Bones to Ashes

“You’ll call the linguist?”

“As soon as we hang up.”

“How about that thing we used to do with chicken and smashed potatoes.”

“Perfect.”

“Will they understand me at that little grocery store on Sainte-Catherine?”

“Speak English. Not Texan.”

“Hee haw!”

“And, Harry.” I hesitated. Yes. “Keep your head up.”

“For what?”

“Just be careful.”

Rob Potter was finishing his doctorate in anthropology when I began my grad studies at Northwestern. Older, wiser, he’d been an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. Not to mention everyone’s secret crush. Improbably, before turning to academia, Rob had been a bona fide seventies rock star. Sang at Woodstock. Wore leather jackets and butt-molding gold lamé pants. Knew Hendrix, Lennon, and Dylan. In Rob’s words, he quit the limelight because for him, rock lost its luster after Jimi and Janis died, and he preferred looking ahead to being an aging professor than an aging—or dead—rock star.

While I’d poked bones Rob had parsed language, focusing on its context in other semiotic systems, modalities, and channels. He once explained what that meant. And I understood. Sort of.

Rob was now on the faculty at Columbia. Like me, he’d been pulled into forensics by cops and lawyers in need of expertise. Though we’d worked no cases jointly, we frequently joked about the possibility.

I checked my American Academy of Forensic Sciences membership directory. Rob was listed.

I dialed. He answered. I identified myself.

“I’ve been thinking about you.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said.

“What if you were supposed to have?”

“Then I did it.”

“Glad that’s cleared up. Since you’re so conscientious, would you consider being program chair for next year’s AAFS meeting?”

“Can I think about it?”

“Only you can answer that.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Fair enough. What’s on your mind?”

“I have a favor to ask.”

“Not until I know how much money it will cost.”

“Could you analyze two samples of poetry?”

“I could.”

“Would you?”

“Of course. For you, anything. Is this to extract author demographic information, or to test for common authorship?”

“To determine common authorship.”

“Go on.”

“One poem was written by an adolescent girl. The author of the others is unknown.”

“You suspect the poems were penned by the same hand.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Realize that these analyses can take a long time.”

“Whenever you can. But there’s a catch.”

“As am I.”

“This isn’t an official request.”

“Meaning no money. Or am I to forget the analysis after I give it to you?”

“Well, both.”

“So. A favor. And an unofficial one. And secret. And no pay.”

“I’ll—”

“Oh, you’ll pay, all right. Maybe your next trip through New York?”

“Lunch. We’re on.”

“Tell me about this gig.”

“Some of the poems appear in a self-published volume. Others are handwritten.”

“Give me some background.”

I did. Pawleys Island. Évangéline’s sudden disappearance. The recent trip to Tracadie. Harry’s liberation of Bones to Ashes. O’Connor House. I left out only that Obéline had killed herself.

“I’ll send the materials today,” I said.

“You start with a theme.”

“What?”

“A conference theme. A conceptual framework.”

“Organizing an AAFS program is massive, Rob.”

“It’s a piece of cake.”

“Like landscaping the Mojave is a piece of cake.”

“I’ll provide fertilizer.”

“You always do.”

I called Harry, gave her Rob’s address, and suggested a shop on de Maisonneuve for FedEx shipping. She was thrilled to have another mission.

I turned back to my computer. As though on cue, Hippo appeared. His frown did not say forgive and forget. I braced for more disapproval.

“Might be we got us one less MP.”

That caught me off guard. “What do you mean?”

Hippo was chewing gum, carefully not looking at me. “Girardin’s old man took himself out last night.”

“Anne Girardin? The little girl from Blainville?”

Tight nod. Sans orbital contact.

“What happened?”

“Girardin was a boozer. Wednesday he got wasted, told a drinking buddy he offed his kid and buried her in the woods. Wanted sympathy because her ghost’s now haunting his sleep. Upstanding citizen thought it over, moral dilemma, you know, loyalty versus civic duty. This morning he went to see Girardin. Found him in the bathtub, pump-action Remington between his toes, brains on the ceiling.”

“Sweet mother of God.”

Hippo spit his gum into his palm, popped two antacids, reengaged the wad. “Dog insists there’s something out behind the trailer.”

“Were you able to reach Ryan?”

Hippo nodded. “He’s rolling.”

I stood.

“Let’s go.”

“Girardin hated crowds, distrusted strangers. Lived in a single-wide miles from anywhere.”

“Lonely life for a ten-year-old girl.”

“Yeah.” Hippo’s eyes stayed on the road.

Again, I was on my way toward Blainville. Again, I was being briefed on a child whose corpse I might soon dig up.

“Kid disappeared in ’04. Adelaide, that’s Mommy, split six months later. Girardin stayed put.”

“What’d he do for a living?”

“Construction. Pickup jobs, mostly.”

“Where is Adelaide now?”

“In the wind.”

“Is she a local?”

“Thunder Bay, Ontario.” Hippo made a turn. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”