There was a pause. I thought I could hear a television in the background.
"Work security." Defensive. "Nights at the high school."
"And your brother?"
"Archie"s a f.u.c.king junkie." The macho tone now sounded whiny. "Do us both a favor. Arrest his a.s.s and get him out of this s.h.i.thole."
I had one last question.
"Do you remember the p.a.w.nbroker"s name?"
""Course I remember that d.i.c.khead. Jerry O"Driscoll."
I"d barely disconnected when my cell phone rang.
Hippo.
His news rocked my world.
12.
"L AURETTE AURETTE P PHILOMeNE S SAULNIER L LANDRY. DOB M DOB MAY 22, 1938. DOD June 17, 1972." 22, 1938. DOD June 17, 1972."
Death at age thirty-four? How sad.
I pictured Laurette in Euphemie"s Pawleys Island kitchen. My child"s mind had never slotted her age. She was simply adult, younger than Gran, more wrinkled than Mama.
"She died so young. From what?"
"Death certificate lists natural causes, but doesn"t elaborate."
"You"re sure it"s the right Laurette Landry?"
"Laurette Philomene Saulnier married Philippe Gregoire Landry on November 20, 1955. Union produced two kids. Evangeline Anastasie, DOB August 12, 1956. Obeline Flavie, DOB February 16, 1964."
"Jesus. I can"t believe you found this so fast." In addition to my early telephone probes, I"d periodically tried the New Brunswick Bureau of Vital Statistics. Never had a hit.
"Used my Acadian charm."
Hippo"s charm and a token would get him on the subway. I waited.
"Back in the sixties, the church handled most of the vital stats record keeping. Some parts of New Brunswick, babies were still being birthed at home, especially in rural areas and smaller towns. Lot of Acadians had no time for government or its inst.i.tutions. Still don"t."
I heard a soft whop, pictured Hippo downing several Tums.
"Got a church-lady niece at St. John the Baptist in Tracadie. Knows the archives like I know the size of my d.i.c.k."
I definitely did not want to hear about that.
"You found baptismal and marriage certificates through your niece?" I guessed.
"Bingo. Since I"m a homeboy, I started dialing for dollars. We Acadians identify ourselves by ancestral names. Take me, for example. I"m Hippolyte a Herve a Isaie a Calixte Hippolyte a Herve a Isaie a Calixte-"
"What did you learn?"
"Like I warned you, forty years is a long time. But the Acadian National Memory Bank"s got a whopper of a vault. Found a few locals remembered Laurette and her kids. No one would talk much, respecting privacy and all. But I got the drift.
"When Laurette got too sick to work, hubby"s kin took her in. The Landrys lived outside of town. Kept mostly to themselves. One old-timer called them morpions morpions. Trailer trash. Said they were mostly illiterate."
"Laurette had a driver"s license."
"No. Laurette had a car."
"She must have been licensed. She drove across the border."
"OK. Maybe someone got paid off. Or maybe she was smart enough to read a little and to memorize road signs. Anyway, Philippe took off while Laurette was pregnant with Obeline, leaving her to support the two little girls. She managed for five or six years, then had to quit working. Eventually died of some sort of chronic condition. Sounded like TB to me. This guy thought she"d moved out toward Saint-Isidore sometime in the mid-sixties. Might have had family living that way."
"What about Philippe?"
"Nothing. May have left the country. Probably dead somewhere."
"And the girls?" My heart was thumping my rib cage.
"Obeline Landry married a guy named David Bastarache in eighty. I"m running him now. And following the Saint-Isidore lead."
"What about Evangeline?"
"I"ll be straight. I ask about Laurette or Obeline, I get cooperation. Or at least what sounds like cooperation. I ask about the older sister, people go iceberg."
"What are you saying?"
"I"m saying I"ve been at this awhile. I got antennae. I ask about this kid, the answers come too quick, too consistent."
I waited.
"No one knows s.h.i.t."
"Hiding something?" My grip on the handset was raising the cords in my wrist.
"I"d bet money on it."
I told Hippo what I"d learned from Trick Whalen. The Miramichi p.a.w.nshop. The mojo sculpture. The Indian cemetery.
"You want I should call this guy O"Driscoll?"
"No. If you can get contact information, I"ll follow the bone trail while you chase the leads in Tracadie."
"Don"t go "way."
Hippo put me on hold for a good ten minutes.
"Place is called Oh O! p.a.w.n. Catchy name. Says we care." He supplied a phone number and an address on the King George Highway.
Cellophane crinkled. Then, "You said you found something wrong with the kid"s skeleton."
"Yes."
"You figure that out?"
"Not yet."
"You willing to work on Sat.u.r.day?"
The 82nd Airborne couldn"t have kept me from those bones.
By eight-thirty I was at Wilfrid-Derome. Contrary to reports, there"d been no rain and the weather hadn"t cooled. Already the mercury was pushing eighty.
I rode the elevator alone, pa.s.sed no one in the LSJML lobby or corridors. I was pleased that I"d have no disruptions.
I was wrong. One of several misjudgments I"d make that day.
First off, I dialed O"Driscoll. The phone went unanswered.
Disappointed, I turned to the skeleton. Hippo"s girl. Before being interrupted by the Iqaluit skull and the dog exhumation in Blainville, I"d cleaned what remained of her trunk and limb bones.
Going directly to her skull, I cleared the foramen magnum and emptied soil and small pebbles from the cranial base.
At nine-thirty, I tried O"Driscoll again. Still no luck.
Back to teasing dirt. Right auditory ca.n.a.l. Left. Posterior palate. The lab thundered with that stillness possible only on weekends in government facilities.
At ten, I lay down my probe and dialed Miramichi a third time. This time a man answered.
"Oh O! p.a.w.n."
"Jerry O"Driscoll?"
"Speaking."
I gave my name and LSJML affiliation. Either O"Driscoll didn"t hear or didn"t care.
"You interested in antique watches, young lady?" English, with a whisper of brogue.
"I"m afraid not."
"Two beauties just come in. You like jewelry?"
"Sure."
"Got some Navajo turquoise that"ll knock your socks off."
Navajo jewelry in a New Brunswick p.a.w.nshop? Must be a story there.
"Mr. O"Driscoll, I"m calling about human remains you sold to Trick and Archie Whalen several years back."
I expected caginess. Or lack of recollection. O"Driscoll was polite, expansive, even. And had recall like a credit card agency computer.
"Spring of 2000. Kids said they wanted it for a college art project. Said they were constructing some kind of homage-to-the-dead display. Sold it to them for sixty-five bucks."
"You have an excellent memory."
"Truth is, that was the first and last skeleton I ever traded. Thing was older than all the angels and saints. Lots of broken bones. Face smashed in and caked with dirt. Still, the idea of selling dead souls didn"t sit well. Didn"t matter if the poor devil was Christian or Indian or Bantu. That"s why I remember."
"Where did you get the skeleton?"
"Fella used to come in every couple months. Claimed he was an archaeologist before the war. Didn"t mention which war. Always had this mangy terrier trailing him. Called the thing Bisou. Kiss. No way I"d have put my lips anywhere near that hound. Guy spent his time searching for stuff to p.a.w.n. Poked through Dumpsters. Had a metal detector he"d run along the riverbank. That sort of thing. Brought in a brooch once was pretty nice. I sold it to a lady lives up in Neguac. Most of his finds were junk, though."
"The skeleton?"
"Guy said he found it when he went out to the woods to bury Bisou. I wasn"t surprised. Dog acted a hundred years old. Old geezer looked like he could really use a lift that day. Figured I"d take a loss, but I gave him fifty bucks. Didn"t see any harm in it."
"Did the man say where he"d buried his dog?"
"Some island. Said there was an old Indian cemetery there. Could have been hooey. I hear a lot of that. People think a good tale ups the value of what they"re offering. It doesn"t. An item"s worth what it"s worth."
"Do you know the man"s name?"
O"Driscoll"s chuckle sounded like popcorn popping. "Said he was Tom "Jones." I"d bet my aunt Rosey"s bloomers he made that up."
"Why is that?"
"Guy was French. p.r.o.nounced the name Jones Jones. Spelled it Jouns Jouns."
"Do you know what happened to him?"
"Stopped coming about three years back. Old duffer was frail and blind in one eye. Probably dead by now."
After the call, I returned to the bones. Was there truth to Tom Joun"s Indian burial ground story? Could Hippo"s girl be a pre-Columbian aboriginal?