Just before ten o’clock Sunday night, headlights raked the cabin walls, and a tall woman walked shakily down the path to my door. It was Jan Sloan. Her thick black hair was pulled back tight; her brown eyes were huge and imploring and looked like they contained unstable elements.
“Can I talk to you inside?” she said.
She sat down in my green plush rocking chair. Her face was drawn and chapped. I told her I was sorry about Albert. She said thanks and lit a cigarette. She had been in the cabin once before, visiting with her late husband, and I had made Fry’s Cocoa for all of us, warming the milk on the Baby Bear wood stove. This time, I brought her an ashtray and opened a window to let out the smoke.
Jan was about forty, which made her more than fifteen years younger than Albert and a couple of years younger than me. She had a striking mug—small, elegant features contrasting with a large, bold mouth. Despite the age gap, the grief that seemed to be searching for a way out of her eyes was undoubtedly real. She had been married to Albert for nine years, but they often carried on like newlyweds, smooching and clowning around the office. Albert was originally from the north of England and was one of those bony-faced charmers with the sergeant-major bristles, resonant deep voice and sparkling baby blues. More than once, his attitude toward Jan had reminded me of John cavorting with Yoko.
“I came here,” she said, “because Albert always had a great deal of respect for you. When you were at the paper, it was like we were winning for once. You were one guy he really trusted and admired.”
“I appreciate that, Jan, but I’m not interested in going back.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to. Although if you wanted Rita’s job, you would have it in a second.”
“I don’t.”
“Fine. That’s not why I’m here.” Chin held up, she took a long drag and crossed her fine legs. Outside the open window, the fore and aft lights of a tugboat beamed across the water, inching southeast toward the mainland, three lighted barges in distant tow. At that moment, I envied the crew.
“I want you to do something for me. Hear me out anyway.”
“Sure.”
“This might seem self-serving, but I don’t believe Albert took his own life. Pat, I’m positive that he didn’t.”
“What do the police say?”
She wrinkled her nose in contempt. “They think I’m off my rocker. He left a note. The coroner signed off. Case closed.”
“They decided pretty quick.”
“I begged them to investigate further. They just looked at me. They don’t give a damn. They’re so smug—and so dumb. They didn’t even treat it as a possible crime scene. Albert’s body was removed right away, and the gawkers were trampling the area before I got there.”
“What did the note say?”
“Here.” She used the same shaking hand that held her cigarette to reach into her purse, knocking ashes all over. The note was on a half page of regular printing paper, torn cleanly at the bottom and folded twice. The long, diagonal scrawl was unmistakable.
I’m sorry about this. No harm is intended to anyone.
There is simply no choice in the matter.
Albert Sloan
“It could mean anything,” she said, but there was a question in her eyes.
I reserved comment. “Where did they find it?”
“In his pocket. His coat pocket.”
“How did he get to Settlers Road?”
Jan almost lunged at me. “That’s one question they can’t answer. He didn’t drive there, and it’s more than a six-mile walk. Even at two in the morning, someone would’ve spotted him walking along the road with a coil of rope in his hand.”
“He could have taken the beach. The tide was out far enough to make it around.”
“That’s what they’re saying, the Mounties. Of course, there was fresh sand on his runners. He walked on the beach every day.”
“What do you think happened?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. All I know is that he wasn’t the least bit suicidal. He’s never been suicidal. You knew him. Do you think he was?”
“He didn’t seem to be. I didn’t know him as well as you did, obviously.”
“No. No one was closer to Albert than me, and I’m telling you that man did not have it in him to take his own life. Sure, he was dogging it for a while after losing the election; it was a heavy blow. He was just getting comfortable in politics, and then the rug got pulled out from under him. The campaign drained his energy and our bank account. But that was almost six months ago. If you’d seen him, Pat, especially in the last few weeks, you’d know that he had gotten way past that. He was really upbeat. He had been doing research on a story that he thought would make some big waves. He was chipper. All summer we’ve been sailing, swimming on the beach, working in the garden. Making love. He’s been in great spirits. And then what happens? Suddenly he turns around and hangs himself? I don’t think so.”
“What was the story he was working on?”
“Wouldn’t tell me.”
“Nothing?”
She shook her head. “Kept it to himself. You know Albert. Didn’t want to jinx it. Didn’t want to let the genie out of the bottle.”
“Did he leave notes behind?”
“If he did, I can’t find them. But I can tell you this; he really got onto it after Virgil Wood died last month.”
“The poet? He was in his nineties, wasn’t he?”
“But he was lucid to the end. And Albert spent a lot of time with him in the hospital those last days. He has some of Virgil’s papers in the study. You can look at them if you want.”
I’d read some of Wood’s published poetry and his animal stories and had no desire to read more. He was an interesting character, though; he’d landed on the Coast during the Great Depression, when the beaches had been like a giant shantytown, littered with tin shacks and lean-tos, and he’d never left. One of the ancient ones.
“Jan, were there any medical or money problems?”
“No, nothing like that. Albert was fit, never took meds in his life, and we have lots of equity. Business was about the same as it’s always been. Not easy, but we could always make payroll.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Friday night. I went to bed before midnight. He was in the study working. I got the call around seven thirty the next morning. Yesterday. Oh, and I found this at the office.” She hauled a black day journal out of her purse. “He didn’t usually use it, but Friday—here, look—he wrote down these entries. People he was going to see.”
The list started at noon and ended at five p.m., with an extra hour allowed between the last two entries.
12:00 Jerome C.
1:00 L. Loved.
2:00 R. Barlow
3:00 Joe R.
5:00 Sayonara Jan
The last entry was more conclusive than the suicide note, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
“I’ll tell you what I know,” Jan said, leaning over, almost maniacally helpful, "because I’ve talked to these guys. ‘Jerome C.,’ that’s Chief Jerome Charlie, or ex-chief. He says Albert went to his house to pitch an interview—something really candid about the self-government signing ceremony this weekend and about losing the last band election. In that sense, they were both standing in the same moccasins, but that’s not how Jerome saw it. He’s never forgiven Albert.
“‘L. Loved.’ That’s Lars Lovedahl, of course. He says Albert went to the Venture-West offices to yell at him about the U Catch ‘Em pens, that stupid tourist display they set up in the harbour. Albert was furious about those pens going in; who isn’t?
“Roy Barlow says he and Albert were talking about a special advertorial section on the mall.‘Joe R.’—I don’t know who he is. And I’m not sure what he meant by writing ‘Sayonara Jan.’”
Doubt and pain flooded her face. I tried to keep her talking. “Did he tell you about any of these meetings later in the day?”
“No, but I hardly saw him Friday. I went to the city and came back on the eight o’clock boat. He was in the study when I got home. I showed him a few of the things I bought—clothes and books—but he was preoccupied with work, and I left him alone. What I would do now to do it again. Just talk to him.”
She gave in at last and cried, hard. I let her be for a while, then put an arm around her and locked a grip on her heaving shoulder.
I had no words.
“I know he was down after losing the election,” she sobbed, “but all his old strength and confidence had come back. He was himself again. He loved his life, and we had a good marriage.”
She stopped crying abruptly, and her face grew firmly focused and mean. "And what about that Ian J. Cameron?
“What about Ian?”
“Come on. He lives just down the road from where Albert’s body was found. He’s about to leave the province. Everywhere he went, he bad-mouthed Albert. He’s a venomous spider, and if he had a chance to do it, he would do it.”
She wiped her eyes with a Kleenex, gaining strength and clarity from her anger. “As soon as I heard where it was,” she said, “I thought of Ian.”
“So what do you want me to do, Jan?”
“I just want you to look into it. You’re a digger. You know the principals. You know the place. Just do some digging. I’ll put you back on salary, and let’s see what you can turn up.”
I said I would. She took my right hand in both of hers and gave me a wounded smile. “That’s the best news I’ve had in two days.”
“There hasn’t been much competition.”
Her second smile was nicer. “You’re terrible.”
I walked with her up the slope to her car. She declined my offer to drive her home. She said Albert’s two grown sons from his first marriage were staying at the house, just stunned by the whole thing, naturally. His aged father was flying in from England; other relatives were coming; the funeral was Friday.
She was a strong woman, I thought, as she spun the car around on the gravel parking-pad and jolted it up the long tree-shrouded driveway to Beach Road.
I figured I’d give it a few days, maybe a week. Let her get past the funeral.