“Did you view the photos?” I asked gently.
Ryan nodded then wagged his head, as though movement could dislodge the horrific images.
“The room looked like a scene from a slasher movie.”
“Recover a weapon?”
Ryan snorted his disgust. “The bastard beat her to death with her own cane.”
“The perp brought nothing with him. That could suggest lack of premeditation.”
“But a savage level of anger, which was triggered by something. Every bone in the woman’s face was broken. So were the jaw, the right collarbone, most ribs, and both lower-right arm bones. But you probably know that. This was carnage beyond just killing.”
We fell silent, thoughts pointed at the same ugly question. What monster could savage an eighty-year-old woman?
“I assume there was follow-up on Renaud?”
“LaManche did the post. Based on stomach contents and state of decomp, he put time of death at twenty-four to thirty hours. Renaud worked that Friday from seven until four. Coworkers and patients put him at the Jewish all day.”
Ryan refocused on snapper. Through a window behind him, I watched flakes swirl light coning from a streetlamp on Guy.
When Ryan’s fish was only bone, he laid down his utensils and leaned back. “The younger sister simply vanished.”
“She didn’t just vanish. Something was done to her. I remember the search. The publicity was massive.”
“And fruitless. No one on the block had heard or seen a thing. Canvassing turned up zip. Ditto for phone checks. The vics had no credit cards and weren’t computer savvy, so those avenues didn’t exist. One neighbor thought he remembered Christelle talking about some distant cousins up in the Beauce. Those folks were never found. Local kids shoveled the snow, cut the grass, that sort of thing. The women’s only known associates were either people in the immediate vicinity or members of the parish. Every last one alibied out.”
“Wasn’t there something about a bank card?”
“That was the only lead. On five May, around eighteen thirty hours, a withdrawal was made from Christelle’s savings account at the Bank of Montreal.”
“Made where?”
Ryan referred to the spiral. “An ATM at four-two-five-oh Ontario East.”
“That’s out east, near the Olympic stadium.” Miles from Pointe-Calumet. “Did the sisters have a car?”
“No.”
“Was the transaction caught on video?”
“No. The camera was down for three hours that night.”
I thought a minute. “If LaManche is right about PMI, Anne-Isabelle was already dead by six p.m.”
“Yes.” Tight. “We missed the perp’s photo due to a technical glitch.”
“Did Anne-Isabelle have an account?”
“Both sisters used the same one.”
Ryan drained the last of his beer. For a moment his thumb played over sweat fogging the outside of his mug. When his eyes met mine they were hard with resolve.
“I’m going to get this prick.”
A fleck of foam hung on Ryan’s lip. I fought an urge to wipe it away.
“I know you will,” I said.
By eight a.m. there were sixty-seven centimeters blanketing the ground. Twenty-six inches. On any scale, that’s a lot of snow.
Montreal is a champ at handling storms, but this time the city was brought to its knees. Between crowing about broken records, newscasters reported that only a handful of buses and metros were running. The airport was down. Church services were canceled. Businesses that normally operated on Sunday were closed.
Later it would become clear that most of the populace rose, looked out their windows, and crawled back into bed. God or the boss would understand.
I wasn’t quite so complacent. I wanted to get to the lab to complete my analysis of the Oka bones.
After a breakfast of coffee, Grape-Nuts, and yogurt, I pulled on boots, donned my Kanuk, muffler, and mitts, and headed out, hoping to make it to the underground two blocks away.
No plow had ventured onto my street. No early riser had shoveled the walks. Why bother? The snow was thigh high and still coming down, the flakes tiny now, icy bullets that stung my face and bounced off my jacket.
On Sainte-Catherine, vehicles lining the curbs looked like lumpy white hedgerows. No buses. No cars. No pigeons. No people. Nothing moved. The hood was as deserted as Times Square in
I arrived at the metro panting and perspiring inside my parka. A handwritten sign was taped to the grimy glass of the ticket booth.
“Picture friggin’ perfect.” I was talking to myself again.
Fifteen minutes later, I was back at my building. As I turned into the corridor leading to my condo, I noticed a ziplock tucked behind the door knob.
Pulling off a mitt, I dislodged and checked the contents of the bag. Five small blobs, dry, crumbly, dark brown-black.
I unsealed the plastic and sniffed.
Excrement.
“Asshole!” The word echoed down the empty hall.
My neighbor Sparky had pulled this before. Once it was soiled litter, once a dead sparrow.
I definitely needed to vent.
After flushing the turds, I dialed my sister, Harry, in Houston.
I told her about Sparky’s latest stunt.
She repeated my expletive, adding a modifier.
I told her about the snow.
“Doesn’t ole blue eyes have a Jeep?”
“I can’t crawl to Ryan every time I have a problem.”
“Jeeps run in snow.”
“So do Ski-Doos, but I’m not phoning Snowmobile Patrol.”
“Is that a real thing?”
“Whatever. What are you doing?”
“Weeding my garden. It’s so hot here the trees are bribing the dogs. Got to get at it early.”
That made me feel worse. I said nothing.
“What else is new?” Harry asked.
I told her about Chicago, Cukura Kundze, and Ryan’s sudden appearance at
