Читать книгу Meg Harris Mysteries 5-Book Bundle - R.J. Harlick - Страница 41

At the door to Tommy’s hospital room, I was reassured by the presence of a cop standing, or more correctly sitting, on guard. Moreover, he was able to assure me that no one fitting the description of Gareth had visited Tommy’s room, from which I could safely conclude that the police had nabbed him.

Tommy lay propped against the raised back of his bed. A large white bandage covered his head wound. A stiff white sheet hid the rest of his body. Judging by the rigid way he held it, he was either firmly bandaged or still in considerable pain. Probably both. Two sets of tubes, one clear, the other red ran from his arms up to the plastic bags dangling from the metal stand at the side of his bed. Considering the amount of blood he’d left behind, the sight of the blood transfusion came as no surprise.

His opened his eyes as I approached his bed. He smiled weakly. “You came . . .” he whispered and closed his eyes as he winced in pain.

Watching him catch his breath, I realized I’d been too hasty. “I think I should come back later when you’re feeling better.”

“No, Miss Harris, don’t leave. It’s all right . . . I think they’ve given me some kind of pain killer. It really doesn’t hurt me that much . . . Just the bandages are kind of tight.” He struggled to move his body into a more comfortable position.

I reached out to help him. “Please, forget the Miss Harris nonsense. After what we’ve been through, I think I deserve to be called Meg,” I said.

“I’ve been a jerk, Miss . . . I mean Meg. I want to apologize—” A fit of coughing stopped him in mid-sentence.

“Don’t say anything more. I should be the one to apologize,” I replied. “I thought you killed your parents.”

He held his eyes closed, then directed their blue brilliance towards me. “I gave you plenty of reason.”

“No, I should’ve trusted Marie’s son.”

“Please . . . I gave you no reason to trust me. I behaved badly. I spurned your offer of help, and I lied to you.” He stopped and took a few shallow breaths, then continued in a stronger voice.

“And it was for the most selfish of reasons, stupid Anishinabeg pride. All my life I’ve resented your family, your money and your white skin. I swear from the day I was born, there wasn’t a moment when Mooti didn’t think the sun rose and shone on Miss Agatta.

“I hate to say it, but I was glad when your aunt died. No more interfering . . . and then you moved in . . . I tried to prevent Mooti from going to work for you, but she refused to listen. She tried to tell me that our two families . . . were like a beaver and a stream, but her analogy only made me hate your family’s influence even more . . .”

Tommy stopped to catch his breath, then continued. “I thought she meant our destiny was to serve you, like the beaver who spends his entire life working to make the stream into a big pond. But I was wrong . . .

“It took a bullet to make me realize that in her own simple way she was trying to say that our families need each other to survive and prosper. Much . . . much in the same way the beaver needs to dam the stream to provide food and protection for his family. The stream in turn needs the beaver to make it into a pond, so it can provide a home for plants and other animals.”

He coughed. Groaning from pain, he struggled to reach the water glass on the bedside table. I hastily picked it up and held the bent straw to his lips.

“You know, she was right,” I said, mulling over Marie’s simple imagery. “We do need each other. And it started with your great-grandmother, Summer Wind. She helped my great-aunt with a difficult pregnancy. Aunt Aggie in turn saved your grandmother’s life. And I’m sure you know that Aunt Aggie would never have survived her years of isolation and bouts of madness without the dedicated care of Whispering Pine.”

Tommy nodded thoughtfully and added, “And the money your aunt gave us. Sure, I resented its hold, but it did help my mother gain some independence from my father, and of course, I couldn’t have become a lawyer without it.”

Thinking back on what Marie had done for me, I added, “Without your mother’s friendship I’m not sure how I would’ve overcome my first lonely year at Three Deer Point.”

Tommy smiled. “And the circle continues . . . The doctor says that if you hadn’t found me, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now. Mooti was right, our destinies are linked, like the beaver and the stream.”

Tommy caught his breath as if in pain, then smiling weakly he continued, “In the language of my people, I want to say chi-migwech, many thanks. And I’m sorry I was such a bastard.”

“Please, no apologies. I was a bitch too.”

At this point, a rotund nurse in floral polyester and pink Hush Puppies whisked into the room, checked his intravenous and thrust two pills into his hand. She held the glass of water to his lips, while he gulped the pills down.

Glancing in my direction, she said, “Mustn’t overtire the patient, dear.”

Muttering “Of course not,” I started to leave, but Tommy stopped me by saying, “Please . . . not yet. I want to explain my actions, that’s partly why I asked you to come.”

The nurse, shaking her head, gave Tommy one last check before leaving the room.

As she closed the door behind her, I asked, “Does it have anything to do with Gareth Patterson?”

Tommy’s startled blue eyes looked towards me. “How do you know about him?”

“He told me. He’s my ex.”

“You were married to that bastard?”

I nodded yes. “But if it’s any excuse, he wasn’t a bastard when I married him. He only became one later.”

“Well, he sure suckered me. I was convinced he was offering me the job of a lifetime, assistant legal council for this big multinational mining company. And then Eric told me all about CanacGold and Gareth Patterson. Shit, was I mad. I felt like a damn fool for being sucked in again by white man’s snake oil.

“And I should’ve known better when he made me sneak around like a Mohawk weasel. But my eyes could only see the money he promised. And of course, I was convinced this was my chance, me, a poor Algonquin, to make it big in the white man’s world.”

“If it’s any consolation,” I said, “it’s taken me almost twenty years to become immune to Gareth’s snake oil. This sneaking around you mentioned, does it explain why you lied to me about your return the day I was at your place looking for your mother?”

“Yeah, that’s part of it. He didn’t want anyone to know we were meeting, so I felt I had to pretend I was just getting home. He also kept grilling me about my family, which should have made me suspicious too.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Mostly about my grandmother and great-grandparents, nothing that related to getting a job. I was naïve enough to think he wanted to learn about my people’s ways. But when I finally learned of his involvement in the gold mine, I realized his only interest was furthering the interests of CanacGold.”

“No doubt. But what does your family have to do with the mine?”

“Mr. Patterson knew about the death of my great-grandparents on the island. I think he was trying to get me on his side to quell any concerns my people might have about the mine desecrating sacred ancestral grounds.”

“Even so, it wouldn’t stop him,” I said, remembering Marie’s stark concern the first time we saw the miners trespassing on the island. “You visited the island with Gareth the morning after your mother was killed, didn’t you?”

Tommy’s eyes opened wide in shock. He tried to fight back the tears, but a couple escaped. “To think I was that close and didn’t know.”

“Please, don’t blame yourself. By then she was beyond help.”

“I know,” he said with a deep sigh. “How did you know I was there?”

“I saw your boat on the north beach that morning.”

“Couldn’t have been mine. We were on the south shore, where my great-grandparents once lived.”

“Are you sure? The boat I saw had the exact same red tackle box as the one I saw at your place.”

“So that’s why you grilled me about Papa’s box. No, it wasn’t his. Besides, a few others in the band have the same box.”

“Like who?”

“Eric.”

“I know about his, anyone else?”

“John-Joe, and I think Charlie Cardinal might own one.”

Bingo, I thought to myself. I could believe Charlie would push a tree over to try to scare me away from the island.

“You didn’t happen to see anyone on the island, while you were there, someone wearing one of the Fishing Camp’s yellow rain jackets?”

“Nope, didn’t see anyone.”

He stopped talking and lay quiet for a few minutes. I glanced at the rain-streaked window and wondered how much longer the downpour was going to last. Tommy was obviously tired. And if this rain didn’t let up soon, I could find myself rowing home rather than driving.

I started to get up, when Tommy said, “Meg, your mentioning a yellow jacket reminds me of something. I forgot all about it when the police were questioning me. But I remember it clearly now. A few seconds before I felt the gun shot, I saw something yellow. It could have come from one of those jackets.”

A sudden chill went up my spine. “Did you see who it was?”

He shook his head sadly.

“Too bad. I guess he was after that money you found.”

“Yeah, the money . . . I found it hidden in the outhouse. It was inside the hole, on a small shelf Papa must’ve built years ago. Funny I never noticed it before. Maybe this was where Papa hid his hooch from Mooti.” Tommy chuckled quietly. “It was a lot too, at least twenty bundles of new twenties. Wonder where Papa got money like that?”

“I think the money was payment from CanacGold for the gold discovery on Whispers Island.”

“No shit. After all the years he’d tried prospecting, he actually found something.”

Yeah, rather convenient, I thought to myself. I wondered what prompted him to prospect on Whispers Island after so many years of living almost next to it.

Wincing, Tommy reached for his glass of water with the straw which I held to his lips. When he’d finished, he said, “Police haven’t told me whether the money’s still where I dropped it.”

“Sorry, most of it’s gone, but hopefully when the police catch your gunman, they’ll find the rest of it. Gareth said Louis had a partner. Any idea who that could be?”

“Papa, a partner, as in business partner? You’ve got to be kidding. He didn’t trust anybody, not even his own kin.”

In case Gareth was lying, I decided to ask. “Could it have been Charlie Cardinal?”

“No way. Charlie wouldn’t give Papa the time of day. Too caught up in his noble Algonquin heritage. Thought non-status half-breeds like Papa were dirt.”

Tommy closed his eyes and lay quiet. Realizing I’d stayed far too long, I hastily wished him well and left. Outside, the rain had fortunately diminished to a Scotch mist, which would make the long drive home a lot easier.

As I drove away from the hospital, I started worrying over the implications of Tommy’s evidence. It seemed unlikely that there was more than one attacker wearing yellow. So the man who’d shot Tommy and probably killed his parents and the man who’d tried to kill me on Whispers Island and vandalized my home were no doubt one and the same.

But his motive for going after both of us eluded me. There was no common thread other than it probably had something to do with the gold. Moreover, while I was sure Charlie, under direction from Gareth, had broken into my home and was a good candidate for tree pusher, I found it difficult to believe that he would kill Marie, a person he’d cared for like a sister.