by Ann Lambert
For one moment, Nia felt certain she’d heard that voice before, and was about to ask him if they knew each other, but he was already tucked back into the warmth of his coat, the hood pulled low over his forehead. Nia carefully returned the photo to her pocket and headed back out into the cold. A very light and gentle snow had started to fall, like the kind they create for movies that require a charming winter scene. Nia was just starting to cross the street to go into Alexis Nihon when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. She turned around, thinking it was the guy who’d asked to see the picture again. Had he recognized Christian after all? But it wasn’t. It was the man with the tea. The Good Samaritan. He was a bit out of breath.
“Hey. Nia, isn’t it? You need a place to stay tonight?”
Nia shrugged his hand off her and kept walking. “No. I’m good. Just heading to a place I got lined up right now.” Then she stopped and turned back to him.
“I’m, um…wondering if you saw my friend around here at all? Christian? I’m usually with him? With the big funny-
looking dog?”
Isaac Blum looked at her intently. “Yeah, I saw him here…maybe two nights ago? Not a tea drinker, though, your friend.” Nia smiled in spite of herself. “He was hanging out with this guy—I’ve seen him a few times around here. Then I saw them head off west on de Maisonneuve.”
“Together?”
Isaac nodded. “Yeah. I got the impression they had a destination.”
Nia tried to figure out where they had in mind. There was Dawson College, but it was always crawling with cops. Isaac Blum squinted off in that direction as though he could see them and exhaled loudly. “There is a church over there. It’s been closed for a few months now, but there’s a pretty protected spot by the side door—by the alley. You want me to show you?”
Nia walked in silence alongside the Good Samaritan past the old Forum, past Dawson College’s main door, and continued two blocks further. The snow was less gentle now, and the few people who were still out hurried by them. As they approached the church, Nia began to feel a terrible sense of dread, and she tried in vain to breathe slowly through the hammering of her heart. Isaac Blum pointed ahead.
“Just along the alley there—there’s a kind of recess in the side door. I’ve seen people there. And if he’s not here, we can check St. Léon. There’s a shed-type building by the rectory that not too many people know about.”
Nia stopped walking and turned to him. “I’ve got this now, thanks. Thanks for your help.”
She waved off the Good Samaritan and watched him go back the way they had come. She made sure of it. At first, Nia couldn’t even see the place he was talking about, but as she drew closer, she saw the recessed area by the side door, and in it, she could just make out what looked like the hump of a person in a sleeping bag. Nia started to run, skidding and sliding in the wet, fresh snow. She fell to her knees besides the sleeping bag that she recognized as Christian’s, and pulled it away. At first she thought he was just sleeping, and she practically fell on him in relief. But his body was hard, unresponsive. He was frozen. His eyes were half-open, like he was squinting to see something in the distance, and Nia tore away at his layers and layers of clothes to listen for his heart, but she knew. He was dead. Christian was dead. Nia tried to hold him in her arms, but he was so rigid she was terrified he would break into pieces. Rocking back and forth hugging herself, Nia howled and howled in her grief. It was only after a few minutes when she thought she might die herself, that she realized Hamlet wasn’t there. He would never have left Christian alone. Never.
Twenty-One
Sunday afternoon
February 3, 2019
JEAN-MICHEL COUSINEAU, also known as Ti-Coune as long as anyone could remember, was hustling to get everything done before Roméo Leduc came to pick him up. He had cleaned up his tiny kitchen and thrown out whatever was making his fridge stink. His bed was made, and the sheets he had tacked up over the windows of his little bungalow outside Val David were lowered. He turned off the hot water and turned down the heat to ten degrees—enough to keep the pipes from freezing and his plants alive, but not enough to pay the thieves at Hydro-Québec any more than they had already stolen from him. He had also watered all his plants—a veritable indoor garden of herbs, tomatoes, and a few perennials he took in from outside.
In the old days, he would’ve had nothing but pot plants, but now, Ti-Coune Cousineau, former professional low-life, had turned himself around after the severe beating he took at the hands of his former colleagues, the Hells Angels. He had been clean for seventeen months, two weeks and five days—no booze and no drugs. Just cigarettes. He took one final look around his house to see if he’d forgotten anything. Then he dropped into his old La-Z-Boy chair and started to roll a smoke. Pitoune, his aging but still feisty Chihuahua, and the only one of his three dogs to survive the vicious attack almost two years earlier, jumped into his lap and stared at him anxiously. She knew something was up. He stroked the top of her head and explained what was happening very gently.
“I have to leave you with Manon for a few days.” Manon was Ti-Coune’s sort of girlfriend who ran a small dog kennel in her home and did landscaping work with Ti-Coune during the six months a year when it was possible. “You’ll like it there. I know you will. You’ll get to run around with all the other dogs and play. But play nice! You’re not as big as you think you are, and someone might play too rough and hurt you.” He held her tiny head firmly in his hands. “Am I the only one who knows what a sweet girl you are, really?” He released her and she immediately curled up in his lap. But she didn’t fall asleep. She was too wary to do that.
Ti-Coune reached into his jacket pocket and removed the photo that he always carried with him. It was of him and Hélène when they were kids, taken at the Granby zoo—the only photo he had from their entire childhood. They were scowling at the camera because they couldn’t afford any cotton candy, and he remembered an elephant tethered by a huge chain rocking back and forth behind them. Then he picked up the flier Roméo Leduc had given him two years earlier—the one of Hélène identified as a missing person in British Columbia. He folded it carefully into a tight square and placed that in his pocket as well. Was it possible she was still alive? And living in Montreal? Why didn’t she come to find him? She knew where he was—Ti-Coune had been living in Val David for years—she had even visited him here twelve years ago. He had no family except Hélène and Pitoune. He would go to Montreal and do everything he could to see her again.
Suddenly, Pitoune scrabbled to her feet and hurtled herself towards the front door, snarling and baring her teeth. Ti-Coune heard two short honks. That would be Roméo. He slipped on his jacket, pulled on a tuque and folded his gloves into his pockets. He picked up a small nylon shoulder bag, attached a leash to Pitoune and tucked her under his free arm. Before he turned off all the lights, he took one last look around. For some reason, he kissed the tips of his fingers and touched them to the frame of his front door before he stepped out into the damp February cold. It wasn’t much, but this was the only real home Ti-Coune Cousineau had ever had.
Twenty-Two
HE WOKE UP WITH A START and blinked his eyes repeatedly against the blinding sunshine that was streaming into his bedroom. What time was it? He checked his phone, which lay on the floor beside him and was shocked to see it was 10:43 a.m. He had somehow slept for almost ten hours. He hadn’t done that in years and years. For once, his sleep had been dreamless, or at least he’d had no dreams or nightmares he could remember, and that was a blessing. Especially not to dream of her.
Today was Sunday, and he loved Sundays because he didn’t have to do anything at all. He had no obligations, no work, no places to go and people to see. He slowly and methodically woke up his body; he rolled onto his knees first. Then he stretched out his back and arms in a downward dog, and then up into a cobra. He then asked for permission to stand up and moved into the m
ountain. He liked to stand in that position for at least three minutes, while he contemplated the inspiring words that he had framed on his wall.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
He stepped off his mat and headed towards the bathroom, where he relieved himself. He picked up the filthy clothes he’d left on the bathroom floor, and reminded himself to put them in the incinerator later. After he’d scrubbed his hands, face, and genitals, he headed to the kitchen to see what if anything was in the fridge for breakfast. He paused on his way there before the second of his inspirational quotes.
If I am only for myself, who am I?
He put the kettle on for his tea and went to his front door for the morning paper. He looked forward to reading it, hoping perhaps to see any more news about the girl, or even about the boy. As he returned with the paper in hand, he stopped before a very special arrangement on the wall of his small, sparse living room. In perfectly symmetrical order, a collar and attached leash was hanging on a peg, each one exactly four inches apart. The empty peg he had screwed into the wall on Thursday morning now wore a new collar. They didn’t need them anymore. Over this display he had framed and mounted the most important words to him of all.
Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.
Twenty-Three
Sunday night
“MIKA? SWEETHEART? Are you coming down for supper? This is the third time I called you. Michaela?!”
She lay in the fading evening light on her bed and remained in the fetal position, hugging her stuffed bear pillow tightly to her.
“I’m doing my homework. I’ll come down later.”
“WHAT?” She could hear her mother’s voice coming up the stairs.
“I. Am. Doing. My. HOMEWORK! I have a huge essay to finish. Just DON’T DISTURB ME!”
Her mother’s voice was suddenly right outside her door. “Your nonna is here. And she made those cannolis you love.”
“Nonna is here every Sunday.”
Her mother’s voice changed from cajoling to chilly. “Scendi giù adesso se no ti faccio vedere io!”
“Okay! I’ve got to finish this. I’ll be down in a bit.”
She could hear her mother hesitate at her door, and then retreat back down the stairs. It must have taken every iota of willpower for her not to open the bedroom door and glance in. Michaela had forbidden her from doing this when she turned sixteen, and her mother mostly respected that rule.
Michaela forced herself out of her bed, and collapsed in her chair before her vanity, a rather rococo piece of a bedroom set that her parents had bought her on her thirteenth birthday. She looked at herself in the gilded mirror. She looked normal. But when she tried to run her hands very gingerly through her thick hair her head was so painfully tender she couldn’t do it. He had grabbed a fistful of her hair so violently to force her head down that now clumps of long strands of it came away in her fingers. Michaela could still hear him unzipping his fly as he held her head with one hand until both his hands were free. Then he forced her mouth open by pulling on her lip and squeezing her cheek until the pain forced it open, like a man fitting a bit into a horse. He pushed himself so far inside her mouth she thought she would die from choking. When he was finished in her mouth, he pulled her panties down and shoved his fingers in her as far as he could. She felt such intense burning she was afraid she would pass out, but then she suddenly felt the strangest sensation—like she was floating up above her body and watching the whole event from a corner of the room. She stayed there until he began to swear at her, because his fingers were bleeding. She thought he must have cut himself on her somehow. He withdrew his hand and dropped her onto that beautiful carpet she had so admired. He said he was sorry, that he didn’t realize she was a virgin. She had vomited then, but for some reason made sure to do it into the tub, not on that carpet. Then he told her to clean herself up and left the room. She couldn’t remember how she got home.
Michaela watched her face in her mirror and felt a sob rising in her that terrified her. If she started crying now, she might never stop.
Her phone buzzed again, and Michaela glanced at the messages—there were about a dozen from Brittany—the last one just read WTF WHERE R U? Then she picked up her phone and as best she could, snapped pictures of the small bald patch starting to reveal itself on the side of her head. She got up from her chair and gently pulled her pajama bottoms down. There were bruises on her labia and down her thighs. She took pictures of those, too. Then she retrieved her bloody panties from the very back of her drawer and forced herself to take a photo. Her phone rang in her hand. It was Brittany.
“Mika? What the fuck? Where are you? What happened? How was the party? Mika?”
Michaela couldn’t make any words form yet. She just kept breathing.
“Mika? Michaela. What is it?”
Michaela returned to her bed and lay on her side. In a very small voice she said, “I should have gone to the hospital, and now it’s too late.”
“What? Why? What happened? Fuck, Mika, you’re scaring me. I’m coming over—”
“NO! Don’t come here! I don’t want my parents to think there’s anything weird going on—”
Brittany’s voice went very quiet. “Michaela? Can you tell me what happened?”
Michaela began to tell her friend what had happened to her at Jean Luc David’s party. Of course, she didn’t tell her everything. That was much too shameful. She would never tell anyone everything. After Michaela finished, there was a long silence. Brittany just kept saying how sorry she was it happened. Over and over again.
“Do you want me to come over?”
“NO. I don’t want to see anyone. I want to be left alone.”
“Mika? He didn’t put his penis in you, right? Like there was no…penetration, right? So at least you can’t be pregnant. No STDs, either.”
There was another long pause. “So it’s all good, right, Brit?”
“Oh my God, Mika, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I should have gone to the police. Now it’s too late.” Michaela started to cry, but quietly so her parents wouldn’t hear.
“It’s not too late, Mika,” Brittany assured her, “But I’m not sure you want to do that. I mean, what proof will they find? It’s he said–she said—his word against yours, and guess who they’ll believe? That’s what everyone says. And even if they believe you, you’ll have to go to court and tell everything that happened again and again.”
“But if I do nothing, he’ll do it again. To someone else—”
“They might ask why you went off with him alone—”
“I WASN’T alone—his assistant was there.”
Brittany’s voice was soft again. “But then she left, and you were alone with him. I am just saying that they often blame the victim for…putting herself in a…situation.”
“That was before Me Too. It’s different now. But it doesn’t matter because I have no real evidence.” She didn’t say it to Brittany because she couldn’t. Mika had brushed her teeth so hard she made her gums bleed. She had swallowed most of a giant bottle of Listerine.
“Jean Luc David is a major player in the industry—”
“DON’T say his name!”
Brittany hesitated. “Devil Man is a major player. You’ve got something on him now. I would use it. He promised you a part, right? Make sure you get it.”
Suddenly Mika wanted desperately to be off the phone.
“I have to go.”
“Mika. I’ll come over. I can be there in half an hour. You need me!”
“No, Brit. I really don’t.” Michaela ended the call. A few seconds later, Brittany was calling back. Michaela turned off her phone. She slowly got up from her bed, slid her legs over the side, and pulled off her pajama bottoms. Then she grabbed a pair of baggy work-out pants,
slipped on a well-worn oversized T-shirt, and went to her vanity to wipe her face and add a little cover up. She opened her bedroom door to the laughing and arguing sounds of her family downstairs.
Twenty-Four
Monday morning
February 4, 2019
DANIELLE WAS TRYING TO FOCUS on the words coming out of the very bright and well-painted lips of the young woman sitting across from her, who was wearing a shocking amount of TV makeup. She was so utterly cheerful and earnest that Danielle felt like giggling. What did she just say? Danielle hadn’t slept much the night before, and when she didn’t get her six hours in, she couldn’t be fully functional, no matter how many espressos she poured down her throat. She had spent all weekend obsessively checking all the Montreal newspapers, French and English, looking for any information about the woman in the tunnel. It had been just over a week, and there was nothing. Nothing more about her. Like she had never existed. Had she hallucinated the whole report she’d seen in the first place? She’d had another nightmare so awful and terrifying that she was scared to fall asleep and experience anything like it again. She obsessively worried about CCTV cameras—like the ones she’d seen on British murder mysteries—where they can easily track the criminal on any street anywhere it seemed. She poured over the Ville de Montréal website and discovered that there was a camera at the exit of the tunnel, but at least a block away. Could they track her car coming out? Could they see her license plate? Was she on camera driving into the tunnel? Could they check her computer and see her search history looking for the fucking cameras? Every time her phone rang or buzzed she was terrified the police were calling. Did she kill that woman? She killed that woman. She killed that woman—
