Asylum (6 page)

An exaggerated sigh, which was apparently the current preadolescent response to anything or anyone. “Hello,
Belle-Maman
,” she said, her accent slightly worse than her brother’s had been. When Ivan and I married, I resisted having his children call me by my first name. “I just don’t see it as respectful,” I’d told him. After a night of argument, we settled on
belle-maman
, which literally means “beautiful mommy” and can be used (because French sometimes is a very odd language) to refer either to one’s stepmother or to one’s mother-in-law. As it had no connotations to either the kids or their mother, the name stuck.

Claudia had more to say. “Daddy says I have to set the table, and I’m not going to do it. It’s not just that I don’t want to, either. It’s illegal. There
are
child labor laws, you know.”

I looked over her head at Ivan, now back in the kitchen and with a dish towel slung over his shoulder. That meant that he was, at least, preparing to cook. He was trying to hide a smile, though.

“Not in Canada there aren’t,” I told Claudia cheerfully. Well, no labor laws that prohibited the setting of the table, anyway. “Have you heard anything about your mom yet?” That was the real issue here; might as well get right down to it.

“No!” she wailed, and with a sweeping gesture, spilled the nail polish all over the countertop, jumped down from the stool, and ran from the room. Ivan and I stared at each other in dismay.

“Well,” he said, opening the refrigerator, “that went well.”

“Yep,” I said, taking a hefty swallow of the Merlot. The smell of the nail polish was bringing on a headache, and the chances of getting Claudia in any state to clean it were nil. I got nail polish remover and pulled out some paper towels and started mopping the noxious stuff up. “What time did you guys get here?”

He was laying chicken breasts in a pan, assembling olive oil and rosemary. Did I mention that my husband is a brilliant cook? Nights like this, it’s what keeps him alive. “Late. Sylvie picked them up at the airport this morning, and she said traffic at of the airport was horrible, both ways. You’d think on a Friday people would be trying to get
out
of the city, not into it. And then tonight, traffic from the casino was worse.”

I shook my head, disposing of the last of the nail polish as I did so. At least she wouldn’t be wearing any of it this weekend. “Montréal’s a tourist destination,” I reminded Ivan. “That’s why I’m gainfully employed, remember?”

“Speaking of which,” he said, putting the pan into the oven and turning to face me, “what happened today? Are you all right?”

I took a deep breath. “No,” I said, and even I could hear the tremor in my voice. I took another swallow of the wine. “Boulanger’s assigned me to monitor the police department until they solve these murders, and—”

I broke off as Lukas entered the kitchen. The kid had enough on his plate with his mother in the hospital; he didn’t need to think his stepmother was falling apart, too. “So what horrible task has your father assigned
you
that’s in violation of child labor laws?” I asked.

He made a face. “Claudia’s just mad ’cause she’s scared about Mom, and it’s easier to be mad than scared,” he said perceptively. He got a soda from the refrigerator and hopped up on the stool his sister had vacated. “Mom’s in the hospital,” he told me.

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry, Lukas. Has your stepdad called yet? Do you know how she’s doing?”

“We’re supposed to call after nine,” Ivan said. “We’ll know pretty soon.” He paused, put an arm lightly around Lukas’s shoulders. “She’s going to be fine,” he said.

“I know.” Lukas’s voice sounded casual, but the fear in his eyes betrayed him.

I drew in a deep breath. “Let’s go out,” I suggested, meeting Ivan’s eyes. He hated giving the kids junk food in about the same proportion that they loved eating it. “Instead of just waiting around here to make the call.”

Lukas brightened immediately. “McDonald’s?” he suggested. “St. Hubert?”

“
Not
McDonald’s,” Ivan intervened, but he was already turning off the oven. “That’s a good idea,” he said to me across the room, relief in his eyes. Even Claudia couldn’t sulk, we had found, when eating greasy French fries out of a greasy paper wrapper.

And so we went to St. Hubert, and it was only as we were waiting in line under its bright neon lights that I remembered the fast food place shared a last name with the first of that summer’s victims. And found that I suddenly wasn’t hungry at all anymore.

*   *   *

Margery
was
fine.

The kids went to bed, exhausted and relieved, and Ivan and I sat together in the living room, our fingers entwined, my head on his shoulder. “So,” he said softly, “are you okay?”

“I guess so,” I said. I was thinking that I didn’t have much to complain about in the grand scheme of things. I wasn’t in a hospital, recovering from an unexpected operation. I wasn’t dead.

“You need to work this weekend?” His tone was neutral; both Ivan and I have jobs that often demand irregular hours, and we were used to it, used to coordinating fluctuating schedules.

“No,” I said, and then amended it. “Probably not, unless something comes up. I’ll find out on Monday what’s going on with the investigation, and talk to the mayor.”

“So he’s using you as a sort of glorified go-between?”

I sighed. “Something like that,” I said. “I make fun of him, I know, but I think maybe he’s hoping that someone outside the establishment might see something that everybody else is too close to the investigation to see. And it’s possible.”

Ivan thought about it. “Do you think you can?”

I shrugged and nestled in more comfortably to his shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve gotten closer than I thought I would, and it’s … well, it’s not easy. I’m working with one of the detectives on the case—an Anglo, Ivan, you’d like him—and so far all I’ve done is see an overview. I don’t know what on earth I can come up with that the professionals aren’t seeing, but I’ll keep at it as long as
monsieur le maire
wants me to.”

“Just stay safe.”

“Of course I will. I’m not in any danger,” I said, before remembering Julian’s driving. Well, not in any danger from the criminal element, anyway.

The telephone rang on Sunday afternoon, the most comfortable time of the weekend for us all: the kids had settled in, we’d done something reasonably fun together on Saturday, I’d been to Sunday mass while Ivan made pancakes at home, and by now we were all relaxed; the preflight jitters prior to leaving again for Boston hadn’t started yet.

It was Julian. “Martine? Sorry to bother you at home.”

“It’s fine,” I said automatically. “Has anything—?”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “Nothing’s happened, nothing like that. Just wanted to see if you’d like to grab a coffee together.”

I glanced into the living room, where Ivan, Lukas, and Claudia were all bent over the game of Trivial Pursuit that I’d just left. “Julian—”

“Hey, I know you’re probably busy, but this isn’t just a social thing.” His voice got lower. “I just wanted to run something by you, outside of—well, you know.” He cleared his throat.

I looked back at the group huddled around the board: my family. “It’s okay, Julian,” I said. “I’ll meet you in an hour and a half, does that work?” Compromise: the story of my life.

“Sure,” he said, sounding relieved. “I’ll be at Café Zanetti. See you then, Martine.”

“See you then,” I echoed, and hung up the telephone, my eyes on my family in the living room. Someone was going to have to win this game, and quickly.

*   *   *

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Julian was saying, two hours later. Ivan had left to take the kids to the airport; I was still in my weekend uniform of jeans and a comfortable cotton shirt. Julian had a five o’clock shadow and was wearing a leather jacket. My very own
voyou
. “You know, everyone thinks this is a sex crime. I mean, everything points to that, right? Rape and murder, sex crimes, right?”

“Right,” I said cautiously. As if I knew that much about sex crimes. Or any crimes, come to think of it.

Julian leaned forward, his espresso forgotten. If his energy level was anything to go by, he could do with one fewer. “So, here’s the thing: what if that’s what he wants us to think? You know, the park benches, the way the bodies are displayed on them: Isabelle and Danielle lying down, Annie and Caroline sitting up—something doesn’t feel right to me. It’s way too in-your-face.”

I took a sip of my own cappuccino before answering. “Isn’t that what some killers do? Taunt the police?” I thought I’d read that somewhere.

He nodded impatiently. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. That’s what the profile says. That’s what everybody at SPVM thinks, too. But I’m not so sure.” He glanced around, lowered his voice again. “I’m thinking, everyone’s out there looking for a sex killer. The whole damned police force. We’ve got a profiler, we’ve got a shrink, everyone’s going down that path. And what if—just
what if
it isn’t? What if the killer wants us to
think
that it’s all about sex? What if we’re not seeing anything else because we’re not looking for anything else?”

“What else could it be?” I countered. “Julian, you said yourself, on Friday, that there isn’t much connecting the women who were killed. They all had different professions, and all they had in common was that they were single and female. That’s not much of a connection.”

“I know, I know.” He took another quick sip of coffee, grimaced, and reached for an additional sugar cube. “And some shrinks would argue that that’s enough, that men have been doing that kind of thing to women since the beginning of time.” He shook his head. “But hear me out, maybe that’s exactly it: there’s nothing about the way they
look
that connects these women—and all the literature says that a sex killer would want his women to look the same.” He stirred the coffee, his movements jerky, then took another quick sip. This time it passed muster. “I think that you and I,” Julian said, his head bent low as he gestured between us, “we should try another tack.”

“Me?” I exclaimed. “Julian, I’m not an investigator. I’m here strictly in the capacity of nanny, because your boss pisses the hell out of my boss.”

“I know.” There was a gleam in his eyes. “And I’m supposed to be babysitting the nanny, which is calculated to keep us both out of the way of any serious investigation. So who better to go off on a tangent?”

“You’re not getting the point,” I said. “I don’t do this for a living. I don’t even
watch
crime shows on TV, Julian. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re lucky, because I do. You can be Watson to my Holmes.” He glanced at me from under fair eyelashes. “You
do
know about—”

I cut him off. “Yes, thanks very much,” I said sarcastically. “Okay, so you want us to go off on our own because you’re starting to develop an unpopular theory and for me to keep my mouth shut about what we’re doing.”

“In a nutshell,” he confirmed.

It seemed as good a plan as any.

Ivan, of course, was of a different opinion. “You’re doing
what
?”

“Just following up on some ideas,” I said soothingly. “Probably nothing,
chéri
. All the people who know about these things think it’s a serial sex killer, so chances are good that they’re probably right. But it beats me hanging out with the director and making him even more defensive than he is…”

He glared at me. “And there’s no way you’re getting hurt, right? This guy Julian, he knows what he’s doing?”

I was in no way confident of that one, but why not? “Of course he does,” I said, making my voice sound as reassuring as I could.

“Just be careful, babe,” Ivan said finally, pulling me close, tipping my chin up so he could kiss me. And that was all that we said for a very long time.

There were some very scary people in our new home. It wasn’t just a different orphanage, as it turned out: it was something they called an asylum, a place where people went if they heard voices that weren’t there, or screamed all day at nothing at all, or sat in the corners of rooms, talking to themselves.

What I couldn’t figure out was what
we
were doing there.

We weren’t mad. We weren’t dangerous. We were just children. But very quickly we began to learn that being a child was no protection.

The inevitable happened—sometime during that first week, I think. Dinner was a particularly noisy time I’d very quickly come to dread, when some inmates threw food on the walls and floors and each other, others howled, clanged the tin plates against each other, danced and sang and screamed. How anyone was expected to eat with that going on was beyond me.

And I said so.

“Enough of your impertinence,” snapped the sister to whom I’d voiced my complaint.

“I’m not being impertinent,” I said. “I’m just asking if I can eat somewhere else.”

“Oh, well, yes, then, you can eat somewhere else,” she said, her voice cold. She grabbed me by my collar and propelled me out of the room, down a staircase, and through a locked door onto a long corridor with doors every few feet. One of these was open. “Emil!” she called, and one of the orderlies appeared, dressed in a dirty white uniform. “Help me here.”

I struggled; of course I struggled. But I wasn’t nearly as strong as they were, and even though I bit them and kicked them and screamed at the top of my lungs, they lifted me onto a bed of sorts and strapped me down with metal restraints at my wrists and ankles, and another one across my chest.

“That should hold you for a while,” the sister said, scarcely out of breath.

“Let me out!” I screamed. “You can’t put me here, I’m not crazy!”

“You may not be now,” said the orderly, leering at me as he closed the door behind himself, leaving the corollary to his sentence hanging in the air: yet.