Page 182 of Murder in the Family

She took Jonah’s death very hard. They all did. Marie was never the same after that.

JJ NORTON

(clearly taken aback)

Jonahdied?

REVEREND CORMIER

When he was 17. He’d gotten a summer job over in Nova Scotia, just up from Halifax. One of his teachers put in a good word for him – she knew someone at one of those high-end marinas. You know the sort of thing – all shiny gin-palaces and New Yorkers up for the summer.

Jonah knew nothing about boats, of course – there’s no water to speak of round here. But he was charming and happy to pitch in and he got hired on the spot.

JJ NORTON

So what happened?

REVEREND CORMIER

(sighing)

Maybe he was a bittoocharming, if you catch my meaning. There was talk afterwards that he’d gotten tangled up with the wife of one of the yacht people. That she’d lent him money, or he’d wheedled it out of her, and the husband found out—

JJ NORTON

Something tells me this isn’t going to end well—

REVEREND CORMIER

(shaking his head)

No indeed. There was a bad altercation between this man and Jonah and the man ended up in hospital.

When the police went looking for Jonah a few hours later he was nowhere to be found. They thought initially that he’d just skipped town and would be back as soon as things died down. But then they discovered that he’d left his possessions behind. Wallet, passport, everything.

About a week later some clothes washed up along the coast, and the police identified them as Jonah’s. But that’s all they ever found. Made it doubly hard for the family, with no body to lay to rest. Marie arranged for a memorial in the churchyard. It’s still there. Just Jonah’s name and the dates and a carving of a whale. She got a local stonemason to make it for her.

(shaking his head)

Very sad.

(silence)

JJ NORTON

Without wishing to sound insensitive, was there any possibility that Jonah could have staged the drowning? Did the police look into that, do you know? I mean, if he was in trouble—

REVEREND CORMIER

I think the police did look into it but never came up with anything. There was never any trace of him anywhere else. Though Rebecca clung to that for years – she always insisted she’d find him one day.

(shrugs)

I’m not a fool, Mr Norton – I know therearepeople who’ve walked away from their lives and started over, but it takes a powerful lot of planning to get away with it. Jonah was only 17 at the time, and frankly, even if he’d been older he never struck me as resourceful enough to pull something like that off.

And I find it very hard to believe he would have walked out on his family and never lookedback. He’d have known the pain it would cause, especially to his mother and sister.

JJ NORTON

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