Bones to Ashes

“He threatening you?”

“Not overtly.”

“If the guy’s that canny with the phone, it’s probably pointless to try to track him through e-mail.”

“I thought you might say that.”

“Scenario. Guy drives around with a laptop equipped with a wireless card, lets it detect networks. When he finds one that’s unsecured, he sets up a Hotmail account using false information. Sends e-mail. Shuts down his laptop and drives away.”

“You can just sit in a car using another person’s network?”

“Oui. The originating IP address belongs to someone who probably doesn’t even have logging to show there was another user on his network. Some geeks do it for sport. Call it wardriving, even if they’re on foot. They wander around looking for vulnerable wifi networks, sometimes make directional antennas out of Pringles cans. You can buy pens that flash green when you’re within thirty feet of a signal.”

Great. Something else to worry about.

“Here’s another trick,” Colbert said. “Many hotels have wireless networks they leave open so they don’t have to train the guests how to log in with a Service Set Identifier, or SSID, which can be up to thirty-two characters long. With a closed system the user has to key in, but with an open system the SSID is broadcast to all wireless devices within range. So if you pull into a parking lot between a couple of airport hotels, you can probably log into their wireless network completely anonymously.”

“Discouraging.”

“Yeah. But I’m game to give it a shot.”

Thanking Colbert, I disconnected.

OK. Time to bring Ryan into the loop.

Instead, I phoned Hippo.

He answered immediately. So much for weekend leisure in the glam world of law enforcement.

“I have news on the skeleton from Rimouski,” I said.

“Yeah? I’ve been buried in these freakin’ cabinets so long, Gaston’s problem’s gone out of my head.”

“Agent Tiquet got the bones from the Whalen brothers, who bought them at Jerry O’Driscoll’s pawnshop in Miramichi. O’Driscoll purchased them from Tom Jouns, who claimed to have dug them from a Native burial ground.”

“Sounds like one of those road rallies where you follow clues.” Hippo slurped like he was chewing a caramel.

“O’Driscoll said the cemetery was on an island. I found the name Île-aux-Becs-Scies written on the girl’s skull.”

“Yeah, I remember you asking about becs scies.”

“Île-aux-Becs-Scies is now called Sheldrake Island.”

Hippo said something indecipherable.

“Are you eating caramels?”

“Taffy.”

“Sheldrake is a thirty-two-acre island located in the Miramichi River, about eight miles east of Chatham. In the early nineteenth century the place served as a quarantine station for newly arriving immigrants. In 1844, the New Brunswick government turned Sheldrake into a leper colony.”

All mastication stopped. “Say what?”

“There was an outbreak of leprosy in the province.”

“Like in the Bible? People with fingers and toes falling off?”

“In some cases. Leprosy is caused by the Mycobacterium leprae bacillus. It’s now called Hansen’s disease.”

“There were lepers in New Brunswick?”

“Yes, Hippo. New Brunswick.”

“How come I never heard of that?”

“There’s a lot of stigma attached to leprosy. More so in those days. Many said lepers brought the disease on themselves through sin or lack of cleanliness. Entire families were shunned. People were reluctant to talk about it. When they did, they called it la maladie.”

“When did this happen?”

“The first cases appeared around 1820. During the next two decades more and more people began showing symptoms, at first within families, later among neighbors. Seven died. Public health officials began to panic.”

“No shit.”

“Keep in mind, leprosy is one of the most feared of all diseases. It’s been around for thousands of years, causes disfigurement, and, until the 1940s, had no known cure. Back then, no one even knew if leprosy was contagious.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, but the mechanism is unclear. For many years, transmission was attributed to long-term contact between affected and healthy persons. Today, most researchers think the bacterium is spread through respiratory droplets. Like tuberculosis.”

“So it is dangerous to be around lepers?”

“Leprosy is neither fatal nor highly infectious. It’s a chronic condition communicable only to persons with a genetic predisposition, probably about five percent of the population. But that wasn’t known in the nineteenth century.”

“So they banished people?”

“In 1844, the New Brunswick government passed legislation mandating the isolation of anyone showing symptoms of leprosy. A board of health was named and authorized to visit, examine, and remove from their homes people suspected of being infected. Sheldrake was chosen because there were a few ramshackle buildings on the island.”

“Like that place in Hawaii.”

“Molokai. Yes. Only Sheldrake was worse. The sick were abandoned with little food, only crude shelter, and virtually no medical care. The colony existed for five years. Of the thirty-seven patients admitted, fifteen died and were buried on the island.”