Still Water (33 page)

Matt grinned, which made his eyes water. “I guess you could say we had a slight disagreement.”

“Wouldn’t have anything to do with Ella would it? You don’t need to answer that by the way.”

“It was related,” he said. She started putting her things away, getting ready for the next patient. “There’s something I’d like to ask you. It’s about Bryan Roderick. Was he ever a patient of yours?”

“I saw him once or twice.” She thought back. “I think the last time would have been a year or so ago. He cut his hand I think.”

“What did you think of him?”

“You mean personally? I suppose it isn’t a breach of patient confidentiality to say that I didn’t particularly like him.”

“Any particular reason for that?”

Anne regarded him with a studied expression, as if weighing up what she felt she could tell him. “Bryan liked to think of himself as something of a ladies’ man. Let’s just say that he made a pass at me once that I didn’t much like.”

“I thought he had a pretty good track record with women.”

She smiled a little bitterly. “With some women maybe. I’ve seen enough of his kind to know the type. And I’ve seen what happens to women in relationships with men like that. I get the results in here too often.”

“You’re saying he was violent?”

“Let’s just say that Bryan’s girlfriends all seemed to suffer from the same clumsy tendency to bump into hard objects.”

Matt recalled Jake’s taunt from the night before. “Can I ask you something else? Was Ella ever one of those women?” He wasn’t sure what reaction he’d expected. He thought the idea of Ella and Bryan was unlikely given everything he’d heard, but he had to admit it was possible that their enmity might have stemmed from some brief affair that had ended badly, perhaps long ago. Anne’s astonishment however made the idea even more unlikely.

“Ella? Why on earth would you think that? Ella of all people is exactly the type who wouldn’t go within a hundred miles of somebody like Bryan.”

He was both relieved and slightly shamed to think he’d given any credence at all to the possibility, but he was struck by Anne’s choice of words and her incredulity. “Why Ella, “of all people”?”

She pursed her lips. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything. I can’t discuss the private lives of my patients,” she said at last.

“You know I’m representing Ella? If there’s anything you’re aware of that might help me, I could use it right now.”

“I don’t think this has anything to do with that.” She frowned, wrestling with her conscience. “Have you met Ella’s mother?” Matt nodded. “After Ella’s father died, Helena had a stroke. She and Ella are very close.” As she spoke she chose her words with care. “Ella’s father was a difficult man. I don’t know if you’re aware of this but Ella had a brother who died as an infant. It was long before I came here, but I think Ella’s father was deeply affected by the loss of his son. I treated him once or twice for minor physical things, and I got the impression he could be melancholy. Perhaps he was clinically depressed, I’m not really qualified to say. I think Ella’s mother is a very strong woman, her character I mean. I think she had a lot to cope with over the years.”

Matt read between the lines. “You’re saying Ella’s father was abusive? I got the impression that Ella was close to him.”

“She was. I’m sure both Ella and her mother loved him a great deal. But loving somebody isn’t always straightforward. We’re all of us made up of good and not so good qualities.” She hesitated. “Look, I’m not really comfortable about discussing this.”

Matt wasn’t entirely sure why, but he felt this was important. You’re saying Bryan was somehow like Ella’s father? That’s why you sounded so surprised when I asked if there could have been anything between him and Ella?”

“Not really, or at least perhaps in only one sense. I’m not saying Ella’s father was the stereotypical wife beater. He wasn’t. But I think he was definitely unbalanced at times, and I think Ella probably witnessed some traumatic scenes as she grew up.

Ella’s intelligent, she would have recognized the type of man Bryan was and she would never get involved with anyone like that. I’m certain of that.”

Matt was sure that she was right. Deep down he hadn’t believed Jake’s suggestion, but it did occur to him that if Ella considered Bryan was the kind of man who beat women, she may well have hated him for it.

“I have to get on,” Anne said, signalling that she could tell him no more. He had the feeling she thought she had said too much already. He thanked her, but at the door he paused.

“One other thing, Doctor. Is Kate Little a patient of yours when she’s on the island?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Did she ever have a tendency to bump into hard objects?”

Anne opened the door for him. “Patient confidentiality, Mr. Jones. I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can tell you.”

“Forget I asked. And thanks.” As he left, he thought she hadn’t needed to answer him directly. He’d seen all he wanted to know in her eyes.

The drive from Doctor Laine’s clinic to the south side of town gave Matt some time to think. Though he still had nothing to back up his hunch he was almost sure now that Kate Little had been involved with Bryan Roderick. He also now knew that Bryan had a history of violence towards women, and with that knowledge his conviction that Kate had something to do with Bryan’s disappearance had grown. He saw the beginnings of a motive, and since she lived close to the cove, and the night he vanished she and her husband had slept in separate rooms, she had the opportunity. Then there was the fact that Ben Harper had seen her early the following morning when she might have been returning from Bryan’s house, perhaps after removing evidence of a struggle.

The problem was that so far he couldn’t prove any of it. Also, he admitted to himself, he felt there was a lot he didn’t know. And he feared that it involved Ella.

Jordan Osborne was standing in the doorway drinking a cup of coffee when Matt pulled up outside the boatyard and climbed out of his car. He said something to the two men beside him, and they threw curious glances towards Matt before going back inside the shed.

“We can talk in there.” Without waiting to see what Matt wanted Osborne led the way to the office where they had talked before. “I figured you’d be back sooner or later.”

“Jordan, I’m going to get right to the point,” Matt said. “I think that Kate and Bryan were seeing each other, and I think you already knew that, but you chose not to tell me. Question is why? The way I see it is there are two possible explanations. One is that by admitting that you knew about their relationship, it gave you a motive for maybe wanting Bryan out the way. Could be you thought that way you might have a shot at getting Kate back.”

Osborne started to protest angrily. “I already told you that I was home all night that Monday.”

“I know. And I believe you. Which means you must have had another reason for not telling me what you know. My guess is that you were protecting Kate.”

Osborne tried to hide his reaction, but Matt felt that he had struck a chord, and he took the opportunity to press his advantage. “I also think Bryan may have been violent towards Kate, and I think you knew about that too. That sort of makes Kate a suspect. Is that why you were protecting her?”

Osborne stared at him. “I told you, I don’t know anything about this. Anyway, after what Jerrod Gant saw it doesn’t matter does it?”

“It does if he was lying.”

Osborne thought about that. “You’d say that anyway, Ella’s your client. Look, I like Ella if you want to know the truth. But I can’t help you. I’m telling you I don’t know anything.”

“Jordan, I get the impression you’re a decent person,” Matt said. “I can understand you wanting to protect Kate. You have feelings for her. But that doesn’t mean you ought to stand by and let an innocent person take the blame for whatever happened to Bryan. Ella didn’t kill him. Gant’s statement is a lie.”

Jordan Osborne turned away. He stood by the door with his hands thrust in his pockets looking out through the shed, to the water beyond. Matt didn’t say anything, letting him wrestle with his conscience. Eventually Osborne went back to his desk, where he stopped and picked up a pen which he fiddled with before putting it down again. Matt decided to try again.

“Were you born here on the island Jordan?”

“I’ve lived here all my life.”

“So, forget that it’s me you’re talking to. Think about Ella. You must have known her all your life. How would you feel if she went to jail for something she didn’t do? Could you sleep at night?”

He thought about that, and Matt let him, allowing the silence to stretch out. “Okay. I did know that Kate was seeing Bryan.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. He had the look of a man unable to hold out against an issue that had been bothering him for a while. Maybe he was even relieved, though it was clear he remained reluctant to incriminate Kate. “But that doesn’t mean she had anything to do with this.”

“Maybe not. So, how did you know about Kate and Bryan?” Matt asked.

“I guessed there was somebody else. Kate avoided me whenever she could. Then I saw her one night in town. She’d just parked her car near the docks. I thought she was going to The Lobster Pot, and I was planning to go after her. I thought we could talk.”

“When was this?”

“About three weeks ago. I’d seen her around this summer, but she made it clear it was over between us. Anyway she was walking along the docks near the fishing boats. It gets pretty dark around there.”

“And you followed her?”

Osborne nodded. “Anyhow, before I caught her up, Bryan pulled over in his truck and he got out. He looked pretty mad about something. I hung back for a minute because I wasn’t sure what was going on. There was nobody else around. I could tell they were arguing about something, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then Bryan grabbed Kate by the arm.”

“Go on.”

“Well, it was pretty clear he was hurting her. I was about to yell at him to leave her alone, but before I could someone came from the other direction. I guess she must have been on her boat and she saw what was going on.”

“She?”

“It was Ella.”

Matt listened in silence, but Ella’s name reverberated through him. He was trying to concentrate on what Osborne was saying, but he was also thinking about the look he’d seen pass between Kate and Ella outside the post office that day, and now he thought he knew what that look had signified. It was complicity. A shared secret. He wasn’t even surprised, and he supposed he’d guessed the moment he’d mentioned Kate’s name to Ella and seen the way she reacted.

Osborne continued recounting what he’d seen. “Bryan had been drinking. When Ella showed up he started in on her as well. Called her a lot of names. He was cursing her out, telling her she was a frigid bitch and a lot worse. He had hold of Kate by the arm and she was trying to get away from him. She looked mad as hell, and I guess he was hurting her. She called Bryan a whole bunch of things, said she didn’t want to ever see him again. Ella was yelling at him to let Kate go. I remember she called him a coward. He looked kind of dumbstruck when she said that.”

“What happened then?”

“He hit Kate. It happened so fast there was nothing I could’ve done. He bunched his fist and hit her. About here.” Osborne touched his own chest. “Then he started laying in to her. Like he’d gone crazy. He was cursing her, and hitting her and she was trying to get away from him, and Ella was trying to pull him off. I think he hit Ella too. By then I was running along the dock towards them, but Kate and Ella got free before I reached them, and I grabbed Bryan and wrestled him to the ground and after a little while he quietened down. I felt like I wanted to smash his skull if you want to know the truth, but he was struggling so much by the time I had the better of him I didn’t have the strength.” He shrugged. “That was about it.”

“What happened to Kate and Ella?”

“I didn’t see. I guess they were already running when I got there. I don’t even know if they saw me. By the time I looked for them they were gone.”

Neither of them spoke. Matt was picturing the scene, wondering why both Ella and Kate had denied knowing each other. Why Kate had denied knowing Bryan. Ideas formed and dissolved and formed again in his mind. After a while he realized that Osborne had spoken.

“What?” Matt said.

“I said I didn’t kill him. I know that’s what you’re thinking. Sure I admit I could’ve killed him that night. I was angry. I never liked that sonofabitch or his brother anyway. You know, to be honest, if he’s dead I’m not sorry. But I was home that night and if I had to prove it my wife would back me up.”

Ella sat beside her mother’s bed. Helena was sleeping, her hand clutching the photograph of Ella’s father that her mother kept on the night stand. He was smiling at the camera. Tall and fair haired, the image a little out of focus. She felt pressure on her hand and saw that her mother was awake.

“He was a good father to you Ella.”

“I know.”

“And a good husband.”

“Yes,” Ella said. And it was true, most of the time he had been both those things. She sighed, and put the picture back on the night stand.

“Have you talked to Matt?”

“Not since the meeting,” Ella said.

“You know you can’t avoid him forever Ella.” Helena smiled. “I like him. I think he’s a good person.”

“I think so too, Mom.”

Helena was quiet for a little while. She closed her eyes, and her breathing became regular and even and Ella thought she had fallen asleep again. She put her mother’s hand on the bed and rose to go, but before she got to the door Helena called her name and Ella stopped and saw that she was awake. In the dim light from the passage her eyes appeared moist.

“I think you should tell him Ella. I think you ought to trust him,” Helena said.

Ella nodded, knowing that she was right. “I know. I’ll go and see him in the morning.”

Helena closed her eyes again. “It will be all right. He’s a good man.”

A shadow fell across the table where Matt was sitting.