“Why don’t you stay on the bed while I get dressed, hmm?”
She set Iris down on the mattress, then retrieved the paper. She hesitated as she caught sight of the front page picture showing the house she’d grown up in. She almost put the paper back on the floor, but Iris was reaching out for it and making sounds like it was hers. Marion shook herself, then smiled and gave the newspaper to the girl.
Iris immediately began playing with it again. Marion suspected that most five-year-olds would pretend to read the paper or at least be interested in the pictures. But Iris wasn’t at that point yet. She seemed caught up in the sheer joy of the sound the paper made as she moved it and hit it and rubbed it against itself.
There was a small TV bolted to a shelf against the wall. Marion couldn’t locate a remote, so she walked over and turned it on, and was greeted with a scene of multiple naked bodies entwined in some kind of grotesque semblance of sex. The moans that came out of the speaker sounded more rehearsed than natural. Porno for the typical Motel Monique guest, she realized as she hastily changed the channel. She found a local morning news show, then got dressed as she watched, hoping to hear more about what had happened to her family.
The lead story of the six-thirty update concerned the kidnapping and murder of a prominent American official in New York City. There was even a police sketch of a possible suspect. Marion glanced up at it as she was pulling on her pants.
Then the story ended, and a new graphic appeared over the shoulder of the news anchor. It was a picture of her parents, and superimposed over them the word:
Tragedie
Tragedy.
“Police now say the deaths two nights ago of a Montreal family while they slept might not have been an accident after all.” The anchor was a young woman looking far too put together for such an early hour. “Francine Blanc is at the scene of the fast-breaking story.”
Marion sat down on the edge of the bed as the image on the TV switched to an outside shot across the street from her parents’ house. There was a near clone of the anchor standing on the sidewalk facing the camera. She was holding a microphone in her hand.
“Francine, what can you tell us?” the anchor said.
“Nicole, police now think there is a very real possibility that this was not an accident. As you know, yesterday morning, the Dupuis family was found dead in their beds by a friend of the family who became concerned when Madame Dupuis failed to show up for work. At that time it appeared that the family had succumbed to a gas leak sometime during the previous night. While it is still believed that gas is what killed them, sources inside the police department are now saying the leak may have been caused by a deliberate act.”
They showed some video from the previous day, including an interview with the person who had found the bodies. It was Madame Devore from the school where Marion’s mother taught.
“It’s terrible,” Madame Devore said. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. “They were just… please, I can’t talk about this now. Excuse me. Please.”
There was a shot of one of the bodies being removed from the house. It was on a stretcher and covered with a sheet. Marion wondered who it was. Her mother? Father? Emily?
A new shot showed the candlelight vigil that had formed the night before, as the voice-over talked about a gathering of friends. Then the image of the reporter returned.
“It’s clear that the Dupuis family had many people who loved them. Nicole.”
The image on the TV split, the reporter on the right, and the anchor on the left.
“We’re hearing there might be another member of the family,” the anchor said. “Is that correct?”
“Yes.” The reporter was nodding. “Neighbors tell us there is a younger daughter who works in New York. One person told us she is with the UN, but I have not been able to confirm that yet. I can tell you that police have not been able to make contact with her, and think she might currently be on assignment overseas.”
“So she’s not a suspect.”
“No. Not at this time.”
Marion stood up and turned the TV off. She stood there staring at the blank screen for several minutes.
Dead. Gone. No more.
No more reassuring smiles from her father. No more shopping trips with her mother. No more long talks with her sister. No more family Christmases. No more trips to the mountains. No more anything.
Perhaps she wasn’t a suspect, but she was an unwilling accomplice.
A shout from Iris brought her back. The newspaper had fallen on the floor.
“Come on,” Marion said. “It’s time to get ready and go.”
They left the motel five minutes later.
Marion wanted to go back to the house. She wanted to get inside to see for herself. She knew it was stupid, but it was her family. She couldn’t just leave.
She had another taxi drive her by just after 9 a.m. There were several police cars out front, and a crowd of the curious gathered on the sidewalk.
She made another try at 4 p.m. This time the police were gone, but some of the crowd remained. That was okay. It was still too early for her to try to get inside. In the daylight, she would be spotted in a second, and would be detained by the police, and no doubt forced to tell more than she was willing to.
She still had Iris to worry about. That had to be her first concern. But she wasn’t going to leave Montreal without getting inside. She owed her family that much respect at least.
She felt like another taxi ride down the street would be one too many. Even if it happened after dark, someone
