Grave Secrets

“In your opinion, did Andrew Ryan act properly in the shooting of Carlos Vicente?”

“He was a peach.”

Claudel stood.

“Thank you.”

“That’s it?”

“That is all for now.”

Claudel clicked off and pocketed the recorder.

“Bonjour, madame.”

As usual, Claudel left me so angry I feared I might suffer an embolism. To recompose, I went to the lobby, bought a Diet Coke, and returned to my office. Resting my feet on the window ledge, I drank the soda and ate the tuna sandwich and Oreos I’d brought from home.

Twelve floors below, a barge drifted up the misty St. Lawrence. Lilliputian trucks sprayed water from the edges of the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Cars glided over shiny asphalt, wakes of street rain rising from their tires. Pedestrians scurried with heads bent, umbrellas colored bobbins in a sodden world.

My daughter and I smiled from a beach on the Carolina coast. Another place. Another time. A happy moment.

By the last Oreo, I’d convinced myself that Claudel’s brevity was a good sign. Had there been any concern about Ryan’s actions, the interview would have been much more protracted.

Absolutely.

Brief is good.

I looked at my watch. One-twenty. Time to check Lucien’s approximation.

Arcing my wrappers into the wastebasket, I scored myself two, and headed to Imagerie.

Lucien was at lunch, but his composite image stared from the screen.

One look and my newfound composure shattered like a windshield in a Schwarzenegger film.

23

PATRICIA EDUARDO WASN’T SMILING. NOR WAS SHE FROWNING or showing surprise. In one view, long dark hair framed her face. In another, the hair corkscrewed in thick, springy curls. In a third, it was cropped short.

I barely breathed as I moved through the variations Lucien had created. Glasses on, glasses off. Straight brows, arched brows. Fleshy lips, thin lips. Droopy lids, hidden lids. Though the superficial details changed, the anatomic framework remained the same.

I was returning to the second of Lucien’s long-hair images when he entered the section.

“What do you think?” He set a bottle of Evian on the counter beside me.

“Can you add bangs?”

“Sure.”

I moved my chair to the left. Lucien slid in and worked the keys.

Bangs. He blended the image.

“What about a hat?”

“What kind?”

“Riding derby.”

He searched the database.

“Nope.”

“Something with a brim.”

He found a cap, sized and pasted it.

I recalled the snapshots of Patricia Eduardo, and remembered the determination in the solemn, dark eyes as she stood by her horse.

The face I was viewing was blank and empty, the programmed offspring of pixels and bits. It didn’t matter. It was the face of the girl on the Appaloosa.

Other memories shot through my brain. A tank filled with sewage and human waste. A skull oozing muck from every orifice. Tiny bones trapped in a rotting sleeve. Could it be? Could this nineteen-year-old hospital worker who loved horses and went out for an evening in the Zona Viva have ended up in such a horrible last resting place?

I stared at Patricia Eduardo. I saw drowned kittens. I saw Claudia de la Alda. I saw Chupan Ya.

You bastard. You goddamn, murdering bastard.

“What do you think?”

Lucien’s voice brought me back.

“It’s good.” I forced calm into my voice. “Much better than I could have done.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

It was. Had I created such a striking likeness, I would have questioned my own bias. Lucien had never seen or heard of Patricia Eduardo.

“Please print several copies.”

“I’ll bring them to your office.”

“Thanks.”

“Detective Galiano.”

“It’s Tempe.”

“Ay, buenos días. Glad you caught me. Hernández and I were just heading out.”

“It was Patricia Eduardo in the septic tank.”

“No doubts?”

“None.”

“The facial?”

“Dead ringer.”

“I guess that was a poor choice of words,” I said. “Anyway, our graphics specialist did the approximation blind. Patricia’s mother couldn’t distinguish the thing from her junior class portrait.”

“Dios mío.”

“I’ll fax you a copy.”

Empty air rolled north from Guatemala. Then Galiano said,

“We’re still grilling Miguel Gutiérrez.”

“The De la Alda gardener.”

“Cerote.” Turd.

“I take it that means he’s a prince among men. What’s his story?”

“The Reader’s Digest version is that he fixated on Claudia, took to stalking her. Spent nights parked outside her bedroom window.”

“Oh joy. A peeper.”

“Eventually Gutiérrez made his move. Claims the vic was receptive.”

“She was probably too young to know how to blow him off without hurting his feelings.”

“On July fourteenth he drove to the museum and offered her a ride home. Claudia accepted. En route, he asked her to explain something about the Kaminaljuyú ruins. She agreed. Once there, he pulled onto the back road and jumped her. Claudia resisted, things got out of hand. After strangling her, he rolled the body into the barranca. The rest is history.”

“Did Gutiérrez phone Señora De la Alda?”

“Yes. Got a late-night visit from the heavenly host.”

“An angel?”