Bones to Ashes

Harry insisted on pancakes in the morning.

Our waitress was squat, with maraschino lipstick and wispy hair somewhere between butter and cream. She provided copious coffee, advice on nail polish, and directions toward the address Hippo had given me.

Highway 11, then east on Rue Sureau Blanc. Right turn at the end of the green fence. Then another. What’s the family name?

Bastarache. Do you know them?

The wrinkled lips crimped into a thin red line. No.

Obéline Landry?

That’ll be all, then?

Even Harry couldn’t cajole the woman into further conversation.

By nine we were back in the Escalade.

Tracadie isn’t big. By nine-fifteen we were turning onto a residential street that might have fit into any suburb on the continent. Well-tended flower beds. Neatly edged lawns. Fresh-enough paint. Most of the houses looked like they’d been built in the eighties.

Hippo’s address took us to a high stone wall at the far end of the block. A plaque gave notice of a residence beyond. An unclasped padlock hung from the rusted iron gate. Harry got out and swung it wide.

A mossy brick drive bisected lawn losing out to weeds. At the end loomed a brick, stone, and timber house with a weathered shingle roof. Not a mansion, but not a shack, either.

Harry and I sat a moment, staring at the dark windows. They stared back, offering nothing.

“Looks like Ye Olde Rod and Gun Club,” Harry said.

She was right. The place had the air of a hunting lodge.

“Ready?”

Harry nodded. She’d been unnaturally quiet since rising. Other than a brief tête-à-tête concerning her aversion to underpants, I’d left her in peace. I figured she was sorting remembrances of Obéline. Bracing herself for the scarred woman we were about to encounter. I was.

Wordlessly, we got out and walked to the house.

Overnight, clouds had rolled in, thick and heavy with moisture. The morning promised rain.

Finding no bell, I knocked on the door. It was dark oak, with a leaded glass panel that yielded no hint of a presence beyond.

No answer.

I rapped again, this time on the glass. My knuckles fired off a sharp rat-a-tat-tat.

Still nothing.

A gull looped overhead, cawing news of the upcoming storm. Tide reports. Gossip known only to the Larus mind.

Harry put her face to the glass.

“No movement inside,” she said.

“Maybe she’s a late sleeper.”

Harry straightened and turned. “With our luck, she’s in Wichita Falls.”

“Why would Obéline go to Wichita Falls?”

“Why would anyone go to Wichita Falls?”

I looked around. Not a neighboring structure nearby.

“I’ll check in back.”

“I’ll cover the front, sir.” Saluting, Harry slipped her saddlebag purse from her shoulder. It dropped by her feet with a thup.

Stepping from the porch, I circled to my right.

A stone deck ran almost the full length of the back of the house. A wing paralleled the deck’s far side, tangential to and invisible from out front. It looked newer, its trim brighter than that on the rest of the structure. I wondered if I was looking at the site of the fire.

The deck held a patio set, a barbecue grill, and several lawn chairs, all empty. Climbing to it, I crossed and peered through a set of double glass doors.

Standard kitchen appliances. Pine table and captains chairs. Cat-cuckoo clock with a pendulum tail.

Center island. A paring knife, a paper towel, and a peeled apple skin.

I felt my nerves tingle.

She’s here!

I turned.

Past an expanse of lawn stood a small gazebo-like structure. Past the gazebo, water, rough and gunmetal gray. An inlet of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, I presumed.

Strange columns flanked the gazebo’s entrance, tall, with projections forward and to the sides. Atop each was an unidentifiable shape.

Through the gazebo’s screening I could dimly make out a silhouette. My mind logged detail.

Small, probably female. Hunched. Still.

The maybe-Obéline woman had her back to me. I couldn’t tell if she was reading, dozing, or merely gazing seaward.

I moved forward, senses still logging information. A wind chime tinkling notes. Wet grass. Explosions of froth against a seawall.

Drawing closer, I realized the columns had been carved into stacks of zoomorphic creatures. The projections were beaks and wings. The shapes on top were renderings of stylized birds.

Then, recognition, prompted by anthropology studies of years ago. The gazebo had once been a sweat house, later modified by replacing walls with screening.

The assemblage looked thousands of miles out of place. Totem poles and sweat houses were built by peoples of the Pacific Northwest, the Tlingit, Haida, or Kwakiutl, not by the Micmac or other tribes of the Maritimes.

Ten feet back, I stopped.

“Obéline?”

The woman’s head snapped up.

“Quisse qué là?” Who’s there? Acadian French.

“Temperance Brennan.”

The woman didn’t reply.

“Tempe. From Pawleys Island.”

Nothing.

“Harry is here, too.”

A hand rose, hovered, as though uncertain of its purpose.

“We were friends. You and Harry. Évangéline and I.”

“Pour l’amour du bon Dieu.” Whispered.

“I knew Tante Euphémie and Oncle Fidèle.”