The Dogs of Winter

by Ann Lambert

  The brief service was just coming to a close, and the three dozen or so people were starting to shift and re-gather. Several Inuit community leaders were chatting quietly, and Annie noticed a few police officers had come out to pay their respects. Roméo shook Annie’s hand and walked slowly and carefully back to Marie and Ruby who had both wanted to honor Rosie’s life and memory. A few people continued to file past a little table covered in a piece of sealskin that held her framed photograph—a smiling Rosie Nukilik standing by the bay in Salluit, staring directly and joyfully at the camera. Next to her photo was placed a long and delicate flight feather of a snow goose. Also on the makeshift altar was a snow globe that Rosie loved, picturing downtown Montreal. There was also a dog-eared book of 100 Most Popular Songs for the Piano, and a crinkled snapshot of Rosie together with her sister, Maggie.

  Roméo watched as Isaac Blum left the service alone, without speaking to anyone, and headed towards Alexis Nihon mall. The word on the street was the Good Samaritan was no longer doing his rounds. He still wondered why Isaac Blum had lied about knowing Rosie. Was there more going on with the young women he ministered to than they knew? Roméo followed Isaac’s trajectory as he trudged back towards Alexis Nihon mall. Would that be it, then? Back to work at Canadian Tire, and all the possible healing he might have continued to do was over? Roméo scanned the dispersing mourners one more time, just to be sure. He kept hoping that Hélène Cousineau would show up.

  “How are your ribs?”

  Roméo smiled and gently touched his rib cage with both hands. “Better than they were.”

  Steve Pouliot nodded and held out his hand to Roméo. “I wanted to say thank you. For taking an interest. Maybe one day we’ll be working together again.”

  Roméo raised one eyebrow. “You’d have to change teams. But you’d be welcome anytime with me at the Sûreté. Just let me know.”

  Steve Pouliot turned to leave and stopped. “Oh, I thought you’d like to know, as it hasn’t officially been announced yet. They’re forming a special investigative unit to look into the deaths of the two Indigenous women—Shannon Amittuk and Vickee Quissak. We’ll be reopening those inquiries and several other cases that were never properly investigated.”

  “We?”

  Steve Pouliot chewed thoughtfully at his thumbnail. “Yes. They’ve asked me to head up the unit.”

  “Felicitations, mon ami. That is very good news.”

  “Oh. I thought you’d like to know this, too. Your friend and mine, Detective Cauchon? He’s been suspended with pay. Pending further investigation of his, um…attitudes and activities. The dinosaurs are dying off, Detective Inspector Leduc.”

  Roméo watched as Officer Pouliot turned on his heel and walked away. If the political timing is right, he thought, Detective Cauchon will be gone. And hopefully not to Tahiti, but maybe to Thetford Mines.

  Fifty-Three

  THE FORMER ROYAL VICTORIA HOSPITAL sits nestled on the southeastern flank of Mount Royal, sandwiched between McGill University’s science buildings and its football stadium. It is a Victorian relic, full of towers, turrets, and labyrinthine passageways. It is also now closed. When the government discovered that it would cost a fortune to renovate and update the 125-year-old building, they pulled up stakes and decided to amalgamate several hospitals into one super-hospital in NDG. The Royal Vic, as Montrealers commonly called it, fell into disrepair. There was the inevitable talk of converting it into condos, or a new student residence for McGill. But the new mayor had decided on another possibility.

  Nia Fellows walked down the hallway that still looked very much like a hospital, painted toothpaste-green and eerily quiet. Hamlet’s nails clicked on the floor as he followed closely on a leash beside her. A few volunteers were setting up a coffee station, and several others were unloading a vanload of clean donated blankets and sleeping bags. One or two nodded and smiled at Nia as she passed. She was focused on the figure standing at the very end of the corridor. He turned around when she called his name.

  “Jean-Michel! How are you?” She kissed him gently on both cheeks, the standard greeting in Quebec.

  He had clearly washed his long hair and combed it over into a ponytail to cover the widening bald spot. He looked tired. Before he could answer, she asked, “How is your hand?”

  Ti-Coune raised his bandaged right hand and dropped it again. “Ça faisait mal en ostie. It hurt like hell, but now it’s better.”

  “Jean-Michel. I am so sorry. I was really hoping that they’d got there in time—”

  “Inquiète-toi pas, madmoiselle. Don’t worry so much. I didn’t really need those two fingertips anyway.”

  They both broke eye contact and waited awkwardly for the other to say something. Ti-Coune reached down with his good left hand and scratched Hamlet’s head.

  “Salut, Hamlet! Ça vas mieux, mon pitou?”

  Nia and Ti-Coune moved to a more private part of the corridor, where Nia pulled up a couple of chairs. Hamlet sighed heavily at Ti-Coune’s feet, put his big head on his paws and promptly fell asleep.

  “I bet you didn’t know that I was born here.”

  Ti-Coune raised an eyebrow and whistled. “Pour le vrai?”

  “So, I guess I’ve come full circle. Me and Hamlet can stay here until we find permanent housing—”

  “You can stay here with Hamlet? You’re allowed?”

  Nia smiled the widest smile he’d seen on her face yet. “Yup! This shelter is especially for homeless people with dogs.”

  Ti-Coune touched her shoulder softly. “Chuis content pour toi. That’s good news.” He was still struck by her uncanny resemblance to his sister, Hélène. Although he had not found his sister, he felt certain that she was alive and surviving somewhere. He had put out the call to the universe, and maybe it would answer. For now, he’d have to be patient.

  “Nia. I wanted to tell you. That, eh…I never had no kids, me. And, eh…I got this little house in Val David—that’s one hour from here in the car.” He cleared his throat once, and then again before he continued, his voice breaking ever so slightly. “So, if you are ever stuck, ever again, with no place to stay. You let me know. You got a place with me.”

  Nia reached down and scratched a groggy Hamlet to distract herself from the embarrassment of Ti-Coune’s kind offer. She couldn’t look at him right at the moment, because she didn’t want to cry. She nodded, and very quietly said, “Okay.”

  “Hey, Nia, remember that little white dog? The one that looked like a rat? That was in the house at the shelter?”

  “Yeah, I do—”

  “You know, that was the dog of Rosie Niku…ilik? So anyway, I called Manon—ma blonde—my girlfriend, and she came to Montreal, and…she took the dog back to Val David to live with her.”

  “Jean-Michel, that is the best news.”

  “I would have like to take the dog with me, but my dog, Pitoune? There’s no way. She’s too jealous.”

  Ti-Coune then got to his feet, leaned down to pat her shoulder, and made his way down the hall towards the bright red Sortie sign. Nia was about to call out “À la prochaine!” to him, but the truth was she would probably never see Jean-Michel Cousineau ever again.

  Fifty-Four

  One week later

  SHE LOOKED UP FROM THE NEWSPAPER and gazed out the window. Not that she could see very much, as it was opaque with frost arabesques. The space heater she’d bought to bolster her apartment’s ancient heating system was on its highest setting, but it couldn’t keep up with minus thirty-five outside. And shitty insulation. They’d told her Winnipeg was cold in winter—but they were guilty of extreme understatement. It made Montreal winters seem balmy. She watched a sleepy winter fly rubbing its legs over the leftover eggs on her plate, and then flicked it away. The newspaper was still open to the double-page article she had read for the tenth time and would pore over again. ALLEGED SERIAL KILLER ARRE
STED—TARGETED HOMELESS—TO “SAVE” DOGS FROM LIFE ON THE STREET. It went on to describe how he targeted the very people he was meant to help and castigated all the people who didn’t notice they had a serial killer in their midst.

  Of course, there was the requisite deep dive into his background, and all the horror of his childhood trauma was described in lurid detail. Readers were going to eat it all up like the dogs he saved inhaled their food. She kept reading the words, but they just weren’t registering in her brain. Peter LaFlèche. Peter. She’d known there was something very strange about him, but of course she did not anticipate anything like this. She remembered the night he first came into Roasters. A hockey game was on the TV and he sat alone at her bar and half-watched it while half-watching her. But not in a creepy way. They struck up what she would describe as a highly entertaining conversation about the people in the restaurant. He had made her laugh at the detailed backstories he imagined and narrated for each of her customers. They were incisive and funny but not mean. She appreciated that—it was too easy to be gratuitously nasty. He was smart, but he knew when to shut up, too. At the end of her shift he left her a very good tip, and most importantly, did not hit on her.

  She didn’t see him again for another week, when he returned to watch another game, and they fell into easy, but compelling conversation. She was flattered that he clearly found her attractive at her age and after the life she’d had.

  Hélène looked at the grainy photograph of Peter the newspaper had dug up. He was handsome in a vapid, chiseled way. Like his face was waiting to be written on, when in fact, she learned later that he had already lived in hell. When had he first come over to her place? Maybe in April or May? She had waited weeks before she invited him, and even then she was wary. But he chatted easily with her while she prepared a simple meal, and he just fixed things. The first time it was a leaky faucet. The next, a torn screen on her window. Then her cheap vacuum cleaner. These were all things she was capable of fixing herself, but somehow never got around to them.

  Slowly and steadily, he started making her life a bit easier, insinuating himself into it, until she almost needed him. He would drive her to Costco for a giant order of food and supplies because she didn’t have a car. He would propose corny outings, like a tourist would do—a visit to St. Joseph’s Oratory to see the crutches of all the cripples whose pilgrimage had “cured” them, or a paddle on Beaver Lake in a fake canoe. But he never asked her to sleep with him. She figured he was a closeted gay guy, or maybe asexual, although she didn’t really believe such a person existed.

  One evening, after he’d washed up the few supper dishes, and she was sitting on the sofa sewing up a tear in her uniform shirt for work, he sat next to her and took her hands in his. He was entirely transformed—suddenly he was like a child, stammering his words and avoiding eye contact. Like he was guilty of something. She felt so bad for him she kissed him. Of course, it didn’t end there. They had sex that night—it couldn’t really be called making love, as it lasted about three minutes and she hadn’t gotten anywhere close before he came. Afterwards, he was in the shower for what seemed like an hour. When he finally came out, he thanked her. And left her apartment without saying another word.

  Hélène leaned over the newspaper, ran her hands through her coarse, thinning hair, and could not avoid remembering how things had unfolded from there. The day after the sex, he showed up after her shift at work, and insisted on seeing her home. When they arrived there, she was able to convince him that she was exhausted and needed to go straight to bed. She asked him to give her some space and agreed to an evening out with him the following Saturday.

  A pattern developed. Peter would pick her up a few days a week after work, take her home, and then stay for supper and sex. It was always fast. She was never satisfied, and he never knew. Hour-long showers. But still the conversation was amusing, and he was unfailingly kind.

  One evening, he hadn’t shown up at her work, and she felt enormous relief—like she could breathe deeply for the first time in weeks. She headed home with a skip in her step and dreamed about the long bath she’d take and the Nasty Women bingeing she could do. But when she arrived at her little apartment—she noticed his boots first, on the little rubber mat outside her door. That was the first moment when she felt…was it fear? Resentment? Rage? It was then she knew for certain that she was in a situation.

  When she thought about Rosie—even thought about Rosie—she felt like she might pass out. Hélène put her head in her hands and breathed. Sweet Rosie. So lonely for her family, mourning her sister who had died unexpectedly from some kind of hospital infection. Rosie would sit at the bar, and Hélène would listen to her stories of home—tried to imagine what twenty hours of daylight was like in the summer, and the twenty-hour darkness of those winters. Rosie told her about her grandmother who knew how to do everything—who could survive the end of the world if she had to—and how her mother had died of diabetic shock. Hélène had no family at all—except a brother she avoided because of the company he kept. She was well out of that scene, once and forever.

  Hélène always gave Rosie a beef barley soup if they had it, and Rosie would talk about the country food that everyone in her village shared so no one would go hungry. Not like here in the city. Hélène often tried to persuade her to go home, but Rosie wasn’t ready yet—a euphemism for Rosie had fallen into the life in Cabot Square. Hélène stood up and began to pace her tiny kitchenette. Why had she let him in that night? She had already told him it was over, whatever it was. Changed the lock on her door after he’d had the key made for himself. But he had been so polite, and seemed so himself, or at least his old self. She felt that perhaps with the two girls there it would at least be almost normal. Had she used those girls for protection that night?

  She remembered how he had charmed Rosie and her friend. How he’d gone on and on about Rosie’s playing that broken keyboard. How he said he could get one for her—he had a friend who had one to give away. She felt like ripping her hair out when she thought of him luring that girl with stupid promises. Is that what had happened? Hélène closed her eyes and tried to banish the idea, but she knew better. And the dog. Oh my God, the dogs. She had thought the little dog was a wonderful idea. Rosie was really turning things around for herself, and once Rosie got the dog Hélène thought having something to love and take care of would heal so many wounds. She encouraged her to get it, but told her if she saw any signs of suffering then she’d take it away. She had no idea that it would lead to Rosie’s murder.

  Hélène reread the horrible account of his treatment as a child. He had revealed some of this to her in sporadic monologues, but by that point, she was too afraid of him to have any empathy. She knew that he was following her, watching her, because he would turn up by coincidence in impossible places. One day, he showed up at Roasters during the happy hour rush, asked the manager very politely to turn down the music, and in front of all her customers got down on one knee and proposed to her. He had a ring and everything. A diamond. Hélène was appalled. She covered as best she could, mumbled a yes, and resolved at that very moment to get out of Montreal.

  Should she have gone to the cops? And said what? That a creepy-but-damaged guy was obsessed with her? That he’d broken into her apartment? Hélène knew there was no point going to the cops, as they were useless. Besides, she had a record. The last time she’d had to get a restraining order it was against a cop she’d dated. Needless to say, his buddies hadn’t enforced the order. The only way to get away from him had been to disappear. And she had. Why hadn’t she called Roméo Leduc? Because he had no jurisdiction out west. Besides, she hadn’t seen him in years. But she had given Rosie his number, written on the back of that photo Peter had taken and had printed out for her to put on her wall. Hélène told Rosie to call Roméo if there was trouble. Or anything that worried her. Or anything that she needed. Did she somehow know something was going to happen to Rosie?


  Hélène carried her congealed eggs on the plate and dropped it into her tiny sink. She peered out the little kitchen window. Through the frost she could just make out her neighbor getting her two little kids to daycare. They were stuffed into snowsuits so thick they could barely move, so she grabbed one under each arm horizontally and carried them to the car.

  Hélène had offered to help her out a few times, as she had no partner and often seemed overwhelmed. But her offers always drew a terse nod and a “thanks, anyway.” Hélène glanced at the old-fashioned clock on the wall that had been left behind by the former tenant. She had fourteen minutes to get to work. She went to the bathroom and started to apply her mascara and eyeliner. She looked at herself in the mirror. Here she was. In Winnipeg. She’d left no forwarding address, no number, no clue at all as to where she was heading. Here, absolutely nobody knew her real name.

  Fifty-Five

  THE TOASTS JUST KEPT COMING. À la belle Margeaux! Plus belle que jamais! Jean Luc David basked in the joy and satisfaction of his successful 40th birthday bash for Margeaux. He had managed to get almost all of her oldest and dearest friends to the party, each one astonishing her even more as they arrived one by one and embraced her. The room was full to bursting, and he particularly enjoyed watching all these people from such different parts of his life come together to celebrate his wife. There were a few local stars, and a few wannabees, but for the most part, the attendance was stellar—especially since the two leads in Nasty Women had surprised him with their presence. They were busy pretending they weren’t as famous as they’d become through the series. Jean Luc glanced around the “head” table as it were. A few of his older friends joked about how Margeaux would have to be changing his diapers soon, and then punctuated their hilarious observation with drunken belly laughs.