Something Fishy

by Hilary MacLeod

  Anton. Had he been too easy to suspect because of the false notes he naturally struck? The flashing smile, his flirtatious insinuations. Too despicable to be a killer. No, as it turned out, just despicable enough.

  Ten pick-up trucks belonging to volunteer firefighters, including Nathan, Ben, and Murdo, drove onto the cape. Ian had phoned when he saw the flames licking the dome, and he had told Nathan, more than once, not to put water on the fire.

  “It won’t do much to staunch the fire,” he had said, “and it will create a toxic runoff.”

  How to fight a fire without water?

  They didn’t have the dry chemical it would require. Even if it were available in Charlottetown or at the wind research station in North Cape, it would be too late by the time it got here. It was too late already.

  They could see that it was hopeless. The dome was going down as fast as it had gone up.

  Gus had a ringside seat, but was containing her glee that the eyesore would soon be gone until she was sure no one had been hurt.

  “There was no one in there, anyroad,” she called out to Abel as he came in for the night, the screen door of the side porch slamming behind him.

  He didn’t answer.

  Gus heaved herself out of the chair. It was getting harder every day.

  “Cuppa tea?” she called out, as she had every night of their sixty-year married life. Every night, he didn’t answer. She didn’t like to stop asking, in case one day he changed his mind. She couldn’t imagine not wanting a cup of tea.

  She shuffled over to the side porch. He wasn’t there. Must be in the basement then. She returned to her seat to watch the flames, flashing orange light on the tower of the turbine, casting shadows across it.

  Evil, the word came unbidden into Gus’s mind. It did look evil, with those flames flickering across it, licking at it, casting shadows that changed its shape and size. The dancing light made it look as if the tower were moving. Moving forward.

  Gus shuddered, and turned away from the window.

  She’d lost her taste for watching – at least for tonight.

  “Anyone inside?” Nathan asked.

  “Possibly,” said Jamieson. It was then she realized that she was holding on to the journal, which she’d grabbed, unthinking, when Hy freed her.

  Hy noticed at the same time. The two women looked at each other.

  “I’m not even going to ask what happened with this.”

  Hy gave a half-smile.

  “And I’m not going to charge you. Not this time, anyway.”

  They both knew it was because Hy had saved Jamieson’s life, not for the first time. That shouldn’t matter, according to strict police protocol, but things were different now at The Shores.

  Ian had taken a tour around the dome, assessing what might have happened. He came up to Hy and Jamieson and put his arms around both of them, guiding them away from the fire.

  “You shouldn’t be breathing that stuff in. It’s toxic.” He yelled out to the firefighters. “Move back, it’s not good to breathe that in.”

  Fortunately, it was summer and the prevailing wind was from the southwest. It was blowing the toxic smoke out to sea, or there might have been an environmental disaster.

  “He must have tampered with a battery, set a fire going in both directions, pretty easy to do. The fire quickly engulfed the dome and may have trapped him. He’d have no way out in either direction.”

  “So he won’t have survived.”

  “I doubt it. Damn Anton to hell,” said Ian, still holding on to Hy and Jamieson. Neither resisted. Hy melted into him, and Jamieson very nearly did.

  “I expect that’s where he is,” said Jamieson.

  The three of them stood there for a long time, saying nothing, transfixed by the fire.

  Murdo came over as the fire was dying down, nothing more to feed on.

  “Five hundred years,” he said. “It was supposed to last five hundred years. It didn’t even last five.”

  Jamieson gave him a pale smile.

  “Go,” he said. “I’ll take care of things here.”

  By “things” he meant Anton. There would have to be a search for the body as soon as the heat of the fire cooled down. No one stuck in that inferno could possibly have survived. Murdo didn’t want Jamieson to have to deal with it. There had been enough deaths at her door.

  Jamieson got a lift with Hy, and Ian followed in his truck. They stopped at Ian’s; Jamieson came in and, for the first time ever, accepted a glass of wine.

  Only after she’d had a sip did she say, “Fanshaw’s done.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes. But he went to hell before he died.”

  She thought of him, lying immobile in the body cast, blank eyes staring up at the ceiling, aware of the loss of his capacities, imprisoned, truly imprisoned. He had been trapped all his life. Expelled from a womb he didn’t want to leave, a womb that had thrust him into a world he didn’t belong in, a world he wasn’t meant to be a part of. A rejected fetus, come to full term.

  She was wrong. It wasn’t hell for Newton. The prelude to death was the most pleasant time he’d had in his life.

  Jamieson drank too much that night – a surprise to Ian and Hy, who’d never seen her drink at all. Since they’d all been drinking, and she was a cop, they walked her home, Ian and Hy, one on each side of her, propping her up as she shuffled along.

  And then the greatest surprise of all. Saying good-bye, Jamieson hugged, actually hugged, Hy. She turned to Ian and kissed him full on the lips.

  As soon as Jamieson was inside her door, Hy burst out laughing. Ian merely looked flustered. He touched his lips. He stroked a hand across his thinning hair.

  Hy hooked her arm in his, and they weaved down the middle of the road.

  When they got to Ian’s door, they stopped, still arm in arm.

  “Should I say good-bye the way Jamieson did?” Hy tilted her head.

  “You could try.” He took her in his arms. “But I don’t think it would be good-bye.”

  Jamieson saw the long lingering kiss from the police house. She saw them break apart and come together again. She saw them stumbling into the house. Together.

  Moira saw it, too, from her upstairs bedroom. It looked as if what had been off again was on again.

  She gripped her nightly glass of water so tightly in her hand that she broke the glass. Not all of the liquid spilling onto the floor was water. A tear chased down Moira’s face and plopped into the puddle at her feet.

  Her marriage unresolved, she was still single, and still longing for Ian.

  Anton had taken off his shoes and belt, and tossed them into the inferno. He removed his Rolex, put it back on, took it off again and tossed it in, too. He lifted the reproduction of a Roman coin, in solid 24-carat gold, from around his neck, a hard-won trophy from another life, stroked it, and threw it in. He must escape The Shores. He hoped to make it appear that he had died in the fire, but he didn’t know if he’d succeeded. He’d have to check the newspapers and the web when he got to civilization to see if he’d been successful. He’d never worked with fire before.

  He hadn’t expected to be taking off tonight, but he was prepared, because he had always known that the time would come when he would have to move quickly. When he left the dome, he had slipped down to the shore, and had walked in bare feet along the edge of the water, the waves licking at his pants, rolled up to his calves. He was headed for Big Bay, the pick-up point. He had made the call on his cell – and the boat would meet him there.

  It was a long walk in a moonless night, the sound of the ocean his only company. And his thoughts. His thoughts were coming rapidly. He’d get to Martha’s Vineyard, and from there –

  From there, perhaps he’d sign on as a chef on an ocean-going yacht. He had contacts who’d swing that for him. It was easy to
get lost at sea, lost to the authorities, and that’s what he needed for a time. Change his name. Too bad, he had liked Anton Paradis.

  But he was used to shifting his identity. He’d done it more than once. He’d killed before, too.

  He might again.

  It’s what he knew how to do to get what he needed, or wanted. Usually from rich old women. No big loss to anyone. Too bad about that Mountie. She’d have been a satisfying bedmate, even if she didn’t like it. Maybe especially if she didn’t like it. Ahead he saw a blinking light bobbing on the water, and he picked up his pace. He straightened and held his head proudly, shucking off Anton as he hurried to the small boat that would take him to a larger one and to his new life. New identity papers, new hairstyle and colour, new contacts for new eyes, a nose job, Botox to plump up the mid-facial degradation.

  A new man. As soon as he found a woman to fund it.

  It was a beautiful day, the kind in which, at dawn, the gulf slipped tiny foam-capped waves up on the shore, their sound magnified many times, so that the ocean thundered on gentle waves.

  It was an odd backdrop to the devastation of the night before. You couldn’t look to the shore without seeing the wreckage marring the cape. The trailer was gone, and all that was left was the ruin of the dome and that monster of a wind turbine sticking up above the shoreline.

  All that was left of Newton. Jamieson hadn’t liked him, but would not have wished his fate on anyone.

  The case was cracked, black-and-white like real murder was supposed to be. Wrong and right. No half-measures, skewed motivation. An evil killer.

  She had it this time. Most of it. She had the answer, but not the perpetrator. Anton was nowhere to be found. The firefighters told her that a preliminary investigation showed no sign of human remains, but that they were hard to detect. There were a number of items – a watch, a necklace – that might have been his.

  Jamieson was sure they were. She’d only need a glance at the necklace to know. She’d seen it nestled in the curly mass of his thick black chest hair.

  That didn’t mean he’d died. She was almost sure about that, too. How to prove it? That he’d sacrificed these valuable items to save something more valuable – his neck.

  Jamieson had experience with how far the justice system was prepared to pursue a criminal. She’d had to do the pursuing in the past on her own time. She’d do it this time, if she had to. Detachment was making the usual noises, issuing the standard warrants for a province-wide manhunt, but that was another thing she knew. Anton was not on Red Island any more. Not if he was as cunning as he appeared. He was on his way to losing his identity somewhere, and she was powerless to pursue him.

  The case was over, but not for her. As long as Anton was free, he was vulnerable. Someone who was so determined to make a mark on the world was unlikely to stay undercover for long. As soon as he lifted his head, she’d be there, waiting.

  Right now she wanted to wash it all away. She took a long shower, until the hot water began to feel cool and she had scrubbed her skin raw in places. She was erasing Anton and his insinuations; she was trying to erase the thought that Newton had been living in agony while she conducted a police investigation. No one had said it, but she’d suspected they might have hooked him up and kept him alive while they could – for her convenience and the benefit of the police investigation.

  She pulled out the dress she’d bought in Winterside at the beginning of the summer. She hadn’t known when she’d wear it – at the Harvest festival maybe. Suddenly, she didn’t want to wait that long.

  She pulled it out of the closet. Stroked it. She hadn’t worn a dress since she was twelve. She slipped into the cream concoction, with tight bodice and full skirt, and twirled in front of the bathroom mirror.

  She could only see herself in the mirror from the waist up, but she enjoyed the rustle of the skirt around her legs. She slipped her feet into a pair of espadrilles she’d bought to go with the dress.

  For the first time in a long time, Jamieson felt like a girl.

  She wondered what everyone would think.

  Maybe she should keep it her secret.

  She wondered what Ian would think, and headed to his house.

  He didn’t even recognize her at first. At the last minute, she’d let her hair loose from its bun. The transformation was complete.

  Completely astonishing to Ian. He’d known she was a good-looking woman; he’d known her ink-black hair would be glorious if she let it loose. His imagination hadn’t gone this far. It also failed him when it came to words.

  “Wow,” he said.

  She smiled.

  She didn’t know what to say or do next.

  She turned and left Ian wondering what it was all about.

  So that’s how it happened that Jamieson was out of uniform and in a dress when Superintendent Constable arrived at her house.

  She’d gone there immediately after going to Ian’s, unable to face anyone else. She’d kept the dress on. She liked it. Maybe she would be able to wear it in public one day.

  She was just planning to take it off when the Superintendent knocked on the door. She waited for whoever it was to come in. That’s how it worked in The Shores, the knock being unnecessary, even at the police house.

  But there was another knock.

  She got up, panicked for a moment, saw there was no time to change, and realized she’d have to face whoever it was.

  She opened the door to an unfamiliar face in a Superintendent’s uniform.

  A high colour spread over her cheeks.

  “Not in uniform?” The first thing he said.

  She blushed deeper. Though it was as well she wasn’t because she never wore her pistol and halter any more – and that would have been worse than being completely out of uniform. She could have argued that many Mounties did their job in street clothes, and her assignment at The Shores would fit that approach. But Jamieson liked her uniform.

  “It’s my day off,” she mumbled.

  “Day off? Day off? There is no day off during a murder investigation.”

  “The investigation’s over.”

  He looked surprised.

  “Last night. The murderer confessed.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Dead – or in Tahiti.”

  “Messy, Jamieson. Messy. I’ll want a full report, and not the kind that we’ve been getting.” He pushed past her.

  “Police house, eh? Unusual situation.” He had a portfolio under his arm. He lifted it out, and from it pulled a sheaf of papers. Her reports. He dropped them in a lump.

  A few sheets escaped and floated to the floor. Blank.

  He looked up at her. Looked at her properly. Fine-looking woman. Damn fine-looking woman. But fit for the force?

  “I’m here to discuss what’s been going on.”

  Jamieson drew herself up to her full height. She was tall, but not as tall as the Superintendent, and in the dress, she felt smaller, less significant.

  “I wrote regarding the removal of a trailer from the cape, while an investigation was going on into the death of its owner.”

  Superintendent Constable drew himself up to his full height.

  “It would have been preferable if we’d heard about that death through a report from you, not from the local restaurateur.”

  She recognized the officer. She’d seen him coming out of Anton’s Paradise the night before the trailer was moved.

  “I sent a report. If you’d read it…”

  “Oh, I read them all, what there was of them. Not a lot most of the time.”

  He picked up the pile, began leafing through it, dropping the blank pages on the table.

  “Ah, here.” He thumbed one off the pile, and held it up to the light, squinting to read.

  “Moira and Frank are getting married. Hard to believe.
No idea how she caught him, nor does anyone else. Gus says…”

  He lowered the paper.

  “Who’s this Gus? You mention him a lot. What’s been going on here?”

  “Gus is a she.”

  That might be worse. He flipped through a few more pages.

  “Trying to keep the kids off the cape. Both Newton Fanshaw and Anton Paradis have complained. Since when are we a private police force? Why keep the kids off the cape?”

  “It’s private property, sir. The private property of the two men mentioned in my report. It’s a legitimate police concern.” Except one’s now dead, the other a murderer. That she didn’t say. Not now. Not yet.

  “Hmm.” He sounded unconvinced.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Go ahead. If anyone…if she…stops you, tell her to come talk to me.” April was no fan of Jamieson’s, especially not since she’d been kicking their kids off the cape.

  They had the right to be there. She didn’t believe it should be private property, although it always had been. It used to be in the hands of Red Islanders, farmers, who didn’t care what anyone did on the unused shorefront.

  Until it became a cash cow, and Ben and Abel Mack and others sold it off. At first they’d sold it to other Red Islanders, who rolled it over and sold it for a lot more to Island developers. Then developers from away. Now it was out of their hands.

  The wild strawberries, at least, were theirs, springing like a gift from the sandy soil of the cape. No one would take those away, if she could help it.

  “Now, April…” Murdo put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps it’s best not to stir things up.”

  She shrugged off his hand, the first time she’d ever done anything like that. Murdo backed away.

  “I’ll be stirring up those strawberries, if I have my way.”

  April had been stewing for weeks over the potential loss of the wild strawberry harvest on the cape. In the thirty-some years she’d lived at The Shores – all her life – they had always collected strawberries off the cape. As kids, they’d go with buckets, and she would sit down and spread her skirt wide, defining her territory, then pick and pick until her fingers and lips were red with the juice of the berries. Some didn’t make it to the buckets at all, but in those days there were plenty for everyone, plenty to chew on whilst picking, plenty for humans and wildlife both.