rethink that, go at it from the top down. Look at who might have put them in that basement.”
“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. Class 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 glasses, 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 damned.”
“And remember too, her skeletal strontium ratios suggest she may have lived the last years of her life in Vermont.”
“Sonovabitch.”
“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.
“Where did he go?”
“Showed up at Mama’s farm in Vermont in January eighty-six.”
“If he dropped out of Chico after one academic year, that leaves a gap from the end of spring term in eighty- five until January eighty-six. Where was he during that period?”
“I’ll make some calls to Chico.”
“What did Menard do when he landed back in Vermont?”
“Grew vegetables, I guess. Lived off his inheritance. Paid no Social Security, filed no tax returns.”
“Did you talk to the locals?”
“I managed to scare up a couple of neighbors who remembered him. Most people in the area are newcomers since Menard left, but a few old-timers remembered Genevieve Rose and her son. Apparently Mama was one tough lady. Kept the kid on a very short rein.”
“Corneau never remarried?”
“Nope. Single parent. Folks remember Menard as a quiet kid who stayed in a lot. Didn’t participate in sports or the usual extracurricular school stuff. One or two said they recalled seeing him during the year following his return from Chico. Guy must have had some sort of epiphany in grad school. Made an impression back home with the dreadlocks and beard.”
“It’s Vermont.”
