The Dead Letter (8 page)

21.

A perky receptionist with a necklace of braided flowers tattooed around her neck led Anne through a maze of beige cubicles and dividers to the office of Davidia Christian, manager of White Cross Medical.

“Ms. Billy Darby to see you,” she said and disappeared.

Davidia looked up from her computer screen and smiled. It was an unguarded, inviting smile, and Anne felt suddenly at ease.

“You said you wanted to talk about Carolyn,” she said. It was almost a question. Anne nodded, and Davidia smiled even more broadly.

“She was a dear friend,” she said. “Probably my best friend at the time. We were older than most of the other clerks in the office. We had more in common, I suppose. But what's your interest in Carolyn? Did you know her?”

“No,” said Anne. “I'm a private investigator. I'm looking into the circumstances surrounding her death.”

“That was ages ago, dear.”

“I'm trying to clear up some loose ends for a client.”

“Carolyn's sister?”

“Did you know her?”

“I felt like I did. Carolyn and Edna were twins, and Carolyn liked to talk. They had quite a cross to bear. Their mother was doing poorly. Alzheimer's, you know. Their mother was a bit difficult…I suppose that comes with the illness…but it was hard to keep caregivers to look after her. They'd come and go. The girls had to work out a schedule between themselves to care for her. That's when Carolyn started her flex hours. White Cross was pretty progressive with things like that, even then.”

“How did that change things for Carolyn?”

“She had already worked here for several years…and she was an excellent worker, too…but, when things became difficult at home, she arranged an evening shift, four o'clock until midnight.”

“Why those hours?”

“It was a full shift, but it overlapped an hour with the regular shift. That way she could get up to speed on that day's workload…and get up on the office gossip,” she giggled, and then added wistfully, “…and maybe for a little frivolous human contact, too. It also worked well with Edna's nursing schedule. Carolyn would relieve Edna when she got home.”

“And that worked out?”

“Unless one of the daytime caregivers quit…which is what occurred just a couple weeks before Carolyn's accident.”

“Do you recall what happened?”

“Well, she worked the week before Thanksgiving. I remember that, but Carolyn was out for most of the following week.”

“Wasn't that around the same time as the Villier murder?” asked Anne.

“It was the Friday after the murder that she returned to work.”

“You have a remarkable memory, Davidia. I can scarcely remember where I was last Friday.”

“Neither can I, most of the time,” she laughed, “but the circumstances were different. It was comical actually…in a way. She came in for her evening shift as usual. I asked her what she thought about the murder, and she didn't know what I was talking about. She said she hadn't heard. I told her that it had happened over the long weekend. Too busy with her mum, I guess. I teased her about that, I tell ya. Told her that if it had been the end of the world, God would have to send a telegram to let her know. The murder happened right downstairs, ya know. Not here, of course, but over in Stratford where we had our offices then.”

“And you say she worked before Thanksgiving?”

“Yes, the whole week.”

“How could you possibly remember that?”

“I phoned her every evening she worked.”

“What on earth for?”

“Carolyn was a Corrie fan. You know,
Coronation Street
, the British soap opera. If she was on evening shift, she'd miss the telecast. So I phoned to let her know what had happened.”

“When's the telecast?”

“Six-thirty.”

“So you called her at seven or so.”

“No, not until a little after eight. I like to watch
The Price Is Right
and
Jeopardy
. I always called after they were over. Not much on TV after that, just cop shows. Besides, that's halfway through her shift. She always liked to take a little break…grab a bite of lunch then.”

“You're absolutely sure of the time.”

“Like clockwork.”

“How did the office staff react to the murder of Simone Villier?”

“Everyone was concerned because it happened so close to home. The office was all abuzz with gossip.”

“Had anyone in your office been close to Simone?”

“Not that I knew, but on PEI you're only a step or two away from knowing someone who knows anyone else.”

“Was there gossip about Simone?”

“A bit. She was flashier than most of the girls in our office and, where there's flash, there's fire, they say. She was pretty, and she flirted. That might have drawn out a few talons, but our staff and Tidewater's never really mixed. In spite of that, everyone was relieved when that crazy homeless man was arrested. He was unpredictable. He would shout crazy things at people on the street. Throw things. The girls were scared of him.”

“And Carolyn? How did she react to all this?”

“She felt sorry for the poor girl, of course. She was the compassionate sort. Later, though, after it had sunk in, it must have hit her harder, that and her troubles at home, because she took a few more days off before she returned to work…and a few days after that, her car went off the road.”

22.

The empty board room displayed an impressive view of the city on
two sides. It was a long room, carpeted. Dark cherry wood panels covered a third wall and a large rear-projection screen dominated the fourth. A security guard unlocked the door, flipped several switches. The soft drone of fluorescent lights broke the stillness. Another switch illuminated the screen. The guard stepped aside and made way for the fifteen or twenty suits and skirts which arrived for the scheduled ministers' meeting. The ministers took their places at the table, and the stenographers and assistants filled the rows of plush chairs behind them along the wall. The initial flood of chatter quickly settled into a blend of subdued murmurs and quiet laughter. A few just stared reflectively into the empty projection screen.

The chime of a cell phone drew attention and silent disapproval to the man in the navy blue sport coat at the table. Others surreptitiously fingered the off button on their phones before the premier arrived.

“I've got to take this,” he said to the Fisheries Minister, a handsome woman in her mid-thirties, and removed himself to a nearby anteroom. He locked the door behind him. “This is a bad time. What is it?”

“A private investigator is snooping around.”

He recognized the voice. It belonged to Chief MacFarlane.

“Is this a concern?”

“She's been digging into things she shouldn't be. She has the case file, and she's working her way through witnesses.”

“Why are you calling me?” His tone shifted from agitation to anger.

“You have as much to lose as I do.”

“As I see it, the road doesn't go that far.”

“Nice choice of words, my friend. Maybe you should do some reflection.”

“Can't you handle it? I can't get involved in such things!”

“And I can only do so much. Some help from your corner would ease the situation. She's getting a boost from Ben Solomon.”

“How far along is she?”

“She's not there yet, but she's beginning to put two and two together. By then it will be too late for the usual nudging. Listen to me. I'm trying to avoid drastic measures here, but it's coming to that if we can't stop her. You know what that means, don't you.”

It was not a question. It was the illumination of a fact, and it held strength enough to quell the unease that churned inside him and to replace it with a grudging conciliation.

“I'll see what I can do.”

23.

Anne finished the supper dishes and settled Jacqui into her studies.
By then it had grown dark, but she still had one more task to complete—her interview with Bernadette Villier, Simone's mother.

Each time Anne drove across the Hillsborough Bridge, her eyes were drawn downriver. Each time, the view was a pleasant surprise, like a new painting on a living-room wall. This evening was no different. An oil tanker, moored to concrete piers in mid-channel, was awash with deck lights. Farther away and closer to the harbour mouth, a few white sails near the yacht club tacked in the gentle drafts. Splotches of light marked the Charlottetown skyline. Old groves of trees masked the light on the Stratford side of the bay.

Anne turned right onto a winding road. It branched off into darker streets, one of which led to the Meriwether subdivision.

Bernadette lived there in a small, neatly kept, older residence with a covered front porch. Her home sat on an oversized lot. That made her house look smaller. Luxurious, newly built split-level homes surrounded it, and they made it look out of place.

Anne pulled to the curb in front of Bernadette's house. On the corner, a red fox, stoic and attentive, watched her. Then, startled by the halogen headlights of a car, the animal fled toward the creek and a golf course that bordered the rear of the property.

Anne mounted the stairs to Bernadette's front porch and was about to knock when the door opened.

“Come in, dear,” she said.

Bernadette was short and trim. She had clear grey eyes and a young complexion that brought doubt to any guess at her age, but she spoke with the crispness and plainness of older women in the country villages.

“Come in,” she said again and led Anne down a short hallway to a living room off the kitchen and pointed her toward a pillowed chair. “Make yourself comfortable. Tea's near ready. Won't be a minute.”

The living room was tidy and had the lemony scent of household cleaners and furniture polish. It was simply furnished. A sofa and chair framed a space in front of a brick fireplace. A china cabinet fronted a wall to the kitchen. A drop-leaf dining table and two padded straight chairs stood alongside another.

Anne didn't sit. Instead, she looked over the framed photos on the mantel over the fireplace. Staggered among the old black-and-whites and a sepia were two faded colour pictures of Bernadette and her husband. They looked happy. She was young and pretty. Her husband was sturdy and sandy-haired. His arm draped over her shoulder. One hand held a beer, and he mugged for the camera. A photo next to it showed Simone with her arm around a girlfriend. Another shot captured her alone on the pier at Rustico.

“That's Simone,” said Bernadette, pushing through the door with a tray of tea and sugar cookies. “She had just turned fourteen.”

“She looks older,” said Anne.

“It's the curse that every young girl wishes for…and every mother dreads. When she was fourteen, she looked seventeen. When she was fifteen, she passed for twenty-one. The cookies are homemade. You must try one. You said on the phone that you wanted to talk about Simone?”

“I don't mean to dredge up troubling memories, but I'm investigating a case. A few of the details overlap Simone's death, and I thought you might be able to help me understand them.”

“I'll help if I can. What would you like to know?”

“Well, first, can you tell me a little about Simone? What was she like?”

“I suppose the polite gossips in the community would call her ‘a wild child'…and they wouldn't be far from the truth, I s'pose. But she comes to it honest enough. She took after my husband in some ways. Luc, my husband, god luv 'im, was a rebellious and independent young man. He was a carpenter from North Rustico; I was a farm girl from Kelly's Cross. He drank a bit. He got into trouble from time to time, but he wasn't a mean man, and he was exciting. Maybe that's what drew me to him. He worked hard, joked a lot, and most people liked him in spite of his faults.”

“Was Simone well-liked, too?”

“When she was young, sure, but as she got older, she changed. We never had much, you see. That never bothered Luc and me, but Simone was different. I think we embarrassed her. Eventually she moved out. She wanted more than we could give her.”

“More?”

“More money, more things.”

“Did her boyfriend, Jamie, fill that need?”

“Jamie was handsome, and funny, and being a policeman he had a touch of glamour to him. But I couldn't see Simone waiting for a young cop to get her what she wanted. Now have a cookie, dear…and your tea's getting cold.”

She poured Anne a second cup of tea, and Bernadette chatted blithely about her old life in Rustico with Luc. She recalled fond memories of community lobster boils, dancing at the Legion hall, buying fresh cod and herring at the wharf, and being cheered by the houses all lit with Christmas lights. Then she turned to sadder memories—Luc's fall through rotten planks in a roof he was reshingling, catching his neck on a ragged edge, and bleeding to death.

“Two tragedies within a few years must have been devastating. Did family and friends help you through it?”

“The community was good to me. Luc had no insurance, of course. But I was offered a job as bookkeeper in a local store. I was always clever with numbers. I got by. After Simone died, I moved to Stratford, a better job.”

“I don't see a picture of Jamie and Simone together,” Anne said, pointing to the mantelpiece.

Bernadette thought deeply for a moment, then looked baffled, and said, “I don't recall her having one.”

“Have you kept in touch with Jamie since?”

“He took a place in the receiving line at Simone's wake and visited once or twice afterwards. That was about it. He never seemed comfortable, though, and we were never close. Everyone grieves differently, I s'pose. Anyway, he married a year or two later. Some Dutch girl from eastern PEI, but I hear they're split up now.”

“From what I heard, Simone and Jamie had been heading in that direction. Sounded like they were planning a future together, marriage even.”

“Newspapers played that up after her death. Don't know where they got it from.”

“It wasn't true?”

“Can't say it was…or it wasn't.”

“But you weren't convinced?”

“On the surface everything looked fine, but, call it mother's intuition or what, I think she may have had her eyes on someone else.”

“Any idea who?”

“No.”

“When Simone learned that she was pregnant, how did she react? Was she excited? Confused? Worried?”

Bernadette became silent. Rigid. Her face paled, and her eyes filled with tears.

“I'm sorry. I thought you knew.”

After she left, Anne sat in her car for a few minutes and reflected on what had happened. Things had changed. Now there were two conflicting sides to the Jamie MacFarlane–Simone Villier love story: Jamie's romantic recollection of Simone as a textbook Cinderella, and Bernadette's suspicion that Simone was in the process of trading up.

Which could be trusted, she didn't know. MacFarlane was egotistical enough to fancy that Simone could only love him, but was he so egotistical that he missed any warning signs that she was cheating on him? Bernadette suspected her. Why wouldn't MacFarlane? For cops like him, attention to detail and suspicion go together like a pair of handcuffs.

Then, too, if MacFarlane suspected that Simone was playing around, how would he react? Dump her? Humiliate her? Hit her? And the other man? If there was one, what was his role in this drama?

MacFarlane's description of his relationship with Bernadette was skewed as well. He had depicted Bernadette as a lonely, distraught mother grieving for her daughter and husband almost to the point of alcoholism, but that wasn't the same Bernadette Anne had spoken with. That woman was resilient, stable, and self-reliant. Had MacFarlane deluded himself? Had he reinvented his self-image as a more generous and altruistic person than he had ever been? Or was he just lying?

Something else bothered Anne, too. Her reaction to Simone's pregnancy was surprising. Perhaps Bernadette didn't know her daughter as well as she thought.

A lot of questions
, thought Anne,
not many answers
.

Anne started the car, turned around, and headed up the street. A breeze had come up and stirred a drift of leaves across her path. Another car turned up the avenue behind her. Its headlights illuminated a cold, bluish path ahead of it. She hated halogen lights. They were bright and glaring. Even in her rear-view mirror, they were distracting. She speeded up. So did the driver behind her.

Anne's hand reached up to flip the dim switch on her mirror at the same time as a large red fox darted in front of her. She slammed the brake pedal. Her car skidded and slid to a stop, but Anne's eyes locked on the glare in her rear-view mirror. She saw the cold blue lights of a car hurtle toward her. She heard the screech of its tires, and she braced for collision, but the other car stopped. Just inches from her bumper.

The driver, impatient or angry, slammed his gear shift in reverse, spun tires, and squealed backwards until he intersected a side street and roared away.

Anne's hands trembled. The fox had vanished into the night.