Death Du Jour (45 page)

I knew I sounded frantic, but I couldn’t help myself.

“O.K. I agree. It’s time to drive Miss Daisy hard. When did she leave your place?”

“Fifteen minutes ago.”

“Where was she going?”

“I don’t know. She said she was meeting someone.”

“O.K., I’ll find her. Brennan, if you’re right about this, the little professor is a very dangerous woman. Do
not,
I repeat, do not do anything on your own. I know you’re worried about Harry, but if she’s been sucked into this thing it may take professionals to get her out. Do you understand?”

“May I brush my teeth? Or is that considered risky?” I snapped. His paternalism did not bring out the best in me.

“You know what I mean. Find yourself some candles. I’ll get back to you as soon as I learn anything.”

I hung up and walked to the French doors. I wanted more space around me and slid the curtain aside. The courtyard looked like a mythological garden, the trees and shrubs fashioned of spun glass. Filmy nets covered the upstairs balconies and clung to the brick chimneys and walls.

I located candles, matches, and a flashlight, then dug my radio and headphones from my gym bag and placed everything on the kitchen counter. Back in the living room, I settled on the couch and clicked to the CTV news.

Ryan was right. The storm was big news. Lines were down throughout the province and Hydro-Québec could not say when power would be restored. Temperatures were dropping and more precipitation was on the way.

I threw on a jacket and made three trips for logs. If the electricity failed, I would have heat. Next, I got extra blankets and placed them on the bed. When I returned to the living room a grim-looking newscaster was listing events that would not take place.

It was a familiar ritual, and oddly comforting. When snow threatens in the South, schools close, public activities
cease, and frenzied homeowners strip store shelves. Usually the blizzards never come, or if snow falls, it disappears the following day. In Montreal storm preparations are methodical, not frantic, dominated by an air of “we will cope.”

My preparations occupied me for fifteen minutes. The TV held my attention for another ten. A brief respite. When I clicked off, my agitation returned full force. I felt stuck, a bug on a pin. Ryan was right. There was nothing I could do, and my powerlessness made me all the more restless.

I went through my nighttime routine, hoping to keep bad thoughts at bay a little longer. No go. When I crawled into bed, the neural floodgates overflowed.

Harry. Why hadn’t I listened to her? How could I have been so self-absorbed? Where had she gone? Why hadn’t she called her son? Why hadn’t she called me?

Daisy Jeannotte. Who had she been going to meet? What crazed course was she mapping? How many innocent souls did she intend to take with her?

Heidi Schneider. Who had felt so threatened by Heidi’s babies as to resort to brutal infanticide? Were these deaths the herald of more bloodshed?

Jennifer Cannon. Amalie Provencher. Carole Comptois. Were their murders part of the madness? What demonic mores had they violated? Had their deaths been the choreography of some hellish ritual? Had my sister suffered the same fate?

When the phone rang I jumped and knocked the flashlight to the floor.

Ryan, I prayed. It’s Ryan and he’s got Jeannotte.

My nephew’s voice came across the line.

“Oh hell, Aunt Tempe. I think I’ve really screwed up. She called. I found it on the other cassette.”

“What other cassette?”

“I’ve got one of these old answering machines with the tiny tapes. The one I had wasn’t rewinding right so I put in a new one. I didn’t think about it until a friend came by just now. I was pretty hacked off at her because we were supposed to go out last week, but when I went to get her she wasn’t home. When she dropped by tonight I told her to kiss off, and she insisted she’d left a message. We got into a hassle so I got out the old tape and played it. She was on there, all right, but so was Harry. Right at the end.”

“What did your mother say?”

“She sounded pissed off. You know how Harry is. But she sounded scared at the same time. She was at some farm or something and wanted to split but no one would drive her back to Montreal. So I guess she’s still in Canada.”

“What else did she say?” My heart was pounding so hard I thought my nephew would hear it.

“She said things were getting creepy and she wanted out. Then the tape quit or she was cut off or something. I’m not sure. The message just ended.”

“When did she call?”

“Pam phoned Monday. Harry’s message was after that.”

“There’s no date indicator?”

“This thing was made during the Truman years.”

“When did you change the tape?”

“I think maybe Wednesday or Thursday. I’m not sure. But before the weekend, I know that.”

“Think, Kit!”

The line buzzed.

“Thursday. When I got home from the boat I was tired and the tape wouldn’t rewind, so I popped the cassette
and pitched it. That’s when I put in the new one. Shit, that means she phoned at least four days ago, maybe even six. God, I hope she’s all right. She sounded pretty panicky, even for Harry.”

“I think I know who she’s with. She’ll be fine.” I didn’t believe my own words.

“Let me know as soon as you talk to her. Tell her I feel bad about this. I just didn’t think.”

I went to the window and pressed my face to the glass. The coating of ice turned the streetlights into tiny suns, and my neighbors’ windows into glimmering rectangles. Tears ran down my cheeks as I thought of my sister, somewhere in that storm.

I dragged myself back to bed, turned on the lamp, and settled in to await Ryan’s call.

Now and then the lights dimmed, flickered, then returned to normal. A millennium passed. The phone sat mute.

I drifted off.

It was the dream that provided the final epiphany.

I
STAND GAZING AT THE OLD CHURCH
. I
T IS WIN
ter and the trees are bare. Though the sky is leaden, the branches send spiderwebs of shadow crawling across the weathered gray stone. The air smells of snow, and the prestorm silence is thick around me. In the distance I see a frozen lake.

A door opens and a figure is silhouetted against the soft yellow of lamplight. It hesitates, then walks in my direction, head lowered against the wind. The figure draws near, and I see she is female. Her head is veiled and she wears a long black gown.

As the woman comes closer the first powdery flakes appear. She carries a candle, and I realize her crouching is to protect the flame. I wonder how it survives.

The woman stops and beckons with her head. Already the veil is flecked with snow. I strain to recognize her face, but it moves in and out of focus, like pebbles at the bottom of a deep pool.

She turns and I follow.

The woman pulls farther and farther ahead. I feel alarm and try to catch up, but my body does not respond. My legs are weighted and I cannot hurry. I see her disappear through the door. I call out, but there is no sound.

Then I am inside the church and everything is dim. The walls are stone, the floor dirt. Huge carved windows disappear into darkness overhead. Through them I see tiny flakes wafting like smoke.

I can’t remember why I’ve come to the church. I feel guilty, because I know it is important. Someone has sent me, but I can’t recall who.

As I walk through the dusklike gloom I look down and see that my feet are bare. I am ashamed because I don’t know where I’ve left my shoes. I want to leave, but don’t know the way. I feel if I abandon my task I won’t be able to leave.

I hear muffled voices and turn in that direction. There is something on the ground but it is obscure, a mirage I can’t identify. I move toward it and the shadows congeal into separate objects.

A circle of wrapped cocoons. I stare down at them. They are too small to be bodies, but are shaped like bodies.

I go to one and loosen a corner. There is a muffled buzzing. I pull back the cloth and flies billow out and float to the window. The glass is frosted with vapor and I watch the insects swarm across it, knowing they are wrong in the cold.

My eyes drop back to the bundle. I don’t hurry because I know it isn’t a corpse. The dead are not packaged and arrayed in this manner.

Only it is. And I recognize the face. Amalie Provencher stares at me, her features a cartoon portrait in shades of gray.

Still, I cannot hurry. I move from bundle to bundle, unbinding fabric and sending flies rising into the shadows. The faces are white, the eyes fixed, but I do not recognize them. Except for one.

The size tells me before I open the shroud. It is so much smaller than the others. I don’t want to see, but it is impossible to stop.

No! I try denial, but it doesn’t work.

Carlie lies on his stomach, hands curled into upturned fists.

Then I see two others, tiny, side by side in the circle.

I cry out, but again there is no sound.

A hand closes around my arm. I look up and see my guide. She is changed, or just more clearly visible.

It is a nun, her habit frayed and covered with mold. When she moves I hear the click of beads and smell wet earth and decay.

I rise and see cocoa skin covered with oozing, red sores. I know it is Élisabeth Nicolet.

“Who are you?” I think the question, but she answers.

“All in robe of darkest grain.”

I don’t understand.

“Why are you here?”

“I come a reluctant bride of Christ.”

Then I see another figure. She stands in a recess, the dim snowfall light obscuring her features and turning her hair a lackluster gray. Her eyes meet mine and she speaks, but the words are lost.

“Harry!” I scream, but my voice is thin and weak.

Harry doesn’t hear. She extends both arms and her mouth moves, a black oval in the specter that is her face.

Again I shout, but no sound emerges.

She speaks again and I hear her, though her words are distant, like voices drifting across water.

“Help me. I am dying.”

“No!” I try to run, but my legs won’t move.

Harry enters a passageway I haven’t noticed. Above it I see an inscription.
GUARDIAN ANGEL
.
She becomes shadow, merges with the darkness.

I call but she won’t look back. I try to go to her, but my body is frozen, nothing moves but the tears down my cheeks.

My companion transforms. Dark feathered wings sprout from her back, and her face grows pale and deeply creviced. Her eyes congeal into chunks of stone. As I stare into them the irises go clear and color drains from the brows and lashes. A white streak appears in her hair and races backward, separating a flap of scalp and throwing it high into the air. The tissue flutters to the floor and flies swarm from the window and settle on it.

“The order must not be ignored.” The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.

The dreamscape shifts to the low country. Long rays of sun slant through Spanish moss, and giant shadows dance between the trees. It is hot and I am digging. I sweat as I scoop mud the color of dried blood and fling it to a mound behind me.

The blade hits something and I scrape the edges, carefully revealing the form. White fur clotted with brick-red clay. I follow the arch of the back. A hand with long, red nails. I work my way up the arm. Cowboy fringe. Everything shimmers in the intense heat.

I see Harry’s face and scream.

*   *   *

Heart pounding and bathed in sweat, I sat upright. It took me a moment to reconnect.

Montreal. Bedroom. Ice storm.

The light still burned and the room was quiet. I checked the clock. Three forty-two.

Calm down. A dream is just a dream. It reflects fears and anxieties, not reality.

Then another thought. Ryan’s call. Had I slept through it?

I threw back the quilt and moved to the living room. The answering machine was dark.

Back in the bedroom, I took off my damp clothes. As I dropped the sweatpants to the floor I could see fingernail-shaped moons in the flesh of my palms. I dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater.

More sleep did not seem likely, so I went to the kitchen and set water to boil. I felt queasy from the dream. I didn’t want to bring it back, but the vision had knocked something loose in my mind, and I needed to make sense of it. I took my tea to the sofa.

My dreams as a rule are not particularly wondrous nor frightening or grotesque. They are of two types.

Most commonly, I cannot dial the phone, see the road, catch the plane. I must take an exam but have never attended the class. Piece of cake: anxiety.

Less frequently the message is more baffling. My subconscious sifts material that my conscious mind has amassed, and weaves it into surreal tableaux. I am left to interpret what my psyche is saying.

Tonight’s nightmare was clearly of the cryptic type. I closed my eyes to see what I could decode. Images flashed, like glimpses through a picket fence.

Amalie Provencher’s computer face.

The dead babies.

A winged Daisy Jeannotte. I remembered my words to Ryan. Was she truly an angel of death?