30
Geoff’s lights were on by the time I got back from my walk. I crossed from my place to his and rapped on his sliding door. Sheba followed me inside. Since Geoff and I had become a pair, she considered both apartments home.
He poured sugar and milk into a mug and handed me the doctored coffee. “Could you have misinterpreted?” he asked told him what I’d seen.
“They argued. Carrie cried. They hugged.”
“Did they kiss?”
“I wasn’t going to hang around and wait for it.”
“So the hug could have been platonic?”
I replayed the scene in my mind. “He didn’t seem in a hurry to hold her.”
Geoff leaned against the kitchen counter, his mug in his hand.
I inhaled the fumes from mine. “I should tell Andrew.”
“Any idea who the guy is?”
“I can’t help wondering if he has something to do with Claude’s death. I mean, he was never here before Claude died.”
Geoff set down his mug, took mine, and put it beside his. He led me into the living room and pulled me down into his recliner with him. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions. That’s what gets you into trouble.”
“I’m not jumping. I’m simply stating a verifiable fact.”
“This guy being in Hum Harbour may be connected to Claude’s death, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is.”
“How do we find out?”
“We don’t. Remember? That’s police business.”
I rested my head against his shoulder. “Can’t I be curious about someone new in town?”
Geoff’s arm tightened around me. “Where is he staying?”
“Do you think he’s sleeping at Carrie’s? She hasn’t asked me to stay over since the memorial.”
“I didn’t see him at the memorial.”
“Well, he was at Hunter Hall for the reception. I caught him upstairs looking for the bathroom.”
Geoff hmphed.
“I didn’t think anything about it at the time. There were so many people I didn’t know, and it sounded reasonable. The bathroom demand was brisk.”
“Could he be related to her?”
I’d wondered that, myself. “She’s never mentioned relatives coming from away.”
“And Claude’s family cut him off years ago.”
Sheba butted my knee, and I shifted to make room for her on my lap. “What could he have done to deserve that?”
“He never talked about his life before Carrie. I assumed he was ashamed of where he’d come from.”
“Compared to the Hunters?”
He threaded his fingers through mine. “Wealth has a way of shaming the poor.”
“What was it Carrie said? ‘You stop noticing the things that are always with you.’ I wonder if he regretted sacrificing his family for her?”
“He loved her.”
“He kept a journal, you know.”
“Gai.”
“I found it in his home office.” Sheba stepped from my lap to Geoff’s and lay down. Apparently his was more comfortable. “Maybe it explains why he’s estranged from his family.”
“It’ll be in police custody.”
“Of course it will.” Except it was still beside Claude’s chair after the police had bagged, tagged, and taken away their evidence. And as far as I knew they’d not come back for more. Maybe I should mention it to Andrew. Or I could ask Carrie.
****
Tuesday morning I played catch-up at the clinic. Geoff had a full morning booked, and the waiting room hummed with people coming and going. At exactly ten-o-six—the clock on the wall was right across from my desk so I couldn’t miss it—the clinic door banged open, and my cousin Ash marched in.
She slammed a piece of loose leaf on top of my computer keyboard, sending a zillion unconnected letters skittering across the screen. “I quit,” she said loud enough to turn heads. “Effective immediately. There’s my r-resignation.”
I picked up the page. It said “I quit effective immediately” in her left-sloping script.
I took a deep breath and told myself not to panic. Surely whatever’d upset her was fixable. I mean, she couldn’t quit now, not with Hum Harbour Daze, the shops’ busiest season, only days away. “What’s wrong?”
“You had no right sticking your nose in my business!”
I half stood. “Is everything at Dunmaglass all right?”
“D-dunmaglass? Is that all you care about?”
Geoff poked his head out of the examining room. “Is everything all right out here?”
“No!” snapped Ash. “It’s not all right.”
“Maybe you should keep your voice down,” I said.
“I will n-not!”
“Gailynn, could you please take your cousin outside and deal with whatever is wrong?” Geoff phrased it as a question, but I knew it wasn’t.
I came around the desk, took Ash’s elbow, and ushered her to the door, smiling reassuringly to the folks in the waiting room who, I’m sure, would have preferred we stay so they could hear what Ash had to say. Once I’d herded Ash out the door, I latched it firmly behind us, and propelled her up the street. Away from prying ears.
“What is with you?” I demanded. “You can’t just march into a place of business and start shouting at people. If you have a problem—”
“If I have a problem? If? Oh, that’s s-s-sweet.”
“Stop ranting and explain.”
“As if you don’t know?”
“I don’t know!”
“B-baloney!”
“Ashleigh Margaret MacDonald, stop this melodramatic twaddle, and tell me what’s happened!”
“Josh b-broke up with me!”
Mrs. MacPhee peered at us between her front curtains. I smiled and waved all was well. “When did he do that?”
“This morning while I was opening your stupid Dunmaglass, he came in and said he c-couldn’t see me anymore.”
Had he spoken to Andrew, too?
“What’s happened?”
She caught the tip of her index finger between her front teeth and tore off a length of fingernail. “He said you called him cheap and inconsiderate and un-t-trustworthy.”
“Well…”
“How could you? Josh is the b-best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Ash, he breaks into people’s houses and steals things.”
“For me.”
“You asked him to do it?”
She tore a strip off another nail. “Of course I never asked him to steal kitchen f-frogs. But he’s done it because he loves me. And you’ve ruined it.”
“I’ve ruined it?” I almost sputtered. “I’m the one who’s been covering for him because I didn’t want you hurt.”
“So that’s why you c-called him names and threatened to go to the police?”
“Ash.” I said her name softly, trying to damp down the anger factor. “Have you considered the possibility that Josh has done more than swipe a few dozen kitchen frogs?”
“Like what?”
“He was at Hunter Hall the night Claude Oui died.”
Ash placed her hands on her hips. “S-so.”
“There are a number of pricey folk art frogs missing from Carrie Hunter’s collection.”
“You think Josh took them?”
I spread my hands.
“If he took them, he’d have given them t-to me, and he hasn’t.”
“Maybe he’s holding them until things cool down?”
“Since I know, for a fact, he never took Carrie Hunter’s yuppie folk art frogs, the answer is no. He’s not holding them until things c-cool down.”
“How do you know Josh doesn’t have them?”
“Because he told me so. And Josh doesn’t lie to me.”
“You knew he’d been stealing kitchen frogs for you?”
“No. But he never l-lied about it once I asked him.”
“And you asked if he’s got Carrie’s missing collectables?”
“He said, ‘I don’t have Carrie Hunter’s stuff.’ Direct quote. Good enough?”
“Then why did he break up with you?”
“Because you made him feel like he wasn’t good enough. People are always treating him like he’s less than they are. I’m not surprised when some people do that, b-but you? I thought you were different.”
“Hold it. Are you trying to turn this around and say I’m prejudiced?”
“If the shoe fits.”
I stuck my finger in her face. “Don’t you ever, ever, accuse me of treating him badly because he looks different than I do. I’ve lived my entire life being different. Having people look at me and whisper.” As the only non-redhead in three generations of MacDonalds, my black hair stirred a lot of tongues, not just Phyllis Hunter’s. It wasn’t until a teacher questioned my parentage in front of my entire class that my dad pulled out some old family photos of my great-grandmother, a Mi’kmaq whom I closely resemble, that my own doubts began to fade.
“This has nothing to do with what he’s like on the outside and everything to do with what he’s like on the inside. You”—I poked her—”you deserve a man you can trust. Anyone who sneaks into people’s houses, and takes things that don’t belong to them, I don’t care what their reason, is not trustworthy.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “But I love him.”
“Then convince him to do the right thing.”
“You want Josh to t-turn himself in?”
“I want Josh to be the kind of man God intended him to be—an honest one.”
She swiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “I’ve got to find him.”
“Head back to Dunmaglass, and by the time you close up tonight, I’m sure he’ll have reconsidered.”
She hiked her purse up on her shoulder. “You’ve got my resignation. I’m not coming back to Dunmaglass unless Josh and I get b-back together.”
“But I need you.”
“Now you know what it feels like.”