Karine nodded, bunching the tissue in a fist below her nose.
“Do you know where Pierre is now?”
“I haven’t seen or heard from him since 1999.”
“Could you find his house if you had to?”
She shook her head. “It was too long ago. And I never drove. Never paid attention.”
Dropping her forehead to the fist, she drew a long, ragged breath. I laid my hand gently on hers. Her shoulders trembled as tears slid down her cheeks.
Ryan caught my eye and tipped his head toward the door. I nodded. We’d gotten all we were going to get for now, and we knew where Karine Pitre could be found.
Ryan got up and crossed to the register.
“I never meant to make trouble.” Gulped, as a sob rose up her throat. “I just wanted out. I believed no one would miss me.”
“Your parents?” I asked.
Raising her head, she dabbed the wadded tissue from eye to eye. “We never got along.”
“Perhaps they would like the chance to get along with their grandchildren.” I made a move to slide from the booth.
Karine reached out and grabbed my wrist. “My husband doesn’t know about the skin flicks.”
I looked at her, unable to imagine what her life had been. What it was now.
“Maybe you should tell him,” I said quietly.
Light flashed in her eyes. Fear? Defiance. Her grip tightened.
“Do you know who killed Claire?” she asked.
“You think someone killed her?”
Karine nodded, fingers clenched so tightly the tissue was a tiny white ball.
35
“W HAT NOW?”
We were in Hippo’s car, slipstreaming toward Le Passage Noir. It was past midnight; I was running on less than five hours sleep, but I was pumped.
“I track Claire Brideau,” Ryan said. “And a sleaze named Pierre.”
“Cormier pimped Sicard to Pierre for his smut films. Pierre turned her over to Bastarache to strip in his bar. That ought to be enough to charge Bastarache.”
“Sicard wasn’t a minor when she worked for Bastarache.”
“She went from Cormier to Bastarache via this Pierre. Phoebe Quincy phoned Cormier. He’s probably the one who took the Marilyn photo of her. That links Bastarache to Quincy, at least indirectly.”
“Guilt by association.” Ryan’s terse answers were suggesting a marked disinterest in conversation.
Silence filled the small space around us. To occupy my mind I replayed the interview with Bastarache. What was it he’d said that bothered me?
Then it clicked.
“Ryan, do you remember Bastarache’s comment when you showed him the picture of the girl on the bench?”
“He said he was barely out of high school when that kid was playing Indian princess.”
“What’s wrong about that?”
“It shows Bastarache for the coldhearted bastard he is.”
“I printed that frame off the video. Today. Modern printer, modern paper. There isn’t a single thing in that shot to indicate time frame.”
Ryan glanced at me. “So what made Bastarache think the thing was decades old?”
“He knows what’s going on. He knows who that girl is.”
I noticed Ryan’s knuckles tighten on the wheel.
“If charges aren’t filed, Bastarache walks tomorrow.”
“It takes evidence to file charges.”
I slumped into my seat back, frustrated, knowing Ryan was right. The investigation had produced very little linking Bastarache to any of the missing or dead girls. Sure, Kelly Sicard had danced for him. And Claire Brideau had visited his bar years earlier. But a crown prosecutor would demand physical or much stronger circumstantial evidence. Nevertheless, Ryan’s seeming depression surprised me.
“You should feel good, Ryan. Sicard’s alive and we found her.”
“Yeah. She’s a peach.”
