The whisper I'd heard upon reading about the Tracadie lazaretto geysered into my forebrain. Connected with other disparate images and recollections.

I sat bolt upright. Sweet mother of G.o.d. Could that really be it?

In my gut, I knew I'd stumbled on the answer. Thirty-five years and I finally understood.

Instead of triumph, I felt only sadness.

"I know why Evangeline and Obeline disappeared," I said, excitement laying a buzz on my voice.

"Really?" Ryan sounded exhausted.

"Laurette Landry started bringing her daughters to Pawleys Island when she lost her hospital job and had to work double-time at a cannery and a motel. Evangeline and Obeline were yanked back to Tracadie when Laurette got sick."

"You've always known that."

"The girls started coming to the island in 1966, the first summer after the Tracadie lazaretto closed."

"Could be there was another hospital in Tracadie."

"I don't think so. I'll check old employment records, of course, but I'll bet Laurette Landry worked at the lazaretto."

Ryan glanced sideways at me, quickly back at the prison entrance.

"Evangeline told me her mother was a hospital employee for many years. If Laurette worked at the lazaretto, she'd have been in close contact with lepers. It's a fact she became ill with something that required daily nursing by Evangeline."

"Even if Laurette did contract leprosy, you're talking the sixties. Treatment has been available since the forties."

"Think of the stigma, Ryan. Whole families were shunned. People were forbidden to hire lepers or other members of their families if the person diagnosed was living at home. And it wasn't just personal lives that were ruined. The presence of the lazaretto had a devastating impact on the Tracadie economy. For years, no product would include the town name in its labeling. Public a.s.sociation with Tracadie often meant a business was ruined."

"That was decades ago."

"As Hippo says, the Acadian memory goes long and deep. The Landrys weren't educated people. Maybe they chose to hide her away. Maybe they distrusted government. Like Bastarache."

Ryan made one of his noncommittal sounds.

"Maybe Laurette was frightened of being quarantined in some lazaretto. Maybe she was determined to die at home and begged her family to keep her condition secret."

At that moment Ryan's cell phone sounded.

"Ryan."

My thoughts jumped from Laurette to Hippo's girl. Had the two actually died of the same disease?

"Got him."

Ryan's voice snapped me back to the present. I followed his sight line to the prison entrance.

Bastarache was walking in our direction. Beside him was a dark-haired woman in a dumpy gray suit. The woman carried a briefcase and gestured with one hand as she spoke. I a.s.sumed I was looking at local counsel Isabelle Francoeur.

Crossing the lot, Francoeur and Bastarache climbed into a black Mercedes. Still talking, Francoeur shifted into gear and drove off.

Ryan waited until the Mercedes had merged into traffic, then followed.

36.

R YAN AND YAN AND I I DROVE IN SILENCE DROVE IN SILENCE. RUSH HOUR WAS PUMPING AND I feared that taking my eyes from the Mercedes might allow our quarry to become lost in the sea of b.u.mpers and taillights flowing south toward the city. I feared that taking my eyes from the Mercedes might allow our quarry to become lost in the sea of b.u.mpers and taillights flowing south toward the city.

Ryan sensed my nervousness.

"Relax," he said. "I won't lose them."

"Maybe we should follow closer."

"They might spot us."

"We're in an unmarked car."

Ryan almost grinned. "This crate screams cop louder than a light and sound show."

"She's heading into town."

"Yes."

"Think she'll take him to Le Pa.s.sage Noir?"

"I don't know."

"Then don't lose her."

"I won't."

We were on the outskirts of centre-ville when the Mercedes flashed a turn signal.

"She's going right," I said.

Ryan slid into the turning lane several cars back.

Two more signals. Two more turns. I watched, chewing the cuticle of my right thumb.

"Safe driver," I said.

"Makes my job easier."

"Just don't-"

"Lose her. I've thought of that."

The Mercedes made one more turn, then pulled over on Boulevard Lebourgneuf. Ryan continued past and slid to the curb a half block down. I watched in the side mirror while Ryan used the rearview.

Francoeur placed something on the dashboard, then she and Bastarache got out, crossed the sidewalk, and entered a gray stone building.

"Probably going to her office," I said.

"She stuck some sort of parking pa.s.s in the windshield," Ryan said. "If this is her office, she must have a regular spot. Why not use it?"

"Maybe it's a brief stop," I said.

Whatever Bastarache and Francoeur were up to, it lasted long enough for me to grow bored with surveillance. I watched office workers hurrying with lidded cups of Starbucks. A mother with a stroller. Two blue-haired punks with arm-tucked skateboards. A spray-painted busker carrying stilts.

The Impala grew hot and stuffy. I rolled down my window. City smells drifted in. Cement. Garbage. Salt and petrol off the river.

I was fighting drowsiness when Ryan cranked the ignition.

I looked toward the building Bastarache and Francoeur had entered. Our boy was coming through the door.

Bastarache pointed a remote at the Mercedes. The car broop-brooped broop-brooped and the lights flashed. Yanking the door, he threw himself behind the wheel and lurched into traffic. When the Mercedes pa.s.sed us, Ryan let several cars go by, then followed. and the lights flashed. Yanking the door, he threw himself behind the wheel and lurched into traffic. When the Mercedes pa.s.sed us, Ryan let several cars go by, then followed.

Bastarache wound through surface streets onto Boulevard Sainte-Anne, seemingly unaware of our presence. His head kept bobbing, and I a.s.sumed he was playing with the radio or inserting a CD.

Several miles out of town, Bastarache turned right onto a bridge spanning the St. Lawrence River.

"He's going to ile d'Orleans," Ryan said.

"What's out there?" I asked.

"Farms, a few summer homes and B and B's, a handful of tiny towns."

Bastarache cut across the island on Route Prevost then turned left onto Chemin Royal, a two-lane blacktop that skimmed the far sh.o.r.e. Out my window, the water glistened blue-gray in the early morning sun.

Traffic was light now, forcing Ryan to widen the gap between us and the Mercedes. Past the hamlet of Saint-Jean, Bastarache hooked a right and disappeared from view.

When Ryan rounded the corner, Bastarache was nowhere to be seen. Instead of commenting, I worked the cuticle. It was now an angry bright red.

As we rolled down the blacktop, my eyes swept the landscape. A vineyard spread from both shoulders. That was it. Vines for acres, heavy and green.

In a quarter mile the road ended at a T intersection. The river lay dead ahead, behind a trio of quintessentially Quebecois homes. Gray stone walls, wood-beamed porches, high-pitched roofs, dormer windows up, window boxes down. The Mercedes was parked in a driveway beside the easternmost bungalow.

The river road continued to the left, but died ten yards to the right. Ryan drove to that end, made a one-eighty, and killed the engine.

"Now what?" I was saying that a lot lately.

"Now we watch."

"We're not going in?"

"First we get the lay of the land."

"Did you really say lay of the land?"

"We sit code six on the dirtbag skel." Ryan responded to my ribbing with even more TV cop lingo.

"You're a scream." I refused to ask what a code six was.

Forty minutes later, the door opened and the dirtbag skel hurried down the steps and crossed to the Mercedes. His hair was wet and he'd changed to an apricot shirt.

Glancing neither left nor right, Bastarache blasted backward down the drive, tires grinding up gravel. Ryan and I watched him gun up the blacktop toward Chemin Royal, leaving behind a ripple of dust.

Reaching into the glove compartment, Ryan withdrew a f.a.n.n.y pack. I knew its contents. Cuffs, extra clips, badge, and a Glock 9mm. Ryan used the thing when not wearing a jacket.

Yanking free his shirttails, Ryan strapped the pack on his belly and checked the string that would undo the zipper. Then he cranked the engine and we rolled.

At the bungalow, we got out of the Impala and scanned our surroundings. The only thing moving was a mangy brown spaniel sniffing roadkill twenty yards up the shoulder.

I looked at Ryan. He nodded. We beelined to the front door.

Ryan rang the bell with the index finger of his left hand. His right was subtly crooked, positioned over the Glock tucked in the pack.

Within seconds, a female voice spoke through the door.

"As-tu oublie quelque chose?" Have you forgotten something? Familiar "you." Have you forgotten something? Familiar "you."

"Police," Ryan called out. Ryan called out.

There was a moment of silence, then, "You must wait until later."

A burst of adrenaline coursed through me. Though m.u.f.fled, the voice was familiar.

" We want to ask you some questions." We want to ask you some questions."

The woman didn't reply.

Ryan hit the bell. Again. Again.

"Go away!"

Ryan opened his mouth to reply. I grabbed his arm. The muscles were taut as tree roots.

"Wait," I whispered.

Ryan's lips clamped shut, but his elbow stayed c.o.c.ked.

"Obeline?" I said. "C'est moi, Tempe. Please let us come in."