilight of the empty terrace. Ben leaned back again and took another swig of beer.
“How did you put it together? One minute you’re dead in the water, the next your fire’s stoked, and you’re up to your eyeballs in trouble.”
“It came in a flash…kind of out of the blue…when a number of little things began to make sense. The missing puzzle piece was a connection between Jacob and Edna, but there was none…nothing obvious, just bits and pieces…like Edna’s needlepoint at home and on her wall at work. Eventually I realized that they contained key words or phrases from Alcoholics Anonymous…the twelve steps or the serenity prayer. That was a thread that connected them, and a contact of mine with AA confirmed it. Edna was Jacob’s sponsor. She supported his drug rehab, but she also fanned his hatred of MacFarlane and stirred his drive for revenge, and that led to MacFarlane’s murder. Neither Edna nor Dawson had known about Peale’s role before that. So Edna convinced Dawson to kill Peale. After all, she had done him the same favour for him. He owed her…not that we can prove much of that now.”
“But we can prove MacFarlane was murdered,” said Ben.
“What? How?”
“None of the usual toxins were found in his system, nor anything obvious to suggest foul play but, thanks to Edna’s admissions to you, I asked the coroner to look more closely. He found a small puncture mark on MacFarlane’s arm. I did another search of the grounds around his house and found a dart. After it struck him, MacFarlane must have brushed it off. It disappeared into a hedge alongside the door step and got hung up on the thick foliage. It showed traces of a sedative used by vets for quickly immobilizing animals.”
“So that’s what killed him?”
“No, the amount injected was only enough to put him out for a few minutes.”
“According to Edna there was a second drug, something she administered to paralyze him, keep him conscious and force a confession.”
“Does the coroner have any ideas what she might have used?”
“Based on Edna’s experience as a vet and an emergency room nurse, he thinks she might have used something called succinylcholine.”
“Succ…suc,” Anne stammered. She sounded as if she were choking.
“Nurses call it ‘sux,’ for short. It paralyzes the spinal column but the patient is conscious. It’s used for special operations. It’s been replaced by a newer drug in most hospitals. So probably no one would miss a vial or two of sux gone missing.”
“Can the coroner confirm that?”
“Apparently, it breaks down quickly into naturally occurring elements. It’s very difficult to identify unless you’re testing for that specific chemical…and he’s doing just that now.”
“That means that MacFarlane would have been conscious when Edna started the kitchen fire, and he must have known he was going to die. What terror he must have felt!”
“Especially seeing Edna grinning over the top of him…him helpless and all. It was almost a perfect crime,” said Ben.
“…except for Peale’s panicky attempt to salvage his reputation,” said Anne.
“…and the persistence of a pint-sized pit bull of a PI I know.”
“You forgot. I’m not a private investigator anymore.”
“Meaning to talk to you about that. This passed by my desk yesterday afternoon,” he said and handed Anne a card, her investigator’s license. “It’s all good now.”
Anne looked at it sadly and said, “I’m not so sure that’s what I want to do anymore, Ben. I seemed to muck things up pretty badly on this case. So many people dead…and who won? Nobody. It would have been better if I’d never become involved with it.”
“None of the fallout’s on you.”
“You would say that. You’re a friend.”
“I’m not the only one who’s vouching for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The feds are about to ante up. You’ve been granted your security clearance to conduct background checks on federal employees through Darby Investigations. It’s their part of the bargain that was struck on that international case we handled last year. The one that got me this job.”
“Do they know that I lost my license?”
“Yeah, and they know why, too. You don’t let anything stand between you and doing the right thing. They call it reliability. It means a pretty nice pile of cash to support you and Jacqui. No more digging for scraps.”
“What the hell took them so long? I had no clue.”
“The security check takes forever anyway. Then there’s paperwork, government bureaucracy, yada yada yada…congrats.”
They heard the rollers on the sliding patio door followed by “Mom! Are you out there?”
“Over here,” said Jacqui raising her arm over the back of the recliner.
“Mom… Oh, hi, Ben… Dashiell is about to make the toast. I’ve been looking all over for you. Quick.”
Ben and Anne got up and moved toward the entrance and the now-quiet crowd standing with drinks poised and facing a beaming couple. Dashiell, more sober than not, self-confident and proud, had already begun his tribute toast. Anne and Ben and Jacqui stood at the back of the gathering.
“…and I remember once when Dit said to me that he could outrun or outskate or outswim any girl who had the fancy to corral him into a permanent relationship.” A titter of laughter rolled through the guests. “Apparently, he’s slowed down a bit since those freewheeling, fanciful days. Gwen has caught him for sure, and says she plans to keep him. In spite of such steely, Irish determination on her part, I never heard my brother utter a peep…not a howling lamentation, not a grumble, not a whimpering complaint at the state in which he so recently has found himself. In fact he seems now more nimble of foot, and glib of tongue, and settled in mind than I can ever recall him being as a wild youth. And with that observation, I feel completely confident that happiness will follow the pair of them through all the years that God has set aside for them. So I raise my glass, and invite you to raise yours, in wishing Diarmud and Gwendolyn all the happiness and joy that we can heap upon them. To Dit and Gwen…”
Ben raised his bottle of beer. Jacqui gave an excited little jump that nearly spilled her glass of cola over Mary Anne. She grabbed her mother’s arm enthusiastically. Anne smiled broadly at Jacqui’s youthful enthusiasm and raised her half-empty glass of brandy to join the toast. Through a thin spot in the crowd she saw Dit and Gwen. They kissed. Gwen beamed joyously. Dit grinned like a naïve little boy. He looked embarrassed and happy. Anne sipped her brandy. The ice had melted. It tasted watery, bland, and a touch bitter.
Acknowledgements
Most artistic endeavors are solitary undertakings, but few take as long to complete as the writing of a novel. I penned the last words to this book about a year and a half after I had begun it. Along the way I gleaned technical information and advice from experts in various fields, all of which helped add realism to the plot and provide enjoyment for mystery readers.
Among those who generously offered advice were Fazal Malik of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, PEI; Dr. Sandra McConkey; second mate Murray MacLeod and the crew of MV Holiday Island; Dr. Marvin Tesch; Dr. Lamont Sweet; several anonymous legal minds; and law enforcement personnel at local and federal levels. Their advice and experience has been invaluable in enabling me to hammer together complex technical details in The Dead Letter.
In spite of excellent expert advice, however, keen readers may uncover a half-truth here and there. Believe me, these are not the result of any faulty guidance that was given me. They are simply the product of my effort to tweak and twist the truth enough so that it conveniently fits within the confines of a believable story and an exciting plot line.
But that is not the end of it. I must also thank the first readers of the manus
cript, my wife, Brenda, and family members, for their discerning takes on character and plot. Their observations have always been my first line of defense against the recklessness of my imagination and the uncontrollable dancing of my pen.
Also, a very special thanks to my editor, Jane Ledwell. Jane is a detective in her own right. She hunts down inaccuracies, time glitches, misplaced phrases, and wordiness with the dedication of a bloodhound tracking a convict through a dismal swamp, and she does so with a sprinkle of good humor as well.
Finally, thanks to Laurie Brinklow who ran a final fine-tooth comb through the novel and uncovered flaws which had slipped into the text in spite of everyone else’s valiant efforts.
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