Читать книгу Meg Harris Mysteries 7-Book Bundle - R.J. Harlick - Страница 70

Too angry to eat, I removed the soup from the stove and retreated to the living room to sit in front of the fire, where I fumed over Eric’s callousness. He had dared to accuse me of having a boyfriend. How could he? He was the one who’d started it with that woman. Who did he think he was? Besides, what had I ever seen in him? Yves was far more attractive.

I wrapped the afghan firmly around my body and sank deeper into the chesterfield. Outside, the wind flung waves of snow past the window.

His Little Red Flower. My eye.

I twitched and turned, cursed Eric and thumped the sofa cushions in an effort to get comfortable. I eventually must have fallen asleep, for I was roused by Sergei barking at the front door. I found I was shivering, and the fire had diminished to a few dying embers. The doorbell echoed from the hall. My immediate thoughts went to John-Joe. So when I raced to the front door and discovered a bundled up Yvette, I was completely taken aback.

I must’ve shown my surprise, for she immediately said, “It is Monday, three o’clock, n’est-ce pas? You still want to teach me English, non?”

“No, I mean yes, of course I do, but are you well enough to be out in such weather? I thought you’d want to wait until you were completely recovered.” I didn’t voice my real thought, that I was surprised her sister had let her out.

“My arm is okay, regardez.” And she moved it up and down, although not quite with the ease of a cast-free arm. Sergei’s snout followed the movement, no doubt hoping her hand would land for a pat. Her face had more life than when I’d last seen her, and her eyes no longer wore that hunted deer look. Laughing, she bent over and gave the dog a big hug.

She answered my next question before I could ask. “Papa drive me. He return in two hours, when my lesson is finished.”

I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that her brother hadn’t brought her. “Let’s get started,” I said, walking into the living room. “I don’t have anything prepared, but we can concentrate on the exercises in the next chapter. Do you have your English language book with you?”

She extracted the hardcover book from a large canvas bag along with a spiral notebook. “I work on them when I am sick. You check them, please.”

I corrected her. “You are speaking of doing something in the past, therefore you must use the past tense, ‘I worked’. Remember, we covered it a couple lessons ago.”

She smiled shyly and repeated her last sentence using the past tense perfectly, then she reached back into her bag. “I don’t, non, I mean didn’t forget. I brought you some nice vegetables from Papa’s garden.” She pulled out not one, but two very plump heads of Boston lettuce and a bag of vermillion tomatoes. Which I was very glad to see. Since her accident, I’d been subsisting on the puny, unripened produce from the Migiskan General Store.

After I had safely deposited them in the fridge and added more logs to the fire, we began the lesson. With the dog happily ensconced by her feet, we quickly went through the exercises she’d completed and started on those of the next chapter. By the time we’d finished, it was time to add more logs and put the kettle on for tea.

Usually, at this point I moved onto the conversational part of the lesson, using the topic of the just completed chapter as the focal point. Today I thought we might diverge and talk about what was uppermost in my mind. It seemed to be on Yvette’s mind too, for she started the discussion by asking how John-Joe was. I told her all that had happened since his initial arrest.

When I came to the details of his latest escape, I watched her concerned interest change to worry.

I asked, “You like John-Joe, don’t you?”

She blushed and mumbled, “Yes.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Not long. I meet, non, non, I met him two or three months ago. He is Pierre’s friend. Very nice man, I think.” She blushed again and started to pick at the cuticle around the nail of one of the exposed fingers of her broken arm.

I noticed the cuticle around her other fingers was similarly torn and bleeding. Poor child. I hoped it was the trauma of her accident that was causing this stress and not, as I suspected, her father or her older sister.

“Did you ever go out with John-Joe on a date?”

“He come to my house once, but Papa tell him to go away. Papa does not like me to go on dates with men. He thinks I am not old enough.”

“The correct tense is ‘came’ and ‘told’,” I said. “You certainly look old enough to me. Do you mind telling me your age?”

I’d put her age at about twenty-one or two and was surprised when she answered, “Twenty-seven.”

“And you’ve never had a boyfriend?” I asked.

She shook her dark hair and started to say no, then corrected herself. “I tell you,” she said. “You are my friend. When I was very young, I loved a boy and wanted to marry him. But Papa found out and sent me away to a convent.”

“What happened to the boy?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him again.” Poor child, I thought, for that was how I viewed her, a halfformed woman who’d never been allowed to live her own life. Who knows? If John-Joe were to get out of this intact, perhaps I could become the go-between. Maybe Yvette didn’t have the sexual energy that Chantal exuded, but she did have a virginal innocence that could be attractive, and she had the fresh prettiness of an unsophisticated country girl.

“You must have liked convent life, though. I gather that you’ll soon be returning to one.”

Her eyes flashed surprise. “Who tell you this?”

“Your brother.” Her answering laugh hinted at un-Yvette-like confidence.

“He makes a mistake. I stay on the farm with my papa. He needs me.”

While I would argue over her father’s need, I was glad she wouldn’t be disappearing behind the high walls of a nunnery. Even though she would no doubt continue to be under her father’s restraints, perhaps over time I could help her loosen some of these bounds.

“You mentioned Pierre’s name,” I said. “Did you know him before the trail clearing?”

“Yes, he is a cousin of Papa.” My face must have registered surprise, for she continued, “He is son of the son of my grandfather’s sister. How do you call this person?”

“I guess you would call him a second cousin. Do you know him well?”

She shook her head. “I do not know he is such a cousin until he come, no, came to the farm to see Papa two or three years ago.”

“Do you see him often?”

“Maybe every two months.”

“Has he visited you since the trail clearing?”

“He was to visit last Friday. But he not come.”

Good. Further substantiation that he’d taken off after the murder. “What do you know about him?”

“Nothing. I not speak with him. He visit with Papa. He like to help him with the work on the farm. One, two time he bring his girlfriend.”

“Thérèse?”

“Yes. Why do you ask me these questions?”

I didn’t want to tell her my suspicions about Chantal’s murder, so instead I said, “I think Pierre might be a drug dealer.”

She turned startled brown eyes towards me. “Drug?”

“Marijuana, maybe heroin. In fact, your brother mentioned that you saw a plastic bag containing marijuana being passed between John-Joe and Pierre.”

“I remember. It was in the morning, when we work on the steep trail near this Kamikaze Pass. John-Joe give Pierre some money for this bag.”

“Are you sure it was Pierre taking the money, not John Joe?”

“Oh yes, I saw Pierre put it in the small envelope I give you.”

Thankfully, her brother had misunderstood her.

Yvette continued, “And Pierre say to John-Joe, “It is the very best B . C . bud.” She paused. “Do you know what is this B . C . bud?”

“Yes, it’s a variety of marijuana that is grown in British Columbia.” At last, proof that Pierre was a drug dealer. But it didn’t make him Chantal’s killer.

She turned her eyes back to her hands. “Pierre also say, ‘You and Chantal will enjoy it.’”

Well, these words might not place him at the crime scene, but they did at least prove that he knew about the rendezvous. Surely that must count for something.

“But Pierre also speak about something he call ‘skosh’. He say enjoy it too. But I do not know what is this thing. Perhaps something to eat?”

Bingo. I had him. “He said ‘scotch’, as in scotch whiskey. I’m sure you know what whiskey is.”

“Oui, bien sûr. My papa drinks it.”

“Would you be prepared to tell the police what you just told me?” I said.

She blanched. “I could go with you if you don’t want to go on your own.”

“But Papa, he will be very angry.”

“It could help to prove John-Joe’s innocence.” The police might dismiss Pierre’s knowledge of the rendezvous as happenstance, but surely they couldn’t ignore the significance of Pierre also knowing about the bottle of scotch whiskey that proved to be doctored with GHB.

She took a deep breath. “Oui, I do this for John-Joe.”

“We’ll go now,” I said, rushing to get my jacket. Forty-five minutes of her lesson still remained. If we timed this right, I could have her back well before her father arrived to pick her up. And he need never know that we hadn’t spent the entire time discussing verb conjugations. But before I could slip on my jacket, the front doorbell rang. I ran to the door and was greeted by the scowl of Soeur Yvonne.

“My sister, she is here with you, non?” she said. I decided to ignore her accusatory manner and invited her to join us for a cup of tea. Hopefully, by the time she’d finished, she could be persuaded to let Yvette go to the police.

“How curious,” she said. “You English and your afternoon tea. But I am sorry. Yvette must come home with me.”

“Yvette has forty-five minutes remaining on her lesson,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like her to finish it.” I should have saved my breath, since Yvette had already put on her coat and was in the process of buckling up her boots.

“My poor darling,” Yvonne said in French. “It is too soon to leave the house. You are not well.”

“Nonsense,” I said, my frustration getting the better of me. “A visit away from the oppressive atmosphere of your house is exactly what she needs.”

“You poor child,” Soeur Yvonne replied, looking directly at me, who was easily her elder by five years, “you don’t understand.” Before I could ask what it was I didn’t understand, she had floated down the verandah stairs, trailing her long habit in the snow, and was in the process of opening the door to a car, which I now saw was her brother’s Mercedes.

“It is better I leave,” Yvette said. Although the colour had faded from her cheeks, her eyes still shone with a determined brightness. “My sister has lost a special friend. She is afraid she loses me too.”

“Don’t forget the visit to the police. How will we do it now?”

“I phone you, okay?”

“Okay, but don’t leave it too long. The sooner the police can check it out, the sooner John-Joe may be set free.” She nodded and ran down the stairs to the waiting car. I returned inside to find the dog whimpering behind the closed kitchen door. Surprised at how he’d managed to get himself into this predicament, I let him out.

I wondered how to extricate Yvette from Soeur Yvonne’s domination and thought Yves might be able to help. But I remembered his less than charitable comments about John-Joe. It wasn’t likely that he’d go against the wishes of both his father and his twin sister to help someone they viewed as not quite good enough for their family. Still, if I ran into too big a roadblock from his two relations, I would plead my case with him.

By this time, the land had been plunged into a bleak winter night, and although the snow had stopped falling, the temperature was plummeting. My thermometer read minus twenty-five, likely minus thirty-five by morning.

It was the second night of John-Joe’s escape, and I had yet to learn if he’d found shelter. Although Eric had denied it, I was still confident that the young man had found help with his people, and I wanted to be assured of this before I spent another sleepless night worrying.

Luckily, I knew someone else in the band who might be able to provide this assurance; his cousin, Ajidàmo, and their common grandmother.