“The UV fluorescence tells me the bones are probably not older than the building. Beyond that, I can’t narrow it.”
“OK. We won’t search newspaper archives.”
“Without knowing language and time frame, we’d be at it all winter. Also, the girls were found here, but may not have gone missing here.”
We crept another block.
“What about that button?” Anne asked.
“What about that button?” I snapped, again coaxing the rear wheels back behind the front.
Loosening her scarf, Anne leaned back in an attitude that suggested I was now to be ignored.
“Sorry.” I was playing Claudel to Anne’s Tempe.
The silence lengthened. Clearly, it was going to be up to me to end it.
“I apologize. Driving in blizzards makes me tense. What was your button idea?”
After a few more moments of “you’re being an asshole” muteness, Anne rephrased her suggestion.
“Maybe you could talk to another expert. Try to develop more information.”
Gently pumping the brakes, I brought the car to a stop. Across Sherbrooke, an old woman walked an old dog. Both wore boots. Both had their eyes crimped against the snow.
I looked at Anne.
Maybe I could.
Depressing the gas pedal slowly, I crawled into the intersection and turned left.
Jesus, of course I could. I’d been ignoring the buttons, accepting Claudel’s opinion concerning their age. Maybe his McCord source was less than a quiz kid.
Suddenly, I was in a froth to get another opinion.
“Annie, you’re a rock star.”
“I shimmer.”
“You up for a couple more stops before dinner?”
“Mush on.”
Anne waited in the car while I dashed up to the lab, made a quick call, and grabbed the buttons. When I rejoined her, she was listening to Zachary Richard on a local French station.
“What’s he singing about?”
“Someone named Marjolaine.”
“I think he misses her.”
“So he says.”
“Local talent?”
“Louisiana Cajun. Your part of the world.”
Anne leaned back and closed her eyes. “That boy can sing about me any ole day.”
It took twice the normal drive time to return to the old quarter. Though it was just past five, night was in full command. Streetlights were on, shops were closing, pedestrians were hurrying, heads bent, purses and packages pressed to their chests.
Leaving boulevard Rene-Levesque, I followed rue Berri to its southern end, then turned west and crept along rue de la Commune. To our right, the narrow lanes of Vieux-Montreal crisscrossed the hill. To our left lay le Marche Bonsecours, le Pavillon Jacques-Cartier, les Centre de Sciences de Montreal, beyond them the St. Lawrence, its water a black sheen like ebony ice.
“It’s beautiful,” Anne said. “In an arctic tundra sort of way.”
“Cue the caribou.”
In the ice-free months ships belly up to quays jutting from the river’s edge, and cyclists, skateboarders, picnickers, and tourists throng the adjacent parklands and promenades. This evening the riverfront was still and dark.
At the head of place d’Youville, I turned onto a small side street, and parked opposite the old customs house. Anne followed as I trudged downhill, threading her way drunkenly in my tracks.
Glancing across the river, my gaze fell on the snow-misted outline of Habitat ’67. Built for World Expo, the complex is a pile of geometric cubes that challenges the delicate art of balance. Born more of imagination than architectural pragmatism, Habitat’s walkways and patios are a delight in summer, an invitation to hypothermia in winter.
Andrew Ryan lived in Habitat.
A multitude of questions sidetracked my concentration.
Where was Ryan? What was he feeling? What was I feeling? What had he meant? The need to talk. Agreed. But about what? Commitment? Compromise? Conclusion?
I pushed the questions aside. Ryan was working an operation and not thinking or feeling anything having to do
