Kathy Reichs - Bones to Ashes

The final two series showed the girl on the floor, first supine, then prone. Ropes came and went in varying patterns of torture. Hands bound behind her back. Wrists bound to her ankles. Wrists bound and hoisted to the overhead hook.

In shot after shot the girl averted her gaze. Embarrassed? Frightened? Following orders?

Suddenly, I was rocked by a blow harsher than the one on the staircase. The room receded. I heard the dull pounding of blood in my ears.

The cheeks were more hollowed, the eyes more recessed. But I knew that face. That wild jumble of curls.

I closed my eyes, wanting to disconnect from the girl avoiding the lens. To pretend that the horror I was seeing had not taken place.

“That’s it.” Hippo’s shoes hit the floor behind me. “Musta got missed when this mooncalf made his grab.”

Had she agreed to be exploited in this way? Had she been forced?

“You gotta sit down, doc.” Hippo was at my shoulder. “Bring some color to your cheeks.”

“I know her.” Barely audible.

I felt Hippo slip the sheet from my fingers.

“It’s my friend,” I whispered. “It’s Évangéline.”

“Yeah?” Dubious.

“She was fourteen when I last saw her on Pawleys Island. She’s older in these photos, but not by much.”

I felt a ripple of air as Hippo flipped the sheet. “No date. You’re certain it’s her?”

I nodded.

“Ciel des boss.” Again, the air stirred.

I raised my lids, but didn’t trust myself to speak.

Dragging his eyes from the girl, Hippo voiced my thought. “This maybe ties Cormier to Bastarache.”

“You’ll arrest him?”

“You bet your ass I’ll arrest him. But not until I can nail—”

“Then do it!” Angry.

“Look, I want to take this sleaze down so bad it hurts.” Hippo waved the contact sheet. “But this isn’t enough.”

“She’s just a kid!”

“A low-rent photographer has dirty pictures of a kid that cleaned Bastarache’s daddy’s house thirty years ago? Hardly a smoking gun. Some pinstripe would have Bastarache walking before he needed to pee.”

Between my headache, my anguish over Évangéline, my fury at Cormier, and my frustration that Hippo wouldn’t collar Bastarache, I’m not sure how I got through the rest of that day. Adrenaline, I guess. And cold packs.

When I refused to go home, Hippo bought a bag of ice and a pair of socks. Every hour or so he’d mash a revamped compress to my cheek.

By five, we’d finished the last of Cormier’s cabinets. Between us we’d uncovered only one file of interest.

Opale St-Hilaire’s proofs showed a smiling adolescent with almond-shaped eyes and gleaming black hair. The envelope was dated April 2005.

Hippo and I agreed Opale looked Asian or First Nations, making her a candidate for the Lac des Deux Montagnes floater. Ryan’s DOA number three. Hippo promised to check her out on Monday.

Though Hippo’s ice therapy had minimized the swelling on my cheek, Harry spotted the bruise as I came through the doorway.

“I fell.”

“Fell.” Harry’s eyes narrowed.

“Down some stairs.”

“You just lost it and went ass over teakettle.” When suspicious, Harry makes the inquisition priests look amateur.

“Some jerk clipped me on his way by.”

Harry’s eyes became slits. “Who?”

“The gentleman didn’t stop to give me his card.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The incident is hardly worth mentioning.”

“Some Hun sends you sailing into tomorrow and it’s not worth mentioning?” Harry folded her arms. For a second I really thought she was going to tap one foot.

“The worst part was Hippo. He kept mashing ice-filled argyles into my face.”

I smiled. Harry didn’t.

“Any other incidents that are not worth mentioning?”

“All right. All right. I’ve had one odd phone call and one strange e-mail.”

“Strange? As in threatening?”

I waggled a hand. Maybe yes. Maybe no.

“Tell me.”

I did.

“You think it’s this same goober that knocked you off your pins?”

“Doubtful.”

A red manicured finger pointed at my chest. “I’ll bet it’s those weenies in Tracadie.”

“Cheech and Chong? That’s a stretch. Let’s eat.”

After leaving Cormier’s studio, I’d gotten smoked meat sandwiches from Schwartz’s deli on Saint-Laurent. Chez Schwartz Charcuterie hébraïque de Montréal. Cultural syncretism. A city specialty.

As we ate, I told Harry about the false ceiling and the contact sheet. Her reaction was an exaggerated replay of mine. How could Évangéline have done something so demeaning? I had no answer to that. Why would Cormier have the proofs? Nor to that. Why would someone break in to steal them? Or that.

To lighten the mood, I asked Harry what she’d done for the past two days. She described her visit to the Oratoire Saint-Joseph, and showed me the spoils of Saturday’s shopping trip. Two silk blouses, a bustier, and a truly extraordinary pair of red leather pants.

After I cleared the table, Harry, Birdie, and I watched an old movie. An evil scientist was creating female robots genetically programmed to kill men over forty. Normally, the film would have given rise to much laughter. That night there was little.

As we headed to our rooms, Harry surprised me by saying she’d made plans for the following day. No amount of cajoling could pry them from her.

“Well, stay out of deserted alleys and pay attention to what’s around you,” I told her. “Both the e-mail and the phone call made reference to you.”

Harry gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

Ryan was flirting with Marcelle, the LSJML receptionist, when I stepped off the lab elevator Monday morning. On spotting me, Marcelle’s brows shot to her hairline. I wasn’t surprised. My bruise was now the size of Morocco.

Ryan trailed me from the lobby. In my office, he grasped my chin and swiveled my face from side to side. I batted down his hand.

“Hippo told you?”

“In Technicolor detail. Can you ID this peckerwood?”

“No.”

“Anything strike you about him?”

“He’d make one badass linebacker.”

Taking my shoulders, Ryan maneuvered me into my chair, unpocketed several mug shots, and tossed them on the blotter.

Goon. Goon. Cheech. Subgoon. Chong.

“Bachelors number three and five.” My skin burned where Ryan’s fingers had touched my face. I kept my eyes lowered.

Ryan tapped the goons I’d chosen. “Michael Mulally. Louis-François Babin.”

“And the rest of the dream team?” I swept a hand over Ryan’s lineup.

“Bastarache muscle.”

“Have you seen the contact sheet from Cormier’s hidey-hole?”

“Yes.” Pause. “I’m sorry.”

I studied Mulally’s face. Scraggly hair framing dark-stubbled cheeks. Gangsta glare. Babin was shorter and more muscular, but otherwise a clone.

“The e-mail. The phone call. The staircase.” Ryan leaned a haunch on my desk. “Give me your take.”

“It would be pure speculation.”

“Speculate.”

“I’ve been poking around in Tracadie and talking to Bastarache’s wife.” A vision surfaced in my consciousness. Obéline’s face outside the gazebo. I felt a cold heaviness in my chest. Kept talking. “I’m looking at Cormier. Cormier is hooked to Bastarache, but he doesn’t think I know that. Bastarache dislikes my snooping, so he whistles up the dogs to chase me away.”

“Why?”

“I’m chaseable.”

Ryan’s look said he wasn’t amused.

“OK. Say Bastarache can’t understand why I’d make a sudden visit to Tracadie, and make straight for Obéline. This concerns him. He tells Cheech and Chong to find out what I’m up to. Or to scare me off.”