And so it was thanks to Good Samaritan Moralès that Sarah Blanchard managed to get through to her mother and to find a clean, safe and nondescript boarding house where she could spend the three days it would take for the money to arrive from her parents that would enable her to buy her ticket home.
In the meantime, did the young patrolman Moralès cross the line of duty and seduce the young runaway? Certainly not! Rather, it was the other way around. Sarah Blanchard, mortified at her lack of grace before such a handsome, young, tanned and muscled Mexican police officer – she who usually breezed around in such a liberated way, smoking cigarettes in the street and wearing see-through blouses sans bashfulness or brassiere – now wanted to show the woman beneath her girl-from-the-suburbs veil. What’s more, she had pilfered a trio of condoms from the bedside table of a friend’s father and had stashed them in her handbag, on the off chance. The second evening, when patrolman Moralès came to pick the nubile Québécoise up from her prim and proper rented room to take her out for dinner in town, he couldn’t help but notice the three little packets she had set out on display by way of – so she thought – subtle invitation. Not being the type to allow any obstacle to deter him from carrying out his duty to serve the honest citizen to the utmost satisfaction, Moralès ended up bursting all three past-their-sell-by-date condoms over the course of the unbridled night of love that followed their spicy Mexican meal.
And so it was that in those times of sexual liberation, Sarah Blanchard lost her decidedly passé, nonsensical, cumbersome virginity at the same time as she lost her aspirations to travel. So it also was that she flew home and discovered she was pregnant, and that her mother contacted the Instituto para la Seguridad y la Democracia to report the young policeman, who, being as upstanding as he was proud, handed out cigars, packed his bags and that Christmas hopped on a plane to Quebec to wed the knocked-up demoiselle.
So it was eventually that Joaquin Moralès became a Canadian citizen, learned to detest the grey of November, the frostbite of February and the sweet, pervasive reek of maple sugar shacks in the spring, and, learned, occasionally, to curse in some decidedly local language. He also learned to speak an almost accentless French and became first a fine policeman and then a brilliant detective. He even came to be praised, at times, for his hawk-like patience and observational skills – his ability to circle his prey and then crack the toughest of the tough.
But above all else, Joaquin Moralès had been in love with Sarah Blanchard. Passionately. No sooner had he landed in Quebec than the delight of both becoming a father and being reunited with his pretty, tearful, pale-skinned princess had enveloped him like a cloak of hotly spiced colours that made him shine so brilliantly, Sarah Blanchard, yielding to his Hispanic charm as much as his chivalrous graces, had for years reciprocated his undying love.
That was that.
Two children and thirty years of marriage later, Joaquin Moralès’s head was butting against the uncertainties of his fifties. Was it normal, sometimes, to feel down, to have hesitations and… doubts?
Why wasn’t Sarah answering the phone? She had insisted he leave five days ahead of her. Now he was wondering whether he could smell a rat. He shook his head. The distance, the fatigue from driving, his boss’s irony and the pointless interview were muddling his thoughts. It was nothing to worry about, he told himself. She would call back later.
He climbed back into his car, still loaded to the brim with luggage, and drove off to Vital Bujold’s boat. He clambered aboard and sniffed around, but found nothing. What was Vital hiding? The fisherman was trying to wriggle his way out of something, but Moralès suspected he wouldn’t wring the truth out of him anytime soon. Marlène Forest must have been laughing all the way home at the fact she’d managed to palm the dead body off on him.
Finally, as night fell over the wharf, he remembered how hungry he was. Seeing the light of the bistro, he returned to his car and made for the only place still open in the village.
‘Ah, well, let me tell you, it’s not that I don’t want to be accommodating, but the kitchen’s closed at this time of night.’
‘Just some toast, or some cheese… Don’t you have anything at all?’
Renaud looked him up and down. ‘Let me tell you, are you a tourist? Where are you staying?’
‘I bought the Vigneault house. Over by the Île-aux-Pirates.’
‘Ah! So you’re the police inspector?’
‘Sergeant Moralès, yes.’
‘Well, let me tell you, where are you from, then? Mexico? Punta Cana?’
‘Just outside Montreal. Longueuil.’
‘Ah. Well, I wouldn’t have thought so.’
At the bar, a man in a priest’s collar turned his head slowly towards Moralès.
‘Well, let me tell you, it’s not every day we have a new inspector from Longueuil here with us in Caplan. So let me tell you, I can reheat you a pizza, if you like. There was a mix-up with an order, and we still have one in the fridge. Now, why don’t you take a seat at the bar and we’ll have a chat.’
Joaquin didn’t reply. He checked his text messages. No news from Sarah. The detective in him should have been jumping at this chance to hear all the village gossip, but tonight he was in no mood for such a windfall. Not tonight.
‘Yes, please, to the pizza. But I think I’ll sit over by the window, thank you.’
‘Ah—’
The silence was deafening.
‘Right you are, then! Sit wherever you please!’
Moralès ordered a beer and went over to the window as Renaud pulled on a silly hat and cook’s helper apron and proceeded to bang the hell out of the kitchen counter as if he were personally hammering a particularly vicious chunk of pepperoni to death.
Find the sailboat. Search the house. Check the will. Wait for the autopsy results. Should be an open-and-shut case. So what was bothering Moralès all of a sudden? Marlène? Vital Bujold? Watching his holiday spiral down the drain?… Sarah?
‘Are you working on Marie Garant’s death, then?’
Joaquin Moralès nearly had a heart attack. Sneaking up on him like a spy from an old B-movie, Renaud spat this out as he set the beer down on the table.
‘Yes.’
Renaud glanced around, then bent down to whisper in Moralès’s ear.
‘I can tell you plenty of things, inspector, because I know everything that goes on around here.’
‘Ah, yes. Very well. Thank you.’
You found someone like this in every investigation; Moralès had had the bad luck to stumble across him tonight. Talk about a rough day.
‘Let me tell you, I’m not going to waste your time.’
‘Were you a friend of Marie Garant?’
‘No!’
‘An enemy?’
‘Shhh! Not here!’
Moralès looked around the room. Besides the half-drunk man of the cloth sitting at the bar, the bistro was empty.
‘Why not?’