Seething, Moralès stormed out of the bistro, got into his car and drove down to the wharf. The boats were empty. The fishing was done. What should he do? His investigation was a washout and it was clear that turning it around wasn’t going to be easy. Still, he’d find a way. He started off towards home, but just before he got to the paved road leading up to Highway 132, he slammed on the brakes. What was down that dirt track Cyrille took earlier that morning?
Moralès decided to find out for himself – only rarely did curiosity kill the cat. He turned left onto the track.
After a couple of miles or so, the track came to an end between a house and the cemetery. There was a man in the cemetery. Moralès recognised him as one of the undertakers who had been at Marie Garant’s funeral. The detective stopped the car, got out and made his way over. Clad in boots, the man was levelling the earth around a headstone with a spade.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘Do you work here?’
‘Langevin Brothers, your one-stop shop for funeral services of every kind; eternal satisfaction guaranteed for you and your loved ones,’ he quipped, shaking the detective’s hand and handing him a business card, which Moralès pocketed without looking at it.
‘We’re running a special at the moment – thirty percent off all cremations, and that extends to prearrangements too. You know, cremation’s really the best way to go, especially if you choose to store your ashes in our new columbarium. Take a day like today, for instance, it’s raining on and off, and the grass is all wet. Off you go to gather your thoughts by a loved one’s grave and before you know it, your feet are soaked through! That’s what I try to explain to our clients: nothing beats the columbarium if you’re wanting a comfortable, hassle-free visit.’
And on he went. ‘Especially since the groundhogs have been causing a ruckus all over the place! Can you imagine? You’re just paying a visit to your mother’s grave to say a little prayer and what do you see poking its head up out of the ground? A cheeky little marmot pilfering a few flowers from the next-door neighbour’s bouquet to feed its young right under the blooming headstone! It’s beyond a joke, I said to my brother. So, I’m out here setting some traps. Might be overkill, I know, but we have to get rid of them. I’ll be back tomorrow. I reckon we should catch them fast enough. Don’t worry though, I don’t think they’ve been digging over Marie Garant’s way.’
‘What makes you think I’m here to stand over that grave?’
‘I saw you at the service. It wasn’t the nicest of burials.’
Langevin – or his brother – seemed keen to elaborate and Moralès encouraged him. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I don’t understand why the daughter buried her mother in the communal grave. Come have a look-see…’
Langevin led Moralès a few steps away.
‘See, the Garants have a family plot right here. I checked, and there’s still room for more of them! I tried to tell Catherine Garant, but she wouldn’t hear any of it. A plywood coffin in the communal grave! My brother said we should just respect her decision, but I find it strange all the same. Why bury your mother in a dark corner by the woods when you can come and see her right here? Follow the gravel path and you won’t even really get your feet dirty! It wasn’t the practical choice!’
Langevin was right. Moralès examined the headstone, which was just slightly off the path. Why had Catherine made that choice?
‘Have you been back to the communal grave today?’
‘No. I was going to head over to check. Although I’m fairly sure the groundhogs won’t have been there.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Are you family?’
‘No, I’m with the SQ. I was the detective in charge of investigating Marie Garant’s death.’
‘Don’t worry, she’s well and truly dead.’
Moralès remembered what a morbid sense of humour undertakers tended to have.
‘Oh, no!’ said the undertaker as they reached the communal grave. ‘See what a dog’s breakfast the gravedigger made of this job? He must’ve still been drunk when he did it!’
Moralès could see how roughly the grave had been filled in. The ground was uneven, and the grass was full of dirt. In a heartbeat, Langevin grabbed his spade and set about evening out the ground.
‘See what I mean about the columbarium? Like I say—’
‘Wait! What if someone’s desecrated Marie Garant’s grave?’
The undertaker stopped what he was doing and looked up at Moralès. ‘What are you on about? Desecrating a grave? In our cemetery!? You’re out of your mind! Nobody would dream of doing such a thing! Not here! Just let me smooth it over with the spade, and—’
‘Stop right there, monsieur Langevin! Don’t lay another finger on that ground!’
Langevin turned to Moralès. ‘Excuse me?’
Moralès dug his phone out of his pocket. This was the perfect opportunity to convince Marlène to change her mind. ‘I’m going to see about reopening the investigation…’
That wasn’t the way Langevin saw it, though, and suddenly he was at it again with the spade like there was no tomorrow.
‘Stop!’ Moralès insisted.
‘No, detective! I’m not going to let you stir up any trouble in my cemetery! Nobody opens up a grave here! Nobody. Not even you!’
With a quick step, he was trampling all around the edges of the grave.
Moralès glared at him, feeling sick to his stomach. Then he paused for a second. Maybe the undertaker was right. Calling Lieutenant Forest, requesting the case be reopened, disturbing the grave – those were all good ways to make longstanding enemies in such a small village. Not to mention Catherine… There were better ways to seduce a woman than to unearth her mother’s body. He put his phone back in his pocket.
‘You’re right, monsieur Langevin. How silly of me to even entertain the idea.’
‘In any case, there’s rain in the forecast tonight and tomorrow. Things will clean themselves up.’
Moralès gave the undertaker a wave and walked back to his car. Along the way, he noticed a curtain twitching in a window of the house next door. The fisherman’s truck was parked in the driveway. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, Cyrille Bernard, he thought. In the meantime, Moralès decided he would pay Catherine another visit. And this time he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I rocked for a long time on the veranda that evening, keeping pace with the gentle rhythm of the waves. The south wind was veering west, and the eye of the sun, half closed on the dark horizon, hinted that rain was on the way. The skies were forecast to clear the day after next.
I thirst for the horizon. I long to hoist my heart to catch the west wind.
My days in the Gaspé were numbered. I had finished the maintenance work I needed to do on the sailboat, retraced my mother’s steps on the GPS and revisited my sailing manoeuvres with Yves Carle. The things I had to do here were drawing to a close. There was just one question that was still niggling at me, though, and I had given myself twenty-four hours to find the answer. Then, answer or no answer, I was going to cast off my moorings.
Sleeping between sea and sky, sandwiched between a hundred and eighty degrees of waves and a hundred and eighty degrees of stars, in the rumbling belly of the hull, with the deep breathing of the wind in my sails.
I drank my herbal tisane and then, weary from the last few days, I found myself falling asleep.
Joaquin Moralès left his car at the top of the driveway and walked the rest of the way down to the house. There she was, on the veranda. He realised something terribly disconcerting was happening. The closer he approached, the weaker he felt at the knees, and the more he forgot what he had come here to say.