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Susan Rasmussen and Pam Leone drank coffee and waited anxiously with Karen, Lili, and Gil. The conference room at the Greenfield Recorder building was slightly too cold, which didn’t help the jitters. Gil had swapped his large hospital bandage for several smaller, skin-tone ones. Kenny Tran opened the door, and Helene Faucher walked in hesitantly with a younger woman in a smart pantsuit. Helene and Susan burst into tears and hugged each other while Pam looked on nervously. A news photographer was quietly taking pictures in the background. Helene cupped her hands around Pam’s face and said, “I see that you are my daughters, but I would never have recognized you! You’re so beautiful!”
Kenny introduced himself and invited them all to sit. “Helene, this is Detective Karen Tindall, Forensic Scientist Lili D’Amico, and Mr. Gil Novak. They found your daughters.”
“There are not enough words for my thanks,” said Helene. “I thought I’d never see them again.”
“I saw you,” said Susan. “You had died! This is a miracle. All these years, I carried a big emptiness. But you didn’t die that day. My God!”
Pam was shaking. She burst into tears, then buried her face in her hands. “You couldn’t protect us!” She looked into Helene’s eyes, her eyes red. “You couldn’t save us from him!”
Helene put her hand on Pam’s arm. “I know. I know I couldn’t. I am so sorry. We all suffered so much.”
After the family talked some more, the woman that had come in with Helene Faucher introduced herself as Olivia Tremblay, a diplomat from the Canadian consulate in Boston. She asked, “Excuse me, but do you intend to interrogate Mademoiselle Faucher?”
“We’ve already interviewed Ms. Faucher remotely,” said Detective Tindall. “We have no further need to question her. We provided a transcript of that interview to the New York State Police so they could close the file on their old assault and kidnapping case. We confirmed the death of Mr. Remi Foy, so there is no need to further pursue his crimes. Unfortunately, we have had to charge Ms. Faucher’s grandson with crimes apparently associated with his attempts to protect his mother and his aunt from issues arising from the death of his brother Julian. However, neither Susan nor Pam appears to be involved in Julian’s death, which may or may not have been accidental.”
Ms. Tremblay said, “In that case, my services are no longer needed here. I wish you all the best.” She took Helene’s hand, whispered to her, and left.
A quiet descended upon the room. “There’s one thing I don’t understand in all of this,” said Helene. “How did all of this come about so many years later?”
Karen looked at Gil.
“I guess this all happened because I got help for my insomnia,” said Gil. “A lot of my sleep problems came from terrible nightmares I was having almost every night. I went to a doctor that hypnotized me, and it helped me remember an incident that happened when I was a teenager. I had climbed up the mountain here in town, and I was spying on this hippie family living in a cave.”
Susan’s eyes went wide. “You’re that boy? The boy my father shot at?”
“Yep, that was me. When he shot at me, I ran as fast as I could, but I fell. I think I got knocked out. Anyway, I recently came back to Greenfield to try and find out about that, and it turned out that I was a witness to events surrounding the death of your child.”
“So how did he die?” Pam asked. “How did Jules die?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see what happened, or I don’t remember it. I’m so sorry about all of that. But I’m glad you’re all together again. And I’m sleeping much better!”
“This whole story is unbelievable!” said Helene, smiling. “Mr. Tran, none of this was in your newspaper article!”
“I didn’t want your happy reunion story to be tied to the cold case involving your grandson Julian or the criminal cases involving your grandson,” said Mark.
A look of shock came over Helene’s face, and she put her hand over her mouth. “Theo, my God!” She looked around the room. “Until you said that, I never thought of Jules and Theo as my grandchildren. I thought of them as evil because they were the result of Remi’s crimes. But they are my daughter’s children. They are my grandchildren.” She started weeping.
“There is something else you should know,” said Lili. “Remi didn’t die until 1996. He changed his name to Douglas Foy and was living in Maine.” Susan, Pam, and Helene looked shocked. “Apparently he’d stopped drinking for a few years, remarried, and had three kids. Then he started up again, and his wife Regina left him and took the kids. Remi died a few years later of liver failure.”
Nobody said anything for an uncomfortable moment.
“On a more positive note,” said Gil, “you have two half brothers named Aaron and Christian and a half sister named Carly. Lili and I met Aaron and his mother, Regina, and they are very nice people. Aaron asked if they could meet you. I can give you his contact information.”
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Gil walked over to Karen’s desk to say goodbye. “What are those?” he asked.
“Those are pictures of Keith Moraine’s truck. I took them when we brought him in for questioning.”
“I recognize those button pins hanging from the rearview mirror. I remember them from when I was a kid.” One of the buttons had a picture of the earth and said, “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.” The other had a picture of Alfred E. Neuman and said, “What, Me Work?”
“Who is that guy?” Karen asked.
“That’s Alfred E. Neuman, the main character from Mad Magazine.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It was an old funny magazine from the sixties. But anyway, where’s that picture of Sneaky Pete that you had from Social Services? I peeked at it while we were searching for you.” Karen found the picture in her computer and pulled it up. Sneaky Pete was wearing a jacket full of button pins. Gil pointed. “See? Right there.”
Karen’s eyes lit up. “You may just have solved a murder or two.”
“Well, that’s good, I suppose. I’ll see you later at dinner.”