Something Fishy (15 page)

“To gloat,” he said.

“Gloat because she was dead and she'd opposed your windmill?”

“I won.” Again, it was not a direct answer.

Could she goad something more from him?

“She attacked you, your windmill, and all you could do…did do…was to run shaking into the arms of your mistress.”

He went bright red, and suppressed a tremor, trying to keep Jamieson from seeing.

“Are you sure you didn't exact your revenge? Plan her death?”

He stood up. “I must ask you to leave. Next time you come, bring a charge or a warrant with you – or this door will remain closed to you.”

“We'll see about that. In the meantime, don't go anywhere.”

“Where would I go?”

It was what Jamieson had expected. She had a very slim case if she was going to try to pin it on Newton, if there had been a murder at all. But murder was in the air. She could feel it on the wind, stirred up by the big blades of the turbine.

She tried to shake off the illogical thoughts. She got in the car and looked up at it. The machine that Newton Fanshaw loved. That Viola Featherstonehaugh had hated. Was it the cause of Viola's death, or just a dicky heart?

Chapter Seventeen

“She's left it to her fish.” Gus delighted in saying it over and over, though there wasn't a person in The Shores who didn't know.

“Them things – ” she pointed at the screen saver of fish bubbling around on the old iMac Ian had given her. Three years old. A generous gift, but Ian had no use for a computer of that age, and had given it to Gus so she could Skype with her daughter Dorothy who was pregnant with Gus's first grandchild. It was going to be a natural birth. In an unnatural place. Antarctica. Gus shivered just thinking about it.

“Yup, them things.” Hy pointed at half a dozen fish squares lying on the floor.

Three fish were appliquéd to each square, in green, red, and blue polka dots. Each with a button for an eye.

Dots, of course. Dorothy.

“Don't know what kind of fishes they have down there, mebbe frozen, but these'll have to do. Gave up the whirligig quilt.”

“They're beautiful, Gus.”

“Have to be to suit that little girl.” She sighed, and let her sewing drop to her knees. “A little girl. That's what they say she's going to be, although I don't know how a computer can tell you that any better than we can. Carry it low, it's a boy. High, it's a girl. Imagine. First try – and all those years it took me.” Gus had given birth to eight children. When she'd given up, and was old for the task, she'd finally had her little girl. A tomboy, who had become a doctor instead of a nurse, in spite of her mother's disapproval. Dot was a world traveller, photographer, and third-world volunteer worker.

Gus sighed again.

Hy, who had just come in, sat down.

Gus shoved the day's newspaper at her.

“Read me this.” Her eyes weren't good. They were getting worse. She needed a cataract operation.

Hy reached over and took the paper from her.

“When are you going to see about your eyes?” she ventured.

Gus avoided her gaze. “Time enough. Time enough,” she said in rhythm to the rocking of her chair.

“Why are you putting it off?”

Silence, while Gus rocked some more.

“Well?”

“Well, now, wouldn't I want to see that granddaughter of mine? Even if it's only on the Skype.”

“Gus, it's a very safe procedure, and they do one at a time – ”

Gus was nodding her head, in rhythm with her rocking.

“I know, I know. That's what they tell me. I'm thinking I could go blind.

So I'd like to see my granddaughter first. And make sure it is a girl, once I have the proof in front of my eyes. Then I'll do it.” Maybe, she thought.

“Fish Swimming in Dough.” Hy read the headline, then the subhead: “Woman who laughed herself to death leaves entire fortune to fish.”

“Who's laughing now,” the article began, and went on in much the same vein.

“Don't tell me. Lester Joudry,” Gus said when Hy was finished.

“Yup.”

“He always was one for playing with words. He had a field day with this one.”

“Wrong sport.” Hy grinned. “I'd say he hooked the big one.”

“Sad, though, isn't it, to have no kin to leave it to? No people of her own.”

Like me, thought Hy.

The full impact of Viola's will had hit Anton. He was standing at his bedroom window, which locals called the “cat's eye.” It gave a triangular view of Fiona's trailer and tacky signs. Now there was no question of buying her out. He didn't have the money. He couldn't pay her what he owed her. He had to get rid of her. He could never entertain the clientele he sought with that shoddy encampment scarring the view.

Or the likes of her, now waddling down the cape in her ballooning dress, as if he'd summoned her up. She was headed here. He knew what it was about. Money. The money he owed her. A pittance. Even that he couldn't spare.

He thought about leaving the house, but she would see, whichever door he took.

He thought about lying low. His smoky grey Corolla was parked outside, keys in the ignition, a clear clue that he was home. He wished he had a less common car, but that was the least of his worries. He had a vanity license,
Anton.
Nowhere to hide.

Besides, it was undignified.

So was not having money to pay a minimum-wage earner. How had he come to this? His dreams, his hopes, all gone with Viola. She'd had the last laugh.

Fiona was banging on the kitchen door. Resigned, he dragged himself downstairs to answer.

“Where's my pay?” The moment he opened the door. Not a question – a demand, her jaw thrust forward, belligerence in her eyes.

He'd paid everyone he could, but not her. He had to keep his major creditors happy, the food suppliers, the dry cleaner, all the people he needed to do business.

Fiona? He didn't need her. He'd used her, and that had been a mistake. It hadn't softened her up at all.

“All in good time,” he hedged. “Businesses don't run themselves. You'll be paid.”

“I got a business myself. A cozy little business handy yours. 'Spect your folks will be trudging up to mine for afters. Rather than eating flowers. Sweet to look at, but nothin' like my fudge. I'd put it up against any fancy dessert of yours. Not enough on your plates to satisfy, I say. Maybe to kill. Your guests'd die of hunger. P'raps of starvation.”

She flounced off, having made a point. Not the one she came to make, but it would do for now. She was well-satisfied with the words that had come out of her mouth. She hadn't even had to think them up in advance.

He was going to be sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. The word hammered in her mind as she trudged, gasping for breath, back up the cape.

Her heart was pounding when she reached the trailer. It was all she could do to step up and inside, where she collapsed on the couch, her heart thumping in her chest to the rhythm of her mind.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Anton was in a rage. In a rage about the embarrassment of not being able to pay Fiona. In a rage about Viola's will and the situation he'd been left in. In a rage at the creditors, who, with their oily insinuations and suggestions about debt management were closing in. He couldn't even make money from Viola's jewels. The real ones were in the bank, part of the same estate that would be wasted on fish. In her jewel box – all fakes. Good fakes, but worth nothing to him.

He wanted every trace of Viola gone. He was within his rights. Her death had been ruled natural. She had named no next of kin – besides the fish. He would send it all to the Salvation Army. If she'd been around to know, she would have been mortified. He wouldn't be surprised if they refused them because of the smell of cigarette smoke. As he thrust her clothes into her suitcase, with each piece of clothing came a new venomous thought.

Perhaps he'd be able to put off some of the creditors. Those who hadn't heard about the will, those who might think he still had expectations.

Who was he kidding? Everyone, everywhere, all over the world, had heard about the crazy old woman who had left her fortune to fish. The celebrity and gossip magazines went so far as to wonder what he, the handsome young lover, could have done wrong to be cut out of the will. There were insinuations that he had strayed with some young pop tart. It made his skin crawl. He fancied himself in a higher stratum of society, squiring Kate's sister Pippa or one of their high-heeled friends.

There'd be no question of that now. He stuffed Viola's housecoat into the suitcase, releasing the cloying smell of her perfume, mixed with smoke.

He tried to close the case, but couldn't, and so left it yawning open. He threw her journal on top, until he decided what to do with it.

He'd learned a few things from that journal. A few things that might be useful.

As he pounded down the stairs, the journal jumped off its perch and skittered under the bedroom chair. There it lay, half-hidden and waiting for the next stop on its travels.

From the huge window illuminating the stairwell and looking out toward the sea rock, Anton spied Hy circling the house. Fueled by Jamieson's suspicions that murder, not natural causes, had killed Viola, Hy had come to see if she could find out anything Jamieson hadn't. Anton's car was there, but there was no answer to her knock, and the door was locked, so she was taking a look in all the windows.

“Of course, I am enchanted that you have come to see me.” Hy was shocked. He had come out the back door and slipped up behind her as she was peering in the French doors. He opened them up and motioned her in. “I don't for a minute think it is because of my charms. Now, if perhaps I had inherited Viola's fortune…”

“I have money of my own, thank you.” Hy almost never brought it up, but he was irritating her.

“Then perhaps I should be flirting with you.” How much money could she really have? He looked at her, dressed in shorts and a sweatshirt. Not enough.

Hy ignored the comment. When she said she was going down to Anton's, Ian had suggested she flirt with him to see what she could find out.

“Be careful, though,” he'd said. “He could be a murderer.”

“I've handled them before,” she said.

“And nearly got yourself killed. I better come with you.”

“How am I supposed to flirt with him if you're there?”

“How about I give you fifteen minutes with him and then knock on the door?”

“Okay. Sure you're not jealous?”

“Only a little.”

So here she was, partly because she was responding to what she considered a challenge from Ian. She also felt she could find out a lot about a person by observing them at close quarters. Did Anton have the killer instinct? Were there any clues in the house? She felt quite safe – because there had been no charges laid, and until there were, any murderer would be on his best behaviour.

“I've come because I'm curious. Maybe I can even help you out. I'd like to figure out what's happened here. A natural death and an accident, probably, but you never know – ”

“Do you think then that I might be a murderer? You are brave to be here, in that case.”

“I don't know. You might be.” A flippant reply. It made him admire her more, this vibrant redhead. “I can see why you might – misguidedly – have killed Viola.”

“And that means?”

It was an awkward moment, punctuated by the backdoor squeaking open.

“Delivery,” came a shout from the kitchen.

“Excuse me. I must attend to this.”

Her nerves betrayed her. She had to go to the bathroom. She couldn't ask. Or wait. She'd never make it. She shot up the stairs.

She shoved open the first door. Success. When she came out, she peeked into the next room. The striped silk pyjamas gave it away. Anton's room. In the next, there was a suitcase on the bed, packed but open. A bunch of old lady's clothes. Hy slipped into the room. The possessions of a dead woman, wafting the smell of cigarettes into the room. She stroked the silk of an aqua blouse. Good silk. Not what you'd get in Walmart.

She heard the screen door slam, and it gave her a start. She relaxed at the sound of the two men talking outside.

What clue could she possibly hope to find here?

She turned to leave the room, and her foot hit something. She looked down.

A fawn kid-leather book. Hy grabbed it and flipped it open. Black ink. The hand was neat and tiny, so tiny it could hardly be read.

First page. “Happy news.”

A few pages in: “…parasite…”

The sound of a van door slamming shut.

Flipped to the last entry. The day she died.

“Little bastard. I…” a word Hy could not make out. “…him…”

The delivery van's engine purred to life.

She couldn't read the next word either. It looked like “like.”

“…and he…death…”

The screen door squeaked open.

Hy looked out the window. The turbine blades were spinning directly into the room, as if advancing on it, shafts of shadow slicing through the light.

The screen door slammed closed. She closed the diary and stretched her arm forward to replace it in the suitcase, but stopped. Perhaps she should put it back on the floor. Maybe it had never been in the suitcase. Maybe Anton didn't know about it. Hy was as curious as a cat. A clue, maybe, and what a clue. She couldn't leave the book behind. Besides, it wasn't Anton's, so it wasn't theft. She knew it might be evidence, but even that didn't stop her. There had been no charges. She stuffed the book into her large shapeless red leather bag. She shimmied down the stairs, but the stairs weren't built for speed. She slipped and took the last three stairs on her ass.

Her purse went sliding across the slick hardwood floor.

Anton Paradis picked it up and held it above her, one finger hooking the strap.

“I was using the bathroom.” She could use it again now. He'd scared the piss out of her, grabbing her bag like that. She reached for it, even before standing up. He yanked it out of her grasp. Cat and mouse. Unfortunately, she was the mouse.

“Did you find it?”

Her head went dizzy at his question. She slumped back on the floor.

“What?”

“The bathroom, of course.”

She nodded. “Uh hmm.” Keeping her lips closed in an attempt to swallow back her breathlessness.

“Odd, because there isn't one upstairs.”

She flushed red. Then recaptured her presence of mind.

“If there isn't, I must have peed in a porcelain vase.” It had looked a bit like one.

He smiled. A smile of superiority.

“Just testing. Now, where were we?” He extended the purse. She snatched it.

“We know nothing about Viola. I thought you might tell us more.”

“We? Us?”

“My friend Ian and I.”

“You mean that man peeking in the window?”

Hy turned, and there was Ian, looking flustered, arm half-raised, not sure whether to knock or not.