Next morning I waited for Yvette’s call for me to pick her up. I expected her to phone about mid-morning, after her father had left for his doctor’s appointment in Somerset. When she hadn’t called by eleven, I assumed his departure had been delayed. I debated phoning but decided it might raise suspicions if he answered.
While I waited I tended to Squawky, the name I’d given the bird, primarily because it wouldn’t stop. Although it had squawked its occasional displeasure since its accident, it hadn’t stopped since I’d entered the kitchen this morning. It was flapping and hopping around its narrow confines with such energy, I was worried it would either hurt itself again or make good its escape. Time to transfer it to Sergei’s crate.
Unfortunately, once I brought the cage out of storage, I realized the gaps between the bars wouldn’t keep a parrot inside, let alone a blue jay. So I wrapped the sides and top with some spare metal screening, placed some old newspaper on the metal floor, scattered seed and put in a water dish. Then I set about transferring the bird. Easier said than done. John-Joe had done all the handling before. The most I’d done since was to gently stroke it to help calm it down. This it had seemed to accept, so I decided to try it again.
It took several minutes to get the bird to settle down enough for me to touch him. As my fingers felt its feathers, I couldn’t help but marvel again at how something could be so soft that only by seeing did I know I was touching the feathers. It hopped away the first few times, but eventually it settled down, until finally I felt confident enough to gently place my hands around its body and lift it. It was so easy, I laughed. It remained as calm and still in my hands as if I were carrying a feather toy. Only its warmth told me it was real. I carefully placed it in its new home and quickly locked the door. But no sooner had its feet touched the paper, than it was up, squawking and flapping. I moved the crate into the larger laundry room, where it wouldn’t be disturbed. Then I freed the dog from his banishment in the den.
By noon, Yvette still hadn’t called. I phoned her and got a busy signal. After fifteen minutes, I tried again. This time, the Gagnon phone rang without interruption until I hung up. At least it proved that her father and sister had left the house. But where was Yvette? Why hadn’t she called back?
Worried she’d changed her mind, I hopped into my truck and drove the five kilometres to the Gagnon farmas fast as I dared. Snow had fallen overnight. Although the main road was plowed, the Gagnon road wasn’t. Two deep furrows of tire tracks scarred the snow. The narrower set was probably made by the Ford pickup belonging to Papa Gagnon, but the other set was too wide for it to have been made by any car Yvonne would be driving.
I parked where I’d parked the last time, at the side of the house close to the kitchen door. As I climbed out of my pickup, I heard the low rumble of an engine coming from behind the house, where the large tire tracks led. Curious, I went to investigate and discovered a large fuel truck standing on the other side of the farmyard, next to one of the barns. Its hose snaked through the snow to where the operator was holding the nozzle into a pipe rising from the ground. He waved. I waved back.
The fuel was probably for Papa Gagnon’s market garden operation, which I believed Yvette had said was housed inside the barn. And this indoor garden must consume fuel by the tanker load, for I remembered seeing another oil truck a little more than a week ago. In fact, I had almost collided with it as it was exiting the Gagnon drive. And contrary to what Yves had said, if weekly supplies were indeed required, I doubted his father could be making much money in this current climate of over-the-top oil costs.
I returned to the front of the house and knocked on the door. With my fingers crossed, I waited for Yvette to peer through the lace curtain of the side window. When her face didn’t appear, I knocked again. The hollow sound echoing through the house left an empty pit in my stomach. Surely she hadn’t changed her mind? Yesterday she’d sounded so sincere. More likely, her father or sister had found out and had taken her away. Discouraged, I walked back to my truck. How was I ever going to prove that John-Joe hadn’t killed Chantal?
The snow had started to fall again. A thin dusting coated the windshield. I brushed it off with my gloves and felt its icy touch on my wrist. I shivered. The sky bore the threatening heaviness of a pending storm. Best to get home and think about what to do next.
The operator had finished filling the fuel tank and was winding the hose back into his truck. He waved again, picked up his clipboard and started to walk towards me as if I belonged to the farm. I yelled at him that I didn’t live there, but he kept coming. Either he hadn’t heard, or he didn’t understand my English. I shouted back in French.
At that moment, the door to the barn opened, and out stepped the camelhair-cloaked figure of Yves.
“You’re here?” I shouted in surprise.
Sighting the operator, he walked towards him. Within seconds, he was sticking the signed invoice into his pocket and coming towards me with his coat swaying to the rhythm of his easy gait. The fuel tanker crunched past us and down the Gagnon drive.
“Bonjour, Marguerite,” Yves said. “It is good to see you. What brings you here?”
I noticed a Band-Aid below his eye. “Yvette. You don’t happen to know where she’s gone, do you?”
“She went to Montreal.”
“I’m surprised. She didn’t mention it yesterday. Did she go with Yvonne?”
He hesitated, as if uncertain how to answer, then he said, “Yes, she did. I think I told you that Papa and I…and Yvonne too, felt it best that my little sister lives in a convent so that she can enjoy the company of young women her own age. It is too lonely for her to live on this isolated farm. So last night Yvonne took her to her convent in Montreal.”
Damn. How was I ever going to get her to make a statement to police now? “Has she gone for a brief stay? Or is this meant to be her new home?”
“It depends on Yvette.”
Yeah, sure. “I’d like to know if she went of her own accord.”
His raised eyebrows expressed surprise at the audacity of my question, but he answered, “I will be honest with you, because you are her friend. No, she didn’t want to go, but she liked the idea of meeting new friends, so she agreed.”
He appeared as upset by this sudden turn of events as I was.
“My sister will be all right. I promise.” He scanned my face, as if looking for sanction, then he said, “But please, you are cold, and I am not being a good host. If you are not in a hurry, come into the house. I can offer you something warm to take your mind from your troubles. You look so sad.”
He held out his hand. I accepted.
The kitchen percolated with warmth. I shook the snow from my jacket and hung it on a hook near the wood stove. I brushed the ice crystals from my hair and tried to make it a little more presentable. I started to sit at the kitchen table, when Yves suggested otherwise.
“Please,” he said, “this is not a fitting place for a guest. Let us go into the front room.”
I followed him down the hall to the room I’d only seen through its archway. A fire crackled in the brick fireplace. I rubbed my hands in its heat then turned my backside to the warmth.
“I prefer this to all the rooms in this old farmhouse,” Yves said. “Please, as you English say, make yourself at home, while I get us something warm to drink.”
I cast my eyes around the room for a suitable chair in which to make myself at home. None qualified. At least not in the overstuffed comfy manner I liked. Instead I had the choice of several straight-back, hard-cushioned museum pieces that would have me fidgeting within minutes. While I could understand Yves’s attachment to the antique refinement of this room, I couldn’t see him using this as a place for relaxation. Still, the massive home entertainment system filling the one wall suggested exactly that.
I chose the burgundy velvet settee across the room from the fifty-two inch screen, figuring this would be the most comfortable seat, but the rigidity of the arched back and the inflexibility of the cushions soon had me wondering what use was actually made of the state-of-the-art equipment. In fact, contrary to what the blazing fire suggested, this room wasn’t meant for daily use. More likely it was intended to showcase the Gagnon family’s long and prosperous history.
Yves arrived with a tray laden with a silver tea service and bone-china cups, and I smiled to myself. I’d been no less guilty of trying to impress when I’d made a point of using Aunt Aggie’s fine things to serve tea to his twin sister.
He set the tray down on a high-style parlour table covered in a fine veneer of crotch-grained maple. “Beautiful furniture, non? Like you, we are proud of the things our ancestors have passed onto us.”
He waved his hand towards the HDTV . “Pfifft. I detest such a thing standing in the same room as this history. But my father insisted on buying such a modern monster. Unfortunately, the only wall large enough in this small house is this one.”
I shifted my sore bottom. “But surely he doesn’t sit on this furniture to watch it?” I uttered, regretting it immediately.
But Yves only laughed at my impertinence. “Ah, we think alike, you and I,” he said. “After Papa dropped cigarette ash on this fine fabric, I told him he had no respect for his ancestors’ furniture. So he brings in a chair from the kitchen.”
Poor man, I thought. One of those unpadded wooden chairs would be even more bum-numbing than this settee. “You must be a family of stoics.”
“Pardon,” Yves said, as he gave me a quizzical eye.
Not sure if he would appreciate the intended humour, I said instead, “Would you like me to pour the tea?”
“If you would like, but this is not a simple tea.” He walked over to the pine armoire and removed a bottle of liquor. “A secret ingredient to cheer you up.”
He poured a generous amount of a purplish-black liquid into each of the fragile cups and motioned for me to pour in the tea, which I realized from its berry-like fragrance was not ordinary tea.
“Black currant tea,” Yves said, “and crème de cassis.”
It spread its tingling warmth through every vein in my body. It was delicious. I leaned back as comfortably as I could on the rigid settee. Maybe this explained Yvonne’s rigidity. She’d grown up in the straight-back confines of this furniture. Yves returned to the kitchen and came back carrying a plate of pets de soeurs.
“I understand you have developed a taste for these naughty treats.” He laughed.
“Yes, I suppose it has become a bit of a joke between your twin and myself,” I said, helping myself to one of the cinnamon drenched rounds. Yves sat down beside me on the narrow settee. I moved over to give him a bit of room, but not too much.
“What happened,” I said, pointing to the scratches only partially covered by the Band-Aid. “Get a little too close to Yvette’s cat?”
He jerked as if I’d jolted him with an electric shock, then he rubbed his fingers over the scratches and laughed.
“Oui, that little devil thought I was a mouse, eh?” He turned his focus to his tea, stirring it absent-mindedly, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
Troubles at work, I thought to myself and left him to his musings while I enjoyed the tea. Finally, he shook away whatever was bothering him. He smiled.
“This is a happy coincidence. I’ve missed you while I was in Montreal this week. I was planning on phoning you tonight. But you have come to me. How nice.”
And he brought his arm around my shoulders. Acknowledging that I’d missed his company too, I leaned against him. Together we sat in silence, sipping our tea and enjoying the warmth of the fire and each other’s presence. Outside, the storm that had threatened released its wintery load. The wind whipped snow against the window. A gust slammed against the house and sent a fury of sparks up the chimney.
A door in the kitchen banged. Yves went to check. “The back door was not closed properly,” he said returning. “It is developing into a real blizzard, une vrai tempête de neige, we say in French. You may have to stay.”
His smile had a hint of shy anticipation. I relaxed further, thinking I’d go with the flow, so to speak, and see where it took us. He poured more tea and more crème de cassis and resumed his place by my side. We continued to sit contentedly watching the fire and sipping our tea. A photo of Yvette propped amongst other family photographs on the mantle eventually reminded me of the reason for my visit.
“Yves, I need to talk with Yvette. Do you know the convent’s telephone number?” I felt him stiffen, then relax.
“It is not possible. There are no phones where the girls live.”
“I find that hard to believe, particularly in this age of the ubiquitous cell phone.”
“They are forbidden.”
“But surely there must be phones somewhere in the convent? She can use one of those?”
“Unfortunately, the nuns do not allow it.”
Yves ran his fingers through my hair, brushed his lips against my brow.
“I sense something is wrong. Perhaps I can help.”
I debated. Would I only make matters worse if I divulged what she’d been up to with John-Joe, or would Yves be more understanding than his father or twin sister and help me get Yvette’s statement to the police? Although he hadn’t exactly been supportive of her relationship with the young man, I felt I had no alternative. Yvette’s evidence was about the only thing going for John-Joe.
“Yes, maybe you can,” I said and proceeded to tell him why I needed to speak with Yvette. Although he frowned when I told him about John-Joe’s use of their old homestead, he was on the whole calmly receptive. I ended by saying, “Yvette believes he is innocent and wants to do what she can to help him, but I think she is also afraid that her father and sister will be angry.”
“Ma chère Marguerite, I see you persist in helping this man.” My back stiffened at his patronizing tone. He got up to throw another log into the fire, made a face at the snow pelting the stained glass of the side window, then turned to me. “But you are right. They would be very upset to learn that Yvette had helped this Indian. They do not understand her attraction to him. And, for that matter, nor do I.”
He stopped to take a sip of his tea, while I braced for the rejection. “If she has helped him, she must report this to the police. But, I am concerned that she also could be charged in connection with Chantal’s death. Especially, if the police prove John-Joe did kill this young woman. I am surprised you do not think of this yourself?”
“But I don’t see how—oh, you mean because she helped him afterwards. But I don’t believe she knew Chantal was dead when she hid him in your cabin. So surely she couldn’t be accused of anything.”
“But, if she did?”
“Well, maybe there’s a way we can protect your sister and still have her speak to the police.”
“We must talk to a lawyer.”
“I can talk to John-Joe’s lawyer.”
“And I will talk to mine. Until we know, it is better she remain in Montreal, n’est-ce pa?”
“I suppose so, but let’s not wait too long to get the answer.”
One after another we attempted to call our respective lawyers on the farm phone, but as invariably happens when something’s pressing, neither lawyer was available. Tommy was tied up in court and Yves’s was out of town until the next day.
Because Yves had been willing to help with Yvette, I decided to tell him it would also be useful for his other sister to speak to the police. It required less convincing, for by the time I finished explaining to him the importance of establishing Thérèse’s presence in the area at the time of Chantal’s murder, he was leaving a message at the convent for Soeur Yvonne to call him at her first opportunity.
With nothing more that could be done, we both settled back into the settee to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.