Kathy Reichs - Monday Mourning

“The defining characteristic is to react to a threatening circumstance with passivity,” Ryan said.

“Lie down and take it.” Charbonneau shook his head.

“It goes beyond that,” I said. “Persons with Stockholm syndrome come to bond with their captors, even identify with them. They may act grateful or even loving toward them.”

“Under what circumstances does this syndrome develop?” Claudel asked.

“Psychologists agree there are four factors that must be present.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “One, the victim feels his or her survival is threatened by the captor, and believes the captor will carry through on the threat. Two, the victim is given small kindnesses, at the captor’s whim.”

“Like letting the poor bastard live,” Charbonneau interjected.

“Could be. Could be brief respites from torture, short periods of freedom, a decent meal, a bath.”

“Sacré bleu.” Charbonneau again shook his head.

“Three, the victim is completely isolated from perspectives other than those of the captor. And four, the victim is convinced, rightly or wrongly, that there is no way to escape.”

Neither Charbonneau nor Claudel said a word.

“Cameron Hooker was a master at this game,” I said. “He kept Stan entombed in a coffin under his bed and usually took her out simply to brutalize her. But now and then he’d allow her periods of freedom. At times she was permitted to jog, to work in the garden, to attend church. Once Hooker even drove her to Riverside to visit her family.”

“Why wouldn’t she just split?” Charbonneau jabbed a hand through his hair, sending the crown vertical.

“Hooker also had Stan convinced he owned her.”

“Owned her?” Charbonneau.

“He showed her a cooked-up contract and told her he’d purchased her as a slave from an outfit called the Company. He told her she was under constant surveillance, that if she tried to escape members of the Company would hunt her down and kill her, along with members of her family.”

“Cibole!” Charbonneau threw up his hands. “Hooker traumatizes Stan, she feels totally isolated, has to look to him for her slightest need, and she ends up bonding with the freak?”

“You’ve got it,” I said. “Some of the most damaging defense testimony focused on a love letter Stan wrote to Hooker.”

Charbonneau looked appalled.

“Elizabeth Smart was held by crazies for almost a year,” I said. “At times she could hear searchers calling out to her, even recognized her own uncle’s voice on one occasion. She never really tried to escape.”

“Smart was a fourteen-year-old kid,” Charbonneau said.

“Remember Patty Hearst?” Ryan asked. “Symbionese Liberation Army grabbed her and kept her locked in a closet. She ended up robbing a bank with her captors.”

“That was political.” Charbonneau shot to his feet and started pacing the room. “This Hooker had to be some kind of psychotic mutant. People don’t go around snatching up girls and stashing them in boxes.”

“The phenomenon may be more common than we know,” I said.

Charbonneau stopped pacing. He and Claudel looked at me.

“In 2003, John Jamelske pleaded guilty to holding five women as sex slaves in a concrete bunker he’d constructed under his backyard.”

“Right down the road,” Claudel said, at last switching to English. “Syracuse, New York.”

“Oh, man.” Charbonneau again did the hair thing. “Remember Lake and Ng?”

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng were a pair of pathological misogynists who built a torture chamber on a remote ranch in Calaveras County, California. At least two women were videotaped while being tormented by the pair. The tape was labeled M Ladies, M standing for murdered.

“Whatever happened to those assholes?” Claudel’s voice dripped with disgust.

“Lake was collared for shoplifting and offed himself with a couple of cyanide capsules. Ng was nailed in Calgary, then fought extradition to the U.S. for about a decade, right, Doc?”

“It took six years of legal wrangling, but Ng was finally returned to California for trial. In 1998, a jury found him guilty of murdering three women, seven men, and two babies.”

“Enough.” The chill had gone from Claudel’s voice. “You believe Menard brought his freak show to Montreal?”

“According to Rose Fisher, Louise Parent phoned to tell me she’d seen Menard twice with young girls. We found three buried in a basement under space he rented.”

“You think Menard transported Angie Robinson from Corning, California, to Montreal?”

“Angie or her body.”

“And that he abducted and subjugated Anique Pomerleau?”

“I do.”

Claudel voiced my fear.

“And, if threatened, Menard might kill Pomerleau.”

“Yes.”

Claudel’s eyes pinched. He looked at his partner, then rose.

“A judge should consider this probable cause.”

“You’ll get a warrant?”

“When his ass hits the bench.”

“I want to go with you to Pointe-St-Charles.”

“Out of the question.”

“Why?”

“If all this is true, Menard will be dangerous.”

“I’m a big girl.”

Claudel looked at me so long I thought he wasn’t going to reply. Then he hitched a shoulder at Ryan.

“Ride shotgun for the cowboy. No one else will.”

I was stunned. The humorously challenged had attempted a joke.

The rest of that Sunday was agony. Puttering through tasks, I felt sadness mixed with deep disappointment in myself. Why hadn’t I realized earlier that the bones might have been those of girls held captive? Why hadn’t I understood why my profiles failed to fit the descriptions on the MP lists? Again and again, I wondered: Would it have made a difference?

Disturbing images kept welling in my head. Anique Pomerleau, with her pale white face and long dark braid. Angie Robinson in a leather shroud in a cellar grave.

Riding with Ryan.

Anne. Where the hell was Anne? Should I be doing more to find her? What?

I tried Christmas carols. They cheered me as effectively as a Salvation Army Santa.

I went to the gym, pounded out three miles with CDs of old favorites cranked in my earphones.

The Lovin’ Spoonful. Donovan. The Mamas and the Papas. The Supremes.

Tossing and turning in bed that night, one refrain kept looping through my brain.

Monday, Monday…

Two Mondays back I’d excavated the bones of three young girls.

One Monday back I’d tweezed feathers from Louise Parent’s mouth.

Tomorrow I might be exploring the house of horrors.

Can’t trust that day…

I shuddered over what the next Monday would bring.

31

CLAUDEL HAD A WARRANT BY NINE. RYAN WAS AT MY PLACE AT quarter past.

When I got into his Jeep, Ryan handed me coffee. Caffeine was not what I needed. I was wired enough to recaulk the Pentagon.

Thanking him, I pulled off my mittens, wrapped my fingers around the Styrofoam, and worked on slowing my heartbeat even as I sipped.

Five minutes out, Ryan cracked his window and lit up a Player’s. Normally he would have asked if I minded. Today, he didn’t. I assumed he was feeling as jittery as I was.

The streets were clogged with the remnants of Monday morning rush hour. A decade and twenty minutes later we entered the Point.

Turning onto de Sébastopol, I could see two cruisers and an unmarked Impala positioned at intervals along the block. Exhaust floated from all three tailpipes.

Ryan slid behind the nearest cruiser. Killing the engine, he turned to me.

“If Menard so much as frowns in your direction, you’re out of there. Do you understand?”

“We’re going to search the place, not assault it.”