not caring if the call woke her up, and cursed when I got her answering machine. Assuming she was still sound asleep, I tried again, but again without success, which meant she’d probably gone to an early morning golf game. The nerve of her, when she had more important things to do, like searching Grandpa’s papers. So I left her a message to get on with it and call me the minute she found anything related to William or Billy Watson. I also decided to drive to Toronto and go through the papers myself if I didn’t hear from her by that night.
In the meantime, there was another matter just as pressing, finding out the truth behind Marie’s death. For her sake, I felt I should give Tommy a chance to explain his actions before I took my suspicions to Eric. I hoped I would be proved wrong, but with Gareth’s accidental mention of Tommy’s name, they were only deepened. The two men had talked. The reason why could only have something to do with CanacGold.
A quick glance outside revealed that the early morning darkness had lightened to a soggy grey as water poured from the sky. With no thought for breakfast, I grabbed my rain slicker, ran to my truck and drove to what was no longer Marie’s but now Tommy’s home.
Through the flicking wipers, the collection of shacks looked even more dismal and forlorn. Remnants of police tape clung to drenched trees. Louis’s logs had been re-stacked neatly against the wall of an already full woodshed. But the windows that greeted me were empty and black. The driveway was likewise empty.
Hoping Tommy’s car was parked behind the house, I dashed through the rain to the overhang at the front door and knocked. The house remained silent and dark. I hammered again and waited. It was still relatively early, a little after nine. Tommy could still be asleep, like last time. I pounded again. But no lights came on nor did a sleep filled face come to the door.
I stood under the overhang trying to decide if I should forget Tommy and take my concerns directly to Eric. I was worried about the impact my suspicions would have on Eric and his people, particularly when coming from an outsider. It was easy for them to accept that Marie had killed Louis in retaliation for his years of abuse. It would be much more difficult for them to accept that a son could kill his own parents, especially a son whose achievements were a source of pride within the small community.
It was the footprints that finally decided me. I noticed them embedded in a dry patch of soil by the front stairs. The last time I’d seen this same tread with the elongated “y” trademark was in the sand near the cave where I later found Marie’s body.
I didn’t hesitate any longer but returned to my truck and drove as fast as I could to Eric’s office.
THIRTY-THREE
You’re way offside with this, Meg.” Eric’s half-closed eyes bored into mine from a face which had become granite. His breakfast of fried eggs sat ignored on the table while its heat escaped into the cold damp air of the Council Hall’s small kitchen. “For the sake of our friendship, I don’t want you to say another word.”
“But I think you have to consider—”
“Please, not another word.”
I’d made the mistake of diving straight in with my suspicions about Tommy without any preamble and hit the feared roadblock. While I considered another tactic, I took a sip of the steaming liquid Eric had offered on my arrival. Although he called it coffee, it tasted more like the rain splatters smearing the dirty window.
I tried again. “Why are you so convinced Marie did it? You heard the attributions yesterday at the healing ceremony. You yourself even alluded to Marie’s resolve to keep going no matter how tough it was. So tell me, after putting up with Louis’s abuse all these years, why would Marie suddenly snap? Surely if it was in the cards for her to kill him, she would’ve done it years ago, when he broke her arm.”
“Maybe, but we had a similar case just last year, when a wife of twenty years shot her husband after an all-night drinking binge.”
“Sounds like alcohol caused that. Don’t forget, Marie didn’t drink.”
He nodded in acknowledgment and leaned back into his chair, but his face still wore a look of stubborn refusal.
I persisted, “How do you explain the fact there were two sets of footprints, one large, one small, on the beach the morning she died? Innocent passers-by? I doubt it, particularly when one of them knelt in front of the crosses. You and I both know there’s only one person with reason to pay homage to Two Face Sky and Summer Wind.”
I looked for a reaction from Eric, and seeing none asked, “Why didn’t you tell me they were Marie’s grandparents?”
“I’m sorry, but figured since you didn’t know, then Marie and your aunt had their reasons for not telling. But you’re right about it probably being Marie. Dorothy told me she was in the habit of going there a couple of times a year.”
“So, Eric, if the smaller set of tracks was made by Marie, then she wasn’t alone when she arrived on the beach. And since only the larger set left the beach, don’t you think we can assume she was dead when that guy left?”
“Yeah, and the next thing you’ll say is Marie wouldn’t kill herself in front of an audience, therefore she was killed by this other person.”
“Exactly.”
“Now, what were you saying about the tread? Run it by me again,” he said, finally digging his fork into what now looked to be a very cold and greasy fried egg.
At last I was getting through to him. It just needed the right approach. I took him patiently through the description of the elongated “y” footprint and the sighting of this same track at Tommy’s place. But this time, rather than freezing me out, Eric listened.
“And this makes you think Tommy is involved?”
“Yes, this plus other anomalies.”
So I told him about John-Joe seeing Tommy on the lake the morning she died, about Tommy’s lying to me over the timing of his return from his trip, his chanting as we entered the cave, almost as if he knew his mother’s body lay inside, and a possible CanacGold link between Gareth and Tommy.
When I finally laid all the pieces out into the open, they unfortunately pointed in only one direction. Tommy had killed his mother and probably his father.
“I hate what you’re telling me, Meg.” Eric ran his hands through his thick hair. “It’ll tear the band apart. Everyone sees Tommy and a few others like him as the key to our future. He’s one of our first lawyers. A big hero to many of the kids. He gives them hope and courage that maybe they too can make it out there in that big and scary world beyond the trees.
“I still say there’s no motive,” he continued. “You haven’t given me one.”
“But Eric, when you think about it, what motive would anyone really have for killing Marie? Enemies? She had none. She was just a simple, kind-hearted soul who didn’t get in anyone’s way. Killed for her money? Hardly. That only leaves what the police call “crime of passion” and isn’t that usually done by someone close to the victim such as a family member?”
“Yeah, but I’d be prepared to swear on the bones of my ancestors that Tommy wouldn’t harm a hair on his mother’s head. I could see him killing his father in a fit of rage, but his mother?”
“Say Tommy did shoot Louis and Marie
