Tumbled Graves

by Brenda Chapman

  “Heath and his sins are the least of our worries. So will you come with me to Montreal tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, I’m in.” He would have liked to replace the tea with a shot of something stronger. Maybe it was just time to head home to bed. “Will you give Prevost a call and let him know we’re coming? I’ll leave now and pick you up around seven tomorrow morning if that’s okay. It could be a long day.”

  “I’ll call Prevost as soon as you leave and I’ll be ready in the morning.”

  “What about Dawn? Tomorrow’s Saturday and she’ll be alone all day.”

  “I don’t want to bring her with us.” Stonechild hesitated. She said as if not convinced, “I guess it’s a long time for her to be on her own.”

  The disturbing thing was that she’d see nothing wrong in leaving the kid for hours on end.

  “Let me see what I can do,” Gundersund said.

  “I’d be in your debt.”

  They both stood and she walked him to the door, keeping a few steps behind. Her voice was quiet.

  “Thanks Gundersund. I know I haven’t always been the best partner.”

  He opened the back door and turned to look at her. Her expression was unsure for one of the few times he’d known her. He smiled and said, “Goodnight, Stonechild. Get some sleep and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Stonechild and Gundersund dropped Dawn off at Vera’s condo just after seven o’clock the following morning and left the two of them preparing for a day at the spa. Gundersund hadn’t been sure how the idea would go over when Vera proposed it the night before, but Dawn seemed excited after Vera described the rejuvenating power of manicures and pedicures. Kala had looked unconvinced but gamely agreed that Dawn should give the spa a try.

  “I really hope leaving Dawn with Vera wasn’t a mistake,” Kala had said walking back to his car. “I don’t know if I could deal with a teenager obsessed with looking like a fashion model.”

  “You do know that you’re an anomaly, right?” Gundersund teased, but he honestly didn’t know what to make of her. She was the polar opposite of Fiona, who never left the house without perfect makeup and hair and a designer outfit. His limited experience with women had not included anyone like Kala Stonechild.

  The weather had cleared overnight although the air was cool. The highways were dry and they made good time, reaching the outskirts of Montreal at ten o’clock. Stonechild’s phone rang a minute later.

  “It’s Michel Prevost,” she said to Gundersund before answering. “Hello?”

  Gundersund could hear Prevost’s voice from where he sat. Stonechild grabbed her pen and notebook from her bag. She scribbled down an address and directions and said they’d meet him there within the half hour. When she closed her phone, she shot him a smile.

  “Prevost managed to get Cécile’s address. She’s living in a second-floor apartment at the corner of Davidson and Hochelaga near the Olympic Stadium.”

  “I know the area well,” Gundersund said. “I used to be an Expos fan. She’s living in an area called Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, or Ho Ma as the locals call it. An old working-class district close to the Saint Lawrence River that’s being rejuvenated. It’s a ways further east from Chez Louis on Sainte-Catherine. How do you want to play this interview?”

  “Bad cop, bad cop. Let’s use whatever we have to in order to get her to talk.”

  “You don’t like her much.”

  “I can’t say that she’s my favourite person. She seemed … mean, and I’m not a fan of mean.”

  “I’m with you, but we can’t cross any lines, especially since this isn’t our jurisdiction.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll restrain myself.”

  They cut across the city toward the Big O towering large against the horizon. The grey stone, three-storey apartment building was on the right, a pizza restaurant taking up a chunk of the main floor. The door to Cécile’s apartment on Davidson had been spray painted with blue graffiti.

  “There’s Prevost waiting across the street.” Stonechild pointed to the bear of a man with black curly hair.

  “Who’s that with him?”

  “No idea. He must have brought a friend.”

  Gundersund drove the length of the street until he found a parking spot. He and Stonechild hustled back on foot to where Prevost and his sidekick stood waiting. Montreal was considerably warmer than Kingston had been when they set out that morning. Such were the vagaries of a spring day in Canada.

  “Salut!” Prevost greeted them and turned to the heavyset man next to him. “This is my colleague, Normand Duguay. He is here in case we need back up.”

  Duguay nodded. “C’est vrai.”

  They crossed the road and Duguay remained at street level and the others climbed the stairs to knock at the door to Cécile’s apartment. The pizza smell permeated the hall and a layer of shiny grease coated the walls.

  “Whew! Imagine living here.” Prevost waved a hand under his nose.

  The door swung open with some force.

  “What do you want this time?” Cécile’s pale blue eyes darted from one to the other. “You may as well come in.” She turned without waiting for an answer. Following her down the short hallway into the living room, Gundersund saw the green tattoo stencilled across the back of her neck, where her hair was pulled into a ponytail. The pattern was vertical and disappeared past the top of her T-shirt. He wondered how painful it must have been to have the needles inserted in that tender part of the body. It was beyond him why someone would pay to have another person hurt them and scar them permanently with ink.

  The apartment was small and he had a view of all the rooms from where he stood. Through the open bedroom door directly ahead, he could see a mattress on the floor, the sheets and blanket a twisted mess, half on the floor and half on the bottom of the bed. The kitchen galley on the left was well stocked with a fancy coffee maker and new toaster. A small table and two chairs fit snugly into a corner. They stepped right and entered the living room; a larger space with parquet floors and a door leading onto a small balcony encased with black wrought-iron railing. Cécile had left the door open and a breeze stirred the blind and kept the air cool and fresh, diluting the smell of pepperoni and tomato sauce from the restaurant below and the stink from the smoked cigarettes in the overflowing ashtray.

  “Have a seat.” She pointed to a gold couch against the wall beneath a print of nuns running down a street in old Montreal. The wind had caught under their wimples and they looked to be flying. “I’d offer you a beverage but know you’re on the job.”

  Gundersund sat squished in next to Prevost. Stonechild wisely chose to position herself on one arm of the couch next to him looking down on Cécile, who took the recliner on the other side of the coffee table. Cécile tapped a cigarette out of the pack lying on the table and lit it as she watched them trying to get comfortable. It was the closest Gundersund had seen to a smile on her pinched face. She reached for the half-full beer bottle next to the overflowing ashtray and took a long drink.

  “You haven’t been truthful with us,” Stonechild said in a voice so cold that Gundersund stopped pulling his notebook from his pocket. “And I have half a mind to have Prevost throw you back in jail.” He looked up at Stonechild where she perched above him. Her eyes were fixed intently on Cécile, who returned her stare with equal animosity.

  “How do you figure that?” Cécile sucked on her cigarette and blew the smoke toward them like a blast from a dragon.

  By force of will, Gundersund kept himself from opening his mouth wide and inhaling. He’d given up the habit several months before and missed everything about smoking: the smell, the taste, the feel of one in his hand. Speaking of self-harm.

  Cécile crossed one leg over the other and Gundersund saw another tattoo. This one a black dragon on the insi
de of her calf. She said, “Should I call my lawyer and see what he has to say about your unfounded accusation?”

  “If you like.” Stonechild shrugged. “Or you could tell us the truth and get it over with. For instance,” she paused for a few beats, “why does Benoit Manteau, the man you claim is father to your child, have a photo in his pocket of a kid who has no resemblance to your daughter?”

  Cécile blinked. Her eyes narrowed and she took another pull on her cigarette. Her voice was less defiant. “When did you see him?”

  “It doesn’t matter. How do you think he’d feel knowing that you’ve pulled a fast one on him for the last four years?”

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “That the picture of the baby he’s been carrying around like a good luck charm isn’t his? Not yet.”

  Cécile’s shoulders relaxed perceptively. She watched them through another puff of cigarette smoke. She had the look of a poker player about to cut their losses. “Perhaps it was easier to let him believe the kid was his. He wouldn’t have been pleased to find I’d been less than faithful when we were together.”

  “Who’s the father?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “Oh, but I think it is.”

  They sat staring at each other without speaking. When it reached the point when Gundersund thought the impasse wouldn’t be broken, Cécile mumbled out a name. “Etienne Manteau.”

  “Benoit’s brother. I could see how he wouldn’t take kindly to that.” Stonechild’s voice was deadpan. Prevost hadn’t moved since the exchange began but he shifted his bulk forward at her comment.

  Cécile barked out a laugh. “Are you kidding me? We’d both be feeding the fishes at the bottom of the Saint Lawrence. Benoit is in jail because he ordered a hit. He would not have lost sleep over two more bodies.”

  “Did Etienne tell you that he’d seen your daughter with Adele that day?”

  “No. He kept the sighting to himself. I didn’t know he’d found Pauline. If I had, I would have gone to Adele and taken my baby back.”

  “So to recap, Etienne is Violet’s father and not Benoit, even though you let Benoit believe that he was the father. You had no idea that Etienne had found Adele and Violet, and you didn’t go to Kingston on the day they went missing.”

  “C’est vrai. Etienne and I are not together since he took up with Li Li while I was inside. We speak but I am not his friend.”

  “Why did Adele really take your baby?”

  “How would I know?”

  The staring match was on again. Gundersund felt Prevost reposition himself next to him. His legs began to cramp.

  Cécile’s eyes were like a used car salesman’s, assessing what Stonechild knew and how much she could get away with. Finally she sighed and said, “Okay, Etienne arranged it. Adele was to take my baby, Pauline, and keep her until I got out of jail. He had her do it because I was scared that Benoit would get wind that the baby wasn’t his and then my life would be worth nothing. Etienne didn’t tell me what he was up to until after the baby went missing. The problem was that Adele disappeared. The bitch double crossed him.”

  “You weren’t in on this plan from the start?”

  “Mais non! Good luck getting Etienne to admit anything, even that my baby was his daughter. Li Li is jealous and her father also knows how to make people pay.”

  “You could have come forward instead of letting the police search high and low for Pauline.”

  “It would have been suicide. We thought that Benoit was going to beat the prison rap. One look at the kid and we’d have been done for if she didn’t stay hidden. I was frantic that he did not see any photos except the one I gave him. Benoit was already suspicious that Etienne and I were getting it on.” Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t tell Etienne that any of this information came from me. I will deny everything.”

  “Benoit’s transfer east must have been a worry for you and Etienne. But at least your daughter was already missing.”

  Prevost spoke for the first time. “Convenient that we got the evidence that put Benoit away from an anonymous source.”

  Cécile’s mouth lifted in a sideways smile. “No comment.”

  “And now he’s mounting an appeal, saying that the evidence against him was rigged.”

  “No comment.”

  Prevost shook his head. “I would not like to be in your shoes, madam. If Benoit gets out and discovers the traitors inside his own circle, he will have anger in his heart. Etienne won’t be happy either if he knows that you talked.”

  “But you cannot say anything.”

  “For now I will not reveal your name as long as you continue to cooperate.”

  “I don’t want to go back to prison. I’ll help you if you promise me that I won’t go back inside.”

  “I will do what I can.” He paused. “Perhaps it was best for you that the child was not found.”

  For the tiniest fraction of a second, the truth of his statement flashed across Cécile’s face but she immediately dropped her head and moaned. “You have no idea the agony that I’ve been in, wondering what became of my daughter. I cry myself to sleep many nights. Years ago, when Etienne and I were in love, we wanted to raise her together, and with Benoit locked up for life, we could have. What will you do to me now?”

  Prevost pushed himself up from the coach and groaned at the effort. Standing, he looked down at her. “You kept what you knew about your daughter’s kidnapping a secret for almost four years. There will be no charges today if you come with me to the station to answer more questions and make a statement. That’s all I can promise.”

  “I’ll cooperate fully. I’ve been devastated by this. If Etienne had a hand in the deaths …” She shrugged. “I won’t lift a hand to save him. He’s nothing to me now. Our relationship didn’t last because I blamed him for the ridiculous scheme that led to our daughter’s disappearance.”

  “One last question.” Stonechild had also pushed herself off the arm of the couch. “Do you believe that Etienne could have killed Adele and Violet?”

  Cécile raised her head. Her eyes were eerily transparent in the sunlight streaming in from the open patio door. “I want to say no,” she said, “but the truth is that I don’t know what he might have done when he got his hands on them. He said many times that he could kill Adele for how she’d ruined our lives.” Her eyes widened. “I wonder if she killed Violet herself when she knew he’d be coming for her. She was spiteful enough that if she couldn’t have her, she would make sure that I couldn’t either.”

  “Nobody has accused Adele of being spiteful except for you.”

  “She played the role of wife and mother so why not change how people saw her too? I mean, she was a stripper and a party girl when I knew her. She’d spread her legs for anybody if it meant getting paid. If she could shed that skin, how hard was it for her to remake herself as a nice person? But it was an act, Detective. It was all an act. Just look at how she disappeared with my baby and left me heartbroken for all these years if you need proof.”

  They gathered outside on the sidewalk. Duguay had waited upstairs for Cécile to cancel her work shift before escorting her to their car. “We can bring in Etienne Manteau for a going over but I don’t think we have enough to charge him with murder.” Prevost looked with questioning eyes at Stonechild before he slipped on his sunglasses.

  Kala was quite certain that grilling Etienne would get them exactly nowhere, but she said anyway, “You know him. Do you think he’ll reveal anything incriminating under questioning?”

  Prevost and Duguay laughed in unison. Prevost said, “Not a chance, but we might shake him up. I’m amazed you got Cécile to admit what she did. Do you have something on her?”

  “When I saw the photo Benoit’s been carrying around I had a hunch. I never understood why Adele would quit her jo
b and hang around a few months to steal the baby. The whole set up seemed fishy to me.”

  “Cécile has skeletons. She’s as manipulative as they come and a match for the Manteau boys, from what I heard. Benoit was crazy about her.”

  “Yet, she isn’t adverse to throwing him under the bus,” said Gundersund. “Seemed to relish it, actually.”

  “These people would throw their own mother under the bus to save their bacon,” said Prevost. “Perhaps Cécile is the vindictive one. Etienne is happy with Li Li who has better family connections than Cécile.”

  “A jealous ex-lover. They can be nasty.”

  “The first rule about these people is not to trust anything they say, but we’re missing something. Cécile was waiting for me to take the conversation in another direction. Did you see how relieved she was when we got up to leave?” Kala felt like she’d let the fish off the hook. Cécile had been too willing to acknowledge the kidnapping. That could only mean that she was hiding a bigger sin. “What question didn’t I ask? What was it she was waiting for me to nail her with?”

  “We’ll try to think on it when we question Etienne.” Prevost sounded reassuring and Kala wanted to believe him.

  “If you can handle the interview, we have somewhere to be this afternoon. We can return to Montreal this evening or tomorrow if you need us,” Gundersund said.

  Prevost looked momentarily surprised but nodded. “We’ll make a full report and will let you know late this afternoon if we have anything.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  If nature had been in sync with his feelings, the day would have been grey and overcast, not filled with summery warmth and sunshine that poured in through the stained-glass windows. Rouleau felt outside his own body, sitting in the small funeral home chapel next to his father with Frances’s ashes in a blue urn on the altar. The entire week had been surreal. He took a look around.