Death Du Jour tb-2

by Reichs, Kathy

  “O.K., fine. You have these fringe groups living a life orchestrated by some nutcase. What makes them turn violent at any given time? Why today and not next month?”

  It’s too soon. It can’t be now.

  “Most outbreaks of violence involve what sociologists refer to as ‘escalating boundary tensions.’ ”

  “Don’t feed me jargon, Red.”

  “O.K. These fringe groups usually are concerned with two things, getting members and keeping members. But if a leader feels threatened the emphasis often shifts. Sometimes recruitment stops and existing members are monitored more closely. The demand for commitment to eccentric rules may intensify. The theme of doom may become more pronounced. The group can grow increasingly isolated and increasingly paranoid. Tensions with the surrounding community, or with the government, or law enforcement may escalate.”

  “What could possibly threaten these megalomaniacs?”

  “A member who leaves could be seen as a defector.”

  We woke up and Heidi and Brian were gone.

  “The leader might feel he’s losing control. Or if the cult exists in more than one place, and he can’t always be there, he might feel his authority is slipping during his absences. More anxiety. More isolation. More tyranny. It’s a paranoid spiral. Then all it takes is some external factor to pull the pin.”

  “How disruptive would the outside event have to be?”

  “It varies. At Jonestown it took only the visit by a congressman and his press entourage, and their attempt to return to the U.S. with a handful of defectors. At Waco it took a military-style raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the eventual insertion of CS gas and the breaching of the compound walls by armored vehicles.”

  “Why the difference?”

  “That has to do with ideology and leadership. The settlement at Jonestown was more internally volatile than the community at Waco.”

  My fingers felt cold on the handset.

  “Do you think Owens has a violent agenda?”

  “He definitely bears watching. If he’s holding your friend’s baby against her will that should get you a warrant.”

  “It’s unclear whether she agreed to leave him there. She’s very reluctant to talk about the cult. She’s been raised by these people since she was eight years old. I’ve never seen anyone so torn. But the fact that Jennifer Cannon was living at the Owens compound when she was killed should do it.”

  For a while neither of us spoke.

  “Could Heidi and Brian have sent Owens over the edge?” I asked. “Could he have ordered someone to kill them and their babies?”

  “Could be. And don’t forget, he’s had some other blows. Sounds like Jennifer Cannon may have concealed those phone calls from Canada, then refused to go along with something Owens wanted when he found out. And of course there’s you.”

  “Me?”

  “Brian gets Heidi pregnant against cult orders. Then the couple splits. Then the thing with Jennifer. Then you and Ryan show up. Odd coincidence in names, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “The congressman who showed up in Guyana. His name was Ryan.”

  “Give me a prediction, Red. Based on what I’ve told you, what do you see in your crystal ball?”

  There was a long pause.

  “From what you’ve told me Owens may fit the profile of a charismatic leader with a messianic self-image. And it sounds like his followers have accepted that vision. Owens may feel he’s losing control over his members. He may see your investigation as an additional threat to his authority.”

  Another pause.

  “And this Kathryn is talking about crossing over to eternal life.”

  I heard him take a deep breath.

  “Given all of that, I’d say there is a high potential for violence.”

  I disconnected and dialed Ryan’s pager. While I waited for him to phone back I returned to the Hardaway report. I’d just pulled it from the envelope when the phone rang. Had I not been so agitated it might have been amusing. I seemed destined never to read that document.

  “You must have hit the floor running this morning.” Ryan’s voice sounded tired.

  “I’m always up early. I have a visitor.”

  “Let me guess. Gregory Peck.”

  “Kathryn showed up this morning. She says she spent the night at UNCC and found me through the faculty directory.”

  “Not smart to list your home address.”

  “I don’t. Jennifer Cannon lived at the Saint Helena compound.”

  “Damn.”

  “Kathryn overheard an argument between Jennifer and Owens. The next day Jennifer was gone.”

  “Good stuff, Brennan.”

  “It gets better.”

  I told him about Jennifer’s access to the phone and her friendship with Heidi. He came back with his own shocker.

  “When you talked to Hardaway you asked when Jennifer Cannon was last seen alive. What you didn’t ask was where. It wasn’t Calgary. Jennifer hadn’t lived there since she went off to school. According to the mother they kept in close contact until shortly before she disappeared. Then her daughter’s calls became less frequent, and when they spoke Jennifer seemed evasive.

  “Jennifer called home at Thanksgiving two years ago, then nothing. The mother phoned the school, contacted her daughter’s friends, even visited the campus, but she never discovered where Jennifer had gone. That’s when she filed the missing person report.”

  “And?”

  I heard him draw a deep breath.

  “Jennifer Cannon was last seen leaving the McGill University campus.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. She didn’t take her finals or withdraw from her classes. She just packed up and left.”

  “Packed up?”

  “Yeah. That’s why the police didn’t pursue the case too vigorously. She packed her belongings, closed her bank account, left a note for her landlord, and vanished. It didn’t look like an abduction.”

  My mind threw up an image, then resisted bringing it into focus. A face with bangs. A nervous gesture. I forced my lips to form the words.

  “Another young woman disappeared from the compound at the same time Jennifer Cannon did. Kathryn didn’t know her since she was a newcomer.” I swallowed. “Kathryn thought the girl’s name might have been Anne.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Anna Goyette was”—I corrected myself—“is a McGill student.”

  “Anna is a common name.”

  “Kathryn heard Jennifer and this girl speak a foreign language.”

  “French?”

  “I’m not sure Kathryn would know French if she heard it.”

  “You think the second Murtry victim could be Anna Goyette?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Brennan, just because some girl showed up on Saint Helena who may have been called Anna doesn’t mean it was a McGill class reunion. Cannon left the university over two years ago. Goyette is nineteen. She wasn’t there yet.”

  “True. But everything else fits.”

  “I don’t know. And even if Jennifer Cannon lived with Owens it doesn’t mean he killed her.”

  “They fight. She disappears. Her body turns up in a shallow grave.”

  “Maybe she was into dope. Or her friend Anne was. Maybe Owens found out and threw them out. They’ve got nowhere to go so they squeeze their business associates. Or they take off with a bag of the merchandise.”

  “Is that what you think happened?”

  “Look, all we know for sure is that Jennifer Cannon left Montreal a couple of years ago and her body turned up on Murtry Island. She may have spent time with the community on Saint Helena. She may have argued with Owens. If so, those facts may or may not be relevant to her death.”

  “They’re sure as hell germane to the question of her whereabouts for the past several years.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “First I’m g
oing to visit Sheriff Baker to see if this gets us a warrant. Then I’m going to light a fire under the boys in Texas. I want to know about every cell this Owens has ever shed. Then it’s back out to Happy Acres for some high-visibility surveillance. I want to see what color the guru sweats, and I don’t have much time. They want me in Montreal on Monday.”

  “I think he’s dangerous, Ryan.”

  He listened without interrupting as I outlined my conversation with Red Skyler. When I’d finished there was a long silence as Ryan integrated the sociologist’s words with what we’d just discussed.

  “I’ll call Claudel and get a status on Anna Goyette.”

  “Thanks, Ryan.”

  “Keep an eye on Kathryn,” he said solemnly.

  “I will.”

  I didn’t get that opportunity. When I went upstairs, Kathryn was gone.

  27

  “DAMN!” I SAID TO THE EMPTY AIR.

  Birdie had followed me up the stairs. He froze at my outburst, lowered his head, and regarded me with a steady gaze.

  “Damn!”

  No one answered.

  Ryan was right. Kathryn was not stable. I knew I couldn’t assure her safety, or that of her baby, so why did I feel responsible?

  “She split, Bird. What can you do?”

  The cat had no suggestions, so I followed my usual pattern. When anxious, I work.

  I returned to the kitchen. The door was ajar and wind had scattered the autopsy photos.

  Or had it? Hardaway’s report lay exactly as I’d left it.

  Had Kathryn viewed the pictures? Had the grisly tableau sent her fleeing in panic?

  Feeling another surge of guilt, I sat down and sorted through the stack.

  Cleaned of its shroud of maggots and sediment, Jennifer Cannon’s body was better preserved than I’d expected. Though decomposition had ravaged her face and viscera, wounds were clearly evident in the bloated and discolored flesh.

  Cuts. Hundreds of them. Some circular, others linear, measuring one to several centimeters. They clustered near her throat, in her thorax, and ran the length of her arms and legs. All over her body I could see what looked like superficial scratches, but skin slippage made these lesions difficult to observe. The mottling of hematoma was everywhere.

  I examined several close-ups. While the chest wounds had smooth, clean edges, the other cuts looked jagged and uneven. A deep gash circled her upper right arm, exposing torn flesh and splintered bone.

  I moved to the cranial photos. Though sloughing had begun, most of the hair was still in place. Oddly, the posterior views showed bone gleaming through the tangled mat, as though a section of scalp were missing.

  I’d seen that pattern before. Where?

  I finished with the photos and opened Hardaway’s report.

  Twenty minutes later I leaned back and closed my eyes.

  Probable cause of death: exsanguination due to stabbing. The smooth-bordered chest wounds were made by a blade that had severed critical vessels. Due to decomposition, the pathologist was uncertain as to the cause of the other lacerations.

  I passed the rest of the day in a state of agitation. I wrote my reports on Jennifer Cannon and the other Murtry victim, then turned to the CAT scan data, stopping frequently to listen for Kathryn.

  Ryan phoned at two to say that the Jennifer Cannon link had convinced a judge, and a search warrant was being issued for the Saint Helena compound. He and Baker were heading out as soon as they had the paper.

  I told him about Kathryn’s disappearance, and listened to his assurances that I was not to blame. I also told him about Birdie.

  “At least there’s some good news.”

  “Yeah. Any word on Anna Goyette?”

  “No.”

  “Texas?”

  “Still waiting. I’ll let you know what goes down here.”

  As I hung up, I felt fur brush my ankle, and looked down to see Birdie worming figure eights between my feet.

  “Come on, Bird. How ‘bout a treat?”

  My cat is inordinately fond of canine chew toys. I’ve explained that these products are for dogs, but he will not be dissuaded.

  I dug a small rawhide bone from a kitchen drawer and sailed it into the living room.

  Birdie raced across the room, pounced, then rolled onto his prey. He righted himself, positioned the object between his front paws, and began gnawing on his kill.

  I watched, wondering about the appeal of slimy hide.

  The cat chewed a corner, then turned the toy and dragged his teeth the length of one edge. The object fell sideways and Bird nudged it back and sank a canine into the leather.

  I watched, transfixed.

  Was that it?

  I went to Birdie, squatted, and pried his quarry from him. The cat placed his front paws on my knee, stood on hind legs, and tried to retrieve his prize.

  My pulse quickened as I stared at the mangled leather.

  Sweet Jesus.

  I thought of the puzzling wounds in Jennifer Cannon’s flesh. Superficial scratches. Jagged tears.

  I ran to the living room for my lens, then raced to the kitchen and rifled through Hardaway’s photos. I selected the head views and studied each under magnification.

  The balding was not due to decomposition. The strands that remained were firmly rooted. The detached segment of skin and hair was neatly rectangular, its edges torn and ragged.

  Jennifer Cannon’s scalp had been ripped from her skull.

  I thought of what that meant.

  And I thought of something else.

  Could I have been so thick? Could a preconceived mind-set have blinded me to the obvious?

  I grabbed my keys and purse and flew out the door.

  Forty minutes later I was at the university. The bones of the unidentified Murtry victim stared accusingly from my lab table.

  How could I have been so careless?

  “Never assume a single source of trauma.” My mentor’s words floated back across the decades.

  I’d fallen into the trap. When I saw the destruction on the bones I’d thought raccoons and vultures. I hadn’t looked closely. I hadn’t measured.

  Now I had.

  While there was extensive damage on the skeleton due to postmortem scavenging, other injury had gone before.

  The two holes in the occipital bone were the most telling. They measured five millimeters each, with a distance between them of thirty-five. These punctures were not made by a turkey vulture, and the pattern was too large for a raccoon.

  The dimensions suggested a large dog. So did parallel scratches on the cranial bones, and similar perforations in the clavicle and sternum.

  Jennifer Cannon and her companion had been attacked by animals, probably large dogs. Teeth had torn their flesh and scored their bones. Some bites had been powerful enough to pierce the thickness at the back of the skull.

  My mind made a leap.

  Carole Comptois, the Montreal victim who had been hung by her wrists and tortured, had also been mauled.

  That’s reaching, Brennan.

  Yes.

  It’s ridiculous.

  No, I told myself. It’s not.

  Up to now my skepticism had done nothing for these victims. I’d been slack about the animal damage. I’d doubted the link between Heidi Schneider and Dom Owens, and I’d failed to see his connection to Jennifer Cannon. I hadn’t helped Kathryn or Carlie, and I’d done nothing to locate Anna Goyette.

  From now on, if necessary, I would reach. If there was a remote possibility that Carole Comptois and the women on Murtry Island were linked, I would consider it.

  I phoned Hardaway, not expecting him to be working late on Saturday. He wasn’t. Neither was LaManche, the pathologist who had done the Comptois autopsy. I left messages for both.

  Frustrated, I took out a tablet and began to list what I knew.

  Jennifer Cannon and Carole Comptois were both from Montreal. Each died following an animal attack.

  The skeleton buried with
Jennifer Cannon also bore the marks of animal teeth. The victim died with levels of Rohypnol indicative of acute intoxication.

  Rohypnol was isolated in two of the victims found with Heidi Schneider and her family in St-Jovite.

  Rohypnol was found in bodies at the murder/suicide sites of the Order of the Solar Temple.

  The Solar Temple operated in Quebec and Europe.

  Phone calls were made from the house in St-Jovite to Dom Owens’ commune on Saint Helena. Both properties were owned by Jacques Guillion, who also owned property in Texas.

  Jacques Guillion is Belgian.

  One of the St-Jovite victims, Patrice Simonnet, was Belgian.

  Heidi Schneider and Brian Gilbert joined Dom Owens’ group in Texas and returned there for the birth of their babies. They left Texas and were murdered. In St-Jovite.

  The St-Jovite victims died approximately three weeks ago.

  Jennifer Cannon and the unidentified victim on Murtry died three to four weeks ago.

  Carole Comptois died a little less than three weeks ago.

  I stared at the page. Ten. Ten people dead. Again the odd phrase ricocheted through my brain. Death du jour. Death of the day. We’d found them day by day, but they’d all died around the same time. Who would be next? Into what circle of hell had we stumbled?

  When I got home I went directly to the computer to revise my report on the Murtry skeleton to include injury due to animal attack. Then I printed and read what I’d written.

  As I finished, the clock chimed the full Westminster refrain, then gave six low bongs. My stomach growled a reminder that I’d eaten nothing since the bagel and coffee.

  I went to the patio and snipped basil and chives. Then I cut chunks of cheese, took two eggs from the fridge, and scrambled everything together. I toasted another bagel, poured a Diet Coke, and returned to the desk in the living room.

  When I reviewed the list I’d made at the university, an unsettling thought popped into my mind.

  Anna Goyette had also disappeared a little less than three weeks ago.

  My appetite vanished. I left the desk and crossed to the couch. I lay down and allowed my mind to drift, willing associations to rise to the surface.

  I went through names. Schneider. Gilbert. Comptois. Simonnet. Owens. Cannon. Goyette.