Bones to Ashes (33 page)

“Your husband stole Claudine from her family. Probably forced her to get naked for his sordid little films. She was twelve, Obéline. Twelve years old.”

“That’s not how it was.”

“I’m tired of hearing that,” I snapped.

“Cecile is happy with us.”

“Her name is Claudine.”

“She’s safe here.”

“She was safe with her family.”

“No. She wasn’t.”

“How could you know that?”

“Her father was a monster.”

“Your husband is a monster.”

“Please.” Her voice was trembling. “Come in and sit down.”

“So you can tell me that things aren’t what they appear?” I was angry now, no longer trying to be nice.

“Claudine’s father sold her into child pornography for five thousand dollars.”

That brought me up short.

“To whom?”

“An evil man.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes dropped, came back. I suspected she was lying.

“When did this take place?”

“Five years ago.”

The year Claudine went missing from Saint-Lazare-Sud. Five years after Kelly Sicard. Five years before Phoebe Jane Quincy.

Kelly Sicard. A sudden thought.

“Was this man’s name Pierre?”

“I never knew.”

I turned and looked out the window. The road was empty. The spaniel was now peeing on a post by the T intersection.

Time dragged by. Behind me, I heard Obéline take a chair at the table. The muffled voices of Homer and Marge Simpson floated from a TV somewhere deep in the house.

Finally, I turned back to her.

“How was your husband acquainted with this man who ‘bought’ Claudine?” I finger-hooked quotation marks around the word.

“He worked for David’s father. A long time ago. Before we married.”

“So strip joints weren’t enough. Your husband partnered up with this sleaze to make kiddie porn.”

“No.” Vehement. “David hates this man. Occasionally they”—she broke off, cautious about word choice—“need each other.”

“So Mr. Evil just handed Claudine over to your husband. What? She get too old for his market?”

Again, Obéline’s eyes dived, recovered. “David gave him money.”

“Of course. David Bastarache, rescuer of maidens.”

I wasn’t buying this, but Kelly Sicard’s story of liberation from Pierre nagged at me.

I looked at my watch. Ryan had been gone almost twenty minutes.

“Where does this man operate?”

“I don’t know.”

At that moment my cell chirped. It was Ryan. Bastarache had managed to get onto the twenty and was heading west. Ryan was following, discreetly, hoping Bastarache would further incriminate himself. He’d be a while.

Great. I was carless in Quaintsville for God knew how long.

Feeling trapped, I jammed my phone into my purse. Before the flap settled, it rang again. The area code was unexpected. New York. Then I remembered. Rob Potter.

Eyes steady on Obéline, I flicked on.

“Hey, Rob.”

“Do you love rock and roll!”

“Sorry I couldn’t return your call last night.” I was far too tired and cranky to be witty.

“No problem. You got a few minutes? I have some thoughts you might find interesting.”

“Hang on.”

Pressing the phone to my chest, I spoke to Obéline. “I need to take this alone.”

“Where has that detective gone?”

“To arrest your husband.”

She cringed as though I’d threatened to strike her.

“And you’re stuck with me.”

She rose.

“Don’t go hitting your speed dial,” I added. “Warning David could end up making you a widow.”

Rigor stiff, she walked from the room.

I dug a pen and notepad from my purse. Then I hooked on my earpiece, laid the cell on the table, and resumed my conversation with Rob, glad for a diversion to pass the time.

“Shoot,” I said.

“Long or short version?”

“Tell me enough to make me understand.”

“Got the poetry there in front of you?”

“No.”

Hearing the clatter of cookware, I assumed Obéline had gone to a kitchen not far from where I sat.

“No big deal. I’ll review it. Now
K
is code for poems written by your gal pal back in the sixties, and
Q
refers to those contained in the
Bones to Ashes
collection.”

“Known versus questioned,” I guessed.

“Yes. Fortunately for the analysis, as I’ll explain, both the
K
and
Q
poetry is written in English. Since your friend was a native French speaker.”

I didn’t interrupt.

“An interesting thing is that, even when people try to disguise their language, or mimic someone else’s, a forensic linguist can often see below the surface to areas not under control of the speaker. For example, most people in the United States say they stand ‘in line’ at the post office. In New York, people say they stand ‘on line.’ American speakers, either from New York or elsewhere, don’t seem to be aware of this. It’s very distinctive, but beneath the level of most people’s consciousness.”

“So someone mimicking a New Yorker would have to know that. Or a New Yorker disguising his speech would have to be aware of that.”

“Exactly. But typically folks are oblivious to these quirks. Grammatical differences can be even more subtle, to say nothing of pronunciation.”

“Rob, we’re dealing with written poetry.”

“Written poetry draws on all levels of language. Differences in pronunciation might affect the rhyme scheme.”

“Good point.”

“Going back to words, and awareness, ever hear of the devil strip ransom note?”

“No.”

“It was a case brought to my mentor, Roger Shuy. He looked at the thing, predicted the kidnapper was a well-educated man from Akron. Needless to say, the cops were skeptical. Write this down. It’s short, and it’ll help you understand what I did with your poems.”

I scribbled what Rob dictated.

“Do you ever want to see your precious little girl again? Put $10,000 cash in a diaper bag. Put it in the green trash kan on the devil strip at corner 18th and Carlson. Don’t bring anybody along. No kops! Come alone! I’ll be watching you all the time. Anyone with you, deal is off and dautter is dead!”

“One of the first things linguists look for is the underlying language. Is the person a native English speaker? If not, there may be mistaken cognates, words that look like they should mean the same in both languages but don’t. Like ‘gift’ in German means ‘poison’ in English.”

“
Embarazada
in Spanish.” I’d made that mistake once in Puerto Rico. Instead of saying I was embarrassed, I’d said I was pregnant.

“
Good one. Systematic misspellings can also show a foreign native language. Notice that in the note the writer misspelled ‘kan’ and ‘kops’ for ‘can’ and ‘cops.’ But not ‘kash’ for ‘cash,’ or ‘korner’ for ‘corner.’ So it probably wasn’t that the writer was educated in a language where the
k
sound was always spelled
k
and never
c
. And over all, the note’s pretty fluent.”

“So the writer’s an English speaker, not pregnant, who can’t spell ‘trash can.’ How did Shuy know he was educated?”

“Keep looking at the spellings. He can’t spell ‘daughter’ either, right?”

“Right. But he can spell ‘precious.’ And ‘diaper.’ And his punctuation is correct, not like someone’s who can’t spell ‘cops.’”

“I knew you’d get this immediately. In essence, it’s the same thing you do in your job. Look for patterns that fit and don’t fit. So if the perp can spell, why doesn’t he?”

“To throw the cops off. Maybe in his community he’s known as well educated. So instead of hiding his education, his attempt at concealing it sends up a flare. But what about Akron? Why not Cleveland? Or Cincinnati?”

“Read the note again. What words stand out?”

“‘Devil strip.’”

“What’s your word for the grass strip between the sidewalk and the road?”

I thought about it. “No idea.”

“Most people haven’t a word for it. Or if they do, it’s a local one. County strip. Median strip.”

“Devil strip,” I guessed.

“But only in Akron. Not even in Toledo or Columbus. But no one’s aware. Who ever talks about devil strips? You still with me?”

“Yes.”

“So language varies by educational level and geographical region. You can also throw in age, gender, social group, and just about every other demographic feature imaginable.”

“Language demonstrates what group you belong to.”

“You’ve got it. So the first thing I tried with your poems was linguistic demographic profiling. What does the language tell about the writer? Then I used microanalytic techniques to discern in each set of poems an individualized language pattern, what we call an idiolect. Based on all this, I was able to do the authorship analysis you requested, and answer the question: Did the same person write both sets of poetry?”

“Did she?”

“Let me go on. This analysis was especially interesting, since the
K
poems were composed by a French native speaker writing in English. As any foreign language teacher knows, you try to speak a second language using the linguistic system you already know, your native tongue. Until you get good, your native language bleeds through into your acquired one.”

I thought of my own use of French. “That’s why we have accents. And funny sentence structure. And word choice.”

“Exactly. For your analysis, as I worked through all the poems, when I spotted interesting passages, I put them up for split-screen comparison. On one side, I placed the poems as they are. On the other side, I altered the poems to reflect what a French speaker may have been trying to communicate in English, but failing because she was incorrectly translating from French, her first language, and using false cognates. If the overall coherence of the poem improved due to my changes, I took that as evidence the writer was perhaps Francophone. Do you want me to take you through some examples?”

“Bottom line.”

“It’s pretty obvious that both the
K
and
Q
poems were written by a native French speaker with limited formal schooling in English.”

I felt a hum of excitement.

“Next, I looked for idiosyncratic rhetorical devices common to both the
K
and the
Q
poetry, and any statistically significant skewing of vocabulary or grammar. You with me?”

“So far.”

“Listen to these lines from a
K
poem:

“Late in the morning I’m walking in sunshine, awake and aware like

I have not been before. A warm glow envelops me and tells all around,

‘Now I am love!’ I can laugh at the univers for he is all mine.”

The words rising from my past caused a constriction in my chest. I let Rob go on.

“Now listen to these lines from a
Q
poem:

“Lost in the univers, hiding in shadow, the woman, once young, looks

Into the mirror and watches young bones returning to dust.

“In both the
K
and the
Q,
the author meters in dactylic hexameter.”

“The same device Longfellow used for ‘Evangeline.’ My friend loved that poem.”

“Dactylic hexameter is common in epic poetry. So in itself the similar metering is not particularly meaningful. But of great interest is that throughout these two
K
and
Q
samples, similar
mistakes
appear consistently. And throughout both, the word ‘universe’ lacks the final
e.
”

“
Univers.
The French spelling.”

“
Oui.
Now let’s go back to geography. Your friend was Acadian from New Brunswick. She spent time in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Listen to the title poem from the
Q
book,
Bones to Ashes.
”

“What am I listening for?”

“Regional dialect. This
Q
poem contains the motherlode.”

Rob read slowly.

“Laughing, three maidens walk carelessly, making their way to the river.

Hiding behind a great hemlock, one smiles as others pass unknowing

Then with a jump and a cry and a laugh and a hug the girls put their

Surprise behind them. The party moves on through the forest primeval

In a bright summer they think lasts forever. But not the one ailing.

She travels alone and glides through the shadows; others can not see her.

Her hair the amber of late autumn oak leaves, eyes the pale purple of dayclean.

Mouth a red cherry. Cheeks ruby roses. Young bones going to ashes.”

“Same metering,” I said.

“What about vocabulary? You’ve spent time in New Brunswick and South Carolina?”

“The phrase ‘forest primeval’ is straight out of Longfellow.”

“And refers to Acadia. At least in ‘Evangeline.’ What else?”

I looked at my jottings. “‘Dayclean’ is a Gullah term for dawn. And in the South, ‘ailing’ is colloquial for being ill.”

“Exactly. So these two together point to South Carolina.”

A poet with ties to Acadia and South Carolina. A poet influenced by Longfellow’s “Evangeline.” A Francophone writing in English. Talk about a linguistic fingerprint.

Sweet Jesus. Harry was right.
Bones to Ashes
was written by Évangéline.

A flash fire of anger seared through my brain. Another lie. Or at best an evasion. I couldn’t wait to confront Obéline.

Rob spoke again.

His words sent ice roaring through my veins.

“W
AIT.” I SPOKE WHEN MY LIPS COULD AGAIN FORM WORDS. “Back up.”

“OK. I said that a speaker’s mother tongue often comes to the fore when he or she is under stress. Then you’re more likely to use false cognates because emotion is boiling through your native language. It may happen in these lines because of the terrible feelings of viewers, because of the unimaginable yet real images on TV of burning victims leaping to their deaths.”