Learning to Swim (21 page)

And I imagined we’d just erased Paul’s fear of napping forever.

For dinner Elise made a stir-fry with lots of vegetables, probably a nutritional countermeasure to the poutine we’d had yesterday. After she went off to her apartment at the back of the house, the three of us
watched
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
. I thought it odd, but it must have been perfect for a six-year-old, because Paul loved it, watching cuddled in the curve of his father’s arm.

Tomorrow I’d take the sketches to Jameson at the police station, and Philippe would take Paul to visit his new school, both of which made me vaguely uneasy. Here Paul was safe, and we could spend cozy evenings watching movies. Here I could stash away memories of feeling like part of a family.

Tomorrow would be a return to real life. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

A
T BREAKFAST PAUL WAS ALMOST TOO EXCITED ABOUT THE
school visit to eat. Philippe wasn’t doing justice to Elise’s pancakes, so maybe he wasn’t as calm as he had seemed to be. Me, I thought too much was happening too soon for a small boy who had lost his mother and been confined for five months. But Philippe wanted Paul in a routine as soon as possible, and he was the parent, and I wasn’t. I wanted to take a quick run before heading to the police station, so I didn’t eat, just filled a plate and set it aside for later.

It was a clear morning, and Tiger and I ran smoothly for about two miles. Running doesn’t calm me as much as biking, but life seems easier afterward. I ate my warmed-up pancakes and sausages in the kitchen. If Elise hadn’t been there, I would have eaten them cold, wrapping the pancakes around the sausages. She was whisking around like a happy wren in an apron, marinating something for dinner and preparing pastry to be filled with fruit.

“Did Paul like school in Montreal?” I asked, wondering how he would do with new kids and new teachers, struggling to speak English.

Elise nodded, rolling out pastry dough. “Yes, he liked it very much. He had good teachers and many friends.”

“Did his school friends come over a lot?”

“No. No, Madame Dumond did not like so much to have the children over. Too much noise and fuss. But I would often take him to the park, where other children played, or to a friend’s house.”

I blinked. This was a surprise. Me, I’d want my kids’ friends over
as much as possible, so my kid wasn’t watching R-rated movies, breathing secondhand smoke, or wolfing down Pop-Tarts or Pizza Pockets at someone else’s house. But some people don’t care for other people’s children, or are prone to noise-induced migraines. Or maybe Madeleine hadn’t quite been the involved, engaged parent I’d imagined. Which was an odd thought, but it could partly explain why Paul didn’t seem particularly to miss her.

After a quick shower I scanned Simon’s sketches so we’d have copies. I clipped Simon’s card to the originals and stuffed them in an envelope, then checked the route on MapQuest.

Walking into the police station was more than a little unnerving, especially since the same crisply put-together police officer was at the front counter. Sort of that
Groundhog Day
feeling again.

“I need to drop this off for Detective Jameson,” I told her.

“Your name, please?”

“I don’t … it’s Troy Chance, but I don’t need to see him; I just need to leave this.”

But she was already speaking into a phone, and Jameson was there before I could decide to drop the envelope and leave. He looked at me, brows raised.

“It’s some drawings.” I gestured with the envelope. “My brother did some new ones based on the others. With Paul’s help.” Jameson took the envelope and waggled his head for me to follow. I opened my mouth to protest, but he was already disappearing down the hall.

His office was smallish and astoundingly cluttered. He moved a box off a chair for me to sit, then sat behind the desk and opened the envelope. Without speaking, he spread the drawings out and studied them, first one and then the other. He pointed at the mole and looked up.

I nodded. “Paul told him to put it there.”

“Your brother didn’t suggest it?”

“No, Paul did. He said the man had a thing on his face, and he told Simon how big to make it.”

Jameson grunted and stuffed the drawings back in the envelope, and looked at the clock on the wall. “Let’s go to lunch,” he said abruptly.
He scribbled something on a notepad, tore the page off and paper-clipped it to the envelope, and stood up.

I opened my mouth to say, “No, I’ve got other plans” or “No, I need to leave,” but I wasn’t fast enough. He whirled around, touching my elbow lightly to lead me out. At the front desk he handed the envelope to the woman, and then we were outside. I blinked in the sunlight. “My car’s over here,” he said, gesturing.

“I don’t …” I said, but he was opening the car door for me. I gave up and got in. We rode in silence and ended up at a restaurant in the ByWard Market, an area packed with galleries and cafés and outdoor vendors selling fruits and vegetables and crafts. It was a trendier restaurant than I’d expected; I’d pictured Jameson as the meat loaf and potatoes type. He pushed a menu at me and we ordered.

I drank the water the waitress brought us. We sat. Damned if I was going to open my mouth first. Finally, he said, “Is your brother still here?”

“No, he flew home yesterday.”

Dead silence. “Paul?”

“He’s good. His father is taking him on a school visit.”

“Are you working up here?”

“I’m finishing up a magazine article,” I told him, wondering why he was asking. I couldn’t work in Canada without a visa, but freelancing to the States wouldn’t count.

“What do you write for?”

“Sports magazines mostly, some airline magazines, some newspapers.”

“Pay well?”

I shrugged. “It varies. Some magazines pay a lot more than others.”

Our food arrived—a black bean burger for me, a regular one for him. I got most of mine down before he spoke again.

“So you’ve known Dumond how long?”

I had to think a moment. “Since Tuesday, so almost a week.”

“And you’re comfortable staying there?”

Was my room comfortable? Was I worried about staying with a man whose wife had been kidnapped and murdered?
“Yes,” I said. “It’s quite
comfortable.” The look he gave me said I’d answered the wrong question.

“Hmm.” He speared some french fries, then spoke. “Did you know Dumond’s business is having financial trouble?”

I set down what was left of my burger and wiped my hands carefully. Bean burgers tend to leak sauce and bits of bean, at least the good ones not made from preformed patties. “No, I didn’t. But that’s none of my concern.”

He went on. “Did you know Dumond and his wife had been having marital problems?”

I pushed back from the table. “No,” I said, trying not to show my anger. I had expected he would ask me questions, but I hadn’t expected this. “And that definitely is none of my business. Why are you telling me?”

He smiled a humorless smile. “Things that perhaps you ought to know.” He picked up his burger and took a bite. “Especially if you’re involved with him.”

I stared at him. “I’m not. But that’s not the issue.”

He said nothing.

“I cannot help what you believe or don’t believe,” I said with force. “But I can never and will never believe that Philippe Dumond ever did anything that would harm his son.”

He shrugged. “Maybe that part wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. This was too much like what Simon had said. I hadn’t considered at the time that the police might actually believe it. The walls were shimmering and the room almost shifting around me.
Just keep breathing
, I told myself. Breathe in, breathe out. “I want to go,” I said.

Without a word, Jameson paid the bill and followed me outside. Neither of us spoke. When his car stopped, I got out and didn’t look back.

On the way home I stopped at the public library and talked the librarian into issuing me a library card based on a piece of Philippe’s junk mail I’d brought along. To get a card you’re supposed to have something with your name and address on it, but because librarians
want you to have a library card sometimes they’ll bend the rules. I checked out
Girl in the Cellar
, about an Austrian girl abducted at age ten, and requested three other books on kidnapping.

When I got back to the house, no one was home yet, so I went up to Philippe’s office and plugged in my laptop to download my emails. Simon had emailed that he was home; I answered and told him I’d delivered his sketches. I didn’t mention the conversation I’d just had with Jameson.

Next I tried to compose an email to Thomas. What could I say?
I don’t miss you, so we probably should break up?
If I were home, we would probably just gradually stop seeing each other and find reasons not to make the drive between Lake Placid and Burlington. No one would have to say,
This just isn’t working out
or
I think we should see other people
. Or the old
It’s not you, it’s me
. However true it might be.

But even I knew you couldn’t break up via email. I finally wrote a brief note apologizing for being sharp on the phone, and said that being here was something I had to do.

Then I flicked on Philippe’s computer. As it booted up, Madeleine smiled at me from across the room.

In this computer sat dozens of emails to and from Madeleine—just two clicks of the mouse away. They were like Blackbeard’s forbidden room, taunting me. I wanted desperately to read them. I wanted to know something, anything, about the woman who had been Paul’s mother and Philippe’s wife, who nobody would talk much about.

One of these emails could have a clue that would point the police away from Philippe. I could tell Philippe,
Hey, look, I accidentally downloaded your wife’s emails
and turn them over to the police. But surely the Montreal police would have checked her emails on the server, and would have already read them. Still, they could have missed something. I could read them and if I found anything promising, send it anonymously to the police here.

I opened Outlook Express. I opened Madeleine’s identity. I looked at the email headings. My fingers hovered over the mouse. One double-click and an email would be open on the screen in front
of me, and I would be reading words written by Paul’s mother, by Philippe’s wife.

But that would be incredibly intrusive. And I couldn’t be sure that my main motivation wasn’t just nosiness, wanting to know more about Madeleine.

I shut down the program and switched off the computer.

T
HEN PAUL AND PHILIPPE WERE BACK. PAUL WAS ALMOST
bubbling, talking in a mix of English and French about school and the children he had met and the lunch he had had, not so bad, but not nearly as good as Elise’s. He seemed amazingly normal, like any child excited about a school visit.

Paul went off to see Elise, and Philippe told me he was pleased with the school: the teachers were attentive, the classes small, and the security measures impressive. Quite a few diplomats’ children attended, and the grounds were gated, with several guards. They’d done some testing and made arrangements for enrolling Paul, including outfitting him with the school uniform. Paul would start school Thursday, giving him two more days to rest before then. This, I realized, was Philippe’s concession to my concerns.