“Was anyone else in the family aware of this?”
“No,” she said emphatically. “I was certainly ordered not to breathe a word once he began his investigation.”
“What about Picard and Guidry? They worked as a team with Jean, didn’t they?”
“Of course they did.” She looked at me nervously for the first time, and then glanced around the room, like an actor groping for a line. I was struck by the notion that she might have erred in some way. When she spoke again, it was slowly and with obvious caution. “There were many conversations I wasn’t privy to… And they weren’t that much of a team.”
I sat forward and leaned my elbows on my knees, suddenly struck by a thought. “Madame Chenin, let’s stop doing this. Things are going on here I’m sure you don’t know about-things you never intended to be a part of. Do you know why you were told to give us that receipt?”
She stared at me, her mouth slightly open. “What do you…?”
“What did they say would happen?” I interrupted. “Do you realize the receipt was the primary piece of evidence used against Marcel for the murder of his own father?”
Her whole face contorted with confusion. “What?”
“Because it was known you so disliked Marcel, you were used to frame him for Jean’s death. The receipt led us to the inn, which led us to Jean’s old luggage, and that took us to a letter supposedly written by Marcel luring Jean down to Stowe so he could be killed. Did Marcel know how to use a typewriter back then?”
She rubbed her forehead as if fighting off a migraine. “No,” she said vaguely. “I did all the typing… I don’t understand. It’s not what they said.”
“Who said?” I pressed her. “Who told you to give us the receipt?”
Her hand dropped back down to her lap, and she shook her head forcefully. “No one. I have committed no crime. I took the receipt and I gave it to the police because I thought it would be helpful.”
I was silent for a few moments, letting the lie float in the air between us. Then, speaking very gently, I switched topics again. “Madame, after the police collected all the papers in Marcel’s office, they found several concerning Jean’s search for Antoine’s killer. But they weren’t complete-some were missing. Would you be able to help us find them?”
She looked at me, again caught off balance, her face suddenly drawn and tired as if exhausted by all the voices arguing in her head. “Why do you care?” she finally said, addressing us all, I thought. “They are both dead. No one has discussed this in over half a century.”
“I would like to put things right,” I said simply. “I’d like the truth to stand on its own, and for people to stop making the two men you loved into things they were not.”
Her eyes focused on some midpoint between us. In the silence I could hear what sounded like an old grandfather clock ticking loudly in another room.
“And I think,” I added, almost holding my breath, “that you did love them both very much-in every way a woman can.”
She looked up at me, her eyes wet, the surprise revelation giving her some welcome relief. “Not many people know that.”
“Nor will they-not from us.”
She thought a moment and then rose slowly to her feet. “I will be right back.”
Paul Spraiger glanced at me as she left the room. “That was a gamble,” he said quietly.
“What did I have to lose?”
Marie Chenin returned a few minutes later carrying an old accordion file laced shut with a black ribbon. She resumed her seat, the file on her lap, and began working the knot with her gnarled fingers. “When Marcel told me to go, after his father disappeared, I collected a few things to remember Jean and Antoine by. Marcel spoke of them so harshly after they’d gone and changed so much of what they’d done. I’d thought Jean’s passion to find an explanation for Antoine’s death was like one of those tragedies I’d read in school, but Marcel’s anger was even worse-I wanted some remnants of the days before Marcel.”
I watched her fumbling with the knot, letting her focus on it as a way to settle her mind, and visualized her decades ago, in love with two men, both vibrant, creative, and dangerous, taking them both to her bed at different times to fulfill different needs, and then being abandoned almost overnight. It had to have been a life-altering experience, creating far more baggage than the thin file in her hands. Seeing this old, bent woman, I wondered at the reservoir of feelings within her, and at how she might have chosen to channel such abruptly thwarted passions.
I knew I’d surprised her, revealing how her dislike of Marcel had been so manipulated-so I also asked myself what she might do with her newfound knowledge, if anything.
She bent back the file’s cover and peered into its depths.
“What I took were not things of importance. I was so unhappy then, all I wanted were tokens of the life I was leaving, or which had left me.”
She extracted a couple of sheets of paper-thin, flimsy, once creased-and held them in her hand. “Those are two letters Jean received. They’re from men who were in Italy with Antoine. They meant a great deal to Jean-I remember when he got them how happy he was when happiness came so rarely. I took them for that reason, even though they don’t say much. Maybe they’ll mean something to you.”
Marie Chenin seemed spent by the simple act of handing them over, so despite my wanting to press her further, I rose to my feet, sensing I might have gotten all there was to get. As used as she’d been, both by others and by me just now, she was still no fool-and certainly not innocent of the ways of the criminal world. Her slightly doddering appearance notwithstanding, she struck me as a woman of strong will-who now that she was better informed wasn’t going to be taken by surprise again.
I did ask one more question, however. “When Jean left for Stowe, do you remember where Marcel was?”
She seemed genuinely puzzled. “No.”
“What about Guidry and Picard?”
She stared at me as if I’d just walked into the room, bringing her news she wasn’t expecting. “I don’t know,” she finally murmured, sounding deeply lost in thought.
I reached out, took her hand in both of mine, and held it like a small, warm bird. “Madame Chenin, I am sorry to have brought all this back. Most of us try our best to let old ghosts sleep. I apologize for having woken yours up.”
Recovering somewhat, she squeezed my fingers in return. “I don’t think you need to,” she said distractedly. “Sometimes the price is worth paying. Thank you for coming by.”
It was graciously done, and maybe sincere. But the sudden hardness I heard in her voice made me wonder if her thanks was for what I’d said, or for something I’d unwittingly told her.
Chapter 18
Marie Chenin had been right about the contents of the two letters she’d given us. They were both bland, straightforward responses to inquiries by Jean Deschamps. But I understood why he’d been happy to receive them. Unlike the disappointments from the Canadian Army and others, these two were from men who’d apparently been with Antoine right up to the end. And they both expressed a willingness to meet with their late friend’s father.
It took us a few days to trace the whereabouts of the two writers, one of whom turned out to have died ten years earlier, and more time still to secure the records I’d asked Lacombe to locate. The good news, though, was that by the end of all the digging, we had double confirmation that the surviving letter writer-Richard Kearley-was living outside Montreal.
Apparently, the unit they’d both served in was of some renown, as Paul Spraiger informed me. “Wow,” he said, holding the paperwork in his hand. “The Special Service Force. I hadn’t realized that before. Those guys were amazing-a joint Canadian-U.S. outfit. They were the forerunner of the Green Berets. The Germans in Italy called them the Devil’s Brigade… This is incredible.”
I looked at him without comment, causing him to flush slightly. “Sorry. I read a ton about World War Two when I was a kid. Still do, when I can.”