Eulalie saw a man of about the same age approaching them from a parked car. The only problem with this spot was that it was a popular lookout point. People often pulled their cars over to enjoy the view. It was recommended on several tourist websites.
“I’m a rock-climber,” she explained, edging towards her scooter. “I climbed.”
“Where’s your equipment?”
Eulalie shoved her helmet into place and threw a leg over her scooter. “Excuse me. I have to go.”
“Dexter!” the woman called. “This girl just popped up out of nowhere. It’s like she grew wings and flew. Don’t look at me like that, Dexter. It’s true.”
Eulalie gave a quick wave and drove off with a roar.
On the way home, she stopped off at Angel’s Place to collect a lasagna she had ordered the day before.
While undoubtedly a master at pouring sugary cereal into a bowl and topping it off with milk, she would be the first to admit that her culinary skills didn’t extend much further. She usually ate out, ordered in, or consumed whatever she could slap between two slices of bread.
On the rare occasions that she was expecting company, she ordered a dinner from Angel’s Place.
When she got to the restaurant, she found her order sitting in a foil container on one of the counters. A set of handwritten heating instructions was taped to the lid.
“That seems simple enough,” Eulalie said as she picked up the container and turned to leave.
“Don’t forget the salad,” said a voice behind her.
“Salad? I didn’t order any salad.”
Gigi Bartineau just smiled. She was Angel’s head-waitress and biggest fan. She was also Eulalie’s friend, although Eulalie would have appreciated more cooperation from her in fending off Angel’s constant attempts to get her to eat more healthily.
“Angel said I wasn’t to let you leave without the salad. She said Chief Macgregor is a man who appreciates healthy eating and will enjoy the meal more with salad.”
“Nobody enjoys anything more with salad,” Eulalie grumbled. “Not really. They just pretend to. And does Angel have to tell the whole island who my dinner guest is?”
“She didn’t tell the whole island – just me. But then she didn’t have to, seeing as the whole island already knows about the recent change in status in your relationship with him.”
Eulalie’s frown deepened as she prodded the salad bowl Gigi had given her.
“What is this anyway? Rabbit food?”
“It’s melon, watercress, pine-nuts, feta cheese, and avocado. And here’s the raspberry vinaigrette to pour over it.”
“Oh. Okay. I suppose that doesn’t sound too bad. At least there’s no lettuce.”
“Angel says you can return the bowl whenever you have time.”
“Thanks, Gigi.”
“It’s a pleasure. Have a good night.”
“You too. I hope you have a good shift with lots of good tippers.”
“I just want them all to go home early. I need to work on an assignment for tomorrow.” Gigi was doing a two-year bookkeeping course sponsored by Angel.
Eulalie loaded the lasagna and the salad into the basket on her Vespa. Then she headed home for a nap.
When Chief Macgregor arrived a few hours later, the cat had been fed and brushed, and the lasagna was ready to be popped into the oven. A good white wine was chilling in the fridge and the table was set and ready.
Eulalie had changed into dove-grey yoga pants and a white tank-top, grateful that she was comfortable enough with Donal Macgregor not to feel the urge to dress up in uncomfortable clothes for him.
She opened the door and saw that he had also gone casual – well-worn faded jeans and a sky-blue T-shirt. Eulalie smiled. He looked more delicious than the dinner.
Chapter 4
Chief Macgregor’s forefinger traced patterns on Eulalie’s midriff as they lay together a while later.
“I love your fat little stomach,” he said as he circled her bellybutton.
Eulalie looked down at her perfectly flat tummy.
“Excuse me?”
“I said I love your fat stomach.”
“Did you just call me fat?”
“No, no. Not at all. I said your stomach was fat.”
“That’s just as bad.” She turned her head to frown at him.
“There’s a layer of subcutaneous fat right here.” He tapped the skin just under her bellybutton. “Women have it and men don’t. I was just saying that I like it. It makes a nice curve.”
Eulalie had to resist the urge to pull the duvet over her.
“Then call it a curve, for goodness sake, Donal. Don’t call me fat.”
“But I didn’t call you fat. I just said that…”
“My stomach was fat,” she interrupted. “I get it, but it’s not exactly tactful.”
“Tact isn’t my strong suit.”
His face was developing the worried expression it normally wore when he had made a misstep in his personal interaction with someone and didn’t understand why. Eulalie’s annoyance melted.
She snuggled against him. “It’s not important. You are the way you are, and I am the way I am, and I think we’re doing a pretty good job of getting to know each other.”
He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. “Agreed.”
“I should put the lasagna in the oven,” she said lazily. “It needs to bake for thirty minutes.”
“You stay where you are. I’ll do it.”
Eulalie turned her head to admire the view as he got up and walked to the kitchen.
“I am shamelessly objectifying you,” she said when he came back a minute later.
He thought about this. “That sounds all right.”
Then he got back into bed beside her.
“I remember what I wanted to tell you,” said Eulalie. “My grandmother has hired me to investigate the death of my mother. I said I’d do it for free, but that seemed to upset her, so I gave in. The point is, I’ll be working full-time on the case from now on.”
“Okay. We can share information. Where are you planning to start?”
“I have to go to the village. There are people there who knew her when she was a teenager. She would have confided in them in ways that she might not have confided in her mother. If I can find out exactly what she had in mind when she left, it would be a good starting point.”
“Good. Take me with you.”
“No.” Eulalie groaned. “Don’t make me.”
“Why not? The villagers like me. Your uncle likes me. I might notice something that you don’t.”
“I can travel faster alone.”
He squeezed her bicep gently between finger and thumb. “I know. You’re very strong and fast. I will do my best to keep up, and I promise not to complain.”
“I’m leaving early tomorrow morning,” she warned. “I want to get there before nightfall.”
“That’s fine. I’ll spend this evening delegating my duties and rescheduling meetings, so I can be away for a couple of days. My climbing gear is at home, so I’ll have to get that too.”
“Oh, all right. As long as we make the five o’clock train up to the cable car station, I don’t mind.”
The funicular train chugged up the cliff.
It was empty at that hour of the morning, apart from Eulalie and Chief Macgregor. On its way back down, it would pick up a few early passengers from the houses that clung perilously to the cliff face. Many of them worked in town and needed to get an early start.
On its next trip up the cliff, the train would be fuller. Several tourist companies offered sunrise tours to the lookout point at the top of the cable car. It was a beautiful place to watch the sun come up and to enjoy a panoramic view of the island.
Right now, Eulalie was glad it was just the two of them.
It was the same in the cable car – they were the only passengers. The cable car operator greeted Eulalie by name. He knew not to expect her to be making the return tri
p any time soon. It would be a couple of days before he saw her again.
“Don’t wait for me,” Chief Macgregor said, taking his climbing gear out of his backpack. “This will take a while.”
“That’s fine.” Eulalie was cheerful. Any day that she was heading into the forest was a good day. “I’ll have breakfast while you get organized. You’ll have to eat while you walk, I’m afraid.”
She took out one of the baguettes she had prepared the night before and sat on a bench to enjoy it. The air still held an early morning chill that would burn off as soon as the sun came up. A rosy glow on the eastern horizon told her that this would be soon. She enjoyed the gentle breeze and the shrinking of her skin from the chill.
Soon she would be in the forest, with humidity resting against her body like a thick blanket.
When Chief Macgregor was three-quarters of the way down the cliff, Eulalie stood up and stretched. She repacked her backpack and fitted it snugly onto her shoulders. Then she vaulted over the iron balustrade intended to keep sightseers safe and began to climb.
It was a descent of a few hundred feet, so it took her several minutes to complete. She passed Chief Macgregor who was half climbing, half rappelling down. Her feet touched the forest floor moments before his.
“Show off.”
She grinned and kissed him. “Always.”
She handed him his baguette and a bottle of water, and they began their journey.
“Tell me what you see,” said Chief Macgregor. “I can’t see a path, but you obviously can. Tell me how you do it.”
“There is no path. The villagers are very careful about that. There are a number of different routes to be taken and we alternate them so that no visible path is ever formed. The villagers don’t want to be found. They want to be left alone.”
Chief Macgregor looked up at the dense canopy of tree tops high above his head, and the almost impenetrable brush that surrounded them on all sides.
“They certainly have a formidable natural barrier to shield them. So, if there is no actual path, how do you know where to go?”
“I read the signs.” Eulalie waved her hands around. “Just as you would read the signboards on a highway, I read the signs that are all around us.”
“Tell me,” he said.
So, she did.
She told him how trees – even giants like these – lean slightly away from the windward side. She reminded him that the prevailing wind on Prince William Island came from the south east. She showed him how moss and lichen tended to grow on the leeward side of trees and logs.
Even though the sun was hidden from them by the canopy of trees, she showed him how the intensity of light filtering through the leaves could help you determine the position of the sun in the sky. She showed him certain types of vegetation that grew in more profusion closer to water, and those that grew further away from it. She showed him a certain species of grasshopper that, when startled, would always leap in a direction that led away from water.
“And of course, I listen,” Eulalie said. “If I’m heading towards the village, I keep the sound of the water in my right ear, and if I’m heading away from the village, I keep it in my left ear.”
“I can’t hear the river at all,” said Chief Macgregor. “Just the wind blowing in the trees above us.”
“You need to close your eyes and listen. The wind is a high, sighing sound – almost a whine. The water is a lower, tumbling noise. Once you hear it, you will always be able to separate the two.”
Chief Macgregor listened. There were times when he thought he could hear it – when he thought he could distinguish between the two. But then it went away again. He tried to open his eyes and see the forest as she saw it. When she pointed something out to him, he could see it, but when he tried to look for it without her guidance, it wasn’t so easy. That was the difference between a quick on-the-spot tutorial and having been born and brought up in the forest.
Even by village standards, Eulalie was exceptional – he knew that. It was something she had inherited from her father who was apparently remarkably physically able.
They walked, scrambled, and climbed for hours. The walking was comparatively easy. It was when the route became impassable that the tricky part started. Chief Macgregor knew that if Eulalie had been on her own, she would have made faster progress – taking to the trees and climbing over obstacles.
With him there, she had to hunt around to find a route that he could manage. But she didn’t complain, and he didn’t apologize. They understood that this was a difficult case that would require investigative input from both of them to solve.
They reached the village at six in the evening. The light had dimmed considerably over the past hour, but it wasn’t yet full dark. Most of the children were indoors by now, and the adults were busy with food preparation.
“Remember, hardly anyone speaks English,” Eulalie warned as they approached. “It’s Guillaumoise or French.”
“I know. My French has improved a lot since I’ve been on Prince William Island, and I’ve been learning Guillaumoise, as you know. I have a language app that is teaching me.”
“My uncle Virgil speaks excellent French, and a little English. And you’re right – he does like you. They all do for some reason. This is a community that does not take well to outsiders.”
“As head of the Council of Elders, your uncle Virgil is someone we should probably speak to about this.”
“Normally, I’d say yes. But he was no more than a child himself when his sister left. He must have been about twelve. Fourteen-year-old girls don’t usually confide in their twelve-year-old brothers. He might be able to remember who she was close to, though, and we can compare that with what Angel told me.”
A cry of welcome went up as Eulalie and Chief Macgregor were spotted. People surged forward to embrace her and to shake his hand. Eulalie plunged happily into the maelstrom of people, enjoying being back among her friends and family.
As things settled down, and people drifted back to their own cooking fires, Eulalie’s uncle invited the two of them to join his family for dinner. They were happy to accept.
“I need to speak to you before we sit down to dinner, Uncle,” she said as they made their way towards his house.
“I suspected as much. I gather it is not good news?”
“No, but it’s more than we had before so that must count as progress.”
Eulalie’s aunt welcomed them and settled Chief Macgregor in a chair on the porch with a glass of the locally brewed beer. Virgil took Eulalie to his back room to talk.
“Tell me quickly,” he said. “Is it about Maman?”
“No, she is fine. This affects her though, and you too. It’s about Fauve – my mother.”
“Her body has been found?”
Eulalie nodded, and watched his face fall into lines of sorrow.
“I knew there was no hope,” he said at last. “But somehow this makes it more real. It is terrible to lose a sibling at a young age. It’s like a part of your childhood has been carved away. Where was she found? What happened to her?”
“She was found in a shallow grave at a place called Robson’s Field to the north of the island. It seems she was killed shortly after leaving here. She was still wearing the same clothes – the same necklace.”
Virgil squeezed his eyes shut. “That necklace. I haven’t thought of it in years. But if I close my eyes, I can see it in front of me.”
“She was killed by a blow to the back of the head. The medical examiner doesn’t think it was accidental. Somebody killed her and buried her in an unmarked grave twenty-eight years ago. Chief Macgregor and I want to find out who.”
“How is Maman taking it? This must be hard on her.”
Eulalie struggled to articulate what she was feeling. “The thing is… we all knew she was dead. But Angel was the only one who really felt it deep in her soul. So, having it confirmed was not a shock. The thing that has haunted her all this time is what happened to her
. Did she suffer? Was she in pain? The medical examiner was able to answer part of that when she told us that she would have died instantly and never seen the blow coming. But there are many unanswered questions. Angel has hired me to investigate. I tried to convince her that it wasn’t necessary, but she wants to do it like this.”
“The laborer is worthy of his hire,” said Virgil. “That is one of the tenets of your modern society that I happen to agree with. You are good at what you do and deserve to be rewarded for it. I too hope you find answers about what happened to my sister.”
“Perhaps you can help,” said Eulalie. “Did Fauve ever say anything to you about wanting to leave the village, or where she might go if she did?”
“No. But she was always restless. You know how village kids fantasize about what’s on the other side of the forest?”
Eulalie nodded. She’d had those daydreams herself. It had been a shock to have them realized at the age of twelve.
“It was more than a childish preoccupation with Fauve. She really wanted to know. She dreamed about the wonders that Queen’s Town might hold. I remember her being terribly jealous of me when I went to have my appendix out at the hospital. I had to describe everything to her in the smallest detail. She and Lucien had that in common – that wanderlust that most villagers grow out of. Perhaps they would have grown out of it too if you hadn’t suddenly entered the picture.”
“Babies change everything,” said Eulalie. “Or so I’ve heard.”
“They certainly do. It was only when I had children of my own that I understood how she must have felt at the age of fourteen. Lucien was gone, and she was left behind, alone and responsible for a baby. It is possible that she wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Postnatal depression? Yes, I thought of that. My big question is whether she was planning to come back.”
“There has never been any doubt in my mind that she was,” said Virgil. “She loved you. You were the light of her life, but also a source of great terror for her. I think she just needed a break. She went to see for herself what was on the other side of the forest, but I believe she was always intending to come back.”
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 100