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“He might as well have. That’s what happened. You’re not supposed to change direction in thick fog.”

“And what about the Captain of the Empress?” said Myrna. Clearly the lines had been drawn, with Myrna on one side and Clara on the other. “After the Titanic, maritime law said in fog, all watertight compartments needed to be sealed. Captain Kendall didn’t do that. And he said he was dead in the water when the Empress was hit. He couldn’t have been. The Captain lied.”

“Everybody knows that the boat is leaking / Everybody knows that the captain lied,” Ruth sang in a quivering, but in-tune, voice.

Rosa was nodding, a feathery metronome.

“Well, that’s pleasant,” said Myrna.

“Leonard Cohen,” said Ruth. “‘Everybody Knows.’”

“The captain lied,” thought Isabelle, listening the conversation. What a frightening phrase.

At that moment, her phone rang. She excused herself and walked away.

“Sharon, do you have the exhumation order? Are you on your way down?”

As she listened to the coroner, her brows lowered in disbelief.

Reine-Marie glanced over, then looked away. Had Isabelle’s eyes been lasers, the entire building would have been ash.

“Are you telling me the judge turned down the request?”

“I am. And yes, I’m as surprised as you are. Apparently he’s a staunch Catholic, and disturbing human remains needs more of a reason than just a suspicion. I spoke to him myself, trying to convince him. He said the fact the body was found on top of the grave is not reason enough to exhume. There’s no proof the grave itself is significant. The dead man could have fallen on any of the graves.”

“But, but,” Isabelle sputtered, then reined herself in. “But the date. The ship…”

“I agree, but he turned it around and said if there was a victim of the sinking there, they’d suffered enough.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I know.” Sharon Harris sounded weary. “It’s his faith.”

“He has faith that someone dead for more than a hundred years can still suffer?”

“Apparently. Look, he’s sympathetic—”

“Other words come to mind.”

“—but says he needs more evidence that there’s a connection between the murdered man and the body in the grave.”

“All right. I’ll tell the Chief. He’s not going to be happy.”

“Non. Other words come to mind.”

Isabelle hung up, then, after reading an urgent text from Beauvoir, immediately called the coroner back.

“Sharon, is it possible our victim is a woman?”

There was silence down the line while Dr. Harris looked behind her to the cooler drawer where the remains had been placed.

“I’d be surprised, but it’s possible I made a mistake. We haven’t had the DNA back yet. Let me check. I’ll get back to you.”

“The inquiry blamed the Storstad,” Clara was pointing out.

“Of course it did,” said Myrna. “The inquiry was held in Québec City just days after the sinking. Hardly neutral territory. The CPR, which owned the Empress, was rich, powerful. Canadian. There’s no way it would take blame for the loss of the ship, never mind more than a thousand lives. Not when there’s a nice juicy foreign ship and sailors who barely spoke English or French and couldn’t easily follow the proceedings. And there’s no way Captain Kendall could admit he’d made a mistake. It would’ve ruined him.”

“The Captain lied,” Ruth repeated.