Chapter 1
Drip, drip
I can hear
something somewhere ahead. Drip.
I walk down an
old road. The last time a truck may have
come down here was last fall, it‘s spring now.
The snow is gone. Below my feet
is last year’s grass folded down from the pressure of the snow like a spongy
carpet. My shoes are wet. A chill crawls up my legs inside my pants
until it reaches my groin, passes to my spine and makes me shiver.
Drip, drip
I can’t hear
anything else but that one noise.
Drip.
There are no
birds in the trees. Grey trees, still bare
from the winter with boney fingers reaching up and out, line both sides of the
road. The branches move in the wind, but
I can’t hear them scraping against each other.
The dead leaves still hanging from the high branches don’t rustle. Every time my feet touch the ground there is
a soft swish, more like a remembered sound, and then nothing.
All I can feel
is the cold dancing on my skin and what is inside me, fear. The wind does not touch my cheek. The cold is inside me. With that is fear. The fear makes me want to look behind
myself. My head won’t turn.
Drip
I see the
sound before I hear it. A red drop of
blood hits a small pool in the grass erupting minute drops of red in every
direction. Drip.
I stop
walking. I can’t breathe any more. My lungs feel like someone is squeezing then
closed. My eyes move up. Two feet off the ground, a red drop of blood stops
on the end of a blue painted toenail. It
engorges itself, grows pregnant, then drops.
Drip.
One foot is
over the other like hands praying.
Rivulets of red fall down her legs switching direction off hairs and
stubble. How could this happen to
you? Chloe. Why you Chloe?
Drip, drip
The wind makes
her twist. My eyes slowly travel the red
streams up her legs, first over her firm calf muscles and then around the boney
knee and onto her thigh. What happened
to you Chloe?
“Reid, wake
up. The phone is for you.”
A shiny black
raven sits on a tree branch over the woman’s left shoulder. Its eyes glow red.
The forest is
gone. Light from the street lamps crack
around the blinds covering the window.
The days clothes on the desk chair is a child’s boogie man. The blue light from the laptop charger glows
up the wall from behind my desk. I can
smell face cream, Tide fabric softener and Hillary’s shampoo. I can hear hot air being pushed up through
the air vent on the floor. The cordless
telephone dangles in front of my face. A
foot kicks me under the sheets. The pads
on the bottom are rough against my calf.
“It’s work.”
I push myself
up with my back against the wall. I put
the phone to my ear, say my name, and listen.
I don’t know what time it is or how long until the alarm goes off. I can hear the dog snoring off the end of the
bed. Hillary turns the television on and
right away puts the volume down. She
fixes her pillows. I hear a bottle of
pop open, Pepsi most likely. I listen to
the voice on the phone. As my brain
starts to register what it is saying my body wakes. My day is starting.
I respond
with, “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” and roll onto my side to write down an
address on an open notebook. I hang up
the phone and turn to my wife. “Do we
know a Chloe?”
The skin of
Hillary’s face has that red shade of someone who was just sleeping. She has a bit of sleep crud in the corner of
one eye. Proof that Sandman had come,
our daughter says. Her black hair, cut
in a short angled bob, is messy from her tossing and turning but still looks
good and suits her. She runs her fingers
through it and tucks it behind her ears.
All she has on is a long thin shirt with panda bears wearing blue and red
pajamas over it. If it wasn’t for the
phone call I might be inclined to slip my hand beneath the shirt and see what
could happen. It has been a long time
since I started a spur of the moment thing like that. There were mornings, over a year ago now, when
I would get home from a midnight shift and wake her with a good tongue lashing. We have to plan sex now. We fell in love a long time ago, but only got
married when she became pregnant ten years past. She stares at me for a while without saying
anything.
“Chloe? I don’t think so, why?”
“It was in my
dream.” I spin to sitting on the edge of
the bed. My boxers are bunched up around
my junk and uncomfortable. I’ve always
wanted to video tape myself sleeping to see how much I move around. I saw a program somewhere that showed people
freaking out in their sleep and not remembering a thing about it.
“So now you’re
dreaming of other women?”
“I’m not
dreaming of other women. I’m not doing
anything with other women.” I go to the
closet and won‘t look at my wife. It’s
April and in Canada that means it is still winter so I pull on a pair of
thermal underwear first, then black slacks and a black shirt. “If it means anything she was dead in my
dream.” I can’t look at her because I’m
not entirely honest. I’m not doing
anything with other women, but I’ve thought about it.
Instead of looking
at the guide, Hillary pulses her thumb on the channel button stopping for a few
seconds on each show to see what it is and if it’ll pique her interest for a
few minutes. You’re supposed to love the
little habits people have. According to
the movies and books those little quirks are supposed to be what endear you to
your partner. This one pisses me
off. She usually pauses long enough on a
show for me to start getting into it then moves on to whatever’s next. She quickly passes over the shows I would
watch like Crime Scene Investigation, Law & Order, and Criminal Minds. She likes the infomercials, talk shows, and
reality shows. She finally stops on an
episode of Sex and the City. She turns
the volume up a little and rolls onto her side.
After I leave she will fall asleep with the TV on.
“You’re
dreaming about crimes now? I thought we
moved here to get away from things like murder and death. Aren’t we here so that Leigh’s daddy doesn’t
get late night calls where he has to leave and comes home crying or drunk? Or God forbid we get one of those calls that
says, Daddy isn’t coming home.” I can
feel her brown eyes burning into my back.
“Don’t start,
Hillary.”
“I’m going to
start. You said you wouldn’t get these
late night calls.”
“It’s one
call. I’ve had three calls in four
months. You know it is part of my
job. You’re getting mad over
nothing.” I fasten a tie around my neck.
“It’s not
nothing, Reid. I thought you were going
to ask for a desk job.” Her voice has
raised a little. She takes another drink
of Pepsi. I don’t want to look at her.
I say, “There
are no openings right now. I’m needed in
Major Crimes so that’s where I’ll be for now okay.” It’s not a question. I lower my voice and say, “you’ll just have
to wait a little while before that happens.”
I won’t look at her because I am lying and she’ll know it. She will see my eyes move off of hers or my
lip will twitch. I don’t want a desk
job. I like going out in the field and
investigating real crimes. I would go
nuts sitting at headquarters making up new reports and procedures.
Hillary says,
“at least the crimes here aren’t as serious as the big city.” Again I don’t want to look at her. I give her a quick kiss on her forehead
without getting caught in her eyes.
“Can you get milk?”
She does not
need to know what the call was about or where I have to go and what I might
see. In the RCMP strict confidentiality
is first and foremost, even with your wife.
To be honest, I don’t stick to that as well as I should. A lot of times I need someone to talk to or I
need to talk out what is in my head so that I can figure it all out. Right now what I am going to be involved with
is not something she needs to know about.
All it would do is re-fire our argument and give her another chance to
say, but you said you wouldn’t be doing that again. She has had enough death in her life. I have brought enough death into her
life. The last thing she needs to deal
with at two in the morning is death.
She’ll find out when she listens to the radio in the morning.
Get milk,
fuck.
I go to the
door across the hall, Leigh’s Room, written in bold wood letters across it, and
open it a crack. Leigh has her limbs all
kicked around. Her legs stick out of the
blankets and look like she is running.
Her long hair falls across her face.
I look up at the window. On the
wall beside it is a large framed photograph of her riding a black and white
horse across one of the beaches here on the island. Water splashes up from the horses
hooves. In the dark I can’t see Leigh’s
face in the picture, but I know she has a giant smile across it. Every time she rides her face lights up. You try and give your kids everything while
really just hoping they are happy. Maybe
Hillary is right and I don’t give our daughter enough of my time.
I carefully
close the door and head down the stairs.
Time to leave the lovely family and make my way to hell.
* * *
“The middle of
fucking nowhere,” I sigh to myself and pull my car off of Blooming Point Road
onto Tulloch Road. The moment I do that
I am in the Tulloch Pond Provincial Wildlife Reserve. I pass two houses and the road instantly goes
from paved to gravel and mud. Further up
large puddles span across the entire road. It has been raining for almost two weeks
straight, stopping two days ago. One puddle
is deep enough to touch the undercarriage of my car. I have to fight the steering wheel. I cross a bridge, the river underneath is part
of the Tulloch Pond waters, and turn a corner to see the growing collection of
vehicles between large puddles of spring thaw waters, rain, and mud.
Sgt. Marilyn
Moore stands behind her car which is parked right behind the Mobile Command
Post. She looks at my car and then turns
away from the bright light. Her hair
dances around her head. I have to admit
she looks rather sexy standing there silhouetted out by my lights. I am an asshole.
My dash clock
says three thirty when I turn off the car.
Outside I can
hear the waves crashing against Blooming Point Beach about a half kilometer
further down the road. Somewhere between
the beach and where we are, are the high sand dunes patch worked with grasses
that are famous in scenic photographs of PEI.
From November to May it is next to impossible to get to the beach
because of snow and thick mud that can bog the best of trucks down. In the spring fishermen come up here, most
fish off the bridge but some will try these waters. In the autumn hunters come down here for geese
and ducks. I’m not down here for any of
that.
Marilyn
crosses the dirt road to the opening of a bush road cutting off from the main
road into the woods. It has probably
been there for years, but few people rushing down the road in the summer trying
to find the beach would notice it.
Marilyn is now covered from foot to neck in a white protective
suit. We call then bunny suits. They are to protect investigators from
leaving their own traces at a scene.
“Morning,” she
says.
I say, “What’s
with the ring?”
“It’s nothing;
she quickly pulls the diamond ring from her finger and hides it inside her
suit. I don’t say anything about the
bruise on her wrist or her red knuckles.
A small
handful of RCMP officers, what we call Regular Members, mill around between the
MCP and patrol cars pulled off to the side of the road. They all wear dark blue cargo pants and dark
blue jackets with slits for easy access to their gun and radio.
I walk up the
back ramp of the MCP and drop my duffle bag.
The long white trailer, pulled behind a black four by four, is a
converted RV pull behind. At the top of
the ramp, where an all-terrain vehicle would have been parked in its RV days, are
a desk with radio equipment and a folding table set up for collected evidence
coming in. The next room is the kitchen
area, I can smell the coffee brewing, and then there is a small room that once
was a bedroom and is now a mini office with a drafting table for maps and a
small desk and chair. I pull my own
bunny suit out of my bag and start pulling it on over my clothes.
“Hi,
Reid. Sorry to wake you. We need you here.” Sgt. Wayne McIntyre joins me from the kitchen
area. He looks wide awake for this
early in the morning. His black hair is
shiny and in its proper place. His
goat-tee is well trimmed. He has a
coffee in his hand. Red mud has splashed
up his pant legs. The island is red soil
and in spring the mud covers everything. In summer the gritty beach sand gets into
everything, whether you go to the beach or not. “This is, ah, I’ve never seen anything like
this. This doesn’t happen in PEI. I hate to think something like this happens
anywhere.” He pauses long enough to
shake his head and take a breath. His hand
runs down his tie and straightens it. “I
want you to be the lead on this one. I
haven‘t dealt with something like this before, you have. Moore‘s going to work closely with you.”
I pull a black
toque down over my bald head.
McIntyre
continues, “A group of kids were coming down the road,” he points to a red
Honda Civic in front of the Mobile Unit, “and didn’t like the mud so they tried
this trail hoping to find another way to the beach. We have them separated in cars. The girls are pretty freaked out. I don’t think they know much so I’ll
interview them if you want to head down to the scene.”
“Find out what
they saw, what they touched.” I look
over at the car then back. “Call Crops and tell him we’ll need whoever we can
get. At least a half dozen here in three
hours to canvas.”
“Time to wake
everyone up, I guess.”
I pull the
hood of my white suit up over my toque.
I just want to get down there.
Something in me tells me I need to walk down this road and see what is
there. With a head lamp from the folding
table I walk out to my partner and say, “let’s go.” Marilyn tucks her red wine-colored hair under
her hood.
If I did not
know Marilyn I would never think she was a police officer trained to
fight. She has a trim body with curves
in the right places standing at least six feet, a good two inches over me. She has little make-up on, as always, and she
doesn‘t need any to look pretty. I would
be lying if I didn’t admit to noticing that Marilyn is a very attractive
woman. I worry about her though. Her boyfriend is not the nicest of men. Worse than that, she doesn’t like talking
about it. In my opinion people who talk
about their problems have a greater tendency to do something about it. A battered woman with a gun is never a good
thing.
We put our headlight
beams on the ground and walk the taped off path along the right side of the
bush road. The Forensic Identification
Unit, Ident, searched the pathway as they walked toward the scene. The old grass is spongy beneath our
feet. The golden grass is folded down
like a woman’s flattened long hair. I
can hear the water from the spring thaw and rain beneath the soft carpet. The right side of the road is lined by thick
patches of thin red barked willows, with spots of aspen, birch, and spruce
struggling to grown through them. An
oddball collection of rubbish is scattered in the bushes from plastic bags to
candy wrappers and glass bottles, everything faded. On the left side the trees are faring better,
not giving the willows a chance to overcome their roots. Spotted on the ground hidden by a canopy of
evergreen are tiny piles of snow not yet touched by the sun. The trees look grey. Even the evergreens in the blanket of night
give off a dark grey feel. We can still
feel the crisp cold air blowing in from the shore, over the dunes, and through
the willows. In another month you would
not be able to walk down here without being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Some animal shuffles in the dead leaves on the
tree side. There are shadows in the
trees. If it wasn’t for Moore beside me
and the gun inside my jacket I would be sweating with fear right now. I can’t stand the dark.
“What did
Hillary say about this call?” I jump a
little. My mind was away from where we
are so much that I forgot Marilyn was walking beside me. Our feet touch the grass carpet in unison as
if I am the only one here. Thousands of
crickets rub themselves at the river in a giant symphony.
I sigh, “What
do you think? I didn’t tell her what it
was about though. The last thing I
fucking need is to be nagged at about PEI not being as safe a place as I told
her it was.”
“They have to
bitch and complain about something. The
other halves, I mean. I get it almost
every day. Only I,” I turn to her in
time to see her bite her lip and look away.
She pulls her face mask down over the nose and mouth.
“You need to
talk?” I ask.
Marilyn says,
“We’re here.”
Ahead of us is
a bend in the road with a lot of light breaking the black from around the
bend. Large spotlights on tripods have
been set up by the crime scene guys.
We’ll have a little light to look around the scene and see what we can
find. I can’t figure out why one
spotlight is shooting up into the sky.
“You ever get
déjà vu?” My stomach turns over. A voice inside doesn’t want me to walk around
the corner into the artificial light.
“No. You mean like feeling you’ve been somewhere
before? No.” Her voice is slightly muffled from behind the
mask.
“Okay, let’s
go.” I’ve been on this road before, but
I can’t say that to her. Hey, partner, I
dreamed this very thing just an hour ago.
I know what is coming up, but there is no way for me to know. All I know is a dream. A chill rides up my spine. We have not been told anything about what we
will find. We were told the basics -
female DB found in the woods by Blooming Point Beach- no details to skew our
initial thoughts.
I moved my
family to Prince Edward Island for the mild weather, the quiet countrified life
– until 2010 they only had Sunday shopping during tourist season and at
Christmas, before 2008 they only had glass bottles – no cans or plastic -, the
fresh seafood - Hillary loves lobster - and the low crime. The last thing I expected to see was a woman
hanging from a tall white birch.
“Oh my God.”
The moment I
began walking down this road I knew what I would find. Probably even before that I knew. Drip
Our eyes ride
the lights that are set up to the woman swinging from a tree in the breeze like
a child’s old abandoned tire swing. She
doesn’t look real. She looks like a mannequin
up there as a Halloween decoration. Trick or treat. Her neck is stretched as long as it can
without coming apart. The thick rope
holds her chin upward. Black mascara has
trailed down her cheeks with tears. Her
eyes are closed, her lips thin, mouth open slightly. The woman, young woman, - I think she is in
her early twenties - has long blond hair stained crimson so much that the blond
is barely visible. Red streams of dry
blood cover her naked body from cuts and slashes on her face, torso, and
legs. Her skin is pale below the dark
red from blood loss and lack of sun. I
am guessing her natural color is still very light. I hope there is no place in the world where
you would expect to see something like this.
The sea wind catches her and she starts to turn. The rope creaks against the tree. It’s the same sound as the tire swing in the
wind. A tire swing long forgotten. We see her profile first, she is thin with a
flat stomach, breasts more than a handful - one has a thin slice almost all the
way around it - muscular legs, and a round buttock and then her back covered in
more lacerations. The only place not
touched by the bladed weapon is a large black and grey rose with a small stem
and two leaves, tattooed on the back of her left shoulder. Bright bruises of a deep purple in the middle
fading to pink on the outer edges cover her body. I stare up at her, her feet at my eye
level. Her toenails are painted
blue. From here the skin of her face
looks flawless. I cannot hear the sound
of the blood dripping from her fingertips and toes into the pool of red below
her because her blood no longer runs.
Drip, drip. I hear it in my
dreams. I can hear the creaking of the
rope, the scraping of branches against each other, and the officers doing their
work.
“Shit,” is all
I can say. What else is there? I do not turn away from the body but say,
“she was beautiful.” I probably would
have taken a look at her if she walked past me on the street. When I was younger she would have been one of
the girls I wanted to be with and daydreamed about when I was alone at
night. She was good-looking. Now she is dead. Dead, dead, dead.
“You
okay?” Marilyn asks. The smell of her perfume hits my nose and
distracts me. It wakes me.
I look at her
quick. “It’s a bit shocking. Not what I expected to see today.”
“You, and the
kids in the Honda.”
The only two
members of the Forensic Identification Section, small island, make their way
around their scene all dressed in the white suits. They search the ground with flashlights and
their head lamps. Camera flashes go off
every couple of seconds as they capture something. One studies the tree the rope is tied
to. Greg Eckhart, the head of Ident
joins us. He has a D700 Nikon around his
neck and has a black covered notebook in his hands.
My mouth goes
dry from being stuck wide open. I
slowly, unconsciously, let my eyes trace her form. They draw lines around every vertical stream
of blood that crossed down her whole body until ending at her fingers or toes
where the blood fell. Drip. She took care of herself. She probably worked out at a gym somewhere or
maybe she jogged the Confederation Trail.
“She was cut while lying down. I
mean she wasn’t strung up first. Not for
all of them.” Marilyn’s green eyes stare
at me over her mask asking for me to explain.
I say, “Her hair is caked in blood.
That wouldn’t happen if she was hanging first. The blood from the cuts to her face flowed to
the back of her head and not down.”
“So you don’t
think COD is strangulation?” She opens
her notebook and taps a new page with her pen.
“I won’t go
that far. I‘m not stupid.” In criminal investigations you cannot assume
anything. Remember what your mom said
about assuming and you and me? In
investigations you cannot say anything until the proper person, in this case
the medical examiner, says it is so. We cannot
even say it was a homicide until the ME says so. It has to be apparent or possible. I take out my Blackberry to dictate what I
see. “Victim is a Caucasian female,
approximately twenty to twenty-five years of age, approximately five foot five
in height and one hundred pounds in weight.
She is not clothed. There is a
rope tied around the victim’s neck which holds the vic., approximately six feet
from the ground. Rope goes over a branch
high up a birch tree with the end tied to the trunk of another tree.” I walk in a semicircle around the woman and
the tree holding her careful about where I step. How the hell did she get up there? “Any personal effects, clothes, ID?”
“We haven’t
found anything yet.” Eckhart pushes his
glasses back up his nose with the back of his hand. “But we’ve only done a white light search so
far. The lights are enough to see what
we are doing here, but there are a lot of shadows. I’m hoping to do a forensic light search
before the sun comes up otherwise we’ll have to bring in a tent. Honestly, we‘re not finding much of anything
anywhere. We took photos of wheel treads
from the main road, but almost a dozen different kinds of tires so I wouldn’t
get your hopes up. I took a few casts of
the ones I could. There isn‘t much mud
between the grass on this road so tire tracks and footprints are obscured. Killer had to get her up there somehow so
there has to be something. This isn’t an
easy place to get evidence from. I’m
going to request police dogs come in to check the woods and maybe divers for
the river.”
“Time of
death?”
Eckhart shook
his head and raised his eyebrows. “It’s
been cold the past few days which would have slowed decomp. I’d say she’s been up there two or three
days, but we’ll wait for the ME to make a better guess.”
I say, “Make
sure you preserve the knots.”
“I know how to
do my job, Jacob.” Eckhart watches his
partner. She is crawling her way toward
the body to try and go over a thick path so other work can be done. She looks at every centimeter with her
flashlight.
“It’s not
Jacob.”
“Tim, Pablo?”
Marilyn lets
out a laugh. She moves her flashlight
along the tree line. Eckhart plays a
game with me every time we see each other where he tries to guess my first
name. I promised him I would say yes if
he ever guessed the right one. Marilyn
doesn‘t look away from her light, but says, “Give it up, Greg. Even his wife calls him Reid.”
“I don’t like
my first name. Never have, sue me.” I still have trouble taking my eyes off of
the hanging woman. Drip. “And my middle name is no better. The only thing that’s good with my middle
name is that it’s the same as MacGyver’s first name from TV. You remember that show?”
“He had a
first name?”
“You guys are
such geeks.”
Eckhart pushes
his glasses up with the back of his hand again.
I look at my
watch. Sunrise is in about two
hours.
I stare up at
the floating girl and say, “what happened to you?”
“Whoever did
this tortured the hell out of the poor girl.”
Marilyn takes a grouping of photographs with her small digital
camera. She looks at me and asks, “Are
you sure you’re okay, Reid?”
I can feel
light green eyes on me. There are times
when I enjoy the feeling of those eyes on me, but right now they’re making my
skin itch. Marilyn and I have worked in
the Major Crimes Unit since I arrived in the province over a year ago and have
been partners on almost every case. MCU
has six officers in it and we fold in others depending on what we are working
on. We deal with everything from violent
assaults to B and E‘s where someone gets hurt to rape. For the most part we look into crimes and
peoples stories for other areas of specialty.
Homicide falls in our scope of investigation, but killings are not a
common place thing on PEI. Two homicides
come to mind. One in 1988 which is still
unsolved and that of a woman killed on the Confederation Trail in 2002. I guess Islanders can control
themselves. I guess something had to let
go. Just my luck. “I feel like I’ve seen this before,” I say
quietly and more to myself. I would
almost bet on her name being Chloe.
“Where the hell’s the ME?”
“I’m
coming. Don’t get in a bunch.” A flashlight bounces up and down in the hand
of Dr. Walter Norton. He wears a big
bulky jacket under his bunny suit that makes him look fifty pounds heavier than
he truly is. I can hear that his shoes
are soaked. Red mud is splashed up his
pants. He has wavy black hair that is
grey and white along the temples. His well-trimmed
beard, hiding behind a hairnet, is white as snow with it going grey and black
at the tip of his chin. He walks up in
front of the hanging woman and points his flashlight up at her. The doctor is retired from general work and
now teaches at the university and goes out on calls to go check out old timers
who passed in their sleep. On this
island there isn’t much call for a doctor to check out possible homicides. He says, “I can’t examine the body until we
get her down. Multiple lacerations. Vaginal bruising. Ligature marks on her wrists and ankles. I need to check her over, but I would say she
went through a hell of a lot of pain before she died. Any idea how long she’s been here?”
“We’re hoping
you can tell us.”
“When can I get
her down?”
“We have to
clear the scene, tree, rope, and even road before we can bring in the equipment
to get her down. You have to give us
time.” Eckhart pushes his glasses again.
Dr. Norton
throws his hands up. “That’s going to
take forever. I don’t have all day to
sit here in a puddle of water waiting for you guys to crawl around with your forceps
looking for twenty year old garbage and fox hairs.”
“Everything is
possibly a clue or evidence. You’re
going to have to wait.”
“Jesus
Christ,” the doctor turns and heads back down the cleared path with heavy
steps. “I’m going for coffee. Come get me when you’re done.”
We watch Dr.
Norton walk away for a while. It is a
moment without looking at the women.
When we turn back she is facing us head on. The multiples of lacerations and puncture
wounds cover her face, limbs, and torso.
I try to count, but there are too many.
Too many are covered in blood.
How many times can a human being be cut before passing out or passing
away?
“He cut her
fingernails.” The woman’s hands look so
small dangling at her side.
“So she might
have fought back,” Marilyn takes pictures with the small camera she carried
under her notebook.
“She might
have.” I go back to staring at her. I have to stare at her. I say, “It means he’s smart. He knows enough to get rid of possible
evidence.”
“Then he’s
probably smart enough to not leave anything anywhere else. You don’t think this is a new thing then?”
“I don’t
know.”
“She didn’t
die that long ago.” Eckhart starts
walking back to do his work. “I’ll get a
dental imprint and fingerprints when we get her to the hospital, see if we can
ID her. If we can‘t find any ID, that
is.” He looks at me and waits until I
return his gaze. “This is going to rock
the island, isn’t it?”
I watch
Eckhart walk back toward the tree where the rope is tied. There is not much any of us need to say. An unsolved murder occurred in Prince Edward
Island over twenty years ago and people still talk about it. The papers still ask for answers on slow news
days. The farmers that meet in the
corner stores for a morning coffee still shake their heads and ask each other
if they ever heard anything.
Prince Edward
Island sits in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence where the fresh waters of the Great
Lakes meet the salt waters of the Atlantic.
It is 246 kilometers across and is covered in fields, patches of forest
-there are so many colors of green- and small villages. Churches seem to spot the horizon over every
hill. There are cattle and horse farms
everywhere. People here believe in being
self-sufficient with gardens, beef, poultry, and pork farms, wild mushrooms,
and everything else natural anyone could want.
There are potatoes in the fall and lobster in June. Then there is the debate of what is better -
North shore or South shore lobsters.
Beginning in May the island turns on and the population quadruples
almost overnight with tourists coming to see the home of Anne of Green
Gables. There is a water park, amusement
park, drive-in movie theatre, and countless beaches around the island. In October it shuts down, most of the
restaurants outside of the cities and towns close down as well as anything fun
to do. People have nothing left to
do. The island usually has a relaxed
feel, showing up fifteen minutes late is still on time, but something of this
magnitude will tilt the whole island.
This will change everything.
“This is pure
anger,” Marilyn says as if reading my mind.
“This wasn’t just killing, this was hate. Stabbing a few times is anger, but this went
well beyond that. The killer wanted to
make a statement.”
“What was
that?”
“That this was
pure hatred.”
I don’t say a
word. There isn’t anything for me to
say. She is right. Instead I think, “And this is only the
beginning.”
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