innocent citizens? I got up and headed for the door. “So it wasn’t murder at all. Thanks for the entertainment. You have quite a way with a story, but if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”
“Sit down, Ms. Cornwall. I’m not finished.”
I plodded back to the chair and sat. My stomach was flipping, and I couldn’t tell if the smell had permeated the building or was stuck to the mucous membranes of my nose.
“Mr. Barnfeather died from a fall, but not in the maintenance shed. Forensics came back negative on all surfaces in the shed. He died elsewhere and was transported to the shed afterward.”
“I don’t remember seeing Julian actually doing any work in the cemetery. Maybe he tripped on his way to the washroom and fell against a headstone.”
“We’ve looked at the headstones in the immediate area, but they’re clean. But we can’t check them all. There must be thousands. In any case, we can’t be sure what he fell against. It could have been a rock.”
“Okay, without six or seven accomplices, do you really think I could carry Julian’s body to the shed, even a few feet? Or drag him? He must weigh four hundred pounds.”
“Why do you persist in making this all about you, Ms. Cornwall? I haven’t accused you of anything, but I’m beginning to suspect you have a guilty conscience.”
“Bull!” Now I was getting angry. “Your constable implied I might be a suspect, and now you’re questioning me and tying me all up in knots. If you don’t think I did anything to Julian, then why am I here?”
Redfern stood up and came around his desk to stand in front of me again. My stomach burbled.
“Mr. Barnfeather didn’t have to work on Saturdays, yet he was there every day you were working. I wonder why that was, Ms. Cornwall?”
“How should I know? It certainly couldn’t have been for the few minutes at the beginning and end of the day when he could harass me. He sometimes walked around the cemetery, but he never came near me when I was working. He was probably afraid I’d whack him with my hoe if he tried anything in plain view.”
Whoops, I shouldn’t have said that, but Chief Redfern ignored my comment. Instead, he dangled a small plastic bag in front of my eyes. His own eyes were hard.
“Do you think it possible Mr. Barnfeather harassed you to keep you away from the shed during the day? By your own admission, you never went near the shed after collecting your tools until it was time to return them at quitting time. Until yesterday, that is, when you left your tools outside for Mr. Barnfeather to put away.”
“Yesterday, I had other business to attend to. And I simply couldn’t face Julian again. You seem to be suggesting Julian didn’t act like a pervert because of my overwhelming cuteness, but for some more sinister reason.”
He swung the plastic bag gently, moving it closer to my face. I felt my eyes cross.
“We found this in Julian Barnfeather’s hair. Very close to the wound. Do you know what this is, Ms. Cornwall?”
I leaned away from the bag to bring it into focus. It contained a small green-brown object, flattened. I looked up. “I don’t know. A piece of fabric? Maybe a leaf?”
“A leaf indeed. Any idea what plant this leaf came from?”
I shook my head, but a horrible glimmer of an idea was beginning to take shape in my brain. Please, no, not again. Surely not.
“This, Ms. Cornwall, is marijuana. Any idea where it may have come from?”
I dove for the waste basket, and just made it. Mostly.
Chapter
EIGHT
The interview was over. Chief Redfern jerked his thumb at the door, and I made a run for it, leaving him to clean off his pants and shoes. You’d think an experienced homicide cop from Toronto would know better than to stand so close to someone struggling to keep her breakfast down.
I retched non-productively while starting my bike and driving away from the skunk as quickly as possible. I detoured off Main Street onto Morningside Drive and stopped in front of my parents’ ranch-style house.
Even though the tenants, Joy and Bob MacPherson, emailed my parents routinely with news of their garden and the condition of the toilets, I had promised I would drop in from time to time and check on things. Then I’d text them on my BlackBerry, “All’s well here.” They would reply, “Thnx, hp yr wl,” which was their idea of the hip way to correspond.
They had left town before the Weasel blindsided me, and I had sworn Blyth to absolute silence about my financial predicament. My father had retired early from his manager’s position with the Royal Bank of Canada, defiantly bought a gigantic fifth wheel in the face of rising gas prices, and headed for the West Coast. My mother, a homemaker and proud of it, was delighted at the prospect of living unencumbered by eight-foot snow drifts in winter and dried-out lawns in summer.
I hoped they were now strolling along a pebbled beach, listening to dolphins chatter in the distance, maybe drinking a margarita. I wouldn’t put it past them to be sharing a joint with real hippies. Apparently the authorities were more relaxed on the West Coast about the weed thing. Still, I couldn’t help wishing they would come home so I could move in with them.
Hearing voices around back, I found Joy and Bob enjoying a couple of Bud Lights on the deck. They were a pleasant couple in their sixties, lean and wrinkled from the sun. With matching white hair, they looked like a pair of dandelions gone to seed. Bob was confined to a wheelchair, the result of a three-car pileup on the 401 two years previously. He was forced to retire from his toxicology professorship at the University of Guelph, and the couple had moved to Lockport where they had spent many summers sailing on nearby Lake Huron. Joy rose quickly from her wicker chair and came forward to greet me, with Bob rolling slowly down the ramp to the bricked patio area below the deck.
They insisted on showing me around the garden, and I got a bit of a fright when I spotted some tall ferns enjoying the shade beside the shed wall. I sidled up to them for a better look and satisfied myself the plants were innocent. I had to get hold of myself. I was seeing the demon weed everywhere.
After my brief visit, Joy and Bob accompanied me to the curb and waved me off. Passing the deck again, I glimpsed a couple of burning cigarettes in an ashtray on the small table and managed a good sniff. Bob saw my glance and said, “We only smoke outside. Your parents were quite adamant that they rent to non-smokers.”
I kept my face neutral, but the smoke was definitely illegal — I was becoming quite the expert on that.
Dougal was in his solarium spritzing his orchids. Some had dozens of white or pastel flowers on tall stalks; others were only a few inches high and not yet flowering. He had rearranged his marijuana plants, scattering them artfully among the tables of orchids.
“If anyone looks in the windows, they’ll see your grass. I’m surprised that hasn’t happened already.”
He shrugged dismissively. “The gate is locked and no one can get in without coming through the house — and the hydro meter is on the side.”
“Someone could climb over the back fence from the cornfield,” I persisted.
He snorted. “Who’s going to wade through a mile-long cornfield to climb over my fence?”
“Dougal, with this number of plants you could be charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking.” It was amazing what I remembered from typing Mike’s criminology papers at university.
“Noted.”
I walked closer to the Titan Arum. “Hey, this thing has grown a foot since I saw it yesterday.”
The spadix was markedly taller, and a pink hue was showing through the cream-speckled green of the frilly spathe encircling its base. Looked at a section at a time, the thing had a bizarre kind of beauty.