The Dead Letter (16 page)

44.

“I've got good news and bad news,” said Ben. Anne was on the other end of that telephone call, still at her office, and still looking out her window.

“Shoot,” she said.

“Good news is… I'm officially opening an investigation into the Villier and Jollimore deaths.”

“That is good,” said Anne, and then added somewhat sarcastically. “Do I get to watch?”

“Ha, ha,” said Ben flatly. “You can look, but don't touch…for now.”

“Thanks a lot. I'll clean up my rose-coloured glasses, too.”

“Much appreciated.”

“And the bad news is…?”

“I'll be out of town for a week or so.”

“You never watched many Westerns when you were a kid, did you, Ben? If you had, you'd have known that good guys don't leave town 'til
after
they round up the bad guys. Cooper, Eastwood, John Wayne, Gregory Peck… Lee Marvin…et cetera, et cetera.”

“They didn't work for the Province of Prince Edward Island.”

“Well, thanks, Ben. That image just sucked all the life right out of my ‘home on the range' fantasy. Maybe I should just go shoot myself now.”

“That would be illegal…besides, moviegoers prefer happy endings.”

“So what's this trip about?”

“It's been in the works for a while. A sit-down with the gold braid at various law enforcement agencies off-Island. We just got the schedule this morning. I leave tomorrow, early. I'll be gone five or six days. Kinda looking forward to it… Sarah might come, too. If I'm lucky, I might even catch a Raptors home game.”

“So you'll be able to dig into
my
case when you get back?”

“Actually, with my laptop and wifi, I may be able to dig into something while I'm away. Here's the thing though. I want you to keep a low profile. Don't rock the boat. Get it?”

“Don't rock the boat,” she said. “I got it.”

“I mean it now. There's no need to rush ahead. None of the players are going anywhere.”

“Okay, okay, I can live with that…for a while. By the way, Eli was here.”

“Dit's Eli?” Ben sounded incredulous.

“Yep. He swept my office and car. Guess what? Telephone was bugged. Car had a tracking device.”

“Figured. Check with Dit. See if he can assess the devices he recovered. Are they high-tech? Low-tech? Law enforcement issue? Or off-the-shelf junk? Serial numbers. They might lead somewhere, too, and could be that the program used by the tracking device is managed by an online company. If so, we might get a warrant for the account.” Ben was becoming excited. So he was surprised to hear only dead silence on Anne's end. “You still there?” he added.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm still here. Sounds good but, better yet, why don't you check in with Dit on that?”

“Yeah… I guess I could handle that, if you want.”

“Thanks.”

Ben caught a tone in that one word that sounded troubled. He had sensed something out of tune earlier in their conversation, but had ignored it. Anne had joked and teased, much as she always did, but he perceived an edge to her humour that was not customary. It was not mean, but it was dispirited and more callous than he would have expected.

“Mind if I make a suggestion?”

“If you feel the need.”

“Look, Anne. I know that you've had a rough few days…and no doubt you're going to have a few more. It's happened to me more times than I want to admit, but, whenever I've been in a fast game, and I couldn't make the moves I wanted, sometimes I'd slow things right down…change the pace big-time. It throws the other team off. Know what I'm sayin'? Think about it.”

“Didn't know you played basketball, Ben.”

“Never did. I'm Jewish. Remember? I'm talking chess.”

45.

Anne changed the message on her answering machine to indicate that she would be out of the office for a few days. She locked the door, dropped the key into her coat pocket, and walked down the creaking wooden stairs to the main level and Victoria Row. She headed toward The Blue Peter. It was almost lunchtime.

Mary Anne's restaurant was only a few steps up Victoria Row from Anne's office but, in that short distance and in the time it took to get there, Anne had reached a conclusion: Ben's advice made sense. Maybe it was a good time to change the pace, do something different, let the dust settle on the case until she could find a side door into its secrets. There were still several pieces missing, and maybe they would fall into place with a little distance and perspective. Like Ben said, the players aren't going anywhere soon.

By the time Anne withdrew from her thoughts, she had reached the intersection at Grafton Street and, rather than backtrack to The
Blue Peter, Anne turned left and headed down the street toward the waterfront. Maybe try something different for a change.
Something new
, she told herself, and
something borrowed, something blue
, echoed in its wake.

The eye-catching displays in the store windows were a welcome distraction from annoying echoes. So was the heightened bustle of lunchtime foot traffic on a mild, sunny October day. The old business district of Charlottetown, through which she walked, had been transformed wondrously since her childhood memories of the place.

She could remember holding her father's hand as they walked. Long-haired hippies and their bizarre attire were commonplace then, but still a curiosity to a five-year-old from a conservative family. A craft shop and a fancy restaurant had recently displaced the shoemaker's narrow workplace, as well as a tailor shop her father used to frequent. And an art store with paintings of landscape and seascape hanging in its window had opened. Some looked like a child had painted them. Her father had laughed and swore that the shop wouldn't survive the year, but it did.

Since that time, a large hotel had risen on the site of the old waterfront. Alongside it were the yacht club and a marina and the memorial park. Long gone were the decrepit wharves, rundown sheds, and nighttime gathering places for local drunks, layabouts, and vagrants.

By half-past twelve, Anne found herself at the water's edge. Construction of a new convention centre had begun. The noise and dust were disturbing. So Anne edged away and followed a waterside boardwalk. The tide was rising. Waves lapped playfully against the rock breakwater and, in that watery chatter, Anne imagined children's laughter.

The sound of laughing children faded while Anne stared across the bay toward Stratford and along its shore. Simone Villier and Carolyn Jollimore and Jamie MacFarlane came to mind. Dit, too, his lavish home visible there among the trees across the water.

Something borrowed, something blue
echoed again, and Anne felt a cool wind draw in with the tide from the harbour's mouth.

Anne abandoned the boardwalk, cut up through the yacht club, past the half-dozen boats already hauled up and trussed securely in carriages for winter storage. She turned again and strolled between the brick of the new courthouse on one side of the street and a row of brick lawyers' offices on the other. Grafton Street lay just ahead. She had come full circle.

Anne stopped at the corner and waited for the light to turn. She heard footsteps padding softly behind her. She looked back and saw a familiar face.

It was Jacob Dawson.

“Jake,” she said, greeting him. It took a few more steps before he reached her. He recognized her, stopped, but struggled to remember her name.

“Billy… Darby, isn't it?”

“It is. What brings you down here? Break from school?”

“A bit of old business,” he said, gesturing vaguely back toward the brick buildings up the street. “And you?”

“Just a walk to unwind before lunch.” Anne checked her watch. It was pushing one o'clock. “I suppose you've already eaten,” she said.

“No, not yet. Irene… Ms. MacLeod…usually makes up a bowl of soup and a sandwich if I'm not too late. I'm on my way back now.”

“Sounds like she takes an interest.”

“She's had troubles with the law…like me. She tries to reach out.”

“A good friend. Well, I'm on my way to the restaurant just around the corner. You're welcome to join me.”

“No,” he said hesitantly, “I don't think I can…”

“It's on me, of course. Great food there, and it beats soup and a sandwich…or cafeteria cooking.”

“Well… I guess a student can't refuse a deal like that, can he?”

The Crown and Anchor was less than a block away. It was a popular restaurant decorated with a blend of nautical and regal motifs. Poses of famous and unremembered aristocrats wearing white wigs and buckled shoes and holding ornate swords decorated wood-panelled walls. Ships serenely at anchor in soft pastel mists or in close engagements at sea joined them. Comfortable, high-backed booths gave the feel of privacy and softened the voices from other tables.

The Crown and Anchor was half-filled at the end of the dinner hour. Dawson, dressed in jeans and a university sweatshirt, looked around somewhat uncomfortably while Anne studied the menu.

“Grilled salmon, asparagus tips, and baked sweet potato is the special. Sounds yummy. What would you like, Jake?”

“That sounds good,” he said absently.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, sounds perfect,” he said, this time with confidence.

Anne placed the order with the waitress. Water and coffee arrived promptly.

“How's school going?” Anne asked in order to stir up conversation and put Jacob at ease.

“Very well,” he said.

“Sociology, isn't it?” asked Anne. Jacob nodded.

“Why that major?”

“Circumstances,” he said. “I would have preferred following a science curriculum, but it's pretty hard to complete lab assignments in prison.” He smiled for the first time. “‘Please pass the potassium nitrate and sulphur' always draws suspicious looks from the guards.”

“You have a year left? What'll you do after you graduate?”

“Social worker, addictions counsellor. Something along that line. I have a lot of experience to pass along there.”

“Was it difficult getting started with university courses? Did the government pay for it?”

“The government will pay for GED and trade courses, not college courses so much, but I got some financial help from the John Howard Society once I convinced them I could handle the material. They funded a couple courses. I had access to tutors at Dorchester, and I could write to a student advisor at the school to keep me on track. Fortunately, I had a brother and sister who were luckier than I growing up. Maybe they felt guilty about it. Anyway, they split the cost of my correspondence courses between them. It didn't amount to a lot of money all at the same time, and I pulled together a few dollars myself from my work in prison. Only a few bucks a day, but I didn't smoke…and had nothing much else to spend it on.”

“And now?”

“The University was impressed with my progress,” he said proudly. “They gave me a late-entrance scholarship to cover tuition for the courses I have left…and I work some evenings and weekends at Milton Springs. I'm on the front desk. It's slow, but I can catch a few hours of study between calls or check-ins. Thank you,” he said to the waitress. She had slipped a plate in front of Anne, another in front of him. She was young, dark-haired, pretty. Her eyes were lively and her smile warm, and her attention lingered on Jacob.

“Looks like you have a fan,” said Anne after the waitress left.

“It's an illusion, Billy. Once they learn
my
history, I'm history.”

“That will change,” she said, “and you must have made some friends by now.” Jacob didn't respond, and they continued their meal with little more than the clink of forks and knives to cut the silence.

The first sign of alarm rang in the frozen expression on John Jacob Dawson's face. He stared toward another booth as a couple was preparing to leave. The woman was in her late twenties, dark-haired, and dressed in a mocha business suit. Her low-cut blouse was not businesslike. She moved gracefully and sensuously across the room, quite accustomed to the gazes that followed her.

The man was tall and solidly built with short, greying hair. He was good-looking, confident, and dressed informally in tailored slacks, a button-down shirt, and a lightweight Hudson's Bay sweater. Unlike her, his eyes roamed the room casually and continually and unconsciously. His roving eyes stopped when they touched the table at which Anne and Jacob sat.

Anne turned and looked. She watched Chief MacFarlane approach their table. Quickly, she turned to Dawson: “Take a deep breath, and act normal…don't talk.”

“Billy Darby,” said MacFarlane. “What a coincidence. Heard you weren't around anymore.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Chief. I don't disappear very easily.”

“A resilient spirit,” he said and then looked Dawson in the eye. “I don't recognize your friend.”

“Jacob. This is Jamie, Stratford's Police Chief. Jamie, Jake. Jacob is a sociology student at the university. He's writing a paper on law enforcement and is looking for a private investigator's perspective.”

“You'd make better use of your time if you interviewed real law enforcement officers, Jacob.” MacFarlane stared closely at Dawson. Anne fought back an impulse to match MacFarlane's demeaning remark. Dawson took hold of his glass of water and sipped. “Do I know you?” MacFarlane asked.

Dawson finished off his water. He put the glass down, a big smile blossomed on his face, and he chuckled.

“I really doubt that we travel in the same circles, Chief, but it's a pleasure to meet you.”

Dawson extended his hand. MacFarlane shook it firmly, smiled back, and returned his attention to Anne.

“Heard about your…unfortunate situation,” he said. “Heard, too, about your taking a vacation, so to speak.”

“You've got big ears, Chief. Vacation? I prefer to think of it as a moment to pause and reflect on the evidence I've pulled together…loose ends…like false statements in a police report…like a potential suspect who lied about fathering a dead girl's baby.”

“A harmless embellishment to protect her reputation, no doubt…”

“…or a bit of smoke to hide a crime…,” Anne said. “And I seem to find more smoke the longer I look.”

“Sometimes the smoke you see has drifted from somebody else's fire,” he said. MacFarlane leaned over the booth, one arm clutching the back of her seat, the other planted firmly on the table. He loomed over Anne and added in an ominous whisper, “And sometimes people get burnt, when they look in the wrong direction too long.”

Then MacFarlane straightened up, stepped back, assumed a relaxed stance, and smiled.

“But good luck with that…,” he said calmly. Then he turned toward Dawson: “…and good luck with your paper, Jake. Ms. Darby has my number if you need a professional point of view.”