All is Clam Page 7

  “It hasn’t been used. Promise.”

  Jamieson wiped her sleeve, and took a step back from Buddy.

  “This is Officer Jamieson, Buddy. She’s one half of the new police presence in the village.” Hy spoke to Buddy as she spoke to everyone else. She didn’t patronize him, and he seemed to understand what she said.

  “Half. Half.” He repeated, pointing at Jamieson and smiling again, a big broad smile that pushed his eyes up into a squint, laughter in them.

  “Half. Half.” He said it again, now laughing. Then he raised his arms as high as they would go.

  “He means you’re too tall to be half of anything,” said Hy, and Buddy nodded furiously to indicate she was correct. He kept laughing at his own joke.

  Jamieson scowled.

  Buddy began nodding his head, and gestured to the women to go into the house. Jamieson was reluctant, but Hy gave her a little push forward.

  It was small, cramped, and stuffed with newspapers.

  “He reads?” Jamieson asked Hy, as if Buddy were not there. Again, his face drooped.

  Buddy didn’t read. He collected newspapers – no one knew why. Not even Buddy. He couldn’t remember that his parents had kept him in a cage until he was five years old, sitting on layers of newspapers they would peel off when the top ones became too foul. Buddy had learned where to do his business now – in the outhouse behind his shed, but he still went around the village asking people for newspapers. He burned them in his woodstove, but not all. He used some for insulation, stuffed into the cracks between the baseboard and the floor. Others were stacked in piles everywhere. Apart from the newspapers, there were only a simple single cot, a small table, a chair, a few bits of crockery, and an old rusty potbellied stove smack in the centre of the room. Jamieson gave it a good look. Definitely not code. A couple of pairs of pants and a jacket hung on hooks on the wall.

  The one-room shack smelled of bachelor, newspapers, and wood smoke.

  A firetrap, thought Jamieson, looking at the chimney pipe. Near the top were a few pin-sized holes in the pipe. Metal fatigue.

  Suddenly, she was overcome with a desperate feeling of entrapment.

  Buddy opened the door of the stove, and shot in another small log. An ember fell out onto the floor, smoking. Buddy snuffed it with his boot, grinding the charcoal into a black mark on the floor.

  Jamieson felt as if she were choking. She began to shake. She had to get out.

  Hy reached out to her, put a hand on her sleeve. Oddly, Jamieson did not shake her off as she normally might have.

  “Buddy, the officer needs air. We’ll be going now.”

  “Go?” Frown.

  “I’ll be back later.” Hy hauled the door open and Jamieson burst outside. Buddy wrinkled his brow. “Back.” Smile. He waved and sat down on a stack of papers.

  Outside in the clear, crisp air, Jamieson was perspiring. Drops of sweat were running down her face. It was washed of all colour.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Jamieson wiped the sweat from her forehead with the Kleenex Hy had given her, realizing too late she had swiped Buddy’s spit across her face. She cringed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  In answer, Jamieson shook her head, took several deep breaths and one look back at the shack.

  “Nothing.” She began to walk away from it. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  But it was obvious that something was wrong. Very wrong.

  They walked back down to the road. Hy wanted to drop in at Ian’s, but felt she should walk Jamieson to the police house. When they got there, she went in with her, forced her to sit down, and made them both some tea.

  Jamieson was an interesting one, thought Hy. She was determined to find out more. She looked around the main room as she brought in the teapot. Nothing in here to tell her anything. No photos, no certificates, no knick-knacks.

  What’s Jamieson’s story?

  Hy would find out. Not today. But soon.

  When Hy left, Jamieson lay back on the couch, her arm shielding her eyes from the light, and tried to fall asleep – something she never did during the day and couldn’t manage now. Jamieson had a vivid imagination that often led her down the right trail in an investigation. She tried to suppress it, because it wasn’t logical, but she saw Buddy’s shack bursting into flame. She saw herself, not him, inside it. It played in her head over and over until finally, exhausted, she fell into sleep. There was no relief there. The images wouldn’t let go. She dreamed of fire, the imagined one and the one from long ago. She woke up in a sweat, stumbled to the bathroom, shed her clothes onto the floor – something else she had never done. She had an unusually long, hot shower. It didn’t stop the shaking. She was still shivering when she got out. She toweled down, threw on her bathrobe, picked up her clothes – and, instead of hanging them up as she normally did, tossed them on her bed. She opened a suitcase in the back cupboard. Inside was the one thing she had kept. One thing. A newspaper clipping. She unfolded it, and began to cry. That was another thing she never did. If she had known that Moira had found and read this, she’d have been furious. She might have been forced to resign her job.

  After that experience, Buddy gave Jamieson the creeps. She steered clear of him whenever he was around. It was irrational, she knew, but she didn’t like the man, didn’t trust his lack of sense, didn’t trust his disability.

  Jamieson herself had always been able.

  The village always began its Christmas celebrations early, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It was strangely Catholic for the mostly Protestant community, but the Institute President, Gladys Fraser, liked the sound of “immaculate,” as did many of the local women. So, every December 8, they had what Hy called “The Feed of the Immaculate Conception,” to kick off the holiday season. They pulled out the lobster they had stored in their freezers from the height of the season, and cooked up a true feast. This year, however, the villagers had used up the lobster in a “198 and Counting” celebration in the early fall. The Shores would be two hundred years old in a couple of years, and they’d begun celebrating early, on the premise that, as Gus put it: “You only turn two hundred once, so you might as well celebrate it at least twice.”

  How to get some lobster?

  Somehow, it had become Hy’s problem.

  Actually, she’d volunteered. She had looked around the table at the twelve other members of Institute and realized they all had families to make Christmas preparations for, and she did not. Gus didn’t either, it occurred to her later. She has family, but you never see them at Christmas. Why is that?

  She shelved the thought, and concentrated on getting hold of some lobster. It wouldn’t be easy in the off-season.

  It turned out to be impossible. It was Fitz, of all people, who provided the solution.

  Hy was having tea with Rose inside the tent.

  “You need to get out,” said Hy.

  “Where?”

  “Well, you should join the Institute, for one thing.”

  “Oh, well, I…”

  “Don’t be shy. They’ll love having fresh blood. And that will make us fourteen.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “It’s not thirteen,” said Hy.

  “Superstitious.”

  “Yup.” Hy took a sip of tea. She put down her mug.

  “You can help me organize the Feed of the Immaculate Conception.”

  “What’s that?”

  Hy was just telling her about trying to find lobster when Fitz peeked into the tent. Hy shifted, feeling uncomfortable that he had come up on them like that, silent as a…mouse? No, the mice in this house made more noise than he did. You could hear their constant scratching.

  “I can help you there,” he said.

  Hy looked up with suspicion.

  “Met a fella last night.
Got a ton of frozen lobster he wants to unload. Good price.”

  Hy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to insult Rose –

  “Is it legal?” Rose asked for her.

  For once, it was. Fitz had been looking for an angle to make some money on the stuff, and here it had dropped right in his lap.

  “Yeah, it’s legal. Lobster belongs to him. A restaurant contract fell through. He needs to unload it to make room in his freezer.”

  “How much does he have? How much does he want?”

  Fitz hesitated.

  “Well there’s clams, too. We’d have to take the clams with it.”

  “Clams? What will we do with clams?”

  “I make a cracking clam chowder, don’t I, Rose?” He smiled and winked at his wife, the friendliest he’d been in days.

  Hy raised her eyebrows. Rose nodded and smiled at Fitz. For a moment, just a moment, Hy saw the spark between them. Fitz looked almost handsome. She could imagine him younger, with all his teeth, a real charmer.

  “He does. I’ll give him that. Doesn’t lift a finger in the kitchen any other way, but his chowder’s a dream.”

  The moment was gone when Fitz slipped into the tent on a cloud of tobacco smoke and rum, mixed thinly with fresh outdoor air. Rose poured him a mug of tea. She was glad he didn’t pull out his mickey to top it up. They had to live in this community. She was hoping Fitz’s offer might put them in better standing. Then maybe she could join this Women’s Institute with a clear conscience.

  “You’d do that?” Hy’s eyes opened wide. Fitz? A cook? “Can you make enough for everyone?”

  Fitz’s eyes narrowed. “What’s everyone?”

  “Well, about a hundred people could show.”

  Fitz whistled, surprised the tiny village could turn up that many.

  “Sure.” He pulled out a pouch of tobacco and some cigarette papers and began rolling. His fingers were stained orange.

  Hy felt her upper lip curl involuntarily with disgust. Was she doing the right thing?

  “Done it before. Plenty of times.”

  “He has.” Rose’s eyes appealed to Hy. It was Rose, not Fitz, whom Hy couldn’t resist.

  Hy pulled out the Institute money, carefully peeled off one bill at a time by treasurer Olive MacLean earlier that day. She’d rubbed each one to make sure it wasn’t two sticking together. Crisp twenties from a bashed-up metal box. “No need of a new one,” she said every time she produced it. For once, Hy agreed with her. No one would think there were hundreds of dollars in that rusty old box. Olive kept the key on a chain around her neck at all times. Even in bed, Gus would say with a chuckle. Gus said it was “the key to her heart.”

  “I’ll need a receipt,” Olive had said when Hy had turned to leave.

  “Of course,” she said, “I’ll bring it back with any change.”

  “No. From you.” Olive was already writing it, and Hy flushed red as she signed. That her honesty would be questioned. She knew what it felt like, suddenly, to be Fitz, always questioned, never believed. In a rush of generosity, Hy shoved the money at him.

  “Whatever that’ll buy us.”

  Fitz took it, hands shaking. He willed them to stop, to conceal his excitement.

  “Lobster for all and a killer of a clam chowder.” It was the money he could smell, not the food.

  He promised to deliver the next day.

  Hy crossed the problem off her list, but again asked herself:

  Am I doing the right thing?

  It began before anyone finished eating.

  Germaine Joudry started it. He’d had a roast beef sandwich before he came to the Hall, afraid the “pickings would be meager.” He stood up suddenly, his belly scraping the table, and sent the plates tipping onto the diners opposite.

  “I got half a side of beef stuck in my tooth,” he announced, his plump finger digging at the inside of his mouth.

  That set it off.

  Ben Mack was the first to go. His vomit arched across the table and landed on Germaine Joudry’s plate.

  As Annabelle attempted to clean Ben, Hy saw her face screw up in distress. She went dashing for the bathroom, hand clasped over her mouth.

  There was soon a long line-up behind her.

  Ian went pale and dashed outside, his parrot Jasmine on his shoulder, making retching sounds.

  Olive MacLean took her turn over the pink porcelain toilet bowl. She flushed as she vomited, and her dentures went flying out of her mouth and down the bowl.

  “Do you know how much good teeth cost?” she slurred, as she tried to fish them out. No one answered. They all knew Olive had spent as little as possible on those dentures.

  Two more people heaved into the toilet, and then no more could. Olive’s teeth had clogged it.

  Instead of trooping out, as they usually did, smiling, making jokes and gossiping, the villagers left the Hall, cleaning themselves off, holding hands over mouths in a desperate attempt to keep the food down.

  Ben, at the back of the line, burped.

  Everybody took off.

  But it was only a burp.

  Chapter Ten

  Neither Jamieson nor Murdo had gone to the village dinner. Jamieson’s idea of community policing didn’t go that far, even though Murdo had tried to nudge her into it.

  “We can’t get too close,” she’d said. They both knew she was warning him about April. He held back his response to a mumble.

  The two were gazing out of a picture window almost as large as the cube of a room that contained it, an addition to the Lego house that functioned as a front room, with a perfect view of the village centre.

  April Dewey. Dewy, thought Murdo, as he stared wistfully at the Hall, wishing he were there with her.

  “Jesus,” said Jamieson. Murdo’s eyes, poor at best, opened wide, as the villagers streamed out of the Hall. And wider still, when Gladys Fraser sicked up on the sandwich board sign announcing the dinner.

  “Not good advertising,” said Murdo.

  “Hmm.” It was noncommittal, but Murdo caught the twitch of a smile on Jamieson’s face.

  “Just as well we didn’t go.” She turned away from the window. “I can cook better than that.”

  Murdo opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it.

  Jamieson, like Hy, couldn’t cook.

  The village pumps and septics were getting a good workout the morning after what the village children referred to as “The Toss Up.” And it remained a toss up as to where to lay the blame. The evidence was fairly clear, but facts never got in the way of a good story in the village.

  “There was something wrong with that fish,” said Harold MacLean, the carpenter. It was difficult to know if he meant the lobster or the clams. He called anything that came out of the ocean “fish,” whatever they were – shrimp, scallop, clam, or lobster.

  There might have been something wrong with the “fish,” but there had also been that potato salad. Someone – who? – had taken it out of the fridge to make room and forgot to put it back. It was concealed behind a stack of paper plates on a table, where it sat for hours with the heat up right where Gus liked it – an even eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit. She still used Fahrenheit because she claimed she couldn’t get warm in Celsius.

  Since Institute President Gladys Fraser had made the potato salad, no one dared accuse her. Whatever the evidence showed, they were inclined to think it was that fella Fitzpatrick and his bad clams.

  No matter how many times Hy pointed out that Ian had been sick and hadn’t eaten the chowder, it just didn’t sit with some. The shut-ins had received potato salad that hadn’t sat overlong in the Hall kitchen and none of them had been sick.

  Hy went over and over it in her head, wondering if there was anything Fitz had done in the cooking that wasn’t sanitary. She couldn’t
think of a thing.

  No, there had been nothing wrong with the cooking. Had there been something wrong with the clams? Hy pedalled furiously up to the Fitzpatricks’ on an empty stomach.

  Fitz was splitting wood behind the house.

  “So – where did that fish come from?” Hy liked the feel of Harold’s all-encompassing word on her lips, his economy of speech.

  “Like I said. Fella supplies restaurants.”

  “And why was he getting rid of it?”

  “Deal fell through.”

  Rose had come to the back door, and was standing in the doorway, propping the door open with her body.

  “Well, they were all sick as dogs, Fitz. They weren’t thawed and re-frozen, were they? What’s the story?”

  Fitz brought the axe down hard, too hard, on the piece of wood. Bits splintered and flew off at Hy and at Rose.

  They both jumped back. Rose let the door slam shut.

  Fitz dropped the axe, turned, and went off toward the shed.

  Rose opened the door again, and motioned Hy in.

  “I’ll get him to tell,” she said.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not worth it.” Talking about it made Hy feel as if it were happening all over again. A wave of nausea rose from her stomach to her throat. She turned quickly, and said, “I have to go. Sorry.” She didn’t want to vomit in front of Rose, or on her.

  Olive MacLean’s sister, Beatrice, a retired domestic science teacher, had watched the villagers with disdain and made her pronouncement. Mild food poisoning. Her only regret was that she hadn’t brought her microscope along to do a salmonella count. Hy had never experienced anything like it. She wasn’t sure she could cycle home, but she did. She burst through the door, up the stairs to the bathroom, and threw up again, even though she had nothing to give.

  Curse Fitzpatrick.

  Curse Gladys.

  Curse Christmas.

  Running out of things to curse, Hy went into her bedroom, flopped on the bed and fell asleep. She woke an hour later, feeling much better. She ate a big bowl of porridge, had a bath, and while she was soaking, realized someone would have to clean the Hall.