Boundary

by Andrée A. Michaud

  Four policemen were sitting around the McBains’ oak table, Stan Michaud and Jim Cusack, Dave Leroy, in charge of the searches, and Luke Stanfield, who’d gone up and down Turtle Road with two colleagues looking for clues and gleaning a few offhanded comments along the way, in a context more informal than what you could expect in an official interrogation. A strong smell of sweat and tobacco filled the dining room, which Stella McBain would later disperse with a lilac-scented spray – a weary and fretful odour that went with the gluey marks on the table, where the men’s damp hands were in repose.

  No one touched the plate of chips in front of them except Luke Stanfield, who swallowed fistfuls, and swept the crumbs away with the back of his hand, saying he’d talked to two boys, Michael Jamison and Silas Brown, according to his notebook, who claimed to have seen Sissy Morgan the day before, arguing with Françoise Lamar and Mark Meyer, the campground attendant. One of his men had gone over to the Lamars’, but Frenchie had denied it, saying she hadn’t seen Sissy or Meyer for several days. Conclusion: either the boys were lying, or Frenchie Lamar was having them on. Michaud leaned towards the second hypothesis. What reason would the boys have to invent this quarrel? He’d visit the Lamars once the meeting was over, and get things straight. Meanwhile he phoned the sheriff of Somerset County, in Madison, to have him send someone to Meyer’s home to grill him. Make him cough up the truth, he roared. He hung up so violently that he almost ripped the phone off the wall; the instrument chimed out in the suddenly silent room. Son of a bitch, he grumbled under his breath, then he ordered Leroy to hand over his report before he mummified right there on his chair. He didn’t usually harass his men, but he finally had something to get his teeth into, and he didn’t want to see it frittered away in talk. The clearing, Leroy, what did you find?

  Overall, Leroy had found nothing conclusive, cigarette butts, dozens of footprints, and some detritus that told them nothing for the time being. He had to compare the marks made by the soles, measure the prints and determine which corresponded to those of the men who’d tramped over the scene of the crime, trying to find one or two that didn’t match their shoes, assuming that one of those same pairs of footwear was not in fact that of the killer. He had to see who smoked and who didn’t, who’d pissed in the bush, who’d dropped a KitKat wrapper onto the forest floor, and who’d stuck his gum onto the trunk of a tree. He had to undertake analyses, comparisons, interrogations, a real puzzle that he couldn’t put together for several days, supposing, again, that he had all the pieces to hand. He could, however, affirm that the young Morgan had arrived in the clearing from the east side and that she still had her head of hair at that point, because they’d found a strand of it caught on a branch, a dozen feet from a trail overrun with vegetation, which had once been a path. It remained to be confirmed that this was truly Sissy Morgan’s hair, but he was ninety-eight per cent sure. Long hair, honey blonde, as his wife usually called it, a bit tritely, when she wanted to describe that warm, almost sugary colour. This meant that the ritual took place in the clearing and that the murderer had probably waited for Sissy to die before cutting off her hair. Like with an animal, thought Michaud, confirming his feelings and those of Steiner. The assassin was no innocent, where traps were concerned. He really was a hunter. Michaud took the opportunity to ask Leroy if he’d got any clues from the trap. Not yet. He first had to send it to the lab to check out the fingerprints, to know if it could have belonged to Pete Landry, or if the killer had his own supply. Days, Leroy went on, all those analyses will take days, and may teach them nothing. Too much tramping back and forth had corrupted the crime scene.

  Leroy was right, the clues brought together in the clearing could all lead them to dead ends with the investigation hitting a wall while the killer was laughing in their faces. Bastard! Still, he instructed Leroy to save every cigarette butt and to examine them all with a microscope if necessary. Also check the shoes, unshoe the whole male population of Boundary Pond till you find Cinderella’s fucking brother, after which he told Leroy and Stanfield that Sissy Morgan had been struck on the head, meaning they’d need another search to find the object with which she’d been hit.

  First find me the hunting knife the killer used to cut off her hair. Don’t be afraid to empty every bloody drawer of every bloody cottage, to look under every mattress, check every garbage can, take down every suspicious wall, and go up every damned brook on your knees, if you have to. Then find the object the kid was struck with. Do what you can, Leroy, get me everything that could knock out a girl or a horse and measure the height of the branch where that hair was caught. I want to know whether Sissy Morgan went into the clearing on her own two feet, or if she was carried.

  He knew he was giving Leroy and Stanfield a virtually impossible task, but he had confidence in his men. They’d sniffed around enough crime scenes to have a sense of smell as highly developed as a pack of German Shepherds. If something smelled fishy, they’d catch onto it. For himself, he was interested in the men, those waiting anxiously for the next hunting season, he’d pay attention to the inflections in their voices, watch their trembling, nicotine-stained fingers, hoping that someone would lose his nerve, that two lies would contradict each other, throwing off some fragments of truth into the smoke-filled room. He asked if anyone had anything to add, and, given the shaking heads, he closed down the meeting, not without ordering Stanfield to clean up the crumbs from his potato chips. Stella McBain was not their maid.

  Larue was waiting for them on the McBains’ dock, his pant legs rolled up, and his feet in the water. He’d finished off the little plate of buns that Stella McBain had brought him, to her great pleasure, and she’d immediately made him a lemonade, leaving him to lose himself in contemplating the lake, the eddies his feet made at the end of the dock, trying not to think about death, just studying the reflections in the eddies, thinking about nothing, immersing himself in the soothing blue hues of sky and water. He was just about to drop off when he heard steps echoing on the wood of the dock, pulling him out of the imageless world in which he was floating, somewhere between sky and earth, a blissful world composed of luminous shades, tranquil and mute. It took him a few seconds to get his bearings, the lake, the mountain, Michaud and Cusack, their tortured lawmen’s faces, and he said farewell to sleep.

  On the way to the Lamars’ cottage, Michaud told him that he wanted him to be there for Frenchie’s interrogation, even if she spoke English just as well as French. He wanted three pairs of eyes trained on her to read between the lines, three pairs of ears catching and dissecting her every word. Someone had lied, maybe Franky-Frenchie, maybe two kids looking for attention, but he wanted to get it clear in his own mind. On arriving, they greeted the agent who’d been posted at the Lamars’, a certain Frank or Hank Milton, who looked bored to death. Seated at a table in the garden, he was playing solitaire with a deck of cards he’d borrowed from the Lamars, and seemed delighted to finally have some company. No, nothing much had happened since morning, no, he’d seen nothing suspicious. The girl was still inside with her mother, but the father had gone shopping in town. Hang on a bit, I’ll have you relieved, promised Michaud, and he knocked at the door.

  A woman who was a bit pudgy, pleasant, wearing blue eyeshadow, appeared, and Michaud assumed she was Suzanne, the mother. She had them sit down in the living room, and called Frenchie, Françoise, who arrived dragging her feet. Frenchie was a pretty girl, her hair almost as long as that of Sissy Morgan and Zaza Mulligan. But there was something unfinished about her, a lack of sparkle that made her seem almost ordinary next to the other two. Michaud couldn’t say what was responsible for that, perhaps some mental idleness. It seemed to him that Françoise Lamar would always fall just short of being beautiful, something she tried to compensate for with makeup that was too extreme, and provocative clothes. She was wearing ultra-short shorts, a tank top that was too tight, but Michaud was especially shocked by her bare feet, which accentuated the unseemliness of her dre
ss. He would have preferred her to be properly attired, but he wasn’t going to tell her to put on shoes. He’d take Frenchie Lamar as she was, a pretty girl who showed off her legs and her perfectly slim feet.

  Before asking any questions, he extended his sympathies to Frenchie, sorry for your loss, and asked Suzanne Lamar to wait in the next room. He wanted Frenchie to be alone and to be able to talk freely. The mother didn’t seem offended, she had to prepare supper. Michaud still waited for the noise of pots and pans to reach him from the kitchen before getting started. What were you doing with Mark Meyer yesterday, Franneswoise? The question unnerved the adolescent, who hadn’t foreseen such a direct attack. She tried not to let anything show, and replied with a kind of smile that she hadn’t seen Mark Meyer for several days, haven’t seen Mark since last week. She tried to hide her nervousness, but behind the mask Michaud detected a kind of terror, probably due to what had happened to her friends, to the fate awaiting her as well if they didn’t catch the murderer quickly, but also to the fear of saying too much or too little and getting herself in trouble just when everything was crumbling around her, Sissy, Zaza, a carefree existence, and joy. He had to hunt down this fear, at the risk of upsetting the young girl even more, because it was clear that she was lying through her teeth.

  For twenty minutes he compared her version of the facts with that of the young kids, asked her about Sissy, Zaza, Mark Meyer, sometimes letting Cusack talk, sitting at the back of the room, a target for Frenchie’s eyes, because he was an attractive man or because he seemed less threatening. Doubtless a bit of both. Michaud didn’t know what made Cusack so charming, he didn’t understand anything about women’s tastes, but they all found him good-looking, starting with Dottie, whom he didn’t understand either. Whatever the case, Cusack’s sex appeal made some questionings easier, and he wasn’t going to deny himself that. Little by little he let him take over, and Frenchie became less tense. She stretched out her legs, placing her tanned feet well in the foreground, suddenly relaxed, then Cusack caught her off guard and she tripped herself up by mentioning the boys. Her face suddenly went red, and she instantly pulled in her legs. Her fear resurfaced, exposed by the truth. Without realising it, Frenchie Lamar had just admitted that Michael Jamison and Silas Brown, two little pests, two brats, had nothing better to do than to spy on girls, to wait for them when they’d unhook their bathing suits to tan their backs, and had indeed spotted her with Mark Meyer and Sissy Morgan. She chewed on her lips, and Michaud, seeing that she was about to say something else, made a sign to Cusack to wait before asking any more questions. It wasn’t yesterday, she at last blurted out, it was the day before, Friday, Friday morning. Don’t tell Dad, she implored, glancing towards the door, as if her father was going to open it from one moment to the next and come in to give her a pair of slaps. He’s not here, Michaud replied softly, you can talk, we won’t tell.

  In short, it appeared that Frenchie Lamar had been seeing Mark Meyer without her parents knowing, and that they’d kill her if they found out. Don’t tell Dad! Meyer was the reason for the argument with Sissy, who’d claimed that Frenchie had gone behind Zaza’s back, Zaza who was dead, by showing herself off in that way with Meyer. But the boys were wrong, that row had taken place two days earlier, Frenchie insisted, Friday, Friday morning. Mark wasn’t in Boundary the day before, he was at West Forks with his parents, they just had to confirm it, then she burst into tears. Through her sobbing, there emerged the names of Sissy, Zaza, Sis, Zaz, and Michaud regretted having been so hard on her. This child was just a victim, an innocent kid who’d taken a shine to an imbecile. He tried to console her, promising he’d lay his hand on the man who’d attacked her friends, I’ll catch him, Franneswoise, I swear. Unable to stop a new rush of tears racking Frenchie Lamar, he called her mother and apologised, and then they left, Michaud, Cusack, Larue, three men troubled by the sadness of a wounded girl.

  The day was almost done when they left the Lamars’ cottage. Behind the mountain you could still make out a thin pink band, which the night would swallow up in a few seconds. Near the cottage, young Hank or Frank Milton was pacing back and forth among the trees’ dark silhouettes. If the killer were loose in the neighbourhood, he’d only have to approach quietly to strike him on the back of the neck with a stone or a piece of wood, just as he’d done with Sissy Morgan, but the murderer wouldn’t come by here. He’d wait for his next victim to wander off, out of sight of others, and he’d make his move. The vision of an arm being raised in the night went through Michaud’s mind as he informed Milton that within an hour he’d be sending one or two men over to spell him off. As the thin pink band disappeared, he said enough, enough for today, the magical and liberating formula that Cusack and Larue had been waiting for.

  Michaud insisted that he would drive Larue home, but he wanted to walk. I need some fresh air, he murmured, then he disappeared into the darkness of Turtle Road. Michaud and Cusack watched him move off, then they got into their car. A few seconds later the two men left Boundary, Cusack at the wheel, Michaud’s head spinning, wondering what role Meyer had played in this story, always present without being there, in the middle of a trio of young girls who had set their caps for him, for lack of anything better. From what he could understand, he’d gone out two or three times with Sissy, the same with Elisabeth Mulligan, which is what had turned Sissy against Frenchie even if she herself had sent Meyer packing, after Zaza, before Zaza, it didn’t matter. He’d never understand women’s infatuations.

  He was thinking about Dottie when Cusack braked in front of his house after a ride that seemed to him to have lasted only a few minutes. He must have slept without realising it, perhaps snored and drooled onto his shirt, but he wasn’t up to apologising. He wished Cusack good night, and went in to join his wife.

  All the police had left Bondrée for the night, one team after another, everyone had gone home, except for the agents posted at the Lamars, our first neighbours on the left, to replace the one who’d been on guard in front of the cottage all day. My parents thought I was in my room, but I’d sneaked out to observe them. There was one man on each side, and they came together from time to time to exchange a few words in low voices, then again went their own way. There wasn’t much to see, the bigger one was drinking Coke, the other was munching Cracker Jack, and from time to time opened the driver’s door of his car to take out a thermos or a cigarette and to check the radio, letting me see his face under the overhead light, red hair with a moustache, nothing interesting there either. I got tired of that and went down near the lake on my tiptoes.

  My back propped against the rock my brother and I had named the prehistoric rock, back when we played together and our three years’ difference didn’t matter, I searched desperately for the Great Bear, so as not to think about what was happening to us, but the sky began to cloud over, meaning there’d be rain the next day. You could see only a few stars here and there, wavering behind the veil of fog stretching from east to west over our heads. If the world had not clouded over just like the sky on this August night, a few campfires would have been burning around the lake, at the Millers’, the Ménards’, from where you’d have heard jokes and campfire songs, the crackling of sparks. A normal, high summer lakeshore evening. You’d also have heard, in the background, Zaza Mulligan’s record player, Sissy Morgan’s jokes where she was diving off the end of the dock, the night bathers knifing into the smooth water. Lucy in the Sky’s summer would be unfolding to the smell of marshmallows, Coppertone lotion, and warmed sand, and no one would dream that a summer could be cut short at its very peak. But there we were, two girls dead, killed, murdered, and maybe more to come, that’s what the night was telling us, bereft of Sissy Morgan’s joyful cries.

  Unable to admire the Great Bear, I concentrated on a star hugging the top of the mountain, to which I addressed a prayer, for Sissy, for Zaza, whom I missed like you can miss the mess left behind by exuberant cousins at the end of a vacation. I’d never again
be anyone’s littoldolle, the bratty kid showing off her spiders and snakes to the two American girls who laughed out loud and said foc. The two girls would never come down Côte Croche singing Are You Lonesome Tonight? at the tops of their lungs. Never again, said my prayer, and the star over the mountain bit by bit went watery, went soft and damp as it slid behind the clouds. Foc, Sissy, I murmured, foc, Zaza, then I wiped away tears while the image of the two girls, my ideals, went to black along with the star. Another fire going out, but one that would forever shed light on my childhood.

  I was looking for a leaf or a scrap of paper to blow my nose with when I spotted a silhouette on the beach coming towards me. The murderer… Bondrée’s killer. It could only be him, the assassin, the maniac, coming out of the night and stalking his next victim. I crawled behind the rock and prayed he wouldn’t see me, please, mon Dieu, please, and I was the ostrich, the tortoise, the pigeon frozen in place, my chin pulled into my neck as far as it would go. I could have cried out and the police would have come running, but I would have alerted my parents at the same time, who would have tied me to my bed with a lock and chain the next day. I’d change my mind if the killer got too close. Meanwhile, I poked my head out a quarter of an inch to grab a stick, a big piece of a branch I could bang him with on his knees, but the stick was shaking in my hands like the Road Runner’s body when he gets hit with an anvil full in his face, meanwhile I kept saying over and over again in my head please, God, please, then I heard a voice, Bob’s voice, whispering my name.

  Fuck, Bob, I whispered back, letting fall my stick, both relieved to see my brother and totally stunned by the “fuck” that came out so spontaneously, the first real “fuck” of my life, not counterfeit, not copied. If I wasn’t so scared of making a noise, I would have thrown myself around Bob’s neck, not just because Bob was Bob and not the killer, but because Sissy and Zaza, from high up on their humid star, had just kind of given me a pat on the back. Fuck, les filles! Fuck, girls!