Something Fishy (19 page)

“Today it begins!
” Hy looked up at Ian. “What? What begins?”

“If it's a maternal journal, I assume motherhood.”

“Delivery or conception?”

“Read on.”

Nothing, until an entry dated four months later.

“I feel as if I am carrying a parasite inside my body. Sucking the life out of me. Claiming my blood for his own. I see now I was not meant to be a mother, but is there no way out?”

“Holy planned parenthood. Do you think she got an
abortion?”

Hy rolled over and sat up, still clutching the book.

“I think…” she heaved herself up from the floor. “I think she had that kid. I think…well…it could be Anton – or Newton.” She had none of Jamieson's reluctance to follow her hunches.

“Why would that be? It could be anyone, and we don't even know she had the kid in the end. Keep reading.”

Hy slumped down on the couch beside Ian. He turned on an overhead lamp, and, together, they scanned page after page. The next entry, a month later.

“
It is gone. I am rid of it.
”

“Abortion.” Hy squinted at the tiny writing, and almost missed the entry a month later.

“
Still one in there. I shall have to bear it.
”

“Twins?”

“It happens,” said Ian. “Not surprising back then.”

“
Thank God, I am rid of it. It came out of me this morning. A boy. The nurse asked if I would breastfeed. I nearly vomited at the prospect. Of course I will not.
” Hy was playing a part, reading in the voice of a rich spoiled old lady. Had she known, she sounded uncannily like Viola.

“Good acting, but she wasn't an old lady with a shaky voice when she had the kid.”

“True.” She continued reading out loud. Ian was glad. It spared him reaching for his glasses on the coffee table.

“
The deal is done. I'm well rid of him. I only pretended to put up a fight for appearances. I have given him life…and given him up. For good.
”

Hy looked at Ian.

“I have given him life. That's what it says in the last entry. It also says. ‘
He's given me death.
' Death for dinner? Death from the wind turbine? I tell you, it's Anton or Newton. If either of them, her coldness, her indifference could be a reason to kill. Or her money.”

Ian stretched and stood up, curiosity motivating him over to the computer.

“That should be easy enough to find out.” He clicked on the keyboard and his computer came to life.

“Anton Paradis.” He stared at the screen for a long time, scrolling, clicking, saving, deleting, and finally giving up.

“Nothing on Anton Paradis, except, as you can imagine, a few porno sites.”

“And Newton Fanshaw?”

“Give me a minute. There's the site where we found his doctoral thesis, but I'm not coming up with anything else so far.”

“We should tell Jamieson about that.”

“Yes.”

“And this?” Hy held up the journal. “Or do we give it back to Anton?”

“Oh, God, I don't know.”

“I'm going to take it back.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“In the dark?”

Hy looked out the window. The flag at the hall was limp, not a breath of wind, but the blades of the big wind turbine were spinning furiously on the cape.

She smiled. “Perhaps not. It's nice and cozy in here.”

Ian got up and came to sit beside her on the couch again. He put his arm along the back of it, winding a finger around a curl.

She grinned.

Best reaction in a long time.

A few days later – when the police tape had come down off the cape, Hy went down at dusk to see if she could find any clues Jamieson had missed.

Fiona's death still hadn't been ruled accident or murder, and she was determined to find out if she could change that.

A pale yellow sun was setting over a misty shore. There was a good breeze sending the blades of the wind turbine whirring.

Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp.

Hy looked up at them.

Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp.

She felt her body moving to the rhythm of the blades, their whirring sound invading her brain, until it was the only sound inside her. Not her blood, not her heartbeat, nothing but the slicing of the blades. Her vision was blurred by their movement. They seemed to grow bigger, come closer.

Hypnotized.

She stepped back. A piece of the cape crumbled beneath her foot.

She lost her balance.

Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp. Whoosh thwarp.

Her body tilted. She couldn't recover. One foot sliding down the cape, the other lifting –

And she was in his arms.

Safe. The male smell and warmth of him enfolding her.

It was as if she came to. She couldn't speak at first, but that was okay, because he spoke first.

“You idiot! I thought you might get up to something like this.” Ian pulled her closer, as if she were still in danger. She was safe in his arms.

She still couldn't speak. Her mouth was dry with fear.

“But that's it!” Finally, she could speak. She was sure she knew what had happened.

She pulled herself out of Ian's arms, and immediately
regretted it. It had been nice…

But she was too excited by what she'd found out.

“I know what happened. It was the wind turbine!”

He put a hand on her shoulder, and drew her to him again. She began to shiver. Not cold, but fear of the danger she'd been in, and fear of this revived closeness with Ian.

“Just relax,” he said, smoothing down her hair. It sprang up again. The unruly red curls he so admired.

Her teeth began to chatter.

He put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up.

“What am I going to do with you?”

“Take me home.”

“Yours – or mine?”

They were intercepted on their way up to Ian's. Intercepted by Moira, who'd had her eye on the two figures on the cape from her back window. She knew it was Hy and Ian. She had seen them hug. Her eyes and her spirit narrowed. She dried her hands on her apron, tugged it off, and didn't take the time to hang it on the back door, but dropped it on the mudroom floor and yanked the door open.

“Help!” She raised her arms and waved in their direction. “Help!”

Hy and Ian broke apart and began to run toward her.

A mean smile crossed Moira's lips, contempt etched her eyes. She turned and yanked the cord on her computer. It no longer had an office of its own. Moira begrudged it the room that could be used for a paying guest, and so it had only a corner of the kitchen. Enough to answer emails for her businesses and to look up recipes. The blank, black screen stared back at her. Ian thrust through the door.

“What's wrong?”

“My computer. It's gone black.”

Ian was at first resentful that the trouble wasn't more compelling than he'd thought, but he was soon immersed in the keyboard, clicking at the keys, trying to bring life back to the screen.

Hy came through the door, out of breath. She knew Moira and her tricks better than Ian did.

“It
is
plugged in?” She ducked down, grabbed the power cord, and followed it across the floor. “Nope.” She emerged holding the plug. She stuck it in the outlet, hit the power key on the keyboard, and the screen flickered to life.

Ian flushed red with embarrassment. Moira sparkled with triumph. Hy looked glum.

Moira had interrupted their moment. Successfully. When they left, Hy went in the direction of her house; Ian, to his.

“There was no wind that night.” Gus pushed a thread through her needle. “Not a breath of a breeze.” Jamieson had shown up at Gus Mack's in a tour of the village trying to find out if anyone had seen anything that would help in her investigation of Fiona's death. Hy was there, having tea with Gus. She felt immediately guilty. There was the fact that Newton was a botanist. And she hadn't done anything about Viola's journal. She was still carrying it about in her red leather purse. Why, she wasn't sure. It seemed the safest place.

“No. Not the breath of a breeze,” Gus repeated. She did that when she liked the sound of something, or to emphasize the correctness of her point. This time it was both.

“How do you know?”

“I know because I have the flag at the Hall to follow. When that fails me, I have the machine.”

Hy knew she meant the wind turbine. Jamieson did not.

“Machine?”

“The whirligig. 'Twasn't moving, nor was the flag.”

“Are you sure?”

“How could I not be, with nothing to do but look out that big window?”

She was not looking out now, thought Jamieson, as Gus tilted her head to the patch she was working on.

“What pattern is that?” Jamieson surprised herself by asking the question. When had she started noticing quilt patterns?

“It's called Waste Not. About time I used up all that fabric in the back room. I can't take it with me.”

“It looks like a wind turbine.”

Gus picked it up and eyed it.

“Happen it do. Only four blades not three.”

She'd finished her fish quilt and was back on the whirligig.

“You're sure they weren't moving that night?”

“Sure as Abel's my husband.”

That didn't inspire confidence in Jamieson or Hy. Gus was the only one who ever saw Abel. Perhaps she's killed him, mused Hy. It was a thought she would not be sharing with Jamieson.

Hy left when Jamieson left, because she knew she'd have to tell her about Newton's thesis. Not the journal. She hadn't figured out what to do with it yet. The thesis would be a start.

Jamieson was in the car, and Hy leaned in the open passenger window.

“I should tell you…”

Jamieson's eyes sharpened. She knew McAllister well enough that whatever it was would be coming in the form of a confession.

“Newton – we Googled him.”

“And…?”

“He's a botanist.”

“Interesting.” Interesting that he'd been evasive and concealed it.

“More than that – ”

“Yes…?”

“His thesis was…I can't say what his thesis was.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's a bunch of academic gobbledygook. But it was about the fact that crocuses can kill.”

“Interesting. Thank you, McAllister. You can email me the link. Anything else?”

Hy said “no” so low that Jamieson couldn't hear her.

“Nothing else?”

Hy shook her head.

Lips sealed.

A bulging bag of guilt swinging from her shoulder.

The Japanese chef was back in Japan. What kind of resources would she be given to track him down? Not many, thought Jamieson bitterly, not especially since Paradis had offered a free dinner to the premier, several island MPs, and the RCMP Superintendent, visiting Red Island on a temporary posting following a sick leave. Anton had blown the money from the last few thousand deposited in his account this week, and he hoped this would be worth it – to help clean up his image, get rid of the trailer, make some important contacts.

He was juggling what money he had, all his balls in the air.

It was hard to tell that the Superintendent had been ill, so greedily did he wolf his food. When his plate was clean, he let out a large belch that had the other guests tittering.

Anton blanched. He didn't want any laughing at his table. Not after what had happened.

They had come, in an entourage of upscale vehicles, smiles on their faces, still on their faces as they left, filled with excellent food and wine. Paradis had delicately avoided fish and Japanese chefs. The gentlemen had enjoyed roast beef. They were grateful for it. The summer ahead would be non-stop seafood at social events. It might sound like paradise to some, but not to the jaded palates of east-coast politicians. Kobe beef made a nice change.

They'd agreed with Paradis that the view of the trailer in front of his summer business was a shame. Yes, they all said, they would see what they could do to expedite this matter. No promises, but –

A firm handshake and a conspiratorial wink from Paradis as he said to each one of his guests separately, “We must arrange for you to come again – with some of your own guests.” It did not go amiss. Several left calculating what pressure, how much, and where they could apply it to get rid of that atrocious scar on the landscape.

The trailer was gone the next day. Who did what to whom, Jamieson never found out. She was outraged, and it spilled out onto the pages of her weekly briefing that she knew would not be read at the detachment.

But this time, it was.

Hy still had the journal. She called it “The Book of Bitching.” That's what it was. Complaints about people who didn't live up to expectations. People Viola knew, people she didn't know at all. On the Riviera, there was no acknowledgement of the beauty of the Mediterranean, but plenty of complaints about the woman in the deck chair next to her.

Hy could only read so much at a time. It made her eyes sore, the tiny script, and her eyes weren't what they once were. Approaching forty, Hy was finding that the print on pharmaceuticals, beauty products, and shampoos was smaller than it used to be. She kept a magnifying glass in her bathroom, and she'd been using it to read Viola's Book of Bitching.

Hy no longer had any plan to hand it over to Jamieson – certainly not before she combed it thoroughly. She was looking for another reference to the child who had been wanted, then not wanted, and then given away.

Jamieson couldn't use evidence from stolen goods. Hy would have to return it to Anton. Or would she? Who was Viola's son?

Chapter Twenty-One

Moira could hardly wait to make her announcement at the Women's Institute meeting. By tradition, births, deaths, and marriages had to be made public here before they appeared in the newspapers. The women were jealous of such bits of news, the only news they cared about. They liked to have these life passages to themselves first.

Moira waited until each woman had sat in her usual place around the kitchen table. She remained standing, much to Gladys's annoyance. As President of the Institute, she should have been the last to sit, an unofficial signal that the meeting had begun.

Moira continued to stand. Gladys did, too. Her frown got
deeper.

“Before we start the meeting, I have an announcement to make.” With a coy expression, Moira began to toy with the engagement ring Frank had given her. All eyes were riveted on it. None showed any comprehension.

It would never occur to them that Moira was engaged. Not even Rose Rose, and she had a deep belief that there was someone for everyone. Including Moira. Though, it had not escaped her notice, or that of anyone in the village, that a vehicle had been parked at Moira's house overnight on more than one occasion recently.

“I am affianced.”

“Oh, dear, that's terrible,” said Olive. A few of the others muttered sadly in support.

“So sorry, Moira,” said Estelle Joudry.

Only Hy understood what Moira had said.

“It's not a disease. She's getting engaged.” Just in case there was any confusion about that, she added, “…to be married. Engaged to be married.” Hy almost choked on the words. She couldn't believe it either, but there was the proof.

Moira had stuck her left arm straight out, and let her hand hang down so the ladies could admire her ring.

There were “oohs” and “aahs.” The ring wasn't much, small and mean, most thought. Gladys was glad it was.

But it was an engagement ring, something the other women didn't have. They were all toying with the slim gold bands that declared them respectable married women.

Now Moira would be one of them. Well, not exactly. She wouldn't be having children, would she? Not at her age. So she wouldn't be fully respectable. She'd be having sex, without children.

“Congratulations, Moira,” Annabelle cut in. “Who's the lucky man?”

Hy could see the glimmer of a smirk on her friend's face, and turned away, afraid to catch her eye and burst out laughing.

“Frank Webster.”

“The mailman?” Gladys made it sound as if it offended her personally.

Moira straightened her back and pursed her lips.

“Canada Post would be fortunate to have his talents, but, no, not the mailman. He's the owner and operator of an island-based delivery business, Frank Express.”

“The man who brought the slow cookers?” April Dewey thought that if it were, he might be persuaded to take them back.

The meeting never got going after that. The women all wanted to talk about the marriage – when and where it was going to be.

“Soon. At our age, why wait? On the beach.”

“On the beach? Who ever heard of that?” said Gladys, frowning on top of her frown.

“Oh, they're all doing it, on beaches in Mexico,” said Hy. “All the celebrities.”

“You're never getting married on a beach in Mexico.” Estelle clasped her hands to her chest and gazed up at the ceiling with a sigh.

“Oh, I doubt it, Estelle.” Olive looked disapproving. “It would cost too much money.”

“And where would you find the minister?” Rose piped up in a high, anxious voice.

Moira sat down. Finally. Gladys did, too.

“No. No. No. Not on a beach in Mexico. We have a perfectly good beach here. Lots of sunshine in July. Of course, Mrs. Rose, I hope the Reverend Rose will officiate.”

“This month? So soon?” Trust Gladys to cast doubt on the reason for the marriage.

The ladies exchanged looks. Moira couldn't be pregnant, could she?

No, she couldn't. Though she knew it was wrong to encourage the suspicion, Moira flushed, the hint of a smile on her face.

“As soon as the Reverend Rose is free. Why wait?”

That's what Frank had been thinking.

“On the beach.”

After the truncated meeting, Annabelle and Hy were walking down the Shore Lane. “That's quite avant-garde for Moira.”

“Oh, she'll have had her mind made up by her
Cosmo
magazines.”

Moira thought no one knew she read
Cosmo
, but they all did. There's no foolproof way in a small village to keep your recycling secrets. A strong wind can tip over your cart. A fox or raccoon can split a plastic bag. A nosy neighbour can spread its contents all over the village before a person could clean up the mess.

The two friends stopped at Annabelle's house. There was an unusual silence over the cape. They'd become used to the whirring of the turbine as part of the background sound to their lives, but the blades were not moving at all.

It was dead calm.

Hy shivered.

“You cold? In this?” It was a brilliant day with a blue sky and no wind.

“It was involuntary,” said Hy, looking over at the turbine.

“I don't like the noise it makes when it's moving, but it's spooky when it makes no sound at all. Just stands there.”

“You'd like it maybe to walk?”

Hy grinned. Then furrowed her brow. “Don't you find it creepy? I've always admired the look of them, but sometimes when I see a wind farm, I find them unsettling – as if they're aliens about to start marching and take over the world. And this one, this solitary turbine here at The Shores...sometimes it does give me the shivers. So does its owner.”

Annabelle decided to steer the conversation back to a
healthier topic.

“Do you think we'll be invited to the wedding?”

“I expect so,” said Hy. “She'll want to rub my nose in it.”

“What, me?” Hy was more interested in chasing murder suspects than marriage.

Moira had asked Hy to be her bridesmaid.

Hy choked back an emphatic “no” in favour of the more diplomatic, “What about Madeline?”

“Oh, she'll be one, too. You don't think I'd pick just you.” Moira's words sounded like a sneer.

Madeline and me, thought Hy. We'll look ridiculous – Mutt and Jeff. Maybe that's the point.

It was one of them. Moira also meant to underline to both that she – not they – was getting married. She had waited so long that she wanted to wallow in it. She already had Madeline waiting on her. She would glory in getting Hy to kowtow.

“Well…” Hy was desperately looking for something to say, a reason why she couldn't…

“I would expect that, as we are both members of Institute...”

Damn. Moira was calling on the solidarity of the Women's Institute. Hy's relationship with the group was checkered at best. She couldn't go against the W.I. Moira knew that.

“Okay.” Hy tried to sound as if she'd meant to agree all along. “What do I have to do?”

“Oh, nothing much.” There was triumph in Moira's tone.

Bright light pierced the sky from Hy's house late into the night. Neighbours who observed her patterns – and anyone who could see the house did – knew that Hy either went to bed early, or sometimes not at all, and kept her lights low, often using only candles to light her tiny home. The Book of Bitching had changed that. Full lights blazed late into the night as she continued to comb through it.

She found a reference, but it told her nothing.

He'll burden me with no grandchildren. If he was ever capable.

The last was intriguing, but it didn't reveal what Hy wanted to know. It was obvious that Viola did not like kids – hers or anyone else's.

Fiona had no one to mourn her. No one had been her friend. Newton wasn't a friend. He'd used her to satisfy his puerile needs. She was almost entirely forgotten.

Jamieson hadn't forgotten. She suspected Paradis had murdered Fiona. And she also suspected Fanshaw had killed her. One or the other. Both? One to push her off the cliff, the other to seal it with a rock?

Sometimes, when her imagination got away from her, she fancied the wind turbine had done the deed.

She had a clear view of it from the picture window in the living room of the police house. If she were very, very still, she could hear it as a deep rhythmical whirr, sent from its blades, down through the tower, into the ground, fanning out everywhere in The Shores.

Noise pollution – of a kind to make a person sick? Dizzy enough to fall off a cliff? She turned from the window and sat down at her computer. She was on the dial-up. As usual, it wasn't co-operating. She grabbed her notebook and walked briskly down to Ian's.

He was there, on his computer.

He turned and smiled at Jamieson when she came in. She was looking good. She had some colour in those pale cheeks. The colour heightened under his stare.

“How can I help?” Judging from her uniform and notebook, this was not a social visit. Those were usually in the morning, before she went on her community rounds.

“Wind turbines. What do you know about them?”

“The basics. What do you want to know?”

“About the health effects. Are they real or imagined?”

“I imagine they're real.” Ian grinned. Jamieson did not.

He turned back to the computer, and soon had a variety of sites on the health effects of wind turbines.

“Affects sleep hormones, causes chronic insomnia, nausea, headaches, anxiety, depression…mental instability, a smorgasbord.”

“Mental instability. Interesting.” Could it cause someone to kill? She dismissed the idea. But it might cause someone to fall.

“Dizziness?”

Ian stared at the screen, scrolled down.

“Yup, dizziness.”

“Bad?”

Ian checked several sites.

“They all mention it. I gather it has something to do with noise, balance, and the inner ear.”

“So that turbine could have sent Fiona off the cliff – without human help.”

“I guess, but I'm no expert. I know I've felt dizzy when I come close to that monster.”

“Yes.” Jamieson bit her lower lip. “Yes. I have, too.”

“Still it could appear to be the cause, an alibi for intent, if you will.”

“You mean that somebody pushed her, hoping dizziness caused by the turbine would be considered the real killer.”

“Yes,” said Ian. “And maybe it was.”

The turbine as killer. Newton Fanshaw as killer?

New suspect number one.

There turned out to be a lot more than nothing for Hy to do as Moira's bridesmaid. Madeline was hiding out, and Hy had to do everything. Madeline wasn't being mean. She was just working to exhaustion with Billy making money for their own marriage. In spite of her size, she was helping Billy with the lawn-cutting business he now shared with Nathan. Billy did the tractor work and Madeline used the whipper snipper that was almost as big as she was. Moira didn't need her help. Moira had never needed her help. She just liked to have Madeline to kick around. Now she was going to try it on Hy.

Moira insisted that she would wear her mother's wedding gown. It was much too short and barely fastened – thirty-six tiny buttons down the back, straining at the loops meant to hold them. Moira was slim to the point of being scrawny, but women today can't fit the dresses of women a generation before. Nutrition has made us all bigger, Hy thought, as she tugged at the dress, trying to find some slack to ease the tension on the button and loop she was trying to secure. It was hell to get them done or undone. It became easier after the waistline, fastening down the full skirt, but still the buttons were small, tiny. Pearls they were supposed to be, but some were chipped – not really pearls at all.

Try telling Moira that.

The last one came off, its threads so old and dry they disintegrated. The button hopped across the floor and slid under a dresser.

Moira spun around, reproof in her eyes. Hy wanted to smack her.

“I can't get it.” Moira turned back to the mirror and smoothed the bodice of the dress. If it hadn't been a wedding dress – and her mother's – she never would have worn clothing so tight. The only place there was any slack was at the breasts. Even smaller than her mother's, but her mother had been pregnant when she'd married – something Moira didn't know.

Hy was sprawled on the floor, her nose itchy with the dust. Dust. Something she had never expected to find in Moira's house. She sneezed.

“It's dusty.” Hy couldn't resist pointing it out.

Moira bristled. It was the spare room. She had been neglecting it. She had no Bed and Breakfast customers lined up for the summer. She didn't realize that the house and the rooms were not inviting. Potential guests never went past the dull photos on the website. Plain and Spartan. Now dusty, too.

Moira chose to ignore Hy's comment.

“Did you find it?”

“I can't see it anywhere.” It was dark under there. Hy groped around with her hand, stretching her arm as far as it would go, feeling in the dust, until she gave up.

“It's not worth it, Moira.”

“What? Perhaps not to you. Every bit of this dress was my mother's, including that pearl. Pearl, Hyacinth.”

Should she say something? She sighed. It wasn't worth fighting it. Those pearls were no more real than the ones strung around the pig's straw hat on the ceramic savings bank on the dresser.

As she pulled herself up from the floor, Hy saw it. Tucked under the claw foot of the dresser leg.

She grabbed it and stood up.

Moira had been toying with asking Hy to sew it back on. That was the sort of thing bridesmaids did, wasn't it? That might be pushing it too far. Perhaps it was enough to have the satisfaction that she was getting married and Hy was not. Of having her as a bridesmaid, answerable to her whims. That tipped it.