Kathy Reichs - Monday Mourning

“Anne?” I called out.

No answer.

Birdie stretched, dropped to the floor, and went belly up.

“Anne?” I called again as I rubbed Birdie’s tummy.

Silence.

“Where is she, Bird?”

The cat rolled to all fours, stretched each back leg, then strolled to the kitchen. In seconds I heard the crunch of Science Diet nuggets.

“Annie?”

Her bedroom door was still closed. I knocked and went in.

And my heart sank.

Anne’s belongings were gone. A note lay on the desk.

I stared at it a moment, then reached out and unfolded the paper.

Dearest Tempe,

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your kindness and patience. Not just this past week, but throughout the entire course of our wonderful, joyful, precious friendship. You have been my buttress, the wind beneath my wings. (Remember “our” movie?)

We’re alike in so very many ways, Tempe. I’m not good at talking about my feelings. I’m not even good at thinking about my feelings. You were perfect for me.

Now it’s time to wrap this up. Though I can never say it to you, know that I love you so very very much. Please don’t be angry with me for doing it this way.

Anne

A whole catalog of emotions gripped me.

Love. I knew my friend and understood how hard those words had been for her.

Guilt. Engrossed in my own problems, I’d not really focused on Anne’s. How could I have been so selfish?

Anger. She’d just packed and split for home without telling me? How could she be so insensitive?

Then fear barreled in like a locomotive.

Had she gone home? Wrap what up? For doing what this way? What way?

I remembered Anne’s book and our dinner conversation the night before. She hadn’t mentioned leaving.

What had she said? Something about cycles and changing in substance. I’d blown her off.

Sweet Jesus! Was she talking about death? Surely not. Depressed or not, Anne was not the suicidal type. But did we ever really know?

Memory collage. Another friend who’d stayed in that room. Left. Turned up dead in a shallow grave. Could Anne have undertaken some risky odyssey?

I tried calling her cell. No answer.

I dialed Tom.

“Hello.”

“Is Anne there?”

“Tempe?”

“Has Anne come home?”

“I thought she was with you.”

“She left.” I read Tom the note.

“What’s she talking about?”

“I’m not sure.”

“She was pretty upset with me.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t think she’d do something crazy, do you?”

The same question had been winging through my skull.

“She hasn’t phoned?”

“No.”

“Call the airlines. See if she’s booked on a flight to Charlotte.”

“I don’t think they’ll tell me.”

“Fake it, Tom!” I was almost crying. “Lie! Think of something.”

“OK.”

“Call me the instant you know anything.”

“You, too.”

Standing with the phone in one hand, I caught a snapshot of myself in the newly replaced dining room mirror.

Body tense, face a frightened white oval.

Like Anne in my corridor the night of the break-in.

Dear God! Let her be all right.

What to do? Phone the airlines? Tom was doing that. Car rental companies? Cab companies? The police?

Was I overreacting? Had Anne simply taken off to be by herself? Should I do nothing and wait?

But Anne left a note. She had some plan in mind. But what plan?

I jumped when the phone shrilled in my hand.

“Anne?”

“It’s me.” Ryan must have picked up on the tension in my voice. “What’s wrong?”

I told him about Anne’s abrupt departure.

“Does the note say she’s going home?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Did she phone anyone?”

“This phone doesn’t record outgoing calls.”

“Or incoming. Or have caller ID. You really need to upgrade.”

“Thanks for the technical advice.”

“I’ll make some inquiries.”

“Thanks. Ryan?”

“Yeah.”

“She was very down.”

“She took her things. That’s a good sign.”

“Yes.” I hadn’t thought of that.

Pause.

“Do you want me to come over there?”

I did. “I’ll be all right. Why are you calling?”

“SIJ was able to lift prints from the letter opener. Two sets.”

“Menard and the woman.”

“You’re probably half right.”

“Half?”

“The guy’s not Menard.”

28

“THE PRINTS WERE LEFT BY TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. NEITHER IS Menard.”

“You’re sure?”

“I sent everything down to Vermont. Their lab compared the latents from our letter opener to those taken when Menard was busted on the DWI charge.”

“But Menard was all over that letter opener.” I wasn’t believing this.

“The guy in the house was. But he’s not Menard.”

“Any hit on the second set?”

“No. We’re running them up here, and sending them through AFIS in the States.”

AFIS is the Automated Fingerprint Information System.

“If the guy’s not Menard, who is he?”

“An exceptionally perceptive question, Dr. Brennan.”

This was not making sense. “Maybe there’s a screwup on the prints.”

“It happens.”

“Charbonneau’s got a college yearbook photo of Menard. Let’s roll it by Cyr and see what he says.”

“Can’t hurt,” Ryan agreed.

I waited, half hoping Ryan would reiterate his offer to come over. He didn’t.

“I’ll get the photo from Char—” Ryan started.

I heard what could have been a female voice in the background, then the muffled sound of a covered mouthpiece.

“Sorry.” Ryan’s voice was pitched lower. “I’ll get the photo from Charbonneau and pick you up at eight.”

I held it together through a Friday night macaroni and cheese dinner for one. Through a long, hot bath. Through the eleven o’clock news.

In bed, in the dark, unbidden images bombarded my mind.

A dingy basement. Bones in a crate. Bones in trenches.

A woman in bed, gray hair trailing across her face. A stained mattress. A lifeless body on stainless steel.

Shattered mirrors. A shard in a painting.

Anne with her luggage. Anne peering over her floral frames.

I felt a scream in my belly, streams of hot wetness on my face.

The last time I’d felt this overwhelmed I’d been with Ryan. I remembered how he’d wrapped his arms around me and stroked my head. How I’d felt his heart beating. How he’d made me feel so strong, so beautiful, so everything-would-be-all-right.

My chest heaved and a sob muscled up my throat.

Sucking air deep into my lungs, I drew my knees to my chest, and let go.

A good cry is more therapeutic than a one-hour bump with a shrink.

I awoke purged of all the grief and pent-up frustration.

Rejuvenated.

In control.

Until I made a jackass of myself twelve hours later.

Tom called at seven to ask if I’d heard from Anne. I hadn’t.

He’d established that his wife had made no reservations for a flight from Montreal to Charlotte for any day that week. I told him I’d talked to an SQ officer.

Tom suggested Anne had probably gone off by herself to think and we would hear from her soon. I agreed. We both needed to believe it.

Hanging up, my eye once again fell on the mirror. Nine days since the break-in and the cops had found zip.

Flash recall.

Anne’s hunk in 3C.

Mother of God! Had she gone off with some stranger she’d met on an airplane? Could that stranger be the same person who had vandalized my home?

Another flash.

Ryan’s surveillance order.