by John Farrow
“Yes. More. The minister intended to stay here that night, or so Mrs. Matheson says. But he was racked by guilt. He was still a religious man in his bones, no matter the contrary opinion that his doubts inflicted on him. He was never able to leave his church, for instance. Having committed a murder, having been coerced into doing so, despite a belief that he had no choice, despite doing it for your sake, Maddy, he was finding it hard to live with himself. He was in torment, that’s my impression. He killed a man and that knowledge overwhelmed him. He felt forsaken, more so as time ticked by. He couldn’t stay here and wait for you. He couldn’t face you. So he went home.”
This time when he takes another sip, the women join him. Adequate fortification in this circumstance is viewed as necessary.
“I’m still following Mrs. Matheson’s account, which dovetails with my own investigation. He walked home wearing his rain gear. Once home, he took it off, of course. But then he called Mrs. Matheson. She came to pick him up. He ran out to her car, and because it was such a short sprint, he didn’t bother with the rain pants. We checked the phone records. He called her on his landline at that late hour.”
Sandra asks why he called Mrs. Matheson, of all people, if he wanted to confess. “Why not his friend, the Reverend Unger, let’s say?”
“The fifty grand left to him in the will? In the other version, it goes to Grace Matheson. He wanted to let her know that he was going to give her every penny of what was left to him. The best he could do to ease his conscience. Beyond that, he believed that once Mrs. Matheson took the money, she would not be able to mention where it came from. In his heart, he was making recompense for his deed by rejecting Orrock’s blood money. For him, the perfect person to confess to, the only person really, was Mrs. Matheson.”
“Every penny,” Maddy repeats.
“So she says.”
“Then why kill him? Alive, he’s worth fifty thousand dollars to her!”
“I’m sure her lawyer will bring that up at trial, if he can talk her into pleading not guilty. Fortunately, we have her detailed confession written out in full.”
“The question stands, Émile,” Sandra says, taking up Maddy’s point. “Why would she kill him? Because he confessed to killing Mr. Orrock?”
“I don’t think he went that far, to confess to her, not at that point.”
“Then why?” Maddy presses. “She was angry about the will? Upset? Really? How would she get him up to Ashburton Head in a storm? It makes no sense what you’re saying.”
As tired as he is, lingering remnants of adrenaline still pump through him, and Émile discovers that he needs to stand. While up, he refreshes his drink, starts in again with his explanation, and while doing that tops up the women’s glasses. “You, Sandra, helped me out on that part.”
“Me?” She’s unaware of any contribution.
“Big-time. When we arrested Mrs. Matheson she was ready to fight. I mean put up her dukes and box. Comical, if it wasn’t such a serious moment. I leaned down and whispered in her ear, and what I said took the fight right out of her. I only had something to whisper because of you. Your numerology, in a sense, solved this case. Certainly it carried the day with my interrogation.”
“Get off it.” She’s both tickled and flabbergasted.
Émile stands by the fireplace at one end of the room’s sitting area. “Not kidding in the slightest. You wrote down people’s names and birth dates. I noticed that you, Maddy, were born not so far apart from Mr. Roadcap. I noticed that his full name is Aaron Oscar Roadcap. At first, I thought they were odd names. I haven’t met other Aarons or Oscars on this island, only a lot of Peters and Hanks and Mikes. So I looked at them more closely. That’s when I saw that his initials, A.O.R., are a reconfigured version of your father’s, A.R.O., for Alfred Royce Orrock Coincidence? Possibly. In my work, I look upon coincidence as smoke. You know the rest. Where there’s smoke, something’s burning.”
Maddy decides to sit up now. Her left hand covers her right in a way that suggests she’s attempting to quell a tremor. “Are you saying that that bloody Roadcap is one of my father’s bastard children?”
He doesn’t bother to answer. She knows he’s saying exactly that.
“Okay,” Maddy says. “Go on. If there’s more.”
“As I said, brace yourself. There’s more.”
“Jesus.”
“I whispered to Mrs. Matheson while she was in a combative mood that I knew who fathered her child, and the fight went right out of her. The jig, essentially, was up.”
“But her name,” Sandra says, “is Ora Cynthia Matheson. O.C.M. Not a match.”
“It’s her first name.” Maddy has already figured this out, and seems glum now. “Ora. O-R-A. My dad’s initials in reverse. That was your identifier?”
Cinq-Mars nods. “You see, Lescavage knew only about Aaron Roadcap. He assumed the entire estate was going to him, leaving poor Maddy out and thoroughly humiliated. What he did not know was that it was going to be divided between Roadcap and Ora, and perhaps others. Grace Matheson knew about it, though, and the promise of fifty grand wasn’t enough to extinguish her greed for her daughter’s share of millions, and also business interests, this house, the world that’s on their doorstep. Grace always expected that when the old man died, she’d live out her days right here, where we are, with this view, in this house. And she could still have it. All she had to do was get your father’s other will back from Lescavage, which she did, and get the minister out of the way, which she did by killing him. Then forge Orrock’s signature. He had such a shaky hand at the end of his life, how could that be difficult? Who would notice? Her attempt would be as good as his own. Then she’d switch the wills. She took the dead man’s keys, because she knew his key ring included a key to the Orrock mansion—her daughter had told her so, in case the old man ever called, and in need, and Ora wasn’t available. If she made the switch, then you, Maddy, would be an unwary innocent, a lamb to the slaughter, as you would take the wrong one to the solicitor, thinking you’d be getting at least a large cut of the proceeds, only to find out that your DNA eliminated you. At that point, it would be game, set, and match. You’d be out of luck. Crushed, even. Roadcap and Ora, and really her mother, would control half the proceeds each and fight over ownership of this house. At that point, of course, Ora’s mom could buy out Roadcap’s share—she’d have the cash on hand through her daughter—then live out her days in her mansion while the cash from Orrock’s enterprises flowed in.”
“Then why didn’t she switch the wills?” Maddy asks.
“You’d come home. You were in the house. She might still have bluffed her way in, except that she was cut up and bleeding. The reverend put up enough of a fight to wreck her plans. Of course, I’m still sure she was hoping to pull a switch on you.”
Maddy stands and paces. Émile returns to his wife’s side on the sofa, taking her hand in his. They can’t imagine what might be going through the young woman’s head, and give her time and space. When she does speak, they know that she’s still confused.
“Roadcap’s my brother?”
“He’s not. You’re no more related than ever. Your father is his father. But your father is not yours. I don’t know if that’s good news or bad. Or what’s worse. Learning that your father has other heirs, or that he’s not your father at all, even though he’s left you everything.”
“But—” She has questions, which are pressing, but Émile has other ground that he feels is best to hoe first, so jumps back in when she’s not quick to formulate what’s confusing to her.
“Sandra asked a moment ago how Mrs. Matheson got the Reverend Lescavage onto the ridges. That baffled me also, and held up my investigation, even though I was suspicious of her from the get-go. In a way, she wanted to keep it to herself, not tell me, and if a lawyer was in the room, she wouldn’t have. Fortunately, she has few skills as a criminal and is even more inexperienced at being accused. She still hasn’t had the sense to lawyer up. ‘Shysters,’
she calls them. Anyway, I, too, couldn’t imagine that she dumped him in a truck, then dragged him through the wind and the rain over that rough terrain to where he died. She finally let it out because she was proud of herself. She buffaloed him.”
“She what?” Maddy asks.
“Manipulated him. She knew how Orrock controlled him, so she did the same. He’d lost his faith, and either for that reason or for some other, he hated it when others did well for themselves preaching about faith. Or, let’s say, the potential to fly based on their faith. He especially hated people preaching faith when he knew they were fakes. He spent his life preaching faith, with honesty, then lost it. Still, it was hard to lose it, and he took that seriously, too. He was offended that an outright charlatan might preach about faith. He felt diminished by that. She knew that the cult was going up to the ridge in the storm. They always did, and she had inside information. She did business with them. She induced the reverend to come out with her to spy on them. He was obsessed with the cult. He’d like nothing better than to make fun of them in his next sermon, as he often did. As well, he was feeling miserable, he’d just killed a man, he was not in his best mind, I suppose, so off he went. Mrs. Matheson said that the pastor was a pushover, always had been, and partly she counted on that. She also told him she had her eye on a tree she wanted to transplant, and needed his help. She could only do it in the dark since it was on public property. That allowed her to take along a shovel. He was thoroughly unsuspecting. Then up there, she pulled out a dulse-harvesting knife and made him dig his own grave. While digging, he told her some of the things I just told you. Some things he’d already related. Trouble is, he hit rock. He was arguing with her, apparently, saying that a shallow grave disrespected his corpse. That animals might dig him up and she’d be caught. All that became moot when he hit solid rock. The oldest rock on earth, as it happens. She didn’t believe him. In the dark, she couldn’t see. She dropped her guard and checked to see if he couldn’t keep digging and while she was doing that he smashed the spade across her face and ran. He’d had it with being a pushover.”
“Gracious,” Sandra says under her breath. “What some people do for money.”
“Follow the money. I’m not the first detective to adopt the motto.”
“So we’re not related, Roadcap and I. Whew. Am I related to Ora?”
“You’re not getting this, are you?” Émile clarifies for her. “I understand. It’s an avalanche of information and it’s all unexpected. Your father is not your father, so you’re not related to anyone.”
“Who is my father? I don’t understand. My mother slept around, too? That’s what I don’t get. Does she know? Mrs. Matheson? Does she know who my father is?”
This is as deep as he wants to go, but he knows he’s going deeper.
“She does,” Émile informs her. He glances at Sandra for a measure of her strength to help him get through this.
Maddy waits. She doesn’t want to ask. She can’t bring herself to speak.
“Your father—” Émile begins, but Maddy interrupts.
“Don’t tell me,” she says. “Oh God, no. Don’t tell me. I know. I think I know.”
“Who?” Sandra asks.
They wait in silence.
“Do you want me to tell you?” Cinq-Mars asks the tall woman, who clasps her elbows to ready herself.
Maddy nods.
“Aaron Roadcap’s father. August James Roadcap.”
Still seated, Émile locks eyes with Maddy. She wavers, and chooses to sit down again. He’s glad of that, as there’s still more to come.
“August James Roadcap is my father,” she says, wanting it confirmed.
“Yes.”
“The man who threw my mother off a cliff.”
“The man who was sentenced to prison for that.”
She nods again, trying to process the news, and rubs her arms. Then she stops, as competing strands of thought twist through her mind. She’s noticed the difference in what they said.
“The man who threw my mother off a cliff,” she repeats in order for him to confirm exactly that.
“No, Maddy. The man convicted of the crime. The man who threw your mother off a cliff…”
Émile hesitates. He needs to know that she’s waiting for this. That she’ll hear it just once and know it at the same instant.
“The man who did that was the man you used to know to be your father. August Roadcap went to jail for the crime, and never revealed that he knew who really did it.”
“Why not?” By asking that question, Émile knows that she’s understood him.
“To protect you. And to protect his son. Although he was not his biological son, either, as we know. He was Orrock’s. Still. He’d been bringing him up as his own, and loved him.”
“He knew? He knew that my father was the real father?”
“I noticed something when I saw the birth dates that Sandra transcribed for her numerology exercises. As Mrs. Matheson related the story to me, your mother was no longer having relations with her husband. Orrock couldn’t have cared less, at least according to Mrs. Matheson—one of his many younger lovers. Apparently, she was something of a beauty in her youth. Orrock did care when he discovered that his wife was pregnant. A different deal. That meant not only that he had been cuckolded, because he knew he hadn’t had relations with her, it also meant that he was not in charge of his wife’s life anymore, that someone had taken advantage of his neglect. He could not stand for that.
When he discovered who it was—Roadcap—he went after that man’s wife. He plotted to seduce her, and with his wealth, he did so. Obviously, that marriage was rocky as well, given that the elder Roadcap was having an affair with another man’s wife. She got pregnant, with Aaron, and that would appear to have been the end of it. His wife was pregnant with another man’s child, now he had knocked up the other guy’s wife. Maybe it could have ended there—he’d exacted his revenge. Trouble is, Orrock was never a man to settle for a tie. He bided his time. When the moment was opportune, after the kids were born, he took revenge upon his wife by throwing her off Seven Days Work. His planning was so meticulous that he was able to implicate her lover—your mother’s, his wife’s, lover—in the crime.”
“Oh, Mom, my poor mom, what a miserable life she must’ve had.”
Suddenly, the whole of her body shakes and with some violence. Sandra slides across to her, stroking her forearm, saying soft words. Émile knows as well that it’s not just this news, but all of it over the previous days, that has done her in.
What comes on quickly is quelled nearly as fast, and when she’s calm again, Émile adds, “She loved you. What you have to appreciate is that she loved you as her child, and as the child of a man she cared about dearly. The man she risked everything for. She may have been trapped in a miserable marriage, yet she found love with Roadcap. That man also loved you. He made a deal with the devil and never protested his innocence too strongly. He never accused Orrock. He couldn’t have made that stick anyway. He never admitted guilt, either, but the case against him was circumstantial albeit strong enough, and his defense was weak. His case was unnecessarily weak because he kept certain things to himself to protect both you and Aaron Roadcap. The children.”
“That’s why my father used to walk to Dark Harbour so often when I was young. When … when we were both young.”
“Your lives were in Orrock’s hands, yours and Aaron Roadcap’s, and Orrock made a vow to the elder Roadcap, which he kept in exchange for his silence, to protect the two of you, and raise you well. Grace Matheson tells me that he had a claim to fame, that he kept his promises once he made them. In doing so, Orrock reveled in his revenge. He found it sweet. All part of his control-freak nature, of course, but there you have it.”
Several minutes go by in silence. It’s darkening outside, as this portion of the island is sheltered by the western ridges, so light disappears earlier. Sunrises are brilliant, though. Sandra and Émile come together at one point, briefl
y embrace, then wait for Maddy to find her balance. She knows everything about her lineage now, but she still needs to talk a few things through. “So my father was Roadcap’s, and his was mine. Different mothers, though, right? Right.” And finally she concludes, “Holy shit,” and sits down again.
Sandra slips away to the bathroom and returns with Kleenex. Maddy dabs her eyes. She attempts to smile, tries to laugh, but nothing works out well. And yet she’s recovering.
“I’ll tell you one thing. If my former father thinks he can manipulate me after his death like he did in life, he can think twice. He can damn well bury himself. He can make his own bloody arrangements. I’m no longer involved in the funeral.”
Sandra looks across to Émile as though to seek his counsel, perhaps help change Maddy’s mind, but she sees instead his approval of Maddy’s statement. Sandra relaxes, thinks about it, then agrees. Why not? Let the bugger bury himself.
“What about our nutty professor?” Maddy asks. “Why’d he go over the ledge?”
“He was involved with those who want to fly. He rented the former City Hall for them at his own expense. He was up on the ridge with the other wannabe fliers when Lescavage was killed. He was one of the first two people to come across the body. I imagine that later he suffered what our Reverend Lescavage would have called a ‘loss of faith.’ He realized that he was never going to fly. He wrote an e-mail to a friend, who sent it back to the police here, in which, in cryptic, and I’d say cynical, language, he suggested that he might make one last attempt. To fly. I think he jumped off the cliff to see if an act of pure belief, of pure faith, would work. I’m also thinking that he expected it wouldn’t. In any case, he didn’t fly. Blame gravity. By all accounts, he went straight down. Maybe he lifted off the ground for a second, had a fleeting moment of ecstasy. After that, a nosedive. Part of his loss of faith may have come from his growing knowledge that he was being used.”
“Who by?”
“Mrs. Matheson, for one. The fliers, for another. You see, Matheson was using the cult and their American connections, including Professor DeWitt, to set up a distribution network in the States for island dulse. Control the distribution, you control the trade. They were working to set up their own shadow network and take the business away from your father and Roadcap. Aaron worked for your dad. Your former dad. Orrock arranged for him to be raised in Dark Harbour after his father went to prison and later his mother died. Saw to his education. Gave him work and increasing responsibility. Roadcap didn’t think your father was such a terrible guy. What he’ll think now that the truth is out is another story. He’s in for a shock. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know that Orrock was his biological father. Or what he did.”
