Roxanne Bouchard - The Coral Bride

The time he knocked at the door in the middle of the night to break the news of a teenager’s accidental death to parents who had been fast asleep without a care in the world just minutes earlier. The time he picked up the pieces of a snowmobiler who had wrapped himself around a tree while his wife was waiting for him to get back to their cabin in the woods. The time he retrieved the body of a young girl who had caught her hair in the filter of the family’s new swimming pool. The time he entered the room where one Christmas, a father dressed in a red Santa suit had committed suicide while his wife went to wake the children so they could open their presents.

These bombshells were so devastating, the officers who dropped them found themselves absorbing the shock waves and dodging the shrapnel. To deal with the pain, some cracked distasteful jokes; others made cheerful banter. But none of them were fools. They knew they would carry the weight of it all home with them, down to the strangest of details. The blood spatters on a necklace, the colour of the scarf caught between skin and metal, the label on a shirt torn to shreds. Scraps of tragedy stitching a patchwork of painful recollections in their minds.

Compared to that, handing out traffic tickets, catching car thieves or investigating a settling of scores between biker gangs was a walk in the park. Not to mention the shoplifting, disputes between neighbours, and fender-benders the patrol officers had to sort out. Rising through the ranks meant dealing with more drama. And pain.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Moralès and this is Constable Lefebvre. We’re looking for your wife. If you don’t mind, we’d like to come in. We have some questions to ask you that might help us find her.’

If it weren’t for the slumped shoulders, unwashed hair and face ravaged by anguish, Clément Cyr would have been a striking figure. Dragging his feet like a condemned man, he led the way into the kitchen and gestured for Moralès to join him at the kitchen table.

Érik Lefebvre followed at his own pace with his hands behind his back. He stopped in front of the refrigerator to look at the snapshots of friends, grocery lists and sweet nothings held up by magnets. On the wall to the right of Moralès, framed photographs of the young couple suggested a life full of shared travel and adventure – cycling, skiing, hiking, camping and all. Angel Roberts and her husband were the picture of two sporty, energetic thirty-somethings in love.

Clément Cyr was lost without her. Struggling to gather his thoughts, he was staring at the other side of the room. And then, he saw her. Right there. Angel. Just like he’d seen her appear when he opened the door to the detectives. When she saw them coming, she’d hurried into the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on, prepare the milk and brown sugar, bring out the nice cups and her mother’s best spoons. She turned around and swept her hair behind her ears, folding her arms as she leaned her hip against the kitchen counter and smiled at her husband.

Moralès followed Clément Cyr’s faraway gaze as the man desperately tried to stop his wedding photos from turning to sepia. He decided to leave him another minute before breaking the spell, while Lefebvre made his way around the living room, taking everything in as if this were a memorisation exercise.

‘I’d like you to tell me what you did on Saturday,’ Moralès began.

Jolted back to reality, Cyr realised the coffee pot was empty and dirty. ‘It’s our tenth wedding anniversary the day after tomorrow. Every year we celebrate in style. Angel puts her wedding dress on, I have to dress up smart, and we go to either my family or hers for dinner. Because it fell on a weeknight this year, we arranged with my father-in-law to have dinner at his place on Saturday. We didn’t stay late, but there was a party in the village for the end of the fishing season, so we went there afterwards.’

‘Around what time?’

He hesitated. ‘About ten o’clock, I’d say. It’s never a late night with Angel’s old man.’

‘Where was the party?’

‘At Corine’s.’

Moralès turned to Lefebvre, who, without looking up from the rock collection he was studying, said: ‘It’s an auberge in Rivière-au-Renard. Every year, in the autumn, Corine puts on a party for the fishing folk. After that, she closes for the off season.’

Angel poured the coffee, passed the milk around and put the little spoons on the table.

‘So, you both went to Corine’s.’

‘To the auberge, yes. But we didn’t stay long.’

‘Why?’

‘Angel wasn’t well. All night she’d been complaining she felt queasy. She said she was tired and her head was spinning.’

‘Has she been tired a lot lately?’

Angel pulled out the chair nearest her husband’s and sat. She held her cup to her face and breathed in the steaming morning aroma. Cyr glanced over to Érik Lefebvre as he wandered off down the hallway.

‘Fishing’s not an easy job. It’s only natural to be worn out by the end of the season. Don’t go spreading that around, will you? Angel likes to play the strong woman. She doesn’t want people thinking she has moments of weakness.’

Moralès nodded, as if making a promise. ‘So, you went to Corine’s auberge, but Angel wasn’t feeling well.’

‘That’s right. She had one drink, then she asked me to drive her home.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Before midnight.’

‘And you brought her back here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you drive through the park?’ Lefebvre interjected bluntly as he came back into the kitchen.

‘When do you mean?’

‘When you brought Angel home.’

Clément Cyr shook his head. ‘No. Angel was feeling sick, and that road has a lot of twists and turns. Plus, my wife doesn’t like us driving that way at night. She’s always worried we’ll hit a bear or a moose. We took La Radoune instead. I took it slow. Even stopped the car once or twice because she thought she was going to throw up. She didn’t, though.’

Moralès turned to Lefebvre to fill him in.

‘La Radoune is what the locals call Highway 197. It’s a longer route, but at night it’s safer than the coast road.’

‘And when you got back here, what did you do?’ Moralès continued.

‘Well, I turned around and went back to the bar. It was the big end-of-season party. That’s when all the skippers pick up the tab for their crew.’

‘Around what time?’

He hesitated, toying with his watch as if it would give him the answer.

‘Well, I did get changed, because I was still in my fancy wedding clothes. Then I drove back. The guys were still there.’

‘And what time was that?’

‘One o’clock, maybe quarter past.’

‘And when did you come home again?’

‘I’d had a bit to drink, so I spent the night at the auberge and came home Sunday morning. Around ten.’

This was getting uncomfortable for Clément Cyr, but he carried on. ‘Angel wasn’t here. I knew that as soon as I got here, because her car wasn’t in the driveway. When I came into the kitchen, I found this on the table.’

He held up a scrap of paper with a few words of feminine handwriting on it: Gone out for a bit, see you later. Two x’s – two kisses – concluded the message.

‘Is it all right if we hold on to this note?’

Clément Cyr nodded. Moralès handed it to Lefebvre, who seemed only too happy to fish a plastic evidence bag out of his pocket.

‘Anyway, I went down to her slip at the wharf to see if she was there,’ Cyr continued. ‘Her car was there, but the Close Call II wasn’t. That’s the name of her lobster trawler. Angel’s never sunk a boat, and there never was a Close Call I ; she just thought that name would show some bravado and reflect her sense of humour. She says the sea is too macho a place for its own good, but she makes the best of it. She’s a fearless woman, my wife. A fighter.’