Boundary

by Andrée A. Michaud

  As on the previous day, Michaud wanted Larue present at all the interrogations, whether or not it was necessary. He wanted him to know what was going on, and to hear everyone’s version. His task was not simply to provide a word for word translation of the answers to questions, but to look for connections between different testimonies, or on the other hand, subtle contradictions. Ready? he asked Larue, then he signed to Plamondon, who was repairing a water pipe, to follow him into the refectory.

  The room smelled of sand and humidity, a vacation smell that reminded Michaud of his last real holiday in July of ’65, a week with Dottie on the shores of Lake Champlain, with nothing to do but go from the lake to the cottage rented for the occasion, from bed to hammock, from lunch table to that of supper, where were lined up the yellow or blue plastic plates and bowls, the July colours mingling with the odour of the sand. When he tried to bring back the memory of happy moments in his life, that week always turned up. In his mind, those few days next to the water were a dazzling yellow carved into by hard shadows and swept with the scent of trout and gusts of wind charged with blue and green perfume. In normal times, Boundary must have resembled those bright days when he’d been close to carefree with Dottie. He’d promised that he’d go back there this year, but he hadn’t counted on a murderer crossing his path. Dottie would have to be satisfied with her garden while he closed out his summer near a lake that had lost its lustre. He came out of his reverie when Cusack opened one of the windows protected by the green-painted screens you saw everywhere, in the schools, the sheds, the community halls. Unfortunately, no breeze entered the room. It was an oppressive day, just like the sky.

  Coffee was dripping into a pot on the counter set up at one end of the room, and Michaud was happy to accept a cup, after which he placed chairs around a table in such a way that the people being questioned would be alone on one side, and aware of who was in charge. Then he invited Plamondon to sit across from him. He had a solid alibi for the day and evening of 21 July. Mark Meyer had been off, and Plamondon had been taking care of the campground. At least twenty people had seen him moving about the property, stirring up the campfire, replying to questions, and helping a young couple put up their tent, after which he’d played gin rummy with a fellow who couldn’t get to sleep. Zaza Mulligan having been murdered during the night of 21 July, Michaud could exonerate Plamondon as soon as he confirmed what he’d said, even if his alibi was less than perfect for the afternoon and evening of 12 August, an uneventful day that he’d spent for the most part in the caretaker’s cabin. No problems, no tent carried off by the wind, no arguments over whose turn it was at the shower. Nothing. A peaceful day, a dull evening. No witness to his leisure time. It was as if all the men in Boundary had agreed among themselves to remain alone, each in his corner during that blasted day, Michaud thought, drawing one hand carefully over his damp skull, beneath which there thrummed the muffled music of fatigue. How to exonerate all those guys whom no one had seen? And Meyer? Michaud went on, wanting to finish things off with Plamondon as fast as he could. According to him Meyer was a good worker, punctual, quick, efficient, about whom he had no complaints. His biggest flaw was that he liked flirting a bit too much. There were lots of young girls on the property in summer clothes, soaking up the sun, it was hard to blame a young man for being drawn to those bare arms. But aside from that weakness, Meyer was a model employee.

  Michaud then asked him about the trio formed by Zaza, Sissy, and Frenchie, and their behaviour on the night of 21 July. Young girls who were having fun, Plamondon replied, no more than that, and who’d drunk a bit too much. Perfect victims, Michaud thought, you just had to push them a bit for them to fall over. How many men had seen them in that state? How many had thought how easy it would be to trip them up? And which of them had his eyes on them, determined to shadow one of them, the lost lamb, the doe drinking innocently at the stream?

  He’d never make it without solid proof, a misplaced object, a clue buried under a body. As soon as he had a moment, he’d return to the path or the clearing and he’d find, he had to, what the killer had forgotten. Meanwhile he let Plamondon go, and asked him to send in Meyer. Right away, he insisted, since he’d looked at the clouds, lower than before, denser, threatening from one moment to another to spill their darkness onto the mountain, also dark, with its monotone cast that was blurring the trees together into an inert mass. Two goldfinches, out of place in this gloomy décor, had just alighted on the top of a Virginia pine when Meyer arrived. Ill at ease, the young man lingered near the door until he was asked to sit down. The questioning lasted half an hour, at the end of which Michaud felt that it could go no further. What Meyer said matched to the letter what he’d told the sheriff of Somerset County the day before, a statement Michaud had received by telephone that morning. The father’s version also agreed with that of the son. Meyer was at West Forks when the murders took place.

  Michaud didn’t know what he’d hoped to get out of that interrogation. A confession, perhaps, but Meyer was as innocent as a choirboy, if you excluded his adventures with Zaza Mulligan and Sissy Morgan. Ancient history, Meyer said, lowering his eyes, as if he regretted that those dalliances hadn’t lasted. And Françoise Lamar? Michaud put in. Are you a collector or what? At the sound of the young girl’s name, Meyer’s red face went crimson, and he stammered something like it wasn’t the same with Frenchie, she didn’t make fun of him. Michaud grilled him a bit on the subject, but got nothing out of him. This cretin was in love.

  He spent the rest of the morning interrogating the few campers who’d not yet taken off, with no result. No one had seen anything. Everyone had an alibi. He’d have to contact those who had left, seek out the ones who’d set up their tents in Boundary on the 21 July weekend, appeal to the police in other counties, a real puzzle, as his colleague Dave Leroy had said, one with numerous pieces spread all over the state of Maine and beyond. It was the beginning of the afternoon when he declared that it was time for a break, and then the sky opened up. The abrupt drumming of the rain swept down on the building at the same time as the wind, and he saw a woman go by, running past the windows, already soaked by the bath she’d just subjected herself to, running all the same, her towel over her head, as if the rainwater were threatening to bleach her tan.

  Larue had left a few minutes earlier to pick up his daughter in Farmington, so he was alone in the refectory with Cusack, who was already attacking the sandwiches Laura had prepared for him. He had his own lunch as well, potato salad and mortadella sandwiches, along with a slice of blueberry pie Dottie had slipped into his lunch box despite his objections, but the mere prospect of having to chew on whatever it might be seemed beyond his capacities. He swallowed what was left of his coffee, and advised Cusack that he was going to lie down in the car, come get me in half an hour.

  Cusack watched him running beneath the rain, a sturdy man who carried his weight both like a burden and like his armour, and who would land himself a heart attack before he was sixty unless his brain exploded, spattering the walls with the horrific images gathered there, mixed in with childhood memories, Dottie’s smile, the splintered colours from the good days. He dared not imagine what was in Michaud’s head, and wondered whether that was what awaited him as well, the fatigue, the bulk, the constant torment. He was thirty-two years old, and he saw his future as a long corridor where some disaster was lurking behind every door.

  He closed the windows and gave himself a shake. All that would pass. All that was because of the two girls, their bodies stretched out in the forest, two bleeding dolls, oversize and anomalous, two elusive mannequins striding through his dreams. But he swore to himself that he’d forget them, Zaza Mulligan and Sissy Morgan would not be his Esther Conrad. He’d not let himself be entrapped by his chief’s obsessions. He finished his meal listening to the rain drumming on the metal roof, another music that reminded him of the sweet fever of childhood, then he ran to wake up Michaud, hopping through the stones like a chi
ld, like a dog shaking himself off. Beneath his feet the water spurted, making tiny arcs that brought into focus his zest for life. That’s what they’d see if his brain exploded in ten or twenty years, a gush of bright water.

  Sitting next to me on my bed, Emma was admiring her polished nails, where a bit of the varnish had spilled onto the skin. I was looking at mine as well, which seemed to belong to another girl, a girl who would have worn a dress, and shoes as shiny as the nail polish. It was my mother who’d insisted that we paint ourselves like that. Come on, girls, I’ll show you how to do it. On the instant, I almost cried for joy. My mother was giving me another promotion, she was giving me permission to rummage around in the little flowered plastic case where she kept her makeup, and also to go through her toilet articles, in a bag that had made me envious ever since I was little, one whose form and design changed with the years, but which always held the same treasure, with its bright and perfumed objects. I right away thought of Zaza Mulligan’s long fingers flicking the ash off a Pall Mall in a flash of pink. Once I had the nails, all I’d need would be a cigarette to be able to say fuck Emma, raising my little finger.

  Now that the polish was gleaming under the lamp, all I could think of was to remove all that junk, tear off the dress that would go with it, and go bury my hands in the mud that collected around the cottage where the gutters overflowed. I wasn’t Zaza Mulligan, I didn’t have the delicate hands of young girls smelling of perfume. I was the mite, the bug, the family’s tomboy, and even if my breasts were beginning to tickle, a sign they were growing like Emma said, that was no reason for me to disguise myself as a doll. If that continued I’d end up looking like Millie’s Barbie and walking on stilts. No way! In a minute I’d borrow my mother’s nail polish remover, saying my nails were burning. Like it or not, she’d have to believe me, they were my nails after all, but for now I was waiting for Emma to show me her surprise.

  Emma was waiting too. I could see her excitement by the suspicious light in her eyes, glimmering like those of a raccoon getting ready to topple a garbage can. After making sure that my bedroom door was tightly shut, she placed a manicured finger over her mouth, and pulled a pack of Alpine menthols out of her backpack. I stole it from my mother, she whispered, there are five left.

  Foreseeing in a flash the look in my mother’s eyes if they were to come to rest on that little turquoise cardboard square, embodying, after sex, swearing and alcohol, the be-all and end-all of what was forbidden, I too ran to the door to lock it quietly, and a whole raft of pictures of girls with their fingers in the air rushed into my head. I was again the disciple of Zaza Mulligan and Sissy Morgan, the girl who walked around swaying her hips, and already I saw the cloud of smoke that would soon envelop us, Emma and me.

  We have to find a hiding place, Emma whispered again, and I thought right away about my cabin under the pine tree, where the branches protected us a little from all the rain. We’ll take my poncho and my brother’s, then we’ll say we’re going to pick up insects knocked out by the rain, my mother won’t be able to say anything.

  Then Emma slipped the pack of Alpines and the matchbook into the back pocket of her jeans, and pulled on my rainproof poncho. No one the wiser, we left my room whistling, Brownie at our heels, while over our heads there floated a huge grey cloud on which was written the word “guilty” in block letters. The two greatest conspirators of all time at work.

  In the kitchen, Mama was rolling out pie crust, giving a push to the right, a little less to the right, then to the left, following the invisible curve of the circle that was slowly forming. Seeing us, she screwed up her eyes, including her third eye, which could see even in the dark, like God, omnipotent and omniscient, and she asked us what we were up to.

  Nothing, I replied, a bit too hastily. We need a plastic dish, we’re going to save dying butterflies. Her three eyes still narrowed, she dried her hands on her apron, getting flour on the big mushroom face displayed there, and took from a cupboard an empty Crisco jar that she held out to me as if to say that she knew I was lying, and that I knew she knew. You can’t beat mothers for telepathy. That must come from the fact that they made our brains at about the same time as all the rest. Tough. I grabbed the jar and Bob’s poncho, which was hanging on the veranda, and ran out with Emma, who ventured a quick thank you, Madame Duchamp.

  Your mother knows, Emma whispered, as we installed ourselves in my pseudo-cabin, to which I replied that she maybe knew something, but didn’t know exactly what, so we were safe for the time being. Get out your cigarettes, she’s not going to come spying on us, she’s too proud.

  A bit hesitant, Emma extracted the half-crushed pack of cigarettes from her pocket, and we first studied the effect of the Alpine king sizes sticking out from between our bedaubed fingers. You’d think we were movie stars, Emma giggled. For my part, all I could see were the fingers of a girl who wanted to see herself as a real girl, when there were traces of spruce gum, scratches, and insect bites on every digit. Nothing at all like Zaza Mulligan or Sissy Morgan, whom I didn’t want to allow into the cabin, for fear of depressing myself thinking that Zaza Mulligan would nevermore snap down the cover of her gold lighter, that Sissy Morgan would never again stub out the butt of her Pall Mall under the heel of her white patent leather shoes, all of which made no bloody sense and I couldn’t get it all into my head, as if death gave a damn whether anything meant anything, good or bad. A drop of rain fell onto my hood in a steady rhythm, and I got a sense of the world’s injustice thanks to an unlit cigarette that was trembling just enough to accuse me of being there, alive and well, ready to take the place of two girls who were no longer breathing.

  So I made myself think about Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jenny Rock, who didn’t act but must have smoked, and about Donalda, Séraphin’s wife, who might well have allowed herself to smoke before being canonised, anything to erase Zaza Mulligan’s likeness from my cambered nails, then I asked Emma to light me up, fast, before I changed my mind. The scrape of the match sent its sulphurous odour out under the pine, I breathed in deeply and found myself coughing my lungs out in the midst of a cloud of smoke that had exploded into the humid air to hang there like an early morning mist. It smelled awful, but because it was supposed to be good I took a second puff, not inhaling this time, so I was able to vent the fuck I’d been holding in reserve for so long, with my lips rimmed in smoke and my head absurdly tossed back, like Marilyn Monroe, all the while thinking of Donalda.

  Don’t breathe, I said to Emma as she lit up, and her smoke mixed with mine, like blood flowing from the wrists of those who make a pact for life and until death. I stuck the end of my cigarette onto the end of hers, tchin tchin, and Emma had a good coughing fit too, while still managing to swear eternal friendship. She was just catching her breath when one of the policemen scouring Turtle Road and its vicinity parked his car at the McBains’ and ran onto the porch with a plastic bag whose contents we couldn’t make out through the pine branches, but which had to be some kind of evidence. The investigation was heating up and we craned our four ears in the direction of the McBains’ open windows, where there was a meeting going on that included Emma’s father. Forget it, all we heard was a scream, what the hell, after which fat Flora Tanguay, who took herself for Miss Clairol and did her hair just like Mary in The Family Stone, came out onto the McBains’ porch, escorted by Jim Cusack, babbling over and over that this butchery was the work of Pete Landry. It’s him! It’s him, the damn trapper! Cusack was trying to calm her, but she was all worked up and fanning the air with her soft arms, a bonnet askew on her head, making her look like a parachutist struggling to disentangle his cords. Cusack nevertheless managed to get her into his car, and left to drive her home, I suppose, or to drown her in Ménard Bay.

  Flora Tanguay might well have been loopy, but her reference to Pete Landry hit home. What if it really was him, Pete Landry, who was following us near the Chauves-Souris Falls? Our last puffs weren’t happy one
s, and we were wondering if we should tell the police about our trek to the falls in case our pursuer might have left a trail, even though ghosts, in theory, don’t wear shoes, when we heard an “Ahem” from behind us. We almost swallowed our butts, and spun around lightning fast, two panicky heads pivoting a hundred and forty degrees.

  Below the branches closing off access to the cabin, there was my mother’s face, as white as the kindly smiling mushroom on her apron, but without the smile. She was gunning for me, but I didn’t try to dodge the bullets. I knew my mother used blanks, otherwise I would have been dead a long time ago. Still, I tried to hide what was left of my cigarette under my poncho, stifling another coughing fit behind the smoke drifting up from under my collar.

  That day, Emma had to go back home to sleep, contrary to what had been planned. As for me, I was promised a session of family therapy, in other words a good bawling out, once my father returned on Friday night. Meanwhile, my mother sat us down at the kitchen table, an all-purpose table that was the cottage’s nerve centre across which passed, after the patties of ground beef and the High Liner fish sticks, all our good news, dramas, reprimands and praise, in short, everything requiring that we sit face to face.

  My mother quickly passed over the question of cigarettes, our respective fathers would deal with that. But we had to describe in detail our nocturnal outing to the Chauves-Souris Falls, which merited me two new salvos, including one from Bob who was firing wide of the mark from the living room, but firing all the same. Since we had no choice, we gave a long account of our hike, long but not wide, we weren’t so dumb as to talk about how we’d been followed. My mother was pale enough already, pale and flushed in fact, a curious blend of anger and retroactive fear, the angry red accentuating the pallor induced by what it would have been better for her not to know. We weren’t going to say more and risk seeing the red bleeding into the zones of white that in fact worked in our favour. No, that part of the story was Emma’s and mine alone, that of two girls who’d made a pact not unlike the one, I imagine, that bound Zaza Mulligan to Sissy Morgan, for life and unto death.