to turn around and go back the way I’d come. I drove instead to the General Store, knowing the rumour mill would be running full throttle.
And I was right. The store was humming with excited voices. Hélène, decked out in a vermilion sweatshirt with I
This time, my presence didn’t stop the conversation. In fact, no one paid attention to me as I walked up to the coffee counter. They were too busy firing questions at Frosty, my coffee drinking buddy with the missing fingers. Unlike the other day, this group was older, closer to my age, a half dozen men and women from the reserve and a couple of local farmers. I said hi to those I recognized and grabbed a vacant stool. Without my asking, Hélène poured some coffee into her special Harrods mug, placed a thick chocolate doughnut on a china plate and passed them to me. I leaned back and listened.
“Cops say I can’t discuss the case, but seeing as how you’re my friends, I don’t see no harm in it.” Frosty’s preening voice rose above the crowd. “Sure could use some fuel, though.”
Frosty’s hand with the missing two fingers passed a coffee cup across the counter towards Hélène. With her eye on me, she laughed, reached under the counter and brought out a half full bottle of rye. She poured a good measure into his cup and quickly returned it to its hiding spot. Another hand with all its fingers slammed a couple of bucks down, which were quickly snatched up by Hélène and hidden away in her pocket.
I stared at her in surprise, then passed my mug over. What did I care if she had a little something going on the side.
“It was them flies,” Frosty began. “Crawling all over them logs. I figured something was dead, eh? Sure smelled like it too. But I figured it was a raccoon got caught. So I started moving them logs. Had to anyways, couldn’t drive around ’em, eh? Then I sees this hand. Damn near made me piss my pants. I—”
“Excuse me, Frosty,” I cut in, suddenly realizing which wood he was talking about. “Are you talking about that pile of firewood in the middle of Louis’s drive?”
“Yup, big pile. Anyways, I got rid of more logs. And next I knowed, Louis was staring back at me with those funny blue eyes of his. ’Cept they was dead eyes, bulging out of his head.”
I shivered. I’d walked by that wood, twice, only yesterday. I’d even noticed the flies.
Frosty stopped, took a careful look around to make sure we were all listening and continued. “Once I seen Louis, I knowed I gotta get the Police Chief. So I hotfooted back to the detachment office. Decontie says I was an important witness, eh? So I had to go back to Louis’s with him. He even called in them provincial cops, the SQ, it was that important, eh? I watched them take all them pictures, even do that fingerprinting stuff. Sure a bunch of hocus-pocus, you ask me. Anyone could see weren’t nothing there to tell ’em who done it.”
“Do the police know when Louis died?” I asked.
“Ain’t sayin’,” Frosty replied.
Maybe the police didn’t know yet, but I had a pretty good idea. It could only be between the time when Louis picked up Marie after her phone call to me and when I saw the log pile the following night.
“Shot in the back he was, eh?” Frosty continued. “Jeez, what a way to go. Probably didn’t even know what hit him. Poor sucker. Decontie figured it was a rifle done it, eh? Gotta be a Winchester for sure, since that’s the only kind good for killing. Why, my own Winchester can kill a moose from three hundred paces. But weren’t no gun there. They even searched them logs. Kinda messy, where Louis was rottin’. Guess he been there awhile.”
The timing started me thinking. If, as Eric said, it took a day to hike into Louis’s hunting camp, then it was impossible for Louis to go to his camp with Marie that night and return home by the next morning. He must’ve stayed behind.
“They know who done it?” Hélène asked. She held up the rye bottle. Several cups stretched toward it, including my own.
“Think they got an idea, but they ain’t sayin’,” Frosty replied.
I prayed that Marie had started out on her own, expecting Louis to catch up later. I didn’t want to think of the possibility of her being there when Louis was killed.
“I hear the wood came from Crapper’s bush, think he done it?” piped up a squeaky voice.
“Why he wanta kill him? He hardly knowed Louis. Couldn’t have done it, anyway. Laid up with back trouble,” Frosty answered.
“What’s that no-good Louis buying wood for when he got a wood lot full to bursting with deadfall from the ice storm?” someone asked.
“And where’d he get the money to buy it?” another voice added.
But no one was able to answer those questions, not even Frosty.
Another voiced the opinion “Shame to waste all that good wood on Louis, eh? Even a load of manure would’ve been too good for him.”
All nodded in agreement. More cups were passed across the counter. Hélène brought out her bottle, quickly replenished them and added more coffee. She put the money with the rest in her pocket.
“I hear they found a bracelet,” she said. All eyes turned towards her. “Clutched in Louis’s hand.”
“I didn’t see no bracelet,” Frosty said suspiciously. “Who’d ya hear that from?”
“From one of the cops when they were here earlier. They thought it was Marie’s.”
“What did it look like?” I asked afraid of the answer.
“Orange beads with black horn and real turquoise. I’m sure you’ve seen it, Meg. It was the one she bought at last year’s Pow Wow.”
My heart sank. I knew it too well. I’d even remarked on its fine craftsmanship.
“Did the police say anything else?”
“Nope, but I got the impression they think Marie was there when Louis died.”
Shit.
I hesitated, but I had to know. “Do they think she was killed also?” I asked.
Hélène dropped her gaze to the counter. “I don’t think that’s what they meant.”
I looked at her with alarm at where this was leading. “Are you saying they think she killed him?” I asked.
“Can’t say. Look, we all know Marie wouldn’t do a thing like that, eh?” Hélène looked towards the others, as if seeking agreement. “But, hell, if she did do Louis in, she had good cause, that’s for sure.”
SIXTEEN
I didn’t wait to hear another word. Yelling at Hélène to put it on my tab, I rushed from the store and drove straight to the Council Hall. Fortunately, Eric’s Harley was still parked outside, right next to the reserve’s police cruiser, which should have made me wary, but didn’t. Instead, intent only on sticking up for Marie, I raced
