Free The Mazovia Legacy by Michael E. Rose Page B

made it their own. He would not like the changes of the last thirty-five years in Quebec very much at all.
    â€œI believe it was a Friday, madame, ” he said at last. “A Thursday or a Friday in the second week in January.
    This news alarmed Natalia even further. “Friday is the day I got back from Zurich,” she said to Delaney. “That’s the day I found my uncle. He had been dead for maybe one or two days, the police said.”
    At the mention of the word police the old priest moved to conclude their interview.
    â€œI’m afraid I must go,” he said. “I have other duties this morning.”
    He made as if to close the door but Delaney stopped him with a hard look and a question.
    â€œHow did Father Bernard drown?” Delaney asked. “What happened to him?”
    The priest saw this as the line these impertinent visitors should not be allowed to cross.
    â€œThat is a private matter, monsieur. I have tried to help you with some information, and now I must go. Bonjour, merci .”
    He moved again to close the door but Delaney took a step forward and that stopped him. “No,” Delaney said. “It’s important for us to know how he died. You must tell us. How did he drown?”
    â€œYes, how did he drown? Did he drown in the bath?” Natalia asked. Her voice was higher, insistent now. She looked over at Delaney to see if he thought she was making the situation worse.
    The priest’s anger, displeasure, and frustration were intense. He stood and waited, but then seemed to realize that his unwanted guests might now create a scene on the porch of his retreat. He would want that even less.
    â€œFather Bernard died on the ice, monsieur .He was a fisherman, an ice fisherman, and the ice under his fishing shack gave away.”
    â€œHe would fish,” Delaney said.
    â€œ Oui . It was his hobby, monsieur . He liked the quiet of it.”
    â€œHe went into the river? Through the ice?” Delaney recalled seeing as they drove through the gates a couple of ice-fishing shacks out where the river widened into what was known as Lac-SaintLouis. He wondered how anyone living in a place like this would crave a quiet refuge.
    â€œ Oui. ”
    â€œDid they find his body?”
    â€œWhy do you want to know so much?” the priest asked. “Yes, they found his body. He was able to climb back onto the ice.”
    â€œHe climbed out of the water and died on the ice,” Delaney said. “ Oui, monsieur .”
    â€œHe drowned, but they found him on the ice.”
    â€œ Oui, monsieur .”
    â€œThat’s not possible,” Delaney said.
    â€œHow would monsieur know what is possible and what is not?” the priest demanded. “I have tried to help you and that it is all for today. Bonjour . I must go.”
    â€œLook, people do not drown like that,” Delaney insisted. “If he could get back onto the ice he was not drowned. He would have frozen to death maybe, but not drowned.”
    â€œ Monsieur, I have told you it was an unfortunate accident. It was very cold. His head must have rolled back into the water and he drowned. This is what the police said. The police have been here and they have said it was like this. And now I go.”
    The door slammed shut and Delaney and Natalia were left alone on the silent porch. Natalia stood looking shell-shocked. She said nothing. Delaney said nothing either. An intense feeling began to build, however, in Delaney’s guts, a feeling he had had just a few times in his life before.
    It was not fear, though he had felt intense fear many times before. Fear was what you feel when rebels point their AK-47s at you and grin the toothy grin they grin when they are thinking about killing a gringo periodista in the rain. Fear is what you feel when border guards somewhere else take away your passport and throw you in the back of a dank armoured personnel carrier and argue loudly in Spanish