Eulalie knew that the coffin containing her mother’s body would be leaving from Angel’s house about now. As chief mourner, Angel would walk behind the coffin that would be carried on the shoulders of six height-matched pallbearers.
The villagers stood around the grave in a relaxed fashion. Small children weaved their way between the adults, playing the oblivious games of early childhood. Only when the coffin arrived would they go and stand quietly with their families.
“What happened when you arrived at the Task home?” Eulalie asked in an undertone. All she knew was that both Laurent and Laurie Task had been arrested for murder. She had been waiting to hear the details for days.
“After we took custody of Laurie from you we went straight to the Task house. My deputies kept him under guard in the car while two of us went inside to search. We had to wake a judge up to get the search warrant, but it didn’t take long. We found the photographs of the first two murders in the basement, along with the red ribbon. There was also a spade that he seemed to have used to bury them.”
“Do you think Marie Task knew what was going on?”
“I don’t think so. She seemed profoundly shocked. And then to find out that her son was involved as well… I think she’ll struggle to recover from this.”
“Apart from my testimony, how are you going to tie Laurie Task to the murder of Lisa Lavalle?”
“That was easy enough. We confiscated Laurie’s cellphone and found he had taken photographs of the murder and burial of Lisa too. He was determined to follow in his father’s footsteps in every way.”
“Laurent knew what his son was up to, didn’t he?” This had been Eulalie’s theory ever since she had first interviewed them.
“Laurie didn’t confide in him, but he figured it out. He realized his son must have found his stash of photographs in the basement and was now playing copycat. He was just angry with him for doing it so clumsily as to be caught.”
“It was Laurent’s carelessness that led to them being caught. The first time I interviewed him was a couple of hours after the dogs found Agnes Nillson’s body. Laurent asked me if I was there to talk about the three bodies in Robson’s Field. There was no way the news could have leaked that quickly, but somehow he already knew about it. You only put out the media release hours later.”
“I remember. But what made you think the son was involved too?”
“I couldn’t reconcile this new perpetrator with the old one. He seemed like an impulsive risk-taker, whereas Fauve and Agnes had clearly been killed by someone with a lot of self-control. They behaved like two different people. It wasn’t long before I realized that they were.”
“What about the time Laurent met you in Finger Alley when you were twelve? Do you think that was a coincidence?”
“I think so. I think he recognized me because I looked so much like my mother, and couldn’t resist the temptation to intimidate me.”
“Do you think he ever tried to hurt you or lure you into a car over the years?”
“He might have. I can’t remember a specific attempt. He would have quickly discovered that I’m not as easy to fool as my mother was.”
“Indeed.”
“I just hope Laurent and Laurie don’t close ranks. If they decide to throw all the blame onto the father, for example, it could complicate the prosecution.”
Chief Macgregor laughed. “No fear of that. They turned on each other like a pair of feral dogs. We were still in the house when they were already trying to cut deals for themselves by testifying against each other.”
“Good.” Eulalie nodded. “That’s good.”
“We still haven’t talked about your hair-raising recklessness in going up against him by yourself. I wish you could have let me be your back-up.”
“You would have tried to talk me out it. I know you would have. And I couldn’t let another girl be taken. She might not have got away like Kelly did.”
Chief Macgregor opened his mouth to argue, but just then the villagers turned as one towards the east as they heard the approach of the coffin. A few seconds later, he could hear it too.
The haunting lament of the wooden flute rose to a crescendo as the coffin appeared.
Tears stung Eulalie’s eyes when she saw the simple wooden box being brought to its final resting place. Behind it walked Angel in the snow-white robe of the chief mourner.
The villagers broke into song. It was a familiar hymn - the prayer of St. Francis. They were singing it in Guillaumoise, so Chief Macgregor couldn’t join in, but he recognized it as one of the hymns of the Catholic funeral service.
The strains of the hymn faded away in the strengthening morning light, and the service began.
It was a combination of the traditional Requiem Mass for the dead and other influences that he barely recognized. There were parts that were familiar, and parts that seemed impossibly strange.
When the time came to lower the casket into the grave, the pallbearers stepped forward to control the coffin with ropes. The first person to throw a clod of earth onto the lid was Angel, followed by Eulalie, and the rest of the villagers.
As they turned to go back to the village, Virgil nodded at Chief Macgregor.
He lifted his bagpipes into place and began to play Amazing Grace. The music rose up from the forest floor to be swallowed by the canopy above. Somehow, it was not a foreign sound in this place. It seemed to blend with the traditional flutes and pennywhistles of the forest.
Eulalie hadn’t even known that he could play the bagpipes. She was learning more about this man all the time. She looked at him standing there in his kilt and jacket, making music that chilled the spine, and realized that he seemed at home here too.
HATCHED
Prologue
Fifteen years ago
It was an exciting day at Queen’s Town Middle School.
The campus was swarming with high-schoolers – tall, glamorous creatures with long legs and cool clothes. They wore makeup and daring hairstyles, neither of which were allowed in the middle school. They talked in languid voices that they copied from movie stars.
The middle-schoolers usually only saw them at a distance. Queen’s Town School was divided into three campuses, separated by hedges. There was the junior school, the middle school, and the high school. There was also a kindergarten for three to five-year-olds that was fenced off and self-contained. This was where the ordinary middle-class families of Prince William Island sent their children to school. Only the really wealthy families – the kind that lived in Edward Heights – could afford to pay for a private school like St. Michael’s.
Today, for some reason, the high-schoolers had crossed the hedge and were walking all over the middle school. They flicked their shiny hair, and congregated in confident groups, completely ignoring the middle-schoolers who watched their every move.
Thirteen-year-old Eulalie Park was in awe of these tall creatures that had invaded her domain. Acutely aware of being short, even for a middle-schooler, Eulalie dreamed of the sudden growth spurt that would put her on a level with the giraffe-like girls she saw walking around in their low-waisted jeans and crop tops. She feared that day would never come, and that she was doomed to shortness for life.
She had only been at the school for a year, and still felt like a fish out of water sometimes. But she was getting used to it, just as her grandmother had promised. It helped that they now made regular trips back home to the forest village she had grown up in for the first twelve years of her life. After a four-month settling in period, Angel now took her back regularly for visits.
Eulalie was starting to get used to living between two worlds. There was Queen’s Town - the small city built on a natural bay on the eastern side of the island. It was a melting pot of cultures. French, English, Indian, American, and East African had blended together to create an island vibe that was unique to Queen’s Town.
Then there was the village in the deep forest – that swathe of volcanic rainforest that bisected the i
sland. It grew in a dangerous and inaccessible gorge. The ancient trees concealed a hundred different ways to kill or maim the casual visitor. As a result, there were no casual visitors.
In cultural studies at school, Eulalie had learned about the Amish people of Pennsylvania who rejected all modern forms of technology and embraced a life of preindustrial simplicity. That was exactly what the village was like. They lived according to the old ways and rejected modern civilization by choice.
Just as Angel had promised, it was surprisingly possible to move between the two worlds.
Right now, Eulalie wanted to know what was going on. She went to look for her friend Amelie, who usually knew what was up.
“I am not sure,” said Amelie. “I have heard many rumors. Like, there was a fire at the high school and they had to evacuate.”
It sounded temptingly dramatic, but Eulalie’s practical side asserted itself.
“That can’t be right. We would have noticed something. The high school is just on the other side of that hedge.”
“I guess. And what are they doing with those things?” Amelie indicated several large, oval spheres that the high-schoolers were carrying.
“They look like giant eggs,” said Eulalie.
The objects were the same shape and color as ostrich eggs, but considerably larger.
“Alors! There is Zeenat,” said Amelie. “Let us ask him. His brother is a senior.”
“Hey, Zeenat!” Eulalie switched to English. “What are the high-schoolers doing? And what are those egg things they’re carrying?”
Zeenat came over to join them, happy to be the one with all the answers.
“The seniors have been working on a project. They were divided into groups and told to make a time capsule.”
Eulalie and Amelie stared. “A what?”
“A time capsule. You take objects from your everyday life and bury them in the ground. Then you dig them up years later to see how things have changed. They even had to write letters to their future selves. My brother was working on his last night.”
“What kind of things do they put in?” asked Amelie.
“My brother and his group put in a CD of top forty hits, so they could remember which songs were on the charts this year. They put in some money, in case our currency looks different in the future. They put in a fashion magazine, so they can see how clothes have changed. And… I don’t know. I can’t remember what else.”
“So those egg things are the time capsules?” asked Eulalie.
“That’s right. One of the seniors has a dad who works for a plastics company. They made the eggs especially for them. Once they are sealed, they won’t deteriorate at all, even after they are buried in the ground. The contents will stay safe and dry until they dig them up again.”
“When will that be?” asked Amelie.
“In fifteen years. The seniors will be thirty-three years old by then. If they’re still living on Prince William Island, they’ll be invited for the hatching day. They’ll dig up the eggs, and ‘hatch’ them by opening them. Then they can see how things have changed, and they can read the letters to their future selves, and see whether they have met their goals, or whatever.”
“Huh.”
The children watched as the teachers handed shovels to each of the groups and took them down to an open paddock at the bottom of the playing fields. They showed them where to start digging.
“Why are they burying their eggs here instead of at the high school?”
“There’s no room over there,” said Zeenat. “They’ve got that stone courtyard with the steps where they all hang out after lunch, but they don’t have a nice patch of dirt like we do.”
The middle school boasted a large playground with a grassy paddock beyond it. This was fenced off because it led to the river bank, and everyone knew that the river was dangerous, with its powerful currents and rocky eddies.
“I wonder if we will also do that project when we’re seniors,” said Eulalie.
Zeenat seemed to think this was unlikely. “If they keep doing it year after year, they’ll run out of places to bury the time capsules.”
“It’s not fair,” said Amelie, watching a group of girls laughing as they got the hang of digging their hole. “We never get to do anything fun.”
Chapter 1
Eulalie Park bounded up the steps to her apartment to change her clothes.
She took the stairs three at a time, wondering if it was a waste of time to change her outfit. Her quarry might be long gone by the time she got there.
No, it was worth it. Her workday uniform of jeans, boots, and a blazer over a tank top was too well-known all over the island. If she was going to fool her target into thinking she was a tourist, even for a few crucial seconds, she needed to slip into something more comfortable.
Wrenching open her closet door, she did a fast survey of her clothes. She reached in and pulled out a pair of cut-off denim shorts she hadn’t worn since her teens because they were so skimpy. Then she grabbed a strappy top in pink that she hadn’t put on in at least five years.
She wriggled out of her clothes and flung on the shorts and pink top. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail, and finger-combed it into waves over her shoulders. Diving back into her closet, she pulled out a pair of oversized sunglasses that covered half her face. She finished off the look with a slash of bright pink lipstick.
A glance in the mirror told her she looked like a holidaymaker who had just come off the beach. It also told her that a good inch and a half of her butt cheeks were exposed by the shorts every time she took a step.
“Whatever.”
There was no time to change again. Perhaps her target would be too mesmerized by her butt cheeks to notice who she was. She left the apartment in a rush, bursting out the side door into the sunshine of Bonaparte Avenue, and speed-walking up the hill towards Lafayette Drive.
That was the other irritating thing. Normally, she would have taken her Vespa and got there in a couple of minutes. But just like her blazer and boots, the Vespa was too well known in Queen’s Town. Its throaty roar was unmistakable, as was its iconic shape and cherry red color.
She would have to walk, and hope that her target hadn’t already finished up his coffee and left. Her phone buzzed. She took it out and glanced at it.
Fleur du Toit: He has just ordered a bear claw.
Eulalie exhaled. If he had ordered a pastry to go with his coffee, he wouldn’t be leaving for a while. Fleur’s bear claws were not small.
It was hard to imagine that a man who owed money all over Queen’s Town would have the gall to stroll into a coffee shop and place an order. Instead of kicking him out, which would have been her first impulse, Fleur du Toit had messaged Eulalie that he was there.
Eulalie had been after him for weeks. The public prosecutor’s office often hired her to serve summonses on slippery individuals who had managed to elude their usual process servers. She had been trying to serve a summons on Abelino Conte for too long now. That ended today.
Abelino had a habit of popping up all over town, only to fade away like the morning mist just before she got to him. This was her best shot at breaking her losing streak.
As she approached Sweet as Flowers with its distinctive, candy-striped awning over the entrance, Eulalie turned down a side road. Entering by the front door would only cause him to run like the rabbit he was. Instead, she went in via the kitchen, saying a quiet hello to Jethro, Fleur’s head waiter and chief assistant.
“He’s face-deep in a bear claw,” said Jethro. “You won’t have a better shot at him.”
Eulalie stood on tiptoe to peer into the coffee shop.
“He’s sitting right by the door,” she said. “Why didn’t you seat him deeper into the restaurant?”
“I tried to. He insisted on being by the door. He likes to stay close to his escape routes. How about I go and stand by the door to block his exit?”
“Good thinking. Take a heavy tray with you, so he can’t g
et past too easily. I’ll go inside and sit down. I don’t think he’ll notice me immediately.”
“You certainly look… different.” Jethro kept his eyes on her face, managing not to glance at her cleavage or barely-there shorts.
“Different is good. Different is what I was aiming for.”
“Then, mission accomplished.”
Jethro loaded up a tray and took it through to the coffee shop. Eulalie nodded at Fleur who was serving croissants to a table of customers. Then she slipped discreetly into the restaurant and stationed herself at a table near her quarry. Abelino Conte was indeed concentrating on his bear claw. He barely looked up when Eulalie sat down. There was a cappuccino at his elbow, and he looked at peace with the world. Looking at him, you would never dream that he was such an elusive character.
Abelino was a plump man who waddled when he walked. But, as Eulalie knew to her cost, that waddle was faster than one thought, and his instinct for self-preservation was second to none.
As Jethro took up his position in the doorway, Conte looked up, alerted by a change in the light. He reminded Eulalie of a wild animal that saw its exit cut off. He lowered his pastry to the plate and seemed to brace himself. His eyes darted around the room and came to rest on Eulalie. She saw him mentally stripping away the sunglasses and beach-goer disguise and putting two and two together.
She had seconds to act.
He stood up a moment before she did and lunged for the door. Jethro tried to hold his ground, but Conte seized him by the shoulder and spun him out of the way, sending his tray flying.
He was almost out the door when Eulalie grabbed hold of his collar and yanked him back inside.
“Are you Abelino Conte?” she said in his ear.
He cringed away from her. “No, no. You’ve got the wrong person.”
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 118
