Bones to Ashes

He updated me on the Doucet situation. The psychiatrist had concluded that Théodore was mentally incompetent. Since no cause of death could be established for Dorothée or Geneviève, charges were not being laid.

I outlined the cold cases Hippo and Ryan were working, and described my involvement in them. The MP’s, Kelly Sicard, Claudine Cloquet, and Anne Girardin. The DOA’s from the Rivière des Mille Îles, Dorval, and Lac des Deux Montagnes. The phone rang as I was explaining the possible link to Phoebe Jane Quincy.

LaManche raised two palms in apology. What can one do?

Back in my lab, I directed Denis to send the DNA samples by Federal Express. Then I phoned the lab and begged for expedition. The man said he’d do what he could.

I was grabbing my purse when I remembered one of LaManche’s questions.

“Où se situe l’Île-aux-Becs-Scies?”

Where was it, indeed? I’d been unable to find the island anywhere in the New Brunswick atlas.

And what did the name mean? Island of what? Perhaps the maps I’d consulted used an English translation.

I pulled out my Harrap’s French-English dictionary.

I knew scie translated “saw.” I’d encountered the word countless times on requests for analysis of dismembered corpses. I wasn’t so sure about bec.

Lots of choices. Beak. Bill. Snout. Mouth. Nose (of tool). Nozzle (of tube). Lip (of jug). Spout (of coffeepot). Peak (of bicycle saddle). Mouthpiece (of clarinet).

Who can explain the French mind?

I checked for alternate meanings of scie.

Nope. Saw was pretty much it. Radial, wood, circular, hack, power, jig, turning, chain, scroll. Distinctions were handled with modifiers.

Island of Beaks Saws. Island of Snouts Saws. Island of Peaks of Bicycle Saddles Saws.

I gave up. Better to ask Hippo.

Cormier’s apartment was located a block from his studio, in a white-brick box lacking a single redeeming architectural detail. Air conditioners jutted from all four floors, whirring and dripping. Gold script above the glass entrance provided the building’s name: Château de Fougères.

Good concept, but nary a fern in sight.

Ryan’s Jeep was parked at the curb. Up the block I spotted a dark blue Taurus. The plate told me the vehicle was SQ.

The Chateau’s outer vestibule had collected the usual unwanted fliers and brochures. Stepping around them, I pressed the button beside Cormier’s name. Ryan buzzed me in.

The lobby was furnished with a brown plastic sofa and green plastic ferns. OK. I’d jumped to judgment on the flora.

I rode the elevator to the third floor. Doors stretched to my right and left along a gray-tiled corridor. I checked the number Ryan had given me: 307. The unit was unlocked.

The kitchen was to my right. Ahead was a parquet-floored living room. To my left a short hall gave onto a bedroom and bath. Mercifully, the place was small.

And clean. Every surface gleamed. The air smelled mildly of disinfectant.

Though heat and humidity fought for dominion outside, inside the temperature barely topped sixty-five. Cormier kept his AC cranked.

Terrific. After yesterday’s sweatshop, I’d worn a sleeveless top and shorts. I could feel squadrons of goose bumps gathering for action.

Ryan was in the bedroom talking to the same CSU techs who’d GPR’ed the dog in the barn. Chenevier was dusting for prints. Pasteur was rifling drawers. Ryan was searching the closet. Their faces looked tense.

We exchanged bonjour’ s.

“No Hippo?” I asked.

“He’s at the studio.” Ryan was checking the pockets of a very dingy trench coat. “I’ll roll that way when I finish here.”

“Finding anything?”

Ryan shrugged. Not really.

“The guy has some sweet electronics.” Chenevier chin-cocked the bedroom’s west wall. “Check it out.”

I returned to the living room.

The west end of the room was overfurnished with a discount-store chair-sofa-coffee-end-table grouping. The plasma TV was the size of a billboard.

A glass and steel workstation ran the length of the east wall and shot some distance up the north. On it sat a cable modem, a keyboard, a flatbed scanner, and a twenty-inch LCD monitor. A CPU tower occupied the corner on the floor.

I watched lights flicker on the modem, thinking. Something didn’t track. Cormier had high-speed Internet at home, but ran his business out of envelopes and manila folders?

The wireless mouse glowed red. I jiggled it and the monitor flashed to life. Blue background. Black cursor blinking in a rectangular white box.

“Does the search warrant cover the computer?” I called out.

“Yeah.” Ryan left the bedroom and joined me. “I spent a couple of hours trolling when I first arrived.”

“Cormier doesn’t use password protection?”

“Genius uses his last name.”

I moved aside. Ryan sat and hit a few keys. Notes sounded, and the screen changed to the familiar Windows desktop. The wallpaper was a cityscape, taken at night from an overlook on Mont Royal. The picture was good. I wondered if Cormier had snapped the shot.

I recognized most of the icons. Word. HP Director. WinZip. Adobe Photoshop. Others were unfamiliar.