I glanced nervously at Charlie, who continued to guard the only exit. However, he was more intent on watching his lover remove floorboards. His look of puzzlement suggested he wasn’t sure what she was up to.
I glanced over my shoulder at a broken window several feet behind me. Prepared to stop the moment Hélène looked up, I stepped quietly backwards until I felt the wall. The window, its pane shattered by yesterday’s bullet, was an arm’s length away.
Charlie spoke up, “What’s that?” I froze. But he ignored me and walked past to where Hélène was removing a canvas sack, similar to the one I’d taken.
I continued inching towards the window. Hélène and Charlie were too focused on the sack to notice me. As I reached the window, I turned around and braced myself to crash through the window.
“What’re you doing?” Hélène yelled. I stopped. The rifle bolt hammered home. “Move back,” she said.
Temporarily beaten, but not yet ready to declare defeat, I returned to the middle of the room. I listened for sounds that would tell me the police were coming, but I heard only the rain drumming on the roof.
Charlie dumped the contents of the sack onto the floor. Bundles of money spilled out. A look of amazement washed over his face. “Christ, where’d all this come from?”
Ignoring him, she stepped back and stopped when she had us both within her sights. Her cigarette glowed. Her yellow slicker hung open revealing a fuchsia jacket underneath, the jacket I’d seen from the lake. The jacket gaped where a hole had been torn in the fabric.
“That’s Louis’s share,” I said. “Hélène stole it.”
She thrust her chiselled face in my direction, her black eyes coldly appraising, and sneered, “It was my money. I was the only one with the brains to go after CanacGold. But jeez, finding Tommy alive gave me a scare. I figured he was dead for sure when I left him.”
I sensed Charlie stiffening behind me. I pointed to the piece of fuchsia fabric lying on the floor. “But you did kill Marie.”
Her unblinking eyes stared back at me. She didn’t even attempt to hide the damning tear made when she’d crawled out of the cave after killing Marie.
I heard Charlie grunt.
“And you killed Louis too.” I said.
Charlie’s feet scraped on the floor. “Hon, tell her it’s not true,” he pleaded, all his bluster gone.
For a moment, Hélène looked nonplussed, then she screeched, “Oh, shut up! You’re so damn dumb, Charlie. I don’t know why I put up with you. You thought Louis would lead us to riches. Hah! He was all set to sell us out. He woulda left us with nothin’.”
Like a robot, Charlie stared at her with unseeing eyes, while a curtain of dread crept over his face. He reached up and touched the eagle feather hanging from his braid.
“I did it for us, Charlie. I had to. You didn’t have the guts to do it.” She flung back her shoulders and glared back at her lover. Her fingers tightened around the rifle.
“You shot Marie before she could tell me about the island,” I whispered softly.
“Yeah,” she replied smugly, almost as if she was proud of what she’d done. “Lucky I overheard her on the store phone. Charlie already told me about Marie’s link to the island, so I got suspicious. I offered her a cuppa coffee on the house. Soon she was telling me all about this piece of bark her mama gave her. How this means Whispers Island belonged to her, but she wasn’t suppose to tell nobody, ’cause it would only bring trouble.”
Hélène stopped to take a deep drag on her cigarette, then continued, “Stupid bitch. Imagine owning an island and doing nothin’ about it. She got scared when she heard about the gold on the island and told Louis. Jeez, all he wanted to do was sell the land to CanacGold, eh? She was gonna tell you, Meg, so you could stop the mine.”
All this time, she had been glaring at Charlie, as if daring him to challenge her words. Now she turned her gaze back to me. But behind her defiance, I caught a hint of entreaty.
“Well, I couldn’t let her do that, could I?” she said. “I needed CanacGold to get that gold. It was my ticket outta here. Once they sized the deposit, I’d get the rest of my money. I tried to talk her out of it, eh? But the stupid bitch wouldn’t listen. She gave me no choice. I had to kill her.”
Charlie groaned. “How could you?”
But as if she hadn’t heard, Hélène took another deep drag. “I knew she went to the island to talk to her ancestors. So I told her we should go there and ask them what to do, eh? I locked up the store and we drove to the Fishin’ Camp. She waited in the boat, while I went to get the rifle I keep in the Camp’s gear shed. But I seen Louis’s p’tit gars propped against a wall, where he musta forgot it. So I says to myself, why not. They’d think it was Louis done it, not me. Serve the bastard right, eh!”
Héléne laughed, more like cackled. “When we got to the island, she took me into the cave. Said it was the best place to talk to the spirits. I tried one last time to convince her the mine was okay, but she wouldn’t budge, so I shot her.”
I looked at Charlie to see how he was taking this. But his face showed little expression beyond the twitch near his eye.
While Hélène was telling her story, her grip had relaxed on the gun barrel. Now it pointed at the floor, not at me. Behind me, I could hear Sergei’s quiet whimpers at the door. I decided I’d try for the door. As Hélène continued her story, I shuffled backwards.
“But I had to shut Louis up too. I caught him next morning unloadin’ firewood. It was perfect, eh? I shot him and dumped the wood on top of him, then I went back to the island and put the gun with Marie. I figured the way I hid the bodies, no one’d find them for weeks. By then Charlie and I are far away.”
I caught the faint crackle of a police radio and glanced quickly at Charlie and Hélène to see if either had heard. But they were too intent on the story, the one telling, the other listening. I continued moving slowly backwards to the door.
“Even had the police runnin’ off to Louis’s camp with that dumb note, didn’t I? Sure had you fooled, eh? But the best was making you all think Marie killed Louis and then herself.” She finished with a low throaty cackle.
“This eagle feather, Hélène, the one you gave me when I lost mine. It was Marie’s, wasn’t it?” Charlie whispered, waking from his trance-like state.
Chanting softly to himself, Charlie carefully detached the long black and white feather from his braid and gently laid it on the table beside him. Turning a stark stare back to Hélène he said, “We have angered the spirits. We must answer to kije manido.”
“Jeez, Charlie, ain’t you ever gonna quit believin’ that guff.” She spat the burning cigarette from her mouth and stomped on it.
“Hélène, why? Marie was like a sister. How could you kill her?” He looked at her imploringly, as if trying to fathom her betrayal.
“For the money, ya stupid bastard. That’s all it ever was, the money. That’s the only reason I put up with your snivellin’ ways,” she sneered as she aimed her rifle.
“How
