by John Farrow
She didn’t know that Mounties ever went anywhere in plain clothes.
“We’re from Saint John,” the one called Detective Isler explains, as if what difference that makes should be both obvious and respected.
“Do you mind if we step in?” the one called Detective Hopple asks.
“This is about my dad?”
“You have our sympathies, ma’am.”
No one has ever called her ma’am before. A sign that she’s getting older, she supposes. Or maybe Mounties learn to talk that way. “Sure. Come on in.”
Once inside, they issue kind words with respect to her father’s death, and since they are being considerate, she offers them tea. They both accept, which helps her to assume that this really is a courtesy call. She leaves them in the living room to their own devices while she puts the kettle on, and before it whistles she returns, sitting opposite the two of them. She spreads out her hands to ask, “What’s this about? How can I help you with anything?”
“Do you know Reverend Simon Lescavage?” Isler queries.
“Of course. Yes. I was thinking about looking him up. People were trying to find him this morning, but I’m afraid I fell asleep. Exhausted, I guess.”
“Understandable,” Isler says. Hopple doesn’t appear to share that point of view, but in any case, he says nothing. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you then.”
She can scarcely believe what they say, and remains staring at them once they finish their summary of the details. Maddy feels horrified in a way that she’s never experienced before and only the scream of the kettle’s whistle penetrates her mood. Reverend Lescavage has been murdered. That’s so hard to fathom. She bounds up to make the tea, and rushes back, her hands shaking.
“I don’t believe it,” she says finally. “I can’t believe it.”
“It is a shocker,” Isler commiserates. “A troubling case. Exceptionally violent. I think this island is going to have a hard time coming to grips with that. If a killer is loose … well, the island’s not that big, is it? I certainly don’t want to alarm anyone, but there’s no getting around it. We’re in a frightening situation here.”
“My God,” she says quietly. “I still can’t believe it.”
The three remain quiet awhile, as though allowing the news to settle. Then Detective Hopple intrudes on the stillness. “May I ask, ma’am, when was the last time you saw the minister?”
Maddy thinks about it. “Three, four, years ago. Something like that.”
The two men share a silent communication between themselves.
“What?” Maddy asks.
“You see, ma’am—”
“Please don’t call me ma’am. I don’t—” She pauses, feels that she must sound rude and senses in her voice her father’s curt dismissal of others. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t agree with me. It makes me sound old, or something.”
“Pardon me. Miss Orrock, then,” Isler says.
That sounds worse, but she’s done with putting her neuroses on display.
Hopple takes over. “What we understand is this. Miss Matheson was here last night, looking after your father. She was relieved of that duty by Reverend Lescavage. The next person to arrive at this house was you. As far as we know. So are you saying that you did not encounter the reverend last night?”
Maddy does not promptly catch on to their line of inquiry. “That’s what I’m saying, I guess.”
“You guess,” Isler says.
“Okay. I know. I came home. I found my father asleep in his bedroom. I was upset, actually, that he’d been left alone. Later, I realized that he wasn’t sleeping. He was already dead. I didn’t want to wake him, you see.”
“I see,” Isler murmurs.
“The point is, Simon Lescavage wasn’t here.”
The detective writes something in a little red notebook which he supports on his broad left thigh. “So you arrived home, found your father deceased, and you didn’t contact anyone about that?”
She feels threatened. “That’s right, Officer. Not at that time of night.”
“Detective is the proper nomenclature, not Officer, just so you know.”
“Who gives a shit?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. What’s this about? Why are you asking me these questions?”
Isler pauses a moment. Then speaks to her in a slow, low voice. “As you know, we’re investigating the murder of Reverend Lescavage.”
“I’m saddened by his death. I liked him. He was always kind to me. Not many on this island were. I’m horrified, in fact, if you want to know the truth. I’m probably in shock or whatever, but why are you talking to me, asking me these questions?”
“Because you’re the last person to have seen him alive.”
“I saw him three or four years ago! Nobody’s seen him since?”
The detective puts his little book away. The tea is still steeping on the coffee table between them.
“There’s no need for sarcasm,” Isler warns her.
“I’m not—” Maddy stops herself. She wants to rampage, she knows. She’s not ready for anything like this. It’s crazy and she wants it to end immediately. She has the thought that her father would never put up with this, that he’d have had the man’s badge by now. Both their badges. “It’s not my intention to be sarcastic,” she says in an even tone.
“You were the last person to see him alive,” Hopple says.
Before she can react to that, Isler modifies the statement. “Alleged,” he admits. “You’re the last person alleged to have seen him alive.”
“I did not see him last night. Or yesterday. Or today. Or this past week, month, or year. I could go on. But I did not see Simon Lescavage last night. I trust I’ve made myself clear. Is that all?”
They can tell that they are no longer entitled to tea.
“One more question,” Hopple states. He’s a man in his late thirties, with a basic Mountie mustache and a wine mark below his left ear. Maddy thinks of him as nondescript, not handsome, not ugly, not big, not small, not someone she would sleep with in this lifetime. If there happened to be an incidental social component to their lives, if they were members of the same church or golf club, she’d be courteous to him, even friendly. Nothing more than that. Not friends, but possibly, under the right circumstances, friendly.
She goes through all that in her head and doesn’t know why.
“Oh sure,” she says. Sarcasm creeps out again.
“How did you get here?”
“What do you mean?”
“To the island?”
“I drove up from Boston. That’s where I live. I took a boat from the mainland.”
“A boat,” Isler repeats. “So not the ferry.”
“My father was dying. I needed to get here in a hurry. I hired a boat. You can ask the skipper.”
“We will. What’s his name?”
“Stick McCarran. Know him? He’s from Blacks.”
“We’ll look him up. So you took a boat over, at night, in the storm, and nobody saw you arrive or what you did after you arrived.”
“It was nighttime!” she objects, catching his drift.
“I understand that. Nevertheless, you arrived at night, in a storm, when nobody was outside to see you or your movements. Right or wrong?”
“I’m done talking,” Maddy says.
“Are you? You won’t answer the question?”
“I answered it. You asked it twice. I would like to be left alone now.” She doesn’t know why she says it that way, exactly. She’d rather invite them to get the hell out of her house, but even after thinking about it a moment she only repeats herself. “I’d really like to be alone right now. My father, you know, did just die.” She hates herself for playing that card, but figures that these outside policemen know nothing of her or her family and probably can’t imagine how little she cares about her father’s passing.
“I understand,” Isler says, and rises. Hopple doesn’t seem to understand, but
he also stands. “Thank you for your time, Miss Orrock. I’m afraid that I have more difficult news for you.”
“What now?” She remains seated, looking up at them.
“I’ve called for an autopsy on your father.”
“What on earth for? He was ill and old.”
“Yes. Of course. That’s what will be confirmed, I’m sure. He was ill. He was old. But you were the last person to see him alive—”
“I was not. I never saw him alive last night.”
“Allegedly, then. You are allegedly the last person to see two people alive. Mr. Orrock and Reverend Lescavage. One man unquestionably was murdered, the other is dead. So it behooves me to be thorough, to investigate the cause of your father’s death, as well. Merely procedure, Miss Orrock. I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Just wanted to let you know.”
“Gee, thanks,” she says, regretting her tone but helpless to break it off. “Look. I’m sorry that I’m not at my best. Back-to-back shocks. My father’s death. Now Reverend Lescavage is gone. Three shocks—you think I might be involved somehow. I—I’m sorry. But I need some time to myself.”
“Certainly. No need to see us out, Miss Orrock. We can find our own way.”
She has no intention of seeing them out. She’s glued to her chair, and realizes that now. They go without her help, and once they’re gone Maddy pours herself a cup of tea. Poor Simon Lescavage! The real shocker is that someone out there thinks that she might have been responsible. Probably the townsfolk do. That’s the running rumor by now. That Maddy Orrock, she arrived back in the dead of night and went on a rampage, she did, probably killed her dad then sliced up the minister.
And what did that cop say? It behooves him. Oh lord. She’ll have to deal with that man again. The situation will behoove her to do so.
Maddy knows that she has a lot to take care of on the island, particularly with respect to her father’s various businesses. Something has to be done about them. She only hopes that she can find help with that so she can get away from here, the sooner the better.
She loves this place, Grand Manan, it lives forever in her marrow, but she hates it, too. The crux of the problem is, she hates herself whenever she comes home.
TWELVE
The day is nothing but glorious by the time Sandra and Émile settle onto their front porch, with its grand view of the meadow sloping down to Whale Cove, purple lupines waving back and forth as though in greeting, across to the banquet of hills rising on the opposite shore. Émile fixes drinks. He’s having an Italian lemon soda with Skyy vodka, she her usual pink cosmo. They have almonds to munch on, smoked salmon spread and crackers, and the salt air adrift on their nostrils.
“That was some guy,” Émile says. She gets the reference. They knocked on the door of the man who lost his dog at sea and he came outside in tears. Peter Briscoe was shaking by the time they opened the hatch, and Sandra helped him to remain standing. But he slumped to his knees the moment his precious Gadget was revealed, then toppled onto the ground, releasing a mixture of guttural bellowing and gasping, a desperate cry. They couldn’t take this sorrow, this lament, in part because they couldn’t believe it, so over the top. Émile pegged him as an addict of some kind. He and Sandra helped him to get up halfway, then he burrowed his face in the dog’s hide and endlessly wailed that he was sorry.
“I’m sorry, Gadget! I’m so sorry!”
He was too distraught to be comforted.
Eventually, he insisted on carrying the dog over to his pickup. He chose the front seat, making the carcass comfortable and saying that he knew a place, a good place, to lay poor Gadget to rest. The fisherman kept wiping tears from his eyes under a thick unibrow, and they both wanted to linger on with him, but there was no point as he wasn’t going to speak coherently anytime soon. They patted him on the back, said goodbye, and steered for home.
Cocktail hour brings relief from that emotional morass. Sandra sits nestled in the cushions, her feet tucked up under her on the wicker love seat. Émile occupies the matching chair beside her, his immense legs stretched out toward the sea. The hour is magic, thanks to a crystal-blue sky and the waving grasses, the grand view, and this sense of utter ease. He’s gathered that the island has serious, even shocking, troubles, but like the prissy man in a robe and the elevated shoes said down at the fake City Hall, none of it is any of his business.
The peace of their location seeps inside him, as well. While he believes that he may not deserve this, he is definitely ready to take it on, and perhaps he very much needs a time of reflection and recuperation. He and Sandra have agreed to give themselves more time, to see if they can’t grasp what ails them, and rebuild their union, yet they must do so with the difficult understanding that it can all come apart in a flurry should they fail. Some dementia undermines them, obscure, rapacious, an internal cross-wiring that’s taken away what was once secure and intimate and replaced it with what feels brokered, underwritten, a play performed according to another’s script. They don’t quite feel themselves anymore when they’re together, and that tears at both of them, each in his or her own way.
Sandra thinks he’s spent too much time over his long career with bad guys and cops, that when he’s with her that vulgar dance continues in some subliminal fashion. Émile has an idea that she has spent too much of her life with horses, establishing a relationship criteria with the animals that doesn’t translate back to one-on-one with a human being as easily. Up to a point, they agree, one with the other. So here they are, away from cops and robbers but also free from horses, and so far, they’re comfortable.
So when two Mounties, one in a tunic, the other in plain clothes, come around the corner of their cottage and intrude on their peace, Cinq-Mars is less than wholly cordial. He gets his back up immediately. Sandra has always liked Mounties because they share an affection for horses—they are the Mounted Police, after all—but this intrusion into the only real summer holiday of their lives is more than a bit much. She blames Émile, perhaps with just cause.
“How,” she demands, the moment after the Mounties introduce themselves and before they state their business, “did you find us?” As if they are a pair like Bonnie and Clyde, out on the lam for years, retired from gunplay and living off the spoils of their holdups. On this old wooden stoop, she readily imagines a shotgun discreetly tucked behind the screen door, and they’ll be dancing ecstatically in a hail of bullets by the next moment.
Or, if not bullets, entreaties. Same difference, to her mind.
The plainclothes guy’s name is Isler, and he assures her that he hasn’t been hunting them down. “I got a call, from the commander for Eastern Canada.”
“Jean-Marc Racine,” Cinq-Mars grunts.
“Him, yeah. My boss. I mean my big boss. I’ve never heard from him before. Never been in the same room. You’ve got some kind of pull.”
“I didn’t call him,” Cinq-Mars protests.
“But he seems to know you’re here,” Sandra mentions under her breath.
Émile tries to wave away the comment. “He and I were talking on another subject. I may have mentioned that I was taking some time away. You know, he was shocked. He’s never heard me say that. So he asked where.”
“And you told him.”
Émile shrugs. It didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time.
“What’s up?” he asks the intruders. He hasn’t offered them a drink as yet, as they seem to have arrived on business.
Isler explains about the terrible death of the minister, Simon Lescavage. “We’ve just come from interviewing the guy who found the body. His father was a convicted murderer, so maybe it’s a family business, but we don’t have a thing on him at this point. Only that he was out in last night’s storm for no logical reason other than he likes big storms. Also, he says a group was camping up on the cliffs. Evidence shows somebody was up there, and we’d like to find out who, obviously.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me any of this,” Émile says.
>
“Sure you do,” Sandra contradicts him, and he anticipates some edginess between them to come out later on.
“Commander Racine contacted me,” Isler says. He lets that hang in the air as an explanation.
Sandra takes up the challenge. “My husband is retired, first and foremost. As well, allow me to state the obvious for you. He’s not a Mountie.”
The comment is more pointed than Émile realizes, as the two cops seem sheepish now.
“I’m the problem,” the other cop, Louwagie, maintains.
“You’re not the problem,” Isler states, and sighs as though he might not believe what he said.
“What problem? And guys, make it short and sweet. I’m supposed to be taking it easy with my wife here. We’re having a drink. It’s cocktail hour. I’d ask you to join us, but, you know, pardon my manners, I don’t necessarily want you to stay, not until I know what’s up.”
That’s going to win him brownie points with Sandra later on, he’s sure.
“Another man has died,” Isler reveals, deliberately not answering the question. “Natural causes, most likely. We’re having an autopsy performed.”
“Why?”
“To confirm natural causes. Primarily to give us a time of death. You see, a young woman came onto the island last night by fish boat. Through that big storm, if you can believe. Her father died sometime during the night. The other man, the one who was murdered, was in her father’s house last night. So. She arrives mysteriously in the dark. Two men who were in her house are dead the next day. Suspicious, no? I’ve called for an autopsy, since our experts are on the island for the murder anyhow. If we can pin down time of death, that might tell me if her father was alive or dead when she showed up. And it might help us guess when the other man left the house.”
“Okay. Makes sense. But what does this have to do with me, and what’s Corporal Louwagie’s problem that you say is not a problem?”
The two cops again look at one another. Louwagie chooses to admit why he’s a liability. “I have PTSD. In recovery, let’s say. The brass have let me hide out here, assuming I only deal with drunks, drugs, and arson.”
