a scrubbed wooden table and watched her twist ice cubes from a plastic tray, drop them into glasses, and add the lemonade. She brought the drinks and slid in across from me, her eyes avoiding mine.
“It’s hard for me to talk about Chantale,” she said, studying her lemonade.
“I understand, and I am so sorry for your loss. How are you doing?”
“Some days it’s easier than others.”
She folded her hands and tensed, her thin shoulders rising under the halter.
“Have you come to tell me something?”
“I’m afraid not, Madame Trottier. And I don’t really have any specific questions for you. I thought there might be something you’ve remembered, perhaps something you didn’t think important earlier?”
Her eyes stayed on the lemonade. A dog barked outside.
“Has anything occurred to you since you last spoke with the detectives? Any detail about the day Chantale disappeared?”
No response. The air in the kitchen was hot and dense with humidity. It smelled faintly of lemon disinfectant.
“I know this is awful for you, but if we’re to have any hope of finding your daughter’s killer, we still need your help. Is there anything that’s been bothering you? Anything you’ve been thinking about?”
“We fought.”
Again. The guilt of nonclosure. The wish to take back words and substitute others.
“She wouldn’t eat. She thought she was getting fat.”
I knew all this from the report.
“She wasn’t fat. You should have seen her. She was beautiful. She was only sixteen.” Her eyes finally met mine. A single tear spilled over each lower lid, and trickled down each cheek. “Like the English song.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, gently as I could. Through the screened window I could smell sun on geraniums. “Was Chantale unhappy about anything?”
Her fingers tightened around her glass.
“That’s what’s so hard. She was such an easy child. Always happy. Always full of life, bubbling with plans. Even my divorce didn’t seem to upset her. She took it in stride and never missed a step.”
Truth or retrospective fantasy? I remembered the Trottiers had divorced when Chantale was nine. Her father was living somewhere in the city.
“Can you tell me anything about those last few weeks? Had Chantale altered her routine in any way? Had any odd calls? Made any new friends?”
Her head moved slowly in continuous negation. No.
“Did she have trouble making friends?”
No.
“Were you uneasy about any of her friends?”
No.
“Did she have a boyfriend?”
No.
“Did she date?”
No.
“Did she have problems at school?”
No.
Poor interrogation technique. Need to get the witness to do the talking instead of me.
“What about that day? The day Chantale disappeared?”
She looked at me, her eyes unreadable.
“Can you tell me what took place that day?”
She took a sip of lemonade, swallowed deliberately, set the glass back on the table. Deliberately.
“We got up around six. I made breakfast.” She clutched the glass so tightly I feared it would shatter. “Chantale left for school. She and her friends rode the train since the school is in Centre-ville. They say she went to all her classes. And then she . . .”
A breeze teased the gingham off the window frame.
“She never came home.”
“Did she have any special plans that day?”
“No.”
“Did she normally come right home after classes?”
“Usually.”
“Did you expect her home that day?”
“No. She was going to see her father.”
“Did she do that often?”
“Yes. Why do I have to keep answering these questions? It’s useless. I’ve told all this to the detectives. Why do I have to keep repeating the same things over and over? It doesn’t do any good. It didn’t then, it won’t now.”
Her eyes fixed on mine, the pain almost palpable.
“You know what? All the time I was filling out missing persons forms and answering questions, Chantale was already dead. She was lying in pieces in a dump. Already dead.”
She dropped her head and the thin shoulders shuddered. She was right. We had nothing. I was fishing. She was learning to bury the pain, to plant tomatoes and live, and I’d ambushed her and forced an exhumation.
Be kind. Get out.
“It’s all right, Madame Trottier. If you can’t remember further details, they are probably not important.”
I left my card and standard request. Call if you think of anything. I doubted she would.
Gabby’s door was closed when I got home, her room quiet. I thought of looking in, resisted. She could be so touchy about her privacy. I got into bed and tried to read, but Geneviève Trottier’s words kept jamming my mind. Déjà mort. Already dead. Champoux had used the same phrase. Yes. Déjà dead. Five. That was the chilling truth. Like Champoux and