by Molly Macrae
C: Why did he get involved in the fight?
C: Why did he stand at the entrance to the passageway?
J: Answer to both—was Tom running interference for her while she poisoned Sam?
Janet felt sick. She grimaced at Ranger. He lifted his lip. She didn’t know if he was commiserating or trying to make her laugh. She gave him a slow, double-eye cat wink in return, and he turned his back on her. When she looked back at the screen, Christine had added another question. She answered. Then Tallie made a statement in Gillian’s defense. Janet was glad for her daughter’s loyalty, but felt compelled to add her buts.
C: Why would Gillian kill these people?
J: Daphne—to protect Alistair’s name? Or for revenge, because her image of Alistair was destroyed?
J: Tom—because he had a fling with Daphne? Or so he’d take the blame for Daphne’s death? Is she that heartless? Alistair is into restoration; what if Gillian tried to restore her life to the way it was before Daphne came back? Except, how does that work with killing Tom?
T: Gillian is an advocate for strong girls and women. She’s been teaching for 20 years and brings more enthusiasm and energy to a classroom than most brand-new teachers I’ve met. I burned out in 15 years teaching adult law students. She spends her days with teenagers.
J: She’s a wonderful teacher, but she’s human. What if Daphne rubbed her nose in the fling with Tom and told her she’d told Tom about Alistair? Scenario—Gillian went to see Tom after the signing. She’d already left poisoned scones and tea with Daphne. Tom confirmed everything. She gave him poisoned scones and tea, too.
T: And followed him with the Ardbeg?
C: Or went with him and left it. Tourist bus. Cheery-bye.
The door jingled and Janet was glad for the onslaught of tourists. Even if they only shuffled through the postcards, she was happy to stow the laptop and its suspicions under the counter for a while. Tallie came out of the office and Rab went to see if they needed help in the tearoom.
“All right?” Janet asked Tallie.
“Playing devil’s advocate and getting surprisingly shaky. But, yeah, all right.”
“We can stop,” Janet said.
“I don’t think SCONES quit.”
For the rest of the morning, they didn’t. As they found time, they added to the document, and when Janet looked it over, just before noon, she saw they’d created a sequence of short conversations.
T: Her grief over Daphne seems real.
S: Maybe her grief isn’t for the Daphne who came back. Maybe it’s for the Daphne who used to be.
S: Gillian walked home with Daphne after the signing. Opportunity.
C: Maybe the break-ins were Gillian being clever. She knows kids and how they think. She created a different story to throw off the police.
J: Daphne had a notebook. Do the police have it?
T: She’s good at organizing, good at details.
C: A killer needs those skills. Maybe she arranged the visiting author program to get Daphne over here.
J: Starting with Daphne’s list of demands and the miscommunication over our meeting at the school, and then not knowing she was bringing the dog—did Daphne and the stress of her visit put Gillian in a dither? Or was she laying groundwork? Smoke and mirrors? I heard that phrase somewhere recently. Tom used it, talking about the new school building.
T: Arranging the author visit so she could kill Daphne? Way too elaborate.
T: The change in Gillian, after Daphne must have told her about Alistair, was believable.
S: Sam doesn’t fit any of the story lines. Unless he was practice, an experiment to perfect the poison recipe?
J: But why him?
S: What if he was in town and saw that Daphne was coming? He had one of her books in his backpack. Maybe he contacted the school for details. Gillian talked to him? Arranged to meet him?
C: Who misses him?
C: Why did Gillian call Janet when Tom went missing? Doesn’t she have closer friends? Did she call for Janet’s help? Or more smoke and mirrors?
C: Who did Ian see at Daphne’s? Where did he hear about the Deoch-an-doris Society? Is the ‘lost case of whisky’ real? Who is this source he claims to have? His own imagination?
C: Is the society a clue or synchronicity? Is synchronicity another name for red herring?
S: This was done by a good liar. The best lies are almost true and not too complicated. Too complicated = too hard to keep straight.
S: This was done by someone good at thinking in terms of stories.
C: Word association—stories, clever, conniver, manipulation, orchestration
J: Daphne said the story you tell depends on which one you believe or which one you like better.
T: Gillian teaches literature.
J: Did Gillian and Alistair plan this together?
Shortly after noon, Rab and Ranger folded Ranger’s second-best towel. As they left, Rab held the door for Alistair. He smiled and nodded, and didn’t act in any way as though he knew they’d called the police on him. But he’d rarely set foot in the shop, and Janet worried there might be hidden meaning when he bought a copy of Daphne’s The Deciduous Detective. Alistair didn’t stay long, and when he left through the tearoom, Tallie wiped an imaginary bead of sweat from her brow.
Janet wasn’t surprised to get a text from Christine a few seconds later that said, “Heart attack.” A few minutes after that, Christine sent another text: “Coast is clear and Martin’s here.”
Martin came through from the tearoom during a lull, habitual scone in hand, and wandered over to the window display. “She was brilliant.”
“She was complicated, but she’ll be missed,” Janet said.
“Complicated, yes. That’s exactly how I plan to couch a more in-depth piece on her life. I really want to get into the psychology of being an environmentalist of her caliber.”
Janet had forgotten how excited Martin got when he talked about his writing. Tallie hadn’t; she’d been on her way back to the counter and did an abrupt about-face. “Will the article be for James?” Janet asked.
“No, it’s not his style,” Martin said. “The Guardian is brilliant, of course, but safe and cozy. James would want Daphne’s recipe for cherry pie where I’d want to ask if the use of cherry laurel was mere happenstance or meticulously planned.”
Martin only paused briefly when Janet started coughing into her elbow. She didn’t hear the rest of what he said because she was too busy pretending she had a tickle in her throat and wondering how well that disguised her shock. To her relief, the door jingled for a couple coming in. Martin popped the rest of his scone in his mouth, waved, and was gone. When Tallie came back to the counter, Janet was sitting on the stool.
“There’s one more cloud note from Summer,” Tallie said. “Have you seen it?”
Janet shook her head and Tallie passed her phone to her.
S: No dice on Martin’s recording. He said the interview got personal—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—and he doesn’t have time to edit.
“I need to call Norman,” Janet said. She took out her own phone, handed Tallie’s back to her, went into the office, and closed the door. While she waited for Hobbs to answer, she wondered which way Martin’s interview with Daphne had ended. Cut off by a huffy Daphne, as his notes indicated? Or with the wink and a nudge he’d just told Summer?
“Norman, hello, Janet Marsh. A quick question. Has the cause of death been released? You’re sure? Will you please find out if anyone at the paper has been told about the cherry laurel? Thank you.”
She disconnected and waited not more than five minutes before Hobbs called back.
“I spoke to Reddick. The answer is no. So, tell me Mrs. Marsh, who knows about cherry laurel who shouldn’t?”
“Martin Gunn.”
31
I know we had it wrong last night about Alistair,” Janet said, “but now we have real evidence against Martin Gunn.”
“That he knows about the cherry la
urel isn’t precisely evidence,” Hobbs said. “Could he have heard that detail from one of you?”
“Absolutely not.” Janet wanted to shake her phone, as if that would shake sense into Hobbs. “We have very strong nearly evidence, then. And if you want to know why he killed Sam Smith, I can tell you that, too.” Rather than wait for him to consider her offer and possibly say no, she launched into their theory for how and why Gillian chose her practice victim. It worked just as well for Martin. “You know this is possible. Martin is a personable and passionate young man. He has easy access to the alley. Plus, he’s told us two different stories about how his interview with Daphne ended.” Now that she’d said that last bit out loud, it sounded less than earth-shattering.
“A motive would be good,” Norman said.
“So would an arrest.” Janet closed her eyes and said “bugger” under her breath. “I’m sorry, Norman.”
“I understand your frustration. I am taking this seriously, Mrs. Marsh, and I’m glad you are, too. I’ll ring you when I hear from the specialists. But, please, don’t any of you attempt to find or confront him.”
Janet assured him they wouldn’t and disconnected. Before leaving the office, she sent a text to the others. They reacted with various words of shock. She’d worried about Summer, because of her ties to the Guardian. She needn’t have.
“It fits,” Summer texted. “He talks about ‘growing’ story lines. Means bugger-all. Until you think about stage-setting.”
Customers kept them busy while they waited to hear from Hobbs. They didn’t hear, and after Tallie locked the door behind the last customer, she said she felt as though a cloud were hanging over them. Janet looked out the window. A gray cat sat on the harbor wall, predicting the weather with a lick and a polish to its ears.
“There’s a fog bank beyond the harbor,” Janet said, “lurking. Maybe that’s what you feel. We should all bolt our doors tonight so we’re not tempted to go find that wretch.”
“Believe me, I’m not tempted,” Tallie said.
“Neither am I.”
“It’s good that I knew where to find you, then,” a voice behind them said.
“How on earth—” Janet said, turning, at the same time that Tallie grabbed her arm and said, “Martin—”
“Stop.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “The shotgun is real. Listen carefully. Helen and David will die unless you follow directions. Christine and Summer will also die unless you follow directions. Understand? Now, walk over here where we can’t be seen from the windows.”
They followed his instructions, letting him tie their hands behind their backs and gag them. Then he tied Janet’s upper right arm to Tallie’s left.
“The gags are clean,” he said. “Oh, except they might have been soaked in cherry laurel. Ha! Brilliant reactions. Sorry, bad joke. There’s no poison. Come on.”
He had them walk in front of him to the storage room at the back of the bookshop. Christine and Summer were there, also gagged and bound together.
“Keep listening,” Martin said. “I’ll repeat what I told Christine and Summer. It’s simple. I know where Helen and David are. You don’t. If anything happens that I don’t like, you will never find their pieces. Cooperate, and I’ll take you to them. Yes?”
They nodded. Janet saw Elizabeth II try to assert herself, but she flickered out, unable to break through the misery on Christine’s face.
He had pulled a panel van onto the pavement behind the bookshop so the rear door opened close to the shop’s back door. He helped Christine and Summer climb in, then Janet and Tallie, arranging them on the bare metal floor so Janet and Tallie’s backs were to the other pairs’ backs. They jostled against each other when Martin lurched the van off the pavement into the narrow street.
Janet’s mouth was already dry from the gag. Clean or not, it tasted foul. She closed her eyes and wondered how they were going to die. She opened them again when Martin started talking.
“That lonely death in the alley; Daphne’s grieving dog and the warm pot of stew on her stove; the tragic suicide in the glen—did you know they were all vignettes that I set in motion? Watching the additional story lines that have developed as events unfolded has been fascinating, from both a psychological and creative point of view.”
Fascinating if you’re a psychotic monster, Janet thought.
“Daphne was brilliant, but she let negative experiences guide her decisions and she ended up alone and bitter—literally, considering how cold it gets in that part of Canada. But I, rather than complain about being stuck in my job in this town, create. I create diversions for myself. For others, too. Wee crises, slices of joy, longer narratives. It’s a far healthier way to handle the reality we’ve been dealt.”
You know bugger-all about health. You should try empathy meditation. Or sanity.
“Breaking into the houses deepened the story for me and the police. Norman Hobbs seemed to enjoy wrestling with the implications.”
You are deep in denial and wrestling with the devil.
“I didn’t want to create an unsolvable mystery. The police were meant to be satisfied with Tom’s suicide, and the Major Crime muckety-mucks were. But then there’s you lot—just had to stick your noses in.”
Too bloody right.
“You’ve complicated my narrative.”
We’ve scuttled it.
“That’s why you’re back there and I’m driving.”
Bugger.
They drove in silence, then. Janet tried counting seconds and minutes but lost track. When the van slowed and came to a stop, she didn’t think it had been more than twenty minutes, but if someone told her it had been no more than ten agonizingly long ones, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
Martin rested his arm across the back of the seat. “I created a story line for Ian, too. He asked me about a secret whisky society, and I passed along the rumor of a case of valuable single malt, buried during World War One, in a sea cave along this part of the coast. My rumor, of course, and my contribution to Ian’s entertainment. He bought a couple of boats—one to get him where he’s going and another to get into close places. He moors them on this side of the headland so he can come and go without everyone round the harbor knowing he’s looking for buried treasure. A bit of a gowk, our Ian.”
He’s our gowk and our Ian. Keep your myths and mitts off him.
Getting out of the van was more difficult than getting in. The metal floor hadn’t been kind to aging knees and hips. Martin helped them out, and then led them down a set of stairs to a dock protected by a stone jetty. Two boats were tied there, an open motor launch and an ancient-looking wooden rowboat.
“You have a story line, too,” Martin said, pointing to a wicker basket in the launch. “You’re going on a picnic. Ian won’t appreciate that you’ve borrowed his boat without permission, but his reaction presents possibilities for a whole new story line.” He took the shotgun from the front seat of the van. “This next part is going to be tricky, so it’s a good time for a reminder. If you refuse to cooperate, if you do anything I don’t like, Helen and David will die.”
He patted them down, took their cell phones, and dropped them in the water. He helped them climb into the rowboat and untied the ropes holding them together by their upper arms.
“I’ll tow you in this bucket so I don’t have to keep an eye on you. And I’m going to be kind and loosen your hands a wee bit. By the time we get where we’re going, you might free yourselves. That’ll be fine; you’ll see.”
He stepped back onto the dock, cast off the rowboat’s lines, and dropped the fenders into the stern. He did the same for the launch, climbed in, started the engine, and puttered away from the dock at slow speed, heading toward open water.
And the fog, Janet thought. The bloody fog.
They tried to free their wrists by wiggling their hands, and then by sitting back-to-back and picking at each other’s wrists. Janet was fairly sure it wouldn’t matter if they were successfu
l, but the activity helped pass the time. And it gives us hope, she thought. They hadn’t made much progress by the time Martin shut off his engine.
“Still fettered?” he called. He pulled in the rope connecting the two boats, drawing the rowboat toward him. “Keep trying. There isn’t much else to do in this fog, besides eat.” He transferred the wicker basket to the rowboat. “And now for a wee plot twist. You get the picnic and the tub with no oars, I get the motor boat.” He cast off the connecting rope and shoved the rowboat away.
“Your sense of loyalty to each other and to Helen and David is admirable. Unfortunately, it’s worked against you, and made you easy to manipulate. Still, I salute you.” He did just that, then restarted the engine. Over the its gurgle and growl, he called, “To set your minds at ease, Helen and David are safe at home. They were never in any danger. You, however—och, well, that’s me, then.” He saluted again and motored away.
Sometime later, as they drifted in the fog, Christine said to Janet, “You’re the one who said, ‘at least we’re dry.’ And now the boat is leaking.”
“We’re still mostly dry,” Janet said, “it’s a slow leak and at least it isn’t raining.”
“Please don’t say anything else helpful.”
“I never knew you were so pessimistic,” Janet said. “Well, if we’d had oars, I would have swung one like a bokken and knocked the evil grin off his face.”
“If we’d had oars,” Christine said, “I would have rowed us back to shore.”
“Which way is shore?” Janet asked. No one answered her. “And to think I used to like watching the fog and the mist.”
At what felt like hours past suppertime, Janet nudged the picnic basket it was now too dark to see. “Do we dare eat anything Martin touched?”
“Sadly, no,” Tallie said. “Do we dare hope Norman convinced the specialists to arrest Martin?”
“If he didn’t, do we have any hope at all?” Summer asked. “He’s the only one who knows we’re out here, and by now, even he doesn’t know where we’ve drifted to.”
