Kathy Reichs - Bones to Ashes

Ryan waited until the Mercedes had merged into traffic, then followed.

36

RYAN AND I DROVE IN SILENCE. RUSH HOUR WAS PUMPING AND I feared that taking my eyes from the Mercedes might allow our quarry to become lost in the sea of bumpers and taillights flowing south toward the city.

Ryan sensed my nervousness.

“Relax,” he said. “I won’t lose them.”

“Maybe we should follow closer.”

“They might spot us.”

“We’re in an unmarked car.”

Ryan almost grinned. “This crate screams cop louder than a light and sound show.”

“She’s heading into town.”

“Yes.”

“Think she’ll take him to Le Passage Noir?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then don’t lose her.”

“I won’t.”

We were on the outskirts of centre-ville when the Mercedes flashed a turn signal.

“She’s going right,” I said.

Ryan slid into the turning lane several cars back.

Two more signals. Two more turns. I watched, chewing the cuticle of my right thumb.

“Safe driver,” I said.

“Makes my job easier.”

“Just don’t—”

“Lose her. I’ve thought of that.”

The Mercedes made one more turn, then pulled over on Boulevard Lebourgneuf. Ryan continued past and slid to the curb a half block down. I watched in the side mirror while Ryan used the rearview.

Francoeur placed something on the dashboard, then she and Bastarache got out, crossed the sidewalk, and entered a gray stone building.

“Probably going to her office,” I said.

“She stuck some sort of parking pass in the windshield,” Ryan said. “If this is her office, she must have a regular spot. Why not use it?”

“Maybe it’s a brief stop,” I said.

Whatever Bastarache and Francoeur were up to, it lasted long enough for me to grow bored with surveillance. I watched office workers hurrying with lidded cups of Starbucks. A mother with a stroller. Two blue-haired punks with arm-tucked skateboards. A spray-painted busker carrying stilts.

The Impala grew hot and stuffy. I rolled down my window. City smells drifted in. Cement. Garbage. Salt and petrol off the river.

I was fighting drowsiness when Ryan cranked the ignition.

I looked toward the building Bastarache and Francoeur had entered. Our boy was coming through the door.

Bastarache pointed a remote at the Mercedes. The car broop-brooped and the lights flashed. Yanking the door, he threw himself behind the wheel and lurched into traffic. When the Mercedes passed us, Ryan let several cars go by, then followed.

Bastarache wound through surface streets onto Boulevard Sainte-Anne, seemingly unaware of our presence. His head kept bobbing, and I assumed he was playing with the radio or inserting a CD.

Several miles out of town, Bastarache turned right onto a bridge spanning the St. Lawrence River.

“He’s going to Île d’Orléans,” Ryan said.

“What’s out there?” I asked.

“Farms, a few summer homes and B and B’s, a handful of tiny towns.”

Bastarache cut across the island on Route Prévost then turned left onto Chemin Royal, a two-lane blacktop that skimmed the far shore. Out my window, the water glistened blue-gray in the early morning sun.

Traffic was light now, forcing Ryan to widen the gap between us and the Mercedes. Past the hamlet of Saint-Jean, Bastarache hooked a right and disappeared from view.

When Ryan rounded the corner, Bastarache was nowhere to be seen. Instead of commenting, I worked the cuticle. It was now an angry bright red.

As we rolled down the blacktop, my eyes swept the landscape. A vineyard spread from both shoulders. That was it. Vines for acres, heavy and green.

In a quarter mile the road ended at a T intersection. The river lay dead ahead, behind a trio of quintessentially Québécois homes. Gray stone walls, wood-beamed porches, high-pitched roofs, dormer windows up, window boxes down. The Mercedes was parked in a driveway beside the easternmost bungalow.

The river road continued to the left, but died ten yards to the right. Ryan drove to that end, made a one-eighty, and killed the engine.

“Now what?” I was saying that a lot lately.

“Now we watch.”

“We’re not going in?”

“First we get the lay of the land.”

“Did you really say lay of the land?”

“We sit code six on the dirtbag skel.” Ryan responded to my ribbing with even more TV cop lingo.

“You’re a scream.” I refused to ask what a code six was.

Forty minutes later, the door opened and the dirtbag skel hurried down the steps and crossed to the Mercedes. His hair was wet and he’d changed to an apricot shirt.

Glancing neither left nor right, Bastarache blasted backward down the drive, tires grinding up gravel. Ryan and I watched him gun up the blacktop toward Chemin Royal, leaving behind a ripple of dust.

Reaching into the glove compartment, Ryan withdrew a fanny pack. I knew its contents. Cuffs, extra clips, badge, and a Glock 9mm. Ryan used the thing when not wearing a jacket.

Yanking free his shirttails, Ryan strapped the pack on his belly and checked the string that would undo the zipper. Then he cranked the engine and we rolled.

At the bungalow, we got out of the Impala and scanned our surroundings. The only thing moving was a mangy brown spaniel sniffing roadkill twenty yards up the shoulder.

I looked at Ryan. He nodded. We beelined to the front door.

Ryan rang the bell with the index finger of his left hand. His right was subtly crooked, positioned over the Glock tucked in the pack.

Within seconds, a female voice spoke through the door.

“As-tu oublié quelque chose?” Have you forgotten something? Familiar “you.”

“Police,” Ryan called out.

There was a moment of silence, then, “You must wait until later.”

A burst of adrenaline coursed through me. Though muffled, the voice was familiar.

“ We want to ask you some questions.”

The woman didn’t reply.

Ryan hit the bell. Again. Again.

“Go away!”

Ryan opened his mouth to reply. I grabbed his arm. The muscles were taut as tree roots.

“Wait,” I whispered.

Ryan’s lips clamped shut, but his elbow stayed cocked.

“Obéline?” I said. “ C’est moi, Tempe . Please let us come in.”

The woman said something I couldn’t hear. Seconds later, I caught a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision.

I turned. A pulled window shade was fluttering gently. Had it been raised when we approached the house? I couldn’t remember.

“Obéline?”

Silence.

“Please, Obéline?”

Locks turned, the door opened, and Obéline’s face appeared in the crack. As before, a scarf covered her head.

She surprised me by speaking English. “My husband will return soon. He will be angry if he finds you here.”

“We thought you were dead. I was heartbroken. So was Harry.”

“Please leave. I’m fine.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Her lips drew tightly together.

“Who staged a suicide?”

“All I want is to be left alone.”

“I’m not going to do that, Obéline.”

Her eyes jumped over my shoulder, toward the road leading to Chemin Royal.

“Detective Ryan and I will help you. We won’t let him hurt you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Help me to understand.”

Color rose in the unscarred skin, grotesquely marbling the right side of her face.

“I don’t need to be rescued.”

“I think you do.”

“My husband is not a bad man.”

“He may have killed people, Obéline. Young girls.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“That’s exactly what he said.”