Monday Mourning

28

“THE PRINTS WERE LEFT BY TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. NEITHER IS Menard.”

“You’re sure?”

“I sent everything down to Vermont. Their lab compared the latents from our letter opener to those taken when Menard was busted on the DWI charge.”

“But Menard was all over that letter opener.” I wasn’t believing this.

“The guy in the house was. But he’s not Menard.”

“Any hit on the second set?”

“No. We’re running them up here, and sending them through AFIS in the States.”

AFIS is the Automated Fingerprint Information System.

“If the guy’s not Menard, who is he?”

“An exceptionally perceptive question, Dr. Brennan.”

This was not making sense. “Maybe there’s a screwup on the prints.”

“It happens.”

“Charbonneau’s got a college yearbook photo of Menard. Let’s roll it by Cyr and see what he says.”

“Can’t hurt,” Ryan agreed.

I waited, half hoping Ryan would reiterate his offer to come over. He didn’t.

“I’ll get the photo from Char—” Ryan started.

I heard what could have been a female voice in the background, then the muffled sound of a covered mouthpiece.

“Sorry.” Ryan’s voice was pitched lower. “I’ll get the photo from Charbonneau and pick you up at eight.”

I held it together through a Friday night macaroni and cheese dinner for one. Through a long, hot bath. Through the eleven o’clock news.

In bed, in the dark, unbidden images bombarded my mind.

A dingy basement. Bones in a crate. Bones in trenches.

A woman in bed, gray hair trailing across her face. A stained mattress. A lifeless body on stainless steel.

Shattered mirrors. A shard in a painting.

Anne with her luggage. Anne peering over her floral frames.

I felt a scream in my belly, streams of hot wetness on my face.

The last time I’d felt this overwhelmed I’d been with Ryan. I remembered how he’d wrapped his arms around me and stroked my head. How I’d felt his heart beating. How he’d made me feel so strong, so beautiful, so everything-would-be-all-right.

My chest heaved and a sob muscled up my throat.

Sucking air deep into my lungs, I drew my knees to my chest, and let go.

A good cry is more therapeutic than a one-hour bump with a shrink.

I awoke purged of all the grief and pent-up frustration.

Rejuvenated.

In control.

Until I made a jackass of myself twelve hours later.

Tom called at seven to ask if I’d heard from Anne. I hadn’t.

He’d established that his wife had made no reservations for a flight from Montreal to Charlotte for any day that week. I told him I’d talked to an SQ officer.

Tom suggested Anne had probably gone off by herself to think and we would hear from her soon. I agreed. We both needed to believe it.

Hanging up, my eye once again fell on the mirror. Nine days since the break-in and the cops had found zip.

Flash recall.

Anne’s hunk in 3C.

Mother of God! Had she gone off with some stranger she’d met on an airplane? Could that stranger be the same person who had vandalized my home?

Another flash.

Ryan’s surveillance order.

Were there still stepped-up patrols past my place? Might a passing squad car have seen Anne’s departure?

Unlikely, but worth a shot.

Bundling up, I headed out.

It was another immaculate day. The radio had predicted a high of minus thirty Celsius. At seven fifty-five, we weren’t even close.

Within ten minutes a squad car rolled up the block. I walked to the curb and waved them over.

Yes, they were still passing frequently. Yes, this team had been working days all week. No, they hadn’t seen a towering blonde with a lot of luggage. They promised to ask the guys on the other shifts.

Back to the lobby, where it was at least warm enough for blood to circulate.

Ryan pulled up at eight-ten. I got in. The car smelled of cigarette smoke.

“Bonjour.”

“Bonjour.”

Ryan handed me the faxed photo from Menard’s senior yearbook. The shot was small and dark, with all color and some contrast lost in transmission. But the face was reasonably clear.

“Looks like Menard,” I said.

“And a thousand other guys with red hair, glasses, and freckles.”

I had to agree.

“Any word from your friend?”

“No.”

I shifted my feet. Unzipped my parka. I didn’t know what to do with my eyes. My legs. My arms. I felt awkward and uncomfortable with Ryan. I wasn’t sure I could manage conversation with him.

“Rough night?” Ryan asked.

“Why the sudden interest in my sleep patterns?”

“You look tired.”

I looked at Ryan. The shadows under his eyes seemed deeper, his whole face more clenched.

What the hell’s going on with you? I wanted to ask.

“I’ve got a number of things on my plate,” I said.

Ryan put a finger to the tip of my nose. “Don’t we all.”

Twenty minutes later we were on Cyr’s porch.

Ryan had phoned ahead, and Cyr answered on the first ring. This time the old coot was fully clothed.

In the living room, Cyr took the same recliner he’d occupied during my visit with Anne.

Ole Hopalong.

Put it away, Brennan.

I introduced Ryan and let him do the talking.

“Monsieur Cyr, nous avon—”

“Speak English for the little lady.” Cyr grinned at me. “Where’s that good-looking friend of yours?”

“Anne’s gone home.”

Cyr cocked his head. “She’s a pistol, that one.”

“This will just take a moment.” Ryan pulled the fax from his pocket and handed it to Cyr. “Is that Stephen Menard?”

“Who?”

“Stéphane Ménard. The man who ran the pawnshop in your building.”

Cyr glanced at the fax.

“Tabernouche! I may look like Bogie, but I’m eighty-two years old.”

Cyr pushed to his feet, shuffled across the room, and turned on the TV. Picking up a large, boxy lens attached by a cord to the back of the set, he flipped a button and scanned the fax.

Menard’s face filled the screen.

“That’s terrific,” I said.

“Videolupe. Great little gadget. Magnifies so I can read just about everything.”

Cyr moved the lens casually over the photo, then focused on Menard’s ear. The image zoomed until the upper edge of the helix almost filled the screen.

“Nope.” Cyr straightened. “That’s not your boy.”

“How do you know?” I was astonished at his certainty.

Cyr lay down the lens, shuffled back, and crooked a finger at me.

I stood.

“See that?” Cyr fingered a small bump of cartilage on the upper part of his ear’s outer rim.

“A Darwin’s tubercle,” I said.

Cyr straightened. “Smart lady.”

Ryan was watching us, a look of confusion on his face.

“Never knew anybody had bumps like mine, so one time I showed them to my doctor. He told me it was a recessive trait, gave me some articles.” Cyr flicked his ear. “Know how these little buggers got their name?”

“They were once thought to be a vestige of pointed ears on quadrupeds.”

Cyr bounced on his toes, delighted.

“What does this have to do with Menard?” Ryan asked.

“Menard had the biggest bastards I’ve ever seen. I teased him about it. Told him one day I’d find him grazing on trees or eating small furry things in the basement. He wasn’t amused.”

Ryan rose. “And the man in the photo?”

Cyr held out the fax. “No bumps.”

At the door, Ryan paused.

“One last question, sir. Did you and Menard part on good terms?”

“Hell no. I threw his ass out.”

“Why was that?”

“Got tired of complaints from other tenants.”

“Complaints about what?”

“Unsavory clientele, mostly. Some about noise late at night.”

“What kind of noise?”

“Damned if I know. But I’d heard enough carping. Is that a word? Carping?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like a fish.”

Ryan dropped me at home, apologized, said he’d be on duty all weekend. He promised to phone if he heard anything on Menard or the other set of prints. Or anything on Anne.

I didn’t ask if his work schedule extended into Saturday night.

Screw it. Who cares?

My answering machine held no messages.

Katy wanted me in Charlotte by the twenty-second, so I tried busying myself with tasks that had to be done before my departure.

Bed linen. Plants. Gift wrapping of packages for the caretaker, the techs at the lab.

Ryan?

I set that one aside.

I also busied myself with tasks that just had to be done.

Laundry. Cat litter. Mail.

I blasted Christmas music, hoping jingling bells or heralding angels might kick-start me into a holiday mood.

No go. All I could think about were the bones on my lab tables, the printouts on my blotter, and where the hell was Anne.

At three, I gave in and headed to Wilfrid-Derome.

Typical Saturday afternoon. The lab was empty and still as a tomb.

One Demande d’expertise form lay on my desk.

Four months earlier an elevator worker had disappeared from an inspection job at a building in Côte St-Luc. Thursday his decomposed body was found in Parc Angrignon in LaSalle. X-rays showed multiple fractures. Pelletier wanted me to analyze the trauma when the bones were cleaned.

Setting the form aside, I again took up Claudel’s list.

Overhead, the fluorescents hummed. Outside, gusts whined around the window casings. Now and then some frozen windborne particle ticked a pane.

Simone Badeau. Too old.

Isabelle Lemieux. Dental work.

Marie-Lucille d’Aquin. Black.

Micheline Thibault. Too young.

Tawny McGee. Way too young.

Céline Dallaire. Broken collarbone at age fourteen.

The names went on and on.

After an hour I switched to Charbonneau’s list.

Jennifer Kay. Esther Anne Pigeon. Elaine Masse. Amy Fish. Theresa Perez.

Now and then I crossed to the lab to recheck a bone, hoping to find some detail I’d overlooked. Each time I returned disappointed.

When I’d finished with the names, I went back through the lists by age. Then height. Date of disappearance.

I knew I was grasping at straws, but it was like a compulsion. I couldn’t stop myself.

Down the corridor, I heard the security doors swoosh.

Place of disappearance.

Terrebonne. Anjou. Gatineau. Beaconsfield.

Butte County. Tehama County. San Mateo County.

At six I sat back, thoroughly discouraged. Two and a half hours, and I’d accomplished nothing.

Footsteps sounded hollow in the empty hall. Probably LaManche. Besides me, the chief would be the only one punching in on a Saturday night.

Congratulations, Brennan. You have the same social life as a sexagenarian with seven grandchildren.

Back to the lists.

I still had the persistent feeling I was missing some connection.

What?

The cut marks?

All three skulls bore evidence of sharp instrument trauma. With the girl in the leather shroud, the cuts appeared to have been made postmortem. With the others, the cuts appeared to have been made to fresh bone. With all three, the cuts were limited to the ear region.

Death sequence?

Carbon 14 dating suggested the girl in the leather shroud died in the eighties, the other two in the nineties.

Place of origin?

Strontium isotope analysis suggested the girl in the leather shroud might have been born or lived her early childhood in north-central California, then moved to Vermont or Quebec. The others might have lived their whole lives in Quebec.

Might have.

Maybe I was hanging too much on the strontium. Maybe the California angle was a dead end.

Another swoosh, then the sound of voices.

But Menard attended grad school in Chico. Chico is in north-central California. Menard was a renter where the dead girls were found. The period of his tenancy coincided with the timing of at least two of the deaths. Louise Parent saw him with young girls on two occasions. One running. One unconscious.

Was the California link mere coincidence?

My hindbrain thought sat up, settled back.

What?

Try as I might, I couldn’t lure the thought from its lair.

Back to Menard.

Menard took possession of his grandparents’ home in Montreal in 1988.

But the guy living there now isn’t Menard, though he’s using Menard’s name.

I threw my pen on the blotter.

“So who the hell is he?”

“I don’t know.”

I jumped at the voice.

Looking up, I saw Ryan standing in my doorway.

“But we got a hit on his girlfriend.”