Bones Are Forever tb-15

by Kathy Reichs

  I paced. Eleven-twenty-two.

  Where the hell was he?

  I was about to give up when Ryan finally called. I launched right in. “At least two of the babies were full-term. We’ll know about the third one shortly.”

  “Any medical problems?”

  “No. The window-seat baby is a boy.” I told him about the bunched-up toilet paper.

  For a long moment only background noise buzzed across the line. Voices. Clinking glassware.

  “That it?” Clipped. Ryan was fighting to check his emotions, as I had.

  “We’re scanning the bathroom-vanity baby now.”

  I waited for a response, got none.

  “Anything on your end?” I asked.

  “Trees ID’ed the mug shot. Ditto the ER doc and the landlord. It was Ruben at the hospital and Ruben living in the apartment in Saint-Hyacinthe. Paxton says—”

  “He owns the building.”

  “Right. Paxton now says he originally rented to Smith. Then Smith sort of dropped out of the picture. As long as Rogers kept ponying up the bucks, he didn’t ask questions.”

  “Anything new from Edmonton?”

  “The RCMP sergeant I talked with this morning is arriving in Montreal tonight. We’ll meet tomorrow morning.”

  Normally, Ryan would have invited me to join them. It was my case, too. He didn’t.

  “What time?” I asked.

  “Eight.”

  “I’ll try to drop by.”

  Back in X-ray, the scans of LSJML-49276 had been completed, and everyone was again gathered at the workstation. Mrs. Tong’s eyes were puffy, and her face had that blotchy after-crying look.

  The image on the screen was in 2-D, an axial slice at the level of the chest. Leclerc was talking. “Air is present in both major bronchi and the esophagus. Both lungs appear aerated.”

  Mrs. Tong hit some keys to bring up views of the abdomen.

  Leclerc continued his monologue. “Air in the stomach.”

  “So the baby was breathing and swallowing,” Pomier said.

  “Perhaps.” LaManche’s saggy eyes looked weary in his saggy face. “Air can also be present due to decomposition. At autopsy, we will take samples for toxicological testing.”

  LaManche didn’t have to elaborate. I knew that inhaled air would contain high levels of nitrogen and some oxygen, while gases resulting from decomposition would be mostly methane.

  I also knew that, upon removal of the breastplate following the Y-incision, billowing of the lung parenchyma would indicate air in the lobes. And that, when placed in water or formaldehyde, aerated lungs would float.

  Mrs. Tong didn’t need to hear any of that.

  We analyzed the baby girl as we had the mummified boy. I measured her long bones and the basal parts of her occipital bone. We all observed her skeletal maturation and condition.

  And came to the same sad conclusion.

  LSJML-49276 was a full-term female infant exhibiting no malformation or skeletal trauma.

  At one-forty A.M. we tucked the babies back into their tubs and bags for the return trip with Pomier to the morgue.

  I arrived home at two-ten. Was asleep by two-fifteen.

  * * *

  Church bells blasted me awake. I swept my iPhone to the floor, trying to stop the bonging.

  The digits on the screen said seven A.M.

  I tried to recall why I’d set the alarm.

  Ryan. Edmonton. RCMP. Right.

  Groggy, I dragged myself to the bathroom, the closet, the kitchen. The pantry produced very old Frosted Flakes, the freezer ground coffee. The combo helped some. But when I’ve logged under five hours, caffeine and sugar can accomplish only so much.

  Thirty minutes later, I was swiping my card at Wilfrid-Derome. OK. There are advantages to rising early. Parking was a snap.

  After dumping my purse, I descended to the fourth floor and entered a door marked Section des crimes contre la personne.

  The squad room contained about a dozen desks. Each held the usual cop stuff—phone, manila folders, mounded in- and out-baskets, gag trophies and mementos, mugs of half-drunk coffee.

  A supervisor’s office was off to the right, and a copy room. Doors leading to interview rooms were to the left.

  Only a few detectives were present, those who were running leads by phone or computer, one in a suit who I assumed was preparing for court. I wound my way toward the back corner.

  “Hey, Rochette, today Tuesday?” asked a voice behind me. It was a detective named Chestang. “That mean rosebuds?”

  “It’s Wednesday.” Like Chestang, Rochette was speaking loudly for my benefit. “Polka dots.”

  Today’s teasing stemmed from an incident in which I’d been dragged from a fire and deposited bum-up. My leopard-skin panties had saluted the world. Though the episode had occurred several years earlier, it was still the top choice for source material.

  Ignoring the witty repartee, I continued on course.

  Ryan was at his desk, one haunch resting on the edge. A man sat opposite him. No yellow-striped pants or gray shirt, but I assumed he was the Mountie from Edmonton.

  And no. He wasn’t wearing red serge, jodhpurs, and a Stetson. That garb is strictly ceremonial.

  A word about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, RCMP, or in French, the Gendarmerie royale du Canada, GRC. The world calls them Mounties. Internally, they refer to themselves as the Force. Too many Star Wars movies, you say? Nope. The tradition goes back much further.

  The RCMP is unique in that it functions at the national, provincial, and municipal levels, providing federal policing services to all of Canada and, under contract, to three territories, eight provinces, more than 190 municipalities, 184 aboriginal communities, and three international airports.

  While the two most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec, maintain their own provincial forces, the Ontario Provincial Police and the Sûreté du Québec, all the others rely on the RCMP to some extent. In the three territories, Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories, the Mounties are the only game in town.

  Confusing? To complicate matters further, some large cities, such as Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal, have their own municipal police departments.

  Just think of the FBI, state troopers, the sheriff’s department, city cops. Same deal.

  Ryan’s visitor was sitting with his back to me, elbow cocked over the arm of the chair. Graying temples suggested some mileage.

  Hadn’t Ryan said the guy was a sergeant? So the Force wasn’t fast-tracking him into the OCDP, the Officer Candidate Development Program. I wondered if he’d plateaued in his career. If, like many NCOs, he’d grown resentful of the “white shirts,” as the noncommissioned called the commissioned officers.

  Whatever. Though unimpressive if working at headquarters in Ottawa or at a divisional HQ, sergeant was a decent enough level for a member in the field.

  So why was Ryan looking at the guy like he was barf on the sidewalk?

  Drawing close, I took in more detail. Though of average height, the sergeant was powerfully built, with arms and a chest that stretched his shirt to the limit.

  Ryan said something I didn’t catch. His visitor responded, tilting his head so that his chin went forward and up.

  The odd mannerism jostled a gaggle of cells where a memory was stored.

  I slowed. No way.

  The sergeant reached out and placed a Styrofoam cup on Ryan’s desk. His left hand flashed into view for a moment.

  My pulse went off the map.

  FOR A MOMENT I CONSIDERED RETREAT. FLIGHT BACK UPSTAIRS to my lab. But my higher centers were already lobbing words like “professional” and “adult.”

  Sergeant Oliver Isaac Hasty. Other than deeper laugh lines and the graying-temples thing, he hadn’t aged a bit. No loosening of the jaw. Not an extra ounce of fat.

  Ollie had been a corporal back then, on temporary-duty assignment to the FBI Academy in Quantico. Behavioral science training or some such. I’d been teaching
a body recovery workshop to special agents.

  Ollie and I met over beers in the Boardroom. He was Canadian. I was considering an offer to consult to the LSJML in Montreal. All that week he’d provided insight into my strange neighbors to the north.

  The chemistry was blistering, no denying that. But I found Ollie’s view of himself something of a put-off. No matter the topic, Corporal Hasty was an expert, and others knew little.

  When the course ended, I headed home to North Carolina, libido frustrated but self-esteem intact. When his training concluded, Ollie drove to Charlotte to visit. No invitation. In Ollie’s world, rejection was not an option.

  My marriage had just imploded, and I was still shattered by Pete’s betrayal. And living alone for the first time in two decades. Horny divorcée-to-be. Brawny Mountie. Eros can be denied only so long. Though I wasn’t nuts for Ollie, for a solid week our slap-and-tickle burned down the house.

  So what happened? you ask.

  Ollie was twenty-nine. I was, well, a wee bit older. I lived in Dixie. He lived in Alberta, damn far away. Neither he nor I wanted to go steady, so no future get-togethers were planned.

  We exchanged brief letters and phone calls for a while; no e-mail back then. Eventually, predictably, the thing just died.

  And here he was. Sitting face-to-face with player number two in my very short lineup of postmarital lovers.

  Hearing footsteps, both men looked my way.

  “Dr. Brennan.” Ollie rose and spread both hands, the left missing most of its fourth digit.

  “Sergeant Hasty.” Ignoring the invitation to hug, I extended a palm. As we shook, I tried to recall how the finger was lost. Weird, but that’s where my mind went.

  “I understand you two know each other.” Ryan remained butt-leaning on the desk.

  “Dr. Brennan and I met in Quantico.” Ollie’s liquid brown eyes held mine. “When was that?”

  “A long time ago.” I willed my cheeks not to flame.

  “Dandy,” Ryan said. “Shall we discuss Annaliese Ruben?”

  As I slipped past Ollie and took a chair to his left, I wondered what Ryan knew. Had our long-ago dalliance come up in the course of conversation about Annaliese Ruben? Surely Ollie would not be so crass.

  Was Ollie’s history with me the source of Ryan’s current coolness? Ridiculous. At best it had been an episode of catch-and-release, old news by the time I came to Montreal. And Ryan and I had pulled the plug on our relationship over a year ago. He couldn’t be so childish as to harbor a grudge about a fling that happened before he and I met. Could he? Besides, if he knew, it would have been very recent news to him, his iceberg demeanor already in place.

  “Let’s,” said Ollie.

  “How about we start with why you’re here,” said Ryan.

  “Two reasons. First, there’s an outstanding warrant on Ruben. You say she’s here in Quebec. Second, Ruben is an HRP reported missing from my turf. As a member of the Project KARE task force, I have to follow leads on MPs who fit that profile.”

  Without waiting for a response, Ollie snapped open the brass clasps on his briefcase, withdrew a folder, and flipped its cover. I noticed that the file held two thin pages.

  Worrisome thought. Had Annaliese Ruben’s disappearance been investigated at all? Cared about?

  “The report was filed as a front-desk walk-in,” Ollie began. “Reporting party was Susan Forex, street name Foxy.”

  “Odd move for a hooker,” Ryan said.

  “Foxy’s an odd chick.”

  “You know her?”

  “I do. But Foxy’s bellying up wasn’t all that strange. The ladies in Edmonton are scared shitless.”

  “Rock and a hard spot. Cops or crazies.”

  Ollie gestured agreement. “A rookie named Gerard took Forex’s statement. Forex claimed Ruben was boarding at her house. According to the summary, Ruben had a date to see a john she described as a big spender. The meet was to be at the Days Inn downtown.”

  Ollie was plucking relevant information out of the file.

  “Ruben never came home. Four months later, Forex decided to report her missing.”

  “Took her a while to get worried,” Ryan said.

  “How long were they roommates?” I asked.

  “Maybe half a year.”

  “Did anyone follow up?”

  “Wasn’t much to follow. Street people change addresses like the rest of us change socks. And most won’t give the cops squat. A prossie named Monique Santofer was also living with Forex at the time. Both were questioned, a few others. No one knew spit.”

  Ryan and I said nothing. We both knew the reality.

  After those queries, the file had probably circulated within the detective bureau, created no blip on anyone’s screen. From there, it had gone to a centralized missing persons division where far too few detectives were responsible for the impossibly large number of persons reported missing each year. Eventually, it had become buried in a stack of others like it.

  But somehow, thankfully, it had found its way to Project KARE.

  “Why do you think Forex made the effort?” I asked.

  “Edmonton is a killing field for these women. Many are so scared they’re voluntarily giving DNA samples so their bodies can be identified if they’re killed.”

  “The numbers are that high?”

  “At least twenty women have been murdered since 1983. More are missing, maybe dead. And you know that asshole Pickton’s not far from anyone’s mind.”

  Ollie was referring to Robert William “Willie” Pickton, a Port Coquitlam, British Columbia pig farmer convicted in 2007 of killing six women and charged in the deaths of twenty more. Many of Pickton’s victims were prostitutes and drug users from Vancouver’s downtown east side.

  I didn’t work the case, but colleagues did. Excavation began when remains were discovered on Pickton’s property in 2002. The media went batshit, and a court-ordered ban on publication and broadcasting was imposed. Rumors ran wild. Bodies allegedly were left to decompose, fed to the pigs, ground up and mixed with pork from the farm.

  Only when the trial began did details emerge. Hands and feet stuffed inside bisected skulls, remains dumped as trash or buried near the slaughterhouse, bloodstained women’s clothing in Pickton’s trailer.

  Inexplicably, a jury found Pickton innocent of first-degree but guilty of second-degree murder in the deaths of six women. He was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for twenty-five years—the maximum for second degree permitted under Canadian law.

  At an estimated cost of $70 million, Pickton’s was the largest serial killer investigation in Canadian history. In 2010 the remaining twenty murder charges were dropped, ending any prospect of future trials. Prosecutors apparently concluded that since Pickton had already received the maximum possible sentence, further expense was not warranted.

  A sad footnote. With the lifting of the media ban in 2010, the public learned that Pickton had been charged in 1997 for attempted murder in connection with the stabbing of yet another sex worker. The clothes and rubber boots he was wearing when arrested lay forgotten in an RCMP storage locker for seven years. When finally tested in 2004, they revealed DNA from two of Vancouver’s missing women.

  Too late for a boatload of victims.

  Ollie’s voice brought me back.

  “—it’s not just Vancouver. Women have vanished or turned up dead along Yellowhead Highway 16 in BC. You know what they call that stretch now? The Highway of Tears. There are websites and magazines dedicated to it. And the RCMP has expanded the list of MPs and broadened the area they think that killer may be working. Who knows how many other victims are out there lying in ditches or shallow graves?” Ollie’s tone suggested both frustration and compassion.

  “Thus Project KARE,” I said.

  “I’ve been with the task force for two years. We’re committed to finding and caging these degenerates.”

  “It’s an RCMP initiative, right?”

  “N
ot anymore. In Alberta we’ve said enough is enough. In addition to members of the RCMP Major Crimes Units in Edmonton and Calgary, the task force now includes investigators from the Edmonton PD and other detachments having jurisdiction. These women need protection. The predators have to be stopped.”

  Just as the death of babies disturbed Ryan, the slaughter of those on society’s fringe distressed Ollie. I remembered hearing the same passion in his voice years ago. It was one of the few things I’d liked about him.

  “But it seems Ruben is not a victim,” I said.

  “Tell me what you know.” Ollie pulled pen and notebook from his briefcase.

  I listened as Ryan laid out the facts. The ER visit by Amy Roberts. The apartment in Saint-Hyacinthe occupied by Alma Rogers. Ralph Trees’s girlfriend, Alva Rodriguez. The babies. The fingerprint. The CPIC hit for Annaliese Ruben.

  “And now Ruben is off the radar,” Ollie said.

  “Yes,” Ryan said.

  “You think she’s left the area?”

  “Queries at the airport, bus and train stations, and rental car agencies came back negative. Ditto for taxis.”

  “You pull the hospital security cameras?”

  “She arrived and departed on foot. Approached from the direction of the apartment, which was under a mile away. Left heading the same way.”

  “What about local stores, libraries, anywhere else they might have caught her?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Ruben have friends or relatives locally?”

  “Other than Trees, the landlord, and one snoopy neighbor, no one seems to know she existed.”

  “She wasn’t working the streets?”

  “Not that anyone knows, but she had to have some means of support.”

  “Meaning she has no arrest record in Quebec.”

  “Zip. Maybe the learning curve in Alberta paid off.”

  “You checked likely aliases?”

  Ryan just looked at him.

  “The Edmonton PD nailed Ruben twice for soliciting,” Ollie said. “She vanished right after the second pop.”

  “In 2008,” I said.

  “That skews right with the landlord’s time line,” Ryan said. “Paxton claims Ruben and a guy named Smith took occupancy about three years ago.”