cannot belong to the crown or the Migiskan Reserve, because the government and Indian reserves do not pay taxes on their land holdings. This means the island is privately owned. In fact, there was a name listed on the tax rolls.”
I held my breath. “Aunt Aggie?”
“I am sorry. The property is listed under the trusteeship of a law firm, Bingham, McLeod and Tetro. When I contacted Mr. Wilson McLeod, he can only give me the name of the owner, nothing more.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is impossible to contact the owner. Mr. McLeod has no current address. He does not know if the owner is alive, since there has been no contact since 1935.”
“That’s over sixty-five years ago. Why would the lawyer still be paying the taxes?
“Apparently his law firm was given a significant amount of money to be invested and used for taxes and of course their legal fees.”
“It must’ve been a very large amount of money.”
“Perhaps, or the firm made good investments.”
“Surely the lawyer tried to contact the owner at some point in time?”
“He tells me that his firm tried to contact the owner in 1958, but was not successful.’
“So where does this leave us?”
“At this moment, it is not necessary to contact the owner. Now that we have evidence to prove the land is privately held, we can file a stop work injunction against CanacGold without the owner’s permission. However, when the owner is made aware of this gold discovery, it is possible he will sell the land to CanacGold.”
“That means we’ve got to get to him before CanacGold. But we may already be too late,” I said and reminded François of my suspicions of Gareth’s possible involvement in the missing land registry file.
François replied, “Oui, Madame. You are right to worry. Mr. McLeod has confirmed that a lawyer recently requested the same information about the ownership of this island. Although he did not tell me his name, Mr. McLeod said this lawyer was representing a mining company. I think, madame, you know the identity of this man.”
The two-faced liar, I thought. He knew all along, even when he was trying to get me to sell my land by saying he still loved me. Well, he would never make a fool of me, ever again.
“Okay, François, I’m going to stop this guy from selling his land to CanacGold. How do I find him?”
“Madame, it will not be a simple task. Much time has passed. This man is probably dead. There will be heirs. Finding them will be difficult. But, I think if it is difficult for you, it is also difficult for your former husband, non? I do not believe he finds this owner yet. However you must begin immediately. I suggest you begin by asking people who live in your area. I will also ask my clerk to search the municipal records.”
“Okay, sounds good to me. By the way, what is the owner’s name?”
“Watson, William J. Watson.”
On first hearing the name, it meant nothing to me, but I’d no sooner hung up the phone than I remembered Mother’s mention of Aunt Aggie’s jilting lover with a short English name starting with “w”.
I quickly phoned my mother. However, my hopes were immediately quashed when she admitted that although the name could be Watson, it could just as easily be White or Waters. Furthermore, she insisted that even if it was Watson, since he was supposed to have been a fortune hunter, it wasn’t likely he’d had any money to buy land, particularly land in the middle of nowhere. A point I was inclined to agree with.
She promised to search through Grandpa’s papers for any reference to the name of Watson. I thought of going to Toronto to do it myself but decided I couldn’t afford to be away. I was in a race with Gareth to find the present owner. While Mother was looking through Grandpa’s files, I could be searching around here. Besides, I wanted to be here for Gareth’s next move.
THIRTY-ONE
I made some tea and plunged right into my search for the owner of Whispers Island. I tried the only three listings for “Watson” in the local phone book and came up empty. Two were recent arrivals to the area, and the third said that if he had inherited an island, he’d be living on it. However, the calls weren’t a total failure. From the last guy, I learned that Gareth wasn’t too far out in front. He’d only contacted this Mr. Watson three days ago.
I called all the farmers whose families had been living in the area for at least seventy years. None of them remembered mention of any Watson living in or around the Echo Lake area. Although one farmer, too young to know for sure, promised to ask his Uncle Jim, (who made it his business to know everyone’s business), first thing in the morning when the old guy woke-up.
Gareth had also contacted most of them. But since he appeared to be only one step in front of me, I wasn’t completely worried, not yet. I also had access to a source totally unknown to him, Aunt Aggie’s old papers. What a joke on Gareth if it turned out “William J. Watson” really was Aunt Aggie’s jilting lover. I returned to the turret room where I’d left her wooden boxes and started going through them again, this time looking for the specific name.
I carefully re-read all letters between young Agatha and her bosom buddy Edith, hoping to find some reference to a boy or a man with the name Bill, Will or any other variation of William. I sifted through the boring correspondence with lawyers, accountants, and stores, thinking that maybe he was someone Aunt Aggie had done business with.
At one point, my heart jumped when I saw the name Willie, but it was soon stilled when I finally found a reference to his full name, Willie Miller. In none of them did I discover the name William J. Watson.
As for mention of boyfriends of any name, the Baron Johann von Wichtenstein was the only male admirer gushed over by the two friends. I was beginning to wonder if the lover had ever existed.
Not yet willing to declare defeat, I returned to the attic to see if there were other likely hiding places for old papers and discovered several large cookie tins tied with string. I took these back down to the turret room to continue my search.
In one box, I was surprised to discover several letters from Great-grandpa Joe to his son John, my grandpa, dating from the late 1920s. Thinking there might be a good reason for my great-aunt having saved them, I read them thoroughly. However, there was nothing of importance, at least not to me, other than a few admonitions for John to watch out for his sister, and a query about when Agatha would be finally leaving the sanatorium, which supported Mother’s comment on the state of Aunt Aggie’s mental health.
Underneath lay some loose photographs of the Harris family at play against the backdrop of Three Deer Point. I got a kick out of seeing my grandfather being pushed into the water by a very small version of my father. Even Aunt Aggie was smiling in some of these pictures. From the style of the clothes and the Bonnie and Clyde car, these dated from the 1930s. In none of them was there an unknown gentleman who might have been William Watson.
The next item I pulled from the box finally confirmed that Baron Johann von Wichtenstein was the key man in Aunt Aggie’s life. It was a photo album, whose black felt-paper pages were crammed with smiling, frolicking pictures of Agatha and the tall light-eyed stranger of the wedding picture, the man with the terrible facial
