Night Watch Read Online Free

Night Watch
Book: Night Watch Read Online Free
Author: Linda Fairstein
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers
Pages:
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said, “then would you at least try not to make a fool of yourself in my presence, Captain?”
    “
Je m’excuse, madame
,” Jacques said, bowing his head in mock respect. “I didn’t know this was a serious affair.”
    “It’s none of your business what kind of relationship it is, Jacques,” Luc said, moving closer to me.
    It seemed that the captain had pinned his hopes on a connection between the corpse and my lover, simply because she was clothed in white.
    “Even if it’s the reason that you’re leaving for New York?”
    Luc wagged his finger back and forth. “Not leaving, Jacques. I’m opening a place there for the winter season, when things are slow here.”
    Claude Chenier stepped forward and circled us to get onto the rickety wooden dock that was about to receive the flat-bottomed boat.
    “Perhaps it’s time to tell the captain that someone left piles of bones and skulls on your doorsteps during the night,” I added, to bring the point to Jacques’s attention. “Maybe there is a link to what happened here.”
    “What do you mean? Tell me, my friend.”
    Luc ignored both of us and followed Claude onto the dock. “Let’s get this done first, then I’ll show you what Alex is talking about.”
    The other officer got off the pontoon to make room for the three of us. Luc boarded and identified himself to Emil. They embraced, speaking rapidly in French, and briefly reminisced about the past, while Jacques and I followed and grabbed onto the railing that sided the boat before it took off again.
    “You have a list of all your guests, Luc?”
    “Of course. It’s in my office. I’ll have it for you as soon as you get me back to town.”
    By the time we were halfway across, the mosquitoes had found every exposed piece of my flesh. I swatted them away from my mouth and nose.
    “Are you familiar with this part of the forest?” Jacques asked Luc.
    “We all played here as kids. I know it pretty well.”
    “Have you been lately?”
    Luc clearly didn’t like the tone of the question.
    “Just the other day, in fact. Before Alex arrived. You could create an entire meal from this pond.” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on Jacques.
    “I’ve never been fond of frogs’ legs.”
    Luc squatted and reached into the water, wrenching loose from its roots in the mud a green frond which housed the small bud of a lotus flower. “A real culinary delicacy, Jacques. Every bit of this plant is edible.” Luc peeled open the flower and showed us the seeds before he swallowed a handful, almost daring the police captain to speak what was on his mind. “Tastes just like chestnuts. And the roots themselves cook up like sweet potatoes. We served them last weekend.”
    There was no dock on the shoreline of the pond where the body had been retrieved. Emil gently beached the boat, warning us to hold on as it slid in hard against the muddy embankment.
    Jacques disembarked first, then Luc, who extended his hand to help me off. The captain walked toward the covered body, squatted at the far corner of the blanket, and drew it aside to reveal to us the back of the young woman.
    The white clothes were still sopping wet and clung to her skin. Her head faced away from Luc and me, obscured by the clumped strands of long brown hair that crossed her cheek.
    “You know the girl, Luc?” Jacques asked. “You bring her lotus picking with you the other day?”
    I spoke before Luc could answer, though I resented the captain’s question. “Don’t show your ignorance, Jacques. She’s been in the water only several hours.”
    His silence suggested he didn’t know anything about postmortems.
    “See her skin, Captain?” I walked to his side and kneeled in the muck, face-to-face with the deceased, whom I guessed to be younger than I by seven or eight years—maybe she was about thirty. “There are no wrinkles, no ‘washerwoman’ effect, as we call it at home. She hasn’t been dead very long.”
    “And that stuff—that pink stuff coming
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