I walked across the shop while she twined through my legs.
“Wish I’d listened to you,” I told her. “Maybe Doc would still be alive.” That, of course, was ridiculous. But if I still thought Doc was alive didn’t that make it almost the same?
I scooped Sheba into my arms and buried my face in her warm fur. Tears burned my eyes.
“Lord, you know how much I hate when things change. Couldn’t you have stopped this?” I talk to God out loud when I’m home alone. Unfortunately, He never answers in kind.
Instead, Sheba wriggled free and raced for the stairs. God’s way of reminding me I didn’t control the world any more than I controlled my cat, I guess.
She meowed.
“I’m coming,” I muttered, following her up the steep steps.
She pawed open the kitchen cupboard. Sheba chose which can she wanted and I opened it. That was our agreement. As she ate and my coffee brewed, I had a very long, shower. When the hot water and my tear ducts eventually ran out, I toweled dry, donned my uniform and headed to Doc Campbell’s, scratch that, Doctor Grant’s office.
I had graduated from high school with no life goal apart from never wanting to leave home, which is hardly an admirable ambition in this day and age. So when my best friend Lori Fisher’s mom suggested I consider taking over her job at Doc Campbell’s office, I thought, “why not?” and signed up for a ten-month course at the local college. In no time I became a certified medical receptionist.
When I started my course, I didn’t realize Lori’s mom had been diagnosed with cancer. She always seemed so healthy and full of life I imagined she was simply prodding me into the kind of low-pressure career I could handle. Not that Ellen Fisher was any slouch. Quite the opposite. I knew Lori got her brains, and her love of medicine, from her Mom. I think Ellen would have been a doctor if she’d had the opportunity. Tragically, she passed away this past winter, not living long enough to see Lori settled in Doc Campbell’s medical practice—which didn’t happen, anyway. Instead, just when we all thought Lori would step into the good Doc’s shoes, he went and sold the practice to Geoffrey Burton Grant, of all people.
****
Doc’s office is on Blair Street. It’s a single-story shake cottage, your typical Nova Scotia kind of house with an add-on veranda to shelter the front door from the worst of the weather and give people a place to kick the snow off their boots in winter. Mounting the steps, I collected the mail from the box marked Douglas Campbell MD and unlocked the front door.
I stepped inside and switched on the lights. I’d done this same thing five mornings a week for the last five years, yet suddenly the routine felt foreign.
I scanned the waiting room as if seeing it for the first time. In a way, it was the first time, at least the first time without the possibility of Doc Campbell striding into the room with his joke of the day. Most of his jokes were awful, but kids loved them. Nothing calmed and distracted a sick kid more than a lousy joke. Their moms loved Doc for it.
I hung up my coat and booted up the computer. As it hummed to life, I sifted through the mail, absently flipping the junk flyers into the recycling bin, slicing open the bills and assorted correspondence. I still sorted them into piles the way Doc liked them, not bothered that Geoff Grant preferred things done differently. The computer screen blinked on, and I opened the day’s appointment schedule.
This morning was our Well Baby Clinic. That meant new moms bringing their progeny to be weighed, measured and immunized as necessary. I knew all four moms scheduled and called each to rebook for Friday afternoon.
Doc routinely took Friday afternoons off, but Geoff Grant wouldn’t know that, and I felt pretty confident he was not a closet drinker desperate for the weekend. Geoff Grant was back in Canada after serving five years with International Medical Missions in a Muslim area of Somalia. Not much opportunity for him to bend the elbow there.
The office door creaked open and Lori Fisher poked her head in.
“Is he here?”
I waved our ‘coast is clear’ sign and Lori stepped inside. She perched on the corner of my desk and surveyed the office that was supposed to be hers, not Geoff Grant’s. Her honey blonde hair cascaded through the back of her ball cap. Lori’s beautiful, with violet-blue eyes, skin like a California beach girl, and a figure to die for. She turns the head of every man she’s ever met. And she’s smart. Lori’d just passed her final exams and was licensed to practice Family Medicine in Nova Scotia. We all assumed she’d move home and work with Doc. Then, in a few years time Lori would take over his practice. Instead, two weeks ago Doc announced his early retirement and the sale of his practice to former Hum Harbour resident, Dr. Geoffrey Grant.
“I just heard,” she said. “What does Andrew think happened?” Whenever Lori mentions my brother the cop her perfectly shaped brows rise ever so slightly. She’s been in love with Andrew since elementary school. My brother, however, seems immune to her charms. He just applies and re-applies for the RCMP, as though becoming a Mountie is the only thing that will satisfy his heart. I sometimes wonder why Lori doesn’t give up on him, but I guess you don’t make it through medical school if you’re the kind of girl who caves whenever your goals seem difficult to reach.
I leaned back in my chair. “He said it was probably an accident. Doc had this big bump on his head.” Pressing my fist against my left temple, I demonstrated. “The wind must have pushed the Medical Convention back into the harbor after Doc was knocked unconscious.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Yuck. Do you think he died instantly? I hope he did. It would be awful to lie there alone and die slowly, don’t you think?”
I pictured Doc as I’d seen him Friday night: handsome, jovial and drunk. The thought he might have lain for hours turned my stomach. My fingers wrapped around the silver cross I wore and I said a silent prayer. “I guess that’s the kind of thing Geoff and the coroner will figure out when they do the autopsy,” I said.
Lori reached for the antiseptic moisturizing hand cream on my desk. “Geoff, is it?” The edge in her voice pricked me.
“Well, I can hardly call him Doc, can I? And he said Doctor Grant sounded too formal. In Somalia they called him Doctor Geoff.”
She concentrated on massaging the cream into her scuffed knuckles. “Doctor Geoff? You’re kidding, right?”
“No, Doctor Lori, I’m not. I suppose it might work here if he was a pediatrician but since he’s not, I figure I’m stuck with calling him Geoff.”
“So why is Geoff doing the autopsy? Doesn’t the county coroner do that?”
“Apparently he invited Geoff to assist him. Maybe it’s some kind of medical bonding ritual. After what Geoff told us at church we know he’s big into bonding.”
Two Sundays ago, our pastor invited Geoff Grant to share stories about his experiences in Africa during morning worship. By happenstance, as Reverend Innes introduced Geoff he also mentioned Geoff would be staying in Hum Harbour indefinitely because he’d just bought Doc Campbell’s medical practice. Whether or not that was the way Doc intended the news to get out, it was out. And once something is announced from the pulpit at Third Church everyone knows it’s as true as the sky is blue.
I confess, I did not take the announcement well.
While everyone else in the congregation listened in spellbound silence to Geoff talk about the beauty of the African people he worked with, the open hearts of the kids, the infectious joy of even the most impoverished, all I could think about was Lori. And how for years we’d planned when we’d work together at the Hum Harbour clinic. And now, in the blink of an eye, that dream was kaput, squashed, destroyed. Annihilated.
Sitting in my pew, my heart pounded. My mouth went stone dry. I erupted from my seat in a most inappropriate fashion and, like a madman in a C-grade movie, pointed my shaking finger at Geoff shouting, “How dare you prance back into Hum Harbour and ruin people’s lives, Geoffrey Grant.” To make matters even worse, I furiously stamped my foot, twice. “What right do you h
ave to steal our dreams?”
I think his mouth dropped open, but I couldn’t say for sure because, most humiliating of all, I promptly burst into tears and fled the church.
When you think about it, it really was quite extraordinary that two weeks later I was calling him Geoff as if we’d been pals for years.
Lori held out her hand. “So Geoff’s gone all morning?”
“All day, in fact.” I fished around in my desk drawer and came out with a small bandage. “Here. Look, I’ve got billing stuff to finish. Wanna meet later? I don’t think there’d be a problem if I took an extended lunch and we treated ourselves at the Hubris Heron.”
Lori’s eyes twinkled teasingly. “We could do take-out and eat on the boat. I’m still going to be sanding old paint off the Lori-Girl in August—if my hands survive, that is.” She wrapped the bandage around the scuffed knuckle on her right index finger. “If you came to me I could work another half hour today.” Lori was spending the summer fixing up her dad’s old lobster boat. He had visions of offering harbor tours to tourists.
“If you are so concerned about your productivity why are you dawdling here?”
She slid off the desk. “I just needed to know if it was true. Poor Doc. All he wanted to do was see the Caribbean. Why couldn’t God let him have that one last wish?”
I had no idea. But by nightfall, I’d learn that God had nothing to do with cutting Doc’s retirement short.
4
I was late for my lunch with Lori. I trotted down the middle of Blair Street, my steps getting faster as the slope grew steeper. Everywhere I looked, there were colors bursting to life.
I love the month of May. Tulips, daffodils, birch and aspen trees shiver yellow green in the wind. I think every yard in Hum Harbour has at least three lilac bushes and when they’re in bloom, the entire hillside is awash in shades of violet—my favorite color. And the fragrance…
This morning, lilac blossoms were only a week or two away.
Hum Harbour is a snug little cove opening onto Saint Georges Bay. Dark, forested hills plunge towards the rocky shoreline that sits like a ring along the water’s edge. When the tide is out you can walk all the way around the cove on the gravel beach. When the tide’s in, only a narrow strip is accessible.
The village of Hum Harbour hugs the inner most curve of the cove. Its four major streets run parallel to the shore, each one riding higher along the slope of the hill. Water Street skirts the harbor. You access the wharf, the fish plant, and Hum Harbour Bait and Tackle from Water Street.
Above Water is Main Street, the business section of town. Besides Dunmaglass and the Hubris Heron Seafood Café, there’s the drug store, post office, dry cleaners, Hum Harbour Hardware, and Hunter’s Monument and Toys.
McKenna’s Funeral Home is the only business on Pictou Street, unless you consider Third Church a business. I’ve attended Third Church all my life, as have most everyone in Hum Harbour. People passing through town assume the church’s name refers to the Trinity. In fact, it does not. Hum Harbour’s First Church burned down in 1875 and its replacement, Second Church, met a similar end in 1922, hence Third Church. Some people think is overdue for replacement, too. Naturally, I am not one of them.
Murray Street is uppermost and it connects to the highway.
Mimi Johnson is owner-operator of Hum Harbour’s number one eating establishment, the Hubris Heron Seafood Cafe. She’s a bit of a character, which I say with the greatest love since she’s my dad’s first cousin once removed. She’s stout, in a healthy Scottish sort of way, with hazel eyes and ultra-curly auburn hair. Besides being a wife, mother, and restaurant owner, she’s our local naturopath. Not that she has an official license or anything, she’s just committed to holistic remedies and has developed a successful business selling them.
She has a gorgeous kitchen garden next door to the café and untold rows of echinacea and roses growing up the hill behind her house.
When I reached the café, Hugo, the six-foot wooden heron who presides over the front door, regarded me disdainfully. The last time I’d visited the Heron was for Doc’s retirement-bon voyage bash three nights before. How things change.
That night Hugo wore a humungous yellow bow with a dozen helium-filled balloons bobbing and bumping his beak. A gigantic Good Luck Doc sign filled the café window and all 363 residents of Hum Harbour crammed themselves into the tiny restaurant. Or so it seemed.
To say I had mixed feelings about Doc’s departure wouldn’t do justice to my conflicting emotions, but, at the time, I attributed the twisting knot in my stomach to sadness. Despite that, I wanted the night to be perfect for Doc. I wanted him to know how much we loved him. I wanted him to realize no matter how his Caribbean retirement faired, he’d always be welcome in Hum Harbour.
The Heron was decorated with rainbow streamers and oversized floral bouquets. The LeBlancs played their fiddles, and Mimi did herself proud with a spread most Halifax caterers would have charged a fortune for. There were chocolate brownies, oatcakes, fruit tarts, matrimonial squares and these incredible little lavender custards. Plenty of veggies and yogurt dip, too, but I preferred the sweets. The centerpiece was Mimi’s famous coconut cream pie. Golden meringue flecked with toasted coconut curls and shimmering beads of liquid sugar, it sat atop her grandmother’s cranberry glass cake plate commanding everyone’s eye. We all knew it was Doc’s favorite, and only he was allowed to eat it.
As I worked my way through the crowd, making sure everyone was happily fed and watered, I listened to the chatter. I discovered not all wished Doc a smooth send off.
Particularly Ross Murray, Mike Johnson and Bud Fisher. The three stood beside the dessert counter, their voices rising above the clamor. I elbowed my way towards them, hoping something simple like an empty dessert plate caused their distress. I was wrong.
“He can’t do this,” Bud said. “He signed an agreement.”
Bud is Lori’s dad and owns Hum Harbour Bait and Tackle. He’s had a hard time since Ellen died. Coupled with the recent closure of the fish plant and reduction in business, he’s had a lot of empty hours on his hands. He’s been filling them with drink.
“It’s only binding if he’s dead, Bud.” Mike, Mimi’s husband and owner of Hum Harbour Hardware, popped half an oatcake into his mouth.
“What do you mean by that?”
“We all signed it,” Mike said. “Didn’t you read the fine print?”
My ears pricked.
“What fine print?”
“Come on, Bud, how did you keep your business going all these years? Ellen do all your paperwork?”
“What if she did?”
Ross Murray, whose belly overhung his belt buckle more than Bud’s ball cap overshadowed his nose, selected the largest brownie in sight. “Well, Bud, if she did,” he said, skimming off the icing and licking his finger, “she probably would’ve noticed the little clause allowing any of us to back out of the project within six months of our original signing date. It’s called an escape clause.”
Their voices slipped back into the normal range, forcing me to press closer if I still wanted to listen. I did.
“This ain’t six months.”
“Sure is,” said Mike. “It was six months on the nail when Doc told us he was taking his money to the Caribbean with him. I bet he’s already put it in one of those Grand Cayman accounts you hear about in the movies.”
“Grand Cayman accounts?” Bud’s words slurred, a sure sign there was more than fruit punch in his cup.
“They’re inaccessible to the taxman, like Swiss bank accounts,” said Ross. He’d recently sold Murray Enterprises to some German conglomerate. Protecting his taxable income would undoubtedly be a big concern these days.
Mike looked worried. “What’s going to happen to Hum Harbour Holes? Without Doc’s quarter mil, can we still go ahead?”
Hum Harbour Holes was the brainchild of Doc, Ross, Mike and Bud. With the closure of the fish plant and, dare I say, the impending job layoffs
at Murray’s Sawmill, Hum Harbour’s economy was less than stellar. And as with most small towns in Nova Scotia, people were looking for ways to bring in the tourist buck. Pictou has the HMS Hector, Antigonish its Highland Games. We will have a golf course.
Ross scratched his head. “Well, I’ve got my accountant working on that very thing, but I’ve got to tell you, Mike, I think it’s going to be tight. We’re already running behind schedule according to the income projections. We may need to dig a little deeper to make this go.”
“Deeper? How deep do you expect us to reach? Not all of us have made our fortune off the Germans.”
“Yeah,” muttered Bud. “Not all of us have bottomless pockets.”
At that point, Doc Campbell had joined them. I hoped he’d lay their concerns to rest. “What are you three on about?” he asked, munching the last bit of coconut cream pie on his plate.
“We’re discussing the Holes,” said Ross. “Trying to figure a way around the mess you’ve created.”
Doc pointed his fork towards Geoff Grant, who stood half a head above most other people in the room. Geoff happened to be chatting with Reverend Innes.
“See that man there?” Doc said. “He’s the future of this town. Hit him up. Offer him a free life membership to buy in.”
Bud snorted contemptuously. “He’s a missionary. Where’s he gonna get a quarter million dollars?”
“He had no trouble anteing up to buy my practice.”
Bud drained his cup. “Maybe you and him made some kinda deal to make up for what you did to his sister. That lawsuit of hers could ruin you.”
Doc licked his fork. “You’re drunk.”
“And you ain’t?”
“Cut it out you two and keep your voices down,” shouted Mike. He was louder than Doc and Bud combined.
I grabbed a plate of chocolate brownies and shoved it between them. “Squares anyone?”
Ross took two.
“That all you can suggest? Offer Grant a free life membership?”
“He’s a doctor isn’t he?”
Murder in Hum Harbour Page 2
