🍃 🍃 🍃"The Last Thing She Saw" by Nina Laurin

I flip the laptop open, and the welcome screen soothes me at once, the one thing from my life that’s still intact, still the same. That sleek glow of success. All my open tabs pop up on the screen, just as I left them, all the news articles on Michelle that I could find. There’s something utterly sanitized about all of them, a total lack of sensationalism that translates as a lack of information. Unlike the States, newspapers and newscasts are subject to strict rules about reporting, especially on touchy subjects such as this. You won’t find crime scene photos on even the trashiest media outlet. And so the articles are drier than a piece of plain toast: During cleanup following the historic flood in old Marly, human remains were discovered. A follow-up article divulges more, but not much more: The remains were found in one of the houses, they appear to be those of a child eight to twelve, and they appear to be more than twenty years old.

That’s not much, but it’s enough. There’s simply nobody else it could be. And yet only one article dares to go further: It is speculated that the remains could belong to Michelle Fortier, who vanished in Marly in 1979 at age nine. The find revived public interest in the case, which remains unsolved and had caused a shock in the small rural community.

I’m probably not going to get much more than that, at least not yet. But a quick search tells me what I need to know. The SQ is handling the case, and they took the body to a forensics lab in Quebec City. I’m looking at a nice ninety-minute drive—I’m up for it, although I’m not sure the Honda is. And anyway, there’s no point unless I can get someone to talk to me. No more job at the media outlet with Ms. Girlboss means no more press badge, which sort of hampers my chances.

There is, of course, the local police station. I still don’t have a press badge but at least I have personal connections. I used to date the chief of police’s son, for one thing. More than a decade ago, in high school, and then I dumped him on prom night.

This is going to go great, I can feel it.

I finish my meal hastily, which is a shame since I don’t know when I’m going to eat next, and it sucks to leave the Wi-Fi behind, but the teenagers behind the counter are giving me looks. Or maybe it’s my imagination. I guess if the roles were reversed, I’d be looking at myself with pity too. To have almost made it out, only to be dragged back kicking and screaming. There’s much to feel sorry for.

And for all I know, I probably went to high school with some of their parents. Shudder.

So I close my laptop—the internet has given me all it can for today—and head back to the Honda waiting for me in the parking lot. I half expect someone to have written LOSER in the dirt on the rear window. My bag with my laptop goes in the passenger seat, and I peel out of the gigantic parking lot. I’d forgotten about this aspect—it’s so strange, all these parking lots the size of airports that you just never see in the city.

I pass the turn in the road that, were I to follow it for another five minutes, would bring me right up to the front of Cath’s house. Pardon—Luc and Cath’s. Part of me is tempted, but they’d surely recognize the ramshackle Honda, and then I’ll look not only jealous, but like a jealous loser.

I can’t help but feel betrayed. No, doubly betrayed. Triply. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Cath pounced on my boyfriend before my Greyhound even left the bus terminal. Then again, you can’t help but expect better from your friends. Even when they’re more like your frenemies who always resented you for being prettier and more popular. That’s not entirely true, though—Cath was popular enough, if only because her dad got an inheritance and bought up all that land and built that house. The one where Luc was only too happy to settle in.

But I can hardly blame him. The betrayal that frustrates me the most isn’t that. We were both going to leave Marly. That was the plan. We should have been on that Greyhound together.

My drive takes me through the old town, right down Main Street. Okay, that’s a lie. There are a million ways I could have gotten to the police station without going anywhere near Main. I’ve been gone for a few years, not a whole century. I still remember all the routes. Yet something compels me to drive down Main, my foot light on the gas pedal as I drop well below the speed limit.

The bungalow behind the yellow tape floats into view, and I wonder if, now that I’m alone, I should take my chances and go have a look inside. But in the middle of the afternoon, it’s probably not the best idea, especially not in this town where nothing you do in broad daylight is a secret from anyone for very long.

And the things you do in the dark aren’t much of a secret either, when I think about it.

I remember the old mechanic and his wife from when I lived here. Nothing stood out about either of them, perfectly ordinary people by Marly standards. Yet that’s always who you’ve gotta look for, isn’t it? Still, I have a hard time imagining that old man grabbing a perky, blond nine-year-old off the street—yet that’s what must have happened, and sooner or later, I, and the town, will have to come to terms with it. Forensics might have come a long way, but after almost forty years, with most of the potential suspects either dead or in varied stages of senility, there’s only so much to find out.

It occurs to me that I just might leave here for the second time with not much more than before.

I pass the town church—PAROISSE DE SAINT-DAVID-DE-HIMMEROD read the letters etched into the arched tympanum over the double doors. The church is on a hill, so it must have been spared the worst of the flooding. It’s a small-town church like so many others in other small towns: a narrow, longish building of gray stone with a single bell tower in the front. The round stained-glass window above the double doors is a point of pride, although I doubt many people outside of Marly have ever heard of it. It’s the work of a semirenowned artist at the turn of the century, and it depicts Saint David of Himmerod performing various exorcisms. When you’re inside the church, though, you see mostly the many bright, colorful streaks of light it casts onto the plain wood floor. It’s impossible to tell what all these colorful reflections are supposed to represent. The other windows, picturing other saints, were made more recently by someone of lesser talent. I remember them looking down sternly at me the couple of times I was inside the church on Christmas.

On the church’s front steps, I see a small group of people. Which is odd—could the church have reopened for services already? Seems kind of soon. Although I suppose this is when people need otherworldly reassurance the most, in times of crisis. A few of them hear the car approach, turn, and stare. They probably noticed the person behind the wheel of Laura O’Malley’s car isn’t Laura. Great.

Onward. I pass by the boarded-up businesses and stores, and it’s not any easier to get used to the sight the second time. The inn is closed, so is the bar and grill. There are trucks parked here and there bearing logos of postdisaster cleanup companies. The car’s wheels make a dull noise against all the gravel in the road, and I feel every bump a lot more acutely than in Luc’s pickup truck.

When I get to the police station, I expect the same sight I got used to two years ago: an empty parking lot and a deserted building. Instead, there are tents, those white ones like for the town fair. One has a banner that says MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCY SERVICES and the other LEGAL HELP. Another sign with a big fat arrow pointing to the right, to the community center down the street, proclaims DONATIONS CENTER.

I park on the periphery and get out. Under the tents, social workers I don’t recognize sit idly—not much demand for the mental health services, I suppose. They follow me with incurious gazes and seem more relieved than disappointed when I bypass all the tents and go into the police station.

Here, it smells like stale coffee and small-town despair. The front desk is empty. There’s a piece of paper folded into a triangle that reads, in a hasty ballpoint-pen scrawl, BACK IN FIVE MINUTES.

“Stephanie,” says a voice, taking me by surprise. I spin around.

“I figured you’d show up sooner or later,” he says. He doesn’t sound unfriendly, mostly just amused.

“Hi, Mr. Bergmann,” I say on autopilot. It’s like I’m fourteen again, showing up at their house to watch movies with my boyfriend on the family VCR in the basement, feeling his mildly disapproving gaze on my back as I follow Luc down the hall. It looked bad: Luc, the son of the town hero, dating the O’Malley girl.

“I think we can be on a first-name basis at this point,” says Luc’s dad with a restrained smile.

“Pierre-François.”

“Frank is fine.”

Last time I was here, he hadn’t been at the station. They’d told me he was away, and I had to deal with the other guy, who had no love lost for the O’Malley family either. Not that I had to deal with him for very long. His answers to all my queries were categorical and nonnegotiable. He had nothing to tell me, and that was it.

“It’s been a really long time,” he says. “I hope the city is treating you well.”

I really can’t tell if it’s just a stock platitude or sarcasm. “Actually, I’m here for the foreseeable future,” I say carefully, deciding to put an end to any misunderstandings right away. “I’m staying at my mother’s.”

“Oh. Say hi to Laura for me, why don’t you.”

“I will,” I say, because that’s what you’re supposed to say.

“Everything okay?” he asks. “Sorry to be unprofessional. It’s just, you kids will always be kids to me. Is there a reason you’re here?”

I feel my face warm. “Actually—”

“The young generation can be a handful of trouble,” he says. “It’s really something else. I thought you guys were bad. These days, there’s graffiti everywhere, every other day I have to shake down shoplifters. Better lock your doors.”

“Nothing happened,” I say, wondering if he’s being obtuse on purpose. “It’s got more to do with—you know that podcast I was putting together the last time I came to town?”

I carefully watch for his reaction. If he tries to deny it, I’ll know he’s playing games. Gossip would have told him everything a long time ago. But he doesn’t deny it. His face grows somber.

“I see. You’re here about Michelle Fortier.”

“Yeah,” I say. I feel almost apologetic.