A Green Place for Dying

by R. J. Harlick

  “It good Will respect Grandmother Moon. He send you and not a man.” Summer Grass Woman paused. “Do they find the girls?”

  Patrolman Smith fiddled with her hat resting on her knee. “I don’t know, Kòkomis Elizabeth. The chief just said he wanted to see them as soon as possible. I’d like to take them with me now.” She paused. “If it’s okay with you.”

  The elder lifted her face to the moonlight and stared at the cool white orb almost as if she were seeking direction from Grandmother Moon. A bank of cloud approached. Its tentacles spread across the moon’s face until the mass blocked the light and plunged us into darkness.

  With a deep sigh, Summer Grass Woman dropped her gaze. “Grandmother Moon tell us.”

  She turned to the two mothers. “Marie-Claude and Dorothy, go.” Not bothering to hide the sadness in her voice, she continued. “Grandmother Moon say be strong.”

  Marie-Claude’s breathing quickened, as she dropped my hand and struggled to get up. I helped her, telling her that everything would be okay, that the police chief just wanted to give them an update. But I didn’t believe it. And I could see that neither did she. Like her youngest daughter, she straightened her shoulders and slowly left the circle with her head held high.

  An hour later we learned that a body of a young native woman had been found.

  Chapter

  Three

  The community was on edge while we waited for Marie-Claude and her husband, Jeff, to return from the medical examiner’s office in Gatineau where the dead girl had been taken. This morning, over six hours ago, they’d set off with Becky’s mother and aunt and the Migiskan police chief on the two-hour drive to learn if the body was one of their missing daughters. Nothing had been heard from them since.

  To help allay Marie-Claude’s fears at leaving her remaining daughters alone, I’d offered to sit with them until her return. I’d brought Sergei, my standard poodle, as a distraction. But neither his friendly licks nor his spurts of playful energy were successful in banishing the girls’ tears. It took the grandmotherly touch of Summer Grass Woman to stop the flow. She even managed to coax weak smiles from each of them.

  To escape the hot August sun, we’d retreated to the shade of a birch grove in the back corner of the Lightbodys’ large property, where Marie-Claude and her children had built a traditional Algonquin camp. Wanting to help her daughters connect with their heritage, she’d first erected a birchbark wigwam complete with firepit and sleeping platforms among the birch overlooking a beaver pond. She’d since added a sweat lodge and a workshop for craft making and had come to view the camp as a retreat from the pressures of modern life.

  Once the tears had dried, Summer Grass Woman cajoled the girls into making birchbark baskets. Surrounded with rolls of supple bark, pliant willow branches for rims, and spruce roots for stitching, the girls became so absorbed in their basket making that their fears for their missing sister were all but forgotten. Several of their friends joined us, along with their mothers.

  As dragonflies flitted across the pond and the wind rustled the leaves, we toiled in the sun-dappled shade. Some were more skilled than others, namely me. My basket had a decided tilt, which immediately relegated it to berry picking, not water holding. A heron landed in the swampy shallows on the far side of the pond and proceeded to fish, undisturbed by our presence. A beaver headed out from its lodge towards a tangle of severed birch saplings. Unfortunately, Sergei spied its silent movement through the water and stood up. The beaver submerged with a loud slap of its tail and the heron took off with an angry squawk.

  Drawing on the heron and the beaver, Summer Grass Woman filled our minds with the old stories. She’d almost reached the end of a tale about how the hare received his white winter coat when the sound of an engine punctuated the late afternoon peace. As the two girls exchanged worried glances, Summer Grass Woman nodded at me as if to say the time had come.

  We stopped working. In anticipation, some placed their partially completed baskets on the ground. But none of us made a move to go to the front of the house, to where the Lightbodys would be getting out of the police chief’s SUV. We wanted to remain ignorant for as long as possible, for in ignorance there was hope.

  We did keep our eyes focused on the path that led through the birch towards the house. Although the trees blocked any view of the two-storey building, I could just make out the glint of sun on one of the back windows. For a moment I worried that Marie-Claude might not know where to find us, then I remembered it had been her suggestion that we retreat to this traditional oasis of peace.

  But as the minutes ticked by and they didn’t appear, I began to assume the worst, that the dead girl was Fleur. The other women exchanged worried glances while the elder held the two girls tightly and kissed them gently on their heads, their eyes brimming with tears.

  I decided to seek out the Lightbodys. Maybe they wanted to break the bad news to the girls alone without an audience. However, when I reached the house, instead of finding Decontie’s Explorer with the Migiskan Police Department insignia stamped on the doors, I saw parked in the driveway a massive black Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a lot of blinding chrome.

  For a second I tensed, thinking the bike belonged to Eric. I didn’t want to face him. Even though we’d broken up a little over a year ago, too much had been left unsaid. Twice Eric had tried to reopen the door, but I wanted it kept firmly shut. So I avoided him, which wasn’t difficult. He seemed to be spending more time away on Grand Council of First Nations business than looking after the affairs of his community.

  The bike, however, couldn’t belong to Eric. It was just too biker-ish, with its elongated front wheel, tooled leather high-back saddle, and long handlebar fringes that flicked in the breeze. Besides, the condition of this bike was considerably more immaculate than the dusty condition Eric’s was usually in.

  When I turned around to search for the owner, I found him standing directly behind me.

  “Oh! You startled me,” I said, stepping back.

  Reflective aviator sunglasses stared unsmilingly back at me. A white puckered scar streaked out from under the right sunglass lens and down the man’s heavily tanned cheek to a reddish-brown goatee. His light brown hair was flat and sweaty where his helmet had clamped it against his head, and ended in a thin rat-tail braid tossed over his shoulder. He wore black leather chaps over faded black jeans and scuffed black biker boots. A black leather vest covered in a variety of patches hung loosely over a black T-shirt with the arms ripped off. I tried not to notice the tattoos covering his arms, one in particular of a set of projecting boobs that put my meagre ones to shame. Emblazoned across the shirt’s front were the words “Les Diables Noirs,” the Black Devils, with a suitable rendition of a snarling devil’s face etched in red. Although his stance was just as menacing, his physique didn’t fit the towering, bulging muscle, protruding stomach image I had of a biker. Rather, he was thin yet compact and coiled as if ready to spring.

  “Where’s Marie-Claude?” he spat out in joual, a nasal, colloquial French that sounded like a duck quacking to my untrained ear.

  I glanced down the Lightbodys’ long dusty drive towards the main road, hoping to see them or someone else passing by. “She’s not here,” I replied in my school-learned French. “May I tell her who’s dropped by when she returns?”

  He spat something in reply.

  Although I’d learned some joual, it eluded me for the most part, especially when spoken in a rapid-fire slur.

  “Sorry, could you repeat that more slowly.”

  “Have they found Fleur?” This time he spoke English, but with a strong accent.

  I hesitated. I had no idea who this man was. I didn’t feel comfortable passing on information about the missing girl. For all I knew, given his unsavoury appearance, he could even be involved in her disappearance.

  I was about to tell him to return later, when Neige and Moineau ran up and wrapped their arms around him, crying, “Oncle, Oncle!”

&nb
sp; So he was their uncle. Why hadn’t he said so, rather than leaving me squirming with apprehension?

  When he finished greeting his nieces, he turned back to me and removed his sunglasses. A black patch covered the eye with the radiating scar, while the other eye bore Marie-Claude’s faded blue colour, except in his case it projected a challenging glint and not the resignation I was used to seeing in his sister’s eyes.

  “You gonna tell me about Fleur?”

  Moineau must’ve sensed my continuing hesitation, for she said, “Oncle J.P. was helping maman look for Fleur.”

  Not only was Moineau, like her younger sister, tall and slim like her mother, but she had the same pale eyes, although grey rather than blue, and her hair was a light brown instead of the rich mahogany of her sisters. Though she looked out at the world with the growing brashness of a fifteen-year-old, I sensed an underlying wariness that reminded me of Fleur. It was almost as if they couldn’t quite give you their complete and unwavering trust.

  Turning back to her uncle, she switched to French, “Maman and papa are in Gatineau. The police have … have found … a —” She stopped, unable to continue.

  I finished for her. “Unfortunately, the body of a young woman has been found. Marie-Claude and Jeff have gone to see if it’s Fleur. We’re praying that it isn’t.”

  At that moment Chief Decontie’s vehicle turned into the driveway.

  Chapter

  Four

  As the police vehicle crunched to a stop beside us, I tried to interpret the Lightbodys’ expressions through the back side window. But the solemn stillness of both parents gave no hint. Even the police chief’s acne-scarred face remained obliquely impassive. But I did notice that they were alone. The mother and aunt of the other missing girl were not with them.

  The two girls ran up as their parents climbed out of the SUV. Marie-Claude’s brother, however, remained standing by his bike. His hand gripped a Nazi-like helmet almost as if he were planning a fast getaway. By now Summer Grass Woman, the other women, and their daughters had joined us. They stood clumped together in nervous silence, a safe distance from the biker.

  Jeff and Marie-Claude also ignored J.P., although I thought I caught Marie-Claude glance quickly at her brother before returning her gaze to her daughters.

  Will Decontie frowned at the biker but made no attempt to acknowledge the man’s presence. With his uniform jacket hanging open and matching navy pants sagging under the weight of his overhanging stomach, Will looked disheveled after the long drive, an appearance that wasn’t entirely unusual for the police chief. He was often challenged in maintaining an orderly, cop-like demeanour.

  Like Will, Marie-Claude’s thin cotton skirt and sleeveless blouse were also rumpled, her wavy, white-blonde tresses in need of a comb. But I’d never known her to pay much attention to her appearance. Nonetheless, the fine delicacy of her features invariably shone through.

  Her husband, on the other hand, in his pressed khakis and crisp button-down shirt with the sleeves partially rolled up, could’ve stepped out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue. But this was standard. I’d never seen him with so much as a shirttail hanging out. I guessed it was his way of reminding us of his importance in the community. A chartered accountant, he was the reserve’s financial manager.

  He and Marie-Claude had met while at the Université de Montréal, she in anthropological studies and he in economics. It was love at first sight, Marie-Claude had confided in me. She’d fallen for his animal magnetism that spoke of his warrior ancestry, her words, not mine. I couldn’t sense it myself. But through the eyes of love, one could see anything.

  Afraid of the answer, none of us were prepared to ask the question. Instead we stood silently waiting for one of them to speak up. Finally Will removed his cap and shook his head sadly.

  I felt more than heard a collective moan. I was about to offer my condolences when Jeff spoke up. “Thanks to the Creator, the girl wasn’t our Fleur. But …” He ran his fingers through his thick black hair and sighed deeply. “It was Becky. Our hearts are with Dorothy.”

  Although everyone visibly relaxed, I could sense a sheepishness in their expressions of sympathy for the dead girl’s mother and aunt. Summer Grass Woman even offered to hold a smudging ceremony in Becky’s memory. None of us, though, asked how she’d died, an accident or murder. We knew that if Becky had been killed, it would not bode well for Fleur, something the Lightbodys would not want to dwell on. Instead they probably wanted to quietly rejoice in the hope that their daughter lived.

  Then, as if noticing his brother-in-law for the first time, Jeff called out, “Christ! What are you doing here? You know you’re not welcome in my house.”

  Marie-Claude clutched her husband’s arm. “S’il te plait, mon marie. I asked him to come. I thought he might be able to help find Fleur.”

  Jeff turned his anger on his wife. “What can he do that the police can’t?”

  “I … I thought he might be able to ask around the biker community. Maybe they know something.”

  “What?” He glared down at his wife, who was at least a foot shorter and eighty pounds lighter. “Woman, you shame our daughter.” Marie-Claude cringed backwards. “You think our daughter is into drugs, is a prostitute?”

  “Non, no I don’t….”

  “That’s the only world this scum knows.” He advanced towards his brother-in-law. “Get out of here.”

  J.P. stood his ground with his legs planted, ready for action, while the threatening devil on his T-shirt sneered through his crossed arms.

  The policeman placed his bulk between the two men. “Now, son, I think it best you leave. These good people are upset enough without adding more wood to the fire.”

  J.P. remained rooted, his goatee jutting out defiantly.

  “S’il te plait, petit frère,” Marie-Claude pleaded. “It’s best you leave. I will call you.”

  The biker continued glaring at his brother-in-law, then strapped on his helmet, kicked his motorcycle into action with a violent thrust of his boot, and powered out of the Lightbodys’ drive and onto the main road in a spray of gravel.

  As the bike’s roar faded, Jeff spoke up. “Marie-Claude, I don’t want you involving your brother, okay?”

  She remained silent as she bit her bottom lip.

  “Do you hear?”

  “Oui,” she whispered, crumpling her skirt in her hands.

  “This is our affair and nobody else’s, you understand?”

  Marie-Claude nodded numbly, while the rest of us squirmed.

  “Papa,” Neige said. “Is Fleur okay?”

  He tugged at one of her pigtails. “I hope so, little one. I dearly hope so.” He placed a protective arm around each of his daughters. “Let’s go inside.”

  But before he did, he turned back to us. “Kòkomis Elizabeth, Meg, and the rest of you, I want to thank you ladies for looking after my girls. Meegwich.”

  With Marie-Claude straggling behind them, they disappeared inside their house with a solid click of the front door.

  The rest of us didn’t move, unsure whether we should rejoice that the body didn’t belong to Fleur or be more worried now that death had intervened.

  Summer Grass Woman spoke up. “It is their time to be alone. Come. We go.”

  The old woman trudged down the dusty drive. She was joined by one of the women and her daughter, while the rest of the girls’ friends and their mothers dispersed in their trucks and ATVs.

  I stayed behind. I wanted to learn more. I nabbed the police chief as he was climbing back into his vehicle.

  “Will, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but how did Becky die? Was it a natural death?”

  He sighed. “It’ll be on the news soon enough, so I can tell you. She was murdered.”

  “How?”

  “I think it best to see what the Sûreté du Québec release to the media, but let’s just say it wasn’t a nice death or a quick one.”

  “Does that mean she was also raped?”


  “Wait for the press release,” he replied.

  “How dreadful for her mother.”

  “For sure. Never easy having a child murdered. I gather Becky was her only one.”

  “Do you think Fleur might have been with her when she was killed?”

  “It’s possible. We know they were seen together in Ottawa shortly before the two of them disappeared.”

  “Are they concerned that Fleur might have been killed at the same time?”

  “I don’t suppose I’m speaking out of turn if I say that the SQ are looking into the possibility. In fact, they have police dogs combing the woods right now.”

  “I guess because the Quebec provincial police are involved, it means Becky’s body was found on the Quebec side of the river and not in Ottawa.”

  “Yup. A couple of birdwatchers found her by a beaver swamp near the northern border of Gatineau Park, a good thirty kilometres from downtown.”

  “Kind of an isolated place. What in the world would she be doing there?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  A flicker of movement caught my eye, and I turned to see Marie-Claude staring at us from a side window. I thought I saw tears on her cheeks before she let the curtain fall back into place.

  I shuddered to think of the unrelenting seesaw of worry and hope the Lightbodys must be on.

  As if reading my own thoughts, Will said glumly, “All we can do is pray that Fleur wasn’t with Becky when she died.”

  Chapter

  Five

  The community didn’t have long to wait. Within a day, the Quebec police told Chief Decontie that the dogs had failed to discover another body. Moreover, their forensic investigators had found no evidence that put Fleur at the crime scene. They finished by saying they were no longer treating Fleur as a possible murder victim. Rather, they were dropping her case altogether and tossing it back across the provincial boundary to the Ottawa police, where she’d gone missing in the