“A client’s here. I’ve got to go, Meg. You’ve raised some interesting points. I’ll see what I can do to have them followed up. Bye.”
And he hung up, leaving me wondering if he really were interested in keeping his friend out of jail.
At least I could be assured of Eric’s help, I thought as I called his office again without success. I even got up the nerve to phone him at home. I left messages at both places, hoping he would recognize the urgency and get back to me quickly. In the meantime, I decided to have my lunch, and if no word came from him by the time I’d finished, I’d go looking for him. I’d no sooner put the soup on the cookstove than a roar outside warned me of a visitor. It was Eric.
I stepped outside and braced myself as he turned off the skidoo engine.
“You okay, Meg?” he said removing his helmet. Worried grey eyes stared back at me. “Sorry I didn’t come earlier, but I just got in from an overnight trip to Ottawa. I came as fast as I could, figuring something must be up.”
I tried to banish the image of that woman’s beautiful face from my mind and couldn’t. So rather than attempting to go through social niceties, I said, “I need to talk to John-Joe. I’m hoping you can tell me where he is?”
His concern changed to annoyance. “John-Joe? Who says I know where he is?”
“Please, Eric, don’t play coy with me. I know he must be hiding out somewhere on the reserve. Just tell me how I can reach him, and you can go back to doing whatever you were doing.”
“Is this the reason for all those phone calls, even the ones to my home?” His glance shifted away from me as he said these last words.
I held my breath, waiting for him to say something about his house guest, but when he didn’t, I continued as if she didn’t exist. “It’s urgent that I talk to John-Joe.”
“Meg, I’m surprised at your stupidity. Do you honestly think I would put my people at risk by helping an escaped criminal? If I catch one whiff of his presence on the reserve, I’ll have Decontie after him so fast the snow would melt under his cruiser’s tires.”
“Hey, now it’s my turn to ask what’s going on with you. Why the about-face? Only a couple of days ago, you were defending John-Joe. Now you’ve tried and convicted him.”
“The bastard’s been selling drugs.”
My worst fears were finally confirmed.
“How do you know?”
“One of the kids found in your shack ID ’d him. And the most despicable thing about this, is apart from his betrayal of his own people, the stuff was laced with heroin, so the kids would become addicts.”
“Heroin? How do you know that? Surely John-Joe wouldn’t be involved with such a hardcore drug.”
“Decontie told me. I’ll crucify the bastard if he sets one foot on the reserve.”
“I don’t believe it. John-Joe likes the kids too much. He’d never do anything to hurt them, particularly his nephew.”
“Maybe so, but you said yourself you noticed the drastic change in John-Joe’s character these past few months. I think it’s because he’s back on the hard stuff.”
I thought of the pristine condition of his cabin that no addict would bother to maintain, and his calm, stoic behaviour after his first escape, when he would’ve been several hours without drugs. “No, he isn’t,” I said. “Why is this child so certain it was John-Joe?”
“His orange cap, what else? Remember, you saw him too, leaving your shack.”
“He says it wasn’t him. I think it was someone trying to frame him.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “And we’re going to have a green Christmas, too. Look, I want to believe in John-Joe’s innocence as much as you do, but this time he’s gone too far. Until I know for certain that John-Joe did not supply the kids with heroin, I’m going to track him down until he’s back where he belongs, behind bars. Think seriously, Meg, before you smoke his pipe. If he’s supposed to be so innocent, why has he escaped a second time? Try and answer that one, my miskowàbigonens.”
Although I wasn’t yet prepared to draw the obvious conclusion, I could tell from the steel shutter that had dropped down over Eric’s face that it would be useless to press further the young man’s innocence. Unfortunately, it looked as if I’d have to find John-Joe on my own.
I had become so engrossed in my thoughts that Eric’s last words almost passed unnoticed. “You called me something,” I said. “I hope it wasn’t rude.”
He chuckled in that deep throated manner I’d come to know as his way of dealing with life’s challenges, except on this occasion I didn’t think my question posed much of a challenge.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just an Algonquin phrase. Look, I’ve got to be going.”
“What was the word again? Mishagabigan?”
“Not bad. Miskowàbigonens.”
He hoped onto his snowmobile, then as if having second thoughts, he said, “It means Little Red Flower.”
For a moment I thought I detected a softening in his eyes before the shutter clamped down again. He started the engine, and as he plunged down the back route towards the lake, left his final words in a cloud of flying snow. “Say hi to your new boyfriend for me.”
“What about your stupid girlfriend?” I shouted to his disappearing back. I went indoors and slammed the door behind me.
twenty-one
Too angry to eat, I removed the soup from the stove and retreated to the living room to sit in front of the fire, where I fumed over Eric’s callousness. He had dared to accuse me of having a boyfriend. How could he? He was the one who’d started it with that woman. Who did he think he was? Besides, what had I ever seen in him? Yves was far more attractive.
I wrapped the afghan firmly around my body and sank deeper into the chesterfield. Outside, the wind flung waves of snow past the window.
His Little Red Flower. My eye.
I twitched and turned, cursed Eric and thumped the sofa cushions in an effort to get comfortable. I eventually must have fallen asleep, for I was roused by Sergei barking at the front door. I found I was shivering, and the fire had diminished to a few dying embers. The doorbell echoed from the hall. My immediate thoughts went to John-Joe. So when I raced to the front door and discovered a bundled up Yvette, I was completely taken aback.
I must’ve shown my surprise, for she immediately said, “It is Monday, three o’clock, n’est-ce pas? You still want to teach me English, non?”
“No, I mean yes, of course I do, but are you well enough to be out in such weather? I thought you’d want to wait until you were completely recovered.” I didn’t voice my real thought, that I was surprised her sister had let her out.
“My arm is okay, regardez.” And she
