The Dogs of Winter

by Ann Lambert

  “We have to do the laundry now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our clothes are dirty, and we like to be clean.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we feel better when we’re clean.”

  “Why?”

  “So people won’t say peeyoo, you stink! to us.”

  “Why?”

  And on and on and on. She had finally resorted to letting him watch Peppa Pig on her iPad, which Léo knew how to use better than she did. Nicole felt guilty again for doing so, but she was dangling at the end of her rope and just had to finish reviewing all the documents. She had them all neatly and carefully laid out on the coffee table in her living room, while Léo sat next to her on the sofa, sedated by the virtual world he was watching.

  She was focusing on the cold case homicide Roméo had assigned to her specifically—Chantal Lalonde-Fukushima. Nicole’s team had already re-interviewed everyone who would still talk to them. She’d sent them to talk again to friends, teachers, and family. Everyone’s story was consistent. Chantal was a type-A high-achiever who spent most of her time studying. She didn’t do drugs. She didn’t have a boyfriend. She did have aspirations to be a model—but only to make money to put herself through school. Her parents lived comfortably but modestly, and paying tuition at a fancy school was out of the question. She liked dogs and had pestered her parents about getting one. Her mother had kept almost all of her things: her little music box by her bed. Her well-loved stuffies. Her Judy Blume books and even her textbooks from grade eleven. She would have graduated from high school that spring.

  But how Chantal ended up raped and dumped in the St. Lawrence river that Friday night remained a complete mystery. Despite re-interviewing her friends, no one really knew her whereabouts that night. Her mother said she was going to study at a girlfriend’s—which seemed odd for a Friday night—but not for Chantal. The girlfriend testified that they had not made plans at all for that night—so no one noticed she was missing for almost twenty-four hours. Her body wasn’t found for several days.

  “Maman?”

  “Oui, mon amour?” Nicole answered without taking her eyes off her work.

  “Maman? On peut aller dehors? Can we go outside?”

  Nicole didn’t answer. She was minutes away from skimming the last of the files.

  “Maman!” Léo whined, pulling on her arm.

  “Deux minutes, mon amour.”

  Suddenly, Léo leapt from the sofa and onto the coffee table, kicking all the documents and papers across the living room floor. “I want to go outside!”

  He jumped down from the coffee table and ran through the papers, like they were a leaf pile he was kicking through.

  “LÉO!!!! TABERNAC! WHAT DID YOU DO?” Nicole grabbed her son who was still stomping on and scattering the years of collected work. She sat him down hard—too hard—on the sofa and ordered him to stay put. He began to cry. So did Nicole. She held him to her, rocking him in her arms so tightly he began to squirm away. As he watched his mother wipe her tears away, her son got quiet. Léo sat on the sofa, sucking his thumb, while Nicole got on her hands and knees and started to clean up the mess he’d made—dumping the papers, reports, and handwritten notes randomly into the box. She’d have to sort through the whole thing later that night when Léo went to bed. But as she picked up one photograph dated the year Chantal died, she noticed it was taken at some kind of party, and in the photo was a face she recognized. He was much younger, of course, but he had his arms around two young women and all three were smiling and laughing. It was the very well-known producer, Jean Luc David. Standing behind them, but not posing for the photo, was Chantal.

  What was she doing there? Had anyone noted this before? Nicole leaned back against the sofa and forced herself to remember a conversation she’d had. It was a vague memory of someone—maybe a girlfriend from college—telling her about Jean Luc David’s legendary parties, and how the cops covered up for him for years of debauchery and legally dubious activities. Chantal seemed like the last person on earth to end up at one of those, but maybe her modeling ambitions led her there? Nicole peered at the photograph again, then placed it carefully aside. This was worth looking into further. She looked at the files scattered all over her living room floor, and then suddenly kneeled over to her son and hugged him to her.

  “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even have seen this, mon Léo. Merci.”

  Then Nicole got to her feet, held out her hands and said, “Let’s go play outside.”

  Thirty-Seven

  “YOU DID WHAT?” Michaela’s voice was an amplified shriek as it echoed in the empty stairwell where she was leaning against the corner wall, talking on her phone. Brittany described again her encounter with Jean Luc David’s assistant. She hadn’t meant to tell Michaela, but her conscience finally got the better of her and she confessed what she’d done.

  “How the fuck could you do that, Brittany?”

  She had embroidered the story though in the retelling; she recast herself as the selfless crusader—much tougher, much more defiant, and only looking out for her friend. She mentioned the contract she tried to get for her. She did not mention the 15,000 dollars she asked for herself.

  “I was doing it for you, Mika—”

  Michaela interrupted her. “But you didn’t tell me. And now they’re going to think it was all a lie because you asked for a contract.”

  Brittany’s voice hardened. “I wanted something good to come out of it. Make that fucker pay.”

  Michaela tried to control the sob that threatened to choke the words from her.

  “But the only one who will pay is me!” The last word was like the wail of a forlorn child.

  “Mika, I’m really sorry. I had no idea you’d be this mad.” Brittany’s voice broke and then she began to cry.

  “Don’t you start crying. Don’t you dare start crying, Brittany!” But her friend couldn’t get any words out. Michaela hung up. She just stood in the stairwell, staring blankly at the wall. Then she sank to the floor and started to sob.

  As Marie headed along the seventh-floor corridor, her head was full of her class that had just finished. Four students had done their oral presentations that morning, and Marie had been pleasantly surprised. One girl with more piercings than Saint Sebastian had discussed whale evolution, explaining how whales went from small hooved mammals who could swim and walk on land to the titanic blue whales we have today. Another one who claimed to be a militant omnivore discussed conflicting attitudes about the whale hunt. Were whales just another resource to be harvested? That’s how the Japanese saw them—no different from the cows or pigs the people in the West eat voraciously, and who are subjected to horrific lives before they are slaughtered. At least, he argued, whales lived a free life on the open sea until a whaling harpoon ended it.

  Marie remembered being in Tokyo many years earlier and being repulsed by people chowing down on whale tongue, whale heart, and whale sushi. Her friend had urged her to try it, but she just could not. He pointed out that food preferences and prejudices are almost entirely cultural constructs and reminded her that she loved bacon and pigs were highly intelligent animals—at least as smart as whales. That relationship didn’t last very long.

  Another student explored why whales didn’t get cancer. They should, as cancer starts in a cell that is abnormal, so it would follow that the bigger the mammal, the more cells there are, the more the risk of developing cancer. But it seems that the bigger the body, the less likely it is to develop tumors. She explained this was something called Peto’s Paradox. Whales have tumor-suppressing genes, so comparative oncology is studying them to determine how these genes work and if they can be applied to humans.

  Marie’s last presenter, a very sweet but very shy student whose cheeks turned bright pink when Marie called on him, did the old standby—whale echolocation—the ability to observe a
n environment using sound. He explained that toothed whales send clicks and whistles out to bounce off nearby objects and return information about them by measuring the amount of time it takes for the sound waves to return. This information allows these animals to find food, navigate their surroundings, and become aware of danger. He added at the end that blind humans have been known to use echolocation to see their environment, and even sighted people can learn the skill. Marie was thrilled to see her class sincerely impressed by this whale trick. She reminded them that other animals echolocate too and asked them to think of the bats who catch thousands of mosquitoes on a hot summer night using this ability. Most of her students had never even seen a bat.

  The seventh-floor hall was always very quiet, as it was lined with many of the science labs. Occasionally a few students in white lab coats would emerge from one, talking excitedly about something on their way to the elevators. Marie decided to take the stairs down to the library when she heard the sounds of someone crying. Sobbing, really. She stopped to locate the sound and realized it was coming from the stairwell she was headed for. It wouldn’t be the first time Marie had heard a distraught student on those stairs. It seemed to be a popular place to fall apart. Marie hesitated. She didn’t want to intrude, and even more, she didn’t want to have to deal with whatever had happened to this student. Probably a breakup tale of woe. Valentine’s Day was next week, and it was often the time that boys (for the most part) chose to break up with their girlfriends so they didn’t have to get a Valentine’s gift before dumping them. Marie had observed this mating phenomenon for years. But the crying was so completely gutting that Marie followed it into the stairwell.

  Very gently, she asked, “Hi. Can I do anything for you?”

  The young woman looked up, and then quickly averted her face. To Marie’s shock, it was Michaela, her student who’d gone AWOL.

  “I’m…I’m okay.” She tried to wipe the tears from her face with her hands, but she was sodden. Marie pulled a mostly clean tissue from the bottom of her bag and handed it to her.

  “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

  Michaela nodded slowly. “Yes, please.”

  Marie went to the door and hesitated. “Michaela? You are not alone. Whatever it is, whatever is happening to you, I’m here to listen. And help in any way I can, okay?”

  “Professor Russell—wait!”

  Marie let the door close and turned around. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  After some hesitation and resistance, and in a voice so mortified it was almost a whisper, Michaela told Marie what happened to her. She did not say who her rapist was. She did not share all the details—those were too horrifying and shameful to tell anyone. Ever. Marie felt her shame—it was palpable.

  “It was my fault. I was so stupid for going there.”

  “No one goes to a party and expects to be raped. You are not stupid. You were not asking for it.” But Marie knew intimately that no matter how many times a rape victim was told that, it took a long time to believe it. Michaela was no exception.

  “I should have known there was something wrong with the whole thing. Why would a guy like that—” Michaela cut herself off.

  “A guy like what?” Marie asked gently.

  Michaela shook her head. “I don’t want to say who he is.”

  “Okay.”

  Marie shifted her hips slightly to ease what was becoming pain from the hard floor.

  “It’s okay, Professor Russell. I’m all right. I’m sure you have to get to a class—”

  “Please call me Marie. And I don’t have to be anywhere but here right now.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes. Michaela sighed deeply once.

  “Did you go to the police?”

  Michaela hesitated. “No.”

  “Did you keep any…um…evidence?”

  Michaela looked at Marie, tears filling her eyes again and nodded. She didn’t say what she’d kept.

  “That’s good. That’s very good, Michaela.”

  “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to say anything. I can’t. I’d have to tell my parents, and I can’t. I can’t tell my father. He would die.”

  Marie was always moved by how girls wanted to protect their fathers from such a thing—it was such an ancient, biblical impulse. Shield the father from the shame, or the idea of their daughter being defiled in such a way. Those patriarchal roots ran so very deep.

  “You don’t have to tell anyone until you want to, Michaela. I think you’re very brave for telling me.”

  Marie started to sweep a loose strand of damp hair from Michaela’s face, but withdrew her hand. “Would you like to go and see the counsellor downstairs?”

  “No! I don’t want to see a counsellor. I can’t do that right now. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “It would make it…real.”

  Michaela bowed her head as though she was about to pray. Then she took another deep breath. “He’s a very famous TV producer. And writer. And director too, I think.”

  Marie said nothing.

  “I wanted to meet him because he…because I’m a writer and I act, too. I wanted to meet him to try and give him a script—like have the chance to actually put it in his hands. I’m such a fucking idiot.”

  Marie started to refute that again, but Michaela cut her off.

  “And my so-called friend just informed me she tried to cut a deal with him—I say nothing and he gives me a contract.” The last word came out in a garbled sob.

  “I’m sorry—what did she do?”

  Michaela explained as best she could that Brittany had basically tried to blackmail him.

  “Who is this man, Michaela?”

  She took another cathartic, deep breath. “Do you watch Netflix?”

  “Sometimes. Yes.”

  “Have you ever watched Nasty Women?”

  “Oh, god. Yes—I love—” Marie stopped herself in time.

  “It was him. Jean Luc David.”

  Marie’s jaw fell open in shock. “It doesn’t matter who he is, Michaela, you have to go to the police.”

  “No! I can’t do that. And you cannot tell anyone, Professor Russell. Please. Not anyone. Promise me you won’t tell anyone!”

  Marie very reluctantly said, “I promise.”

  Michaela started to cry again. This time, her whole body heaved in uncontrollable sobs. Marie and her teaching colleagues were never supposed to touch their students. In fact, they were never supposed to be alone in their office with a student unless the door was open. But that morning, Marie took the tiny, weeping Michaela in her arms and held her like a child.

  Thirty-Eight

  THE DAY WAS VERY WINDY but sunny and mild for February, so he pulled the heavy hood from his head, as he was out of her line of vision now. He loved watching people who had no idea they were being observed. He noted their physical flaws, the idiosyncrasy of their gait. Were they slouched, hunched, erect? Did they walk pigeon-toed or splayed like a ballerina? What was their comportment? Fast or slow? Athletic or awkward? He liked to catch them picking their noses, or adjusting their underwear, or in winter, slipping and falling on the ice and then pretending like nothing happened. Sometimes if he observed someone for a while, he made up backstories for them—imagined what their house looked like, what they ate in front of the TV, what they had looked like in grade one, what they looked like having sex, what they looked like when they were sleeping. Watching complete strangers was one thing, but he particularly enjoyed watching people he knew. There was an intimacy and vulnerability between the observer and observed that he savored.

  He especially enjoyed watching her. There she was, her mitts tucked under her armpit, awkwardly trying to put up posters on a lamppost. Lost Dog! Chien Perdu! He figured someone at the shelter was nice enough to print them for h
er and give her some duct tape. She was struggling to press the poster against the surface, then rip the tape, then make it stick. Of course, they weren’t sticking because it was too cold, and he sympathized as she tried to add more tape so they would. Should he go and help her? The wind was snapping at the paper now too, and several posters that slipped from her hands went fluttering down the street. She watched them blow away, realized there was no point in chasing them, and tucked the remaining ones back into her plastic bag. She pulled a half-smoked cigarette from her pocket and struggled to light it in the wind. He remembered that feeling of the first inhalation. That delicious first hit of nicotine that slowed the world down. Forced you to take a step back. Reset. Of course, he didn’t smoke anymore. That was a defilement of the body he had abandoned many years ago. It was a shame she was poisoning herself, as she was still very pretty even though these days she looked rough. Of course, the girl looked so much like her. There were thirty or so years between them, but it was remarkable. He watched as she exhaled the smoke from her cigarette through her nostrils. Did she not sense she was being watched? Had she recognized him that night? It had taken almost all his willpower not to tell her everything. He wanted to tell her that they would all be better off, now.

  He knew that many people had told Nia to give up the search for the dog—just for the time being—for her mental health. But he knew she never would. And if she was focused on finding just the dog—that was good. Nia dropped the butt on the sidewalk and crushed it out with her heel. Then she looked up and gazed directly at him. He flipped his hood back up. But there was no recognition, no awareness in her eyes. Then she just turned and headed up the street. He crossed over to her side of the street and checked his watch. 10:59. She would probably be heading to the metro to get a little money. He followed her down the block, but she suddenly turned into the gate to the college. This was unusual. Was she going to put up posters there? In all these years since he had graduated, he’d never once gone inside, and he wasn’t going to start now. He decided to let her go. The wind on the corner of Atwater and de Maisonneuve was often ferocious on a normal day, but now it was actually howling viciously through the wind tunnel the buildings created. He continued south and headed towards the market. He had other fish to fry.