Last Night, page 11
“Detectives Harrigan and Milne and the Rhode Island police will do that, Mr. Lafond.”
“Bernard, please. And perhaps they will, but I can’t bear to let things unfold as slowly as bureaucracy demands. Harrigan is a detective, yes, but he is a fonctionnaire.”
“A what?”
“A civil servant. An employee of the government. He doesn’t have the same urgency that I do. That her family does.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Conor said, thinking of his own cases as a Major Crime Squad detective, how the victims of violent crime became very much his own family. How he came to care about them, even love them, to need to get justice for them.
“You can’t convince me,” Bernard said, finishing his drink and signaling for another. “I told you, they treat me with suspicion, and meanwhile, nothing of substance is being done . . .” He trailed off.
“They have to conduct their investigation the way they see fit,” Conor said. “They’ll get to the truth.”
“Not fast enough. I want to hire the best. Who is that? You know, I am sure. Someone local but with excellent credentials, who might have insight into suspects, or ideas of where my daughter might be hidden,” Bernard said. “Tell me, please, who would that be?”
“I don’t have a name for you,” Conor said.
“That’s not acceptable,” Bernard said, raising his voice. “What would you do if your daughter was missing? Wouldn’t this slow pace be driving you out of your mind?”
Conor didn’t have children, but during crimes in which kids were at risk, he always asked himself the same question that Bernard had just posed. “I would be as upset as you are,” Conor said.
“C’est ça,” Bernard said, with apparent relief at being understood. He took a long drink. “That’s it. Exactly. So, will you help me?”
“In what way?” Conor asked.
“Since you don’t have a recommendation of an outside investigator, I would like to hire you.”
As a member of the state police, Conor would never take a private case, and he suspected that Bernard knew that. He studied Bernard’s face. He saw desperation, but he questioned what lay beneath it. He knew from Hadley that Bernard was broke; he assumed that there were no funds available to pay a detective. So was this behavior performative? Was this an attempt to convince Conor of his innocence?
“I want you to solve this,” Bernard said. “I don’t care so much about being treated like a criminal.” He paused, peering at Conor. “I see you don’t believe that. The husband always did it? What lazy thinking. I love—loved—Madeleine. To know what was done to her, and to not know where my daughter is, is torture for me. I want you to find the killer, the kidnapper. Is my daughter alive? What the fuck are they doing to her?”
Conor could see he was roiling with emotion. His face was scarlet, and his bloodshot eyes were wet with tears. Conor knew that powerful feelings shook everyone touched by violent crime. It wasn’t a barometer of guilt or innocence.
“What do you charge? I don’t care. I will give everything I have in the world to get my daughter back,” Bernard said.
“I don’t charge because I don’t take private clients,” Conor said. “I’m a state police detective—just not in this state,” Conor said.
“Everyone has a price,” Bernard said.
“I guess you didn’t hear me,” Conor said. “You’re not my client.”
“You don’t care about what happened to them?”
“I do,” Conor said. “And I have some questions.”
“Like what? Ask me anything.”
“Start with what you’re doing here. And why you weren’t answering your phone.”
“I told you—I needed quiet. And I came here to find the right location for my next film. It is a very atmospheric part of the world, we need a setting by the Atlantic Ocean . . .”
“Bullshit, Bernard,” Conor said. “That answer alone guarantees you failed the polygraph. You’re not only on the East Coast when your wife is murdered, you’re staying in the same hotel. And you were completely unreachable for hours after she was killed and CeCe taken.”
“Why should I tell you anything if you don’t trust me?” Bernard asked, raking his fingers through his long hair. “Do you want to help find CeCe or not?”
“Do you want to?” Conor asked. “Think carefully before you tell more lies, because no one can do anything without the truth.”
“I knew that Madeleine loved this hotel when she was a young girl,” Bernard said, and he paused, looking at the ceiling.
Conor knew he was about to ease his way out of the outright lie. He had come into first the police interrogation and now Conor’s questioning leaning heavily on his charm and fame, assuming that he could convince people of what he wanted them to believe. Did he know how obvious he was?
“So, no, it wasn’t a complete coincidence,” Bernard continued, “that I chose the Ocean House as my home base while being here. The truth is, I dreamed of Madeleine walking through the door.”
“Did you see her? Did your paths cross?” Conor asked.
“No, absolutely not. But I told you—I needed privacy, and I tend to be a hermit when working. I barely left my room.”
“What about ‘scouting’? How were you supposed to find the perfect location without actually going out to look for it?”
“The weather changed my plans. My assistant always makes the initial visits—consults with local film boards, real estate agents, you know.”
“Is your assistant here with you?” Conor asked.
“No,” Bernard said. “Marie-Laure sometimes travels with me, but not this time. She visited Watch Hill in advance. She gave me plenty of places to consider.”
“Where is she now?”
“I assume in Los Angeles.” Bernard stared at Conor. “There is nothing romantic between us. Rien du tout.”
Interesting statement, Conor thought. Considering he hadn’t asked.
“Back to you, being a hermit and staying in your room,” Conor said. “Didn’t you come down for meals?”
“No. I happen to love room service. I will confess, I did walk around the hotel late at night, when people were presumably asleep. I am a fan of some of the artists represented here. I wanted time to examine their work.”
“Why late at night?”
“Because I didn’t want to be seen. To be recognized. One good thing about being here is that TMZ isn’t camped outside at all times. My divorce—Madeleine’s and mine—has given the tabloids a great gift. They can’t get enough of it. In LA I can’t leave my house or office without some asshole shoving a camera into my face.”
“But you said they’re not here.”
“Conor, on social media everyone can have their own private TMZ. Before the divorce, the worst that would happen would be someone with a cell phone bothering me in a restaurant. I tend to get angry, Conor. The rudeness, the lack of respect. People with cell phones catch me in the moment and post the photos. I want to rip their phones right out of their hands, shove them into the street. But I never do.”
Conor took note—angry rant, and the kind of fury that made him want to grab someone’s phone and throw it away. Bernard was minimizing it, but it was a thought of violence.
“Listen,” Bernard said, seeming to read Conor’s thoughts. “I wouldn’t actually do it. And you know why? Because some other idiot with another cell phone would catch me throwing punches, and that would be the story: ‘Bernard Lafond and his rage problem.’ It’s been a headline before; I don’t need to see it again.”
“Were you very angry at Maddie?”
Bernard shrugged. “Of course. Some of the time. But mostly just very sad. You know, in therapy I’m told that anger is a cover-up for sorrow. Fury is less painful to feel than grief or sadness. I use it in my work.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I am known for my seething. And then I break down and the tears come.”
“You can cry on cue?”
Bernard shrugged. “That’s acting.”
“Were you furious at John Morrison?” Conor asked.
“You mean Johnny?” Bernard asked, glaring at Conor. “He’s a flea. Not worth a second of my emotion. She divorced him so long ago; he’s not in our lives.”
That didn’t square with what Hadley had told Conor, and if Bernard truly didn’t care, why did Johnny’s name set him off? Didn’t fleas bite, and did that mean Johnny had gotten to him?
“But Maddie and Johnny remained friends,” Conor said. “Isn’t that true?”
“I don’t waste my thoughts on that. Madeleine was polite to him, I’m sure. She’s kind. That is just how she is.”
“I hear you weren’t happy about Maddie and CeCe visiting him and Hadley at the dock,” Conor said. “The things you said caused Maddie to get a restraining order against you, to stop your visitation. You made threats, saying Maddie would end up like Désirée? You said that to CeCe?”
“Yes, I lost control. But not because of Johnny. I was upset by the fact my wife and daughter were a continent away from me. It was too much to take. Nothing to do with him. I regret saying what I said about Désirée, especially to CeCe. I didn’t mean to scare my daughter.”
“Okay,” Conor said, knowing there was much more there.
“I hope the police are questioning Johnny,” Bernard said, again putting the name in invisible italics. Conor felt his loathing come through. “He is pathetic. I’m sure he resents Madeleine for her success, while he’s stuck painting tacky little municipal advertisements on walls.”
“He works closely with your sister-in-law,” Conor said. “Is that how you see Hadley, too?”
“No,” Bernard said. “Look, Hadley isn’t as talented as Madeleine, but no one is. Still, Hadley has vision; her wall murals have much more soul than his. It kills me that Hadley has lost Madeleine—she loved her as much as I do. We were all very close. The divorce is hard on her, too.”
“She told me that you have other children,” Conor said. “How do they feel about Maddie?”
Bernard exhaled. “Depends on which one you ask. You know, I have several ex-wives, and I’ve noticed that the children’s reactions mirror exactly their mothers’. My second ex-wife is halfway decent. Others hate when I am happy and loved, which means, therefore, they hate Madeleine. That is just a fact.”
“Where do they live?”
“The ex-wives? Paris and Bordeaux. One might be in London. I can’t keep track; she is peripatetic.”
“And your kids?”
“Paris, London, Saint Paul de Vence, Venice. Venice, Italy, not California.” He sighed. “Look, it’s been years, and the dust has settled. They have their own lives. They had nothing to do with this; I don’t want them harassed. I told Detective Harrigan the same thing. Leave them alone.”
Conor was pretty sure Joe was already tracking down the Lafond offspring, but he held that inside.
“Tell me about Genevieve Dickinson,” Conor said. He figured that he might as well cover as many bases as possible as long as Bernard was talking.
“Madeleine rarely spoke of her. I know that it hurt her deeply at the beginning, to be sued by someone she thought was a friend. To have her name dragged through the mud because this person made a false claim,” Bernard said.
“Did you ever meet her?” Conor asked.
“Funny you should ask,” Bernard said. “Yes, our paths did cross once, but in a most peculiar way.”
“What way?”
“I was shooting a film in Quebec. A ridiculous but brilliant surrealist director was trying to tell a story based on Paul Éluard’s poetry. Do you know it?”
“The film or the poetry? Either way, no,” Conor said.
“Well, Éluard was known for his explorations of love. Very beautiful and heartbreaking. But he also wrote about war, the disaster of it, and he was passionately antifascist. The love of his life was Gala, and when I played him in that film, I drew on my love for Madeleine.”
“Tell me about meeting Genevieve.”
“Oh yes. On the film set. It was supposed to be a small town outside Paris, but the producers decided to be cheap and shoot in Canada instead of doing it properly. A ‘prestige production’ they called it—what a joke. No wonder the film died a quick death. She was working for the local production company as the continuity editor.”
“What’s that?”
“You know, to make sure things stay consistent from shot to shot. Like, if I am smoking a cigarette in one take, it has to be the same length in the next one. Or if my shirt is buttoned to the top, or if my hair is falling into my right eye—these things must stay the same way throughout the scene. Genevieve sat behind the second AD with her notepad, keeping track of those details.”
“How did you put it together?” Conor asked. “That she was the woman who sued Maddie?”
“Because Madeleine and CeCe came to visit me on set,” Bernard said. “And there was Genevieve. Madeleine was certain Genevieve was there to ambush her—confront her. Because of course she knew who I was, and who I was married to.”
“Was there a big confrontation?” Conor asked.
“No. Madeleine kept her cool and stayed away from Genevieve. She handled it very well, with great equanimity.”
“And Genevieve?”
“It was all very civil,” Bernard said.
Brian came to ask if they would like another drink or to order food. Bernard said yes, one more martini. Conor declined.
“Of course, now there is no more privacy, even here,” Bernard said. “After these hours in the blizzard. The news trucks have arrived, I’ve been forced to speak with a lawyer, and I am going to make a statement. I am going to beg for Cecelia to come home. Do you think she is still alive?”
His question was blunt, matter of fact. There seemed to be no emotion behind it. He might have been asking about the weather.
“We have to believe she is,” Conor said.
“I didn’t ask you what we have to believe—that sounds like phony hope, cheap spirituality. I asked what you think.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you think?” Conor asked.
And now there was emotion. There were tears. Bernard broke down. “I think she is dead,” he said. “Whoever murdered her mother killed her as well. Murdered my little daughter.”
Conor sat still, watching Bernard sob, his head in his hands. It went on for a long time. The tears were real. The question was: What was he really crying for? The loss of his wife and daughter, or the regret he felt for having discovered a need to kill them?
Brian delivered the martini. Without looking up, Bernard reached for the glass. His hand closed around the stem, and he drained the drink in one gulp. Then he glanced up at Conor, as if to make sure Conor had seen, registered the hard-drinking desperation of a worried father.
19
Hadley stayed at her studio until late that night. Nothing comforted her more than making art, so she put on her painting clothes and stood at her easel, letting dreams flow from her paintbrush. Images of whales and swans, of two sisters in a sailboat, of a tiny child swimming through the stars overhead filled the canvas. On the other side of the room, Johnny sat at the workbench, sketching out plans for their latest commission.
Around eleven, Hadley heard the freight elevator creak and begin its ascent. When the grate rattled open, a tall dark-haired woman bearing grocery bags stepped out.
“I thought you might be hungry,” the woman said.
“Wow, perfect timing, I’m starving,” Johnny said, walking over to kiss the woman, to carry the bags to the kitchen area.
“Hello,” the woman said, approaching Hadley. She put out her hand to shake, then saw that Hadley’s were covered in paint and withdrew it. “I’m Donna Almeida. I’ve been wanting to meet you, Hadley. I am so sorry about Maddie and CeCe.”
“Thank you,” Hadley said.
“She was lovely, your sister,” Donna said. “I am very happy we had the chance to spend time together.”
“I’m glad you met her.”
“Do the police have any idea of who did this?” Donna asked.
“Not that they have told me.”
“Johnny, I haven’t seen you since they questioned you,” Donna said. “It must have been so upsetting.”
“Not the questioning part,” Johnny said. “Just the fact of what happened to Maddie. I still can’t believe it.”
Hadley followed Donna into the kitchen area. She saw that the bags were from Penguins, a café on Thayer Street that stayed open late. Donna set out plates and sandwiches. Johnny opened a bottle of pinot noir. The three of them sat on stools at the counter. Hadley couldn’t eat.
“You were really close to Maddie, weren’t you?” Donna asked.
Hadley nodded.
“I apologize,” Donna said. “I don’t mean to pry. It’s probably too painful for you to talk about . . .”
“No, I like to talk about her,” Hadley said.
“You must have been so happy when she came to Rhode Island to stay,” Donna said.
“I was. Over the moon. After all those years of her being in California, so far away, it was heaven to have her here, just a short drive away.”
“I’m sure she missed you, with all that distance. And then, here she was. Close to two people who meant so much to her—probably more than anyone.”
“Two people?” Hadley asked.
“You and Johnny,” Donna said.
Hadley wouldn’t let her eyes meet Johnny’s. If she did, she had the feeling she’d see humor in them—he wouldn’t kid himself that Maddie considered herself to be in any way as close to him as she was to Hadley.
“No offense to Johnny,” Hadley said, “but I don’t think it was that way.”
Donna rested her head on his shoulder, staring at Hadley with a small smile. She had wavy dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, topaz flecked with green. It was too hard for Hadley to talk about Maddie and her feelings for her, so she changed the subject.
“You’re a lawyer, right?” Hadley asked finally.
“No, a paralegal. I work at a firm in Connecticut.”
