The Eulalie Park Mysteries Box Set 2

by Fiona Snyckers

  “For Megamoxy?”

  “Yes. They have started work on the theme-park. It was one of the workers for Waylon Construction who made the discovery.”

  Eulalie knew she wasn’t going to like the answer but asked anyway. “What discovery?”

  “The body of a young girl buried in a shallow grave. After preliminary examination, Dr. Autry thinks the body has been there about thirty years, maybe a little less. The girl was approximately fourteen years old and had recently borne a child. The details made me wonder if she could possibly be your mother. Your grandmother seems to think it is likely. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  There was quite a long pause. When Chief Macgregor spoke again, his voice was hesitant.

  “I know I often misunderstand people’s reactions. Like, I should probably have come to see you and your grandmother in person rather than telling you over the phone. I’ve just thought of that. But why is it okay? Neither you nor Ms. Angel seems surprised.”

  “We’ve always known she was dead. When I was very young, Angel told me that she felt her absence – had felt it for some time. There was never any doubt in her mind that my mother had died. It has been part of our reality for a long time now. It is a shock to know that her body might have turned up after all these years, but we always knew she was dead.”

  “There are some personal items that might help us make a positive identification. Could you and your grandmother come in and take a look?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tomorrow will be fine.”

  When they had set up a time, Eulalie disconnected the call.

  She turned to her grandmother who was still seated. Her back was perfectly straight, and her eyes were dry. Only her pallor revealed the strain she was under.

  “It looks like you were right,” said Eulalie. “It is all coming to light.”

  Eulalie went home to her apartment. It was on the floor above her private investigation agency.

  It was good to step into her own space and to have no one but her cat to worry about. He was a large stray that had walked into her office one day and refused to leave. Now, largely thanks to her secretary, he had an upstairs basket, a downstairs basket, and an outside basket that was placed at the entrance every morning and brought in every evening. Despite this extensive choice of bedding, he still slept on Eulalie’s bed, usually with his paws resting on her chest.

  As she walked into the apartment that night, he greeted her rapturously and wound his way through her legs as she tried to walk. That and a series of rusty meows told her that he would very much appreciate a late-night snack. Usually she resisted his blandishments – he was plump enough already - but tonight there was something soothing about spoiling him. There was nothing she could do to make her grandmother feel better, but she could at least make her cat happy.

  When she was ready for bed, he hopped up next to her and curled himself against her hip. She allowed herself the comfort of stroking his furry flank and feeling the rumbling of his purrs under her hand.

  She wondered what Angel was doing for comfort tonight. Eulalie had offered to stay with her, but she had been steadfast in refusing.

  What was going through her mind, knowing that the body of her only daughter had probably been found? Angel had never known what had happened to Fauve. The realization that she was dead had crept up on her over the course of several years. From what Chief Macgregor had said, she might have died shortly after leaving – just weeks after giving birth to Eulalie.

  Eulalie’s investigator’s brain was already calculating what it meant that she had been found in a shallow grave. Had she been murdered? Had she been killed accidently, and then buried to cover up the mishap? Could she have died by misadventure and her body have been slowly covered by the accretions of twenty-eight years?

  All were possibilities, but Eulalie leaned more towards human agency. Someone had buried her, and that someone knew where, when and how she had died. That person might still be alive.

  Eulalie’s eyelids were getting heavy, but she forced them open.

  She was afraid to fall asleep - afraid of what dreams might come in the small hours of the morning when her mind was defenseless and her resistance at its lowest.

  She didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want to see how her mother had died. It was too much. It was more than any daughter could be expected to bear. Surely her mind couldn’t be so cruel?

  But Eulalie knew what her mind was capable of. She knew the dark places it had taken her. And so, she resisted sleep.

  As the time crept closer to midnight, the hand that stroked the cat grew heavy and still. Her breathing slowed. Her eyelids dropped shut and didn’t open again.

  She slept.

  Eulalie woke up on Sunday morning with a profound sense of relief that she had passed a dreamless night. She felt refreshed and ready to take on whatever the day might bring.

  In her early morning optimism, it seemed like a good thing that this body had been discovered. For years, she and Angel had been tortured by not knowing what had happened to Fauve. Now at last, they were going to get some answers.

  Eulalie fed the cat and took a shower. She dressed in her usual weekend outfit of shorts and a strappy top. It felt wrong to be dressing in casual clothes when she was due at the police station in a couple of hours, but she reminded herself that it was Sunday morning and she was off duty. She had several cases pending, but none of them urgent enough to work on the weekend.

  In her kitchen, she took out a bowl and poured herself a generous helping of something called Captain Marshmallow’s Whizzing Chocolate Bitz. She added a dollop of creamy whole milk and dug in.

  As she ate, she read the Sunday papers on her iPad over a pot of coffee. The media was full of excited speculation about what the Megamoxy theme-park would bring to Prince William Island in terms of jobs, tourists, and revenue. There was no mention that the discovery of a body had halted construction.

  The only whisper she could find about it was on a blog that ran such wild-eyed conspiracy stories that no one took it seriously.

  The story would be all over the news by that afternoon, if not sooner. Eulalie appreciated that Chief Macgregor had kept it out of the media while she and Angel were still confirming the identity of the deceased.

  At eight forty-five, Angel texted to confirm that they were meeting at the police station at nine o’clock. Eulalie replied in the affirmative. As she left the apartment, she saw Paddy the cat slipping out the kitchen window for his morning wander in the gardens behind her office.

  She decided to walk to the police station rather than taking her Vespa. She had plenty of time, and the walk would settle her mind ahead of whatever was waiting for her at the police station. Angel would no doubt take a cab.

  It was a beautiful morning on Prince William Island. Church bells pealed all over the city, calling the faithful to mass.

  It was a diverse community with many different faiths and places of worship, including Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, and even Buddhists. But Catholicism remained the dominant religion, even a hundred and thirty years after the French had left.

  Eulalie felt her usual twinge of guilt that she wasn’t on her way to mass. Her grandmother had probably attended the dawn service. Then she remembered that they could attend Vespers that evening together and felt a little calmer. They could light a candle for her mother’s soul and pray for her. It would be good for both of them.

  Eulalie arrived at the police station just as a cab pulled up and disgorged Angel.

  “Now I feel too casual,” Eulalie said as her grandmother kissed her on both cheeks.

  Angel’s idea of Sunday casualwear was a black pencil skirt with a turquoise knitted top that showed off her figure to perfection. She was wearing stockings and kitten heels, and some good, discreet jewelry.

  “You look adorable, ma petite. Far too young to be at a police station, but adorable nonetheless.”

  “How are you feeling t
oday?”

  “Afraid of what we will discover, chérie. It has always been my fear that Fauve suffered before death - that she was alone and afraid. I worry that this fear will be confirmed today.”

  Eulalie squeezed her hand. “We’ve been strong for twenty-eight years. We can survive the next few hours.”

  Angel nodded. She drew herself up until she was standing with her usual excellent posture.

  “Let’s get it over with.”

  Eulalie led the way into the police station. The usual desk sergeant Manny wasn’t on duty, but his weekend replacement recognized Eulalie and waved her through to the back. The fact that Chief Macgregor had asked them to meet here in one of the interview rooms, rather than at the morgue, told her that he had no intention of showing them the body.

  That was a relief. Eulalie had attended several autopsies over the course of her career, but this was different. This might be her mother.

  She stopped in front of Interview Room One and knocked. Chief Macgregor opened the door. He nodded gravely. “Eulalie. Ms. Angel.”

  They filed into the room. Eulalie suppressed a sigh when she saw who else was in Interview Room One.

  It was Dr. Stephanie Autry.

  Chapter 2

  If Eulalie had felt underdressed earlier, she felt positively dowdy now.

  The medical examiner was wearing a chic salmon-colored suit that was so immaculately tailored it could only have come from Paris. Her hair was swept into an elegant chignon and her makeup was impeccable. Eulalie was conscious of the unruly mane of black hair tumbling down her back, her unmade-up face and her clothes that looked more appropriate for the beach than for a meeting.

  “How do you do?” Dr. Autry put out her hand to shake Eulalie’s. “Stephanie Autry. I’m the medical examiner for Prince William Island.”

  Eulalie managed not to roll her eyes. Even though the two of them had met many times – had in fact been at school together – Dr. Autry always insisted on pretending not to remember her.

  Dr. Autry turned towards Angel. She seemed to recall what they were all doing there, and her face softened.

  “Good morning, Ms. de la Cour. I’m sorry we are meeting again in such difficult circumstances. I hope I can at least help to bring closure to you and your family.”

  Angel gave her a regal nod. “Thank you.”

  “I have made quite an extensive study of the body found in Robson’s Field two days ago. I can tell you that this young girl has been deceased just shy of thirty years. When exactly did your daughter go missing, Ms. de la Cour?”

  “Twenty-eight years ago.”

  “So, the time period fits. The deceased girl was not yet fully grown. Judging by the length of her tibias and the presence of cartilage epiphyses at the end of her long bones, she would still have grown about another inch. I would put her age tentatively at about fourteen years. Chief Macgregor tells me that is the age at which your daughter went missing?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It is also clear from the pelvic bones that this girl had given birth. In addition, there is a series of pockmarks the size of shotgun pellets along the inside of the pelvic bone caused by the tearing of ligaments during childbirth. These would not be present in a girl who had given birth by Caesarean section.”

  Eulalie glanced at her grandmother to see whether this level of extreme detail was upsetting her. Angel listened intently to Dr. Autry and nodded as she spoke. When it was closure you were looking for, Eulalie realized, there was comfort in the details. It helped to feel absolutely sure about something as important as this.

  “The birth was recent,” Dr. Autry went on. “I can tell that by the way her pelvic bones have not yet settled back into place. I would guess that she had given birth a few weeks earlier.”

  “Three weeks,” said Angel.

  “In terms of the racial origins of this young girl, we look at the facial bones and tooth structure to determine population group. The width between her eyes and the structure of the nasal bone suggests an ancestry that can be traced to East Africa. There are strong Caucasian influences too – I would guess European rather than North American. The structure of the upper jawbone also suggests ancestors that came from India. In short, Ms. de la Cour, she has the typical skull and facial structure found here on Prince William Island. I’d say the chances are better than ninety-eight percent that she was a local girl.”

  “There are around fifty thousand locals on-island at any one time,” said Eulalie.

  “That’s true,” agreed Dr. Autry. “But when we examine her tooth structure, it becomes more interesting. The excellent state of her teeth, even for a fourteen-year-old, suggest a plant-based diet with almost no exposure to refined sugar throughout her lifetime. It is a tooth structure that we commonly see among the villagers of the deep forest. I would say that the odds are extremely good – better than eighty-five percent – that she grew up in the village.”

  Angel’s hands tightened against her handbag, but she gave no other sign of emotion.

  “Can I see her?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that.” Dr. Autry’s voice was gentle. “What relatives don’t realize is that the last view they have of the deceased becomes the image they carry around with them for the rest of their lives. It overwhelms their memory of the loved one as a living person and becomes a snapshot frozen in time. That’s fine if the deceased is recognizable in death, but I’m afraid the condition of the skeleton may distress you. It is twenty-eight years old, after all.”

  “I want to see my child.”

  Dr. Autry met Eulalie’s eyes for a second.

  “We should wait until this investigation is over, Grandmère. Then we can go and see her together. Perhaps Dr. Autry and her team can do something to make it less upsetting for both of us.”

  The medical examiner nodded. “We can do that.”

  Angel hesitated. Then she said, “Very well. As soon as the investigation is over, I want to see my daughter.”

  “How did she die?” Eulalie asked, turning to Chief Macgregor.

  “It was a blow to the back of the head. Someone who was several inches taller than her struck her with a hard object from right to left.”

  “Is there any chance it could have been an accident – like a falling branch?”

  “That’s unlikely. Dr. Autry has found particles in the skull that suggest the object was made of metal. The right to left action of the blow suggests human agency – probably by a right-handed person. She would have been killed instantly.”

  Eulalie touched her grandmother’s hand. “Do you hear that, Grandmère? Instantly. And she was hit from behind, so she wouldn’t even have known it was happening. She didn’t suffer. She wasn’t afraid.”

  Angel closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her face was calm.

  “She might not have suffered, but it is possible that she was afraid. We need to know more. We need to know who did this to her.”

  “Can you tell if her body was moved after death?” asked Eulalie. “And whether she was actually buried, or just lay where she fell and was gradually covered by soil over time?”

  “She was definitely buried,” said Chief Macgregor. “Her body had not been disturbed by animals, and it was found about three feet below the surface.”

  “Did your daughter ever see a dentist or a doctor, or have any kind of x-rays done during her lifetime?” Dr. Autry asked Angel.

  “Never,” said Angel. “She was brought up in the traditional village way with no contact with the outside world. The villagers are aware of the outside world, and sometimes venture into it to trade goods, but they live according to the old ways, with no modern conveniences. Medical issues are handled by healers within the community. I never took my daughter to a doctor or a dentist. I certainly would have if the necessity had arisen, but it didn’t. Eulalie’s birth was uncomplicated and attended by midwives from the village. Both she and Fauve were well afterwards.”

  “So, you would have tak
en her to a doctor if necessary?” asked Dr. Autry. “Is that a usual attitude?”

  “No, it isn’t. Many villagers will die rather than seek outside medical attention. But I have lived my whole life with one foot in the village and one in Queen’s Town, so to speak. My son Virgil had his appendix removed at Queen’s Town General Hospital when he was ten years old. It just so happens that I never had occasion to bring Fauve to Queen’s Town. The village healers dealt with all her childhood ailments.”

  “That means we won’t be able to use dental records to identify her,” Dr. Autry said to Chief Macgregor.

  “But perhaps the personal items we uncovered…?” he suggested.

  Eulalie and Angel stepped forward. Their eagerness was palpable.

  Chief Macgregor placed a plastic evidence bag on the table and wrote the time and date on the label, leaving a record of having handled them. He gave latex gloves to Eulalie and Angel and put a pair on himself. Then he reached into the bag and pulled out the first item.

  “This is what she was wearing.”

  Eulalie unfolded the hemp garment and laid it out for her grandmother to see. Angel stroked it with her gloved hand.

  “This is further evidence that she came from the village,” she said. “These robes are worn by women who are married or have borne children.”

  She pointed to the neckline and Eulalie nodded.

  The robe was discolored and tattered. It was so stained with soil and mud that the original color could only be guessed at. But Eulalie could see that her grandmother was right. The hand-stitching around the neckline was unmistakable.

  “I can’t swear that it was Fauve’s,” said Angel. “It looks exactly like a hundred others that were made back then and are still being made today. But I remember how excited she was to get her adult robe years before her contemporaries. All I can say is that the last time anyone from the village saw her she was wearing one of these.”

  “Were there any other women who left the village or went missing during the same time period?” asked Chief Macgregor.