by Kathy Reichs
“Annie, you’re a rock star.”
“I shimmer.”
“You up for a couple more stops before dinner?”
“Mush on.”
* * *
Anne waited in the car while I dashed up to the lab, made a quick call, and grabbed the buttons. When I rejoined her, she was listening to Zachary Richard on a local French station.
“What’s he singing about?”
“Someone named Marjolaine.”
“I think he misses her.”
“So he says.”
“Local talent?”
“Louisiana Cajun. Your part of the world.”
Anne leaned back and closed her eyes. “That boy can sing about me any ole day.”
It took twice the normal drive time to return to the old quarter. Though it was just past five, night was in full command. Streetlights were on, shops were closing, pedestrians were hurrying, heads bent, purses and packages pressed to their chests.
Leaving boulevard René-Lévesque, I followed rue Berri to its southern end, then turned west and crept along rue de la Commune. The narrow lanes of Vieux-Montréal crisscrossed the hill. To our right lay le Marché Bonsecours, le Pavillon Jacques-Cartier, le Centre des Sciences de Montréal, beyond them the St. Lawrence, its water a black sheen like ebony ice.
“It’s beautiful,” Anne said. “In an arctic tundra sort of way.”
“Cue the caribou.”
In the ice-free months ships belly up to quays jutting from the river’s edge, and cyclists, skateboarders, picnickers, and tourists throng the adjacent parklands and promenades. This evening the riverfront was still and dark.
At the head of place d’Youville, I turned onto a small side street, and parked opposite the old customs house. Anne followed as I trudged downhill, threading her way drunkenly in my tracks.
Glancing across the river, my gaze fell on the snow-misted outline of Habitat ’67. Built for World Expo, the complex is a pile of geometric cubes that challenges the delicate art of balance. Born more of imagination than architectural pragmatism, Habitat’s walkways and patios are a delight in summer, an invitation to hypothermia in winter.
Andrew Ryan lived in Habitat.
A multitude of questions sidetracked my concentration.
Where was Ryan? What was he feeling? What was I feeling? What had he meant? The need to talk. Agreed. But about what? Commitment? Compromise? Conclusion?
I pushed the questions aside. Ryan was working an operation and not thinking or feeling anything having to do with me.
At de la Commune, we entered a futuristic gray stone building, all corners and angles. High up, a banner draped one tower. ICI NAQUIT MONTRÉAL. “Where Montreal Was Born.”
“What is this place?” Anne stomped snow onto the green tile floor.
“Pointe-à-Callière, Montreal’s Museum of Archaeology and History.”
A man’s face rose from below a circular desk at the far end of the lobby. It was gaunt and pale, and needed a shave.
“Sorry.” Rising, the man pointed to a sign. He was wearing an army surplus overcoat, and was holding a boot in one hand. “The museum is closed.”
“I have an appointment with Dr. Mousseau.”
Surprise. “Your name, please?”
“Tempe Brennan.”
The man punched a number, spoke a few words, then cradled the receiver.
“Dr. Mousseau is in the crypt. Do you know the way?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Crossing the lobby, I led Anne past a small theater, down a set of iron stairs, and into a long, narrow, softly lit hall, its walls and floor made completely of stone.
“I feel like Alice tunnel-chasing the hatter,” said Anne.
“This point of land was the site of Montreal’s first settlement. The exhibit demonstrates how the city has grown and changed over the past three centuries.”
Anne flapped her gloves at a truncated wall rising from the floor. “The original foundations?”
“No, but old.” I pointed to the far end of the hall. “That walkway lies directly below place d’Youville, near where we parked. What’s now street was once a sewage dump, before that a river.”
“Tempe?” The voice rang hollowly off rock and mortar. “Est-ce toi, Tempe?”
“C’est moi.”
“Ici.” Over here.
“Who’s Mousseau?” Anne whispered.
“The staff archaeologist.”
“I’ll bet the woman’s got buttons.”
“More buttons than a political primary.”
Monique Mousseau was working at one of several dozen glass cases lining the corridors spidering off from the main chamber. At her side, a metal cart held a camera, a magnifying glass, a laptop, a loose-leaf binder, and several books.
Seeing us, Mousseau reshelved an object, closed and locked the cabinet, dropped Harry Potter glasses to her chest, and hurried toward us.
“Bonjour, Tempe. Comment ça va?”
Mousseau kissed each of my cheeks, then stepped back and beamed up at me, hands still clasping my upper arms.
“You’re good, my friend?”
“I’m good,” I replied in English, then introduced Anne.
“A very great pleasure to meet you.” Mousseau cranked Anne’s arm as one would a pump handle.
“Likewise.” Anne stepped back, overwhelmed by the tiny cyclone working her limb.
The two women looked like members of different species. Anne was tall and blonde. Mousseau stood four foot eleven and had curly black hair. Anne was swathed in pink angora. The archaeologist wore a khaki boy’s shirt, black jeans, and lumberjack boots. An enormous wad of keys dangled from one belt loop.
“Thanks for agreeing to see us so late on a snowy Friday,” I said.
“Is it snowing?” Mousseau released Anne and swiveled to me, bouncing like someone jiggered on speed.
I’d met Monique Mousseau a decade back, soon after my first sortie to Montreal. I’d worked with her often over the years, and understood that her energy did not come from a chemical high. The woman’s extraordinary vigor came from love of life and vocation. Give Mousseau a trowel and she’d dig up New England.
“Gangbusters,” I said.
“How wonderful. I’ve been underground so long today I’ve lost touch with the outside world. How does it look?”
“Very white.”
Mousseau’s laugh echoed louder than a sound someone her size should make. “So. Tell me about these buttons.”
I described the skeletons and the basement.
“Fascinating.” Every utterance owned an exclamation point. “Let’s take a look.”
I dug out and handed her the Ziploc.
Mousseau slid the Harry Potters onto her nose and examined the buttons, turning the baggie over and over in her hands. A full minute passed. Then another.
Mousseau’s face took on a puzzled expression.
Anne and I looked at each other.
Mousseau raised round lenses toward me.
“May I remove them?”
“Of course.”
Unzipping the baggie, Mousseau shook the buttons onto her palm, crossed to the cart, and studied each with the magnifying glass. Using a fingertip, she rolled the buttons, observed, righted them, and observed some more. With each move the perplexed expression deepened.
Anne and I exchanged another glance.
Mousseau’s examination seemed to go on forever. Then, “Will you excuse me one moment?”
I nodded.
Mousseau hurried off, leaving two of the three buttons on her cart.
Around us, an eerie silence. Outside, the occasional honking of a horn.
The waiting played hell with my nerves. Why the confusion? What was Mousseau seeing?
A lifetime later the archaeologist returned, picked up the abandoned buttons, and resumed her inspection. Finally, she looked up, eyes enormous behind their lenses.
“Antoinette Legault looked at these?”
“A detective showed
them to her at the McCord.”
“Legault felt they were nineteenth century?”
“Yes.”
“She’s right.”
My heart plummeted.
Mousseau crossed to me, held up her palm, and manipulated two buttons with the tip of her pen.
“These are sterling silver, produced by a jeweler and watchmaker named R. L. Christie.”
“Where?”
“Edinburgh, Scotland.”
“When?”
“Sometime between 1890 and 1900.”
“You’re certain?”
“I was pretty sure I recognized Christie’s work, but I looked them up just to be sure.”
I nodded, too deflated to think of something to say.
“But this”—Mousseau flipped the third button with her pen—“is a copy, and a poor copy at that.”
I stared at her blankly.
Mousseau handed me the lens. “Compare this one,” she indicated one of the Christie buttons, “to this one.” The pen moved to the forgery.
Under magnification, details of the Christie woman’s face were clear. Eyes. Nose. Curls. In contrast, the silhouette on the fake was a featureless outline.
Mousseau flipped the buttons. “Notice the initials etched beside the eyelet.”
Even to an amateur, the difference was obvious. Christie had engraved his letters with smooth, flowing motions. On the forgery, the S had been gouged as a series of intersecting cuts.
I was perplexed and somewhat taken aback.
But not as taken aback as I would be come Monday morning.
16
MY CONDO IS A GROUND-FLOOR UNIT IN A four-story low-rise wrapping a central courtyard. Two bedrooms. Two baths. Living and dining rooms. Narrow-gauge kitchen. Foyer.
From the long hall running between the front entrance and the dining room, just opposite the kitchen, French doors open onto a patio bordering the central courtyard. From the living room, another set of French doors gives access to a tiny patch of lawn.
In summer, I plant herbs along the edge of the grass. In winter, I watch snow build on the redwood fence, and on the boughs of the pine within its confines. Five square yards. Acreage extraordinaire in a downtown flat.
That night, the dark little yard triggered feelings of exposure and vulnerability. No matter that the patrol car Ryan had requested was passing frequently. His makeshift patch on the door was a constant reminder of my unbidden caller and the point of entry he had chosen. What other choices had been available to him? I had to admit that having Anne there was a comfort.
After a quick meal of carryout Thai, Anne and I cleaned. Anger wormed inside me as I swept and vacuumed.
Again, I fell asleep with my thoughts brawling.
Had some coked-out ragnose violated my refuge? That seemed most likely. Someone desperate for cash for a fix who turned destructive when he didn’t find it. No B and E felon would have been that messy. But what about a scare scenario? Some greaseball ordered to divert me from long-hidden mob secrets leaving a “we know where you live” message. Or was it some malevolent sociopath with an issue specifically related to me?
What did the buttons mean?
Why hadn’t Claudel or Charbonneau returned my calls?
Where was Ryan? Why hadn’t he phoned?
Did I give a rat’s ass? Of course I did.
Saturday morning Anne made a trip to Le Faubourg while I dealt with the glass repairman. By noon a new pane was in, the refrigerator was stocked, and the place was reasonably clean.
For reasons my subconscious chooses not to share with me, there are certain items I am incapable of discarding. Prescription medicines. National Geographics. American Academy of Forensic Sciences directories. Phone books.
Hey, you never know.
After tomato, cheese, and mayo sandwiches with Anne, I collected every phone book in the house and stacked them beside my computer. Then I pulled out Cyr’s list. Where to begin locating tenants? Work backward or forward?
I started with Cyr’s earliest renters.
From 1976 until 1982 a luggage shop had occupied the space currently in use by Matoub’s pizzeria. The proprietor had been a woman named Sylvie Vasco.
The number on Cyr’s list was answered by a college student living in the McGill ghetto. He had no idea what I was talking about.
Neither the computer nor any directory listed a Sylvie, but together they coughed up seven S. Vascos. One number had been disconnected. Two went unanswered. My fourth call got me a lawyer’s office. My last three were picked up by women. None was named Sylvie or knew of a Vasco named Sylvie or Sylvia.
Circling the two unanswered numbers, I moved on.
From 1982 until 1987 the pizza parlor space had been occupied by a butcher shop named Boucherie Lehaim. Cyr had written the name Abraham Cohen, then made a notation “sp?”
The White Pages listed a zillion Cohens in and around Montreal. They too suggested alternate spellings, including Coen, Cohen, Cohn, Kohen, and Kohn.
Great.
The Yellow Pages listed a Boucherie Lehaim in Hampstead.
No one answered the Boucherie’s phone.
Back to Cyr’s list.
Patrick Ockleman and Ilya Fabian had been Cyr’s tenants from 1987 to 1988. The old man had penned the words “queer” and “travel” next to their names.
I found nothing in any directory for the name Ockleman.
Ilya Fabian was listed at an Amherst address in the Gay Village. The phone was answered on the first ring.
I introduced myself and asked if I was speaking with Ilya Fabian.
I was.
I asked if the gentleman was the same Ilya Fabian who had operated a travel agency on Ste-Catherine in the late eighties.
“Yes.” Wary.
I asked if Ockleman and his partner had used or visited the basement of the property during their tenancy.
“You said you’re with the coroner?” Wariness now edged with distaste.
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh my God. Was someone dead down there? Was there a body in that cellar?”
What to tell him?
“I’m investigating bones found buried below the floor.”
“Oh my Gawd!”
“The material is probably quite old.”
“Oh my Gawd! Like The Exorcist. No, no. What was that movie with the little girl? The one where they built the house over the cemetery? Yes! Poltergeist.”
“Mr. Fabian—”
“I’m not surprised about that basement. Patrick and I took one look at that wretched, stinking, filthy cesspool and never set foot in it again. Made my skin crawl every time I thought about all that creeping and breeding going on below my feet.” Fabian gave “creeping” and “breeding” at least four e’s each. “That basement was alive with vermin.” Four i’s to “alive.” “And now you’re telling me there were corpses down there?”
“Did you ever use the cellar for storage?”
“God forbid.” In my mind I saw a theatrical shudder.
Bit squeamish for a tour operator, I thought.
“Did your agency specialize in any particular world area, Mr. Fabian?”
“Patrick and I arranged gay travel packages to sacred places.” Sniff. “The era was a bear market for spiritual journeys. We folded in eighteen months.”
“Patrick Ockleman?”
“Yes.”
“Where is Mr. Ockleman now?”
“Dead.”
I waited for Fabian to elaborate. He didn’t.
“May I ask how and when your partner died?”
“He was run over by a bus, of all things. A tour bus.” Whiny. “In Stowe, Vermont, four years ago. Wheels squashed his head like an overripe—”
“Thank you, Mr. Fabian. If follow-up is needed we’ll be back in touch.”
I disconnected. Fabian and Ockleman seemed unlikely candidates for serial killers, but I underlined the number and made a few notes.
The next name listed was S. M�
�nard. Beside it Cyr had written “pawnshop” and the dates 1989 to 1998.
I found four pages of Ménards in the Montreal phone book, seventy-eight listed with the initial S.
After forty-two calls I decided Ménard was a job for a detective.
Next.
Phan Loc Truong’s nail salon had occupied Cyr’s property from 1998 until 1999.
Not as discouraging as Ménard, but the White Pages alone listed 227 Truongs. No Phan Loc. Two P’s.
Neither of the P’s listed was a Phan Loc. Neither knew a Phan Loc who had operated a nail salon.
I started working my way through the rest of the Truongs. Many spoke little English or French. Many had affiliations to nail salons, but none knew anything about the shop once located in Richard Cyr’s building.
I was dialing my twenty-ninth Truong when a voice interrupted me.
“Find anything?”
Anne was standing in the doorway. The room had gone dark without my noticing.
“A lot of ladies willing to do my nails.”
Discouraged, I turned off the computer.
Together Anne and I cooked steaks, potatoes, and asparagus. As we ate, I told her about my fruitless afternoon.
After dinner we watched two Inspector Clouseau movies while Birdie dozed between us. None of us laughed much. We all turned in early.
* * *
Around noon on Sunday I tried the Boucherie Lehaim again.
No go.
At two P.M. my call was answered.
“Shalom.” Voice like a baritone oboe.
I introduced myself.
The man said his name was Harry Cohen.
“Is this the same Boucherie Lehaim that was located on Ste-Catherine during the eighties?”
“It is. The shop belonged to my father then.”
“Abraham?”
“Yes. We moved in eighty-seven.”
“May I ask why?”
“We cater to a strictly kosher crowd. This neighborhood seemed a better fit.”
“I know this may sound like an odd question, Mr. Cohen, but can you remember anything about the basement of that building?”
“The cellar was accessed through our shop. We kept nothing there, and I don’t remember anyone ever entering or leaving it.”
“Might other tenants have used the basement for storage?”
“We would not have permitted that kind of use of our space, and the only way down was through a trapdoor in our bathroom. My father kept that door padlocked at all times.”