The Rake (17 page)

Letellier, October 1991

Emile Chevalier stared at the embers. His three colleagues rested, one of them flat on his back on the wet grass. A second one stood, leaning on the fire-hose carriage. “Okay to roll it back up, Chief?”

“I guess so. The fire's certainly out. There's nothing left to hose down.”

Indeed there wasn't
anything
left at 119 First Avenue for fire to consume.

Chevalier angled his powerful flashlight to the right, then scanned left, moving his hand slowly, directing the beam searchingly.

Plainly visible was the limned outline of what had been the porch. And there was the phenomenon of the surviving brick chimney—this had tantalized Emile as a boy and, later, vexed him. He first remarked the surviving chimney as a fifteen-year-old, permitted for the first time to serve as assistant to his dare-devil father, fire chief of Letellier. What he noticed was that chimneys, in some shape, survive even heat and flames that would treat solid steel safes as if they were made of wax. The chimney would somehow stay up, often for days, even weeks, after the fire was out.

Chevalier was satisfied by the performance of the Letellier Fire Squadron, if not exactly proud. They had God to thank for Claudette's having reached the telephone downstairs before the fumes overcame her. This would have happened to her even five or six minutes later. But it was too late for poor Father Daniel, asleep in his bedroom on the second floor.

It was reasonably assumed that he hadn't suffered. His charred corpse was lying on what remained of his bed as if he had never wakened. His pipe was at his side. Emile would arrive at no judgment on that delicate score: every year, at the harvest fair, he touched down on the danger of smoking in bed.

What else could it have been? It was just the beginning of October, and there was no sign that a fire had recently been lit in any of the rectory's three fireplaces. Yet it would be unusual for a spark from a tobacco pipe to set off that sort of class-A fire—a fire that had consumed so quickly, even hungrily, the substantial wood-frame house. It was mysterious. He'd say that to the fire examiner from Winnipeg. He simply declined to rule that the fire was accidental.

The inspector would be on the scene before noon. Chief Chevalier had already reported the fire over the phone, describing, in the professional shorthand expected, its deadly consequences.

Emile very much needed to sleep; so did the three other members of the fire company. There was only the one formal job left to do, and his camera was ready to take sequential photos, going right around the 800-square-foot carcass of the old rectory. That would be done well before the sun came up. He would look especially hard for clues.

South Bend, October 1991

Justin liked to tease Allard about golf, a sport Allard had pursued two or three times a week ever since they began life together at Notre Dame. When on Thursday, lugging his clubs, Allard huffed his way into their room late in the afternoon, Justin leaned back in his desk chair and, speaking in French as was their custom, said, “Allard, I had a call from the dean's office. Canada has instituted a draft and you are to report to Quebec for duty.” The jape had a lifetime of almost two seconds, which Justin thought justified the effort. He went back to work while Allard pulled a towel from the closet and strode off to the showers.

But Allard was a good sport, and an hour later he leaned over from his desk on the other side of their shared room and removed the headphone from his ears. He was listening, as he regularly did, to the Canadian Broadcasting station in Montreal. Justin broke in: “What's hot in Canada, Allard?”

“Tais-toi,” Allard half whispered. “Your mother's town in Manitoba is Letellier, right?”

Justin nodded, and Allard adjusted the knob. The broadcaster in Montreal was giving the nightly news, province by province. In Manitoba, he reported, a fire in the town of Le
tellier had demolished the rectory of the Catholic church, leaving the pastor, who was asleep when the fire started, dead. Allard turned up the sound. “The deceased is Father Henry Daniel, a native of Ottawa, who was for many years the pastor of Saint Anne's, the adjacent church, known for its modern crystal-glass cross, which was destroyed. Mademoiselle Claudette Crognard, the housekeeper at the rectory, survived but is receiving treatment at the hospital in nearby Altona. The Winnipeg fire examiner has reported that the cause of the devastating fire was not immediately apparent, and that investigation continues.

“In Alberta—”

Justin signaled Allard to turn the radio down. “Saint Anne's,” he said, “was my mother's parish. She was baptized in that church.”

“Well, I'm sorry, Justin. I don't guess there's anything the government of Canada can do for you.” Allard was not being sarcastic. As the son of the Canadian ambassador, he liked to accumulate Canadian information of interest, usually on matters such as student scholarships and travel. If there was any chance he could intercede for an American friend on official business he was always willing to try.

“Allard…” Justin hesitated for a minute—but what was there to lose? “Allard, it happens that my mother was married in that rectory and that the record of that marriage was kept there, with other official records.”

“Again, Justin, I'm sorry. But there are other records, surely, of that marriage.”

“It's a mysterious situation. Let me think about it for a bit.”

After a few minutes' silence he picked up the telephone and put in a call to Maria Cervantes at the university in Grand Forks.

When he had finished speaking with her he said to Allard: “There
is
something you might be able to do for me. The only other record of the marriage would be in Winnipeg, at what they call the Vital Statistics Agency. Allard, could you arrange for someone there to look for records of a marriage license?”

“Certainement,” he said. “Write down the names.”

At noon the next day Justin found a note on his desk. It was from Allard, reporting that no record of a marriage license in 1969 or 1970 for the two people named was to be found at the Vital Statistics Agency.

Justin sat at his desk. His frustration raged.

Again he picked up the phone and reached Dean Cervantes. She had an answer to the question he had put to her yesterday: nothing had survived the rectory fire.

Justin walked, with some deliberation, to the offices of
The Observer
. Student reporters and editors were hard at work on the large issue scheduled for homecoming week. Harry Jenks, a senior editor, was in charge.

Justin greeted his colleagues and sat down at a computer in the editors' room. He pulled the file from his briefcase and began to write.

“Senator Reuben Castle, who will appear on campus on October 28, is expected to run for president. ‘The coast is
pretty clear,' to quote Professor Chafee of the Government Department.

“The president of the Lecture Series Committee, which is sponsoring the visit by Senator Castle, goes further than that. ‘He is still a long shot,' says Henry Fisher '92, ‘but there is genuine enthusiasm for him and I think his visit to South Bend will confirm this.'”

Justin gave the particulars of the forthcoming visit and went on. “Senator Castle is a special favorite of the Democratic Party's liberal wing. He identified himself with it as an undergraduate activist at the University of North Dakota, campaigning vigorously to end the Vietnam War.

“Mr. Castle served in Vietnam and entered the law school at the University of Illinois in 1972, but left it after one year in order to begin an active career in politics. In 1976 he was elected to Congress, as the sole representative of North Dakota, and four years later was elected to the Senate, succeeding Republican Senator Milton R. Young, who was retiring.”

Justin drew a deep breath and plunged in.

“A visitor to Grand Forks, looking into student life at the University of North Dakota in the late 1960s, would find evidence of Reuben Castle almost everywhere. He was the editor in chief of the
Dakota Student
, the undergraduate newspaper, and he was chairman of the Student Council.

“There is speculation, in Grand Forks, that as an undergraduate he impregnated a fellow student, whom he proceeded to marry at a secret ceremony in Letellier, a town in the Canadian province of Manitoba seventy miles north of Grand Forks.

“Senator Castle has never acknowledged that marriage—” He stopped.

He shut down the computer. Then he restarted it and printed out what he had written. He grabbed the pages from the printer and stuffed them into his satchel. He jotted a note to Jenks. “Harry, sorry I didn't get the story on Castle finished, but I won't miss the deadline.”

Back at his room in Dillon Hall he found a note from Student Affairs taped to the door. “For Justin Durban: Please call Mr. Eric Monsanto at 701-777-2020.”

Justin picked up the telephone and dialed the Monsanto office, but at that moment Allard came into the room. Justin put the receiver down to abort the call. He didn't want even Allard, by now his closest friend, to hear what he was going to say.

Allard was back from class and preparing to go to the links. He was lively on the matter of the missing marriage license. “That kind of thing doesn't happen in Winnipeg. I don't mean people don't steal things, but it's unusual enough to make you feel that somebody was up to something. When you add that to the rectory being destroyed, you get a smelly situation.” He reached for his golf cap and then his clubs. “Don't suppose you want to take up the sport—sport?”

Justin smiled and waved his roommate out the door.

Quickly he dialed again. When he heard Eric Monsanto's voice, he said, “Mr. Monsanto, before you tell me what you have on your mind, I'm sorry about that deception when I was up with you a few weeks ago. I've been on a—well, a hot story, and I had to keep a low profile.”

“Look, Justin. I know who you are. I tracked you down, which wasn't hard. I did the positive-ID bit—there aren't many
Notre Dame students born in Paris. But I didn't really need to do that.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I mean that before I found out that Justin Durban was born in Paris in May 1970 to Henrietta Leborcier Durban, I knew who you were. Maybe you've never seen a picture of your father when he was twenty-one years old.”

“I see what you mean, sir. Yes, my mother…has a picture like that, but she doesn't show it around.”

“I'm calling you about the fire in the church in Letellier.”

“I heard about it—my roommate listens to Canadian radio.”

“Did you know that the priest was killed, in his bedroom in the rectory?”

Justin's voice was unsteady. “Yes, the radio report did say that Father Daniel had been killed.”

“You knew him?”

“I went there. The day after I met you. I talked with him. He let me look at the church records. That's how I found out about my father.”

“Found out what?”

“That he was married there to my mother. On November 18, 1969. How—I mean, what was it that killed Father Daniel?”

“Smoke. The Winnipeg fire examiner has been looking at the scene for two days now. He suspects foul play.”

“But why?” Justin's mind clicked onto the inquiry Allard had made. “Mr. Monsanto, here's something maybe you should know.”

“I'm listening.”

“My roommate here is the son of the Canadian ambassador to the United States. He knows like
everybody
. I asked him to
check in Winnipeg, at the Vital Statistics Agency, to see if there was a marriage license on file for my mother. And my father.” He would need to get used to referring to his father.

“Did they come up with anything?”

“No. That's my point. There was no record of the marriage, Castle-Leborcier.”

“So that means there's now no record of the marriage. In Letellier. In Winnipeg. In Canada, I guess.”

“Sir. Did you know they had been…married?”

Eric paused. “I guessed it. Actually, it was more than just a guess. It was the way they behaved when the three of us were together. And there were references to Saint Anne's. And to, like, ‘the great day at Saint Anne's.' When I wrote to your mother in Paris I never put it to her that she was married, but everything I said was—as if they were married.”

“So what's to be done, sir?”

“You can call me Eric. What's to be done is for me to get in touch with the Winnipeg people. Tell them about the missing documents. See if they have anything going on in the investigation in Letellier. Is there a phone number where I can reach you directly?”

“Yes. It's 574-631-2811. Meanwhile, I'm trying to think whether to call Maman and tell her about the fire. We haven't spoken since I was at Saint Anne's and saw the church register. But she knows that I know. I sent her a postcard from Letellier. I guess this was a different priest from the one that married her. Baptized her, too.”

“Yes. Father Daniel had only been at Saint Anne's for about eight years. I'll call you when I have some information.”

“Thank you.”

South Bend, October 1991

On Monday Allard told Justin, just returned from his nine o'clock class, that he had had a call from his father.
Le grand ambassadeur!

“Anything wrong?”

“Not that I know of. But I am to report to a law office in South Bend—I have the name written down. Papa said there was some international formality involved. I hope I haven't sponsored a visa for a Canadian who is engaged in serial murder.”

The roommates met for lunch.

“Ecoute! That is some bird running the RCMP office in Winnipeg.”

“What did he want with you?” Justin asked.

“He wants you now more than he wants me.” Allard passed Justin a card.

A
UGUST
B
ELCOURT
R
OYAL
C
ANADIAN
M
OUNTED
P
OLICE

The card included address and telephone number. “He is one tough hombre. What it comes down to is your dad's—Senator Castle's—business, the wedding and the papers. Belcourt came to see me because I was the guy—they tracked it back—who called Vital Statistics and asked someone to look for the marriage license. They put that together with the fire and the dead priest. Leborcier-Castle is now a very hot number with the RCMP.”

After lunch Justin went to the same South Bend law office and reported to the tall man with the stiff gray crew cut.

Commander Belcourt came quickly to the point. “We are calculating that the church was burned down by an arsonist and that his motive was to destroy records involving your mother—and, well, Senator Reuben Castle.

“This is not the time or the place to explore the relationship between him and your mother. We're interested only in finding the arsonist and the person who commissioned him.” He looked down at his notes. “You visited the church, we have down here, on September 4. After visiting with”—again he consulted his notes—“Mr. Eric Monsanto in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Mr. Monsanto is known to the lieutenant governor. They have worked together. We have been in touch with him. We are interested in your visits and your purposes. You spoke with Father Daniel, the victim?”

“Yes. Yes, sir.”

“And do you remember the housekeeper? Claudette Crognard?”

“I do indeed. She was kind enough to give me some cookies and an apple.”

“You found what you were looking for?”

“Yes.”

“Describe what you were looking for.”

“I was looking for evidence that my—that Henrietta Leborcier had married Reuben Castle. There was evidence of this in the register, in an entry dated November 18, 1969.”

Justin did not tell Commander Belcourt that he had photographed the page of the parish register. Perhaps this was something better held back for the moment.

“Were there signatures of the principals?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you recognize the handwriting?”

“I recognized the handwriting of my mother. I am not familiar with the handwriting of…my father.”

The commander was called to the telephone. He returned and sat down with a special assurance.

“We have the arsonist. We shall deal with him.”