Monday Mourning Part 36

25.

RYAN CONTINUED HIS INTERROGATION OF R ROSE F FISHER. Bastillo hovered nearby. I slipped outside and dialed Claudel. Bastillo hovered nearby. I slipped outside and dialed Claudel.

Astoundingly, he picked up on the second ring.

I repeated Fisher's story.

"I've already run him while working Cyr's list of tenants. Menard's a saint."

"No record at all?"

"Officially, the guy never even spit on the street."

"Is he still in Montreal?"

"Owns a house in Pointe-St-Charles."

"What does he do now?"

"Nothing, as far as I can tell."

"Menard operated the p.a.w.nshop from eighty-nine until ninety-eight. What was he into before that?"

Slight pause.

"The record is unclear."

"Unclear?"

"It stops in eighty-nine."

"What do you mean, it stops?"

"There is nothing on Stephane Menard before 1989."

"No birth certificate, tax return, credit report, medical record? Nothing?"

Silence.

"Rose Fisher thought her sister said Menard was American. Did you send the name south?"

I waited for Claudel to speak. When he didn't I said, "I'll phone Monsieur Authier and tell him we have a lead."

Explain your lack of enthusiasm to the chief coroner, Monsieur Claudel.

After disconnecting, I returned to the living room. While Ryan spent another thirty minutes questioning Fisher, I observed quietly.

In my absence, tears had again wreaked havoc on the vivid maquillage. Fisher's anguish was heartbreaking.

Bastillo was another story. Her spine remained rigid, her stare fixed and devoid of compa.s.sion for her mother's grief. From time to time the younger woman would recross her legs, or refold her arms across her chest. Otherwise, she sat motionless and without comment.

At last Ryan finished.

We both rose, repeated our regrets to Fisher and her daughter, and took our leave.

Back in the car, Ryan suggested we grab a sandwich.

"No, thank you."

My stomach chose that moment to growl.

"I'll take that as a metabolic veto of your decision not to lunch."

Without further discussion, Ryan pulled into the parking lot of a Lafleur, Montreal's answer to fast food. Rounding the car, he opened my door, bowed at the waist, and made a sweeping gesture with his free hand.

What the h.e.l.l. I was hungry.

Lafleur is famous for its steamed hot dogs and fries. Steame et frites. Steame et frites. Though regulars register blood cholesterol counts that would cla.s.sify them as solids, now and then every Montrealer eats at Lafleur. Though regulars register blood cholesterol counts that would cla.s.sify them as solids, now and then every Montrealer eats at Lafleur.

Minutes later Ryan and I were seated at a Formica-topped table, four weenies and twenty pounds of fries between us.

My cell rang as I was starting my second dog. As usual Claudel wasted no time on greetings.

"Vous avez raison."

I almost choked. Claudel was admitting I'd been right about something?

Ryan mouthed "Heimlich?" and stretched out his arms. I flapped a hand at him.

"Monsieur Stephane Menard was born Stephen Timothy Menard. Parents were Vermonters, Genevieve Rose Corneau and Simon Timothy Menard."

"Fisher remembered correctly."

"The Menards were schoolteachers who also owned and operated a small truck farm about fifteen miles outside of St. Johnsbury. Papa died in sixty-seven when the kid was five. Mama died in eighty-two."

"How did Menard end up in Canada?"

"Legally. Corneau was born in Montreal. After hooking up with Menard she moved to Vermont, married, and became a U.S. citizen. Conveniently, Genevieve Rose was visiting the folks back home when little Stephen signaled his entrance."

"Menard has dual citizenship."

"Yes."

"But he didn't take up residence in Canada until eighty-nine?"

"When Corneau died in 1982 Menard inherited the truck farm. Three acres and a two-bedroom house."

I did a quick calculation. "Menard was twenty."

"Yes."

Ryan was dousing his fries with vinegar, but listening attentively.

"Did Menard remain in Vermont?"

"Charbonneau is clarifying that with the St. Johnsbury PD. I've established that Menard's grandparents died in an auto crash here in Montreal in 1988."

"Let me guess. Menard inherited Grand-mere and Grand-pere Corneau's home, said au revoir au revoir to Vermont, added accents to his name, and headed north." to Vermont, added accents to his name, and headed north."

"He took possession of the Corneau home in November 1988."

"In Pointe-St-Charles."

Claudel read off an address.

I gestured to Ryan. He handed me a pen and I jotted it on a napkin.

"He a loner?"

"No record of anyone else living there."

"Does Menard have a jacket in the States?" I asked.

"DWI at age seventeen. Otherwise the young man was a paragon of virtue."

Claudel's cavalier att.i.tude was doing its usual number on my disposition.

"Look, up to this point we've been focusing on the victims, working the case from the bottom up. It's time to rethink that, go at it from the top down. Look at who might have put them in that bas.e.m.e.nt."

"And you think this Menard is your shovel man."

"Do you have any better ideas, Monsieur Claudel?"

We disconnected simultaneously.

Between bites of my second hot dog, I relayed Claudel's information. If Ryan had doubts about my suspicions concerning Menard, he kept them to himself.

"Menard must be in his forties now," he said, crumpling his waxed paper wrappers into the grease-stained carton that had held our food.

"With no obvious means of support for the past several years."

"But real estate holdings in Vermont and Quebec."

"And a lot of dead relatives," I said.

Charbonneau phoned as we were sliding to the curb in front of my condo.

"How's it hanging, Doc?"

"Good."

"Did some interesting chin wagging with several of our Green Mountain neighbors. Seems your boy was a college grad."

"Where?"

"University of Vermont. Cla.s.s of 1984. Nice lady in the registrar's office even faxed me a yearbook photo. Kid looks like every mama's dream. Howdy Doody hair and freckles, Clark Kent gla.s.ses, and a Donny Osmond smile."

"Redhead?"

"Looked like Opie in specs. Oh, and you're going to love this, Doc. Menard earned a BA in anthropology."

"You're kidding."

"Story gets better. Menard went on to graduate school. Enrolled in a master's program in archaeology at some place called-" Pause. "Wait. I got it. Chico." My heart rate shot into the stratosphere.

"California State University at Chico?"

Ryan's head whipped around at the sharpness of my tone.

"Yep. Long way from home for a kid from Vermont."

I reminded Charbonneau about the strontium isotope testing Art Holliday had done on the skeletons.

"Her dental strontium ratios suggest the girl in the leather shroud may have grown up in north-central California, remember?"

"Right."

"Chico is in north-central California."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned."

"And remember too, her skeletal strontium ratios suggest she may have lived the last years of her life in Vermont."

"Sonovab.i.t.c.h."

"What else did you get?"

"Apparently Menard's scholarship left something to be desired. He either dropped out or got booted after one year in the program. Hasta la vista. Hasta la vista. No degree." No degree."

"Where did he go?"

"Showed up at Mama's farm in Vermont in January eighty-six."