by Ann Lambert
He checked his phone on the bathtub edge—he was already late. He hefted his bulk out of the bath, and reached for a towel to rub himself dry, taking meticulous care with every inch of his body. He had told her everything. Well, almost everything. Some things could not be fully revealed. He had promised her he’d care for her, never let her want for anything. He told her the things he had never told anyone else. All the social workers, all the therapists, all the do-gooders who wanted him to talktalktalktalktalktalktalktalk. She was the only one who really listened because she knew what it was like. And now she was gone.
As he straightened the epaulettes and insignia on his uniform, he smiled with self-satisfaction. No reasonable person could think he was not a good-looking man. He had a good face. A strong chin. Clean teeth. Clear eyes. Excellent posture. As he slid the wedding ring on, he glanced at her picture on his wall. He kissed the tips of his fingers and transferred it to the photograph. As he stepped out into the tepid light of mid-afternoon in a Montreal January, he felt a surge of resolve. She would understand why he was doing it. Why it was so very important.
Fifteen
Thursday evening
MARIE STEPPED OFF the #138 bus several blocks before her stop. It was a crisply cold but windless evening, and Marie wanted to walk a bit before she disappeared into her house for the night. Marie loved to walk. At her absolute lowest moments, when her marriage had failed and she was looking at raising two teenagers alone, even when she felt so low you could scrape her off the floor with a spatula, she still forced herself to go for a long walk. As long as she kept moving, she could face anything.
Marie walked west along Côte St. Antoine and smiled at the memory of this same walk in the summer—the sibilance of the swaying maple trees that lined the street, the gardens at almost every house in glorious bloom, the hiss of the sprinklers keeping them that way, the seductive smell of barbecue, the call of children playing outside even after supper, and the sharp whistle of the cardinals. She glanced in the houses as she passed, and could see people preparing supper, kids at their homework, televisions flickering in living rooms. Marie had always liked to look at the interior of every house—it fascinated her to think of all the dreams and struggles and tragedies and triumphs the people lived in just these few blocks. Daniel, her ex-husband, used to tell her she was just nosy and weird, but looking into strangers’ lives for just a few moments comforted Marie with the knowledge that they were all in this thing together somehow. The road started to descend, and she could see her park—Girouard Park—coming up on her left. The trees formed a kind of ethereal black web against the lights along the pathway, and the sky was just turning from royal blue to cobalt. Because it was suppertime and a school night, the park was entirely deserted. Or almost. On the hockey rink skated one lone man in concentric circles in its warm yellow lights. Marie thought he looked so self-
contained, so beautiful in his solitude. It was an iconic image of Montreal on a winter night. She remembered with a smile one of her first dates with Roméo, when they’d gone skating at Beaver Lake. Despite being a born and bred Montrealer, Marie never did take to skating. She pushed herself along the ice on stiff wooden legs, and realized too late that she didn’t really know how to stop. Roméo, on the other hand, skated around her effortlessly, like he was meant to glide through life with two thin blades on his feet. She still remembered the exhilaration she felt when he placed his arm around her waist and pulled her gently alongside him, matching his sure stroke to her hesitant one. She thought that was perhaps the very moment she fell in love with him.
Marie was startled by two huskies that suddenly turned the corner onto Côte St. Antoine and rushed towards her, dragging their owner who was running to keep up. They reminded her of a book she loved as a kid—in it were pictures of husky sled dogs pulling Inuit children to school up in the Arctic. The idea had thrilled her. For months, she kept asking her parents if she could get her own dogs of winter, as she called them, just like the Inuit kids. But no, they just had a crabby old tabby cat who took a nasty swipe at Marie every chance he got. Marie recognized the two huskies from a house one street over from hers. They were such magnificent animals. Quiet, obedient, gorgeous, and completely out of their element in the city. She watched them continue to prance along the sidewalk and disappear into the park. Hopefully they would soon be unleashed and allowed to run free.
The doors of the day care suddenly opened and a frazzled mother pulled her toddler down the stairs behind her, beeping the alarm off on her oversized SUV parked in front. Marie felt bad for the kids who were stuck in garderie this late. She felt bad for the parents, too, who had to leave them there often from seven in the morning until six at night. In the depths of a Montreal winter, that meant they never saw their kids in daylight except on the weekends. Marie continued past the grandiose façade of St. Augustine’s church, and instinctively looked up to where two peregrine falcons had started nesting a few years earlier. She often heard them before she could see them, and then it was only a quick shadow—they were the fastest birds in the world and would plummet from the bell tower of the church to hunt. The park, which had once been full of pigeons was now almost pigeon-free. But peregrines ate songbirds, too. Between the falcons, and the roaming cats of the neighborhood and climate change, she feared for the future of the little passerines that sang against the silence of the winter.
She turned up her street to her apartment on the second floor of a rather eccentric duplex and saw she’d left the light on in her bedroom. It now emitted a very inviting, orangey-red glow, and for a moment she just wanted to get into bed and read her book. This time of year, Marie often didn’t see her neighbors for weeks on end, sometimes months. Winter could be lonely and many Montrealers fell prey to depression. But just when it seems no one can take another snowstorm, or another dark, frigid day, spring (which lasts about two weeks) finally arrives. Pasty-faced people emerge from their houses, the kids are a few inches taller, and everyone once again talks of who had the worst flu, how hard the winter was, and of course, their plans for the summer.
As Marie left the sidewalk for the little path to her door, she noticed with gratitude that her next-door neighbors, a lovely young couple with three very boisterous kids, had shoveled her walkway, and scattered salt to melt the ice. Marie realized with a small shock that’s because they see her as old. Older. A senior now.
Marie dropped her house key on the little table by the door and rifled through her mail. She would normally start preparing supper, but she and Roméo had a dinner date at Pasta Giacomo, her local Italian restaurant. Marie was already anticipating her glass of Chianti and the antipasti followed by either the osso bucco or risotto. Roméo would eat the vegan ali olio with spelt pasta, a dish the waiter served with some disdain. Every Christmas season Pasta Giacomo recreated an entire Italian village in their window, with the crèche and Jesus at its center. There were miniature donkeys pulling cartloads of grapes, shepherds carrying their lambs up to pasture, goats eating the weeds off rooftops. There were sausage makers, cobblers, and tailors. When her kids were young, they loved pointing out and naming each occupation and activity. There was also a mother with a child over her knee perpetually spanking the child. Her kids were especially fascinated by that one. It was a village they’d never see in their actual lives, but was enchanting for them, of course. Their village was the local dépanneur owned by very friendly Syrian refugees, a vaping store, tattoo parlor, too many banks, a vet’s office, a musty but excellent used bookstore, a perpetually closed ice cream parlor, and a local café where the breakfast was overpriced but too convenient to stick to the promise never to go again.
Marie slipped out of her heavy winter boots and padded over to the television. She couldn’t help herself. She flicked on CNN, or “Trump TV,” as Roméo called it. It was like a car wreck, and Marie couldn’t stop watching. Like so many women her age, she was gutted and heartbroken that a brilliant, capable woman had lost to
such an overt and brazen kleptocrat. The bigger, more devastating fear though, was that if Trump could be President of the United States, then literally anything could happen anywhere. Over the last three years, Marie has joked that she suffered from PTTSD—Post-Trump-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but it was actually true. There he was now, surrounded by a crowd of red hats with the Make America Great Again logo, cheering him on. It reminded Marie of what they used to call Grand Prix Wrestling, now called the WWF. His fans—what pundits call his base—know it’s all fake, but it doesn’t matter. They cheer for him anyway. That was the scary part, in this Trumpian world. Up is down. Lies are facts. Truth is fake news. It was tribal. Primitive. It was us against them, and them are different and therefore scary, and so we want to crush them. Do a flying kick jump on their brown and black heads. Marie couldn’t keep from watching some nights. It was epic. It was Greek. What would it take, finally, to cause the fall of the tyrant?
Her speculation was interrupted by the beep of her phone. It was Ben, sending a video of her grandson, Noah. He was only two years old, but they already had him on skates. There he was, walking around a rink very gingerly, padded well with a thick snowsuit and helmet. Future Dima Golikov! was the caption. Marie answered with a double heart emoji. She would have them over for supper sometime next week, and just hold that delicious boy for hours. Marie then noticed she had another text—from Ruby: got the internship !!! will be the new baby legal aid person for the Native Women’s Network—thrilled! tell u more later xoxo. Marie answered that one with a dancing dog sticker. She actually hated texting but had finally succumbed to its power. It was that or not communicate much with her kids, and she would always choose the former. Ruby’s text reminded her to discuss the awful incident with the cops she witnessed outside Dawson with Roméo. Marie checked the time. She was starving. She debated preparing herself a little pre-supper snack, but then her phone actually rang. It was Roméo. “Hi. How was your day?”
Marie felt immediately wary. “Back-to-back classes, one great and one not. Are you at the restaurant already?”
There was a slight pause. “No. I’m actually downtown at the coroner’s office.”
“What? Why?”
“Long story. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“So you’ll be late then. I’ll just start drinking without you—”
“I’m not going to make it for supper. Je suis désolé, Marie. There’s something I have to do.” He waited. Marie was silent.
“I’ll be over later, okay?” Marie was silent. He paused again, and then hung up. At least he knew better than to sign off with a cloying love you.
Marie felt disproportionately disappointed. Angry, in fact. She had been looking forward to this all week, especially since Roméo had missed their Saturday date night. Maybe he still wasn’t ready. Maybe she and Roméo needed to take a step backwards, not forwards. She decided to get into her pajamas, order herself a big, meat-covered pizza, and watch the next few episodes of Nasty Women, that great series on Netflix that every woman she knew was raving about. Marie decided to forgo the wine and go directly to the single malt whiskey.
Sixteen
ROMÉO RETURNED THE KEY to his pocket and closed the door quietly behind him. He knew there was nobody home, but he called out their names anyway. He was answered only by the hum of the refrigerator and a muffled ambulance siren from the street. The apartment was very small, but surprisingly tidy and clean. Maybe because there wasn’t much in it except a giant screen and what looked like video game controllers before it on a coffee table, as though they were waiting to come to life. A bookshelf with few books and a couple of cacti, an old sofa he recognized from his home with Elyse, a tiny galley kitchen with an empty fruit bowl on the counter. He didn’t go into the bedroom—that he did not want to see. When he heard the key in the door Roméo took a seat on the one listing armchair and waited. The boy didn’t see him at first, and nearly leapt out of his boots when he did.
“Tabernac! Tu m’as fait peur, ostie! You scared the shit out of me!” He removed his jacket and threw it on the sofa. “How did you get in here?”
“Sit down.”
The boy didn’t move. “Does Sophie know you’re here?”
Roméo crossed his long legs, placed his clasped hands on his lap, and then calmly asked, “Why did you push my daughter up against a wall?”
The boy started to swear at Roméo again, but cut himself off. “Is that what she told you?”
Roméo studied the boy’s narrow face, the sparse, scruffy beard, the lank hair tied into a man bun. This guy made her last boyfriend, the Anglo guy Trevor, look like a winner.
“She pushed me first. Really hard. And then she just started attacking me, slapping me and punching me. So, I pushed her back.”
Sophie was always what they called “headstrong.” As a little girl, she pretty much did what she wanted. If she was thwarted, she could pull a pretty frightening tantrum. Roméo and Elyse saw a therapist and tried to understand how to deal with her, how to “actively listen,” but Sophie often proved too much for them. It always seemed to Roméo that she would create these great big dramas—with her girlfriends or her mother, and then seem to enjoy watching them play out. But this was different. Completely different.
“You pushed her against the wall, and she hit her head.”
The boy was still standing his ground. “I’ve never done that before, I swear.” He swallowed hard. “She just provoked me until I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Roméo slowly got to his feet. The man towered over the boy. “In my experience, mon grand, by the time a woman first reports abuse, it’s happened many times before.”
The boy shook his head. “Not this time. Ask your daughter. Ask Sophie!” He ducked past Roméo and headed to the kitchen. In an effort to regain some control, he cracked open a bottle of beer and took a sip. “I love her. I do. Mais, elle est folle, okay? She’s crazy sometimes.”
Roméo walked over to the kitchen where the boy stood drinking his beer. He got very close to him without making any contact. “I have strongly recommended to Sophie that she not return here. But if she does, and you are again ‘provoked’ into touching her with any intention to hurt her, believe me, mon p’tit gars, you will live to regret it.”
Roméo pulled on his coat. “This is your first and last warning.”
The Cock and Bull pub was very appropriately named, Roméo thought. As he took a seat at the bar, he made sure to position himself so he could see what was coming. It had been a fixture on Ste. Catherine street near the Forum for at least forty years, as Roméo used to come here as an underage teenager to drink, strut, and play pool. The place hadn’t changed much. Same empty-eyed drunks clutching their sweating drinks. Same loquacious barflies talking up some bull. A couple of heavily tattooed women with peroxide-blond braids and tans so deep they looked like worn leather stared intently into twin VLT machines. Roméo wondered if they were twins as well. They both wore matching hot pants and high heels even though it was fifteen below zero outside. The hockey game was on a giant TV on one wall. Three younger guys in backwards ball caps were staring at it, mouths slightly open, clutching beers. The Canadiens were losing. Again. Even with that amazing Russian player, they were struggling to make the playoffs. The guy couldn’t do everything by himself.
Roméo ordered a beer and discreetly checked out the bartender as she poured it for him. Her hair was a two-tone mix of steel gray and bright auburn, and it almost matched her painted orange eyebrows, arched in what seemed like permanent surprise. Roméo thought that was particularly ironic as he imagined there wasn’t much that surprised this woman anymore. Sparkly gold eye shadow blossomed from her eyes outlined in thick black liner—she vaguely resembled Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra entering Rome in triumph. She had an enormous tattoo of a red and black snake coiling itself around her right arm from her shoulder to her wrist. Its head and fangs appeared
poised to strike from her forearm. Once she served him his pint, she moved to the other end of her bar and started to check her stock. Roméo knew that she knew he was a cop. He would give it another minute or two.
“Madame?” he gestured her over to him.“My name is Roméo Leduc—”
She cut him off. “You’re not Montreal police.”
“No, I’m Sûreté du Québec. Detective Chief Inspector.” He quickly flashed his badge.
She would have raised an eyebrow if she could. “SQ?”
Roméo shifted in his chair and pulled out his phone from his coat pocket. “I’d like to know if you recognize this woman?”
The bartender peered at the image and then looked away. “What the hell happened to her?”
Roméo slid the phone closer on the bar. “She froze to death. We are trying to identify her to let her family know.”
She frowned for a moment, then ducked under the bar. When she came back up she was wearing eyeglasses, which in one gesture seemed to turn her into a kindly grandmother. She held the phone closer.