?No.?
?Who is it??
?Fortier. Leo Fortier.?
?I?ll call you back. Where are you??
I gave her the number and hung up.
I paced the apartment, crazy with fear for Katy. Was it Fortier? Had his psychotic rage fixed on me because I had thwarted him? Had he killed my friend to vent this rage? Did he plan the same for me? For my daughter? How did he know about my daughter? Had he stolen the photo of Katy and me from Gabby?
The cold, numbing fear went deep into my soul. I had the worst thoughts I?ve ever known. I pictured Gabby?s last moments, imagined what she must have felt. The phone exploded into my train of thought.
?Yes!?
?It?s Lucie Dumont.?
?Yes.? My heart was pounding so hard I thought she might hear it.
?Do you know how old your Leo Fortier is??
?Uh . . . thirty, forty.?
?I came up with two; one has a date of birth 2/9/62, so he?d be about thirty-two. The other was born 4/21/16, so he?d be, what . . . seventy-eight.?
?Thirty-two,? I said.
?That?s what I thought, so I ran him. He?s got a big jacket. Goes back to juvenile court. No felonies, but a string of misdemeanor problems and psychiatric referrals.?
?What kind of problems.?
?Caught for voyeurism at age thirteen.? I could hear her fingers clicking on the keyboard ?Vandalism. Truancy. There was an incident when he was fifteen. Kidnapped a girl and kept her for eighteen hours. No charges. You want it all??
?What about recent things??
Click. Clickety. Click. I could picture her leaning into the monitor, her pink lenses bouncing back the green glow.
?The most recent entry is 1988. Arrested for assault. Looks like a relative, victim has the same name. No jail time. Did six months in Pinel.?
?When did he get out??
?The exact date??
?Do you have it??
?Looks like November 12, 1988.?
Constance Pitre died in December of 1988. The room was hot. My body was slick with sweat.
?Does the file list the name of his attending psychiatrist at Pinel??
?There?s reference to a Dr. M. C. LaPerri #232;re. Doesn?t say who he is.?
?Is his number there??
She gave it to me.
?Where is Fortier now??
?The file ends in 1988. You want that address??
?Yes.?
I was on the verge of tears as I punched in a number and listened to a phone ring on the far northern end of the island of Montreal.
?
?Dr. LaPerri #232;re,
?
Yes! He was still on staff. I was put on hold, then led through the same ritual by a second female voice.
?
?Dr. Brennan.?
The sound of more empty air. Then.
?Dr. LaPerri #232;re.? A female voice, this one sounding tired and impatient.
?I?m Dr. Temperance Brennan,? I said, fighting to keep the tremor from my voice, ?forensic anthropologist at the Laboratoire de M #233;decine L #233;gale, and I?m involved in the investigation of a series of murders which have taken place over the past several years in the Montreal area. We have reason to believe one of your former patients may be involved.?
?Yes.? Wary.
I explained about the task force, and asked what she could tell me about Leo Fortier.
?Dr. . . . Brennan, is it? Dr. Brennan, you know I can?t discuss a patient file on the basis of a phone call. Without court authorization, that would be a breach of confidentiality.?
Stay cool. You knew that would be the response.
?Of course. And that authorization will be forthcoming, but we are in an urgent situation, Doctor, and we cannot delay in speaking with you. And at this point that authorization really isn?t necessary. Women are dying, Dr. LaPerri #232;re. They?re being brutally murdered and disfigured. The individual doing this is capable of extreme violence. He mutilates his victims. We think he?s someone with tremendous rage against women, and someone with enough intelligence to plan and carry out these killings. And we think he?ll strike again soon.? I swallowed, my mouth dry from fear. ?Leo Fortier is a suspect, and we need to know whether, in your opinion, there is anything in Fortier?s history to suggest he could fit this profile? The paperwork for production of his records will catch up, but if you have a recollection of this patient, information you provide now may help us stop the killer before he strikes again.?
I had wrapped another quilt around myself, this one a blanket of icy calm. I could not let her hear the fear in my voice.
?I simply cannot . . .?
My blanket was slipping.
?I have a child, Dr. LaPerri #232;re? Do you??
?What?? Affront vied with the weariness.
?Chantale Trottier was sixteen years old. He beat her to death, then cut her up and left her in a dump.?
?Jesus Christ.?
Though I?d never met Marie Claude LaPerri #232;re, her voice painted a vivid scene, a triptych done in metal gray, institutional green, and dirty brick.
I could picture her: middle-aged, disillusionment etched deeply in her face. She worked for a system in which she?d long ago lost faith, a system unable to understand, much less curb, the cruelty of a society gone mad on its fringes. The gang bang victims. The teenagers with vacant eyes and bleeding wrists. The babies, scalded and scarred by cigarette burns. The fetuses floating in bloody toilet bowls. The old, starved and tethered in their own excrement. The women with their battered faces and pleading eyes. Once, she?d believed she could make a difference. Experience had convinced her otherwise.
But she?d taken an oath. To what? For whom? The dilemma was now as familiar to her as her idealism had once been. I heard her take a deep breath.
?Leo Fortier was committed for a six-month period in 1988. During that time I was his attending psychiatrist.?
?Do you remember him??
?Yes.?
I waited, heart pounding. I heard her click a lighter open and shut, then breathe deeply.
?Leo Fortier came to Pinel because he beat his grandmother with a lamp.? She spoke in short sentences, treading carefully. ?The old woman needed over a hundred stitches. She refused to press charges against her grandson. When Fortier?s period of involuntary commitment ended, I recommended continued treatment. He refused.?
She paused to select just the right words.
?Leo Fortier watched his mother die while his grandmother stood by. Grandma then raised him, engendering
