Bones to Ashes

“The bastard knew exactly what he wanted. And exactly where to look,” I ranted on, despite the fact that Hippo wasn’t listening.

“Sonova—?”

Hippo handed me his light without looking down.

“What? Do you see something?”

Hippo reached forward into the gap. Sensitized to issues of balance and gravity, I positioned myself below him in case of a slip.

Hippo rolled back onto his heels. His hand dropped to me. I relieved it of one crumpled sheet.

A photo. I glanced at the subject.

My heart jacked into high.

28

I’ D BEEN EXPECTING PORN. SILICONE-BLOATED WOMEN TWISTING IN fake erotic joy. Or kneeling like cats with their bums in the air. I was ready for that.

Not for this.

The picture was a contact sheet. Sepia. Either old or made to look old. The paper was so creased and faded I couldn’t be sure.

The sheet contained twelve frames lined up in four sets of three. Each frame showed a girl. Young. Thin. Naked. Perhaps owing to misuse of the flash, perhaps to an intentional trick of exposure, the girl’s flesh glowed ghostly pale in the darkness around her.

In the first series of shots, the girl was seated, back rounded, shoulders turned slightly from the camera. Ropes bound her ankles and wrists.

In the next series, an additional rope had been added, coiling the girl’s neck, then looping to a hook on the wall above her head. Cracks spiderwebbed the plaster where the hook had been nailed.

The final two series showed the girl on the floor, first supine, then prone. Ropes came and went in varying patterns of torture. Hands bound behind her back. Wrists bound to her ankles. Wrists bound and hoisted to the overhead hook.

In shot after shot the girl averted her gaze. Embarrassed? Frightened? Following orders?

Suddenly, I was rocked by a blow harsher than the one on the staircase. The room receded. I heard the dull pounding of blood in my ears.

The cheeks were more hollowed, the eyes more recessed. But I knew that face. That wild jumble of curls.

I closed my eyes, wanting to disconnect from the girl avoiding the lens. To pretend that the horror I was seeing had not taken place.

“That’s it.” Hippo’s shoes hit the floor behind me. “Musta got missed when this mooncalf made his grab.”

Had she agreed to be exploited in this way? Had she been forced?

“You gotta sit down, doc.” Hippo was at my shoulder. “Bring some color to your cheeks.”

“I know her.” Barely audible.

I felt Hippo slip the sheet from my fingers.

“It’s my friend,” I whispered. “It’s Evangeline.”

“Yeah?” Dubious.

“She was fourteen when I last saw her on Pawleys Island. She’s older in these photos, but not by much.”

I felt a ripple of air as Hippo flipped the sheet. “No date. You’re certain it’s her?”

I nodded.

“Ciel des boss.” Again, the air stirred.

I raised my lids, but didn’t trust myself to speak.

Dragging his eyes from the girl, Hippo voiced my thought. “This maybe ties Cormier to Bastarache.”

“You’ll arrest him?”

“You bet your ass I’ll arrest him. But not until I can nail—”

“Then do it!” Angry.

“Look, I want to take this sleaze down so bad it hurts.” Hippo waved the contact sheet. “But this isn’t enough.”

“She’s just a kid!”

“A low-rent photographer has dirty pictures of a kid that cleaned Bastarache’s daddy’s house thirty years ago? Hardly a smoking gun. Some pinstripe would have Bastarache walking before he needed to pee.”

Between my headache, my anguish over Evangeline, my fury at Cormier, and my frustration that Hippo wouldn’t collar Bastarache, I’m not sure how I got through the rest of that day. Adrenaline, I guess. And cold packs.