Bones Never Lie

by Kathy Reichs

  Ryan had fared better with Violette. Manon’s parents still lived at the same address on boulevard Édouard-Montpetit in Montreal. Though reluctant, they’d agreed to see us the next day.

  In the morning, after reexamining our respective files, we would interview Mère and Père Violette. Then we’d work on locating Tawny McGee, the sole survivor of the Pomerleau-Catts reign of terror. We held little optimism that the visits would yield fruit. But what the hell. Nothing else was working.

  Another aviation miracle. The flight landed early. The bookend punctuality made me mildly uneasy.

  Exiting the airport, I was hit by a wind corkscrewing straight off the tundra. I admit it—I gasped. No matter how often it happens, I’m never prepared for that first frigid slap.

  Ryan and I shared a taxi from Dorval. At his insistence, I was dropped first. I suppose it made sense. My condo is in Centreville. His is across the St. Lawrence in a concrete LEGO curiosity called Habitat 67.

  Ryan offered to collect me in the morning. Happy to avoid the Métro, and frostbite, I accepted.

  Digging for keys, I was aware of the taxi lingering at the curb, exhaust billowing like a small white cumulus in the red glow of the taillights. I was touched. Though I knew we had no future together, it meant something that he still cared about my safety.

  My condo was cold and dark. Before removing my inadequate autumn-in-Dixie jacket, I thumbed the lever on the thermostat left. Way left. The hum of the furnace sounded loud in the stillness.

  After a slapdash facial and dental effort, I threw on sweats and dropped into bed.

  I dreamed about snow.

  I awoke to bright sunlight leaking around the edges of the shade. Knew the day would be colder than crap.

  The cupboard was bare, not even coffee. Rather than hike to the corner dépanneur, I skipped breakfast.

  Ryan phoned at 7:55 as he was making the turn onto my street. I dug out my Kanuk jacket, mittens, and a scarf. Pulled on boots and set forth.

  I was right. The air was so crisp, it felt like tiny crystals sliding in and out of my nose. The sun was a tight white ball hanging low in an immaculate blue sky.

  I scurried to Ryan’s Jeep and climbed in.

  Ryan never tired of teasing about my inadequacy in dealing with polar climes. Today he said nothing. His skin looked gray, and a dark half-moon sculpted each lower lid.

  Congealed blood marked a spot on Ryan’s chin that he’d nicked while shaving. I wondered if he’d slept. If so, I guessed he’d dreamed about the Lily-shaped void now forever in his life.

  I also wondered if he’d called ahead to his squad, or if he’d opted to appear unannounced. Either way, I suspected he was dreading the upcoming encounter.

  You’ve got it. I asked about neither.

  Traffic was surprisingly light across Centreville and through the Ville-Marie Tunnel. By eight-fifteen we were parked at the Édifice Wilfrid-Derome, a T-shaped high-rise in a working-class neighborhood just east of the city center.

  Here’s how the place works.

  For almost twenty years I have served as forensic anthropologist for the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médicine legale, the central crime and medico-legal lab for the province of Quebec. Charlotte, North Carolina? Montreal? Right. The commute is a bitch. A story for another time.

  The LSJML occupies the top two floors of Wilfrid-Derome, twelve and thirteen. The Bureau du coroner has ten and eleven. The morgue and autopsy suites are in the basement.

  Ryan is a lieutenant-détective with the provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec. The SQ has the rest of the building.

  After entering the front doors, we swiped our security cards and passed through thunk-thunk metal gates. Ryan took an elevator to the Services des Enquêtes sur les crimes contre la personne, located on the second floor. I waited for the restricted LSJML/Coroner elevator.

  I ascended with a dozen others mumbling “Bonjour” and “Comment ça va?” At that hour, “Good morning” and “How’s it going?” are equally perfunctory no matter the language.

  A woman from ballistics asked if I’d just come from the Carolinas. I said I had. She queried the weather. When I answered, my fellow passengers groaned.

  Five of us exited on the twelfth floor. After crossing a marble-floored lobby, I swiped a different security card, then swiped it again to pass into the medico-legal wing. The board showed only two pathologists present, Jean Morin and Pierre LaManche, the chief. The others were testifying, teaching, or absent on personal leave.

  Continuing along the corridor, I passed pathology and histology labs on my left, pathologists’ offices on my right. Through observation windows and open doors, I could see secretaries booting up computers, techs flipping dials, scientists and analysts donning lab coats. All the world slamming down coffee.

  The anthropology/odontology lab was last in the row. There I used an old-fashioned key to enter.

  My previous visit had been almost a month earlier. My desk was mounded with letters, flyers, and ads. A packet of prints from a Division d’identité judiciaire photographer. A copy of Voir Dire, the LSJML gossip sheet. One demande d’expertise en anthropologie form.

  After removing my copious outerwear, I skimmed the anthropology consult request. Bones had been found in a farmer’s field near Saint-Chrysostome. If the remains were human, LaManche wanted a full bio-profile, estimated PMI, and trauma analysis.

  Inwardly groaning, I walked to the side counter and opened a brown paper bag stamped with SQ identifiers. The contents included a partial tibia, a phalange, and one rib. Nothing human in the lot. That was why LaManche hadn’t phoned me in Charlotte. He knew. But perfectionist that he was, the old man had held the bones for my evaluation.

  After getting coffee, I returned to the lab and dug three dossiers from a gray metal filing cabinet around the corner from my desk. LSJML-38426, LSJML-38427, LSJML-38428. The numbering system was different, but the covers were the same neon yellow as at the MCME.

  I began by studying the pictures. And circled straight to that cellar with its rats and refuse and reek of decay.

  Manon Violette’s bones were jumbled in a crate stamped with the words Dr. Energy’s Power Tonic. Marie-Joëlle Bastien’s skeleton lay naked in a shallow grave. Angela Robinson’s was wrapped in a moldy leather shroud.

  The images. My findings. Reports of the SQ and city cops. Lab results. The final positive IDs. The names of those responsible. Pomerleau. Catts, aka Menard.

  At one point I lingered on a crime scene pic of the house on de Sébastopol. I thought of the original owners, Menard’s grandparents, the Corneaus. Wondered if the crash in which they’d died had ever been investigated.

  The file felt like a phone call from a decade ago.

  Two hours later, I sat back in my chair, frustrated and discouraged. I’d found nothing I didn’t already know. Except that Angela Robinson had broken her wrist in a fall from a swing at age eight. I’d forgotten that.

  The wall clock said 10:40.

  I wrote a brief report on the Saint-Chrysostome deceased. Odocoileus virginianus. White-tailed deer. Then I went to tell LaManche. He was not in his office. I left a note.

  As agreed, I met Ryan in the lobby at eleven.

  André and Marguerite Violette lived in Côte-des-Neiges, a neighborhood known for sprawling cemeteries and the Université de Montréal, not for architectural caprice. Like the Westmount of the well-heeled English, and the Outremont of their French counterparts, the quartier is up-mountain from Centreville, a mix of student, middle class, and blue collar, with enough rough spots to make it interesting.

  Twenty minutes after leaving Wilfrid-Derome, Ryan pulled to the curb on a stretch of boulevard Édouard-Montpetit within spitting distance of the university campus. We both took a moment to look around.

  Duplexes and low-rise apartments lined the street, red brick, plain, and functional. No turrets, no mansard roofs, no curlicue iron stairs. None of the whimsy that gives Montreal its charm.

/>   The Violette building fit with the theme. The address was posted on a two-story brick box stuck to another two-story brick box, each accessed by a set of shotgun steps.

  “Remind me,” I said. “What did André do?”

  “He was a pipe fitter. Still is.”

  “And Marguerite?”

  “She irons his shorts.”

  “As I recall, he was difficult.”

  “The guy was a cocky little prick.”

  “Charming turn of phrase.”

  “What I have can’t be taught.”

  Ryan and I got out and climbed to the door, footsteps clanging on the stiff metal risers.

  When Ryan rang the bell, I heard a muffled double bong, then a voice barked once, like a Doberman firing a warning. Seconds later, locks rattled and the door opened inward.

  André Violette looked smaller than I remembered, shorter and thinner. His hair was dyed now, dull and unrelentingly black. The pompadour styling was unchanged from 2004. So was the brash kiss-my-ass attitude.

  “Perhaps you remember us. I’m Detective Ryan. This is Dr.—”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Thank you for seeing us.”

  “Pfff. You give me a choice, me?”

  Joual is a form of Quebecois French. Some speak it due to lack of education, others as a statement of francophone pride. André’s accent was thicker than I recalled. His moi came out a nasal “moe”; his toi was “toe.” I doubted his choice of lexicon was based on politics.

  “We’re very sorry—”

  André cut me off. “For my loss. I heard that speech ten years ago.”

  “We’re still working to find the woman who hurt your daughter.”

  No reply.

  “May we come in?” Ryan’s tone said the request was clearly a formality.

  André stepped back. We followed him down a short hall to a living room overfilled with bulky sofas, chairs, and carved mahogany pieces. A tasseled lamp occupied every table. A doily protected every seat back. Shelves on either side of a painted brick fireplace held bric-abrac, religious statues, and framed photos.

  André dropped into a chair and lifted an ankle onto a knee. The upraised foot looked unnaturally large inside its salt-stained boot.

  As Ryan and I settled on opposite ends of the couch, a woman materialized in a doorway to our left. Her hair, once brown, was fast going gray. She was doing nothing to hide it. I liked her for that.

  André’s eyes cut to his wife. “Is it all right—?” she started.

  André flicked an impatient hand. The woman scuttled to a chair, hands clutched to her chest.

  I’d never met Marguerite Violette. Back in ’04, André had been my sole point of contact. It was André who’d delivered antemortem records. André to whom I’d reported the ID.

  I recalled his odd reaction. He hadn’t cried, hadn’t questioned, hadn’t lashed out. He’d pulled a Mr. Goodbar from his pocket, eaten half the chocolate, risen, and walked from my office.

  Seeing the Violettes together, I understood the dynamic.

  “Would anyone like—?” Marguerite began.

  “This ain’t a social visit.” To Ryan, “So, what? You finally caught this freak?”

  “I’m sorry I can’t report that. Yet. But there are new leads.”

  André shook his head. Marguerite slumped visibly.

  “We have reason to believe that the woman involved in your daughter’s abduction—”

  “My daughter’s murder.” André’s foot began winging on his knee.

  “Yes, sir. We believe your daughter’s abductor is now in the U.S.”

  “Anique Pomerleau.” Marguerite’s whisper was barely audible.

  Ryan nodded. “Recently discovered evidence places Pomerleau in Vermont in ’07, and in North Carolina this year.”

  “What evidence?” André asked.

  “DNA.”

  Marguerite’s eyes went wide. The irises were blue and flecked with caramel-colored points. “Has she hurt another child?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan said softly. “I can’t discuss details of the investigation.”

  “So arrest the bitch,” André snapped. “It’s good she’s in America. They can put her down.”

  “We are using every resource at our disposal to find her.”

  “That’s it? Ten years and you tell us our kid’s killer maybe left her spit in one place or another? Whoop-de-fucking-do.” The last was delivered in English. “You guys are worthless. Next you’ll say it’s bonhomme Sept-Heures done it.”

  “You’ve had a lot of time to think,” I said gently. “Perhaps one of you has remembered a detail that hadn’t occurred to you back when Manon went missing. Or hadn’t seemed important. Any bit of information could prove useful.”

  “Remember? Yeah, I remember. Every day.” His face hardened, and venom infiltrated his voice. “I remember how my baby kicked off the covers and slept sideways on her bed. How she loved rainbow sherbet. How I patched up her knee when she fell off her bike. How her hair smelled like oranges after she washed it. How she got on the fucking Métro and never came home.”

  André’s jaw clamped suddenly. His cheeks were aflame with ragged patches of red.

  Ryan caught my eye. I got the message and didn’t reply.

  But neither Violette seemed compelled to fill the awkward silence that followed the outburst. André remained mute. Marguerite’s breathing went faster and shallower as a thousand emotions clearly vied for control of her face.

  I studied André’s eyes, his body language. Saw a man hiding pain behind macho bluster.

  A full minute passed. Ryan spoke first. “Those are precisely the types of recollections that might prove useful.”

  “I got a recollection. I recall my knitting club meets today.” André’s foot was again dancing on his knee. “We’re done.”

  “Mr. Violette—”

  “I got a right to remain silent, yeah?”

  “You are not a suspect, sir.”

  “I’m gonna do that anyway.”

  “Thank you for your time.” Ryan rose. I followed. “And again, we are so sorry for your loss.”

  André remained seated, his thoughts obviously fixed on things other than needles and yarn.

  Marguerite led us down the hall. At the door, she placed a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t judge my husband harshly. He’s a good man.”

  The sadness in the caramel-blue eyes seemed bottomless.

  CHAPTER 17

  “WHAT’S BONHOMME SEPT-HEURES?” I asked Ryan when we were back in the Jeep.

  “Excuse-moi?”

  “André used the phrase.”

  “Right. Bonhomme Sept-Heures is a Quebecois bogeyman who kidnaps kids up after seven P.M.”

  “What’s his MO?”

  Ryan snorted, sending vapor coning from each nostril. “He wears a mask, carries a bag, and hides under the balcony until the clock strikes seven.”

  “A myth to scare the kids into bed.”

  “Frightening when the myth hits home.”

  “Yes.”

  “This was a waste of time.” Ryan slipped aviator shades onto his nose.

  “At least the Violettes know we’re not giving up.”

  “I’m sure they’re popping the bubbly even as we speak.”

  “Did you have a bad night?”

  Ryan activated his turn indicator.

  “You look like you spent it somewhere dark and dank.”

  My attempt at humor drew no response. Ryan made a right, another, then a left. Loud and clear. The boy wanted distance.

  Using a mitten to clear condensation from the glass, I looked out my window. Pedestrians streamed the sidewalks flanking Queen Mary and bunched at the intersections, impatient to cross. Students with backpacks. Shoppers with plastic or string-handled bags. Mothers with strollers. All wore clothing suited for Antarctica.

  Undaunted, I tried again. “Did you locate Tawny McGee?”

  “Working on it.”

>   “Is her family still in Maniwaki?”

  “No.”

  “The mother was on her own, right? Two kids?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t the sister somewhere out west?”

  “Sandra Catherine. In Alberta.”

  “She still there?”

  “No.”

  “What next?” When Ryan didn’t elaborate.

  “Sabine Pomerleau.”

  “Anique’s mother is still alive?” Whipping sideways to look at him.

  Sun glinted from the aviators as they swiveled my way, then recentered on the road.

  I settled back. Of course my question was stupid. Though desperate, we obviously couldn’t interview a corpse.

  But Ryan’s words surprised me. The Pomerleaus had married late, tried for years to conceive. After prolonged anguish and much priestly counsel, Anique, their miracle child, finally had been sent by God in 1975, when Mama was forty-three and Papa was forty-eight. Thus Sabine told the story of her daughter’s birth.

  I did the math. Sabine would be eighty-two now, her husband eighty-seven.

  “Is Jacques still alive?”

  “Kicked in ’06.”

  I wondered if the miracle child’s infamy had contributed to her daddy’s demise. Kept the thought to myself.

  We’d just parked in front of a two-story gray stone semi-detached in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood when my iPhone buzzed. As I dug it from my purse, Ryan pantomimed smoking by placing two fingers to his lips. He got out of the Jeep, and I clicked on. “Brennan.”

  “I coulda better spent the time flossing.”

  An image of Slidell working his teeth at a mirror was not one I welcomed. “You talked to Tehama County?”

  “The high sheriff himself. Willis Trout. The guy’s got the brainpower—”

  “Did Trout remember Angela Robinson?”

  “I doubt he’d remember how to sneeze without prompting.” I waited.

  “No. But once I convinced fish boy I wasn’t a crank, he agreed to look for the file. I just got a callback. You’re gonna love this.” Slidell allowed another theatrical pause. “It’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Robinson disappeared in ’85. In those days everything was still on paper. When the case chilled, the file ended up in a basement. Which turns out to be real bad planning, since the Sacramento River gets frisky every few years and floods the whole friggin’ county.”