Grave Secrets

Beyond the courtyard, the Friday night party was cranking up. Auto horns. Emergency sirens. Weekend revelers, in from their split-levels in Dorval and Pointe Claire. Pounding hip-hop, swelling then receding as cars passed by.

Ryan lit a cigarette.

“How goes Chupan Ya?”

“You remembered the name.”

“The place is important to you.”

“Yes.”

“It must be gut-wrenching.”

“It is.”

“Tell me about it.”

It was like speaking of some parallel universe where rotting bodies took center stage in a morality play too hideous for words. Headless mothers. Massacred infants. An old woman who lived because she had beans to sell.

Ryan listened, the periwinkle eyes rarely leaving my face. His questions were few, always germane. He did not rush or divert, allowed me to unload in my own way.

And he listened.

And I realized a truth.

Andrew Ryan is one of those rare men able to make you feel, rightly or wrongly, that yours are the only thoughts in the galaxy that interest him.

It is the most appealing trait a man can have.

And it was not going unnoticed by my libido, which seemed to be clocking a lot of overtime lately.

“More coffee?” I asked.

“Thanks.”

I went to the kitchen.

Maybe having Ryan drop by wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe I’d been too harsh on the caballero. Maybe I should have used a little makeup.

I did a quick detour to the bathroom, ran a brush through my hair, dabbed on blusher, decided against mascara. Better lashless than hurry-up smudgy.

When I handed Ryan his mug, he reached up and touched my freshly rouged cheek. My skin burned as it had with Galiano.

Maybe it was a virus.

Ryan winked.

I looked at our shadows blended on the brick, my heart thumping on all cylinders.

Maybe it wasn’t a virus.

As I resumed my seat, Ryan asked why I’d returned to Montreal.

Back to reality.

I considered what I was at liberty to say about the Paraíso case. I’d already discussed the skeleton with Ryan, but both Galiano and Mrs. Specter had requested confidentiality about the ambassadorial angle.

I decided to tell all, but refer to the Specters only as “a Quebec family.”

Again, Ryan listened without interrupting. The skeleton. The four missing women, then three, then one. The cat hair. The skull cast. When I finished, there was dead silence for a full minute before he spoke.

“They dragged these girls to lockup just for pinching CDs?”

“Apparently one of them got pretty unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant?”

“Resisting, screaming obscenities, spitting.” Mrs. Specter had shared that little tidbit during one of our airport waits.

“Bad move. What I don’t get is why Chantale Specter was held for any time at all in the Op South jail.”

“You know about the ambassador?” I couldn’t believe it. I was being so careful to respect the Specters’ privacy, and Super Sleuth already had a pocketful of notes.

“Diplomats enjoy immunity,” he went on.

“Diplomatic immunity,” I snapped.

Closing my eyes, I fought back the irritation. Ryan had let me ramble on, knowing he already knew. And why did he know about the Specters?

“Jesus, Ryan. Is there any case I’m capable of working without your input?”

Ryan was intent on his line of thinking.

“Diplomatic immunity doesn’t apply in your home country. Why wasn’t Chantale out immediately?”

“Maybe she couldn’t bear to give back the orange jumpsuit. How long have you known about this?”

“She should have been riding in a limo in less than an hour.”

“Chantale gave a false name. The cops had no idea who she was. How long have you known about the Specter connection?”

Again he ignored my question.

“Who busted her cover?”

“Chantale used her allotted phone call to contact a friend.” Mrs. Specter had told me that, too.

“And the playmate contacted Mommy.”

I drew a deep, dramatic breath.

“Yes.”

“And the men in pinstripes decided to let naughty Chantale cool her heels while Mommy burned leather getting to Quebec.”

“Something like that.”

Bootfalls echoed off the exterior face of the courtyard wall. A car engine turned over in a parking lot across the alley.

“A couple of hours.”

‘What?” I snapped again.

“I’ve known for a couple of hours. Galiano filled me in this afternoon.” Ryan smiled and gave a little shrug. “The old Bat never changes.”

When irritated, I grow testy, spit verbal missiles. When angry, red-laser-through-the-brain angry, I go deadly still inside. My mind freezes, my voice flat-lines, and every response becomes glacial.

I had been the topic of a frat boy discussion. The anger switch tripped.

“You phoned Galiano?” Even.

“He called me.”

“Did Detective Galiano have questions about my competence?”

“He had questions about the Specter family.”

There was a moment of arctic silence. Ryan lit a cigarette.

“Did you discuss me in Spanish?”

“What?” My reference to the old days escaped him.

“Never mind.”

Ryan drew deeply, blew smoke upward into the air.

“Galiano had news about a suspect.” He said it matter-of-factly, as though reading the TV listings aloud.

“So he phoned someone with no involvement in the case.”

“He wanted to know what I had on the Specters, and he tried to phone you.”

“Really.”