The Monster of Twenty Mile Pond Read online

  Brian showed me an anonymous letter to the editor on the day of the governor’s departure. It was in the form of a few lines of irregular doggerel. He didn’t think it had any relevance to what I was looking for because it seemed meaningless, but since it did refer to the governor in the title, I might spot something useful in it, or at least find it bizarrely amusing. I read it over:

  “Our Governor, Well Preserved”

  During your stay in our land

  Really shorter than planned

  Under strain of being the lead

  Now take you God’s speed.

  Keep your fort well manned,

  Enough to save worm feed

  Now angling’s been banned.

  For though you had mead

  On your table well planned

  Oft you paid it too much heed.

  Leave us o’erjoyed, we plead.

  Brian said, “It’s not poetry’s greatest moment, is it? And I’m surprised the paper even published it, since it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “You do somewhat get its drift, though, Brian.”

  “But here’s the thing, Bill. Two days later, in the same paper, I saw another letter drawing attention to what was either a remarkable coincidence in the poem or a deliberate but cleverly concealed defamation. I never would have spotted it myself. See it?”

  “Oh yes. Oh yes. Look at that. Put together, the first letter of each line spells out two words. I was able to zero in on it because the same thing happened again later in our history, around the time of Confederation. A poem in the paper said goodbye to a governor by spelling out in the same way the words ‘the bastard.’ And this one here spells out—see it?—‘drunken fool.’ That’s great. It certainly makes the poem relevant to my inquiries. It corroborates an important detail in Mr. Tucker’s story about the governor.”

  On the question of the governors’ fishing privilege on Windsor Lake, Brian could not discover any reference to any recent governor having availed himself of the benefit. The go-getter even called up and quizzed the current secretary at Government House, who told him that a tradition had developed there whereby each governor, and every lieutenant-governor since we joined Canada, was advised of a standing policy against doing so because it was too dangerous.

  When Brian asked what the danger might be that lay behind that new tradition or policy, the secretary said he didn’t know precisely but he suspected—here, Brian said, he could hear the secretary speaking through a grin—that the danger in these more democratic and egalitarian times might have to do with the disastrous public relations inherent in anyone being permitted, simply because of his status, to frolic about in a boat in the people’s drinking water.

  However, some people, especially the conspiracy theory types, the secretary said, laughing, sometimes darkly hinted that the danger in the lake was more immediate and physical. No, he didn’t have any specifics.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The very next day, I drove back to see Hughie Tucker, another flask of rum filed away in my briefcase. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, standing to take the flask, “but thanks all the same.” Then he pulled back his hand. “The secret to the success of my hiding place is that it’s camouflaged enough to escape notice, like a squid. But if my forbidden loot becomes too noticeable, the whole vast plot may blow up in my face—look, Mr. McGill, Bill, do you mind hanging on to that for me till your next visit? I’ll be ready for it then.”

  “No trouble. How’s your needlepoint going?”

  “Jackpot, sir. I’m having tea in her room tomorrow afternoon. I’m a bundle of nerves. Haven’t closed an eye all night since she asked me. Frightened right to death, trying to keep in mind I’m not supposed to drink my tea out of the saucer. Okay, ready to go? This next yarn about Old Twenny is more recent.

  “There was a fellow who used to live on Old Broad Cove Road not far from me who called himself the Multi-Million Dollar Man. He nicknamed himself that because over half his forty-odd years had been spent in prison for assorted crimes. Twenty-five years at eighty grand a year, which is what he calculated it cost the government in police work, and trials, and to put him up in the clink—‘Well, do the math,’ he’d say, right proud of himself. The Multi-Million Dollar Man.

  “He might have seemed like an idiot, but one time he was in court, with twelve different charges against him—car theft, bank heist, breaking into a house to hide out, assault on a gang member who ratted on him, a shootout with the RCMP, the list goes on. He turned down the legal aid lawyer and defended himself. He got nine of the twelve charges thrown out by the judge.”

  “I remember that case,” I said. “He was the darling of the media, never stopped crowing about how he’d made a fool of the entire league of legal beagles in the province. A bunch of us lawyers were talking about it at the time, and one, a senior criminal lawyer, said, ‘That guy must be a genius. I’ve been following the trial and I’ll tell you straight: I doubt if I could have gotten all of those nine charges dismissed.’”

  “There you go,” said Hughie. “And I’m telling you that part of it now because, when you hear what happened at the end, you need to keep in mind that the man was far from a moron. The Multi-Million Dollar Man was very active, very energetic. I think half his problem was his hyperactivity. He should have been prime minister or a big business magnate where his insane energy and his criminal tendencies could have done him a lot more good.

  “After he got out of jail the last time, he decided he was going to hike around Twenty Mile Pond. Now he’d done it before, but he wanted to break his own record. The time before, he took about seven and a half hours to do it, over the bogs, rocks, and through the thick underbrush. This time, he bragged, he was going to break seven hours. So he and his gang of disciples took off from the starting point like scalded cats.

  “Two or three hours later, when they were over on the side of the lake where there’s no regular road, he told the boys he had to use the bathroom. ‘You guys go on ahead,’ he said. ‘I won’t have any trouble catching up with all you snails and slugs.’ He was standing right by the lake on the beach, undoing his belt, and one of his buddies said, ‘You’re not going to take a dump there, are you? My uncle is in the pen in town and he has to drink that water.’ And Multi says, ‘Then he should be happy. This will be an improvement over what they used to serve me when I was inside.’ The boys all laughed and went on their way, saying what a queer hand old Multi was. And they never saw the man again. Nobody did. There and then, he disappeared off the very face of the earth.

  “One of his gang of hikers told the police that he heard something behind him, not enough to make him turn his head, sort of a ‘yip.’ A sound like a dog might make if it was run over by a truck and killed instantly. Or like a man might make if his neck was suddenly broken. The descriptions rang true, the police said, because the boys gave every impression of being comfortably familiar with terminal sounds.

  “Three scenarios were put forward. The first two were proposed by the police.

  “First, they suggested the possibility of suicide, since he was about to be brought up on habitual offender charges. But they never really pursued that. As his girlfriend said to them, ‘Multi? Commit suicide? Multi causes suicide, he don’t do suicide.’

  “The second possibility, and the one the police really favoured, was that his own buddies murdered him. He always had a big mouth, but it kept getting worse, and God alone knew what he would say to a jailhouse informant when he got going, not to intentionally rat on the boys, but just to shoot off his face. So the theory was that some of his gang wanted to shut him up permanently.

  “The police dragged the bottom of the pond in the area where he was last seen, and nothing turned up. They interrogated his companions endlessly. Where had they hidden the body after they killed him? That sort of thing. No one gave an answer
and no charges were ever laid. He became a missing person, an eternally missing person. But the police made it clear to the boys that they had gotten away with murder.

  “The Department of Justice played down the whole story, especially that a body was never found, because the lack of a body meant it might still be out there in the pond, somewhere on the bottom, weighted down with chains and mouldering away in the city’s drinking water. And now we come to scenario number three.

  “His death and disappearance, some people claimed, including Multi’s own gang, were the handiwork of the monster of Twenty Mile Pond. Only old Twenny was frightening and mysterious and sneaky and powerful enough to kill the great Multi-Million Dollar Man and make him vanish without trace.”

  “What do you think happened to him, Hughie?”

  “Remember I told you how cute and clever he was? I think Multi made himself disappear. I’d say he’s been living ever since under an assumed name, probably in a disguise, in some foreign country without an extradition treaty.”

  “Has there ever been a report that he’s been spotted or heard from?”

  “No, never, not a sound that I know of.”

  “But don’t you think that’s strange, Hughie? Especially since the self-proclaimed Multi-Million Dollar Man craved publicity all his life before that. You’d think he’d be calling or emailing from Uruguay or somewhere like that, giving our justice system the finger and bragging his head off.”

  “Yes, even his girlfriend used to say she half-expected to see him on television in South America someday, going, ‘Yah yah yah yah YAH yah.’ Which didn’t happen, as far as I know, so I suppose he could be dead.”

  “Maybe he was, in fact, killed by something in the water and dragged off.”

  “Maybes are two cents a quintal, Bill. Keep in mind that the ones really pushing the monster idea were the ones who might be able to say, if they were tortured enough, that he was alive and where he escaped to, or that they were the ones who murdered him.”

  “I suppose,” I said. “What about family and belongings? Any indication that persons close to him or things valuable to him disappeared afterwards, too? Some hint that someone went with him or joined him, or that he took some things with him?”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that. Because that’s the main thing that casts doubt on my theory that he hightailed to a foreign country. He had his girlfriend here and a couple of children by her that he doted on. And by all accounts he and she doted on each other.

  “I remember one time, after nine fellow inmates up in Dorchester Penitentiary, or maybe it was Kingston—he was in a good many jails—anyway, these nine convicts attacked him in the workout room with shanks and shivs and ten-pound cast-iron dumbbells. And he walked out, leaving every one of them a twitching heap of blood and pulp on the floor. Well, sir, the girlfriend comes right on television, and says, ‘It’ll take more than nine or ten Canadians brandishing lethal weaponry’—she had all the police lingo down pat—‘to put down my man.’

  “She was heartbroken when he disappeared. You couldn’t fake that kind of grief, her mother said. And she never went out of the province after. Afraid of flying. It’s pretty certain she never travelled anywhere to visit him. And he never took anything with him. All his belongings were exactly the same as they were before he disappeared.”

  “What about the kids, did they ever travel anywhere after?”

  “Not while they were growing up. They never left the area. One of them is married and living in Fort McMurray now. The other one is in and out of jail—break and enter, holdups, that sort of a thing. He was trying to supplement the family income, I suppose. The girlfriend went on welfare after Multi vanished, and stayed on it until the day she died of cancer a couple of years ago. I’ll say this in favour of the monster theory, though: Multi never would have let his family go on welfare like that if he was alive. He always prided himself on providing for them, even while he was in prison. But then, the way he was, you know, if he decided he was going to disappear, he’d well and truly disappear.”

  “All very strange.” We sat and cogitated for a few minutes. Then I said, “Hughie, the lake must have a lot of trout in it by now. Between ourselves, is there much poaching going on there, to your knowledge?”

  “Nah. Everyone is too skittish from the foolish old yarns to go out in a small boat, or to even fish from the shore, especially after dark in the middle of the night, when the poaching would have to be done to avoid being caught. I wouldn’t be surprised if the city council or the government keeps the legend alive to prevent people going near the water.”

  “Must be a monster’s dream by now, all those big fish. Want to sneak out in a boat some night and catch a couple?”

  “I definitely would have gone out with you last month, Bill, when I had no responsibilities, except myself. But someone else’s happiness is starting to depend on me now.” He grinned and got to his feet. “Listen, Bill, I’m going to mosey out to the TV room to see if there’s anyone watching the story, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, if you get my meaning. Next time you come I’ve got something else to tell you about all this. Now don’t think you’ve got to bring a flask every time you drop in. A full bottle, a twenty-six-ouncer, to put under the desk out there for my nightly medicinal dose would be good sometimes, too. Ha ha ha. Just joking.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Molly was charged with being an accessory before and after the fact to second-degree murder and released into the custody of Jennifer and me. The young lady was only lucky, prosecutor Derek Smythe told Morley Sheppard, that she hadn’t been charged as an accomplice to murder.

  Danny Power, the man who’d been waiting in the car for his brother, the victim, was charged with possession of narcotics for the purpose of trafficking. The Crown waged a rancorous legal battle to keep him in jail. He’d ended up in British Columbia a couple of years ago, they argued, after he’d been charged and released on bail in St. John’s. But ultimately, after weeks of wrangling, the judge let him out when he and his sureties made a large deposit, which, the media reported, they appeared to have no problem raising quickly. Among the conditions of his release was an undertaking to have absolutely no contact with Esme and Molly. That requirement shouldn’t have given us as great a sense of security as it did.

  Esme’s application for bail was difficult, too. A full-scale hearing was held wherein the prosecutor described her as dangerous to the public. He strenuously urged that she be kept in custody until the trial—many months down the road. Now I could understand that the Crown had adopted this hard-nosed attitude as part of the Department of Justice’s zero-tolerance policy in drug cases generally, let alone those associated with allegations of murder, but the zeal of the prosecution went way beyond that policy. It seemed to me to be approaching abuse of process. It was almost as if they had some sort of hidden agenda.

  Our lawyers, Brian and Morley, however, told me that the police and prosecution were simply irritated by Esme’s cockamamie, hare-brained story, and they were counting on a few months in closed custody to bring her to her senses and her account a little closer to reality.

  They wanted her either to take responsibility herself or point her finger at Danny Power and give evidence that he had committed the homicide in a scrap over money. Yes, you heard right, Morley said—murdered his own brother, Jason. The Crown had seen cases before where drug money was thicker than blood. They well understood Esme’s and Molly’s fear of reprisal, of course, if they informed on the brother, but the police would provide protective custody if the girls did the right thing.

  In court, the judge, Susan White, listened with a poker face to the prosecutor’s final arguments against granting Esme bail, all the while eyeing her, Maggie, Jennifer, and me. Then she heard a little of our lawyer Morley’s demolition of the Crown’s case, and stopped him mid-argument.

  After years of being expo
sed to this stuff, she hinted, she could pretty well tell that Esme was not a low-life fly-by-night bail jumper. Judge White released her immediately into the joint custody of her mother and me and my wife. Her preliminary hearing on the second-degree murder charge was slated to go ahead in the spring of the next year.

  After the bail hearing, when Jennifer and I were driving home by ourselves, she said to me, “The prosecution certainly seems convinced that Esme is guilty.”

  “Yeah, let’s hope their enthusiasm is not contagious at the trial.”

  “Do you think she’s innocent?”

  “I think she is, but I don’t know. I’m going to act as if she is. Her homicidal monster lurking in the pond theory is hard for people to accept, I realize, but thank God I can get my mind around it because of that similar experience I had there—well, not similar, but of a nature to indicate there’s something going on out there. For the two of us, Esme and me, to have had such an experience cannot be just a coincidence. The odds against that would be astronomical.”

  “Unless she knew of your sighting and then contrived her own little story to dovetail with yours.”

  “But nobody knew but me. Did you know?”

  “No, not until you mentioned it after they charged her. Are you sure you didn’t tell anyone, though, just in passing or as a joke, even? What about Maggie?”

  It was, as they say, a good question. “You know, Jennifer, I really can’t answer that, because I don’t remember. It’s possible. She was my confidante in everything else, and I was going through agony from my breakup with Ramona.”

  “The other angle,” said Jennifer, “is that, if you in fact told no one at the time, and if there’s no one to confirm that you told them at the time, you yourself could easily have made it up now as corroboration of Esme’s story after she came up with it. So it cuts both ways. If she made it up, you could have then made up your story to corroborate hers. If she knew of your story, hers could have been modelled on yours.”