The Dead Letter

The Dead Letter © 2015 by Finley Martin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without
the prior written permission of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright
Licensing Agency.

P.O. Box 22024
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
C1A 9J2
acornpresscanada.com

Substantive edit by Jane Ledwell
Copy edit by Laurie Brinklow
Cover design by Matt Reid
eBook design by Joseph Muise

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Martin, Finley, author
The dead letter / Finley Martin.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-
927502
-35-8 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-927502-36-5 (epub)
I. Title.

PS8626.A76954D43 2015 C813'.6 C2015-900887-5
C2015
-900888-3

The publisher acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada
through the Canada Book Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage,
the
Canada Council for the Arts Block Grant Program and the support of the
Province of Prince Edward Island.

To my mother, Anna R. (Hamzik)
Martin, for the self-sacrifice, perseverance, and guidance she modeled in her life as a working widow with children.

1.

Prince Edward Island, Canada

Friday, 5 October 2001

“All right, I'm having an affair. So what? You don't own me.”

Simone Villier hooked her thumbs under her waistband and rotated her hips slowly back and forth as she adjusted her skirt. She evoked an uncommon sensuality, and she was aware of its effects—carnal glances from men, and the confused mix of disapproval and guilty envy from women.

Constable Jamie MacFarlane's fingers gripped the web belt that held his service pistol, handcuffs, night light, and radio, and listened in disbelief. Like many other men around Charlottetown, Jamie MacFarlane had been drawn to her, but his advances had had greater success, and they had engaged in a fiery and tumultuous romance for eight months.

Now it was over. And, tonight, her alluring moves, which once had thrilled him, felt hollow, taunting, and cruel.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“I'm not going to tell you who it is. It's none of your business.”

Simone looked away. His jealousy pleased her. Then, to fill the silence, she straightened a few items on her office desk and hoped that Jamie would stomp off into the night and be done with it, but he didn't. He remained. He said nothing. The silence was uncomfortable. She ignored him and stared out the second-floor window of her office into the darkness of the harbour and focused on the beads of light that framed the skyline of the city of Charlottetown.

Then Jamie's hand slammed the top of the desk, and his voice snapped like a bullet.

“I want to know! Who is it?”

“Screw you!”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. Her eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed with anger, and she pulled away and circled behind her desk. Jamie didn't follow.

“Then why! Tell me that,” he demanded.

“What difference does it make?” she asked, her tone quieter now. Tired, but not conciliatory. “We're over. Finished. It was a laugh for a while. A few great times even. Now it's done.”

“It's not over…not 'til I say it is.”

“You sound like a spoiled kid. Grow up.” Simone grabbed her jacket and strode toward the door, but Jamie blocked her way.

“You're not leaving until I get an answer. Why?”

“You want to know why? Okay. Here the story. You were cute, but not cute enough. Is that reason enough? You were charming, but it wore so thin I could see right through you. Is that enough? No? How 'bout you work all the time! You're not fun anymore…and haven't been for a long time. Is that enough? Plenty enough for me, anyway.”

“You're just a fucking tramp!”

“And what are you? You think that cop uniform makes you some big shot? You're not. You're nobody! A big mouth with pocket change.”

“Slut!”

“Loser! Oh…and here's another reason! I'm pregnant…and before that idea starts rollin' around your empty head, it's not yours.”

The muscles in MacFarlane's jaw flexed.

“How long?”

“Three months or so.”

“You've been bangin' him…and me…for the last three months. Who is he?”

Simone laughed.

“Oh, it's been a lot longer than that. And you don't need to know. It's none of your business.”

“Who is he?” he shouted. “Do I know him?” He grabbed Simone and shook her hard until her head snapped back and forth like a broken toy and her face blanched. “Who is he? Who is he?”

She struggled in his grip like a frightened dog, squirmed and writhed. Her strength and tenacity surprised him. His hands slipped as the point of her shoe caught him sharply on the shin. Simone broke away. Her right hand swiped painfully across his eye. As she took a step back, his one hand rose to his eye, and his other dropped onto the top of the desk. It fell on a heavy metal three-hole punch. With an emerging hatred, he swung the club-like machine above his head and struck, down and diagonally, across her skull. The bone sounded with a sharp crack, and Simone fell to the floor.

She remained motionless but for her eyes, which were closing slowly, like those of a cat drifting into sleep.

MacFarlane felt for a pulse. There was none. He walked to the door and flicked off the light. He started to leave, but the sudden darkness swept over him like a wave. It smothered his panic and dampened his anger. It also woke him to the realization that Simone was dead, that he had killed her, and that the murder weapon was still frozen in his hand.

He lingered a few more minutes in the dark until his heart slowed and his thinking cleared, and the only sound that filled his ears was the clack clack clack of a cheap wall clock beating away at the minutes.

By the time he flicked the light switch back on, he knew what he had to do. He wiped his fingerprints from the doorknobs and switches and desk. He cleaned his prints from the three-hole punch and dropped it near her body. Simone's purse lay on the desk. He dumped the contents and took her wallet and cell phone. He yanked a gold necklace from her neck and slipped a sapphire ring from her finger. He stuffed all of it into a pocket of his uniform, crept into the stillness of the hallway, and descended the fire stairs to a side street exit.

Someone will have to pay for Simone's killing,
he thought.

2.

The office was stuffy, the radiator pumped heat relentlessly, and the thermostat was tamper-proof. So Carolyn Jollimore sometimes left the door open when she worked evenings. That evening she couldn't help but hear a man and woman arguing on the floor below her. Sounds carried far in a nearly empty building late at night, but she could only make out a few words.
Slut
was one of the kinder epithets that reached her ears. That word offended her, but the cadence of the quarrel disturbed her even more. It sounded hateful—like two people stabbing each other with words—and, at the same time, it sounded almost operatic—a powerful baritone punctuating a warbling protest. All of it was distasteful, and she wished she could shut her ears to the whole vulgar affair.

Quarrels belong on the stage or in a film
, thought Carolyn
, not in one's own living-room…or workplace.
Carolyn wanted to put the matter out of her ears, but the drama one floor below called to mind another struggle, one that centred on her mother, now in the grip of dementia.

Carolyn's mother had suffered with the illness for the last three years. Its onset had been almost imperceptible at first. Some words just slipped away: the name of a cousin…
but I scarcely knew the child
; the year she married…
Ah! But it was so long ago
; or where she had left a shopping list…
you must have thrown it in the trash, dear
. In the beginning, Carolyn and her sister Edna accepted such lapses as the muddlings of a too-busy mind. A diagnosis followed. A home care worker was called to join the household, first one and then another…
Why is that woman in my house?
Who is she? I don't know her.
Make her go away
. Carolyn and Edna divided the rest of the day and night duty between themselves…
Where's Edna? Why does she hate me?
Then darker, more frightening, more confusing days…
Where is my…you know… Where is my…thing? You know, Carolyn, you know…where is it?… Help me, Carolyn… Why won't you help me?

Carolyn wished she could help her, but she couldn't. Carolyn wished she could escape, but she couldn't do that either. Most times, a stolen hour of solitude on an empty beach replenished Carolyn's spirit. Sometimes, it couldn't—like early this year when she wove a path between ice floes grounded along a March shoreline and, day after day, watched the progress of a cold sun etch the frozen surfaces and carve deep holes into places where memories once lived.

Carolyn gathered some papers together and placed them in a file. It was midnight. Her shift was over, and she made her way down the stairs. The lovers' quarrel had ended several hours before, but, as she passed that second-floor office, she noticed a light still burning behind the frosted glass door, the door ajar, and no hint of life within. Carolyn frowned disapprovingly.
Such shoddy work habits in young people these days
, she thought, and continued down the stairs and into the light of a waning moon.

3.

Sunday, 7 October 2001

Chief of Police Bruce Quigley and Sergeant Ryan Schaeffer of the Stratford Police Department stood in the doorway of Tidewater's second-floor office and stared at the corpse of Simone Villier, still undisturbed in the position it had fallen two nights before. A weekend janitor had found the body and called police. There had been no need for paramedics. The blood she had spilled had hardened, and the grimness of rigor mortis had taken hold and then passed.

Schaeffer received the call. Quigley met him at the scene.

“It's Jamie's girl,” he said. “Simone.”

“I can see that,” said Quigley.

“How do you want to do this?”

“Process the scene. Work the neighbourhood. See what shakes out.”

“The department's first murder,” Schaeffer mused.

“Yeah, and on a Thanksgiving weekend when any witnesses would have gone off to Grandma's for roast turkey and pumpkin pie.”

“Who do you want to process the crime scene? We could get the unit from Charlottetown police.”

“No…call the RCMP. We'll look like the poor cousins if we go to City for help. If we tap the Mounties, it'll look like City isn't up to the job. Politics. You know. But we'll handle the investigation ourselves. We close it…we get the blue ribbon.”

“What about him?” No one else was in the room, but Quigley knew who Schaeffer meant.

“Check him out…informal interviews…on the quiet, nothing public for now.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking that some things never change. Odds are it's either a boyfriend or a husband, and it's either money or hate. So follow the bread crumbs. Prove me wrong. Please. I'd hate like hell to think that one of our own would kill somebody.”

“It'd be hard on the department.”

“No, it'd be the end of the department.”

Quigley felt the shadows of the vultures circling overhead. Four years before, a cadre of town councillors had unsuccessfully opposed a plan to give Stratford its own police department.
Start-up costs would be perilously high
, they said.
The town couldn't afford to pay police salaries
, they said, and they had been right. The following year property tax rates rose to meet the shortfall.

It was just recently, however, that scars of that struggle had begun to heal. A scandal now, though, would energize the old naysayers. They would muster public support, and memory of the fledgling Stratford police force would slip away, leaving only a quaint footnote in town history.

Sergeant Schaeffer didn't call ahead. He drove north of town along the Hillsborough River and into some older, less-structured subdivisions. MacFarlane's place was on the river side of the road. It had been built as a cottage twenty years before, but a new addition and some renovations had converted it into a small, comfortable, attractive house.

Schaeffer knocked and rang the bell. He waited and then knocked again, louder. MacFarlane opened the door and motioned him in.

MacFarlane was six-foot-four. A solid, muscular build made him look even taller. He wore loose grey sweatpants and a faded green T-shirt. He hadn't shaved. Schaeffer noticed his puffy eyes and suspected that he hadn't slept either. He caught a sour smell of liquor on his Sunday-afternoon breath.

“Sorry for your loss, Jamie.”

“Thank you… I take it you have some questions.”

“Sorry for that too, but…,” said Schaeffer.

“I know… I've been expecting you…or somebody.”

Schaeffer took out his notebook, settled into an armchair across from MacFarlane, and asked him to account for his activities on Friday night.

“You know I was on duty,” said MacFarlane as if to remind him. Schaeffer nodded.

And MacFarlane went on to describe his shift. Two officers had been on duty overnight. Docherty had manned the office, while MacFarlane patrolled in an unmarked car. At eight o'clock he had written a report on a fender-bender in front of the liquor store. After that he had responded to a noise complaint in an apartment on Pondside Court. Then he cruised the community park for underage drinkers. After Docherty had received complaints of two cars being broken into, MacFarlane spotted three juveniles scurrying through backyards. He lost them, but they resurfaced an hour later near the fire hall. He questioned them—the Curry brothers and a Lowell Matheson—but there was no legal reason to detain them and, after that, he returned to the station. The rest of the evening was quiet, he said.

“Were you at her office that evening?”

“No.”

“Did you talk to her…by phone…text…?”

“No…not Friday. I slept most of Saturday. Saturday night I called her cell, but it was turned off. When I couldn't get hold of her this morning, I called her mother. She hadn't heard from her either. We both worried…but there wasn't much we could do. Then Bernadette, her mother, phoned just after noon. She told me Simone was dead. She was angry. She thought I knew, but I didn't…not until she told me.”

“Does she have enemies? Anybody bothering her? Strange behaviour?”

“No, nothing.”

“Did you kill Simone?”

The bluntness of the question stunned MacFarlane. His lips parted, but no words spilled out. He swallowed the dryness in his mouth. Then he said, “No… I could never do anything like that,” and he turned his head away and stared at an empty wall.

Schaeffer was about to ask MacFarlane how he and Simone were getting along the last week or so, but he never got the chance. Jamie, still staring at the empty wall, said, “We were expecting a child…did you know that?…a child.”

Jamie's voice had a detached quality to it.

Schaeffer sensed that he had lost him. He asked nothing more, and nothing more was offered. So Schaeffer saw himself out and closed the door behind him. MacFarlane continued to stare at the blank wall until long after the sound of Schaeffer's car faded away. Then he reached into his pocket, drew out Simone's cell phone, and scrolled through the chronicle of her secret love affair—her saved text messages—just as he had done several times already.