Kathy Reichs - Monday Mourning

“The nonwhites are out.”

“And those who were too old or too tall when they disappeared.”

Ryan looked at me.

“I know. Without lower limits on age and height, I can’t really limit the subset that much.” I flapped a hand at the skeletons in my lab. “These girls could have survived years in captivity.”

Like Angela Robinson, Anique Pomerleau, and Tawny McGee.

“I cut samples for DNA testing on Angie Robinson.”

“The one wrapped in leather?”

I nodded. “I’m sure it’s her.”

“I think you’re right.”

“The coroner’s office is contacting the Robinson family. We’ll need a maternal relative to run mitochondrial comparisons.”

I slumped back.

“Anne called this morning.”

“That’s great.” Ryan’s face broke into a huge smile.

“No. It’s not.”

When I told him what had happened the smile collapsed.

“I’ve called the taxi companies. They’re checking their records for a pickup at your place Friday. Would you like me to contact rental car agencies?”

“I guess it’s time,” I said.

“It’s only been four days.”

“Yes.”

“If she—” Ryan hesitated. “If something happened we’d be the first to know.”

“Yes.”

Ryan’s cell phone rang. He checked the screen, frowned, then gave me his most boyish of grins.

“Sorry—”

“I know. Gotta take it.”

Ryan had barely cleared the door when my desk phone rang. As per my request, the librarian had found materials on sexual sadism and the Stockholm syndrome.

I was reading an article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences when Claudel arrived.

“The dead man is Neal Wesley Catts.”

“S’il vous plaît .” I gestured to the chair opposite my desk. “Asseyezvous.” Sit.

Claudel tucked down the corners of his mouth and sat.

“Catts was born in Stockton, California, in 1963. The usual sob story, broken home, alcoholic mother.”

Claudel was speaking English. What could that mean?

“Catts dropped out of high school in seventy-nine, hung with the Banditos for a while, got no invite to patch up. Served one hitch in Soledad on a drug rap.”

“Did he hold jobs?”

“Flipped burgers, tended bar, worked at a window frame plant. But here’s a tidbit you’ll love. The little pervert liked ogling forbidden grail.”

I listened without interrupting.

“Catts was hauled to the bag several times on peeping complaints.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Cops never had enough to charge him.”

“Voyeurism is a typical first step for sexual predators.”

“One old biddy accused him of snuffng her poodle. Again, no proof, no charges.”

“Where was this?”

“Yuba City, California.”

The name hit me like a blow to the chest.

“Yuba City’s right down the road from Chico.”

Claudel’s lips did something very close to a smile. “And Red Bluff.”

“When was Catts there?”

“Late seventies, early eighties. Dropped out of sight in the mid-eighties.”

“Didn’t he have to report to a parole officer or something?”

“He was clear with the state by eighty-four.”

When Claudel left to search out LaManche, I went back to my reading. I was on my second trip to the library when I ran into the chief.

“Big day yesterday, Temperance?”

“ Carnival. You’ve spoken with Claudel?”

“I’ve just given him a preliminary on Monsieur Catts.”

“Any surprises?”

LaManche pooched out his lips and waggled his fingers. Maybe yes. Maybe no.

“What?”

“I found no gunpowder on the hands.”

“Were they bagged?”

“They were.”

“Shouldn’t powder be present if he fired a gun?”

“Yes.”

“How can that be?”

LaManche lifted one shoulder and both brows.

Charbonneau rounded out my morning’s list of callers.

“Menard and Catts knew each other,” he said without preamble.

“Really.”

“I managed to locate one of Menard’s former profs at Cal State–Chico. Guy’s been teaching since Truman started redecorating the White House, but his memory’s primo. He put me onto one of Menard’s old girlfriends. Woman named Carla Greenberg.”

The name meant nothing to me.

“Greenberg’s on faculty at some small college in Pennsylvania. Says she and Menard dated their first year of grad school, then she left for Belize. Menard didn’t land a job on the dig, or on any other project, for that matter, so he stayed in Chico that summer. When Greenberg got back Menard was spending most of his time with some guy in Yuba City.”

“Catts?”

“Our hero.”

“How did Catts and Menard hook up?”

“They look alike.”

“Come on.”

Charbonneau held up a hand. “I’m not making this up, Doc. According to Greenberg, people kept telling Menard some pawnbroker in Yuba City was his dead-ringer double. The archaeology students liked to prowl this guy’s shop, being as he wasn’t overly rigid about laws pertaining to antiquities, if you catch my meaning.”

“And?”

“Menard went for a look-see and the two became buds. At least that’s the story Menard laid on Greenberg.”

“That sounds preposterous.”

“Greenberg e-mailed this.”

Charbonneau handed me a color photo printed on computer paper. In it three people stood arm in arm on a pier.

The woman was squat and muscular, with straight brown hair and wide-set eyes. The men flanking her looked like bookends. Both were tall and thin, with wild red hair and freckles gone mad.

“I’ll be damned.”

“According to Greenberg, Menard spent less and less time in Chico, eventually blew off the program. She was wrapped up in her thesis that fall and never really gave him much thought.”

“Could you find anyone in Yuba City who remembered Catts?”

“One old couple. Still live in a trailer next to the one Catts rented.”

“Let me guess. Nice young man. Quiet. Kept to himself.”

“You’ve got it.”

Charbonneau reclaimed Greenberg’s picture and looked at it as one might look at a turd on the lawn.

“Luc and I are going to spin down to Vermont, flash the pic, see if we can goose a few memories.”

After Charbonneau left, I dialed Anne’s cell. “We’re sorry. The party…”

I tried working my way through the journals the librarian had pulled for me. British Journal of Psychiatry. Behavioral Sciences and the Law. Medicine and Law. Bulletin of the American Academy of Science and the Law.

It was no good. My mind kept wandering.

I phoned Anne again. Her cell was still off.

I phoned Tom. No word from his wife.

I phoned Anne’s brothers in Mississippi. No Anne. No call.

I forced myself back to the stack.

One article focused on Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, the California geniuses who’d built underground bunkers to house female sex slaves.

At trial, Ng’s lawyers argued that their client was a mere bystander, a dependent personality waiting to be led. According to the defense, Lake’s ex-wife was the real heavy.

Right, Charlie. You were a victim. Like poor little Karla Homolka.

In 1991, Leslie Mahaffy, fourteen, was found dismembered and encased in concrete in an Ontario lake. The following year, Kristin French, fifteen, turned up naked and dead in a ditch. Both had been brutalized, raped, and murdered.

Paul Bernardo and his wife, Karla Homolka, were subsequently arrested. Young and blond and beautiful, the press dubbed the couple the Ken and Barbie Killers.

In exchange for testimony against her ex-husband, Homolka was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter. Bernardo was convicted of murder one, aggravated sexual assault, forcible confinement, kidnapping, and performing an indignity on a human body.