by Kathy Reichs
Heidi Schneider. Who had felt so threatened by Heidi’s babies as to resort to brutal infanticide? Were these deaths the herald of more bloodshed?
Jennifer Cannon. Amalie Provencher. Carole Comptois. Were their murders part of the madness? What demonic mores had they violated? Had their deaths been the choreography of some hellish ritual? Had my sister suffered the same fate?
When the phone rang I jumped and knocked the flashlight to the floor.
Ryan, I prayed. It’s Ryan and he’s got Jeannotte.
My nephew’s voice came across the line.
“Oh hell, Aunt Tempe. I think I’ve really screwed up. She called. I found it on the other cassette.”
“What other cassette?”
“I’ve got one of these old answering machines with the tiny tapes. The one I had wasn’t rewinding right so I put in a new one. I didn’t think about it until a friend came by just now. I was pretty hacked off at her because we were supposed to go out last week, but when I went to get her she wasn’t home. When she dropped by tonight I told her to kiss off, and she insisted she’d left a message. We got into a hassle so I got out the old tape and played it. She was on there, all right, but so was Harry. Right at the end.”
“What did your mother say?”
“She sounded pissed off. You know how Harry is. But she sounded scared at the same time. She was at some farm or something and wanted to split but no one would drive her back to Montreal. So I guess she’s still in Canada.”
“What else did she say?” My heart was pounding so hard I thought my nephew would hear it.
“She said things were getting creepy and she wanted out. Then the tape quit or she was cut off or something. I’m not sure. The message just ended.”
“When did she call?”
“Pam phoned Monday. Harry’s message was after that.”
“There’s no date indicator?”
“This thing was made during the Truman years.”
“When did you change the tape?”
“I think maybe Wednesday or Thursday. I’m not sure. But before the weekend, I know that.”
“Think, Kit!”
The line buzzed.
“Thursday. When I got home from the boat I was tired and the tape wouldn’t rewind, so I popped the cassette and pitched it. That’s when I put in the new one. Shit, that means she phoned at least four days ago, maybe even six. God, I hope she’s all right. She sounded pretty panicky, even for Harry.”
“I think I know who she’s with. She’ll be fine.” I didn’t believe my own words.
“Let me know as soon as you talk to her. Tell her I feel bad about this. I just didn’t think.”
I went to the window and pressed my face to the glass. The coating of ice turned the streetlights into tiny suns, and my neighbors’ windows into glimmering rectangles. Tears ran down my cheeks as I thought of my sister, somewhere in that storm.
I dragged myself back to bed, turned on the lamp, and settled in to await Ryan’s call.
Now and then the lights dimmed, flickered, then returned to normal. A millennium passed. The phone sat mute.
I drifted off.
It was the dream that provided the final epiphany.
ISTAND GAZING AT THE OLD CHURCH. IT IS WINter and the trees are bare. Though the sky is leaden, the branches send spiderwebs of shadow crawling across the weathered gray stone. The air smells of snow, and the prestorm silence is thick around me. In the distance I see a frozen lake.
A door opens and a figure is silhouetted against the soft yellow of lamplight. It hesitates, then walks in my direction, head lowered against the wind. The figure draws near, and I see she is female. Her head is veiled and she wears a long black gown.
As the woman comes closer the first powdery flakes appear. She carries a candle, and I realize her crouching is to protect the flame. I wonder how it survives.
The woman stops and beckons with her head. Already the veil is flecked with snow. I strain to recognize her face, but it moves in and out of focus, like pebbles at the bottom of a deep pool.
She turns and I follow.
The woman pulls farther and farther ahead. I feel alarm and try to catch up, but my body does not respond. My legs are weighted and I cannot hurry. I see her disappear through the door. I call out, but there is no sound.
Then I am inside the church and everything is dim. The walls are stone, the floor dirt. Huge carved windows disappear into darkness overhead. Through them I see tiny flakes wafting like smoke.
I can’t remember why I’ve come to the church. I feel guilty, because I know it is important. Someone has sent me, but I can’t recall who.
As I walk through the dusklike gloom I look down and see that my feet are bare. I am ashamed because I don’t know where I’ve left my shoes. I want to leave, but don’t know the way. I feel if I abandon my task I won’t be able to leave.
I hear muffled voices and turn in that direction. There is something on the ground but it is obscure, a mirage I can’t identify. I move toward it and the shadows congeal into separate objects.
A circle of wrapped cocoons. I stare down at them. They are too small to be bodies, but are shaped like bodies.
I go to one and loosen a corner. There is a muffled buzzing. I pull back the cloth and flies billow out and float to the window. The glass is frosted with vapor and I watch the insects swarm across it, knowing they are wrong in the cold.
My eyes drop back to the bundle. I don’t hurry because I know it isn’t a corpse. The dead are not packaged and arrayed in this manner.
Only it is. And I recognize the face. Amalie Provencher stares at me, her features a cartoon portrait in shades of gray.
Still, I cannot hurry. I move from bundle to bundle, unbinding fabric and sending flies rising into the shadows. The faces are white, the eyes fixed, but I do not recognize them. Except for one.
The size tells me before I open the shroud. It is so much smaller than the others. I don’t want to see, but it is impossible to stop.
No! I try denial, but it doesn’t work.
Carlie lies on his stomach, hands curled into upturned fists.
Then I see two others, tiny, side by side in the circle.
I cry out, but again there is no sound.
A hand closes around my arm. I look up and see my guide. She is changed, or just more clearly visible.
It is a nun, her habit frayed and covered with mold. When she moves I hear the click of beads and smell wet earth and decay.
I rise and see cocoa skin covered with oozing, red sores. I know it is Élisabeth Nicolet.
“Who are you?” I think the question, but she answers.
“All in robe of darkest grain.”
I don’t understand.
“Why are you here?”
“I come a reluctant bride of Christ.”
Then I see another figure. She stands in a recess, the dim snowfall light obscuring her features and turning her hair a lackluster gray. Her eyes meet mine and she speaks, but the words are lost.
“Harry!” I scream, but my voice is thin and weak.
Harry doesn’t hear. She extends both arms and her mouth moves, a black oval in the specter that is her face.
Again I shout, but no sound emerges.
She speaks again and I hear her, though her words are distant, like voices drifting across water.
“Help me. I am dying.”
“No!” I try to run, but my legs won’t move.
Harry enters a passageway I haven’t noticed. Above it I see an inscription. GUARDIAN ANGEL. She becomes shadow, merges with the darkness.
I call but she won’t look back. I try to go to her, but my body is frozen, nothing moves but the tears down my cheeks.
My companion transforms. Dark feathered wings sprout from her back, and her face grows pale and deeply creviced. Her eyes congeal into chunks of stone. As I stare into them the irises go clear and color drains from the brows and lashes. A white streak appears in her hair and races backw
ard, separating a flap of scalp and throwing it high into the air. The tissue flutters to the floor and flies swarm from the window and settle on it.
“The order must not be ignored.” The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.
The dreamscape shifts to the low country. Long rays of sun slant through Spanish moss, and giant shadows dance between the trees. It is hot and I am digging. I sweat as I scoop mud the color of dried blood and fling it to a mound behind me.
The blade hits something and I scrape the edges, carefully revealing the form. White fur clotted with brick-red clay. I follow the arch of the back. A hand with long, red nails. I work my way up the arm. Cowboy fringe. Everything shimmers in the intense heat.
I see Harry’s face and scream.
* * *
Heart pounding and bathed in sweat, I sat upright. It took me a moment to reconnect.
Montreal. Bedroom. Ice storm.
The light still burned and the room was quiet. I checked the clock. Three forty-two.
Calm down. A dream is just a dream. It reflects fears and anxieties, not reality.
Then another thought. Ryan’s call. Had I slept through it?
I threw back the quilt and moved to the living room. The answering machine was dark.
Back in the bedroom, I took off my damp clothes. As I dropped the sweatpants to the floor I could see fingernail-shaped moons in the flesh of my palms. I dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater.
More sleep did not seem likely, so I went to the kitchen and set water to boil. I felt queasy from the dream. I didn’t want to bring it back, but the vision had knocked something loose in my mind, and I needed to make sense of it. I took my tea to the sofa.
My dreams as a rule are not particularly wondrous nor frightening or grotesque. They are of two types.
Most commonly, I cannot dial the phone, see the road, catch the plane. I must take an exam but have never attended the class. Piece of cake: anxiety.
Less frequently the message is more baffling. My subconscious sifts material that my conscious mind has amassed, and weaves it into surreal tableaux. I am left to interpret what my psyche is saying.
Tonight’s nightmare was clearly of the cryptic type. I closed my eyes to see what I could decode. Images flashed, like glimpses through a picket fence.
Amalie Provencher’s computer face.
The dead babies.
A winged Daisy Jeannotte. I remembered my words to Ryan. Was she truly an angel of death?
The church. It resembled the convent at Lac Memphrémagog. Why was my brain beaming that to me?
Élisabeth Nicolet.
Harry, beckoning for help, then disappearing into a dark tunnel. Harry, dead with Birdie. Was Harry at serious risk?
A reluctant bride. What the hell did that mean? Was Élisabeth held against her will? Was that part of her saintly truth?
I had no time to sort it further, for just then the doorbell sounded. Friend or foe, I wondered as I stumbled to the security panel and picked up the handset.
Ryan’s tall, lanky frame filled the screen. I buzzed him in and watched through the peephole as he trudged up the corridor. He looked like a survivor of the Trail of Tears.
“You look exhausted.”
“It’s been a long one and we’re still in overtime. I’m on my own, thanks to the storm.”
Ryan wiped his boots and unzipped his parka. Ice cascaded to the floor when he pulled off his tuque. He didn’t question why I was dressed at four o’clock in the morning, and I didn’t ask why he was dropping in at that hour.
“Baker’s found Kathryn. She had a last-minute change of mind and bailed on Owens.”
“The baby?” My heart raced.
“He’s there too.”
“Where?”
“Got coffee?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Ryan threw his hat on the hall table and followed me to the kitchen. He talked as I ground beans and measured water.
“She’s been in hiding with some guy named Espinoza. Remember the neighbor who called Social Services about Owens?”
“I thought the neighbor was dead.”
“She is. This is her son. He’s one of the faithful, but he holds a day job and lives down the road in Mama’s house.”
“How did Kathryn get Carlie?”
“He was already there. Ready for this? Someone drove the vans to Charleston while the group went to ground in the Espinoza house. They were all on the island the whole time. Then, when the heat cooled they left.”
“How?”
“They split up and everybody boogied to a different tune. Some were picked up by boat, others were smuggled in pickups and car trunks. Seems Owens has quite an underground. And like schmucks, we just focused on the vans.”
I handed him a steaming mug.
“Kathryn was supposed to go with Espinoza and some other guy, but she talked him into staying put.”
“Where’s the other guy?”
“Espinoza turns into igneous rock on that topic.”
“Where did everyone go?” My throat felt tight. I already knew the answer.
“I think they’re here.”
I said nothing.
“Kathryn isn’t sure where they were heading, but she knows it involved a border crossing. They’re traveling in twos and threes and they’ve got directions for roads that aren’t patrolled.”
“Where?”
“She thinks she heard talk of Vermont. The highway patrol and INS have been alerted, but it’s probably too late. They’ve had almost three days and Canada isn’t exactly Libya when it comes to border security.”
Ryan sipped his coffee.
“Kathryn claims she didn’t pay much attention because she never thought they’d really go. But she is clear on one thing. When they find this guardian angel, everyone will die.”
I began wiping the counter, though it was already clean.
For a long time neither of us spoke. Then,
“Any word from your sister?”
My stomach constricted anew. “No.”
When he spoke again his voice had softened.
“Baker’s boys found something in the Saint Helena compound.”
“What?” Fear shot through me.
“A letter to Owens. In it someone named Daniel is discussing Inner Life Empowerment.” I felt a hand on my shoulder. “It looks like the organization was a front, or else Owens’ followers infiltrated the courses. That part’s not clear, but what is clear is that they used ILE to recruit.”
“Oh, my God.”
“The letter’s dated about two months ago, but there’s nothing to indicate where it came from. The wording’s vague, but it sounds like there was some sort of quota to be met, and this Daniel is promising he’ll deliver.”
“How?” I could hardly speak.
“He doesn’t say. There’s nothing else that makes reference to ILE. Just that one letter.”
The dream slammed back in vivid detail and I felt ice slide through my veins.
“They’ve got Harry!” I said with trembling lips. “I have to find her!”
“We will.”
I told him about Kit’s call.
“Shit.”
“How can these people remain invisible for years, then we turn over their rock and they slither away and vanish?” My voice was quavery.
Ryan set down his mug and turned me around with both hands. I was squeezing the sponge so hard it made small hissing sounds.
“There’s no trail because these people have a tremendous source of clandestine income. They deal exclusively in cash but don’t seem to be involved in anything illegal.”
“Except murder!” I wanted to pace but Ryan held me firmly.
“What I’m saying is these assholes can’t be tied to drugs or theft or credit card scams. There’s no money trail and no evidence of crime, and that’s usually where the break comes.” His eyes were hard. “But they’ve fucked up badly by coming into my backyard and I’m going to nail the rabid
little pricks.”
I ripped free of his grasp and threw the sponge across the kitchen.
“What did Jeannotte say?”
“I tried her office, then staked her pad. No-show at either place. Don’t forget I’m working this alone, Brennan. This storm has shut down the province.”
“What did you find out about Jennifer Cannon and Amalie Provencher?”
“The university is pulling the usual student-privacy crap. They won’t release a thing without a court order.”
That did it. I pushed past him and went to the bedroom. I was pulling on wool socks when he appeared in the doorway.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to get some answers from Anna Goyette, then I’m going to find my sister.”
“Whoa, scout. There’s a blanket of polar ice out there.”
“I’ll manage.”
“In a five-year-old Mazda?”
I was shaking so badly I couldn’t lace my boots. I stopped, untangled the knot, and crisscrossed the cord carefully through the prongs. Then I did the other foot, stood, and turned to Ryan.
“I am not going to sit here and allow these fanatics to murder my sister. They may be consumed with suicidal obsession, but they are not taking Harry with them. With or without you I’m going to find her, Ryan. And I’m going to do it now!”
For a full minute he simply stared. Then he breathed deeply, exhaled through his nose, and opened his mouth to speak.
It was then the lights flared, dimmed, and died.
THE FLOOR OF RYAN’S JEEP WAS WET WITH MELTED slush. The wipers slapped back and forth, now and then skipping on a patch of ice. In the fans of cleared windshield I could see millions of silvery slivers slicing through the beams from our headlights.
Centre-Ville was dark and deserted. No street or building lights, no neon signs, no traffic signals. The only cars I saw were police cruisers. Yellow tape cordoned off sidewalks adjacent to high-rises to prevent injuries from falling ice. I wondered how many people would really try to go to work today. Now and then I heard a crack, then a frozen sheet exploded on the pavement. The landscape brought to mind news clips of Sarajevo, and I pictured my neighbors hunkered in cold, dark rooms.
Ryan was blizzard driving, shoulders tense, fingers tightly clutching the wheel. He kept the speed low and even, accelerating gradually and easing off the gas well in advance of intersections. Even so we fishtailed often. Ryan was right to drive his Jeep. The cruisers we saw were sliding more than rolling.
