Foul Deeds: A Rosalind Mystery by Linda Moore Page A

Daniel.”
    â€œWell, I’m getting on a plane to Toronto in the morning and going back to my life. It’s going to be up to you and McBride.”
    â€œThat’s what you’ve hired us for,” I said, “so give yourself a break. You’re far too stressed. Sometimes work is just the thing we need to pull us through.”
    â€œThat’s what my father always said.”
    â€œAnyway, you’ve been here for several weeks. It’s time for you to go home,” I said. “Do you have kids?”
    â€œNo, but I am getting married,” he said.
    â€œWell good. Your fiancée will be glad to have you back. What’s her name?”
    â€œJohn.” He smiled warmly for the first time.
    â€œNo kidding,” I said. “Well there you are. You see, you are brave. And you’re a groundbreaker. It bodes well for the case.”
    â€œI hope so,” he said.

    I had told Daniel King he was brave, but I knew he was confused and frightened. I felt close to understanding something—but what? I got into Old Solid and drove along Oxford, then up Quinpool to the rotary and out the Herring Cove Road to Crystal Crescent Beach. The sun was shining and it wasn’t too cold. Sometimes the ocean and a brisk walk will clear my head. I had been affected by Daniel’s story of his father’s determined dedication to the greater good, and I felt the shadow of depression lurking—waiting in my periphery. Another courageous warrior gone from the battleground, I thought. We always have our child’s eyes where everything seems simple—one does what is good for everyone, what is good for the planet. But our adult eyes have seen the face of greed and self-interest and they tell us that it’s not simple—it’s brutal.
    I parked the car and walked along the beach. That brutality is what Hamlet was greeted with when he arrived in Denmark for his father’s funeral and he was paralyzed by it. Though Shakespeare brings him face to face with opportunity and though he yearns to act, he cannot act, and he drives himself crazy trying to become an avenger. Sitting myself on a driftwood log, I looked out over the water to the horizon. In the far distance a container ship was plying its way towards the mouth of the harbour.
    â€œUntil,” I said aloud, “until he returns with purpose after the perilous journey to England.” His dark night of the soul. There, on the ship, his ‘
sea-gown scarfed around him
,’ he had discovered the grand-writ that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were carrying to the English King. The order for his own head to be struck off. Why? Because Claudius is now desperate; he knows that Hamlet is on to him. Claudius has already murdered once for power and now he is in possession of what his brother had—his kingdom and his bride, and he’s not about to give them up.
    So, I wondered, does someone have Peter King’s bride now? Was there a reason, something more than grief that made Greta depart so suddenly for London? Had she been, as Hamlet says of Gertrude, ‘
like Niobe—all tears,
’ only to post with dexterity to another life after the funeral?
    My conversation with Daniel King had drawn me into the heart of the situation. I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually cried, but suddenly my nose was running and my face was wet in the wind. Here I was longing for justice and grieving for a good man I’d never met.
Chapter Seven
    Portly, ruddy-cheeked and rheumy-eyed , the Mayor had recently been re-elected with a sweeping majority, and he greeted McBride with his hail-fellow-well-met grin. Of course, at the mention of Peter King, the smile disappeared for a moment and his brow furrowed.
    â€œA great loss, a very sad loss, terrific man!” His jowls shook.
    â€œI understand he was involved in the harbour clean-up project,” McBride said.
    â€œHe was involved in many things over