Death Du Jour

by Kathy Reichs

  July 17, 1845. Due to irregular circumstances, Eugénie’s stay in France would be prolonged. Arrangements had been made, but Louis-Philippe was vague as to their nature.

  I stared at the whiteness outside my window. What “irregular circumstances” had kept Eugénie in France? I calculated. Élisabeth was born in January. Oh, boy.

  Throughout the summer and fall Louis-Philippe made only brief reference to his sister. Letter from Eugénie. Doing well.

  As our wheels touched pavement at Dorval Airport, Eugénie reappeared. She, too, had returned to Montreal. April 16, 1846. Her baby was three months old.

  There it was.

  Élisabeth Nicolet was born in France. Alain could not be her father. But who was?

  Ryan and I deplaned in silence. He checked his messages while I waited for the baggage. When he returned his face told me the news was not good.

  “They found the vans near Charleston.”

  “Empty.”

  He nodded.

  Eugénie and her baby faded into another century.

  * * *

  The sky was nickel and a light rain blew across the headlights as Ryan and I drove east along Highway 20. According to the pilot, Montreal was a balmy thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

  We rode in silence having already agreed on our courses of action. I wanted to rush home, to find my sister and relieve myself of a building sense of foreboding. Instead, I would do as Ryan asked. Then I would pursue a plan of my own.

  We parked in the lot at Parthenais and Ryan and I picked our way toward the building. The air smelled of malt from the Molson brewery. Oil filmed the pools of rainwater collecting on the uneven pavement.

  Ryan got off on the first floor and I continued to my office on the fifth. After removing my coat, I dialed an inside extension. They’d gotten my message and we could begin as soon as I was ready. I went at once to the lab.

  I gathered scalpel, ruler, glue, and a two-foot length of rubber eraser material and set them on my worktable. Then I opened my carry-on package, unwrapped and inspected the contents.

  The skull and mandible of the unknown Murtry victim had made the trip undamaged. I often wonder what the airport scanner operators think when my skeletal parts go through. I placed the skull on a cork ring in the middle of the table. Then I squeezed glue into the temporomandibular joint and fixed the jaw in place.

  While the Elmer’s dried, I found a chart of facial tissue thicknesses for white American females. When the jaw felt firm I slid the skull onto a holder, adjusted the height, and secured it with clamps. The empty orbits stared directly into my eyes as I measured and cut seventeen tiny rubber cylinders and glued them onto the facial bones.

  Twenty minutes later I took the skull to a small room down the corridor. A plaque identified the section as Section d’Imagerie. A technician greeted me and indicated that the system was up and running.

  Wasting no time, I placed the skull on a copy stand, captured images of it with a video camera, and sent them to the PC. I evaluated the digitized views on the monitor and chose a frontal orientation. Then, using a stylus and drawing tablet attached to the computer, I connected the rubber markers projecting from the skull. As I directed the crosshairs around the screen a macabre silhouette began to emerge.

  When satisfied with the facial contour, I moved on. Using the bony architecture as a guide I sampled eyes, ears, noses, and lips from the program’s database, and fitted predrawn features onto the skull.

  Next I tested hair, and added what I thought would be the least distracting style. Knowing nothing of the victim, I decided it was better to be vague than wrong. When I was happy with the components I’d added to the captured cranial image, I used the stylus to blend and shadow to make the reconstruction as lifelike as possible. The whole process took less than two hours.

  I leaned back and looked at my work.

  A face gazed from the monitor. It had drooping eyes, a delicate nose, and broad, high cheekbones. It was pretty in a robotic, expressionless way. And somehow familiar. I swallowed. Then with a touch of the stylus I modified the hair. Blunt cut. Bangs.

  I drew in a breath. Did my reconstruction resemble Anna Goyette? Or had I simply created a generic young female and given the hair a familiar cut?

  I returned the hair to the original style and evaluated the likeness. Yes? No? I had no idea.

  Finally, I touched a command on the drop-down menu, and four frames appeared on the screen. I compared the series, looking for hints of inconsistency between my merged image and the skull. First, the unaltered cranium and jaw. Next, a peel image, with bare bone on the skull’s left, fleshed features on the right. Third, the face I’d created superimposed in ghostly translucence over bone and tissue markers. Last, the finished facial approximation. I clicked the final image to full screen and stared at it a long time. I still wasn’t sure.

  I printed, then stored the image, and hurried to my office. As I left the building I dropped copies of the sketch on Ryan’s desk. The attached note consisted of two words: Murtry, Inconnue. Unknown. I had other things on my mind.

  * * *

  When I climbed out of the taxi the rain had eased, but the temperature had plummeted. Thin membranes were forming on puddles and crystallizing on wires and branches.

  The apartment was as dim and still as a crypt. Dropping my coat and bags in the hall, I went directly to the guest room. Harry’s makeup lay scattered across the dresser. Had she used it this morning or last week? Clothes. Boots. Hair dryer. Magazines. My search turned up nothing to indicate where Harry had gone or when she had left.

  I’d expected that. What I’d not expected was the alarm that gripped me as I rummaged from room to room.

  I checked the machine. No messages.

  Calm down. Maybe she phoned Kit.

  Negative.

  Charlotte?

  No word from Harry, but Red Skyler had called there to say he’d contacted the Cult Awareness Network. They had nothing on Dom Owens, but there was a file on Inner Life Empowerment. According to CAN, the outfit was legit. ILE operated in several states, offering insight seminars that were useless but nontoxic. Confront the intimate you and the intimate other. Crap, but probably harmless and I shouldn’t be too concerned. If I wanted more information I could call him or CAN. He left both numbers.

  I hardly listened to the other voices. Sam, wanting news. Katy reporting her return to Charlottesville.

  So ILE was not dangerous and Ryan was probably right. Harry had gone off again. Anger made my cheeks feel warm.

  Like a robot I hung my coat and rolled my suitcase to the bedroom. Then I sat on the edge of the bed, kneaded my temples, and let my thoughts roll. The digits on my clock slowly marked the minutes.

  These last few weeks had been some of the most difficult of my career. The torture and mutilation these victims had endured far surpassed what I normally saw. And I couldn’t remember when I’d worked so many deaths in so short a period of time. How were the murders on Murtry linked to those in St-Jovite? Was Carole Comptois killed by the same monstrous hand? Had the slaughter in St-Jovite been merely the beginning? At this moment was some maniac scripting a bloodbath too terrible to contemplate?

  Harry would have to deal with Harry.

  I knew what I was going to do. At least I knew where I would start.

  * * *

  It was raining again and the McGill campus was covered with a thin, frozen crust. The buildings stood out as black silhouettes, their windows the only light in the dreary, wet dusk. Here and there a figure moved in an illuminated square, a tiny puppet in a shadowbox theater.

  A porous ice shell crumbled to the steps as I gripped the handle to Birks Hall. The building was empty, abandoned by occupants fearing the storm. No raincoats on hooks, no boots melting along walls. The printers and copy machines were still, the only sound the tick of raindrops high above on leaded glass.

  My steps echoed hollowly as I climbed to the third floor. From the main corridor I could see
that Jeannotte’s door was closed. I didn’t really think she’d be here, but had decided it was worth a try. She didn’t expect me, and people say odd things when caught outside their normal routines.

  When I turned the corner I saw yellow light spilling from below the door. I knocked, unsure what to expect.

  When the door opened my jaw dropped in amazement.

  HER EYES WERE RED ALONG THE RIMS, HER SKIN PALE and drawn. She tensed when she recognized me, but said nothing.

  “How are you, Anna?”

  “O.K.” She blinked and her lids made the bangs hop.

  “I’m Dr. Brennan. We met several weeks ago.”

  “I know.”

  “When I returned they told me you were ill.”

  “I’m fine. I was gone for a while.”

  I wanted to ask her where she’d been, but held back. “Is Dr. Jeannotte here?”

  Anna shook her head. She did a slow-motion hair tuck, absently circling her ear.

  “Your mother was worried about you.”

  She shrugged, the movement sluggish and barely noticeable. She didn’t question my knowledge of her home life.

  “I’ve been working on a project with your aunt. She was also concerned.”

  “Oh.” She looked down so I couldn’t see her face.

  Hit her with it.

  “Your friend said you might be involved with something that’s upsetting you.”

  Her eyes came back to mine. “I have no friends. Who are you talking about?” Her voice was small and flat.

  “Sandy O’Reilly. She was replacing you that day.”

  “Sandy wants my hours. Why are you here?”

  Good question.

  “I wanted to talk to you and to Dr. Jeannotte.”

  “She’s not in.”

  “Could you and I talk?”

  “There’s nothing you can do for me. My life is my own business.” The listlessness chilled me.

  “I appreciate that. But, actually, I thought you might be able to help me.”

  Her glance slid down the corridor then back to me.

  “Help you how?”

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Could we go somewhere else?”

  She looked at me a long time, her eyes flat and empty. Then she nodded, took a parka from the hall tree, and guided me down the stairs and out a back door. Bending into the frigid rain we trudged uphill to the center of campus, and circled to the back of the Redpath Museum. Anna took a key from her pocket, opened a door, and led me into a dim corridor. The air smelled faintly of mildew and decay.

  We climbed to the second floor and sat on a long wooden bench, surrounded by the bones of creatures long dead. Above us hung a beluga whale, casualty of some Pleistocene misfortune. Dust motes drifted in the fluorescent light.

  “I don’t work in the museum anymore, but I still come here to think.” She gazed at the Irish elk. “These creatures lived millions of years and thousands of miles apart and now they’re fixed at this one point in the universe, forever motionless in time and place. I like that.”

  “Yes.” That was one way to view extinction. “Stability is a rare thing in today’s world.”

  She gave me an odd look, then turned back to the skeletons. I watched her profile as she studied the collection.

  “Sandy talked about you, but I didn’t really listen.” She spoke without turning to face me. “I’m not sure who you are or what you want.”

  “I’m a friend of your aunt.”

  “My aunt is a nice person.”

  “Yes. Your mother thought you might be in trouble.”

  She gave a wry smile. Obviously this was not a happy subject for her.

  “Why do you care what my mother thinks?”

  “I care that Sister Julienne was distressed by your disappearance. Your aunt is not aware that you’ve taken off before.”

  Her eyes left the vertebrates and swung to me. “What else do you know about me?” She flicked her hair. Perhaps the cold had revived her. Perhaps escape from her mentor’s presence. She seemed slightly more animated than she’d been in Birks.

  “Anna, your aunt begged me to find you. She didn’t want to pry, she simply wanted to reassure your mother.”

  She looked uncertain. “Since you seem to have made me your pet project, you must also know that my mother is crazy. If I’m ten minutes late she calls the cops.”

  “According to the police your absences lasted a bit longer than ten minutes.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly.

  Good, Brennan. Put her on the defensive.

  “Look, Anna, I don’t want to meddle. But if there’s anything I can do to help you, I’m more than willing to try.”

  I waited but she said nothing.

  Turn it around. Maybe she’ll open up.

  “Perhaps you can help me. As you know I work with the coroner, and some recent cases really have us baffled. A young woman named Jennifer Cannon vanished from Montreal several years ago. Her body was found last week in South Carolina. She was a McGill student.”

  Anna’s expression did not change.

  “Did you know her?”

  She was as silent as the bones around us.

  “On March seventeenth a woman named Carole Comptois was murdered and dumped on Île des Sœurs. She was eighteen.”

  A hand slid to her hair.

  “Jennifer Cannon wasn’t alone.” The hand dropped to her lap, floated back to her ear. “We haven’t identified the person buried with her.”

  I withdrew the composite sketch and held it out. She took it, her eyes avoiding mine.

  The paper trembled slightly as she stared at the face I’d created.

  “Is this for real?”

  “Facial approximation is an art, not a science. One can never be certain about the accuracy.”

  “You did this from a skull?” There was a tremor in her voice.

  “Yes.”

  “The hair is wrong.” Barely audible.

  “You recognize the face?”

  “Amalie Provencher.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “She works in the counseling center.” She kept her eyes averted.

  “When did you last see her?”

  “It’s been a couple of weeks. Maybe longer, I’m not sure. I was gone.”

  “Is she a student?”

  “What did they do to her?”

  I hesitated, uncertain how much to reveal. Anna’s mood swings made me suspect she was either unstable or taking drugs. She didn’t wait for my answer.

  “Did they murder her?”

  “Who, Anna? Who are ‘they’?”

  Finally, she looked at me. Her pupils glistened in the artificial light.

  “Sandy told me about your conversation. She was right, and she was wrong. There is a group here on campus, but they have nothing to do with Satan. And I have nothing to do with them. Amalie did. She got the job in the counseling center because they told her to.”

  “Is that where you met?”

  She nodded, ran a knuckle under each eye, and wiped them on her pants.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. A while back. I was pretty bummed, so I thought I’d try counseling. When I went to the center Amalie always made a point of chatting with me, acting really concerned. She’d never talk about herself or her problems. She really listened to what I had to say. We had a lot in common, so we became friends.”

  I remembered Red’s words. Recruiters are instructed to learn about potential members, to convince them of their common ground and earn their trust.

  “She’d talk about this group she belonged to, said it turned her life around. I finally went to one of the meetings. It was O.K.” She shrugged. “Someone spoke and we ate and did breathing exercises and stuff. It didn’t really grab me, but I went back a couple of times because everyone acted as if they really liked me.”

  Love bombing.

  “Then they invited me to the countr
y. That sounded cool, so I went. We played games and listened to lectures and chanted and did exercises. Amalie loved it, but it wasn’t for me. I thought it was a lot of gobbledygook, but you couldn’t disagree. Plus they never left me alone. I wasn’t allowed a minute to myself.

  “They wanted me to stay for a longer workshop, and when I said no, they got kind of huffy. I had to get pretty bitchy to get a ride back to town. I avoid Amalie now, but I see her from time to time.”

  “What’s this group called?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you think they killed Amalie?”

  She wiped her palms on the sides of her thighs.

  “There was a guy I met out there. He signed up through a course someplace else. Anyway, after I left he stayed, so I didn’t see him for a long time. Maybe a year. Then I ran into him at a concert on Île Notre Dame. We saw each other for a while, but that didn’t work out.” Another shrug. “By then he’d left the group, but he had some spooky stories about what went on. Mostly, he wouldn’t talk about it, though. He was pretty freaked.”

  “What was his name?”

  “John something.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. I think he moved away.” She wiped tears from her lower lashes.

  “Anna, is Dr. Jeannotte connected with this group?”

  “Why do you ask that?” Her voice broke on the last word. I could see a small blue vein pulsing in her neck.

  “When I first met you, in her office, you seemed very nervous around Dr. Jeannotte.”

  “She’s been wonderful to me. She’s a lot better for my head than meditation and heavy breathing.” She snorted. “But she’s also demanding, and I worry all the time that I’ll mess up.”

  “I understand you spend a lot of time with her.”

  Her eyes went back to the skeletons. “I thought you were concerned about Amalie and these dead people.”

  “Anna, would you be willing to talk to someone else? What you’ve told me is important, and the police will definitely want to follow up on it. A detective named Andrew Ryan is investigating these homicides. He’s a very kind man, and I think you’ll like him.”

  She gave me a confused look and whipped hair behind both ears.