Bones to Ashes

by Kathy Reichs

  According to Sardou, in 1999, Malo strangled Brideau in a rage for lifting money from a nightstand in the house on Rustique. Ordered to dispose of the body, he’d offloaded Brideau from a buddy’s boat into the Rivière des Mille Îles. She became Ryan’s DOA number one.

  Ryan’s DOA number three, the Lac des Deux Montagnes floater, was identified as sixteen-year-old Maude Waters. The previous year, Maude had left her home on the Kahnawake Mohawk Reserve hoping to make her way to Hollywood and a star on the Walk of Fame. Instead, she ended up with Malo doing porn.

  Malo was claiming Maude OD’d while living in his house. Sardou’s version had Malo strangling Maude because she’d threatened to leave. As with Brideau eight years earlier, Sardou was ordered to dump the corpse. Feeling invincible, the loyal employee simply drove a few blocks and tossed Maude from the Bois-de-L’Île-Bizard boat ramp.

  LSJML-57748. Hippo’s girl. For now, the Sheldrake Island skeleton would lie under an anonymous iron cross in the lepers’ cemetery in Tracadie. But I was working with an Acadian historian. With luck, and hard work, we hoped to learn who she was. The lab in Virginia had sequenced DNA from her bones. Perhaps someday we might even find a relative.

  The lab door opened, breaking my reverie. Hippo entered, carrying coffee and a bag of St. Viateur Bagels. As we spread cream cheese with little plastic knives, I considered what I’d learned of the saga of Évangéline.

  I’d been right. Laurette Landry had worked at the lazaretto, and had lost her job upon its closing in ’65. Years later, she developed leprosy. So great was the family’s distrust of government, Laurette was hidden away with Grand-père Landry. At fourteen, Évangéline became the family’s primary breadwinner and nurse.

  While Laurette was alive, Évangéline lived at home and worked days for David’s father, Hilaire Bastarache. Upon her mother’s death, she assumed the position of resident housekeeper.

  At that time Pierre Malo, Hilaire’s illegitimate son, was also living in the Bastarache house. Malo pressed Évangéline into posing for him, threatening her with loss of her job. David Bastarache had fallen in love with Évangéline. Appalled by his half-brother’s activities, he vowed to sack and boot Malo as soon as control fell to him, as Hilaire had told him it would.

  Though I’d gained some insight into Bastarache’s character, the man still mystified me.

  “Explain it to me, Hippo. How could such thinking exist today?”

  Hippo chewed as he gave my question thought.

  “Every Acadian kid grows up on tales of ancestors being hunted down and deported. Le Grand Dérangement still haunts us as a people. And it’s not just ancient history. Acadians see their culture as constantly threatened by a hostile, Anglo-dominated world.”

  I let him go on.

  “How do you keep alive your customs and language while your kids are watching Seinfeld and listening to the Stones? While their city cousins can barely parler a few words of French?”

  I took the questions as rhetorical, and didn’t answer.

  “We Acadians have learned to hold on to our identity no matter what life throws at us. How? Partly through sheer obstinacy. Partly by making everything larger than life. Our music. Our food. Our festivals. Even our fears.”

  “But it’s not the 1800s,” I said. “Or even the 1960s. How can Bastarache distrust hospitals and government that much?”

  “Bastarache is Acadian by nature. He also operates businesses that run close to the line. On top of all that, he’s got personal baggage. Vile father. Deviate brother. Mother shot. Homeschooled.” Hippo shrugged. “The guy seems to genuinely love your pal. Didn’t want her harmed. Did what he thought was best to protect her.”

  Malo had been right about one thing. Obéline and Bastarache were living in the dark ages with regard to their attitude toward Évangéline’s disease. Like the nursing nuns of a century before, Obéline had sacrificed for leprosy, committing to a loveless marriage in order to care for her sister. Bastarache had been complicit in hiding Évangéline away.

  “Obéline lied about seeing Évangéline murdered,” I said. “To throw me off. She also let everyone believe Bastarache was responsible for the broken arm and the fire.”

  “He wasn’t?” Hippo was thumbnailing something from a molar.

  I shook my head. “Because of the leprosy, Évangéline had little feeling in her hands and feet. Obéline cracked her ulna attempting to stop Évangéline from falling downstairs. It was also Évangéline who accidentally set the house on fire.

  “She also lied about the poetry book. Obéline had it published as a birthday gift for Évangéline. Anonymously, since no one was to know her sister was alive.”

  Having achieved success with the molar, Hippo was cream-cheesing a second bagel. I continued talking.

  “The great tragedy is that Évangéline could have led a relatively normal life. Multidrug therapies are readily available and patients usually show improvement in two to three months. Fewer than one tenth of one percent of those treated fail to be cured.”

  “There still much leprosy around?”

  I’d done some research on that.

  “The global registered prevalence of leprosy at the beginning of 2006 was almost two hundred and twenty thousand cases. And it’s not just Africa and Southeast Asia. Thirty-two thousand of those cases are right here in the Americas. Over six thousand in the United States. Two hundred to two hundred and fifty new cases are diagnosed each year.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Bastarache and Obéline did for Évangéline exactly what had been done for her mother, never realizing the enormity of the mistake.”

  “One thing I don’t get. Bastarache hated Malo. Why stash her with him?”

  “Évangéline had only been at Malo’s house a short time. When Harry and I dropped in on Obéline, Bastarache freaked. Figured if we found the house in Tracadie there was a possibility we could also find the one on Île d’Orléans. When Ryan and I actually did show up there, he panicked and raced back to move her again.”

  My eyes drifted to the row of neatly labeled boxes. Geneviève Doucet, left to mummify in her bed by poor deranged Théodore. Anne Girardin, killed by her father.

  I thought of others. Ryan’s MP number two, Claudine Cloquet, sold to Malo by her father. Évangéline, locked away by her would-be husband and her sister, though undoubtedly with her own consent.

  “You know, Hippo, the bogeyman’s not always hanging out in the school yard or at the bus depot. He can be the guy in your parlor hogging the remote.”

  Hippo stared at me as though I’d spoken Swahili.

  “Someone right there in your own family. That’s often where the threat is.”

  “Yeah,” Hippo said softly.

  My eyes settled on the name now attached to the girl from Lac des Deux Montagnes. Maude Waters. Maude had also had movie star dreams. Was dead at sixteen.

  My thoughts veered to Malo. He’d claimed no knowledge of Phoebe Quincy. Again, his employee had told a different tale. Sardou stated that he’d seen Phoebe at the house on Rustique. But only briefly.

  Phoebe remained missing.

  Ryan’s DOA number two, the girl from the Dorval shoreline, remained unidentified.

  Symbolic, I thought, of the many children who are murdered each year, or those who simply vanish, never to be found.

  “Back to the streets,” Hippo said, pushing to his feet.

  I rose, too. “You did a crack job on these cases, Hippo.”

  “Got two more to close.”

  “Do you think Phoebe Quincy has been piped into some underground pornography pipeline?”

  “I prefer to think she’s alive, but, one way or another, I won’t quit looking until I know. Every day I’ll come to work and every day I’ll keep searching for these kids.”

  I managed a smile. “I bet you will, Hippo. I bet you will.”

  Hippo’s eyes bore into mine. “Sooner or later I will have answers.”

  Friday morning, I board
ed a flight to Moncton, rented a car, and drove to Tracadie. This time Bastarache answered the door.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  Bastarche did a “so-so” waggle of one hand.

  “Is she taking her meds?”

  “Obéline’s giving her no choice.”

  Bastarache led me to the room at the back of the house, excused himself, and withdrew. I thought about him as he walked away. Strip clubs, cat houses, and adultery, but the guy drew the line at child pornography. And loved Évangéline. Go figure human nature.

  Évangéline sat in an armchair gazing out at the water.

  Crossing to her, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and drew her close. She resisted at first, then relaxed against me.

  I held my old friend as tight as I dared for as long as I dared. Then I released her and looked into her eyes.

  “Évangéline, I—”

  “Do not speak, Tempe. There is no need. We have met. We have touched. You have read my poems. It is enough. Don’t despair for me. We are all creatures of God, and I am at peace. You have given me a great gift, my dear, dear friend. You have reopened my childhood. Sit with me awhile and then return to your life. I will keep you always in my heart.”

  Smiling, I drew graham crackers, peanut butter, and a plastic knife from my purse and laid them on the table. Added two Cokes in six-ounce glass bottles. Then I drew a chair close.

  “You can’t really visit Green Gables,” I said.