Maggie thought no more about it until Frank came over one day to clear out her furnace vents. There he found it, greasy with dirt and dust, hiding in a corner, looking like a screw head. He reached to clean it off and it came loose. He picked it up, blew the dust off, cleared the greasy residue with his thumb, and saw the diamond.
Mean, dirty, and small. But a diamond.
He held it up to Maggie.
“Keep it. I don’t want it,” she’d said.
He kept it for a long time, not willing to trade his liberty for it, nor be embroiled in an acrimonious split like his sister.
Then he met Moira. A lady. Willow thin. Hair too tight, but he’d been raking his fingers through that as one of the safe places he could go, and she was wearing it looser these days. Pale skin, but that, too, improved under his touch. She’d flush pink when his hands roamed to the few places that weren’t off limits – her shoulders, her arms, the sides of her breasts, and, thank God, her ass. She was generous with that, but there wasn’t much of it. Even so, without it, a man could starve, he thought.
He pulled the ring from his pocket, the diamond still regrettably small, but a diamond all the same. The jewel and the gold of the ring were polished and sparkling, a key to unlock Moira – maybe before the wedding. If so – perhaps a long engagement?
A hope that was soon dashed.
Jamieson knew she should have been discussing matters with Murdo, but didn’t like to intrude on his cozy domesticity with April and the kids. It wasn’t out of consideration; she found it suffocating. The wood range always on, even in summer, the toys and books scattered everywhere, the school art hiding the fridge.
She much preferred Ian’s Spartan bachelor quarters, with his constantly collapsing furniture.
She’d told Ian about her conversation with Anton, and perhaps said rather more than she should have about the case. But she wasn’t sure it was a case. Maybe just an unfortunate incident.
Besides, she told herself, she had to talk to people, yes, even confide in them, if she were going to find anything out. That’s the way it worked in The Shores.
“So the laughing fit? Any ideas?”
Ian looked up at her, then returned his gaze to the screen.
“A few.”
That was another reason she was here with Ian – his Internet access.
“Fatal hilarity.”
“Dying from laughing?”
“I guess so. That was the medical term it was given in the fifties, but it’s not clear what the actual condition is.”
“You mean that the laughing was not the cause of death, but led to the cause of death.”
“Something like that.” He printed up a page and handed it to her.
She scanned the page. “A guy died laughing at A Fish Called Wanda?”
Ian smiled. “Yup. Heartbeat went through the roof.”
“I thought the movie was good, but not that good.”
“1989. Danish guy.”
“Were there subtitles?”
It was the sort of remark Hy might have made, Ian thought, as he turned back to the computer. Jamieson was loosening up.
“This is interesting.”
Jamieson looked up from the page that was filled with cases, modern and ancient, of people dying from laughing. What caused the laughter? None of that was answered here.
“What?”
“Spontaneous Mass Bodily Fluid Discharge.”
“That doesn’t sound like what we’re looking for.”
“It might be. Listen. It’s a condition that occurs at random and includes tears, laughter, ejaculation, explosive defecation, projectile vomiting, coughing, sneezing, burping, and urination.”
“I’m glad she stuck with the laughing.” Again, it was something Hy would say, one of the reasons he liked her.
“So the condition could be the cause, and that could have brought on a heart attack.” There had been two cases of explosive defecation recently. Was there any link?
Ian squinted at the screen. “I suppose. I wonder if it’s for real, or a joke. I found it in the Urban Dictionary, but I don’t see it on any medical sites. Death by laughing, yes. But this so-called condition? I don’t see it anywhere else.”
“Thank God for that.”
Something was still nagging at Jamieson. Anton’s too-white smile. His bright eyes full of expectation. His smarmy manner. His relationship with a fragile, elderly, rich woman. Yes, he might have an elderly patroness who had died of a heart attack – but he might have helped it along. By making her laugh, with the surety that it would do her in.
Wasn’t it more plausible that the woman had died of natural causes?
Then why didn’t it seem natural to Jamieson?
Jamieson left reluctantly. She’d found the research and discussion with Ian fruitful. It hadn’t provided any answers, but it had helped with the questions. What was slowing her steps was that she had to write a report about this. A serious report. None of the fooling around that she’d been up to.
Shortly after Jamieson left, Hy burst into the room, waving a paper.
“Here.” She shoved the paper at Ian who turned in his chair, and craned his neck to read it.
He looked at Hy, shock mixed with realization.
“My God.” He read the paper again, more slowly this time. He looked up.
“Not the blowfish.”
Hy shook her head. “Nope.”
“But it could be murder.”
“Yup.”
Hy slumped down on Ian’s couch.
“By a flower? She was killed by a flower?”
“Crocus.” She appeared to be struggling to keep her expression neutral, but she felt like laughing.
“Those are the symptoms. Sometimes it takes the form of falling asleep. All the guests did that, but Viola laughed. That’s the other symptom. Laughed and laughed until she had a heart attack – or asphyxiated herself. Or both. Yes, I think both.”
“Really laughed herself to death.”
“That’s right.”
“How? Where does the crocus come in?”
“Saffron. Saffron comes from the crocus. It’s one of the ingredients listed in Anton’s menu for the night.”
“How did you know?”
“It was in all the papers, the ingredients of the dangerous meal, and, anyway, Jamieson asked me to have a look at the list. She knows nothing about cooking.”
“Neither do you.” He was used to Jamieson coming to him for her research problems. Like today. But she hadn’t put it all on the table. He didn’t know she’d asked Hy to look into the menu.
“Enough to know that saffron comes from the crocus. That it can be – and obviously was – dangerous dining. The question is, who put it there?”
“Anton, of course.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Viola had told him about her plans to leave her money to fish.” She hadn’t had a chance to tell Jamieson yet.
“Any crocuses in the flowers he sent you?”
“Croci. And no. A few nasturtiums and pansies I’m planning to stew for supper.”
“Nuts.”
“No nuts. People have allergies to them.”
“I mean you – nuts.”
“I’m just mad about saffron…” Hy rose from the couch, singing. She shoved her fists into Ian’s belly and began tickling him. “She’s just mad about me…” She continued to knead at his belly, and he stood up and struggled to get away from her, laughing.
Then he stopped struggling. He grabbed both her arms, to stop the pummeling. A long pause and he pulled her close and planted a large kiss on her lips. And another. Another. Softer now, smaller. He put his arms right around her and the small kisses dissolved into one, long, deep kiss as both lost the sense of where one ended and the other began.
&nbs
p; Jamieson almost couldn’t tell either, so closely were they pressed together when she returned for her notebook, left beside Ian’s computer. She stopped and stared. She didn’t dare interrupt them. She wanted to turn and run, her emotions spinning around something more than the forgotten notepad. Her professionalism told her to march forward and grab it. But that something more made her turn and head for the door, her notebook left where it was, less important to her than her two friends, her only friends, whose interest in each other was so obvious and so difficult for her. It was clear that neither would be showing an interest in her notebook.
How long? She wondered. How long before I can go back?
A soft, low moan propelled her from the house.
It wasn’t Ian, nor Hy.
It was Jasmine who brought Hy and Ian to their senses.
The moan that had chased Jamieson from the house became deeper and longer. It was followed by big, fat kissy noises, intertwined with the moans that could not be ignored.
It was Hy who pulled away first, and though he’d tried to hold onto her, Ian found the mood was broken.
Jasmine was hopping on the table next to the computer desk. She shoved something to the floor with her beak.
Ian and Hy saw it at the same time. Jamieson’s notebook. They looked at it. They looked at each other – any embarrassment they may have felt lost in this tantalizing discovery.
They stood frozen in place. Then Hy jumped forward and snatched it.
“Hy!” Ian wasn’t shocked. He was upset that she had grabbed it before he could.
He lunged at her. She fell back.
“Let’s not get started again.”
That sobered him up. Yes, where had it got him?
She was flipping through the pages, and stopped suddenly.
“Anton Paradis. Hired Fiona Winterbottom to help in the kitchen. Spilled saffron into the rice and bean salad. Anton upset. Very expensive.”
She stopped reading and looked up.
“And very deadly.”
“Wonder if she remembers the interview.”
“Did Fiona do it by accident?”
“Does Anton know how deadly it would be?”
“Surely he’d have to. Isn’t it all part of dangerous dining?”
Ian lunged again for the book. She jumped back. He chased her around the living room until they were both laughing and gasping for air.
Hy raced up the stairs, notebook in hand, Ian in pursuit, with mixed feelings about what he was after – Hy, or the book? She stopped. Backed up slowly, holding the notebook over her head, teasing him slowly forward.
Just as he got close, she tossed the book over his head. It arched the full length of the stairwell, and landed at the bottom on the floor.
Right in front of a pair of boots. Hy didn’t have to look up to know whose boots they were. Only one person would wear boots in summer.
Jamieson bent down and picked up the notebook. She straightened out pages that had become creased from the fall down the stairs.
Her eyes riveted on Hy’s face, flushed and glowing. Jamieson felt a small stab of pain, in that place she had thought well- protected. It was the part of opening up to The Shores that was hardest, this opening up of herself.
What had McAllister seen? Ian – what had he read?
“Did you look in it?”
Hy’s flushed skin coloured a deeper red.
“… I…uh…”
“In other words, yes.” Jamieson tucked the book in her breast pocket.
“… Uh…yes.”
Hy came down a few tentative steps.
“Yes…a peek… Ian, too.” As if that made it better.
“And what did you observe?”
“Saffron.”
“Saffron?”
“Yes. Your notes say – ”
“I know what they say,” Jamieson snapped. Snapped, because even though it had been tickling at her mind, she didn’t know if it meant anything. Now Hy and Ian knew something she apparently didn’t.
“Saffron. It comes from the crocus.”
“I know that.”
“Too much of it can cause death – by laughing.”
“What?”
“Death by laughing. No one worries about it because it’s so expensive you never get too much.”
“Unless someone spills it and tosses it all in one dish.”
“Exactly.”
“Good work, McAllister. Come help me write it up.”
As if he weren’t there, the two women left the house. No good-bye. No resolution of what was going on between him and Hy.
Ian sat down on the top stair, wondering what it was all about.
He felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
When Hy left, Jamieson spent a lot of time thinking about her and Ian. The two of them were the closest she had to friends, except maybe Murdo. He had become more distant because of his relationship with April Dewey. The truth was there wasn’t a need for two officers at The Shores most of the time. She still didn’t know how Murdo had swung it. She’d never have accepted it, had she known. Murdo had something on a superior officer that he’d used to keep the two partners together on this assignment.
Instead of Murdo, she seemed to have inherited Hy and Ian, who were always involved in the crime-solving even when she tried to put them off. They wouldn’t be put off.
They were helpful, thought Jamieson, but they were not police officers. It made for a strange relationship, an odd team. Together, the three of them had solved murders, each cracking key clues in different cases. That was a team, wasn’t it? Not strictly by the book, but…
She stood up and looked out the window for a long time, her thoughts rolling on the waves, floating with the gulls on the breeze. She smiled benignly at the children playing on the cape.
She sighed. Too bad. She’d have to clear them off again. It was pretty easy. She didn’t even have to get out of the car and they ran off. They were afraid of her.
It was what they call in the Maritimes a large day, with a great big blue sky and the sun burning clear, with exactly the right amount of breeze.
Today she’d walk down.
Chapter Fifteen
Had Viola Featherstonehaugh left her money to her fish? Was Anton cut out?
Two questions that everyone wanted answered, but they’d have to wait. Thanks to Gladys Fraser.
Viola was trying to do in death what she strived to do in life – the unusual. No one had “readings of the will” anymore – except in movies and novels, for dramatic effect.
That is precisely why Viola wanted hers read. For dramatic effect.
For the most dramatic effect, she had wanted it open to the community. In the village hall. She’d phoned her lawyers in Boston the morning of the day she’d died, instructing them to do it at The Shores, were she to “go here.” They thought nothing of it. They were always getting instructions like that from her, from all over the world. Anton had been aware of the call, but couldn’t make out most of what she was saying – some raving about Newton and a writ. It had made him uneasy. Had she been demanding changes to her will?
He expected to find out soon, along with almost the entire village. This promised to be the most entertaining event next to the annual Christmas pageant. Everyone had shown up at the designated time and place – including a sleek young lawyer from Boston, who would read the will.
Chesley Ryan had dressed down for The Shores, wearing a casual Armani jacket and khakis with a pale blue silk shirt, open at the neck. He was about to step up onto the stage – the villagers all seated in the main hall below – when Gladys Fraser went charging past him.
“Wait a minute,” she bellowed. “We can’t have a will reading now. It’s the monthly meeting of the Women’s Institute.”
�
�Oh, Gladys,” Annabelle called up from the front row of seats. “We’re all here. We could agree to put it off until tomorrow.”
Gladys crossed her arms over her chest.
“No, Annabelle,” said Rose, the minister’s wife. “I have my shut-ins tomorrow.”
“Or later today.”
There followed a litany of reasons why later today would not be possible – visits from grandchildren, appointments with the doctor, the usual round of ammunition always at the ready should a change – any kind of change – be requested.
They didn’t like change.
Gladys smirked, and set her arms more stubbornly.
“Well, some other day. Any day.” Annabelle gestured toward the young lawyer, who appeared relaxed, as if he could wait all day. He could. He was on Viola Feaherstonehaugh’s meter.
“This man’s come all the way from Boston to honour this appointment.”
“Then he should’ve checked first.”
“How could he? You only came out with this announcement now. We all naturally assumed that if this reading was taking place, our meeting wouldn’t be.”
“We all knew it was today.”
“You should have phoned to confirm.”
“I can’t be taking care of everything.”
“So what now?”
“Clear the hall,” said Gladys. “You’re like a bunch of crows feeding on roadkill. What business is it of yours if an old lady you didn’t know did or didn’t leave something to someone?”
Anton, standing at the back of the hall, thought it might be his business. He was swinging between despair and elation over what the will might say.
Jamieson was watching him closely, taking notice of his hands curling up into fists and uncurling. Tense. Impatient. Guilty of murder? She was hoping the will would tell her something.
It was odd to see Newton there. He kept to himself, so what had brought him? Curiosity like the rest of the villagers and tourists, or was there something Jamieson needed to know?
Those interested in the reading of the will left the hall and convened outside, the lawyer setting his papers down on the picnic table and his rear on the bench. The villagers circled around him, some looking over his shoulder. Only Gladys had remained in the hall, with her lackey, Olive. She dearly wanted to be outside with the others, but she didn’t dare face the wrath of Gladys.
Something Fishy Page 12
