A woman with a large shoulder bag and a young man draped with cameras smoked and leaned against the hood of a white Chevy. Yet another species: the press. Further up the block, on the grassy strip adjacent to the fence, a German shepherd panted and sniffed around a man in a dark blue jumpsuit. The dog kept bolting off on short forays, nose to the ground, then darting back to its handler, tail wagging and face upturned. It seemed anxious to go, confused by the delay.
“The gang’s all here,” said Ryan, putting the car in park and releasing his seat belt.
He hadn’t apologized for his rudeness on the phone, and I hadn’t expected it. No one is at his best at 4 A.M. He’d been cordial throughout the ride, almost jocular, pointing out places where incidents had occurred, recounting anecdotes of blunder and humiliation. War stories. Here, in this three-flat, a woman assaulted her husband with a frying pan, then turned it on us. There, in that Poulet Kentucky Frites, we found a nude man stuck in the ventilator shaft. Cop talk. I wondered if their cognitive maps were based on sites of police happenings chronicled in incident reports, rather than on the names of rivers and streets and the numbers on buildings that the rest of us use.
Ryan spied Bertrand and headed toward him. He was part of a clump composed of an SQ officer, Pierre LaManche, and a thin, blond man in dark aviator glasses. I followed him across the street, scanning the crowd for Claudel or Charbonneau. Though this was officially an SQ party, I thought they might be here. Everyone else seemed to be. I saw neither.
As we drew close I could tell the man in the sunglasses was agitated. His hands never rested, but continuously worried a wispy fringe of mustache that crawled across his upper lip. His fingers kept teasing out a few sparse hairs, then stroking them back into place. I noticed that his skin was peculiarly gray and unblemished, having neither color nor texture. He wore a leather bomber jacket and black boots. He could have been twenty-five or sixty-five.
I could feel LaManche’s eyes on me as we joined the group. He nodded, but said nothing. I began to have doubts. I’d choreographed this circus, brought all these people here. What if they found nothing? What if someone had removed the bag? What if it did turn out to be just another “pissant cemetery” burial? Last night was dark, I was hyped. How much had I imagined? I could feel a growing tightness in my stomach.
Bertrand greeted us. As usual, he looked like a short, stocky version of a men’s fashion model. He’d chosen earth colors for the exhumation, ecologically correct tans and browns, no doubt made without chemical dyes.
Ryan and I acknowledged those we knew, then turned to the man in the shades. Bertrand introduced us.
“Andy. Doc. This is Father Poirier. He’s here representing the diocese.”
“Arch diocese.”
“Pardon me. Archdiocese. Since this is church property.” Bertrand jerked his thumb toward the fence behind him.
“Tempe Brennan,” I volunteered, offering my hand.
Father Poirier fixed his aviators on me and accepted it, wrapping my palm in a weak, spiritless grip. If people were graded on handshakes, he’d get a D-minus. His fingers felt cold and limp, like carrots kept too long in a cooler bin. When he released my hand, I resisted the urge to wipe it on my jeans.
He repeated the ritual with Ryan, whose face revealed nothing. Ryan’s early morning joviality had flown, replaced by stark seriousness. He’d gone into cop mode. Poirier looked as if he wanted to speak, but, seeing Ryan’s face, reconsidered and crimped his lips into a tight line. Somehow, with nothing said, he recognized that authority had shifted, that Ryan was now in charge.
“Has anyone been in there yet?” asked Ryan.
“No one. Cambronne got here about 5 A.M.,” said Bertrand, indicating the uniformed officer to his right. “No one’s gone in or out. Father tells us that only two people have access to the grounds, himself and a caretaker. The guy’s in his eighties, been working here since Mamie Eisenhower made bangs popular.” In French it came out Eesenhure, and sounded comical.
“The gate could not have been open,” said Poirier, turning his aviators back on me. “I check it every time I am here.”
“And when is that?” asked Ryan.
The shades released me and fastened on Ryan. They rested there a full three seconds before he responded.
“At least once a week. The Church feels a responsibility for all its properties. We do not simp—”
“What is this place?”
Again, the pause. “Le Monastère St. Bernard. Closed since 1983. The Church felt the numbers did not warrant its continued operation.”
I found it strange that he spoke of the Church as an animate being, an entity with feelings and will. His French was also odd, subtly different from the flat, twangy form I’d grown used to. He wasn’t Québecois, but I couldn’t place the accent. It wasn’t the precise but throaty sound of France, what North Americans call Parisian. I suspected he was Belgian or Swiss.
“What goes on here?” Ryan pursued.
Another pause, as if the sound waves had to travel a long distance to strike a receptor.
“Today, nothing.”
The priest stopped speaking and sighed. Perhaps he recalled happier times when the Church thrived and the monasteries bustled. Perhaps he was collecting his thoughts, wanting to be precise in his statements to the police. The aviator lenses hid his eyes. An odd candidate for a priest, with his pristine skin, leather jacket, and biker footwear.
“Now, I come to check the property,” he continued. “A caretaker keeps things in order.”
“Things?” Ryan was taking notes in a small spiral.
“The furnace, the pipes. Shoveling the snow. We live in a very cold place.” Poirier made a sweeping gesture with one thin arm, as if to take in the whole province. “The windows. Sometimes boys like to throw rocks.” He looked at me. “The doors and the gates. To make certain they remain locked.”
“When did you last check the padlocks?”
“Sunday at 6 P.M. They were all secure.”
His prompt answer struck me. He hadn’t stopped to think on this one. Maybe Bertrand had already posed the question, or maybe Poirier just anticipated it, but the speed of his response made it sound precooked.
“You noticed nothing out of the ordinary?”
“Rien.” Nothing.
“When does this caretaker—what’s his name?”
“Monsieur Roy.”
“When does he come?”
“He comes on Fridays, unless there is some special task for him.”
Ryan didn’t speak, but continued looking at him.
“Like clearing snow, or repairing a window.”
“Father Poirier, I believe Detective Bertrand has already questioned you about the possibility of burials on the grounds?”
Pause. “No. No. There are none.” He wagged his head from side to side and the sunglasses shifted on his nose. A bow popped off one ear and the frames came to rest at a twenty-degree angle. He looked like a tanker listing to port.
“This was a monastery, always a monastery. No one is buried here. But I have called our archivist and asked her to check the records to be absolutely certain.” As he spoke, he moved both hands to his temples and adjusted the glasses, realigning them carefully.
“You’re aware of why we’re here?”
Poirier nodded and the glasses tilted again. He started to speak, then said nothing.
“Okay,” said Ryan, closing the spiral and sliding it into his pocket. “How do you suggest we do this?” He directed that question to me.
“Let me take you in, show you what I found. After we remove it, bring in the dog to see if there’s anything else.” I was hoping my voice conveyed more confidence than I felt. Shit. What if there was nothing there?
“Right.”
Ryan strode over to the man in the jumpsuit. The shepherd bounded up to him and nuzzled his hand for attention. He stroked its head as he spoke to the handler. Then he rejoined us and led the whole group to the gate. As we wal
ked I scanned my surroundings discreetly, looking for signs showing I’d been there the night before. Nothing.
We waited at the gate as Poirier withdrew an enormous ring of keys from his pocket and selected one. He grasped the padlock and yanked, making a show of testing it against the bars. It clanged softly in the morning air, and a shower of rust drifted to the ground. Had I locked it hours earlier? I couldn’t remember.
Poirier released the mechanism, unhooked the padlock, and swung the gate open. It creaked softly. Not the piercing screech of metal I recalled. He stepped back to clear the way for me, and everyone waited. LaManche still hadn’t spoken.
I hitched the backpack higher onto my shoulder, brushed past the priest, and started up the roadbed. In the clear, crisp light of morning the woods seemed friendly, not malevolent. The sun shone through broad leaves and conifer needles, and the air was thick with the smell of pine. A collegial smell that evoked visions of lake houses and summer camps, not corpses and night shadows. I moved slowly, examining every tree, every inch of ground for broken branches, displaced vegetation, disturbed soil, anything to attest to human presence. Especially mine.
My anxiety level rose with every step, and my heart slipped in extra beats. What if I hadn’t locked the gate? What if someone had been here after me? What had been done after I’d left?
The atmosphere was that of a place I’d never visited, but which seemed familiar because I’d read about it, or seen it in photographs. I tried to sense by time and distance where the path should be. But I had heavy misgivings. My recollection was jumbled and fuzzy, like a dream partly remembered. Major events were vivid, but details as to sequencing and duration were muddy. Let me see something to serve as a prompt, I prayed.
The prayer was answered in the form of gloves. I’d forgotten them. There, on the left side of the roadbed, just at eye level, three white fingertips poked from the fork of a tree. Yes! I scanned the adjacent trees. The second glove showed in a notch in a small maple about four feet off the ground. An image flashed of me, trembling, probing in the darkness to jam the gloves into place. I gave myself high marks for forethought, and low for recall. I thought I’d put them higher. Perhaps, like Alice, I’d had a size-altering experience in these woods.
I veered off between the gloved trees, on what I could barely make out as a path. Its impact on the thicket was so subtle that, without the markers, I might not have spotted it. In the daylight, the trail was little more than a change in texture, the vegetation along its length stunted and more sparse than that to either side. In a narrow line the ground cover did not intertwine. Weeds and small bushes stood alone, isolated from neighbors, exposing the coarse, burnt sienna of dead leaves and soil on which they stood. That was all.
I thought of the jigsaw puzzles I’d worked as a child. Gran and I pored over the pieces, searching for the right one, our eyes and brains calibrating minute variations in grain and shade. Success depended on the ability to perceive subtle differences in tone and texture. How the hell had I spotted this path in the dark?
I could hear the rustling of leaves and the snapping of twigs behind me. I didn’t point out the gloves, but let them be impressed with my land navigational skills. Brennan the Pathfinder. Within a few yards I spotted the can of insect repellent. No subtlety there. The bright orange cap shone like a beacon in the foliage.
And there was my camouflaged mound. Below a white oak the ground swelled into a small protuberance covered by leaves and bordered by bare earth. In the exposed soil I could see the marks left by my fingers as I’d scratched up leaves and dirt to conceal the plastic. The results of my hurried camouflage job may have revealed more than concealed, but it seemed the thing to do at the time.
I’ve done many body recoveries. Most hidden corpses are found because of a tip or a lucky break. Informants rat out their accomplices. Excited kids point out their finds. It smelled awful so we started poking around, and there it was! It felt odd to be one of the kids.
“There.” I indicated the leafy hump.
“You sure?” Ryan asked.
I just looked at him. The others said nothing. I set down my backpack and withdrew another pair of garden gloves. Crossing to the mound, I placed my feet carefully to minimize the disturbance. Absurd, in light of my thrashing about the night before, but at an official scene proper technique is expected.
I squatted down and brushed back enough leaves to expose a small portion of the plastic bag. The bulk of it was still embedded in the earth, and the irregular contour suggested that the contents were secure within. It looked undisturbed. When I turned, Poirier was crossing himself.
Ryan spoke to Cambronne. “Let’s get some shots for the travel brochure.”
I rejoined the others and waited silently as Cambronne followed his ritual. He unpacked his equipment, filled out a marker board, and photographed the mound and the bag from several distances and directions. Finally, he lowered his camera and stepped back.
Ryan turned to LaManche. “Doc?”
LaManche said his first word since I’d arrived. “Temperance?”
Taking a trowel from the backpack, I crossed back to the mound. I swept away the remaining leaves, carefully uncovering as much of the bag as possible. It looked as I remembered it. I could even see the small perforation I’d made with my thumbnail.
Using the trowel, I scraped soil upward and outward around the periphery, slowly exposing more and more of the bag. The dirt smelled ancient and musty, as if bound in its molecules it held a minute part of everything it had nurtured since the glaciers released it from their icy grip.
I heard voices drifting from the law enforcement carnival on the street, but where I worked, the only sounds came from the birds, insects, and the steady scraping of my trowel. Branches lifted and fell in the breeze, a gentler version of the dance they’d done the night before. The night theater had been Masai warriors leaping and lunging in mock battle. The morning show was the “Anniversary Waltz.” Shadows moved across the bag, and across the faces of the solemn group witnessing its emergence. I watched the shapes move on the plastic, like puppets in a shadow play.
Within fifteen minutes the mound had become a pit, with more than half the bag visible. I suspected the contents had rearranged themselves as decomposition progressed and bones were freed of their anatomical responsibilities. If there were bones.
Thinking I’d removed enough soil to free the bundle, I put down my trowel, took hold of the twisted plastic, and slowly pulled. It wouldn’t budge. Last night all over again. Was someone underground, holding the other end of the bag, challenging me to a macabre game of tug-of-war?
Cambronne had photographed as I dug, and was now behind me, positioned to fix on Kodachrome the moment of the bag’s release. The phrase popped into my mind: Capture the moments of our lives. And deaths, I thought.
I brushed my gloves along the sides of my jeans, grabbed the sack as far down as I could, and gave a short, sharp yank. Movement. The pit wouldn’t yield its cache with ease, but I’d weakened its grip. I felt the bag shift and the contents relocate slightly. I took a breath and pulled again, harder. I wanted to dislodge the bag, but not rip it. It gave way and then resettled.
Bracing my feet, I gave one more tug, and my underground opponent gave up the contest. The sack started to slide free. I rewrapped my fingers around the twisted plastic, and, inching backward, step by step, teased the bag out of the pit.
When I’d pulled it free of the rim, I released my grip and stepped back. A common garbage bag, the kind found in kitchens and garages across North America. Intact. The contents made it lumpy. It wasn’t heavy. That was not a good sign, or was it? Would I rather find the remains of someone’s dog and be humiliated, or the remains of a human body and be vindicated?
Cambronne snapped into action. He placed his placard and took a series of shots. I removed one glove, and dug my Swiss army knife from my pocket.
When Cambronne finished, I knelt beside the bag. My hands shook slightly, but I
finally got my thumbnail into the small crescent of the blade and opened it. The stainless steel glinted as sunlight struck it. I selected a spot at the bound end for my incision. I felt five sets of eyes on me.
I glanced at LaManche. His features changed shape as the shadows shifted. I wondered, briefly, how my own sullied face looked in the light. LaManche nodded, and I placed pressure on the blade.
Before the steel could pierce the plastic, my hand stopped, checked by a sound like an invisible tether. We all heard it at once, but Bertrand voiced our collective thought.
“What the fuck?” he said.
THE SUDDEN DIN WAS A CACOPHONY OF SOUNDS. THE FRANTIC barking of a dog mingled with human voices raised in excitement. Shouts rang back and forth, tense and clipped, but too indistinct to make out the words. The bedlam was within the monastery grounds, somewhere off to our left. My first thought was that the night prowler had returned, and that every cop in the province, and at least one German shepherd, were in pursuit.
I looked at Ryan and the others. Like me, they were frozen in place. Even Poirier had stopped fidgeting with his mustache and stood with hand fixed to upper lip.
Then the approaching sound of a body tunneling swiftly and indiscriminantly through foliage broke the spell. Heads turned simultaneously, as if operated by one switch. From somewhere in the trees, a voice called out.
“Ryan? You over there?”
“Here.”
We oriented in the direction of the voice.
“Ciboire.” More thrashing and crunching. “Aiee.”
An SQ officer came into view, wrestling back branches and muttering audibly. His beefy face was red, and his breathing was noisy. Sweat beaded his brow and flattened the fringe of hair circling his mostly bald head. Spotting us, he planted a hand on each knee, and bent to catch his breath. I could see scratches where twigs had dragged across the top of his exposed scalp.