Something Fishy (22 page)

“I guess so. But plenty of people are adopted.”

Hy herself had never known her parents, had been brought up by her grandmother, who was brittle and resentful at the duty thrust upon her by the deaths of her husband, daughter, and son-in-law. She'd shed no tears for them, but many for herself, although Hy was an easy child to bring up, except for her boundless curiosity.

“Adopted, sure, but not by Mary and Joseph.”

“It doesn't get us any closer to solving two deaths – or murders.” Jamieson looked with a blank expression at the photos. Bizarre, yes. The guy was nuts, no doubt. That wasn't a crime.

“There's a journal.”

Jamieson whipped her head around. Her eyes pierced the distance between them.

“What?”

“A journal. I, uh, I, uh…found it. It was her journal – Viola's.”

“Where is it?”

“Anton has it.”

Hy hoped Jamieson wouldn't probe too deeply into how she'd found the journal.

“Withholding evidence.”

“There hasn't been a charge. There hasn't been a crime.”

“Except maybe the one you've committed. McAllister, this time I really am going to charge you. I really am.” Even Jamieson knew her words were empty. She'd said them too often.

Harold MacLean was the local carpenter and The Shores' self-appointed weather prognosticator. He was usually wrong, which was expected. Ever since the wind turbine had arrived in the village, he'd been telling anyone who'd listen what he knew about wind. Fortunately, that wasn't much. He was popular with the tourists, who thought he meant what he said.

When the wind blew, he'd gauge its force.

“If it blows a chain out at right angles, then you've got a breeze. If it blows straight up, perpendicular to the ground, then you've got a gust.”

Harold's weather knowledge did not encompass what happened that night. Even forecasters in Charlottetown were unfamiliar with the phenomenon. Besides, no one knew it had happened – they were all soundly asleep in their beds. All except Gus. She was terrified of thunderstorms, and spent the night, fully dressed, purse in her lap, clutching her newly finished fish crib quilt and her baby booties and leggings, ready to exit the house as soon as lightning struck. She had forced Abel up and out of bed, too, but didn't know where he was now.

She heard the tremendous sound of the wind as it gathered strength and lashed out at the cape, but it seemed no more unusual than the sound of any thunderstorm. They were all equally terrifying to her.

The only other one keeping a lonely vigil in the gathering storm was the turbine, shuddering under the blast of wind Harold MacLean would have found impossible to describe. The blades were whipping around at a tremendous speed, when a funnel of air came channeling down into the thunderstorm. The rain evaporated in the dry air. The air cooled and descended in a rush, causing a downdraft that slammed into the foundation of the wind turbine at sixty kilometers per hour. For the tower, it was like getting socked in the stomach, only farther down.

The microburst, a rare and devastating weather phenomenon, had just inflicted severe damage to the base of the tower. It absorbed the blow deep into its foundation.

The damage didn't show.

Lili would have said it was biding its time.

Chapter Twenty-Five

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?

Hy had copied the key passages from Viola's journal. Passages that, if Newton had read them, would have filled him with hate for his mother and could have caused him to kill her.

The baby kicked today, for the first time. Am I to put up with this for another four months? It makes me sick, sick to the bone. I want it out, out, out.

Jamieson was reading Hy's notes. When she'd finished, she looked up.

“You believe she was his mother.”

Hy nodded.

“That should be easy to find out. If she is, and if he knew about this journal, then he may have killed her.”

Hy smiled. Her own conclusion. Then frowned. “I can't believe we haven't Googled her.” Hy was stabbing at her cell phone, calling Ian.

“You can't use that in a hospital.” Jamieson was shocked.

“You can in Quiet Rooms.” Ed was no longer there to gainsay her.

Hy didn't even say hello. Ian was used to that.

“Feather-stone-huff. Don't know how it's pronounced, but it's spelled F…e…a…t…h…e…r…s…t…o…n…e…h…a…u…g…h. Google it. There can't be too many in there.”

“No person attached to it, but it says it's the longest surname in the English language.”

“Does it say how it's pronounced?”

“F…a…n…s…h…a…w.”

“Fanshaw.” She looked at Jamieson.

Ian activated the vocal pronunciation. Hy held the phone up so Jamieson could hear.

“
Fanshaw.
”

“Fanshaw?” Hy repeated. Jamieson jumped up.

“Yup.”

“Thanks, Ian. I'll explain when I see you.”

The wheels were already spinning in Ian's head, and he was coming to the same conclusions as Hy and Jamieson. Newton's father had chosen the simpler version of his name; Viola had kept the name, but stuck with the more pretentious spelling. It was partly why she'd married him – to get that name.

Jamieson rushed to Newton's room, but wouldn't allow Hy in with her; Ed watched, from a trolley of pill cups – he was reluctantly back on duty delivering medications on his evening rounds.

“Fanshaw. Your mother's name?”

One blink.
Yes.

“Viola Fanshaw.” Jamieson consulted her notebook. F…e…a…t…h…e…r…s…t…o…n…e…h…a…u…g…h…was your mother.”

One blink.
Yes.

“Did you hate her?”

One blink.
Yes.

“Did you kill her?”

One blink.
Yes?

Would there be another blink.
No?

Jamieson waited. Then went for confirmation.

“You killed your mother.”

One blink.
Yes.

She waited again.

A flutter. Was that a blink? Was he trying to blink again – to say no? Then he began to twitch. An obviously involuntary movement, but it seemed to be affecting his ability to blink at will.

There was nothing more from Newton, eyes staring wide. Only the twitching. Was it fair to assume he was saying he had killed his mother? He couldn't talk, and now it seemed he couldn't blink.

Newton was quickly losing awareness, but he did know that he could no longer communicate. He couldn't tell Jamieson what was going through his mind. He wanted to. He wanted to be understood, but it took more than a yes and a no. More than a blink or two, and he couldn't control those anymore. What he felt for his mother was twisted and complex. Love and hate, both. The love for the warmth and comfort of the womb, especially now. He was like a victim of pufferfish poisoning. The living dead. Wasn't that what his life had always been? A living death.

Jamieson asked the question he couldn't answer.

“Why?”

He stared blankly back at her.

“Why?” She was frustrated. This could be all wrapped up, was all wrapped up, but she needed to know why.

Newton was in another world. The hard cast around his body had been driving him crazy, and so he took his thoughts elsewhere. He took them to the time they'd cleared his blocked artery, infusing it with liquid that made him feel warm for the first and only time. It was the most wonderful physical sensation he'd ever had – of any kind. He had been floating on the inside and outside, suffused by a rush of well-being. He imagined it was happening.

“Why?” Jamieson was angry, frustrated that someone who might be willing to talk wasn't able.

Why was not a question that could be answered by a simple yes or no. Certainly in this case, the answer would have been very complex.

He still held a thin thread of life, but his ability to move any part of his body had shut down as the full force of his brain and spinal injury kicked in.

Dr. Diamante, when he was called on, confirmed that Newton Featherstonehaugh was alive, but as good as dead. He trotted out his usual pronouncement for such occasions: “It's time to call the family.” Not knowing that Newton may have killed whatever family he'd had.

His “confession” was in question. The one blink.
Yes.
Might there have been another?

Newton didn't care about any of it anymore. He was free, floating in the water of life, inside his carapace, no longer imprisoned by his broken body, but swimming fish-like in the fetal state, lulled in his mother's womb. If this were death –

Floating in water.

Then the flame extinguished.

Nothing.

As it was in the beginning…

Before the spark. Or the invention of the turkey baster, whatever its variety of uses.

Hy left the hospital before Jamieson. There was no point in sticking around unless Jamieson was willing to let her into Newton's room while she was questioning him. She wasn't willing. Hy also felt it was advisable to leave while Jamieson had not yet charged her. Hy was confident she wouldn't. After all, she'd cracked the case, hadn't she? Maybe that pissed Jamieson off.

On the long drive back to The Shores, Hy had a chance to think about the deluge of information unloaded from Google and Ed and those ultrasound shots – what it all said about Newton, the man who remembered his conception and his birth, who longed for the surrounding warmth of the womb from which he had been ripped, who had found fetus-like pleasure in the arms of fat Fiona. Had he killed Fiona after he killed Viola because she failed to substitute as a mother, even a mother as cold as his own, a mother who had tried to kill him?

There was only one word for it.

“Bizarre,” said Ian, after she had unloaded on him.

“And complex,” said Hy.

“You're right about that. Let's see.” Ian began tapping the keyboard.

“Viola is artificially inseminated with another man's sperm, because her husband is sterile.”

Hy picked up the thread.

“Five months later, she changes her mind about motherhood and has an abortion. There are twins. They don't know and they only remove one. By the time they do know, it's deemed too late for an abortion and she carries it to term.”

“It is Newton,” says Ian and Hy nods.

“She abandons husband and child within months, and the marriage is over within a year.”

“Okay, let me get this down.”

Hy paused, and then continued:

“Husband meets another woman. Sues for divorce. Is granted custody of Newton.”

“Forward thinking for those days. Custody to the father, and to a non-biological father at that. Obviously the judge frowned on the mother's abandonment, as well as the artificial insemination.”

“Then there's the whole suicide attempt or cry for help when his wife leaves him.”

“The ultrasounds, the claim he remembered his conception and birth, the whole Joseph and Mary thing…” Ian had stopped typing.

“So Viola was his mother?”

“I think the name thing clinches it.”

“And he killed Viola?”

“I think so. He had discovered her attempt to do away with him – the ultimate betrayal of his safe place.”

“And Fiona? Her, too?”

“Yes. There's no hard evidence. I don't suppose there ever will be. I think that after he killed his own mother, Fiona proved a poor substitute. He was clearly ashamed of his liaison with her. She may have become dizzy because of the wind turbine. They may have had a spat that ended up in a stupid, thoughtless manslaughter, a killing without intent. A push, a shove, getting her off him, and then – ”

“Dead.” Neither Ian nor Hy knew that Newton himself had now joined the list of casualties.

Jamieson headed straight for the dome when she got back to The Shores. She took the shortest route next to the fields, and parked on the far side. She wanted to see what else she could find. She was sure Newton had killed Viola, and just as sure he had killed Fiona, perhaps by accident, in some clifftop lovers' tiff. But she had to have as much evidence as she could gather to create a murder case.

Even if the killer was a dead man, he should be brought to justice in name, at least. Jamieson had seen too many cases buried by lack of digging on the part of police. Of that, at least, she would not be accused.

The cape was hauntingly silent that night, no wind, no whirring from the turbine, so quiet that her footsteps echoed loudly in the round building with its arched roof. She had the keys from Newton's belongings at the hospital. She fumbled for a light switch.

The lighting was strange. Recessed. Low wattage. Like a fog inside. Eerie.

Then footsteps, not hers. Footsteps outside.

She moved softly to the far end of the room.

The footsteps sounded closer. The door creaked open.

Hy? Snooping around again? She should charge her. Teach her a lesson. Although she had to admit Hy had been helpful, again, on this case. Maybe she herself would never have gotten hold of that journal in a legal way, so perhaps it was a good thing that Hy had stolen it.

The lights went out.

It wasn't Hy. She was glad she hadn't called out.

Jamieson ducked down and slithered under the bed. The cold blue light of an LED flashlight pierced the black interior, deep as night, but with no brightening stars or moon.

She couldn't see who it was, so she put all her concentration to her ears, to listening to the movement.

A drawer opening. Closing. Another drawer. Opening and closing. A third drawer. Some papers rustling. The drawer closing. The desk. Whoever it was, was putting something in the desk. Returning something? Planting evidence?

It was dusty under the bed.

Jamieson sneezed.

The flashlight sliced across the room and into her face.

Not Newton. Newton had not killed his mother. Newton was dead, and the person in this room was very much alive and connected to the murder. The person in this room, she realized, as a chill spread down her back, was the murderer. Of Viola. Of Fiona. One. Or both.

Why she thought these things she couldn't explain. It was that intuitive part of her brain acting up again. She felt as sure now as she had moments ago that Newton was the killer, that this was the real murderer, someone who knew something about Newton, who had taken something from the desk, or slipped it in.

The light was aimed right at her, blinding her, so she couldn't see who it was. She continued to focus on what she could hear.

Creaking floorboards. A presence casting a black shadow in the dark, erasing all light from the space it occupied.

Coming closer.

Stopping.

Jamieson swallowed. She wanted to speak, but if there were any chance he couldn't see exactly where she was, she must not guide him to her by her voice.

“I can see you under the bed. The dust made you sneeze. Not a good housekeeper, our friend Newton, but a good killer, a very good killer.”

So she spoke.

“You – ”

He squatted down. Shone the light directly in her eyes so that she was forced to close them hard. He grabbed hold of her hand and caressed her palm with his thumb.

A chill suffused her body.

Her fear triggered hiccups. Embarrassing.

“What were you doing in those drawers? Taking something? Leaving something behind?”

“A valuable piece of evidence I thought you should know about. I didn't want to be the one to give it to you. It would be…uh…indelicate. I miscalculated. I hoped the evidence would be waiting for you, but you are already here.”

There was something in the way he was talking. Too ingratiating.

“What is it, this evidence?”

He shrugged. His tone changed. Spoiled. Petulant. “I suppose I must show you, but I wanted you to discover it for yourself.”

Why was he planting evidence? Why did he not want to appear to be pointing the finger at Newton? Was it that he was the guilty one?

Anton. The killer of Viola? Of Fiona? Of Newton, too? Why was she having these thoughts? What logic was there to them?

The fact that he was here, for starters. And threatening a Mountie.

He saw the dawning of knowledge in her eyes. He dove for her, yanking her up from beneath the bed, and throwing her against the rounded back wall of the dome.

He pressed his body up against hers, thrusting Jamieson into an agony of disgust and fear. He felt it, and kept her pinned to the wall.

“I brought you evidence. You should be grateful.” His flashing smile bore down on her. “A thank you of some kind? Perhaps a kiss?” Anton had had no success with any of the women at The Shores. It shredded his pride. Perhaps he would have this one before he killed her.

“Show me. I've already been through that desk and removed the contents of the third drawer, so I would have known your evidence had been planted.”

“But you would not have known it was I who put it there.” He gripped her harder, pushed himself into her, grinding. She felt hot, dizzy, about to faint with disgust. She struggled to free herself from his grip, but it was useless. He was too strong.