Tumbled Graves

by Brenda Chapman

  “You sound like you’ve had experience with this before.”

  “Yeah. A few times.” She turned away and returned to the document on her computer. As in every investigation, she was rereading all of the reports. Making a chart of the facts, the suspects, motives, timeline. Drawing connections in the hopes that something would spark.

  For the moment, keeping at bay memories of the friends who’d taken their own lives.

  Woodhouse came in just before nine. Kala lifted her head and watched the terse exchange between him and Bennett. Something was going on. Bennett was keeping it bottled but it didn’t take a mind reader. She thought about Woodhouse and the way he’d glommed onto Ivo Delaney as being the only suspect in his family’s death. She looked at the report open on her computer screen. Woodhouse and Bennett had taken the break-in call the night before Ivo killed himself.

  She filed away her unease and clicked on her report from her interview with Benoit Manteau in Millhaven. What had she missed?

  Gundersund sauntered into the office a few minutes later with a box of muffins, and broke her concentration. She stood up and refilled her coffee cup and selected a fruit-explosion bran concoction. Woodhouse joined them and reached into the box for a muffin before saying, “Heath just sent a note that the Delaney file is closed. It’s going to be ruled a murder-suicide, even though Delaney waited a few days to off himself.”

  “I didn’t get that message.” Kala wanted to wipe the smug look off his face.

  “Check your inbox,” Woodhouse said before he walked back to his desk.

  She looked at Gundersund. “This is bullshit.”

  “I didn’t get the email either.” He smiled. “So until we hear from Rouleau …”

  “We carry on.”

  She sat back at her desk with a renewed sense of urgency. Her desk phone rang as she was going over her conversation with Benoit for the second time. She picked up, her mind still back in the prison reliving the expression on Manteau’s face as he handed her the photo of his baby daughter. What had she seen in his eyes that had alerted her to keep her face expressionless? Because she’d known instinctively that he was watching for a reaction. I have no problem with retribution, Officer Stonechild.…

  “Hello?”

  “Kala Stonechild? This is Marci Stokes from the Whig. I’m glad I caught you.”

  Kala straightened. “How can I help you?”

  “I wanted to give you a heads up. We’re short of stories for tomorrow’s paper and the editor got wind of my article on you. He’s running with it. I’m sorry. I don’t know how he found out.”

  “Is there no way to stop it?”

  “No, I’m really sorry. If it’s any consolation, I went with the admirable way you turned your life around angle. You shouldn’t have a backlash.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I’m not pleased how this turned out.”

  Kala hung up without saying goodbye. Shit. What next? This day was getting worse and worse.

  Her eyes travelled back to the computer screen. Said Etienne has been to visit once. Mentioned summers at uncle’s cottage outside Smiths Falls, still in family. She blinked. Why had she put that detail in her report? She looked over at Gundersund then back at her computer screen.

  “Find something?” He stood up and came up behind her to look over her shoulder.

  “I’m thinking about what Rouleau asked, you know, about where Etienne might have kept Adele from that morning until the next night when he dumped her body. Benoit told me about his uncle’s empty cottage outside Smiths Falls.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “No, but the uncle’s name is Maurice and he’s in a home, I’m guessing in Smiths Falls.”

  “If we’re lucky he’s related on their father’s side and his last name is also Manteau.”

  “That would be the easiest scenario.”

  “I’ll make some calls.”

  Vera waylaid Rouleau in the hallway as he entered the station and directed him into Heath’s office. She placed a hand on his arm. “My condolences,” she said. “How’re you holding up?” Her eyes were liquid pools of sympathy.

  “I’m okay, but thanks, Vera.”

  “If there’s anything I can do.…”

  They reached Heath’s corner office. He stood and crossed the floor to meet Rouleau just inside the door. He shook Rouleau’s hand and said, “So sorry to hear about your ex-wife’s death. Never easy to lose someone you care for to cancer.”

  Vera hovered in the doorway as if unsure about leaving Rouleau alone with Heath. “Close the door on your way out,” Heath said to her. “Shall we sit by the window, Jacques?”

  Rouleau turned to thank her but the door was already closing and she was gone before he could call her back. He took a leather chair warmed by the morning sunshine while Heath poured coffee from a carafe on the table. He accepted the mug and waited as Heath settled across from him in the other leather chair.

  “Well,” Heath said. He took a sip of coffee. “I’m glad to put the Delaney case to bed. We can use our resources elsewhere.”

  Rouleau felt a great weariness come over him all of a sudden. He wished he could make himself still care about this case but Frances’s death had drained him. Why not go along with Heath and let the investigation end? Barely anybody was even left to mourn this family, wiped from the face of the earth in cruel swiftness. His mind conjured up Stonechild’s face next to him at the funeral. He could picture the betrayed look in her black eyes if he didn’t fight for every ounce of truth, turn over every stone to make sure they had justice. The Delaneys might not have family who cared, but they had Stonechild … and they had him. He said, “I understand we still have a lead in Montreal. Etienne Manteau is being held and questioned overnight. I’d like to see it through.”

  Heath lifted a hand. “But there’s no concrete evidence that proves Adele’s past life was the cause of her death, what, three years later?” He sat forward as if to convince Rouleau. “What clinched it for me is the fact Delaney was out driving the night his wife’s body was found on the highway. He couldn’t account for his whereabouts and nobody saw him in the places he claimed to have been. He found out the week before that the child wasn’t his wife’s as she’d led him to believe, and unfortunately this betrayal played on his fragile psyche. Stacked alongside his dead sister, whom he likely killed as well, and we have a man who couldn’t live with what he’d done. His suicide is, in fact, an admission of guilt.”

  Rouleau sat quietly and drank from his cup. Everything that Heath said made perfect sense. Blaming Ivo Delaney in death tied everything up neat and tidy. The thing Heath was neglecting in this scenario, however, was that they had no concrete proof that Ivo had killed his sister or his family. Rouleau set his cup on the table. “I’d like another few days to see how the Montreal angle plays out. It’s already in motion with the Sûreté and we could look foolish if we call it off at our end and they find something we’ve missed.”

  Heath set his cup on the table next to Rouleau’s. He leaned back and steepled his fingers together under his chin. “You believe there is anything to this Manteau business?”

  Rouleau wasn’t surprised that Heath was up on the file. He was nobody’s fool, no matter his youthful cherub-like appearance and hands-off approach to investigations. The real puzzle was his obsessive need to look good in the press. He guarded a squeaky-clean image at odds with the extra-marital affair he was carrying on with Laney Masterson.

  “There could be,” Rouleau said finally. “I think we should at least rule them out if we can. The press won’t be able to say later that we didn’t pursue all the leads … relentlessly.” The last word was added to appeal to Heath’s vanity.

  “I suppose we are quieter than usual at the moment.”

  Rouleau took that as assent.
He changed the subject and didn’t push the issue any farther.

  Twenty minutes and another cup of coffee later, and he was on his way back to his office. Gundersund and Rouleau must have been watching because they appeared at his door as he was turning on his computer.

  “Mind if we go for a drive to Smiths Falls?” Gundersund asked.

  “Is this about the Manteau family?” Rouleau asked.

  “We’re not wanting to put you in an awkward position again,” said Stonechild, “but we think we might have stumbled across the location where Adele Delaney was held that day when she went missing. The uncle, Maurice Manteau, owns a cottage at Otter Lake that’s been vacant since he went into a nursing home.”

  “You’re working on the theory that she was taken and not killed by her husband.”

  Stonechild nodded.

  “Okay. See about a search warrant and contact the Smiths Falls police to clear it.”

  “We’ve already got that started,” said Gundersund. “I have a buddy on the force so it shouldn’t be a problem. We expect the warrant to be faxed before lunch. Will Heath put up a fuss?”

  “I’ve bought us a few days.” Rouleau was rewarded with a smile from Stonechild. “If you see anything suspicious, call me and I’ll send a forensics team. Are they still questioning Etienne Manteau?”

  “We haven’t heard from Prevost this morning.”

  “All the more reason to follow up on this today then.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Leanne Scott cursed the hot flashes that woke her up in the middle of the night in soaking sheets that were hot to the touch. More mornings than not she was exhausted before the day got underway, and this morning was no different. Her new ritual upon waking was to descend to the kitchen, make an extra strong pot of coffee, and down a cup before climbing back upstairs for a cool shower. Today, she sat in a semi-stupor at the kitchen table while she had her first cup. She thought about fetching the paper from the front stoop but that would involve movement. Much better to sit and think about nothing.

  She heard Randy’s feet hit the floor above her head and she pictured him moving around their bedroom, choosing his clothes for the day. She smiled knowing he’d be humming some country song totally out of key while he got dressed. The man loved to hum. He also slept on his back and snorted like a pony periodically, not quite as endearing, but she’d had a reprieve the last few months. He’d moved into the spare bedroom rather than suffer through her nightly three hours of tossing and turning that began like clockwork at two a.m., and who could really blame him? She would have liked to get away from herself too if she could.

  She finally pushed herself to her feet and set her cup next to the coffee pot. Randy passed her on the stairs and gave her a kiss on the cheek as they squeezed past each other. He was wearing his Home Hardware shirt and smelled of Old Spice. “Meeting some of the guys for breakfast before work. I’ll give you a call at break.”

  “Have a good one.” She rubbed a hand across his cheek before continuing on upstairs. “You okay with pork chops for supper?” she called down from the landing.

  “Sure,” he yelled back before she heard the back door slam.

  She sighed and considered going back down to lock the door because he never thought of it. She didn’t mind being alone in the house with it unlocked, but not while she was in the shower. “This is Gananoque,” Randy always said when she asked him to lock the door on his way out. “Last time I checked, nobody’s done any raping and pillaging.”

  “Always a first time,” she’d answer, but he never took her seriously.

  She entered their bedroom and checked through her closet for something to wear to the clinic. Her navy pants were clean and it had been a while since she’d worn the thin grey pullover. Maybe she wouldn’t sweat too much since the weather forecast was calling for a cool, rainy day again. She’d throw on the red silk scarf with the butterfly pattern to give the outfit some interest. She wouldn’t even have to do any ironing. Bonus.

  She thought about washing her hair but checked in the mirror and decided it could go one more day. She was never going to win any beauty prizes, but she liked to look respectable. Adele had been the one to get the pretty gene. Leanne swallowed hard. “Don’t think about her,” she said to her reflection.

  The water took a while to reach a decent temperature. Leanne put on a shower cap and stood in the centre of the jets while she squirted shower gel labelled orchid bouquet onto a sponge. She’d never known an orchid to have a scent but was willing to accept that this is how they’d smell if given the chance. Randy had installed state-of-the-art shower heads from Germany that blasted water from four directions at the same time. He’d gotten a good employee discount and the project had kept him happy for an entire weekend. She was fine with the old showerhead but had to admit that the multiple jets were relaxing.

  She towelled off and went back into the bedroom to get dressed. Then a second trip into the bathroom to brush her teeth, put on some blush and eye shadow, and pee out the first cup of coffee. Ten minutes later, and she was on her way back downstairs. She’d taken longer than she should have in the shower and would have to take the second cup of coffee in a mug on her walk to work. She couldn’t remember if she’d brought her travel one home but would use her favourite Starbucks cup if not. It held a good amount.

  Just as she was halfway down the hallway into the kitchen, she heard the weight of a floorboard shifting behind her. Having lived thirty years in the house, she’d come to learn its sounds — the furnace cycling on, the wind whistling through the cracks around the windows, the slam of the screen door. She could tell where Randy was in the house by creaks of the floorboards. The creaking behind her only happened when somebody stepped on a spot on the floor just outside the living room. It drove Randy nuts. He kept talking about taking up the floor and fixing it so that this wouldn’t happen. She’d agreed, knowing that he never would get around to it. The noises didn’t bother her and she didn’t want the disruption that would come from ripping up the hallway. Randy always took forever to finish a project because he’d head off fishing or moose hunting when he had some days off.

  Her first thought was that Randy had come home for something. Her second thought was that he would have announced his arrival so as not to startle her. Even as she discarded the idea of Randy being home, she knew that nobody had been waiting in the living room when she came downstairs or she would have seen them. These thoughts were followed by a surge of fear and the mother of all hot flashes. She stopped walking and froze in place for all of three seconds before she forced herself to spin around. The sight of a man less than a metre away made her blink and suck in air like a fish. She’d never seen him before, but she had a good idea who he was.

  “How did you get in?” she asked, knowing full well he’d walked through the unlocked back door. “I want you to get out of my house right now.”

  “Not without Violet.” He took a step closer.

  “Violet? I’m sorry to tell you that she drowned a week ago. Why would you think —”

  “Adele would never drown her. We both know that. Where have you hidden her?”

  “You’re out of your mind.” Leanne took two steps back and then turned to run. She screamed as she felt his arm wrap around her neck, pulling her backwards. She flailed against the pressure of his body and twisted to get away but she was no match for his strength. The chop of his hand in the middle of her back made her scream again as pain shot through her shoulders and down her spinal cord. He let her go all of a sudden and she dropped to her knees. She whimpered when he kicked her in the ribs.

  “Get up,” he said. “We’re going for a drive.”

  “Please,” she gasped as she struggled to catch her breath. “I don’t know anything.”

  “And I’m betting my kid’s life that you do.”

  Her body picked tha
t moment for a second hot flash to pulse through her like a blast of heat from a furnace. She could feel sweat bead on her face and roll down her freshly washed back. The feverish heat made her lightheaded. His kick to her ribs made her feel sick to her stomach. She slowly pushed herself from all fours to her feet and swayed while she tried to wrap her brain around the reality of who was in her house.

  This nasty man is Violet’s father.

  Adele had told her that she’d been careful not to let anyone at Chez Louis know she had a sister. She’d lied about her hometown from the start, being fully aware of the kind of people she was living amongst and knowing she’d want out when she’d had enough. She’d liked the adventure at first, the novelty and the danger, but she’d never planned to spend her life in Montreal. I just want to have a good time for a few years before I become old and staid like you, Leanne. She’d laughed when she said it. Then her eyes had gotten serious. I want to experience life and have some excitement before I die. Is that so wrong? Tell me how enjoying myself can be so terrible.

  The last Christmas that Adele had made the trip to Gananoque before she’d shown up with Violet, she hadn’t been so bright eyed. She wasn’t talking anymore about her exciting life in the big city, and Leanne could see the toll that living the lifestyle had taken. “Why don’t you just leave?” Leanne had asked her.

  Adele had shrugged and avoided meeting her eyes. “Soon,” she’d said. “I just have a few things to wrap up first. I don’t want them coming after me.”

  “Let’s go,” the man said, giving Leanne a shove toward the kitchen. “Out the back way.”

  Leanne worked some saliva into her mouth. “Where are we going?”

  “Same place I took Adele. And if you still don’t feel like telling me where my daughter is, maybe a call to your husband, Randy, will change your mind. I imagine he’ll do anything to get you back safe and sound.”

  “Why? Why would you kill Adele?”