Bones to Ashes (8 page)

“The buddies checked out?”

“And the family and the boyfriend.”

Ryan sipped. His hand looked jarringly male holding the tiny white cup.

“Nineteen ninety-nine. DOA number one. The body of an adolescent female is snagged by a boat propeller in the Rivière des Mille Îles. You worked the case with LaManche.”

I remembered. “The corpse was putrefied. I estimated the girl was white, age fourteen or fifteen. We did a facial reconstruction, but she was never ID’d. The bones are in my storage room.”

“That’s the one.”

Ryan knocked back the remainder of his espresso.

“Two thousand one. DOA number two. A teenaged girl is found in Dorval, on the shore below the Forest and Stream supper club. According to LaManche, the body’s been in the river less than forty-eight hours. He does an autopsy, concludes the girl was dead when she hit the water, finds no evidence of shooting, stabbing, or bludgeoning. Pictures are circulated throughout the province. No takers.”

I remembered that case, too. “The girl was eventually buried as a Jane Doe.”

Ryan nodded, moved up in time.

“Two thousand two. MP number two. Claudine Cloquet pedals her Schwinn three-speed through a wooded area in Saint-Lazare-Sud. Claudine is twelve and mildly retarded. The bike is found two days later. Claudine is not.”

“An unlikely runaway.”

“Father’s sketchy, but alibis out. So does the rest of the family. Father’s since died, mother’s been hospitalized twice for depression.

“Two thousand four. MP number three. September first. Anne Girardin disappears from her Blainville home in the middle of the night.” Ryan’s jaw muscles bulged, relaxed. “Kid’s ten years old.”

“Pretty young to take off on her own.”

“But not unheard of. And this was a streetwise ten-year-old. Again, the old man’s a loser, but nothing’s found to tie him to the disappearance. Ditto for the rest of the household. A canvass of the neighborhood turns up zip.”

We both fell silent, recalling the massive search for Anne Girardin. Amber Alert. SQ. SPVM. Tracker dogs. Local volunteers. Personnel from NCECC, the National Child Exploitation Coordination Center. Nothing was found. Subsequent tips all proved bogus.

“And now I’ve got DOA number three, the Lac des Deux Montagnes floater.”

“Six girls. Three recovered in or near water. Three missing and unlikely to be runaways,” I summarized. “Any other links?”

Again, a tensing in Ryan’s jaw. “We may have a fourth MP. Phoebe Jane Quincy, age thirteen. Lives in Westmount. Missing since leaving home for a dance lesson day before last.”

Ryan took a photo from his pocket and placed it on the table. A girl mimicking Marilyn in
The Seven Year Itch,
dress ballooning around her. Backlighting outlined the thin figure through the diaphanous white fabric.

Thirteen?

“Who took this picture?”

“Parents have no idea. Found it hidden in the bottom of a dresser drawer. We’re looking into it.”

I stared at the photo. Though not overtly sexual, the image was disturbing.

“Her friends say she wants to be a model,” Ryan said.

She could be, I thought, studying the slender form, long hair, and luminous green eyes.

“A lot of little girls want to be models,” I said.

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Kelly Sicard also had runway dreams,” Ryan said.

“Slim lead.” I slid the photo back toward Ryan.

“Slim beats none,” Ryan said.

We discussed the cases for a few more minutes. Mostly, I listened.

Ryan isn’t rattled by violence or death. He sees both frequently, has learned to mask his emotions. But I know the man. Know that the abuse of those powerless to protect themselves affects him deeply. It affects me, too. I was keenly aware of my feelings at that moment, having spent the past hours with the bones of a child.

Though Ryan claimed only fatigue, I could see through to the sadness and frustration. Fair enough. Comes with the job. But did I sense something else? Was some further factor contributing to Ryan’s agitation, robbing him of his usual lightheartedness, goading him to smoke? Was I being paranoid?

After a while, Ryan signaled for a check.

Returning to the lot, I started my Mazda and pointed the headlights for home. I needed to rest. To shower. To think.

Needed a drink I couldn’t have.

Turning west onto René-Lévesque, I lowered a window. The air was warm and moist and unnaturally heavy, the sky a black screen on which occasional flickers of lightning danced.

The night smelled of rain.

A storm would soon break.

T
HE NEXT DAY PASSED WITHOUT WORD FROM HIPPO OR RYAN. Harry was another story. Little sister had made appointments to view a downtown Houston penthouse, a horse ranch in Harris County, and beachfront property at South Padre Island. I suggested she take time to ponder what she truly wanted post-Arnoldo, instead of impulsively chasing around southeast Texas hoping for inspiration. She suggested I lighten up. I’m paraphrasing.

I slogged through the mess in my office, then resumed teasing dirt from the Rimouski remains. I often give nicknames to my unknowns. Somehow, it personalizes them for me. Though he’d been only marginally involved in the case, I’d come to think of the skeleton as Hippo’s girl.

The more detail I revealed about Hippo’s girl, the more puzzling the picture became.

Around eleven, a skull came in from Iqaluit, a pinpoint on the Quebec map a zillion miles north on Frobisher Bay. I looked the place up. Though I wanted to stay with Hippo’s girl, I stuck with my promise to LaManche, and started on the new arrival.

Leaving the lab around five, I delivered the Lac des Deux Montagnes bone plug and sock to the biologist at McGill, then stopped by Hurley’s for my version of a pint: Diet Coke on the rocks with a twist. It wasn’t for the soft drink, of course, but for the contact with friends the pub would provide.

As I passed through the game room, I glanced up at the wall-mounted TV. A classic school portrait showed as a backdrop to a grimfaced anchorman. The young girl’s eyes were green and mischievous, her hair center-parted and pulled into shoulder-length braids. Phoebe Quincy.

A small group of regulars was gathered around the downstairs bar: Gil, Chantal, Black Jim, and Bill Hurley himself. They greeted me, faces somber, then recommenced airing their views on the Quincy disappearance.

“Sweet mother o’ Jesus, thirteen years old.” Chantal shook her head and signaled for another pint. A Newfoundlander, she could outdrink the best of the best. And often did.

“Hope to God she’s just gone walkabout.” Black Jim’s accent changed with his story of the moment. No one knew where Jim really originated. Every time someone asked, he produced a different tale. Tonight he was speaking Aussie.

“How long’s she been gone?” Bill signaled the bartender and a Diet Coke was set before me.

“Three days. Went to dance class. Sufferin’ Jesus.” Chantal.

“You involved?” Bill asked me.

“No.”

“Ryan?”

“Yes.”

“Where is Ryan? You finally manage to lose that slug?”

I sipped my Coke.

“It doesn’t look good, does it?” Gil resembled an aging French version of the Fonz.

“She may turn up,” I said.

“They think some bugger nipped her?” Black Jim.

“I don’t know.”

“Can you imagine what her poor parents are going through?” Gil.

“They catch the bastard, I’ll volunteer to cut off his dick, bye.” Chantal.

I stared into my mug, rethinking my decision to delay going home. I’d wanted to shed the mantle of sorrow and death, arrive home diverted and refreshed, but it seemed there would be no relief tonight.

What
had
happened to Phoebe? Was she out there on the streets, alone but stubbornly following her own play? Or was she being held in some dark place, helpless and terrified? Was she even alive? How were her parents surviving the endless hours of uncertainty?

And what about the corpse from Lac des Deux Montagnes? Who was she? Had she been murdered?

And the other girl in my lab. Hippo’s girl. When had she died? An irrational leap of thought. Could the skeleton be Évangéline Landry? Where was Évangéline?

I realized Bill was talking to me. “Sorry. What?”

“I asked where Ryan is.”

Obviously, word hadn’t reached the pub that Ryan and I had split. Or whatever it was we’d done.

“I don’t know.”

“You OK? You look beat.”

“It’s been a tough couple of days.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” said Chantal.

I listened to the conversation a few minutes longer. Then I downed my Coke and set out for home.

Friday morning brought no new anthropology cases. I was composing a report on the Iqaluit cranium when Ryan showed up in my lab.

“Nice do.”

My left hand did an automatic hair-behind-the-ears tuck, then I realized Ryan’s remark was directed at the skull. It was sun-baked white, its crown capped with dried green moss.

“It’s been lying on the tundra a very long time.”

Normally Ryan would have asked how long. He didn’t. I waited for him to get to the point of his visit.

“Got a call from Hippo Gallant this morning. Guy named Joseph Beaumont is doing a nickel to dime at Bordeaux.”

Bordeaux is the largest of Quebec’s correctional facilities.

“Last night the CFCF six o’clock aired a story on Phoebe Quincy. Included footage on Kelly Sicard and Anne Girardin.”

“Only those two?”

Ryan raised palms in a “who knows why?” gesture. “Beaumont caught the report, requested a sit-down with the warden. Claims he knows where Sicard is buried.”

“Is he credible?”

“Beaumont could just be a con looking to better his life. But the guy can’t be discounted.”

“What’s he saying?”

“Let’s make a deal.”

“And?”

“We’re negotiating. Wanted to give you a heads-up. If the tip’s legit, a team will go out immediately. We’ll want to move before the press scents blood.”

“I’ll be ready.”

I was checking my field kit when Ryan phoned.

“We’re on.”

“When?”

“CSU truck’s already on the move.”

“Meet you in the lobby in five.”

Ryan took Autoroute 15 northwest out of the city, cut east, then north toward Saint-Louis-de-Terrebonne. Midday traffic was light. He briefed me as he drove.

“Beaumont settled for getting his mail privileges reinstated. Three months back the dolt received a copy of
Catch-22
with LSD mixed into the binding glue.”

“Creative pals. What’s his story?”

“Six years ago, Beaumont shared a cell with a guy named Harky Grissom. Claims Grissom told him about a kid he’d waxed back in ninety-seven. Said he picked her up at a bus stop in the middle of the night, took her home, abused her, then smashed her skull with a socket wrench.”

“Beaumont could have read about or listened to reports of Sicard’s disappearance.”

“Grissom told Beaumont the kid he killed was crazy for NASCAR. Claims he lured her with promises she’d meet Mario Gosselin.”

I watched the yellow center line click up Ryan’s shades.

“The bit about Sicard liking stock car racing was dead-on.” Ryan glanced at me and the yellow dashes slid sideways. “And never made public.”

“Where’s Grissom now?”

“Paroled in ninety-nine. Killed in a car wreck the same year.”

“He won’t be of any help.”

“Not without a séance, but he wouldn’t have helped in any case. We have to rely on Beaumont’s memory.”

Ryan hung a right. To both sides lay woods. In moments, I saw what I’d been expecting. Pulled to the side of the asphalt were the LSJML crime scene truck, a black coroner’s van, an SQ patrol unit, an unmarked Chevrolet Impala, and an SUV. Apparently the speed and stealth had worked. No cameras or microphones were present. Not a single poised pen. For now.

Hippo was talking to a pair of uniformed cops. Two morgue technicians smoked by their van. A guy in civvies was filling a bowl from a canteen for a border collie.

Ryan and I got out. The air hit me like caramel syrup. That morning’s
Gazette
had called for rain and a high in the nineties. June in Quebec. Go figure.

Walking toward Hippo, Ryan explained the lay of the land.

“According to Beaumont, Grissom described an abandoned barn off Route 335, in woods backing up to a horse farm.”

I followed the compass of Ryan’s hand.

“The highway’s behind us. The Parc équestre de Blainville is off through those trees. Saint-Lin-Jonction and Blainville lie to the south.”

I felt a heaviness in my chest. “Anne Girardin disappeared in Blainville.”

“Yeah.” Ryan kept his eyes straight ahead.

We reached the group. Hands were shaken, greetings exchanged. Maybe it was the sticky heat. Maybe unease over what we might soon unearth. The usual humor and banter were absent.

“Barn’s about ten yards in.” Hippo’s face was slick, his pits dark. “Good wind will bring her down.”

“What’s been done?” Ryan asked.

“Ran the dog through,” Hippo said.

“Mia,” the dog handler cut in.

The collie’s ears shot up at the sound of its name.

Hippo rolled his eyes.

“Her name is Mia.”
Sylvain
was embroidered on the handler’s shirt.

Hippo is famous for loathing what he dubs “hot-shit” technology. It was clear cadaver dogs got the same fish eye as computers, iris scanners, and touch-tone phones.

“
Mia
didn’t seem overly impressed.” Hippo took a tin from his pocket, thumbed open the lid, and palmed antacid tablets into his mouth.

“The place is full of horseshit.” Sylvain’s voice had an edge. “Throws her off scent.”

“GPR?” I truncated the exchange with a question about ground-penetrating radar.

Hippo nodded, then turned. Ryan and I followed him into the trees. The air smelled of moss and loamy earth. The thick foliage hung undisturbed by even a whisper of movement. Within yards, I was perspiring and breathing deeply.

In thirty seconds we were at the barn. The structure rose from a clearing barely larger than itself, leaning like a ship in an angry sea. Its planks were gray and weathered, its roof partially collapsed. What I assumed had been its main double doors now lay in a heap of rotten lumber. Through the opening, I could see dimness pierced by shafts of dust-filtered sunlight.