Déjà Dead (36 page)

We were quiet a moment.

“That’s what I did and there’s no way out. I don’t get another shot.” He raised his eyes and stared into the turquoise of the tanks. “I resented her working when I couldn’t, so I froze her out. Now I live with it.”

Before I could think of a response he turned to me, his face taut, his voice harder than it had been.

“I went to see my brother-in-law. He had some job leads for me. I was there all morning, then I fou— Then I came back here around noon. She was already dead. They checked all that out.”

“Monsieur Champoux, I’m not suggesting y—”

“I don’t see that this is going anywhere. We’re just rehashing old words.”

He rose. I was being dismissed.

“I’m sorry to bring up painful memories.”

He regarded me without comment, then moved toward the hall. I followed.

“Thanks for your time, Monsieur Champoux.” I handed him my card. “If there’s anything you think of later, please give me a call.”

He nodded. His face had the numbed look of a person swept into a calamity who can’t forget that his last words and last acts toward the wife he loved were petty and far from a proper good-bye. Is there ever a proper good-bye?

As I left I could feel his eyes on my back. Through the heat I felt cold inside. I hurried to my car.

The interview with Champoux left me shaken. As I drove toward home, I asked myself a thousand questions.

What right had I to dredge up this man’s pain?

I pictured Champoux’s eyes.

Such sorrow. Brought on by my forced reminders?

No. I wasn’t the architect of his house of regret. Champoux was a man living with remorse of his own construction.

Remorse for what? For harming his wife?

No. That was not his character.

Remorse for ignoring her. For leaving her thinking she was not important. Simple as that. On the eve of her death, he rejected conversation, turned his back and went to sleep. He didn’t say good-bye in the morning. Now he never would.

I turned north onto St. Marc, passing into the shadow of the overpass. Would my inquiries do anything but drag memories to the surface where they would again cause pain?

Could I really help where an army of professionals had failed, or was I just on a personal quest to show up Claudel?

“No!”

I banged the steering wheel with the heel of my hand.

No, dammit, I thought to myself. That is not my goal. No one but me is convinced that there is a single killer and that he will kill again. If I am to prevent more deaths, I have to dig up more facts.

I emerged from shadow into sunlight. Instead of turning east, toward home, I crossed Ste. Catherine, doubled back on Rue du Fort, and merged onto the 20 West. Locals called it the 2 and 20, but I’d yet to find anyone who could explain or locate the 2.

I edged out of the city, drumming my impatience on the steering wheel. It was three-thirty and traffic was already backed up at the Turcot Interchange. Bad timing.

Forty-five minutes later I found Geneviève Trottier weeding tomatoes behind the faded green house she had shared with her daughter. She looked up when I pulled onto the drive, and watched me cross the lawn.

“
Oui?
” Friendly, sitting back on her heels, squinting up at me.

She wore bright yellow shorts and a halter too big for her small breasts. Sweat glistened on her body and curled her hair tightly around her face. She was younger than I’d expected.

When I explained who I was and why I was there, the friendliness turned somber. She hesitated, put down her trowel, then rose, brushing dirt from her hands. The smell of tomatoes hung heavy around us.

“We’d better go inside,” she said, dropping her eyes. Like Champoux she didn’t question my right to ask.

She started across the yard and I followed, hating the conversation about to ensue. The knotted halter hung loose across the knobs on her spine. Blades of grass stuck to the backs of her legs and rode the tops of her feet.

Her kitchen gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, its porcelain and wood surfaces testimony to years of care. Potted kalanchoe lined the windows, framed by yellow gingham. Yellow knobs dotted the cabinets and drawers.

“I’ve made some lemonade,” she said, her hands already moving to the task. Comfort in the familiar.

“Yes, thank you. That would be nice.”

I sat at a scrubbed wooden table and watched her twist ice cubes from a plastic tray, drop them into glasses, and add the lemonade. She brought the drinks and slid in across from me, her eyes avoiding mine.

“It’s hard for me to talk about Chantale,” she said, studying her lemonade.

“I understand, and I am so sorry for your loss. How are you doing?”

“Some days it’s easier than others.”

She folded her hands and tensed, her thin shoulders rising under the halter.

“Have you come to tell me something?”

“I’m afraid not, Madame Trottier. And I don’t really have any specific questions for you. I thought there might be something you’ve remembered, perhaps something you didn’t think important earlier?”

Her eyes stayed on the lemonade. A dog barked outside.

“Has anything occurred to you since you last spoke with the detectives? Any detail about the day Chantale disappeared?”

No response. The air in the kitchen was hot and dense with humidity. It smelled faintly of lemon disinfectant.

“I know this is awful for you, but if we’re to have any hope of finding your daughter’s killer, we still need your help. Is there anything that’s been bothering you? Anything you’ve been thinking about?”

“We fought.”

Again. The guilt of nonclosure. The wish to take back words and substitute others.

“She wouldn’t eat. She thought she was getting fat.”

I knew all this from the report.

“She wasn’t fat. You should have seen her. She was beautiful. She was only sixteen.” Her eyes finally met mine. A single tear spilled over each lower lid, and trickled down each cheek. “Like the English song.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, gently as I could. Through the screened window I could smell sun on geraniums. “Was Chantale unhappy about anything?”

Her fingers tightened around her glass.

“That’s what’s so hard. She was such an easy child. Always happy. Always full of life, bubbling with plans. Even my divorce didn’t seem to upset her. She took it in stride and never missed a step.”

Truth or retrospective fantasy? I remembered the Trottiers had divorced when Chantale was nine. Her father was living somewhere in the city.

“Can you tell me anything about those last few weeks? Had Chantale altered her routine in any way? Had any odd calls? Made any new friends?”

Her head moved slowly in continuous negation. No.

“Did she have trouble making friends?”

No.

“Were you uneasy about any of her friends?”

No.

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

No.

“Did she date?”

No.

“Did she have problems at school?”

No.

Poor interrogation technique. Need to get the witness to do the talking instead of me.

“What about that day? The day Chantale disappeared?”

She looked at me, her eyes unreadable.

“Can you tell me what took place that day?”

She took a sip of lemonade, swallowed deliberately, set the glass back on the table. Deliberately.

“We got up around six. I made breakfast.” She clutched the glass so tightly I feared it would shatter. “Chantale left for school. She and her friends rode the train since the school is in Centre-ville. They say she went to all her classes. And then she . . .”

A breeze teased the gingham off the window frame.

“She never came home.”

“Did she have any special plans that day?”

“No.”

“Did she normally come right home after classes?”

“Usually.”

“Did you expect her home that day?”

“No. She was going to see her father.”

“Did she do that often?”

“Yes. Why do I have to keep answering these questions? It’s useless. I’ve told all this to the detectives. Why do I have to keep repeating the same things over and over? It doesn’t do any good. It didn’t then, it won’t now.”

Her eyes fixed on mine, the pain almost palpable.

“You know what? All the time I was filling out missing persons forms and answering questions, Chantale was already dead. She was lying in pieces in a dump. Already dead.”

She dropped her head and the thin shoulders shuddered. She was right. We had nothing. I was fishing. She was learning to bury the pain, to plant tomatoes and live, and I’d ambushed her and forced an exhumation.

Be kind. Get out.

“It’s all right, Madame Trottier. If you can’t remember further details, they are probably not important.”

I left my card and standard request. Call if you think of anything. I doubted she would.

Gabby’s door was closed when I got home, her room quiet. I thought of looking in, resisted. She could be so touchy about her privacy. I got into bed and tried to read, but Geneviève Trottier’s words kept jamming my mind.
Déjà mort
. Already dead. Champoux had used the same phrase. Yes. Déjà dead. Five. That was the chilling truth. Like Champoux and Trottier, I too had thoughts that would not lie quiet in my mind.

I
WOKE TO THE SOUND OF THE MORNING NEWS
. J
ULY
5. I’
D SLIPPED
through Independence Day and not even noticed. No apple pie. No “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Not a single sparkler. Somehow the thought depressed me. Every American anywhere on the globe should stand up and strut on the Fourth. I had allowed myself to become a Canadian spectator of American culture. I made plans to go to the ball park at the next opportunity and cheer for whichever American team was in town.

I showered, made coffee and toast, and scanned the
Gazette
. Endless talk of separation. What would happen to the economy? To aboriginals? To English speakers? The want ads embodied the fear. Everyone selling, no one buying. Maybe I should go home. What was I accomplishing here?

Brennan. Stow it. You’re surly because you have to take the car in.

It was true. I hate errands. I hate the minutiae of making do in a techno-nation-state in the closing years of the second millennium. Passport. Driver’s license. Work permit. Income tax. Rabies shot. Dry cleaning. Dental appointment. Pap smear. My pattern: put it off until unavoidable. Today the car had to be serviced.

I am a daughter of America in my attitude toward the automobile. I feel incomplete without one, cut off and vulnerable. How will I escape an invasion? What if I want to leave the party early, or stay after the Métro stops? Go to the country? Haul a dresser? Gotta have wheels. But I am not a worshiper. I want a car that will start when I turn the key, get me where I want to go, keep doing it for at least a decade, and not require a lot of pampering.

Still no sounds from Gabby’s room. Must be nice. I packed my gear and left.

The car was in the shop and I was on the Métro by nine. The morning rush was over, the railcar relatively empty. Bored, I grazed through the ads. See a play at Le Théâtre St. Denis. Improve your job skills at Le Collège O’Sullivan. Buy jeans at Guess, Chanel perfume at La Baie, color at Benetton.

My eyes drifted to the Métro map. Colored lines crossed like the wiring on a motherboard, white dots marked the stops.

I traced my route eastward along the green line from Guy-Concordia to Papineau. The orange line looped around the mountain, north-south on its eastern slope, east-west below the green line, then north-south again on the west side of the city. Yellow dived below the river, emerging on Île Ste. Hélène and at Longueuil on the south shore. At Berri-UQAM the orange and yellow lines crossed the green. Big dot. Major switching point.

The train hummed as it slithered through its underground tunnel. I counted my stops. Seven dots.

Compulsive, Brennan. Want to wash your hands?

My eyes moved north along the orange line, visualizing the changing landscape of the city. Berri-UQAM. Sherbrooke. Mount Royal. Eventually, Jean-Talon near St. Édouard. Isabelle Gagnon had lived in that neighborhood.

Oh?

I looked for Margaret Adkins’s neighborhood. Green line. Which station? Pie IX. I counted from Berri-UQAM. Six stops east.

How many was Gagnon? Back to orange. Six.

Tiny hairs tingled at the back of my neck.

Morisette-Champoux. Georges-Vanier Métro. Orange. Six stops west from Berri-UQAM.

Jesus.

Trottier? No. The Métro doesn’t go to Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue.

Damas? Parc Extension. Close to the Laurier and Rosemont stations. Third and fourth stops from Berri-UQAM.

I stared at the map. Three victims lived exactly six stops from the Berri-UQAM station. Coincidence?

“Papineau,” said a mechanical voice.

I grabbed my things and bolted onto the platform.

Ten minutes later I heard the phone as I unlocked my office door.

“Dr. Brennan.”

“What the hell are you doing, Brennan?”

“Good morning, Ryan. What can I help you with?”

“Claudel’s trying to nail my butt to the wall because of you. Says you’ve been running around bothering victims’ families.”

He waited for me to say something but I didn’t.

“Brennan, I’ve been defending you because I respect you. But I can see what’s shaping up here. Your prying could really hang me up on this case.”

“I asked a few questions. That’s not illegal.” I did nothing to defuse his anger.

“You didn’t tell anyone. You didn’t coordinate. You just went off knocking on doors.” I could hear breath being drawn through nostrils. They sounded clenched.

“I called first.” Not quite true for Geneviève Trottier.

“You’re not an investigator.”

“They agreed to see me.”

“You’re confusing yourself with Mickey Spillane. It’s not your job.”

“A well-read detective.”

“Christ, Brennan, you are pissing me off!”

Squad room noise.