Kathy Reichs - Grave Secrets

The porch crew watched us from the steps, cigarettes tucked between fingers or hanging from mouths. Hairstyles included one Statue of Liberty, one Mr. T, two Sir Galahads, and a Janis Joplin. Though it was too dark to make out faces, all five looked like they were in preschool when the Berlin wall went down.

I noticed the statue nudge Mr. T. Mr. T commented, and everyone laughed.

“Bonjour,” Ryan greeted them from the sidewalk.

No response.

“Howdy.” He tried English.

From inside, I heard the intermittent blare of the Sex Pistols, as though someone were turning the music on and off.

“We’re looking for Patrick Feeney.”

“Why?” Mr. T wore a leather vest over a hairless, naked chest.

“Pops win the lottery?”

“He’s been nominated for a Nobel,” said Ryan in a flat, humorless voice.

Mr. T pushed from the railing and stood with legs apart, shoulders back, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his jeans.

“Rouse the sleeping tiger,” said the statue, flicking ash onto the sidewalk. “Bad move.”

While Mr. T looked like he wanted action, the statue looked desperate for attention. His hair spikes were sprayed colors I couldn’t make out in the dark, and a chain looped from one nostril to its partner earlobe.

Ryan stepped forward and waggled his badge in Mr. T’s face.

“Patrick Feeney?” he repeated, his voice granite.

Mr. T dropped his hands, and the fingers curled into fists. Joplin reached up and wrapped an arm around his leg.

“À l’intérieur,” she said. Inside.

“Merci.”

Ryan placed a foot on the lowest tread, and the group parted a millimeter. We wove our way up, careful to avoid stepping on fingers and toes. I felt ten eyes follow our progress.

A single red bulb glowed above the front door. Though the porch sagged badly, in the crimson light I could see fresh boards sandwiched among the old. Someone had turned the soil in a window planter, and a flat of marigolds lay to the side. Though Chez Tante Clémence would never win any design awards, a caring hand was clearly at work.

Clémence’s interior was in keeping with her public face. Lavender on the woodwork, crude murals on the walls. Animals. Flowers. Sunsets. The colors were those I remembered from the tempera paints of my lower school art classes. The furniture was Salvation Army, the linoleum different in every room.

Ryan and I crossed a front parlor containing several futon couches, passed a wooden staircase on the left, and entered a long, narrow corridor directly opposite the front of the house. Doors opened onto bedrooms on both sides, each with battered dressers and four to six single beds or cots. From one I could see the silver-blue shaft of a TV, and hear the theme music of Law and Order.

Halfway down the hall, we came to a kitchen. Beyond the kitchen, I could see a dining room on the left, two more bedrooms on the right.

Feeney was on his knees in the kitchen, helping a teenage imitation of Metallica dismantle or assemble a boom box.

Like African chameleons that turn green and sway to imitate leaves, youth counselors often take on the traits of their clients.

Denim, ponytails, Birkenstocks, boots. The camouflage helps them mix with the populace.

Not Feeney. With tortoiseshell glasses and thick white hair parted straight as a runway the man might have blended at a home for seniors. He wore a cable-knit cardigan, flannel shirt, and gray polyester pants hiked up to his armpits.

On hearing footsteps, Feeney turned.

“May I help you?”

Ryan flashed his badge.

“Detective Andrew Ryan.”

“I’m Patrick Feeney. I run the center.”

Feeney looked at me. Metallica did the same. I half expected the four of them to jam into “Die, Die My Darling” in high, cracky voices.

“Tempe Brennan.” I identified myself.

Feeney nodded three times, more to himself than to us. Behind him, the boys watched with expressions ranging from curiosity to hostility.

Two girls appeared in a doorway across the hall. Both had fried blonde hair and looked like they ate a lot of potatoes. One wore jeans and a UBC sweatshirt, the other a peasant skirt that hung low on her hips. Given her poundage, it was a bad choice.

Feeney struggled to rise. As one, Metallica reached out to help him. He crossed to us, walking with feet widely spaced, as though bothered by hemorrhoids.

“How may I help you, Detective?”

“We’re looking for a young woman named Chantale Specter.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Is Chantale here?” Ryan said.

“Why?”

“It’s a simple question, Father.”

Feeney bristled slightly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw peasant skirt disappear. Moments later, the front door opened, then closed.

I slipped from the kitchen and hurried to the parlor. Through the window I could see that only Mr. T and the statue remained on the steps. Peasant skirt was talking to them. After a brief exchange, Mr. T flicked his cigarette, and the three headed west on de Maisonneuve. I waited to allow a safety zone, then set off after them.

The Montreal Canadiens had lousy luck with their early accommodations. From the 1909 to the 1910 season, the hockey team was headquartered in Westmount Arena at the intersection of Ste-Catherine and Atwater. When that rink burned to the ground, the Habs returned to their roots on the east side of town. Following another fire, the Mont-Royal Arena was thrown together, and the boys slapped pucks there for the next four years. In 1924, the Forum was built directly across from the old home ice. Construction took just one hundred and fifty-nine days and cost $1.2 million dollars. In their opener, the Canadiens trounced the Toronto St. Pats 7–1.

Hockey is sacred in Canada. Over the years the Forum acquired the aura of a holy place. The more Stanley Cups, the holier it grew. Nevertheless, the day came. Management needed more seats. The Habs needed better locker rooms.

The team played its last game in the Forum on March 11, 1996. Four days later, fifty thousand Montrealers turned out for the “moving day” parade. On March 15, the Habs hosted their opener in the new Molson Centre, defeating the New York Rangers 4–2.

It may have been the last game the bums won, I thought as I hurried along de Maisonneuve.

The old Forum sat empty for a while, forlorn, abandoned, an eyesore on the western edge of the city. In 1998, Canderel Management bought the project, brought Pepsi on board as title sponsor, and began a massive face-lift. Three years later, the building reopened as the Centre de divertissement du Forum Pepsi, the metaphor changed from spectator sport to food and entertainment.

Where scalpers once hawked rinkside seats, and stockbrokers and truckers jockeyed for beer, under-thirties now sip Smirnoff Ice and bowl on sonic alleys. The Pepsi Forum Entertainment Centre contains a twenty-two-screen movie megaplex, an upscale wine store, restaurants, an indoor climbing wall, and a big-screen altar paying homage to the good old days.

Mr. T, the statue, and peasant skirt turned left on rue Lambert-Closse and entered the Forum on the Ste-Catherine side. I trailed them ten yards back.

Sighting on the statue’s hair spikes, I dogged the trio through a handful of bowlers and moviegoers milling about the lobby. I watched the spikes ascend the escalator to the second floor and disappear into Jillian’s. I followed.

Tables and booths filled the right half of the restaurant, a bar occupied the left. Though there were few diners, every bar stool was filled, and a dozen drinkers stood in twos and threes.

When I entered, the Clémence trio was making its way toward a young woman at the far end of the bar. She wore a black lace blouse, long black beads, and fingerless black gloves. The lace securing her topknot looked like an enormous black butterfly perched on her head.