to the remains of the crosses. “A warrior must ask their permission to walk on sacred ground.”
His answer left me feeling not only relieved but a little sheepish for even thinking that Tommy had known his mother lay dead in the cave. It also meant I didn’t have to contemplate the more troublesome question of how Tommy knew.
As if voicing his inner thoughts, Charlie started talking, his face a carved statue in the spreading light. “We grow up together, Marie and me. Our fathers were sons of Mishomis, my grandfather. They trapped the line together. In winter, when they were in the bush checking the lines, Marie and her mother, Whispering Pine, moved to my mother’s hearth to share food and fire.
“When Marie’s dad got killed huntin’, they stayed. Whispering Pine had no parents. My father said we look after them. It is our destiny, Mí enendagozidj. And now I fail. Marie’s dead.”
He walked to the edge of the lake, threw his half-smoked cigarette fizzling into the water, bent down and picked up a large round rock and flung it as well. He picked up another and threw it in, then another . . .
“What happened to Whispering Pine’s family?” I asked.
“They died when Whispering Pine was a small baby.” Charlie lowered his heavy body slowly back down onto the flat rock beside me. “They died in a fire. Mishomis saved Whispering Pine and took her to his mother’s hearth. Whispering Pine lived with my grandparents until she married my uncle, the first son of Mishomis.”
He got up and paced along the beach, kicking the rocks and bits of driftwood that were in the way, while the whine of several motor boats drew nearer.
He returned and sat down again. “Marie is of my clan. Like a sister. I never wanted her hurt. I only wanted what was good for her. And now this!” He flung another rock into the water.
I asked the question, which had been waiting since he first mentioned the word ancestors: “Do these crosses on the beach belong to—”
Before I could finish, he closed his eyes and started chanting again.
I let my question die in the cold morning breeze. I shivered and moved over to warm my hands at the small fire someone had started with some deadfall, which I noticed with a wry smile just happened to be from my notorious spruce. I searched for Eric to ask him my question, but he was talking with one of his men. From the cave, Tommy’s soft chanting continued.
I felt numb, not fully believing Marie was dead, that those lifeless bones had once been my living, breathing friend. I shivered again, but not from the cold. I was certain there was only one cause. Someone had killed her. I glanced at the others waiting on the desolate beach and wondered who.
A sudden loud roar of engines ended the waiting. Three boats rounded the point, raced towards us and beached on the cold wet sand. Several policemen, including Chief Decontie and Sgt. LaFramboise, swarmed onto the beach.
The sun had turned the beach into day by the time the police finished questioning everyone but Tommy, Charlie and me. Since we were the only ones who’d actually seen Marie’s body, I figured we were in for some intensive questioning. As the police began ferrying the others back to their canoes, Sgt. LaFramboise started his interrogation of Charlie beyond hearing range at the other end of the beach.
I remained seated on my flat rock and watched Chief Decontie and the other Migiskan police search the beach. A useless exercise, since we’d already trampled over most of it. From inside the cave came the strobe flashes of a camera. Another boat arrived with the coroner, or so I assumed from the official looking medical bag. Decontie led him into the cave.
And while this activity went on around him, Tommy stood on guard near the cave entrance, his face a frozen mask, his eyes closed. Next to him stood Eric, a worried look on his partially smeared face, the hawk feather drooping from his hatband.
I had a sudden feeling of being watched and looked up to see the raven perched at the top of the pine where I’d first seen him. His black, beady eyes glared back at me. He burped a low hoarse croak, ruffled his feathers as if trying to gain a more comfortable perch, then sat still. From time to time his head moved as if he were watching and listening to the scene unfolding below him.
This was the third time I’d seen him here on this beach. Eric had said his people consider the raven a spirit messenger. Maybe he had witnessed Marie’s death? Too bad he couldn’t talk.
When Sgt. LaFramboise finished with Charlie Cardinal, he began my interrogation. He adopted the same high-handed, arrogant manner he’d used in Eric’s office. Needless to say, this did not predispose me to be helpful. I answered only the questions he asked. Maybe it was irresponsible of me not to tell him about the two sets of footprints I’d seen on the beach and my suspicions. But I wanted to confirm how Marie had died before raising awkward questions. And for the moment, LaFramboise either didn’t know or wasn’t saying what had caused her death.
The questioning was just finishing when one of the SQ policeman emerged from the cave carrying a fluorescent orange object in one hand and a rifle in the other. He held up the rifle. “C’est à quelqu’un? Anyone know this?”
It just looked like one of the many beat-up guns I’d seen in the hands of local hunters, but Tommy stiffened at its sight, so did Eric.
Next, the policeman held up a hunter’s orange cap, crushed and filthy, with the earflaps turned up and a band of green and blue beading.
“Goddamn it!” shouted Tommy and plunged into the lake. Without hesitation, Eric dove after him. Within two brisk strokes, he reached the flailing form and grabbed Tommy’s collar. Arms flinging, water flying, Tommy tried to fight him off. Chief Decontie waded in to help. Together they pulled a sodden but subdued Tommy to shore.
“A qui appartient ce casque, cette carabine? You tell me!” ordered LaFramboise thrusting the crumpled cap into Tommy’s dripping face, as Decontie held his arms behind his back. “C’est à vous? Belongs to you, eh?”
“No!” shouted Tommy through clenched teeth. He looked at Eric, who nodded imperceptibly. “It’s Papa’s.” He finished, his eyes downcast, his mouth tight in grim resignation.
“Yes, that’s Louis’s gun. I’d know his p’tit gars anywhere,” confirmed Charlie.
“Eh bien, for sure, this gun kill Louis Vert,” LaFramboise announced.
TWENTY-NINE
I’d no sooner arrived home than clouds blackened the sky, and the rain came down. For the next four days, it poured almost as if Marie’s kije manido were mourning her senseless death, until the day of her burial, when the sun finally shoved the low clouds away.
And through these cold, wet days, I waited in dread of the phone call that would confirm what the cave’s evidence so clearly pointed towards, Marie had shot Louis and then herself. But it was too easy a verdict, one I didn’t want to accept. I even tried to steer Sgt. LaFramboise away from the obvious by finally telling him my suspicions about the two sets of footprints on the beach the morning after Marie died and Tommy’s use of a boat that same morning.
Early that morning, the phone call finally came, from Eric. Murder-suicide. Louis’s p’tit gars the weapon. Case closed. It looked as if LaFramboise
