The Night Watchman (31 page)

I wish he had helped Mom with some of his magic. Though maybe he tried and I never found out about it.

Life must have seemed such a daily struggle to Mom when she first got to Colorado. She must have clung to my father – a powerful man who seemed to know all the secret cultural codes in her new country – as if he were a catcher in a trapeze act.

Second of May 1981, a Saturday. I had a Little League baseball game that morning in Crawford. Ernie walked to town with me and watched me from the top row of the stands, sitting next to Nathan. Dad might have come, but he was sleeping off a night out with his buddies. Mom was also at home, knitting in bed. She said she wanted to finish the scarf she was making for Dad, since she only had one more foot to go.

The scarf was rainbow-coloured. She’d ordered naturally dyed wool from a store called Art Fibers in Santa Fe.

‘Sorry, sweetie,’ she said to me when she said she couldn’t watch me play. ‘Maybe next time.’ Except she said it in Portuguese:
‘Desculpa, Amor. Talvez a próxima vez.’
She kissed me and breathed in deep on whatever scent was in my neck. ‘Better than wildflowers!’ she told me.

Then she held Ernie’s head in both her hands and told him that he was the most beautiful boy in the world, which might have made me jealous except that she was acting so oddly that I was more worried about her than anything else.

I should have figured things out but I didn’t.

After the game, Ernie and I were walking back home on 92, the road that passed in front of our ranch, when we spotted Dad’s beautiful old Plymouth Belvedere up ahead, just passed Mayor Anderson’s rickety old house. Only it wasn’t parked. It was smashed up against a big tall tree. The front end had been pushed back into the windshield and moulded around the trunk. There was a big tow truck just behind it and a Colorado State Patrol car on the other side of the road, and our father was talking to a trooper. Dad was gesturing a lot with his Milwaukee Braves cap in his hand.

I’d already guessed what had happened but I didn’t let myself think it.

Maybe Mom thought that destroying Dad’s beloved Plymouth would be part of her revenge. Or maybe she took the only way out that seemed reasonable and it never occurred to her that she was wrecking what he most cherished.

Ernie ran ahead. I didn’t. I didn’t want to enter what would be my life from now on any sooner than I had to.

As soon as Dad picked Ernie up, he must have told him what had happened. My brother started shrieking as if he was being murdered.

The state trooper told Dad there’d been a witness to the accident – a hunter from Boulder. The man said that Mom sped up as she raced towards the tree. She was going at least fifty miles an hour.

When we got back home, we found the rainbow scarf Mom had made folded on the kitchen table. It was sitting under a letter addressed to Dad. I never learned what she wrote. Dad snatched the letter up and refused to show me when I asked for it. The only thing he told me was that she apologized for leaving Ernie and me.

I’ve never forgiven him for not showing me Mom’s letter. I can’t see how I ever could. I get the feeling sometimes that I should forgive him, for my own peace of mind if nothing else, but I won’t ever do it.

Though maybe it’s true that she wrote nothing more to me and Ernie than she was sorry.

Dad never wore the scarf. I don’t know what happened to it. I looked for it every now and then over the next few years, but I never found it.

It’s just possible that too much Valium made Mom fall back to sleep after she started towards town in Dad’s car. Maybe she meant to drive all the way to Denver and fly from there to New York and then head on to Lisbon. Or maybe she took an extra dozen pills so she wouldn’t feel the pain of having her back broken when she hit the holy tree she’d picked out. I like to think she’d planned so far ahead that she was able to avoid feeling anything at the moment of impact. Though when I’m desperate with the need to talk to her and be kissed by her, I occasionally hope that she was in really bad pain for two or three seconds. I know that you should never think such things about someone you love, of course, but being left behind when you’re only a little kid will put cruel thoughts like that in your head.

Before leaving Joana and Monica, they told me they’d never seen Sandi’s father with a woman other than his wife and didn’t recognize the face in the police sketch. They’d never seen the number thirty tattooed on the back of anyone’s hand.

That morning, Sylvie had given me the phone number of Sandi’s therapist, Benjamin Loureiro, and I called him while walking to the Rato Metro station. He’d been expecting to hear from the police. He told me that Sylvie had already informed him of the girl’s death.

Dr Loureiro answered my questions guardedly, explaining that he was obliged by his professional code to withhold the specifics of what Sandi had confided to him. He told me that he had been treating the teenager for psychological difficulties that were compromising her physical health, as well as acute feelings of self-hatred.

‘Did her parents know about her bulimia?’ I asked.

‘So you think she had bulimia?’ he questioned.

‘She kept a wooden honey dripper in her bed for provoking her gag reflex,’ I told him. ‘And she told her friends that she was throwing up after meals.’

Dr Loureiro hesitated for a moment, then confirmed my suspicions. In response to my next question, he told me that Sandi had never mentioned any instances of sexual abuse. In fact, she had told him she was still a virgin. They had had their first session on the third Friday in May. Her eating disorder had begun a few weeks earlier. Loureiro was under the impression that her parents’ marital difficulties – along with a very poor adjustment to her move from France – had undermined her self-confidence. Additionally, Sandi had begun menstruating about six months before and the hormonal changes in her body had badly affected her stability. She had never spoken of suicide, but he wasn’t shocked that she’d ended her own life; her lack of nutrition had caused dangerous mood swings. He had spent much of his time with her simply devising strategies for eating healthily.

He confirmed that she’d indeed had dreams of a violent intruder entering her house and hurting her family.

Loureiro added that he’d called Sandi on Saturday. She’d sounded depressed but stable. They’d scheduled a special session for this afternoon.

After Loureiro read me the dates of his sessions with Sandi, I called David Zydowicz and convinced him to do the girl’s autopsy as soon as possible. When I mentioned the additional information I wanted, he asked how old she’d been, and on telling him, he said in a critical tone, ‘I thought it was only in Brazil that girls started that young.’

‘Unfortunately, she had no choice,’ I told him.

Next, I tried Senhora Coutinho’s cell phone, but it was off. I reached Morel, however, and asked him to put her on the line.

She cut off my attempt to express my condolences. ‘Oh, Monroe, are you still in Lisbon?’ she asked. Her voice sounded merry and heavily drugged. ‘But this connection is terrible! You’d think you were on the moon!’

‘Look, Senhora Coutinho, I need to know if—’

‘I’m all ears,’ she interrupted in English, and she heaved a throaty, smoker’s laugh.

‘I’m sorry to ask you this, but did Sandi ever tell you about any sexual abuse she might have suffered at Monsieur Morel’s house in France?’

Silence.

‘Senhora Coutinho, this is important,’ I said. ‘Try to concentrate, please.’

‘Call me Susana. I feel like we’re old friends by now. I mean, if I had any friends, you’d be one of them!’ She laughed again.

‘Susana, try to hear what I’m saying. Did your daughter ever talk about any sexual experiences she’d had – violent experiences that would have upset her badly?’

‘I really do like you, but your Portuguese is abominable!’ To Morel, she said, ‘Can you understand his Portuguese?’

Morel got on the line. ‘Susana is not well. Call back later!’

‘Sandi might have been raped, so put Susana back on now!’

‘Raped? What do you mean?’

‘Susana can explain to you when I’m done. Give her the damn phone!’

After a moment, Susana asked, ‘Is that you again, Monroe?’

‘Yes. Now listen closely, Susana. Did Sandi ever tell you about what happened at Morel’s house – about her being hurt or molested?’

After a moment of silence, she pounced. ‘I want the name of the person who told you such a crazy thing!’

‘Two of her friends told me.’

‘Which two?’

‘Joana and Monica. They were with her at Morel’s house in Normandy.’

‘Were they . . . molested?’

‘No, but Sandi told them what happened to her.’

‘Look, Monroe, you’ve got me thinking things that don’t make sense. And I don’t know what you’re trying to say.’

‘Joana and Monica told me that Sandi was attacked while she was staying at Morel’s house – at his house in Normandy.’

Susana lowered the phone and spoke to Morel in French, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. When her sobbing started, he came back on the line. ‘Monroe, you are a madman!’ he shouted. ‘You make things worse!’

‘Something terrible happened to Sandi at your house. I need to know everything you know.’

‘Wait a moment.’

Morel spoke to Susana in French, as though giving an order, then told me to hold on a few more seconds while he left her bedroom. When her crying faded to silence, he said, ‘Listen closely, Monroe. We have a nice vacation together at my home. I do not know what you are talking about.’

‘So nothing bad happened with Bernard?’

‘Who is Bernard?’

‘One of the young men who works at your stables.’

‘Bernard Mercier? You think he hurt Sandi?’ Morel asked in an astonished voice.

‘Yes. You never suspected anything like that?’

‘No, never.’

‘What about the other man at your stables? What’s his name?’

‘François Savarin.’

‘Did you ever suspect that he was capable of violence?’

‘No, he is a good young man. I know his family for many years.’

‘Are both of them still working for you?’

‘François is. I send Bernard away.’

‘Why?’

‘He steals from me.’

‘When?’

‘At Easter – while Sandi and Pedro visit.’

‘I thought you said nothing bad happened then?’ I said angrily.

‘Nothing bad happened with Sandi and the other girls! That is what I say!’

‘So what exactly happened with Bernard Mercier?’

‘Pedro Coutinho sees him stealing.’

‘What did he steal?’

‘An important book. I have a valuable library. He steals the first edition of
Les Confessions,
by Rousseau. He still not return it. He tells me he never steal it.’

‘But Pedro saw him taking it?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you fired Bernard?’

‘What else should I do?’

‘Did Bernard know that Pedro accused him of stealing?’

‘Yes. I must tell him because I am not there when he steals it.’

‘How long had Bernard worked for you?’

‘Since he is a boy.’

‘How long in years?’

‘Maybe . . . maybe ten years.’

Before disconnecting, Morel read me the cell-phone numbers of his two stable hands. By the time I’d hung up, I’d formed a possible scenario of what could have happened.

Sandi had been raped by one or both of the young stable hands. What she told Joana and Monica about being drugged was probably true, since that was not the kind of detail a young girl would make up. Whoever raped her must also have told her that now that she’d lost her virginity, he was no longer interested in her; again, I couldn’t imagine a fourteen-year-old thinking up such a cruel remark. And I knew from many years of experience that telling truthful details made the overall lie much easier to sustain.

If I was right, then Sandi had told her father the truth. If she hadn’t been coerced into meeting her attackers, her father would have concluded that the police would have no basis on which to make an arrest. Maybe he even held his daughter partially responsible. In any case, he probably ordered her to keep what had happened a secret. She was not even to tell her mother, since Susana might go to the police, which would mean that the press would find out. In order to make Bernard Mercier pay for his crime, and in order to be sure that Sandi would never have to see him again, Coutinho found a way to have him fired. My guess was that he took the first edition of Rousseau’s
Les Confessions
from Morel’s library and said he’d spotted Mercier stealing it. To Coutinho, it must have seemed the ideal – and discreet – solution.

Mercier found himself out of a job after ten years of loyalty to Morel. He’d have been furious at Coutinho for lying – and ruining his reputation. And maybe at Sandi, as well.

Very possibly he believed that he had nothing to be ashamed of – after all, the girl had agreed to meet him. He used the last three months to plan his vengeance. Perhaps he’d only planned to scare Coutinho and things had got out of hand.

As for Sandi, she must have been shattered by her father failing to defend her. She fluttered desperately for three months against the flame of her own shame, and then her resistance gave out and she fell.

To check my theory, I called Luci and told her to go upstairs to Coutinho’s library and look in his locked case for
Les Confesssions.
I also called Inspector Quintela and asked him to turn on his computer so he could find me the date of the first edition. A minute or so later, he had it: 1782.

Luci called as I reached my office. She was holding a leather-bound edition of
Les Confessions
that had been published in 1782.

That it was a first edition still wasn’t absolute proof that Coutinho had stolen it from Morel, but inside the front cover she discovered a badly faded nameplate that read:
J. Morel, rue du Floquet, Sacquenville.

‘What do you want me to do with it, sir?’ Luci asked.

‘Bring it to me,’ I replied, but as soon as I said that I realized that Morel might have lied to me and been in on the plot to fire Mercier. And in on the cover-up. If so, then he knew the book was locked in Coutinho’s case. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I told Luci. ‘Put
Les Confessions
back on the shelf where you found it. I don’t want to give away that we’re aware that it might have special importance.’