Monday Mourning

Knowing Claudel would be hard to convince, I spent the next hour online arming myself with as much information as possible.

Claudel arrived first, wearing his usual arrogant frown.

“Bonjour,” I said, gesturing him to the sofa.

“Bonjour.”

Claudel removed his overcoat. I took it.

Claudel tugged each Armani sleeve to cover each antiseptically white Burberry cuff, then sat and crossed his legs.

“Café?” I offered.

“No.” Claudel made a show of checking his watch. “Merci.”

Ryan and Charbonneau showed up within minutes of each other, each in faded jeans and sweater. Ryan had hit a patisserie on his way.

I filled mugs of coffee for Ryan and Charbonneau, then the three of us helped ourselves to pastries. Throughout, Claudel maintained his this-better-be-good detachment.

Ryan kick-started the meeting.

“Tempe, tell these guys what you told me.” He turned to Claudel. “Luc, I want you to hear her out.”

I started churning out the words.

“On May 19, 1977, a twenty-year-old woman named Colleen Stan set out to hitchhike from Eugene, Oregon, to Westwood, California. After several rides she was picked up by Cameron Hooker and his wife, Jan. The Hookers drove Stan to the Lassen National Forest, handcuffed, blindfolded, bound, and gagged her, and took her to their home.”

Birdie strolled in, sniffed two pairs of boots and one pair of loafers, made his choice.

“The little guy likes you, Luc.” Charbonneau winked at his partner.

“Sorry.” I jumped up and removed my cat from Claudel’s lap.

Birdie, in as much as cats are capable, looked offended.

“Cameron Hooker kept Colleen Stan sealed in total darkness, subjected to complete sensory deprivation, for up to twenty-three hours per day. For seven years.”

“Sonovabitch,” Charbonneau said.

“Hooker imprisoned Stan in a series of boxes he designed specifically for that purpose. When it suited him, he took her out, hung her from pipes, stretched her on a rack, whipped her, shocked her with electrical wires, starved, raped, and terrorized her.”

Claudel picked a cat hair from his sleeve.

“Hooker’s wife ultimately set Stan free. Hooker was arrested in November 1984. The following fall he was convicted of kidnap, rape, sodomy, and a number of other charges. Media coverage turned into blood sport.”

“What is the relevance of this?” Claudel sighed.

“Colleen Stan’s ordeal took place in Red Bluff, California. Red Bluff is forty miles from Chico.”

“Stephen Menard was a grad student in Chico in 1985,” Charbonneau said, reaching for his second doughnut.

I nodded.

Birdie sidled to the couch, arched, then brushed Claudel’s leg. Going bipedal, he placed both forepaws on Claudel’s knee.

Again apologizing, I scooped the cat up and secured him in my bedroom.

“But the mutt here in Montreal isn’t Menard,” Charbonneau said when I returned.

“I’m using the name for convenience.”

“So where’s the real Menard?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was killed by the man living in Pointe-St-Charles. That’s your job.”

“Go on,” Ryan urged.

“The Stan case was all over the news from the fall of eighty-four through the fall of eighty-five. The press loved it, called it the Girl in the Box Case. Then the Sex Slave Case.”

Claudel looked at his watch.

“In 1985 a fourteen-year-old girl named Angie Robinson disappeared from Corning, California. Corning is located between Chico and Red Bluff.” I paused for emphasis. “I have reason to believe one of the three pizza basement skeletons is that of Angie Robinson.”

Charbonneau’s doughnut stopped in its trajectory to his mouth. “The kid in the leather shroud?”

“Yes.”

“The one with the broken wrist,” Claudel jumped in. “You were certain the ages are incompatible.”

“I said Angie Robinson was too young and too short to be a match with skeleton 38428. But if Angie lived for some time after her disappearance, that would account for the discrepancies.”

“Explain the strontium and Carbon 14 results to Luc,” Ryan said.

I did.

“And explain the dental sealant again.”

I did.

“Holy shit,” said Charbonneau. “You think Menard followed the news coverage and was inspired by this head case Hooker?”

“Yes. But there’s more. Anique Pomerleau disappeared from Mascouche in 1990 at age fifteen. Friday, Ryan and I saw Pomerleau in Menard’s house.”

“Menard’s been here since eighty-eight,” Charbonneau said.

Claudel tipped back his head and spoke down his nose.

“So based on this story about a girl in a box—”

“The girl has a name.” Claudel’s cynicism was jiggling my switch. “Colleen Stan.”

Claudel’s nostrils tightened.

“So you believe Menard has been holding Anique Pomerleau against her will for a decade and a half? That Angela Robinson and the other females buried in the cellar were also his captives?”

I nodded.

For a few moments no one spoke. Claudel broke the silence.

“Did Anique Pomerleau attempt to escape?”

“No.”

“Did she signal to you in any way that she wanted to leave Menard’s house?”

“She wasn’t wearing a banner that said ‘Help Me,’ if that’s what you mean.”

Claudel arced an eyebrow at Ryan.

“Pomerleau looked pretty scared,” Ryan said.