“And fifty and sixty and seventy?”
“You bet.”
“So tell me,” said Rachel, almost whispering as she looked around over her shoulder and then leaned in conspiratorially.
“What?”
“Why isn’t Alexander Pope a suspect?”
“He checked out.”
“And?”
“He’s our friend.”
“So?”
“No motive.”
“Shelagh Hubbard wreaked havoc without a motive.”
“She’s a psychopath.”
“Was.”
“Was. Psychopaths don’t have motives. That’s why they’re psychopaths.”
“Did you decide she was a psychopath before or after you couldn’t come up with a motive?”
“Point taken. But you should read her journals. There’s an absolute absence of conscience.”
“Clinically detached?”
“Morgan described them as ‘self-justifying.’ More like an application for a research grant.”
“Detailed and aggressively impersonal?”
“Yes. And no. I don’t find them impersonal. They’re not emotional, but she’s there in every word and sketch and turn of phrase. I find them chilling precisely because she is there in her text and yet shows no emotion.”
“Sounds psychopathic to me. So, back to our friend Alexander.”
“There’s no evidence here or at the farm.”
“Not of his presence, but not of anyone else, either.”
“There’s no reason to connect him to her death. As far as the melodramatic disposal of her body, it’s unlikely a man so immersed in recovering the story of this place would violate his own project. I mean, why?”
“Why not? He had opportunity on his side, and maybe there’s a perverse satisfaction, bringing his saint to life.”
“Dead. She was brought here dead.”
“Figure of speech, dear. Confusing, isn’t it? New bodies passing for old — that was Hubbard’s specialty. It’s fitting and proper that hers should be used for the same.”
“Agreed,” said Miranda. “Someone’s idea of poetic justice. But not Alexander’s — the connection’s so obvious it’s untenable.”
“I’m glad you’re on side,” said Alexander Pope, stepping out from behind one of the columns separating them from the nave.
“Good God,” Rachel shrieked, recovering immediately with a muffled laugh. “How long have you been there?”
“Just arrived, just arrived. Had no time to hear accusations — ”
“Suspicions!”
“Suspicions, my darling Rachel, are the poor cousins. Same family. I stand accused. And — thank you Miranda — exonerated.”
“Oh, hell,” said Rachel. “I guess you didn’t do it then. What a relief.” She leaned up and kissed him, first on one cheek, then the other. “I’m glad. I could cope with the killing part, but embalming, yuck. Even embalming with violets. Doesn’t seem an Alexander Pope thing to do. ’Course, you have an ancestral interest in gardens.”
“And in couplets that rhyme. That doesn’t mean I go around coupling.”
Miranda looked from Alexander’s face to Rachel’s. He obviously did not feel threatened by her and she was not intimidated by him. In fact, there seemed to be an indefinable current between them, Miranda thought, that despite their radical differences in character and world experience suggested they were, as they say, kindred spirits. Stupidly, she felt excluded.
Alexander Pope turned to her. “Well, Miranda, what do you think? The place is looking good, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it make a lovely gallery? I’m thinking of moving up here and turning myself into a purveyor of fine art.”
“And leaving Port Hope? I don’t believe it.”
“No, probably not. Maybe for the summers. I could sell antiques here, and spend the winters at home making more. Ha!”
“Ha!” she responded, feeling a lovely bond of intimacy, scolding herself for having felt left out.
“Reproductions!” Rachel challenged.
“I’m getting too old to be rebuilding old buildings,” he countered. “I need to fall back on old talents.”
“What’s with you about old? Both of you, in your dotage. Good grief, consider the alternative.”
“I have and I do,” Pope responded gravely. “All too often.”
“What would your patrons think of a gallery?” Miranda asked.
“My patrons? My angel. Oh, well, I can do with this place pretty much what I want, I suppose.”
“Does that include burying a saint in the floor?” said Rachel.
“Sinner, my dear. If there ever was a sinner, it was the late Dr. Hubbard.”
“No argument here,” said Rachel. “Sinning is as sinning does.”
“Meaning what, Forrest Gump?” Miranda envied the easy repartee. For her, banter always carried an element of self-consciousness, except with Morgan.
“What do you say we go swimming?” Rachel suggested, throwing the non sequitur into the air with dramatic effect. “You guys up to it? Not too old?”
“I swim only underwater,” said Alexander Pope casually, as if they had been talking about sporting activities all along.
“Well, good for you. Let’s go scuba diving,” said Rachel. “We’re not that far from Tobermory. Miranda, do you want to go wreck-diving? There’s a National Marine Park there; lots of wrecks. How about it?”
They had never talked about diving. Miranda remembered seeing dive gear at Alexander’s Port Hope house. Rachel probably saw it, too. And yet, they hadn’t discussed the subject with him or each other. It didn’t surprise her that Rachel was a diver. It was something else between them. Among them. All three were apparently divers.
“Sounds good,” said Miranda. “Tomorrow, if the weather clears.”
“It’s right as rain right now.”
“But it’ll take a day for the waves to subside. Georgian Bay builds up really big swells.”
“Excellent,” said Alexander Pope. “Tomorrow should be perfect. I would enjoy the break. I have never dived in a wreck.”
“Me neither,” said Miranda.
“Well, let’s do it,” said Rachel. “We’ll rent equipment and a boat in Tobermory. I love it; we’ll have an adventure.”
Miranda looked at her friend, wondering whether the eagerness was for wreck-diving or the chance to cultivate the great poet’s namesake, or for some other obscure reason she could not imagine.
The rest of the day they spent on a charmingly excruciating tour of Alexander’s project, getting a detailed explanation for every minute aspect of his work. So great were his enthusiasm and depth of esoteric knowledge about plaster and frescoes, the structure of the building and the arcane stories it held, that in spite of themselves Miranda and Rachel were captivated, and by the late afternoon all three of them were utterly exhausted.
Over a Chinese dinner in Midland, they recapped some of the highlights of the afternoon and made plans for wreck-diving the following day. They agreed to meet at the church and drive over with Alexander. He was clearly excited at the prospects ahead and actually had his complete scuba gear, including a 7 ml wetsuit, in his van.
“You never know,” he said. “I thought I might get in a dive or two.”
“I’ve never dived in fresh water before,” Miranda announced.
“Actually,” said Alexander, “neither have I.”
“But you brought your gear?” she queried. Turning to Rachel, she asked, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Have you dived in cold water before?”
“Fresh water?”
“Cold fresh water?”
“Only. I’ve never been to the tropics.”
“So, okay, tell us…”
“As long as you’re suited up for it, you’re fine.”
“I don’t like the cold,” said Miranda, shivering as she thought about slipping into the depths of Georgian Bay.
They talked about diving for a while, about soaring free of gravity, only bubbles rising to an elliptical plane of light overhead to indicate which way was up. Alexander likened it to the illusions of weightlessness created by dancers in ballet, and Miranda thought of it as walking in space, where direction itself is only an illusion. Rachel chose flying in dreams as her best analogy.
Miranda described Morgan’s diving adventure on Easter Island.
“Without proper training?” said Rachel. “He could have died.”