“What are you doing?”
“Drawing,” she said, drawing. “But I refuse to say another word until you greet me decently.”
“I buzzed and buzzed. Why the hell didn’t you answer? Did it ever occur to you I might be worried? That I almost had a stroke when you didn’t answer? And I don’t mean that figuratively. I am borderlining as we speak.”
“Hey, chill. The machine’s busted.”
“How can it be busted? What’d you do to it?”
“Nothing.”
“And did we or did we not agree that whenever I was away you would stay locked in the attic? With only your booklight on? With the two guns by your side?”
“Don’t have kittens over it, okay? It’s cold in there.”
“But that’s what the space heater’s for.”
“It’s busted too. See for yourself. And I can’t find the guns.”
“You can’t find the guns? Can’t find the Taser, can’t find the Sig Sauer? What the hell did you do with them?”
“Nothing. You’re the one who took them downstairs, took them outside, remember? To practise?”
This was true. I’d left them in the kitchen, I think. “Why didn’t you look for them, for Christ’s sake?”
“Easy, guy. Mellow out. You have a rough day at the office?”
I wiped the sweat off my brow, rubbed the back of my neck. My head throbbed with what felt like a post-speed hangover and my eyes burned. A preview of hell can do that to you. “You could say that, yes.”
“You got that coffee-isn’t-working-yet look you get every morning. Lawyer Volpe called. I got to it on the hundredth ring.”
“What’d he want?”
“You.”
“You talk to him?”
“There was music in the background, like from the forties or something. So I could barely hear him. But I know one thing—he’s got good news for you.”
“Which is …?”
“Phone him and see.”
In the kitchen I searched everywhere for the two weapons. Closed my eyes, rubbed my eyes. To goad my memory I microwaved some laceratingly strong coffee and drank it down black. The grandmother’s bowl was abnormally deep and wide—I could have washed my hands in that basin. As the machine beeped three times on a refill, a knock came from the front door, three times in unison. I peered down the hallway with mad, caffeinated eyes. Through the narrow rectangle of glass, I saw the revolving red and blue lights of a police car.
Let’s see, to what do I owe this visit? Speeding, driving a stolen vehicle, assaulting two minors, impersonating an officer, or child abduction? Take your pick, officer, it’s your lucky day. Three more knocks, this time louder.
“Who’s that?” Céleste yelled from the top of the stairs. “The cops?”
“Get in the attic, I’ll deal with it.” Breaking with tradition, she didn’t argue. I heard her scurry away like a mouse, down the hall and up the attic stairs.
I walked slowly, leadenly, to the door, as though climbing the steps of a gallows. The floorboards emitted a sharp crack underfoot, like a trapdoor unlatching. My mind was sprinting, my vision speckled with black dots. They got my name from the bank. Or real estate office. Ran it through the computer, radioed the New Jersey State Police. Two more knocks.
« Oui? » I called approaching the entryway, and again after opening the door.
« Monsieur Nightingale? » said a policeman with the standard-issue moustache. His partner didn’t have one, being a policewoman.
I nodded dumbly.
« I’m Sergeant Larose and this is Sergeant Viau. Sorry to bother you at this time of night, but we’d, uh, like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind. »
« Not at all, » I said with a stiff smile. « Come in, come in. » I could feel my legs softening, melting like cheap candlewax.
« Thanks, this’ll just take a few seconds. It relates to the … the unfortunate occurrence that … well, occurred the other night. Involving the snowmobiles? »
« Right. »
« We know who you are, » said the female, a half-smile hovering on her lips and one eye out of true. She stamped her boots on the mat. « Just so we’re on the same page. »
Was she about to cuff me, read me my Miranda Rights? Or do they do that in Canada? « I see. »
« We know you’re with the Department of the Interior, » said the male, closing the door behind him.
I nodded, exhaled through tight teeth. « I was trying to keep that quiet. Who blew my cover? »
« We, uh … came across one of your cards while investigating a complaint. »
« I’d appreciate it if you kept it— »
« Don’t worry about that, » said the female. « We understand you’re after Alcide Bazinet. Is that correct? »
« Well, yes, but it’s, you know, hush hush. How’d you manage— »
« We’re on your side, » said the male. « We want Bazinet out of here, the sooner the better. The guy’s killed more animals than a hundred winters. Got a sheet it takes a day to read, more charges than a power plant. You and your partner want him for crimes in the U.S., I understand? Wildlife violations? »
My partner? Who’s my partner? My ghost neighbour? « That’s correct. He and his cousin. Up in … down in Vermont. »
« We thought it was New Hampshire. »
« Both. »
« Alcide makes his cousin look like an altar boy. Hope they both burn in the chair. You Yanks still got the chair, right? »
« Oh yeah. »
« Wish to hell we did. »
The policewoman smiled at me. « There’s another reason for our visit. I mean, besides wanting to assure you there will be no more … home invasions. There’s a young girl who’s gone missing. By the name of Céleste Jonquères. She ran away from a youth care centre in Ste-Madeleine a few weeks back, and we thought she might’ve come here. You haven’t seen a girl of fifteen, by any chance, black hair, green eyes, glasses, part Aboriginal? Tats on both shoulders, bit of a tomboy? »
« No, I … haven’t. But I’ll keep an eye out for her. »
« She’s a … well, practically a celebrity up here. A whiz kid, total brainiac. There was an article about in her in L’Information du Nord. »
« Why would she come here? » I asked.
« She used to live here, with her grandmother. Who died not too long ago, back in … when was it, René, October? »
René nodded.
Did Céleste kill her? is the question I wanted to ask. « Really? In this house? How’d she die? »
« It was ruled suicide. It was assumed the girl assisted her. »
« And did she? »
« Hard to say. No charges laid, in any case. »
A faint squawking on the police-band radio made the officer nod goodnight. When she opened the door I was able to make out some of the words, something to do with a 10-23 and request for back-up. Then the crackle and whine of another car responding. At the same time the phone in the kitchen began to ring.
« Looks like another fender-bender, » said Larose, putting his gloves back on. « So I’ll be on my way. Let you answer your phone. »
« Before you go, » I said, « can I ask you a quick question? »
« Shoot. »
« Why’d you arrive with your flasher on? »
He winked at me. « You should know the answer to that one. »
I nodded woodenly, not knowing. But took a stab at it anyway. « You … wanted to make it look like you didn’t know who I was. Like I’m a suspect in the girl’s disappearance. »
« Bingo, » he said.
« Very clever, » I said. « And, uh, about my partner. Just so I know how you managed to … »
« We have our ways. We’re not as backward up here as you may think. We’re the ones who set her up, in fact. »
« Set her up? »
« At the clinic. »
I stared thoughtfully at the floor. The veterinary clinic? The vet was working undercover? Of c
ourse …
I watched the patrol car pull away as the phone continued to ring. In the kitchen I watched the rings fluttering upwards, like moths, into air that was dark and spangled with dots like buffed chrome, like fireflies. I picked up.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” said a faint voice into a crackly line that had been crystal clear until now.
“Just get to the punch line.”
“Your ex,” said Volpe, “has dropped all charges.”
I felt only mild relief, and no surprise. I was still thinking about the vet. “You told her I squandered away my inheritance?”
“You better not have, for the love of Christ. It took your old man a lifetime to double the fortune he inherited. With my advice, of course. Well, maybe not quite doubled, after the market crash and—”
“He told me he was leaving everything to charity.”
“He left half.”
“So why’d she drop the charges?”
“Brooklyn won’t cooperate, won’t testify.”
I paused to think about this. “What’s the bad news?”
“She’s run away. I got a call from her from … you ready for this? Atlantic City. From a motel and I’m sure you can guess which one. Where she’ll probably end up hooking to pay the bill. She wants your number, address. Wants to go and live with you in Canada.”
Was this my destiny? To raise two teenage girls? “That’s not bad news.”
“She’s on the warpath with her mother. Claims she took her cell away, erased all your messages. I think you should come back. You still have to face the other charges, remember. DUI, mischief. I’ll get you off with a thousand-buck fine. Licence suspended for a year. But you’ve got to come back, put in an appearance. I can’t do it alone, guy.”
I gazed up, out the window, at a purple-black sky sown with uncountable stars and nearly full moon, then down at the tilting tombstone shadows. East to west is how they sleep you in your grave. “I’ll try.” I had a brewing suspicion that the Garden State had seen the last of the Nightingales, that the House of Nightingale would be winding down here in this northern graveyard.
“Soon, right?” said Volpe. “Like a plane out of Montreal first thing tomorrow?”
A lozenge of moonlight, almost peacock-blue, lay on the floor. “Give Brook what she asked for.”
“Roger. Oh, and Nile …”
“Yeah?”
“Try to avoid more felonies.”
I stared at the phone, my mind a blizzard, for what seemed like an hour but was probably a minute. After killing the cousins you will carbonize the Cave, blow it sky-high … When the phone’s black Bakelite began to melt and steam I snapped out of my trance. Took out the vet’s business card, punched in her cell number: “The customer you have dialled is currently unavailable. Please try again later.” No point calling the St-Hyacinthe number, because she’s not in St-Hyacinthe.
I walked to the foot of the stairs. “Céleste?”
“Yes?” She was sitting at the top of them.
“What are you doing there?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you go to the attic like I told you?”
“As I told you.”
“Just answer the question.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Where were you? What were you doing?”
“I was on the floor of my bedroom, listening through the vent. You did well.”
I sighed. It was no time for a lecture. “Do you have a phone book?”
“A what?”
“A phone book!”
“On top of the fridge!”
Yellow pages. Into the V’s once more: Véhicules, Vêtements … Vétérinaires. Looked at the clock, which was hard on ten. There’d be no one there, I’d leave a message, she’d get it tomorrow.
I picked up the phone and began dialling, but there was someone shouting into the line. With music in the background.
“I hate that fucking sound,” said Volpe, “when somebody dials into your ear.”
“I’m trying to make a call—an important one.”
“This is more important, something I forgot to mention. About your father’s car. It was found in a farmer’s field in upstate New York. With the keys still in the ignition.”
“Can I call you back?”
“You know anything about that?”
My mind was restless, zigzagging to other things. Sometimes it’s just not possible to shut things down.
“Nile?”
“What was the question?”
“Your father’s car—you know anything about it?”
“Can I take the Fifth on that?”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“You want it? As payment for your services?”
“Partial payment, you mean?”
“Right.”
“There’s no charge for my services, you idiot. I’ll have it put back in your garage.”
“You’ve got a key?”
“No, I’m going to leave instructions to have it driven through the garage door. Of course I’ve got a key. What are you going to do about the house, anyway? Who’s going to look after it?”
“I left the heat on.”
“And what about Paris?”
He was referring to a top-floor apartment in a building on the avenue Wagram.
“You want me to sell it?” he said.
No, there’s a girl here who might need it one day. “No, I might need it one day.”
“When are you going to sort through your father’s affairs? Hold on a second, got another call.”
He put me on hold not for seconds but minutes. For almost all of Eddie Cochran’s “Three Steps to Heaven.”
“Nile? That was your ex. Brooklyn’s back, safe and sound. And now she’s got your number. So what I want …”
“Perfect. Can you set up …”
“… you to do now is—”
“… some sort of trust fund for her, education fund or whatever it’s called?”
“Nile, we’re talking at the same time.”
“Can you set up a trust fund for Brook?”
“Of course I can, but first what I want you to—”
“And leave everything else to Céleste Jonquères? Write it up and send me the papers?”
Silence. “Am I getting this? Leave everything else to who?
That smart-ass kid I talked to on the phone? What are you talking about, Nile? A will?”
“And sort through Dad’s private stuff and take whatever you want?”
“Nile, think about this, think about this long and hard, I don’t advise this, I’ve seen this kind of thing before, these wild impulses, a thousand times and—”
“Are you the Nightingale family lawyer?”
“What?”
“Are you, or are you not, the Nightingale family lawyer?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I am but—”
“Then shut up and do as you’re told.”
One two three four five. “Spell out the girl’s name. And address.”
I spelled them out. “If for any reason I’m not around to sign, I want you to forge my signature. And the witness’s. Can you do that?” From what I’d heard, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“You promise you’ll do it? On my father’s grave?”
“Of course, if you put it that way.”
“Say it.”
“I promise on your father’s grave.”
“Thanks, Leon. You’re a good man.”
For the second time that evening I stood half-tranced, staring at the telephone. Then punched in a number I now knew by heart, the veterinary clinic’s, and left a meandering message.
XXX
Skating on Ravenwood Pond was common in the olden days. My grandmother has a stack of black & white photographs to prove it. Lots of people, hundreds at a time, used to figure skate or play hockey or circle the pond in the moonlight. Kids would hurry out after s
chool, rush home for a quick dinner, then go back to skate under the stars. One time back in the fifties, according to Grand-maman, the Wildlife Ministry built a bonfire, right on the Pond, for skaters to warm up.
Not anymore. The current policy is no skating allowed. Ever. Even if the ice is a foot deep & can support a fleet of ten-ton trucks. They don’t measure ice thickness like they used to, and certainly won’t be building any more bonfires. And not just because the ice isn’t as thick as it used to be.
There have been three fatal fall-ins in the Pond — in 1906, 1972 & 2002. On December 29, 1906, 11-year-old Wallace Ward fell through the ice while skating with two friends. On February 14, 1972, 7 teenagers aged 14 to 18 were playing hockey on the Pond despite “No Skating” signs. When one boy fell through the ice, the other 6 boys formed a human chain to reach him. More ice collapsed & all of them plunged into the water. Their bodies were never found.
On January 1, 2002, another person died, but not while skating. A 27-year-old woman was walking across the snow-covered pond barefoot, according to the last person to see her alive. She was under the influence of drugs. Her body was never found either. That woman was my mother.
It was after she drowned that my grandmother’s obsession with ice began. She seemed to forget about her sermons altogether, and focused on her first love, mathematics. And in particular cryoscopy, the study of freezing points. I became her assistant, which was part of my home-schooling.
She wanted to find a numerical model to simulate the variables of lake ice growth & decay. In particular, she wanted to be able to predict future thicknesses of the ice on the Pond. To estimate how many days the temperature had to be at a certain minimum level to cause formation of a 5 cm thickness of ice, a 7 cm thickness & so on.
Once a week we measured the Pond’s snow depth & density, ice thickness & temperature. With an ice augur we bored holes into the ice. Ice at the edges is thicker than in the middle, so we needed to test a lot of spots. We fastened a 30 cm brass rod with a nylon string attached to one end to a 10 m tape measure & lowered it through the newly drilled holes. Once it was through the ice, we slowly pulled the tape measure upward, allowing the brass rod to catch on the bottom of the ice cover. We then recorded the distances from the bottom of the ice cover to the water level, and to the top of the ice cover. The difference between these two measurements (“freebore”) gave us an idea of the topographical features of the ice cover, and the density of the ice. We would finish our ice coring around Easter & measure the melt rates throughout the spring.