Bones to Ashes

“No.”

“Did you try tracing LeBlanc?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

Sulky silence.

I rolled my eyes. It hurt.

“Look, Harry. I’m sorry. I do appreciate what you’re doing.”

From across the room, I heard a phone, then Hippo’s voice.

“Gallant.”

“Can I buy you dinner tonight?” I asked Harry.

“Quand? Ou?” Staccato questions in the background. Where? When?

“I’ll be here,” Harry said.

“Bon Dieu!”

“You pick the restaurant,” I said.

I heard a soft grunt, then footsteps clumping my way.

“You can give me a full report on everything you’ve learned.”

Harry agreed. Coolly.

I clicked off.

Hippo was standing over me.

I looked up.

Something was dreadfully wrong.

23

H IPPO’S JAW WAS CLAMPED LIKE A SCREW PRESS.

“What?” I closed the Zucker file.

Hippo glowered silently.

“Tell me.”

“Just got a courtesy call from the RCMP in Tracadie. Obeline Bastarache is missing and presumed dead.”

I shot to my feet. The Zucker file flew across the floor. “Dead? How?”

Flicking a shirttail, Hippo pocket-jammed the phone and turned away.

“How?” I repeated, too shrill.

“Neighbor downriver from the Bastarache place found a shawl wrapping one of the pilings under his pier. Recognized it. Checked. Got suspicious that Obeline wasn’t home. Says the lady never goes out.”

“That hardly means Obeline drowned.”

“RCMP searched the property. Found blood on the breakwater.”

“That could—”

Hippo continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “Clothes on the end of the breakwater. Folded. Shoes on top. Note d’adieu shoved into one toe.”

I felt the blood drain from my head. “A suicide note?”

Hippo didn’t square to face me.

Didn’t speak the words I knew were goading his tongue.

There was no need. Already, I felt the deadening weight of self-blame.

I swallowed. “When?”

“Yesterday.”

I’d visited Obeline on Tuesday. Wednesday she was dead.

“What did the note say?”

“Adieu. Life sucks.”

Shame boiled inside me.

And anger.

And something else.