Déjà Dead

by Kathy Reichs

  I had a second cup and finished the paper. So far so good. On to Phase Two. Mindless Activity.

  I threw on shorts and a T and went to the gym. Thirty minutes on the StairMaster and a round on the Nautilus. Next, the Provigo, where I bought enough groceries to feed Cleveland. Back home I spent the afternoon mopping, scouring, dusting, and vacuuming. At one point I considered cleaning the refrigerator, but decided against it. Too extreme.

  By 7 P.M. my nesting frenzy was sated. The place reeked of spray cleaners and lemon polish, the dining room table was covered with drying sweaters, and I had clean panties to last a month. I, on the other hand, looked and smelled as if I had been camping for weeks. I was ready to go.

  The day had been sweltering and the evening promised no relief. I chose another shorts and T combo, accessorized with worn Nikes. Perfect. Not your street professional, but someone prowling the Main in search of recreational chemicals or a companion for the evening, or both. As I drove toward St. Laurent I ran through the Plan. Find Julie. Follow Julie. Find nightie man. Follow nightie man. Don’t be seen. Simplicity itself.

  I drove across Ste. Catherine, scanning the sidewalks on both sides. A few women had opened shop at the Granada, but there was no sign of Julie. I wouldn’t expect her this early. I was allowing myself extra time to get into place.

  The first glitch came when I turned into my alley. Like a genie from a bottle, a large woman materialized and bore down on me. She had Tammy Bakker makeup and the neck of a bull terrier. Though I couldn’t catch all her words, there was no mistaking her message. I backed out and drove off in search of other parking arrangements.

  I found a spot six blocks north, on a narrow side street lined with three-flats. Hot town. Summer in the city. Neighborhood watch was underway. Men’s eyes tracked me from a balcony, others from a stoop, conversation suspended, beer cans resting on sweaty knees. Were they hostile? Curious? Disinterested? Very interested? I didn’t stay in place long enough for anyone to approach. I locked the car and covered the distance to the end of the block at a brisk pace. Perhaps I was overly nervous, but I didn’t want complications to sabotage my mission.

  I breathed easier when I rounded the corner and entered the flow on St. Laurent. A clock in Le Bon Deli said eight-fifteen. Damn. I’d wanted to be in position by now. Should I modify the Plan? What if I missed her?

  At Ste. Catherine I crossed St. Laurent and rechecked the crowd in front of the Granada. No Julie. Would she even come here? What route would she take? Damn. Why hadn’t I started earlier? No time for indecision.

  I hurried east, scanning the faces on both sides of the street, but the pedestrian flow had grown, making it harder to be sure she didn’t slip past. I cut north at the vacant lot, retracing the path Jewel and I had taken two nights earlier. I hesitated at the alley bar, moved on, gambling again that Julie was not an early starter.

  A few minutes later I stood hunched behind a utility pole on the far side of St. Dominique. The street was deserted and still. Julie’s building showed no signs of life, windows dark, porch light dead, paint peeling grimly in the muggy dusk. The scene brought to mind photos I had seen of the Towers of Silence, platforms maintained by the Parsi sect in India on which they placed their dead to have the bones picked clean by vultures. I shivered in the heat.

  Time crept by. I watched. An old woman trudged up the block, dragging a cart loaded with rags. She muscled her evening’s take along the uneven pavement, then disappeared around a corner. The cart’s tinny squeak-bump sound ebbed, then stilled. Nothing else disturbed the street’s ragged ecosystem.

  I looked at my watch—eight-forty. It had grown very dark. How long should I wait? What if she’d already left? Should I ring the bell? Damn. Why hadn’t I gotten the time out of her? Why hadn’t I gotten here earlier? Already the Plan was showing deficiencies.

  Another expanse of time went by. A minute, maybe. I was debating leaving when a light went on in an upstairs room. Not long after, Julie emerged in bustier, mini-skirt, and over-the-knee boots. Her face, midriff, and thighs were splotches of white in the porch shadow. I drew back behind my pole.

  She hesitated a moment, chin raised, arms wrapped around her midriff. She seemed to be testing the night. Then she plunged down the steps and walked quickly toward Ste. Catherine. I followed, trying to keep her in view, yet remain unnoticed.

  At the corner she surprised me, turning left, away from the Main. Good call on the Granada, Brennan, but where is she going? Julie wended her way quickly through the crowd, boot fringe swinging, oblivious to cat calls and wolf whistles. She was a good wender and I had to work to keep up.

  The crowd grew smaller as we moved east, and eventually ceased being one. I’d been lengthening the distance between us in direct response to the thinning out of sidewalk people, but it was probably unnecessary. Julie seemed focused on a destination and disinterested in other foot traffic.

  • • •

  The streets not only grew emptier, the neighborhood changed flavor. We now shared Ste. Catherine with dandies in GQ haircuts, hardbodies in tanks and spray paint jeans, unisex couples, and the occasional transvestite. We had crossed into the gay village.

  I followed Julie past coffeehouses, bookstores, and ethnic restaurants. Eventually she turned north, then east, then south onto a dead-end street of warehouses and seedy wooden buildings, many with corrugated metal covering the windows. Some had the appearance of having been upfitted for business space at street level, though they probably hadn’t seen customers in years. Papers, cans, and bottles littered both curbs. The place looked like a set for the Jets and the Sharks.

  Julie went straight to an entrance halfway up the block. She opened a dirty glass door covered with metal latticework, spoke briefly, then disappeared inside. I could see the glow of a beer sign through a window to the right. It was also armored with metal grillwork. A sign above the door said simply: BIÈRE ET VIN.

  Now what? Was this the place of assignation, with a private room upstairs or in the back? Or was this a rendezvous bar they would leave together? I needed it to be the latter. If they left separately, their business concluded, the Plan was foiled. I wouldn’t know what man to follow.

  I couldn’t just stand in front and wait. I spotted an even darker gap in the darkness across the street. An alleyway? I walked past the beer joint Julie had entered, and diagonaled toward the strip of blackness. It was a passageway between an abandoned barbershop and a storage company, about two feet wide and dark as a crypt.

  Heart pounding, I slipped in and pressed against a wall, taking cover behind a cracked and yellowed barber pole that projected over the sidewalk. Several minutes passed. The air hung dead and heavy, the only movement my breathing. Suddenly, a rustling made me jump. I wasn’t alone. As I was about to bolt, a dark blob shot from the trash at my feet and scurried toward the back of the passageway. My chest constricted, and once again a chill passed through me, despite the heat.

  Ease back, Brennan. Just a rodent. Come on, Julie!

  As if in response, Julie reappeared, followed by a man in dark sweats, L’UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL arced across his chest. He cradled a paper bag in his left arm.

  My pulse hammered even faster. Is it him? Is it the face in the ATM photo? Is it the Berger Street runner? I strained to see the man’s features, but it was too dark and he was too far away. Would I recognize St. Jacques even if I got a good look? Doubtful. The photo had been too blurry, the man in the apartment too quick.

  The pair looked straight ahead and didn’t touch or speak. Like homing pigeons they retraced the path Julie and I had just taken, only digressing at Ste. Catherine, where they continued south instead of turning west. They made several more turns, snaking through streets of run-down apartments and abandoned businesses, streets that were dark and sincerely unfriendly.

  I trailed half a block behind, conscious of every scrape and crunch, wary of discovery. There was no cover. If they turned and saw me, I would have no excuse, no windows to shop, no d
oorways to enter, nothing to hide behind, physical or fictional. My only option would be to keep walking and hope to find a turnoff before Julie recognized me. They didn’t look back.

  We worked our way through a tangle of alleys and lanes, each emptier than the one before. At one point two men passed from the opposite direction, arguing in tense, hard voices. I prayed Julie and her john wouldn’t follow the men with their eyes. They didn’t. They kept on and disappeared around another corner. I sped up, fearful of losing them in the seconds they were out of sight.

  My fears were well grounded. When I made the turn, they had vanished. The block was still and empty.

  Shit!

  I checked the buildings on both sides, running my eyes up and down each iron staircase, probing each entranceway. Nothing. Not a sign.

  Damn!

  I dashed up the sidewalk, furious with myself for losing them. I was halfway to the next corner when a door opened and Julie’s regular stepped onto a rusted iron balcony just twenty feet ahead and to my right. He was at shoulder level, his back to me, but the sweatshirt looked the same. I froze, incapable of thought or action.

  The man hawked a glob of phlegm and sent it rocketing onto the sidewalk. Drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, he went back inside and closed the door, oblivious to my presence.

  I stood as I was, legs rubbery, unable to move.

  Great move, Brennan. Panic and rush the play! Why not light a flare and sound a siren?

  The building into which he’d disappeared was one in a row that seemed to cling together for support. Take one out and the block would crumble. A sign identified it as LE ST. VITUS, and offered CHAMBRES TOURISTIQUES. Tourist rooms. Right.

  Was this home or merely his trysting place? I resigned myself to more waiting.

  Again I looked for a place to hide. Again I spotted what I thought was a gap on the far side of the street. Again I crossed and found that it was. Maybe I was showing a learning curve. Maybe I was lucky.

  I took a breath and slipped into the darkness of my new passageway. It was like crawling into a Dumpster. The air was warm and heavy and smelled of urine and things gone bad.

  I stood in the narrow space, shifting my weight from foot to foot. The belly-up spiders and roaches I’d seen entombed in the barber pole kept me from leaning against the wall. There was no question of sitting.

  Time dragged by. My eyes never left the St. Vitus, but my thoughts traveled the galaxy. I thought of Katy. I thought of Gabby. I thought of Saint Vitus. Who was he anyway? How would he feel about having the rathole across the street named in his honor? Wasn’t Saint Vitus a disease? Or was that Saint Elmo?

  I thought of St. Jacques. The ATM photo was so poor you really couldn’t see the face. The geezer was right. The guy’s own mother wouldn’t know him from that shot. Besides, he could have changed his hair, grown a beard, gotten glasses.

  The Incas built a road system. Hannibal crossed the Alps. Seti occupied the throne. No one entered or left the St. Vitus. I tried not to think about what was unfolding in one of its rooms. I hoped the guy was a short timer. There’s a first, Brennan.

  There was no breeze in my tiny crevice, and the brick walls on either side still held the heat that had built up all day. My shirt grew clammy and clung to my skin. My scalp was sweaty damp, and an occasional bead broke free and trickled down my face or neck.

  I shifted and watched and thought. The air was breathless. The sky flickered and rumbled softly. Celestial grumbling, nothing more. Now and then a car lighted the street, then passed on, casting it back into obscurity.

  The heat and smell and confinement began to crowd in on me. I felt a dull pain in the space between my eyes, and the back of my throat was doing pre-nausea things. I thought about hanging it up. I tried squatting on my haunches.

  Suddenly a form loomed over me! My mind exploded in a million directions. Was the passage open behind me? Stupid! I hadn’t checked for an escape route!

  The man stepped into the alley, fumbling for something at his waist. I looked down the corridor in back but it was pitch black. I was trapped!

  Then it was like a physics experiment, with equal and opposite forces responding. I shot up and stumbled back on deadened legs. The man also staggered backward, a look of shock on his face. I could see he was Asian, though only his teeth and astonished eyes were clear in the murky shadows.

  I pressed against the wall, as much for support as for cover. He leered at me in a bewildered way, shook his head as though perplexed, then lurched off down the block, tucking his shirt and zipping his fly.

  For a moment I just stood there, talking my heart rate down from the stratosphere.

  A wino who only wanted to pee. He’s gone.

  What if it had been St. Jacques?

  It wasn’t.

  You left yourself no out. You’re being stupid. You’re going to get yourself killed.

  It was just a wino.

  Go home. J.S. is right. Leave this to the cops.

  They won’t do it.

  It’s not your problem.

  Gabby is.

  She’s probably in Ste. Adele.

  Had me there.

  Calmer, I resumed my surveillance. I thought some more about Saint Vitus. Saint Vitus’s dance. That’s it. It was widespread in the 1500s. People grew nervous and irritable, then their limbs started twitching. They thought it was a form of hysteria and hiked off to the saint. Then what about Saint Anthony? The fire. Saint Anthony’s fire. Something to do with ergot in grain. Didn’t it also make people act crazy?

  I thought about cities I’d like to visit. Abilene. Bangkok. Chittagong. I’d always liked that name, Chittagong. Maybe I’d go to Bangladesh. I was in the D’s when Julie came out of the St. Vitus and walked calmly up the block. I held my ground. She was no longer my mark.

  I didn’t have to hold for long. My prey was also leaving.

  I gave him half a block, then dropped in behind. His movements reminded me of the trash rat. He scurried, shoulders hunched, head tucked, bag clutched to his chest. As I followed, I compared the figure ahead to the one I’d seen bolt from the Berger Street room. Not a good match as memory went, but St. Jacques had been too quick and his appearance too unexpected. This could be the same man, but I just hadn’t gotten a good enough look the other time. This guy was definitely not moving as fast.

  For the third time in as many hours I wove my way through a labyrinth of unlit side streets, tailing a quarry as close as I dared. I prayed he wouldn’t stop off at another beer joint. I wasn’t up to any more surveillance.

  I needn’t have worried. After snaking through a maze of tributary streets and side alleys, the man made one final turn and went directly to a bow-fronted graystone. It was like a hundred others I’d passed tonight, though a bit less seedy, the stone a little less dirty, the rusted stairs curving to doors slightly less in need of paint.

  He took the stairs quickly, the metallic slap of his footfalls sharp against the air, then disappeared through an ornately carved door. A light went on almost immediately on the second floor of the bow, showing windows half open, curtains hanging limp and lifeless. A shadowy figure moved about the room, veiled by the graying lace.

  I crossed the street and waited. No alley this time.

  For a while the figure shifted back and forth, then it disappeared.

  I waited.

  It’s him, Brennan. Outa here.

  He could be visiting someone. Dropping something off.

  You’ve got him. Let’s go.

  I checked my watch—eleven-twenty. Still early. Ten more minutes.

  It took less. The figure reappeared, raised the windows to full open, and vanished again. Then the room went black. Bedtime!

  I waited five minutes to be sure no one left the building, then needed no more convincing. Ryan and the boys could take it from here.

  I noted the address and began winding my way back to the car, hoping I could find it. The air was still leaden, the heat as intense as mid
afternoon. Leaves and curtains hung motionless, as if laundered and left to dry. The neon of St. Laurent glowed over the tops of the darkened buildings, backlighting the maze of streets through which I hurried.

  The clock on the dash said midnight when I pulled into the garage. I was improving. Home before dawn.

  The noise didn’t register at first. I was across the garage and singling out my key when it finally intruded on my conscious mind. I stood still to listen. A high-pitched beeping was coming from behind me, near the main auto entrance.

  As I walked in that direction, trying to pinpoint its source, the tone clarified into a sharp, pulsating beat. When I drew near I could see that the noise came from a door to the right of the car ramp. Though the door appeared closed, the lock was only partly engaged, thus triggering the alarm.

  I pushed, then pulled on the safety bar, slamming the door fully shut. The beeping stopped abruptly, leaving the garage deathly quiet. I reminded myself to mention the apparent malfunction to Winston.

  The condo felt cool and fresh after my hours in hot, dirty crevices. For a moment I just stood in the hall, allowing the refrigerated air to roll over my hot skin. Birdie brushed back and forth against my leg, arching his back and purring in greeting. I looked down at him. Soft, white hairs clung to my sweaty legs. I stroked his head, fed him, and checked my messages. One hang-up. I headed for the shower.

  As I lathered and relathered I ran over the events of the evening in my mind. What had I accomplished? Now I knew where Julie’s lingerie loony lived. At least I assumed that’s who he was since today was Thursday. So what? He might have nothing to do with the murders.

  But I couldn’t quite convince myself. Why? Why did I think this guy was hooked in? Why did I think it was my job to nail him? Why was I afraid for Gabby? Julie had been fine.