Murder in Hum Harbour Read online

  His frown weakened ever so slightly, so I rushed on. “For example, come look at this. Is there any way Ross Murray could have triggered his father’s fatal stroke? These are the meds the old man was on. What do you think?”

  I could see him wavering, determined to stand firm, yet unquestionably curious. What could Jack Murray’s meds have to do with Doc Campbell’s murder? He rounded the desk. “This discussion isn’t over, you know.”

  “I know. But couldn’t you just look at this file? Please?”

  As Geoff read, I closed my eyes and thanked the Lord for this small reprieve. “There’s nothing untoward here, Gailynn.”

  Geoff’s distinctive scent filled my nostrils. It was unlike anything else I knew. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m the doctor, remember?”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “What else could Mimi have meant when she threatened Doc?”

  “Maybe you misunderstood, Gailynn. Maybe she was warning not threatening.”

  “Believe me, I’ve heard Mimi warn and I’ve heard her threaten and I can tell the difference.”

  “So, now you want to go through every file in this office to see if you can find something?”

  “Not every file,” I said. “But with your permission, I’d like to check the ones I think might include motives for silencing Doc.”

  “I thought the point of your snooping was to discover the motive. How do you know ahead of time who’s harboring a secret?”

  “If there is one thing I’m learning in all this, it’s that everyone has a secret. No one is what they appear to be on the outside.”

  “My point, exactly. You’ll need to review every file.”

  “I’ve already checked as far as C, although I wasn’t actually hunting for patients’ secrets at that point, so I guess you’re right. If I’m going to do this right I need to start from the top.”

  He began rolling up his sleeves. Was he going to help me search? “Did you ever find a copy of the Hum Harbour Holes agreement?”

  I shook my head. “Nor anything pertaining to the sale of Doc’s medical practice.”

  “I get your interest in the Holes, but why Doc’s practice?”

  I waved a dismissive hand. “Just something Lori said once. Made me curious.”

  He leaned against the desk. “What did she say?”

  “I really can’t remember.” I adjusted the pages in Jack Murray’s file and closed it.

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re a terrible liar?”

  “Too often. But I’m still not going to tell you what I wanted to know because it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I met his gaze. “I’m sure.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I assume you’d already checked Mike Johnson’s file before you accused him and Mimi. Have you looked into Ross or Bud, the other investors?”

  “No, Ross’s dad, but not Ross himself.”

  Geoff studied me for a full minute then seemed to come to a decision. “This goes against my better judgment, but let’s make a deal. We go through the files together. We find anything we take it straight to Andrew. But if we find nothing you’ll stop your private investigation.”

  Stop completely? “You would search with me?” I asked.

  “Gailynn, if it’s what I need to do to save you from another disaster like the one this afternoon, I’d review these files from now ’til doomsday.”

  I eased back in his chair. “You’re concerned someone might sue you?”

  “That’s part of it,” he admitted.

  “You’ve other reasons? What?”

  He almost smiled. “Lets give it a little longer. See which mystery you crack first.”

  29

  Geoff sat on one side of his desk and I sat on the other. We read through Ross and Bud’s medical files silently. Geoff read faster than I did, and I felt a little intimidated by the speed with which he devoured each page before flipping to the next. Fortunately, Ross’s file was longer than Bud’s, which I was reading, so I didn’t feel like I was falling too far behind.

  I scanned each page first then went back and read more closely to make sure I didn’t miss something important. Geoff had challenged me not to let my prejudices blind me. Being Lori’s dad was not reason enough to exclude Bud from my suspicions. So I wanted to be sure I scrutinized his records with as much care as I would anyone else’s.

  “Anything interesting?” I asked when Geoff reached for a book on his shelf.

  “Yeah. I think Doc might have overlooked something. There’s been research in the last few years that suggests a correlation between certain types of liver cancers and their frequency within a given population group.”

  A tiny pucker formed between his eyebrows as he warmed to his subject. “You see, until recently the connection’s been attributed to nutritional-environmental factors, but researchers now believe they may have uncovered a genetic marker which, if identified early enough, could substantially influence the disease’s early diagnosis and treatment. I see here from Doc’s records that Ross suffers from the same—you don’t care about this do you?”

  “Would it give Ross a good reason to murder Doc?”

  “No. But I think I’ll have you call Ross early next week and set up an appointment. I’d like to discuss this with him.”

  I scribbled a note to myself on Geoff’s memo pad. “You know, if this is going to mean I end up booking appointments for every person who has a file in there”—meaning the filing cabinets filling the next room—”it’s going to take us forever to do this.”

  Sheepishly Geoff slid his reference book back on the shelf and flipped to the last page in Ross’s records. “I think I’ll have a look through Ross Junior’s file, too. It wouldn’t be the first time a parent did something illegal to protect their child.”

  “So you think it’s Ross?”

  “Just saying it’s worth checking.”

  Humphing, I returned to the pages before me. I was stumped by some of the older lab sheets in Bud’s folder. The forms were laid out differently than the ones I was used to filing and the scales they used to measure results seemed completely screwy.

  “Can you explain this to me?” I raised my voice so Geoff could hear me in the next room. “I can’t make heads or tails out of these test results when I compare them with the newer requisitions at the back of Bud’s file.”

  “Aha, you’ve been bitten by the curiosity bug, too. What mysterious ailments lurk in peoples’ pasts?”

  “OK, you caught me, but can you tell me what this means?”

  He settled into his seat, feet propped on the other empty chair, and stretched out his hand. “Sure, pass it over.”

  I rested my chin on my hands and watched him read.

  Frowning, he read the front, then the back of the old lab report, and the front again. “Where’d you find this?”

  He came around the desk and shuffled through the pages of Bud’s chart. “Here, you read Ross Junior’s, and let me look through Bud’s more thoroughly.”

  We exchanged files and I half turned my attention to my new file. I already knew most of what it contained since I’d worked at the clinic for most of Ross Junior’s life. I read fitfully. I wouldn’t have recognized the liver symptoms Geoff seemed so keen on even if I’d been attentive.

  “What’s wrong with Bud?” I finally asked. “You keep going back to that one set of tests. Is he all right?”

  “What? Bud? Yeah, sure.” Geoff took Bud’s papers to the file room.

  I followed. “Come on, if nothing’s wrong what’s so interesting, then?”

  “Lori’s Mom worked for Doc when you were kids, right?”

  “Yeah. Lori practically grew up in this clinic. From the time we started kindergarten, she either came here or my place every day after school. Why?”

  “And Bud got along with Doc?”

  “Sure. I guess. Why? Are you reading Lori’s file now?”

  “Can you find me El
len’s in the retired files, please?”

  I pulled it out and handed it to him. “Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

  It seemed he found what he was looking for because he handed Ellen’s file back to me after briefly scanning two pages. He replaced Lori’s file, as well.

  “We need to talk about confidentiality.”

  “Again? I’ve already promised I won’t mention what I learn here.”

  “No, right now I’m thinking about how the things we discover might affect you personally.”

  30

  My knees felt weak and I sank into the closest chair. My brain ran amok with lab results and Geoff’s remarks about genetic markers and kinds of cancers that ran in families. “What are you saying? Lori’s sick? She’s got the same cancer her Mom did?”

  He pulled the other chair close and sat. Resting his elbows on his thighs, he clasped and unclasped his hands. “Lori’s fine.”

  “Her dad?”

  “Bud’s fine, too. Look there’s no polite way to say this and it’s too late to convince you it’s nothing, but I’m not sure it necessarily has anything to do with Doc. OK?”

  “What is it?”

  “Those test results you didn’t understand? They indicate Bud was, shall we say, unable to father children.” He waited for me to catch up.

  “You’re saying that Lori…that’s impossible.”

  He shrugged. “Apparently not.”

  “Lori’s adopted?”

  “Ellen Fisher gave birth to a live baby girl the same year you were born so, no, Lori is not adopted.” He let that sink in.

  “Do you think they know? Lori and Bud?”

  “You tell me.”

  I tugged my hair. If Lori knew she would have told me, especially when I went through the phase where I thought I was adopted. No, Lori didn’t know, but did Bud?

  “Who could her father be, then?”

  Geoff still said nothing.

  Whoever he was, the man most likely lived in Hum Harbour, or had at one time. I pictured my friend’s lovely face. Lori had her Mom’s blonde hair and violet eyes. Her perfectly shaped brows were too sculpted to say whose they were like and her dimpled chin, well, who did I know with a dimpled chin?

  I let the faces I’d seen at Doc’s funeral parade through my mind, but I couldn’t picture one man with a dimpled or cleft chin. My brothers were both the spitting images of our dad, no dimples. Mike Johnson passed his block features onto his sons, too. Vi’s genes moderated Ross Murray’s, so although young RJ’s jaw wasn’t as soft as his Dad’s, the family likeness remained unmistakable. Ross’s second wife reminded me of Marjorie Campbell, his first wife. Vi’s perkiness contrasted starkly to Marjorie’s lean, athletic build.

  Marjorie Campbell had a cleft chin. And so did her brother.

  “No.”

  Geoff must have read it all in my face. “Think about it,” he said. “Ellen worked for Doc from before Lori was born. It’s possible that she and Doc developed feelings for each other. That they acted on those feelings at least once.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Maybe Ellen wasn’t much of a church goer but she’d never have done anything to hurt her family. Especially Lori. She loved Lori.”

  “But before Lori, couldn’t she have had an affair with Doc before she had Lori?”

  How would I know? I tried to picture young Bud Fisher, the lobster fisherman, and compare him to Douglas Campbell, Hum Harbour’s handsome, charming doctor. It wasn’t hard to imagine any woman finding Doc more appealing than taciturn Bud Fisher. But Bud’s wife?

  “OK, say it’s true and Bud knew. Why would he join a business arrangement with his wife’s ex-lover? Hmm?”

  Geoff shook his head.

  “And why wait over twenty-five years before retaliating?”

  “I haven’t got an answer.”

  “Why not just watch Doc sail off to the Caribbean, and be thankful to be rid of him?”

  “Gailynn, I don’t know.”

  “Why murder him, now?”

  “OK, you’re right. It doesn’t make sense. Let’s forget I even mentioned it.”

  But of course, I couldn’t.

  ****

  After reviewing Ross and Bud’s medical files, we agreed to stop for dinner; this seemed the ideal time to take a break. Geoff offered to make his internationally renowned ragout while I checked Sheba. I accepted.

  Four hours earlier I’d left an uncharacteristically dopey cat snoozing on the middle of my bed. Sheba was due some serious love and affection.

  Cats are independent creatures and Sheba could be called Feline Poster Cat of the Decade. I discovered her fully revived, sitting on the windowsill watching a robin saunter along the deck rail. Sheba’s tail twitched.

  “Sure you’re up to this?” I asked, carefully lifting her into my arms.

  She rubbed her head under my chin.

  “You’ve been through a lot. Maybe you should take it easy for another day or two.” I unlatched the sliding door. The rain was over but there were still puddles on my deck. “What do you think?” I asked and pushed the door wide.

  She exploded from my arms. Logic tells me her paws touched the deck before she pounced onto the rail a breath of a second behind the airborne bird, but I didn’t see it. With the agility of an Olympic gymnast, she strutted the thin edge of the rail, dismounted on Geoff’s side and escaped down his back stair.

  Well, so much for love and affection.

  I watched her slink under Geoff’s car, scoot across Water Street and disappear between the trucks parked near the wharf. Guess she was feeling better.

  It was early Saturday evening. The line of gray cloud had lifted, revealing a band of blue sky along the horizon. The sea spread towards that line like a swath of ruffled satin. The air smelled deliciously fresh. I could hear the bang and clang of men preparing their boats for the dawn run. Lori and her dad were there, too. I saw them moving about on the deck of the Lori-Girl, heard their laughter.

  Geoff’s ragout would be a while. I decided to follow Sheba to the wharf and thank Lori again for driving me to the vet’s to pick up my cat.

  I quickly changed out of my funeral clothes and ran across to the wharf.

  “Hey, Gailynn, you come to accuse anybody else of murdering Doc?” shouted Tom Gunn, the owner of the Cindy-Lou.

  “Yeah, I was getting my hernia fixed in Halifax that week,” Tom’s brother, Keith, hollered. “Maybe it was me.”

  They laughed, as did everyone else within hearing distance. I stiffened my spine and called to Lori, “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself,” she said. Taking the final bite out of her apple, she tossed the core. “Coming aboard?”

  She knew very well the answer was no. “Just wanted to say thanks again for taking me to fetch Sheba.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  I waved my hand towards the trucks. “Out hunting again.”

  “Glad to hear it. Don’t you let those guys get to you, Gai. You keep hunting, too. Between you and Andrew, I’m sure Doc’s killer will get his due. Look, Dad and I’ve got to get this stuff done before it’s dark, though, Gailynn. Mind?”

  “No, of course not.” I left my friend and her non-father stacking boxes of something on the lobster boat’s cramped deck and I wandered along the wharf, killing time. I was glad no one else spoke to me. I’d endured quite enough embarrassment for one day. I reached the end, turned and started back when I spotted Bud disembarking. He hesitated before striding towards me. From the set of his shoulders, I knew he had a message to deliver.

  I braced myself.

  “Look, Gailynn, I like you and all, you’re my daughter’s best friend, but I gotta tell you she’s givin’ you bad advice. Steer clear of Doc’s murder or you’re gonna live to regret it.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I’m tellin’ you the truth. Girl, someone’s already done
poisoned your cat and trashed your fancy glass shop. How much more’s it gonna take to get the message through that thick head of yours?” He shook his head regretfully. “Lori’s got her mama’s beauty and brains, thank heavens, but you, girl, you make the gulls look like geniuses.”

  “Gee, thanks, Bud.”

  “It’s the truth, girl. And the more you keep stickin’ your nose where it don’t belong, the more everyone’s gonna know it, too.”

  “I’m sorry but I can’t stand by and do nothing while Doc’s killer gets off scott free.”

  “Well, maybe he’s not scott free. Maybe he’s feelin’ guilty and scared. You keep up and he’s gonna feel cornered, too. And if’n he’s guilty and scared and cornered he’s likely to do anything to keep his secret secret.”

  “And that makes it OK?”

  “No it don’t make it OK, it just makes it understandable. We all got secrets, girl, even you and me. None of us wants people stickin’ their noses in. That’s why we call ’em secrets.”

  I dug my fists into my pockets. “I don’t have any secrets.”

  “Well I do and I sure as the blazes don’t want you findin’ out.”

  “I already know.” It just popped out. I slapped my hand over my mouth but it was too late, Bud had heard.

  He leaned close and his liquored breath set my teeth on edge. “You know what, girl?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Girl, you’re a terrible liar. You know that?”

  I stared at my shuffling feet, wishing I could escape the inevitable. I’d come to the wharf to convince myself Geoff’s theory of Lori’s parentage was completely bogus. If I just watched Lori and her dad I’d see all these familial similarities that would prove Bud was Lori’s biological father. I’d observe silently. Maybe ask a subtle question or two, but that was all. I was not going to confront Lori or her dad with Geoff’s theory. And I certainly wasn’t going to accuse anyone of anything. I was not going to make a scene twice in one day.

  But my brain short-circuited and there they were, the things I didn’t want to say, pouring out my mouth. Was I really as dumb as a herring gull?

  Apparently so.