Monday Mourning

At that moment Bastillo arrived and took the chair opposite the couch. The cockatiel shifted from chirping to shrilling short, strident notes.

“’Tit Ange!” Bastillo barked.

The cockatiel did another series of power shrills.

“Cut it out!”

The cockatiel said “pretty bird” in English and French, then began investigating the contents of its seed basin.

“He’s mimicking the smoke detector,” Bastilllo explained. “Little cretin picked it up when he was alone one weekend and the batteries failed.”

“He’s very talented,” I said. “And bilingual.”

“He’s a pip.” Bastillo was clearly not fond of the bird.

“Trilingual.”

We all looked at Fisher.

“English, French, and Cockatiel. Louise used to laugh about that.” Fisher’s voice made abrupt stops and starts as her chest clutched. “She was a translator, you know.”

“No, ma’am. I didn’t.”

Fisher nodded and the chins joined hands.

“Translated books from French to English. And the other way round.”

“That’s very difficult work,” I said, then turned to Bastillo.

“We were asking your mother about calls your aunt placed to my lab shortly before she died.”

“There’s a connection?”

“We’re not sure.”

“Are you suggesting my aunt’s death may not have been natural?”

“We want to investigate every possibility,” Ryan said.

“Do you suspect us?” Shrill as the bird.

“Of course not.” Ryan’s voice was reassurance itself. “We’d simply like to know what was on your aunt’s mind.”

Ryan addressed Fisher.

“Do you know what Miss Parent intended to tell Dr. Brennan?”

When Fisher nodded, lattice bands of sunlight slid over her cheek.

’Tit Ange whistled a line from Camelot.

Rose Fisher drew a deep breath.

“Louise lived on Ste-Catherine for almost seventeen years. When my husband passed away in ninety-four, I persuaded her to move in with me. Her building was one of those big things, with businesses on the street level and people living on the floors above. Too noisy for me, but Louise liked it. She had a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the street, loved looking out the window as she worked at her desk. Called herself the neighborhood snoop.”

“What kind of businesses occupied the building?” I urged gently.

“There was a whole string. A luggage lady. A butcher. Then this guy opened a pawnshop.”

Fisher looked down.

“Louise didn’t like him. Really didn’t like him.”

“What was his name?”

“Started with an M. Maynard? Martin? Louise might have said he was American. I don’t remember. This was years ago.”

Stéphane Ménard. The guy on Cyr’s list. The guy who’d rented space in Cyr’s building from eighty-nine to ninety-eight.

“Why did your sister dislike this man?”

“Don’t get me wrong. Louise usually liked everybody. But she had a bad feeling about this guy.”

“Do you know why?”

Fisher looked at Bastillo. Bastillo nodded.

“She saw him carry a sleeping girl into his shop one night. Louise said he was kinda cradling her, like a baby.”

“A child?”

“Teenager.”

“His daughter?”

“Louise said he’d told her he regretted never marrying and having kids. My sister had a real knack for getting people to open up. Five minutes and Louise knew your whole life story.”

“Anything else?” My heart was picking up extra beats.

“There was this other time Louise saw a girl run out of the shop. This pawnbroker fellow shot into the street and dragged her back inside.”

“When was this?”

Fisher misunderstood my question. “Late at night.”

I looked at Ryan. He looked as keyed up as I felt.

“Louise kept it to herself until she moved here, then her conscience began bothering her and she told me what she’d seen.”

“Did your sister ever speak to the pawnbroker about these incidents?”

Fisher nodded. “Louise said she asked about the girls several times, you know, not right out, but kinda subtle. She said this pawnbroker always sidestepped her questions, eventually got pretty hostile over the whole thing. So she dropped it.”

Fisher’s eyes came up and fastened on mine.

“Louise kept agonizing over whether she should call the cops. You know, so someone could check it out. I told her to mind her own business. Not get involved.”

“These incidents took place before 1994?”

Fisher nodded. “Do you think I gave my sister bad advice?”

’Tit Ange chirped and rang his bell.

25

RYAN CONTINUED HIS INTERROGATION OF ROSE FISHER. Bastillo hovered nearby. I slipped outside and dialed Claudel.

Astoundingly, he picked up on the second ring.

I repeated Fisher’s story.

“I’ve already run him while working Cyr’s list of tenants. Ménard’s a saint.”

“No record at all?”

“Officially, the guy never even spit on the street.”

“Is he still in Montreal?”

“Owns a house in Pointe-St-Charles.”

“What does he do now?”

“Nothing, as far as I can tell.”

“Ménard operated the pawnshop from eighty-nine until ninety-eight. What was he into before that?”

Slight pause.

“The record is unclear.”

“Unclear?”

“It stops in eighty-nine.”

“What do you mean, it stops?”

“There is nothing on Stéphane Ménard before 1989.”

“No birth certificate, tax return, credit report, medical record? Nothing?”

Silence.