Grave Secrets

I have something in my pocket that belongs across my face

I keep it very close to me in a most convenient place…

“What of Miss Gerardi?” Lywyckij’s question snapped me back.

“What of her?” A return question from the ambassador’s wife, not indicating great concern.

“Will I be representing her?”

“Chantale’s difficulties probably stem from that girl’s influence. Obtaining documents. Hitchhiking with strangers. Crossing the continent on buses. My daughter would never do those things on her own.”

“I’m not so sure,” I said.

The emerald eyes swung to me, surprised.

“How could you know such a thing?”

“Call it gut instinct.” Not backing off.

A pause by Mrs. Specter, then a pronouncement.

“In any event, it is best that we not meddle in the affairs of Guatemalan citizens. Lucy’s father is a wealthy man. He will take care of her.”

That wealthy man was now here in Montreal and trailing a guard as we entered the corridor. His companion was outfitted like Lywyckij in expensive suit, Italian shoes, leather briefcase.

Gerardi turned as we passed, and his eyes met mine.

I’d empathized with the little girl at the school-yard fence. That reaction was nothing compared with the pity I now felt for Lucy Gerardi. Whatever had brought her to Canada was not about to be forgiven.

17

FORTY MINUTES LATER I WAS PASSING BETWEEN SHOULDER-HIGH hedges on a walkway leading to double glass doors. A logo was centered in each pane, with company information printed below. French on top, English underneath in smaller font. Very québécois.

It had taken thirty minutes to drive, another thirty to find the address. The RP Corporation was one of a half dozen enterprises housed in two-story concrete boxes in a light-industrial park in St-Hubert. Each structure was gray, but expressed its individuality with a painted stripe circling the building like a gift ribbon. RP’s bow was red.

The lobby had the glossiest floor I’ve ever tread. I crossed it to an office to the left of the main entrance. When I peeked in, an Asian woman greeted me in French. She had shiny black hair cut blunt at the ears and straight across her forehead. Her broad cheekbones reminded me of Chantale Specter, which reminded me of the girl in the septic tank. I felt the familiar cringe of self-blame.

“Je m’appelle Tempe Brennan,” I said.

Hearing my accent, she switched to English.

“How may I help you?”

“I have a three o’clock appointment with Susanne Jean.”

“Please have a seat. It won’t be a moment.” She picked up and spoke into a receiver.

In less than a minute Susanne appeared and crooked a finger at me.

She was about my weight, but stood a full head taller. Her skin was eggplant, her hair plaited into a trellis pattern for three inches around her face. In back it hung in long, black cornrows, bundled together with a tangerine binder. As usual, Susanne looked more like a fashion model than an industrial engineer.

I followed her back into the lobby, then through a second set of double doors opposite the main entrance. We crossed a room filled with machines. Several white-coated workers adjusted dials, studied monitors, or stood watching the technology do whatever it did. The air was packed with muted whirs, hums, and clicks.

Susanne’s office was as sleek as the rest of the plant, with bare white walls and straight teak lines. A single watercolor hung behind her desk. One orchid in a crystal bud vase. One detached petal. One perfect water droplet.

Susanne liked things clean. Like me, she held title to a messy past. Like me she’d done serious tidying up.

While my drug of choice had been alcohol, Susanne’s was coke. Though neither of us belonged to the organization, we’d met through a mutual friend who was an AA zealot. That was six years ago. We’d kept in touch, periodically attending a meeting with our common link, or getting together on our own for dinner or tennis. I knew little about her world, she less about mine, but somehow we clicked.

Susanne lowered herself onto one end of an apricot couch, and crossed legs that were at least twelve yards long. I took the other end.

“What do you do for Bombardier?” I asked.

“We’re prototyping plastic parts.”

“Volvo?”

“Metal bearings.”

Manufacturing is as mysterious to me as the Okeefenokee. Raw materials go in. Weedwhackers, Q-tips, or Buicks come out. What happens in between, I haven’t a clue.

“I know you take CAD data and create solid objects, but I’ve never really known what kinds of objects,” I said.

“Functional plastic and metal parts, casting patterns, and durable metal mold inserts.”

“Oh.”

“Did you bring the CT scans?” I handed her Fereira’s envelope. She withdrew the contents and began going through the films, holding them up as Fereira had done. Now and then a film bent, making a sound like distant thunder.

“This should be fun.”

“Without getting technical, what will you do?”