Monday Mourning Part 48

The furnishings were grimly stark. A naked bulb on a frayed wire. A portable camp toilet. A crudely built wooden platform. Two tattered blankets.

On the platform sat a pair of women, heads down, backs rounded against the polyurethane paneling. Each wore a studded leather collar. Nothing else.

The women's skin looked bitter white, the shadows defining their ribs and vertebrae dark and sinuous. A long braid snaked from the nape of each neck.

Charbonneau let forth a curse charged with the full lexicon of anger and abhorrence.

One face snapped up. Haggard. Eyes like those of some wild creature startled in the night.

Anique Pomerleau.

Her companion remained motionless, head down, bony arms clutching her bony knees.

Claudel spun and disappeared into the outer bas.e.m.e.nt. I heard boots cross cement then thunder up stairs.

"It's all right, Anique," I said, as gently as I knew how.

Pomerleau's eyes flinched. The other woman hugged her legs harder to her chest.

"We're here to help you."

Pomerleau's gaze darted between Ryan and Charbonneau.

Motioning the men back, I stepped into the chamber.

"These men are detectives."

Pomerleau watched me, eyes wide black pools.

"It's over now, Anique. It's all over."

Moving slowly, I crossed to the platform and laid a hand on Pomerleau's shoulder. She recoiled from my touch.

"He can't hurt you anymore, Anique."

"Je m'appelle 'Q.'" Pomerleau's voice was flat and lifeless. Pomerleau's voice was flat and lifeless.

Removing my parka, I draped Pomerleau's shoulders. She made no attempt to hold the garment in place.

"I'm 'Q.' She's 'D.'" Accented English. Pomerleau was Francophone.

Ryan shrugged off his jacket and handed it to me.

I took a cautious step toward "D," gently touched her hair.

The woman tucked tighter and curled her hands into fists.

Enveloping "D" in Ryan's jacket, I squatted to her level.

"He's dead," I said in French. "He can never harm you again."

The woman rolled her head from side to side, not wanting to see me, not wanting to hear me.

I didn't press. There would be time to talk.

"I'll stay with you." My voice cracked. "I won't leave."

Stroking her foot, I rose and withdrew.

While Charbonneau remained in the antechamber, I retreated to the outer bas.e.m.e.nt. Ryan followed.

The honest truth? I didn't trust my own treacherous emotions. My mind was paralyzed by shock and by anguish for these women, my gut curdled by loathing for the monster who'd subjected them to this.

"You OK?" Ryan asked.

"Yes," I said in the calmest voice possible. It was a lie. I was flailing, and feared an enormous coming apart.

Folding my arms to mask the tremors in my chest, I waited.

A lifetime later distant sirens split the stillness, then grew into a screaming presence. Boots pounded overhead, then down the staircase.

Pomerleau panicked at the sight of the paramedics. Darting to the toilet, she hopped up, wedged herself into the corner, and held both arms straight out in front of her. Neither the EMTs nor I could coax her down. The more we rea.s.sured, the more she resisted. In the end, force was required.

The other woman went fetal as she was placed on a gurney, covered, and removed from the cell.

Ryan and I accompanied the ambulance to Montreal General. Claudel and Charbonneau remained to greet LaManche and the coroner's van, and to oversee the SIJ techs in processing the house.

Ryan smoked as he drove. I kept my eyes on the city sliding by my window.

At the ER, Ryan paced while I sat. Around us swirled a cacophony of bronchial coughs, colicky wails, exhausted moans, and anxious conversation. In one corner Dr. Phil chastised a couple who'd been s.e.xless for years.

Now and then Ryan would drop next to me and we'd exchange whispered comments.

"These women don't even know their names."

"Or they're too terrified to use them."

"They look starved."

"Yes."

"'D' looks worse."

"I think she's younger."

"I never saw her face."

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

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

We'd been there an hour when Ryan's cell vibrated. He stepped outside. In minutes he was back.

"That was Claudel. The p.r.i.c.k made home movies."

I nodded numbly.

"I'm to call Charbonneau when we leave here."

Twenty minutes later a frizzy-haired woman entered through sliding doors that led to the ER. She wore a white lab coat and carried two clipboards and one of those plastic bags used for patient possessions.

A huge black woman with swollen b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a bawling newborn lumbered to her feet and zeroed in. The doctor led the mother back to her chair, glanced at her infant, then spoke a few words. The woman shouldered her baby and patted its back.

The doctor wove toward us through the obstacle course of human misery. Scores of eyes followed her, some frightened, some angry, all nervous.

Again, her progress was blocked, this time by a burly man with a towel-wrapped hand. As before, the doctor took the time to rea.s.sure.

Ryan and I rose.

"I'm Dr. Feldman." Feldman's eyes were bloodshot. She looked exhausted. "I'm treating the two women brought in a short time ago."

Ryan made introductions.

"The older-"

"Anique Pomerleau," I cut in.

Feldman made a notation on the top chart.

"Ms. Pomerleau has minor bruising, but otherwise looks pretty good. Her lungs are clear. Her X-rays are normal. We're waiting for results on bloodwork. Just to be sure, we'll run her through the scanner when it's free."

"Is she talking?" I asked.

"No." Clipped. I have a hundred others waiting to be seen.

"Any signs of s.e.xual a.s.sault?" Ryan asked.

"No. But the kid's a different story."

"Kid?" I popped.

Feldman exchanged the bottom chart for Pomerleau's. "Do you have a name?"

Ryan and I both shook our heads.

"I'd say the younger one's fifteen, maybe sixteen, although she's so emaciated I could be underestimating. Someone's used this kid as a punching bag for a very long time."

I felt white heat invading my brain.

Feldman flipped a page and read from her notes. "Old and new bruising. Poorly healed fractures of the left ulna and several ribs. Scarring around the a.n.u.s and genitals. Burns on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s and limbs from some sort of-"

"Curling iron?" I kept my voice even, my face neutral.

"That would do it." Fisher wrist-flipped the pages of the chart into place.

"Is she lucid?" I asked.

"She's practically catatonic. Unresponsive. Stone-flat eyes. I'm no psychiatrist." The harried face went from Ryan to me. "But this kid may never be lucid."

"Where are they now?" Ryan asked.

"On their way upstairs."

An orderly appeared at the sliding doors. Catching Feldman's attention, he waggled a chart. She waved in his direction.

"When can we talk to them?" Ryan asked.

"I'm not sure." The orderly threw up both hands. Feldman gave him a hold-on gesture. "What about security? Is some psycho papa or ex-hubby going to bl.u.s.ter in and try to reclaim his possessions?"

"The psycho in this case just blew his brains out."

"Pity."

We gave Feldman our cards. She pocketed them.

"I'll call." She held out the bag. "Here are their outfits."

I could see metal studs poking through the plastic.

Ryan and I met Charbonneau at Schwartz's deli on boulevard St-Laurent. Though I had no appet.i.te, Ryan insisted food would sharpen our minds.

We placed three identical orders. Smoked meat sandwich, lean. Pickle. Fries. Cott's cherry soda.

We updated one another as we ate.

"Doc LaManche lifted prints from the corpse that ain't Menard. They're a match for the ones from the letter opener. Luc's ringing the land of fruits and nuts."

"When did the latents go into the California system?" Ryan asked.

"Late Friday." Charbonneau took a bite of his sandwich, knuckled mustard from a corner of his mouth. "If California's a bust, Luc'll shoot the prints through Canada and the rest of the States."

Ryan told Charbonneau what Feldman had found.

"This guy was a frickin' s.a.d.i.s.t." Charbonneau picked up his pickle. "Shot pics of the good times to keep the tingle in his weenie." Charbonneau finished the pickle, then tipped back his head and drained his soda. "The shots in his sc.r.a.pbooks look like amateur mock-ups from the p.o.r.n gallery. Sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d tried to re-create life from his art."

"Did you find photos of 'D'?" My voice didn't sound like my own.

Tight nod. "One pretty good face shot. Luc's circulating it in Canada and south of the border."