Page 51 of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

Artificial intelligence had exploded into the world fully formed, and was creating havoc with relationships, with elections, with news reporting, and certainly with investigations. It was difficult, though not impossible, to tell what communication was real and what was AI-generated. The images were so lifelike, the content so “real.”

Fortunately, the Sûreté had a team whose main job was making that distinction. He’d forward the message to them.

Once in Montréal, he conducted the regular departmental meeting, listening to his inspectors and agents as they gave him updates on their investigations province-wide. Then he read and signed off on various reports and approved warrants.

When that was done, he placed a call to the coroner.

“Bonjour, Dr. Harris. Any word on the exhumation order?”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I have it.”

The exhumation would have to be approved by a superior court judge, then go to the coroner to enact.

“One more question. So much of the crime scene was destroyed by months of snow and ice, and then the vegetation. It’s unclear to us if the victim was killed there or elsewhere.”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that either.”

“No, I realize that. What I’d like to know is how far could he have gotten on his own, with wounds like that.”

“Huh.” He could hear her sitting down in her rolling chair.

Armand waited while she considered.

“Hard to tell. Those are serious wounds, deep blows to the head, cracking the skull.”

Still, Armand waited while she considered.

“A few feet, maybe. But no more.”

“So, it’s possible he was fatally wounded nearby, maybe even on another grave, then crawled over to that one?”

“What’re you thinking, Armand?”

“I’m just wondering.”

“Then what are you wondering?”

“Whoever he is, he looked for and found a place long hidden. Lost in every way. That took effort. He didn’t just wander in there. He was looking for something. I think he found it. I’m wondering if at the last minute, realizing the danger, he didn’t try to hide his true intentions.”

“And moved away from his goal? To lead his pursuer—”

“His killer.”

“—away. So, where he was found might not be the grave he was looking for. Don’t you think, Armand, his killer might have noticed him crawling across the graveyard?”

He grunted. “Good point. Never mind. Just trying to make sure we don’t miss anything.”

“I think it’s safe to miss that.”

“Thank you, Sharon. Let me know when you have that exhumation order.”

He looked at the time. They had a ten thirty meeting with Clara’s gallery owner in the Mile End quartier.

As he and Beauvoir got in the car, the Chief received a call on speaker.

“Patron, it’s Grenier. We analyzed the email you sent this morning. It’s not AI-generated. But there was a fairly sophisticated effort to hide where it came from. We found there’s an underlying, very subtle code and were able to trace it to a terminal. The email came from a computer at 1155 rue Duluth, in Montréal.”

“Bon, merci. Well done.”