Bones to Ashes

“We sit code six on the dirtbag skel.” Ryan responded to my ribbing with even more TV cop lingo.

“You’re a scream.” I refused to ask what a code six was.

Forty minutes later, the door opened and the dirtbag skel hurried down the steps and crossed to the Mercedes. His hair was wet and he’d changed to an apricot shirt.

Glancing neither left nor right, Bastarache blasted backward down the drive, tires grinding up gravel. Ryan and I watched him gun up the blacktop toward Chemin Royal, leaving behind a ripple of dust.

Reaching into the glove compartment, Ryan withdrew a fanny pack. I knew its contents. Cuffs, extra clips, badge, and a Glock 9mm. Ryan used the thing when not wearing a jacket.

Yanking free his shirttails, Ryan strapped the pack on his belly and checked the string that would undo the zipper. Then he cranked the engine and we rolled.

At the bungalow, we got out of the Impala and scanned our surroundings. The only thing moving was a mangy brown spaniel sniffing roadkill twenty yards up the shoulder.

I looked at Ryan. He nodded. We beelined to the front door.

Ryan rang the bell with the index finger of his left hand. His right was subtly crooked, positioned over the Glock tucked in the pack.

Within seconds, a female voice spoke through the door.

“As-tu oublié quelque chose?” Have you forgotten something? Familiar “you.”

“Police,” Ryan called out.

There was a moment of silence, then, “You must wait until later.”

A burst of adrenaline coursed through me. Though muffled, the voice was familiar.

“ We want to ask you some questions.”

The woman didn’t reply.

Ryan hit the bell. Again. Again.

“Go away!”

Ryan opened his mouth to reply. I grabbed his arm. The muscles were taut as tree roots.

“Wait,” I whispered.

Ryan’s lips clamped shut, but his elbow stayed cocked.

“Obéline?” I said. “C’est moi, Tempe. Please let us come in.”

The woman said something I couldn’t hear. Seconds later, I caught a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision.

I turned. A pulled window shade was fluttering gently. Had it been raised when we approached the house? I couldn’t remember.

“Obéline?”

Silence.

“Please, Obéline?”

Locks turned, the door opened, and Obéline’s face appeared in the crack. As before, a scarf covered her head.

She surprised me by speaking English. “My husband will return soon. He will be angry if he finds you here.”

“We thought you were dead. I was heartbroken. So was Harry.”

“Please leave. I’m fine.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Her lips drew tightly together.

“Who staged a suicide?”

“All I want is to be left alone.”

“I’m not going to do that, Obéline.”

Her eyes jumped over my shoulder, toward the road leading to Chemin Royal.

“Detective Ryan and I will help you. We won’t let him hurt you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Help me to understand.”

Color rose in the unscarred skin, grotesquely marbling the right side of her face.

“I don’t need to be rescued.”

“I think you do.”

“My husband is not a bad man.”

“He may have killed people, Obéline. Young girls.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“That’s exactly what he said.”

“Please go.”

“Who broke your arm? Who torched your house?”

Her eyes darkened. “Why this obsession with me? You show up at my home. You reawaken pain best left dormant. Now you want to destroy my marriage. Why can’t you just leave me in peace?”

I tried a Ryan quick-switch. “I know about Laurette.”

“What?”

“The lazaretto. The leprosy.”

Obéline looked as if I’d struck her. “Who told you this?”

“Who killed Évangéline?”

“I don’t know.” Almost desperate.

“Was it your husband?”

“No!” Her eyes darted like those of a hunted dove.

“He probably killed two little girls.”

“Please. Please. Everything you think is wrong.”

Relentless, I kept my glare aimed at her. Kept hammering. “Claudine Cloquet? Phoebe Quincy? Have you heard those names?”

Reaching into my purse, I grabbed the envelope, yanked out the photos of Quincy and Cloquet, and thrust them at her.

“Look,” I said. “Look at these faces. Their parents are in pain that never goes dormant.”

She turned her head, but I forced the photos through the crack, keeping them in her field of vision.

Her eyes closed, then her shoulders seemed to turtle in on themselves. When she spoke again, her voice carried a tone of defeat.

“Wait.” The door closed, a chain rattled, then the door reopened. “Come in.”

Ryan and I entered a hallway lined on both sides with pictures of saints. Jude. Rose of Lima. Francis of Assisi. A guy with a staff and a dog.

Obéline led us past a dining room and library to a parlor with a wide-plank floor, heavy oak tables, a scuffed leather sofa, and overstuffed armchairs. One wall was floor-to-ceiling glass. A stone fireplace rose among the windows, partially blocking a spectacular view of the river.

“Please.” Obéline gestured at the sofa.

Ryan and I sat.

Obéline remained standing, eyes on us, one gnarled hand to her mouth. I couldn’t read her expression. Seconds passed. A solitary drop of sweat slid down her temple. The tactile input seemed to nudge her to action.