Читать книгу Meg Harris Mysteries 6-Book Bundle - R.J. Harlick - Страница 63

Next morning, I dialed the Somerset phone number John Joe had given me for Pierre. I figured I would have enough time before my promised afternoon visit with Yvette to drive into town and talk to Pierre about Chantal and her friends, in particular this yuppie biker.

However, rather than Pierre’s resonant male voice, I heard a high-pitched female voice speaking a guttural French. The recorded words were spewed out so quickly, I only managed to discern that her name was Thérèse, and she wasn’t at home. I assumed the rest told me to leave a message. I dialed the number twice more. Each time this female recording answered. Either I’d copied the number down incorrectly, or John-Joe had given me the wrong number.

The Somerset phone book had two entries for “Pierre Fournier” and one for “P. Fournier”. None of the numbers came close to the one John-Joe had given me. I called them anyway but failed to reach the man I was looking for. I even checked the remaining Fourniers in the phone book in case Pierre was not his official name, and came up empty again.

On the off chance that Pierre lived with this Thérèse, I left a message for him to call me. If he didn’t return my call, I would find myself forced to consider the possibility that John Joe had intentionally given me a false number. And if he’d done that, what else had he lied about?

As I grappled with the prospect of John-Joe’s lying, Yvette called, sounding very upset. She wanted to know if I could visit her now, instead of later that afternoon. She had something to tell me that she thought might be important. It might have something to do with Chantal’s murder.

I sped along the main road towards the Gagnon farm as fast as my pickup would take me on the partially plowed gravel surface and wondered if Yvette’s information was related to her accident. Although she would have been lying unconscious several kilometres away when it happened, she might have seen something or someone before her fall. Perhaps the news of Chantal’s sudden death had finally rekindled her memory. Whatever it was, I hoped it would be something that could help clear John-Joe and not, as I was beginning to fear, be something that might condemn him.

I hurried between the ridges of plowed snow, through a forest cowering under its winter load. Partway there, I almost collided with a skidoo that suddenly launched over a snow bank onto the road. The driver, masked by his helmet, ignored my angry honks and zipped across the road and up and over the opposite bank. He disappeared into the woods, leaving me fuming at the arrogant stupidity of skidooers.

Worried others were coming behind him, I scanned the clearing from where he’d emerged, but the expanse of white was as empty as the vacant barns that occupied it. This farm was another remnant of the area’s settler past. Although the main house had long since disintegrated into a heap of broken logs and rusted metal roofing, the two timber barns had survived the many years of abandonment relatively intact. Once or twice I’d seen lights when driving past, which made me wonder if they, like my own deserted shack, had become a hideout for kids.

I continued on my journey to the Gagnon farm, where my truck almost had another collision. A large fuel truck coming out of the Gagnon’s narrow lane failed to stop, either because the driver hadn’t seen me or because he figured he was bigger. Either way, I was forced to slide to a stop, missing his front bumper by inches. Shouting unladylike insults, I backed up to allow it to pass, then continued driving up the lane to the farmhouse.

Half expecting to see Yves’s Mercedes parked in front, I felt a twinge of disappointment when I didn’t. But Papa Gagnon didn’t disappoint me. He careened around the side of the clapboard house on his snowmobile and jerked it to a stop with such abruptness that I thought he was the snowmobiler who’d cut me off. His lack of helmet, however, told me otherwise.

“Allez-vous-en!” he shouted with his usual snarl. “Go. No come back.”

“Sorry, monsieur. Yvette has invited me,” I replied sweetly and tripped up the verandah stairs to the front door. Although his daughter lived under his roof, she had more right to determine her visitors than he. Behind me, the old man continued to curse in unintelligible joual.

Before I finished knocking, the door sprang open and a stranger faced me. Except she wasn’t really a stranger. I could see the strong Gagnon family resemblance. In fact, she reminded me most of Yves with her slender height and almond-shaped eyes. As for her hair colour, I couldn’t tell. It was hidden by a nun’s starched white wimple.

“Bonjour. You are Madame Harris, non?” she said with a strong French accent in a surprisingly deep voice and invited me in with Yves’s smile.

“I am the sister of Yvette,” she said, before I had a chance to ask. “I am called Soeur Yvonne, or how you say in English, Sister Yvonne.”

Amazed at this family’s penchant for privacy, I asked, “How many more are there of you?”

“Excusez?”

“I mean, does Yvette have other siblings I don’t know about?”

“Malheureusement,” she replied sadly, fingering the large silver cross dangling from a thick silver chain around her neck. “Our heavenly Father did not bless my mother with many children. We are not a big Québécois family. Only Yvette, me, and of course my twin brother, Yves.”

Although it explained her strong likeness to Yves, I still found myself shaking my head at why neither Yvette nor Yves had thought to mention this other sister, and a twin at that.

“My sister waits for you in the kitchen. We wish for you to drink a little coffee with us,” she said, leading me down the hall past the front room. Her stiff blue habit crackled.

I stopped to admire again the early Quebec furniture I’d noticed on my first visit.

“Beautiful, non? They belonged to our great-grandmother, Marie France Gagnon,” she said rolling her r’s in the French manner. “Papa brought them from the farm of our ancestors in the parish of Château-Richer.”

So Yves hadn’t bought this furniture. Then why had he given me the impression he had? Unless I’d misunderstood, and he’d only been referring to the modern entertainment centre.

“The parish records say the Gagnon family lived on this farm in 1690.”

“Wow, over three hundred years. And I thought a hundred years for my family to occupy Three Deer Point was a long time. By the way, where is Château-Richer?”

“Ah, the most beautiful place in the world.” Her inviting smile was so reminiscent of Yves’s, that I wondered if, like her twin brother, she wasn’t going to prove to be much nicer than the initial impression would suggest.

“Château-Richer was one of the first parishes of New France,” she continued. “It is on the north shore of the River Saint Laurent in the Côte-de-Beaupré MRC . This is east of la ville ancienne…pardon…the old city of Quebec. The Gagnon farm is found on one of the first roads of New France, the Avenue Royale. Sadly, no Gagnon live on this farm today.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Me too. It was very special. Unfortunately, my papa must sell the farm when I am a child.”

“Was that when you moved here?” I asked in surprise. I’d had the impression Papa Gagnon had only occupied this particular farm for the past ten years. If they’d moved here when Soeur Yvonne was a young girl, that would make it twenty-five or thirty years ago.

“Non.” She placed her hand over the silver cross as if seeking solace. “We lived in Sainte-Famille, a small village on Île d’Orleans. My papa and Yvette come here later.”

I found it curious that Papa Gagnon would move to this western end of the province, where Québécois culture was only one of many, when his roots so directly tied him to the heartland of French Canada. I asked Soeur Yvonne why.

But as if she hadn’t heard, she resumed walking down the hall to the kitchen. I followed her through the door and into the sauna heat wafting from a large cast-iron woodstove. I immediately undid my jacket and removed my wool hat.

Yvette, bundled up in a white bathrobe, sat huddled in a wooden chair at one end of a long pine table that was more suited to the size of family Soeur Yvonne would have preferred than the Gagnons’ small one. Her broken arm was tucked within the folds of her bathrobe. She no longer wore the bandage around her head. In its stead was another bleak reminder of her accident, a large angry red scab.

“How are you doing?” I asked, removing my jacket and scarf. Still hot, I unbuttoned my sweater and took it off too.

“Much better, thank you,” she replied with her usual shyness. Her wispy auburn hair, tidied into two long braids, gave her the appearance of an obedient child.

I sat across the table from her on a wobbly arrow-back chair, well beyond range of the stove’s heat. I glanced around the expansive kitchen that consumed the entire rear of the small farmhouse. I might have been mistaken about the origins of the antique parlour furniture, but I had little doubt about the source of this kitchen. Yves’s modern taste and generosity were evident in the top-of-the-line refrigerator and smooth-top stove, both in gleaming stainless steel, and the sleek cherry wood cupboards with their granite countertop. But as much as I admired the kitchen, I felt that its crisp modern lines didn’t entirely fit with the Victorian feel of the house. On the other hand, the woodstove and the battered brass woodbox blended right in with the rural setting.

Bright morning sun poured through two large windows, making the room feel even hotter. Through one of the windows I was pleasantly surprised to see Yves’s black car parked across the yard, next to one of the outlying barns.

“Will Yves be joining us?” I asked hopefully.

I felt Yvette tense as she turned a startled glance to her older sister. Soeur Yvonne answered, “My brother is not at home.”

“But isn’t that his car?”

She glanced out the window, “Bien sûr, I forget. He leave his car here. Mais, today he go to Montreal with a business associate.”

“Oui, c’est vrai,” Yvette chimed in.

Soeur Yvonne walked over to the window. “The sun brings much heat, non?” She flicked closed the curtains of the first then the second window, but not before I noticed a man of Yves’s slim build entering the barn. He was wearing a camelhair coat similar to the one Yves had worn on his visit to my house.

Good. He hadn’t left yet. Perhaps he would drop in to say goodbye. But then again, maybe he wouldn’t. From the way Yvette had reacted to my question, the sisters might have told Yves not to join us.

“Please, a little coffee, Madame Harris?” Soeur Yvonne held up a large glass filter coffeepot, filled no doubt with the strong, rich coffee loved by most French-Canadians.

While I did like mine strong, usually this coffee was a little too harsh for my taste. “With milk, heated if possible.”

“Of course, café au lait.” She half-filled a small bowl with steaming milk, then added the almost black liquid. She passed it to me. After pouring the same for herself and Yvette, she placed a china plate filled with pets de soeurs on the table. I smiled as I reached for one of the deliciously sweet pastries. “Nuns’ farts” was the English translation for these small rings of baked dough drenched in cinnamon and brown sugar. Soeur Yvonne’s sombre comportment suggested she didn’t appreciate the humour in the name.

For the first time since entering the room, I focused my attention entirely on Yvette and was shocked. On Sunday when I’d visited her, she’d been bustling with energy and well on the road to health. Today, three days later, she appeared lifeless, withdrawn. Her face bore a sickly, grey pallor.

“Oh, dear, have you had a setback?” I asked. But her sister sitting beside her answered. “Thanks to the blessed Virgin, she goes better. Now you have not such pain, eh, ma petite?”

Yvette meekly nodded.

“Is your arm causing you pain, or is it one of your other injuries?” I persisted, wanting Yvette to speak for herself.

Once again Soeur Yvonne answered for her, “The pain is in here.” She pointed to her chest.

“Yes, I imagine broken ribs can be a painful injury and are probably slow to heal. I hope it doesn’t hurt you too much, Yvette?”

She mumbled that it didn’t, while her sister declared, “Each day she goes better, n’est-ce pas, ma petite?”

Soeur Yvonne patted her sister’s hand almost as a mother would a child. And given the probable fifteen-year age difference and her nurturing training as a nun, it was to be expected.

At that point, the small brown cat I’d seen with Papa Gagnon on my first visit sauntered into the kitchen, leapt up onto Yvette’s lap and commenced purring.

Her eyes glistened with tenderness. “Mon minou,” she said, running the hand of her uninjured arm over the cat’s back. “My little pussy cat.”

“A Burmese cat,” Soeur Yvonne added. “I give this pet to my sister because his colour is like the hairs of my sister, non?”

“Hmm, yes it is.” In fact the cat almost seemed to be an extension of Yvette’s rich mahogany hair as she bent over to give her pet a kiss.

We continued drinking our coffee in strained silence. I was dying to find out the reason for Yvette’s call, but was reluctant to ask in front of this older woman. Because my friend hadn’t brought it up herself, I sensed that it was something she preferred to talk about away from her sister’s overbearing presence. Moreover, murder hardly seemed the kind of topic to discuss in front of a nun.

I was trying to figure out a way of getting Yvette alone, when Soeur Yvonne brought the subject up herself. “It is so tragic, the death of this young woman, non?” she said.

“Yes, very. I understand she was a daughter of one of your brother’s business associates. Did you know her too?”

“Non, pas du tout. I never meet this young woman. So sad, but we must not forget she has found joy. She is with our Lord Jesus.”

I should’ve expected this reaction. “And I guess Yvette didn’t know her either?”

Yvette raised startled eyes towards me. She started to shake her head, as if to disagree, but stopped.

“Oui c’est vrai, n’est-ca pas, ma petite? I think you meet Chantal for the first time when you work on this trail, non?”

Yvette dropped her eyes back down to her lap. “Oui, you are right, Yvonne,” she whispered. “I forget many things after my fall.” She broke off a piece of pets de soeur as if to eat it but didn’t.

I took this as an opening. “Surely you must be starting to remember events before your accident or even the fall itself?”

Her sister intercepted. “Such bad things happen when a girl is foolish to walk in the forest by herself without the protection of her father or her brother. We do not do it again, do we, ma petite?”

While I bit back an angry retort about allowing the poor girl to lead her own life, I did say in language the nun might relate to, “I find walking alone through the silence of a forest is like being in a cathedral. You feel that much closer to the creator of its majesty. Perhaps that was all your sister was doing.”

Although Yvette’s eyes shone gratefully, Soeur Yvonne’s darkened eyes flashed me a message that no devout nun should ever think, let alone express. With her lips pursed in disapproval, Soeur Yvonne left the table to retrieve the coffeepot and hot milk from the woodstove.

While she refilled my bowl, I wondered again how I was going to get Yvette alone. Clearly the girl wouldn’t speak in front of this domineering nun, nor did I want her to. Moreover, it was evident that the older woman was making her anxious, for Yvette continued to break her pastry into smaller and smaller pieces, making no attempt to eat them. I suspected that her sister, not the pain from her injuries, was the reason for this setback. Perhaps it would be better for me to leave and have Yvette phone me later when her sister was out of the way.

Resuming her chair next to Yvette, Soeur Yvonne said, “I believe the police arrest one of these poor young men from the Indian reserve.”

“It’s a mistake. He didn’t do it.” I took a slow sip of the hot coffee, then continued, “John-Joe has asked me to help him.”

At the mention of John-Joe’s name, Yvette gripped her coffee bowl so hard that it made me wonder if he wasn’t the reason for her call.

“In Montreal, at the hospice, we see many such poor lost souls,” her older sister continued. “These Indians are like children. They need the strong guidance of our dear Lord. No doubt, this young man’s heathen lusts make him kill this innocent Catholic girl.”

My anger already set to a simmer, now boiled. “Heathen? He has more—”

A shout for Soeur Yvonne from the front of the house cut me off. The nun immediately got up from the table and went to her father.

When the kitchen door closed behind her sister’s starched back, Yvette sprang into life. “John-Joe does not do such a terrible thing.”

“Do you know something? Is that why you called me?”

Her eyes opened in shock. “Moi? Non. Mais…” And she dropped her eyes down as if embarrassed. “He is very nice man. He is kind to me. And she was a bad girl.”

“I’m with you on that. What do you know about Chantal?”

“My sister is wrong. I see Chantal before. In this house.”

“Here? In your father’s house?”

“Oui. She comes for a visit. She kiss Yves.”

“Sounds like Chantal. Pierre was another one of her friends. Do you know anything about him?”

She glanced anxiously towards the door, then inserted her uninjured hand into her bathrobe pocket and pulled out an envelope. “I find this.” She thrust it towards me. “It belongs to Pierre.”

Hearing footsteps approaching, I grabbed it and hastily put it into my jeans pocket. “Is this why you phoned me?”

“Yes. It is the reason I go on the trail. I search for Pierre to give it to him. It is perhaps important. I think.”

The door whisked open, and in strode Yvette’s sister with her scowling father. Yvette retreated into her shell. I stood up. Time to leave.

Muttering my thanks, I slipped on my sweater, jacket and hat and escaped from the stifling house as fast as I could. So strong was my desire to get away from the oppression that I didn’t even pause to look at the envelope Yvette had given me.

I did, however, manage to back my truck far enough around the farmhouse, so I could peer into the yard behind. If Yves was still there, I would stop to say hello, but the yard was empty, his shiny black car gone. Feeling disheartened not only by the visit, but also at having missed Yves, I slipped the truck into gear and drove down the long narrow lane away from a farm that had taken on the guise of a prison.