Bones to Ashes (18 page)

Dumping everything from my lap, I found a hand lens on a cabinet top and compared the faces under magnification.

Kelly Sicard. Ryan’s MP number one. The girl had lived with her parents in Rosemère, disappeared in ’97 after a night drinking with friends.

Kitty Stanley.

Kelly Sicard.

Both had blue eyes, amber hair, and Brooke Shields brows.

Kelly Sicard was eighteen when she disappeared. Kitty Stanley looked maybe sixteen.

I flipped the contact sheet. No date.

Kelly Sicard.

Kitty Stanley.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

After studying the images for a very long time, I was convinced. Though lighting and focal distances varied, the girls shared the same high cheekbones, narrow interorbital distance, long upper lip, broad jawline, and tapered chin. I didn’t need calipers and a computer program. Kitty Stanley and Kelly Sicard were one and the same.

Sicard looked so young. I wanted to launch my voice through the celluloid and speak to her. Ask why she’d come to this terrible place to pose for this man. Ask what had happened to her after that day. Had she gone to New York to pursue a dream? Had she been murdered?

And why the alias? Had Sicard hired Cormier without telling her parents? Lied about her name? Her age?

“I have Sicard.” It came out dead calm.

Hippo shot to his feet and reached me in three strides. I handed him the lens, the photos, and the contact sheet.

Hippo squinted at the images. He really needed a shower.

“Crétaque!
” Over his shoulder. “Ryan! Get your ass in here.”

Ryan appeared instantly. Hippo passed him the lens and photos.

Ryan studied the images. He was also in need of soap and water.

“Sicard kid?” To me.

I nodded.

“You certain?”

“I am.”

Ryan dialed his cell. I heard a faraway voice. Ryan asked for a woman I knew to be a crown prosecutor. There was a pause, then another voice came on the line.

Ryan identified himself, got straight to the point.

“Cormier photographed Kelly Sicard.”

The voice said something.

“No date. Looks like a year, maybe two before she went missing.”

The voice said something else.

Ryan’s eyes rolled to me.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure.”

By seven, we’d searched half of Cormier’s files. The three of us looked like Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow, sweaty, dirty, and discouraged.

We were all cranky as hell.

Ryan drove me home. Except for a few exchanges concerning Cormier and my visit to Tracadie, we rode in silence. No mention of Charlie or Korn or Lutetia.

In the past, Ryan and I enjoyed challenging each other with obscure quotes in an ongoing game of “Who said that?” Goofy, I know. But we’re both competitive.

A one-liner rapped at my forebrain. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Aldous Huxley.

Good one, Brennan.

I settled for congratulating myself.

We were pulling to the curb when Ryan got the call. A warrant had been issued for Cormier’s home.

Did I want to be included?

Sure. But I had to go to the lab first. I would drive myself.

Ryan gave me the address.

Entering my front door, I was slammed by the odor of cooking. Cumin, onions, and chilies. Harry was whipping up her specialty. It was not what I needed after a day in a furnace.

I called out a greeting. Harry confirmed that dinner would be San Antonio chili.

Inwardly groaning, I beelined to the shower.

In a way, Harry’s chili was therapeutic. What toxins I hadn’t sweated out at Cormier’s studio, I definitely offloaded at dinner.

Harry was jazzed about the poetry book. In all fairness, I had to admit I was impressed with her progress.

“You were right. O’Connor House was a press for frustrated writers wanting to self-publish. It was a family business, owned and operated by a husband-and-wife team named O’Connor.”

“Flannery and spouse.”

Harry’s eyes went round. “You know them?”

Mine went rounder. “You’re making that up. This woman wasn’t really named after Flannery O’Connor?”

Harry shook her head. “She was once she got married. Flannery and Michael O’Connor. The operation was headquartered in Moncton. Printing and binding were done elsewhere.”

Harry dropped a handful of shredded Cheddar onto her chili.

“Apparently self-publishing wasn’t the fast track to prosperity the O’Connors envisioned. The press folded after churning out a whopping ninety-four books, manuals, and pamphlets. Salad?”

I held out my plate. Harry filled it.

“Chili needs sour cream.”

While in the kitchen, Harry must have sallied on in her head. When she returned, she’d fast-forwarded a page or two.

“Of those, twenty-two fit the bill.”

“Fit what bill?”

“Twenty-two were books of poetry.”

“Get out! Did you obtain author names?”

Harry shook her head. “But I got contact information for Flannery O’Connor. She’s living in Toronto, working for an ad agency. I called and left a message. I’ll call again when we’ve finished supper.”

“How did you learn all this?”

“Books, Tempe. We’re talking about books. And who knows books?”

I assumed the question was rhetorical.

“Librarians, that’s who. ’Course, libraries are called
bibliothèques
here. But I found one with a Web site in the good old King’s lingo. Has a staff directory with names and e-mail addresses and phone numbers. You can’t imagine what happened when I dialed the reference desk.”

I couldn’t.

“A human being spoke to me. In English. Nice lady named Bernice Weaver. Bernice told me I should hike right on in.”

Harry swiped the dregs of her chili with a slice of baguette.

“Building looks like a big ole dollhouse.” Harry pointed the baguette in a vaguely western direction. “It’s just yonder.”

“Are you talking about the Westmount Public Library?”

Harry nodded, mouth full of bread.

Founded in 1897 in commemoration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the Westmount Public Library does, indeed, reflect the era’s architectural whimsy. Its collections are some of the oldest in the Montreal area, and its clientele is solidly Anglophone.

Good choice, Harry.

“So Bernice was able to identify O’Connor House, its owners, and its publication list?”

“Bernice is a pip.”

Apparently.

“I’m impressed. Really.”

“Not as impressed as you’re going to be, big sister.”

Harry took in my wet hair, tank, and drawstring PJ bottoms. Perhaps curious that I’d showered and jammied before dinner, she asked how I’d spent my day. Since Ryan’s DOA’s and MP’s and the Phoebe Jane Quincy disappearance had been all over the media, I could think of no reason for secrecy.

I told Harry about the cold cases Ryan and Hippo were investigating. The MP’s Kelly Sicard, Claudine Cloquet, Anne Girardin, and most recently, Phoebe Jane Quincy. The DOA’s from the Rivière des Mille Îles, Dorval, and now, Lac des Deux Montagnes. I sketched out my stint in the studio, without mentioning Cormier’s name, and described the photo of Kelly Sicard.

“Sonovabitch.”

I agreed. Sonovabitch.

We finished dinner lost in our separate thoughts. Pushing away from the table, I broke the silence.

“Why don’t you give Flannery O’Connor another shot while I clear this mess?”

Harry was back before I’d loaded the dishwasher. Still no answer in Toronto.

She looked at me, then checked the time. Five past ten.

“Sweetie, you look rode hard and put away wet.” She took the plate from my hands. “Hit the hay.”

I didn’t argue.

Birdie trailed me to bed.

But sleep wouldn’t come.

I thrashed, punched the pillow, kicked off the bedding, pulled it back. The same questions winged through my brain.

What had happened to Phoebe Jane Quincy? To Kelly Sicard, Clau dine Cloquet, and Anne Girardin? Who were the girls found in Dorval, in the Rivière des Mille Îles, and in Lac des Deux Montagnes?

I kept seeing images of Kelly Sicard/Kitty Stanley. Why had Sicard used an alias? Why had Cormier photographed her? Was he involved in her disappearance? In the disappearances and/or deaths of the others?

And the skeleton from Rimouski. Hippo’s girl. What was the meaning of the lesions on her digits and face? Where was Île-aux-Becs-Scies? Was the girl aboriginal? Or contemporary? Could the bones be those of Évangéline Landry? Had Évangéline been murdered as her sister believed? Or was Obéline’s memory a childhood distortion of a frightening incident? Had Évangéline been sick? If so, why had Obéline insisted that she was well?

I tried to picture Évangéline, to visualize the woman she’d be today. A woman just two years my senior.

And, of course, Ryan.

Maybe it was fatigue. Or dullness from so many dispiriting developments. Or overload from the hundreds of faces I’d scrutinized that day. My mind floated dark curls, a blue swimsuit, a polka-dot sundress. Recall from snapshots, not real-time memories. Try as I might, I couldn’t live-stream an image of Évangéline’s face.

A great sadness overwhelmed me.

Flinging back the covers, I turned on the bedside light, and sat on the edge of my mattress. Bird nudged my elbow. I lifted an arm and hugged him to me.

Knuckles rapped lightly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Harry opened the door. “You’re thrashing like a fish in a bass boat.”

“I can’t remember what Évangéline looked like. Not really.”

“That’s what’s keeping you up?”

“That’s my fixation of the moment.”

“Wait.”

She was back in minute, a large green book pressed to her chest.

“I was saving this as a hostess gift, but you look like you could use it now.”

Harry dropped onto the bed beside me.

“Are you aware that your sister is the all-time champ-een in the recorded history of scrapbooking?”

“Scrapbooking?”

Mock astonishment. “You’ve never heard of scrapbooking?”

I shook my head.

“Scrapbooking’s bigger than Velveeta cheese. ’Least in Texas. And I am the monster-star of the genre.”

“You paste stuff in scrapbooks?”

Harry’s eyes rolled so high I thought they might stick.

“Not just stuff, Tempe. Memorabilia. And you don’t just slap it in mishmash. Each page is an artfully crafted montage.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Temperance Daessee Brennan.” Harry’s voice was Ralph Edwards dramatic. “This is your life.” She opened the scrapbook. “But you can peruse the early years at a future time of your choosing.”

Flipping several pages, Harry slid her opus onto my lap.

And there we were, tan and barefoot, squinting into the sun.

Harry had penned
Tenth Birthday
beside the grainy snapshot. Sharing the page with Évangéline and me were a photo of Gran’s house, a napkin from a Pawleys Island fish camp, and a ticket from Gay Dolphin Park on the Myrtle Beach boardwalk. Sand dollar and dolphin stickers completed the artful montage.

“I love it, Harry.” I threw my arms around her. “Really, I love it. Thank you.”

“Don’t go all slobbery.” Harry stood. “Get some sleep. Even if he is a two-timing peckerwood, Ryan’s still a biscuit. You need to look perky on the morrow.”

My eye roll made Harry’s look amateur.

Before turning out the light, I spent a long time studying Évangéline’s features. Dark, curly hair. Strong, slightly humped nose. Delicate lips, tight around an impishly protruding tongue.

I had no idea how soon I’d see that face again.

I
DON’T KNOW WHAT I EXPECTED.
A H HAH
! HEAD SLAP! EPIPHANY! If so, I disappointed myself.

Other than evidence of disease, I found nothing in Hippo’s girl’s bones to alter my original age estimate, and nothing to exclude the possibility that she was sixteen. The nature of the skeletal pathology still baffled me.

At nine, I phoned a private DNA lab in Virginia. Bad news: prices had skyrocketed since I’d last used their services. Good news: I was permitted to submit samples as a private citizen.

After downloading and completing the proper forms, I packaged the Sprite can, the tissues, a molar, and a plug from the girl’s right femur. Then I went in search of LaManche.

The chief listened, fingers steepled below his chin. Évangéline. Obéline. Agent Tiquet. The Whalen brothers. Jerry O’Driscoll’s pawnshop. Tom Jouns.

LaManche raised some points for clarification. I answered. Then he called the coroner.

Hippo was right. No way, José.

I leveled with LaManche about my personal agenda. Reluctantly, he granted my request to pay for the tests out of pocket.

LaManche informed me I had one new case. Nothing urgent. Long bones had been found near Jonquiére. Probably old cemetery remains.

He updated me on the Doucet situation. The psychiatrist had concluded that Théodore was mentally incompetent. Since no cause of death could be established for Dorothée or Geneviève, charges were not being laid.

I outlined the cold cases Hippo and Ryan were working, and described my involvement in them. The MP’s, Kelly Sicard, Claudine Cloquet, and Anne Girardin. The DOA’s from the Rivière des Mille Îles, Dorval, and Lac des Deux Montagnes. The phone rang as I was explaining the possible link to Phoebe Jane Quincy.

LaManche raised two palms in apology. What can one do?

Back in my lab, I directed Denis to send the DNA samples by Federal Express. Then I phoned the lab and begged for expedition. The man said he’d do what he could.

I was grabbing my purse when I remembered one of LaManche’s questions.

“
Où se situe l’Île-aux-Becs-Scies?”

Where was it, indeed? I’d been unable to find the island anywhere in the New Brunswick atlas.

And what did the name mean? Island of what? Perhaps the maps I’d consulted used an English translation.

I pulled out my Harrap’s French-English dictionary.