20
S CRAWLED ON THE TAB WAS THE NAME KITTY STANLEY.
Kitty Stanley stared into the lens, blue eyes rimmed with impossibly long lashes, amber curls sprouting from a black cloche hat pulled low to her brows.
In some shots, she sat with her arms circling a chair back, head resting on them. In others, she lay on her stomach, chin propped on interlaced fingers, feet raised, ankles crossed. Several frames showed tight facial close-ups.
The intensity. The heavy, straight brows.
Adrenaline flowing, I opened an evidence packet, chose a print, and held it beside Cormier’s contact sheet. The strips of images were so small it was hard to evaluate.
Dumping everything from my lap, I found a hand lens on a cabinet top and compared the faces under magnification.
Kelly Sicard. Ryan’s MP number one. The girl had lived with her parents in Rosemere, disappeared in ’97 after a night drinking with friends.
Kitty Stanley.
Kelly Sicard.
Both had blue eyes, amber hair, and Brooke Shields brows.
Kelly Sicard was eighteen when she disappeared. Kitty Stanley looked maybe sixteen.
I flipped the contact sheet. No date.
Kelly Sicard.
Kitty Stanley.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
After studying the images for a very long time, I was convinced. Though lighting and focal distances varied, the girls shared the same high cheekbones, narrow interorbital distance, long upper lip, broad jawline, and tapered chin. I didn’t need calipers and a computer program. Kitty Stanley and Kelly Sicard were one and the same.
Sicard looked so young. I wanted to launch my voice through the celluloid and speak to her. Ask why she’d come to this terrible place to pose for this man. Ask what had happened to her after that day. Had she gone to New York to pursue a dream? Had she been murdered?
And why the alias? Had Sicard hired Cormier without telling her parents? Lied about her name? Her age?
“I have Sicard.” It came out dead calm.
Hippo shot to his feet and reached me in three strides. I handed him the lens, the photos, and the contact sheet.
Hippo squinted at the images. He really needed a shower.
Ryan appeared instantly. Hippo passed him the lens and photos.
Ryan studied the images. He was also in need of soap and water.
“Sicard kid?” To me.
I nodded.
“You certain?”
“I am.”
Ryan dialed his cell. I heard a faraway voice. Ryan asked for a woman I knew to be a crown prosecutor. There was a pause, then another voice came on the line.
Ryan identified himself, got straight to the point.
“Cormier photographed Kelly Sicard.”
The voice said something.
“No date. Looks like a year, maybe two before she went missing.”
The voice said something else.
Ryan’s eyes rolled to me.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure.”
By seven, we’d searched half of Cormier’s files. The three of us looked like Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow, sweaty, dirty, and discouraged.
We were all cranky as hell.
Ryan drove me home. Except for a few exchanges concerning Cormier and my visit to Tracadie, we rode in silence. No mention of Charlie or Korn or Lutetia.
