Bodies and Sole
Praise for
Revenge of the Lobster Lover
:
“â¦[an] amusing comic mystery”
â Margaret Cannon,
Globe and Mail
“Revenge of the Lobster Lover is a good read for lovers of light-hearted mysteries.”
-
Atlantic Books Today
“Readers will find themselves hooked on this light-hearted, edgy read”
-
The Chronicle Herald
“...readers will want to know whodunit -- and why. MacLeod's droll humour helps propel her story.”
-
The Montreal Gazette
Praise for
Mind Over Mussels
:
“â¦a thoroughly delightful, cosy comic crime story - a restful break from the grittier and oft times gruesome murder mysteries⦔
- Cottage Lady,
Sleuth of Baker Street
“â¦this country is producing a wide range of thoughtful writing in this genre - which is also often funnyâ¦Mind Over Musselsâ¦has a lot of fun as it stretches to its rather bizarre conclusion.”
-
Jenni Morton,
The Star Phoenix
Praise for
All is Clam
:
“Mountie Jane Jamison returns in this delightful Christmas confection set in The Shores, that lovely fictional spot just off the coast of Prince Edward Island...As she sifts the clues, she finds herself hoping for a Christmas miracle: that this death will turn into an accident. This one is great fun.”
- Margaret Cannon,
The Globe and Mail
“(Hilary MacLeod) manages to skillfully blend the dark side
with the light, threading humour in characters and dialogue
through the serious tale of human foibles and tragedy.”
-
Linda Wiken (aka Erika Chase)
,
Mystery Maven Canada
“...her best by far...this is a complex Christmas story and mystery. MacLeod is to be congratulated.”
- Elizabeth Cran,
The Guardian
Bodies and Sole © 2014 by Hilary MacLeod
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
Printed and Bound in Canada
Cover illustration and interior design by Matt Reid
eBook design by Joseph Muise
Editing by Sherie Hodds
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
MacLeod, Hilary, author
Bodies and sole / Hilary MacLeod.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-927502-31-0 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-927502-32-7 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS8625.L4555B63 2014 C813'.6 C2014-903532-2
C2014-903533-0
The publisher acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada
through the Canada Book Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage
and the Canada Council for the Arts Block Grant Program.
To Margo “Cat Lady” MacNaughton for her love and selfless devotion to cats, including Reggie, Briar, Jimmy, Curly, Baby, Hope, Gorgeous, June, Bobby, Sophie, Gray, Sarge, Paris, Lloyd, Bobby, Squirt, Drifter, Big Daddy, Laddie, Teddy Bear, Girlie, Lady Princess, Suki, Shaun, Becker, Porter, Augie, Roscoe, Rocky, Ivy and Ivy, Dagwood and Blondie, The Gang and others unnamed here, to all of whom she has given names â and a chance at life.
Hy McAllister's Facebook status:
Scientists and priests don't know where the soul lives in the body. For a long time they thought it was the liver, because it's the best-looking vital organ.
Likes: 9
Comments: If you've got soul, you don't have to be good-looking.
I like sole better than liver.
Chapter One
The skull washed up and slipped behind a big rock.
She had not tripped on it, thrown up on it, nor been knocked down by it.
She hadn't even seen it.
Hy McAllister was taking her usual morning run on the shore, where, a few years before, she had stumbled, literally, across a corpse.
Since then she'd had other close encounters with dead bodies, on and off the beach.
She planted wet sneaker prints in the stretch of packed sand above the surf. She splashed through the run, the outlet of water from the pond that had served up a bloated cadaver a few years back. Undisturbed, the run carved across the sand, mixed fresh with salt water, then hitchhiked to Europe on the Gulf Stream.
The sea stone rose behind her twenty feet off shore. It was the signature of The Shores, the landmark that told people they were here. Once a part of the cape, the chunk had been carved away by the wind and the waves. Each year it got smaller and changed shape. This winter's storms had sculpted it into the head of a man, staring upward in agony. A black man whose white hair had been formed by cormorant feces. The rock appeared to be screaming at the cape to which it had once been attached. The new look formed by the fierce winter gave Hy the creeps.
Her red curls bobbed on the morning air as she headed for the far cape. At low tide, she could have rounded it and continued onto the next stretch of shore, known as Mack's shore, and then on to the next and the next and the next, for miles. The capes jutted out toward the water and divided beach from beach. At high or incoming tide, it was still possible to get around them, but only by wading through water.
The tide was coming in fast. Behind her, the waves played with the skull like a soccer ball, picking it up and leaving it a bit farther up the sand each time. Then stopped. It lay, exposed on the stretch of sand, grimacing. There was no one to see.
Not even Hy.
Just as she was about to turn, a flock of gulls swooped down
and began pecking and squealing and fighting. Finding
nothing
of interest, nothing to eat, they soon gave up, in a disruption of wing-flapping that tossed the skull about. A series of strong waves crashed up onto the sands, took it up, and deposited it in a nest of rocks, out of sight.
That was when Hy turned back.
Missed it entirely.
It would be up to someone not yet at The Shores to find it for her. Someone she didn't know, but who was already on her mind.
www.theshores200.com
There have been no murders or unusual deaths in The Shores in almost a full calendar year. That is, if you don't count health nut Morton Sinclair who, as Gus Mack put it, “woke up dead one morning.” He was always running the capes, holding his boot camp exercise sessions that no one attended, eating only organic. But he died at forty-two. Overdid it, that's what Dr. Dunn said. Too much of a good thing. Healthy living did him in. The doctor should know. He's never done a lick of exercise and his diet is fats, starch and brownies. Yet he's still alive at ninety-two.
Apart from that, everyone in The Shores has stayed alive, if not always healthy, for nearly a year.
We can't guarantee our 200th anniversary celebrations will be corpse-free, but we'll try to keep the killing at bay.
Not Big Bay.
Hy grinned, paused and highlighted what she'd written. She'd never get away with it. She hit delete. Then she stared at the blank screen.
Where to begin?
Her friend and on-again off-again boyfriend Ian Simmons had designed the web page for The Shores' 200th anniversary and she had agreed to provide the content, free of charge.
Content
was the name of her company; she provided editorial services to various websites on and off Red Island.
In the past few years, she seemed to be more in the business of stumbling on murders and helping solve them. That's what had sparked her cheeky entry.
She began typing again.
The Shores, Red Island⦠200 Years and Counting
Countingâ¦down to another murder?
She couldn't have known there was more death on its way to the village. That it was already washing up on the shore, and would soon be rolling down The Island Way.
www.theshores200.com
As you drive into The Shores, you reach the high ground above the village.
Here at the top of the hill, the breathtaking beauty unfolds. Different every time, depending on the mood of the sky and the sea. Bright blue or brooding grey sky; the sea, dashing up on the shore, black with anger from a storm the previous day, or calm, cold. A deep navy blue.
The landscape like a patchwork quilt: fields piercing red and newly turned over in the spring; flowing gold wheat and timothy in June and July; rowed with the white blossoms and fat green leaves of the potato plants in August; dusted with pink snow in winter.
Hy shoved her chair back and pushed herself up. She needed photographs. Ian liked editing photos, but he was no good at taking them. She slung her camera bag over her shoulder and grabbed her bike from the front porch. She rode until the hill got too steep and then pushed the bicycle the rest of the way. At the top of the hill, she stopped. Turned. Feasted.
The late-spring fields were defined by rows of spruce, new crops just beginning â pale greens and the neon yellow of the canola fields, the sky and the sea in harmony, today, a cold, brilliant blue. So similar, it was hard to see which was water and which sky. The demarcation between sea and sand was much sharper, the water hugging the land as it curved in and out around the massive red capes.
Hy took photographs, although she had dozens from this view. All beautiful. None the same. Yet all capturing the essence of The Shores.
Attaching her zoom lens, Hy brought the village closer.
www.theshores200.com
The houses all huddle in a circle, facing each other, white houses with green or black roofs. There are a few empty lots where there used to be more public buildings at the centre of the village. Only the hall stands today.
It's surprising that, until that moment, Hy hadn't noticed the streak of orange on either side of the road and the pungent smell. But now she caught a flash in the viewfinder, and followed it as it marched all the way down the hill to the hall and back up the other side of the road.
Marigolds. Along the road, someone had planted a string of marigolds, two deep, across the front of everyone's property, even the abandoned homes, even the home of the three sisters. Their house looked almost abandoned, but for the three sets of clothes hanging from the clothesline.
Monday. Washday. Hy zoomed in on the clothesline and took a photograph. She'd use it as her banner for Monday posts on the website.
The thought had hardly time to lodge in her mind when a Smart car went whizzing by her, honking.
Hy got a clear view as she walked her bicycle down the hill. Little orange soldiers, marching, two by two, all the way down The Island way. Standing ramrod straight, spiky green leaves and golden balls perched atop little hillocks of flower beds. Crossing ditches, down the length of local scumbag Jared MacPherson's house, even across the front lawns of vacant houses, they kept marching. Marching across Hy's own lawn â and all the way down to the centre of the village, where the military floral parade ended with a wraparound of the hall.
So fascinated was Hy by the marigolds that, once back on her bike, she continued riding past her house, following the Smart car that had now slowed down.
It stopped suddenly and Hy very nearly crashed into it.
Marlene Weeks, from the provincial department of tourism, had spotted an offending marigold. Some creature must have tugged it out of line, because it lay on its side, a small ball of earth and roots pointing skyward.
Marlene groped in the glove compartment for the item least likely to be found there in most cars â gloves. She slid her carefully manicured fingers into them, and got out of the car, only to find Hy shoving the plant back in place.
“That's government property.”
Hy dusted off her hands, the red clay sticking to them and smearing her jeans.
“Soon to be dead government property.” Hy beamed at the woman. Cheeky, thought Marlene.
She said not another word, but turned around, got back in the car, and skidded off the shoulder, spraying red dust all over Hy. Hy watched her go, then pulled out a half dozen marigolds, stuck them in her bike basket and went home, where she put them in a container on the porch.
Stolen? No. Liberated. The thought galvanized her. She got a barrel, marched it down to the road where the marigolds appeared to be guarding her property, and dug them all up.
She planted them in the barrel and stood back to survey her work. They looked cheerful. Better than the soldier formation. She dusted herself off, grabbed her bicycle and headed to see Gus. Turning down The Shore Lane, she saw the Smart car parked at Moira's house.
Who was that woman? What did she have to do with the marigolds?
Someone must have planted them overnight because no one in The Shores had seen it happen.