I snatched up the pen and pointed it at Ryan.
“And why can’t we find out who this toad is? And where’s the real Stephen Menard? And when did the identity switch take place?”
“Would you like some dinner?”
“What?”
“Dinner.”
“Why?”
“I have some things I want to tell you.”
“Right. You and Claudel keep a hotline to my phone for all breaking news. Where the hell is Claudel, anyway?”
Ryan started to speak. I cut him off.
“I’m sick to death of Claudel and his fuck-you-if-you-don’t-like-it attitude. Charbonneau’s the only one who treats me with any respect.”
“Claudel’s got his own way of doing things.”
“So do echinoderms.”
“You’re judging Claudel harshly. What are echinoderms?”
That tripped the switch.
“I’m judging him harshly? From the outset I’ve had to fight that narcissistic little prig to get him to take me seriously. To get anyone to take me seriously.”
I considered crushing the pen.
“The bones are too old. Carbon 14 is too expensive. The girls were hookers. Louise Parent died in her sleep. Old ladies do that. They’re known for doing it.”
“I was referring to drooling.”
“See!” I jabbed the pen at Ryan. “Your flip attitude doesn’t help.”
“Tempe—” Ryan reached out to touch me. I drew back.
“Of course. I forgot. You love me. But you love a lot of things. Goat cheese. Parakeets. The Weeki-Wachee Mermaids.”
Ryan’s mouth opened to say something. I cut him off.
“Right. You love me. You just can’t find time to be with me.”
I stormed on, all the pent-up frustration rolling in one powerful surge.
“Now, suddenly you’re free for dinner! On Saturday night! What a lucky girl I am!”
The words spewed like water through a sluice gate.
“What about duty? What about your”—I hooked my index fingers to bracket the word—“niece?”
The pen ricocheted off the blotter and winged toward Ryan. Throwing up a hand, he deflected it.
I shot to my feet.
“Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you.”
Dropping into my chair, I put my face in my palms. My cheeks felt warm and damp.
“Christ. What’s wrong with me?”
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Palming away wetness, I did an ear-tuck with my hair and raised my head.
Ryan was gazing down at me, the travel-poster eyes filled with concern.
Or pity?
Or what?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not sure where all that came from.”
“Everyone’s under pressure.”
“Everyone’s not turning into Il Duce.”
I was aware of LaManche before actually seeing him. Movement in my peripheral vision. The smell of pipe tobacco and drugstore cologne.
Throat clearing.
Ryan and I turned. LaManche was in my doorway.
“I thought you both might like to know. The coroner has officially ruled Louise Parent’s death a homicide.”
“She was smothered?” I asked.
“I believe so.”
“Have you gotten the tox results?” Ryan asked.
“Traces of sleeping medication, Ambien, were detected in the blood and urine. Levels were consistent with the ingestion of ten milligrams several hours before death.”
“What about timing?” Ryan asked.
“Did you establish whether Parent ate that soup for lunch or for dinner?”
“Phone records indicate calls were made from the Fisher home at three fifty-five, four-fourteen, and five-nineteen P.M. that Friday. The first was to Parent’s priest, the second to a pharmacy two blocks away. The third was to a cell phone. We’re working on that.”
I shot Ryan a look. No one had told me that.
“So Parent’s last meal must have been dinner.”
“The soup would have been evacuated from the stomach after three hours, the Ambien after two,” LaManche said. “The sleeping aid would have been dissolved in the tea.”
“According to the niece, Parent usually ate around seven. Assuming she did so on Friday, that brings us up to ten P.M.,” Ryan calculated. “Assuming she took the Ambien at bedtime, that brings us up to eleven or midnight. So death must have occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning.”
“That is consistent with the state of decomposition,” LaManche said.
“My offer’s still on the table,” Ryan said, when LaManche had gone.
“When did you learn about the phone calls?” I asked.
“Today. It’s one of the things I was going to tell you. Hurley’s?”
I looked at Ryan a long, long time, then wrenched my lips into a smile.
“With one condition.”
Ryan spread his palms.
“The check’s mine.”
“Hee-haw!” Ryan said.
Hurley’s Irish Pub is on rue Crescent just below rue Ste-Catherine. Driving there, I debated my choices: Park at home and risk hypothermia walking. Die of old age searching for a place to leave the car.
I opted for parking over thermal equilibrium. Scurrying along Ste-Catherine, I questioned the wisdom of that decision.
Ryan was seated in the snug when I arrived, a half-drunk pint on the table in front of him. I ordered lamb stew and a Perrier with lemon. He ordered chicken St-Ambroise.
While awaiting our food, Ryan and I circled each other warily. We both tried jokes. Most fell flat.
Around us swirled the usual Saturday-night throng of drinkers. Some looked happy. Others desperate. Others merely blank. I couldn’t imagine their myriad problems and relationships.
Beside us, a young couple sat pressed together closer than socks from a dryer. He wore red felt reindeer antlers. She wore a Christmas sweater.
As I stared, reindeer antlers nuzzled Christmas sweater’s neck. She laughed.
They looked so happy, so comfortable with each other.
Christmas sweater’s eyes met mine. I looked away quickly, to a sign above Ryan’s head.
Bienvenue. Welcome. Fáilte. Someone had draped a pine garland across the top edge.
A girl wormed past our table, moving with the exaggerated care one uses to mask inebriation. She had pale skin and a long black braid.
I thought of Anique Pomerleau. Where had she been for almost fifteen years? Why was she now with the man who was using Menard’s name?
The waitress brought our dinners. Ryan ordered another pint. I ordered another Perrier.
As we ate, the conversation turned to work. Safe ground.
“Claudel’s gone to Vermont.”
My brows shot up. “To research the real Menard?”
Ryan nodded. “Whose idea?”
“Claudel is a good cop.”
“Who thinks I’m a moron.”
“I don’t hang with morons.”
You don’t hang with me. I didn’t say it.
“Do you suppose this Menard impostor killed Louise Parent?” I asked.
“It’s a possibility.”
“Pretty good possibility, don’t you think? Parent calls me about Menard. Within days, some guy tunes her up with a pillow.”
Ryan didn’t comment.
“But how could this Menard impostor have known that Parent called me?”
“How could anyone have known?”
I had no answer for that.
“Have you talked to the neighbor with the SUV?”
“He’s clean.”
“I keep thinking about Parent’s final night. Her last feelings and thoughts. Do you suppose she knew?”
“There were no signs of a struggle. She was lubed on Ambien.”
“Some cold-blooded psycho found a way into that house in the middle of the night and smothered Parent with her sister’s pi
llow. Do you suppose she sensed pressure against her face? Smelled the fabric softener? Tasted the feathers? Felt terror at some level?”
“Don’t do this to yourself, Tempe.”
“I just keep wondering about her last sensations.”
To keep myself from imagining those of three dead girls. I didn’t say that either.
“There’s something I haven’t told you yet.”
I waited for Ryan to continue.
“Louise Parent left an estate worth almost a half million dollars. She was insured for another quarter million.”
“The beneficiary?” I asked.
“Her sister. Rose Fisher.”
* * *
Ryan dropped me off around nine-thirty. He didn’t ask to come in. I didn’t invite him.
The answering machine was dark and still.
Where the hell was Anne?
Shower. Teeth. Face.
Into bed. Birdie hopped up and curled beside me.
I tried reading. Too agitated.
Closing my book, I turned off the light.
Subliminal gnawing.
I rolled from my right side to my left. To my right.
Birdie shifted to the corner of the bed.
I’d never wanted a drink so badly in my life. Could one tiny cabernet hurt?
You’re an alkie. Alkies can’t do booze.
I punched the pillow. Rolled to my back.
Giving up on sleep, I groped for the remote, clicked on the TV, and found a mindless sitcom.
What was it I was missing?
Anique Pomerleau disappeared from Mascouche in 1990. She was fifteen. Today she’s alive and living in Montreal.
Two of the pizza basement girls were around fifteen. The leather shroud girl was older.
Angie Robinson disappeared in 1985. She was almost fifteen. Unlike Pomerleau, she’s never turned up.
The actors became shadowbox puppets. The dialogue and laugh track receded to background.
Angie Robinson broke her wrist. The leather shroud girl broke her wrist. But their ages don’t match. Neither do their heights.
What was I missing?
Angie Robinson disappeared in north-central California. I couldn’t remember the name of the place. Conners? Corners? Cornero?
Was that Butte County?
No. Butte County was Chico.
Menard spent at least a year in Chico. But which Menard? The real one?
Angie Robinson’s father filed his MP report with the Tehama County Sheriff’s Department.
Throwing back the covers, I got up, booted my computer, logged on to Yahoo!, and asked for a map of north-central California.
Tehama County lay directly northwest of Butte. I found Chico, and almost directly above it, the little village of Corning.
I zoomed in on the region.
Towns and secondary highways appeared. Hamilton City. Willows. Orland.
I clicked on an arrow, moved north.
Red Bluff.
The thought lurking in my subconscious lumbered toward focus, receded.
Red Bluff.
What?
Think, Brennan. Think.
The most minuscule atom of an idea sparked.
When had Red Bluff been in the news?
Ten years ago? Twenty?
Why?
Think!
I got up and killed the TV. Tossing the remote, I paced the room, desperate to get into the backcountry of my subconscious.
Silence filled the condo. Not the comforting, I’m-alone-enjoying-my-solitude kind. A pressing silence.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Red Bluff. Red Bluff.
Finally, a neural pathway fired. I froze.
Dear God! Was that it?
I flew to the computer.
Who was that victim?
Using multiple search engines, most of which sent me through infuriating, labyrinthine back alley cyberloops, I finally found the name.
More searching.
Archives of the Red Bluff Daily News.
Archives of the Chico Examiner.
The normal sounds of night receded to the edge of my hearing. Birdie slumbered on.
Hours later, I sat back, numb with the horror of what I was unraveling.
I understood what was going on.
30
I LASTED UNTIL SEVEN A.M. BEFORE PHONING RYAN. He answered quickly, sounding alert but tired.
“Am I waking you?”
“I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.”
“Old joke, Ryan.”
“You sound wired. What’s up?”
I laid out my theory and told him what I’d discovered in my cyber research.
“Holy shit.”
“We need to get into that house, Ryan.”
“The pizza parlor bust isn’t my case.”
“The Louise Parent homicide is. Menard-whoever probably killed Parent to keep her from talking to me.”
I heard a match, then slow exhalation.
“I want Claudel and Charbonneau to hear this. You going to be there awhile?”
“I’ll wait.”
Ryan called back at nine to tell me they’d rendezvous at my place at eleven.
“Claudel agreed?”
“Luc’s a good cop.”
“With all the charisma of the Night Stalker. I’ll make coffee.”
Knowing Claudel would be hard to convince, I spent the next hour online arming myself with as much information as possible.
Claudel arrived first, wearing his usual arrogant frown.
“Bonjour,” I said, gesturing him to the sofa.
“Bonjour.”
Claudel removed his overcoat. I took it.
Claudel tugged each Armani sleeve to cover each antiseptically white Burberry cuff, then sat and crossed his legs.
“Café?” I offered.
“No.” Claudel made a show of checking his watch. “Merci.”
Ryan and Charbonneau showed up within minutes of each other, each in faded jeans and sweater. Ryan had hit a pâtisserie on his way.
I filled mugs of coffee for Ryan and Charbonneau, then the three of us helped ourselves to pastries. Throughout, Claudel maintained his this-better-be-good detachment.
Ryan kick-started the meeting.
“Tempe, tell these guys what you told me.” He turned to Claudel. “Luc, I want you to hear her out.”
I started churning out the words.
“On May 19, 1977, a twenty-year-old woman named Colleen Stan set out to hitchhike from Eugene, Oregon, to Westwood, California. After several rides she was picked up by Cameron Hooker and his wife, Jan. The Hookers drove Stan to the Lassen National Forest, handcuffed, blindfolded, bound, and gagged her, and took her to their home.”
Birdie strolled in, sniffed two pairs of boots and one pair of loafers, made his choice.
“The little guy likes you, Luc.” Charbonneau winked at his partner.
“Sorry.” I jumped up and removed my cat from Claudel’s lap.
Birdie, in as much as cats are capable, looked offended.
“Cameron Hooker kept Colleen Stan sealed in total darkness, subjected to complete sensory deprivation, for up to twenty-three hours per day. For seven years.”
“Sonovabitch,” Charbonneau said.
“Hooker imprisoned Stan in a series of boxes he designed specifically for that purpose. When it suited him, he took her out, hung her from pipes, stretched her on a rack, whipped her, shocked her with electrical wires, starved, raped, and terrorized her.”
Claudel picked a cat hair from his sleeve.
“Hooker’s wife ultimately set Stan free. Hooker was arrested in November 1984. The following fall he was convicted of kidnap, rape, sodomy, and a number of other charges. Media coverage turned into blood sport.”
“What is the relevance of this?” Claudel sighed.
“Colleen Stan’s ordeal took place in Red Bluff, California. Red Bluff is forty miles from Chico.”
“Stephen M
enard was a grad student in Chico in 1985,” Charbonneau said, reaching for his second doughnut.
I nodded.
Birdie sidled to the couch, arched, then brushed Claudel’s leg. Going bipedal, he placed both forepaws on Claudel’s knee.
Again apologizing, I scooped the cat up and secured him in my bedroom.
“But the mutt here in Montreal isn’t Menard,” Charbonneau said when I returned.
“I’m using the name for convenience.”
“So where’s the real Menard?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was killed by the man living in Pointe-St-Charles. That’s your job.”
“Go on,” Ryan urged.
“The Stan case was all over the news from the fall of eighty-four through the fall of eighty-five. The press loved it, called it the Girl in the Box Case. Then the Sex Slave Case.”
Claudel looked at his watch.
“In 1985 a fourteen-year-old girl named Angie Robinson disappeared from Corning, California. Corning is located between Chico and Red Bluff.” I paused for emphasis. “I have reason to believe one of the three pizza basement skeletons is that of Angie Robinson.”
Charbonneau’s doughnut stopped in its trajectory to his mouth. “The kid in the leather shroud?”
“Yes.”
“The one with the broken wrist,” Claudel jumped in. “You were certain the ages are incompatible.”
“I said Angie Robinson was too young and too short to be a match with skeleton 38428. But if Angie lived for some time after her disappearance, that would account for the discrepancies.”
“Explain the strontium and Carbon 14 results to Luc,” Ryan said.
I did.
“And explain the dental sealant again.”
I did.
“Holy shit,” said Charbonneau. “You think Menard followed the news coverage and was inspired by this head case Hooker?”
“Yes. But there’s more. Anique Pomerleau disappeared from Mascouche in 1990 at age fifteen. Friday, Ryan and I saw Pomerleau in Menard’s house.”
“Menard’s been here since eighty-eight,” Charbonneau said.
Claudel tipped back his head and spoke down his nose.
“So based on this story about a girl in a box—”
“The girl has a name.” Claudel’s cynicism was jiggling my switch. “Colleen Stan.”
Claudel’s nostrils tightened.
“So you believe Menard has been holding Anique Pomerleau against her will for a decade and a half? That Angela Robinson and the other females buried in the cellar were also his captives?”