Bones Never Lie

by Kathy Reichs

  “The file was destroyed?”

  “The basement took hits in ’99 and ’04.”

  “Did you ask Trout about Menard and Catts?”

  “Let’s see. How’d he put it? Given that both are dead, have been for years, and will remain so in the future, he couldn’t waste time researching their bios.”

  For a very long moment, empty air filled the line. Through the windshield, I could see Ryan talking on his mobile. Then Slidell shared the only good news I’d heard in a while.

  “We may get lucky with Leal’s computer. The IT guy’s using some sort of mojo recovery software, getting fragments, whatever the hell that means.”

  “Pieces of the browser history.”

  “Yeah. He says the deletions were amateur-hour. Thinks he might be able to nail some sites the kid visited.”

  “That’s fantastic.”

  “Or a big waste of time.”

  “I have a feeling something is there. Otherwise why would somebody want the child’s Internet history destroyed?”

  “Eeyuh.”

  I told Slidell what Ryan and I were doing.

  “The media’s screaming for blood down here. So far it’s staying local.”

  “How’s it going with Tinker?”

  “You gotta go ask that and wreck my day?”

  “Keep me in the loop,” I said.

  I joined Ryan on the sidewalk. He’d finished his call and was surveying our surroundings. The block was a quiet one shaded by large trees, now bare, and lined with what appeared to be single-family homes. Each home was fronted by a well-kept lawn, now brown, and burlap-wrapped bushes and shrubs. Several had the portable plastic garages that les Montrealais call abris tempos.

  I looked at the conjoined structure at our backs, then at Ryan.

  “The place was converted into a nursing home back in the eighties,” he said.

  “The PC term is ‘assisted living.’ ”

  “More like assisted dying.”

  Nothing like witty repartee to buoy one’s soul.

  Steps rose from a short walk to a wooden door at the left end of a porch spanning the width of the building. On the porch were six Adirondack chairs, each painted a different color, probably at the time of the home’s conversion. A second-floor balcony provided overhead shelter from rain or snow. The upper balcony held four more weathered chairs. In one, bundled like an Inuit hunter, was an elderly man with his face tipped to the sun.

  Ryan and I climbed up and let ourselves in.

  The house’s interior was cloyingly warm and smelled of disinfectant and urine and years of institutional food. To the right was a small waiting room, once a parlor, to the left a staircase. Ahead were a dining room and a hall leading straight back to what looked like a sunroom. Doors opened off both sides of the hall, all closed.

  A signal must have sounded when Ryan opened the door. As he closed it, a woman was already coming toward us. Her skin was chocolate, her hair thick and silver and braided on top of her head. She wore a generic white uniform, size large. A small brass rectangle above her right breast said M. Simone, LPN.

  “Puis-je t’aider?” May I help you? A broad smile revealed teeth way too white to be real.

  “We’re here to see Sabine Pomerleau,” Ryan responded in French.

  “Are you family?” Undoubtedly knowing we weren’t.

  Ryan held up his badge. Simone eyed it. Then, “I’m afraid Madame Pomerleau is asleep at the moment.”

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to wake her.” No attempt at the old Ryan charm.

  “Disruptions are unhealthy.”

  “She set the alarm for an early shift at the plant?”

  I detected a flash of annoyance beneath Simone’s sunny demeanor. A flash of something. But the smile held. “Does this have to do with her daughter?”

  Ryan just looked at her.

  “I will warn you. Conversations with Madame Pomerleau can be problematic. She has Alzheimer’s, and a recent stroke has compromised her speech.”

  “Noted.”

  “Wait here, please.”

  Simone returned in less than five minutes and led us to a tiny second-floor room holding two beds, two dressers, and two straight-back chairs. Faded green floral wallpaper made the cramped space feel as claustrophobic as possible.

  The room’s sole occupant sat propped in bed, a ratty stuffed cat cradled in one arm. As she stroked the doll, the bones visible below the sleeves and at the collar of her pink flannel gown looked as fragile and weightless as those of a bird.

  “You have visitors.” Simone had the volume on high.

  Sabine’s face was wrinkled, her cheeks flecked with tiny red and blue capillaries. The watery green eyes registered nothing.

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Simone spoke to Ryan.

  “We’ll be careful not to upset her,” I said.

  “You won’t.” With that odd comment, Simone hurried off.

  Ryan and I maneuvered both chairs to the bed and sat.

  “J’espère que vous allez bien.”

  Getting no response, Ryan asked in English if she was well.

  Still no indication that she’d heard.

  “We’d like to discuss Anique.”

  Not so much as a blink.

  Ryan amped up the decibels and switched back to French. “Perhaps you’ve heard from Anique.”

  One hand continued stroking the cat, blue veins snaking like night crawlers beneath the liver-spotted skin.

  A full minute passed. Ryan tried again, with the same result.

  I signaled that I’d give it a go.

  “Madame Pomerleau, we are hoping you can help us locate your daughter.” I spoke loudly but soothingly. “Perhaps you’ve heard from Anique?”

  Silence. I noticed that the cat had no whiskers on the left side of its snout.

  “Perhaps you have ideas where Anique might have gone following the troubles?”

  I may as well have been speaking to the gargoyle in my garden.

  I posed several more questions, slowly and forcefully.

  No go.

  I looked at Ryan. He shook his head.

  As I checked my watch, footsteps sounded on the stairs. I tried one last time. “We fear Anique may come to harm if we don’t find her soon.”

  It was as though we weren’t there.

  Simone appeared in the doorway, a “Told you so” expression dulling the snowy smile. Ryan and I replaced our chairs, then crossed to her.

  The voice was raspy and deep. Over a phone, I’d have pegged it as male.

  “Avec les saints. Saint-Jean.” Then, in heavily accented English, “Buried.”

  Ryan and I turned. The ancient hand had stilled on the ragtag toy.

  “Anique is with the saints?” I repeated. “She’s buried with Saint John?”

  But the moment had passed. The ancient hand resumed its relentless caressing of the matted fur. The watery eyes remained pointed at a memory no one else could see.

  Outside, the sun was filtered by long white fingers of cloud. The air seemed even more frigid than earlier. I glanced up. The old man was gone from the balcony.

  “What’s your take?” I asked Ryan as I pulled on my gloves.

  “Nurse Smiley tipped her patient that cops were in the house.”

  “Does she really think Anique is dead?” Sudden thought. “Marie-Joëlle Bastien is buried in the cimetière Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Bouctouche. Could Sabine be confusing Anique with Marie-Joëlle?”

  Ryan raised both shoulders and brows.

  “Or was she stonewalling?”

  “If that was acting, the performance was Oscar-quality.”

  “Do you know who pays for her care?”

  “A nephew in Mascouche. The money comes from the estate, so he’s not exactly splurging.”

  We got into the Jeep. Ryan was turning the key when his mobile buzzed. He picked it up and clicked on. I listened to a lot of ouis, a few one-word questions, then, “Text me the address.”
>
  “The address for who?” I asked as he disconnected.

  “Whom.”

  “Seriously?” Though I welcomed a glimpse of the old Ryan wit, the two visits we’d paid that day had left me in no mood for humor.

  “Tawny McGee.”

  CHAPTER 18

  AS WE DROVE, Ryan briefed me on what he and his colleague had learned. I was aware of Tawny McGee’s backstory, but not of her movements since 2004.

  What I knew: Bernadette Higham lived for five years with a man named Harlan McGee. She worked as a receptionist for a small Maniwaki dental practice. He was a long-haul trucker.

  Though unmarried, the couple had two daughters. Sandra was born in 1985, when Bernadette was nineteen and Harlan was twenty-nine. Tawny followed in 1987.

  A week after Tawny’s second birthday, Harlan left on a run to Vancouver and never returned. Four months later, Bernadette received a letter stating that he wouldn’t be back. The envelope also contained four hundred dollars.

  In 1999 Bernadette’s younger daughter vanished while playing in a park. Tawny McGee was twelve years old. Years passed with no progress in the investigation of her disappearance. In 2004 Tawny was released from captivity in Anique Pomerleau’s dungeon of torture.

  What I learned from Ryan: four months after Tawny returned home, the Maniwaki dentist retired and closed his office. Appreciative of his employee’s years of loyal service, he secured Bernadette a position as receptionist and bookkeeper at his brother’s pest-control company, if she was willing to move to Montreal. Dissatisfied with the psychological counseling Tawny was receiving, and hoping for better, Bernadette packed up and headed east.

  Within a year Bernadette married Jacob Kezerian, the exterminator’s son. The Kezerians now lived in the Montreal suburb of Dollarddes-Ormeaux.

  Bernadette had agreed to talk with us. So at three P.M. we were heading her way.

  The city of Montreal sprawls across a small hunk of land in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. The West Island—in French, l’Ouest-de-l’île—is a handle for the burbs on the western end.

  The West Island is composed of green spaces, bike paths, cross-country ski trails, golf courses, and eco-farms sandwiched among affluent bedroom communities. The area is lousy with stockbrokers, lawyers, bankers, and business owners.

  Historically, Montrealers divided themselves linguistically, with the French staying east and the English staying west. That separation has softened in recent years. Still, the West Island remains strongly anglophone. Ironic. As late as the ’60s, the region was largely farmland populated by les Français.

  Thirty minutes after we left Sabine Pomerleau, Ryan turned the Jeep onto a street that could have been a backdrop for Wally and the Beav, Quebecois-style. The front lawns were uniform in size and shape. Each was bisected by a center walk bordered with winter-empty swatches of dirt or with burlap-wrapped shrubs.

  The homes were equally homogeneous, each a variation on la belle province’s basic bungalow design—stone or stucco facing, blue or brown wood trim, dormer windows up, small porch below.

  “Tawny lives with her mother and stepfather?”

  “I thought we’d ease into this. First get the lay of the land.”

  “Your guy didn’t ask?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Did he?”

  “No.”

  I cocked a questioning brow.

  “The kid might still have problems.”

  “Tawny isn’t a kid. She’s twenty-seven.”

  “I didn’t want Bernadette going all mother bear.”

  “She knows you were instrumental in finding her daughter.”

  “She does.”

  “How did she react to your call?”

  Ryan gave that some thought. “She seemed wary.”

  “So you implied we were coming just to talk to her?”

  “I didn’t imply. Though she might have inferred.”

  Eyes rolling, I followed Ryan between the rows of bundled flora leading to the house. The door and flanking windows were trimmed with strings of multicolored lights. A plastic Santa hung from a fleurde-lis iron knocker. Ryan tapped twice, then stepped back.

  The woman who answered was a trim brunette trying hard to look younger than her age. Her eyes were a startling turquoise made possible only with tinted contacts. Her makeup was overdone, the streaks in her hair far too blond to look natural. She wore a red-and-green floral shirt unbuttoned over a red tank top. Skinny jeans. Faux equestrian boots.

  I’d never met Tawny’s mother. But I knew from the file that she was now forty-eight. The man behind her looked at least ten years her junior. His hair and eyes were dark, his five o’clock shadow darker. His heavy brows met in an unhappy V above the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m Bernadette Higham. At least that’s the name the officer used on the phone.” Bernadette started to offer a hand, stopped. “But of course you know that. It’s Kezerian now. But you know that, too.”

  “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Kezerian.”

  “I expected the other detective. The fancy dresser.”

  “Luc Claudel.”

  “Yes. Where is he?”

  “In France.”

  “I see.” Bernadette’s half-proffered hand curled back to her chest, as though embarrassed at hanging alone in midair. The nails were acrylic, painted the color of uncooked beef.

  “This is my colleague, Dr. Temperance Brennan.” Ryan left it at that.

  “A doctor?” She glanced at me.

  “Dr. Brennan works at the medico-legal lab.”

  The turquoise eyes went wide. The fingers curled tighter. Why such fear? I felt a sense of unease.

  “My wife has health issues. You got something to tell us?”

  Bernadette turned at the sound of her husband’s voice. “I’m okay, Jake.”

  Jake placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder. He was muscled and toned beyond what I’d expect of a guy just spraying for bugs. His forearm was inked with an intricate Asian design. I wondered if his gesture was meant as support or warning.

  “May we talk inside?” Ryan asked.

  “Of course. Please,” Bernadette said.

  Jake stepped back, his expression unchanged. As we passed, he lingered to close the door.

  Bernadette led us down a wide hall and turned right through an archway into a small living room with a bay window in front and a fireplace at the far end. The decor was not what I’d visualized.

  Every wall was white, and off-white plush carpeting covered the floor. The sofa and armchairs were upholstered in ivory cotton trimmed with pale piping. The room’s only color came from throw pillows and paintings. Both featured bright geometric designs.

  Bronze sculptures of indeterminate form covered the mantel. A reindeer skin lay in front of the hearth.

  The end and coffee tables were made of glass and antique brass. A sole photo sat on one. Its frame was mother-of-pearl edged with silver, the quality much higher than that of the image it housed. The picture was grainy, maybe taken with a cellphone or inexpensive camera, then blown up beyond what the pixels could handle.

  The subject was a tall young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, on a boat with a harbor or bay behind her. She was wearing a turtleneck and jacket, a bead necklace with some sort of pendant. The wind was lifting the jacket’s collar and blowing her long dark hair across her face. She didn’t look happy. She didn’t look sad. She was pretty in a disturbingly detached sort of way.

  Her face was more fleshy, her breasts fuller, than when I’d last seen her. But I knew I was looking at Tawny McGee.

  Ryan and I did our usual and sat on opposite ends of the couch. Bernadette took an armchair, fingers clasped like red-tipped claws in her lap. Jake remained standing, arms folded across his chest.

  “May I get you something? Coffee? Tea?” Bernadette’s offer sounded rote, insincere.

  “No, thank you,” Ryan and I answered in unison.

  A cat appeared in the doorway, g
ray with black stripes and yellow-green eyes. A notch in one ear. A scar on one shoulder. A scrapper.

  Bernadette noticed. “Oh, no, no, Murray. Shoo.”

  The cat held.

  Bernadette started to push to her feet.

  “Please let him stay,” I said.

  “Get him out of here,” Jake said.

  “I own a cat.” I smiled. “His name is Birdie.”

  Bernadette looked at Jake. He shrugged but said nothing.

  Murray regarded us a moment, then sat, shot a leg, and began cleaning his toes. Something was off with his upper left canine. I liked this cat.

  Bernadette settled back, spine stiff, neck muscles standing out sinewy-hard. She glanced from Ryan to me, back to Ryan. Hopeful we had news. Frightened we had news.

  I understood that yesterday’s call was undoubtedly a shock after so many years. But the woman’s anxiety seemed out of proportion. The shaking hands. The terrified eyes. I didn’t like what I was sensing.

  “Your home is beautiful,” I said, wanting to reassure.

  “Tawny likes things bright.”

  “Is this Tawny?” Gesturing at the woman framed in mother-of-pearl.

  The parakeet eyes looked at me oddly. Then, “Yes.”

  “She’s grown into a beautiful young woman.”

  “You’re sure about the cat?”

  “I’m sure. Do you have other pictures?”

  “Tawny hated being photographed.”

  As with the Violettes, Ryan allowed silence, hoping one or the other Kezerian might feel compelled to fill it. Neither did.

  Murray switched legs. Behind him, through a matching archway across the hall, I noted a dining room of identical footage with an identical bay window. The table was glass. The chairs were molded white acrylic and made me think of the Jetsons.

  When Bernadette spoke, her words were not what I expected. So far, nothing was. “Is she dead?”

  “We have no reason to think that.” Ryan indicated no surprise at the question.

  Bernadette’s shoulders rounded slightly as her expression melted. Into what? Relief? Disappointment? I really couldn’t read her.