Fontainebleau

Madeline Sonik

• Publisher: Anvil Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781772141481
• eBook ISBN: 9781772141788
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

The city of Fontainebleau, situated on the banks of the Detroit River, is undergoing growing pains and strange things are happening.There's something poisonous in the water, something menacing in the sky, and the soil, laced with an ancient curse, is yielding up unidentified bones along with corn.In this collection of linked stories—part surreal picaresque, part dark comedy, and part murder mystery—magic meets the mundane as misfits and miscreants struggle to free themselves from untenable situations. A girl with mermaid syndrome disappears into a field, a fugitive boy dreams of finding anonymity in Toronto while his abandoned pregnant girlfriend hallucinates his second coming, and a nostalgic chambermaid finds her memories vanish when she puts on a stranger's wig.There's a rash of killings in the city that attract a lovesick police officer.No one knows who's responsible for the crimes, but the city has plenty of candidates, like the crazy son of a judge who murdered a man in Disney World and the grieving vandal who's obsessed with the idea of cutting a woman in half.Then there are the abusive husbands, snuff film producers, inconspicuous con women, and pederasts who live secret double lives. Are the characters in this oddly probable world masters or victims of their own fate? How do their lives intersect? Is it likely that destruction will ultimately prevail over this desolate land, or will consciousness, like a flaming firebird, lead at least some of the city's inhabitants to self-acceptance, redemption, or escape? (Includes book group and study guide.)

Corrosion

ELISE COMBED her fingers through her hair. “My daughter’s been missing for over twenty-four hours,” she told police officer Roger Foley. “Julia Wilson,” she said, “that’s my daughter’s name. She’s five foot two. She turned sixteen in July.” Elise knew she sounded business-like, curt—almost as if she’d been rehearsing these details. She watched the gangly officer collect a form from a drawer and scribble down information, then she reached into her handbag and pulled out a picture. It was a recent school photo in which Julia appeared clean, well-cared for and happy. The picture was encased in a delicate antique frame.

“She’s pretty,” Roger commented, feeling his heart skip.

“Yes,” Elise’s voice was impatient.

“Was there trouble at home?” he asked.

Elise pointed at Julia’s face in the photo: laughing brown eyes, thick black hair that swept over one shoulder, a perfect smile. “Does that look like a troubled child?”

The officer glanced at the photograph. “No hard words pass between you?”

“We quarrelled now and again,” Elise confessed, “but Julia would never run off. She wasn’t like that. She was an angel.”

Roger shook his head. “Kids can do crazy things sometimes.”

“My daughter was extremely sensible,” Elise said firmly. “She’d never allow an impulsive heart to rule her head. She’d never run away.”

“Was there anyone who she was particularly close to? Any friends?” He tapped the picture’s frame.

“Julia had many acquaintances, but no one she’d consider a real friend, except for me. We were very close. Most of the girls she went to school with, understandably, were jealous.”

“Any boyfriends?” the officer proceeded.

“There were no boys,” Elise said. “Julia was shy with the opposite sex.”

“How did she get on with Mr. Wilson?” he asked.

“There is no Mr. Wilson,” Elise said.

“I don’t mean to offend, Ma’am, but sometimes an estranged husband...”

“I’m a widow, sir.” Elise’s eyes met Roger’s.

“I’m sorry,” Roger said, and he sincerely meant it. There was so much pain and suffering in the world, so much misery. He felt the familiar disconnect, which sent his observing consciousness to the upper corner of the room and turned his body into nothing more than a functional husk.

“Believe me, I’ve thought of everyone. I’ve phoned everyone. No one knows where she is.”

“I’d better have a list of names, anyway, Ma’am,” he said mechanically, witnessing his own exquisite composure. “Just for the record... of people you’ve phoned, and teachers at her school, and anyone else she’s had contact with. We’ll do our best. In the meantime, go home and wait. She’ll come home on her own, that’s my bet.”

“I wish I shared your confidence,” Elise said. “I just have the feeling she won’t be found alive.”

Roger was having another out-of-body experience. He watched himself set a ham and lettuce sandwich on a desk. “She stood there and said she knew we wouldn’t recover her daughter alive. It’s creepy.” He was up by the top shelves in Detective Sergeant Gary Gilley’s office, listening to his own tough voice rant.

“After you’ve been around a while, nothing’s creepy,” Gilley said.

“But she was so certain.” Roger marvelled at his performance, his ability to keep his weighty tearful grief in check. “I was sure it was just a little battle, you know, the kid asserting some independence. ‘She’ll come home,’ I told her. You could have knocked me down with a feather this morning when we got news she was the Detroit River corpse. Who in hell would do a thing like that to a pretty, well-brought up kid like her?”

“There are some real sick bastards out there,” Gilley said. “You want a root beer?”

“I mean this kid came from a good home. She was an honour roll student. Her mother doted on her,” Roger’s voice mechanically continued. “I was sure she’d show up in a day or two, say she’d been hiding out at a friend’s place, even maybe a boyfriend’s place.”

“But not a very pretty cadaver, eh?” Gilley said, popping the tab on his root beer. “Well, at least it caught your attention. Maybe now you can stop all of your ocDing over that missing deformed kid, what’s her name, ‘Starfreak?’ and get your real work done.”

“The name’s Celeste and I wasn’t ocDing,” Roger’s voice was belligerent. He’d been sure the remains dredged from the Detroit River had belonged to her. He was only waiting for confirmation—only waiting, to tell Celeste’s sister, Lizzie, and end what he imagined must be unbearable suffering. Now, Lizzie’s ordeal would continue and pretty Julia Wilson was gone, instead of a kid with fused legs and missing organs—a kid, though he’d never say this to Lizzie, who’d probably be better off dead.

“The worst is that the guy who did it is probably long gone,” Gilley said, ignoring Roger’s tone and demeanour. “He’s probably celebrating in some crack house in Detroit. He’ll probably practice his little hemicor... hemicorporectomy,” Gilley stumbled over the word, “on a few more pretty girls before someone figures out who he is.”

“You’re too cynical,” Roger said.

“You’re just new,” Gilley leaned back in his chair. “Once you’ve been here a while, you’ll see. Sickos like that don’t live in communities where everyone knows everyone else’s business. It’s too risky. Just draw your blinds too often and people start talking.”

“So this place is okay to murder in, but he wouldn’t want to live here?” Roger noticed his tone growing more confrontational. He didn’t like it, but sometimes his voice had a will of its own. “Are you saying we don’t even try to find this guy?”

“I’m not saying we don’t try.” Gilley rolled his brown paper lunch bag into a ball and aimed at the garbage. “I’m just saying we shouldn’t be hard on ourselves if we fail.”

The bell rang and the rush of noise in the stark school halls sounded like an explosion.

Roger Foley, in plain clothes and sunglasses, was having a good day—a day in which he hadn’t once slipped beyond the bounds of his body or experienced that weird helpless disconnect that he’d come to loathe.

He followed a group of boys from Julia’s former homeroom class out into the smoking area. “What are you, a narc?” Larry Grant, a thin, stroppy boy asked. “And don’t give me you’re a student here, ’cause you’ll make me laugh so hard I’ll piss myself.”

“Neither,” Roger said. “I just want to know what you can tell me about Julia Wilson.”

“Stacked,” rasped Chuck Evans, a boy with spiky blond hair and black leather boots.

“You her boyfriend or something?” He lit his cigarette.

“No, I thought you might be,” Roger said.

“Ha, I wish.” The boy leered. Smoke streamed through a gap in his teeth.

“She wouldn’t have you?” Roger asked.

“Let’s just say, she liked older men... old enough to own their own wheels... their own companies preferred.” He took another drag of his shabby cigarette. “Why do you care? You a cop?”

“Does it make a difference?” Roger asked.

“Talk to my lawyer,” Evans said.

“Why? You guilty of something?”

“I ain’t done nothin’,” Evans said, “I just try to stay away from cops, that’s all. I have a kind of allergic reaction.” The other boys snickered.

“Then, it’s probably more comfortable for you to talk to me here than down at the station,” Roger said.

“Oh Jeez, a cop! What is it, Friday the thirteenth?”

These boys reminded Roger of the teenager he’d been: adrift, angry, a prison term waiting to happen. “Tell me,” Roger said more patiently, “a lot of people seem to think Julia stayed away from boys, do you know why?”

“Duh... you ever met her old lady? Mrs. Tight Ass Wilson? She wouldn’t let her perfect daughter crap alone. Used to bring her to school every day in that Lincoln and pick her up every afternoon. Julia used to sneak around like a rat. Climb out of her bedroom window at night. She used to skip classes, too. We’d watch her from here, all us guys. She’d check to make sure there were no teachers around, then she’d split. There was this old guy in a bright blue Firebird convertible who used to wait for her at the end of the street. He was some ex-teacher from some public school, or something, the guys said. I don’t know where he took her, but they tore out of here almost every day. He’d always have her back by 3:00, though.”

“Any idea what his name was?”

“None,” the boy said. “We just called him Julia’s old guy. She liked old guys. I told you that already, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Roger said.

“The only young guy she ever had anything to do with was Chet Edwards. He’s a quarterback on the football team. That didn’t last too long.” A bell rang and Evans dropped his partially smoked butt on the ground. “Gotta go,” he told Roger.

“Why didn’t it last?” Roger asked.

“Because she was a bitch,” Evans said. The other boys were already filing out of the smoking area.

“If I think of more questions, I’ll know where to find you, right?” Roger said.

“Oh Jeez,” Evans responded, “I won’t be holding my breath.”

Coach Hanley signalled Chet Edwards, a huge, well-built athlete, who looked more like a giant...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Air Time
• Slick
• Transactions
• Flight
• The Mermaid
• The Boy Who Flew
• Illusions
• The Bone Game
• King Rat
• Murder
• Homecoming
• Makeover
• Corrosion
• No Kind of Man
• Misdirection
• The Ice Queen
• Proverbs
• Book Group and Study Guide
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author