Bones to Ashes

As we ate up asphalt, my thoughts meandered through the events of the past twenty-four hours. David Bastarache. Kelly Sicard. Claudine Cloquet. The sodden and bloated body that was Claire Brideau.

Harry. It was now Wednesday. I hadn’t seen her since Sunday night. Hadn’t heard from her since she called my mobile on Monday morning.

One image fragment bumper-rode the tail of another. Évangéline in ropes. A girl on a bench. Claudine, a walking tragedy. The mixed-race teenager dragged from Lac des Deux Montagnes.

Might Évangéline still be working in the porn industry? Might that be the secret Obéline was hiding?

Sound bytes replayed over and over. Sicard discussing the anonymous Pierre: I wore moccasins while a guy in a loincloth fucked me. Bastarache’s troubling comment: I was barely out of high school when this kid was playing Indian princess.

I felt another shoulder-tap from my id.

Bastarache knew the bench-girl video had some years on it. The filming had been done in his house. The guy had to be dirty. Or did he? How old had he been then? What was his role in the Bastarache family business?

The tapping continued, insistent.

The human brain is, well, mind-blowing. Chemicals. Electricity. Fluid. Cytoplasm. Wire it up right and the thing works. No one really knows how.

But the brain’s parts can be like governmental agencies, closing ranks to hoard their special knowledge. Cerebrum. Cerebellum. Frontal lobe. Motor cortex. Sometimes it takes a catalyst to get them to share.

My neurons had ingested, but not fully digested, a larder full of data in the last few days. Suddenly, something shifted. My lower brain contacted my upper. Why? Claudine Cloquet’s dream catcher.

“What if Obéline is telling the truth?” I asked, sitting up straight. “What if our perv is the guy who worked for Bastarache’s father?”

“Right.”

“When Harry and I were in Tracadie, Obéline mentioned a former employee of her father-in-law. Said her husband fired him and the parting wasn’t amicable.”

Ryan didn’t comment.

“This former employee designed the sweat house that was later converted to a gazebo. He was nuts into Native art. Carved benches. Totem poles.” I paused for effect. “Kelly Sicard said Pierre forced her to wear moccasins. What was Bastarache’s remark when you showed him the print of the girl on the bench?”

“The kid was playing Indian princess.” Ryan was with me.

“There was nothing in that picture to suggest a Native American theme. And the videos Sicard listed. Think about the titles.”

“Wamp Um. Wiki Up. Sonovabitch.”

“Claudine had a dream catcher. Said she got it from the man she lived with before Obéline. What if Cormier’s ‘agent’ friend, Pierre, is the same guy Bastarache fired? The same guy who had Claudine?”

Ryan’s knuckles tightened on the wheel. “So how does Bastarache fit in?”

“I’m not sure.” I started tossing things out without really thinking. “Bastarache is a kid. He sees skin flicks being made in his home. He resents it, vows to pull the plug the minute the old man kicks.”

Ryan rolled that around in his mind.

“What did Claudine call this creep?”

“She didn’t know his name. Or wouldn’t say it.” I told him about the word-rounding game. “Claudine perceives adjectives as either flat or crooked. Flat ones she adds an o to, crooked ones she doesn’t. It’s not logical, just some aspect of her unique cognitive mapping. She just said the guy was bad. Mal-o.”

Ryan’s eyes pinched in thought. Then he added another contender to my list of what-if’s.

“What if mal is a crooked adjective? One that can’t be rounded.”

“So you can’t add an o.”

“Exactly.”

I saw where Ryan was going. “What if it’s a name? Malo.” Neurons fired. “Pierre Malo.”

Ryan was already reaching for his cell. I listened as he asked someone to run a check.

We were moving west with a sea of cars. I watched their tailpipes. Sunlight on their trunks and roofs. Chewed a cuticle.

We were an hour out of Quebec City when Ryan’s mobile warbled.

“Ryan.”

Pause.

“Où?” Where?

Pause.

“Shit!”

There was a final, shorter pause, then Ryan snapped the lid and tossed the phone to the dash.

“What?” I asked.

“They lost Bastarache.”

“How?”

“Bastard pulled into a rest stop. Entered a restaurant. Never exited.”

“He abandoned the Mercedes?”

Ryan nodded. “He was either picked up or hitched a ride.”

I repeated Ryan’s sentiment. “Shit.”

Minutes later it was my phone.

I’d had virtually no sleep in the last forty-eight hours. I was running on doses of a cat nap and pure adrenaline. What happened next was my fault.

Checking the caller ID, I felt a rush of relief. Followed by annoyance.

Driven by the latter, I clicked on but said nothing.

“You there, big sister?”

“Yes.” Frosty.

“You’re peeved.” Harry, the master of understatement. “Now, I know what you’re going to say.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Yessiree. That’s it. I can explain.”

“You needn’t bother.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”