I didn’t wait to hear another word. Yelling at Hélène to put it on my tab, I rushed from the store and drove straight to the Council Hall. Fortunately, Eric’s Harley was still parked outside, right next to the reserve’s police cruiser, which should have made me wary, but didn’t. Instead, intent only on sticking up for Marie, I raced through the halls of the large cedar building to Eric’s small office tucked into a far back corner.
Without bothering to knock, I burst into his room. “What’s this about the police accusing Marie? There’s no way she could have killed Louis.”
A bemused Eric peered at me from behind a desk littered with papers.
“Slow down, Meg,” he said, pointing behind me. “You know Police Chief Decontie, in charge of our police detachment. And this is Sgt. LaFramboise with the Surêté du Québec.”
I gulped and turned around to find both policemen coldly appraising me. They filled the only two chairs in Eric’s office. Sgt. LaFramboise sat bolt upright in his impeccable brown SQ uniform with his chair shoved against the back wall. He said a crisp “Bonjour” and turned his long pointed nose back to Eric. Chief Decontie, slouching forward in his chair, seemed less intimidating in the slightly wrinkled navy blue uniform of the Migiskan Police Department. He at least smiled.
Embarrassed, I turned to leave.
“Meg, since you’re here, you might as well stay,” Eric said. “I was just telling these officers myself that Marie couldn’t be involved.”
“Madame, you are called Marguerite Harris, n’est-ce pas?” Sgt. LaFramboise interjected in his thick Quebecois accent.
Distrustful of his reasons for asking, I hesitated before admitting I was.
“Bon. I believe you are the last person to speak to Madame Whiteduck?”
“Not exactly. She left a message on my voice mail.”
“You have not—how you say—removed this message?”
“No.”
“Bon. Do not remove it, s’il vous plaît. You will wait at your house. Chief Decontie, and I will come when we finish with Chief Odjik.”
I glanced back at Eric to see if he knew what Sgt. LaFramboise wanted. But Eric just shrugged his shoulders and with a slight nod suggested that I should probably leave.
“Okay, I’ll go home, but I’d like to know how long you’ll be.”
“When we finish here,” LaFramboise replied, and as a final dismissal, turned his focus back to Eric.
Annoyed by his arrogance, I shot back, “You should be looking for Marie, instead of wasting your time on me. For all you know, Louis’s murderer may have killed her too.”
Chief Decontie looked thoughtful, while Sgt. LaFramboise glared back at me and said, “Madame, do not concern yourself with the business of the police.” And standing up, he showed me to the door.
My immediate reaction was to dig in my heels, but a quick look at Eric told me there was no point. I’d have to wait until we were both finished with the police before I’d learn what was really going on.
Despite what I’d said to LaFramboise, I didn’t really believe Marie was dead. Nor could I ever accept that she had killed Louis. Instead, as my truck bumped over the rutted roads towards home, I came to the conclusion that Marie had fled to the hunting camp because she feared she’d be killed after witnessing Louis’s murder.
I figured that as long as she was hidden deep in the bush she was safe, not only from the killer but also the police. With Tommy, her lawyer son at her side, she’d be even safer. He’d quickly quash any snap police conclusions and ensure the real story behind Louis’s killing was told.
By the time I parked my truck in front of the house, I was feeling more confident that Marie would come through this unharmed. Therefore, with an hour or two to kill before the police arrived, I decided to resume my search for any documents that might resolve the ownership of Whispers Island.
The previous evening, while Eric and I had sat in the bar of the Fishing Camp unwinding after our confrontation with Charlie Cardinal, Eric had told me about an old survey map of railway right-of-ways that he’d found in a box of old files. Although it wasn’t dated, he believed it was made in the early 1870s, when railways were mapping the area.
Even though the map’s printed boundaries for the reserve did not include Whispers Island, there was a pencilled-in circle around the island with an arrow drawn towards the reserve and the date 1935. From this, Eric concluded that although the island was not part of the original territory establishment under the Act of 1851, it did become part of it in 1935.
And, he said, more importantly, there was clear evidence that Agatha Harris had been involved, for the initials “A.H.” were written over Whispers Island. While I wasn’t convinced that this meant Aunt Aggie owned the island, I did promise Eric to continue my search through her records. He in turn intended to present this map to Indian Affairs as evidence the island belonged to the reserve.
And a fat lot of good that’d do, I thought as I headed up the stairs to the attic. Those damn bureaucrats in Ottawa cared more about keeping tax paying miners happy than a bunch of tax consuming Indians.
Halfway up the stairs, the phone rang. I raced back down in time to catch my notary on the other end of the line.
“Please, François, tell me this call means you have good news,” I said.
“Oui et non, Madame Harris,” he replied. “Which would you like first?”
“The good news, I need something to cheer me up.”
“Bon. Although it is not completely good news, it is—how you call—promising. I am almost certain this island is not government land. It is not listed in any of the official government land registries.”
“But why would Indian Affairs lie about it?”
“The Migiskan Reserve was established many years ago, when the government preferred to keep the exact boundaries of these reserves fuzzy, as you English say. It is possible that the ministère does not know the true boundaries and is using this confusion for their own purpose.”
I told him about the survey map Eric had found and finished by asking “Can’t we use this map to challenge CanacGold’s legal title to the mining rights?”
“Sadly, the pencil notations will not be considered official,” François replied. “It would require a long legal fight, and I do not believe you have such time.”
“It would be best if we could prove this land is privately owned.”
“Do you think there is a possibility, no matter how remote, that Aunt Aggie did own the island in 1935? I know it’s not part of the Three Deer Point property, but maybe she owned it separately and sixty-five years ago gave it to the Migiskans. Can’t you search the records for that time period?”
“A very good suggestion, madame, and we are indeed searching the files, but unfortunately, we have encountered a most curious problem.”
“I guess this is the bad news, eh?”
“Sadly, madame. We have discovered that many of the files for the properties on Echo Lake are missing, including your own.”
“But how can that happen?”
“It is possible they have been incorrectly filed. However, the registry clerk believes someone has taken them.”
“Seems unlikely. Are you sure he’s not just trying to cover up his own incompetence?”
“I think not. It seems that we are not the only people interested in the Echo Lake properties. Someone else conducted a title search a few months ago. The clerk believed all files were returned. Now he is not so certain.”
“Does he know who it was?”
“Unhappily, he remembers only that it was a woman who spoke very bad French. She did not leave her name or that of the notaire she is working for.”
“With no municipal record, how can we determine the real owner of Whispers Island?”
“The deed will tell us the owner. But, unfortunately, we must find the owner to find the deed.”
“Perhaps, if we are lucky, I will find it buried in Aunt Aggie’s belongings.”
“Bon. My clerk will also conduct a thorough search of the registry to ensure the record was not misplaced and to look at other municipal records, such as tax rolls for mention of this tract of land.”
“Kind of fishy, isn’t it”
“Excusez, madame, fishy?”
“Sorry, I meant it’s very suspicious that these files are missing at the same time as this gold discovery. I’m willing to bet CanacGold has a hand in this.”
“A good word, this fishy.”
“Please let me know, François, the minute you discover something, okay?”
“Of course, madame. Probably by the end of next week.”
“Not sooner?”
“Unfortunately, the registry office is closed for the weekend.”
“What happens if we don’t find anything?” I asked.
“As you English say, we will cross this bridge when we come to it.”