KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

The two also appeared repeatedly as teens. Yearbook portraits. Proms. Otto on the hood of an old Chevrolet. Graduation shots of Mona, high school and college.

Obviously Keiser loved her children. I wondered. Was she loved by them? By anyone? Saddened by the thought, I continued my survey.

The assemblage included one formal wedding picture showing a very young Keiser with a very thin man. Clothing and hairstyles suggested the fifties. Was the groom Uri?

A snapshot showed an older Keiser wearing a peasant dress and holding a small bouquet. Beside her was a short, dark man in a boutonnièred brown suit. The two stood outside the Hôtel de Ville, Montreal’s old City Hall.

Ryan came up beside me.

“Think this is Pinsker Senior?” I asked.

“That scans. The guy’s ’burns and lapels scream early eighties. Keiser and Pinsker tied the knot in ’eighty-four. Any Kodak moments of the Adamski nuptials?”

I shook my head. “What’s your take on Otto’s age?”

“Mid- to late thirties.” Ryan did some mental calculation. “Uri and Marilyn were married a long time before they had kids. Interesting.”

I waved an arm at the photo collection. “Another interesting observation. Beaucoup kiddie, teenage, and young adult shots. Nowhere does Otto or his sister look older than twenty-five.”

“You’re guessing an estrangement dating back ten years?” Ryan said.

“That, or every picture from the last decade was lost or destroyed.”

“Seems unlikely. Keiser was a hoarder.”

“A very neat hoarder. Check out the shelves. The stuff ’s arranged with the precision of a Presbyterian choir.”

“Ten years.” Ryan was thinking out loud. “About the time Keiser married Adamski.” I pointed out the obvious. Two killer blue eyes swung my way. “Dr. Brennan. Perhaps you should apply for the detective’s exam.”

“Perhaps I should.”

“I wouldn’t feel threatened.”

“Claudel might. Shall we join him?”

In the hall, I noted the security panel, a simple speaker with a buzzer button. Hardly state of the art.

I also noted a wall cabinet with a tiny gold key. I looked inside. Books.

Claudel and Otto were in the kitchen. While Ryan spoke to them, I slipped into the bedroom.

Another overdose of color. More paintings, knickknacks, curios, and photos. I checked the images but found no Adamski candidate.

A Chinese lacquered box was centered on the bureau. I lifted the lid. Jewelry sealed in individual plastic bags.

I opened the closet. Dresses, skirts, and slacks in eye-watering colors, all hanging from the rod at two-inch intervals.

Keiser’s approach to storage was the polar opposite of mine. Shelved boxes were stacked by descending size. Clothing was separated by category, then color. Shoes were snugged into racks, again organized by shade and style.

Marilyn Keiser was one tidy lady.

The bathroom and guest bedroom showed similar attention to order and placement.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder? Making a mental note to inquire, I moved on to the kitchen.

Ryan was querying Otto on his mother’s third husband. Otto’s eyes were on his shoes.

“What did Adamski do?”

“Beats me.”

“You never asked?”

“Yeah, I asked. You couldn’t pin the guy down.”

“Did he have his own income?”

“Who knows?”

I looked around. The kitchen was turquoise and tangerine, another victim of stuff overload. Baskets, ceramic pots, china plates, cookie molds, glass containers, silk flowers, framed cross-stitch masterpieces. You name the kitsch, Keiser hung it or placed it on a counter or shelf.

“You didn’t like him, did you?” Ryan.

Otto looked up, face filled with disgust. “He was forty-seven. My mother was sixty-one. Would you?”

“That was it? The age difference?”

“The guy was smooth, always with an answer, you know? But underneath, there was this …” Otto spread his fingers, grasping for a descriptor. The palms were tough and calloused. “… hardness. I can’t describe it. I’m a mechanic, good with engines, not words.”

“Did Adamski take advantage of your mother financially?”

“Who knows?”

“Did she complain?”

“No.”

“Were they happy?”

“Mona and I live out West.” Shoulder shrug. “You go where the jobs are, you know? After marrying Adamski, Mom pretty much quit writing and phoning.” Otto sighed deeply. “Look, my mother was flaky as piecrust. Thought of herself as bohemian. Do you know what she named us?”

Ryan and I waited.

“Othello and Desdemona. Can you imagine growing up with names like that? And a mother who wore tights and braids and sang opera to your friends? One time I brought a kid home, Mom’s posing nude for some wack-job artist.” Otto snorted mirthlessly. “As soon as I moved West I changed my name. Added a t and got the ‘hell’ out.” Otto finger-hooked quotation marks. “Get it? Othello? Got the”-more hooked fingers-“hell out?”

I could only guess the number of times he’d told that joke.

“Mona did the same.”

“Did you and your sister try contacting your mother?”

“When we called, she was always busy. I assumed she didn’t need us anymore. She was happy and had a new life.”

Claudel cleared his throat.

Ryan forged on. “What about Pinsker? You like him?”

“He was a nerd, but an OK guy.”

I peeked inside a cabinet. The plates sat in evenly spaced stacks. The cups hung at identical angles on equidistant hooks.

“You know his son?”

“Not really. I was a kid when Mom married his father. Myron was already off on his own.”

I closed the cabinet, opened another. Shipshape.

“He’s in your mother’s will.”

“That’s cool. Mom was married to Pinsker for twelve years. Besides”- Otto snorted again-“she didn’t leave much.”

“That strike you as odd?”

I noticed a subtle tensing of Otto’s jaw. Quick, then gone. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Are you surprised your mother had so few assets?”

Otto shrugged. He did it a lot. “Looks like she got by OK.”

Impatient, Claudel shifted his feet.

“With so little money, how did your mother live as well as she did? This apartment. The spa trips.”

Otto regarded Ryan as if he’d just dropped from the south end of a pig.

“How the hell would I know? The last time I saw her was 2000.”

“When Adamski died. Were you saddened by his death?”

“What kind of question is that?”

Ryan waited.

Another shrug. Otto was a real charismatic fellow. “Honestly? I hoped the prick would rot in hell.”

“Your mother had income from her old-age pension.” Ryan tried a fast cut.

“I suppose she did.”

“Myron Junior helped her some. Ran errands, that sort of thing.”

“So.” Defensive. Guilt?

“Someone cashed three checks after she died.”

“You suspect Myron?”

“Do you?”

“No. I …” Otto spread his feet. “You’re trying to confuse me.”

“Adamski drowned, didn’t he?” Another quick veer.

“Yes.” Wary.

“Where?”

“Someplace in La Mauricie. Near Trois Rivières, I think. Or Chambord.”

Claudel had had enough.

“We’ve been over this, Detective Ryan.”

“Repetition never hurts.” Ryan’s eyes stayed clamped on Otto’s face.

“Mr. Keiser, you’ve noted nothing amiss in your mother’s apartment?” Claudel asked.

“When are you guys going to listen to me? I haven’t set foot in this place in years.”

“You came to Montreal for Adamski’s funeral?” Ryan ignored Claudel’s interruption.

“There was no funeral.”

“Why not?”