Bones to Ashes

by Kathy Reichs

  “He’s not an engineer. He’s not storing videos. Why’s he need all that capacity?” Lesieur.

  “Guy’s a gamer?” Ryan.

  “Nope.”

  The largest canister was filled with flour. Too deep for the spoon.

  “And what’s up with the scanner?” Lesieur.

  “He’s not storing images?” Ryan.

  “None that I’ve found.”

  Removing a stack of bowls from an upper cabinet, I extracted the largest and put the others back.

  Ryan said something. Lesieur responded. The exchange was lost to the rattling of china.

  I grasped the canister in both hands and poured, focusing on the flour cascading over its rim. A white cloud billowed up, dusting my face and hands.

  A sneeze threatened.

  I set down the canister. Waited. The sneeze made no move.

  I resumed pouring. Half. Three-quarters.

  The flour was nearly gone when an object dropped into the bowl. Setting the canister on the counter, I studied the thing.

  Dark. Flat. About the size of my thumb.

  I felt a fizz of excitement.

  Though sealed in plastic, the item was familiar.

  22

  I HURRIED TO THE BEDROOM, FLOUR-COATED HANDS HELD AWAY from my body.

  “Find something?” Chenevier asked.

  “In a canister. Better shoot it in situ then dust for latents.”

  Chenevier followed me back to the kitchen. Scribbling an evidence label, he photographed the bowl from several angles. When he’d finished, I extracted the object, tapped it on the rim, and laid it on the counter.

  Chenevier snapped more photos, then checked for prints on the object’s outer surface. There were none. Twirling a finger, he indicated that I should unroll the plastic. I did. He photographed every few inches.

  Within minutes, a baggie, an eight-inch length of clear plastic wrap, and a thumb drive lay side by side on the Formica. None yielded prints.

  “Got something,” I called into the living room.

  Ryan joined us. Floating one brow, he brushed flour from my nose.

  I narrowed my eyes in a “don’t say it” warning.

  Ryan handed me a towel, then scanned the small assemblage beside the bowl.

  “USB flash drive,” I said. “Sixteen gigabytes.”

  “That’s massive.”

  “You could store the national archives on this thing.”

  Ryan indicated that I should bring the thumb drive to the computer. Chenevier returned to the bedroom.

  I passed the drive to Lesieur. She thumbed a button, and a USB connector slid from one end.

  “We got paper for this?”

  Ryan nodded

  Reaching under the workstation, Lesieur inserted the drive into the CPU tower.

  The computer ding-donged, then a box appeared requesting a password.

  “Try using Cormier,” Ryan said.

  Lesieur shot him a “you’ve got to be kidding” look.

  “Try it.”

  Lesieur typed C-O-R-M-I-E-R.

  The screen changed. A new box stated that a removable device had been detected, and that the disk contained more than one type of content.

  “What a bonehead.” Lesieur hit several keys.

  Columns of text appeared. Folders. Files. Dates.

  Lesieur opened a file. Another. Ryan and I leaned in for a better view of the screen.

  “I’ll be at this awhile.” As before, her message was not subtle.

  Ryan and I returned to the kitchen.

  Several cabinets and a silo of cereal and cracker boxes later, Lesieur spoke. Ryan and I went to her.

  “OK. Here’s my take. Everything looks innocent enough on the surface. Tax returns. Business files. But I think your guy’s got another whole layer buried in the unused space of his thumb drive.”

  Ryan and I must have looked blank.

  “Some of the newer encryption programs provide plausible deniability by creating two layers. The user stores some innocuous files in the first layer. Tax returns, business contacts, information a reasonable person might want to encrypt. The second layer is a disk volume hidden in the ‘unused’ space of the drive.”

  “So Cormier uses a simple password for layer one because he doesn’t really care about those files,” I guessed. “It’s a cover. He’s really concerned about layer two.”

  “Exactly. With this type of setup, if someone starts poking around, they see some files, some open space, everything looks copasetic. When they view the open area of the disk byte by byte, all they find is gibberish.”

  “That’s not suspicious?” Ryan asked.

  Lesieur shook her head. “Operating systems don’t normally delete deleted files. They just change a marker that says, ‘This file has been deleted and can be written over.’ Everything that was in the file is still on the drive until its space is needed, so if you look at the unused areas on a normal disk drive, you’ll see bits and pieces of old files. Remember Ollie North?”

  Ryan and I both said yes.

  “That’s how Irangate investigators recovered information Ollie had deleted. Without those chunks of old files, whether plain text or recognizably patterned computer data, pure gibberish stands out for what it lacks.”

  Lesieur cocked her chin at the monitor. “The giveaway with your guy is that I’m finding megabyte after megabyte of gibberish.”

  “So you suspect there are encrypted files, but you can’t read them.”

  “C’est ça. Your guy’s running Windows XP. When used with a sufficiently long and completely random password, even the tool that comes with XP Pro creates encryption that can be a bitch to crack.”

  “You tried typing in ‘Cormier’?” Ryan asked.

  “Oh yeah.”

  Lesieur checked her watch, then stood.

  “A mondo thumb drive stashed in a flour bin. Double-layered encryption. This guy’s hiding something he sincerely doesn’t want found.”

  “Now what?” Ryan asked.

  “If your warrant allows, confiscate the hardware. We’ll get whatever it is he’s snaked away.”

  At one, Ryan and I left Chenevier and Pasteur to finish and lock up. I drove straight to Cormier’s studio. It was like moving from the cool of the arctic to the heat and grime of the tropics.

  Hippo was wearing another aloha shirt. Red turtles and blue parrots, all damp and wilted. He’d finished two more cabinets.

  I told him about the thumb drive. His response was immediate.

  “The guy’s into porn.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What? You think he’s storing church music?”

  Since images and videos require a lot of disk space, I, too, suspected porn. But I bristle at knee-jerk reactions.

  “We shouldn’t jump to judgment,” I said.

  Hippo blew air through his lips.

  To avoid an argument, I changed the subject.

  “Ever hear of an island called Île-aux-Becs-Scies?”

  “Where?”

  “Near Miramichi.”

  Hippo thought a moment, then shook his head.

  “What does the name mean?”

  “I think a bec scie is some kind of duck.”

  Something rolled over in my hindbrain.

  Duck Island? What?

  I chose a cabinet and began pulling file after file.

  Kids. Pets. Couples.

  I found it hard to concentrate. Was I really championing judicious thinking? Or was I in denial? Cormier a pornographer. Cormier a photographer of women and children. Were the implications simply too awful?

  And why the heads-up from my subconscious? Duck Island?

  Partly heat. Partly hunger. A headache began organizing on the right side of my skull.

  Ryan was to have bought lunch and come directly from Cormier’s apartment to his studio. Where the hell was he? Cranky, I continued plowing through folders.

  It was two-thirty before Ryan made his appearance. In lieu
of the salad and Diet Coke I’d requested, he’d gotten hot dogs and fries from Lafleur’s.

  As we ate, Ryan and Hippo discussed the thumb drive. Ryan agreed that Cormier was probably hiding smut. Hot, irritable, and stuffed with greasy wieners, I played devil’s advocate.

  “Maybe Cormier got sick of dealing with this disorganized mess.” I waved an arm at the cabinets. “Maybe he was scanning all his old images and files.”

  “To a thumb drive stashed in his flour bin.”

  Ryan had a point. It irked me.

  “OK, so it’s porn. Maybe Cormier’s just a perv trying to hide his dirty little secret.”

  Both men looked at me as though I’d suggested anthrax was harmless.

  “Think what you want.” I bunched my wrappers and shoved them into the greasy brown bag. “I’ll wait for proof.”

  Cabinet twelve. I was looking at a photo of an exceedingly unattractive baby when my cell phone chirped.

  Two-eight-one area code. Harry.

  I clicked on.

  “You certainly were up early this morning.”

  “I’m up early most mornings.”

  “How’s that French buckaroo?”

  “If you mean Ryan, he’s a jerk.”

  “I just spoke to Flannery O’Connor.” Harry’s voice was jittery with excitement.

  “I’m listening.”

  There was a pause.

  “Are we having another cranky pants day?”

  “It’s hot.” I placed the ugly baby on the stack of finished files, and opened another.

  “This isn’t even close to hot.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “You want hot, you try Houston in August.”

  “O’Connor House?”

  “The business folded when Flan and her husband went splitsville. She goes by Flan. I didn’t ask if she’d changed it official or not. Anyway, Flan cut bait after catching hubby au flagrant with a guy named Maurice.”

  “Uh-huh.” The new file was labeled Krenshaw. The subject was a cocker spaniel. I closed it, and selected another.

  “She’s a hoot, Tempe. We talked for over an hour.”

  I could only imagine that conversation.

  “What did you learn about Obéline’s book?” I opened another file. Tremblay. A very fat lady posed with a very fat child. The Tremblays went onto the stack.

  “Following the divorce, Flan kept all the O’Connor House records. Client names, book titles, number of pages, number of copies, what type of binding. ’Course we’re not talking Simon and Schuster here.”

  “Obéline’s book?” Keeping Harry on track was like herding sheep on uppers.

  “During its existence, O’Connor House printed twenty-two poetry collections. Six of the orders were placed by women.” I heard paper rustle. “La Pénitence, by Félice Beaufils.”

  What Harry did to the French language was truly remarkable.

  “Lie Down Among the Lilies, by Geraldine Haege. Peppermint Springtime, by Sandra Lacanu. Un besoin de chaleur humaine, by Charlene Pierpont. That title means something about needing human warmth.”

  I opened another folder. Briggs. Blushing bride. Done.

  “The other four had no authors. You know, the poet preferred to remain anonymous. Ghostly Mornings. Flan thought that was a literary club project. A woman named Caroline Beecher handled the transaction.”

  The headache was banging at the back of my eyeball. Using a thumb, I rubbed circles on my temple.

  “Parfum was paid for by Marie-Joséphine Devereaux. Fringe was paid for by Mary Anne Coffey. Each of those books was about fifty pages in length. Each print run was a hundred. Beecher and Devereaux had Moncton addresses. Coffey lived in St. John—”

  “Obéline?” It came out sharper than I intended.

  Harry allowed me several moments of dead air.

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re working hard on this. It’s just a little too much information for now.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “What did you learn about Bones to Ashes?”

  I opened a new file. Zucker. Three kids wearing plaid.

  “Virginie LeBlanc.” Curt.

  “LeBlanc placed the order?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did O’Connor have LeBlanc’s address?”

  “Post office box.”

  “Where?”

  “Bathurst.”

  “Any other contact information?”

  “No.”

  “Did you try tracing LeBlanc?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  Sulky silence.

  I rolled my eyes. It hurt.

  “Look, Harry. I’m sorry. I do appreciate what you’re doing.”

  From across the room, I heard a phone, then Hippo’s voice.

  “Gallant.”

  “Can I buy you dinner tonight?” I asked Harry.

  “Quand? Où?” Staccato questions in the background. Where? When?

  “I’ll be here,” Harry said.

  “Bon Dieu!”

  “You pick the restaurant,” I said.

  I heard a soft grunt, then footsteps clumping my way.

  “You can give me a full report on everything you’ve learned.”

  Harry agreed. Coolly.

  I clicked off.

  Hippo was standing over me.

  I looked up.

  Something was dreadfully wrong.

  23

  H IPPO’S JAW WAS CLAMPED LIKE A SCREW PRESS.

  “What?” I closed the Zucker file.

  Hippo glowered silently.

  “Tell me.”

  “Just got a courtesy call from the RCMP in Tracadie. Obéline Bastarache is missing and presumed dead.”

  I shot to my feet. The Zucker file flew across the floor. “Dead? How?”

  Flicking a shirttail, Hippo pocket-jammed the phone and turned away.

  “How?” I repeated, too shrill.

  “Neighbor downriver from the Bastarache place found a shawl wrapping one of the pilings under his pier. Recognized it. Checked. Got suspicious that Obéline wasn’t home. Says the lady never goes out.”

  “That hardly means Obéline drowned.”

  “RCMP searched the property. Found blood on the breakwater.”

  “That could—”

  Hippo continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “Clothes on the end of the breakwater. Folded. Shoes on top. Note d’adieu shoved into one toe.”

  I felt the blood drain from my head. “A suicide note?”

  Hippo didn’t square to face me.

  Didn’t speak the words I knew were goading his tongue.

  There was no need. Already, I felt the deadening weight of self-blame.

  I swallowed. “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  I’d visited Obéline on Tuesday. Wednesday she was dead.

  “What did the note say?”

  “Adieu. Life sucks.”

  Shame boiled inside me.

  And anger.

  And something else.

  Though far from happy, Obéline had seemed content. Had told me she was at the one place she wanted to be.

  “I detected nothing to suggest she was suicidal.”

  “Where was it you earned that psychology degree?”

  My face flamed. Hippo was right. What did I know of this woman? Until two days ago, our last interactions had been as kids.

  “No one is questioning that she’s dead? I mean, there’s no body. Are they dragging the river?”

  “The river’s a freight train right there.” Hippo was squinting down the hall, into sunlight oozing through one of the living room’s dirt-caked windows. “Body’s probably in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by now.”

  “Where was Bastarache?” Hearing agitated voices, Ryan had left Cormier’s office.

  “Quebec City.”

  “He alibi out?”

  “That bastard always alibis out.”

  With that, Hippo stomped from the room. In seconds, the studio door opene
d, slammed.

  “I’m sorry.” Ryan’s eyes said he meant it.

  “Thanks.” Weak.

  There was a moment of strained silence.

  “What’s up with Hippo and you?”

  “He’s pissed that I went to Tracadie.”

  “I doubt it’s you. You’re just handy.”

  “He asked me not to make contact.”

  “Bastarache is a flesh bandit. Hippo thinks it reflects badly on all Acadians.”

  I didn’t trust myself to answer.

  “Don’t let him get to you. Hippo’ll never say it, but your finding Cormier’s thumb drive impressed the hell out of him. Once Lesieur cracks it, we’ll be able to reel this dirtball in.”

  “If I hadn’t found it, CSU would have.”

  Ryan knew that was true. Was trying to be nice.

  “If you want to knock off, I understand,” he said.

  I shook my head. But I’d already lost Ryan’s attention.

  “I have court tomorrow. If we don’t finish today, we’ll wrap up on Monday.”

  With that, Ryan disappeared down the hall. And proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the day.

  Fine. I could concentrate on Cormier’s bloody files.

  Only I couldn’t. All afternoon, I kept seeing Obéline. The gazebo. The breakwater. The shawl.

  Leaden, I forced myself through file after file.

  Pets. Brides. Kids. None of them Phoebe. None of them a cold case MP or DOA.

  At six I gave up.

  Inching home through rush hour traffic, I worried about telling Harry that Obéline was dead. My sister feels things intensely, emotes unabashedly. Joy. Anger. Fear. Whatever Harry’s reaction, it’s always over the top. I was dreading the conversation.

  At the condo, I parked underground. A light indicated the elevator was holding on three. I trudged up the stairs.

  Both the outer and inner front doors were open. Runners crisscrossed the lobby floor. Winston, our caretaker, stood on one of them.

  “Someone moving?” Not really interested. Thinking about Harry.

  “Three-oh-four,” Winston answered. “Transferred to Calgary.”

  I rounded the banister, started toward my corridor.

  “You thinking about selling?”

  “No.”

  “Funny.”

  I turned. “What’s funny?”

  “Couple guys wandered in here this morning. Asked about your place.”