The Dead Letter (11 page)

30.

Anne looked thoughtfully at Dawson. He avoided eye contact and
slowly massaged one hand with the other. It seemed to soothe him. He looked at his wristwatch and massaged again.

“I shouldn't have said that,” said Dawson. “…that ‘I might have hit her.'”

“Why?” asked Anne.

“I don't believe it. I don't believe I killed her.”

“You had serious mental and alcohol problems. You had blank spots. You can't be sure of your state of mind. What makes you think that?”

“Like I said, it's just a feeling.”

“Something to hang on to anyway. I suppose you're lucky. It could very easily have gone the other way…first-degree murder and a life sentence…instead of ten to twenty.”

Dawson loosed a hard glare. Muscles in his jaw flexed.

“Lucky? It's not the word I'd choose.” Despite the lingering glare, his words were calm and controlled.

“How would you look at it?”

“How do I look at it? You're right, it could have been worse. But it wasn't luck. Luck would have been getting a full psych evaluation before the trial. Luck would have been having a lawyer with the resources and experience to prepare a solid defence. Luck would have been some grounds for appeal before the deadline.”

“What I'm trying to say is that the judge must have seen the weaknesses in the case. And he did cut you a break. That counts for something, doesn't it?”

“It does…yes…it does.”

“But you're still bitter.”

“It comes and goes.” Dawson reached up and clutched the crucifix on the chain around his neck. “This helps.”

“How so?”

“We've got things in common. Christ was considered dangerous and a lunatic, and he got railroaded. So did I.”

Anne let that thought sink in for a moment or two, but she wanted to keep Dawson calm and on track, so she moved the topic along.

“Would you feel comfortable filling me in on the last ten years, Jacob?”

“Sure. I guess. Where do I begin? Oh yes, it all started at Springhill Prison…spent a month-and-a-half at their Intake Assessment Unit. They dug around in my background…figured out I was a drunk and a druggie and a social misfit. Then I was shipped off to the Atlantic Institution…sounds like a college campus, doesn't it… That's the fancy name for a maximum security prison in Renous. A notorious place. I was there for two years. Then they decided I wasn't very dangerous or an escape risk. So they shipped me to Dorchester Pen. After five years in Dorchester, they thought I was turning into a real nice fellow and transferred me to the “farm” at Westmorland…a minimum-security facility. I was released three years later. That's the
Reader's Digest
version of my coming-of-age story.”

Dawson looked at his watch, looked up at Anne, and smiled. She didn't return one.

“So you did ten years of a twenty-year sentence. The minimum. That's pretty impressive. They must have felt that you were rehabilitated. How did that come about?”

The glibness and irony of Dawson's recollections suddenly fell away as he began talking about his addictions, and Anne sensed that she was drawing closer to the real John J. Dawson.

“As I said, I was a drunk and a junkie and a social outcast when I was young. At Renous, they had the results from my original intake assessment, and they had programs to help me get my head above water. A twelve-step program led me off the booze. Coincidentally, it also led me to Christ again. He had always been there…somewhere,” he said pointing to his heart, “but I couldn't hear him anymore. Don't get me wrong, I didn't turn into a full-blown Bible-thumper…but it put me on a different road. Counselling helped, too.”

“New heart, new eyes, new man,” said Anne.

“Except that that's about the time I found out that I was crazy.”

“How do you mean?”

“I had been a bit odd before my great plunge into the abyss, but after my addiction rehab I turned a bit strange again. I felt energized…thought I could conquer the world. Funny idea to have in prison, eh? I decided that I wanted to get an education. So I signed up for a GED. I got the books and dug into them. I was so excited I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep at all. I was sure I could complete the coursework in a week or two. Started preaching, too…at the same time…testifying in the yard…and proclaiming the Bible so everyone could hear it from my cell…saw myself as Christ's apostle in jail. I got thumped a few times for my trouble, but that just made me feel like a martyr. So I got beat up again and that landed me in the infirmary. Looking back, I guess I was driving everyone else crazy.”

“How did you deal with that?”

“I didn't. I got pretty down about it. I felt like a loser…a fraud. I felt like my life had lost all meaning again. Then a nurse at the infirmary spoke to a doctor there. They checked me over and ran some tests. It turns out that I have bipolar.”

“Did you get treatment?”

“Psychotherapy and drugs. It took a few months to get the right mix of meds, but I'm fairly stable now. After that, I kept up the education. I still read the Bible…to myself. It's a matter of balance, apparently.”

“So you're on parole now?”

“I was released in Nova Scotia last year. Now I'm on full parole, but maybe that letter you have might lead to a statutory release.” He glanced at his watch.

“Thanks, Jacob. I really appreciate your taking the time to talk with me. I won't keep you any longer. You obviously have an appointment.”

“An evening class.”

“For your GED.”

“No, Sociology. I'm finishing my third year.”

“University?”

“Yes,” he grinned. “You can get through a lot of courses in ten years…with no place to go.”

31
.

Anne's visit and interview with John Dawson had been interesting to say the least, but it had not added anything to her arsenal of evidence against MacFarlane.
A smoking gun would be nice
, she thought. However, smoke drifts, especially after ten years. She had a pile of suspicions and not much else, at least nothing that would bring MacFarlane to his knees at trial. She figured that he was troubled with her snooping around, but if he kept a low profile, shut his mouth, and did nothing, he would ride out her digging about in the dust of the past.

Maybe it's time to kick the hornet's nest and see what pops
, she thought.

She picked up the phone, hesitated, then put it down again. A surprise might be the better choice, she decided. Then she thought the better of it. She would need some leverage first. She picked up the phone a second time and called Mary Anne.

“Mary Anne, have you any information about Chief MacFarlane's ex? Know anyone who runs in her circle? I think her name is Lydia something.”

“You came to the right store, hon. What do ya need?”

“I want to pump her for information about MacFarlane, and I may need some leverage if she's reluctant. Any deep dark secrets…things she'd like to hide?”

Mary Anne explained that before she opened The Blue Peter, she had been manager of a restaurant and lounge downtown. It was a popular place, and she had got to know most of the patrons, especially those who liked to party. Lydia Vandermeer had been one of them. Lydia was about twenty-one at the time. Beautiful, popular, talented, and pretty well-off. Her parents had been industrious farmers who immigrated to PEI and started a tobacco farm. They prospered, sold their farm to a corporate group, retired, and returned to the Netherlands, but Lydia remained on PEI. It's where she had gone to school and where her friends still lived.

“She married MacFarlane a few years after that,” Mary Anne said. “They seemed a good match. At the time he was the ‘golden boy,' so to speak. Old Chief Quigley had taken a heart attack, and MacFarlane stepped into his job. The publicity he received after the Villier murder made him high-profile, I guess. But I heard he had the backing from the deal-makers in town as well.”

“I take it they didn't live happily ever after.”

“No, MacFarlane had a wandering eye. He even flirted with me, and I was married at the time and a good deal older than the usual cupcake he nibbles on. Something about him, though. He always seemed like he was above it all. No fear. A turn-on for some, but not me. Anyway, Lydia comes home early from work and finds him in the sack with some young blonde. She was pissed…and hurt…and filed for divorce.”

“How long had they been married?”

“I'd say about five years.”

“Good to know, but she may still have some feeling for him.”

“That ain't the half of it. She got her divorce and not much more.”

“I thought property settlement was fifty-fifty on the Island. Like California.”

“It is. She was in here a while back. We chatted about the old days, had a few glasses of wine, and she got 'round to her not-so-lovely love life. Turns out she's broke. Her husband had always handled the household finances, and it seems he managed to hide most of their assets. She never found out how or where or even when. He had some private business dealings, but he was vague about them. He must have been expecting this to happen for some time, though. It's not something you could pull off in a week or two. She even lost some prime waterfront land and a nest egg her parents had given her years ago.”

“Sleazebag or what!”

“Tell me about it! Go see Lydia. Tell her I sent you. You won't need leverage.”

32.

Jacqui had stuffed her bag of soccer gear in a closet and settled into
homework by the time Anne arrived home. Anne hung up her jacket, sniffed at the gear bag.

“Beans and wieners and a salad,” she shouted toward Jacqui's door. “I'm in a rush. That enough?”

“Fine,” Jacqui hollered back.

“And that soccer bag smells. Did you put all your clothes in the wash?”

“I'll do it after supper, Mom.”

“Don't forget.”

Supper was on the table twenty minutes later. Jacqui was still in a studious and preoccupied state of mind. She wasn't really following her mother's recount of her day and broke into the middle of one of Anne's stories: “By the way, I'm babysitting Saturday. Madame Desjardins'. Won't be too late.”

Anne was jarred, not by Jacqui's surprise notification, but because she had completely lost track of what she had been saying to Jacqui, and the dinner table fell quiet for the remainder of the meal. Then Jacqui casually broke the silence as if she had not noticed it: “By the way, it's Bobby's birthday Saturday. I can't go, but I have the perfect gift for him.”

“I wanted to torch his car. Then I thought some firefighter might get hurt. So hiring a hit man crossed my mind, but that wouldn't have the same satisfaction as doing it yourself. I'm not too handy with guns. That's a man's solution. Women prefer poisons. Did you know that Catherine de Medici poisoned half a dozen former lovers and rivals? And there used to be schools in medieval Italy and France that taught the art of poisoning? It was quite the rage.”

Anne grinned at Lydia Vandermeer. She was much of what Mary Anne had described: beautiful, charming, and clever. She had thin lips and a narrow nose. She had bright brown eyes and an enviable figure.

“I can't tell you how many scenarios I ran through my head after he screwed me over.”

“Was it as bad as Mary Anne suggested?”

“Worse. He even maxed out the credit cards. He knew that our debts would be split as well as our assets. So he charged a lot of high-end items. Then he sold them at a discount to friends and pocketed the cash. Me, I was forced to cough up half. He even charged a luxury cruise to the Mediterranean, where he and his new trampy blonde girlfriend partied for a couple weeks. I had to bankroll half of that, too.”

“Why did he go so far?”

“He wanted me to suck it up…and let him have his fun on the side. I wouldn't, and a divorce would smudge his public image, he said. Jamie had two sides: Mister Charm and Mister Bastard, and he was a vindictive bastard at that.”

“Did he talk much about his time on the job before you married?”

“Some.”

“What about Simone Villier?”

“He liked to talk about how he busted the guy that killed her. He got a lot of publicity from that. He got right puffed up whenever he had the chance to tell someone about it. I thought it was cute at the time. Now it just seems farcical.”

“What about Simone?”

“Strangely, he never mentioned her, and if I brought her name up he got distant, quiet, and touchy. She wasn't a welcome topic.”

“Didn't that seem odd? I'd heard they were engaged or about to be engaged…that it was getting serious.”

“I'd heard that, too, from other people, but it wasn't something I was comfortable pressing him about, and, frankly, I wasn't that interested.”

“Under the circumstances, it was fortunate the two of you never had children.”

“To say the least! I always wanted children. It just wasn't in the cards. A good thing in hindsight.”

“I've heard a lot of good things about fertility treatments and in vitro. You might want to explore those options the next time around. Jamie must have been disappointed.”

“About what?”

“Not having kids.”

“Why?”

“When I spoke with him a few days ago he seemed almost heartbroken about having lost his child.”

“What are you talking about?

“His girlfriend, Simone Villier, was pregnant when she was murdered. It seemed to impact him quite strongly.”

“She was pregnant?”

Anne nodded solemnly.

Lydia sat astonished for a moment, then her lips twitched. Her eyes crinkled in the corners. Anne expected her to burst into tears. Lydia, who obviously had difficulty conceiving, was now confronted with her own physical inadequacy. Lydia's hand reached up to cover her mouth, and she bent forward. A long high-pitched expulsion of air and sound escaped from her throat. It resonated like a howl of excruciating pain, and Anne's eyes widened with concern as Lydia's slender frame heaved uncontrollably.

“Oh my god!” cried Lydia. Anne's hand reached out to comfort her but fell away when she became aware that Lydia was convulsing, not with anguish, but with laughter. “Oh my god!” she repeated, and she repeated it again and again between gasping breaths and volleys of laughter.

Anne's confusion slipped into awkwardness and then into mortification as Lydia seemed unable to control herself.

“Was it something I said?” asked Anne, her cheek and throat turning crimson. Lydia's head nodded, her finger pointed toward Anne, and she went into another spasm.

Anne took several sips of the sweet, creamy herbal tea she had been served and tried to recover some dignity in the circumstances.

Lydia finally gathered some control and said, “Oh god, you're hilarious,” but her face was still contorted from laughing and her eyes watered.

“I don't get it,” said Anne, somewhat miffed.

“Sorry, Anne, but here's the thing: Jamie can't have kids. Never could.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. He told me so. He had a severe case of mumps when he was a kid. Swelling in the groin affected reproduction. I was forever the optimist, though. I insisted that he see a doctor again…get a second opinion. I thought maybe it was reversible or something. It wasn't, and his sperm count was near zero.”

“And you're so happy about this, why?”

“Sad to say, but his misery becomes my joy. And I've had so little to crow about lately. This makes up for the delay.”

“How do you mean?”

“It means that somebody other than Jamie knocked up Simone Villier.”

“That must have been a blow,” said Anne.

“A proper kick in the nuts,” said Lydia.