the tension sharpen in the muffled silence of the shack.
“Getting yourself killed won’t help Chantal. The only way is by helping the police find her killer.”
The sound of snow sliding off the roof filled the room. I waited. I didn’t know what more to say.
Finally, he nodded. “Okay,” he said looking into my eyes. “You believe me. I’m gonna believe you.” And he slowly bent down and placed his rifle on the floor beside where my jacket had fallen, then straightened with the determination of his decision.
“Move away from the gun, very slowly,” shouted Chief Decontie from behind me. John-Joe stepped towards me. “No! Towards the wall,” he yelled, while Corporal Whiteduck shoved me out of the way.
Decontie slammed John-Joe spread-eagle against the wall, searched him and, finding a bulge under his jacket, brushed it aside. Clamped to John-Joe’s belt was a leather sheath. A bone hilt proclaimed the knife’s presence. Removing a tissue from his pocket, Decontie pulled out the knife and held it to the light. All action stopped as we stared at the knife. The blade was stained. He slipped it into the plastic bag Corporal Whiteduck held out.
The police chief frisked John-Joe again. When satisfied nothing else was concealed, he jerked John-Joe’s arms around his back and snapped on handcuffs. After reading him his rights, he charged John-Joe with the murder of Chantal. With such obvious evidence, what else could he do? Even I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake in believing him innocent.
Luke stood guard over the prisoner, while Chief Decontie checked out Chantal’s body and gave the room a once-over. He grunted at the sight of the bag of marijuana on the floor but left it where it lay. Then he instructed Corporal Whiteduck to begin taking photos.
Turning towards Eric, the police chief said, “Patrolman Smith and I have to take J.J. back to the detachment, so I’d appreciate it if you could stay here with Corporal Whiteduck until forensics and the coroner arrive. I’m also going to need a statement from you both. So while you’re waiting, Sam can take them down. “
“No problem,” Eric said as Luke marched John-Joe to the door.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I cried out, scrambling for my jacket. “Put this on him. He’s sick.”
Patrolman Smith glanced at Decontie, who reluctantly gave his approval.
Once garbed in my jacket, John-Joe offered his thanks, then looked me in the eye. “You promise?”
“I promise,” I replied, despite beginning to have second thoughts. He was, after all, innocent until proven guilty.
Despite Eric’s grim expression, he voiced his support. “We’ll get the best lawyer we can find.”
At that moment, a column of snowmobiles drove up and stopped behind Decontie’s. Several men garbed in official looking snowmobile outfits and a man in a civilian one jumped off and trudged through the deep snow towards us. As they got closer, I recognized the badges of Quebec’s provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec, or SQ as they are generally called.
As if answering the question in my mind, Decontie said with barely concealed anger in his voice, “The SQ take over from here. They have the forensics mandate, our small force doesn’t.” Then almost as an aside, he muttered under his breath, “Especially when it comes to the murder of whites.” I watched the line of men approach. Something vaguely familiar about the first officer alerted me, when, at the top of the stairs, he removed his helmet, I groaned at the sight of the arrogant sneer of Sergeant LaFramboise. Playing on the English translation of his name, I’d taken to calling him Rotten Raspberry.
Our paths had crossed once before, after another tragic killing. Although the murderer had been eventually discovered, it had been with minimal help from Rotten Raspberry. He’d read what he’d wanted to read in the evidence and had come up with a verdict that had served only to create discord amongst the Migiskan.
“Eh bien, another murder and we meet again, madame.” Sergeant LaFramboise’s needle eyes stared down at me from the height of his pointed nose.
Without waiting for my response, he turned to Chief Decontie. “We take the suspect.” He grabbed John-Joe’s arm and propelled him down the stairs. John-Joe landed face first in a snowdrift, where he lay with his hands clamped behind his back.
“Relève-toi,” LaFramboise yelled at John-Joe.
John-Joe struggled to get up, but without the use of his hands, he only managed to dig his head deeper into the snow.
Eric reached down to help him. LaFramboise thrust Eric aside, who started to lash back at him, but abruptly stopped. A charge of assaulting a police officer would only exacerbate the situation.
But Decontie, a fellow police officer, had freer rein. Saying “The boy needs air,” he brushed past his counterpart and pulled John-Joe up onto his feet. Coughing and sputtering, John-Joe shook his head to remove the snow from his face.
“I’m only handing the suspect over to you because I have to,” Decontie said. “But, if he is in any way injured or treated unfairly, I will make damn sure you lose your badge.”
LaFramboise shrugged his shoulders as if to say “so what.” Motioning one of his men to guard the prisoner, he headed back up the stairs to the hut. Chief Decontie told his patrolman to stick with John-Joe then followed on the heels of his adversary.
I started to follow, but Eric held me back. “Not much more we can do here,” he said. The telltale scar beneath his eye glowed white with suppressed anger. Turning to John-Joe, he continued, “We can do more good by finding you a lawyer. Don’t say anything until we get you one, okay? And don’t do anything stupid.”
John-Joe started to say something, but the SQ cop quickly shut him up.
I followed Eric to his skidoo. The snow had pretty much stopped. In fact, the sun was attempting to brighten the last of this abysmal day.
“That was a brave thing you did back there,” Eric said as he straddled his machine. “It probably saved John-Joe’s life.”
“You should be thanking your grandfather’s healing stone.” I held out the greenish stone, which still seemed to project a life of its own.
“No, that was you,” he replied, putting the stone back in his pouch. “The stone only helps us to express what is inside.”
Because Eric’s snowmobile was parked at the front of the line of eight machines, he had to go forward past John-Joe’s shack to the bordering beaver swamp in order to loop back around them. As we drove past a lone pine standing at the edge of the swamp, I suddenly remembered.
“Stop,” I shouted to Eric.
I jumped off and ran over to the tree where I’d seen the snowshoes. There was no sign of them now.
“What happened to your snowshoes?” I called out to John Joe, where he stood secured to a tree, under the eyes of the two cops, one set watchful, the other scornful. I had assumed the snowshoes belonged to him, but his answering confusion told me otherwise, which could mean only one thing.
“Someone else was here,” I said to Eric. And while I searched the surrounding snowy area, I told him about the snowshoes with the red
