Monday Mourning

“No smoking gun on Cyr’s list of renters. No hits with CPIC. No hits with NCIC. No hits in Vermont or California.”

“Not a single missing person even came close?”

“One kid in California. Broken right wrist. Tickled the lower end of your height range.”

“How tall?”

“Five-four.”

I felt a buzz of electricity.

“Close enough. When was she reported missing?”

“Eighty-five.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Kid was fourteen.”

The current fizzled.

“The skeleton with the fractured radius had to be closer to twenty.” I pictured the bones of the girl in the leather shroud, the molar root closure on her dental X-rays. “Maybe as young as eighteen, but there’s no way she was fifteen.”

“My point precisely.”

“Of course date of disappearance need not be the date of death. Did you learn anything else?”

“Battalions of girls go missing each year.”

Hang up, a voice warned. Hang up now or Claudel’s going to suffer another direct hit.

My doorbell doesn’t ring. It twitters. At that moment, it did so.

“I’d like a printout of every female aged fifteen to twenty-two reported missing in Quebec over the past twenty years.”

“You’re talking dozens. Most’ll turn out to be runaways who eventually slunk back to Mommy or Daddy when they got tired of eating Beanie Weenies and sleeping on the floor.”

Easy.

“It would be helpful to me to know which ones didn’t.”

More twittering.

“Madame, th—”

“Detective Ryan is here. I have to go.”

“Andrew Ryan?”

“We are going to interview Louise Parent’s sister.”

“The DOA in Candiac?”

“Yes.”

“The old lady that was burning up your phone line?”

“She called me.”

“Wanting what?”

“That is exactly what I intend to find out.”

“When did the sister surface?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where?”

“At her home.”

“Where was the old biddy hiding out?”

“Pointe-aux-Pics.” Icy. “I’d like that printout as soon as it’s ready.”

“Sacrifice.”

“Merci.” Asshole.

I shot to the bathroom. One side of my hair was fine. The other hung in damp spirals. I reached for the dryer.

Twittering. With talons.

“Terrific.”

Birdie was watching from the doorway. At the sound of my voice he rose, stretched one leg backward, and moved on. No time to leave a note for Anne.

I jammed the dryer into its holder, pulled on a tuque, and headed out.

Ryan was waiting in the outer lobby, face ruddy from the cold. Brown-tinted shades. Bomber jacket.

Libido liftoff.

Though the previous night’s call still held a stranglehold on my emotions, apparently lust had pulled a Houdini.

“Did I wake you, cupcake?” Big Ryan grin.

“You did not wake me.” I tried to keep the hostility from my voice.

“Are we testy this morning?”

“Are we smoking this morning?”

“Minor setback.” Ryan jammed his cigarette into an urn of sand beside the door.

Outside, the cold hit me like an icy explosion. Sun roared down from a clear blue sky.

Ryan’s car was idling at the curb.

I got in and buckled my seat belt.

Ryan got in, turned to me, and raised the shades up onto his head. A dark crescent hung below each azure eye.

“Something’s on your mind.”

I said nothing.

“It’s obvious you’re upset.”

I said nothing, louder this time.

“I suspect you’re unhappy with me.” Though he smiled, there was tension in his jaw and around his eyes.

“I know you consider yourself a hot property, Ryan, but I have other things to think about besides you.”

And your niece. I felt like one raw nerve.

“Do you want to talk?” Ryan asked.

“I want to drive,” I said, not trusting my voice with anything more.

We did.

In brittle silence.

Claudia Bastillo answered the bell at the Candiac house. Slapping on a fraudulent smile, I greeted her warmly.

Rose Fisher was sitting alone, staring at the venetian blinds. She wore a green rayon dress dotted with poppies. The orange hair was pushed up in back with a plastic clip-comb. If possible, the makeup was more extravagant than on the previous evening.

’Tit Ange was on a roll with “Frère Jacques.”

Fisher didn’t stir when we entered the living room. Hearing her daughter’s voice, she turned and looked at us, puzzled, as if trying to figure out who we might be.

“It’s the cop. And the coroner.”

With that less than accurate introduction, Bastillo withdrew.

Ryan and I assumed our positions flanking Fisher. “The cop” gestured to “the coroner” to proceed.

“I hope you’re feeling better today, ma’am.”

Fisher nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Mrs. Fisher, I’m wondering about some calls your sister placed to me at my lab.”

The garish eyes dropped.

“When?”

“Last week.”

“About what?” Fisher’s focus remained downwardly fixed.

“Mrs. Parent—”

“Louise never married.”

“Miss Parent spoke of a building on rue Ste-Catherine.”

The sausage fingers closed and opened.

“She said she was bothered by events that had taken place there.”

Fisher’s fidgeting intensified.

“Your sister stated that she felt morally obligated to share certain information with the authorities.”

“She called you?” Fisher looked up, eyes wide in the artlessly recreated face.

“Twice. Do you know why?”

“I didn’t think she’d actually do it.”

“What did your sister want to discuss with me?”