A third woman sat apart from the others, smoking alone. Unlike her colleagues, she was dressed in street clothes. Shorts. Sequined tank. Roman sandals laced to her knees.
Otherwise, the place was empty.
While Ryan spoke to Deschênes, I scoped out the ladies.
The youngest was tall, maybe eighteen, with dull brown hair and tired blue eyes. Her companion was a thirty-something redhead who’d definitely put part of her salary into a boob job.
The lone smoker had fried platinum hair that wisped down past her ears. I put her age at somewhere around forty.
Hearing voices, or perhaps sensing my interest, the blonde flicked her eyes sideways in my direction. I smiled. She glanced away. The other women continued their conversation, uncurious.
“Bastarache has an office in back. Hippo’s there.” Ryan was speaking in hushed tones at my shoulder. “His digs are on the second floor. CSU’s working that.”
“Has the staff been questioned?” My gesture took in the women and the bartender.
“Bastarache is the boss. They’re employees and know nothing. Oh. And the bartender says kiss his hairy French ass.”
Again, the blonde’s gaze slid to us, darted off.
“Mind if I speak to the talent?” I asked.
“Looking for new dance moves?”
“Can we lose the bartender and the kimono sisters?”
Ryan gave me a questioning look.
“I’ve got a feeling the blonde might be a talker if company’s not present.”
“I’ll ask Deschênes to bring the others to me.”
“OK. Now play along.”
Before Ryan could respond, I stepped back and snapped, “Stop telling me what to do. I’m not stupid, you know.”
Ryan got it. “Hard to tell most of the time,” he said, loud and very condescending.
“May I at least have my pictures?” I held out a haughty palm.
“Suit yourself.” Disgusted.
Ryan produced the envelope containing the prints, facial repros, and autopsy photos. Snatching it, I stomped across the room, yanked a chair, and threw myself down at a table.
The blonde had watched our “spat” with interest. Now her eyes were on the jar lid she was using as an ashtray.
After a brief exchange with Deschênes, Ryan disappeared through a rear door marked with a red electric sortie sign.
Deschênes collected the bartender, then crossed to the kimono twins. “Let’s go, girls.”
“Where?”
“I hear the joint’s got a lovely green room.”
“What about her?”
“Her turn’s coming.”
“Can we at least get dressed?” the redhead whined. “I’m freezing my ass.”
“Occupational hazard,” Deschênes said. “Let’s go.”
Reluctantly, the women followed Deschênes and the bartender through the same exit Ryan had used.
While appearing to act in a huff, I’d chosen a table near enough to allow conversation with the blonde, but far enough away that my move wouldn’t look like an approach.
“Ass wipe,” I muttered under my breath.
“The male sex is one long parade of ass wipes,” the woman said, jamming her cigarette into the jar lid.
“That one is the grand marshall.”
The woman made a chuckling noise in her throat.
I turned to face her. Up close I could see that her hair was dark down close to her scalp. Dried makeup caked the corners of her eyes and mouth.
“That’s funny.” The woman picked a speck of tobacco from her tongue and flicked it. “You a cop?”
“Now that’s funny.”
“Mr. Macho over there?”
I nodded. “Tough guy. Got a big badge.”
“Officer Ass Wipe.”
Now I chuckled. “Officer Ass Wipe. I like that.”
“But not him.”
“Jerk’s supposed to be helping me.”
The blonde didn’t take the bait. I didn’t push it.
Seemingly still fuming, I crossed my legs and began agitating one ankle.
The blonde lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. Her fingers were nicotine yellow below fake pink nails.
We sat without talking for several minutes. She smoked. I tried to remember what I’d learned from Ryan about the art of interrogation.
I was about to take a chance when the blonde broke the silence.
“I been rousted so often I know the first name of every vice cop in town. Never encountered your Officer Ass Wipe.”
“He’s SQ, from Montreal.”
“A bit off his patch.”
“He’s searching for some missing kids. One of them is my niece.”
“These kids missing from here?”
“Maybe.”
“If you’re not on the job, why the tag-along privileges?”
“We’ve known each other a very long time.”
“You doing him?”
“Not anymore,” I said disdainfully.
“He give you that bruise?”
I shrugged.
The woman inhaled then blew smoke toward the ceiling in an inverted cone. I watched it drift and dissolve, backlit by neon over the bar.
“Your niece work here?” the blonde asked.
“She may have hooked up with the owner. Do you know him?”
“Hell, yeah, I know him. Worked for Mr. Bastarache off and on for twenty years. Mostly in Moncton.”
“What’s your take?”
“He pays OK. Doesn’t let customers rough up his girls.” Her lips pooched forward as she shook her head. “But I rarely see him.”
That seemed odd with Bastarache living upstairs. I filed the comment for future consideration.
“My niece may have gotten herself involved in something,” I said.
“Everyone’s involved in something, sunshine.”
“Something more than dancing.”
The blonde didn’t respond.
I lowered my voice. “I think she was doing porn flicks.”
“Gal’s gotta earn a living.”
“She was barely eighteen.”
“What’s this niece’s name?”
“Kelly Sicard.”
“What’s yours?”
“Tempe.”
“Céline.” Again, the chuckling noise. “Not Dion, but not without flair of my own.”
“Nice to meet you, Céline Not Dion.”
“Ain’t we a pair.”
Céline sniffed, then backhanded her nose with a wrist. Reaching into my purse, I moved to her table and handed her a tissue.
“How long you been searching for this Kelly Sicard?”
“Almost ten years.”
Céline looked at me as though I’d said Kelly had marched off to Gallipoli.
“The other kid’s only been missing two weeks.” I didn’t mention Évangéline, who’d been missing over thirty years. “Her name is Phoebe Jane Quincy.”
Céline took a very long drag, then the current butt joined the others in the lid.
“Phoebe is only thirteen. She disappeared while walking to dance class.”
Céline’s hand paused, then resumed mashing the butt. “You got a kid?”
“No,” I said.
“Me neither.” Céline stared at the jar lid, but I don’t think she saw it. She was looking at a place and time far removed from the little table in Le Passage Noir. “Thirteen years old. I wanted to be a ballerina.”
“This is Phoebe.” I slipped a picture from Ryan’s envelope and placed it on the table. “It’s her seventh-grade class photo.”
Céline considered the image. I watched for a reaction, but saw none.
“Cute kid.” Céline cleared her throat and looked away.
“Ever see her here?” I asked.
“No.” Céline continued gazing off into space.
I replaced Phoebe’s photo with that of Kelly Sicard.
“How about her?”
This time
there was a twitch in her lips and movement in her eyes. Nervously, she rubbed her nose with the back of a wrist.
“Céline?”
“I’ve seen her. But like you said, it was a long time ago.”
I felt a ripple of excitement. “Here?”
Céline looked over her shoulder and around the bar.
“Mr. Bastarache has a place in Moncton. Le Chat Rouge. This kid danced there. But not for long.”
“Her name was Kelly Sicard?”
“Doesn’t click.”
“Kitty Stanley?”
A fake pink nail came up. “Yeah. That was it. She danced as Kitty Chaton. Cute, eh? Kitty Kitten.”
“When was this?”
She gave a bitter smile. “Too long ago, sunshine.”
“Do you know what happened to her?”
Céline tapped another cigarette from her pack. “Kitty hit the lottery. Married a regular and got out of the business.”
“Do you recall the man’s name?”
“It’s not that kind of business.”
“Can you remember anything about him?”
“He was short and had a skinny ass.”
Céline lit up, idly waved the smoke from her face with one hand. “Wait. There is one thing. Everyone called him Bouquet Beaupré.”
“Because?”
“He owned a flower shop in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.”
Céline’s gaze was steady now, her mouth skewed with the hint of a grin. “Yeah. Kitty Kitten got out.”
Looking at the woman, I felt an unexpected sadness. She’d been pretty once, might still be save for the overdone makeup and bleach.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Kitty was a good kid.” She flicked her ash to the floor.
“Céline,” I said. “You could get out, too.”
She shook her head slowly, eyes suggesting the abandonment of all illusion.
At that moment, Ryan appeared.
“Found something curious.”
34
C ÉLINE AND I FOLLOWED RYAN THROUGH THE ILLUMINATED SORTIE into a dim back hall. Deschênes watched our approach, heavy-lidded and bored. To his right was a small dressing room, door ajar. Through a smoky haze I could see the bartender and the kimono girls amid mirrors and makeup and sequined things that must have been costumes.
A faux-wood-paneled room was on the left. Hippo was in it sorting through papers at a desk.
Céline joined her coworkers. Ryan and I joined Hippo.
“Anything?” Ryan asked.
“Doesn’t look like he’s used this office for a while. Bills and receipts are all at least two years old.”
“I got something.”
Both men looked at me.
“The blond dancer, Céline, said Kelly Sicard worked at Bastarache’s place in Moncton under the name Kitty Stanley. Billed herself as Kitty Chaton. Married a florist from Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.”
“When?”
“Céline is a bit hazy on dates.”
“Shouldn’t be tough to track the guy down,” Ryan said.
Hippo was already digging out his phone. “I’m on it.”
A side door in the office gave onto stairs. Ryan and I climbed them into a loft-style flat.
The place was one big square with sleeping, eating, and living spaces demarcated by furniture groupings. The kitchen was separated by an island and bar stools. The parlor was a sofa-chair-lounger affair of chrome and black leather. The combo faced a flat-panel TV on a glass and steel stand. The boudoir consisted of a queen bed, a very large wooden desk, a side table, and a wardrobe. The area was bounded by an L of black metal filing cabinets. A corner bath was sectioned off with walls and a door.
Two CSU techs were doing what CSU techs do. Dusting for prints. Rifling closets. Looking for anything suspicious or illegal. It appeared they hadn’t found much.
“I want you to listen to this.”
Ryan led me to the desk and hit a button on the phone. A mechanical voice reported no new messages, thirty-three old ones, and admonished that the mailbox was full. Ryan hit “1” as instructed for old voice mail.
Twenty-nine callers had answered an ad about a Lexus. A woman had phoned twice to reschedule a housecleaning service. A man named Léon wanted Bastarache to go fishing.
The last voice was female, the French clearly chiac.
“It is not a good day. I need the prescription. Ob—”
The tape cut off.
“Was she saying Obéline?” Ryan asked.
“I think so.” I felt totally jazzed. “Play it back.”
Ryan did. Twice.
“It sounds like Obéline, but I can’t be sure. Why didn’t the jerk empty his mailbox?”
“Check this out,” Ryan said. “The phone has caller ID. Unless blocked by the dialer, names or numbers are displayed, along with the time and date the connection was made. If blocked, the call comes up ‘private number.’” Ryan began scrolling through the list, pausing on private-number records. “Notice the times and dates.”
“A ‘private number’ phones at roughly seven each evening,” I said.
“The truncated message was the last one to enter the mailbox. It came up ‘private,’ and was left at seven-oh-eight last night.”
“Obéline may be alive,” I said, realizing the implication. “And checking in every evening.”
“Exactly. But why?”
“If it is Obéline, why the staged suicide?” I asked. “And where is she?”
“Shrewd questions, Dr. Brennan. We’ll get a trace.”
I noticed the CSU tech working the kitchen. “Are they finding anything to tie Bastarache to Quincy or Sicard? Or to Cormier?”
“Doesn’t look like Bastarache spent much time living in this place.”
“That jives. Céline said she hardly ever saw him. So where’s he living?”
“The shrewdness never ends.” Ryan smiled.
It slayed me. Ryan’s smile always does.
I began to wander, opening closets, cupboards, and drawers already dusted for prints. Ryan was right. In addition to frozen shrimp and a carton of badly crystallized Ben & Jerry’s, the refrigerator contained olives, clamato juice, a half-eaten jar of pickled herring, a dried-out lemon, and some fuzzy green chunks that were probably cheese. Save for aspirin, Gillette Foamy, and a Bic, the medicine cabinet was bare.
We’d been in the flat twenty minutes when Hippo bounded up the stairs.
“Got Sicard. Married name’s Karine Pitre. Hubby’s still hawking lilies and tulips in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.”
“Sonovabitch,” Ryan said.
“She’ll be at a café on Route 138 at eleven.”
Ryan and I must have looked surprised.
“Lady’s got kids. Prefers to discuss her good times in show biz away from the fam.”
Le Café Sainte-Anne was a typical Quebec truck stop. Counter. Vinyl booths. Sun-faded curtains. Tired waitress. At that time of night the place was pretty much empty.
Though she was older, and the amber hair was short, Kelly was recognizable from her pictures. Same blue eyes and Brooke Shields brows. She was in a back booth, a half cup of hot chocolate on the table before her. She wasn’t smiling.
Ryan flashed his badge. Kelly nodded without bothering to look.
Ryan and I sat. He began in French.
“A lot of people have been looking for you, Kelly.”
“It’s Karine now. Karine Pitre.” She answered in English, barely above a whisper.
“We’re not interested in jamming you up.”
“Yeah? My past makes the papers, it won’t be real easy setting up play dates.”
“You know what they say about reaping and sowing.”
“I was young and stupid. I’ve been out of that life for almost eight years. My daughters know nothing about it.” As she spoke her eyes scanned the café. I could tell she was jumpy and on edge.
A waitress appeared at our table. Her name was Johanne. Ryan and I asked for coffee.
Karine ordered another hot chocolate.
“I’ll do my best to keep this discreet,” Ryan said when Johanne had gone. “Our interest isn’t in you.”
Karine relaxed a little. “Then what?”
“David Bastarache.”
“What about him?”
Ryan drilled her with the butane blues. “You tell us.”
“Bastarache owns bars.” Again, Karine’s eyes ran the room. “I danced in one of them. Le Chat Rouge in Moncton. That’s where I met my husband.”
“When’s the last time you saw Bastarache?”
“Sometime before I quit. It was cool. Mr. Bastarache didn’t have any beef with me.”
“That it, Karine? Just dirty dancing?”
Johanne returned and distributed mugs and spoons. Karine waited her out.
“I know what you’re getting at. But turning tricks wasn’t my thing. All I did was strip.”
“Never flashed a little tit on film?”
Karine lifted her mug, set it down without drinking. I noticed a tremor in her hand.
“Tell us about Stanislas Cormier,” Ryan said.
Karine’s eyes crawled to me. “Who’s she?”
“My partner. Stanislas Cormier?”
“You guys are thorough.”
“Not as thorough as we could be.”
“I was fifteen. I wanted to be a Spice Girl.” She swirled her hot chocolate. “Wanted to live in Hollywood and appear in People magazine.”
“Go on.”
“I went to Cormier to have a composite made. You know, glamour-shot stuff. I’d read an article saying that was the way to break into acting and modeling. What did I know? During the shoot we got to talking. Cormier offered to hook me up with an agent.”
“If you agreed to some questionable poses.”
“It seemed harmless.”
“Was it?”
She shook her head.
“Go on.”
“It’s hard to talk about.”
“Try.”
Karine’s eyes stayed on her mug. “A man called about a week after my sitting, said he had a small part for me in a film called Wamp Um. I was so excited I nearly wet my drawers. Thought I’d found a ticket to freedom from my Nazi mother and father.”
Karine shook her head sadly. Mourning what? I wondered. Her lost parents? Lost youth? Lost dreams of stardom?
“The man took me to a rat bag motel. I wore moccasins while a guy in a loincloth fucked me. I got fifty bucks.”