Bones to Ashes

by Kathy Reichs

  I bolted down the hall. Across the studio. Out the door. For a brief moment I heard nothing. Then feet pounded behind me.

  I was at the first riser of the staircase when a truck barreled into my back. I felt my hair twisted. My head jerked backward.

  The dead lightbulb whipped past my eyes. I smelled wet nylon. Oily skin.

  Muscular arms pinned my elbows to my body. I struggled. The grip crushed me tighter.

  I kicked back, made contact with a shin. Flexed my knee to kick again.

  One side of the vise loosened. A blow clipped me hard to the temple.

  My vision splintered into shards of white light.

  Grunting, my assailant lifted. My feet left the carpet. He spun me and shoved.

  Arms windmilling, I tumbled backward, head bouncing, vertebrae scraping the edge of step after step. I came to rest on the first-floor landing, cheek flat to the carpet.

  I lay there, head pounding, lungs burning. Then, through the din in my ears, I heard a muffled bang. In the lobby below? Inside my head?

  Seconds or hours later, I felt more than heard another bang. Footsteps climbed toward me, hitched, accelerated.

  Through a fog, a tinny voice spoke.

  I pushed myself upright. Leaned my shoulders to the wall. Fought to inhale.

  I felt pressure on the back of my neck. Lowered my head. Compliant. A rag doll. My whole being focused on one desperate thought.

  Breathe!

  The mosquito voice whined again, words lost to the roaring in my ears.

  Breathe!

  A shape crouched beside me. A hand patted my shoulder.

  Breathe!

  Slowly, the spasm eased its grip on my lungs. I drew air. The droning in my eardrums began to fade.

  “—Doc, you sick?” Hippo. Anxious.

  I wagged my head.

  “You want I should—”

  “I’m OK,” I choked out.

  “You fall, or what?”

  “Pushed.”

  “Someone shoved you?”

  I nodded. Felt a tremor under my tongue. Swallowed.

  “Where were you?”

  “Cormier’s studio.”

  “He still in there?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  “Did you get a look at him?”

  I probed my addled brain. The man’s back had been to me. Then the attack had happened too quickly.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t see no one.” Hippo’s tone was hesitant. I knew he was torn between attending to me and dealing with my attacker.

  Why had I been attacked? Was I recognized, targeted specifically? Or had I been incidental, an impediment blocking a getaway? Whose getaway?

  I lifted both arms, indicating I wanted to get to my feet.

  “Hold on.”

  Hippo dialed his cell, described what had happened, answered questions with a few crisp oui. When he clicked off our eyes met. We both knew. A patrol unit would come and cruise the street, canvass neighbors. With no witnesses, the odds of catching the guy were a notch north of zero.

  I flapped my hands.

  “Moses.” Hippo arm-wrapped my waist and hoisted.

  I rose, legs trembling.

  “Gotta check upstairs,” I said.

  “Maybe you should let a doctor—”

  Grasping the rail, I climbed to Cormier’s studio. Hippo followed. Murky light oozed from a gap between the door and the jamb. Motioning me behind him, Hippo drew his weapon.

  “Police!”

  No response.

  “Police!” Tension curdled Hippo’s speech. “On défonce.” We’re coming in.

  More silence.

  Raising a “stay here” palm, Hippo kicked out. The door slammed inward and ricocheted. Elbowing it back, he moved forward, weapon gripped two-handed at the side of his nose.

  I heard footsteps as Hippo moved through the flat. A minute later, he called out.

  “Clear.”

  I entered.

  “Here.” Hippo’s voice came from the bathroom in which I’d spotted the intruder.

  I hurried down the hall and peered in. This time I took in details that had escaped my earlier quick glance.

  The overhead pipes were concealed by a drop-ceiling arrangement of twelve-inch panels framed in thin metal strips. Several panels had been ripped free and tossed into the sink.

  Hippo was standing on the commode, shining his flashlight into the newly created breach.

  Anger overpowered the pain in my head. “How could someone just waltz in here?”

  Hippo raised up onto his toes.

  “The bastard knew exactly what he wanted. And exactly where to look,” I ranted on, despite the fact that Hippo wasn’t listening.

  “Sonova—?”

  Hippo handed me his light without looking down.

  “What? Do you see something?”

  Hippo reached forward into the gap. Sensitized to issues of balance and gravity, I positioned myself below him in case of a slip.

  Hippo rolled back onto his heels. His hand dropped to me. I relieved it of one crumpled sheet.

  A photo. I glanced at the subject.

  My heart jacked into high.

  28

  I’ D BEEN EXPECTING PORN. SILICONE-BLOATED WOMEN TWISTING IN fake erotic joy. Or kneeling like cats with their bums in the air. I was ready for that.

  Not for this.

  The picture was a contact sheet. Sepia. Either old or made to look old. The paper was so creased and faded I couldn’t be sure.

  The sheet contained twelve frames lined up in four sets of three. Each frame showed a girl. Young. Thin. Naked. Perhaps owing to misuse of the flash, perhaps to an intentional trick of exposure, the girl’s flesh glowed ghostly pale in the darkness around her.

  In the first series of shots, the girl was seated, back rounded, shoulders turned slightly from the camera. Ropes bound her ankles and wrists.

  In the next series, an additional rope had been added, coiling the girl’s neck, then looping to a hook on the wall above her head. Cracks spiderwebbed the plaster where the hook had been nailed.

  The final two series showed the girl on the floor, first supine, then prone. Ropes came and went in varying patterns of torture. Hands bound behind her back. Wrists bound to her ankles. Wrists bound and hoisted to the overhead hook.

  In shot after shot the girl averted her gaze. Embarrassed? Frightened? Following orders?

  Suddenly, I was rocked by a blow harsher than the one on the staircase. The room receded. I heard the dull pounding of blood in my ears.

  The cheeks were more hollowed, the eyes more recessed. But I knew that face. That wild jumble of curls.

  I closed my eyes, wanting to disconnect from the girl avoiding the lens. To pretend that the horror I was seeing had not taken place.

  “That’s it.” Hippo’s shoes hit the floor behind me. “Musta got missed when this mooncalf made his grab.”

  Had she agreed to be exploited in this way? Had she been forced?

  “You gotta sit down, doc.” Hippo was at my shoulder. “Bring some color to your cheeks.”

  “I know her.” Barely audible.

  I felt Hippo slip the sheet from my fingers.

  “It’s my friend,” I whispered. “It’s Évangéline.”

  “Yeah?” Dubious.

  “She was fourteen when I last saw her on Pawleys Island. She’s older in these photos, but not by much.”

  I felt a ripple of air as Hippo flipped the sheet. “No date. You’re certain it’s her?”

  I nodded.

  “Ciel des boss.” Again, the air stirred.

  I raised my lids, but didn’t trust myself to speak.

  Dragging his eyes from the girl, Hippo voiced my thought. “This maybe ties Cormier to Bastarache.”

  “You’ll arrest him?”

  “You bet your ass I’ll arrest him. But not until I can nail—”

  “Then do it!” Angry.

  “Look, I wa
nt to take this sleaze down so bad it hurts.” Hippo waved the contact sheet. “But this isn’t enough.”

  “She’s just a kid!”

  “A low-rent photographer has dirty pictures of a kid that cleaned Bastarache’s daddy’s house thirty years ago? Hardly a smoking gun. Some pinstripe would have Bastarache walking before he needed to pee.”

  Between my headache, my anguish over Évangéline, my fury at Cormier, and my frustration that Hippo wouldn’t collar Bastarache, I’m not sure how I got through the rest of that day. Adrenaline, I guess. And cold packs.

  When I refused to go home, Hippo bought a bag of ice and a pair of socks. Every hour or so he’d mash a revamped compress to my cheek.

  By five, we’d finished the last of Cormier’s cabinets. Between us we’d uncovered only one file of interest.

  Opale St-Hilaire’s proofs showed a smiling adolescent with almond-shaped eyes and gleaming black hair. The envelope was dated April 2005.

  Hippo and I agreed Opale looked Asian or First Nations, making her a candidate for the Lac des Deux Montagnes floater. Ryan’s DOA number three. Hippo promised to check her out on Monday.

  Though Hippo’s ice therapy had minimized the swelling on my cheek, Harry spotted the bruise as I came through the doorway.

  “I fell.”

  “Fell.” Harry’s eyes narrowed.

  “Down some stairs.”

  “You just lost it and went ass over teakettle.” When suspicious, Harry makes the inquisition priests look amateur.

  “Some jerk clipped me on his way by.”

  Harry’s eyes became slits. “Who?”

  “The gentleman didn’t stop to give me his card.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The incident is hardly worth mentioning.”

  “Some Hun sends you sailing into tomorrow and it’s not worth mentioning?” Harry folded her arms. For a second I really thought she was going to tap one foot.

  “The worst part was Hippo. He kept mashing ice-filled argyles into my face.”

  I smiled. Harry didn’t.

  “Any other incidents that are not worth mentioning?”

  “All right. All right. I’ve had one odd phone call and one strange e-mail.”

  “Strange? As in threatening?”

  I waggled a hand. Maybe yes. Maybe no.

  “Tell me.”

  I did.

  “You think it’s this same goober that knocked you off your pins?”

  “Doubtful.”

  A red manicured finger pointed at my chest. “I’ll bet it’s those weenies in Tracadie.”

  “Cheech and Chong? That’s a stretch. Let’s eat.”

  After leaving Cormier’s studio, I’d gotten smoked meat sandwiches from Schwartz’s deli on Saint-Laurent. Chez Schwartz Charcuterie hébraïque de Montréal. Cultural syncretism. A city specialty.

  As we ate, I told Harry about the false ceiling and the contact sheet. Her reaction was an exaggerated replay of mine. How could Évangéline have done something so demeaning? I had no answer to that. Why would Cormier have the proofs? Nor to that. Why would someone break in to steal them? Or that.

  To lighten the mood, I asked Harry what she’d done for the past two days. She described her visit to the Oratoire Saint-Joseph, and showed me the spoils of Saturday’s shopping trip. Two silk blouses, a bustier, and a truly extraordinary pair of red leather pants.

  After I cleared the table, Harry, Birdie, and I watched an old movie. An evil scientist was creating female robots genetically programmed to kill men over forty. Normally, the film would have given rise to much laughter. That night there was little.

  As we headed to our rooms, Harry surprised me by saying she’d made plans for the following day. No amount of cajoling could pry them from her.

  “Well, stay out of deserted alleys and pay attention to what’s around you,” I told her. “Both the e-mail and the phone call made reference to you.”

  Harry gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

  Ryan was flirting with Marcelle, the LSJML receptionist, when I stepped off the lab elevator Monday morning. On spotting me, Marcelle’s brows shot to her hairline. I wasn’t surprised. My bruise was now the size of Morocco.

  Ryan trailed me from the lobby. In my office, he grasped my chin and swiveled my face from side to side. I batted down his hand.

  “Hippo told you?”

  “In Technicolor detail. Can you ID this peckerwood?”

  “No.”

  “Anything strike you about him?”

  “He’d make one badass linebacker.”

  Taking my shoulders, Ryan maneuvered me into my chair, unpocketed several mug shots, and tossed them on the blotter.

  Goon. Goon. Cheech. Subgoon. Chong.

  “Bachelors number three and five.” My skin burned where Ryan’s fingers had touched my face. I kept my eyes lowered.

  Ryan tapped the goons I’d chosen. “Michael Mulally. Louis-François Babin.”

  “And the rest of the dream team?” I swept a hand over Ryan’s lineup.

  “Bastarache muscle.”

  “Have you seen the contact sheet from Cormier’s hidey-hole?”

  “Yes.” Pause. “I’m sorry.”

  I studied Mulally’s face. Scraggly hair framing dark-stubbled cheeks. Gangsta glare. Babin was shorter and more muscular, but otherwise a clone.

  “The e-mail. The phone call. The staircase.” Ryan leaned a haunch on my desk. “Give me your take.”

  “It would be pure speculation.”

  “Speculate.”

  “I’ve been poking around in Tracadie and talking to Bastarache’s wife.” A vision surfaced in my consciousness. Obéline’s face outside the gazebo. I felt a cold heaviness in my chest. Kept talking. “I’m looking at Cormier. Cormier is hooked to Bastarache, but he doesn’t think I know that. Bastarache dislikes my snooping, so he whistles up the dogs to chase me away.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m chaseable.”

  Ryan’s look said he wasn’t amused.

  “OK. Say Bastarache can’t understand why I’d make a sudden visit to Tracadie, and make straight for Obéline. This concerns him. He tells Cheech and Chong to find out what I’m up to. Or to scare me off.”

  “Cheech and Chong?”

  “Mulally and Babin. You’ve talked to them?”

  “Not yet. But I’m familiar with their rap sheets. Impressive.”

  “Hippo says it’s too early to arrest Bastarache.”

  “Hippo’s right. We don’t want to move until our case is airtight.”

  “You know his whereabouts?”

  “We’re on him.”

  Ryan studied his shoe. Cleared his throat.

  “Call me Ishmael.”

  Surprised by his sudden swerve to game playing, and the pansy lob, I identified Ryan’s quote. “Moby-Dick.”

  “The book’s about?”

  “A guy chasing a whale in a wooden boat.” I smiled.

  “The book’s about obsession.”

  “Your point?”

  “You’re being a pit bull with this Évangéline thing. Maybe you should ease back.”

  The smile faded. “Ease back?”

  “You’re acting obsessively. If the sister was on the level, the kid died over thirty years ago.”

  “Or was murdered,” I snapped. “Isn’t that the point of cold case investigations?”

  “Did you listen to what you said a few moments ago? Has it entered your thinking that Hippo may be justified in his concern for your safety?”

  “Meaning?” I hate it when Ryan plays protector. I sensed him assuming the role, and it made me churlish.

  “Obéline Bastarache is missing and presumed drowned. Cormier is definitely dead.”

  “I know that.”

  “Some asshole tried to take you out on a staircase yesterday. There’s a good possibility it was Mulally or Babin.”

  “You suspect they sent the Death lyrics e-mail?”

  “Everything I’m hearing
says these clowns need instructions to use Velcro. The Internet may be beyond their learning curves.”

  “Then who?”

  “I’m not sure.” Ryan stood. “But I intend to find out. It’s very likely that more people are involved. People you wouldn’t recognize. So you ought not be setting yourself up as a target. Free for lunch?”

  “What?”

  “Lunch? Peanut butter and jelly? Tuna on rye?”

  “Why?” Petulant.

  “You gotta eat. After that, I know a good place to start asking questions.”

  Over the weekend, a thirty-eight-foot Catalina had been discovered at the bottom of the Ottawa River, near Wakefield, Quebec. Bones littered the sloop’s V berth. The remains were believed to be those of Marie-Ève and Cyprien Dunning, a couple missing since setting sail in rough weather in 1984.

  Following Ryan’s departure, I spent the day with the boat bones.

  At ten, Hippo phoned to say that Opale St-Hilaire was alive and well and living with her parents in Baie-D’Urfé. The St-Hilaires had scheduled a sitting with Cormier on the occasion of Opale’s sixteenth birthday. They’d been satisfied with the experience.

  At eleven, Ryan phoned to cancel lunch. No reason given.

  At noon, Harry phoned while I was in the cafeteria. No message. I returned her call but got voice mail.

  By four, I was outlining a preliminary report on the boat bones. One male. One female. All skeletal indicators pointed to Mr. and Mrs. Dunning.

  Ryan phoned again at four thirty-five.

  “Heading home?”

  “Shortly.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Why?”

  “Thought I’d float Mulally and Babin past your caretaker.”

  “The pair that inquired about my condo. I’d totally forgotten.”

  I heard the flare of a match, then deep inhalation. When Ryan spoke again, his voice had changed subtly.

  “I came down on you pretty hard this morning.”

  “Forget it. You’re frustrated with your cold cases. With the Lac des Deux Montagnes and Phoebe Quincy investigations. I’m frustrated over Évangéline.” I swallowed. “And you’re concerned about Lily.”

  “She’s doing her part. Sticking with the program.”

  “I’m really glad, Ryan.”

  “How’s Katy?”

  “Still in Chile.”

  “Pete?”