“It had to do with not finding Pellerin’s remains,” I said.
“He didn’t trust the findings,” said Plourde. “The official report. He returned here often to ask questions. Not so much anymore.”
All that was left in Kellam’s beer glass was foam. “As far as I’m concerned, Mike, the two of you have Angie Bouchard’s blood on your hands.”
“For Christ’s sake, Stan,” I said. “Why did you invite me here? Was it just to insult me?”
Three middle-aged women were seated in a nearby booth. Although it was only midday, all of them wore dresses suited for a fancy dinner out, were made up with lipstick and mascara, and smelled of three different perfumes. One had tinted hair that reminded me of sangria. The second had hair as red as an overripe tomato. The third’s was solid platinum.
Tomato raised a painted finger. “The Lord’s name. You should not take it in vain.”
“But we will forgive him because he is very handsome,” said Platinum with a smile.
“Your young friend is a detective, no?” said Sangria with the same flirtatiousness. “He is here to arrest the man who killed Evangeline Bouchard?”
“Ladies, if you’ll excuse us,” said Kellam. “This is a private conversation.”
“Affaires de police,” added the chief in the honeyed tone of a born politician. “Je suis sûr que vous comprenez.”
“Pfff!” said Tomato, unsatisfied.
During the exchange, I dug out my phone and opened up the photos app. I thumbed through the dozens I had taken of files Kellam had given me until I found one of the autopsy shots taken of the late Zacharie Michaud after his suicide.
I held the screen out for Kellam to see. “What would you say that was on his upper arm?”
He squinted at the screen, refusing to reach for his reading glasses. “Looks like a burn. What do you think, Chief?”
“A burn, yes.”
“To me, it looks like a brand,” I said. “Like someone drove a heated piece of iron into the muscle and charred the flesh.”
“That’s why you asked Roland that question,” said Kellam. He sounded almost impressed.
“Roland has the same mark on the same arm. He said he got it when he joined a club. Nowhere in Pellerin’s reports did I find anything about Pierre Michaud and his associates all having brands. Can you remember if he ever mentioned these burns to you, Stan?”
“I have no memory of it,” said Kellam, raising his beer glass so the server could see he needed a refill.
“What about Pierre Michaud? Did he have a scar like that, too?”
“No,” said the chief. “I was there when they dragged his body from le lac. They pulled off his shirt to find the bullet hole. It had passed through the muscle here.” He indicated his collarbone. “I would have remembered a burn like this.”
Kellam leaned his thick forearms on the table. “What exactly are you suggesting, Mike? That these guys conducted some sort of midnight ritual before Pierre admitted them into his top-secret poaching society?”
“Wouldn’t Egan have one as well, then?” said Chief Plourde, showing deductive powers I had doubted he possessed.
“Maybe we should chase him down, strip his clothes off him, and have a look,” said Kellam, glancing again toward the server. Clearly he needed another beer.
“I’m serious about this, Stan.”
“No, you’re not,” he said. “You can’t even say what it means.”
“If Roland, Zach, and Egan all have the same brand, and Pierre didn’t, I find it suggestive.”
“Of what?”
“Maybe old man Michaud gave it to them.”
“And why would he do that?”
“I don’t know.”
I wasn’t facing the door, but the two older men were, and I noticed the chief sit up as a bell rang behind me.
I twisted my neck and saw Chasse Lamontaine, still in uniform, enter the restaurant accompanied by a young man, early twenties, who could only have been his son. He had the same ash-blond hair and rugged jawline. But unlike his old man, he was dressed like a civilian in a logo T-shirt, jeans that were distressed almost to the point of disintegration, and mud-caked boots that made the host go in search of a broom to clean up the tracks he left behind.
Father and son approached our table.
“Bonjour, Chasse!” said one of the women at the next booth. They all joined in, as giggly as teens.
“Don’t you three ladies look beautiful,” said Chasse.
“Pfff!” said Tomato.
Sangria said, “Your son, he looks more and more like you. Très beau.”
The son had no apparent interest in older women; he didn’t answer or give them a glance.
“Excuse us, ladies,” said the father, turning toward our table. Chasse had good manners, I had to hand it to him.
I could read the words screen-printed on the younger Lamontaine’s shirt:
MUDHOLES
THE ONLY PLACE
WHERE PULLING OUT
IS ENJOYABLE
Chasse smiled without opening his lips. “C. J., you haven’t met Warden Investigator Bowditch.”
I rose from my seat to shake the younger Lamontaine’s hand. “Good to meet you.”
He was one of those young men who need to show their toughness with a death grip.
“You men having lunch?” asked Kellam.
“We grabbed subs at Subway,” said Chasse. “We just happened to see you in the window as we were driving by. We wanted to see if the detective has spoken with Roland yet.”
“Why?” I asked, settling back down in my seat.
He lowered his voice so that the women wouldn’t hear, but the gesture was futile; they had ceased speaking and were clumsily eavesdropping. “Who else could have killed her?”
“He has an alibi,” I said. “He was across the border at the time.”
“Bullshit,” said C. J., who had inherited his father’s good looks but none of his charm. “Angie was terrified of that asshole. I saw him hit her once. Roland definitely killed her.”
His father put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “This isn’t the place for this conversation, son.”
From my seat, I looked up at him. “Maybe you should tell Detective Zanadakis about what you saw, C. J.”
He reacted as if I’d challenged
