The Dead Letter (33 page)

82.

Jasmine's Tea House had been carved out of the lower floor of a once-stately smaller home in Charlottetown, not far from City Hall. Jasmine, whose real name was Bonnie Lee, was a second-generation Vietnamese who spoke English with a thick Tignish PEI accent. Jasmine bustled about as if preparing for a banquet, but, in all reality, the tea market was limited to a small coterie of regulars and passengers off Holland America cruise ships searching for a genuine Island experience before their twelve-hour shore leave expired, and they sailed to their next exotic port.

For Anne it seemed the perfect place to meet Mrs. Kikovic, Rada's mother. It would be a quiet and discreet setting, free from clashing cultural, religious, or political influences. Anne had no unrealistic expectations about the meeting. Her conversation with her the night before had been short and non-committal, but hopeful in that she had agreed to meet at all.

Anne played with her tea as she waited. She was tired and found it hard to concentrate. Anxiety about the meeting hadn't distracted her. It was something else, something she couldn't put her finger on. It was the same feeling she got when, sitting quietly, she hears a faint but odd speck of sound. Ears perk, the mind sharpens, and silence stretches out until a faint scratch in the wall tells a tale. In Anne's mind, though, the tale still hung there, its meaning not yet revealed.

A bell on the door of the tea house jingled merrily as it opened. The sound broke Anne's restless reverie, and her eyes followed the movement of the woman who entered. She was a tall, elegant woman, with a clear, smooth, unadorned complexion, and bright, intense eyes. Her hair and shoulders were covered by an orange and black print hijab. A black jilbab flowed to her shoes in a line broken only at the waist by a small loosely cinched belt. She carried a black leather bag over her shoulder. Their eyes briefly met.

Anne stood to greet her.

“Mrs. Kikovic, I'm Anne Brown. I'm so pleased to meet you.”

“A'idah, and thank you.”

They sat down together, but an awkward silence settled between them.

Finally, Anne spoke: “A'idah, over the last couple of months Jacqui and Rada have grown close and become good friends.” A'idah nodded, and Anne continued: “Jacqui is brokenhearted about what happened, and I'm hoping to find some way for the girls to mend their relationship.”

“Rada is unhappy too…very unhappy…but sadness and disappointment are part of growing up, are they not? They stimulate change…maturity. Your daughter and mine will grow from what they learn…as you undoubtedly did and I did, when we were children.”

“But is losing a friendship necessary? Is that a good thing?”

“Perhaps not a good thing, but sometimes a necessary thing.”

“In what way?”

“It is difficult for a Muslim child to live in a Western society. In a perfect world, she would grow up in a familiar country and thrive in traditions we value. But it is not a perfect world…and here we are…we must make do with what resources and resolve we have. Rada and I and Ahmed are not Western peoples. And Rada…she hears many voices now that are not ours…and too many of these voices teach self-interest, indulgence, disrespect, shamelessness…”

“Surely, Jacqui isn't one of those voices.”

“I know Jacqui, and I like her, but Ahmed thinks, and I think so as well, that, although she may not speak those voices, she does not reject them either. Our religion, our traditions…we cannot ignore them or dismiss them.”

“I understand, and I agree with you. Young people need good examples and guidance and limits. But does forbidding their friendship and association set a proper example? Can there not be a compromise of some sort?”

“Some things cannot be compromised.”

“And some things can. Perhaps we can find a way to accommodate both. Perhaps we can set a good example by trying to find some ground on which we can all stand.”

“The Qu'ran says, ‘Whoever pardons and seeks reconciliation will be rewarded by God.' So I must accept that it is possible.”

“What would you suggest then?” said Anne with a timid optimism.

“There may be a way,” she said in a manner of reflection. Her bright eyes clouded with thought and reservation. “but my husband would have to agree. It would involve a mediator. An imam perhaps. Or some community leader whose opinion he respects.”

83.

As Anne left Jasmine's Tea House, she felt a spring in her step that
had failed to accompany her arrival there. She couldn't claim that a plan was afoot, but, at least, progress now seemed possible, even if it had not yet reached the doorsteps of probability.

As well, progress suddenly seemed moot as Anne realized that she was backtracking. Once again Timothy's Coffee Shop appeared ahead. The gardens of Province House lay just beyond it, and the Confederation Centre next to them. A young musician, guitar case open, sat on the concrete base of the war cenotaph and busked for money. On the memorial wall above him, a file of frozen bronze soldiers charged toward glory. The musician played Bob Dylan. His bilingual placard advertised “Tunes for Coins: No Tax.” Anne dropped a dollar coin into his case and hurried through the shortcut to her office. On her way, she passed a yellow-fingered, haggard old woman searching the ground for discarded cigarette butts. Two pencil-thin men in rancid, ill-fitting clothes shared a paper bag on a bench, idly watched the old woman, and kept a keen bleary watch for roaming police cars.

Anne grabbed the mail from her office and headed home. Each step now seemed laborious and painful, but, within half an hour, she had locked herself behind the door of her house and fallen asleep.

Anne sank into a very deep but agitated sleep. She swam between one dead-end interview and another, then back, around, up and down, again and again, like a goldfish in a bowl, seeing everything with clarity and seeing nothing at all. Details flitted like fallen leaves tossed about in gusts of wind. Facts ground underfoot like unsettled gravel. She struggled forward. Momentum faltered; balance quavered; headway blocked. And there was no way out, no satisfying answer, no relief, no rest.

When she finally awoke three hours later, her mouth was parched; her throat was scratchy; and her head felt like it had been ransacked and scrubbed with sand. Barefoot, she stumbled to the bathroom and drank two large glasses of water, the second washing down an aspirin.

Though she wasn't hungry, the aroma of food drew her downstairs and into the kitchen where Jacqui was preparing supper. A kettle of pasta bubbled on the stovetop. Spaghetti sauce simmered in a pan, and a couple of dinner rolls heated in the oven. The table was set. Two tall candles burned between place settings, and icy water glimmered in a glass decanter.

“I didn't hear you when I came in,” said Anne. Her voice sounded as if it came from someone else, someone feeble, old, and groggy.

“I wasn't home,” said Jacqui.

“Oh?”

“I was at school.”

“How did it go?” Anne fought off her feeble, groggy disposition and managed a semi-animate and attentive tone.

“It went well.”

“And what changed your mind…about going?”

“You were right. I hadn't done anything wrong. Why should I hide like I had?”

“And there was no backlash,” said Anne sensing a half-truth.

“A bit.”

“How did you handle it?”

“I role-played. I imagined myself as Jeanne d'Arc. She too was blameless, yet persecuted, and still maintained dignity.”

“And that worked?”

“It convinced me. ‘All the world's a stage,'” she said with a dramatic flourish of her arm, “‘and all men and women merely players.' And I think it convinced most of them,” she added with boastful, delicious pleasure.

“Bravo.”

Anne clapped joyfully and enthusiastically. Jacqui laughed at her own theatrics. Then they sat and ate and laughed some more.

“I have news, too,” said Anne.

84.

It didn't have the grandeur of an epiphany, nor the wonder of a
“eureka.” It came to Anne more like an apparition exiting a fog and drawing near with a slowly resolving clarity until Anne believed she knew the answer to the question she had been asking. She chastised herself for not seeing it before, but it was the only possible explanation. The details had been there all along, but she had been slow to put them together, and just one phone call had confirmed her supposition. They had been clever murders, very clever indeed, and, though it was now clear to her who committed them, questions remained regarding how and why.

Anne pulled up in front of the house. The neighbourhood was dark and quiet. She knocked on the door. A dog barked two doors away. A curtain moved slightly, and after too long an interval, the door opened.

“What is it?”

“Edna, I've come to speak with you.”

“This is not a good time, Anne. Try me at the office tomorrow.”

“It's never a good time to talk about murder, is it, Edna?” Anne firmly pushed against the door and shouldered her way into the hallway.

“Are you mad, forcing your way into my home? Get out. You have no business here. You have no right to be here at all. Get out now. Get out before I call the police.” Fear, anger, and desperation coloured her objections, and Edna bolted for the telephone extension in the parlour. Anne followed as Edna picked up the receiver and began dialling.

“I mean it,” she said. “I'll call them.”

“Thank you. That would be helpful, Edna. I'm eager to tell them about your connection with Jacob Dawson, someone you denied knowing.”

“I don't know him. I've never met the man. I told you that.” The telephone receiver slipped away from her ear.

“You're both recovering alcoholics. You're his AA sponsor, his advisor, his supporter. You know his problems, his weaknesses, his hatreds. You know what buttons to press, and you were eager to press them.”

“That's preposterous,” said Edna. She had gathered up a renewed confidence and coolness, a sneering haughtiness. She returned the telephone to its table-top cradle. Dead relatives stared back indifferently from photos on her mantel. Edna moved past the gleaming tea service on a mahogany side table. She stood beside a small antique desk and rested against it.

“I've checked. My contact with AA confirmed it,” said Anne.

“What else do you
think
you know?”

“You're working together, you and Jacob. You killed MacFarlane for Dawson, and he killed Peale for you. A convenient arrangement, wasn't it? Neither of you were suspected because neither of you had an obvious motive for killing the person you did…and you both had alibis for the death of the person you had motive to kill.”

“I admire your perseverance, Ms. Darby, and your vivid imagination, but you haven't demonstrated the skills to think through such a task. You attack a problem with the creativity of a dreamer rather than the logic of a philosopher. Everything you've offered is utter conjecture, and all you've succeed in doing so far is making a fool of yourself.”

“You denied knowing Dawson. That's not conjecture.”

“What happens at AA is confidential. I was only safeguarding his privacy and mine. What else have you got?”

“It's odd how, when a theory becomes evident, new ways of looking at a case come to light…like consideration of the car.”

“What car?”

“The one that Dawson would have used to follow Peale to the ferry. He doesn't own one. My guess is that he used yours…that white Civic in the driveway.”

“Guess?” Edna mocked. “Another conjecture! You're replete with them, and I've had enough. Go. Now!”

“One more guess, if you don't mind, Edna. It was the last ferry crossing of the night. Dawson would have to have had transportation back from Nova Scotia. A car was necessary, and his only route was across the Confederation Bridge, a two-and-a-half hour return drive to Charlottetown, and that triggers an unforeseen complication…bridge security. There's continual CCTV coverage of bridge traffic. If your Civic turns up on their tape, as I'm sure it will, then Dawson is through and so are you, Edna.”

“You stupid girl…you stupid, stupid girl! You couldn't leave it alone, could you? You couldn't just take my cheque and be done with it, could you? I didn't want you on the case anymore. Why wasn't that enough?”

Surprise drew a wrinkled line across Anne's brow. Then it softened into forbearance.

“I wasn't doing it for you, Edna. I thought you knew that. I was doing it for your sister, Carolyn. I always was. It was her voice that cried out for justice, not your curiosity or craving for vengeance.”

Edna's eyes flickered like a cornered squirrel. Then she whirled, drew a revolver from the top drawer of the desk, and swung it toward Anne. The inertia of the heavy pistol overshot the mark, but Edna corrected and steadied her aim at Anne.

The gun facing her was a Webley .455. Edna's hand looked too small for so large a gun, and Anne looked too small to survive a slug from so intimidating a muzzle. Edna's left hand clasped the hammer and levered it back with a solemn click. The barrel dipped momentarily. Edna struggled to hold the Webley. Her fingers nervously fidgeted in and out of the trigger guard, and her thumb struggled to find a comfortable position along the stock.

“Edna, why don't you put that gun down? There's no need in making things any worse than they are.” Anne's voice had a calm and reassuring ring, but her jaw and tongue felt so taut she was amazed that any words had found the nerve to spill from her mouth.

Anne's other surprise leapt from a shape suddenly appearing in the doorway. It belonged to Jacob Dawson.

“She's right, Edna. Put the gun away.”

“Don't interfere, Jacob…and don't come any closer,” she said to him as he walked toward her. Her head jerked toward him, and the gun followed in the same direction. Jacob stopped, and Edna turned the gun back to its original target. “I know what I'm doing…what I have to do,” she added.

“I hope that doesn't involve killing me,” said Anne, “or Jacob. MacFarlane, I could understand. Peale even. They shared a lot of blame. Other than that…me, Jacob… I can't see you killing us.”

Edna ignored her comment, but said and did nothing. She seemed bewildered, uncertain.

“I am curious, though,” said Anne. “What led you to this?”

“At our meeting a week ago, you said that MacFarlane was likely the killer of both Carolyn and Simone. Then there was the explosion. You nearly died. It was too coincidental. Jacob and I talked. As you had said, there probably would never be enough evidence to convict him. So I vowed to make him pay for what he did to Carolyn…and me. He destroyed us both, you know. When he killed her, he killed me.”

“How did you manage it on your own?”

“Oh, I wasn't alone. Jacob helped.”

“But he had an alibi.”

“For the time of death…yes. But I needed his assistance earlier in the evening. I had been watching MacFarlane for some time…waiting for the right moment. I saw Peale come…and I saw him go. I phoned Jacob, picked him up, and we drove back. Jacob knocked on MacFarlane's door and retreated. I waited in the shrubbery alongside. When MacFarlane stepped outside, I shot him with a tranquilizer pistol from the Vet College—we use it for anaesthetizing large animals. It took a few moments to put him out. I was lucky. The dart hit a blood vessel. He didn't realize what was happening until too late. I needed Jacob to drag him off the doorstep and back into the house.”

“Then I had to leave,” said Jacob. “I had my study group.”

“Why didn't you just kill him on the doorstep?” asked Anne.

“I wanted the details of what he had done. Then I wanted to watch him suffer.” The pitch of Edna's voice rose, and her words sputtered with venom as she went on: “I bound his wrists and ankles with tape and waited. As he began to rouse from the tranquilizer, I injected him with another drug. It paralyzed him but the right dose allowed him to remain conscious and speak.”

“And he was able to tell you what happened?”

“With a little prodding…a carrot and stick approach,” she said with a small guilty chuckle. “I told him I would let him live if he told me the truth. He admitted blackmailing Peale by convincing him that the only way to prevent his connection with Simone coming to light was to frighten Carolyn into silence.”

“So
Peale
ran Carolyn off the road,” said Anne with disbelief.

Edna nodded sadly. Her gaze lowered. Her right thumb tenderly caressed the wooden stock. Her left hand supported the black steel frame. Then she looked up suddenly and said, “I knew then that Peale had to die, too.”

“And Jacob did that for you.”

Edna nodded again.

“I never meant to kill anyone,” said Jacob with a desperate urgency. “Not Peale, not even MacFarlane.”

Then, fuelled by anger and frustration, he turned toward Edna. “You never told me that you planned to kill MacFarlane. You said it was an accidental overdose. You told me you just wanted to force a confession out of him. You wanted the truth, you said. That's all.”

“I got the truth. Then I wanted revenge. If you have an infection, you purge it. If you have a boil, you lance it. If you have a cancer, you cut it out. MacFarlane…he was a plague on society. You should have seen his eyes when I put the oil and potatoes into the pan and lit the stove. He knew what was coming, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. How terrifying to know that you are about to die and can do absolutely nothing to prevent it. I relished every second I watched him. He had to be destroyed. And so did Peale.”

“Jacob, maybe you should sit down,” said Anne, looking apprehensively at the horror and incredulity spreading across his face. But Jacob ignored her, his attention riveted on Edna.

“You used me. You conned me into this mess, but I'm not going back to prison for murder again. No, not me. Not again. Not for you,” he shouted and lunged toward Edna.

Edna's eyes had widened at Dawson's outburst but, when he sprang forward, fear charged through her. She swung toward him, her torso canted back defensively, her left hand stretched out to ward off an attack. Her right hand trembled and twitched, and the hammer fell. A flash of light and a terrific roar blazed from the Webley. A sudden enormous wave of sound engulfed the small sitting room and, just as suddenly, an ominous silence swept into its wake.

Dawson froze mid-stride; Anne's mind staggered to a halting immobility; and Edna struggled through a portentous astonishment.

Dawson grasped his stomach. Blood oozed through his shirt, filled the gaps between his fingers, and fell in a trickling, crimson stream onto his trousers. He looked down at the wound and, as if that slight movement unbalanced him, he fell forward, his head at Edna's feet.

Edna seemed too stunned to speak or move. The Webley dangled in her hand and fell to the floor next to Dawson's body. The stark sound of it striking the wood floor sparked a panicky thought, and Edna rushed for the door.

Anne didn't stop her. She ran instead to Dawson's side. He was conscious, troubled, and still breathing. She dialled 911 emergency services for help and tried to stave the flow of blood.

Outside, a car engine roared to life and sped away. Anne remained with Dawson, tried to comfort him and keep him still until paramedics arrived, but he insisted on uttering what he could. Several short verbal spasms, bursts of words and broken phrases, passed his lips. Then Dawson grew quiet.

Anne could make out the wailing siren of the ambulance not more than a few blocks away, and, somewhere nearby, another car passed Edna's house, its sound slowly fading toward stillness, just like the heartbeat of John Jacob Dawson.

Windshield wipers beat the light rain from side to side as Edna zigzagged across Charlottetown streets to Riverside Drive. Traffic was light on Monday evening, but she slowed to avoid notice by police patrol cars and made a left turn onto the Hillsborough Bridge.

Her hands trembled as she grasped the steering wheel. She eased into the left lane for a turn onto the Bunbury Road. The rain grew stronger on the bridge, gusts of wind as well. The windshield marbled with wet drops and streaks, and she increased the wiper speed, but that made no difference. The rain hadn't encumbered her vision. The tears running down her cheeks had. And knowing that truth, a more ardent flow ensued.

She drove past a string of homes along the Bunbury Road, but they were mere blips in her consciousness. Her mind was not elsewhere. It was nowhere. It dwelled in a vortex of images and a flood of emotions that plucked at her spirit and splintered her reasoning and left her like a dried-up leaf in a draft of wind, and, as such, she perceived herself alone, in an unfamiliar primal place, fleeing pain, seeking relief, searching for a glimmer of peace.

Peace.
The word reverberated in her head.

Along the road, the houses and outbuildings of the town had disappeared entirely. Clusters of trees and low mounds of wild shrubbery and thick bush had gone, too. A vista opened in front of her. It looked so very big, unencumbered and free in the soft, emerging illumination of a full moon. She felt a weight lift from her shoulders. The rain had stopped, an expanse of water and green marshy fields filled her eyes with a satisfying loveliness, hope chimed softly in the warm glow of a pleasant October evening, and Edna depressed the accelerator with an intoxicating abandon. She felt a rush of elation, a delightful inebriation. A white wooden cross loomed from the shoulder of the road.

Serenity
, she murmured to herself as the white Civic struck the steel culvert.